New Year's summary 2020

Now it's time for my annual New Year's Summary 2020! Happy new year best, wonderful, goa you !! :) ♥

It is impossible to avoid the fact that 2020 has been a special year, but despite the circumstances, it has still gone well and I choose to look back on the year with positive glasses!

Roadtrip & safari in South Africa

Miska and I celebrated 10 years together with a trip to South Africa! Before the corona spread;) You can read more about the journey in the post Safari trip in South Africa with a rental car.

But to summarize the journey, here is a text from my diary that I write every day:

"Woke up at 7 o'clock when Miska kissed me and said"do you want coffee?"I answered half-dumb"do we have such powder bags or should we go?”. So I sat up and saw a breakfast tray with coffee press and very nice cups! LUXURY! Miska opened the sliding doors so we sat in bed with a nice view. WONDERFUL ♥

We sat for a long time at the hotel breakfast in the sun, then I swam lengths in the pool and saved insects :) Ordered coffee for the sunbeds. We went out on the bridge and looked for hippos, saw no one today. Ordered room service for lunch, luxurious vegetarian burgers!

Showered in our outdoor shower and then we went on our first safari! Right when we entered the area we saw warthogs and giraffes and a giraffe baby !! Miska and I rode in a private jeep with two guides. Absolutely COOLEST I made! We went for 4 hours and saw antelopes, ostriches, large monkeys, zebras, two large rhinos and a baby rhino, wildebeest, a female lion and three small mischievous lion babies ♥ We went until it got dark and I had to borrow the guide's jacket because it was cool. 

At the hotel we ate the finest dinner with lit candles and I said "this is the best day of my life"Because it has really been absolutely magical from beginning to end!"

And this is just an excerpt from the first day of the trip, it is impossible to describe how good we had it!

Spring 2020

When we were in South Africa, I heard about Corona for the first time. At the airport they tested us with a thermal camera and I did not understand anything. Miska said after a few days "maybe it's because of Corona, a virus that is spreading in China now". And I who have a fever very often (due to sore throat), it was just a stroke of luck that I did not have a fever right then! What if they took me into a room, tested me in the nose and put me in quarantine before the test result came, I would have been terrified haha!

Well, the corona came to Sweden in the end and making a living from running a beauty salon was not fun ..

Miska and I were going to Cosmoproof just a week or so after the corona arrived in Italy. We were going to go anyway, you didn't understand anything then yet. But then (of course) the fair was canceled. I was so sad! Had several appointments booked for my upcoming makeup brand. But the factories closed again and the whole project was very late!

But before it broke out completely, some fun still happened :)

Press event with Pixi and Miska was also invited because we are resellers for Pixi. What a wonderful evening! : D

Recorded podcast with Tommy from Peragenda! :) We each had a mic and kept our distance with long tables in between :)

I took more pictures Mälby Glas and Miska built a new website for them! :)

Started selling Brow Game in the salon and in the webshop!

Press breakfast with Jolie Beauty. Top Makeup by Lina was there, among other things, you will always be happy with her!

Makeup course online!

It took time, but in the spring I worked hard to build a "make-up yourself course" online. I started already before corona because I noticed that the need exists, but it became extra fitting when there was a pandemic and I need to get more income from a distance.

Sales have gone well! You can either buy the course incl. personal feedback & advice from me, or a cheap variant where you only get the course material. It has sold about 50/50 of the two variants.

Read more / buy the course at Helena Amiley Academy of Makeup! :)

Salon job - Creative Makeup in Uppsala

I have been even less at the salon due to corona, we try to be as few in the room as possible. In addition, I (like my colleagues) have fewer customers and a lot of cancellations.

The salon is the part of my life that has been affected by the pandemic the most. Without the subsidies with reduced employer contributions in the spring and layoffs on tax deferrals in the autumn, we would have had to take out a loan to make ends meet. It looked pretty bad for a while, to be completely honest.

Before corona came, you could sometimes feel that we did not have a sufficiently "stable" salon, you always want a bigger buffer, higher income and that you never encounter problems. But what has been realized now is that when the company survived an entire pandemic, we have actually succeeded in building a stable company! :) Otherwise we would have had to clap together a long time ago.

So we should be proud of ourselves and our team who are SO good at their job! ♥

I think January and February will be tough too, but then it will probably get better from March onwards! : D Do not you think? Vaccine and spring, then the customers come back with real beauty abstinence;) It will be good !!

Missed birthday!

Miska does not like surprises so my gift to him was that I said two days before "you get to decide for yourself what we are going to do, then we take a day off together”.

He does not like to be surprised but he likes to surprise, so instead he made another surprise day me Hahaha.

I had said a period before that I have sheep abscess. We went to Kroksta Gård (which I had never heard of) and I did not know where we were going until we drove up to the gravel field. Just what I would pack and that we would spend the night.

When we arrived and looked around, I thought it was "just" a cozy place in the country, so I suddenly heard "bää, bää" and began to bounce with joy! There were sheep with lambs (!) Calves, horses, chickens and ducks and it was fantastic April weather with radiant sun and we walked around freely in the pastures and just ENJOY!

Due to the corona, we were completely alone guests at the whole place and lived in the suite with its own sauna and a fantastic bathroom with whirlpool and balcony!

Magical in every way! We enjoy life haha :)

Magical summer 2020

Summer came and we were so grateful that we live in the country, when we could keep the restrictions and still have the best summer in a long time!

I always drank my morning coffee outdoors! Here outside the hen house with happy hens that have been released in the garden :)

I have not spent much time with my nephews Meja and Mila since we lived together two years ago and I get really hot when I think of our wonderful summer together! We borrowed the neighbor's echo, had a disco in our little cottage, went on road trips, bathed and I have had laughter attacks like never before :)

We went to my best friend Frida on Gotland as well. Rided her cozy horses, rode a quad bike and had a dinner picnic at sunset by the pond.

My best friends! :) We took care of two goats, Jimmy and Gertrud, and oh what I loved them ♥ They would move to another (better) place but we had them for a month. Jimmy learned to wag his tail against our front door so that he kind of "knocked" haha and always wanted me to come out and scratch them :)

Miska and I went on many long walks and the goats got to go with ♥

A sun-dazzled Helena with morning coffee outside our little cottage :)

There were also many shrimp sandwiches at the café in Järlåsa! :) It's a 20 minute walk from us approximately, so it turned out to be a perfect lunch break!

We went to Annika's summer cottage in Dalarna with little Mileya 1.5 years ♥ An old croft without running water. It was rainy so we drank tea, built puzzles and ate chocolate most of the time;) So cozy!

Autumn 2020

The darkness, the cold and the other corona wave came at the same time and we who live so little have actually felt quite isolated. We always take a trip abroad in the autumn / winter because we work all summer and now people have sometimes wanted to tear their hair out actually hahaha.

Financial stress, darkness and isolation are not so good for the psyche, I still have to be honest with that;)

But we still try to make the best of it. Bathe in the spa, play with little Mileya who we actually have the privilege of living with (in the house next door, we live in a cottage in Annika's garden). She turns 2 years old in January and is so gorgeous and funny now!

We have bought a camper van!

We have dreamed of a Spain house for a long time, but since it is not possible now, we decided on another variant to begin with. Build your own camper van!

We can work in it remotely and at the same time be free and live life, without flying and without a cat sitter (our cat follows and lives in the habit). We bought it in the summer but it was in the workshop until the autumn, then we could start building!

Here we have just finished insulating the floor :)

We have done this:

• Isolated finished
• Sat in a sunroof
• Panel on all doors
• Half the roof is ready
• Almost the entire walls are ready
• The frame for the bathroom
• Bought refrigerator, water tanks (one for drain and one for fresh water), water heater, sink, one for ceiling fan, diesel heater, mattress & bedding and some stuff for electricity and drain that I do not know what it is for anything haha.

At the time of writing, we have taken a short break from construction. It is difficult to build now that it is cold, dark and wet all the time, because we do not have a garage.

But this is what it looks like right now! :)

Lots of work with an upcoming makeup brand!

What I work with the most and always have in my mind is what I can hardly write anything about. Everything is confidential.

But you already know that at the beginning of 2020 I started the work of starting a completely new make-up brand. I have a specific idea for several years now that will finally get rid of!

However, it takes time, partly because things like this take time but also because the corona created delays :)

A few weeks ago, Emma Filipsson became a partner in the company!

Emma has a kandidate degree and a master's degree in entrepreneurship and business development. She has been key account manager at Maria Nila and developed and expanded beauty brands in Europe.

We do not know each other since before but have found each other when I was looking for a business partner with the right skills for this.

However, I remember that we met at an event a few years ago, when she was still studying and when she told me about her education, I said "what fun then is it you I will work with when I start my own make-up brand then“A little fun. What if I knew it would happen! :)

We have trademarked our name;) Are you curious about what the brand should be called?

But most of all I have sat in video meetings! It's kind of routine now :)

Wish I could tell you more! There is so much to say! You will know enough time.

Mid 2021

I wish I could say "a house in Spain" but it is probably rather a goal for 2022-2023;) but should I be hopeful I would say like this:

• Better personal finances. I have no high demands here but corona has been tough on the private wallet. It's not fun when the savings account only decreases, there it should increase! :)
• I'm going to learn to juggle 3 balls!
• It will be sick a lot of work with the makeup brand, but it will be fun !!
• We will finish building our camper van. The dream would be a trip to Gotland and one to Finland in the spring. Then a little Sweden holiday in the summer and camping by the pond in Gimo and spending time with my nephews who live there. Do you dare to hope for a European trip in the autumn? ;) I want to live van life in Tarifa ♥

And so maybe before 2022 we are testing a long-term rent for a house in Spain for the first time? It is not so expensive if you live a little off, like a regular rent in Sweden.

We'll see, I'm hopeful! :)

I really feel that 2021 will be good! Now it's one last dog year before I start to get a return on everything I have learned and built up so far. And in 2023, when I turn 30, I will have a secure life with a distance job, a cozy house in the mountains and a buffer! Ready for future societal disasters hahaha.

And so it will be! Or what do you think? ;)

Of course there is much more to add but I do not want to nag holes in your head!

Now I end 2020 with a warm feeling of the positive memories - and have full focus going forward. It will be fun! :)

A thousand hugs to all of you !! ♥