Ah well

The girls were looking forward to spend the day and night at their grandparents' but Sofia behaved very weirdly this morning.

She came halfway up the stairs this morning and just tood there and cried. When I asked what was the matter she just shrugged and wouldn't or couldn't say.

She said her tummy hurt and sure enough a few minutes later she threw up.

So I spent 45 minutes waiting on the phone for her grandparents to hang up so I could ask them to fetch Isabel instead of me dropping her off. No fun bundling Sofia up in the car to have her throw up in there, and I can't well leave her home alone.

Eventually they hung up and my FIL came and picked Isabel up.

Now we're hanging out on the sofa watching Cinderella and experimenting with rice cakes and water. So far she says she feels better.

So still no experimenting with the new sewing machine.



Ah well, time for that later.

All done

All wrapped up.

Herring mixed.

All food is prepped and ready to go.

Now, feet up, a cup of coffee and a slice of saffron cake while watching old episodes of Castle. Aah, good times.

Bannermen

Ugh - it's that time of year again.

New Years.

I should come up with a new banner for the blog.

The one I've had this year was a DIY desk calendar I photographed and put some text on. I made a banner for every month for a whole year so I could easily make the switch on the 1st.

I should really come up with something new. Maybe something sewing related.

Better get started on some ideas.

Cookie jar

I was helping my grandmother with some Christmas baking in November and came across this container in one of her cupboards.

It's gloriously vintage and while I don't normally go for vintage I can not resist a pretty tin cookie container.

I told her I really liked it and two weeks later she came to my house for turkey dinner and brought the container for me to keep.



This is what she had put inside.

The bottom layer contains currant fork cookies and almond biscotti. The top layer is rolled up lace cakes that she had made the very same day.

She claimed she wasn't using the container any longer (and it was empty in her cupboard when I found it) and she wanted me to have it.

It even has the original sticker on it.

Keys to the TARDIS?

It's no big secret that I love Doctor Who.

I've come late to it but I claim being Swedish for my defense and I'm sticking to that. It's not like they ever aired Doctor Who on telly here when I was a kid. (WHY???!?!?)

But I've seen it now and I love it to bits.

So last week when I came home on a particularly crummy day, I found a strange envelope in my mailbox.
In it was a TARDIS-key ring sent as a surprise from a sweet friend in Colorado. (Thank you Sandi!!)

It lives with my keys now and I love it.

Sadly it doesn't make my car any bigger on the inside ...

Winter is Coming

Plans for our solstice celebration are coming along nicely.

I ordered a few sheets of bees wax from a bee keeper up north and I plan to make some candle decorations from it to stick to a larger candle that we can light in the evenings.

We had an impromptu astronomy lesson with the girls on Saturday night when we looked out the window during dinner and discovered that it was a lunar eclipse.

It was fun. They seemed to get it so I suppose I kept it at the right level.

I ended the weekend with some sewing. I got the invisible zipper installed in Isabel's Christmas dress and was cruising along to get the pleats done so she could try it on.
That's when I discovered I had a hole in the shoulder seam that I needed to fix and when I put a pin in it to keep it in place for sewing I jabbed the pin into the joint on my thumb and didn't realise until too late that it was actually bleeding.
So of course I got blood on the dress.

It was sheer luck that the blood sort of rested on top of the fabric and wasn't soaked up so I managed to rinse it out with some cold water.

It's dried now so I'll see about those pleats tonight. Once they are done all there is left is the belt loops, belt, side seams, and hems. Easy peasy.
I'll see about making some kind of brooch for her or something nice to have in her hair. I bought a plain headband that I'm thinking about decorating somehow. It's not my forte so we'll see.

Once the dress is done I have to get started on the Christmas presents. It's just two so there's no panic. Yet.

Gnome party

Instead of a Advent Calendar with mini-presents that cost an arm and a leg and are rarely used again after New Years I decided to use my small collection of gnomes and put one out each night.

We had a left over clay tray that I filled with moss and some candle holders and pretty glittery stars and I set one gnome out every night after the girls are in bed.

I tried to arrange them standing up, but they always end up like this, snuggled together in a big gnome heap after Sofia's been checking in on them.

I'm sure Isabel knows I'm putting them there but Sofia's not so sure.

My main problem now is that I only have 15 gnomes and we have 24 days to fill so I have to look for a pack of gnomes today at the grocery store.
Maybe a big one for Christmas Eve.

If all else fails I'll get them some mini figurines from Lego or Littlest Pet Shop.

It was a spur of the moment decision on Nov 30th that made me put it together, and the girls are enjoying it so maybe it'll be a recurring thing.

Solstice

I have wanted to do some celebrating on the Winter Solstice for a few years now. The Swedish word for Christmas is Jul which would be Yule in English.

Traditionally it has had nothing to do with Jesus and the church but it has been a celebration of the Solstice. The promise that light will return to us.

This is how sunrise/sunset happens in December. The decrease in the day is slowly grinding to a halt and around December 22nd the day is only 2 seconds shorter than the day before.
The solstice occur at 6:30 am and the next day is 6 seconds longer than Solstice Day.
Already in mid-January the days grow longer by 3 minutes a day.

I have looked around for a guide to how to celebrate it but found nothing that spoke to me. In Iran they celebrate Yalda on the Winter Solstice but their traditions all adhere to the local religion which I feel little connection to. So instead I have decided to make our own traditions.

I thought I'd make a saffron cake or a saffron wreath. The round yellow cake would be a reminder of the sun.
I know we'll need some lighting of candles and I have an idea to decorate a candle with suns and we'll light it every night until the Equinox in March or maybe even until the Summer Solstice in June.
I would give the girls something but I fear another gift exchange would be too much.

Tired

It's 3:30 pm and the sun is gone. I think it still have a few more minutes before proper sunset, but the cloud cover is compact and it's raining and it's dark outside.

We're seeing a theatre recital with Isabel's class tonight. I had hoped to get something done on Isabel's dress for Christmas but it will have to wait.

Sofia's Christmas dress is all done. I'm working on the buttons for it and they'll be done tonight. Three more to go and then I have to sew them all on.


I'm not feeling at the top of my game either. I would like to dress in my jammies and crawl into bed early but I guess I'll have to buck up.

Countdown begins

I've started to think about Christmas food.

What to make myself, what to outsource to mum, grandma and auntie, what to buy ready made and what to skip this year.

This weekend the girls spent the night at their grandparents' and R and I got ahead on the Christmas shopping.
We bought the girls' presents and their new Christmas underwear. I got a cute top for Christmas Eve.

After that we went grocery shopping and I found a ham for Christmas. Usually they only sell the precooked hams that you glaze yourself, but I prefer to bake my ham.

My grandmother is making the lemon flavoured herring and I'll ask mum to make her curried herring and I'll make a roe herring.

There are cabbage dishes to make - I have red cabbage from last year in the freezer, grandma is making brown cabbage, and I'll do up a Savoy cabbage dish with cream and mustard that I've made a few times and love.

Dad made liver sausage that my parents and grandmother like, I'm not overly fond of it. Red beets to go with that.

I'll be making a Janson's Temptation which is a potato gratin with anchovies and onions and cream.

We are making a batch of meatballs this weekend and I'll get some mini sausages from the supermarket.

What else - a few kinds of bread. A large hunk of cheese. A vegetable egg dish - probably broccoli or sprouts. Boiled eggs. Gravlax perhaps or smoked salmon with mustard dressing.

My mum makes delicious eggs with anchovies and a cheese sauce - but I think we'll skip that this year.

For dessert we'll have rice porridge with raspberry sauce, and I plan to make a large batch of porridge so I can serve it plain (for dad) or mixed with yoghurt and cream as Rice a la Malta with vanilla infused Clementine wedges.

We usually gather around 3 pm for mulled wine or coffee and cookies to watch Donald Duck wish us all a Merry Christmas.
The Donald Duck thing was huge for me as a child since we rarely saw cartoons on tv during the rest of the year. That hour on Christmas Eve was sacred. I still really want to watch it.
It's short clips from various Disney-movies, Cinderella's dress is made by the mice and birds, Snow White and the Dwarves sing and dance, Lady and the Tramp eat spaghetti and meatballs. They also include a clip from a recent Disney or Pixar movie - last year it was from Tangled.

After it's finished at 4 pm we put out the food and eat all evening. Then it's time to do the dishes and then we open presents, usually some time after 6 pm.

I think it's doable. 19 days left.

Change of plans

Well, how did I do last night?

Most of my plans kind of went out the window when I came home to a very sad little Isabel who definitely didn't want to go to the stables. She's been hesitant about going for a few weeks and last night Rickard and she had a talk and what it boils down to is that we are letting her quit.
The classes were paid through January but she's been secretly crying because she doesn't want to ride. She even offered us money from her allowance to cover the fee we've already paid.

Instead Rickard took them all to the bath house for some swimming and playing and all was well. So I got two glorious hours to myself last night. I started the meat sauce and went upstairs to sew

So the results:
Bathe Sofia - she showered at the bathhouse
Meat sauce and spagetti - get sauce started and let simmer while bathing and puttering around the sewing room
Dishwasher
Laundry
Quilt the runner - I quilted a quarter of what I had left
Prep the Sophia bag and start sewing the lining
Napkins/placemats - start prepping
Find the Christmas/winter curtains
Dresses for the girls - decide on the patterns and take measurements to decide sizes
Big purse bag - pick fabrics
Double pocket purses - pick fabrics
Baguette clutch - pick fabrics
Dinner
Isabel shower
Bedtime - find Julkalendern on SVT.se for the girls
Do some sewing until 9:30 pm then catch something on the telly with R
Bedtime before 11 pm please

There weren't a lot of sewing. Instead I decided to catch up on some telly that Rickard doesn't want to watch.

Instead I plan to decide on dress patterns with the girls this afternoon. I have a meeting with Sofia's daycare teacher to discuss her progress and then I'm picking up Isabel from school and we're headed home to a lazy Friday.
I even managed to figure out a dinner that wouldn't need me to go to the shops. Enjoy your beans on toast :-)

Isabel needs to clean her room and Sofia too, and I need to get organised in my sewing room so we'll probably putter around upstairs until R comes home.

Dirty blog

Ok.

Quick ugly blog post about what to do tonight so I might retain it all

Bathe Sofia
Meat sauce and spagetti - get sauce started and let simmer while bathing and puttering around the sewing room
Dishwasher
Laundry
Quilt the runner
Prep the Sophia bag and start sewing the lining
Napkins/placemats - start prepping
Find the Christmas/winter curtains
Dresses for the girls - decide on the patterns and take measurements to decide sizes
Big purse bag - pick fabrics
Double pocket purses - pick fabrics
Baguette clutch - pick fabrics
Dinner
Isabel shower
Bedtime - find Julkalendern on SVT.se for the girls
Do some sewing until 9:30 pm then catch something on the telly with R
Bedtime before 11 pm please