Emelie is currently sleeping across my lap on a pillow as I knock through my deadline list. The last few weeks have brought in a record flood of assignments which I’m grateful to God for; especially in this industry known for its famine and feast periods. Been juggling deadlines while attending to a smart infant who has quickly realized what a laptop is and cries whenever mommy tries to boot it up.

“Okay?? Why aren’t you on maternity leave?” You might ask.

Well, my husband is on paternity leave.

Six months to start with, and according to Swedish law, he still gets a decent percentage of his pay. After these six months, we still have a year’s worth of parental leave to share between ourselves. Again, one of the reasons I’m grateful for taking that 50% pay cut from my old life to lead a more flexible one here in Sweden, albeit with higher taxes and a modified budget since I don’t make “software developer” money anymore, and now make “artist” money.

Once he goes back to work, I’ll start a 50% work, 50% maternity leave arrangement until he takes out more paternity leave.

Latest News

Here are some recent articles and photography publications:

Business Insider – Take a look at the world’s strangest desserts (Reprint)
New York Magazine – Go Retro in Sweden
New York Times (NYT) Magazine - Photo selection under Cultural Pilgrimages (Also congrats to fellow photographer Lily Girma whose photo got selected as well).
Sweden’s Imagebank – Stock photography

Upcoming assignments: BBC Travel/Lonely Planet (multiple), Thai Airways (large feature), Qatar Airways (multiple), The Daily (multiple), National Geographic Traveller (double page photo), Sweden.se (multiple)

Had a productive meeting with VisitStockholm this week and hope to work with them on some ideas. I’m about to start developing a Sweden App in collaboration with Sutro Media which I’m pretty stoked about it. Also updated the portfolio with new awards as well as recent interviews.

What this all means?

I’ve got a backlog of RSS posts from favorite bloggers I still need to catch up on. Also, I’m seriously considering bringing someone onboard (a paid intern) to help out with some of my business activities. Right now, I’m still trying to figure out the best areas for them to cover (social media, fact checking, my comic Office Supplies, etc).

Once I’ve got it all sorted out, I’ll make an announcement.

One of the reasons why I’m loving Northern Sweden more and more each time I’m up there.

I’ve been spending a couple weeks in Northern Sweden and the Lapland region, which also means experiencing things that aren’t usually on my radar (see snowmobiling). Last week, I opened up the papers, saw an ad for a “cow exhibition” and totally had to check it out so on Sunday, we drove to the tiny village of Öjebyn. Here are more photos on my Sweden.se photo blog.