Aaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Under any normal circumstances, I would never have included half as many exclamation points, but the amount of duress I am under completely calls for all 23 of them. While I am not experiencing a physical death, much as I would like to convince myself I am, my taste buds are now joining forces with many other parts of my body en mass, organizing a full-scale attack on my Daniel Fast resolve! I'm beginning to think 10 days have somehow overnight become synonymous with 100; There has never been and never will be a more wonderful date than Thursday, February the 25th, 2010. Having indulged so long in hyperbole, I will be honest... I have not been experiencing any caffeine withdrawals, and my hunger pains have kept to a dull roar, thankfully. On my menu these last two days I have enjoyed many fruits (I'll just keep the aftermath of THAT to myself), nuts, water, juices, avocado, salsa, salad, peppers, etc... I just realized that whole wheat bread is a baked good, as well as blue corn chips I consumed with my guacamole and salsa, and are therefore illegal, so I guess I sort of spent the first two days weaning myself. Tomorrow will be the tell of whether or not I can actually do this! I have to say though, I already feel a bit lighter in the midsection, which is a nice benefit. Whether this is a healthy reaction made by my body or my stomach is slowly digesting all neighboring body organs, I have not figured out yet. I'm still breathing, so at least it hasn't made it to the lungs.
I have found an online resource that others might make use of, it's a blog written by Susan Gregory on Wordpress dedicated to all things Daniel Fast. She has some great recipes, motivating blurbs, as well as a great factoid section in the lower left-hand column of the page, under "Find More Here."
While reading in the book of Daniel today, this scripture spoke volumes to me, and it is what I will end this post with for today.

"Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets..." (Daniel 2:27-28 KJV)

In context, this scripture is powerful, but directly applied to my life, it has real meaning to me! No matter what confounds me, no matter all the information avenues I exhaust to find the answers and solutions to my problems in life, God will always be the answer. What an extremely comforting and empowering thought :)

Food is bought, refrigerator is stocked, and my last sweet and highly indulgent snack (comprised of a grande white hot chocolate and three “petite” vanilla scones) has been consumed… Tomorrow is the day! Yummy items included on our healthy shopping list are apples, bananas, grapes, raspberries, pineapple, mixed nuts, dried cranberries and figs, whole wheat pasta, unsweetened organic soy milk, all-natural salsa, all-natural guacamole (along with a handful of avocados), and all-natural peanut butter, along with several varieties of beans and ingredients to make some healthy and protein-rich dinners. 10 days sounds like no problem when I am living life normally, but when faced with the Daniel fast, it feels as if an eternity of a sad-sack life subsisting off nuts and apples is stretching before me, and trust me, that is a sad life indeed! But after making the additions to our fridge, and a little creative thinking and planning on my own, it is turning into something very enticing indeed! Along with the change to my diet, I am planning a change to my waistline, just like Pastor Jon mentions in the pamphlet that was distributed after service today. I will take measurements, weigh myself, and incorporate yoga and strength training and see what the end result is. Another thing Pastor Jon mentioned, that certain aspects of my spirit man will be revealed during this process of self-denial, will be a large focus. As I am denying my never-ceasing appetite, and whittling my waistline, I will also be especially diligent in creating pockets of time to spend on my spiritual walk with God.

SO! Spirits are high! Keep checking in on this short blog topic, I’m hoping to have lots of insight and progress to report, both physically and spiritually! :-D

Wow, it has been SO LONG since I last posted! What a loser! ;D Well, since I've last posted, we've had Swedish Midsummer, Claes' birthday, and several fun excursions in addition... I have been keeping busy!

Midsummer was quite the experience... I have uploaded lots of pictures that you can see in the Daniel and Lana's Pictures tab at the top of my page, but this is one I just had to share on here!

I didn't quite know what to expect, but it turned out to be a ton of fun! It was raining the days before, and we decided to chance the 7 hour drive to the West Coast anyway... I'm glad we did, because the weather turned to beautiful sunshine a few hours shy of when the festivities would normally begin... Wow! Talk about lucky! Anyway, during this traditional cultural experience, I danced around a cutely-decorated tree-post thing to the tune of several Swedish songs I did not know, dancing like a pig and a frog, and then played tug of war, and then an easy version of baseball they call Brännboll (literally: Burned Ball)... During one of these games I slashed my left shin, and I now have a lovely little scar to remind me of all the fun I had this day ;) During dinner we ate crawfish and shrimp, and sang some more traditional Swedish songs, and stayed up late discussing politics and why Sweden is so much more intelligent than the rest of the world... Not really, but the current events of America and its current administration did come up, as well as the healthcare situation, and it got a bit awkward, as these discussions usually do. Don't worry though, I represented you all very well! Here's to an American sticking up for her country during a Midsummer celebration in Sweden! Oh and by the way... This lovely guy was totally my lunch! Skål!



The sunday following, we celebrated Claes' birthday the traditional Ankarcrona way, complete with morning breakfast, cake, presents, and birthday wreath :) After church that evening, we had a lovely dinner, to which Claes' mother came, and presented him with a Wii! He was so jazzed :)

Most recently we went to a beautiful island called Dalarö, where Claes' mother lives during the summer... It was an amazing day! From enjoying a walk in the cute little town, to sweating half my body weight in the sauna, to having a quick swim in the cool ocean water, to catching my very first fish.. Uh oh wait, what did I just say? Catch my VERY FIRST FISH??? Yes, folks, its happened... I can finally add my name to all the fishing greats, because I caught a bonafide WHOPPER! See for yourselves:


Ok so he's no Jaws, but he's still a rather sizeable fish for a first catch! Don't fret though, PETA and animal sympathizers of the world... He was thrown back! He better thank his scaley fins he has too many bones to be a fish for food, or else he would have been our dinner, without a doubt! Yes, I've said it! ;)

Today I braved the raging sea and canoed through my very own rendition of "The Perfect Storm" ... A youth get together had been planned for today, and although there was slight rain earlier and end-of-the-world wind, the canoeing had gone ahead as scheduled... We set off with the wind in our faces (as opposed to the more attractive "At our back" situation) and struggles through a little over an hour of paddling for our lives. I was fully prepared to quit paddling and assume ourselves for stranded, and soon after ward dead, but due to my innate survival instincts (and Daniel paddling ferociously behind me) we made it all the way to shore... At which we were greeted by a relaxed and composed Pethrus, lounging on a bench in the sunlight. He apparently got to skip the fight for your life paddle hour we had just endured, and rode his bike over to meet us for a hot dog grill. Some Swedes have all the luck ;) No, it was actually very fun, if at the very least massive workout for the upper body! Here's a fun photo from the day:


Aaaargh! ;D

So I went to the most amazing concert last Wednesday night! :D It was an entire night of Barbershop, comprised of a few male quartets, one female quartet, and two choirs. Everyone was so great, but the highlights of the night were without a doubt the male quartet called Ringmasters and the female quartet SALT.

Ringmasters performing "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby"



I couldn't find a good recording of SALT, but I assure you, they were amazing! The rest of my week was busy, Thursday marked our (Daniel and I) 1 year anniversary of dating, so I decided to surprise Daniel and found a super nice restaurant by the water in Old Town Stockholm called Pontus by the Sea. It has two separate eating areas, a really cool outside area, in the picture below,



and an awesome inside area that is kind of like a really fancy porch :) We ate inside... Our table was right near one of the open porch windows, and it was just as the sun was setting (at 9:45 in the evening! ;D) so it was just beautiful.

Here's a cute picture of us on our way home from a wonderful night :)



*Happiness* :) Saturday we went up to Gavla to fellowship with the group there... We had a service, and a barbeque afterward, during which I ate some YUMMY hot dogs! Yes, hot dogs is plural ;) They were the kind of hot dogs that made the bun look good! ;D None of that puny Oscar Meyer nonsense... Good job, Claes! Well, that's all for now. More to come soon, we are going to be celebrating Midsummer this weekend, and that will make for GREAT memories!

Love you all :)

... Has been deliciously uneventful! With Daniel taking the week off from work due to sickness (he has been working himself to the bone, so it's no wonder!) we hung around the house, sleeping in and taking nice little walks and spending time with friends and family. We found some cute flowers by the side of the road during one of these walks, and they asked to take their picture with me:



They must have never seen an American before... ;)

One really cool thing we did this week (you didn't think I was serious when I said uneventful, did you???) was spend some time at Emilie and Adrian's entirely too cute apartment! Everything in this country is pint-sized, they're big on efficiency and space-saving, so everything has it's place and function, while maintaining the maximum amount of coolness and top-chic-quality. Ok so I'm exaggerating... Maybe not EVERYthing, but everything in Emilie and Adrian's apartment does at least ;D Along with many other places as well. They also have a KILLER view of the city around them, which manages to show all the buildings around them while also looking as if they live right outside a forest. There are trees literally everywhere! And I'm not exaggerating with that fact ;) You can see trees for miles from their balcony :) We had a nice dinner and spent some good time around the table, with a beautiful view... What more could you ask for? Besides a million bucks of course. I knew someone was going to think it ;)

So tomorrow is National Day... I think I'm going to see the Royal Family! And the changing of the Swedish Guard as well, so much fun will be had. Later tomorrow Daniel and I are planning on going to a friend's BBQ, so that should be interesting, seeing that I'll only know 2 people. Haha... Well, that's never stopped me from having a good time before! Plus, I do have the fact that I'm from the US on my side, and that seems to be a great party trick around these parts... ;)

Well, I do believe I've exhausted my daily allowance of smiley emoticons, and it is getting rather late here (12:18 a.m.!) ... I'm hoping to get some amazing pictures of the assorted events tomorrow, so my next post should be even better than this one! If you can imagine it! ;D Haha. Love you guys!!!

Wow, today has been a very good day! I finally got out of the house for a long while, and took some time getting "lost" in Stockholm... Mentally, not physically, thank goodness ;) The weather was absolutely beautiful, and Daniel and I had planned to meet up later in the city to go to the opera, so I went a few hours early to enjoy myself in the city. Great choice!!! After spending $10 on a muffin and a bottle of water (yikes! But I enjoyed it ;) I sat in a beautiful outside cafe, which happened to be situated right under a grouping of big shady trees, with an amazing view of the city, the opera house, and beyond, and I caught up on my reading. It's a hard life ;) After doing a little window (and REAL ;) shopping, I met up with Daniel and we had a wonderful dinner before the opera in a sidewalk cafe... Herb-crusted medium rare filet steak, with snap peas and potatoes, all with a YUMMY spicy sauce! *salivation overload* ;) We had to make a run for the opera house, seeing that it was 5 minutes to door's closed, and while we were barely skidding into the doors, I spotted the coat clerk, and decided what a nice idea to get rid of my coat and purse for the evening! As I dropped them off with a Thank You, the man stood looking at me as if I were missing some vital part of this oh-so-friendly exchange... He wants payment for this??? *Psh* Luckily, Daniel stepped in to save the day by paying the now not-so-nice clerk guy a paltry $2 or something, and we barely make it inside. The opera was amazing! We got to see the final show of the season, and it was Verdi's "La Traviata" ... Beautiful beautiful beautiful! My camera's dead unfortunately, but I got some pictures of the royal swedish opera house, Kungliga Operan, online, so check em out!

The Outside:




The inside, from the stage:




And the inside, from the audience:



Upon our return, I was able to watch Claes make Daniel's birthday wreath... It is so cute! Again, my camera is dead, but I found a picture of what it kind of looks like:



Except it is not made with hydrangeas... It is just as cute though ;) If I can convince Daniel to let me post some pictures, I'll do that soon ;D Something tells me he may be hesitant though!

Ok I'm "off for bed" now (Amy ;D)... And it's 1:50 in the morning! Something tells me I will not be getting my recommended nine hours of sleep tonight! God natt, pussar o krammar!*

*Translation: Good night, hugs and kisses! :)

I've taken a bunch of new pictures of the house and the apartment work we are doing, so check them out... Those of you who hate pictures without people in them, be warned! These pictures are purely to show you where I am spending my time and also what the apartment looks like before we finish it up next week ;) I'm going to take my party downstairs and get to work painting the walls, so enjoy the pictures and more will hopefully come soon!

Facebook Users:
House and Construction Pictures

All others:
Just click the tab at the top of my page that says "Daniel & Lana's Pictures" and the pictures are in the "House and Construction Pictures" album.

Ps: Daniel's birthday is tomorrow, so I think we are going to make his birthday wreath sometime tonight or tomorrow night. THOSE pictures will be fun! Coming soon!

Miss everyone :)