Finally, after a week, I’m feeling mostly better. The antibiotics worked quickly enough on the inflammation, but the exhaustion and flu-like symptoms have taken longer to recede and I’m only now feeling up to dealing with the household on my own for a full day. Poor Olof is probably dying to go in to the… Read More Progress

Wow, what a couple of days this has been. Everything was going along normally on Thursday, but between Tage’s and my two violin classes on Thursday evening I starting feeling sort of stiff and achy, and got steadiily worse throughout our forty-five-minute-long group lesson. I had been planning on stopping by the grocery store on… Read More Malaise

Some weeks ago, for reasons I can’t remember now, I developed an intense interest in acquiring an elecric grain mill and grinding my own flour. Ever the skeptic, Olof refused to encourage this interest, but I carried on undeterred, reading and reading and reading some more until I settled on this one as just the… Read More Milling around

Olof and I made a trip to town this afternoon with only the baby in tow, and I don’t mind saying it was a nice little break. It was one of those tricky spring days that looks warmer than it is, and though I should know better by now, I left the house without my… Read More Mushroom, mushroom

So March has arrived, which means that in two weeks or so I should find out whether or not I’m accepted to the master’s program I applied to last fall. I’m more nervous than I like to admit, both that I won’t and that I will get in. I do want to make the cut,… Read More Countdown

Vasaloppet is an annual cross-country ski race in Sweden, held every year on the first Sunday of March. Many schools and sports groups organize a junior version of the event, called “Lilla Vasaloppet,” and today was the day here in our small town. It was a nice morning for it, with blues skies and no… Read More Race day

I just made a hotel reservation for Lydia and me to take a little mother-daughter overnight trip up to Piteå over the Easter break. She’s a little miffed that we’re not going over the sports break two weeks from now, but I know from experience that another month’s paycheck will come in handy on such… Read More Plans

So Lydia has a new boyfriend. We haven’t met him yet, but he already gets a big thumbs-up from us for wanting to help her paint her bedroom, a task that’s been hanging over my head for months. As a matter of fact, he’s upstairs right now, hard at work (I assume), but we’ve been… Read More On my best behavior

Earlier today Brynja took this picture of her newest cousin, 2½-week-old Knut. I think it’s safe to say that she was more interested in the camera than in the baby, which probably worked to everyone’s advantage.