Yearly Archive: 2010

21
Jan
2010

GRUMPBUCKET

Have you ever actually rubbed a cat the wrong way? It feels kind of cool, not exactly smooth, but not exactly rough to your hand. The cat will only tolerate it for a moment or so before making her displeasure known. I suspect it must feel sort of what it feels like to take your hair down from an updo or ponytail that’s been in place all day: your skin kind of feels stretched weirdly for a little while. Anyway, being rubbed the wrong way is unpleasant. Rubbing someone else the wrong way is also unpleasant. I feel like I’ve...

18
Jan
2010

WORDS OF WISDOM

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”—Jessica Hische A type artist & graphic designer whose work I admire was featured on Humble Pied recently. It’s a website that highlights advice—one piece of advice—from one inspiring person every few days. What a neat idea! Sometimes out of all the blah blah blah that constantly passes through your receptors, it’s that one sudden striking of a clapper inside the bell of your brain that stands out and makes you sit up and pay attention. It arrests you, snaps...

17
Jan
2010

OH HECK, IT’S UP TO MY NECK

Messy mush of conflicting feelings; the usual state of affairs in my head these days. I don’t seem to have any level days, it’s up and down, a constant motion. If life were a boat, I’d be hanging over the side, green in the gills, heaving. Last week, the first official week back at work had me with my head down, pounding through a monster list of projects and requests and emails with barely a chance to come up for air. If I hadn’t worked during my last week of vacation, I’m positive my head would have exploded by Friday....

16
Jan
2010

15 MINUTES OF FAME

American Liz – “You never want to say that you are the best, even when you are!” ————————- Then & why I came here: My dad was in the military and our family lived quite awhile in Europe when I was a teenager. I longed to go back. Luckily, I fell in love with a European, a Swedish man. We met in Chicago, USA and in 1997 decided to move to Sweden. ————————- One of the first things I learned when I came to Sweden was the word “fika”. I’ve never met a people with such a love of cookies...

10
Jan
2010

NO ONE NEEDS A VACATION MORE THAN THE PERSON WHO JUST HAD ONE

The wind has been scouring Skåne for days now. It’s blown all the frozen snow away from every surface and left the fields bare. Driving at night, you could see the wind pouring like water across the surface of the asphalt, only better because it was blowing snow along with it: white wind, white water. Today, mom and I went to the grocery store and as we got in the car, I looked down at the blown-up drifts around the driveway and thought, hmmm…that’s weird, the snow looks kind of…beige. And as we drove out of the neighborhood, it got...

07
Jan
2010

MINDS ALIVE ON THE SHELVES*

If you have the chance, I urge you not to miss out on the magical goodness that is the Squam Art Workshops. Elizabeth (Bluepoppy) has outdone herself with the wonderful weekends on offer for those able to take advantage of any of the five…count ’em, FIVE! different workshops that are spaced throughout 2010: go! GO! I’ve totally agreed to work the Swedish version when Elizabeth gets around to planning SAW, European style! If there is anyway in the world I can get to the Reader’s Retreat, I would be over the moon. Since I’ve already started the New Year out...

05
Jan
2010

ANXIETY IS THE SPACE BETWEEN NOW & THEN

You know those dreams or movie scenes where you have to get somewhere and you turn into a hallway and suddenly the hallway s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s out in front of you like a tunnel, with appropriately alarming music accompaniment and you know you will never reach the end? Never, never never? That’s how I feel right now. I know it’s my own fault for even bothering to CHECK my work email, but honest to god, it’s insane. I can’t stop thinking about work and how it will just pile up and up and up if I don’t keep on top of it,...

02
Jan
2010

YOU KNOW JUST WHAT I WAS THERE FOR

It’s the New Year, time of resolutions and retrospectives and goal-setting. Everyone’s so motivated. Me, I’m just howling at the moon. Literally, and loudly, to my children’s embarrassment. But it’s so FULL! And bright! A blue moon. What a way to end a year! And what a way to start one. It’s fun to be starting off the year with something that happens so seldom. We’ve had unbelievably cold temperatures all this past week and it is COLD. I just looked at the thermometer and it’s minus 9 Celsius. That’s 15.8 Fahrenheit. Brrrr! We left an hour early for the...

01
Jan
2010

RETROSPECTIVE

A houseful of visitors, a couple of months worth of parties, and a massive head cold left me with little time to update the past few days. I didn’t get my usual year retrospective up before the year actually turned, but that seems to be par for the course for how 2009 went for me. Last night, around the table with our good friends, we each recounted the low point and the high point that the passing year had held for us. One friend recounted the fear and helplessness of watching her best friend’s pregnancy head into complications. One talked...

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