It’s been more than a week since we returned from Sweden to Kuala Lumpur, but I am still a bit jet lagged. Very happy though, that we got the chance to go back home and meet family and friends and enjoy Swedish nature and Swedish food. If you follow me on Instagram, you have been able to see some of the scenery I have enjoyed, and even a few sneak peeks of my small hometown Kungsbacka, where a couple of scenes in Beautiful Affliction take place. It was wonderful meeting my parents again, who I haven’t seen, only spoken to, since the book came out. Yay! We got the opportunity to sit down and share thoughts and feelings and I once again marvelled at their tremendous support through this entire journey of telling my story.
Another highlight in Sweden was that Independent Publisher Book Awards sent the award package to Sweden, so I got my gold medal, certificate, and gold seals to put on copies of Beautiful Affliction! Yay! I just had to take a picture to show you; it’s getting pretty crowded on the cover these days. 🙂
Also, my writer buddy from California was in Sweden with her family, and they were able to come visit me! Yay! We talked and talked like old pals, and it didn’t seem at all like it was the first time we met in real life!
It was wonderful meeting new friends as well as old friends, and one special occasion I must mention was meeting my little niece for the first time! I have eight nieces that I always enjoy catching up with tremendously, but this little lady and her parents live quite far away (well, we live even further away, so I have no right to complain). This time my brother and his wife were able to make the journey to visit us, and I got to hug my youngest little niece for the first time! She said my name and hugged me back! Yay!
We also got to celebrate the first birthday of my husband’s little nephew, we have nine cousins to the girls on his side, and as always it’s wonderful to catch up with everyone while we enjoy my parents-in-law’s delicious cooking. Yay!
Apart from all the partying, we also sorted through our house that we are renting out to new tenants, since the ones we had are moving, and my husband had a work conference for a full week, and we also got to go for walks and enjoy Swedish nature: the lakes and the forest as well as the ocean. Yay! I had been hoping we would find time for that.
Well, this is what’s been going on over at my end, hope you’re having a beautiful summer as well, and take care friends!
With love,
Lene
PS. Did you see that I did an interview for Soul Sciences? It was wonderful talking to Charlene Jones about Beautiful Affliction and the writing process, and you are very welcome to listen in! I try to post news as they come in on my Facebook Author Page, so be sure to follow not to miss anything! I also post news on this website, on the “News” page.
And now you know how I felt about meeting you. 😉 Thank you for squeezing me in!!
That’s one of the many things I love about you: you are so real (as well as generous and talented and thoughtful…). Thank you for that wonderful Facebook post, it made me all teary-eyed! I am so happy we could finally meet, which was quite a miracle since we live on two different corners of the earth. Happy memories!
And you are too gracious with your compliments. 😉 I have a LONG way to go to be any of those things (trust me), but with good friends like you to inspire anything is possible, right??
In other news, I finally got to do some writing the other day and it felt sooo good! I really need to get a habit up and running again…
Oh, and just to clarify, I do an ok job being real – I wasn’t giving you fake praise or anything, haha. But I just wanted to highlight that I’m a definite work in progress. A rough draft, if you will. 😉
Haha, you’re wonderful! And I’m so happy you got to do some writing! Yay! 🙂 That’s not easy, especially with a bunch of wild boys at home for summer holidays. 😉 Loved meeting them all, by the way, you have a beautiful family. <3
Wow, how I loved our days, hours and seconds together here in Sweden.
I had to pinch my arm that it was for real.
Life is back to normal but with good memories. Creating good memories is the essence of life.
Love you, miss you!
It was wonderful to meet after all this time! And I agree that creating memories is the essence of life, well put! Love you too, and miss you. Hugs <3 <3 <3