fromtorontowithlove.blogg.se

Hallå, 

Sipping on a cup of tea as I'm watching a few interviews from the Swedish election. It's Wednesday afternoon and I'm sitting in my newly build Ikea bed, with a sore throat. Was looking forward to some extra time for training today on my day off work, but that did obviously not happend.

Maria and I are still organizing and trying to get all things in order after the move a few weeks ago. The new place is good in a lot of ways; it's close to both of our jobs, nice & calm area (no downtown crazyness), we have our own space, it's cheap etc, BUT, there's also a few downsides that we have started to notice. It's loud (Dundas Street is just outside our window), the walls are not very soundproof, a bunch of ants live in our kitchen, I've got two electrical shocks from a light switch etc. It's a very old house and we're totally fine without anything fancy, but ants and electric shocks doesn't feel that great.


Other than that, the weather is changing. It's been pretty cool in the air the last few weeks, which really affects the store when it comes to bike sales and so on. I've started to display some ski stuff in the store, but we're still waiting for all the booking inventory from Fischer and Salomon for another month or so. My training is going pretty well. From time to time I get a dip or two when I feel I don't have any energy and the days just pass by too fast without time to rest inbetween. Soon we're changing hours in the store from 10am-8pm to 11am-7pm which will give me a few more hours a week to spend out of work. I love my job and my collegues and it's really awesome to be a part of a business that's starting up from scratch and together make it grow into something great. In mid Oct we're expanding into the building next door and it's a lot that needs to be done, but this business has so much potential and all of us are so motivated to take it further and work hard for it. Right now we're in the process of re-building the website entirely which will make a lot of things so much better and easier. 
Have said that, I sometimes feel I'm not doing anything except from working and training. Both of those things are strongely connected to the store and the people in it, which makes things easy, but sometimes I just want to get out of there and get some perspective. 

Hejhej, 

As usual, everything and nothing has happened since last time. The days look kinda the same, except for a few highlights every here and there. It's ok though, cause I like my life as it is right now. This morning I'm doing some errends at the bank before work cause June 1st I'm switching the Beaches for a condo in the Cabbagetown area. Not by myself.....3 amazing swedes are coming here and we're gonna move in there together! SO awesome. Verran arrives in the middle of May and then Frida & Maria arrives a month later. It was tuff to find something for all of us in the right neighbourhood, for just a few months, for a decent price etc, but we think we got it. All the papers are signed and today I'm gonna transfer the first months rent. Sweeeeet. 

Other than that.....well, I just got promoted at work. I'm from now on the sales manager in the store, which means lots of work and responsibility, but that is what I want so it's great. 

The new Vauhti rollerskis arrived in the store about a week ago, so exciting! Tried out the classic T 710 and they are really smooth and stable. These pink skate skis really draws a lot of attention in the store and people ask a lot more questions than before.

Hej hej!

Sitting in the kitchen eating my breakfast (wasaknäcke with avocado + yoghurt mixed with some cottage cheese and spirulina powder). It's really tasty. I eat sooo much avocados - it's like my best friend. If I'm out of avocados, I'm lost. My first thought will be "how fast can I get to the grocery store and get more?". I need help. 

However, ran this morning in my barefoot running shoes. Felt ok. Yesterday we went skiing up north. Hardwood Hills is still open a few more days so we really have to take every chance to go up there. Tmrw may be the last time for this season. This past Sunday after work all of us went biking together - Kasia, Rob, Brian and I. It was awesome! Got to borrow a display bike that we have in the shop, an Opus Allegro 4.0 with carbon frame, fork and weighs only 8.7 kg. Pretty sweet ride! Makes me so tempted to buy my own road bike since I can get a really good deal from the store. I have a bike that I commute with, but it's a steel frame so it's really heavy and old. I can't keep up with people riding carbon bikes with a bike like that. I'm considering buying a bike with aluminum frame, but carbon fork which is comparable to a fully carbon bike, but a little heavier and doesn't absorb vibrations quite as well. Carbon bikes are wicked expensive so it feels like an aluminum frame would do the job for me. 

I'm considering this Devinci bike. It's called Silverstone SL 4.

And the colour is perfect,,,,black and blue. Gorgeous!

 

 

Forgot to update again! I'm the worst blog writer ever. The thing I wrote I was going to do in my last update a month ago was.....hold on.....traveling back to SWEEEEDEN. Wieeheee, It was so great. AND unexpected. Unexpected is probably the best word to describe it all. Unexpected for me and for my family & friends. Unexpected that I suddenly was able to do Tjejvasan this year again, ski in Grönklitt with my brother, hang out with Maria, Verran and Isak, spend hours at Kaffestugan chating about unimportant things, see my mum, dad, sister, grandmother and my dogs after almost a year, meet up with Karro who I've missed so much......and have FIL & müsli for breakfast. I needed that.

Gotta do some stuff before work.....it won't take another month before my next update, promise.

E

 Hallå i stugorna!

Funderar på vilket språk jag ska skriva på....I'll take it in english. Now when Frida is back here in Toronto it's easy to fall back into the swedish again. Maybe "fall back" is the wrong expression, but before she came my english was really good and from time to time my swedish accent disappeard. I also had a little trouble expressing myself in swedish cause I barely used it for several months. When my brother came to visit for a few weeks he said that I spoke swedish like a foreigner. Now I speak like a real swede again. It's funny how the brain works and how easy you get used to things. It's all about repeating. 

So, a lot has happend since last time. Like I said, Frida is back here again which is completely amazing! Just like the good old days :) Work is going well - still lots of ski sales. The winter here has been great for cross country skiing, except from the extreme cold weather. It feels like Toronto is starting to wake up and realize how great this sport is.
We have been skiing up in Hardwood Hills as often as possible, which is around 3 times a week (Frida, me and Rob). Since it's almost 2 hours one way to get to the trails it has taken a lot of determination to be able to ski at all with a full-time job. 

Wake up 4.45
Walk to the store at 5.30
Leave Toronto 6.00
Start ski around 8.15 up in Hardwood
Leave 10.15
Get back to Toronto 12.15
Take a quick shower and start work at the store 13.00. 

A busy work day on top of that and you're pretty exhausted. 

But if it is something that you really want, you will make the time for it and do it. However, that is not always completely true, but in most cases. In this case I'm very grateful to my boss for taking this time to drive up there, to sacrifice well needed sleep in an already crazy busy time with buying a new business and with all the stress that comes with that, just to go up skiing. And I know that without a car, a canadian driver license and with the fact of being under aged to rent a car, neither me or Frida would be able to get up there and ski.

So all of you back home that have the ski trails next to your backyard - go out there and enjoy them! It's not until now I have started to realize how amazing training possibilities we have back home. 

This past weekend the three of us went to Ottawa to compete in Gatineau Loppet. It's Canadas answer to Vasaloppet (but much smaller). In Vasaloppet there is like 15 000 people - in Gatineau Loppet it's a few hundred. There were 3 distances to chose from, 15km, 27km and 51km. The 27 km race felt natural for me to pick since I'm not all about endurance (yet), but 15km felt a little too short. 
I've heard a lot about Gatineau Loppet from people coming in to the store, from the previous owners of Velotique and from other people that have done the race. The one thing everyone agreed on is the hard tracks - more than 600m elevation for the 27km race. Phuuu. I tried to not have too high expectations on myself so that I wouldn't get disappointed, cause it was a hard track and I didn't feel in awesome shape. Strangely enough it turned out well. The race was hard, but I managed better than expected and kept a steady pace throughout the race. Unfortunately I had to ski by myself almost the whole race. I had a group of guys ahead of me that went faster than me on the flat parts where they double poled, but on the hillier parts I came closer again and could ski with them for a while, but everytime there was a downhill and some flat parts they disappeard again. It was a bit frustrating to not be able to hang on to them, but at least it gave me a boost to see that I was getting closer on the uphills. Towards the end a few spectators shouted that I was the second lady, so that gave me a little extra energy as well. I crossed the finish line with the time 1h54min, which I'm not stoked about, but since I came second I'm still super happy about it. It was a hard track and I wasn't in great shape so I feel satisfied. 

Yesterday morning we went up to Hardwood Hills to ski again. It was -5 and bright sunshine - so perfect. Now it's Thursday morning and I'm up to something I'll tell about later.... 

Hejhej. 

Had the day off today so I've been cleaning my room, doing laundry, grocery shopping and some cooking. Really needed that. Also went by Velotique to get a few things and catch up with my awesome colleagues. It's safe to say that things at least arn't boring around here....soooo much drama. A little too much for my taste though.  

I feel I'm a little all over the place at the moment. But it is ok. That's life. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade - right Frida?

My brother is coming here tmwr. Feels unreal. It is so much I wanna show him. Gonna go and meet him at the airport tmwr morning and later we gonna go to a Swedish christmas event (if he has the energy after 36 hours of traveling). We'll see tmwr how thing's feel.


"oh sometimes the blues is just a passing bird
and why can't that always be..."

E

 

Hi!

Was off work today so I've been doing some laundry, grocery shopping for the week, some cooking, gym and now I'm on my way to bike Downtown and meet up with some Swedes.

It was Halloween yesterday so I we dressed up in the evening. Kadi was a witch, Annaliis was a mix of "Snowwhite" and "Little red riding hood", Dylan was a cowboy with his dog Quinn in a lasso, and I was Catwoman. I wanted to be Arwen from Lord of the Rings so I spend my whole afternoon looking for things that would suit for that outfit, but it was hard. Tried to make my own elf ears but they looked so stupied so I changed my mind in the last minute for Catwoman.

Morning!

Just got a message from my brother saying that he is in Singapore waiting for the last flight to Australia. Everything had been going well, but he was pretty tired. It's pretty exhausting and time consuming traveling that far. This is a picture my mum took at him just before he left Mora yesterday morning. Look at his bags - two backpackers!! WTF?! Good job packing! Compare to me and Frida.... On the second picture you can see all the bags easier.

Time to jump on the bike and get to work - have a great Tueday everyone!

It's Monday afternoon - another week just started. My legs are really sore from yesterday, but I made it to the gym in the morning anyways. Had a great breakfast - a mix of kefir, cottage cheese, protein powder, banana and some nuts before I went to work and now I'm on my break.

I have been really up and down with updating this blog, but I'm gonna try to be better at it. Like, I don't have to write an essay everytime I do a post - I can just write something short & unnecessary - like this :)

E

Good evening,

I'm laying in my bed under my sheet with a cup of hot chocolate - mhmmmm. Just got back from a late run. It was really hard to get out there today, but now it is done and I don't have to think about it anymore. It was hard to get started today because I have been so cold the whole day so when I got home this evening I just wanted to crawl underneath my sheet and stay there the whole evening. However, after an hour under my sheet I finally pulled myself together and did some good.

I have wanted to get a new pair of running shoes for a while and I've been thinking to get barefoot running shoes. With shoes like that you don't really put any weight on your heel, which actually suits me perfect at the moment since my heel still isn't fully recovered. Tommy at my work has talked a lot about barefoot running shoes too, so a few days ago I went to MEC and checked if they had anything on sale. I found a nice pair, in my size for half the price! Yey! So this evening I tried them for the first time and it felt great. I think I ran a little too far though for being the first time in barefoot shoes cause now my legs are kind of hurting in weird places. Oh well, I'll see tomorrow how they feel.



Just before me and Rob closed the store today, Annaliis and Kadi came by to say hi. It's always nice when friends come by your work :) After we closed, we walked to Queen & Woodbine to grab some middle eastern food - falafel, hummus, cabbage rolls and some different salads were on the menu. Delicious.

It's getting really cold here, like 7-10 degrees. Talked to some friends from back home today and apparently it already minus at home. Crazy! 

Now it's time to sleep so I can get up in the morning and work out. Fingers crossed my legs are almost recovered.

E