Tuesday, September 28, 2010

First time runner


I hate running.
Running is one thing I often wonder why people do it regularly. You see, If I want to go somewhere, I can bicycle which is much more fun and efficient. If I want to work out, I will do something involves in competing with B so I get motivated such as playing squash.

Again, never say never, this morning I become one happy runner for the very first time. What can I say? The nature of Stockholm is just perfect for running. I wake up at 7:00 am today, the sun is shinning and the air is crisp. All the sudden, I feel the desire to put on my running shoes and get into the forest cross street. I am ready to inhale all those great Pythoncidere!!

The air is so cold and I have to run faster to keep my body warm, the lake and the forest are so beautiful I almost forget how hard my heart is pumping and I can faint in any minute.



There are so many beautiful houses on the way but I am not in the mood to take pictures. I finish the small lap in one hour and have smoked reindeer as breakfast. [ Yes, I eat Rudolph !!]

What a fantastic way to start a day!


A home away from home

I am in B’s home town-Stockholm now, the place we call a home away from home.
For many of our friends from USA and Asia, Stockholm is “ the far far away kingdom” and it is. We usually spend  least 16 hours fly time to get here from either Taiwan or Los Angeles [where we lived before.]

Since my blog is all about A+AB home, why not introduce all “homes” we had lived from now on? So lets start with Stockholm then, where we lived, we are now and we definitely will come back many many many times in the future.

After we graduated from THE college, we started our Gypsy life style. The first place we moved to was Stockholm. It was summer and everything was bright and shin around the city, we planned to stay in Stockholm for at least 6 months.

B still had his room [yes, just a room] in his parents apartment but who on the earth could live in your husband’s little teenage room with your 14 boxes luggages and with your in laws for 6 months? At least I couldn’t. “YOU GOT TO FIND A APARTMENT FOR US!!!!!” I yelled to B.

And he did, we soon found one charming little furnished apartment located in a cool area” Soder” [meant south in Swedish] were available for 6 months. What a surprise? I thought it was hard to find spot in the center of the city? Well, it was an understatement to say the rent wasn’t cheap, it was super expensive!! And, the size of the apartment was very mini for people lived in Los Angeles near a decade. At first, I felt like sleeping in a shoe box....But we were not in the position to make a bargain, at least it was wayyyyy cheaper than living in the hotel, hahahaaa [ bitter /dry laugh]

Even though the apartment was quit small for us, I quickly fell in love with the life in Soder. The location was superb! People who visited Stockholm knew that this was a tiny little city. You could walk through the city easily with in couple hours. For example, it took me 35 mins walking from my apartment to my mother in law’s apartment. It meant I walked across 3 islands [ wasn’t that amazing?] and 3 town parts!

I was extra careful when we used the kitchen because we knew the apartment owner was a clean freak and he reminded us many many times how much work he put in building his gorgeous, completely white open kitchen.

I bought some white home accessories to go with the kitchen--My favorite spot in town " Tosse Bakery" 
Not only I stained the white counter with Kimchi sauce but B burned the owner's super pricy/ designer/ one of the kind kitchen table with our grill hot charcoal ....... - _- He was MADDDDD, and made us pay for a new one. The apartment came with a tiny tiny patio, the owner managed to put a table and a bench in that little corner. That was my favorite corner.



The other thing we loved to do or I should say B loved to do was taking secret pictures with his spy like long distance camera of our strange visitors in the park right beneath our apartment. The park was a gathering spot in this area and we could see people doing all kinds of activities here. Sometimes they just got too comfortable with the environment...
If you ever want to visit Stockholm, please don't forget to pay a visit to Soder! I love this mixed cultures, mixed personality and weirdo friendly place---just get out the station " Slussen" and you will have a lot of fun~

Friday, September 24, 2010

Recycle the waste from Fanapi


Taiwan has 2 big nature enemies---Earthquake and typhoon. 
We are so used to have these 2 enemies attacking us we get worried if they don't show up for too long. Like this year, the radio stations keep broadcasting that we have to watch out!! Because we haven't get any typhoon this summer! If the typhoon comes during this autumn it must be a HUGEEEE disaster! We are so deeply damaged by all the bad typhoons and earthquake, we never think positive when it comes to typhoons, I never hear anyone in Taiwan says " Yes! we won't have typhoon attacking us this year!"

So, everyone in Taiwan now is extra worry about this upcoming Typhoon---Fanabi.
This is our first typhoon this year and the weather forecast is panicking. We are informed that this typhoon is so powerful we have to prepare for any disasters cause by either too much rain or too windy or just too much ....

Under this scary atmosphere, B and I still decide to go to studio today, we have to finish all the work in 2 days and take off to Sweden, we get no choice but risking our lives!!
Mr/Ms. Fanapi typhoon seems not that powerful as we expected in Taipei city, maybe it damages lots other cities in Taiwan but it simply feels like a rainy and windy day in Taipei.
But when we are on the way home [we can walk home from studio, I think that is the best work out for me~] We found this...

A lot of tree branches are blowed away! Poor trees!

Poor bicycles and trees are falling everywhere, I cann't believe their owners just leave their bicycles outside on a typhoon day .

I decide to make those poor tree branches a happy ending of their lives !!

I love this small vase I bought at Nordiska galleriet in Stockholm 2 month ago. They are handmade and each one naturally look slightly different from the other.


















I put the rest of the branches into my the other beloved 
Royal Copenhagen vase.
My gift from Fanapi Typhoon.



Tuesday, September 14, 2010

This is what I have been doing.

Here is my line: LazyWife--talking about design out of experience!

A lot of people are asking what's our next step, to be honest, we also have no idea at this moment, hahaa. Who knows? Maybe it will lead us somewhere? Here is little preview about lazywifeNO1--the whole process and design features demo are under development.

Monday, September 6, 2010

I designed my dinning table! Lazy wife product line

When we bought this apartment, we were sooooo excited to find out what kind of furniture we want to put in here. We had the IKEA home back in USA so we were so looking forward to have something unique and personal this time. Unfortunately, we found that the furniture we likeed were either too expensive for what it was or just not good enough to our expectation. So we started to find the furniture shops can deliver our own design in Taiwan.


My series called " Lazy wife" simply because I am one lazy wife,hahaa.


To get married and to maintain a life style is hard especially for a career driven woman  and this is a interesting issue for me to discuss and to find out a better way of marriage living through the furniture.


This dinning table is the third piece of this line and I like it bit more than other two because I am clear about what I want  when I design it.


Here are the pictures we took in the factory couple days ago, it is on the way to deliver to us!