Memories and Giggles

It is funny, the stuff we lug around!

My "Big Sister" had a little convenience store many years ago.  When she closed it she took home some  of the items she could use in her home or in her kitchen, then she generously shared some of the stuff with me when I came to Uppsala to visit.  Among them this can of mustard powder.  I gladly stuffed it in my suitcase taking it to California, later back to Sweden and then back to California once more.  Why this item one might wonder, since there were so many other things that were sold, given away or dumped.  No, don't ask?  It was just one of the things I somehow wanted transported.

This Christmas as we were preparing the Christmas ham, the swedish way naturally, we mix egg and mustard, spread it on the ham, coat it with bread crumbs and roast it in the oven giving the ham a tasty crunchy coat.  Mustard also is important for the swedish potato sausage, but let that be another story....... my "sauce chef" asked; "how old is this stuff?"  Well, this tin can was way past its prime,  best used before June in 1992!  Yea Yea Yea it has now been replaced by a NEW can, but I guarantee it is NOT going to taste the same.  To think that  I have been going through Maria's cupboard and spices, while we stayed at her house for four months and I had nothing to do.  Tossing and dumping things she inherited both from her Mother in Law and me.  Some of my stuff I think came from the San Jose to Mariposa move.  Laughing about how silly it is to KEEP all that OLD stuff.

Then this!  At Christmas time we needed something to wrap around the foot of our Christmas tree and I took this out.  Another item I have been hanging on to.  Forever!  The moment I unfolded it memories just overwhelmed me.  It is, or was, a drapery that we had in our home when I was very young and lived on Svarbäcksgatan 103 in Uppsala.  The first place I really remember.  It hung in a doorway that separated the hallway from the living room. In those days I played with dolls together with my big sister and sometimes our Mother would let us invite some friends and have "doll parties".  Mother making swedish pancakes using our miniature pancake pans.  We sure had some fun!  I also remember how I could sit on the floor in front of this printed cloth and imagine myself living in that castle or riding a horse down that road as well as playing in the snow on that mountain.  Endlessly!  Simple pleasures.

Sweet memories from a long time ago.  No wonder I never gave that old drapery away!  Thinking I will wrap it around the base of the Christmas tree again next year, revisiting my childhood.