Monthly Archive: August 2003

It seems to me that Sweden must be one of the safest places to live on the face of the planet. Think about it…there are nearly NO natural disasters of any kind here*. Oh, occasionally, there are floods and maybe the stray forest fire or two, but for the most part, it’s pretty dull in the force-of-nature department. Someone has protested that there are earthquakes once in awhile, but I suspect it’s faulty information. What I wouldn’t give for a cracking good Chicago-style thunderstorm some days. When we lived in Nebraska, I can remember climbing up on the roof with...

Yowza, what a busy day! Whirlwind shopping and errand-running and boy did I hit the jackpot at the craft shops! 🙂 The kids and I got to Oxie at 10:15 and had lunch, after which Farmor joined us and we hit Malmö. First to Ekohallen to buy a new school backpack for pre-schooler Martin. Then to Matton (paper!!!) and Panduro (everything else!!!), a quick stop at Aladdin where we struck out on bead drapery (don’t ask) and then to the photo studio to get Martin’s passport pictures. Took one of Karin too, and they both turned out EXCELLENT. I’m very...

Since I rarely have the luxury to sleep until I wake up naturally these days, it’s rare that I remember any of my dreams more than fleetingly. But I had another “house” dream last night, this one quite pleasant. I’ve been having house dreams since I can remember, although the house is never the same, and sometimes isn’t really a house. The first one I remember clearly and the only one I’ve ever repeated involved a long low golden stucco type house with endless rooms full to varying degrees of fallen leaves. I wasn’t alone, but don’t remember how many...

Since I had almost nothing to do today at work, I spent the majority of the day surfing around LiveJournal, and then looking for beautiful things that I could possibly use in creating some sort of physical 🙂 journal or altered book type-thing. I have so much STUFF lying around, stuffed into drawers, hidden in notebooks and portfolios and boxes, some of it ought to be able to be put to good use. I looked at a bunch of scrapbooking and art supply sites too and discovered that 1) there are a LOT of things out there, 2) I’m coveting...

I’ve GOT to do something about my working environment in the office. When I first started at Ericsson, I noticed fairly quickly that I was developing strained muscles in my shoulders due to the fact that I was working on a right-handed desk and I’m left-handed. But I use the mouse with my right hand so whenever I had to write while working on the computer (which is frequent) I was pulling to the left and creating quite a strain. I also tend to sit with my left leg curled under me, which throws me to the left even more....

Some people may not believe this, but one of the few things that I really dislike about our new house is the dishwasher. Not just because it doesn’t do a good job (or as good a job as I would do), or because something is wrong with it and it has to be re-started several times during the wash cycle, but because IT’S THERE. It’s taken away one of my guilty pleasures: washing dishes. Oh, I admit it’s nice to have it the morning after a big dinner party, but otherwise, on a daily business, I miss my suds. There’s...

I’ve spent the morning looking up altered books on the web, and I must say I don’t know whether to be intrigued or appalled. I guess I have a deeply ingrained feeling that books should not be harmed or destroyed or “hurt” and some of the things I’ve seen are perilously close to all three. On one hand, I can see the attraction in taking an old, unloved, unread book that is headed to the dump and using it as an artistic background, but a great deal of the altered book examples I saw used famous, worthy, classic books. One...

Not so much going on in the office today, despite my boss being back from vacation. One can only surf the web so much, I’ve found. But I have some things to look up and find more about: ephemera sheets, altered books and scrapbooking fabric bit names. We live “out in the country” and are surrounded by farmland, and all the fields right now are full of either amber waves of grain or haybales. What is it that is so comforting about the sight of a golden field dotted with huge perfectly rolled balls of hay shining in the late...

Tired, a little grumpy, hot, mostly. It’s been a long day and too much of it was spent sitting in the car (forgot the damn cake and had to go back for it, long traffic jams to/from beach) and in the sun at the beach which is always exhausting, for some reason. 2 friends left messages to say happy birthday, otherwise haven’t heard from anyone. 🙁 Don’t know why that bothers me a bit, since I don’t consider this a fun birthday, but it does. Stuffed ourselves silly on chinese food at the in-laws, which was really good. I always...

Ugh, another year older. The numbers on these birthdays are nothing to celebrate, says me. That said, Anders did a lovely job of coming through on the sparkly side. I got woken up this a.m. by two way too bouncy children, and was given a gorgeous fuchsia-pink potted begonia (from Martin & Karin) and, from Anders, a beautiful bracelet from Viking Kristall made of peridot beads with a larger oval pearl in the very center. 🙂 Happy Happy! Yet another bee-oo-ti-ful day and we’re headed to the beach, even though the beach is not my #1 choice for birthday destinations....