Packing for this year’s ski tour.

My packing list is by now quite well-organized and trimmed, so the process is quite fast and easy.

After each trip, I adjust and annotate the list. The notes are extra useful for the rare trips, such as ski tours like this. It’s hard to remember just how cold I will feel when I am so far removed from the situation, so I will trust my notes. (“Only pack a thin fleece top. No wool long johns unless temperature goes below –10°C”.)

We did end up painting some eggs after all.

The problem I have with traditions is that after a while it feels like I’ve already done it all. Eggs with stripes, eggs with dots, eggs with curlicues, eggs with large swirls of colour, eggs with designs of spring flowers and chickens… Done them all so many times that it feels boring to do them again.

This year instead of Easter eggs I made a Valentine’s egg, a Halloween egg, a Christmas egg and a New Year’s egg.

Easter in Uppsala with my mother and brother.

It was just a day trip so the kids didn’t pack much in the way of books and toys, and by late afternoon they were quite bored. After complaining for some while, they ended up playing a version of rock, paper, scissors that somehow also involved a duster and a mixing bowl, and howls of laughter.

There are aspects of my parenting that I wish I could have done better – but I am so happy that I’ve managed to raise kids who enjoy being with each other.

I decided to ignore Easter and all its traditions and musts as much as possible. So we’re not painting eggs today, or cooking fancy Easter food. Instead we went for an Easter walk in Tyresta.

It’s Easter and the last day of March and the springtime sun can be warm, but the weather is still really cold. We were all wearing our winter gear, padded trousers and warm jackets. The paths were still covered with a thick and really slippery layer of ice. Eric and I often chose to walk next to the path when it got really bad. The kids didn’t even consider icy paths “bad”: they happily crawled and slid on the icy patches and even actively sought out the most slippery places. I guess the risk of falling doesn’t bother them. For me, the ground is too far away and my body is too heavy and breakable for such risks.

A few hours of walking took us to the Bylsjön campfire site where we had lunch. It was in a very nice and sunny spot by the lakeside, and thus quite popular. Families and groups were coming and going all the time, locals as well as tourists, and grilling sausages. Ingrid and Adrian were disappointed that there was a fire already going when we got there and we didn’t get to build our own, but again we adults had a different view and found this quite convenient.

Adrian climbing a tree in a nearby park.

“Tasteful and stylish” is not the aim when putting together an Easter witch outfit.

I worked from home today due to a midday appointment.

While the weather is still not particularly spring-like, the home office / library now gets direct sunshine not just in the morning, but in the afternoon as well.

I am semi-obsessed by the sun this time of the year. After several months of either darkness or gray skies, I feel like I am waking to life again.

Out of curiosity I looked for weather statistics for the past few months, and from December to February, Stockholm (as well as most of the rest of Sweden) had on average over 80% cloud cover. No wonder life felt gray.

Adrian beading a Snorlax.

Ingrid with a quilt she made herself.