Erik and I went to an exhibit at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis last weekend. It’s called “Tomte: the Gnome, the Myth, the Legend.” And, it is delightful! A tomte, short for gårdstomte, is a spirit that watches over farmsteads in Sweden. They are often depicted as tiny old men with long beards and tall, pointy, red hats, though there have been some variations on their headwear. The tomte exhibit is spread throughout the…
Erik and I went to Austin, Texas, a couple of weeks ago. I was there for ClioCon, a large legal tech conference, and we stayed an extra day to see a bit of Austin because we had never been before. Heck, this was our first time in Texas. In planning for the trip, an online search I did for museums in the area turned up around 40, which is a lot of museums. We chose…
Last month, Hubby and I had a free Saturday with nothing planned, which doesn’t happen real often. We decided to go out-and-about to wherever struck our fancy. Erik wanted to visit a site in Minneapolis that he had driven past many times without realizing it existed. Somehow he learned of it and thought I would like to see it. As we drove up to this striking landmark on a hill in a quiet Tangletown neighborhood,…
My book reading pace has not slowed this year. So far, I’ve read fourteen-and-a-half books, and we’re not even half-way through the year. It’s like I’m playing catch-up on the low-reading years or something. It helps that I’m reading mostly fiction, which I tend to read faster than nonfiction. I’ve also continued on my John Scalzi book binge, which I wrote about last month. Since then, I have read the first two books in Scalzi’s…
Last weekend, Hubby and I had the pleasure of sleeping over at Linden Hill Historic Estate in Little Falls, Minnesota. (https://linden-hill.org) The invitation came from good friends of ours who chose to celebrate a significant wedding anniversary there. Having worked for the Morrison County Historical Society for over 25 years, I knew a little something about the history of the place and had even been there before ownership had been transferred to the city. The estate…