casting on

I'm itching to cast on for my next knitting project, but I have a dilemma. Because I'm heading home in April, suitcase space is a topic frequently on my brain. I have lived in Sweden for over a year and a half. And I have accumulated. So my rule for the spring is "don't buy anything." at all. unless i can eat it and it disappears. This leaves me with an obvious problem in the knitting department, yet i suppose one can view it as a challenge as well: I may only knit with my stashed yarn. This may not sound too bad, but my stash is such a hodge podge of ends of skeins and yarn I've had forever but never done anything with because they don't have any appeal. So this is what I'm working with. Alexander, the 4 yr old I'm part-time au pairing for, complained last week "jag fryser på kinden." literally translated: I'm freezing on my chin. So I happily came to the rescue with a promised cowl....the perfect solution for his chin and for my yarn scraps. When I presented the finished item this morning to a too-tired boy, he said with a quivering voice that it wasn't like his buddy's, and that he didn't like it. oh dear.

But mostly the knitting dilemma has been in the background lately. I've been teaching a whole lot, and it can be tiring. Today alone I was on my bicycle for 2 and a half hours, going from school to school. (i counted as i puffed up the hill home) It's easy to feel stressed, rushed, and like the day is a blur. And then I arrive at an elementary school. The building is an old Swedish mansion style; tall and stately. And the playground on this grey, lifeless-looking, slushy day, is full of happy children. Clad in snowboots and head to toe jackets, they embrace the day. They find a patch of ice and are fixated for half an hour, taking turns falling. They don't seem to mind that the snow is no longer white but now grey with dirt and gravel. They remind me to laugh, to relax. My "own" child does a pretty good job of reminding me of this himself. We had a rousing pillow fight a couple evenings ago. Me and Alex versus Erik. the usual teams. :)

one thing ends, another begins

What has ended is the sweater I started knitting on Christmas day. A big chunk was done on the long day of flights back to Sweden, and the rest in bits and pieces of free time. It's fun to wear something handmade....like wearing a secret no one knows about but you. It may look ordinary, even a little less than store-perfect, but there is a pleasure one gets from looking down and thinking, hmm. i made that.
What has begun is semlor season. Is that a kind of animal? you ask. Has some odd hunting season begun in Sweden? no no. Although lately i've been wanting to learn to hunt. That's beside the point. In this northern country, after New Years, a certain treat begins appearing on the bakery shelves called semla (plural semlor). A slightly sweet, fluffy bun, sliced in half and filled with marzipan and whipped cream, on which is placed the top like a hat, then is sprinkled with a bit of powered sugar. de-light-ful. Lately I have been fully aware that this season has begun, but I hadn't yet found the perfect moment to spend a few extra crowns on a semla. But alas, Erik came to my rescue and brought home this box last week:
This was a good sign. This is a nice bakery, one of the most well-respected in Uppsala. Inside were found 2 semlor, and after waiting patiently through dinner, we enjoyed the daily after-dinner coffee with these beauties. The tradition of eating semlor goes back to the 16th century in Sweden, and I doubt this one will ever die out.

sunday evenings

bread and tea. knitting and a streamed sermon. sunday evenings and slowness. some things just go together.

winter walks

I have been sick all week and finally had the energy today that I have been craving. It's not totally back, but at least I got to go for a couple long walks. One in the forest, and one in the valley. Both near my house and equally nice (though the forest is so dark, and in the winter I tend to not gravitate in that direction). These horses faithfully search the ground for something to eat.....something amid the rock-hard, dead, snow-covered field. poor things. I wish I had a few animals to take care of. I crave some good old outdoor chores.

I am almost done knitting a sweater/jacket which I started on this day in December:

Yes, it was Christmas day in SC, and it was gloriously warm. We played tennis later. ahh! the life. But I do love winter, and boy does it make spring SO appreciated. I've been back in Sweden for 3 weeks now, and I'm missing immensly that wonderful time with family, friends, dear church fellowship, and delightful southern accents. It's been back to the darkness, and to the teaching duties for me. But I've been able to squeeze in the knitting, and I'm lighting candles, and I have a couple new mix cds from a friend....songs for the soul.

How do you transition from the after-holiday time back to the everyday?

Sunny South Carolina

I promise this is the last photo i'll snag off someone else. (but isn't it nice? edisto beach, sc) The word on the street is that i may finally be the owner of a digital camera around the 25th of this month. Then i have the lofty goal of becoming a regular blogger. I know, it may be hard to believe, because i've promised it before and always seem to end up with .....nearly a month.....between my posts. But with my own camera i feel certain everything will change. I can't wait to document more of my everyday life here in sweden both for you readers and for myself to be sure and capture this particular, special time in my life.

The point of this post is to say that i am leaving TOMORROW for SC. Sunny, south carolina that is. These days i can't seem to say one without the other. i know it's not always true, but indeed from my perspective the sky is definitely sunnier on the other side. It has been a year since i've seen dad, luke, calvin, harry, caroline. 9 months since i've seen becca and mom. a year and a half since i've seen joe. too long....far too long. though i am grateful for what i have. That I have such a wonderful family that i want to be with all the time. That both me and my älskling can afford a place ticket. That we get to have 24 blissful days in a row together....full force, focused, concentrated time together.

The snow is falling outside my window now. That makes the winter darkness a lot less dark and much more beautiful. Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a blessed season.

Sunny SC here i come!!

european boy

This picture is from the wonderful film Le Ballon rouge, or The Red Balloon. It is a 34 minute short film about a boy befriending a red balloon and the 2 of them having adventures through the streets of Paris. Highly recommended. Last year when I was home for Christmas I saw this and several other short films at the Peace Center in Greenville with Cate and friends...fun times!

Last week I was reading The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson and smiled when I read a particular paragraph.....this is for all my American friends who have a hankering for Europe every now and then. These days my thoughts are on America and home and all the wonderful things about my home country. But when I am home, it happens that I long for the smaller streets, the better cheese, the bicycles.
Bryson writes about himself as a young, Iowa boy:
"From that moment on, I wanted to be a European boy. I wanted to live in an apartment across from a park in the heart of a city, and from my bedroom window look out on a crowded vista of hills and roof-tops. I wanted to ride trams and understand strange languages. I wanted friends named Wermer and Marco who wore short pants and played soccer in the street and owned toys made of wood. I cannot for the life of me think why. I wanted my mother to send me out ot buy long loaves of bread from a shop with a wooden pretzel hanging above the entrance."

The Librarian

I met a librarian today. Well, a soon-to-be librarian. Alexandra is studying Library Science at Uppsala University, and she helped me track down some of Bill Bryson's books in the maze that is the humanities library in town. I was always highly confused with the Dewey Decimal system as a kid and had just started to figure it out when I moved abroad where they have a completely different way of organizing books. In our search for Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, she asked if i was from America, and when I said yes, South Carolina, I was surprised to see her face react with excited surprise instead of the dull unrecognition I am used to getting. She is in fact leaving in 2 weeks for a library internship at the College of Charleston, and as we spoke I tried to think of what to recommend for her to see. The weather will be a highlight, as we have had fallish, greyish, cool weather since the middle of August, and I am sure the South Carolina beaches will still be warmer than a Swedish summer. Charleston is a beautiful city to explore, one i loved as a child because of those cobblestone streets that made it feel thousands of years old. (and that pinneapple water fountain....how cool was that!) I told her she ought to check out the fall colors of western North Carolina, to which she asked the logical (to the European mind) question of "Is there a good train system? ....busses?" Well, not really, i said. Unfortunatly everyone just drives cars. With some hope i suggested she rent a car since it's fairly inexpensive. She doesn't have a liscense though, having never really needed one. So, my question for my SC readers is...does anyone know of a good non-car way to get around our great state? Surely there is a bus or train I have just never looked for before?