Hello friends! I just returned from the farmers' market and guess what? I returned to receive confirmation that our boxes from the states will arrive here next week. To say I'm over the moon is a light way of expressing my joy, I've over the galaxy! Our things left Boston by boat on July 27 and we expected them one month ago but our shipping company was having a hard time booking a truck for us so everything has been sitting in London for 3 weeks now. I'm so pleased that soon I'll have all of my belongings, and the funny part of this is: I only remember 1/3 of what I packed so it will be a bit fun to go through all of my boxes. Have you ever moved to another country and experienced this - waiting for your shipment and then forgetting what you actually shipped? Ha! I learned a bit of a life lesson from this: THINGS don't mean all that much when it comes down to it, they are easily forgotten. At least most things.

Though I must say that the 1/3 of what I remember are those that do mean something to me - old photos, letters, journals, childhood toys (only a few but still), gifts from friends, fabric, all of my decorating books and magazines, and some of my favorite outfits and shoes. And also some crafty items and of course, the art I've collected over the years. But the kitchen things and glassware and gosh, the other masses of things: well.... I wonder now why I bothered packing them if they could be so easily forgotten? So, from this, I've learned a valuable lesson and so I thought I'd share this with you before you spend thousands of dollars to move - bring what you absolutely love and what is meaningful to you if you're relocating abroad anyway... the rest will take care of itself when you land in your new country.

See, I just taught you and your family how to save a good amount of money that I feel I've wasted by not carefully considering every single item that I packed. But, life is this way of course: you have to learn through mistakes because if you did everything right all of the time, well for one that's not possible but if you always did everything with absolute perfection then you'd have little room to learn and grow. I think that so much has to do with our attitude when we do something less-than-perfect. Do we beat ourselves or have a sense of humor about it - laugh, learn, share the mistake (helpful to others and keeps us humble), and move on? So instead of complaining over it, I've chosen to laugh and move on. The way I see is that if I open all of these boxes and find lots of things I no longer want or need, I can rent a table at the flea market one Saturday and sell it, or put it on eBay. All is never lost, right?

So... the title of this post is Swedish Design House and by now, you've most likely noticed the gorgeous photos above and wondered, "Where is Holly going with all of this?". So let me quickly share that the Swedish Design House is a new online shop that I wrote about today over on Real Simple. You can read about it here if you'd like to. They ship worldwide and carry some items with the lovely dala horse motif...

Oh and one last bit to share. Gosh peeps, I'm so sorry for allowing my heart to rule over my head yesterday because I took the entire afternoon off to spend with a friend of mine. I made apple, cinnamon, nutmeg pancakes with maple syrup for her (and sent some over to my mother-in-law who never had pancakes American style, nor had she ever had maple syrup), and we ate a huge stack of them by candlelight with rooibos vanilla tea. Then we watched a movie and talked... and day became night, and well you know how it goes. As a result, I did not post Etsy Take Five Tuesdays. I took five in a different way, I guess, I took five hours to do absolutely nothing but cook, eat and spend time with my friend. But a girl needs that now and then. As a result I feel refreshed, inspired and ready to write and share with you today. :) And wow, did the pancakes taste amazing. :)

(images: swedish design house)