Today was sunny for most of it, despite the forecast of rain for the whole weekend. Karin was home (until dinnertime) and she and I spent quite a lot of time hanging out on the deck. It was almost too hot for me, but not quite. I haven’t done much today: 1 load of laundry, took the recycleables out, and sent the US tax forms to myself at work to print because I couldn’t get our printer to work. I also ordered new print cartridges if that counts toward “doing things”. Oh, and Karin and I went to the frame shop to drop off a poster to get framed. That’s 10 minutes away and took us about 10 minutes to choose a nice frame, so all total it was half an hour out of a rather lazy day. Anders did way more than me: ran errands, washed the car and vacuumed it, mowed the lawn, and scrubbed the deck in preparation for oiling it tomorrow. Karin laughed when I said it. She did nothing but hang out with me and go for a run, apart from accompanying me to the frame shop.
I talked to my sister last night about plans for while we are in the States and we have so much planned that I’m not sure there will be any downtime to just relax and enjoy vacation! Though all the stuff we have planned is fun stuff: a glass fusion class, a pottery class (that she and mom are already taking), visits to a couple of antique malls and Waxhaw, a couple of arts festivals, a trip to Biltmore, and Danely’s graduation. We are unsure about the plans for the graduation because we don’t know yet if she was able to secure more tickets for us, but we’ll have a celebratory dinner out if nothing else.
When I planned the trip I wasn’t really thinking about the timing other than to put it when it would work best for all of us. When I went to put it into my calendar the other day at work, however, I found out I’d planned it super well! The first week we are there I am taking vacation, and the second week I had planned to work from my mom’s. The third week I was going to work a couple 2-3 days and take a couple off. It turns out that May 1 is a holiday (in Sweden) so I have a day off in the middle of the 2nd week, and Thursday and Friday May 9 and 10 are ALSO holidays (in Sweden) so I don’t have to take vacation days for those! I was going to take off May 10 anyway because that’s the day we leave to come home.
The drain guy was here on Thursday and spent nearly 3.5 hours clearing the blockage. It was lovely to take a shower Friday morning and not have to turn the water on and off between soaping, shampooing and conditioning, and not worry about the house flooding. It was damned expensive though. 2200 kronor per hour PLUS another 600 for the equipment fee. Ouch.
Now it’s nearly 7 pm on a Saturday night and I’m fielding a headache so might pop an Advil and go lay down for a bit. Since I never get a good night’s sleep, I’m a little less resistant to taking naps. I know my bladder won’t let me sleep more than about 45 minutes anyway. Tomorrow the kids and I are going thrifting in Malmö just for fun. It’s technically an AIC event but there is only one other person signed up and she’s a maybe. Last time Martin and I went to this particular area I found a Lisa Larsson moose figurine and the Portuguese peacock planter, so I’m looking forward to it. You never know!
Mood: headachey
Music: Jungle—Back on 74