Ohmigod, it’s SO late! I have to go to bed!! Crazy busy day at work, followed by short interval with babysitting in-laws and quick dinner, then out the door for choir, and finally home to wrestle with a pile of AWC website changes. And it’s nearly midnight! SHIT! But I can’t go to bed without taking a moment to wish Great Big Beautiful Birthday Wishes to brief_therapy!!
Song Snippet I Burst Out Spontaneously Singing ALL YEAR LONG: Oh no! the mistletoe! Hung where you can see! Somebody waits for you, kiss her once for me!* The temperature hovered above freezing today, enough to make what would have been more snow be rain instead. The nubbly nap of the snow carpet is wearing away. It’s sinking slowly down below the surface, filling the water table, although as I drove through the fields, it often appears as if it’s the earth RISING through the patches of snow. Flat-bottomed clouds cruise the horizon. Relaxing on my sofa after work, I...
There’s a weird feeling hovering about my head these days. I started this journal with the expressed intention of kick-starting my writing again, after a long drought during which I changed just about everything in my life it was possible to change: my marital status, my country of residence, my language skills; my identity as a woman blending with the new and all consuming challenges of being a wife and a mother. I had no time or energy for the person I used to be, or the pursuits I used to enjoy. It was a nearly total reversal of too...
So many thoughts, whirling around my brain. Each one glitters in the streetlights like snow, before coming to rest in the cold and crispy covering that coats everything. I would make a good troglodyte, I sometimes think, or a hermit, burrowing away inside my cave, surrounding myself with the things I want and need, no desire to go outside and squint in the bright sunlight. Usually I’m drawn to sunshine, but this weekend, I seem to have been working on my anti-tan. Tjej, another American expat in Sweden, got a group of us together recently and after a lot of...
How To Make Me Feel Old: Tell me with all the seriousness available to your 5-year-old self that the song on the radio is a good one and ask me to turn it up. It was the remake of The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes. Re Melodifestivalen 2005: Nana was robbed. Even though we did think Las Vegas is a good song and Martin Stenmark a cutie. How is a song about a gambling town in another country supposed to be the best representation of Sweden? Hmmm…Also, rather against my will, I found myself really enjoying Jill Johnson’s Redneck Woman. Sigh:...
I’m so screwed. I was so tired yesterday evening after a long week of work and busyness and whatnot, that I actually went to bed and not just to bed, but to SLEEP at 9 o’clock…ON A FRIDAY NIGHT.* Anders called right before that to say he had just landed at the airport in Copenhagen and would be home in about an hour…but I didn’t even hear him come home, poor guy. Then Karin woke up at 3:30 a.m. calling for mama and papa (nightmare) and at 5 a.m. I gave up and got up and turned on the computer...
I think I figured out what my problem is. My brain is not the boss of me. My tongue, my TONGUE, is the boss of me. Earlier this week it was a gigantic large second helping of chicken-mushroom-artichoke casserole. Yesterday it was chocolate cake. Today? Popcorn and vanilla creams. I think I need a middle manager. Hee! Anders has been gone for 2 days to Dublin, Ireland on a business trip, and every time I tell someone where he is, I say Dublin in an Irish accent. What’s up with that? I blame The Commitments. He gets home tonight. I...
Spring is rapidly approaching and in the interest of dropping a few pounds before it gets here, I thought I’d take a tip from the most effective dieting plan I’ve ever seen. Dude! The snowman in our yard? He just sits in the sun and the weight melts off him…like…er…water.
You’ll Eat It And You’ll Like It! Liz: *comes home after a full day of work and makes a tuna-mushroom-artichoke casserole with crumbled potato chips on top for dinner* Dinnertime! Family: *comes to table* Karin: *turns up nose and makes gagging noises* Liz: You know, someday this will be your favorite dish, and you’ll make it so well that someone will marry you for it. Anders: *smiles at Liz* Karin: *clutches throat, rolls eyes up in head* Liz: …or maybe that’s just me. Karin: *keels over in chair with a groan* I’m having an illustration orgy. Every now and then...
Hey! Guess what I’m eating right now?! *bounces off the walls and carooms across the room* CHOCOLATE-COVERED RAISINS! Sent to me by a very nice woman who lives in Ohio and who participated in GISBE! Along with books and some other candy that I didn’t really see very well because my nose was deep in the chocolate-covered raisin bag. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Thank you, Heather! My poor partner is still waiting for hers, but it was mailed today, so it’s finally on its way.