It’s been a nice, pretty quiet weekend with the kids mostly away and me mostly puttering about the house…shades of what’s to come, I guess. Martin is working and Karin was gone Friday for a soccer match in Växjö and a sleepover last night. I’ve cleaned house, worked on my recipe book, read, and relaxed. The weather has been up and down, but today is mostly sunny though I can see a lot of cloud cover from the window. Anders and I are going to fika with his mom this afternoon, sans kids, since Martin works until 6 and Karin is refereeing.
What else? I had dinner with Debbie and Camilla on Friday, a lovely evening of sushi and talking. After I got home, we watched the Swedish women play in the Olympic soccer final; what a bummer that they lost! Still, silver is nothing to sneeze at.
Did I mention that Martin has a second job? He’s already working weekends (and some weekdays when they need him) at the apple orchard, in the café and as general gopher, and now he’ll also be tutoring two kids that live just outside the village for 2 hours 2 days a week after school. He got that job all by himself. 🙂 He doesn’t particularly like working at the apple orchard, but I just tell him that’s good motivation for either job hunting for something else or getting his shit together about college. He’s supposed to be making an appointment at the driving school this week and he has to have blood tests done (for his skin doctor) at the health clinic as well, so he’s keeping busy!
I’m glad this was a relaxing weekend because the next one will be crazy: hosting dinner on Friday, oh! and guess what? Two days after we got the invitation for Martin’s diploma ceremony, we got another letter in the mail informing us that the event was cancelled because the IB hadn’t got their shit together and the diplomas aren’t ready. Drrrr… I’m taking Friday off anyway just so I can clean house and prepare the dinner without stressing.
On Saturday, Karin is hosting a crayfish party here (!) with 12 friends. I’m not sure if we are supposed to vacate the premises or what. Sunday I have choir practice for 3 hours because we are starting the fall term off with a bang: a concert already on September 2. One of my friends isn’t returning to choir for the fall term, boo hoo, but I hope she’ll be back after Christmas.
At one point on Friday, Debbie and Camilla and I were talking about aging…and how you reconcile the person you are inside your head with the person you’ve become on the outside. It’s weird. I said, I still feel the same mostly. Even though I have grown and changed and matured and learned, I still am basically the same person I was when I was in my early twenties. I still hold many of the same beliefs and opinions. I still react the same way to many things. It’s weird to think about how old I am and realize that inside my mental age doesn’t really match up. But I don’t really know what it would mean if I did. What does that say about what I think someone who is “my age” SHOULD be thinking and feeling?
It’s hard to believe that summer is drawing to a close. The leaves are already starting to turn; I saw red ivy yesterday. The rowans are stuffed full of red berries…supposedly that means a hard winter, but they always are so what do they know? I am loving the cooler temps, though I could do without all the rain. Our flowers are all still blooming and it’s lovely to see all my crazy neon pink pelargoniums still going strong.
The neighbors have two rabbits now. They are outside in a big pen in their backyard: a big grey and white one and a super fluffy grey one. They have two dogs as well, and the silly border collie Sebbis is always bouncing at the pen trying to get the bunnies to play with him. They ignore him thoroughly. They also have a white cockatoo named Laban who sits perched on one of the pen poles and stares into space. He’s pulled out most of his feathers and has no tail feathers to speak of. Sometimes he screams “Mama! Mama! Mama!” over and over and it sounds just like their son Liam did when he was little. 😀
I’m about halfway done with the photo frames…still deciding what to do about many of them. And yesterday I drew an asparagus. Progress!