boogaj

Swedish Christmas

Here's my holiday table.  I took a picture going the other direction where you could see both trees lit up, but I'm afraid that the "candlelight" setting on my camera requires a *very* steady hand -- something I didn't have after 2 cups of glogg (more on glogg later. . .)

And here's our smorgasbord (did I spell that right, Pete?)  Swedish Christmas is heavy on the meat and starch.  From top to bottom we have: traditional rice pudding with lingon berries, jello salad, Swedish meatballs, potato sausage, ham, scalloped potatoes, limpa (Swedish rye) and cardamom tea rolls. 

Before dinner there were lots of snacks including Bond-Ost (a caraway seeded cheese) served with knacke bread (hardtack -- like rye krisp kind of).  Oh -- and Sil (pickled herring).   And of course there was glogg!  Glogg is a mulled red wine that you drink warm and it is so good!

The next morning we had cardamom braid and coffee cake from the Swedish Bakery -- yum!

It was lovely to have Pete's mom here for a few days and Pete was wonderful (& so was Maddie).  I will leave it at that, other than to say that I will not be having Swedish Christmas here next year.  I'm glad that I did it for Pete's mom's sake though.  Maybe her daughters will step up next year.

Swedish food resources:

• Swedish Bakery -- I had to have all the baked goods shipped to me from Swedish Bakery because there was bad weather the day we were supposed to go up to Chicago.  Everything arrived here in great condition -- well packed and fresh!  You can see pictures of most of their baked goods on the website.  I ordered cardamom braids, Andersonville coffee cake, limpa, cardamom tea rolls and cinnamon bread.  Yum!
• Wickstrom's -- Wickstrom's is also in Andersonville (in Chicago) and they are a Swedish deli.  You can get the Bond-Ost, Knacke Bread, Sil, Glogg mix and tons of other things.  I haven't ordered online from them, but I have shopped there in person and they are wonderful! 

Little Witch!

Here's my little witch! It was a damp night for trick-or-treating, but she had fun. And the girl has a bag of candy that she will *never* be able to finish. In fact, she cares so little for chocolate, that she hasn't even looked at her candy today. At times like this I wonder -- Who's daughter is she?!?!?

Big ol' Pumpkin

The last few years we have gone to a somewhat local farm/pumpkin patch each year before Halloween.  This year we have been so busy that we really didn't get our act together.  But yesterday we found a little time to stop by the little pumpkin patch where my family used to get their pumpkins when I was a child.  Ah. . . memories  :)

And I want to say thank you to Lisa!  She sent me this lovely lace weight from Joslyn's Fiber Farm.  I think it might be Spider's Web?  I didn't have an email address or url for you Lisa, but thank you!! 

Now what to make with it?  It's lovely and soft and there appears to be a lot of it. (2500 yrds if it is Spider's Web!)  I guess it's time to pull out my favorite lace book -- A Gathering of Lace.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Surgery

Well, I finally went to the "big city" to see a specialist and I have to have my tonsils out -- at 35!  I'm not looking forward to that.  Any other adutls out there who have had a tonsillectomy?  I hear there is a lot of pain afterwards. 

In other news. . .

Maddie turned 5 on Sunday!  I really can't believe she is already 5.

While riding in the car up to the hospital, I did a bit of knitting on my Ruffles scarf.  Not much progress on Ingeborg this past week due to the party preparations and such.  I did get a couple of new knitting books in the mail though!  I'll be reviewing them soon!

Maddie's Almost 5!

Maddie turns 5 at the end of October and she wanted a Halloween themed party.  So today while I was sulking because Renegade got rained out (or at least I'm guessing it did -- it was raining so badly here that we didn't attempt to go), I made the invites for Maddie's party. 

I printed up the details on white cardstock and attached that to some purple cardstock I had cut to match some envelopes I had.  Then I made all those little orange squares, stamped them and attached them.  I stamped the envelopes to match too.  Yeah for papercrafting! 

Aren't the stamps cute?  I sell rubberstamps -- did you know that?  I've had my stamping website since long before I started a knitting blog.  (Oh, it's www.stampingonline.com if you want to check it out.)  And I used to love stamping.  After a good chunk of my day started to revolve around the business aspect of stamping, I really lost interest.  I guess I saw all those stamps as work instead of crafty fun.  So it's kind of cool to do some stamping and enjoy it!

I have the best husband!

I have the best husband in the whole world!  Since this whole mess came to my attention last weekend when I saw the magazine, I have been severly stressed out.  My emotions have been all over the place.  But my husband has been right by my side, being super supportive.  Thank you Booga P!!!

And thank you to everyone who has written to me, via comments and email!  And a big thank you to Kerrie, also of MagKnits fame, for helping me out!  I am turning this over to a lawyer and I'm going to try to get back to my normal life before my head explodes from the stress!

Weekend plans -- a trip to The Fold with Theresa for some *much* needed fiber therapy!