Yearly Archive: 2008

09
Nov
2008

WIN-WIN

I think today ended up as a win-win day for all of us. I got to sleep in. Anders got an early-morning Father’s Day celebration. Everyone was in a good mood. I got a project completed. The weekend laundry got done. We had some sunshine. I surprised the kids with tickets to the early showing of High School Musical 3. Anders got to nap while we were gone. We had delicious sushi for dinner. Now it’s dark and wet and early evening. I have another project to work on, a good book to read some more in, 2 kids to...

06
Nov
2008

THANK YOU LETTERS

One of things my mom managed to instill in me while I was growing up was the necessity of writing thank you letters. If I had been a guest at someone’s home or received a gift from someone, it was good manners and a courtesy to respond to it with a written thank you note. Writing cards or letters at all seems to be gradually becoming a lost art, which is a shame since getting “real” mail in the post is one of the nicest ways to make someone’s day. Over the years I’ve gotten several surprised and grateful thank...

03
Nov
2008

WHEN WAS IT? AH! WHEN WAS IT NOT?*

Once upon a time. Once. Really? Only once? Those words denote the beginning of a story but do you see how they hold the end in their hands? It was but it is no longer. Once it was, but now, it’s not. Once but never again. I wonder who used the words for the first time and if they knew what a weight they were investing them with. If we dwell too long or too often on what once was, how can we enjoy what we have now? What to do? How to capture and hold those ephemeral onces in...

02
Nov
2008

PARTY PEOPLE

My costume idea was so excellent, but I think it left something to be desired in the execution since no one even asked me what I was supposed to be. When I told people what I was, they laughed their heads off, though, so I give myself points for that. I was a piece of salt licorice, the Swedish candy that makes people around the world shake their heads and say, “EWWW!” I wore a sparkly black shirt and then I spray-painted my top half and my hair black (not my face) and then sprayed glitter all over that. Let...

31
Oct
2008

HALLOWEENIES

One of the biggest problems we’ve encountered with Halloween every year is that Karin wants to have different costumes for each Halloween-related event. It’s hard enough to come up with costume ideas for the four of us ONCE, but when she starts wanting a different costume for the school party, the neighborhood trick-or-treating and the big AWC party, it’s enough to make me grind my teeth. Today she attended a party at the after-school daycare (for once, they got the date right) and because it was cold and rainy, she opted not to wear her surfer costume that is slotted...

27
Oct
2008

JACK O’MASTERPIECES

This year, because ozswede was so kind as to send us a pumpkin carving kit for the kids, I made them do their own dirty work, though I did cut the holes in the tops of the pumpkins and scoop-scraped out the insides (though I had help from Anders on one of them). Usually I have to wield the knife (*evil laugh*) so they draw their pumpkin designs and I execute (HA!) them. Even though they got a packet of ready-made designs in the package they elected to go with traditional jack-o-lantern faces this year, though both of them wanted...

26
Oct
2008

COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY

We took the recyclables in today and stopped at the grocery store and the whole way there and back in the car I sang rain songs. It’s been raining non-stop all day, the dreary leaf-loosening autumn rain that bodes ill for a snowy winter. It’s the kind of rain that seems as if it will never stop, and when you’ve lived in Sweden for long enough, the very real prospect of just that thing is too overwhelming to contemplate for long, hence the loud choruses of Rain, Rain Go Away and It’s Raining, it’s Pouring, etc. The kids sang along...

25
Oct
2008

ONE-UPMANSHIP

Liz: Your hemspråk teacher told me she gave you homework; to google Halloween but you told her you couldn’t because our computer wasn’t working. Martin: yeah Liz: You can do it on my work laptop. You can’t play games on it, but you can google for your homework. Martin: What if we google “games” or “play games”? Liz: What if I google “kill kid”? Martin: Then you’ll probably come into a murder site. Liz: Actually, I’ll probably come into a parenting site. Martin: Ha ha, very funny! Liz: *giggles madly*

23
Oct
2008

3 STRIKES

What can I say? I feel like a fool for getting my (our) hopes up about the cat. Anders is reacting now, after 5 days, and truth be told, so am I, though in a very minor way. I had some correspondence with the breeder and she did make me feel slightly better by telling me that she had some other customers react to Doc as well, who then DIDN’T react to a different Siberian, and that it can be very much the allergens borne by any indivdual cat…but we can’t test every cat in Sweden, especially since it’s hard...

19
Oct
2008

DOC THE CAT

I’ve never had or really even been around such a FLUFFY cat before. All of our/my cats have been either Siamese, tabby or black-and-white shorthairs. Doc’s tail is nearly as big as he is and it’s easily as big as my huge feather duster. He sleeps a great deal of the day as cats are wont to do, burrowing under the covers in one or the other of the kids’ beds and is up in the evening wanting to play. He’s quite friendly and doesn’t seem to be disturbed by any of these strange people he suddenly finds himself amongst,...

May 2024
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Archives