SwedeLife USA, Continued

So here I am writing from Florida...There is more fresh snow at home I hear, and today we were swimming in the hot tub, sweating in the sun wearing shorts, finding horseshoe crabs in the mangroves, and tossing fossilized shells into the bay at the reflection of the sun. We had dinner with my cousin and her baby, my parents, my grandma. So many people to love around us all the time.

We have been in the USA since November 20th, and now it's January 28th. The baby has progressed so much, today she even took a few steps. She will walk before we return. We did an amazing one month road trip, one month of family Christmas/holidays and beach time, and we are half way through one month in town at my parents and are seeing old friends, taking care of business, and hanging out.

I am sitting at the computer in a daze looking on line trying to do some shopping, trying to remember back to my life in Sweden, imagining myself standing in my own kitchen, and wondering what material goods I can bring back that I will miss once I return to Sweden. What comforts can I gather here to make returning easier? It's like packing a time capsule for myself. Chocolate chips, baby clothes, refreshed English language media for SwedeGirl in the form of books and DVDs...what else...craft and art supplies for her, vitamins and supplements and herbs for me, shoes for everyone. Glasses and contacts for SwedeDaddy. And while I am here I still have to do taxes, see the accountant, get the American insurance and will in order. And plan a trip to Disney World. We go next Monday I think. This weekend is a fundraiser for Haiti an old client is organizing; I am hoping to see the last of friends I have not seen yet there. We have been busy making the circuit visiting old friends and family. We have had so many amazing moments. Blogtastic good times, and deep love and sweetness. Now, a good friend who her first baby around the same time SwedeGirl was born (I was her midwife) is due any day, and I am on call to go to the birth. I am preparing taxes, wills, Disney, and for a birth. And for my girl to turn 5, we will celebrate with all her friends at a big party. And I need ot sort through the mountain of things we have acquired here, and jam them into the suitcases. Then return to my home in Sweden.

I have two weeks left. Never has a two week vacation seemed liked a short time, until now.

USA TOP 5:

1) Parties and Holidays with loved ones
2) Swimming in January
3) Breakfast restaurant
4) So many bagels I take them for granted
5) The best Chocolate Ice Cream ever, Dove Unconditional Chocolate
6) The choice of 100s of naughty breakfast cereals. Yes, I have eaten both Golden Grahams and Panda Puffs.
7) Home Exchange
8)The many many things for sale all the time in the USA
Yep, that’s more than 5.

5 Things that strike me as weird about my home now:
1)The many things for sale all the time in the USA. The commercialism is so pervasive.
2)How much pressure there is on parents to do more, have more, buy more, be more, and do do do
3)The poverty of time, people never get breaks or vacations
4)That people are listening to Glen Beck, and liking Sarah Palin for real here. That the think the only way Europeans have healthcare is to pay 50% or more of their income to taxes. Politics are so crazy here.
5)That the road is a solid wall of businesses, and things for sale. The commercialism, I mentioned it before but it is so chi sucking I must mention it again.
6) That Americans look so unhealthy. I am no small woman, but in Indianapolis, I was the smallest woman on a carousel. Everyone was shaped like kind of an amorphous blob. There is a special shape of the Midwestern blob person. Nothing quite like it in Europe.

That's not much of a top 5, but that’s how I am in the home stretch here, a bit discombobulated and anxious, nervous, and glad all at once the end of the journey is in sight.

What is store for when we return? What exciting things next? In case anyone is listening, I just want you to know, I can take it.

The good, all of it, I can take it.

I am just not sure it will fit in my suitcase.