Yearly Archive: 2011

14
Mar
2011

RETURN TO SLUGVILLE

The rain is turning everything dark, grey, beige and green with mold. I’m finding and trying all the various ways of doing nothing that I can while my family is out of town. Motivation? At an all time low. Personal productivity? Lower, if possible. Who am I, when I’m not being organized? When I’m not being creative, responsible, busy? I see my face in the mirror but it’s not recognizable. I’m caught up in the unfathomable horror of tsunami videos out of Japan. When that overwhelms, I play Pumpkin Xplode on my iPad until equilibrium returns. I’m reading a book,...

10
Mar
2011

IN WHICH FOOD FIGURES PROMINENTLY. ALSO, PIE.

Start of a family-free week-and-a-half and a husband-less 2-and-a-half-weeks. Don’t know whether to be sad or glad right now, but am mostly too busy to think about it. I worked from home this afternoon so I could be here to say goodbye when Anders and the kids left…it’s their annual ski trip up north with Anders’ best friend Mats and his son Viktor, and the addition this year of Mats’ brother Mikael and his wife Lene, both of whom are also very good friends of ours. Anders’ mom called this evening just to check in and seemed not to know...

06
Mar
2011

YOU LIKE PIE? I LIKE PIE*

Getting through the week at work is really helped by 2 excellent weekend days full of sunshine, blue skies, sleeping in, a fun AWC event with good food and lots of laughter, and the new iPad I bought with some of my bonus money definitely helped, too! Not something I needed, but nice to have a fun toy to play with, and I’m looking forward to being able to read magazines on it, especially. The issue of Martha Stewart Living that was specially designed for the iPad was amazing. I wasn’t out as much in the sun as I would...

02
Mar
2011

DON’T THE HOURS GROW SHORTER AS THE DAYS GO BY

There it goes, winging by, that crazy thief Time. He steals days from my pocket, flits by unseen, and suddenly I look up and realize I’ve been robbed again. I think he swings from the trees like a monkey, arm over arm, howling with a boom that startles me awake. He sifts through the moments that flutter past, snatching them from the air while I stroll on, unalarmed and oblivious, thinking that there’s more where that came from. I’m wrong, though. There isn’t more where that came from. This is the time to treasure. This time, this present, this now....

26
Feb
2011

ATTITUDE IS A LITTLE THING THAT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE*

I am not happy when I am not happy. I am not happy when I can’t concentrate on the positive and shove the things that bother me aside in favor of the good things that surround me. Small prickers under the fingernails of my mood are most definitely torture and I have the urge to yank them out and remove them as quickly as possible. I don’t LIKE being in a bad mood, a grumpy mood, a sad mood. Today, a concentration on good things: sleeping in, smiles, sunshine, swinging down a city street, shopping (sales on books!), sweets in...

25
Feb
2011

BACKSPACE, DELETE

Have tried for 15 minutes now to think of something to write about that didn’t make me sad, mad or tired. Failed. Will try again tomorrow.

22
Feb
2011

ABOUT AS HAPPY AS YOU MAKE UP YOUR MIND TO BE*

Black black skies with white white stars. Orion is tilted drunkenly to the left, leaning over our driveway. The big dipper lies lopsided across the other side of the sky, a big ol’ bowl of stars above my head. Our 5-day dog’s back end wags to and fro, tail in counterpoint. Her surprisingly small feet make swishy prints in the sparkley snow powder. I huff above the edge of the scarf wrapped over my head and around my neck: dragonbreath blooms and my glasses fog. I’m making messes of one-dish wonders for lunch lately; I’m sick of salads. Rice or...

19
Feb
2011

SNAPPING POINT

Following on the philosophy of my last post about not saying anything if I don’t have anything good to say…the main thing taking up my brain space this week is the situation at work, and since I try not to write too much about work, especially when I’m not happy about it, I don’t want to step over my own boundaries, so let’s just say that every possible bad thing you could imagine about sitting in open landscaping? Doesn’t even come close to how bad it actually is right now. I’m far from the only unhappy one, but I swear...

16
Feb
2011

SPREADING SUNSHINE

There’s no knowing how the day will go. Even with a forecast read ahead of time, moods can be unpredictable buggers. Early morning sunshine helps swerve the curve upward. Some days, grey ones, with a pressure from above by clouds and within by…oh, just things, cause a trembling and stillness that makes you want to dive back into bed and burrow for your life beneath the covers. The choices you make each day, the words you deliberate over, the conversations in your head that you restrain yourself from having; all these steer the way the day goes. A choice to...

12
Feb
2011

PLANT A SEED OF FRIENDSHIP, REAP A BOUQUET OF HAPPINESS*

Last night we had the 5th anniversary of the beginning of our Wonders dinners together, my friends and I. Debbie was the one who thought of it; she wanted a mentor group of friends that were all living and staying here in Sweden to be a unit where we could help each other, support each other, be there for each other. She asked us each individually to be a part of the group: Angie, Kelly, Emily and me. We were friends before, all of us, for several years, and this was partly a way of finding our way back to...

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