Saturday, Crappy weather tomorrow, frustrating.

Enchiladas the last two days, even though hub's left them in the oven too long.  I made a nice bunch of chicken broth with the bones and skin and froze it, but not until after hub's ate some of it as soup.  What a dork!  Took out a good end butt of ham and will make a big pot of split pea soup and some scalloped potatoes this weekend.  I also need to make bread.   Will  have to go to the store tomorrow.  We are out of most fruit and milk and other things.  It never ends.

     I finally got into the doctor after teaching Thursday evening and Hub's went to the store for my prescriptions.. They switched me to a more powerful antibiotic and a nasal spray.  The fact that the Xeljanz that I am on causes sinus infections as its #1 side affect.  It is  about $3278.00 a month for this medication and then all the meds to fight the side affects.  Lovely.

     I was very cranky Thursday, with everyone even my students.  I just get tired of not feeling my best and headachey gets old.  I need to stop complaining and be grateful that this medication works better than any other I have been on and just deal with it.  My joints are much better and my range of motion is almost normal in joints that had very little motion a year ago.

     I took D#3 and myself to get our hair done today.  It has been since last May that my hair has been cut and colored and then we went to the coast the first of July and washed out the color in the sun and the wind.  So I have been touching up the roots for almost a year.  My hair was about 3 inches beyond my shoulders and it needed to be cut.  B's hair was a mess and needed cut also, so we had a beauty day even though I was not really up to normal.  I just sat and kept my eyes closed as my hair was done, it was lovely although sitting that long gets to me.

     I asked my ballet Mistress who also rents our spare room and bath off the shop to stay and watch the shop this morning. I had many people picking up and I am glad I did, we were at the parlor so late.  She had to have been very busy.  I came home to a ton of new alterations.  When I get into costumes this spring which will be soon I am going to have her sew some for me.  She is really good at creating things, and can pin and make props and hair pieces.  She is a little afraid of sewing.  I can leave her though and  my clientele all feel confidant with her.  It was very nice of her to stay today and take over.  She is a real asset to the studio and sometimes I feel like she is my brain.
      I
Out My Window:  It has been beautiful the last 3 days and of course tomorrow it is supposed to rain and be cold which makes me frustrated I would so like to get some yard work done.

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     Millie had every burner on the stove going, trying to get dinner ready and  boil extra eggs for tomorrows lunches.  She checked the oven and there were still two pieces of crisp warm oatmeal left and she generously sugared the slices and told Wilhelm to take them over to the Stahl's.  Old Mother Stahl and her daughter could eat the simple treat and it never hurt to be neighborly especially with this noisy tiresome lot.  Inga Stahl would return the plate after her brother came home from work and she would help Millie pin her new dress pieces to fit.  Inga knew how to sew well and you could often hear her machine going in the other apartment.  She did piece work for a local factory.  Her quiet and taciturn older brother picked up and returned her work for her six days a week.  Even though they did not speak the same language, they spoke sewing.  Millie judged Inga to be in her early thirties and valued the  friendship they had developed over patterns and pins.  It was just nice to have another female opinion.  Nels didn't notice and Oskar was color blind. 

     The few hours between school and dinner flew by for Millie.  They ate rather late between 6:30 and 7:00 depending on when Nels arrived home.  When she heard him on the stairs she would send the boys to help unload the wagon.  At least with this many brothers it usually only took one trip down and up for each.  Millie hurried Violet to help set the table and even Ruth could set around the spoons. The table was  ready by the time Nels and the boys had everything unloaded and stored away.  Millie sat down after she poured water into the large kettle for washing the supper dishes, it would be hot when the meal was over.  When all the benches and chairs were pulled out and occupied  one could hardly move in the room.  Three of the boys actually leaned up against the ice box and Nels could put his elbow back on her sewing machine.  They had an American word for this, cozy, but she called it crowded.

     Millie always insisted on a Swedish grace to be said before breakfast and supper.  Nels never argued and gave her his support even as far as hitting the younger boys on top of the head with his fork if he caught them in irreverence.   As hard as his mother had tried religion never meant much to him, it meant so much to Millie and if she would support him he would support her. After supper was eaten and Nels and the boys did the dishes while Millie readied the three youngest for bed.  Nels  turned on the family radio to listen to what ever program they could get in the evenings.  He was always trying different stations and frequencies,as so many new stations were starting up. Millie heard the little girls prayers and then turned off the overhead light and slid the pocket doors shut. The radio was turned off and Oskar and Whilhelm had taken violins off the bedroom shelf.  They would play softly while the girls fell asleep. Nels and Millie both played the piano, and Nels played quite well but neither had touched a piano since leaving Sweden.  One could not get a piano up six flights of stairs. Both missed the instrument, but Nels would not admit it, when Millie voiced her longing he would reply, "I play the play the radio now."

     The sound of the violins brought Inga over.  She and Millie worked over a new dress pattern, or sat quietly drinking coffee and doing hand work.  The doors to the two flats would be left open in a few weeks when the weather was really warm.  Mother Stahl liked to listen to the music. She also enjoyed the chatter of the children, something Millie could not understand. Nels went into his parlor workshop or downstairs in the butcher shop if he was working on something larger.  He usually had one of the boys help him. When the clocks struck nine Millie and Inga would put the sewing away.  There were often as many as five or six clocks going off in unison or seconds apart in the Bjorklund house.  Nels kept a clock he had fixed for several days to make sure it kept time.  Millie would often say, "This is the only house in America where nine bells can last a minute and a half." Clocks would go off repeatedly one after another.  Inga and Millie would  laugh at the different chimes and tones as Inga said good night.

     If Nels was downstairs, Millie would join him after the boys were in bed.  She would shoo her remaining brother upstairs and she a Nels quietly talked about the day.  They did not get very much time alone together and sometimes after a long day, Millie would just sit and watch Nels work.  Quiet was nice and they enjoyed the silence together.  When Nels worked in the flat they would keep the doors between the kitchen and the parlor open and work quietly.  Millie could catch up on studies, or the never ending mending and ironing.  Even thought they had help with laundry, nine people took more than an hour a day to keep up linens and clothes. It would be nice to get Audra out of diapers and the boiled wool soaker pants.

        Every night these had to be emptied out of the pail of water they were kept in on the back fire escape.  Diapers were washed and boiled in a special pail on the back of stove, rinsed and hung on a clothesline that attached across  the kitchen.  Drying overnight only to be snatched down first thing in the morning.  What would it be like to not have diapers across the kitchen in the morning? Millie could not remember a time in her life without diapers.She thought back to the apartment her family had lived in when they were in Stockholm.  It seemed like years and years ago.  Millie had just had her fifteenth birthday along with Peter's sixth.  She was twelve when they left the farm.  Was it really only three years ago?

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Have a great and productive day.

Kim