10 years!

Ten years ago on this date PP and I got married, right here in our garden.  During the wedding party in the evening some balloons came flying by, right over our party, and here is one of them.  Thanks PP for ten great years! 

On this day... now and 9 years ago

9 years ago, the periodical cicadas were buzzing, the fireflies bleeping, and we got married. PP,  thanks for the fantastic dinner at Brothers Moon tonight.  (If you haven't eaten there, you should, if you have the opportunity.)  Local, well-made food, and their Caesar salad with extra anchovies are to die for.

Other things that happened today:

The high school had to be evacuated after a bomb scare.  No bomb was found, but all kids were sent home at 2 PM.  Yesterday Princeton University got evacuated for the same reason.  Prank, lunatic, or what?  This is not funny. Neither was it funny when the two old couples sitting next to us in the restaurant talked about the bomb threat in Princeton and one of the elderly men at their table said 'well, I wish the bomb threat had been true and all the liberal professors had been killed off'.  Sigh.

In New York City two window washers got stuck at the 44th floor (about 600 feet, 200 m above ground) on the outside of the building.  They were eventually rescued by firemen cutting holes in windows so they could reach them and bring them back inside.  This was only one block from where AREA works right now.

The fireflies are out!  Blink, blink, blink! Special photo for KV with fireflies from Japan.

The bull frogs are croaking in the dark, right now.  And big black crickets are cricketing.

We are waiting for another giant weather event.  This one isn't named (yet), but we are expecting 4 inches (100 mm) rain tomorrow, storm-level winds, maybe tornados and hail and definitely big thunderstorms.  We haven't even dried up after the most recent storm, and our rivers are so flooded already that roads and bridges are closed.  Not good, the ground can't soak up any more.  But we are prepared, with pumps, generator (if the power goes out), charged cell phones, lots of food, and playing cards and candles. And while we get soaked, Colorado burns. There doesn't seem to be any 'normal' in the weather anymore.

Finally, our cat Smokey believes that the way to get of loose undercoat wooly fur is to lick it off, get it stuck in your teeth and then have it hanging from your lips like if you were an old goat.  Sorry, no photos yet, we are working on it.  She isn't the most cooperative cat when it comes to photography or brushing.

Congratulations to the newly married!

Right now it is 6 PM in USA on August 18, which means that it is August 19 in Sweden, and today (in Sweden) is the wedding day for cousin EH and his C.  Warmest congratulations to them and their four children (in various parental configurations).  We are so happy for you, and sorry we can't be there.

May you

...have many wonderful breakfasts...

...lots of great summer weather...

...and winter weather too...

... great times with kids...

....see interesting places...

...and have fun and laugh...even when reality is a tangled web of work, dinner, laundry, laughs, colds, diapers, Lego pieces in the wrong places, flat tires on bikes, no good lettuce at ICA, and too many e-mails to respond too...

Congratulations from across the pond!

Spring must have sprung today

OK, spring is here finally in my mind and for real in New Jersey, even if there will be a late April snowstorm.  I am sitting outside at a table at an open square in Princeton (using the Princeton Library's fantastic free wireless network), and it is 68 degrees or so (that is 18 degrees in Swedish numbers).  Warm soft air, pretty lights on trees, laptop on park table, and a couple of tables away a guitarist is playing the most amazing instrumental pieces, just for fun.  Wait, it is a guitarist and a banjoist.  Someone is eating grilled fish at the Witherspoon Grill, I can smell it. Kids are running around in shorts and T-shirts, laughing; people are sitting outside restaurants having dinner and a glass of wine.  No stars above because we are waiting for heavy rains tomorrow, which hopefully will help our newly moved perennials take off with new roots and growth.  Life is lovely.  Or as I read earlier tonight in a photo in a library book: 

Life is wonderful.

Reclaim the Awe. 

I agree 100%.  We should all reclaim the awe.  And not overuse the word awesome (which I am guilty of, just as most teenagers of today, but that fad will pass too).

What did you do this weekend?

At our house in Pretzeltown, we been putting up "tapet" (ie., wallpaper in swedish), painting, drilling holes in the ceiling to get internet connection by cable to the main computer, eating kräftor (crawfish) and having snaps, dad recited wonderful sayings to the snaps!, made and ate chocolate balls with sugar on them, OK expanded the electric net to our closet in the bedroom for all the routers and stuff and prepared for a TV-connection. The wallpaper (light grey with silver streaks, which shimmer in sunlight) is almost done, nothing shows of the old door to the hallway and the new door is ready with all the lining up.

How was your weekend?

We live in strange times, when family time has to be scheduled..

From a recent newsletter from the school district and township we live in:

"What does Night Off mean?
It means a community-wide observance of the importance of family by taking the night off from
regularly scheduled commitments. The schools, township, houses of worship, scouts, and
various community organizations agree to a night without meetings, practices, games,
rehearsals, and homework on March 3rd.

Each family decides how they wish to recognize the importance of family. A family can
participate in a wide range of activities such as eating dinner together, playing board games or musical instruments, going skating or to a movie, or attending a sporting event, just to name a
few.

Why? To encourage and promote quality family time." {My bold italics}

My questions -
For us that have family night most nights of the week, do we get the night off to do something without our families? Can we have a Night On?

They need to schedule a night so families can eat dinner together? Other families must not be like ours. We eat dinner together every night. But I already knew we were the exception, this announcement just puts it on paper so it becomes the truth.

What qualifies as quality family time? Three hours one night out of 365 days? This reeks of Big Brother mentality. "We will schedule your quality time, from 6.05 PM to 8.34 PM on a Tuesday in March." Or do they really think people have to be taught how to get together as families? Probably, yes.

I find the whole thing depressing. Here are some more real things for families to do together, any day of the year: turn off the TV, take a hike, plant some seeds, compost your green stuff, carry firewood, photograph a sunset, draw a faucet, cook a meal, paint a door, make a cookie, build a bird house, chop some rose bushes, build a fire, smoke some bacon, listen to old stories, blog your thoughts, discuss black holes and infinity, pet a cat, donate some books, go to the library, write a letter, design some ear rings,l watch George Carlin on Youtube about cats and dogs.... (note how none of these costs any money and don't involve commercial things you have to travel to like movie theaters, skating rinks, sports events, etc.).

So, is this an issue in Sweden? Do people have to be taught how to have quality family time over there?

Fighting the darkness of the North- why not hibernate?

Sometimes it feels like I would rather hibernate over the winter, and I sort of did that today. Woke up this morning with the kids, content as they were playing with their toys, I sat down in the kitchen with a good book, Livstid (=lifetime) by Liza Marklund. Martin came down and we baked some ciabatta, namnam. While the dough was yeasing (do you actually say that?) I continued to read. Some food and other stuff has also been part of the day but the outdoor time was limited to a short period just because I had to install a new element (heater) in our shed to keep the temperature above zero in there. The old one was keeping the temperature at 17 degrees Celcius, no matter what I put the thermostate on. Not very cheap and not very climate friendly either.

It´s dark outside again, no sun was seen today, and as one of my sons said today, "I long for the summer". I can only agree. Now, snowfree as it is, and the ground frozen solid, it´s no fun, except on the lakes where the ice is thick and glorious. I did skate for 40 minutes yesterday, but it was a bit late and the sun disappered behind the woodline and it got cold.

Good morning!

This is post number 1001 on this blog. Bacon is still the theme.

Busy weekend

It has been one of those weekends here at Screech Owl Meadow (I just made up that name, in Swedish I guess it would be sparvuggleglantan). Busy, busy, and now our bodies are aching as a result. When I started makin this list of what we accomplish I got amazed. 4 people can do a lot! (Kids, thanks!!!) We did: Digging holes in the basement, wheelbarrows of gravel, rocks, and old coal, scraping and painting window sills, washing mosquito nets for windows, washing windows, oiling soapstone counters, scrubbing kitchen linoleum floor and then shine it up, washing 3 loads of laundry and hang it outside, clean all bathrooms, put up new shower curtain in kids bathroom, wash walls in kids bath (once a year this needs to be done), two people got eye exams, one got new classes, we got new pillows and a wider comforter, make jerk seasoning, made dinner two nights (filet mignon and lobster! and jerk shrimp, hot and good), mop the stairs, fix the lawn mover (for the 100th time), change water filer (too late, filled with icky black stuff), made labels for all homemade oils and vinegars (about 15 bottles so far), take in laundry, shake carpets, wipe down walls over stove in kitchen, read New York Times, clean up stuff hanging out of a cat's butt (ough! horrible), kids' cleaning rooms, order garlic for fall planting, order a insulating box for the attic stairs, going to Lowes to get renovation stuff and carrying it to the barn, going to liqour store for wine, getting corn at the farmer's market, dropping of a child's desk at a friends, went to sleepover party and pig roast (AREA) and playdate (LA), planned dinners for next week, did homework (kids), wiped down shelves, looked for a missing hook for the kids shower curtain, tried to find the lost tablet pen (no luck), carried stuff to the barn, into the attic, and upstairs, and watch to Road to Perdition. No wonder we are tired tonight.

And no kids asked for Sunday candy all day! Thanks PP, AREA, and LA for all your help.