March and April will apparently be very bare of blog posts, the way things are going. If I don’t give myself a good kick in the butt as it’s already April 24th and the end of the month is LOOMING. I’ve been so busy with work and coming home completely drained every day, with zero motivation or energy (no thanks to jetlag last week either), and not wanting to sit at the computer after a full day of sitting at the computer, because my neck and shoulder are starting to hurt, and by the time I get home I just want be a vegetable, preferably of the potato kind, on the couch.
We’ve had three stunningly beautiful blue sky days of sunshine and rather chilly temperatures, just the kind of weather I love. I get to experience spring all over again, twice in one year! It was just starting to green up in Charlotte when I arrived there mid-March, and by the time I left, two weeks ago, spring was fast turning to summer, North Carolina style. When I got home to Sweden, everything was still bare and there was nearly no green showing except for grass. In the two weeks I’ve been home, spring has SPROINGED for real. All the trees that bloom are blooming, there are daffodils and crocus and pearl hyacinth and pansies everywhere, and the green wave is coming. I passed my favorite tree this morning on the way to work, and it was beautifully clad in neon new springy green. So I stopped at the pharmacy and stocked up on allergy meds.
This weekend I had no real plans. Anders took this past week off and has been blitzing through HIS to-do list like a boss. He got the windshield (cracked) of the Tesla repaired, scheduled service to fix the dents I put in the side a couple of months ago, bought new mudflaps and mats, and ordered a new piston thingy for the trunk. He washed both decks today and will oil the big one tomorrow and the swing deck on Sunday (as long as the rain stays away). He’s been working on his MG Roadster as well, which has to be ready to go for a graduation party on June 11th, and he booked an appointment with the bank to get our money into a better fund situation. Among other things! He also trimmed the rose bushes and the honeysuckles. And he plans to prepare the vegetable garden tomorrow as well.
I’ll go to the plant nursery tomorrow to get seed potatoes, onions, carrot and snap pea seeds, and tomato and cucumber starters if they have them already. Maria gave us 2 cucumber plants (the kind you pickle), so I’ll buy 2 of the regular cucumbers. I can’t wait to get the deck furniture out so we can enjoy spring in the sunshine outside. That’s really my only plan now, at least at the moment. Maybe I’ll go into town to the frame shop or to Jysk to pick up new bathmats, both of which chores are on my longer term to-do list.
How long should I let the jigsaw puzzle I’m in the middle of haunt me? It is the hardest damn puzzle I’ve ever worked on, and I don’t particularly like working on puzzles all by myself. I got it from Anders and the kids for Christmas, it’s Judith and the Head of Holofernes by Klimt. If you click on that link, you’ll see why: a huge area of JUST black for her hair, and a lot of one-tone-one-color areas of skin, etc. I have already lost patience with it, and still have almost everything from her neck down to do. I keep fantasizing about just ripping it back up and throwing it all back in the box. With books, I have no problem stopping when a book has completely failed to capture me or is no longer enjoyable, but I keep sitting down now and then OUT OF SHEER STUBBORNNESS to see if I can place at least ONE puzzle piece this time. I got her hair done by trying EVERY PIECE in every possible place until I found the one that fit, and YET! There are 5 missing pieces in her hair, and at least 5 fully black pieces left, NONE OF WHICH FIT IN THE HOLES. So, that means 5 of the pieces that I placed are in the WRONG place but damned if I can see or figure out where. Suck.
I’m not actually asking anyone’s permission to give up on the jigsaw puzzle, as I’m a grown woman and can make my own damn decisions, but GAH. Is it OCD preventing me? Masochism? Guilt?
Today, I went to lunch in Lund with Lisel for a scheduled AIC activity. There was one other person signed up. We’ve hit a slump and lately it’s really only been Lisel and I (she’s the organizer) going, though we don’t mind having a quiet lunch, just the two of us. When we got back to the office, as we were driving up towards the building, I suddenly realized that the parking lot I was about to turn into was swarming with people. What the heck! Then we saw a bunch of people up by the entrance in yellow vests and the light dawned: evacuation! Either a fire alarm or drill was happening. So I drove past the parking lot turn and went around and then we stopped to suss out the situation. We could see people still leaving the building, so we knew it wasn’t over yet.
I was SO HAPPY that I’d gone out for lunch and missed the damn thing, as if I had been upstairs on the 7th floor where my desk is, I would have had to stomp down SEVEN FLIGHTS of stairs on one leg, because my knee won’t take weight and bend at the same time, so I have to go down stairs one-legged. It takes forever, and it’s painful, and embarrassing. We had a fire drill during the winter, and I had to do it, and I kept stopping on every floor and waving people by me, because I was bottlenecking up the evacuation, and people kept trying to be nice and tell me to go ahead it was okay, take your time, and I had to get snippy and practically yell at them to just GO AHEAD OF ME, IT’S FINE, I’M JUST SLOW.
Ugh. So thank you universe for helping me dodge that bullet. We only had to wait about 5 minutes before the all-clear was called and everyone headed back inside and I could turn in and park.
Anyway, wheeeekend, and all that. I’m looking forward to 2 days of not working, hopefully a little sleeping in, and reading to my heart’s content.
Mood: ready to relax
Music: SUUS—Let Go of That Dream