Yearly Archive: 2010

10
Feb
2010

NOT RAISING THE BAR, JUST HOLDING IT UP AND LOOKING PAST IT

Are you getting what you want out of life? Do you even know what you want to be when you grow up? Have you settled? When you were a child and the future was open wide, did you fix your dreaming eye upon a goal and never waver? There were so many choices then, so many things we could become, so many things we could do, so many places we could go. What items do you add to your list when you’ve crossed off the ones you scrawled in crayon once upon a time? Some people seem to know instinctively...

08
Feb
2010

PUTTING THE BLAH IN BLAHG

I have a really hard time writing here when I’m feeling down. I want my journal to be a place of positivity and light, not a drudge through dreary blahness, and when I’m not feeling the motivation or the mood, it’s really hard for me to kick myself over to the blog and make my fingers do some walking. I know that rainbows don’t have to shoot out of my eyeballs or ponies prance by in order for what I am thinking and feeling and writing to be of interest to SOMEONE (Hi Mom!) but I keep thinking that way,...

04
Feb
2010

KINDNESS IS LIKE SNOW: IT BEAUTIFIES EVERYTHING IT COVERS

Two nights ago it was snowing again, kramsnö this time as the Swedes call it. Kram means hug. Hug snow! The kind that sticks, the kind that you lift your face up for and stick your tongue out to. The kind that mashes down just right in your mittened hands to form a perfect snowball; the kind that you can roll about the yard in serpentine trails that lead to a snowman’s body and torso and head. We’ve had an awful lot of the powder snow, the light glittery kind that sifts and blows and shines like diamonds in any...

02
Feb
2010

BITS BITS BITS OF TID

It’s been blizzarding all day: snowing sideways roundabout upsidedown. There is snow on half the windows and condensation on the others, which makes it very difficult to see out, when we look to see if it’s still snowing…which it always is. Clifford the Big Red Rock is sitting in over a foot of snow with a whitecap on his head. All my shoveling gone for naught! If I didn’t have to drive 2 kids to school tomorrow and if I didn’t have a Very Important Meeting first thing in the morning, I might be tempted to play the snowed-in card....

30
Jan
2010

SMOOTH AND CLEAN AND FROSTY WHITE, THE WORLD LOOKS GOOD ENOUGH TO BITE*

Yesterday, when I drove to work, everything was coated with hoarfrost, making the trees look like diamond-bright winter caricatures of their leafy green summer selves. No chance to take photos, since I didn’t have a camera with me, and the frost had melted by evening. Crisp and clear and blindingly sunny today; our backyard is a pristine white blanket of snow. I filled the bird feeder and hung it in front of the kitchen window. There are no berries on anything, the birds have stripped every bush and tree clean. Most of the birds I saw today were sitting hunched...

29
Jan
2010

THREES

One of my favorite bloggers made a comment on a post by another of my favorite bloggers that struck me. She was talking about to-do lists and said that she has been trying to make a to-do list for each day that only has THREE things on it, because three things almost always get done. There’s no emergency about three things. I like that idea. Another blogger that I like was making lists of 3 delightful things a day for awhile. I like that idea, too. Threes seem to work so well for so many different reasons. My to-do lists...

28
Jan
2010

SNOW SHOVELING & MENU PLANNING

I don’t feel much like writing. Listening to myself think all the time is dull. I already know what I’m going to say. It snowed sideways yesterday, for most of the day; the blizzard we had been promised. Indeed, it lived up to its fanfare, dumping nearly a foot of snow over the course of the day. It wasn’t very wet snow, despite the speed with which it stuck, and when I went out in the still chill evening after the storm had passed, to shovel the drive and the walkway, it was a double-puff duvet of white sparkling beauty....

25
Jan
2010

THINGS TO DO IN A QUIET HOUSE WHEN YOU’RE ALONE

Sing out loud. Warble. Yodel a little bit. Talk to yourself. Wander through the rooms and touch things. Pet an old teddy bear on the head. Make note of things that need to be done, now that you suddenly have the chance to SEE things around you without any whirling chattering children filling up your senses. Read for uninterrupted hours. Watch a movie that doesn’t have any superheroes or superpowers or animation in it. Lie on the couch and stare out the window. Get messy with craft stuff at the art table. Organize a cabinet or a closet. Put things...

23
Jan
2010

ROOM RENOVATION

I didn’t get my own room until we moved to Belgium, the year I turned 13 but once I did, one of the best things about having my own space was getting to change things around to suit myself. I loved to rearrange my room. I’d move furniture around every so many months, trying out every possible combination of filling the space. I’d move the pictures I had taped or tacked to the walls. I’d rearrange the books in my bookcase and on my shelves. Interior design was an appealing career path. I still feel this way, but having a...

22
Jan
2010

MEH, BEGONE!

When I left work today, on time for once, at 4 p.m., it was still light out. The sky was cloudy but it was high and white and light. There’s a lot of snow still on the ground, so everything has this grey frozen sheen to it, and with the reflective cloud cover, it feels much like being in a cold steel box. BUT! It’s a cold steel box that is getting lighter inside. Even though we’ve had a decidedly cold winter so far, it’s still not THAT cold. I walk around with my coat open all the time. A...

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