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Today is Sweden’s National Day, and I celebrated it with family and friends in my childhood neighborhood, Åkersberga.

It was a lovely day! We combined the celebration with a birthday party for one of my sister’s children, who turned 12. There was delicious food, cake, and plenty of joyful memories.

Sweden’s National Day is still a relatively new tradition. It used to be called Swedish Flag Day, and it’s actually only been a public holiday for about 20 years.

Because it’s still so young, there aren’t many established customs tied to the day. Our dear neighbors in Norway, on the other hand, celebrate their national day in a way that often leaves us Swedes watching with a touch of envy.

But the upside of our less defined tradition is the freedom it gives. The day is open for everyone to celebrate in their own way. I saw a news segment today where one of the people interviewed put it nicely:

I think Sweden’s National Day is fun because we don’t have any traditions – so we can keep inventing new ones.

In our family, a long-standing favorite is strawberry cake. This year was no exception — my sister and her middle child, the birthday girl Selma, baked one together. It made for a very cozy — and tasty — celebration.

Celebrations vary widely across Sweden, depending on the region and municipality. Here in the capital, Stockholm, the day is traditionally marked at Skansen — an open-air museum and zoo — with music, speeches, and a visit from the royal family.

One shared and meaningful tradition throughout the country is that municipalities host ceremonies to welcome and recognize new Swedish citizens.

While there aren’t any specific food traditions linked to the day, many people choose dishes commonly seen at Midsummer: a buffet-style meal with various hot and mainly cold dishes.

How is National Day celebrated where you live? Feel free to leave a comment and share your traditions.

Writing

Most of the time, I write my posts in TextEdit on my Mac, in full-screen mode. I love the completely stripped-down experience – a blank screen slowly filling with words and sentences.

Even though my blog posts are in English, I write them in Swedish. From thought to words, it’s completely frictionless – which just isn’t the case when I write directly in English. There’s a disconnect in the writing; I lose inspiration and flow.

Translation

Once I’m happy with the text, I translate it into English. I’ve tried a bunch of different tools, and right now I like ChatGPT the best. I skim through the result to make sure no weird interpretations have snuck in.

Editing

Then I let ChatGPT proofread the text (I always include a note to preserve my personal style). Usually, there aren’t that many suggestions, and I rarely use all of them. These are the ones I chose to accept for this post:

• “in full-screen” → “in full-screen mode”
• “several different tools” → “bunch of different tools” – more casual, in keeping with your voice.
• “mistranslations” → “weird interpretations” – sounds more conversational and aligns with your casual tone.

I felt these suggestions stayed truer to the tone of my original Swedish version.

Title

I almost always come up with the title myself, and for a post like this, I don’t even bother asking for suggestions. But sometimes I ask ChatGPT for recommendations. I never use a suggestion as-is, but I’m occasionally inspired to tweak my original idea a bit.

Formatting

The last thing I do before publishing is paste the text into iA Writer. That’s where I pre-format everything and add any relevant links.

Publishing

Then it’s finally time to publish. iA Writer has a feature that lets me create a draft directly in Micro.blog. Super convenient!

Once there, I click “Edit” and use the handy AI summary feature. It’s used as the meta description and – with the theme I use, the stylish mnml by Jim Mitchell – also as the summary on the homepage and archive pages.

The suggested description is often pretty good – meaning: dry and boring, but clear and to the point. Sometimes I tweak it a bit, and other times I skip it entirely.

For this post, the following description was generated:

The blogging workflow involves writing in Swedish, translating to English with ChatGPT, editing for style, formatting in iA Writer, and publishing on Micro.blog, while enjoying the learning process.

Which I decided not to use.

And then comes the reward: Publish Post

Wrapping up

I get that this whole setup might sound tedious, complicated, or boring to some. But I enjoy it – and I’ve learned so much. My English vocabulary keeps growing, and I genuinely feel like I’m becoming a better writer, not worse.

That’s my blogging workflow. What’s yours like? Feel free to add a comment or email me – I’d love to link to your post in Our blogging workflow.

Every now and then, I come across a customer I’ve met before.

With around a thousand visits a year, it’s not always easy to remember every face or every name.

But there are moments that stick.

The power of first impressions

When I do remember someone, it usually comes down to one thing: the first impressions.

And it tends to fall into one of two categories:

• Positive
• Negative

Two very different energies — but both leave a mark. Both have the same power to be remembered.

A good first impression doesn’t require more effort than a bad one. The difference lies in the intention behind it.

Two options. Same impact. Same investment.

At the end of the day, it’s our choice. Every interaction is a chance to make someone’s day — or make them dread the next one.

So the question is:

What do you choose?

It’s madness when you think about it—but still, it feels so natural in our modern world. There are endless ways to stay busy, all the time. We’re so used to it that stillness feels unfamiliar, even a little scary.

And yet, it gives us so much.

We do have time to pause for a few minutes. We’re not going to miss anything important. On the contrary, we stand to gain a lot by allowing ourselves a break now and then.

Let’s press pause a little more often—we really are worth it.

Sure, I had another customer to get to, but it really wasn’t that urgent. There was room for a Swedish fika moment.

We sat down in the garden. He brought out freshly brewed coffee and homemade cookies. It turned into a truly lovely moment — and the cookies were delicious.

It’s so easy to fall into the habit of playing the “no time” card. Often, it’s just out of routine. Always focused on the next thing.

Sometimes we say yes, but we’re not really there. Our minds are already somewhere else — and it shows. There’s a rushed look in our eyes, and we don’t quite take in what our dear fellow human is saying.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. We do have time — just like today’s customer reminded me.

We have time to sit down for a fika. We have time to pause and chat with the neighbor. You have time to read this blog post without thinking about all the other unread texts in your feed reader.

They say time is money. If that’s true, then we’re living pretty poor lives if we go around believing we never have any.

So, why move? The short answer: I started to feel limited.

I want to be able to do more than “just” publish text — like posting images or logging the books I read. That is possible with Bear — I even created different solutions for it — but over time it started to feel a bit cumbersome. Another option would’ve been to run separate blogs for different types of content, but I prefer having everything in one place.

More room to grow

I feel that Micro.blog gives me more room to grow without having to rely on complicated solutions or third-party services. I also really like the platform’s IndieWeb principles and the social dimension it adds. Since I don’t use separate social media, that’s a welcome bonus.

There’s a lot more I appreciate about Micro.blog — like the variety of apps and the ability to publish directly from my favorite text editor — but those were the main reasons for the move.

I’ll still be checking in on Bear’s discovery feed, and most of my feed reader is still made up of Bear users. It’s also possible that I’ll continue working on the Bearming theme.

Thank you!

I want to end with a huge thanks to everyone who discovered my blog through Bear and reached out with kind, encouraging words via email and the guestbook.

Thank you so much!

I hope you continue to find joy and value in my blog. And no matter what tool you use to publish your posts — keep blogging!

“I’ve just updated my #Junited2025 list with this great post: URL”

There’s even a Junited Shortcut you can use with Safari to make posting a little easier.

If you’re curious, you can read about the idea behind this event.

Participants

• Robert Birming
• Yordi Verkroost
• Chris Shaw
• Alexandra
• Kenan
• JR
• Thomas Rigby
• dearmishmash
• You?

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