Brynja took this picture of Yrsa this afternoon. I love everything about it, even Yrsa’s dirty face.

Like all of my daughters, I had a head full of curls when I was small. Also like them, once past those early years my hair was straight as a pin. From the time I was probably three or four until I was twelve, I never had more than the very ends trimmed off, so… Read More If ya got it, flaunt it

This last winter Tage decided he wanted to move from his upstairs bedroom into the small room downstairs that had previously been our guest room. This left a free room and before long Lydia made up her mind to move into Tage’s old room (which, incidentally, was also her own old room some ten years… Read More New digs

These have been a busy several days for all of us, but at least someone is getting the opportunity to relax.

Appearance aside, they all had a very good first day back at school. In fact, the reason they all look impatient-slash-irritated is that they were so eager to be off and were not gladly suffering my insistence that they stop and pose for a picture. Really. Yrsa had no trouble at all being at pre-school… Read More School Daze

All of a sudden, it seems, summer is over and it’s time for all of us to get back to reality. My mom left yesterday morning to go back home to Texas, and tomorrow morning at 6:30 Olof will leave on a jet plane for a two-day work trip to Stockholm. A couple of hours… Read More Back to Life

It’s my boy’s twelfth birthday today. That completely does my head in and makes me a little sad, I confess. Before he was born I thought I wanted only daughters, but Tage single-handedly made me appreciate the wonder and beauty of little boys. He’s still a great kid and, in fact, he gets greater all… Read More Almost a teenager

It’s hard to believe that the summer is winding down but I have to say that, for once, I won’t be too sorry to see it go. These past few weeks have been nothing but hot and dry and hot. Unlike most of the rest of the country, our little town has been curiously free… Read More Long, hot summer

We got home yesterday afternoon after an action-packed three days in Byske. The trip started out rather dramatically when Petra ran head-first into the frame of an open window at the next-door cabin and cut her head open less than an hour after we arrived. As head wounds are wont to do, the cut bled… Read More Vacation report

Readers outside of Sweden may not be aware, but last week we were subject to a heatwave of the likes that nobody within the country could have failed to notice. The national weather service issued its first ever warning for extreme temperatures, and here up north we were under a class 2 warning, meaning that… Read More Summer stuff