Daily Jamie

December 3rd

December 4th

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

November 30th

December 1st

Traditiooon! Tradition! TRADITION!

This was a really special weekend because it marked the solidification of and hopefully beginning of a few traditions. First, on Saturday, we had our Second Annual Friendsgiving. Erin, Svante, Ossian, and Rio-in-utero joined us for turkey and all the trimmings the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year and this year we invited Shaena and Peter and their gang to join as well. There were a lot of little boys up in the place, but they were all so, so well behaved. Aside from Rio, they were all big enough to eat at their own kids' table with minimal supervision and we adults were able to enjoy our meal and play some games in relative peace. It was a blast and I can't wait to do it again next year.

The next morning I got dressed up and headed to church to sing in the Advent Sunday service. It was a really nice way to start the holiday season and I expect that it will become a seasonal event I'll look forward to year after year. While I was at church, The Swede and Jamie joined Mama and Papa Swede over at Ingvor and Rolands, where they watched home movies of their fishing vacations from the early nineties. I arrived at the tail end of it and it was pretty magical to see Sarianne the same age as Elin is now and a gangly Swede with the floppiest, blondest hockey hair you've ever seen. We had a long, late lunch at Golden Cave then went home and put up the Christmas tree. If every last-weekend-in-November is even half as fun and eventful as this one in the future I'll be a happy camper.

Daily Jamie

Thanks

Today especially, I'm so thankful for big things like

• My husband who makes me laugh every single day, never takes himself or life too seriously, is interested in and enthusiastic about so, so much, wants me to be happy, and knows what I'm thinking two weeks before I even do. Thank God I met him.
• My child who is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me, who lets me experience everything again for the first time, surprises me constantly, loves to sing and dance as much as I do, and keeps me honest.
• My family back in North America who keep in touch even though they know (through the blog) there's usually nothing exciting going on over here. The fact that my parents remarried and brought two new amazing people into my life. That my grandparents are still some of the healthiest, most active people I know. Also, related: the technology that allows us to communicate across all these miles.
• My Swedish family. Fate could have paired me up with a great guy who with a lame family but I got really, really lucky to genuinely enjoy the company of every single one of these Swedes. 
• Our health. Our bodies are working as they should and I try to always remember what a gift that is. 
• My girlfriends, here and abroad. Every girl's gotta have 'em. They're the best.
• My job. I have the best colleagues, and while I love the weekend as much as the next guy, I really like going to work in the morning. 
• My home, which is the perfect size for my family and which is so full of love and warmth, and exists in a neighborhood that couldn't possibly be more fitting. Our home is the place I most like to be.
• Jamie's teachers. They are truly our partners in raising this child and they're doing a great job.
• This country, where I feel so taken care of. Hardly a day goes by that I don't stop and take a moment to appreciate all the things I don't have to worry about because I live here.
• The sheer luck of having been born under the circumstances I was. 
• A reliable vehicle and public transportation should it suddenly become unreliable. 

And slightly smaller things like

•  The quality of TV these days! I'm stressed out by how much good stuff there is to watch.
•  Singing in a choir. How did I not do it for so many years?
•  Makeup. It's actually embarrassing how much joy it brings me.
•  The fact that my kid has a good sense of humor.
•  Blogs, because I love to write and they're my favorite reading material.
•  Having things to look forward to like a party, a vacation, a holiday, a fun weekend plan or even just going home at the end of the day.

Daily Jamie

November 25th 

November 26th

Daily Jamie

November 23rd

November 24th

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Remember in the beginning of A Christmas Story when everybody is stopping outside a department store (IN DOWNTOWN CLEVELAND, INCIDENTALLY!) and checking out the window display? I got a major flashback to that scene yesterday morning when Sarianne and I took a walk around Stockholm city and came upon a crowd outside of NK checking out a half dozen incredibly well-thought-out and executed window displays.

Daily Jamie

No Steel Here

Well I just got done bawling my dang eyes out. See, Sarianne booked a hotel room here in Stockholm because she had a blog event to go to tonight. She invited me to come stay with her, hang out in the city this afternoon and do some shopping tomorrow morning, and get some rare alone time while she was at her event. It was a glamorous plan and I made it even more glamorous by deciding to spend most of the evening in the hotel room by myself with Netflix and dumplings to-go. I did a thorough investigation of the movie selection and ultimately picked Steel Magnolias, an obvious choice because I've never seen it despite its status as a well-loved classic and because I'm never going to get The Swede to watch it with me so I need to take advantage of the alone time. Also, I thought it would be pretty safe because I already knew how it ends and believed that knowing would keep me from getting too sad. But I was wrong, clearly. I still feel pretty good about my choice, though, if for no other reason than The Swede would have cried ten times more than I did if I had ever been able to convince him to watch it. I'm happy to have spared him that.

Daily Jamie

Agreeing To Disagree

Each November I do a delicate dance with my mother-in-law. She doesn't know we're dancing, but we are. In this dance, I start decorating for Christmas sometime between mid-November and the first Sunday of Advent whilst fervently making sure she doesn't find out. Just to be clear: there is nobody I know who is more into Christmas decorating than she is, but Mama Swede is a purist and would never dream of putting out even one of her hundreds of Santas before Advent. She's never said as much to my face (though once she commented on my blog), but I'm quite sure she's pretty disappointed by my Christmas decorating habits. So I don't put anything in the window in case she should happen to drive by. I make strategical choices, like the amaryllis I put on the front porch, which can be categorized as more of a winter item than a Christmas one, should I ever be pressed to explain myself. And this... well, this isn't a Christmas doormat, it's just kurbits, that's all. I've being doing this dance for the past week, putting a lot of effort into my strategery, when The Swede went ahead and revealed on The Molsta Group that I was about to hang Christmas curtains. Mama Swede responded with a cringing emoticon. My mobile device throbbed with disappointment (disgust?) in my hand. I went to my choir rehearsal later that evening feeling shameful and resentful of The Swede's big mouth and then was TOTALLY REDEEMED when I arrived at the church and saw this glorious sight. If The Swedish Church gets to decorate for Christmas before Advent, then by gosh, so do I!

Daily Jamie

November 19th

November 20th

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Daily Jamie

November 14th

November 15th

November 16th

ChocoVine For The Win

On Friday we hosted the final round of the now annual dinner party competion with Mama and Papa Swede and Gurra and Gunilla. We went with the theme The European Union so we served Spanish sangria, French brie-stuffed croissants, Italian tortellini, and German chocolate cake. We weren't planning on it, but at the end of the meal we remembered that my pops had given us a bottle of Dutch ChocoVine back in September. Because it fit so well into the theme (and because ChocoVine seemed like the kind of thing that requires moral support to try) we decided to bust it open for the occasion. And just as my father promised, it was unexpectedly awesome and totally worth its weight in our luggage. I daresay ChocoVine may have scored us some extra points and if that's what pushed us over the edge I owe my pops a thank you because we totally won!

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

October 31st

November 1st

November 2nd

November 3rd

Daily Jamie

November 11th

November 12th

Daily Jamie

Well, Hello There

Sometimes one of my colleagues brings his dogs to work. Sometimes he doesn't give you any notice and you find out they're there when Doris licks your toe cleavage.

Daily Jamie

November 7th

November 8th

November 9th

Saturday

Yesterday Jamie and The Swede went to see Monster Jam, an event we've all been looking forward for months and months. It's always been the plan that just the two guys would go, but even I've been  excited because Jamie has been obsessed with monster trucks for a while now and I was pumped for him to get to see them live. Since I knew they'd be busy all day, I made plans to meet in the city with the girls. Shaena and Erin and I met and ate a sushi lunch then Erin and I continued on to Centralbadet, a bathhouse oasis in the middle of the busiest area of the city. We jacuzzi'd and sauna'd till we looked like raisins and it was dark when we came out. Super relaxing, needless to say. And then, when I got home, we got to share all the deets of our awesome days.  

Daily Jamie

Cello-fun

My supervisor was out of sight for a couple of days last week, which is awesome in and of itself, heh. No, just kidding, he's actually the coolest. But anyway, I didn't see much of the guy until Thursday afternoon when he showed his face to report that he had finished building a wall of cabinets in our showroom and it was my turn to contribute. As I said, he's the coolest and totally saved the best (read: only good) part of construction, peeling off the cellophane, for me. It's a great job I have, this one.

Daily Jamie

November 4th

November 5th

Halloweekend

This is a picture of two thirty-somethings who are way too mature to dress up for Halloween like everybody else out on the town last Saturday night, but not too mature to take a hot dog selfie.

Twenty-Four Hours In Kalmar

Since All Saints Day is, like, a real holiday here, our company is only open during the morning on October 31st so we took a half day of vacation and made a long weekend out of it.

So on Friday we took a long drive down to Kalmar, where AIK would play the final match of the season on Saturday afternoon. The Swede had booked tickets to the match and a hotel room months ago just in case the team did really well this season and Saturday's match would have been the championship. It didn't work out that way, but we still had fun.

Kalmar is a really charming city right on the sea. With lots of beautiful architecture and a visitor-friendly layout, we enjoyed walking around on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

While The Swede was at the match on Saturday afternoon, Jambo and I hung out at Ikea, which was conveniently right next to the stadium. Afterwards, we headed to Söderköping and spent the night with the Segerstens.