Photo challenge day 30: Solitude This is my final entry for the June 2025 Photo Challenge. And here they are — all my contributions from the month. It was my first time participating, and I absolutely loved it. Such a great idea! It’s been both fun and inspiring to come up with photo ideas every day, and a real joy to see what everyone else has shared too. 😍
I recently listened to a documentary about the artist Charli XCX. It featured, among others, the Swedish songwriter, producer, and friend Noonie Bao, who’s been with her since the very beginning. Noonie shared how happy and moved she feels seeing Charli’s success. Having witnessed all the hard work and dedication firsthand, she talked about how Charli stood her ground when others doubted her, always trusting her own intuition. As Noonie wisely put it:
Creating a rainbow logo or category styles takes me a long time. Too long, most people would probably say. As an amateur, I have to search for answers and do a lot of trial and error. But that’s not really why it takes so long. And it’s not about chasing perfection either. It’s because I find it relaxing. For me, it’s like meditation. A perfect mix of focus and calm.
I remember a house inspection I did a while back. Before I started looking around, I asked the owner if any of the bathrooms had been renovated recently. He said no. Then we got to the first one, and it looked almost brand new. When I mentioned that, he said: “Oh no, this must’ve been redone at least… let me think… five years ago.” Crazy! No matter how much money someone has, that kind of thing still blows my mind.
In her latest post, Véronique writes that she’s been thinking about posting daily “card pulls” and journaling prompts. She then adds: …but idk if that would be too much for people who aren’t interested in that stuff… I emailed her and said that I totally think she should go for it if she feels like it. I’d appreciate it, which probably means some other readers would too. After writing that, I realized I’m very much the same way myself.
Since I’m in the one step at a time process of moving my blog, and today picked Ava’s post I like getting older for my Junited 2025 list, I figured it was the perfect time to move this 2024 post of mine over here. I was listening to an interview with the Swedish artist Peter Jöback. They were talking about aging, and he said: I feel like my life started after I turned 50.
Want to sprinkle some rainbow magic on your Micro.blog during Pride Month? Or why not keep the joy going all year round? Rainbows never go out of style! 🌈✨ Just hop over to ‘Design → Edit CSS’ and paste in the code below. I’m using the mnml theme, but it should play nicely with most standard ones. .site-title { background: linear-gradient(to right, #ef5350, #f48fb1, #7e57c2, #2196f3, #26c6da, #43a047, #eeff41, #f9a825, #ff5722); -webkit-background-clip: text; -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; } Update: Here’s a way to add a colorful border to your avatar too.
We often only see the finished product, not the messy journey behind it. That thought struck me while I was listening to an interview with the Swedish artist Per Gessle, best known for his work with the band Roxette. When asked about the key to success, he replied: “You have to dare, and you have to fail, and you have to make a fool of yourself, and you have to do terrible things to do good things.
We’ve all been there: the anticipation of something great, only to be met with disappointment. It’s easy to have high expectations in life. A much-anticipated sci-fi film, a dream trip promising fantastic experiences, a project we strongly believe in. Then reality doesn’t live up to those expectations. We become disappointed, and everything feels like a big failure. What if we lowered our expectations a bit? We can still look forward to things with joy and strive to realize our ideas, but our happiness and well-being don’t have to depend on the final result.
Lately, it’s struck me that I now prefer books, movies, and shows that feel real and take place more or less in modern times. I used to love animated films, fantasy, and stories with historical themes. But not so much anymore. Maybe it’s just a phase I’m going through. I don’t know. Still, I find it interesting. What shapes the different phases we go through in life? External circumstances? Inner insights?
I listened to an interview (it’s in English by a Swedish journalist) with the American songwriter and producer Desmond Child. He mentioned that he had used one of his creations in three different productions with three different artists: If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) – Bonnie Tyler You Give Love a Bad Name – Bon Jovi Kings & Queens – Ava Max Here’s a short audio clip with the intros back to back.
A while back, Ava kindly invited me to take part in her wonderful initiative, the Bear blog question challenge. You can read my answers here. Now that I’m on a new platform, I thought it would be fun and interesting to do a Micro.blog version of the same challenge. Below are Ava’s original questions, but with Bear swapped out for Micro.blog (and the tags part removed, since MB doesn’t use tags).
Today is Midsummer’s Day here in Sweden. Of all the holidays we celebrate, this might just be the biggest. Yes, even bigger than Christmas. This year, I spent it with my family in Åkersberga, the neighborhood where I grew up. It was a lovely day with great weather, lots of people, and of course, the iconic Midsummer pole. Part of the tradition involves decorating the pole with flowers and birch branches before raising it.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I moved my blog to Micro.blog, and it’s been a nice experience so far. I like the possibilities the platform provides without having to come up with half-baked workarounds. But, as with any platform, there are some things I miss. Here are some that first come to mind for me: Category Description I’d love to add some text to the categories I create. Nothing fancy, just a simple description with Markdown support.
My blogging workflow used to involve writing in Swedish and then translating it into English. I did it that way to make the writing process as smooth as possible. Today, I decided to try writing in English from scratch. It doesn’t feel natural, and it takes longer, but I want to give it a fair shot. Maybe it’ll help calm my recurring blogging overthinking (probably not). But the main reason for this change is that I think my writing will be more “true.
I’m dragging my feet when it comes to writing this post. Or rather, publishing it. Not because I find it embarrassing (well, okay, maybe a little). But mostly because I’ve touched on this topic so many times before that it’s starting to feel boringly repetitive. If you’ve followed my blogging for a while, you already know what it’s about: my ambivalence about blogging. On one hand, I love blogging. On the other hand, I never quite seem to figure out how I want to do it.
Today I spent the whole day working in the Swedish archipelago. A colleague and I traveled around by water taxi, visiting several fantastic islands of varying sizes. On days like this, it almost feels wrong to call it work. It feels more like a vacation. Beautiful weather, open water, stunning nature, and places that seem straight out of a fairytale. Of course, not every workday looks like this. There are only a handful like these each year, but I’m just as grateful every time.
One ongoing project for this new home of my blog is to move content over from my old platform—like I just did with the BlogBuddy shortcut. There’s quite a bit to go through, so it’ll probably take a while. I plan to bring over one or two posts every now and then; otherwise, it starts to feel unmanageable. This principle often applies to life in general. Some tasks feel overwhelming when we focus too much on the big picture.
I recently read the autobiography of one of Sweden’s most well-known actors, Mikael Persbrandt. Among other things, he talks about his deep interest in cars and motorcycles, and how he finds something meditative in tinkering with them. It’s his greatest passion in life, and he mentions that he believes having a hobby is important. I agree. Even if we have a job we love or think, “my work is my hobby,” I still believe it’s important to unwind with something entirely different.
There are many reasons why I love my job. One of them is all the amazing places I get to visit. I make up to seven customer visits a day, so that’s a lot of places – places I never would have set foot in if not for my job. Yesterday, I spent the entire day out in beautiful Värmdö. During lunch, I visited one of my favorite cafés there: Stavsnäs Hembageri.