If someone had told me 8 years ago that I would one day eat pea soup with relish gusto*, I would have laughed them out of the room. As a child, I once threw up pea soup AT THE TABLE as revenge on my father for making me eat it in the first place. This was before I met Swedish pea soup, where the peas are not green and slimey. I've had varying degrees of acceptance with the Swedish pea soups over the past 8 years, but the one I had on Thursday was by far the best yet. Swedes eat their pea soups on Thursdays and they put mustard in it, and their pea soup usually has bacon and perfectly softened yellow peas and leeks and afterwards you traditionally get pancakes with strawberry jam and whipped cream, but we had apple pie and vanilla ice cream which was way better. It was a goodbye party lunch for my friend Debbie, the one who is moving back to Canada for a year with her children. We all chipped in to buy her a gorgeous hammered silver bracelet from Ljunghusen to remind her to come home.

Last night I attended my first ever not-tupperware party, affectionately referred to as fuckerware, and it was a hoot. We joked that we should have waited to buy Debbie's present until LAST night, as her husband is staying here in Sweden during her year-long sojourn and she won't see him again until Christmas vacation. :D

There were 25 wired, giggling women listening to the presentation and passing the vibrators back and forth. Anders had given me the hairy eyeball when I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted me to purchase, but 2 friends told me their husbands had supplied them with wish lists for the evening. :) I had to leave a bit early (after making my purchases, of course) because Anders had a hockey-bockey game at 10:15, and just before he left, he came into the computer room, with his hockey socks and pads and cup over his sweatsuit and struck a pose and said, "Who needs sex toys when you've got ME?" He's so right. :)

Tonight is sushi with galestorm, woo hoo!

We planted japanese lanterns in our front garden this spring, because japanese lantern seed pods are the PERFECT table decoration for Halloween parties, along with red berries and autumn leaves, and even though I have a small box of them that my brother and Simone kindly sent us last year, you can never have too many japanese lanterns, right? um. We have TONS. Our 3 plants have exceeded all expectations, and gone bananas, and we have japanese lanterns coming out our ears. Me so happy.

Things You Might Not Know About Me: I will refuse to eat black-eyed peas, even as a guest. I rarely make my bed, preferring to close the bedroom door if necessary. I'm left-handed. If I didn't have children, I could easily sleep until noon on weekends.

Must Still Find Time For: Painting my new art desk (yay!), editing neverending photos for family website update, dusting.

Reasons For Believing: Why I Do The Church Thing

Cracking Me Up: Stupid Debates

*pea soup with RELISH would just be wrong.