It has been a busy two weeks. Last weekend, Izzy spent the night at the local 4H camp for a Halloween camp. She had a blast and made a friend. Unfortunately her friend is from Älmhult, so not too local (but not too far either). She will be visiting Växjö next weekend, so they are planning on getting together. This past week was Izzy’s first week at school. I think she had a good week, despite me getting the start time wrong on Monday morning and getting her to the school a few minutes late. No real harm, but I did feel pretty stupid. We also met with the district nurse for Izzy’s medical check-in on Monday, which made for a very long first day at school for Izzy. It was a lot of time talking to the nurse to basically get told that we are good on vaccines (or ahead since kids here don’t get the influenza vaccine routinely).
The week has been pretty busy. I only have few hours between Izzy leaving for school and needing to be home when she gets out of school. I’ve started painting the workshop and have the walls primed. If I have time tomorrow I’ll finish painting the walls (at least the first coat). I also spent Friday helping Dan put roofing tiles on the guest house he is building; it was a good reminder that I don’t really like heights.
In addition to making Izzy late the first day, I’ve had my other moments. On one of our morning walks in Rottne, Hoagie decided to find a big patch of mud/cow manure to roll in. I don’t have a hose in Rottne (or at least haven’t found one yet) and I didn’t want him to get back into the car covered in smelly mud. So, I walked him down to the freezing cold lake and did my best to wash him off and try not to get myself soaking wet at the same time. He did get a proper shower when I got home with him. When I got back to the workshop (after the fun freezing lake dog wash), I went to get the paint out of the car and dropped one of the buckets in the parking lot. Of course the buckets are plastic and it broke. So that took a bit to clean up. Not really the best day.
We’ve been trying to enjoy living in a city. It has been nice to walk to the city center for dinner out the last two Friday nights. Izzy and I have made several trips down to walk through the stores and see what is around. I even found a closer parking lot on one of my walks with Hoagie. Parking wasn’t something I really worried about in Preston. It isn’t a reserved spot and isn’t in a garage, but there seems like there are always spaces available. Plus it is right next door. I can’t believe I didn’t find it until just now. And it will save over $100/month on parking. Seems like a win to me, though I may not fully agree when it finally snows.
I have finally heard back from Swedish immigration, and will be returning to the US later this month for an interview at the embassy in early December. Hopefully things can get processed and we can really settle down here. I’m planning a few weeks back in the states, and a return to Sweden in time for Christmas and for most of Izzy’s winter break. If I don’t have a residence permit by then, I’ll have to head out again in early January. Leaving will make it a challenging logistics juggle with Susanna’s work and Izzy’s school schedule. But Susanna’s family is here to help out and we signed Izzy up for after-school care. Hopefully I won’t have to be gone for too long.
