Meet the family!

Meet my mom and my baby brother! They came to visit the other day and I couldn't have been more excited. My mom lives in Spain and my brother goes to university in Florida, so it's not every day I get to see them, to say the least. (The fact that I have my mom, stepdad and baby sister in Spain, my brother in Florida, my dad and other baby sister in Los Angeles and my cousins in Seattle actually makes family visits practically non-existent.)

It was a glorious day full of pizza-eating, watching of stupid youtube-videos, cat-cuddling and just random, long wished-for family weirdness.

Here you get to witness one example of said weirdness. Yes, this is how I look without all the make up and styling and all that kind of crap you're used to from my outfit photos. Yes, I'm wearing denim on denim, being very chic. Yes, I apparently have an outstandingly long neck. I never knew. Now I do.

My darling babies used to belong to my family in Spain before coming to stay with us permanently - my poor mother got way too allergic to keep them. (Siberian cats are famous for being easier for allergic people to handle, and it did work great - for a couple of weeks. Then my mom got really bad asthma and had to give her beautiful furry sweethearts up. Super sad for her, super life-altering amazing for me.) It was just adorable to see how loving the cats were towards her and Axel, the totally remembered that my mom was the one who used to kiss and hug them every day until January. I wonder if they remember any Spanish?

My baby brother Axel is turning twenty-one in July, I just can't wrap my head around that. I recall the day he was born so clearly, it feels like no time has passed, like he's still that adorable baby in the crib. The first time I saw him, I remember thinking "he looks like a frog, I will love him forever". Now he's studying sports management and some business-thingy at University of Tampa, where he's on the school's ice hockey team. I hate ice hockey but I love my brother so much I can even sit through a whole game of hockey just to make him happy. OK, I lied, I can't. But that doesn't mean my love isn't strong and true! It doesn't!

Oh wow, I'm such a mama's girl. We're extremely close and talk for hours on the phone every single day. Ever since I lost my best friend in the whole world, my mom is the best - and only, except for my boyfriend - really close friend I have left. (I was going to write that I don't know what I would do without her - and I don't - but as I've had to learn the hard way, life does go on. Even if you lose the one person you were sure would be by your side forever and ever into eternity, you keep on breathing. You keep on waking up in the morning, eating your breakfast, going to work, watching tv shows, going to bed. Eventually, you even start laughing at silly things again, making jokes, going to parties and worrying about silly things like what to wear. Because you have to. Because I have to.)

So, it was just wonderful to see my mom again. She makes me feel so... safe. Plus, she's the smartest person I know. She always knows what to say and she always finds the time to say it, even though her schedule is so busy.

My beautiful mother is also a writer, and she brought me her latest book! It's a collection of some of her columns, written over the past twenty-five years. I haven't read much of the old stuff, I'm really looking forward to that. It was especially fun for me to see the finished result, since I took the photo of her for the cover! I think she looks sooo gorgeous.

Well, now you've gotten to know my mom and little brother - just like you always wanted, huh? I thought so! And to those of you who think "hey, I thought this was a fashion blog, where the hell is the fashion in this post?!", to you I just want to say: my brother is wearing a t-shirt that says "STOP CLUBBING BABY SEALS". Now if that's not fashion, I don't know what is.