Happy Walpurgis Night!
Ahhhhh! Spring is here! Officially! Because you can’t have spring without a bonfire…
Read more about Walpurgis Night, or Valborgsmässoafton, and how it came about in Sweden. Remember to grill some sausages on the bonfire or bake some Swedish pinnbröd on a stick!
Whatever you do to celebrate spring this year, celebrate it well! What will you be doing to celebrate spring?
My Swede Earth Last Call
Earth Day is next Monday! Wow, that went so quickly! I’m still looking for folks to help us inspire people to love the earth through Sweden.
The event is simple. Invite friends and family to a pot luck in your home, at a local community house, or in a park (I’m doing mine at a park), eat some Swedish food, talk about the awesomeness of Sweden, and what small changes people can make in their life to be a little more green.
Sweden inspired me deeply to take care more of the earth, to be more natural. To not waste water, food, or waste. We recycled almost everything. Including our organic waste. That made fuel for the garbage trucks! And got me completely hooked.
If Sweden can do it, then anybody can do it!
So I invite you to join me in a My Swede Earth party. Record some video with your smart phone and share what you and your Swedish Freaks are up to.
Will you be joining me?
Being Unreasonable: No Dryer for a Week
A dryer is something that I grew up with in California, and I didn’t ever imagine that one could go without it. How else would you dry your clothes?
Well in Europe, and in Sweden, drying clothes one doesn’t necessarily use a drier. Usually you hang them to dry outside when the weather is nice, or in your apartment when the weather is bad.
Our apartment complex in Sweden had drying rooms. We would hang our clothes to dry, and turn on these big machines to keep the air flowing in the room and causing the clothes to dry quicker in the winter months. In the summer we would put our clothes out to dry in the yard of the apartment complex, where there was a spot for drying clothes.
Now that I live in a desert (Phoenix), I find myself not using a dryer at all. I mean, I am living in a desert! And it is surprising how quickly the clothes do dry on their own!
Living in the US, I realize there are a lot of people who just never thought to try to dry their clothes outside! So this is my challenge to you. Save some electricity. Save some fossil fuels it takes to make that electricity. And dry your clothes naturally for a week.
If you have below freezing weather, dry them inside.
If you have wet weather, dry them inside.
If you want softer clothes, get liquid fabric softener and put it in when you wash your clothes.
Not only will you save energy, but your clothing will also last a lot longer not getting beat up in the dryer!
And if you haven’t seen it yet, watch Alessio play basketball with Swedish recycling!
