Yearly Archive: 2021

31
Dec
2021

RETROSPECTIVE

t’s been another crazy pandemic year and it’s still ongoing so I don’t expect a lot from 2022 at this point. We are all managing to stay healthy, even though as I write this Anders is coughing. Both he and Karin came down with colds over Christmas week, but have tested negative multiple times and he’s at the very tail end of his. I am back at work as of Monday but it’s another short week, only 3 days, so a nice soft start to the year. Martin and I just finished the super hard jigsaw puzzle of a map...

28
Dec
2021

EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD

One of my goals for 2021 was to walk a 5K every month in addition to the nearly daily walking I was already doing. My usual routes are either a double-helix around the neighborhood (approx. 1 kilometer), or a 1.5K zigzagging up the neighborhood and then over and around and down below the school, or a 2.5K which goes around the school, over into the village and all the way down the goats and back. It’s harder to keep up the commitment in the winter when the roads are icy, and they stay icy in our neighborhood for a really...

26
Dec
2021

POST-HOLIDAY BLISS

It’s the day after Christmas, at the end of 2021. It was a good Christmas in many ways…the four of us back together and everything ready in plenty of time so no one was stressed. I had most of my shopping done by the end of November, almost all of it done online, and the last of the things I ordered arrived well in advance. Karin helped Anders with ordering stuff for me, so he wasn’t stressed out either, at least not that I could tell. 🙂 We did a big grocery shop for both Christmas eve and Christmas day...

23
Dec
2021

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2021

This year started as the last one ended, with the pandemic still in full swing. Liz worked from home full-time all the way from October 2020 until the end of the summer this year, when she started back in the office 50%. She’s now up to 70% but is actually hoping to still be able to continue to work from home part-time. In January, Karin moved into a new apartment in Lund. She was still working at Flyinge School. Martin was working at Dominos Pizza in Detroit, still basically hunkered down in quarantine mode. On New Year’s Day, we got...

16
Dec
2021

BEGIN AGAIN

I can’t begin to count the number of times I think about writing here, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of times I think about calling someone I love, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of things I think about taking a photograph of, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of TV series and movies I think about watching, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of things that will never live on for posterity because they happen and I didn’t memorialize them in either words or pictures. Ah...

04
Dec
2021

COUNTING DOWN

We’re now in the end run, counting down through the last month of the year. The clock on 2021 is running out. Thankfully, the clock to the winter solstice is counting up and it’s only a month, give or take, until the darkest day, and then the slow return of the light. We’ve had snow on the ground for a week, and extremely cold temperatures. Here in Flyinge, for some reason, everything sticks and ices over and hangs on for weeks after the rest of SkÃ¥ne to the south of us has melted. It’s pretty, so I mostly don’t mind,...

28
Nov
2021

GIVING MEANS GETTING AND WE DO, IN SPADES

Yesterday was our annual Friendsgiving. We were looking forward to it SO much and it didn’t disappoint. It was the first time Martin has been included in 4 years (he DID have family Thanksgivings in Michigan with my mom, and occasionally my sister so he wasn’t totally deprived). The first year after we moved to Sweden, when I was hugely pregnant with Martin, we had Thanksgiving in our apartment, with my mom and Anders’ family, who had never been subjected to traditional American Thanksgiving food before and didn’t quite know what to make of the stuffing or the pumpkin pie....

20
Nov
2021

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEKEND

Dang, this month is getting away from me. It’s the weekend again and I’ve been thinking that I need to get a post written so here I am. This morning I woke up slowly, from very complicated, weird, but interesting dreams that of course I can no longer remember. It’s nice to wake up with a nice feeling like you were in the middle of a good story dream, even if it evaporates all too quickly. I wouldn’t tell you what it was even if I could remember it, because I believe dreams are of zero interest to anyone but...

08
Nov
2021

GIGGLING AND GRAVESTONES

This past Saturday was All Saints Day (also known as All Hallow’s Day) here in Sweden. It was late this year, falling on November 6. A lot of older Swedes are against Halloween simply because when it falls on a Saturday, which means it is ALSO All Saints Day, the sacredness of the holiday is overshadowed by the newfangled ridiculousness of an American holiday which “doesn’t even belong here”. So I’m always glad when Halloween doesn’t hit All Saints Day. What’s really super confusing is that there are TWO All Saints Days, both of which are celebrated in Sweden. One...

06
Nov
2021

DOING NOTHING

Sometimes you really need downtime. This weekend we have no plans, and today showed it. As a person who thrives on checking things off to-do lists, not doing anything is really hard for me, and often impossible, because of course, I can’t do NOTHING for two days, even if it is a weekend with no plans. So, even if I manage to sleep in until after 9 (which requires waking up at 6 to go to the bathroom, and 7 again because my internal clock is apparently set to get up for work regardless, and finally falling back asleep, and...

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