Monthly Archive: December 2008

30
Dec
2008

RETROSPECTIVE

It’s traditional and expected to look back on the year that has just passed and reflect over what has happened, what has changed and what one has accomplished. 2008 felt kind of like a placeholder year to me; a year where we kept the status quo: no real major event took place, a year that felt sort of business as usual, for better or for worse. It doesn’t feel, upon reflection, that anything really really bad or really really good happened to me or to my family, which seems like an acceptable way to get through 365 days, actually. In...

29
Dec
2008

THIS IS AS WOUND-DOWN AS I GET

Walking in a city is energizing, especially during the mellandagarna, the “between days” after Christmas and before the New Year. Even though people can be a bit crabby thanks to the crowds and the long lines, it gets your pulse moving to be surrounded by so much life. So much going on, so much to look at. I never used to like shopping all that much, especially clothes shopping (still don’t, actually) unless there were books or music involved, but I love window-shopping and just browsing along. I left the house in the early afternoon and drove to Malmö with...

28
Dec
2008

NOT-QUITE-END-OF-YEAR BLUES

Itchy, restless feeling all day, couldn’t settle, couldn’t relax. Even reading didn’t help. I kept thinking I should get out, go shopping or something; after all, there are sales everywhere and why not take advantage of them? Except that we don’t NEED anything and we just GOT a lot of stuff, it being Christmas and all, and the last thing I really need to do is go spend money unnecessarily on things we don’t need. Plus, I couldn’t decide where to go. None of the shopping centers around the area seemed at all appealing and they all have essentially the...

25
Dec
2008

MERRY MERRY MERRY!

If you are sad, we wish you joy. If you are sick, we wish you health. If you are lonely, we wish you friendship. We wish you peace and love and cookies! May this holiday, whether bright with sunshine or smothered in snow, be the start of a year full of blessings for all our family and friends, wherever they may be around this great glowing globe.

23
Dec
2008

LILLJULAFTON

The children are lying all tucked in their beds. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and there has been too much cookie-eating in this house and not enough carol-singing. I plan to sing carols all day tomorrow except when we are actually at my sister-in-law’s house since I know my kids will kill me dead if I try it there. 😛 Most of the presents are already wrapped and under the tree, except for the super secret Santa ones and the stocking stuffers. Tomorrow is the last (thank the baby jesus and his red-nosed friend) julbord of the year. We are contributing...

21
Dec
2008

LET YOUR HEART BE LIGHT

Well, even though I’M done shopping, Martin still wants to buy something for his father, and even though Anders is going shopping tomorrow (for me!) Martin doesn’t want to go with him, as he doesn’t want Anders to guess what his present is, so I guess I have to go brave the malls again. I also have to go to Lund anyway to see if the optician is open because my eyeglasses broke this morning…one of the earpieces came loose… (they’re very discreetly taped for the moment) to see if they can be repaired. 🙁 ARGH. The sun was shining...

19
Dec
2008

PA RUM PUM PUM PUM

The holidays are now officially in FULL swing! Vacation is upon us and it’s only 5 days to Christmas! Wheee! I stopped by the postal counter after work to mail a late present to my sister and pick up a package, which turned out to be a HUGE box from my brother, and while I was there I peeked in the bargain DVD bin and lo! what to my wondering eyes should appear but a 59 kronor copy of The Polar Express which we’ve never seen, so I bought that for myskväll. Then we all went back into town: the...

16
Dec
2008

TREMORS!

Loud grumblings and groanings shot us both out of bed early this morning as the house shook. Anders said, “Herre Jösses!” and ran for the front of the house, collecting Karin on the way. I stumbled out behind them, exclaiming, “What’s going on?” thinking that a plane had crashed or the garbage truck had run into the front of the house…or perhaps the neighbor had started up his Ducati, though why he would be doing it at 6:22 a.m. was beyond my feeble early-morning powers of reasoning. A few seconds later all was still again and after a few confused...

15
Dec
2008

O! HOW I KNEAD YOU!

I still have the 2 batches of sugar cookie dough in the fridge, as we ran out of time this weekend. They take the longest of all the cookies to do, what with the rolling and cutting and patching and baking and swabbing with sugar glaze and decorating with red hots and colored sugars and dragees and sprinkles and nonpareils. We’ll do them this coming weekend, most probably, along with watching The Grinch. So, because I had limited time possibilities this evening, I whipped up a batch of green Holiday Balls instead and undercooked them on purpose and they were...

14
Dec
2008

FA LA LA!

What a long day this has been! In fact, what a long weekend! I’m really looking forward to vacation now. 5 more days! 5 more days! 3 more choir Christmas concerts today for a total of 7 (I missed 3 others which were during work hours or it would have been 10 total) and now I’m free from choir until the end of January. The 3 performances today were at 2 different elderly care homes in Malmö; the second one we sang in 2 different departments. It’s kind of funny, the reactions we get from the people living there. Some...

December 2008
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