Trees I have loved, well, one of them, at any rate

One of my friends just posted an analogy on Facebook "I love hugging tall people. It's like hugging a tree. A warm, friendly tree, which hugs back. ♥" This reminded me of MY tree, which grows in front of the house I grew up in. So I checked GoogleMaps, and much to my delight, it is still there (as of the summer the Street View Photos were taken). My tree is the one on the right, my sister's is the one on the left. They were both already quite tall when we moved into that house in 1978, but mine was taller. I am pleased to see that it has thrieved and is larger and fuller in the branches than ever. I lived there till 1986, and visited regularly till mom gave the house back to the bank when she moved to Australian in 1988 (it wasn't really possible to sell a house in Anchorage that year without losing heaps of money in the transaction, so many home owners simply let the banks foreclose on their mortgages when they moved away). I loved my tree very much, and enjoyed ducking under the thick branches on the right. Once inside there was a me-sized gap in the branches which made it possible to stand up and wrap my arms around the trunk, while it wrapped it branches around me, sharing a warm, friendly hug. I miss that tree and it gives me much joy to see it again.

So, yes, if one thinks of hugging tall people as being like hugging a warm friendly tree which hugs back, I know exactly what that feels like. I also like the part where the tall person picks me up off the ground. Hugs wherein my feet don't reach the floor are a good thing!

Another nice feature of that house is the view of the mountains. To get an idea of what it looked like, move the street view out onto Northern Lights Blvd (the street to the left of the house when looking at my tree) and turn to face east.

Learning Swedish, one song at a time

For much of my life the goal "learn another language" has been on my to-do list, but it hasn't managed to get high enough on that list to actually be accomplished. Oh, sure, I've made a few half-hearted attempts at that goal, but the've all petered out fairly quickly.

( the list of language classes I can remember taking )

Learning a language is still on my to-do list, and with my upcoming travels in Sweden I've got yet another opportunity. This time I'm starting it by learning Swedish, one song at a time. My friend archinonlive has been teaching me songs, and has expressed a willingness to teach more when I head up to visit him next month. Sunday's song was a lullabye ( Trollmor )

and Monday's song was ( Blinka lilla stjärna )

When my friend Lyn visited on Saturday to help me eat birthday cake she brought me a gift of a lovely leather covered notebook with what looks to be hand-made paper inside. I have decided to use it to write down the songs as I learn them, so I can keep them with me, and I will also share them here for your amusement. The hard part will be forcing my hand-writing to look nice enough to belong in such a pretty book.

Edited a secong time to add: He's now got a web page with the recordings on it, you can listen to Trolmor on that link or to Blinka lilla stjärna on that one.

Edited to add: should any of you want to hear these songs, let me know and I can e-mail you the file of him singing them, since he's been nice enough to record them for me.

cool video on making cloth buttons

Over on the web page of one of my friends from the Textile Forums there is a new post showing a video of how to turn a square of fabric into a cloth button, and the previous entry is a text description of the process.

Just passing it on for those few of you who would be interested but don't already read her blog (and if you are reading any Medieval Textile blogs you probably have that one on your list already).

today's song

Today's Swedish lesson is a Dance Tune, which he thinks is Medieval ( Ulven Raven Haren )

He promises to teach me the dance when I get to Sweden.