The fourth Thursday in November being just an ordinary workday here in Sweden, we had our Thanksgiving celebration yesterday evening. In years past we’ve had some pretty large crowds, with as many as five or six different families, but this year we scaled down quite a bit and enjoyed the feast with just our [...]

Over the past few years, I’ve seen mention made here and there of blue potatoes, but until a day ago I’d never seen them up close and personal. So when I stumbled upon them in the supermarket yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t resist buying a bag, of course, thinking it’d be fun to wow my [...]

I guess my complaining about the weather must have reached the proper ears, because today we woke up to sunshine and blue skies. Here, photographic evidence, in case I find myself needing proof later on that it actually did happen:

I read in the paper this afternoon that our region of Sweden has had only five hours of sunlight so far this month. That’s five hours, folks, not five days. I’d better start making double sure that Brynja gets her vitamin D drops.

November really is the worst month in Sweden. With few exceptions, the days are grey and dull and the clouds hang so oppressively thick and low in the sky that it seems never to get truly light out. This year we haven’t even got snow on the ground to lighten things up a [...]

I got a new cellphone today, the first brand-new one I’ve ever had. It’s nothing especially fancy–a Sony Ericsson K660i–but it’s got enough bells and whistles to make Lydia a little envious. I had to practically wrench it from her grasp this afternoon so that I could enter the settings and whatnot myself. [...]

I rarely get a good picture of Petra truly smiling (not least because she thinks for some reason that “smile” means “take a deep breath through your nose” — yeah, don’t ask me), so I was happy that this one turned out. You know, four is a pretty good age, all things considered.

Brynja woke up this morning with some crazy bedhead. It was so spectacular I was almost a little jealous — back in my ’80s heyday it took a serious investment of time and AquaNet for me to get a ‘do that big, and here she is making it look so easy.