Ahh.

I’ve been doing a lot of painting…took a bath in the lake, did some yoga outside…said hello to a bunny…prepared food, cleaned dishes, took walks. I’m here with 3 people besides myself, and much of the fun is just being around them in a quiet place. Mostly we sit around talking, reading, cooking or cleaning together. At night there is no electricity, so we light the house with candles and kerosene lamps. Stina caught a fish yesterday and we grilled it for dinner.

In this old way of life, days were spent by simply making a means to survive. The women would prepare the necessities for the day, and the men would go out hunting and farming. Now that we all live in comfortable homes with our food and clothing already prepared for us, what are we doing with our days? What has humanity’s work and inventions over the ages granted is the freedom to do?

For each person, they have their birthday celebration as well as their “names day” celebration. A Swedish calendar has written which names fall on which day. The name Jessika for example falls on July 6^th – which would be celebrated just like a birthday.

It’s been somewhat of a challenge for me to figure out how to eat while traveling. The schedule is so different than what I am used to, and many times there are a large amount of sweets available. Normally in the states I might eat something sweet once or twice a week, but here I’ve been eating sweets a couple times per day – I figured…”it’s ok, I’m traveling, I’ll walk it off” – but my pants only fit tighter and tighter… I think I have to figure out a happy medium.

The magazines here are the same as in the states with one exception – All the models have not been photo shopped! There are women with normal bodies and crowsfeet on their eyes and freckles and hairs on their upper lip – its not such a traumatic experience to look at a magazine, you actually sympathize with the models.