Monthly Archive: April 2015

27
Apr
2015

HALF (& HALF) (WAY THERE) (ASSED)

We’re down to half the family this week, though with the amount of time Karin spends away from home, I might as well be living alone. Living da vida loca. Actually, living la vida aburrida, since my life is nowhere near all that crazy. Martin and I got up at 4:15 a.m. this morning. At least we LOOKED like we were up. We were vertical and moving, albeit slowly and with our eyes squinched shut. I kept waking up all night long, checking the clock, with that fear of sleeping through the alarm that I often get before I’m going...

25
Apr
2015

SEASONALITIES

I don’t remember this so clearly from my years in Chicago, but here in Sweden, one really lives after and by the seasons. I find myself looking out for the annual marker of the start of each season and feeling such satisfaction when it’s noted. Spring: pied wagtails Summer: clouds of gnats hovering in the summer evening air Fall: sugar beets on the side of the road (fallen off trucks) Winter: Advent candelabra Yesterday, I saw my first pied wagtail, so now it’s OFFICIALLY spring. The lacy tracery of bright green leaves wasn’t enough. The lush pad of fresh grass...

21
Apr
2015

SPROING

Around every corner, the fuchsias are glowing. The bird cherries have exploded like white blossom popcorn trees and the magnolias are about to blow. There are little leaves on the lilacs but they’re still a couple of weeks away. The thornbush in the back yard has also exploded with starry white blossoms. It’s not really a bush anymore; it’s nearly a tree. I wonder what it is? Hawthorn? Blackthorn? Judging from what I found online, it is either a blackthorn or a cherry plum. I’ll have to pay more attention to the fruit later, but I’m pretty sure it’s not...

17
Apr
2015

THE WEIGHT OF MEMORY

Ever since we moved to Sweden, I have had a couple of boxes of old clothes in the back of the closet. Because I got pregnant almost right away after we moved here and gained a lot of weight with both pregnancies and have never really gotten it off, I have never been able to once again wear the clothes that are in the boxes. Several years ago, my friend Debbie, who is as good as my sister at helping others to clear out clutter, went through the boxes with me, and I managed to pare down the boxes to...

13
Apr
2015

CARPE LIBRUM

Finally, I’m done with the inventory of my library. I’ve gone through all the books in the house (that are mine) and checked them against my Excel sheet. It’s been a couple of years since I have inventoried my books and since I’ve done a couple of thorough clean-outs for the annual media sale, and neglected to remove the books I discarded from my list, it was completely out of sync. I need to be better about that. You know what made it super easy and fast this time? I took photos with my iPad of each shelf and then...

11
Apr
2015

PRETTY PURPLES

I was smart; I stopped by Sularpsfarmen yesterday on the way home from work to buy pansies because I knew the weather forecast for the weekend was for nice weather and I knew Flyinge Nursery and Sularpsfarmen would be PACKED today and tomorrow. We’ve had several days of unbelievably gorgeous weather: 72 and sunny. California weather! One of the brothers helped me by carrying two bags of dirt to my car and I filled and purchased 2 flats full of pansies to boot. 24 pansies to a flat. I figured that ought to be plenty for my pots, right? Wrong....

07
Apr
2015

UNSCINTILLATING

I feel rather boring these days. Cleaning the bathroom, inventorying my library and working do not make for scintillating blog fodder. And yet, here it is, into the second week of April, and I had been trying to write more. What happened to that? We have had very changeable weather lately. All possibilities within the space of an hour: sun, warmth, wind, rain, snow, hail, you name it. As we say, if you don’t like the weather in Sweden, just wait five minutes. But it IS warming. Despite the frost on the ground overnight, the trend is definitely upwards. Martin...

04
Apr
2015

HISTORY NEVER LOOKS LIKE HISTORY WHEN YOU ARE LIVING THROUGH IT*

I don’t know if you know that Martin has a blog. He doesn’t write on it, as it’s a Tumblr blog. He does photo-editing and puts together collages and GIFs of things he’s interested in. Mostly, up until now, it’s been a lot of American Horror Story and a couple of other TV shows that he watches. But about a month ago, he started a really cool project, with the plan to launch it on his Tumblr. He put together a collage…a huge one. A historical timeline of the 20th century illustrated by what he considered one of the most...

03
Apr
2015

REALITY BITES

Spring is here, it’s here, it’s here! Finally. It’s warming, it’s greening, it’s blooming and it’s blowing…pollen. Straight into my eyes. I can admire the new buds through my red, itching slits of vision. But the sky is blue, the clouds are huge and white and puffy, the sun is warm and there’s no going back. It’s Easter weekend, a long weekend, the first of the long weekends of the spring season. I am psyched, even though I worked longer than I should have yesterday on what was supposed to be a half-day and even worked about half an hour...

April 2015
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