like the violin

This has been a truly lovely week away. We've been in Johan's parents' summer cottage in the woods in Småland (about four hours' drive from here, almost on the east coast) and have been just relaxing the whole time. Taking walks, reading books, cooking good food (Johan), doing drawing exercises (me) and doing tons and tons of creative stuff (I brought my art journal and photo album as well as several small boxes of scraps and all my patterned papers, so there will be stuff shown here over the past fews days!).

It feels almost surreal to be back in town, as we've been completely without internet and telephones, and spent time only with each other. Even more so as we got home to the most amazing thunderstorm, it was so spectacular and beautiful (we had gotten safely inside with all our stuff before it started, thank God).

Anyways, the weather which has been warm and sunny over the past two months (!) has now turned gray, windy and rainy again (that is to be honest a much more common sight in Göteborg). That doesn't bother me at all though. Just gives me more time and a great reason to stay inside and create like crazy! :)

Speaking of creating ... The little house where we stayed belongs to Johan's grandparents, but they are now so frail that they no longer can go there. The place is completely full of old stuff that has gathered dust there over the years (they lived there for several months every year up until a few years ago, and never seem to have done much sorting - or throwing away - of anything). The grandparents themselves don't care about any of it, and so I was allowed to look through everything, and keep anything that wasn't personal. And oh, did I love it. There were drawer after drawer full of old letters (some of them more than sixty years old), unwritten "get well soon" cards from the sixties, beautiful old photos, Christmas cards from everywhere, bible verses, books so old that they almost feel apart ... There were amazing treasures to be found for a paper addict like yours truly.

The most amazing things weren't the ones I was allowed to keep (even though some of the tiny squares of Christmas gift wrappings, printed in Chicago in 1957, actually made me yell with joy), but all the letters and cards. There were letters to and from Johan's mother, grandmother, great grandmother and tons of aunts and uncles. The most interesting ones were sent to or from Minnesota, as of course (like in every Swedish family I think) someone immigrated and got married over there.

The letters told amazing stories and left so many beautiful details from their lives. What inspired me the most, I think, is how many of them wrote "for which we thank the Lord" and "praise to Him who has given us this or that" (this or that could be anything - a new grandchild, getting home safely from a trip, unexpected money to repair the toilet, a warm and sunny Sunday, a visit from an old friend somewhere, just about anything). It's just such a lovely way to look at life, that everything that happens is a blessing from God. I need to work on that a little in my own life.

The whole letter reading business over the past week got me really inspired to get my own letter writing going again. And that's the main reason for the "advertisement" you see in my Moleskine above (click the image if you want to see it bigger). Other reasons can be that now that I'm on summer holiday, I have tons of creativity that needs to get own and I'd love to share it with someone, and that I LOVE to find something nice in the mailbox. So what do you say? Are you up for it? Just admit it, you want a real penpal too!