firsts

You know what I ate for the first time [knowingly] in my life?



Banana split! Greg made this one with a fried banana. I ate the whole thing and kind of enjoyed it. Although I don't see my future self going after a banana split anytime soon.

Shortly after my first banana split experience, I partook in a dinner among Swedes which included a giant bowl of ice cream as dessert. The giant bowl included: vanilla ice cream, banana slices, little meringues, and chocolate sauce.

This is going nowhere. Bye!

Sportlov, days 4 & 5

Still just sporting along. Or not, but enjoying myself nevertheless.

Thursday:

1. Oiling my dance shoes. I feel like that is not the proper expression for the activity in which you put oil on your leather shoes. Maybe I should write "conditioning" my shoes. I don't know, but I did it. My shoes had been looking pretty dry, so it was needed.

2. Not walking Greg to the office, because I walked almost there to meet up for lunch. Luckily it is Thursday so I got pea soup and pancakes.

3. Knitting. I am really liking the tie in linen stitch. Plus it will be reversible, depending on whether Greg wants to be sporting (YES, sportlov pun) a more textured look or a more flat look. Since I finished all of the good podcasts, I've been watching some Swedish television, which I think counts as language study.

4. Plus Duolingo. Which really hates me. Low bars forever.

5. Laundry. All. the. laundry.

Friday was more of the same, but noteworthy are:

1. Knitting. I finished almost the whole thing while watching movies/series of Jane Austen novels.

2. And I finally did some more fitness, since I skipped Wednesday and Thursday.

Sportlov, day 3

New record today! I saw five dogs on my walk from Greg's office back home! With the exception of the stretch when I was walking on ice covered with a bit of water to make it extra treacherous, I was really on the look-out, so I feel certain I didn't miss any sightings.

Wednesdays sporting, list style:

1. Walking Greg to the office. And walking back home, while counting dogs.

2. Boiling eggs for lunch. Everything feels like sports when it is sportlov!

4. Duolingo. I did twelve lesson practices to try to strengthen my skills. It only raised bars for one category. This is getting ridiculous.

3. Knitting(:
And un-knitting):
And starting over with knitting(:

I finished Greg's tie, but it was about 5cm short of the recommendation. Buying an entire ball of yarn for 5cm seems silly, so I had him try it on. It turns out that the front part is a bit wider than both of us would prefer. The seed stitch of the tie was also quite stretchy, which made it frustratingly difficult to tie. In a moment of clear sensibility I realized that if it wasn't working, it wasn't going to be worn. So the entire thing got pulled out. Sort of sad, but at least it is just a necktie and not a whole sweater.

I did some research (ahem, googling) and found out that in general, knitting is just stretchy. And a seed stitch is probably one of the less stretchy types of stitch you could do. My options were to do a seed stitch using smaller needs, which would certainly require an additional ball of yarn. Or to change the stitch. I'm trying out a linen stitch right now. I really like how it looks, and it seems much tighter than the seed stitch. So we shall see!

Knitting and Reading; Reading and Knitting

My sportlov posts have made me realise that I am doing knitting and reading. I hadn't knit anything in a long time, so that is really the new element here. And this means I have now reached eligibility for the Yarn Along blog link-up, which I had previously only observed from a distance.

Photographic evidence of what I'm reading and what I'm knitting. Not pictured: my glee to have stumbled upon a legitimate reason to join such a lovely blog linkup.

Sportlov, day 2

What kind of sporting did you do on Tuesday Meghan?!

I'm so glad you asked.

1. Walking Greg to the office. I once again enjoyed the longer route through the woods home. I saw two dogs and a man on his balcony in a robe smoking a cigarette.

2. Duolingo. I can't keep my bars up, and I'm trying really hard to fix that this week. Here is an actual duolingo sentence:

Vargen hoppar över stolen.

It means:

The wolf jumps over the chair.

This is not the only gem I've gotten.

3. Knitting.

4. While listening to podcasts.

5. Fitness for core strength.

6. Cooking dinner. There is usually a pretty long turnaround time between when I find a recipe online and when I actually make it. However, when you have had an idea to make tomato soup in the back of your mind for months, and then a recipe that looks super good appears, there is just a one day turnaround. I'm happy to say that you would not regret it if you made this tomato soup. Top it with some avocado slices and you won't regret that either.

7. Reading.

This day was pretty much exactly like yesterday only different and better. Because, Tuesday!

Sportlov, day 1

It is sportlov this week. That means the sporting holiday. For all those living in Sweden who are called to the mountains for skiing and sport. Sportlov occurs on different weeks in different regions of Sweden so that the ski resorts have a nice, steady flow of sporters.

I'm not at a ski resort this week, but that won't stop me from compiling a list of my sporting activities for each day of this holiday. Here's Monday's lineup:

1. Walking Greg to the office. This consisted of exactly what it sounds like, a half hour of walking and talking with my husband. This was a nice return to our former daily routine. Plus on my way back home I took a slightly longer route and walked through the woods. I saw four dogs.

2. Knitting. I'm working on a knit tie for Greg. Jimmy Fallon is wearing them all the time, and I think they look so good. Hopefully I can make Greg's look similarly good.

3. Light household cleaning. Dishes. Sweeping. You know.

4. Podcast listening. This happens simultaneously with sports #2 and 3. I am super into the Invisibilia podcast right now. And I've been doing some This American Life and Radiolab.

5. Swedish studies with Duolingo.

6. Reading. I am on an Ian McEwan kick. I recently finished Sweet Tooth and then reserved The Children Act from the library. When it was available to pick up, I managed to also borrow two additional books of his. So it is a thing.

7. Fitness. I figured I better list the actual sporting last to give the appropriate impression of my sports list. I've been doing videos from Fitness Blender to strengthen my core. It is useful in life and dancing to have a strong core, but usually I'm so physically tired at the end of a day of dancing that I couldn't possibly think about doing anything else. So during vacation week I am dedicating a little bit of every day to core fitness. Ta Da.