A Fig in Sweden

mom gets a night out

For the first time since the last IKEA party – way back in December – I put on a pretty little dress and went out on the town. Errr... in this case forest. The ICOM summer party was Thursday night out in the woods about 20 minutes from here.

I fed Sophie and put her to bed, and then my job as mom ended for the night. It felt very strange. But it was great to get away for a bit and hang out with my friends from work. The party was quintessentially Swedish, everyone said. It started with a midsummer feast under tents with lots of singing and drinking snaps (not me... I was driving). Then the dancing started on the other side of a little bridge. There was this random open-air dance hall out in the middle of nowhere. They had a band playing music like "La Bamba" and the music from Happy Days. Oh and there was a horse in the middle of the dance floor. Too bad my camera phone didn't get some better shots.

As I was driving home at the early hour of 11 p.m., I was thinking how lucky I am to be out here experiencing this... even after almost 3 years living here.

waasssuuupppp?

Sophie's version of Waaassssuuuppp while "airing out" on the floor. (This is also a test to see how YouTube works with the blog and the video camera on my phone. Please stand by.)

Lewis sounds pretty good too! :)

me and my girl in Lund

Daddy had to get a book from the library for his thesis, so we tagged along to do a little shopping. And we didn't come home empty-handed even though Lewis did veto a few items. :)

4 months and 4 a.m. wake-ups

The good news is that we're enjoying long sunny days now. The bad news is that we're not getting much sleep because of it. Sophie has been sleeping through the night for two months now, but this last week she has been waking up with the sun... around 4:30 a.m. Last night we blockaded all windows and finally got up at a decent hour: 7 a.m.

Our little monkey is 4 months old today. It feels  like any day she's going to roll over, and she's talking up a storm. She likes to talk to (and sometimes yell at) her animals. It's all baby babble right now, of course. Singing and dancing usually gets her to laugh. And she loves when daddy stands her up on the coffee table. She also seems to be getting more attached to us and becoming a little snugglemuffin.

it's rhubarb season

Have you eaten much rhubarb? I haven't. It seems like a southern thing to me.

Well, it grows like a weed here. I wish I had known... I would have planted some in the garden. This week, two different Swedes made rhubarb pie for me. With rhubarb from their gardens. (Lucky me!) Both pies were absolutely delicious. More like rhubarb crisp than rhubarb pie. So I have been regularly buying rhubarb at the farmer's market now.

I found this rhubarb crisp recipe online, and Lewis gives it the thumbs up. I'm making it again this weekend.

best place to be a mom

Happy mother's day to all U.S. moms out there! Sweden celebrates the day in a few weeks. We wish we were in Denver right now so we could mark the occasion with breakfast at our favorite spot: Racines. Instead, I think we'll buy some potted flowers at the garden shop. We used to do that with my mom when we were growing up.

Anyway, even though we are lacking a place that serves french toast with strawberries, Sweden is the best place in the world to be a mom. Really! That's what Save the Children says in its Mother's Day Report Card. I think being a mom is the best feeling in the world no matter where in the world you live. But we feel pretty lucky to be so well taken care of in Sweden.

sand and surf

Yup, I bought that tent-doohicky from IKEA, and Sophie and I hit the coast yesterday for some r&r. I was in heaven, and Sophie seemed to really like it too. She was mesmerized by the ocean and never fussed the whole time we were there. The tent thing worked out well. She was shaded, and it gave me some privacy when I had to feed her. Not that I really needed it. Here's the view to our right and our left.

And my favorite view of all...

may is...

NO-POTATO-CHIP MONTH. Don't let me – under any circumstances – buy a bag of potato chips. Don't let me eat just one. Some way, some how these 10 pounds are coming off. (Or maybe just 8... please, oh please, let me keep a few pounds in my boobs!) My sister said it would take 3 months for my tummy to go back to normal. My sister lied.

Slowly but surely the weight is coming off. But let me emphasize s-l-o-w-l-y. I'm losing about 2 to 3 pounds a month. So I figure I've got 3 to 4 months to go. It will be sweater weather again by then! :)

The no-potato-chip diet worked for my mom. Let's see if it can do wonders for me.

Tilly is on a diet too. Turns out she has become a real fatso and we had no clue because we see her every day. Now she's on diet food. No potato chips for her either. Or hot dogs. Or blood pudding. (Mmmmm...)

europe's greenest city

It just so happens that we live 45 minutes away from Europe's greenest city, according to MSNBC. The town is Växjö, Sophie's birthplace. In case you state-side folks missed the report on NBC Nightly News, here's the video. The district heating system here in Älmhult is similar – a plant in the middle of town uses eco-friendly (or at least friendlier) methods of heating water and then that hot water gets pumped to radiators in homes throughout town.

The other thing that I really love about the eco-life here is the way recycling is done. So much of our waste can be recycled that the garbage men only collect our one bin every two weeks. And our garbage container isn't even as big as the ones in the U.S., and usually it's only half full when they take it. We compost our food scraps, and then pretty much every food container is recyclable.

We pay a garbage fee based on the size of our can and pickup schedule. If we put more trash out than our bin can hold, we get charged an extra fee. So that's a pretty good incentive to not generating waste. I know some towns in the States do it this way, and I wish more would. Sometimes the only way to get people to think about these things is to grab them by their wallets. Just look at gas.

strawberry girl

It's my favorite time of year in Sweden. Not only is it warm enough to be outside in a t-shirt and see the sun on a daily basis (we had a total of 20 minutes of sunshine the whole month of December according to the Swedish meteorological institute), the strawberry girls have now set up their stands outside the supermarket. They're not Swedish berries yet... the ones we got on Friday were from Belgium. A little tart, but beggars can't be choosers. It's just nice to be able to have fresh berries again.

Sophie's getting into berry season as well, with her "strawberry hat" from the Gap.