Today I’m performing over at Neil’s blog! Go check out all the great blogger music at the 2007 Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert! *** Big Bounding Beautiful Birthday Wishes to kachunknorge and fiveandfour!
Man, we’ve been busy! Too busy to post, obviously. We’ve been shopping, and celebrating Martin’s 10th birthday (by waking him up extra early with a birthday song and presents) and writing Christmas letters and wrapping Christmas gifts and going to Christmas parties and Christmas markets and Christmas tree farms and choir practice (me) and hockey (Anders) and Scouts (Martin) and karate (Karin) and just generally enjoying having my mom here! Martin turns 10 years old! In denial about being old enough to have a 10-year-old Who let that kid have a SAW? Christmas cheer is finally here! Still to come:...
Time stretches and compresses and suddenly days have gone by without warning; this is how the year flies, how they all fly, until suddenly you’re aged and wondering where your youth and resiliance went. The house is full of Christmas glitter if not yet Christmas cheer: the windows are full of advent candelabra and golden Christmas stars, we’ve put up the snowman card holder made from felt by my great-aunt, the garlands of red and gold beading, the hand-knit personalized stockings, the cinnamon candles and santa figurines. Years worth of little tomtes made by the children are crowded into a...
Yesterday was our annual Thanksgiving potluck bash with good friends gathered around the dinner table, where silence reigned for all of 15 seconds during the first bite before everyone starting oohing and ahhing and remarking on how GOOOOOOD the food was. We had so much fun that we actually forgot for the first time in 10 years to take a group photo! *sigh* I enjoyed turkey leftovers for lunch today and baked the first batch of official Christmas cookies: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares that may just end up a family favorite. They’re DELICIOUS. They’re also for the AWC cookie exchange...
Do you ever actually sit and count your blessings? I suppose because it’s November now and getting closer to Thanksgiving, and also because we are reading Those Happy Golden Years in which Laura is now a schoolteacher boarding 12 miles from home in a horrible household and SHE is talking about how wonderful her home and family and life are in contrast, that I am thinking so frequently about my life and the things that are good in it. Even if you don’t believe in BLESSINGS, per se; the idea that someone, some higher being, some all-knowing, all-seeing power PERSONALLY...
67 kids, 61 adults and 3 hours of running around a huge indoor playplace. The only bummer was that the big bags of American candy I had brought were completely forgotten and didn’t get put out for the party. So I’ll be bringing candy to AWC events in the future, until it’s all gone. Karin won first prize for best costume with her “Mummy Karate Kid” that she thought up and planned herself. Martin was a “Boy of Summer” and I? Was a Magic 8-Ball! Whenever someone asked me what I was supposed to be, I said (in my very...
Halloween is just not a big thing in continental Europe, not like it is in the States, though it originated in Britain. It’s always been one of my favorite holidays, though I’d be hard put to describe exactly why I like it better than, say, Christmas, which is admittedly a close runner-up. There’s just always been something magical about it, and maybe it’s just because I like cats and the color orange and full moons and pumpkin pie. Maybe it’s because it falls in autumn, my favorite time of the year. After 10+ years in Sweden, where Halloween is pretty...
Happy birthday to me! haha! Woken up just after 7 a.m. to singing and hugs and presents. Spent the day with family and friends at the zoo, we watched the seals get fed and admired all the little animal babies. The zoo was crawling with baby animals: wolf cubs, lynx kittens, wildcat kittens, fox cubs, otter pups, kids (goats), lambs, wild piglets. We got home around 3:30 and power-napped for an hour, then made dinner and went to the grocery store and afterwards I frosted the spice cake I’d made yesterday with home-made buttercream almond frosting: YUM! The boys are...
It’s only after a week plus of vacation that I can feel how much my body needed this: leisure time. Time to spend doing things around the house that I never get to, time to finish projects and go shopping in the middle of the day. Time to read new books and re-read old favorites without having to put them down and turn off the light because the alarm will be going off before I know it. Even though I have been busy, it’s been at my own pace, with no schedule, no real plans and the wonder of not...
Here in Sweden, next Wednesday is just another work day. The majority of people with whom I spend my time every day don’t know or care that the 4th of July has any special meaning. Considering that the Swedish national day is a latecomer and had nothing to do with winning independence from anyone, it’s not really surprising that national feeling doesn’t run particularly deep for a patriotic holiday. In fact, there are other countries nearby who actually celebrate THEIR national holidays on the day they gained independence from SWEDEN. I don’t know how it is for the rest of...