Month: October 2025

Today was a fun day, but I have a lot of thoughts going on in my head. Help?

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Two things in this post. Please answer the list part. If you can ofcourse.

Sometimes it’s all listening and no fun, but also sometimes we have fun. Today was one of those days!

Hello, my loves! I hope you all are doing good today!

Today i have actually been the whole day in school except for the last hour because I had to leave earlier so I could catch the bus so I could get my son in time (problems with the principals at the extra after-school place)

Today in school we had fun project which was to make a presentation where we had in our minds that we are teachers and worked with kids in preschool / day care. Everyone did good and I jumped in with my presentation with other kind of songs that the teacher gave links to.

We had to think about the children with special needs, how we could / would adapt us to them so they could participate as well. Well with everyone, not only special need kids.

We had to include movements, play, and all that stuff. We also had to think of any aids (that sounds so weird) so everyone saw the structure of the activity, etc. 

In Sweden (I don’t know how preschool and schools work in other countries), they use visual support to show what will happen, so everyone included that! We also had to keep in mind the sign support.

So what did I do? Well, my son is always listening to songs on YouTube where the singers do signs when singing—not like sign language but using their body and hands to reinforce words they sing. I hope you all understand what I mean.

Anyway, I picked out three songs from that singer/group, and it was so fun. Everyone (almost) participated in the signs and songs. Some didn’t.

After everyone had their presentation of their projects (some worked in groups, and some did the project individually—I did it alone), we continued to listen to children’s music—which you can see in the pictures.

I have started a diet and I was wondering if someone has done the same or maybe a similar or something else.

I have started with the 16:8 diet, and I just started it last Sunday (26th of October 2025), and so far it goes well, but I’m worried. I have googled and checked if it’s ok to do this diet when having type 2 diabetes, which I have, and it says it’s ok. I’m wondering and have questions about it, but no, I can’t contact a doctor about it. I’m still waiting on them to contact me about anotherthing but also about taking blood samples—anyway, I am so confused. What is ok, and what is not ok? What can I eat? What can I drink? How will my blood sugar react and act?  Like I said, I have googled around and checked official websites for healthcare, etc., in Sweden, but still, so many questions.

They are supposed to keep my child safe!

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What happened should never happen! I am still in shock and super scared & upset.

As you all know, my son E has autism level 3 and is nonverbal, and tonight I almost had a heart attack. Why?

Today E has been at the after-school extra school (autumn break from school), so he wasn’t at his regular school (I don’t know how else to describe it). I’m still a wreck after what happened.  due to me not having autumn break from school, and I must attend school (which I did!).

To make this post not so long (due to me being a wreck and the shock having given me a migraine), I went to the store to buy some groceries, and after I had paid and almost packed down all the items in my bag, my phone rang. I saw the name of the person who had E at the extra after-school place. My heart dropped. I answered, and all I could hear from that call was “E is gone. He has disappeared and has No shoes,” so I threw my last items in the bag, ran out, and started to scream. 

Luckily a friend of mine came, so I threw all my stuff on the ground and yelled at her to wait and watch my stuff. I screamed shortly about what happened while I ran off. 

It felt like hours. Never-ending time and the panic I had… oh my. When all this happened I got a massive sharp pain in my chest towards my heart but I ignored it. Where tf is my son!? was all I could think of.

I ran around the entire village, screaming, crying, and panicking! I called M while crying and having a panic attack. He couldn’t help me. He is working, but I never ever thought of him leaving his job to help me search. I called to let him know what happened. 

After, like I said, what felt like hours, never-ending time, we found him. 

He is fine. No harm, no accidents, no bruises, no wounds. Thank God!

About the autism and nonverbal part, he doesn’t really know what danger is, and he couldn’t answer me or the person who took care of him today.

Thank Jesus that E is alright!

Do I need to?? Also, people are stealing—what’s going on?

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After discovering someone has stolen the photos of me I have posted here, I feel the need to start marking them. Which I honestly don’t want, but here we are.

For the past few days I have been just resting. As much as possible. I am so tired now all the time—so tired that I have fallen asleep several times each day. 

On Monday I’m gonna try to get an appointment to take blood tests to check my iron level in my blood etc. I have low iron and had to take infusions before to raise the iron in my blood. I think it’s time to do that again.

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Anyway, plans changed, meetings, education, school assignments, laundry, deep cleaning & a child having a meltdown. Well, several meltdowns.

Hello, my loves! I know I haven’t been blogging daily like I used to, but honestly, nothing special happens to me right now, and to try not to make the blog boring and make you tired of the updates, I’ll post every other day or something. I have googled to see what is a “good” amount of posts per week, and Google says once or twice per week. Isn’t that too little? I’m used to writing blog posts daily, sometimes several times a day, and seeing this suggestion makes me think. Is it better, or do you want me to keep posting like I do?

I honestly have no idea. Lol! Help? Ideas?

Wednesday: meeting at my child’s psychiatrist (I don’t know what it’s called or if this is the correct word) to start the investigations for my son for ADHD—investigation? Is that even correct? According to Google Translate, it is. Oh well. Fell asleep.

So many questions were asked, and so many answers were given. So much talk. It was step two. Step one was her meeting E at school. (Note that this psychiatrist was the one who gave E the diagnosis Autism level 3.) What the next step is, I have no idea. We’ll see what happens. Fell asleep .

Thursday; home from school (migraine)

Friday: S T R E S S with capital letters. First education, and I had to leave early due to a meeting. The stress was crazy. Going from one place to another, but I did it! I managed to get there in time. Fell asleep afterwards at home.

Saturday: Pretty ok day. Fallen asleep as usual. The tiredness is no joke, my dudes/dudettes. Laundry and just trying to relax before Monday and a new week.

Sunday: Don’t know yet other than I have laundry time and must do a deep cleaning of the home. Do some hocus pocus to see if it works—just going to try. For fun.

I will get back to you all about the Sunday later, but for now, I’m going to bed and sleep. Even though I have slept today, I am super tired right now. My eyes are becoming crossed and my eyelids heavy as… I don’t know. Just heavy. 

I have also sent my posts on Instagram (@thecaffeinatedraccoon) to archives to start over, so I’m going to try to update it as much as possible. I have also uploaded on my photography account on Instagram (@eej.foto), which I will also try to update as much as possible.

Goodnight my beautiful pumpkins 🎃 🧡🍂

Held to the Light – A Backlit Autumn Leaf and a Moment of Stillness

Published on by ☆ Emma Santorini ☆3 Comments

Sometimes, the most beautiful moments of fall come when we simply stop and look.

backlit autumn leaf sunlight
Held to the light, this autumn leaf tells a story only the sun can reveal.

A hand holding a bright orange maple leaf up to the sunlight in an autumn forest. The sunlight glows through the leaf, highlighting its veins.

While walking through the forest recently, I picked up a fallen leaf—burnt orange, slightly curled at the edges, and still warm with the memory of summer. I held it up to the sun… and it glowed.

In that light, the leaf transformed. Its veins glowed like tiny rivers of gold. Its colors deepened into fire. All the intricate details—the wear, the specks, the quiet signs of change—stood out with stunning clarity.

That one leaf became a small window into the soul of the season:
A moment of beauty.
A moment of change.
A moment of letting go.

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Black & White picture below

Which one do you prefer? The colored  one or the black & white?

Colorful or Black & White? That’s the question

Published on by ☆ Emma Santorini ☆2 Comments

Finally edited the pictures from my cameras- only took a few days for the pictures of the cat but the others I’ve taken? Wow. Too long.

I will not post every pictures here in one post. That will become to much .

Click on them to make them bigger (the last two).

Top will be colors and under will be on black and white of the same pictures. Please let me know which ones you prefer. Color or BW?

I will make more posts with pictures I have taken so stay tuned 🥰 It’s a lot of photographs!

Biggest risk? Ah man that’s alot

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What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

I have a lot on my bucket list to do. Skydiving and Bungee jumping (or how it spells).

I have always wanted to do it. Always had on my wish list. “Before I turn 30, I will do it!” didn’t do it. “I AM GOING TO DO IT BEFORE I TURN 35!” Did I do it? no 😫 No one wants to do it with me, and I’m terrified to do it alone.

Plus, going bungee jumping could break my neck and make me paralyzed.  I have whiplash, and my mom said “NEVER DO THAT!” to a lot of things I want to do, so she scared me as well. Probably was her plan, and I guess it worked. She said more than “never do that,” but there’s no need to write that out.

What else? I can only think of these two for now. How about you?

What is going on? I’m honestly terrified

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Why can’t my body work? Why is my body always ruin things? It’s ruining my education and I’m heartbroken.

Lately, my body has begun to go against me. Migraine constantly—sometimes mild but mostly horrible. My body aches, my stomach is upset, etc. I don’t know what’s going on. I have tried to any kind of contact with a doctor but no luck.

My education is suffering, and it’s killing me! I am so far behind; even though I sent assignments in, I’m still falling behind. I have exams on Wednesday. Yet I don’t know if I will be able to attend it due to my body.

I can’t plan anything anymore. If I go out taking pictures, my body is ok, but I can’t go for a long walk from my home. I honestly have no idea what’s going on.

I was supposed to go to school today. I got up this morning, got ready, and boom, my body broke down. I had to message my teachers that I wouldn’t come in. Out of nowhere, my body broke down, and honestly, today I actually wanted to go to school. I was so prepared! So ready! I had packed my new backpack I got from J the other day; I had the outfits done, makeup, etc. Today was a makeup day for me—and boom. The body turned against me.

So I went to bed and fell asleep—again. I had already slept 9h, and now I fell asleep for another3 hours. I’m currently sitting in the living room, listening to the KallmeKris – Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murders podcast while writing this.

Even though I can’t go to school today, I will study. At least I’m home, and luckily they send the assignments in the school programs so I can do them at home. I will also try to get energy, etc., to fix stuff around at home. 

No, the body breakdown isn’t about energy, etc.; it’s something else. I don’t know what it is, and it scares me. I have never had this before. It’s not my mental health either. It feels so weird. I can’t describe it. What’s going on? 

Sorry for a bleh post but I just wanted to update y’all about current situation

Feeling a little Picasso-ish

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A little while ago, one of my blogging friends, Silver Apple Queen, left a comment on my post “Our Woven Selves” to say that when she thought about migraine metaphors, she imagined her migraines as Pablo Picasso paintings. And if you know anything about his abstract art, it’s not hard to see why. “The Weeping […]

Feeling a little Picasso-ish

Such a super interesting post! WOW! I honestly don’t want to spoil anything from this post, but I think you should go over to Linda’s blog and read.

She made my eyes think differently about Picasso and art!

Still alive, just needed a little..

Published on by ☆ Emma Santorini ☆2 Comments

Chaotic week with confusion and stress. A lot of catching up plus having a mental break from Internet a bit but today it ended with a change in my home.

Hey guys! I have not forgotten about you! I have had a short break from the Internet to rest my head plus getting my focus on catching up in school. This week I have had fever, so I was home from school one day but got better, so I went to school the other day and did two exams. One I passed and one I failed. 

I have also sent in almost every assignments the teachers has given me. I sat 6 hours one day and did non stop studying to try catch up! I have fallen so far behind in school due to migraines nonstop and chaos in head.

But now I am almost in same speed as the class. So I’m happy. The exam i failed in, I will re-do on Wednesday 22th.

I also did something yesterday which I’m still trying to get used to.

I dyed my hair! It was much needed, and now that the fall is here and soon winter, I wanted a change. Leaving my red hair is always scary for me, but I felt it was time for it, plus my hair needed to rest for a while, and it wouldn’t do that if I had my red hair.

When I have my red hair, I dye it once or twice per week—yes, you read it right. Just to keep my hair the red color I wanted, but lately, I have been planning to change the color to brown.

It was time. My Grey hair was showing (I’ve had Grey hair since I was 11/12 years old) but  honestly, it doesn’t bother me but to avoid me getting tempted to dye my hair and ruin it more, I made it brown.

Unfortunately it became too dark, but its something I have to get used to. It will be a challenge to get used to it and honestly, I want to bleach my hair to make it lighter. I love dark hair but not on me 😫 So this will be a long adjustment for me.

Yes I am keeping it raw and authentic in my blog. I’m 35 and have Grey hair 😂

Catsitting a black long haired cat..

Having a cat walking around in my apartment is such a strange feeling and look. I haven’t had any other cat nor any other animals at my place since we had to give Toulula (My first and only cat I ever had) her wings. So having Diesel here, is truly strange but it’s going so good!

Diesel is here because a friend of mine who own Diesel, is going away for a few days. The cat is still a bit shy and not the cat he normally is but hey, it’s a new location. It will take time to adjust.

I’m excited to have E (son) meet the cat Diesel, but also a little bit nervous, because we had a cat (Toulula) before that we had to put down and give her her wings. Hopefully all this will go well. Will introduce them carefully to each other. E is careful with animals, so I honestly shouldn’t have anything to be worried about, but Diesel hasn’t been around kids (we think), so we are going slow!

A black cat with yellow eyes. I mean, how beautiful!? No, I don’t believe in bad luck when it comes to animals. Hihi, I’m not scared.

So that was my Friday and week . Long story short honestly. When it comes to tomorrow, I’m actually just gonna chill and relax. Do some Halloween decorating maybe. Not sure.

I love Halloween, but due to cultural differences in our family, I don’t want to overdo the decorations. Sikhism and my culture.

Putting off doing

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What have you been putting off doing? Why?

Well… homework. I haven’t done my homework, so I’m very far behind now, but it’s fine. I will do them tonight though! 🙌🏻