I must say I am not the most focused person in the world.

I look back at the two years that have past and I realize that I have only managed 9 challenges on the BID-list.

This is the result of me not setting any goals for me to achieve, a way of life that is not very rewarding I can tell now.

So, my first priority for this new year of 2012, is to make a list of what to achieve during these 12 months to come.

I have decided to focus on this one list and not on the Before I get Old and Boring-list. However, if I manage some of the tasks on that list, I will of course tick them as well.

These are my challenges for 2012 on the Before I Die-list:

13. Meet Someone with your Own Name

18. Study the Kama Sutra and Put Theory into Practice

32. See the Aurora Borealis

37. Make Fire Without Matches

41. Be Friends With Your Ex

47. Milk a Cow

71. Have Adventurous Sex

78. Drink a Vintage Wine

75. Get a Tattoo and/or a Piercing

BID no 54. Make at Least One Huge Purchase You Can't Afford

- check

Sometimes life just don't turn out the way You expect it to.

When my best good friend in the world and I separated about a month ago, I found myself without a place to live. Due to long waiting lists for a rented apartment, I went looking for something to own. And, now I find my self as the owner of a small townhouse, just the perfect size for me and my children.

And hey, of course I couldn't afford it with just my savings. That's just the way it works in Sweden, You are not supposed to pay for your house today, it's your bank that benefits from your house deal while you just live in the house the bank own. So, with loans up to my neck I am moving on in my life.

But hey, at least I got to check another box on my BID-list! :)

BOB no 32 - Visit...

a) A safari park

c) A castle

g) The countyside

- check!

I must admit I forget about the things I do in my life that fit the BOB-list. Sometimes I consider not proceeding with that list, but then I think "what the heck" and just leave it.

At least now I have realized I can check some of the things to do on this list that I have done in my recent past.

starting with visiting...

a) A safari park

I took my family for the annual grand opening of Swedens greatest Safari park, Kolmården, on april the 30:th this year. The kids loved it, and us grown ups too. The funny thing about this day was that crowds of swedish celebrities was watching the animals together with us "regular swedes". So there was a lot to see both inside and outside the fences :).

a beautiful peacock was showing off for his ladies

g) the contryside

The company I work for was the main sponsor of the World Plowing Championships held in Sweden between the 13-14th of may this year.

   The entire staff was on site to represent and also to watch the competitors from 29 contries compete for the title of The Worlds Greatest Plower. Quite an interesting form of competion I must add.

Sweden competing in coventional plow

About 25.000 people came to the great fields outside Skänninge in Sweden to watch this event, which was won by a scotchman in Reversible Plow, and a young guy from Switzerland in Conventional Plow. Sweden got 2nd place in Conventional Plow and 7nd in Reversible, so we were happy to be able to celebrate in the evening when we visited...

c) a castle

...Vadstena Castle for the banquet in honouring the competitors of this event!

A nice dinner was held in the amazing castle in the beautiful surroundings of picturesque city Vadstena.

Vadstena Castle was built between 1545-1620 and was originally built as a fortress by king Gustav Vasa. The four cannon towers had 58 cannons in 1560. King Johan III, son of Gustav Vasa, turned the fortress into a Renaissance palace. Members of the royal family lived here through the centuries. It is possible to visit a cannon tower, passages, the royal chapel and the great halls. The third floor is furnished the way it might have looked in the 17th Century. Portraits of King Gustav Vasa and his family are also displayed.

this image is from the official website of Vadstena and can be viewed

in original format if you visit the www.vadstena.se

BID no. 36 - Visit every continent

d) Europe

- check!

One of the benefits of my job, is that I sometimes get to travel. This autumn we went to beautiful Stavanger in Norway for a factory visit, and last week I had a training session in webpublishing in Nieuw-Vennep, just outside Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

This was the second time I visited The Netherlands, and as I remembered from the first time the relaxed way of life make your day a bit more enjoyable. We visited Amsterdam the first evening for a dinner at a restaurant not worth remembering the name of, but I learned a sentence in dutch thank's to the busdriver: "u bent laat" (you are late). And also the sentence "dank u wel" as in "thank you very much", was used frequently, even though the dutch people are not very polite (as the say themselves).

We stayed in a small town called Nieuw-Vennep close to the factory of our company. During the stay we made quick tours in both the construction factory and the electronic building which is quite interesting if you are into agro-machines :).

I noticed that almost every street was made of paving stone, not asphalt as in Sweden. It had something to do with a riot many years ago where the mob were throwing stones, and because of this the government fixed the paving stones in the street so that demonstrants in the future could not pick up the stones and throw them...oh well...

A street crossing in Nieuw-Vennep. Lots of stones... :)

In addition the the tulips that you see everywhere, the Netherlands are also known for its diamond factories. We passed a few when in Amsterdam, but with a quite small budget on hand, I thought it was wise not to enter. Hopefully next time :).

BID no. 38 - See These Animals in the Wild...

e) Elephant

l) Monkey

- check!

During my visit to Thailand in January (2011) I also visited the National Park of Khao Sok, which is one of several national parks in Thailand.(http://www.khaosok.com/)

The following text is extracted from the link above, in order to give you a hint of the national park and the extent of it:

The National Park consists of:

The rainforest in this region is some of the oldest in the world, since over the last 160 million years Thailand has remained in a similar equatorial position. The climate in the area has been relatively unaffected by ice ages, since the landmass is relatively small and has seas on both sides. Even whilst other places on the planet were suffering droughts, the Khao Sok region still received enough rainfall to sustain the forests.

Species diversity is high in Khao Sok, since during the last ice age sea levels fell to such an extent that there was a land bridge between Malaysia, Borneo and some of the Indonesian islands. This opened up new migration routes to land based organisms.

The rainforest in Khao Sok has features of both tropical evergreen forest and tropical rainforest. There are approximately 200 different floral species per squarekilometer.

Khao Sok is also famous for its limestone or ‘karst ‘mountains. In most of the region, ground level is about 200m above sea level, with the average mountain heights around 400m. The tallest peak in the National Park is 960m in height.

Wildlife (recorded species)

During my visit to Khao Sok I managed to see at least

- 1 wild elephant (not including the captured elephants we rode)

- 1 gibbon ass :) (Thank you Jessica for letting me know this one counted!)

- 2 gigantic spiders of the same uknown kind (at least the size of my hand).

- 1 female tree frog

- 1 small kind of lizzard

- a bunch of different beautiful butterflies in wonderful colours.

Do you think I got the animals on camera...?

Only the tree frog and one blue butterfly to show for you...

BID no. 36 - Visit every continent

a) Asia

- check!

Between the 16:th-23:rd of janary 2011, I spent a wonderful week in Thailand. Our hotel was situated in the province of Phuket just outside Patong, on Tri Trang Beach and had all the luxuries we could ever want for our vacation. Most of all I wished for sun and solitude, and got plenty of it!

At the wonderful beach close to our hotel we spend many hours just relaxing and reading our books, when not taking a bath in the perfectly tempered waters of Andaman Sea.

We also got our fair share of shopping while visiting Thailand. Patong offered an enormous smorgasbord of "all you can want, as cheap as you can knock it down". To go with all the shopping, there was also motors-bikes and tuk-tuks everywhere, and all the noice this mess of different sounds made! It sure felt good to return to the hotel at night.

I learned that the thai-people are very friendly and very caring, but also that the business of tourism and the wish to reach the "american standard" (this standard you can read about just about anywhere in any kind of commercial or ad) is about to create a problem for the people, as new way of life is so contradictory to their main religion (95% buddhism in Thailand) that states that "the less you have, the richer you are". This contradiction is starting to show already in behaviour created by the tip for service, which is soon to be mandatory if you are to get any service at all in the end.

Buddhism for me is the only way to maintain this world, so it made me a bit anxious about the future. I fear that (at least the south of) Thailand is already over exploited and due to be left by the tourists (their greatest soruce of income) if this carousel isn't to be stopped and reversed.

The wonderful hotel Merlin Beach Resort and its beautiful surroundings

BOB no. 62 - make a meal

- check!

I almost forgot! I actually HAVE completed a task these past days! The reason I forgot this one is because I do this EVERY DAY. It's the wonders about being unemployed, grown-up, a mother and together with a novice in the kitchen :)

Yet, I kind of like cooking so I don't complain. This meal is a fishsoup consisting of cod- and salmon filets, sugar peas, carrots and haricots verts. And of course a lot of cream :).

I haven't posted for a few days, but don't think I have been lazy! I have a few tasks running currently that takes a while to complete. And also I am awaiting answers from a couple of swedish companies regarding sponsoring and advertisement. It would be so great if some of them would join in on this.

I did buy a swedish version of the Kamasutra (in modern version). Actually, I think a book like this would be handed out to every couple as a wedding gift :). But I think I have to go to the library to get a feeling of a much older version. I searched the internet for it, and found an english translation from the original of sanskrit. I think that is the one I'm curious about. Anyways, below is a photo of the book I am studying at the moment. Never knew learing things could be so satisfying. But still I've got some pages to go, so I'm not all-knowingly yet... :D

If you haven't got a book like this, go ahead and get one!

I have also taken a few steps towards domination of poker. My sweetheart is teaching me the basics at night. So far I've already learned that poker and too much wine is a bad idea :).