Downton Abbey

The English TV series Downton Abbey is the best series ever made.
I'm in the middle of the 4:th season and I love every minute of it.
Love, death, happiness and evil conniving. That and fabulous clothes. What else can you wish for?

Favorite place

I think all people have a few favorite places here on earth and one of mine is at the Boudhanath stupa.
There is a small coffe shop where they don't even have tables, just a few stools outside.
There Leya always eats an icecream and I drink an iced peach.
In the afternoon the sun is shining, it's near a pigeon feeding spot and people are walking around the stupa, always clockwise, mumbling the mantra "Ohm mani padme hum" with their malas, a 108 beads necklace, running through their fingers, bead by bead.
This place is a perfect spot to take a breath, relax and enjoy life.
Since we love dogs and this beautiful dog, who we have named Boudha Nani since she is a nougat colored version of our own Nani, is coming to us every time we go there the place has grown in value even more for me.
Last time we were there, just two days ago, we realised that Boudha Nani was very pregnant, so we hope she will find a warm, secluded place to give birth and bring up the little ones and next time I will buy a chocolate muffin instead of a banana.
Banana wasn't her favorite and I want to share this peacful moment with her.
Next to me sleeps Tarzan, another of our friends.

Strawberry

Today we ate strawberries, which is very strange for us since we use to eat strawberries in June in Sweden.
And we couldn't believe it! It tasted just like proper Swedish strawberries. Very taste!

Happy girl

I think Leya is the happiest girl on the planet right now.
Getting a whiteboard from Santa's wife was a huge surprise and spot on for a girl who loves to play "mam mam" (school) and beat her mom in Tic-tack-toe (tre i rad).

Merry Christmas

We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Christmas decorations

My sister and I have completely different taste when it comes to decorating the home.
Like my mother said when she was here: "No wonder I'm a little schizo with two daughters who are so different."
This is our kitchen table with colorful Tibetan ceremonial table cloths.

And this is my sister's beautiful ginger bread house.

Fever

I'm not happy about having fever, only one day before Christmas.
I hope I feel better tomorrow and that no one else in the family catch it.

Santas in Sweden

My mom is very creative and a little crazy. In a good way.
Every holiday she comes up with new ideas and Christmas is her favorite time of year.
Her Santas this Christmas are so cute.
Santa is sitting in the kitchen with a doll in his lap, keeping mom company when she is cooking.

This is Santa's wife telling a story to her bearded (?) elf babies.
It looks as if she needs a haircut.

Distracted

My dear husband is so distracted.
The other day he looked like this:

And yesterday I found him like this when I came home from town. Apparently he know about it, but didn't care enough to turn it right.
As far as I know a V neck on the back is not in style yet. But you never know.

Puja at Boudhanath

It's really exciting to live close to Boudhanath and witness these big meetings.
Since they have the meetings outdoor, next to the stupa, we are all invited to join.
Listen to the chanting.
See Part 1 here.
So many monks and nuns had gathered for this occasion.
See part 2 here.
Here are the leaders.

You can see the hierarchy clearly. The leaders in the front, then the monks and nuns with an orange sheet and in the back they only have the marron sheets.

Christmas pottering

Every year we use to fill the kitchen table with colored papers, tinsels, fabrics, beads, glue, scissors, yes, everything you can turn in to something Chrismassy. And Christmas carols on the stereo of course.
This year I had to threaten the kids that Santa wouldn't come if they didn't come to the kitchen and create with us.
They'd rather stay in Leya's room playing school.
Kids of today!

Lucia and birthday

Yesterday, the 13:th of December we celebrated Lucia, just like we do in Sweden every year exactly that date.
Read more about it here.
Yet another holiday we celebrate without really knowing how it all started.
Anyway... It's a welcome holiday in Sweden since Lucia and her followers bring light, songs, saffron buns and ginger cookies.
We celebrate Lucia as close to the Swedish version as possible and people we meet in the streets are very surprised to see the little girls with tinsel in their hair and candles in their hands.
Here we visited a shoemaker.

The same day it's Nicholas' birthday so it's double festivities.
For some reason Nicholas is holding our neighbor's dog Blossom.

We ended our day with a fabulous buffet at Hyatt Regency Hotel. The best birthday present ever!

Magic crystal

Today Leya got her first magic crystal.
She was so happy!

Dolly

I just got the sad news that one of my dear Facebook friends died a few days ago.
I can't believe it! She was always encouraging and inspiring me with her comments.
Rest in peace, Dolly Sandhu! Our loving prayers go to her close ones who have lost a precious family member.

Tree house

When Leya was playing in this house at Fun Park,

Nicholas and I spent time in this charming tree house. Oh, I want a tree house like this!
I just have to find the perfect tree and I know it's out there waiting for me.

ebay.in

Today I've started to sign up for different sale sites in India. I'm promoting Prana nail mat in India from every angle I can find.
I had to borrow the manufacturer's bank and id information to pass all sorts of verifications.
Entering ebay.in was as difficult as I imagine taking over Pentagon is. But I did it, after too many non-happy moments.
Click here to see the Purple Prana nail mat listing.

Christmas tree

I'd promised Leya we go Christmas decoration shopping today and somehow we ended up in a narrow alley.
Deep inside, in a side street, there was this amazing Christmas shop with all decorations you could dream of. If you fancy glittery, cheap Chinese Christmas decorations that is.
For about 40 USD/250 kr we got a tree, lots of balls and Santas and everything else we desperatly needed to get the real Christmas feeling, far away from mom and her over the top Christmases.
It was so great when Leya asked if we please please could buy two and I had the money in the pocket to say: "Why don't we buy two in each color".
It sure was one happy girl in the taxi on the way home.

Plumber

We haven't had hot water in the shower for two weeks now.
This is how it works with handymen here:
You have one handyman for each area, like plumbing and electricity, and if they have gone to their remote village and are gone for a month you don't call someone else. You simply wait until they come back.
It doesn't matter how long time they are gone. You don't call someone else. You wait!

Videos from the wedding

Below you find short videos from the wedding. It will give you a more intense feeling of the people, the colors, the energies and the singing and dancing. Enjoy!

Click here for video No. 1.
Click here for video No. 2.
Click here for video No. 3.
Click here for video No. 4.
Click here for video No. 5.
Click here for video No. 6.

Suresh and Muna

Please click here to see the photos from the wedding.

The flu

I promise I will get back to you with a long, detailed post about the Hindu Brahmin wedding in a remote village we've just been to.
With all the worrying about my mom and the bumpy trip to and from the wedding I've got the flu or at least flu symptoms of exhaustion.
Give me a couple of days and I'll get back as good as new.

Mom

Thank God! Mom is much better. She had blood clots going from her legs, up and through her heart and lungs, probably because of the long flight home, but Swedish health care managed to dissolve them successfully.
Her survival is a little bit of a miracle. First of all it could have happened during the flight and who knows if she would have got medical attention in time and second that my father was at home when the bloot clots reached her heart.
He is normally at the farm for hours at that time, but this day he was home so he could call the ambulance.
There is a God, or two, out there and they clearly wanted us to have our mom in our earth life for a few more years.

Hospital

I'm so worried! Today my dear mom went with ambulance to the hospital.
They think she had a heart attack or a blood clot in her lung or both. Right now they examine her.
She was feeling sick when she and my mother-in-law left us a few days ago, but we never thought it was this serious.
I'm so greateful that we parted on good terms, with hugs and tears.
Please send your prayers to my dear mom. She is only 65, so it's way to early for her to leave us and this world.

Tears

Today we left our mothers at the airport and it was so emotional to separate from my mother.
We cried and cried. It felt as if she took a piece of my heart with her.

Bye bye!

Tomorrow our mothers are going back to Sweden. It feels so sad and it will be so empty here in the house.
Who will cook lunch and dinner? Who will do the dishes and the laundry? Who will help Leya with the homework and read her a bedtime story every night?
It's been great to share our daily life with our moms for a few weeks and now we'll start saving for a summer vacation in Sweden next year.

Christmas greeting card

Every year my mom makes personal Christmas greeting cards and it all started with a photo outside the church where I had been baptized, 43 years ago.
This year mom is planning on having one photo in our house and one in my sister's.
A very interesting idea since our home is full of colors and my sister's is a hundreds shades of white, which is very popular in Sweden.
Here is Leya and our sweet Nani. (This is not the actual photo).

Birthday party

Yesterday we celebrated Leya all day long.
Party with our Nepalese family and our landlords with sausages and cake and the Swedish game "fish pond" when you fish for candy.
We ended our day with a fantastic buffet at Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Leya's birthday

I can't believe it's seven years since I had an emergency c-section and Leya come in to our lives.
Date: 16 November 2006
Time: 12.28 pm
Length: 52 cm
Weight: 4464 gr
She was born a Thursday at lunch time. Since we have a tradition in Sweden to eat pancakes on Thursdays and pancakes are my favorite food, I will never forget it.
A few happenings from the delivery day I'd like to share with you:
1. The only time I was angry with Nicholas was when we drove to the hospital and he drove through an intersection too fast.
2. My mother was my doula, read more about a doula here. Since I knew Nicholas needed to smoke from time to time I wanted someone to stay next to my side at all times and my mom did a fantastic job.
3. At one time I had two midwives, one doctor and the head doctor in the room trying to figure out what was wrong.
4. The doctor tried to pull out Leya's hair with tweezers when she was still inside the uterus even though both my mother and I firmly told the doctor I never had an IUD (spiral).
5. When I was in very painful labour I screamed about next time we were going to have a kid. (Very strange behaviour!)
6. I fell in love with the laughing gas.
7. The doctor said it felt like stitching in jelly when he and another doctor spent two hours (it normally takes one hour and one doctor) to close my stomach.

Shipments

Today we had the most international shipping day ever.
We sent parcels to:
Australia
Canada
Israel
Slovakia
Sweden
UK
Ukraine
I've always loved to travel, so our goods are making the travelling for me.

Prana nail mat video

I'm so happy about the final result of the Prana nail mat video.
Watch it here.

Beetle

We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw this yellow old beetle cruising down the street. Cool!

Dots

The dalmatian puppies have dots now. They are adorable!

Hackers

I really try to walk through life not hating anyone, but sometimes it's impossible.
Someone in South Africa has hacked my computer and now they have started to send inquiries for money to our customers.
I think one of our customers has paid and she was furious with me and said I was a scam.
At first I felt offended and couldn't believe what she was talking about, but it came clear soon enough.
Tomorrow morning my computer is going straight to the doctor to get cleaned from all introduers.

Tibetan refugee camp

20 min by car from Pokhara is the Tibetan refugee camp Hemja.
I met two lovely Tibetan ladies in Pokhara last time we were there and this time I asked if we could come to their homes and see how they lived.
We took a taxi. Crowded, but happy people in the backseat.

Hemja was a typical village, with one storey houses. So quiet that you could hear the nature whisper. A big difference from a Nepalese area.
We had Tibetan salt, butter tea made like old butter making in a tube with a stick pushed and pulled, up and down.

Then we had a homeparty in the backyard. Tibetan jewellery are so beautiful!

We finished our visit by particapating in the afternoon puja i the village temple. It was magical with the colorful interior and the chanting monks.

Dhai puja

Yesterday was the last day of the Tihar celebrations and we celebrated dhai (brother) puja (religious ceremony) with our friend Krishna and his family.
Krishna's family are buddhists and Tihar is a hindu festival, but that didn't stop them.
The brothers are sitting to the left and the sisters are preparing to the right.

There are many elements in this puja. Flower pedals on the head, water in their ears and a special tikka in the forehead with many colors, the Nepalese topi hat, sweets and gifts.
This is the smallest brother.

We also got a brother tikka.

The whole, happy family.

Fewa lake

A trip on Fewa lake is a peaceful must when going to Pokhara.
So silent and relaxing.
This time we hired a boat with a driver, or should I say a paddler, and that was worth the money.

Cow

Today we tied our blessed threads around a cow's tail.
The cow happened to have three legs and she was very stubborn.
With the help of cauliflower and a man passing by, we finally managed to tie the threads.
Now we come directly to heaven when we die. What a relief!