My Favorite Places

I love our home, it's my oasis in the middle of a big city, the place where I can find rest and stillness. A weekend getaway to a Spa is wonderful but my home is the most relaxing place I know. No matter how messy our home gets I like to keep my favorite places tidy so that I can escape at the end of the day and find some stillness and rest in one of these places. I have three favorite places in our home where I like to hang out when I'm relaxing. Nr.1: The corner. I like to sit in this corner of our house reading blogs or watching videos on Right Now Media.

Nr.2: The Family Room. This room is at the center of our house and I love hanging out here with family and friends.

The family room is also the perfect place to relax with a book or magazine and a huge cup of coffee or tea.

Nr.3: The Master Bedroom. My oasis. This room is off limits for everybody else except my husband and I. I decorated it in black, white and ivory to keep the room serene and calming. Most of the days of the month the bed is not this nicely made, but it's the place where I can always find stillness, rest and relaxation. My home sweet home!

When I'm outdoors the beach is the place where I go to find stillness and rest, during all four seasons of the year. I live in a big and busy city so I consider my calm places to be of great importance for my well-being. What we do with our lives is important but time for stillness and reflection in between all the achieving is equally important. Sunday is the rest day of the week and the time after 7PM each day is "resting time" in our house. We try to keep our schedule free from any booked activities during that time of the evening on weekdays.

Time for rest and reflection

I´ve been reading alot of health magazines this summer. I love bringing magazines to read when I go to the beach. It´s fun to relax in the sun and be able to learn something new at the same time. My favorite Scandinavian health magazine right now is a magazine called "MåBra". I love this magazine because it focuses on both the physical side and the mental side of wellness and health. I find that many health magazines these days tend to focus a little too much on vanity and the perfect body. The mental side of health is easily ignored or valued less in health magazines.


One topic that was mentioned many times in the magazines I was reading this summer was the need for rest. Research shows that allowing your body and mind to rest on a regular basis is very important to live a long and healthy life. I also read daily in blogs and on facebook about how people are stressed, tired, and lacking sleep. It´s easy to prioritize other things over taking time to rest in today´s society because there is alot of pressure to constantly achieve things. More and more people push themselves so hard that they get burned out and are forced to give the body and mind what it needs.


I´m hoping for a future where being "stressed" or "busy" is less glorified and where taking time to rest is more prioritized. I talked with other women in our church one time and they were all complaining that they were stressed and tired from the lack of balance in their lives. They had their children, their careers, husbands and volunteer positions to think about. I said to them: "Sometimes I think that God probably knew our struggle to prioritize resting when he decided to make it one of the ten commandments. As Christians we don´t "get to rest" every now and then, we have to rest at least one day a week." That´s pretty awesome. When I rest God is pleased with me, I don´t have to constantly achieve. Rest is not something that I only deserve when I have done alot of great work and when I´m exhausted. Rest is God´s gift to all people. I have also noticed that I get my best new ideas when I´m resting. Time for rest and reflection is super important in my life.