Refund

Unlike in Switzerland, the soda cans and bottles in Sweden are recycled with refunds and therefore we don't have special bins for them. But it's not always you feel like dragging an empty bottle around until you can recycle it so many cans and bottles end up in the regular garbage cans. However, this is not always the last stop for the empty containers since some people; elderly, homeless or just bored, go all around downtown to scan the garbage bins and earn themselves some money by recycling. A while ago when I was walking through Uppsala I saw these pillars here and there - give and take stations for bottles and cans! How clever!

The Vasa ship

Last Sunday we took our guest back to Stockholm and to the Vasa museum where the more than 300 year old Vasa ship is preserved. It is one of my favorite museums and I still find it fascinating that 95% of the original ship is right there on display. This time, however, Inga and I didn't pay 100% attention to the ship, instead we trained on walking - Inga's new favorite thing...

Tree climber

Matts decided to do some morning work on our apple tree while I prepared breakfast. When I looked out of the window I suddenly saw that he had left solid ground and actually worked on the tree from the inside so to say...

Easter and runes

Last Friday night we cheated a bit and had an early Easter dinner. Egg halves with mayo and shrimps, smoked eel, preserved and raw cured salmon, pickled herring, quiche on Västerbottenost, meatballs, chipolata sausage and Jansson's temptation. To that Easter beers and påskmust. Yummy!

On Saturday we went to Uppsala. We started out with a lunch in one of the student houses and continued to the dome, walked past some stones with runic characters, took a look at the Silver Bible in the university library Carolina and enjoyed the view over Uppsala from the castle courtyard. A very nice and sunny day.

Apples and guests

This past weekend we had visitors sleeping in our guest room for the third time. The first time it was my mother in law. She helped us with the move and had to sleep in-between boxes and living room furniture. Our second visitors were my parents and the day they came, we went to Ikea to buy this daybed that Matts then assembled right before bedtime... Our third visitors were our friends Liz and Will visiting from Switzerland. Before they came I finally was able to roll out our fabulous green carpet that will set the tone in the guest room.

Talking about green, this is what our front garden looked like last week. A few crocuses and an apple tree gone wild...

Nordic animals

Last Thursday, Inga and I met up with Liz in Stockholm to visit Skansen, the oldest outdoor museum in the world. There they have lots of interesting things to explore, e.g. different Nordic animals. We saw bears, wolves, wild boars, moose, different kinds of seals and some beautiful reindeer - and learned that reindeer are the only deer where both males and females have antlers.

Room to live in

After eight days in our new house, I'm in love. There's a lot to do to make this our dream home, but it really feels good with all the space and the fact that we are allowed to do almost whatever we want to here (compared to the rental apartments where we have lived before). We started out with the living room floor. It badly needed to be polished and varnished so before placing our furniture there we hired someone to do the job since we realized we would probably never do it ourselves. So now we have a terrific floor to go with our terrible walls (the wallpaper was once white but is now both dirty and at some places torn - it's our next project!). While the work was done on the floor, we kept all our living room furniture in the guest room together with a bunch of moving boxes. Kind of crowded I have to say. Now we have furnished the living room and in a couple of days we are allowed to roll out the carpets as well (the varnish needs a few days more to harden completely). More pictures are coming later on...

Springtime - twice

This picture was taken in Lund two weeks ago. Now we are relocated to Knivsta and once more go through the first phases of spring. When we arrived here about a week ago there was still a big pile of snow in our yard. It's completely gone now. Instead, green leaves are showing on our small lawn...

That's what friends are for

Yesterday it was my birthday. It also was the first day of work in Uppsala for Matts, making me a grass widow. And it was the second day with a running nose and fever for Inga. In other words, not really a day for celebration. But then someone rung the doorbell: a friend with a piece of cake for me! Yummy!

Tell me why I don't like Fridays

TGIF

I don't know how many times I have seen these four letters as status lines on Facebook recently. And every time I have wondered what's so great about Fridays? Are Fridays really something to celebrate? Apparently, for many of my FB-friends.

For me, Fridays have been the worst day of the week for almost a year now. Not that Fridays have been terrible or anything, but the last day of caring for my wonderful daughter on my own before Matts comes home from work has been the toughest one most of the weeks since she was born. By the end of the week, I have often been so exhausted that I have burst into tears for pretty much nothing. I do love my daughter of course, but I do need to sleep too...

I remember how amazed my mother was, in the beginning of Inga's life, that I could cope so well with the lack of sleep. My mother knows more than well how dependent I am on sleeping well, and what happens to me if I cannot sleep enough (lots of crying, illness, personality change, eating disorders etc.). Now I know that during the first wonderful weeks, it was all about hormones. Hormones helping me get effective sleep during the short "naps" the nights were divided into. But it all came to an end and I am more or less back to my old, sleep-craving self. And Friday, being the last day of not being able to sleep in or have some time for myself hence became the worst day of the week.

This said, I am so very happy that Matts won't be working a single Friday this month. I might even be able to post "TGIF" on Facebook on Friday...