What's on your (PHOTO) Friday Menu?

So sorry it was so stressful, hopefully the weekend will be great!

Thank you so much!

I like 85 during the day with bright sunshine, no wind, no clouds, and low humidity. But I spend every day that I can at the swimming pool. At night, 68 is perfect. Today is 68 and raining which will help with the Canadian smoke that we have been getting again.

I like it hotter than 85 for the pool. I don't mind 90 and above if it is a pool day. We got the smoke again too. Gray skies for all. I don't like it.

Mornin' All!

it'll be a perfect day for biking. I'm going to wait until this afternoon, though (it'll be low 80s - about the top of my temperature tolerance level when biking - and no wind or rain). I usually prefer mornings, but a) DH can go with me if I wait until the afternoon and b) afternoon is my worst time for going off my eating plan (I almost never do in the mornings), so it's the best time to be out of the house. As for the weekend, I'm tentatively going to two outdoor concerts - a Cajun one tonight, and an opera one tomorrow.

and ....ta da! White Dove and I decided last night to go to the OH conference! We got our room and our conference tickets - now I just have to find a flight that's not crazy expensive and has me coming and going at decent hours. Really looking forward to this!

QOTD: we have our thermostat set at 68F during the day and 62F at night, so I guess that would be it! I have my ceiling fan going all night in the summer, though. I like it on the cold side in the summer and I also like using a blanket year-around. So...ceiling fan.

B: plain skyr with cloudberry preserves, coffee with half & half

MS: protein shake (vanilla blended with ice and the last of the cantaloupe)

L: either chocolate "mousse" with raspberries or some black bean dal

AS: protein muffin or Ratio yogurt

D: whatever I don't have for lunch, I'll have for dinner

these are two of the many photos I took on my recent trip to Scandinavia. The first is of lovely downtown Uppsala, Sweden. It used to be a very important religious/cultural/governmental/intellectual hub (esp in the Middle Ages) - still has a beautiful gothic cathedral and a very prestigious university. And it's a great town! I kind of want to spend a summer here in the future. Probably cheaper to find a summer rental here than in Stockholm - and it's only 40 minutes away by train. Plus I think it would be a fun place to live!

this is me (foreground) with my mother's second cousin. Her daughter and I "met" via a DNA test about five years ago, and I connected with her mother (who's only a couple years older than me) about two years ago, since we were both working on family history. She wanted to know about the American side of the family, and I wanted to know about the Swedish side of the family. I also met her husband, brother, and cousin while I was there (and her two kids, too - but I met up with them later in Stockholm). Wonderful, wonderful family - can't wait to see them again!

Sounds great for you and Mary to go to the conference! Have fun.

It's so neat that you get to meet so much of the family you've connected with through DNA! I had mine done through 23andMe for free since they were doing a study on mental health and I qualified. It's so interesting. Mine says I'm part Anatolian which blew my mind. The other is mostly Western Europe with Ireland and England being the top runners. I also have Finnish and Swedish. I find it all so fascinating and hope to one day go to the places my ancestors are from!

I've probably mentioned this before, but that became my main "bucket list" item after my trip to Scotland last year (for a family reunion of my paternal grandmother's family). It was such a meaningful trip that I decided then and there that before I die, I want to visit all the places where my great grandparents were born and raised, and meet some of my DNA "matches" while there. So I was able to cover four more this summer in Sweden (both of my grandfather's parents were from there). Next up - Romania! (my maternal grandmother's parents were ethnic Germans, but the family had lived in what is now Romania for c. 300 years - as did many Germans, evidently (but no more...))

A lot of what is now contained within the Romanian border was historically Hapsburg (after it was Ottoman and before World War 1).

yep - it was Austria-Hungary (previously known as the Hapsburg Empire (and maybe still was at that time - not sure)). It was also very culturally diverse because people were able to move around the empire. The town where my great grandparents were born/raised (Radauti - then known as Radautz) had a big German population. Many of them moved to the US and Canada before things got bad over there - but between the wars (or was it during WW2? Not sure) the non-ethnic Romanians were sent back to their "home" countries (even though most of those families hadn't lived in their "home" countries in 200 or 300 years..), and of course the Jewish residents got sent to camps. That town - and probably most of Romania - is now mostly ethnic Romanian. I doubt we have any relatives there anymore - even distant ones.