Miss you J

We have two little boys home with runny noses today. They are just sitting on the coach role playing something about borrowing each other’s mum with little action figures. Lovely to hear.

So the girl last night who talked about Tanzania said, no matter how poor they were they always had a car and a mobile phone. Scary! One would so hope that they would not take after these bad, self destructive habits from us westerners. Then a woman in the audience told us that in Brazil the government reduces prizes on satellite TV so you could see a shack hardly standing up with a huge satellite dish. For us here it just seems like the thing to have, but when you hear about it in these absurd situations you really think. You hardly have food but satellite TV and a car. Something has to be done, and from us here. Take public transportation, you know you complain so much about the gas prizes anyway, throw out the TV in any form because it is just a big time thief anyway who prevents you from spending time with your loved ones.

Found a fantastic sight today called No Impact http://noimpactman.typepad.com/ and it is a guy in New York who for a year wants to do as little destruction to the earth as possible. It is really inspiring reading and he has some weird but fantastic ideas that we can use at home for being a little nicer to mother earth. I was inspired at once to stop all the junk mail one gets every day. I have been wondering for ages how many trees they have to chop down for all this marketing that just ends up in the garbage.

Talked with my soul mate last night who I miss like crazy. She lives in England and there the coriander is just coming up. I love fresh coriander. I wonder if I could grow it in pots all year around. At least I can get it organic in the store but god knows where it is grown - have to find out.

Peace and love

Feng Shui and eating locally produced food

In one hour we are off to kinder garden in our new wagon and it is snowing. And I was so enthusiastic last week and put away all the winter clothes so I got to go dig it up again from the attic. For the moment I should be chopping wood, painting bedroom and ordering organic seeds from Runabergs Froer but instead I got into this Feng Shui cleaning frenzy. I majorly cleaned the house a month ago when our phone disappeared. The house became beautiful but the phone stayed away –ended up buying phone from second hand store (the family hates it because it has a cord and they cannot talk privately anymore for hours locked in the bathroom). But this time I am not just cleaning – I am throwing away. Everything you do not use every day toss it away, or give it away or take it to your local secondhand store. It was easy in the beginning but the further you go along you start thinking –OK I never use it but it is pretty, or it was a lovely present or kids go through garbage bag and loudly protest. So I think the trick is to do a little everyday because in the mornings I am so motivated. We have been Feng Shuing for about 10 years now but lately forgotten a bit about all the advantages. I figured that the fewer things I have lying around the less I have to clean. Today I am going through my cookbooks, which is going to be a tough one because I am sure I only use about 5 off the 55 I have on the kitchen shelf and I want all 55 of them. Love a good challenge though!

Something else occupying my mind a lot is local shopping. When we lived in Greece we would buy fruits and veggies from the local organic market and therefore I could talk with the farmer who grew the produce, I could see and touch unpacked veggies, smell it and even taste it. I love this market culture and I have learned a lot, going shopping with my mother in law how good food looks, smells, tastes. In Sweden we do not care as much in what we eat, how we eat it and how far it has travelled. Although there is a good discussion going on around it.

It is nice to know who grew your food and to be able to see it for yourself. It is nice to know your money is going locally to support good food producing. It is important that your food did not take a detour to China to be packed; this is just a killer for the environment. There is lots of good reading about this on the blog Elins Trädgårs , and even if you cannot change your whole eating around you can always do your best. The winner in the end is you. You get the finest food, good and personal relationships with food producers and you get a healthy earth to live on.

A huge worry of mine is what is going to happen now when the Chinese people are able to buy cars. That is a huge dilemma I think. Why should they be the once scarifying the comfort of a car for saving the world, when the western world have been doing their best to destroy it for ages with our cars, abroad vacations on airplanes, moving whatever around on trucks to get cheaper food, clothes and so on. This is a huge one, what do you think about it.

Love and Peace

I love my bike wagon

A bit crap that I have not been writing in a long while but I decided from the start that I would not write if I had nothing to write about. Now I have about a million things to write about so I guess I just did not do good writing. Since last time, we have been to a big 40 year birthday party. Half the village was there and besides the fact that some were really drunk, they were not standing up but horizontal, and the fact that one of them called lovely husband “blackhead” a Swedish not so nice expression for immigrant, it was a lot of fun, great dancing and fantastic entertainment. Me and husband are not use to the Swedish way of drinking at parties and then behaving like crazy, excused because they were drunk. But we are really happy that after only 3 years here we have really great friends that do invite us to parties.

Last week we bought a wagon to the bike.
Instead of buying a second car we decided to do good for our environment. Last week it was fab. The kids loved sitting there listening to the swans flying above, smelling the sand on the road and enjoying the sunshine. This week with snow falling down mixed with rain and icy hale it is not all that attractive anymore. Tomorrow I have to bike though because husband has the car and I am going to join our kids to kinder garden listening to a girl in the village who is going to talk about Tanzania. She has recently been there and is going to share singing and dancing. That is going to be great since I am actually born in Tanzania. Only lived there until I was 2 though.

Today oldest daughter and middle son and I took a day off school. We do that every now and then with different kids and then we eat lunch, do a bit of shopping or something else they like. This time seems fantastic for family bonding. And thank god for flexible teachers. They need to get this time also every now and then to feel special and be without the little once.

I long tremendously for spring but since I have not ordered seeds yet I guess I need the kind of winter spring a while longer. This time is just so exiting when the sun starts warming the ground, when you dig and plant and plan your gardening. This year I am really trying to see what works well in Swedish soil. No corn, sunflower and herb experiments but carrots, turnips and traditional stuff. Last year in late summer I found the blog Elins tradgard (Elins garden) and got loads of good ideas.

Some of the other million things I am not going to write about is my progress? in aikido, Sarah falling of a horse, my lovely neighbor who has brain infection for 4 weeks now.

My kind of therapy

Dearest husband has been working night and day to change our old computer (which was not really very old) to a newer super duper version so therefore I could not blog in a while. To be perfectly honest I have not really been inspired so that is a rather bad excuse. The rain is absolutely pouring down and Swedish people are rather content with that. We tend to get tired of long winters but since the snow came January it does seem like a real short one to me. Last year we had snow in end April. I think it is rather depressing and gloomy, I like all the white. I also feel a bit guilty for not skiing more, taking the kids skating more or doing the other snowy things more. Last year I was better at that.

Today I hope to start big bedroom makeover. Well we are already on our way with a new wall being built, wallpapered with old wrapping paper, beautiful old lists made. When we make a room we start with stripping it completely from mdf and such to make it in the old way – not just old style. So after stripping the walls we found the old lists and made new once. They are very plain and beautiful. We also found all kinds off wallpaper but none that we could use. Lots of bright blue flower patterns and not our style. We are going to paint in a bluegrey shade a little darker at the bottom and lighter at the top and then I am going to make flower reeves. At least that is the plan right now. We are so tired off sleeping on mattresses in the kids rooms. It seemed cozy 2 months ago but the charm is gone and it is just a mess. So good luck to us.

Saw a really stupid article in Aftonbladet – a Swedish really stupid evening paper (aren’t they all (so why do I read it)). They asked the readers to send in funny stories under headline “How disgusting is your child” ex has he licked the floor or peed on his brother. Yes off course they have and off course it is not disgusting. Why do they not write “How disgusting is your partner, neighbor or friend” who I am sure has done these things and worse (throwing up on people left and right, hitting people, having sex with the bosses wife)– drunk, and then it is excused. But apparently it is not excused, but disgusting to do these things as a child. How fucked up is that!

Have had therapy for 2 days now that is mending ripped clothes and socks with holes, while watching a good film. This is pure therapy for me, besides my military working pants look much more me with fleece butterflies on them. Clothing has a rather important role I think. If you know your style and wear these clothes it makes you happy gives you confidence. Making your own clothes or changing old second hand once to suit yourself is an even bigger joy. And I watched “Out of Africa” which is a fantastic movie. Beautiful scenery and really good thoughts and brilliant acting. The clothes that Meryl Streep wore I found fantastic. Sur gave me some new ideas.

Got to sign off, it seems it is getting long even without anything to write.

Peace and love