April blues

This year April has not lived up to the expectations! It feels like spring kept creeping two inches closer to then immediately jump several feet back. But with every day of sunshine and humane temperatures the trees visibly get closer to blooming. Here’s my early spring favorite tree - red maple:

And I am torturing myself dreaming about having a garden (yes. It’s true. I think I am getting old😱). This next year will be the year where we have to save up $ like crazy to hopefully have enough for a down payment for a house next spring - assuming I will get a permanent position in the meantime...... And saving up money for a house while at the same time getting the oldest kid started in college. Well, that means even less $ to spend. And oh how I just loooooove saving money. But for the sake of our mental health and asset building for the future we need to get out of this apartment. So I try to keep my eyes on the goal without complaining too much. But I have to admit that grumpy could be my middle name these days.

Despite all this there are things that brighten up my day. This week I got these delivered:

Teeny tiny sharps containers for collecting waste with diphtheria toxin on it. Aren’t they cute? And even better. I also got “toxic” stickers with skulls to put on them. Yay. I know I should not be this excited about it, but this is seriously a combo of many things I love: cool science, tiny things, and a touch of morbid decoration❤️

And the other day there was sufficient sunshine to sit in the courtyard at work and read.

And get the first sunburn of the year

So April has not been a complete disappointment after all. We will spend this last weekend of this month without spending any money. Fingers crossed on that one😬 It is the last day of the art exhibition put on by the seniors at school of art and design, where Ulrik will start this fall. So we will go and check it out and slowly get used to these events as we probably have many more to come. And Ulrik will do some freeway driving with his dad so he hopefully can get that darn drivers license done and dealt with this May - followed intensely by Teresa who is more than motivated to get her hands on one too.

The first weekend of real feel spring

Today at 4:42 PM

I have to admit that I almost lost hope. We have been rocking winter coats and wollen socks almost to the end of April and everyone lost hope that it would ever be warm again. This was the weather a week ago:

All the spring flowers glazed in ice and followed by snow and wind Tuesday to an extent where even the city bus had a hard time staying on the road......

But it is over now. I sit on our diminutive patio with a nice glass of iced coffee and enjoy the crazy temperatures of 15C. Uuuuuuuh.

The warm weather started Friday and my entity body screamed to please please please be outside. Instead I got to sit here:

Sigh. On a positive note is that I finally got to watch Luca play volleyball and he was surprisingly good considering that both his parents have absolutely NO talent whatsoever when it comes to any kind of sport involving balls. And I got to be outside Saturday morning where Kristian and Teresa has signed up for an earth day run on campus. I went along with them together with Bailey, Luca, and a volleyball, so we all had a good time:

Bailey even got himself a T-shirt:

Later in the day we got to visit an art exhibit at Neutral Zone (a hangout place downtown run by teens). Art teachers from all the local high schools display the art made by the students on websites. A jury then picked the best pieces (including one of Ulrik’s ceramic sculptures) which got to be on display. Here he is with his sculpture:

I was very impressed with the art on display and in addition I have such a soft spot for those teens who don’t feel like they fit in anywhere and try so hard to stand out to fit in. I remember it very vividly from my own teen hood and it is not a time of my life that I would want to go back to ever....... There were so many of them there and I really would have loved to give them a hug and tell them that life will be OK.

In complete contrast to this I got to spend Sunday morning hanging out with a bunch of very motivated athletic ladies:

Who were going to the State meet in synchronized swimming in Livonia and needed to get their hair and makeup ready early.

And if I think back this is the first time we have had all 3 kids compete in something the same weekend. Kind of crazy.

Well, I should be making pizza dough and I have finally learned to remember to activate the dry yeast. I added it to lukewarm water 10 minutes ago and it should be ready to go by now. So I’d better run

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

It is Saturday and despite a bit (well, oneday to be exact) of sunshine and warmth this past week I am lying here listening to endless rain outside. And I am thinking about all of those things that I really like - my favorite things!

Above all are my shoes! What shoes? Luca’s worn out wrestling shoes that I snatched because he had outgrown them. My expectations were nothing but I thought it was a shame to give them away since they are exactly my size. They are AMAZING!!!!!!! And all I wear to work these days as they go well with riding to work on my bike:

And fulfill all the criteria for appropriate workwear:

And in NYC where we walked like crazy everyday (on average 30.000 steps for several days)

I was the one with the least sore feet. I seriously consider getting another pair once these are worn out. The names crack me up. On amazon you can buy “stingray”, “aggressor”, and “vaporspeed” shoes

Or perhaps 41 year old me should settle for some boring black ones again.......

Another tidbit of awesome things I want to share with you is Motawi Tileworks. I have seen the tiles in Ann Arbor art center. I just didn’t know that there was a whole production site here. These tiles makes me want to live with tile in the kitchen, bathroom, around the fireplace and anywhere else you could possibly put tile.

That red cardinal tile! 😍 I think I should persuade Kristian to go pay them a visit. I am sure Ulrik wouldn’t mind going too.

Happy weekend everyone. For those of you not in Michigan right now I hope the weather treats you a little better

Campus day

The last stretches to fill up colleges have begun. Once you are accepted into a school it is time to go to “campus day” where they will do everything in their might to convince the admitted students that they should certainly chose this particular school. And how to do that in at university of Michigan? Well you gather all the students and their parents in an impressive auditorium in an impressive building, greet them with an army of super duper friendly undergrads wearing blue shirts and Colgate smiles, and........ you play marching band music nonstop🙄

Here we are. Ulrik and I. Being - ehm - very impressed with the setup:

And then the speeches begin.With a surprising number of students telling stories about how they never ever considered going to umich, until they visited and ended up turning down a bunch of other schools. In the middle of all this I had to leave to go to a work seminar, and Ulrik got to stay and sing “Hail the victors” and tour buildings on central campus.

We did manage to find each other prior to lunch (after a bunch of dorky “I am here” screenshots followed by “where are you” texts)

We had lunch at one of the dining halls and I was quite surprised with the variety of the food (including healthy options) and the speed at which they were able to dish them out to serve the crowd of hungry students.

Last but not least we went for a tour with Stamps school of art and design (where Ulrik has been admitted to). And we learned that this year they have had more than 1000 applicants to fill in 150 spots. This means that Ulrik has been in the top 15% of the students applying! A piece of information that fit him quite well. And we toured the big roomy but messy classrooms that very obviously had onepurpose: to be used! We also met a few of the professors showing the curriculum for the first year. And there can be no doubt that he will be drilled with a bunch of techniques in drawing and painting on to of wood work, metal work, weaving, print making etc etc.

And once more we were beyond impressed with what this school has to offer. Most importantly Ulrik can’t wait to get started.