Holidays in the Sura home

December 30, 2019

Good Morning! I really hope you guys are doing well and that you had a wonderful holiday celebration, whether it being Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever. This year we decided to stay home just the two of us (three with Thor), no fuzz, just relax, snuggle, eat food, play board games, play with Thor, go for walks and watch movies. Nothing special but that is very ok with us:)

Jim decided to work from home on Christmas Eve, so I made us a nice breakfast with bread, different kinds of cheese, mandarins, juice, coffee and rice pudding. In Sweden it’s common to eat rice porridge around Christmas but that’s not something I feel like making from scratch, so a couple of years ago I started to buy rice pudding (which kinda tastes the same, just a bit sweeter) as a substitute for that. 
While my hubby was working, I prepped the afternoon food, cleaned up in the apartment and started the dishwasher. We went for a long walk with Thor, such a lovely warm sunny day. At 2pm we were skyp’ing with my parents and my super pregnant sister. In Sweden we celebrate Christmas the 24th so they were kinda in the end of their celebration, just watching some tv while digesting the food haha. 
At 3pm, just like every year, we sat down to watch Donald Duck. I’ve written about this before, it’s something we all do in Sweden, a 61 year old tradition. 
And then we cooked the rest of the food. Very simple and not too much this year. Ham, potato gratin, beet salad, boiled eggs, dark bread, cheese and “prince” sausages. Never making meatballs on Christmas again (we got food poisoning 2014) and I couldn’t find Abba herring, and for some reason we didn’t have anything green on the table this year, but I think our dinner table turned out pretty good. 
At night we just played games, gave our gifts to each other, played with Thor and his new squeaky toy he got from Santa and listened to music. 

On Christmas Day, I once again made us a nice breakfast and after a calm and long morning, we drove to Tod’s Point in Old Greenwich for a walk on the beach. Seems like everyone else had the same idea, parking lot was full. But it was very nice, lots of kids and dogs running around. We walked around the whole island, about 3 miles, Thor did so well. Back home we made biscuits (aka pop the package, put them on the pan and cook in oven for 15 minutes hahah) and had leftovers from the day before. I can’t really remember what else we did that day haha. Just listened to xmas music, Thor got another toy to play with, I was figuring out how to use my new toy that I got from Thor (Samsung Active2 Smartwatch), we face-timed with Jims mom, Annelise and little Sam, we watched basketball on tv and played games. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

Jim went to work on Thursday, worked from home on Friday and on Saturday we brought Thor over to Daniela, Gareth and baby George’s house in Rowayton. We had an amazing lunch of Italian pasta with meatballs, some baby snuggles, played fetch with T about a million times, was served an apple pie and a traditional English trifle that Gareth was excited about (G is very good in the kitchen), played UNO and after a whole day there, we were all pretty beat, Thor didn’t even care about his dinner when we came home, he just went straight to sleep all night long haha. 

It’s quite nice to not having to do much on the holidays. Sure, I would have loved to see our families and relatives, but this year we kinda recently did (not the most fun gathering since it was for a funeral, but still) and I’m going to Sweden to meet the new baby in about a month. We’ve had a tough year and even if we were on vacation in November, J and I really needed some time alone. 

Thanksgiving 2019

November 29, 2019 

I hope all you Americans had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. We sure did. We made absolute no plans this year other than cook a ourselves a nice meal.
We started the day with watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV where  my friend Jessica (one of the dancers in Hastdans pa Hovdala) was the P in Parade in the very beginning, how fun! Before we started cooking, I was skyping with my sister for awhile. It’s getting closer and closer to her due date now, exciting! Jim prepared and started cooking the turkey around noon. This year we went with a smaller one, “only” 5 lbs haha. I made mashed potatoes, cooked some carrots and peas, prepped cranberry and biscuits, J made gravy and stuffing and we were eating around 2:30. Everything turned out absolutely amazing.
After all that food, we sat down to watch the Chicago Bears win for once, the boys took a nap and then we continued to watch football mixed with other Christmas related stuff on other channels. And we also ate pumpkin pie of course:)
Super relaxed Thanksgiving and it was perfect. That’s what this holiday is about; do nothing, be grateful for everything we’ve got and spend time with each other….and watch football haha. 

J is working from home today, aka not doing a whole lot cause nothing is going on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In the afternoon we are driving over to Danielas. We haven’t seen them in awhile due to everything that has happened lately. I’m sure baby George has grown a lot since last time I saw him. 

We decided to give Thor a plate this year. He is normally not allowed to eat human food because of his sensitive stomach, but on Thanksgiving and Christmas we feel that it is ok to give him some.
Turkey day is his favorite day all year:)
But look at that sad plate hahha, like mini mouse bites, but he enjoyed it

We stared eating pumpkin pie on Tuesday already. J went to pick it up then in order to avoid big crowds and to be sure he really got one this year. It’s delicious 

Midsommar away again

June 26, 2019

As I wrote in last post, we ended up celebrating Midsommar a day late. Thor had a spa appointment at noon on Saturday so after dropping him off we went home and I created a wreath of the daisies we had bought a few days earlier while Jim cut apples in pieces. I fixed my hair a little, changed clothes and made an apple pie.
We packed a picnic bag and drove to Cove Island. We found a spot in the shade. It was a bit cloudy and windy, but it felt Swedish haha. After awhile, we drove back home and not long after we could go pick Thor up at the spa. We had asked for a short haircut but leave a little in the face, but his face was as short as the rest, oh well, it’s hot outside and it’ll grow back. He kinda looks like a tiny fox or more like a cat now, not so much like a Thor, but whatever, he’s still cute.
For dinner we had grilled salmon and potatis with dill on everything, our apartment smelled like my grandma’s house back when I was a kid.
We grabbed drinks and took our exhausted puppy up to the rooftop and watched the sunset. 

We had a perfect Midsummer celebration! I’m very happy with how the day turned out. Midsummer is the one day a year when I really want to be in Sweden. The hours of light in a day during summer is one of my favorite things in life. When I was a kid I never pulled the curtains down when I went to sleep. I loved waking up when the sun hit my face in the morning. You don’t get as many hours of sleep during summer months but it’s worth it. On Midsummer, the sun doesn’t really go down, I love it!
This was my 9th (!!) Midsommar away from Sweden. Every year I tell my husband the same thing “Maybe next year we can celebrate Midsommar in Sweden”. I said it this year again and we’ll see:) 

Thor celebrated Midsommar on Friday when he was still fluffy

Nervous for nothing?

May 20, 2019

On Thursday I took the train into Manhattan. I arrived at Grand Central and walked over to Dunkin Donuts on 2nd Ave. I have not been at that dunkin since we lived two blocks away from it back in 2013. On the train ride in I felt a little strange, I figured it was that I needed breakfast so I ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a small decaf coffee cause I was afraid that caffeine would make me feel even more strange. I wanted to sit in the Dag Hammarskjold park but there were some Asian thing going on. Yellow t-shirts, Asians all over the place, people speaking in microphones, a Swedish flag in the middle of the crowd (huh?) and a marching band playing. So instead I walked across the street to a tiny park where J and I have had many breakfasts at before. After awhile the park was filled with mini alcohol bottle drinking men and women and the park smelled like “funny smoke”. I now got a headache so I left. The Swedish Consulate was just around the corner, I was 25 minutes early but I didn’t mind. Getting a new passport was quick and easy. Now I have to wait two weeks and then go back in and pick it up.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was nervous for that appointment if I had to do the treatment and I thought about rescheduling. Nervous for the side effects. It kept me awake every night in Paris. What if I throw up on the train, what if I feel like absolute shit and have to take a photo at the consulate looking like crap, what if I get all the side effects there is and I just can’t get myself to Manhattan what would happen to my passport then? What if, what if, what if… And then the nurse at the ER told me that I probably wouldn’t get any side effect at all and I was more calm on Thursday. So I guess I freaked out for nothing. But I have never had chemotherapy before. Just because I’ve never been allergic to any medicines and stuff in the past doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be affected by the chemo. 

I felt mostly fine and I ended up having an amazing day to myself in the city. After the appointment, I walked up town, got a latte at a Parisian place (I wasn’t ready to let go of Paris yet I guess) and then walked to Central Park. Eventually I found myself a spot on the grass where I could enjoy my coffee and read my book. After a little while I decided to walk through the park to midtown, buy a make-your-own salad and walk down to Bryant Park. I probably looked like a lunatic on Fifth Avenue when I tried to walk close to the wall of the buildings and hide from the sun. It was soooo hot out and the sun was strong, but after the treatment I can’t really be in the sun (my cells was killed so my skin had no protection) so I didn’t want to take my sweater off and I had forgot my sunscreen. Bryant Park was PACKED! People walking in circles trying to find one chair or a spot to sit on. I decided to walk to Grand Central, take the next train back and eat part of the salad on the train instead. I was home by 2pm. 

6:30 am this morning I had another blood test done. Waiting for the results and tomorrow afternoon we have an appointment with our doctor. Hopefully I won’t need another treatment. 

The building inspired by a trashcan 

last day in Sweden

This week passed by pretty quickly. It’s almost 9am now, I’ve been awake for a few hours already but didn’t get up until 7:30, took a shower and now I’m doing stuff on my laptop. I have barely touched my computer since we got here. Our flight isn’t until 6:30 pm tonight, but we have to take a train to Copenhagen (it takes about 2.5 hours) and you never know with the trains here, so we want to leave somewhat early. My parents are at work now but my mom will come home around noon and drive us to the station. 

We’ve had an amazing trip. It really did go fast thought, feels like we just got here. But I feel like we got some good quality time with my parents and my dad got a good birthday surprise and that’s why we came here. 

Jim is still asleep. I kinda want to start to pack our bags, but I have to wait a little bit until I go wake him up. At least one of us should have a good sleep (I feel like I haven’t slept at all). Thank you Sweden, we’ll see you again…some time in the future:)