After picking up the kids from skagis (our family word for “skola & dagis”), we headed out into the bush looking for autumn finery to deck our Halloween party tables. First stop, a red-ivy covered house (permission received earlier) where we bagged leaves. Next stop, our babysitter’s house, where a giant chestnut tree has covered the ground with nuts and chestnut casings. Chestnut jackpot! Then it was off to our traditional stop, where we get more red ivy (a different leaf) and those orange papery chinese lanterns. Here was where disappointment struck. No lanterns. Not a one…wait! here’s one! and...

How come no one ever told me about this when I lived in the States? Word of mouth from a friend is that it’s SUPER cheap and you get TONS of stuff in every “lot” you buy. Great source for party supplies, costume accessories, novelties, craft supplies (basic, but still), etc. etc: Oriental Trading Company We expats have to send orders to someone in the States, however, to avoid extra tax and customs charges getting slapped on.

People with too much time on their hands

Just got confirmation from my mom that she is coming for Christmas! Hurray!!!

Large Straight: a double rainbow over Flyinge as I drove home yesterday Small Straight: the Festis juice bottles in my refrigerator: green, yellow, orange, red I’m in the middle (yes, still) of reading A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence, and I’m really having to force myself to finish. We read one of her books in book group some months ago and afterwards I borrowed several more of her books from a friend and devoured them. The only one she didn’t have was this one, so I put it on my “books to buy” list and my mother found it...

After doing all this: getting up at 6:30 a.m. fixing breakfast for the kids, dressing them, getting their teeth brushed getting out the door, dropping them off at daycare and school working 8+ hours (with a break for a yummy oriental AWC lunch in the middle) picking up the kids from daycare and school driving to the grocery store, shopping, driving home again fixing dinner for the kids (plockmat) and me (salmon pirogi) putting a load of laundry in filling the dishwasher giving the kids a bath, getting pajamas on, reading bedtime stories picking up answering emails fixing some AWC...

The other day at work I was asked to proofread a page that included instructions on how our company is trying to create a common company culture. The person who wrote it originally does not have the best English skills and there were a lot of things that had been translated literally from Swedish, so it was more work than I expected. One phrase that had been used was “find new ways” (hitta nya vägar), and it sounded very Swenglish to me in the context that was wanted (finding AND making) so I changed it to “forge new paths” instead....

jes6ica, I love it! 🙂 thank you!! I’ve already got plans for that cunning little dragonfly! (and I’ve always wanted to use “cunning” in a sentence that way; you can tell I’ve read too much brit kid lit LOL)

Tell me something I don’t know

Didn’t just wipe water off the car windows this morning, I had to scrape them. 🙁 The guy who was supposed to help Anders moving dirt around with a backhoe yesterday had told him he’d be there after lunch, around noon. At 3 p.m. Anders called him. The ?%#!wad arrived at FIVE O’CLOCK just as we were sitting down to dinner, so Anders was out there until 7:30 trying to get as much possible done before it was both too late to make so much noise and too dark to see. He had a completely gorgeous day and couldn’t get...