I leave on Thanksgiving morning, or as they call it in Sweden, torsdag (Thursday); I’ll catch an early train to Denmark and a flight from Copenhagen to Boston. I have an interview at the Swedish embassy for my residence permit next week and I’m hoping that it won’t take too long to get approved. I’m running low on time with my tourist visa here in Sweden and only have a few weeks left before I need to depart for 3 months (if things take a while to get approved).

This week is about getting things in place for leaving. I dropped Susanna’s car off for service this morning. Tomorrow I’m planning on going to the workshop to wrap things up for a while. I’ll be dropping my car off with Dan and Charlotte on Wednesday and probably leave Hoagie out there at that time. I still need to pack; I won’t be bringing a lot back with me, so it shouldn’t take too long.

I took Hoagie on a bus ride to Söder (South Växjö) this afternoon to get some outside time. We walked around Bokhultet nature reserve for a while until we were both cold and then took the bus back. The cold will take a while to get used to.

It has been a busy week. We got snow. Not a lot. A few inches. But it snowed through the day on Thursday. Plenty of snow that would have certainly shut down the schools in Connecticut. And probably made for a delayed day on Friday. But this is Sweden. So I woke up early and drove through the snow to meet the electrician at the workshop at 0630 in the middle of a snowstorm. Izzy went to school and Susanna went to work. We all survived.

It is also getting cold. I got Hoagie a shirt/sweater to wear. He loves the snow and winter, but it seems cold enough that with his short fur he should have something extra on top. I can’t tell if he likes it or not, but at least he doesn’t seem to freak out with it on. I think I need a warmer winter coat and snow boots, but I’ll wait until I return from the states to pick them up.

Susanna’s car battery died last night. She had a late night at work, working the closing shift at the preschool followed by a team meeting after closing. I got a call from her at 8 pm that she couldn’t get the car started. Of course I didn’t have jumper cables (yet), so I drove the 30 minutes in the snowstorm to Hovmantorp to pick her up and drive her home. This morning she took my car to work. I took the bus (and walked) to the car parts store and picked up jumper cables. After lunch, Hoagie and I walked downtown and then took the bus to Hovmantorp and made the 20 minute trek to Susanna’s work to help her jump the car when she finished work. Hoagie didn’t mind the bus ride and spent most of it sleeping on the seat next to me.

The electrical work is done in the workshop. I’m hoping to get out there tomorrow morning to clean and organize after moving things around for the electrician. The new lights are a huge improvement, though now I can see where I messed up when painting the walls.

My workshop is coming together. I have the walls painted and have started organizing. The landlord has a lot of old hand tools and some workbenches they are letting me use while I rent the space, which will help a lot. I’m still waiting on the electrician to replace the lights and add some outlets on the wall. The bathroom that is off the back of my workshop will be closed off (and opened to another space in the building), which will give me more wall space in the workshop, but a slightly longer walk to the bathroom. Overall I think I’m in pretty good shape. Tomorrow I’ll bring some of my tools over and start working on making a Danish Cord Bench from Oak (assuming I can grab some oak tomorrow am).

The weather will turn cold this weekend, so I’ll get to see how well the heat in the shop works. It has been staying at 15C (around 60F) which is a pleasant temperature for working. However it hasn’t really been that cold yet.

I took Hoagie back to the castle ruin this morning to get some exercise after Izzy headed out to school. I am still getting used to the weather. It is overcast, damp and cold today. But, Hoagie needed a chance to run in the woods and I could use the exercise. There is a nature reserve just north of the castle ruin (across the lake) with a few trails. I may try to visit there later this week if the weather supports.

Now back to my chores!

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.