Those Little Things in Life (aka The Broom)

Sorry it's been a while. We've been sick this week :( But are getting better.

You may remember that one of the more frustrating and elusively hard-to-fix domestic issues we have (...or should I say "had" ;) been dealing with is the common height of brooms. They are fairly short, only going up to about your waste. They all come paired with a dust pan that has an equally high handle. The dust pan is pretty nifty I must say, it's the broom handle length that isn't, especially when you intend to sweep a good bit and not constantly use the dust pan.

So it can be a useful tool, but it gets incredible annoying to sweep while bending over the entire time, not just when you're dust-panning. Even when you have longer arms than your body should have (not too sure if you noticed that about me, I have a long wingspan as does my brother Josh) it's not convenient. It's downright frustrating at times, especially for Stephanie. Since we've been here, we have been searching...and searching...and searching to no avail. That is, until we stumbled along this place:

We were on a search of second-hand shops (I could write a bunch about second-hand shopping in foreign countries, maybe I should!) to find a backpack for Stephanie (carrying around a single-shoulder diaper bag/purse for miles and hours is not too nice when you also have a baby strapped to you). We had just struck out (though Stephanie did find a cute swing dance dress) at a great store in Sunbyberg (the town next to us) and we saw backpacks in the window of this place. Looking it, it was filled with a huge amount of stuff. Bags of all kinds everywhere yes, but clothes and random accessories and home things and lots of stuff. It was obvious this wasn't a Swedish shop from the get-go. I myself was excited because I found a super cheap iPhone case for the Swedish phones we are renting. While I was searching, Stephanie was looking at other things we've been looking for - a wooden spatula, toothpicks, a ladybug bib (okay, hadn't specifically been looking for that one, more on that later), and an entire wall of backpacks! Cheap. Well, everything in this place seemed to be cheap. But as I was still looking at the iPhone cases I hear, "Andrew! You're not going to believe this!" I kind of ignored the excitement in her voice because I had been amazed bit by bit of how much this store had but then she said "Andrew, you need to come here!" Low and behold, Stephanie was clutching a broom with a GIGANTIC (read: normal-sized) handle!

(In our house afterwards, not in the store :)

It was remarkable. Essentially we had to go to Asia to find this thing (the store was an import store). We can't say it's of the highest quality, but it is of the highest height which works for us.

So, it's quite interesting to realize how much certain little things in life do carve this hole out in your perspective and expectation. It was just a broom, but it was the "greatest find" in terms of material things that we found here. It was a hilariously triumphant moment. It's remarkable how such a regularly used item in life can truly cause a good amount of stress and frustration when it doesn't fill that hole it's already carved out. I think I tried to just write something profound, and failed, but I hope you get my point :) Either way, we beat you Sweden. We found a true broom. One with flowers on it. So there.

PS. We are about to drop Laska off at a farm/ranch while we go on our first trip out of the country! We are headed to Estonia for a short stay (cruise there and back, it's not a "cruise" but more of a cruise-like ship that mostly transports people. More like a ferry. Well that's what it looks like anyway. We'll you know more.) so hopefully we'll have some interesting pictures and stories to share with you then.