A climb towards creating a dream!

I had turned out the lights but could not fall asleep tonight. The kids are tucked in, sleeping tight after a day at summer school. The soccer training has started and they all seem to look forward to the new school year. 5 new kids from Germany, Norway (via Spain) and Sweden are joining the Montessori school this fall. New families settling in, in Ulricehamn, creating a new life in a new place and in a new country!

A year and a half ago we did the same! What has it meant for us? Did it turn out as expected and are we walking on the right path? I think we are on a path taking us forward, shaping us as we go along which brings a lot of happiness in our lives. Still, we are only at the beginning of this road and we need to make active choices in where it takes us and sometime these choices are not obvious.

Currently I am surrounded with people who struggle in different ways trying to find their path. What make us happy as individuals? What challenges do we need? How do we make the world turn slower when we set the speed ourselves? I have no answers for all these questions tonight but the older I get (oh, did that sound corny or what!) the more satisfaction I get out of small things in life. Or maybe the small things are the big things?

We reach for our dreams, trying to find the direction that will give us the right feeling but how do we define our dreams and when does a dream start to redefine itself? I like to think that the answers often come to us when we expect it the least in situations we create outside our normal sphere. I picked up my guitar playing when I moved back to Ulricehamn and in the evenings I sit with the kids playing songs and singing. Ingrid sings all the time, everywhere and this night I heard her singing from the bathroom;

There’s always going to be another mountain
I’m always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm going to have to lose,
Ain’t about how fast I get there,
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side
It’s the climb!

Good night everyone!

I will say something nice about you at your funeral!

“I will say something nice about you at your funeral”, Elsa (8) said to Ingrid (10) when she climbed up a steep hill looking for mushrooms this summer. We didn’t find any and luckily we never got close to any funerals either. However, Ingrid did twist her ankle and fell into a river.

We are still in the beginning of August but I’m starting my third week of work and Jochem is back commuting between Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy. For us the summer is almost over and I am ready for the next season to make its entrance. Maybe it is the Swedish summer light that makes me live life in double speed when summer arrives but now I look forward to apple picking, making use of the plums and pears in September and enjoying a good book when the rain is pouring down outside. We had many wonderful visits this summer from far and close by and despite the weather I hope you all return to explore this part of the world soon again. July offered the most rain in a hundred years time and our summerhouse did not get ready on time. One of Jochem’s boats almost sunk, half of the things we wanted to do never took place and I didn’t see everyone I wanted to see but we did many nice things in a chaotic kind of way. Next year we will be better organized or maybe not?

Last night the children held a competition in counting the number of bruises and wounds they had. Falling out of trees, showing off nearby a rusty piece of metal or baking with hot ovens takes its toll or as Jochem said;
- Well, at least they can prove that they did a lot this summer.

Maybe bruises or visits to the local doc is not the way of measuring a good or a bad holiday but maybe the way they explain how they got them tells us something about a world full of adventure. A summer full of swimming, hiking, canoeing (with a dad who almost sunk the canoe!), travelling, heartbreaks (yes, even young hearts suffer), sleeping in tents and staying up really, really late. Next week we go fishing as Jochem’s family arrives (prize winners in fly fishing) and maybe Jochem can pick up some nice new recipes when Yann and Ceciel arrives from France in ten days. Yann showed Jochem how to make an “impress a lady dinner” 13 years ago and obviously Jochem was a very good or maybe smart student. He won my heart and did not cook anything again for ten years but now he is slowing picking it up and surprising me ever so often!

Lets enjoy the last summer weeks!