Singlehood groceries

Last week, I reached a minor yet special milestone: purchasing my last singlehood groceries before marriage.

No more half gallons of milk or individual packages of anything.

I’m usually someone who enjoys cooking, but only when I’m with other people. Whenever I cook for myself, at least a third of it goes bad from either my boredom with the dish or the difficulty eating the meal made for four in a week.

Since Russell left for Sweden, we haven’t been making meals together, which means I’ve reverted back to my old ways. My bachelorette food groups include Lean Cuisines, sandwiches, cereal and fresh fruits and vegetables. Sometimes, if I get a little crazy, I’ll make eggs and pancakes.

As some of you know, I was still in the cooking mood a week after Russell left, and I made a wonderful meal of sautéed chicken with sundried tomatoes, black olives and basil. When I placed the chicken in the canola oil, some of it came up and hit my wedding ring finger, which resulted in a nasty blister and a trip to the doctor for a treatment and burn cream. The finger is still a little red and probably will continue to be so during the wedding.

Despite this unfortunate incident, I enjoy cooking, but my main love is baking. However, when you bake a batch of brownies or a cake all for yourself, this can only mean bad things for the waistline.

Of course, while the calorie count I’m taking in now may not be bad, I know there’s a much more nutritious way of living.

Here’s to marriage and fresh ingredients!

Americans, Swedish royalty to marry

Our marriage is a big deal to Russell and me, but it doesn’t quite have the clout as two fellow Swedish residents also tying the knot in June.
Princess Victoria will marry commoner (gasp!) Daniel Westling, who apparently was her personal trainer, on June 19 in Stockholm.

The couple has an official website created by the Royal Court, and The Local, which publishes Swedish news in English, has created a Royal Wedding Blog. Their faces also are on commemorative plates and stamps.

I can’t compare our wedding site to the royals, but we rule in personal touch. I don’t think Victoria sat with Daniel one night going through the best songs, photos and text to use.

The Royal Court website claims “Swedish Television has said that this is the biggest event that has ever been covered in Stockholm.” I admit, while our TV will still be on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic, I’ll find a way to watch.

The royals in Sweden, like in the UK, have little power. However, an interesting fact about Victoria is she’s expected to be the fourth female ever to become a ruling queen of Sweden. The last woman to have this title lived in the 1700s. An old, outdated law was changed in 1979 to allow the monarch’s eldest child to inherit the throne, regardless of gender.

Russell tells me from his Swedish sources that the last woman or two to rule were horrible, so the government decided to not allow women to have the throne. Like my mom said, that’s like saying we’re not going to allow males to become president anymore because we had a few bad seeds.

Victoria’s father has said he’d prefer his younger son to rule, and this is in a country where women are believed to have more equal rights with men than any other place.

Royalty is such an odd and foreign concept to me, but it’s also one of the many interesting things I will learn about living in Sweden. Less than one month to go.


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'What are you going to do?'

When we first started discussing the possibility of Russ accepting a job in Sweden, it also was necessary to think about what I could do for personal development while there.
I now have an answer to the “what are you going to do?” question: I’ve been admitted into the global journalism master’s programme at Örebro University in Sweden!
After some nervous what-ifs, prayers and obsessively checking the online site where the selection results would be revealed, I finally found out today.
Last week, some undecipherable numbers and codes were posted to the online site. Every university in Sweden has a different MR (merit rating) code system, and you’ll have a rating from 1 to around 1,000 posted to your online application. Since these numbers only make sense to the university, I’m not sure why they are posted before your admission status, other than to torture applicants.
But in any case, I’ve been admitted and look forward to working with professors and fellow students, who will come from countries around the world. In previous classes, there have been students from almost every continent represented.
When I was in India, I met with journalists to exchange ideas about how our profession is practiced in our respective countries. Now, I’ll have this on a much larger scale. Some of the courses offered include media and globalization, online investigative journalism, war and peace journalism and reporting Europe.

I was already excited about moving to Europe, but to have something to challenge and fulfill me academically makes the experience even more of a wonderful adventure.



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Countdowns

40 days: moving to Sweden
33: wedding
26: Russell returns to Dallas
24: ending my job with The Dallas Morning News (after almost 4 years)


Russell is on a business trip in South America and is spending two weeks in Chile, one week in Peru, then will return to Sweden for two weeks and come back to Texas a week before our wedding. Whew – it’s tiring just looking at the schedule, but I’m proud of him for what he’s accomplished in his career.

Russ has had some interesting experiences, both in getting to Chile and while he’s been there. He’ll share this with you all whenever his life slows down a bit.

I can’t wait to finally be finished with the planning and packing so we may begin our lives in Sweden. Until then, I’ve been busy checking things off my wedding and moving out of the country to-do lists, but in a little more than a month, I’ll blog as a new Swedish resident. Stay tuned.