Silent Sunday
Weekend Coffee Share …and future goals
Can I offer you some coffee? Or tea?
It’s been a busy and inspiring week, I could use a coffee break and a good conversation! It is so good to see you! How are you?
If we have coffee this weekend I would tell you that I’ve made a big decision this week. I’ve decided that the next step in my career, after finishing the class in Social emotional difficulties and special needs education that I am taking right now, will be working towards a Degree of Master of Science, Main Field of Study: Educational Work. I am planning on working towards the degree over a period of three years, while working as a kindergarten teacher at the same time. I am very interested in special needs education, and at some point I will further my knowledge more in that field, but I’ve came to the conclusion that I should start with a Masters of education. I am excited about this.
What is the weather like in your corner of the world? It’s been a somewhat cloudy and rainy week here, with the exception of some cool, clear nights in the beginning of the week, with some sights of northern lights in my area. (I was sound asleep every night, and missed the northern lights.) This weekend is promising some sunshine. Sunshine equals bike rides, and there will be plenty of that this weekend, mixed in with some lesson planning for work, and some school work. It’s going to be a fabulous weekend, I can feel it! I have not been super active in the blogging world lately, but I do enjoy visiting your blogs when I get a chance. I very much enjoy being a part of the blogging community, sometimes a more active part, and when life is busy a little less active, but I am still here!
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Weekend Coffee Share – Life is good
Can I offer you some coffee? Or tea? It’s a beautiful fall weekend in my part of Sweden, around 50F/10C. We’ve had a mostly cloudy week, with some rain. The trees are still glorious with golden yellow, and orange colours. Even though I am a single mom of two, working full time, I make time for walking in nature every day. I need that recharge of my mental batteries on a daily basis. Did you have a chance to enjoy nature this week? What is the weather like in your corner of the world?
Work and school have been great this week, very rewarding. My family is in good health. My projects are going in the right direction. I even started a new little project, crocheting a winter hat for a baby boy (not yet born.) I’ll post photos when the project is done, after gifting the hat to my pregnant friend.
My heart is filled with gratitude. After sleeping in to almost 7am (!) I deep cleaned my entire home this morning. (7am I almost midday for me. LOL. I was extremely tired yesterday.) The weeks laundry is done. Grocery shopping taken cared of, I had groceries for the next three weeks delivered on Thursday. I’m definitely ready for a fabulous weekend! I have school books to read, but I am ahead of my schedule, nothing is really pressing. I’m going to spend time with my children this weekend, ride my bike, do some blogging, and prepare healthy meals for next week. Perhaps I’ll rearrange some plants around the house. How is your week?
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Silent Sunday
Weekend Coffee Share
There is a lot of reading (for school) going on at my house this weekend, but I would be most happy to take a little break and enjoy a beverage with you. Let’s sit here by the window. The leaves on the birch and aspen trees outside display such lovely fall colours. We do not eat a lot of candy at our house, but this weekend my daughter and I are splurging a little, my son is visiting his dad and it’s just us girls and hundreds of pages that needs to be read (mostly for me, but my daughter has some homework as well.) I figure some candy would make it a little more fun. Have some!
How is your week? I’d say that we’ve had a great, productive week so far. A good mix between work and play. I had a teacher’s seminar with my colleagues on Thursday, it went very well and we got a lot of things done. The school I work for is a private school and it aims to be in the lead when it comes to young children’s education. We, the teachers, and other employees, get educated on a regular basis to constantly improve our work. I really like that! We are expected to work hard and show good results, but I think that they provide good tools for us. It’s a rewarding job in many ways.
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Weekend Coffee Share
Can I get you some coffee, or maybe some tea? Let’s sit down by the lake. I brought a traditional Swedish pastry dammsugare, if you’d like to give it a try? Dammsugare means vacuum cleaner. In the old days the baker made these pastries by the end of the week, he basically took all his leftover, poured some alcohol on it, mixed it, added some chocolate, and used the mix inside these pastries. The outside is marzipan, and the ends are dipped in chocolate. I am sure there’s no old leftovers in these ones 🙂 You should give it a try!
The weather is absolutely lovely, around 65 and sunny today. My daughter and I took a walk to the closest little lake today, we just got back a few minutes ago. The photo of the thermos and the pastry is only one hour old as I am writing this. The week have been a mix of rain, wind and sunshine. It’s definitely fall. What’s the weather like in your area?
So far it’s been a wonderful week. Everyone is healthy. Things are going great at work. My kids are doing great. I’ve been working on an assignment for the class I’m taking. It’s due on Monday. I’m pretty much finished, just going to proof read it a few more times. How are you doing? Are you having a good week?
I’m going to do some things around the house today, listen to music, and help my daughter with her homework. Tomorrow I’m going to meet a very special friend of mine that I haven’t seen in almost ten years, I’m really looking forward to that. Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Weekend Coffee Share…a very quiet cuppa together
If we were having coffee, or tea together this weekend you would have to do most of the talking. Why, you said. Well, you see I’ve lost my voice. I don’t believe that ever happened to me before. I feel pretty good, but my voice gradually disappeared this week. On Monday and Tuesday morning it took a while for my voice to warm up. I felt great, and didn’t think much about it. (When you talk a lot at work your voice sometimes get tired, and you sound like the day after a big concert with your favourite artist. That’s just how it is.) On Wednesday it took even longer, and my voice still sounded scratchy when I arrived to work. My voice was kind of OK, but after breakfast when I was leading an activity with the children I all of a sudden couldn’t talk at all without coughing (like where did that come from?) Within the next few minutes it got worse and worse, and I decided to go home. It all happened very fast. First of all, I couldn’t do my job, since being a teacher involves a whole lot of talking, second I didn’t want to get anyone sick if this was the beginning of something. I took a Covid test the next day, just to be sure, but it came out negative. My voice isn’t completely back yet, but as long as I don’t talk, I’m doing OK. I’m going to keep quiet this weekend, and hope for the best. I don’t think it’s anything serious. It’s weird though, not being able to talk. I didn’t like it at all, having to leave work on Wednesday. I stayed at home with my daughter only a couple weeks ago, and missing more work is not good. I don’t mean to complain so much. Complaining is not my thing.
How is your week?
On a more positive note, this is what’s growing in my balcony garden right now. At the top there’s an oregano/apple-mint tea mix (its heavenly, really lovely,) celery, figs and (hopefully) winter veggies. I posted a photo of my bell-peppers last weekend, and they are still doing great as well.
If we were having coffee this weekend I would have to tell you that we had some kind of breakthrough with my daughter this week. At least it feels like that, not saying that everything is going to be all smooth sails from now on, but I think her father and I got her to understand why speaking Swedish in Sweden is mandatory and not a choice. She understood that we expect her to do her best at all times, and accept the help she is offered. Tuesday morning she woke up so angry and the whole morning was a disaster. The girl has some drama in her! She screamed and throw a fit the whole way to the bus stop (2km)..phew. After that it was like all the anger had disappeared, and my sweet girl was back. I sure hope she stays. (Most of the time I’m the best mom in the whole universe, according to her, but when I’m not…it’t not fun to be in my shoes.)
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans! The only plan here is to recover my voice, read and write a bit. Thank you so much for staying with me, and an extra thanks to Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Silent Sunday
Weekend Coffee Share
Do you dare to try a spinach/apple smoothie? Or should I head out to the kitchen and make you a coffee? Tea? Or maybe you’d rather take a short walk down to the old cobblestone streets of our town and go out for a coffee? To be honest, I have not been out a whole lot since Covid started, but all the café’s and restaurants are open. Lately I’ve felt a longing to sit at a cafe and slowly sip a delicious beverage, something I used to enjoy from to time to time before the pandemic. Still there’s this other side of me that tells me that I should continue to be careful a little longer.
How is your week so far? It’s already mid weekend here (we are 6-10 hours ahead of my friends in the US, depending on time zone.) Work has been busy as usual, busy and good. Most of my free time this week have been dedicated to my daughter that has a (hopefully) temporary breakdown about living in Sweden. It’s hard to deal with. She is stressed and refuses to speak Swedish, which naturally complicates things since we live in Sweden now. She’s always preferred to speak English, but still tried her best with Swedish. Her Swedish is pretty good, but she doesn’t speak like a native, and now she refuses completely. She has a new teacher that she strongly dislikes (to put it mildly,) and that doesn’t help. Every morning have been a battle this week. My heart goes out to her, she’s always loved school and adored all her previous teachers. Now she don’t want to go to school at all. We could let her start a new school, closer to home, but at this time she doesn’t want that. I have talked to her teacher, she gives me one version, and my daughter another. My main goal this weekend is to make my daughter feel good about herself and school next week. Unfortunately there’s a ton of schoolwork we have to finish, since she refused to do it at school. Of course I’m not OK with her refusing to do the work her teacher tells her too. I just can’t do much more than reasoning with her when I’m with her. At this point no logical reasons matter to her. I believe it may be some underlaying loyalty towards her dad, that she haven’t seen in more than two years due to the pandemic. For that reason I arranged for the two of them to talk about the situation at school over the phone today. They talked for a long time. Her dad told her all the reasons I told her, why she needed to learn, and speak Swedish while in Sweden. The fact that we both agreed upon this matter made her even more devastated. It’s going to take some real effort to get over this hurdle. I’m OK, its just heartbreaking to see one of your children struggle like this, and to hear over and over that she wants to live in the US a gazillion times a day.
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans!
Thank you so much for staying with me, and an extra thanks to Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
Weekend Coffee Share
Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share! Can I offer you some coffee? Or tea? There is a beautiful fall day outside 57F/14C and partly sunny. My children are feeling much better, and I managed to get some me time earlier today. I walked around a lake, and stopped to meditate at a beautiful spot. The sun was reflecting in the water, there was a gentle breeze, and the air was filled with the scent of the surrounding pine trees = a perfect fall day.
The rowan trees have tons of berries this year, there is an old saying that if the rowan trees have lots of berries there is going to be lots of snow the coming winter. We’ll see 🙂 I like snow.
I had some times on my hands this week and among the things I did was preparing my favourite soup mix, just perfect for cold winter days. When I lived in Las Vegas I had Sprouts Farmers Market around the corner. I loved shopping healthy food there, and one of my favourite things was their soup mix, that you can buy in the bulk section. I later started making the mix myself, I use red lentils, garbanzo beans, black beans, and kidney beans. I believe it’s green lentils as well in Sprouts mix. It’s so easy having all these goodies in a beautiful glass jar. The shelf life if properly sealed, and stored in a dark place, is very long, I’d say several years. It would never last that long at our house, but I did prepare several jars of the soup mix. When I make the soup I take 1/4 of a jar in a big bowl, add water and soak overnight. The next day I mince one garlic (not one clove, I like garlic,) I fry the garlic in olive oil, add the soaked soup mix and new water to cover the mix and then some. I let everything boil for a couple minutes, and after that simmer for 1-2 hours. I always add salt and pepper. I sometimes add any fresh herb that I happened to have at home, I often add chili. If I have vegetables that should be used soon I’ll add them to the soup. Sometimes I switch the garlic for freshly grated ginger. The variation you can make are endless. Legumes are a rich source of B vitamins, various minerals, protein and fiber. It’s a very healthy, hearty, and inexpensive soup.
How are you doing? I feel at peace. I deep cleaned my home this morning, and I’ve spent time alone in nature. I have nothing I need to do this weekend. Life is good. Next week is going to be a busy week at work, and a relaxing weekend is perfect. I might go on a longer bike ride tomorrow. Even during a relaxing weekend with no particular plans, I like to get out and get some exercise. My son told me about a lake that I have not seen, I might check it out tomorrow. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while.
Have a refill on your beverage and tell me about your weekend plans!
Thank you so much for the lovely company, and an extra thanks to Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! Have a fabulous weekend!
Love,
Maria
