DECEMBER DELIBERATIONS

I was trying so hard this year to post more, and I can’t tell if I’ve succeeded…I think so…? Will have to see how fat my printed blog book for 2025 turns out to be when I’m done with it in the beginning of the new year. It’s crazy that it’s nearly the end of another year. I went to the mall after work and picked up the very last Christmas present that I needed. So now I am totally done. I hope. haha ha I even got the secret santa gift for work, and some tissue paper and pretty gift bags. Then I went and had a slice of delicious pizza at Folk which Martin made for me since he was working. It’s a pizza with white sauce, mushrooms, pickled red onions, kale, and taleggio cheese, and then I add proscuitto. It’s DELICIOUS. But it’s one of their seasonal slices and it will probably disappear again, which makes me sad.

This is pretty boring content, but I am not very motivated right now. Work is sucking all the life out of me. I have tomorrow and 4 more days next week and I’m starting to doubt I will be able to get everything done on time. Of the 3 people who were sick at the beginning of the week, 2 are still out, though they are both working a bit from home. We’re all stressed out. Today we had a global marketing meeting on the calendar and all 4 of us who were in the office opted to skip it. The others were at least listening in on the Teams link, but I was just head-deep in my ugly huge project, and couldn’t be distracted. The last point on the agenda was “Christmas activity” and honestly, I was not in the mood for that either. I’ve officially turned into the Grinch. The organizer sent a message to one of my teammates asking where we were and hoping that we would all come for the activity, but none of us did. Apparently several people asked our manager where we were as well. Eeesh. Turns out they made gingerbread houses. I would have left at that point anyway. Don’t have time for anything not business-critical right now and gingerbread houses are definitely not that. I missed 3 hours this morning as it was, since I had dose #5 of my colitis medicine this morning at the hospital in Malmö.

Sarah and I talked last night and she told me her husband has a carcinoma that he’s having surgery to remove right before we get there for Christmas. It’s on his temple and apparently quadrupled in size over the course of a week. EEESH. I’m glad he could get such a quick time to get it taken care of. Scary stuff. Our family has had enough health scares and issues this year. I really hope there won’t be anything else now for a VERY LONG WHILE. She and I also planned out dinners for the 10 days we are there, making sure to plan in leftovers and keeping some days open for whatever comes up, so we can be flexible. She showed me the room setup for Karin and Essie which required rearranging my mom’s little art loft. Things are definitely falling into place and preparations are well underway, so we can hopefully just relax and enjoy each other’s company as much as possible when we get there.

I’m rereading the Wizard of Earthsea trilogy which I’ve apparently not done in a million years. It’s SO GOOD. I mean I know Ursula K. LeGuin was an amazing writer (I have nearly all her books) but I’d forgotten exactly HOW good she is. Her writing is sublime.

Mood: stressed but managing
Music: Hailee Steinfeld—SunKissing