Monthly Archive: July 2012

30
Jul
2012

BACK TO THE GRIND-ISH

I’m the only one that has to smack the alarm clock beeping in the early a.m. and get out of bed and get moving…Anders is still of vacation the rest of this week and the kids don’t go back to school until August 20th (crazy!). I went back to work last week but there are so many colleagues still on vacation that it doesn’t really feel like normal yet. People are slowly starting to come back; there were more in the office today than last week, but even so, most of Sweden’s companies are still on half-strength and ours is...

24
Jul
2012

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT OUT TO GET YOU

When we were in northern Germany, we stayed in a 2-bedroom apartment up a steep flight of stairs. There was no living room, just a small dining area, a long skinny kitchen and a dinky bathroom. Anders and I got the big master bedroom, while Mom had a twin bed in the kids’ room: they shared a bunkbed, Martin on top. I don’t know if the room was actually ever a child’s room but there were mice & mushrooms painted on the window in that special translucent paint for glass and a small bookshelf with some careworn and obviously discarded...

20
Jul
2012

WEEK IN REVIEW PLUS A BIRTHDAY GIRL

Liz: Tomorrow you’re going to be a teenager and I’m going to be old. Karin: You’re already old. Hrm. Obviously, she’s been practicing. Karin turned 13 on Friday the 13th but there were no thunderstorms to mark the occasion like there were the day she was born. And nothing unlucky happened either, except that the Converse sneakers that she got from my Mom didn’t fit and are going back to the US to be exchanged. She got the soccer shoes she REALLY wanted and tickets to see Veronica Maggio in concert, among other things. 2 days later she left for...

10
Jul
2012

NO PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO, NO PARTICULAR THING TO DO

Why, when we aren’t really doing ANYTHING, is it so hard to find time to sit down and post? It’s 11:30 p.m. and I should be in bed falling asleep because we are getting up early tomorrow to go Öresunds Runt (around the Öresund) ending with dinner in Copenhagen, but instead I’m catching up on reading blogs and hoping I don’t dream about Lego again tonight. Even my mom has been sucked in to the Giant Never-Ending Lego Project. We have many many kits completed but unfortunately, the majority of them are missing a piece or two. HOWEVER! Lego.com sells...

07
Jul
2012

SHOT

Not surprisingly there are few to no images of the men behind the cameras during our family reunion in northern Germany…I ended up with none of Tom, Sarah’s husband, and only got some of my brother because my mom shared her photos with me. John, Sammy & Mom (photo by Simone Slaughter) John & Sarah (photo by Linda Slaughter) Sammy & Simone (photo by Linda Slaughter) Rachel (photo by Tom Fletcher) Sarah (photo by Tom Fletcher) Simone, Sammy & Bryce (photo by Tom Fletcher) Anders (photo by Karin Ek) Bryce (photo by Karin Ek) Typical pastime (photo by Anders Ek)...

01
Jul
2012

WHERE THE HEART IS

There are some times when I fervently wish that I lived closer to my first family. My brother lives in southern Germany, my sister in the middle of Illinois and my mom in the thumb of Michigan. And no one gets me the way they do. A look, a shared sense of humor, a laugh, a dig at someone else’s well-honed defenses…there’s just nothing like the connection between you, your parents and your siblings. Last week, my brother and his wife and their almost-one-year old son drove up from the bottom end of Germany to the top end, bringing along...

July 2012
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