June 08

It’s Monday morning and I’m still on the train. I left Umeå last night for a couple of days of work in Göteborg and Uppsala. I travel every second week in my work, which I think is perfect. The benefits are many.

First, I spend time with myself. Ok, this might sounds like I’m some kind of unsocial character who is disturbed by other people, but it’s not like that. I like people and I really like my family, my friends and most of my customers, but to be a good mum, wife, friend, partner and consultant I need to catch up with myself. If I have to be around people all the time I get tired and it feels like I have nothing to say. When I travel I almost always go by train and since it’s 550 km between Umeå and Uppsala I have a couple of hours on the train, which I can use for thinking. I think of my work a lot of course, developing new ideas, solving problems and fantasize about projects I’d like to do. And I read books.

Second, I really enjoy travelling. I like seeing other places and people. And even though I’m only travelling in Sweden, there is a lot to see.

June 07

Leaving Umeå and it's light nights for a couple of days in Göteborg. The view from the train window is amazing. I love the night train!

June 05

Thank God it's friday! The garden is calling.

June 04

Pretending to be a person without a cold from the Hades, I went to work today. I had stuffed myself with high doses of D-vitamin and C-vitamin and other stuffings I thought might help (Long Johns, scarfs, make-up and the sense of “I’m a fighter”). Might not have worked exactly the way I wished though, people immediately asked me why I looked transparent.

Anyways, I have a project where I need to interview a lot of people and I had three interviews booked for today. So I sat down with the first person at 8 o’clock.

The aim of the interviews is to help a company to develop a network for Sustainable development. I interview people within this company and try to find out what their needs are in a future network for Sustainability, and how it would be organised.

To be straight – they have no idea. And nor have I. And who would have? It’s like asking someone to organise peace on earth or ask for the solution to make people respect each other’s religion. My point is that there isn’t a way, there is only peoples engagement and understanding when to take the right decision. And this we can share in a network of course. Hence, I’m helping them to build a network for sharing knowledge about sustainability.

Sometimes I think people mix Sustainable development up with subjects that you can learn and become an expert on. Like mushrooms or pikes or cheese. But it’s not. Look at the words: Sustainable development. DEVELOPMENT. How can you predict the development? How can you know everything about that? Simply, you cannot. What you can do is:

•           being grounded in the boundaries of the planet. You have to know about e.g. how the ecosystem works, thermo dynamics, the natural cycle and things like that.
•           knowing how to avoid damage or destruction to nature or people. If you know what causes damage to the nature and it’s ecosystem and people, you can avoid it.
•           being convinced about your room of action. If you know where your room of action is, then you know were your impact will be - regardless good or bad impact.
•           skilled in your subject. If you know your subject, you will find different ways of solving problems. It can be different technics, different materials or other things. Keep your knowledge up to date!

And then, when the possibility comes to take a decision, you need to honestly ask yourself and your companions “If we do this… is this good for the next generation or will it destroy something for them?”

It’s not a network or a subject - it’s a way of taking responsibility for future generations.

June 03

I’m ill. I have a cold directly delivered from hell.  Why am I ill? Yes, why?! 

I like to think that I’m a healthy person, living a healthy life. Look at these simple fact’s:

- I exercise (running, yoga, walking, horse-back riding etc). 

- I eat healthy; mostly vegetarian food, some fish and lots of green stuff. 

- I drink tea, black tea, red tea and herb tea. 

- I have a juice centrifuge. YES! I think this is the ultimate evidence of me living a healthy lifestyle.  

- I drink water, around 2 litres per day. (I drink some wine too, but not too much, only in the weekends.) 

- I live on the countryside, hence lots of fresh air and outdoor activities.

- I have a family who seems to love me

So why am I sick when I really try to stay healthy?

As you can hear I start to get a bit annoyed and frustrated about collecting all the colds there are to find in the neighbourhoods. It’s simply unfair. 

Thus, I started to think about facts about the immune systems. This is what I found:

1) eat vegetables: check!

2) drink water: check!

3) don’t smoke: check!

4) exercise regularly: check!

5) eat fish: check!

6) avoid white sugar: hum, I do eat some sugar but it’s really not much. I don’t drink coca cola and drinks like that, but I do eat candy from time to time, and cookies. But really, it’s not that much. Not on a daily basis.

7) drink green tea: no way, don’t like it!

8) drink freshly made juice: check!

9) keep the stomach in good work with probiotic germs and fibers: check!

10) surround yourself with loving persons: check!

So, is it the lack of tea then? No, I think one out of 10 criteria’s shouldn’t be the cause.

I tried to think about factors I can’t help, like:

11) genes: ok, we seems to die young in my family (65-75 is the average lifetime), but I think smoking could be the reason and I don’t smoke. And I’m still only 41!

12) geographical location: north of Sweden.

And now I think I found something. In the north of Sweden we have a long and dark winter.  Then we have pay-back time in the summer when it’s light almost 24 hours a day. How could this affect the immune system?  Well, the most popular thing to mention is a lack of D-vitamin. So maybe that’s it? It makes sense. Last summer (2014) the weather was great, it was the best summer I can remember actually. I spent so much time in the sun. And I haven’t been ill until now. Maybe I simply run out D-vitamin? The winter before was horrible. I had a never ending cold from November to June and nothing helped. And maybe that was because the summer of 2013 was the worst ever. Rain, rain and rain.  

So, two things will end this writing.

1) I’m going to eat D-vitamins from now on.

2) I’m going to pray for a sunny summer.

Read aboutD-vitamin believers  here:
http://www.kostdoktorn.se/d-vitamin#vad
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/influenza/
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-d/

Read about disbelievers here:
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/vetenskap/onodigt-att-kopa-d-vitamin/