So hello everybody!
So I finally thought that it was time to do the Q&A video that I have promised you.
And it's a beautiful day today so I felt that I wanted to sit outside.
So I found this little spot in the forest.
I thought it would be perfect to sit here behind this big rock, so that the light from the sun won't be too hard and hopefully it will cover some of the wind as well.
I already have a lot of mosquitoes around me now or these tiny tiny little mosquitoes.
I was really hoping that it was too warm for them today.
Just gotta spray on some mosquito repellent before we start.
So I have written down some of your questions in this book.
I realized that I'm gonna have to have more QA's because you had so many questions, so I'm not gonna be able to answer all of them.
I'm gonna answer some of the most common questions and then we will have more Q&A's in the future.
So why not start with some fast and easy questions now, just to warm it up a little bit before we get into the heavier questions?
So first question is about Nanook, my dog.
What breed is Nanook?
Nanook is a mix of golden retriever and flat coated retriever and Labrador retriever.
So his mom is a Labrador retriever and his dad is a mix of flat coated and golden.
How old is Nanook?
Nanook is turning 10 years now on the 21st of August.
What does Nanook means?
Well Nanook is not a Swedish word but in Eskimo it means ice bear.
And that's because when he was a little puppy he looked a lot like a little bear, but not like an ice bear, but so that that's kind of why i chose that name.
But i know that in many languages nanook means ice cream.
Nanook loves ice cream, so that's a perfect match.
And the last question about nanook is why do you have nanook on a leash in your garden?
That's because Nanook has a lot of instincts, like most dogs.
And if we let him be free in our garden, he's gonna be gone in five seconds.
You're gonna see him running somewhere in the horizon.
But he always comes back in a while.
He just takes a little loop in the village and he usually feels the smell of other dogs in the village.
Or sometimes he can smell an animal close by, so he runs after their tracks.
But usually he just takes a little loop in the village.
So he can go to my neighbors and he poops in their gardens.
And then he can go to their trash cans and eat trashes.
So he can just cause a lot of mess when he's not on a leash.
But the biggest reason to why I have him in a leash is because he can run out on the road.
And sometimes we have cars coming or timber trucks.
So I just want him to be safe.
But when we are out in the forest, he never runs away from us.
I don't know why really, but maybe it's because he feels more comfortable in the village.
I don't know.
I wonder if the sun is too hard now.
I gotta change the camera a little bit.
And the next question is, have you recorded any sound from the creepy forest?
And for those of you who don't know what this question is about, I mentioned in an earlier vlog that I have been hearing some very strange sounds in the forest right behind our house.
And also Johan and my mom have heard the same things and also felt a creepy feeling.
So I said in an earlier vlog that I was gonna put out my sound recorder out there one night and see if we could catch up some sounds.
And yes, I have done that, but unfortunately I was too late.
Because the spring had already started and suddenly it was not quiet in the forest anymore.
It was full of life and birds singing all night long.
So the only sounds I could hear on the sound recording was birds singing.
So I decided to try again later in the autumn when it gets more quiet in the forest again.
So I will get back to you with this sound project later this year.
Next question is do you have any neighbors?
And yes, i have neighbors, and we are 11 people that lives in this village all year around, but there's also a lot of people that have cabins here, so they come here maybe in the weekends or in the summers, so usually in the summers we are much more people in the village than usually.
Next question are you vegan?
No, I'm not vegan.
We eat mostly vegetarian food, but we do eat fish and moose meat.
I have relatives who are hunters, so every autumn we receive some moose meat from the forest around here and we usually eat that during the winters.
My interest for food has really become bigger the last two years.
Usually I hated to cook.
I thought it was so boring and I just thought it took time.
But now I love to spend time cooking and I love to make healthy food, because you really feel how it affects you inside to eat good and healthy food.
So it's really important where the food comes from.
We really try to eat as much locally as possible.
And I really want to learn more about cooking and making healthy food.
The last couple of months, me and Johan have fallen in love with Asian foods.
We make a lot of wooks.
I don't know if you call that.
Wooks with a lot of vegetables and tofu and You know, a little bit more spicy food which I'm not used to, but I just love it so much.
So it feels like we are on a little food journey now to learn more and to find new ways of making really great but healthy food.
And I know that I have a lot of followers that are vegans and vegetarians and are really good when it comes to plant-based food, and I would love to receive advice from you.
So if you have some inspiration to share, some recipes or some simple advice on how to get started with vegan food, I would love to know.
Okay, next question.
It's also a little bit about food.
Where do you buy your groceries?
We have three different places where we usually buy our groceries.
Number one is my favorite.
It's in Mykkeljansjö, which is a little town about 13 kilometers from here.
It's a very small town i guess it's around 80 to 100 people living there, but they do have a little grocery store.
It's a very small grocery store, but they definitely have everything you need to survive.
And we try to buy as much groceries as possible from there, both because it's very close and also to support the grocery store.
It's actually very uncommon in Sweden that so small towns like Mikkel Jensjö have a grocery store.
But the people that lives in Mikkel Jensjö have really worked hard to keep the grocery store.
So Mykkilénsjö is my favorite, but we also have Jönsöle, which is another little town around 30 kilometers from where we live.
And we often buy groceries there as well, because Jönsule is where we pick up and send packages.
They have a post office in the gas station and because we are a company, there is a lot about sending and receiving packages.
So we often go to Jönsule at least once a week And many times we buy groceries when we are there.
And then we have Sollefteå, which is more like a city.
It's about 60 kilometers from us, so it takes about an hour to drive.
We don't go there very often, but the last couple of months we have been there more because they have more bigger grocery stores.
And you can also order your groceries online, so you just can go and pick them up.
And because of the coronavirus.
We have done that a couple of times for safety reasons, because we don't want to go into a supermarket.
So yeah, Mikkel Jönsjö, Jönsle and Sollefteå, that's where we buy our groceries.
I feel like I look like a singer or a priest or something when I sit like this in the forest.
Next question!
What zodiac sign are you?
I am Cancer because I'm born on 29th of June.
Where do you buy your clothes?
Now this is a very, very common question that I think I get on every single video that I upload.
And, first of all, i'm so thankful and so happy that so many of you seem to like my clothing style.
I've never seen myself as a person who who likes fashion, because i never really been so interested in, you know, the mainstream modern way of clothing.
Ever since I was young I was super fascinated by how people dressed back in time.
I remember when I was in high school my biggest dream was that the fashion that was in Titanic would be popular again.
To have these big long dresses.
Actually, I've always thought that the fashion back in the time was always so much more beautiful than it is today.
So I would say that my clothing is very inspired by earlier centuries.
When people ask me where I buy my clothes, it's always very hard to answer because There's not only one single store where I buy all my clothes.
My clothes are coming from so many different places during many, many years.
I started collecting beautiful dresses and clothes and skirts and stuff when I began with photography when I moved to this place 10 years ago.
And that's because I usually used a lot of beautiful dresses in my photography.
And that's kind of how we started.
And every time I saw a beautiful dress or a skirt or whatever, then I bought it, and it's from so many different places.
I have bought my clothes both from real life stores in towns or on secondhand stores, or on the internet, or on normal huge mainstream brands.
You know, it's so different.
But I do have one place which i really recommend where i have bought most of my clothes the last two years, and that is etsycom.
It's a huge platform where ten thousands of small businesses can connect their store and upload their products and you can find everything on etsy.
But especially if you have style that is not mainstream, you will find a lot of beautiful clothes.
I really love Etsy because you can find so many things that you will never find in normal stores, and you can also get your your clothes custom-made, like this skirt, for example, that I have on now.
It's a linen skirt and I got it custom made with my measurements.
And there's also lots of secondhand stores so you can really find unique clothing.
Usually I have a very clear image in my head of some kind of dress or something that I want, but it's really hard to find.
But I can spend hours on the internet just searching for something that looks as similar as to what I want.
And it has really taken me many years to have a wardrobe that really feels like my style.
Now I have many different things that I can mix together and I really feel like I find a style that I really feel beautiful in.
And of course I don't always dress up in all these beautiful clothes.
Very often I look like this.
But I take any opportunity I can to dress up in clothes that I think is really cool and that I feel beautiful in.
So check out Etsy.com.
I'm sure you will find lots of beautiful clothes there and lots of beautiful other things.
One of my dreams would be to one day have my own clothing brand, because I have so many you know designs in my head that you can't find anywhere.
I would so much love to be able to make reality of these ideas, and both to make clothes to myself, but it would also be wonderful if I could, you know have a brand and sell my own clothes.
That would be really cool.
Okay, next question.
How tall are you?
I am 171 centimeters.
No, I mean no.
I am 171 centimeters tall and I think that is 67 inches.
Is it hard to sleep on the light nights?
So for those of you who don't know, here where I live in the north of Sweden, we don't get darkness in the nights anymore.
In June and July it's almost like daylight all nights.
Me personally, have no problems to sleep during these light nights, and that's because i'm used to it, i guess, and i think that most people that live here also don't have any problem to sleep, but i do know that people that are not used to it can have lots of problems to sleep when it's light all night.
The only thing though, is that i sometimes wake up really early, like three, four in the morning, and i think that i overslept because it the sun is shining outside, But then I just fall asleep again.
Next question is about Johan.
Why is not Johan talking so much on the camera?
The biggest reason to why Johan is not talking so much in front of the camera is because he just feels uncomfortable talking to a camera.
He doesn't feel like it's natural to him to do that and actually I don't either.
I try to pretend that I see you guys but it took me a long time to really get used to it.
But he feels uncomfortable doing that and also he feels uncomfortable talking English.
He's really good at English.
He knows more English than I do.
I often ask him about words and how to say things in English.
But he doesn't feel comfortable talking English.
But also in real life he's not a person who talks a lot when he meets new people.
It takes some time for him to feel comfortable, and Johan never speaks just because he feels like he should speak.
And I really admire that with him.
He just talks when he feels like he has something to say and when he wants to talk.
I speak often even if I don't want to.
Especially if I'm at a social event or something with a lot of new people.
I get really nervous.
I don't like social situations so much, so when I'm nervous I talk a lot instead, even though I don't want to.
I wish I could just be like him to be quiet when I feel like being quiet, but it's like I feel like I have to keep up the conversation and keep it alive and, And you know yeah, I don't know why.
Really,
So yeah, that's the reasons why Juwon doesn't speak so much on the camera and I really respect that.
I'm really glad though, that he feels it's totally okay to be on the video sometimes, and I guess he just doesn't like when I put a camera in his face and like ask him questions.
He feels uncomfortable if I do that.
And I mean it's okay because when the camera is off he talks a lot with me.
So that's great.
I just have to move the camera again because of the lights.
Next question.
Who does your camera work and who films you?
I always get very surprised when I get these questions, because I thought it was obvious that I do all the filming myself.
But I actually pretty often also in real life, have people that thinks that Johan films me or that someone else films me.
And the reason to why I thought it was obvious that I do it myself is because when I film myself, the camera is always still like on a tripod, and if someone would have been filming me, I'm sure you would have seen the camera moving around in nice angles, and also if someone else would have filmed me, of course I would have give them cred.
So I do all the filming myself.
Sometimes I really wish I had someone else filming me because that would be so much easier, but at the same time I really, I really love filming, and creating my films myself is why I love doing this.
And of course it's a lot of work with filming yourself.
I think it's more work than many people imagine.
It's a lot of running back and forth to the camera and you both have to be the cameraman and the person in front of the camera.
But I'm so used to work like that.
I have never taken photos or been filming in any other way than doing everything myself.
So I'm really used to it and most of the times I'm just so excited when I'm out filming that I don't even think about me running back and forth 20 times.
I'm just so in the present moment so I'm not thinking so much.
Next question.
What camera equipment do you have?
This is another very common question and I have recently started to add a list in my videos with all the camera equipment that I use.
So if you go to the description in this video and in other videos as well, you will see the list of my camera equipment.
Where can I find the music in your videos?
It's the same as with the camera equipment.
I have a list in the description to this video with all the songs that I use and where to find them.
Okay, next question.
Do we want to have kids?
And this is also another very, very common question and in our life right now, in this moment, we don't have any plans or dreams about having kids.
Now, of course, Johan is not here so he can speak for himself, but we have been talking a lot about it and we are very open about it and we definitely feel the same thing.
So we don't feel ready for that right now.
We are very very happy with how our life situation looks like right now.
It took us some years to really get to this point and we have a lot of freedom and a lot of time to spend on the things we love, and I think we just want to continue on this path for a little while and see where it leads.
But who knows, maybe it comes a day when we feel like having a family and then we'll take it from there.
And now as we are speaking about this subject I would like to add some thoughts about it.
I know that I'm not the only woman who don't have kids who get tons of questions about when I'm gonna have kids.
And me personally, I never get offended if someone asks me if I want to have kids.
Because I definitely understand that people can be curious about that and I can be curious myself sometimes.
But it's a big difference if someone asks you when you're gonna have kids.
And nowadays I more often get questions about when I'm gonna have kids instead of if I want to have kids.
And I totally understand that most people that asks when I'm gonna have kids doesn't mean anything bad about that.
But the problem with asking someone when they're gonna have kids is that we take two things for granted we assume that everyone can have kids and that everyone wants to have kids, and of course, none of these are true.
There are tons of people out there whose biggest dream in life is to have a baby and, for different reasons, they can't.
And they might have tried for many years and it's a big sorrow in their life that they can't have a baby.
And I daily get questions about when I'm gonna have kids.
Most on the internet of course but also in real life.
Every time I see that question I can't help but thinking how I would feel if that was me.
If I was one of those whose biggest dream was to have a baby, but I couldn't for some reason.
It would just feel like constantly cutting up a wound that would never heal.
And for those people who are not ready to have kids, like myself, or for people who don't want to have kids, it can just cause a lot of pressure to get that question all the time.
I just felt that I wanted to share my thoughts and perspective on this.
That asking when someone is gonna have kids can cause so much unnecessary suffering for people.
You never know what someone is going through.
And if I could at least inspire one person to think twice next time they wanna ask when someone is gonna have kids, that is all worth it.
That is one tiny tiny tiny step at the right direction.
So thank you for listening.
How was your life before you moved?
So my life before I moved to Grundtjärn 10 years ago was very different.
I lived in an apartment with my parents and my younger brother Filip in Gothenburg in Sweden.
Thousand kilometers from here.
I was studying to a nurse assistant in a school in Gothenburg.
So I lived in Gothenburg, studied to a nurse assistant and spent a lot of time dreaming about another life.
I also spent a lot of time gaming.
I was playing a lot of games like World of Warcraft because it kind of made me feel like I was in another world.
It was bringing me closer to something I was longing for.
Every time I think about my life in Gothenburg 10 years ago, it feels like another life.
It doesn't feel like the same life.
But I guess I felt like I wasn't fully alive when I lived there.
I was so depressed and so... lost in a way.
But I'm thankful for that time as well, because if I wouldn't have gone through that, I would never have taken the decision to move either.
I think everything has a meaning.
All the hard times we're going through it has a meaning.
It will lead us somewhere.
Next question is When will you open up the jewelry webshop?
I feel like I have told you so many times the last year that I will soon open up the webshop.
It's just one month left.
It has taken a lot of time, and when we were finally ready to open it up, that's when the coronavirus happened.
So we are aiming for the end of August and I really really hope and believe that that will be true.
Because we have been working with this for so long now and I really just want to be finished with it.
What program do you use to edit your videos?
I use final cut pro, and that's the only program that i've been using ever since i started with filmmaking, and i think it's very simple.
It's very easy to learn.
Okay, let's take a last question how is your cow so?
For those of you who don't know, i have a cow whose name is shana, which means star in swedish, and I bought her, I think, four or five years ago, from the farm in Mikkeliensjö, and during the summers, she comes here to the village to eat green grass on the fields and then, on the winter, she moves back to the farm again where she's taken care of.
She actually just arrived here now, just a few days ago, so I think she's super happy to have the whole summer ahead of her now out in the freedom on the green fields.
And she's getting bigger.
She's a big cow and she really likes food and she's not afraid of taking up her space, so she's doing fine.
I think this is enough questions for this Q&A and I will do more Q&A's definitely because there's lots of more questions and if you ever have any questions just write in the comment section and I will save it.
And maybe have it for the next Q&A.
I really hope you got some answers on your questions.
And I really want to thank you for watching this long talking video.
And I see you guys soon again.
Take care.
Bye bye.
Thank you.
