This is our drawer of boxes. This sounds much better in Swedish because a drawer is låda and a box is also låda so the whole thing is a lådlåda.

It’s funny how some concepts are narrow in one language and broad in another, and vice versa.

A “bag” in English (and a kott in Estonian) can in Swedish be kasse, väska or påse, and those three are definitely not interchangeable. A påse is a bag for storage or containment (like a freezer bag or a drawstring bag); a kasse is a simple soft bag you carry something in (like a shopping bag); a väska is structured (like a handbag or backpack). Despite being 100% fluent in Swedish, it isn’t rare for Ingrid and Adrian to mix those up, and I suspect it’s because they grew up with me always calling all three things “kott” when talking to them.

See also: maa in Finnish and the same in video format.

Our old toaster died, after serving us well for 19 years. Or rather, it started behaving in dangerous ways (heating up so much that I could barely touch it, and burning bread instead of toasting it) so we were forced to retire it.

Here’s the new one. Transparent sides! It’s a bit gimmicky but also rather cool. It also gives more even results than the old one, so it’s actually an upgrade. A toaster is a toaster, I thought, it’s just aesthetics, how much can the results differ – but they do.

The build is very solid so hopefully it will last us as long as the previous one.

(No scale but this thing about as long as the first two joints of one of my fingers.)

For the last few days, we’ve had these large moths flying into the house in the evening. Once they’re in here, they just fly around sort of stupidly. They clearly have no idea how they got here or how to get out. They keep bumping into walls and doors and ceilings, not even aiming for light sources or anything. With their size, they’re damn noisy about it. And when they accidentally fly into me, it’s enough of a bump to cause a full-body flinch. It’s annoying, so it’s a real relief when they finally stop in one place for long enough for me to take them out.

Wasps and flies on the other hand seem to navigate by light. When they get in here, they bang against the glass of the French doors until they tire, and then they crawl along the same. The wasps I take out; the flies can either figure it out themselves – or get swatted if they annoy me enough.

When bumblebees fly inside, they usually make a wide loop or two and then immediately fly out again. It’s obvious that they are not lost and they know which way to get out. Butterflies do the same. Clearly they have completely different navigational abilities (or different goals) from wasps.

Look at me totally adulting the heck out of this day with a hot cooked meal and everything, even though I’m still all by my lonesome. (Carrot pancakes.)

Eric and Adrian are away staying with friends; Ingrid is away staying with other friends. I’m on my own for a few days.

I can enjoy the peace and quiet during the days, but I’m really not cut out for living on my own. My sleep schedule starts slipping immediately – I kind of don’t see the point of going to bed, so I stay up way too late and only finally go to sleep when I really have to. I wake up as usual in the morning, but around midday I can’t keep awake anymore so I end up sleeping on the sofa.

I’ve never had a home that was only mine. When I moved out of home, I moved straight in with Eric. My only longer stretch of living on my own was a term as an exchange student and it was the most miserably lonely half-year of my life.

Even on days when the rest of the family are all doing their own things most of the time, I like the feeling of just knowing that they are here.

Just like always at this time of the year, we have an infestation of fruit flies in the kitchen.

The red wine vinegar fruit fly trap is still my go-to solution and works pretty well. Except when the flies forego the actual vinegar and congregate on the walls and edges of the glass instead… Are they just sitting there getting high on the fumes or something?

Schoolteachers here like giving kids reading challenges for the longer school breaks. Both Ingrid and Adrian have them for this summer break.

Adrian’s challenge is twofold: read 10 minutes every day, plus a bingo card with specific challenges. I think it’s the same one he’s had before; probably something the teacher found on the internet and now keeps reusing for every single school break. At least the “read in your swimming clothes” square makes a bit more sense now that it is summer.

Except swimming clothes are actually not that comfortable when you’re not swimming, you know? So Adrian used the same workaround as he’s done in the past. Put his arm through his swimming trunks, read for 10 minutes, and crossed of that square.

He really takes this thing seriously, even though there are squares there that he really doesn’t look forward to. It’s more of a compulsion than something to enjoy. And he is quite uncomfortable with the idea of cheating, or even thinking outside the box, when it comes to this. Even when it is as innocent as the swimming clothes thing.

Least favourite square remaining: read in a car or a bus. I’m pretty sure he’s going to ask me to keep him company. And I think I’ve convinced him that it is perfectly valid to do this when the car is standing still and the doors are open.

When I was a child, I always got this one particular kind of redcurrant cake for my birthday. I don’t have the recipe so I thought I would just google for something similar. Shortcrust pastry, redcurrants, meringue topping – easy, right? Nope. The end result was good but nothing at all like I had imagined and hoped. The filling was too sweet and didn’t have enough redcurrants; the meringue was waaay to sweet. I really hope my mum still has that old hand-written recipe somewhere.

Birthday get-together for my nephews-in-law.

Speaking of shopping lists, here’s one of our best life hacks ever: a magnetic pen.

It started with a notepad for grocery lists with a magnetic backing that we got from somewhere or saw somewhere. We realized that we could easily make our own with magnetic tape. The original pad came with a (somewhat crappy) pen that was attached to it somehow. For our own magnetic notepad, we simply took a normal gel pen and glued a small rare earth magnet to it. The magnet fits between the body of the pen and the clip, so pulling it off the fridge never puts any real load on the glue, so it doesn’t come off by accident. But when the pen runs out, it’s easy to pry the magnet loose for reuse. Best thing ever.