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Advent Calendar
Yellow Danger
We are now the not so proud owners of the Yellow Danger. If you haven’t guessed it yet; it’s a new car.
We need a second car as we move to our house as it takes too long to take the bus to the station (and the bus only goes every now and then) making the commute to work just annoying. So we decided we buy a small cheap car that would take me the short trip (about 10 kilometres) to the station. We looked at a few ads. And last Tuesday I went to a dealer and bought a cheap little thing.
We are now the owners of a yellow Hyundai Atos from 2001. Yellow Danger is its name. (Gula faran in Swedish). It isn’t the nicest car there is. (I do like the fact that it is yellow though). It has some parts missing. (Nothing important I hope). It has an electrical motor pre-heater, which is good for starting the car in the winter. Not much else is electric in the car (kind of Stone Age but less things that can break). It has some dents, but they are “fixed”.
I think it will do fine taking me to the train. I won’t need a super wide parking space and it won’t use much petrol either. I don’t think we’ll drive far with the car, I sure hope we don’t have to, it’s just not as good on the motorway as our Škoda and its steering is made for city driving.
Here is a picture of the car type. (Not the one but a similar one with a few less dents).
Boat owners
Now “our” house has passed its check-up and the water-test came back with good results too, so we will get our keys in the beginning of December.
Today we went over to the house to clear some things with the previous owners; among other things we decided what things they didn’t need to trash to clear the house. We had talked about the things in the garden shed before. We also knew about the fact that some of the shelves would stay. What we didn’t know that with the house we would be boat owners. Okay it’s just a canoe but still it’s a boat. Some nice surprise there; not only do we live close to the lake, but we have the means to get out onto it.
We will also get one sofa; it will complement our lounge perfectly. We are now in the process of filling our model of the house with furniture, so that we know where to put the things when we move.
Maybe we should be starting packing now? There are still some things to figure out before that, like the fact; can we use the boxes we used in the last move, or will they want the boxes back just during our crazy moving days? We will try to move before Christmas, we just don’t know when we will have time to sleep too. (As I work and our daughter keeps Susanna busy during the day). I can already announce that if anyone feels called to help us with the move (we’ll do it ourselves this time) and needs a break from Christmas shopping, just give us a call. We will probably need help more than once during December.
Our daughter seems to like the house too. Today Susanna showed her the room we are thinking will be hers and she approved of it. And she really loves the stairs. And the cat. But we won’t get the cat.
We found our house
Last Wednesday we signed a contract to our new home. It’s a little house in the village of Gamla Bo, just south of Ringsjön in Skåne. That is just about 10 kilometres south of where we live now.
We will have access to the place by December 2nd but we haven’t decided on when we move yet. We will have our flat until the end of January, so there won’t be any rush.
There are still some small hurdles to pass. On Tuesday we will have the house checked by a professional to give an opinion on what flaws there are to the house. We will also check the water to see if we have to connect it to the public water supply as it has a well now and it could be contaminated. (The previous owner thought the water was fine though so we hope it is).
The house is situated on an almost 3000 square meters plot of land with a driveway, a bunch of trees (some of them are fruit trees) on a grass lawn and a garage/shed. The shed part has to get its roof fixed; the rest is okay as it is. Surrounding the plot are fields belonging to a local farmer, though he doesn’t farm any more, but he cuts the grass there.
It’s about 100 meters to the lake. We will have a guestroom, if we use the rooms the way we think now. There are trees in perfect distance for a hammock, space for growing some vegetables. Maybe some chicken?
The house doesn’t have a basement. I don’t mind that. It uses the ground for heating and has a little fire place too. There is a balcony on the second floor and an outdoor room in the back, with a nice view of the field and the evening sun.
Somehow it’s scary to buy a house. There are so many things to think about. I hope we have thought about most of them.
There are budgets to make, maintenance lists to create and plenty of new things to take care of that one doesn’t have to do when renting an apartment. Both of us grew up in houses. But we didn’t have the responsibility of taking care of them back then. The practical things I have seen. The paperwork I haven’t.
We will have to get one more car too. That is a bit of a bummer. And we just can’t afford an electric one like I would like to. (That would be perfect, commuting by electrical car). Now it has to be a small (but still 4 doors) thing with low fuel consumption. And cheap. Not too old. Did I mention cheap? I will use that go get to the train station, either in Eslöv (probably not as there are too few parking lots there), Stehag (even less probable as there are just a handful of parking lots there and only the local trains stop there) or Höör.
I have started to make a model in SketchUp of the house. It makes planning and moving in easier. I still lack some measurements so I will try to get them on Tuesday.
All the pictures are courtesy of Våningen och Villan, the real-estate agent helping in selling the house. http://www.vaningen.se/
Two Years: The best!
Today our daughter turned two. It has been an amazing trip. I don’t have words for how blessed we are with her. We celebrated her both yesterday and today, yesterday it was with some relatives, today it was just us as a family.
It is wonderful to see how she is growing up and learning new things by the day. We start to understand more and more of what she says. Her sentences are getting longer. She is playing with her things, letting them having long conversations.
Today we had the possibility to skype with both my brother and my parents so they could wish her happy birthday too. It is great what technology can do, making it possible to sit face to face and still be in different cities or on different continents.
Here are a few pictures from the celebrations:
Our daughter dancing away at the zoo.
Four generations, from Oldemor (great grandmother in Danish) to our daughter.
Now this tricycle moved here, it’s a good mode of transport to the playground.
Going down the slide is great fun.
TV-repair man
Our TV has been acting strange for a while. I don’t know exactly when it started but it might be a bit more than a year ago; it just didn’t start at once anymore but clicked a while until it started. In the beginning the clicking was just going on for a short time but it soon increased to be about five minutes. And this way it stayed until recently.
One Sunday evening a few weeks ago I wanted to chill in front of the TV and I started it, thinking it would take about 10-15 minutes (it had after the move started to take a little bit longer to start up). Half an hour later it still clicked away in the living room and I started getting worried. After one hour I gave up. I had chilled in front of the computer instead (not as chilling as the TV) and it was about time to go to sleep. I did not go to sleep, but started searching the internet if there are other people out there with the same problem.
I was not alone. Not alone at all. There are plenty of people who had the same problem as I had. Some got it fixed by the warranty. Most (that I found) didn’t due to the fact that the TV was more than three years old. Bad quality Samsung TV, with things in them that just barely survive the warranty. And it was all kinds of models affected. Ouch, that didn’t feel good. I already saw myself trying to find a new TV (from a different brand) spending lots of money we really don’t want to spend. (And no, I don’t want to live without TV, it’s just too nice to chill in front of it after a hard day).
But then I looked at the links that Google had shown me a little closer. And there were some people talking about fixing the problem. So I looked at one of the links; http://redpushpin.blogspot.se/2011/08/repairing-samsung-lcd-tv-with-clicking.html
and it looked kind of easy to fix. So I decided I would give it a try. One or more of the capacitors could have popped. The fix being replacing the capacitors and then it would work again. Just make sure you don’t use the same ones as they were not really good enough only coping with 10 V, one should use at least 12 V or higher (all other things the same).
The day after, in the evening when our daughter was asleep, I unscrewed the back of the TV and saw the problem right away. Two of the capacitors had popped.
Here they are marked.
So I unsoldered them and ordered new ones. Then the big wait started. It took ten days until the parts came. Ten long days without TV. Okay it was not that bad, but still.
When the parts arrived I soldered them into place. I’m actually kind of proud of my soldering even if they are not as perfect as the others on the circuit board:
It is the two objects called CM 852 and CM 853 that I replaced.
This is how they looked from the other side. (It’s the two black ones with a “K” on top).
After that I put everything together again and plugged all the parts in. I pressed the on button, it started right away and I had a little victory dance.
Sure all warranties are void now but hey, they were void already before due to high age. And watching TV isn’t an activity that needs to be planned ahead anymore.
First run (in Höör)
I finally did it, my first run in Höör. I haven’t really taken care of me for the last couple of months. My last run was in mid-May. That’s just too long ago. A week ago I decided that after the cold I had I should start running again. Now the cold is kind of gone, it doesn’t bother me anymore so I decided that it was time.
I thought I’ll put up a note here once every now and then about how it goes, maybe that motivates me more. I have to keep up exercising, now that I’m not using my bicycle as much as before, due to the fact that I won’t be living in bicycling distance from my work. (And that almost everything else is within walking distance and we have a car).
Here is a picture of the route that I ran today, it took me 23 minutes for the 3,14 kilometres it is long.
I also got my speedometer for the bicycle working again so now I will know how fast and how far I’m actually going. Today we (my daughter was in the trailer) went to City Gross (a Supermarket) a round trip of 5 kilometres. Not really that far, almost walking distance actually.
The art of settling
We have now lived here in Höör over one month. Time has gone really fast. We have had plenty to do. But now things are getting to some kind of normal. And then it all will change again when I start working in three weeks from now.
The apartment is getting into shape. We only have a dozen of boxes left to unpack and they are mainly things that belong into our children’s room. (That room also houses all the empty boxes, 179 so far). That doesn’t mean that the room is not used yet, our daughter uses it all the time as we have made her a little desk there where she can paint. We also put most of her toys in the room, leaving the rest of the apartment less of a mess.
Susanna is getting into her “new” job, just the way it was planned. The days are not that much longer than in Stockholm, though she starts earlier to get home in time for dinner. Traveling by train is also much more pleasant for her than traveling by underground. We visited her at her job once and had lunch at the Malmö festival.
Living in a small town so far has had mostly pros:
- There is walking distance to most places.
- If it isn’t walking distance it’s only a short bicycle ride away.
- Traffic isn’t too heavy for using the bicycle.
- People are friendly. (Not that we have met all but the ones we met were).
Living in Höör gives a few extra pros:
- It’s close to my parents in law.
- It’s close to Malmö and Denmark.
- It has a zoo. (We haven’t been there yet though).
- It has a butcher. Meet just tastes better from a butcher than from a supermarket.
- It has a few lakes to swim in that are within bicycle range.
- It has beaches (nice sandy ones) within one hour by car, in two directions so one can chose depending on which one might have the warmer water.
There are some cons to though:
- It’s far from my parents.
- The place we live in doesn’t have that nice a view like we had in our place in Blackeberg.
- I won’t be able to take the bicycle to work.
- It’s far from many of our friends.
We have also started with looking for a more permanent place again. So far we have looked at five (if you read this after Sunday afternoon six). We now have plenty of time to find the right place. But it is so hard. One place hade everything but was located too far out so that we would have to take the car for 10 minutes just to get to the closest store. Even the closest bus stop was three kilometres away. One other place had a beautiful garden. Just a little bit too beautiful, we don’t need a garden that takes all our free time to take care of. We want one that is practical and where we can grow our vegetables and have some chicken in the future. Basically a big grass lawn with a few trees would be perfect, not an intricate sculptured garden with bushes, ponds and flowerbeds that want plenty of attention to not look unkept.
Skåne here we are!
We did it. Or maybe we are doing it. We have gotten all our stuff to the new place, but we still have to make the place liveable. Thanks to my parents in law where we all slept good last night. Susanna and our daughter slept the night before that at their place too and might sleep another night, while I did sleep in the cupboard the first night after I drove down the car from Stockholm. I chose that room as it is the only room without windows and I didn’t feel like putting up blinds in the middle of the night.
But first let me take it from the start.
On Monday we had our last guests at our old place, after they left we really started dismantling the place (We had done some of it before but were far from done). We had planned it this way as we had decided to have a company help us with the packing and moving.
On Tuesday we dismantled the rest of the things we could get done. We also got rid of all the things we didn’t want to keep. It all took a lot longer than we thought, but at three in the morning we were done so far that they could pack up the rest the day after.
On Wednesday three packers came and boxed up our place. We tried to keep out of the way and started to dismantle the furniture that they emptied. We had a fairly calm day this way, Susanna was mainly taking care of our daughter outside and we had all our meals outside too as it wasn’t really possible to be in the apartment during their packing. After they were done I joined Susanna and our daughter at the beach, meeting with a good friend of ours.
In the eventing we went back to the chaos and took care of the last things that had to be done before the move.
On Thursday we moved. Susanna and our daughter left early on a plane to Skåne to prepare a few things in the apartment and I stayed behind to oversee the loading and cleaning.
The truck came early and they started filling it up. With all our stuff. We have a lot of stuff. We have too much stuff. The stuff didn’t fit in the truck. Not so fun. But the moving company said they could get another truck (small one) and fit the rest. Now we know how much stuff we have, 67 cubic meters. This is exactly the amount that one other firm thought we have in their bid. When we got that bid we didn’t believe it. How can three people have that much stuff? Good we did some cleaning out before, otherwise we would have had even more. We’ll have to continue cleaning out stuff after this.
While they were fetching the other truck I had lunch with my mother. That was really nice. She took me to a good Italian place just by her work. It was a good break.
As I came back the cleaning was on hold as they needed to get out the last things from the apartment to get it done. I packed up the things I was to take in the car and had some nice talks with the neighbours. I’ll miss the neighbours, they were nice people.
At five in the afternoon the last things were loaded and the cleaning was done. I checked the cleaning and after about one hour I was on my way.
Driving is fun and went smooth; I arrived at home (yes this is home now) a few minutes after midnight. After unpacking the car and winding down a bit I slept well, for the first time in our new home.
On Friday the trucks arrived and they started filling up the place. I only had to direct them where to put things. At noon Susanna joined us and at two they had unloaded everything. We had some lunch, I had some rest and we put the bed together before we left for my parents in law.
Today we slept in. We will go back to the place later and I will stay there overnight trying to fix as much as possible so that we all can stay there from Sunday on.
The move in pictures.
Wednesday:
Packing the place.
Our daughter helping us.
Thursday:
Furniture ready to be loaded.
Boxes everywhere.
Our daughter still sound asleep.
Loading has started, rooms are emptying.
The truck being filled up.
The truck.
Friday:
The first things are unloaded.
Box-room, this room now is all filled up with boxes.
The flowers were placed and watered, they really needed water.
We rebuilt our bed.
A little vacation
The last couple of days we have been to Åland. For you who don’t know, Åland is an archipelago and region of Finland that is situated between mainland Finland and Sweden.
We felt like we needed to get some break from our moving business. And as a cruise and visit to Åland is a bit trickier from Skåne we decided it was time to go there.
We enjoyed two 5½ hour cruises, on the way there with a huge breakfast and on the way back with the buffet. Our daughter enjoyed the playroom and the ocean of balls.
We spent two nights and one day on the island, seeing some sights and enjoying the beach in Mariehamn. We also pampered ourselves with good food and massages.
Here are a few pictures from the trip:
Our daughter’s first time on a big ship. And the staple of Roslagskulla church, just across the road where I went to kindergarten.
We went to the open air museum of Jan Karlsgården. The swallows were not shy at all.
The flag (Åland has its own) and a few of the other things we did and saw.
On the way back. Our car parked on the car deck. One of the places we went to, to watch the big boat as kids, just a few kilometres from where I grew up. The modern skyline of Kista. Our daughter getting to sleep after a long day. On such a day it mus t be wonderful to be on a boat like the little sailboat we met.
Leaving the old, starting the new
Today I went to Höör to get our keys for the new apartment. It’s getting real now. In less than two weeks we will be living in this new place.
I flew down, leaving the old Bromma airport, arriving at the “new” Sturup airport the local airport where we will live (it’s about 50 minutes by car from Höör).
Now we have a new front door. I like that. And a new view.
Now we only have to move there. But first some socialising and vacation.