Happy National Coffee Day

Who knew? Dunkins is celebrating by selling medium hots for 66 cents.  I'm down with that. (Did you know that Swedes drink more coffee per capita than any other country in the world?!) I do my best to help out the stats from afar. ;) Here's me drinking my kaffe in my old Volvo. It has a cup holder. It only took us a year to figure that out. Ha, ha!  I'm actually serious, it was hidden in the wheel well. So, drinking coffee = Swedish. Drinking coffee in my car = not so much.  I've joined the ranks of soccer moms everywhere and so be it.  At least I'll stay awake at the wheel 😁

Swedish summer houses

Hej everyone!  The weekend is fast approaching (not fast enough if you ask me) and I'm dreaming of summer houses.  (I do that every once in a while.)  The houses I pine for and pin are ones that are in the Swedish countryside and usually involve a lake view or a forest nearby.  I don't know why I do considering we already live near the ocean in a lovely forested area.  Escapism I guess.  To better explain the Swedes love of summer homes, here is is what they write on Sweden.se.

The simple life

Anna and PG Wiklund, a teacher and doctor living in Umeå in the north of Sweden, have their own reasons for coming back, year after year, to their summer house in the Hälsingland region of Sweden.

‘It helps you to escape the daily obligations you have back home’, says Anna, whose grandfather bought the lakeside plot of land in 1942 and built the house that she and PG still use today. ‘And because you spend such a long time here, you feel that you live here. If you travel abroad for two weeks, there are so many things to experience and do; it’s not necessarily that relaxing. Most people have some sort of relationship to their summer house environment, through grandparents or through their childhood, so they can completely relax there.’  

http://eeperspeepers.blogspot.com/2014/05/swedish-houses-studio-inspiration-pt2.html

Ahhh, relaxation!  Sounds good doesn't it?  ;) My grandparents had two summer homes, one in the woods and on the beach. They were both simple homes but it allowed them to escape the town every weekend and just unwind.  No one really should have to clean a summer home!  At least just do the minimum.  I guess it's that simplicity life that I long for sometimes because as much as I love my house it is an obligation and we need to keep it up, and keep it nice. Sometimes I'd like to have an apartment and a summer house that I could just lounge around iny jammies like my Mormor!  :-)

beach art

Process is one of those arty words I don't like to use a lot but it does describe what went into this beachy art.  I was challenged to create something inspired by El Galeon, a 17th century frigate.

First I worked up a painting, but the lines, lines, lines got me all dizzy.  See my painting and the original photo above?

Then I decided, why not just paint on the rocks instead?  I love rocks and we were at the shore so it seemed to make sense.

Here are some of the finished rocks on the deck.

Our view!  Talk about inspiring.  Can you tell a Swede is "in da house". ;-)

I decided that the rocks shouldn't live on the porch but rather on the beach which is where you would have found El Galeon at one point.  So down the path...

... to the beach I went.  The wrack line to be specific.  I took lots of shots.

This is the photo I chose to print on canvas and give to the auction.  It's to benefit our local maritime museum.  I hope whomever bids on it likes it.