The future is a place you create
I am back home from my trip to Finland. I was away for ten days and slept at seven different places within that period. I had so much fun, met with a lot of wonderful people and got to see so much of the country, which is great since it was my first time there.
It was intense though, and left me both physically and mentally drained of energy. Hungover on experiences I guess.
“Stories are our way of organising information”
– Quote from keynote speaker Nick Westergaard during PING
My last two days there where spent slowing down in the home of Veera where I let my experiences from the past week settle within me. I enjoyed her amazing breakfasts consisting of home made granola and avocado toasts with poached eggs (a skill I must master!).
Over a few too many cups of coffee during the day and wine or beer in the evenings we talked about life with all it’s ups and downs, heartbreak and joy.
We jokingly established that Finland (the entire country) is rude since the doors don’t have handles and upon asking how to say “please” in Finnish I was told I didn’t need to know that. Also, iceberg lettuce is completely useless and once you turn thirty you automatically become more wholesome (?).
We practiced photography and pondered over the future, both on a personal level but also as far as our businesses are concerned.
➵ Photo of me by Veera (directed and edited by me)
I have always enjoyed being on the road, and I still do. But I have such a wonderful partner and I love our home which makes it harder to be away for so long. I really miss him and our everyday life when I am away, and I want to share my experiences with him.
Our day to day life holds a nice balance between work, free time and working out. The friends I have are amazing and all in all the life I lead now really makes me happy!
Seeing new places and meeting new people is an amazing experience that always makes you grow as a person, but I see so much value in my life at home as well and I feel like slowing down a bit again.
“The future is not a place we go, it’s a place you create”
– Quote from keynote speaker Anne Lise Kjaer during PING
I moved up north the summer of 2014 and I led a slow, downshifted life in the countryside and I loved it. The past 1.5 years has been full of travels and experiences all over Sweden and some abroad. I also left the country to live in a city which took some adjustment but I like it very much and it’s 100% right for me to live like this right now.
Balance though, is a thing I feel I lack right now. I am extremely active all the time and it’s great, but I want to find my way back to some of that slowness (is that a word?) that I used to have. I’m also not spending as much time outside in nature as I used too, even though I can walk to the forest in ten minutes.
This I plan on changing by making adjustments to my routines. I work from home and I am in full control. I plan to try and work until lunch and then take a break to head outside for an hour or two.
Me and Dan are also planning to start going on evening walks once or twice a week where we only speak Swedish, and we’re going to schedule better routines for when he teaches me to play the guitar. We are the only ones responsible and in charge of what our life – both present and future – will look like.
I also look forward to being a bit more personal here. As I briefly mentioned in my previous blogpost I feel that I have lost my own voice a bit amongst all the business stuff and trying to make this space a bigger part of my work.
That is of course all well and good, and I don’t want to change that but that also should not come at the cost of my posts being very formal, perfectly SEO’ed and well thought out if I am no longer present in them myself.
My hope is to find my way back to sharing more of my every day life, close by adventures, thoughts I have on specific topics, or life in general.
➵ But I also want to know what you guys like to read about
What type of posts do you enjoy reading (here and on other blogs), and is there anything in particular you would want to know or that you think I should write about?
Please leave a comment below and let me know ♥︎ / Rania
Love everything you do and write about so I’m not much of any help here. But yet for more you in here ? Finland sounds like it was great!
Thank you for enjoying all the content that I create, that means a lot to me <3 Finland was amazing, I had sooo many good experiences!
Yas <3 Love reading more personal posts like this, especially after our slow weekend in Helsinki together! It was fun sharing literally all aspects of life haha. And thank you for being there! I'm so glad our paths have crossed and that I don't need to eat iceberg lettuce anymore. :D
Hope to see you again soon wholesome lady!
I’m glad you feel that way, I know I do too and so it’s weird that I kind of lost writing those myself. Our slow weekend was SO wholesome, thank you for that! <3 Yeah, we literally talked about e v e r y t h i n g haha, I had so much fun! I'm so glad our paths crossed as well, and I'm always here for you. Phu, ice berg lettuce was so last year!! Hope to see you again soon too!!
Tyckte du hade en bra mix och balans av inlägg på Rowan Tree. :)
Gärna mer personligt, så mycket roligare att läsa!
Tack! Det är det jag börjat känna att jag hade, och att jag nu tappat lite. Ska försöka hitta tillbaka dit! :)
I love that as I scroll down I see that mine and Veera’s first reaction was exactly the same. My thought was also: YAY. I love this personal side, that’s what makes a blog worth following, in my opinion.
<3
haha “yay!” indeed :D Am I glad you girls feel that way. thank you. And I do agree, I love reading personal blogs so it makes no sense not to be a bit more personal myself. <3
Beautiful photographs! I would say: do what feels right for you. Balance might not be something you find forever but rather a constant practice :-)
Thank you dear! Oh I am always pretty good at doing what feels right in the moment. But yes, balance is not something you achieve and then just have – it is something you constantly have to work on.
Så roligt att du har för avsikt att skriva lite mer personliga blogginlägg framöver! Jag har tyckt mycket om att läsa de inlägg som du skrev om downshifting när du bodde på landet och det vore jätteintressant om du ville dela med dig av dina tankar kring detta nu när du bor i stan. Överhuvudtaget är jag nyfiken på att få höra dina reflektioner kring city- kontra lantliv, och det är också mysigt att då och då få kika runt lite i din nya lya.:-)
Hej, vad trevligt att höra att du tycker om den sortens inlägg! Nu när jag bott inne i stan i ett halvår börjar det ju faktiskt bli dags att skriva ett inlägg om downshift och hållbarhet här kontra landet :) Nu behöver vi flytta igen (suck) så snart kommer nya bilder från en helt ny lya haha!
Ah, bökigt att behöva flytta… Men spännande att se hur ni får det på nya stället!☺
Jag och min familj har också flyttat flera gånger de senaste åren, och det är ju i alla fall ett bra tillfälle att rensa ut onödiga prylar och ta steg mot en mer minimalistisk livsstil.
Ja, det är sannerligen något som tar mycket tid och energi men det är skönt – som du säger rensar man mycket när man flyttar, I love it! Ser fram emot att visa nya lägenheten här sen, vi stortrivs redan!