Ingela Bohm's Blog

So this GDPR stuff is purely good news, right? Well… almost.

Look, here’s the thing. I have a paid account with WordPress, but that doesn’t cover help with this personal data malarkey. Now, I have zero time and patience to faff about with un-storing random people’s IP addresses, so I’m thinking about closing this blog. Yep, sorry. That’s the way of the world, things change, and I don’t want to be a sitting duck when internet trolls start targeting small time bloggers for shits and giggles.

If you still want to see my pictures, I’ll probably keep posting on Instagram (username ingela_bohm), but maintaining GDPR security on this blog is beyond my capabilities. So… it’s been great, but this is probably goodbye.

Winter has received its final blow. It may not look like it for those of you who don’t have experience with winter, but despite the remaining snow, the air is warm and the sun sets later and later. Even in the middle of the night, the sky isn’t completely black.

Last night we went for a walk in the evening haze, both of us armed with a camera for the first time in forever.

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When this amount of now melts, there’s nowhere for it to go. Drowned trees gleam in the waning light.

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And drowned lamp posts!

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The sun was too bright to look at. To photograph it, you had to take a quick peek through the view finder and then close your eyes.

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Spirits awakening.

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A couple of weeks ago the sun came back from hibernation, and my online life went AWOL. I’ve been so busy doing fun things (journalling mostly, which I will show in another post) because I’ve finally had some energy.

But I still wanted to show you the pictures from this year’s first trip to the cabin which took place two weeks ago. A bit late, I know, but everything looks more or less the same now, except the snow is starting to melt really fast! So this may be my last proper winter photos for a while as we move into what we call spring-winter (gotta have a name for when it’s sunny but still cold, ya know).

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Well, the cabin is still standing. No broken windows, no leaky roof.

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We had to shovel our way inside, but it’s been so cold this year that the snow is really light and fluffy, none of that heavy, icy, slushy stuff.

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Virginal snow.

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Plip, plop. Spring approaches one drop at a time.

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When the snow is this deep, you have to keep to the snow mobile tracks or you sink down to your knees in fluffy crystals. You also have to watch where you place your chair…

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Just posin’ on my own…

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We made a fire and grilled a couple of sausages. Life’s good!

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This new journal hobby of mine is quickly spiralling out of control. I’m now branching out into junk journalling, which is when you recycle scraps of paper and other materials to make notebooks. Many of the stunning work I’ve seen on YouTube and Instagram are very romantic and as far from minimalistic as you can get. Count me in!

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My latest haul from the thrift store!

Glittering frost on the thermometre. The price we have to pay for sunlight…

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There’s something very sharp about the winter sun: it cuts through landscapes of black, blue, and white, separating forest from snowy meadow and sky.

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There is no hesitation and no blurry edges. Everything is the sum of what remains when you remove what it’s not.

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Geometrical patterns. Frozen moments in time – the flow of brownish water caught in the moment of falling, like stalactites out in the open.

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The sky is endless.

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The ice is thick.

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It hangs on roofs like winter’s promise of spring – because the only way an icicle can form is if the sun is warm enough to melt the snow.

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Okay, reeeeally long story short, I’m ditching my current journal and starting a new one where I’m dividing it into sections for different themes – like work, home, creativity, weeklies, trackers and memories, and so on. This is against the spirit of bullet journalling, but let’s face it: this is no longer a bullet journal, but a slowly junkifying art journal.

So.

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That rose is not one of mine, by the way. I cut it from a gardening magazine.

I’ve been kind of a coward with my journal so far, just trying to keep within some kind of imaginary parametres, but last weeked I was hit by inspiration (=YouTube videos) and started remaking my journal into a more flamboyant, whimsical thing with Random Stuff, because I like Random Stuff.

Like pink tissue!

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Isn’t it more inspiring to be met by this rather than a blank page? I don’t have much lettering skills (or rather, the patience to apply them) so the frame becomes all the more important.

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This is the cover page for my tracker/memories section. A quote from a ’60s newspaper, some bookmarks and more tissue paper. Flowers and butterflies: fleeting but possible to capture anyway.

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Cover page for March. I’m a bit synesthetic, and March for me is pink. I’m going for a candy wrapper/gift theme. This is a pocket for stuff that happens in March (like tickets and things like that).

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In my old journal I had one spread for all my projects. Well, that quickly went downhill. I have so many projects, I need SPACE! So, a section for home projects…

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… work projects…

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… and time specific stuff, ie weeklies and task lists. I asked my brain what it associated with that section, and it replied “work horse”: the heavy duty part of the journal where things get done rather than dreamed about. So I started drawing a horse, and it was ugly as hell, so I googled ‘horse’ and ended up on a promo site for Westworld, and thereby hangs a tail…

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More to come as I delve deeper into the mysteries of art/junk journalling! *happy dance*

In my last post I talked about how the road will wait for you while you give yourself the rest you need. But there’s something else that doesn’t wait, and if you want to catch it, you have to agree to its terms…

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The sun.

Now, I’m the first person to rebel against the idea that “The sun is out, so you have to go out too”. But if you long for the light, here’s a thought: grab it while it lasts.

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Your duties may have deadlines, but so does life. Maybe it’s time to take that break and give yourself a reward.

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Is the sky blue today?

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Is the world an open book, glittering brightly?

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The time for twinkling snow flakes will be over before you know it. The time for moving freely through the woods will be over before you know it.

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If you can, steal that moment today. Because on your deathbed, you won’t regret the time you went out to see the world.

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Some days are heavy and dark.

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You move like a somnambulist through your life. You don’t see your path.

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Everything is a bluish grey, and the lines all seem blurred.

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It’s the ebb and flow of energy, the presence and absence of light. It’s the long sleep before renewal.

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What if you too dared to follow that ebb and flow, if you dared to take the time to rest?

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The road will still be there when you come back.