I continue to be flabbergasted at the apparently unending depths to which the US president is sinking. When will the nightmare end? I am also boggled at how anyone who voted for him expected anything different. Honestly, this trainwreck of a presidency was obvious from the start. GAH.
People keep asking me how it’s going, how it was to leave Martin in the US, how it is to be almost empty-nesting. To be honest, it’s fine. I’m fine. I mean, I miss Martin, but at this point, I’m just really glad that he’s starting school and that we aren’t driving each other (as) crazy as we were the whole last year. And it’s not been long enough to miss him that much yet. Karin is never home either, so Anders and I are already feeling like we’ve jumpstarted the whole home-alone thing.
I’ve been back at work 3 weeks and summer vacation feels very far away. Work is not that busy at the moment, which is surprising since it was apparently insane during the weeks I was gone. Maybe because I was gone? haha! Right now, much of Europe is still on vacation (not Scandinavia) so we’re not seeing the amount of requests from the rest of the world that we usually do. We are moving to new premises next week and I’m dreading it because it’s back to open landscape for us for the next 18 months. Our new headquarters is under construction but won’t be ready until 2019, and we’re still growing. The only good thing is that the entire Marketing department will be back under the same roof (on 2 floors) instead of in 2 separate buildings (and 3 floors).
But I LOATH open landscaping and I’m really not looking forward to it. We are 4 people in our room right now, which has turned out to be perfect, since we are all on the same team and work really well together and still have some “privacy”. Now we will be 9 people with no walls. 2 different teams. At least we are not in the middle of a corridor so people, hopefully, will not be walking past us all the time. Still, all of us have a pretty constant stream of visitors so I suspect it’s going to take a lot of restraint for us to manage for so long in that environment. URGH.
Anders lost his wedding ring doing yard work a week and a half ago. He mowed the entire (giant) yard and then ripped out all the strawberry plants and my dead clematis in the vegetable garden. About an hour later he came in and broke the news, after he realized it was missing. We went out and picked through two huge black garbage bags of garden debris with no luck. I even borrowed a metal detector from someone at work, and we went over the entire yard, the vegetable patch and both bags again: nothing. This is the second one he’s lost (the first one was before we were even married). SUCK.
I watched the last season and last episode of Orphan Black this past week and am very, very sad that it is over. Karin and I are watching Game of Thrones together, which is nice, since my usual series-watching partner left me, but usually when I look over at her in reaction to something that’s happening, she’s snapchatting on her phone. *rolls eyes* Only 2 more episodes until that is back on hiatus and then what am I going to watch? The next and last season of Bron doesn’t start until next year!
Right now, I’m reading The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy. It’s set in Poland during WWII and is getting harder and harder to both read and put down. I just finished re-reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver: also both hard to read and hard to put down. And the book I read before that was one I recommended for our book group, and which got voted in (we’re reading it next after Flight Behavior): All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood. It, too, was hard to read and really hard to put down. Three excellent, thought-provoking books in a row. Good stuff.
We are busy with party prep this week as well. Karin decided last week that she had picked a date for her 18th birthday party that we weren’t even sure we wanted to allow. I asked her how many people she was thinking and she wrote up a list of her closest (!) friends and answered “130”.
*BOGGLE* What? No.
We told her max 70. She cut and cut and groaned and cut some more and finally came crying to tell me she COULDN’T get the list under 94. As of yesterday, which was the cut-off date, the total of acceptances to the invite was 71.
Then she told Anders and I that we could go to his mom’s and not come home until, like, 11:30 pm. What? No. That’s not how it works, kid.
OK, OK, but if you have to be home, then you have to stay in your room.
HAHAHAHA. Yeah, NO.
She came up with a really fun theme. It’s a barnkalas (children’s party) and the theme is “What did you want to be when you grew up, when you were little?” which means that she has to come to her own party as a ninja pirate. 😀
The party doesn’t start until 8 pm so thankfully we don’t have to serve dinner. We are providing chips, candy, ice cream (the big pack kind with 3 colors/flavors) and sprinkles for the ice cream. We’ll serve hotdogs (boiled) at midnight. We are also providing a couple of beers/ciders per guest and sodas. The thing is, a lot of the guests aren’t 18 yet, and we are responsible, as that’s the drinking age here. We are also renting a bouncy castle and I bought a couple of cheap hula hoops. Karin is planning to make a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game. We’re borrowing a tent and still have to rent the tables and chairs/benches, but otherwise I think we’re about ready. Wish us luck.