Sometimes I feel out of step with the other members of my team. I don’t know if it’s because of ME, personally, or a cultural difference (they’re all Swedish), or my age, or what. They all agree on some things that I don’t agree with at all, or at least I don’t care about. I’ve talked to my manager(s) about it, and they seem to think that it’s just me, and have reassured me more than once that they are grateful I am different. Ha!
Tonight it’s cooled down quite a lot from the humidity and high temps of yesterday, and I’m grateful for that. I still need to go out and water the vegetables. The potato plants are quite big and very leafy green and happy. The 4 cucumber plants are thriving, and we’ve already started seeing sprouts coming up from both the snap peas and the onions. The tomatoes are doing okay though they don’t seem to want to be reaching upwards, and the kale looks like it’s about the same. The carrots are always the last to start, even if we were late this year, so I don’t expect to see anything sprouting in that row quite yet.
It’s a quiet evening again, and I’m home alone. Karin was home during the day, and finished weeding in the front yard. She’s done a fantastic job of weeding and edging the front and back and all the pavement. Next she will be cleaning/washing the entire garage exterior, in preparation for finally getting it repainted, which it’s been overdue for, for several years. She keeps promising to give me a massage as well, but so far it hasn’t materialized. She’s doing all the things she can think of in order to earn a little extra money and refill her very empty coffers. 🙂 She’s been working nonstop at Beachgarden, pickup shifts for the days she’s not already scheduled, and going through her closets finding clothes and shoes to sell online as well. I’m going to run out of jobs to give her, haha!
We got her US taxes done yesterday evening and I mailed them away today. Helena commented on the fact that I had an actual envelope to put in the actual mail and said she couldn’t remember the last time she saw that. I said it wasn’t anything fun I was mailing, but honestly, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter and mailed it myself. Or received one, for that matter. I usually get a letter from Becky at Christmastime, and I almost always write one in response, but that’s it. We get a handful of Christmas cards, and I send a dozen or so every year, but the amount decreases annually. Even the letters I write to Becky get typed on the PC first, then printed out. I think my hand would cramp up irrevocably if I tried to write anything more than notes at work or lists at home by hand. Sad.
The other day I finally got around to calling our bank here in Sweden to ask about something that’s on my to-do list: moving my IRA and mutual fund accounts from the US to Sweden. I talked to one of the banks several years ago and was told that I could move the money without penalty once I was 59.5 years old. I had recently read somewhere that Swedish banks can help you with that when you retire, so I thought I’d ask. The guy in the Pensions department that I talked to told me that no one had ever asked that particular question before. He had to do some investigating and get back to me. He called me back the next day and asked a bunch of questions, gathering more details, and said he’d send me a message or call me as soon as he had an answer. Next day, I got the message: Sorry, can’t help. They don’t do that.
Rats.
So now I have to find time to call both institutions (at international calling rates, probably) I have accounts at and find out how I go about moving my money overseas. Ugh. Seems like it would be a good idea to get it over here now when the exchange rate would actually be working in my favor for once. I guess I also need to know what kind of account to put it in once it is here. I suppose I need to open specific accounts for them, but GAH, I have no idea. Probably have to talk to my Swedish bank again first to find out what the best route to take is. Open the account first, then call the US to get the money transferred to it, for each one. DOUBLE UGH.
When I was talking to my manager today, I said something about what are you going to do in 5 years when I retire? And she got this super frightened look on her face, put her hands over her ears, and said “la la la” and I laughed and said “Ok, 7 years” and she said that didn’t help. 😀
Hard to believe it myself. It kind of makes ME want to put my hands over my ears, too.
Mood: reflective
Music: ZHU—Good Life