We moved to Düsseldorf in August. New house, new area, new city and new country. New supermarkets, new flavors, new brand of the raspberry jam, new kindergarten or actually it is called kita here in Germany strange enough I thought kindergarten was a German word that we borrow to the English vocabulary and then it turns out it is not even used here ?! Being new is challenging, but that is not what I am going to write about in this post. No this post is about Macbeth and my English studies. So in all this new things on top of new things I had the plan to go back to studying at a Swedish University on-line. Actually my plan still is to add to my MBA pedagogic and didactic in order to be certified high school teacher in business and economics but I thought that maybe it would be good to also be English teacher and needed to add a few courses of English. And so I got accepted to study English B - basically continue my literature and sociolinguistic studies of English that I started su...

Schooling in can be a walk in the park But it can also be a little painful and stressful  And maybe the mother would doubt if it was a good idea to let kids start in kindergarten where they don't know the language...  A couple of weeks later and the kids are super happy going to their German kita even though I guess they still don't really understand the lingo but I am sure they soon will.. And surely they are gonna thank us later for the chance of learning a new language (?!) 

Me and the kids went with my mother on vacction to Spain end of August. We had a great stay and enjoyed squeezing the last bit out of this long warm summer vacation of 2018. We had a set-up with one activity per day and the rest of the time hanging or floating in the pool home. One great trip was to Bena Havis where you can follow the mountain streams along although we mainly stayed at one place swimming in the cold fresh mountain water. We also had a good day down by the ocean and swimming in the waves, rolling in the sand and after eating seafood on a beach restaurant. I loved all of it apart from the sand going everywhere.  Another new tradition I have started although a little scared calling it a tradition as it might become pressure, is my colorful portraits in acrylic. Last year I was inspired by my mothers paintings copying Picasso - with a lot of vibrant colors. My style is very much my style. Not perfect or portrait like more kind of comic picture with a lot of pa...

We went on a trip to Leiden in The Netherlands last week. We have friends from Prague who has lived there for a year and so we took the opportunity to meet up with them before they move back to Prague end of this month. Düsseldorf is close to the dutch boarder and to Leiden only 2,5 hours. Of course we stop on the road at a real dutch pancake place, Pannenkoekhuis Den Strooper in Arnhem. And also first day in I think 3 months we needed to put on a hoody and finally a real heavy rain fell. We had booked a room at the Holiday inn - family friendly it said on the webpage... Ohhh my God, yes family friendly indeed like a charter or Finland boat ( if you have been you know what I mean) Buffet, play-rooms with ball pool, bouncy castle and also swimming pool. Euphoria for kids! And nightmare for me ( I am sure many adults loves this kind of set up also me not included though..) I made an illustration on the theme... Clearly different emotions for a ball pool... I can't help myself thin...

As I have not been blogging for some time I have not had the chance to go through my humble 2018 New Year wishes in text - so now having already past half of the year let me do a revision of my wishes. - A constant wish for good health and happiness not only for this year but years to follow... - Having fun with my team on our new adventure and challenges - when I made this illustration I knew that later this year we would move again and this time to Germany although I hadn't shared it with that many people around me. Of course mixed feeling leaving our newly bought home in Örebro after only a year, but the experience of one more adventure abroad before kids are ready for school and we want to stay longterm in one place weighed up. Today I am sitting in Düsseldorf and it has been little bit more then a week here and from experience it does take some time to adjust. We have a great house, area and plans for our stay here. I know that it will be good and the feeling of belongin...

I am back writing in the blog... And Team Nikolovski are away on new adventures again as we just moved to Dusseldorf in Germany from Sweden. I have updated "This is team Nikolovski" a short introduction of who are and what we do. Cecilia Book Nikolovski  is me and together with my husband Loren Nikolovski, Mila 5 years old and Filip 3 years old we are  Team Nikolovski . This might sound like a small team but be sure it is a strong team! We are a mix of European northern and southern spices with me from Sweden and Loren from Macedonia & Mila born in Prague & Filip born in Örebro.  Beautiful  Prague  was our home-ground for three years 2011-2014. Working for Swedish international company and enjoying great network of other internationals/expats in Prague. After Prague we moved to  Moscow  a huge city with a wide mix between the past and the modern Russia with a population of 12 millon people. We lived in an apartment down-town, Shabolovka wi...

I started working at a new school in August. I now work at a smaller senior high school with focus on IT, computer science and technical subject. I teach entrepreneurship and English. It is a whole new world I am entering a world full of computer nerds. I love it - they have a special passion for technology which I will never understand but a interest I fully respect.  I have already learned new IT terminology, about fiber installations, programming and gaming. Learned that computer nerds really drinks a lot of energy drinks, talks about LAN and how they build their own computers. This school is a school where many of the students finally finds school a great place to be and not a harsh environment without understanding. A school where they can learn more about their biggest interest of IT and computers, where the classmates shares the same interest and passion and are friendly to each other. It is great to see and to hear how these young people finally want to go to school and ha...

It is pity that I have not taken time to write here on the blog. I love having a place where I can write and have my illustrations collected and where I feel that I want update things. Collect memories and thoughts from this moment of life. Also to really force myself to sit down and put pen to paper. Writing is something you have to keep practice to find that nice flow and feeling to catch the reader and make the reader understand you thought, feeling or instruction. This year I am working as a English and Entrepreneur teacher and I am very much inspired as I am giving my students a lot texts and different type of texts to write. At the same time it has been a rather hectic past few months and that's why I havn't got around to write. We have bought a townhouse and moved to Örebro beginning of August. Kids changing kindergarten and me changing job, has gone pretty well although always hard to change routines. Moving the horse and learning the new stable routines and trying t...

 I was planning to make a family portrait of good friends of ours who are celebrating their 40's birthday. So the other night I started a skiss of the family and their farm and animals. Always easier when I know the family to get the right elements and objects in the illustration, but also a little nervous to make sure I do them justice. And even more nervous will they like my illustration. This is how the drawing started with a glas of rosé And the following morning I got great company of Mila who also wanted to draw and paint with me while rest of Team Nikolovski was out biking This is the final version of the family at Fyrö Gård And framed ready to for party and to be handed over And here it is hung in their great big barn where they had organized great party 

During my trip earlier this year to Prague I bought some new fabrics at the fabric shop which I use to buy from while living in Prague. Although funny enough when I lived in Prague I mainly bought fabrics from Sweden and now when living in Sweden I found lots of great fabrics in Prague which I brought back with me to Sweden. I was super excited to make some new funky hats after the trip, this was in April.... But some how the time has not been enough for everything I want to do and have to do. But with me now having summer vacation I am finally getting time to restart my creative projects which has been sleeping for some time. I love that feeling of creating things again, gives such great satisfaction, and makes me start to dream again that maybe maybe I should focus more on my own business. I made a few hats tonight which I had already cut out in some fabrics and when I want to cut more, I could not for my life find my pattern... I hate when I clean away things I need to places wher...