Tagged: obiterphotos

26
Dec
2011

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

One thing that I love to do when giving gifts is to shock the recipient into speechlessness. It’s not very easy to do, and it takes a lot of hard work and observation and sometimes sheer audacity and unexpectedness. Anders and I have done a pretty good job of it the past few years when it’s come to the kids’ Christmas gifts. But with a gift they NEVER expected, from parents who have always said, “No way, save your money, those are too expensive,” we managed to shock the both of them into complete speechlessness this year. Everything else they...

28
Nov
2011

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

I realized a little while ago that I had never posted about the amazing job Anders did on renovating the playroom. I don’t have photos of the whole entire room, because we still have to hang paintings, but that’s not the important thing. The playroom was the first room, after the kids’ bedrooms that really needed an overhaul. It was very much a playroom from the beginning, when we built the house and the wallpaper was very much child-focused with blue skies full of fluffy clouds and green meadows full of fluffy sheep. We had shelves filled with games, lego,...

27
Nov
2011

AFTERMATH

Yesterday was great…everything went well, despite a last-minute cancellation from one family which brought our total down by 3 but ensured more turkey leftovers all around. The food was fantastic, from the main courses all the way through to 2 perfect pumpkin pies and an out-of-this world chocolate cake with candied cranberries on top. This year, people left at a fairly early-ish reasonable hour, which just meant that we were able to get the majority of the clean-up done before we went to bed last night. Karin took photos of the tables: we had 2 set up, one for the...

23
Nov
2011

THOSE MOMENTS WHEN OUR HEARTS ARE CONSCIOUS OF OUR TREASURES*

As long as I’ve lived in Sweden, I’ve tried to keep my American heritage alive for my children, and for myself. I would say we celebrate certain traditions religiously throughout the year, but truth is, we’re not religious about it at all. We just think it’s fun. I’ve had to learn to compromise my expectations for some dearly-held family favorites and we’ve learned to create our own meld of Swedish & American celebrations. Christmas, for instance, is a 2-day festival here. Halloween is organized down to the minute. There is no real outside motivator for my kids when it comes...

16
Nov
2011

ROLE MODELING

I’ve been going through a million bazillion CDs of photos from the past million bazillion years for a couple of projects I’m in the middle of and I’m not even halfway done, but I found these 2 today and they made me laugh: We have a family tradition of rabbit ears and moose antlers behind people’s heads in photos (which my mom HATES), but I sure missed the placement on this one! 😀

24
Oct
2011

MARVELOUS CARVERS

How many more years will I get to enjoy this part of Halloween WITH my kids? Martin is nearly 14, Karin 12…time flies so fast and when I look back at all the years of jack o’lanterns I can’t help but hope there are still a lot more in our future. This was the first time that I handed everything to the kids: spoons, knives, bags, ideas and let them have at it. I helped out with the hard parts and stuck knives and tiny teeth cuts here and there but mostly they did it all from start to finish....

23
Oct
2011

HALLOWEEKEND

This has been a very Halloweenie-weekend. Karin had a girlfriend over to spend the night on Friday who wasn’t going home until late afternoon on Saturday and to stave off any whining about having nothing to do, after breakfast I got out the meager bag of Halloween decorations (which include toilet-paper ghosts made by the kids when they were around 4 years old) and told them to have at it. They had a great time decorating the kitchen and little hallway, hanging ghosts from the ceiling lamps and paper pumpkin strings across the bay window in the kitchen. They found...

03
Oct
2011

SOMETHING ENTIRE

“I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.” —Willa Cather Corny Kids!

02
Oct
2011

VERY SMALL TIDDLY BITS & A GIANT PUMPKIN

Today was the first completely pain-free left-arm day in 4 weeks. I have no idea why, but MAN, am I happy about it. Fresh figs with brie or chevre cheese on crackers were good but honestly? Nothing that special. The weather has been so incredibly beautiful that it makes me want to sing. i can’t get Silly Love Songs by Wings out of my head, and really, why would I want to? In the past 3 days I have emailed 134 paid AWC members with their directory info to double-check and today I called 44 (with more or less success)...

25
Sep
2011

SQUAMALICIOUS

If there is someone who feels like an outsider, like they don’t belong, like they haven’t found their kindred spirits on this earth, there is sure no evidence of them at the Squam Art Workshops, nestled deep in the oak groves of rural New Hampshire. SAW is held at the twin lakeshore camps of Deephaven and Rockywold on the shores of Squam Lake. I’m sure there are times when it’s bleak there; in winter, maybe, when the leaves have forsaken the trees and the ground is slick with ice and downed branches and the lake is a gray and frozen...