Yearly Archive: 2003

How many times in two weeks is TOO many times for Julbord? 🙂 John and Simone arrived safely and on time, despite rain mixed with snow and a take-off that John described as “if the plane was a windshield wiper.” eek As we drove home from the airport, the snow became dominant until it was giant huge puffy flakes, like we were in the middle of a cosmic pillow fight. Hung out at home for a couple of hours and then it was off to Julbord at a fancy restaurant with 4×4 kinds of herring to celebrate Anders’ mom’s 75th...

I get the feeling that even though people are posting, they’re not reading or at least not commenting, because everyone is so busy. I know I’m barely managing to post. Today is the 7th anniversary of my father’s death. It’s a grey day outside and we have enough-for-a-small-army grocery shopping to do for the food we need for the next several days. Then we’re going into Malmö for dinner somewhere and finally to Anders’ sister’s house for her husband’s birthday cake & coffee. I’m dreading hitting the stores on Monday for the last few Xmas presents, as it’s already insane...

The sun is shining in a blue sky. Today is my last day of work for 2.5 weeks. My mom is here! My brother and his girlfriend arrive in 2 days. Nearly all of my Christmas presents are wrapped (up until midnight last night). I only need to buy a couple more things. There’s an inexplicable smell of almonds in the little bathroom that we can’t find the source for (mmmmm!) The tree is decorated. I have homemade gingerbread cookies from my grandma in my freezer, hand carried all the way from Michigan by my mom. Conversation at lunch yesterday:...

My Mom is here! 🙂 I left work at 3 p.m. yesterday and headed off to Copenhagen. It was the crappiest weather all day, piss-rain as the Swedes say, and a bit windy, but apparently didn’t affect her flight from Innsbruck hardly at all, and her connecting flight from Amsterdam was only 10 minutes late. I drove over a completely fogged in Öresund bridge, which was a little weird as I reached the high point and saw the pylons disappearing into nothingness above me. Then into the tunnel and completely forgot that the exit to the airport is IMMEDIATELY as...

I HATE being late. Hate it hate it hate it. I’m almost pathological about hating to be late. To the point of usually being early. And I hate waiting, because it means that SOMEONE else is late. And I hate it even worse when someone else makes me late, because I get SO stressed out. argh All my positive thoughts are going to 2 things today: that my mom’s flights won’t be delayed by this horrible weather and that idahoswede‘s husband is okay. Busy busy at work and have to leave early so gotta gooooooooooooooo!

You would think that having a sugar factory in the vicinity would lead to lovely smells wafting through the air and giving you the feeling that you’re living in Candyland, wouldn’t you? Nope. Uh uh. There were a couple of chocolate factories on the south side of Chicago that did that. They made everything smell ambrosial if the wind was just right. Sugar beet processing just releases the nastiest rotten boiled rancid smell that hangs over everything like the sickly sweet sister of street tar. There’s a Danisco mini-Gary, Indiana-factory just over the highway and while it’s up and running...

It’s snowing! Blizzarding, even! SNOW!! Finally!! woo hoo! 🙂 I just called Anders and before I could say anything he said, “I know. Winter tires.” LOL Everything is already totally covered in white! I don’t have boots with me. I love the first snow! Snow drifts, snow angels, snowball fights, catching snowflakes on my tongue! Sledding, frosty coated mittens, picture postcard snow! Edited to say 1 hour later the sun is shining. If you don’t like the weather in Skåne, just wait 5 minutes!! heh

Random memories: This morning, for some reason, I was thinking of the year we lived in Montgomery, Alabama, when I was 12, right before we moved overseas for 6 years. I was in 6th grade. My sister and I were alternately best friends with Jackie, the girl next door, as each of us fell in and out of favor. We lived in community housing, and had a POOL in the back, but it was the same year that Jaws came out, so none of us would swim in the deep end when everyone was playing in the pool in the...

Our tree is resting in the garage, in shock, I’m sure. We’ll put it up tomorrow after work and start the job of decorating it, which usually takes a couple of days. We have to get as much as possible done tomorrow though because I have a work thing on Tuesday evening and concert and MOM on Wednesday! Tick, tock, goes the clock toward Christmas! Martin woke us up around 7 a.m. this morning all excited because the tooth fairy had replaced his tooth with a shiny 10-kronor coin. 🙂 Last night, Anders suggested that we save the tooth, but...

So, what can you do when rain sabotages all your plans for Christmas tree hunting? Take your kids to the movies, of course! We went to the early showing of Finding Nemo, which was excellent, and although it was a little on the long side for Karin, she made it through without getting too restless and they both loved it. Karin pronounced it good and scary and Martin loved the part about speaking whale. On the way out of the parking lot, our brakes squealed long and low because it was wet and Martin said, “Mom! The car is speaking...