MIN MAN

Thaddeus, you are amazing. Thanks for loving me,
just the way I am.
JAG ÄLSKAR DIG

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Happy Easter - Glad Påsk

Hope everyone has a great Easter. Elsa and Kajsa dressed up like witches. It's a Swedish Easter tradition. Look it up ;) They sure were cute little hags. Read more!

Being sick is no fun

Well, we made it a long time without being sick this winter. It must be the longest time we've gone not having a cold. But alas, now the sick God has found us. Elsa was sick last week, she had a little fever and a runny nose. And now the lot has fallen on me. Elsa, Kajsa and I are home together being sick girls. Kajsa is not sick though, she's just keepin us company. Well, that's all.
-Michaela Read more!

Life is great!

I really want to share how happy I feel inside. Sometimes I feel I'm going to explode. I know, sounds silly, but sometimes I just feel so damn happy and peaceful, my body doesn't seem to be able to fit all of it inside. Hope that whomever is reading this (not that a whole lot of people do) will be infected with some of my happiness. Why am I happy I wonder? Who knows? I think it's because I've finally reached a point in my life where I'm ready to be me. Take it or leave it. I'm true to myself and that feels GREAT. Can't wait for tomorrow. I LOVE LIFE!
-Michaela- Read more!

Spirituality

Here's a great quote I got from Richard Packham's website. The quote is attributed to Melissa Hardy.

I think we often look too far away for gods and miracles, and ignore the ones all around us. We want to think that we, as a species, are different, that somehow we are endowed by god(s) to do whatever the hell we please with this world. But the world was not created for us (if it was 'created' at all). It exists FOR ITS OWN SAKE, not as a proving ground for future gods or a stage for a cosmic struggle between good or evil, or a playground that one species is meant to use as its personal possession. It is vaster by far, and wilder, and more beautiful than that. There is an elegance in the life cycle of salamanders, of diatoms, of trees, of beetles. In a growing embryo there is more complexity and beauty and holiness than in ten thousand thousand hymns of praise or prayers for sanctification. If you listen, every organism, every species, every cell has its own song, a hymn of praise and holiness more deep and fierce and beautiful than we can even comprehend.

And, here is the clincher, the priceless gift of the cosmos. WE ARE PART OF IT! We BELONG here....we are not strangers or sojourners, or even "spiritual beings having an earthly experience." We belong HERE, with our siblings, our relatives, our parents -- the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the plants of the earth. We are they, and they are us. Each atom in our body is on loan to us from the world, and each atom has been part of innumerable organisms, and will be again. We have been the diatoms. We have been the tulips and the polar bears and the lemurs and the ants and the grass. And we will be the deer and the tiger and the wheat and the E. coli and the penguin. We belong to the system, tangled beyond extrication with every other living thing.

Isn't this enough holiness and beauty for all of us? The gods of this earth live in the mitochondria, genes, synaptic gaps of our body. And they live in the grasslands, the deserts, the rivers, the mountains. We are they, and they are us. You are god and gods and parts of gods. We are descended from gods and give birth to gods. They are us, and we are they. We live in a world filled to brimming with gods, and yet we still look beyond the clouds, beyond the stars, beyond ourselves, for a cosmic Easter Bunny who can make all our little dreams come true, when, in reality, we carry the kingdom of heaven within us every moment. It is there, peopled with enzymes and nucleic acids and glycolipids and ionophores. And, although it is within us, we are part of it as well. Heaven is here. The gods are among us.

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An Atheist's Creed

I believe in time,
matter, and energy,
which make up the whole of the world.

I believe in reason, evidence and the human mind,
the only tools we have;
they are the product of natural forces
in a majestic but impersonal universe,
grander and richer than we can imagine,
a source of endless opportunities for discovery.

I believe in the power of doubt;
I do not seek out reassurances,
but embrace the question,
and strive to challenge my own beliefs.

I accept human mortality.

We have but one life,
brief and full of struggle,
leavened with love and community,
learning and exploration,
beauty and the creation of
new life, new art, and new ideas.

I rejoice in this life that I have,
and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
and an earth that will abide without me.

It's Amazing!
Amazing that my life has become so meaningful. It has become meaningful through the rejection of what I once believed to be the meaning of life (ironic). In my youth my thinking was done for me, my beliefs were dictated to me, and the conclusions that I had drawn about life... were not really my own.

Then one day the magic wears off. Superstitions and fairy tales lose their glamour as the reasoning mind instills doubt. I don't regret in the slightest that I have chosen to listen to myself. To follow my doubts. To shake off the superstitious, the supernatural, and the mystical. To abandon guilt, self-loathing, and preconceived prejudices. To follow the logic of critical reasoning, logic, and science. Because now...

The world is truly marvelous. Life is truly meaningful. And I, am truly happy.

~Thaddeus Read more!

What it's really like living in Sweden

I just think this is hilarious. Swedish comic Johan Glans giving a realistic portrait of living in Sweden. ~Thaddeus

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I got the Job!!!

I finally get to work with something other than the boring, mindless task that I’ve been doing for the past 3 years. The good news came on Friday that I would be getting the job I recently applied for. There’re no pay differences worth mentioning, but the important thing is that I will get to use my brain (at least for a while).

I’m extremely relieved to be moving on. Switching groups, making new acquaintances, and learning new things. I still haven’t found out all of the details about the new job, and I still need a couple of weeks to train my replacement. So I’m actually looking forward to Monday (wow, that doesn’t happen often).

I also found out today that the Drum Corps will be sponsoring our trip Belgium. A couple of us (instructors) will be driving down one weekend in march for some competitions, and then flying back down again the following weekend for some clinics. Apparently the organization wants to pick up most of the bill.

Probably the most exciting news of the weekend though, is that we got new handles for all our kitchen cupboards and drawers. Whoopee! We recently talked the landlord into replacing our old nasty cupboard doors. They put in some nice new white doors and then put some nasty brown wooden handles on them. It was just too hideous to endure so we purchased some nice stainless steel handles and put them in yesterday. Looking good!
~Thaddeus
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Life In Sweden - Going on 6 years now ! !

Dear All,

We figure that people who read this blog are most likely people we know from the States. So we thought we'd start out by sharing a little of what we've been up to and what's going on.
Thaddeus and I are currently working full time. It's a busy busy time in our lives, but definitely one of the best. Our two girls are growing like mad. They're smart, beautiful, a little crazy and just perfect.

Living in Sweden has been a great experience for us. The biggest reason we moved here was out of curiosity. I mean, I am 100% Swedish, but since I moved to the states when I was only eight, I really had no clue what it was like to live here. I've never really felt like I fit in, not in Idaho anyway. Then there were a bunch of other conveniences like social medicine and the fact that my immigration STILL wasn't done when we wanted to get married. So we thought, why not, this is our chance to go see another part of the world, while we're still young. From there it went pretty fast. We arrived with only suit cases, and I was 5 months pregnant :) I got here 3 months before Thad.......Smart, really smart, and mature. But what do you do, we're spontaneous people, wouldn't have it any other way.

It's been a roller coaster since we got here. It's not as easy to find a job in Sweden as it is in the States, trust me. And it's even harder to find a job when you're an immigrant in Sweden, or if you're pregnant :) Anyway, Thaddeus was unemployed for a little over a year. During this time he went to "SFI" which is "Swedish for immigrants" Amazing stuff they've got here. Immigrants can go to school to learn Swedish....FOR FREE! (This explains why Thaddeus is so freakishly good at Swedish. I have to ask him how to spell stuff and how the grammar works, it's embarassing) During this time I was home taking care of Elsa. Need I say, we were poor.

Then we both got jobs at just about the same time, and suddenly things got a little easier. Then along came Kajsa, another one of those "Should we? wouldn't it be fun to have a baby" kids. Like I said, we're spontaneous. Anyway, the past 5 years have just cruised by. Feels like we can hardly keep up. Thaddeus and I will be celebrating out sixth anniversary in May, Amazing! Even more amazing, I still love the guy, he's great.

Well, I'm not sure if there's anything else exciting to tell. Our everyday life is just work and play, work and play. We live in Borås. Which is the fifth largest city in Sweden (don't quote me on that) It's an hour's drive east of Gothenburg. Thaddeus and I have jobs quite close to home and the girls go to day care (across the street) about three days a week. We live next door to the zoo and an outdoor swimming pool. We don't have that many chances to hit the pool since we live in the "rain capital" of Sweden, and since swim weather is only from June (if we're lucky) to August. It seriously rains way too much! I think it rains at least 5 out of 7 days a week, and I'm pretty sure I'm not exaggerating.

Well, I'm impressed if you've made it this far :)
-Michaela- Read more!

Hello? Can anyone see this?

Just wanna check if this thing really works. Gotta run to work now, so I'll have to work some more on this thing when I have some time off....like saturday maybe ;) -Michaela

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