Daily Jamie

M S You've Gotta Be Kidding Me

Please excuse the poorly-lit picture, but I had to get proof of this Montana State University sticker that happened to be on a car next to which I parked. I couldn't believe my eyes! I drove out to the medieval church where my choir has its spring concert to listen to another choir perform an All Saints' Day baroque concert, which was magical, by the way. I saw the sticker while I was pulling out of the parking lot afterwords, pulled back into my spot, then waited like a stalker until the owners of the car came out. Because, you see, it's not every day that you see a sticker from the college that is located in a town you grew up in on the other side of the world. Not only did I grow up near the college, but many of my classmates and every person in my family have gone to MSU except me, unless you count that week at cheerleading camp or all of those hours I spent in the dorms flirting with my brother's friends, trying to get my MRS. I was hoping an actual Montanan would come out of the church and welcome me into their lives with a warm, American hug, but got a Swede whose daughter had studied at MSU for a semester and didn't seem to want to be best friends at all instead. Nevertheless, she and I had a nice chat and she was, I have to admit, almost as excited by the coincidence as I was, making me glad that I did that little bit of stalking that night. 

Daily Jamie

November 6th

November 7th

November 9th

Kid-Free And On The Town

This is how I look when I'm having the time of my life on a ferry between two of Stockholm's many islands with my man. Mama and Papa Swede generously took Jambo off of our hands for the whole weekend so we made big plans. First, for dinner on Friday night, we ate soft cheeses and listened to a podcast. Just unpasteurized cheese. Jamie would have hated it; we loved it. Then we went to bed at 8:30; Jamie would have made us stay up till at least 9:00. On Saturday, we went into the city and checked in at a hotel on Skeppsholmen, a tiny island in the middle of Stockholm that's just covered in museums. It was rainy and grey, but Stockholm was gorgeous and, as usual, I couldn't believe I live here. The ferry that docked right outside of our hotel took us to another island, also covered in museums and, incidentally, a theater. We saw a musical called Kristina från Duvemåla, a very timely bit of entertainment about Swedes emigrating to American in the nineteenth century. It was wonderful. We booked the tickets back in January and I have to say, it was definitely worth the wait. We ate a leisurely breakfast at the hotel on Sunday morning and then we were finally reunited with our Jambo, in a great mood after being spoiled at Molsta all weekend.

Life Lessons, Late

This isn't exactly something to be proud of, but unless embarrassment and shame are imminent I will not work on anything official during my leisure hours. Embarrassment and shame became imminent at choir practice last week when I realized that, with only one rehearsal left until our concert this Sunday, I was really struggling with the rhythms and text in Misa Criolla, a very cool South American mass. I came home a bit frustrated and The Swede said the perfect thing, as usual: "Mara, it's just like you always say to Jamie. It'll be fine, you just need to practice." So I sat down with the music, a nice, slow recording on YouTube, a set of headphones, and a pen and got down to business. Yesterday's rehearsal went a million times better because of it and by Sunday, with a little more practice, I should be ready to perform something I can hold my head up over.

Daily Jamie

November 3rd

November 4th

November 5th

Daily Jamie

Sunday Adventures

As of yesterday afternoon, Swedish football season is over, which means that we get The Swede back on the weekends, at least until the lakes freeze over and ice-fishing season begins. We celebrated by checking out a monster truck that The Swede knew would be parked outside a local home-improvement warehouse and feeding ducks. They were simple adventures, but Jamie had a blast and, truth be told, so did I. It's the little things.  

Daily Jamie

October 30th

October 31st 

Haunted House

Okay, so since Halloween is officially a thing this year and we have been expecting actual trick-or-treaters, Jamie and I decided to go all-out on the decorations. We made giant spiders out of balls and pipe cleaners, spread spider web all over our bushes, cut a jack-o-lantern, turned an old pillowcase into a ghost, and made the front door into a monster. Jamie doesn't dare knock on our neighbors' doors and say "bus-eller-godis" (the tragically alliteration-free direct translation of trick-or-treat) so we're staying in and trying to spook the neighbor kids. We've already had a few visitors and it's not even five o'clock yet! And of course, between rings from the doorbell, we're participating in the classic tradition of making ourselves sick by dipping into the candy bowl.

Daily Jamie

October 28th

October 29th

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

October 24th

October 25th

Little Women

This week is fall break for students so Sarianne and Magnus sent their girls up to spend the week with Mama and Papa Swede. Before they invaded my in-laws', though, we got them all to ourselves Saturday night and this morning. Jamie was in heaven. They built forts, played video games, cuddled, and even made me breakfast in bed!

Elin is thirteen now and has grown into such a lady. She has incredible manners and was so helpful with the kids and cleaning up after breakfast and whatnot. She's also the first to look over and roll her eyes when one of the smaller kids says or does something ridiculous, which I love. Last night, when we were putting Jamie and Julia to bed, Jamie said that he wanted to lay between two grown-ups. I said that The Swede was putting Julia to bed so he couldn't come and Jambo answered that he meant me and Elin. It's true, she's much more adult than kid now and, even though I didn't have anything to do with it, I'm so proud of the woman she's becoming.  

Daily Jamie

October 16th

October 17th 

October 18th

October 19th

October 20th

October 21st 

It's Getting Spooky In Here

A couple of gourds have been the extent of my Halloween decorating in years past, but the holiday is becoming a bit of a thing over here so Jambo and I decided to kick it up a notch this year. We picked out a pumpkin together at a farm, decorated it with glitter, and set it outside by the mailbox so all of our neighbors can see how glitzy we are in this family. We saved the big project for the inside, though. Over the past three evenings, we've painted, decorated, and hung nine toilet-paper-roll bats. We got a little creative with the colors, did a special certain-football-team-themed bat for papa, and hung them upside-down despite my aesthetic sensibilities because, well, as Jamie reminded me, "bats hang upside-down". I didn't think Jamie was that into crafts, but this one took a great deal of commitment from the little guy and we had a lot of fun, so who knows? It may become a bit of a thing over here.  

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

October 10th

October 11th

October 13th

Swedish Family Life

I stumbled across excellent blog post on Facebook the other day. If you've been following along here for the past six years (SIX YEARS!!!) you've read about almost all of this already, but this post is a great summary of what life is like for a young family living in Sweden. So read it, get hankering to visit, then do it. We'll light the candles, put the cinnamon buns in the oven, and wait for you.

Daily Jamie

October 6th

October 7th

October 8th

October 9th

Dippity Don't

A few weeks ago I bought a package of Lipton French onion soup mix at the American food store. There are plenty of chip dips here in Sweden (more than I'm aware of in America I'd even venture to say) but nothing that tastes just like Lipton dip. I typically only ever ate it at my grandparents' so buying some here when I was able to find it felt like a really good six dollar investment in nostalgia. I made The Swede his own dip for tonight's fredagsmys so he wouldn't eat up all of mine, but I did insist he test it. As luck would have it, Lipton dip is apparently the only American food that isn't totally awesome so I get to keep it all to myself. In fact, The Swede disliked it so much that he covered and marked the bowls before putting them in the fridge.  

Daily Jamie

October 3rd

October 4th

Wilderness Family

We just got back from the cabin where, among other outdoor activities, The Swede and the kids built a fort at the edge of the woods on our property. Julia had been talking about it for months, but Elin and Jamie got into it most of all. They set up chairs and a bed made from stumps and scrap wood and even got a bucket of water and mopped all the surfaces. I can't wait to see how it comes together and watch their imaginations turn it into all kinds of places. The fort my family built in the forest when I was a kid (seen below in an unfortunately double-exposed photo from circa 1992) was the site of many hours of creative play. Ours was pretty badass in comparison to the one at Molsta, but to be fair my parents had the very practical experience of having actually lived in the woods at one point, so it's really no contest. 

Daily Jamie