Yum!

I have just made the best bread ever! Sourdough... plain white bread with a nice crust, soooo good!

We have a LOT of snow at the moment, I am not sure if you can see the 70 cm of snow, around 30 inches Stephen tells me. Lots of snow shoveling for people who are not renting apartments and has a landlord that looks after all of that.

Today was the day for the annual christmas tree hunt, the one for the indoor tree that is. Yes we have trees both inside and outside =) Outside trees normally are put up at the start of December and are only decorated with the lights, it really lightens up the dark winter evenings. The indoor ones traditionally on the day before Christmas eve (23rd) but I think a lot of people do it earlier, then you can enjoy it for longer and get into the Christmas spirit. We put ours up and decorated it together, after encouraging Stephen a bit. But the day was not full of all happy campers, you will see why later.
We are getting ready for the big hunt, Stephen is here to but for some reason today I didnt take that many photos of him as I do otherwise, not sure why. Anyway, brother and father leading the way to the Christmas trees. I fell over and started laughing...
... a combination of not being able to get up on my own with the camera in my hand and the first tree dad picked our, what a sad piece of Christmas tree, we did not get that one...

Hillbillie Emma after finishing off a fine piece of pine...
Here we are on the way back with the catch, I carry camera gear, dad carries the important stuff!
It is in the car and ready to go home, so far so good. We took two cars because we thought 4 people and 2 Christmas trees wouldnt fit into one car, lucky we did!
Because this is what happened next, oopsie, a bit too close to the edge and dads little blue wheelbarrow (our nick name for his car) got bogged in lots of snow.
Bye bye little car, we will come back and pick you up tomorrow with a tractor, the tractor owner was busy eating Christmas lunch and couldnt come and drag you up today. We tried our best from both ends, if only Jeff was here with his new Territory! I promise, we did what we could. And we found out that our Passat does fit 4 people and 2 Christmas trees! Nothing bad that doesnt bring anything good, direct translation of an old Swedish saying, it may or may not make sense in English...
Here it is, our first Christmas tree, isnt it pretty!
My favourite decorations, little mushrooms, the real ones that looks like this are poisonous so you shouldnt eat them! But they look pretty.
Merry Christmas and I hope you all get a prosperous New Year!

I guess it is time

I have always said everything has gone so well with the move over here, we both have good jobs and life is good in general. I have kind of been waiting for something to go poopsies because it has just been too easy in a way (touch wood!).

Well I think the time has come for something to not work out the way we want it, and it is the #@!! house and the new bidders I am talking about. I have been really angry and annoyed about the whole thing today, not happy at all! But I am starting to let go of it now, not that we have lost the bidding just yet but it feels kind of hopeless. But at least we can make sure we bid to the bitter end to make the others pay as much as possible =) Bad karma I know but I cant help it. And probably there is something better for us out there but I still feel sad that this wont be ours. We havent decided just how much more it is worth to us, mainly because we thought we had it nicely wrapped up in a box for us, before the other !@#%'s decided to join the party.

But I am starting to let go of it. And there are more important things in life than an old shabby house in Helmut, I just have to remind myself sometimes. I wonder when I will have let go completely...?

Sorry

I am still alive and we have not bought the house. It is snow and winter and cold outside.

This is Wilson

Here is the "cake" the girls got for me on the fantastic spa weekend we had.

Winter!

So today it has been snowing, and snowing, and snowing! We drove back from Dörarp today and it started snowing along the way and it only got worse, we were not driving very fast at all.

This weekend we have done a lot. We went to mum and dads on Saturday, and while me and mum made the traditional christmas sausage Stephen went out with dad and shot the outdoor christmas tree. They actually came back with two trees, one for mum and dad and one for us. It is a Swedish tradition to have an outdoor christmas tree with lights or maybe put some lights up outside at somewhere else in the garde, the apple tree or somewhere else.

Then Jonas arrived to Dörarp and me and mum started making gingerbread while Jonas ate the dough while watching me and mum.

In the evening we went for a traditional christmas smörgåsbord, called julbord in Swedish, christmas table if translated literally. My grandparents and dads sister Kerstin was there as well and we had a nice evening with some really good food and I was the lucky driver! Mainly because I dont really appreciate snaps in the same way as most of the others do.

Early today we spoke to Jeff and Pauline on Skype and also got to say hi to Neville and Mama Lea. Skype is great! It is almost like we met for real even though we were almost as far away from each other that is physically possible. It is really nice to be able to speak and also see each other.

After brekkie we headed back to Älmhult to look this house again, this time with mum and dad. Thats when it started snowing, and it snowed heaps and heaps and heaps. The house was just as good as last time, next step is a building inspection and then we will decide on how much money we will offer them and also go to the bank and borrow a bit of money, hopefully. There is a lot of renovations to be done but I think the end result will be awesome!

After looking at the house we went back to our place to have some lunch and reflect a bit over the house. And now it is Sunday evening again and time for bed soon. But first some pictures and videos from the weekend.

Oh and by the way, last week I made saffron buns, it is a tradition in Sweden for christmas, they are called lussekatter.

And another bit of information, today is the first Sunday of Advent. In Sweden we light a candle for every Sunday of Advent. The first candle 4 weeks before christmas, and then three weeks before (the 2nd of Advent) we light candle no 2, two weeks before we then light candle 1, 2, and 3, and the Sunday before Christmas we light the last candle. You will see on the photo what I mean, otherwise I recommend google or Wikipedia =)

First of all is a movie of us driving when it was snowing cats and dogs... And as always the pictures are in whatever order...

It had been snowing during the night, Jonas car had no snow on it the evening before...

The first candle of Advent was lit when we had brekkie

Dad and Grandpa choosing which snaps they want

Lots and lots of gingerbread cookies, I made 1.7 kgs of dough, will halve the recipe next year

Dad and his moose antlers that he finally can add to the collection

The buffet almost ready for the guests

A bit of glögg for starters

Proud christmas tree hunters

Sausage making

Saffron buns from last weekend

BTW

Yesterday was our 5th anniversary... And in 6 months we are getting married!!! At this stage in time we have 2 churches and 2 reception venues booked... And I have my dress of course.

Winter in Älmhult

Winter has come to Helmut and I love it! I walked to work yesterday and today because it is too cold to ride the bike, the gears have frozen, and I couldnt be bothered digging out the car every morning. Look at the photos and you will understand why. On Wednesday I could only open the drivers door, the rest had frozen shut, unlucky for the guy I was giving a lift to work, but he was pretty happy curling up in the boot =)

Anyway, I brought my new compact camera that Stephen bought me in US and took some photos. Unfortunately something is a bit suss with it when I transfer the pictures to the computer so I havent edited them at all, hence the slight blue tinge to it. I think it is also due to the fact that the sun still wasnt up when I took them that makes them look at bit blueish. But it will still give you a pretty good idea of winter in Helmut I think. The last photo is the view from my desk at work.

Snowstorm!

Or at least the light version. It has been snowing the whole day, since I got up this morning. I was gonna drive to Ljungby tonight but I decided not to because it is terrible weather for driving. And at the same time a perfect excuse for a glass of red on the sofa in front of the tv.

Two things that has happened to me today was quite funny I think. At work this morning someone asked me if I was pregnant and kind of patted my belly...hrmmm no, not that I know of, I answered, I am just fat... He felt a bit awkward and apologised again later on. Luckily I am not that bothered with these things, I kind of think it is funny, there are a lot worse things that could happen. I should have told him that he owes me lunch though, but there is always a next time as this is the third time I have been asked =) And how am I ever gonna fit into that wedding dress...

And after work I went to the bottleshop to get some wine for my guests tomorrow. The old lady at the checkout asked me for ID and luckily I brought it. I said to her with a smile, I think I am old enough, yes you are, she responded, you just look very young. I have now gotten used to it, I used to be a bit annoyed because I want to look my age, mainly for people to take me seriously at work. But I feel that I have built a lot of confidence already at work and it doesnt bother me that much anymore which is a good thing. I wonder if it is working in Sweden that has helped the confidence out or if it is that I actually have a bit of experience these days. Maybe it is a combination of both.

No matter what I feel that it is now red wine time, and maybe a bite to eat.

Sensitive readers beware!!!

The strong men carrying the elk (or moose or whatever) to the trailer.


The proud hunter who shot the elk, he isnt normally this serious, just when there is a camera in front of him, he actually is very funny

His name is put on the list

Skinning the poor thing, it was only a young one

The hunters talking about their day while celebrating with a whiskey

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

Washing up a bit

Just one more...

The deadly bullet

Almost the whole team

Exciting days!

Ok, so we have lived in Sweden for just over 6 months now, I know, it is crazy! Anyway, we moved to this place in August and have lived here for just over three months. I would be lying if I said I am a clean freak but I have used our vacuum cleaner a few times, I might not be the worlds largest user of domestic vacuum cleaners but I do use it from time to time. My vacuum cleaner is a pretty good one, Miele, German engineering, not a bagless one but it has this little warning function that if the bag is full and it is starting to loose sucking power (or whatever it is called) there is a little red thingy on it that indicates that it is time to change bag. That is IF there is a vacuum bag in it. During these three months the red thing hasnt shown up but as I told you before I am not a big fan of vacuuming so I am not that surprised thatthere was still room in the bag for another round. So today I was gonna be a good girl and vacuum and mop the floors, but in the bed room it sounded like I vacuumed something that didnt belong in the vacuum cleaner bag so I decided to open it up and see what it was, and was everything but delighted to see that there was no bag in there. Crap! And I hate vacuum bags and dust and the whole insinde of the damn thing was full of it, yuck. I thought to myself bye bye my little vacuum cleaner... Luckily the German engineers decided to put another filter in there for whatever reason, I guess the reason was for when idiots use it without putting a bag in there. A few swear words later and a couple of plastic bags to cover my hands when cleaning up the mess, plus a trip to the shop I have now finished vacuuming and mopping the floors.

I will end this post with a little warning for what is to come in this blog, there will be hunters, a dog, blood, and a large dead animal...