Tagged: wonderfulworld

09
Aug
2025

THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE

I’ve been so busy all this past week out and about, and right now, Saturday afternoon, I’m only busy with my own home-chore-based to-do list, and one of the items on it is write a blog post! I wanted to write about some of the things I did this week so I have them down for remembering and posterity, as my brain can’t be trusted to come up with details about things in the past once we get to the future. Not because I’m experiencing any sort of memory loss, just that in general, I find it’s better to write...

07
Jul
2025

GARDEN APPRECIATION POST

I’ve spent a lot of time this spring and summer admiring our garden. Anders does all the heavy lifting when it comes to the yard and vegetable garden. He mows the huge lawn, trims the hedges, weeds, edges, and plants most of the vegetables as well as netting and staking, and tying up when necessary. I buy flowers and put them in pots or plant them and water everything every day, and deadhead as needed. We’ve done more with fertilizer this year and it’s really helped, especially with the tomatoes and with a couple of the rose bushes, as well...

28
Jun
2025

DOING ALL THE THINGS, EXCEPT SLEEPING

Since I was in the hospital, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Or rather, getting back to sleep after I wake up in the middle of the wee hours or middle of the night. I’ve woken at 3, 4, 5, and one particularly bad night at 2:30 am. I have to get up to go to the bathroom, and when I get back to bed, I cannot fall asleep again, no matter what I try. A few nights I manage to doze off after a couple of hours only to be awakened again to go to the bathroom. UGH. I read...

18
May
2025

SHOWING OFF SWEDEN

So much for my good intentions of posting more in May. I managed 3 posts, then real life intervened. But in a mostly good way! My best friend from college, Julie, and her family: husband Todd (Benny), daughter Erin and son Drew, finally made it to Sweden to visit! I picked them up at the airport on Saturday, May 10, at 4:30 and we crammed all their bags into the Tesla and came over to Sweden. We managed to keep them up and got them on schedule right away, which I think was helpful for them. Anders cooked a delicious...

26
Aug
2024

GOOD STUFF

I just picked another big handful of snap peas and found 2 decent-sized cucumbers, a week after I thought we were done with both for sure. Today was a nice easy, stress-free start to work after 3 weeks of a very relaxing vacation. I’m very glad that it was so, and that a bad day didn’t wreck all the recharging I did. Almost everyone is back from vacation, though one of my team members is sick. Hugs all around this morning! I had plenty to do, and a fun layout to work on, plus a new project to begin (the...

09
Jul
2024

PARTIES AND POMOLOGY

I actually really enjoyed the AIC BBQ party on Saturday despite being completely wiped out afterwards. It felt like a real return to the 4th of July parties of the early days of the club. We were 55 people total, with about 14 smaller kids (no babies though). The bouncy castle was a huge hit, and the kids pretty much stayed on it the entire time, when they weren’t eating, throwing a beach ball around as well. Nice because I didn’t have to get Martin to take them over to the playground, or come up with other games or activities....

10
Jun
2024

SEASONAL STUDIES

Things that mean spring: pied wagtails, forsythia and lilacs, opening the windows, cleaning the porch and oiling the deck, a slew of Swedish holidays, walking outside round the village, the return of the light, cleaning windows, baby birds, Eurovision, semlor, tax time Things that mean summer: putting up the sun umbrella and hanging out on the deck, tall glasses of ice water, popsicles, growing vegetables in the garden, the growl of lawnmowers, honeysuckle and roses, sleeveless shirts, gelato, ripe cherries, Swedish strawberries, perfect artichokes, vacation Things that mean autumn: sugar beets on the side of the road and the sugar...

24
May
2024

LET ALL THY JOYS BE AS THE MONTH OF MAY, ONLY NOT SO FAST

May is flying by, as is spring, and though I am trying to notice it every day, notice the flowers, the green, the sunshine, the skies, it’s all going too fast, and I can’t believe it’s nearly June. We’ve had nearly 2 weeks of gorgeous warm summer weather, not too hot, but lots of windy days and yesterday it poured rain all afternoon. Which we needed so no complaining. Due to the summer heatwave, all of Sweden is quite dry and that one afternoon of rain wasn’t nearly enough. The lilacs are nearing their end. The 6 lilac bushes at...

30
Mar
2024

ABOUT TO SPROING

Since I didn’t grow up in a church-going family, and only had a few years of semi-religious interest in high school, Easter has never been about Jesus much, for me. In my family, it was all about coloring eggs, hiding eggs, finding eggs, and Easter baskets full of candy. Interesting that both Easter in the spring and Halloween in the fall have such an emphasis on sweets. We have always decorated eggs the “old-fashioned” way, both when I was growing up, and with my own children when they were small. Vinegar, boiling water, and food coloring. We never used any...

17
Jan
2024

SNOWMAGGEDON

We didn’t have a white Christmas though we did have a little bit of snow some weeks beforehand. It’s pretty rare that we get much snow in December at all here in the south of Sweden. But now? Hoo boy. On the 3rd of January we had a severe wind and snow storm that I wrote about on the 4th. That snow and ice stuck around for over a week and we’ve had REALLY cold temperatures until this past weekend when it warmed up to…0 degrees Celsius. They plow in our neighborhood but not very well, and the streets were...

October 2025
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