My daughter just commented on the fact that the very nice, expensive, wide (genuine) leather belt that she appropriated from me is a “really good child-beater belt”.
For the record, she has never been beaten with a belt or anything else. Tempting. But no.
So many things that I mean to write about, to remember to write about, to record for your amusement and for posterity*, and yet, the time goes and there is another huge hole in the calendar of my journal. I have a package to mail. I have a letter to respond to. I have pants to get hemmed. I have floors to mop. Blog posts, inevitably, seem to get shoved to the back of the to-do list.
Plus, I hate mopping.
Besides, not much has really changed since my last post: arm/shoulder still hurting, work still insanely busy, weather still sucky, money-panicking still actual.
Martin and I have been watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which is by turns hilarious and eye-poppingly inappropriate. It’s like a bunch of improv artists took the cardinal rule of improv (say yes, then roll with it) and dialed it up to 100.
I woke at 4 am with a shattering headache in the middle of the week (a quite common occurrence), got up, took meds, drank water, and went back to bed, where I lay with my arm & shoulder aching, trying not to toss and turn, and my mind racing into a full blown anxiety attack about money. We did some recalculations and realized that our estimate on college expenses was off by rather a significant amount, and it’s really closer to $54,000 per year, NOT INCLUDING spending money and daily necessities, that Martin will need. His scholarship from the school is a minor dent in that. Thankfully, we received the answer from CSN, the Swedish agency that deals with student financial aid yesterday and it’s relieved my mind a great deal. His costs will be mostly, if not entirely covered. Most of it is loans, which comes to a shocking amount, but some of it is subsidies from the Swedish government that don’t have to be paid back. We are still waiting to hear from the FAFSA (US government financial aid) and I hope some of that will be grants/subsidies as well…the more the better, please!
I’m still a bit in denial about the fact that he’ll be leaving so soon. He is planning to sign up for a summer program for international students that gives credits, and it starts July 9, which is much earlier than I had been mentally preparing myself for him to be gone. And earlier than we were expecting to have to figure out plane tickets to the US again. EEK. Karin wants a trip to the States for her 18th birthday, but has to be home by the end of July for the Emmaboda music festival she has tickets for.
The entire family, all four of us, are going to see La La Land together tonight. Unheard of! Most of the time, Martin and Karin have seen everything worth seeing before we get around to realizing it’s in the theaters, and it’s rare that there are films that half of us, much less ALL of us want to see. Serendipitous!
I have been trying to wean myself off the insanity happening in the US government, but still find myself checking CNN and various other news sources each day to keep up on what is happening. There is a women’s group here working on ways to fight back but I find myself keeping my distance, and am honestly not sure why. It all makes me so incredibly sad. How on earth we could swing so far so fast to this extreme is mind-boggling.
Anyway, the temperatures are rising, the amount of sunshine is increasing, and there are good things to look forward to. What more can I ask for?
*Which I wrote first as prosperity and then spent an inordinate amount of time staring at, knowing it was wrong, but unable to come up with the correct word.