Blog post 450 - Happy new year!

This is the 450th time I am blogging this year. Much less than previous years but quite a lot anyway, isn't it?

New years eve, the evening it seems like most people strongly dislike, me included. 

It is the day when we all have to organize something big and special and we must have fun. We put the pressure on ourselves that we must start the new year in a good and festive way and many people just stress out about it.

It has been argumentations in my gang how to and with who to spend new years eve with and there is always people now happy with the decisions. Every year, the same problems, sigh. 

Today I have heard three of my fiends saying "I just want this bloody evening to be over and done" and it feels so sad that so many people feel that way.

I would like to wish you all a nice evening, it might not be the best evening of the year but it doesn't matter. Just bring a smile to whatever dinner, party or event you might attend and I am sure even this evening will end before we even have time to blink. 

Happy New Year my sweet friends, family and blog followers!

I love you all!

xoxo

New years glittery aerobic event

2013 har been a good training year, really good. 

I started off the year with four busy weeks at Virgin active fitness village. Esthetically it was by far the most amazing gym I have ever seen. I learned a lot, tried new things and spent hours in the adorable spa. 

This summer instead I went one month at Audace gym in Milan. That was very high tech with great and well developed fitness classes.  

Since September I work out regularly at SATS in Stockholm. SATS offers 74 different kind of group training classes daily across their gyms around Stockholm. I try to train varied but sometimes it is hard as there are some classes I just love and others I am slightly less interested in. 

To end my great training year today I attended an almost two hour long glittery aerobics event with the great dance instructor Ari Lipponen at SATS Odenplan. Ari is by far the most popular dancing instructor at SATS and all dancing girls at the gym talks about his classes so I start to wonder why I haven't tried them before? However today I was lucky to one one of hounded to get a place at his new years aerobic event. It was almost two hours of new years disco dancing, great fun! 

Happy new year SATS and thanks for four amazing months of sweat, pain and happiness :-) 

xoxodi

Choosing the new years outfit

Tomorrow is New year's Eve! 2013 is over and new exiting year will start and obviously I have to dress up in some kind of glittery outfit to celebrate that. 

I have four different mini-dresses that could fit for a new years party, or actually dresses that I can more and less only use at new years eve so I wanna have one of them. But which one? 

xoxo

Trigger Point

Trigger Point Therapy is a "new" trend that has popped up in Sweden after great success in the US. My gym offers classes where an instructor guides us through massaging movements with the orange trigger point grid. As it is called massage you might think, like I did, it would be something nice and pleasant but oh no, I was very wrong, as it was just a constant PAIN.

The trigger point grid can help to relieve muscular aches, knots or nodules in association with these areas. It can also assist with the redevelopment of muscles and/or restore motion to joints and they say it is not only very good but almost necessary for people working out a lot. 

I gonna try to add it to my schedule at least once a month but as it hurt so much today means that I have muscle knots that I should massage more often than just once a month...

xoxo

New year's master chefs

Tomorrow, at New Years eve I am off for a dinner party and I was chosen to be part of the main course-group and today we started off our job. It was David, Cicci and myself that met up to go food shopping and then plan and cook the main course for 20 people(!!). I haven't cooked food for that many people since high school but it was quite fun. 

xoxo

Some beauty favorites 2013

One of my American readers asked me like a month ago for some beauty tips or favorites now now and here they are. It was a while ago heh? Sorry for the delay! 

1. KenzoKi Euphorisant - night cream

I love this night cream. I got it as a present and have used it with great pleasure this whole autumn. Now when it is reaching its end I started to look up where I could buy a new one and the price for it. I shouldn't had done that. The cream cost almost 100euro and I am sorry to say I won't pay that. It is good, but not that good. Then I rather go back using my old favorites from Clinique or Number7. 

2. Givenchy - Peel me perfectly 

I have mentioned this great face peeling from Givenchy before on this blog. It is back in my life and once again it has become an absolute favorite. 

3. Derma Vio Mango body butter

This is just a very simple and cheap body butter I bought at the supermarket but it is lovely. 

4. Collistar - Tridimensionale mascara

Collistar is an Italian cosmetic and make up brand which is really hard to find abroad. I guess no-one sells it in Sweden at all actually. However, I have used this mascara for so long now so even if it is hard to get I will keep getting it and using it. I believe Collistar is really good for its price. 

5. Clinique liquid facial soap

This product is expensive for being just a simple facial cleanser but I really believe it is worth its price. I have dry skin but I use the mild version of it (not the extra-mild) as it gives me a really fresh and clean sensation before I go to bed. 

6. Clinique - All about eyes rich

I used to use the normal All about eyes from Clinique but then I got the rich version and felt it love with that one too. I can't even say which one is the best, maybe the rich one gets better long-lasting results but the normal one gives an immediate smoother sensation. I would recommend them both, maybe the rich for the night and the normal as a day treatment? 

Oh sometimes I miss working in the beauty industry being surrounded by amazing products. I learned so much during my years working for Givenchy, knowledge I will carry with me my whole life :-)

xoxo 

Exercise to feel good or to look good?

Lately it has been some talking among my friends about training, or actually training goals. Do we go to training to feel good or to look good? 

My answer to that question is to feel good. I go to the gym 5-6 times a week only doing fun group training classes without having any specific goals. I just do it because I love it and because it makes me feel good. I do the typical kind of girly training like dancing, zumba, yoga, body balance and some body pump with recidivous low weights which might keep me skinny but does not make me fit at all. In other words, I go training a lot without any visible results of it and I have been kind of criticized about it. 

So, one of my 8(!!) new years resolution is to start training to both feel and look good! My plan is to keep training my fun classes three times a week and then add more result bringing classes twice a week. Today I started with one of those result giving classes, Shape! A kind of funnier military training. It was hard but I managed to fulfill it and got proud of myself.

xoxo

Stockholm's best cocktails

The pictures are quite bad but we had a really fun evening at Vampire Lounge yesterday. It is not the kind of place you might believe I would like but I did. It is unique with cozy lightings, skeletons and vampire theme all over the place. The sofas were very cool too but we arrived too late to get a seat in one of those.

The best thing with the place are the cocktails. They have a really rich cocktail menu and I must say they were really really delicious. I normally don't even like alcoholic cocktails and here I could have easily be drinking 5 or 6, but I didn't, thank god. I had two. One Christmas cocktail with mint, chocolate and polkagris and another one with wild berries. Cicci had three different one which also were all very nice. On top of that, as we sat in the bar and watched the bartender mixing all the cocktails people ordered, we were handed small shots of cocktails just to try them on. They were all like desserts, like candy. So nice. We will be back! :-)

xoxodi

Pictures from Friday's birthday party

I only shared a picture of a Christmas tree when I wrote about Victoria's birthday party the other day. But here are some nice pictures taken by Bosse.

xoxo

Waiting for my dinner guest

I am waiting for tonight's dinner guest and meanwhile,as many of you have asked me for pictures of my flat, I am here sharing three pics of my mini flat with you :-)

Have a fab Saturday evening!

xoxo

Mellandagsrea

"Mellandagsrea" is the well known name of the sales that starts in Sweden right after Christmas, the 26th December. It is kind of a mad event that drives people crazy running like hungry chickens around searching for bargains. 

After a nice and relaxing morning at home I met up my mum and Stella(!) to take a tour in town. The idea was not to look around at the sale but we had to change some of our Christmas presents.

In the end I walked home with new beddings from Mio, water glasses from iittala and a complete new training outfit. I am satisfied for this time but I have to get out in the sales craziness again one day soon searching for a very warm winter jacket. 

xoxo

Birthday in Uppsala

Today I have been for a Victoria's birthday celebration in Uppsala. 

Uppsala is, for the ones that doesn't know, a very cosy little town an hour outside Stockholm. It is the town that gave me my economic batchlor degree so Uppsala will always have a special place in my heart.

Today we celebrated Victoria's big day with a beautiful cake, lots of cookies, bakeries and a nice gang of people in their amazingly beautiful house. 

Now I just have to try to eat less and much healthier the next coming days, until new years eve at least. The past four days has been overwhelming with nice food but now its enough ;-)

xoxo

Body Balancing

Body Balance is one of the classes I try to make sure to practice at least once a week. During the past two months I have managed to go on body balance-classes 5 times which is a lot. 

Body Balance is a group training which mixes thai chi, yoga and pilates. Actually we warm up using thai chi moves. Then we do almost 30 minutes of yoga focusing a lot on the leg strength and balance. Then we do maybe 5 minutes of pilates exercises for the abbs and back muscles. After all that we do careful stretching and rotation moves before we end it all with relaxation. 

Practicing body balance might not get physical results as yoga or crossfit but I really believe that it give me a good mix of exercising, stretching and mental relaxation. 

Now I am off to Uppsala, bye bye.

xoxo

Christmas dinner in Västertorp

I just got back home from a very enjoyable Christmas lunch-fika-dinner in Anders'  and Anita's place in Västertorp. We have been eating lots of really delicious homemade cookies, cakes and Christmas food more and less non stop the whole afternoon and evening and now I just feel sinking down in my bed reading a good book and rest my little stomach.... as tomorrow it is time for the next big Christmas lunch ;-) 

xoxo

SATS body pump 87 vs 88

The body pump classes at SATS are weight training set up by LesMills and the same program will run for three months. I started training at SATS in September when they just changed to the Body pump 87 choreography. I felt in love with it and learned every single movement by heart. Then, a couple of weeks ago all SATS changed to body pump 88 and I got so disappointed. But now slowly I start to get used to the new class which I actually should like more than the previous one. 

Every muscle group is trained throughout a whole song and body pump 87 had two very long and heavy leg songs that I hated. Body pump 88 is more about arms which fits me much better. In three months time I will have great strong triceps :-) 

Now I just got back from the body pump at Globen and even if my knees hurts a bit (as usual) my body feels great. Now I am off for a Christmas lunch so I better rush.

xoxo

Italian Christmas lunch

My dad has been having a close Italian friend for visit over Christmas, Gabriella. She spend Christmas with us and today my dad and her invited myself, my mum and Bosse for a delicious little Italian Christmas lunch in my dads place. 

So have I had enough of Christmas food yet? Don't think so! Tomorrow and on Friday I am off for two more Christmas lunches :-)

xoxo

Cosy Christmas Eve 2013

Pictures from Christmas eve at my mum's place.

Merry Christmas everyone!

xoxo