Mmmm, hard cider, love it. Usually I should say .;-) Hubby and I just went to a hard cider festival where we tried about 14 different kinds of cider in little, bitty glasses. In at least two cases I was very glad that the glasses were small. (Lookout Farm and Artifact come to mind.). Guess that they were just too "complicated" and filled of "the unpredictable nature of wild fermentation" for my taste.
Some of the ones that we liked more were the "normal" varieties, not the ones that tasted like whiskey, seaweed or whatever else - strangely enough the ones we liked tasted like apples! For example, Strongbow, Downeast Cider House, Angry Orchard and Bantam were all good. I think Bantam was my personal fav. Shout out to our old hometown Somerville MA where they brew it!
Hi there, feeling sentimental today. My little boy is rocking highschool in 9th grade and of course I am very proud but I can't help but to feel that it's bittersweet. The ultimate sentimental journey for an artist is to paint a loved one, and in this case, a child on the cusp of teenager-hold pulls the heart strings extra hard. I am proud of this painting. Do you like it? Hope so! I will be auctioning off a painting soon to support our public school. Someone hopefully will bid on it. Who knows. ;-)
Here's something fun to kick off your weekend with. Do you like "Carpool" with The Late Late Show's James Corden? This one with Sia is particuraly good. It is 10 minutes long so grab some "kaffe och kaka" (coffee and cookies) and enjoy. Happy soon-to-be Halloween to you all!
I am loving this band, Movitz, a wonderful mix of hip hop, swing and Swedish. You gotta hear it to believe it. So, what's up? I hope that everyone is well and enjoying this gorgeous month. We've gone hiking, apple picking and jumped in leaves - among all the usual junk including working, making dinner, packing lunches and picking kids up only to drop them off on the other side of town a half hour later. We love our two chillin's so much, but they are work.
Two books that I picked up recently to remind me not to lose my cool include: Listen (5 simple tools to meet your everyday parenting challenges) by Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore, and Simplify your Life with Kids (100 Ways to Make Family Life Easier and More Fun) by Elaine St. James. Listen is a lovely book that emphasises enjoying your child, playing with them and listening to them better by for example,"staylistening", which encourages children to express their feelings and get back in touch with you and themselves. (This is suprisingly effective with my teenager I've noticed,) And Simpify gives some good practical advice like "plan a carpool" to help make life easier or "teach kids to put dishes in the dishwasher". So obvious but somehow I sort of haven't done either of these!
No One is Alone (with Bernadette Peters by Stephen Sondheim from "Into the Woods") is a wonderful song to end this sort of bittersweet lament about children and how to best help them. Parenting is the most important job and one that we sometimes have the hardest time doing well. Remembering that there are good books out there, people to talk to, teachers to help, and family to guide you can help. You are not alone. And of course, living in Sweden wouldn't hurt to make it easier. ;-) Read more about that here.
Hej, the Nobel Prizes were announced and for the first time a musician was given the Nobel Prize for literature. He was lauded for his use of verse and the depth of his poetry which brought to mind Homer and Sappho (?) according to the Swedish press. Well, I guess that could be true, but I can't understand his diction well enough to know what he is actually singing! I am a philistine perhaps, but I don't get it when there are soooo many amazing authors. Here's some more information to read: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2016/10/13/bob-dylan-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature/
Personally I really enjoyed the book The Sellout by Paul Beatty. Talk about synchronicity with the current election! Race issues are brought to the fore in a way that is very uncomfortable but extremely interesting for the reader. My bookclub had an insightful discussion about this book so I feel confident in saying that if you don't mind a lot of swearing, some weird sexual stuff and lots of strange, racist stuff that makes you laugh then you will like this book a lot. Here's a brief snip of what Amazon had to say about this groundbreaking novel -- A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.
Parenting is hard. Let's agree on that. This is something I happened to listen to and here are some nuggets that I gleaned that may help:
Never try to enchance who you are, that should happen within you.
Your child should not be like you. They are not like you.
Make parenting a joyful process he says. (OK, that's true, and I need to stop telling my kids what to do. But there's also restrictions and the pervasive advice from society and all the other people out there who tell you what to do.)
Today I told my highschool aged son to stick with Student Council because it looked good on a college application. He thinks it's boring, but I felt like he should do it because he could help shape the school. The swami says to look at myself instead of my child and that the children exagerate what we are doing. I guess maybe I should do more for his school too. The swami says I should worry more about how to make myself likeable. The swami says that creating the necessary ambience is a large part of parenting which includes joy, love, care and discipline. So, am I good enough?
Love, meditiveness, and openess are what he preaches. I am not one who normally listens to these you-tube things but this practice is something that I can agree with. I do love my kids and I do try to show them that. I guess we just need to do our best as parents. Here is another podcase on how to live happily. It's good to mull over... wishing you a happy week!
For those of you who've read my blog before you may already know that we moved into Casa Lagom about two years ago to the day. It's been an eventful two years, full of parties, laughter, yelling, laundry, cats, and other stuff that keep a four person family moving and grooving. Mainly the goal has been find the "lagom" - just right in other words - both for me, HH and the kids. To me that means trying to create the space to have fun but also to relax; as well as the ability to leave the nest and then come home to a clean and well organized space. Easier said than done right? ;-)
Of course, that damn B word gets in the way all the time, the Budget (basically nill), and a major bummer when it comes to home repair and purchases. But I persist in trying to get the right balance of old and new, Scandinavian cottage and New England style, and to take my time while creating our home. Here are some of the blogs that I like to check out for inspiration. Most are in Swedish, but the photos are gorgeous. Hope you like them, and this cute picture from Sköna Hem of a young apple picker.
Who knew? Dunkins is celebrating by selling medium hots for 66 cents. I'm down with that. (Did you know that Swedes drink more coffee per capita than any other country in the world?!) I do my best to help out the stats from afar. ;) Here's me drinking my kaffe in my old Volvo. It has a cup holder. It only took us a year to figure that out. Ha, ha! I'm actually serious, it was hidden in the wheel well. So, drinking coffee = Swedish. Drinking coffee in my car = not so much. I've joined the ranks of soccer moms everywhere and so be it. At least I'll stay awake at the wheel 😁
