With only 8 days left to my birthday, I feel summer begin to wither away. My birthday has always been a sign for me that summer is coming to an end, and it's time to go back to reality.

The older I get, the less I care about my birthday. Sure, gifts are fun, and I love our tradition of having a small kräftskiva and cake as celebration. But it's more about coming together and eating delicious food rather than celebrating me. 

This year I'm actually going away for the first time on my birthday. It'll be a little 2-day vacation together with Martie, we'll go to Malmö and then take a day trip over to Copenhagen to see a stand-up comedy show. So it'll be the last little thing before summer is truly over. 

I usually get quite sad and depressed at the end of August. I truly thrive during summer, being able to soak in the sun, go to the beach. I don't even mind working during summer because it just feels so easy. It immediately gets harder when September hits. But this year, I feel I have some things to look forward to.

Firstly, I'm leaving the night shifts at my job and I'm starting a temporary post for the day/evening shifts, which means I'll be able to socialize more with guests and generally be around more people which I think will be good for me. It also means I'll be able to enjoy the few sunny days and not having to sleep through them. 

Secondly, we've booked a 2-week all inclusive vacation at the end of October, which means mooooore sun, moooore beach going and more enjoying life. I truly think that's the life hack I've been missing out on, not going on more vacations when the autumn weather is letting me down. 

I feel incredibly grateful that we're able to go for two weeks, and all inclusive at that. God knows it's not cheap... I had a rough period December-February with a lot of illness and unplanned expenses. And I wasn't sure I'd be able to afford it. But I've saved as much money as I could, took a few extra shifts at work and tried to limit any unnecessary expenses. So I managed to save up what I needed and I truly feel like I "deserve" this holiday. 

That being said. I've been so happy this summer. A lot of people complain about the weather, either it's too warm, too cold, too much rain etc etc. Especially last summer I found a lot of people were miserable. But this summer has been great, no matter what anyone else says. 

I have taken every opportunity given to do what I love, weather that's reading on the balcony or going for a swim. I've had strawberries, ice cream, late night walks. It's been a joy, and the rainy days have been well spent inside with a good movie or tv-show.

We spent 3 hours at the beach yesterday, and you never know, but I do feel it might've been the last time. Hopefully we can sneak in a little visit if the rest of August cares to bless us with sunshine and warm weather. But if it doesn't happen, I feel content. I can live with summer being over now and going back to reality with more work and less adventures. I don't think there's anything I could've done to improve my summer, and that's a great achievement. 

I still have next week's adventure to look forward to. Other than that; this is me saying goodbye to summer with a few pics