TAKE A DEEP BREATH

After hitting the ground running here in Tempe back on August 19, when I arrived from Oman, I have now completed two months and have finished one full term in the ESL program (the American English and Culture Program). They gave me the "schedule from hell", giving me little time to settle in back in the USA in between preparing and teaching all my courses. Tests have been given; grades are finally in, and this next week is the first breather I've gotten in two months!

Släktingar / SWEDISH RELATIVES

Some photos of this summer in southern Sweden with my grandmother's relatives (Carlson side of the family).



A bit of alcohol-induced levity during one of the incessant "kafé" times while visiting my grandmother Carlson's relatives this June. (I joked that in Skåne, they have five meals a day: breakfast, kafé, lunch, kafé, and dinner!) Lisbeth Serjun (right) said her mother Anna Andersson (left), Dad's cousin, normally a very proper Lutheran, enjoys an occasional kaféjök (coffee plus schnapps). I provided the excuse for a "cultural lesson".



Lisbeth and her cousin Berit Jönsson (left) in front of the parish church in Glimåkra, where my grandmother and her parents and siblings attended before she and Fränk boarded a ship for Amerika in 1908. All the Swedish family is buried in the kyrkogård, or churchyard, behind the church. Berit's mother was another daughter of Grandma's sister Alice Carlson. Anna Andersson was the other daughter.



Anna Anderson with her two granddaughters Frida (left) and Karen (right) the day we visited the former family farm, Gamlarp. The girls' mother, Inger Höglund, (taking the picture) is a published nursing/aged care specialist. The farm was inherited by Gullan Persson, the common-law daughter of Uncle Sven, last owner of the farm, and the household maid. (Long story. The Swedish Carlssons haven't much good to say about "that woman.")



Inger Höglund with Karen and Frida the day she drove us up to the Emigrants Museum in Växjö, next door in Småland. A special request of mine, given the purpose of my trip this past summer.