So it's Halloween!

Halloween again!
I seriously cannot believe how fast this year passed and especially this month of october, it's Halloween and I don't feel prepared at all! Where did this month go? It flew by at the speed of light!
I didn't do the Shocktober properly this year, I got caught up in many things and the lack of company wasn't really inviting for movie nights, although movie nights are always my favorite...especially if they are shared with someone I like or love.  The movie I chose for tonight is "The Omen", a true classic!
Just bought it today on dvd at a truly ridiculous price! Cool!
I remember watching this movie when I was little, a couple of times...it truly had an impact on me!
I guess, apart from "The Exorcist", it was the first time I saw a movie where the evil one was a child! Crazy mix that always freaks people out.
The best news of this month is that we have a new entry in Umeå, my italian FB friend Cristina from Sardinia a really cool and crazy chick! We met for the first time last saturday, we had a blast all day!
Finally a cool person to hang out with! I cannot believe how many things we have in common...we both sing, we both come from the same area ( my mom is sardinian), we are both crazy and into metal and goth music and clothes...cool!
Here is a picture we took at Pipes of Scotland, a local pub.

Cristina, Leticia and me

The other girl behind us is Leticia, another cool chick from Brazil who lives in Ireland who hanged out with us that night...what a trio guys! We truly had a blast. I am so sad they don't live here permanentely, Leticia is only on visit some days but at least Cristina will stay for like six months...so plenty of adventures ahead I guess!
Next saturday we will be going to Club Greyscale ( my favorite club for Halloween!), according to my yearly tradition...but I am still not sure what I will wear for the party...maybe I will be dressed as the character I play in the movie "Alone", or maybe I will come up with something else. We will see.
I didn't do any outfit or make up try out yet.
Tomorrow I have a really long day ahead of me, first I am gonna go to the university for a seminar and then working in the evening...but hey I am just gonna go to work 2 full days this week and the rest will be just party!!! Yes, that's what I need!
Oh by the way I dyed my hair again...black this time...I think it looks great! What do you think?

New black hairdye

Before I go, I leave you with this awesome funny video I made today...hehehe featuring me as the Witch, Amr as the mummy, Bram as Frankenstein and his girl Tineke as the dj and my dear friend Alain as the Vampire! In fact he is from Transylvania for real :D
Hope you like it!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

That reading pleasure!

I really don't understand why the majority of the people I know (with the exception of some friends here in Sweden) doesn't read books. They prefer to drink to escape reality, when the easiest and healthiest solution to abandon this world and reach another dimension is just to pick a good book and have a nice read! Personally I love reading, although I don't do it as often as I wish as I tend to get caught up in many different things, like the internet for instance. I like the internet for some aspects as it is knowledge and communication with the outerworld in real time just a click away, but I also believe we dedicate way too much time to it each day. We are putting our computers and social networks in a dominant position, when in reality we should dedicate more time to the things and people around us.
As far as me I try to divide my day as good as I can, between work, housework (not that much though), sport, time for my beauty, time for my partner and of course internet. But almost everyday I need that hour or sometimes just half hour for me and my books, that one on one time when I am alone with myself and I can dream away and get absorbed by something that takes me away from reality and everyday life.
I used to be an avid reader when I was younger, when I didn't have a computer at home, before the internet.
Most of the books I read during my time in highschool, spending my free time reading and listening to music mostly...and of course going out with my teenage friends.
I am very grateful to my highschool teachers who made me love litterature and got me to read all the most beautiful and exciting novels of the masters of the international classic litterature, in particular the english, the french and italian authors. I am actually a big fan of  classic litterature, not too fond on modern authors actually, with the exception of Stephen King who writes beautifully and gives me the chills and has always been an inspiration to me.
At the moment I am reading "At the mountains of madness" by H.P. Lovecraft. Wonderful I must say. I almost read everything by Lovecraft, but this one I had never read before and I am very much into it at the moment. This book was actually a present that our ex room mate and friend Jimmy gave to Amr last Halloween, although Amr is not too fond on reading, in fact he prefers to play guitar, that is actually what he is doing right now as I am writing.

The book I am currently reading

I was just thinking that I should totally go on with the marvellous book I am writing. I cannot believe I still didn't find a cool title for it. I tend to get lazy, although I love writing so much, maybe even more than reading. I took a pause from my novel when my laptop crashed this summer, but fortunately I have the novel saved on my e-mail. I should actually print it and keep a paper version of it as well.
I really must buy a new computer or really repair my old one. I am not too fond of Amr's computer, which I am using now to write this blog. The keyboard is different from what I am used to and it begins to give some signs of over use, making it a bit difficult to type at times because it gets slow and sometimes it eats the letters.
This is a picture I took today with Amr...we were in such a unusual good mood!

Amr is so cute...he is so handsome, it's crazy.
Anyway to get back to Lovecraft...I remember being in Providence, Rhode Island, with Jake Raymonds and Tony Lazaro of Vital Remains back in 2001 and going to the graveyard where H.P. Lovecraft was buried. I remember standing by his grave, feeling right miserable and unpleasantly surprised by the simplicity of his tomb, nothing fancy, no flowers, nothing. It could have been anyone. The very same feeling I had when I saw Marylin Monroe wallgrave, a sad scenary really. But at least H.P. Lovecraft was in a lovely ancient cemetery, in his hometown Providence...the place where he lived most of his life.
Next time I am going to Italy I will try to find those pictures I took with Jake in the graveyard. I had a pretty cool one in black and white just hope these photo are still at my parents' house.
I also wonder how Jake is doing. Maybe I should look him up on FB, we didn't hear from each other for several years. He was a really good guy and nice person.
It's a period, as I may have mentioned before, that I feel like rebonding with valuable people of  my past. You know all those good friends that one doesn't understand why they have just stopped being in contact.
Yes, I think it is time for that. I got some of them back already and I intend to get more back into my life.
And to finish this blogpost tonight I must inform you that I actually lost one kg! Yay! The shakes worked.
And since I only had a shake for dinner, I leave you with this wonderful plate of gnocchi that I cooked the other day, which were absolutely delicious! Just to give myself the illusion of having eaten them tonight, instead of the shake...heheh I wish!

Potato Gnocchi with pesto, mushroom and olive filled tofu

A bit of a fail

This weekend honestly was a bit of a fail... I was supposed to go to the cinema yesterday and didn't go, today we were planning to go to a festival and for a serie of reasons we arrived quite late to the venue, just to realize that the average age of the people there was maybe 14 year old!! Never seen so many pimpled faces and "moped mustasch "( as we say here in Sweden) all at once! Or at least since I was that age myself.
Major turn off. I said to my husband " I don't think we can quite fit here...let's go home". So we went back.
We decided to instead watch a film that we planned to watch for like a week, but he fell asleep while waiting for these announced shooting stars to appear in the sky at 11 pm. From here, north of Sweden, we saw nothing at all. Did you see any shooting stars?
I feel a bit ditched actually. I must go to the cinema tomorrow, I must do something before I go crazy!
I wouldn't handle another week of work without having any fun at all, not fair!
Well at least I have relaxed, put it this way.
I don't even wanna think about the awesome two days festival in Sundsvall this weekend, which we missed. Marduk was playing and Udo, which I both really wanted to see. Never seen Udo live and Marduk it must have been the late 90's last time I saw them live, in Italy actually.
I could have gone to this festival but Amr was working and really I didn't think it would have been fair or good to go without him and also the thought of driving 4 hours on my own didn't appeal to me very much either. Although maybe some friend would have come along. Well,whatever.
To kill the boredom of this evening I took this picture of myself 14 year old style, in the bathroom and at the mirror, with the cam showing! But I think it looks cute.



37 years and still rocking!

On a brighter note, today I noticed that the Nutrilett shakes began to work! I got definitely thinner! Even Amr noticed it...maybe I shouldn't give up then. Although I really felt like eating today so this is the dish of the day...I actually dared to put some carbs in it!

Today's dish

It was totally delicious...consisted of some sallad, a soya burger and a really super tasty rice I made with olive tofu, green onions, white carrot and piri piri (really spicy chilli)...it was yummmmmmmmm!
Tomorrow I crave to burn some calories at the gym or maybe go for a swim! But I am doing good, so I just need to be constant...right on!

Food...yes please!

Finally today I had a decent meal, after 2 days of Nutrilett shakes! I am trying to loose some weight and it isn't a easy thing at all. I must loose at least 4 kgs to be satisfied with the way I look but hey it is tougher than I thought. These shakes I bought they aren't bad but they haven't got the best taste either...this forest fruit one I got tastes a little bit like a chewing gum. Not a fan of these things actually, but I wanted to give it a try.
They fill up your stomach for like 30 minutes and then you have the hungry feeling again but it is like you don't want to eat, you still feel the shake somewhere in there. Weird.
But today when I came home I was so hungry so I cooked myself something light and it turned out to be a really tasty lunch. Supposely not too caloric either, or at least I think so.
I cannot believe how good it felt to finally taste something different than the shake, the pleasure of chewing and of feeling something with different consistence and texture in my mouth! Oh I felt reborn. Maybe that's why I got so happy, because I ate?

Today's meal: fish, sallad, falafel, keso and pesto on toast

After that I went to the gym for some hard training. I was a bit disappointed in myself because, apart from the cardio training which went without problems, the abs and the exercises for the legs were a bit hard to do. I had really low energy!
All in all I feel a lot of peace inside this evening...oh it is such a good feeling...I feel harmonious and peaceful...which doesn't happen that often, so I intend to enjoy every minute of it.
My husband and I are planning to go on a trip maybe during the X-mass holidays...I really would like to either go to Belgium and Holland ( and maybe drive to Paris) or maybe London. I wanna have a nice new years eve this year...with good friends, hopefully.
I really pray this becomes true...
now time for a movie! Goodnight babies!

Those cold belgian nights

...and who could ever forget them? I am still in that room, probably one of the coldest and creepiest in the House, sorrounded by posters and figures of Freddie Kruger. I can still smell the special perfume of the House, you know something that with its atoms is like the breathing essence of that very place.
I can still hear my friend doing something in the kitchen, probably preparing some coffee or tea. And me, upstairs, with too little clothes on, shivering but with an immense peace inside me ...and the adrenaline, the excitment for the unknown, for the fantastic and mysterious things that would await me each day.
I remember losing my ride back home on purpose, from that place far away, just to savor one or two extra days in that very House, in that area that for me was a portal onto another world.
I remember asking you to sleep beside me and hold me, I was frightened like a child, not of the House itself, but by the things that were watching me and my every step, by the things that were just waiting for me to get back to normality and live my everyday life, away from that magical world.
There were also a lot of sinister sensations, all around me. If you could have looked inside my heart!
If you only knew how much I wanted to cry that night! But you wouldn't have understood that. Because I was me, I was "her" who always came and left. She who was part of something that your fingers barely could touch, a world that was beside yours, yet not really into yours.
I wish I could go back. You don't know how much I wanna cry. How much I want to say I am sorry.
I was so young, arrogant and confused. You deserved so much better. So much more gratitude that even if I would speak to you now I wouldn't know how to express. But my heart knows it.
It's like a burden I have inside. I must get back there. I have to. I just hope that door will open for me again.
You won't read this, maybe someone else will and will tell you, I am just so sorry, so sorry.
If you only knew.

that period

Metal on Metal!

Happy Shocktober everyone!
The first night of Shocktober instead of watching horror movies I went out and saw a horrorish Misfits cover band! Yay! Godless Glenn they were called. Really good party band! Everyone was in a top mood, jumping around and stuff! The singer had a great voice I must say!

Godless Glenn

Even though yesterday I was depressed all day, it was really good that I decided to go out because it turned out to be a great night! I had a real blast! I can honestly say it was one of the best nights out of this year.
I met a lot of friends, I cannot believe how many people I actually know in the Umeå metal scene, every two meters I was seeing someone I know, which was cool. I also cannot believe how many known musicians live in Umeå ( including myself LOL!).
The highlight of the evening was meeting Marcus E. Norman of Ancient Wisdom/Naglfar/Bewitched !
He was a really nice and easy going person and by talking to him I realized we had quite a few things in common. For instance the fact that Ancient Wisdom in the very beginning  were also called Ancient, like my old band, in fact I remember Aphazel telling me in the 90's that there was another band with the same name, but since we had the copyright on the name, they had to changed it, so that is why they became Ancient Wisdom. Another thing in common is that his cousin is a collegue of mine! Or better, she works at a school where I also work at! She is a cool girl! That was awesome!
Here is a picture of me and Marcus from last night

Ancient Wisdom meets Ancient!

Talking of Ancient, I got a mail today saying that at my bassist's place in Italy there is a box with about 60-70 tapes that belong to me! I got really excited to hear that! Funny to think I actually grew up in a era when the cd was not even invented and we used to listen to vynils and music cassettes! I was very much into tape trading back in the days, I have lots of rare pearls and even demos in that collection!
Next time I am in Italy I am gonna get that box back and cannot wait to go through it.
Talking about other metal musicians from Umeå, I must say that last night at the Metal on Metal night there were plenty of them! The guys of Zonaria, Plector, Moloken, The Whyrus, Raging Steel, Scumkill, Nocturnal Rites etc...I cannot believe how many fantastic bands we have in Umeå!

Here is another picture we took with Fredde and  Chris of Nocturnal Rites, for some reason we always meet them together!

Amr, Fredrik and his girl, Chris and I

I must say that this picture doesn't give me or Chris any justice, we are way hotter in real life! LOL!
A photographer actually took some photos last night of me and Erik of Plector, here is one I just found online!

Erik and I last night

Oh and before I go, about my hair, the experiment of yesterday went kinda weird I must say! I bleached my hair again for the second time in two days, because I wasn't satisfied with the outcome and wanted to fix the shade which from copper became sort of blondish. Then again the result was not very good, I guess my hair is way too dark (because of all the black hairdyes) and cannot be lightened easily, or at least with the wanted result. So I bought another hairdye, a brown one, and mixed it over the highlights. I must say that now my hair looks much better! I am really satisfied, it looks like more or less my natural haircolour in the summer, when the sun gives me some natural goldish reflections. Here is a picture I took last night before going out. Too bad it is a bit yellow, because I took it with the webcam and the light was not the best, but it gives the idea.

My hair make over...what do you think?

Anyway that is all for now! Hope you all have a good sunday! Cheers!