Blog Everyday in May – Me and My Grandparents

Day 17, Friday: A favorite photo of yourself and why

So next Friday the prompt is your three worst traits and I think I will need to have vain as one of them because I have about a million pictures I want to post for today. Ok so one is just because me hair is so shiny in it but that is a valid reason right?

I finally decided to go with this one since I like it for better reasons than how I look in it.

This is from October of 2008 when my grandparents visited me in England, my aunt also came but she is the one taking the picture.

My grandpa has a severe aversion to planes, not being scared of flying but having to be on the plane is just not his idea of a good time. When I left in May of 2008 for my big adventure it was not clear when I would be back home. I finally settled in London and was working so my grandma and aunt started planning a trip to see me and said my grandpa would join them. I wanted to believe it but until I saw him actually in England I was not sure.

Funnily enough he managed the flight and was feeling really excited about being in a new place and when they got to the luggage carousel his was missing. The airline delivered it to his hotel the next day but that striped sweater he is wearing in this picture he bought that first day so he would have something to wear until his luggage arrived. That shopping trip with just me and him was I think his favorite part of the trip and he kept saying how he now had English clothes to wear in England.

Blog Everyday in May – Finding Myself Again

Day 16, Thursday: Something difficult about your “lot in life” and how you’re working to overcome it

When I met Mr. H in 2008 I was living in London and pursuing my dreams and finding out who I was in a post-college world. Then we met and things became about getting Mr. H to America, and then we were engaged and life was about planning the wedding, and then it was about getting back to Sweden.

In all of that planning and going and doing it seemed I had become Bailie the visa helper, and Bailie the bride, and finally Bailie the immigrant but the regular Bailie was lost in all of that shuffle.

I gained weight, I had old out of style clothes, I had scraggly hair alongside of my awesome life and marriage.

But the the thing is for the awesome life and marriage to continue I realized I needed to take back what was me.

So I did the hardest thing for me ever and admitted out loud I needed to lose some weight.

(ahhhh typing it was even harder)

I did not take any before and after shots but pants that I used to not be able to button will button, zip, and I can sit down in them!

I have been doing a mixture of walks, and we live on the top of a valley so half the walk is always up hill, and aerobics.

I have ordered a few pieces of new clothes, like colored jeans so I do not feel like the old married lady when we go out.

I dyed my hair to the color maroon red it was back in 2008.

I have also started doing embroidery which I love and really embracing my love for cooking and thinking of it as a skill I possess rather than just something I do at night.

So I guess you could say the sun is coming out of the clouds in terms of me!

Expat to Expat Q&A – #2 Food, Food, and More Food!

1. What is your favorite food tradition in your new country?

I love Swedish holiday food, for Christmas and Easter the food is pretty much the same which is fine with me.

This is from our Easter table this year which was complete with:

Deviled Eggs, smoked salmon, meatballs, ham, sausages, janssons temptation, beet salad, and herring.

2. Where have you traveled to that you thought had the best food to offer?

This is tricky but I think Brussels is the winner. Mr. H and I love cheese and meat platters which if you are a regular reader I am sure you know and this one we had at Moeder Lambic was just amazing.

3. What is the typical breakfast where you currently live and would you eat it back home?

The typical Swedish breakfast is bread with margarine and then cheese, lunch meat, or liverwurst on top. Another common thing to eat is yogurt with muesli which I have grown to love.

I would eat both of those back home but we do miss things like bacon and eggs so we usually do it once a week on Saturday.

One time my mother in law said to me she did not know how people could eat eggs for breakfast and how weird it was which made me laugh because they eat pancakes for dinner which I think is weird!

4. What type of restaurant, either style or type of food, do you think is lacking in your new home?

What I would love to see in Sundsvall is a dinner like place, where you could get tons of different things and it would be open all hours.

5. Do you think your home state/city/province has a food everyone should try?

Whenever I think of home I think of eating fish tacos, specifically ones from Bear Flag Fish Co. which if you are in the area you have to try.

6. What is your favorite dish to prepare that you would never have made back home?

That is easily jansson’s temptation, before I met Mr. H I would never have put any sort of fish in my potatoes au gratin but man is it good! That also goes for fish pie, it is now one of my favorite winter foods but back home to me  fish was always a summer food.

 

You can see the jansson’s temptation on the bottom left in the picture above.

7. What is the oddest food in your new country?

I am not sure if it is the oddest but it is one of of them for sure, the Smörgåstårta.

Side View

Top View

It is a giant sandwich cake often served at baptisms and confirmations or other various group parties. You take white bread and layer it with a creamy filling of say tuna fish then cover the top with various fruits, vegetables, fish, cheeses, and lunch meats. I can eat maybe one small piece but all the flavors melding together and how mushy it is just grosses me out.

8. If you could have a crate of one type of food sent to you from your home country, what would it be?

This is one of Belinda’s questions and extremely hard! I am lucky that my family does send me care packages and the highlights of those are always the beef jerky and a crate of it would be awesome.

9. What three foods remind you of summer?

When the weather warms up I always want guacamole with tortilla chips, popsicles, and fish tacos. A meal with all of those would actually be awesome as long as there was some ice cold beer to go with it!

10. What food from your new country are you surprised to enjoy?

When I first came to Sweden my mother in law kept serving boiled potatoes as a side dish. Not mashed, not baked and served with sour cream and butter but plain old boiled potatoes. I was like are you freaking kidding me lady you expect me to enjoy a boiled potato alongside my meal, well I thought it anyway and would hope to have had a big lunch on those nights.

Now though almost five years after meeting Mr. H and I am adding boiled potatoes to our meals!

Sure there is a gravy boat with yummy brown gravy to pour on top but I now really enjoy the flavor and texture of boiled potatoes.

 Bonus:  Where was your favorite place you ever took a summer vacation to?

Ok so to help me decided I told myself it had to be a place I have only been in summer, and that it was ok to be obvious. That left me with Greece, specifically Mykonos.

 

I was there for a few days on a tour of Greek islands and it was just the best to me. I really want to go back one day with Mr. H and eat tons of food and lounge at the beach for weeks.

Do not forget you can submit questions here for further link ups and head over to Found Love, Now What? to add your link!

Blog Everyday in May – If You’re Happy and You Know It…

Day 14, Tuesday: Ten things that make you really happy

I love this prompt just so you know1. Mr. H

Here he is looking very GQ on our wedding day.I could write about three hundred posts about why he makes me happy so suffice it say each day with him is a gift and I feel so lucky.2. Dachshunds

Here is Mr. H and my parents dachshund Girlie. Most dogs I walk by without a thought but something about dachshunds just turns me to mush, their cute little faces and short legs. Ahhh it is too much and one day I will have my own!3. Cheese

This was a small wheel of cheese Mr. H surprised me with one day and I ate so much I got a stomach ache but it was so worth it. You might think it is odd but cheese is such a comfort food and tasty so yep it makes me happy!4. Playing Games

I grew up playing cards and board games every weekend at my grandparents and on rainy days at home. I was so happy when I found out Mr. H loves playing games too and we have a small but growing collection of games we are addicted to playing.5. Rain

I am one of those weird people that love rain, it is actually raining right now as I type this. 6. Crafts

Getting out all of my various craft stuff and completing a project is so much fun and I am also happy I love crafting since the winter is so long up here it kept me occupied.7. Grocery Shopping

Ok I realize this one is even weirder than the rain but I love finding good deals and having all those fresh ingredients to cook with. 8. Holiday Decorations

Even when we knew no one up here I decorated our house for the holidays and decorate for holidays that are not celebrated in Sweden because it makes me happy.9. Giant Mugs

Filling up a giant mug with tea or coffee and getting cozy is just the perfect cure for the blues.10. Music

Unless we are asleep or watching a TV show our house is filled with music. We own three pairs of headphones so we can listen to music on the go or different music when we are home together along with records, cd’s and mp3′s enough for library!

So what makes you happy?

Blog Everyday in May – Sorry About My Awesome Pizza

Day 13, Monday: Issue a public apology. This can be as funny or as serious or as creative as you want it to be.

I am not so much a person for sorries. If I hurt you in some way I will apologize but just going along through my life I am not sorry for what I do and how I do it!

I did realize though that makes a rather boring post so I thought I would show you some pictures of our amazing date night on Saturday and feel sorry since the only way you can get this pizza is if you are in Sundsvall!

Ever since we moved here in August we have been seeing things for this pizza placed called Biteline. They claimed to have American pan pizza, we were doubtful but kept saying we had to try it and found out if the claim was true.

Well after 8 months we finally went, which is crazy since we can walk to one of their three locations, and it was amazing!

When we got there I had to remind Mr. H that it said pan pizza so it would be different than the pizza we normally would get in California but thicker than normal Swedish pizza.

They had three sizes and we decided to order our own small which was the perfect size. That is the one I ordered called Little Italy which had mozzarella (not all pizzas come standard with this in Sweden), parma ham, pesto, ruccola, sun dried tomato, and red onion. I have not been able to stop thinking about it since Saturday!

Mr. H decided to stay with his favorite and ordered pepperoni. I would say it was good because he gave me one little half bite to taste it and then was done when I still had one slice left.

What really made us smile though was their beer of the month for 39 kr you got a 500 ml beer. This is a Swedish beer that was perfect with our pizza and we had never had before.

So I am sorry for showing you awesome pizza on Monday morning!

****all opinions and what not are my own and Biteline has no idea I am writing this***

Blog Everyday in May – The Constant of This Life

Day 12, Sunday: What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time of your life…)

When you move away from a place you have made your home the feeling of missing becomes a part of life. The circumstances of the move often relate into how long the missing goes on.

Moving from your parents home into your first place often results in small doses of missing but they quickly pass.

Moving from one part of the world to the other I have found creates in your this permanent place of missing.

It is not always a bad thing but it is always there waiting to be acknowledged.

Acknowledging all the various things you miss is a key part of your new life I have found though so with that these are things I often miss:

Going to my parents house for dinner on a weeknight

My brothers

Friends that have known you for years

Having a car

Late night drives by the beach

The Huntington Beach Pier

Showers – wedding, baby etc

Food – yes we have food in Sweden but as an expat/immigrant you will always miss food from home

Family – this is a bit more specific to right now as we are even far away from Mr. H’s family so for holidays like Christmas it was just the two of us

Cheap clothes

Ok I realized this could go on for pages so I will stop there!

Blog Everyday in May – Me in a Few 10 Word Forms

Day 11, Saturday: Sell yourself in 10 words or less

If I were a book:

Life loving immigrant finds her voice in the cold north.

If I were a movie:

One woman cooks her way through a new Swedish life.

If I were a song:

She’s got everything she needs

She’s an artist, she don’t look back

(ok so that is Bob Dylan from She Belongs to Me)

If I were a picture:

But you know pictures are worth a thousand words so I guess that is cheating.