kareina

I didn't get to go to Cudgel War, but I have kept myself busy enough not to mind too much.

Monday morning I did laundry from the event and washed the pavilion floor and hung it up to dry, then hung out with David and accomplished a few things around the house. After he went back to the apartment I did my workout for the day and then some reading of archaeological literature that will be good to have read before my interview.

Tuesday morning I accomplished more things around the house and did my workout, and in the afternoon Gunnar came over to do archery with David while I carved on my soapstone pot. Then I went in for Phire practice, and after practice Julia came over to hang out, and Sara-Olivia and David fixed up the second hand violin she had bought so that it is usable.

Wednesday morning I started to do my workout first thing, decided I was much too hungry, and had breakfast instead, with the plan of getting back to it later in the day. Instead I spent the first half of the day curled up on the couch reading fiction (and eating for much of that time, but at least it was in Norwegian (till I finished that book) and then Swedish (till I finished that book). And the popcorn had dried nettle powder in the butter (I love that!)

Thursday morning I took the car in for its annual inspection (it turns out that a spring in the suspension is broken and needs replacing), and then David and I went to his parent's house. Their village was having its annual party/bbq, so we went out early and helped out a bit with set up and enjoyed hanging out with his siblings and their families before the party started. One of his brothers and his family weren't there, but that still left lots of us: both of David's parents, four of their kids, plus a partner each, plus six grand children. So we made up nearly half of the party (there are only 11 houses in the village (which is about 45 minutes south of Luleå, and half an hour north of Skellefteå), and most of them are only two people per house).

All of the neighbours brought their own grills. On our grill they cooked moose burgers, and mine was so tasty I ate a second, even though I really didn't need it. But yum! After the food we divided randomly into teams for silly games. One station involved hitting a puck with a hammer hard enough to slide it along a trough, with increasing points for each zone along the trough, but, if you hit it so hard it fell of the end, you got zero points. Another involved tossing rainboots towards marked circles on the ground. but the most fun and challenging of them was the one where we had to fill in a grid of letters to make 8 different 4-letter words, each in a category: a barn-yard animal, a colour, a type of fruit, the capitol of an European country, a type of tree, a music group, a kind of fish, and a bird. No one in my group could think of a fruit that has a four-letter name for a really long time. We came up with one for each of the other categories, but the four left over letters were totally useless, so we were certain we had something wrong. eventually we came up with LIME, so we took letters from one of the other words and started trying again. Eventually the person in charge of the station decided that we had taken quite long enough and should give up so that the next group could come try. Afterwards I went and looked at the solution. We had had five of them correct at one time or another (LAMM, LILLA, GRAN, ABBA, MÖRT) but we had put in RIGA for the capitol when it should have been PRAG, and I had never even heard of the bird ORRE. Of course when we put in LIME, that meant that we lost LILLA (which was correct), so then we tried GRÖN, which meant losing GRAN (which I didn't think we should lose, since the party was hosted by the Granbergs, and they devised the games). If I had only remembered KIWI before we ran out of time we could have lost KORP, and then perhaps someone else in the group would have noticed that we had the letters needed for ORRE. At one point we had tried RIPA for the bird, which is close, there isn't so much difference between a ptarmigan and a grouse--they are both pretty tasty. But in a game where you have scrambled letters you need to sort out they are not interchangeable.

After the party the family (minus the three littlest kids and one of their moms) gathered in the house around the table for fika till after midnight, when David and I went home.

Friday I had a quiet day at home--did some research reading, some embroidery on my 12th century shoes, read some email, and stayed up till 02:00.

Today (Saturday) I slept in--didn't wake up till nearly 11:00, whereupon I went outside to put down the awnings, and, while there, decided to water the berries and vegetable patch and eat the smultrons and strawberries that were ready, at which point David arrived, so we went in and I ate a quick breakfast and back outside to do some yard work--adding more paths between the black currant bushes. Then I had a quick lunch, after which I baked a crumble from the red currants we had picked while in the yard, and while it baked I picked some kale and beet greens and combined them with egg yolk and spices, whipped the egg whites, combined it all and put it into a sesame seed lined pan to bake while he mowed the lawn, then our friend Barbara arrived to dig up some of our extra berry bushes for her property, and we went to her place, helped her plan them, had dinner and played games. On the way home we stopped by the grocery store really quick (getting there with just enough time before they closed), put gas in the car, and were finally home by 23:30.

Since then I have updated finances, paged down a bit on FB, chatted with a friend hearing his adventures at Cudgel, and typed this. Now I should do my yoga and get to sleep, since it is almost 02:30. Perhaps tomorrow will have time for that workout I didn't finish on Wednesday as well as more of that reading I need to do.