Liz: Good night! Karin: Good night! Liz: Sleep tight! Karin: Sleep tight! Liz: See you in the morning! Karin: See you in the morning! Liz: Olive oil! Karin: I lo—*pause* Liz: No? Oil of Olay? Karin: *rolls eyes* Liz: Hmmm…what was it again? Eulalia! Karin: *patiently* No, mama Liz: Oilily? Karin: *suspiciously* Are you doing this just so you’ll have something to write about on your journal? Liz: *giggles madly*
Dizzy with the perfume of the lilacs, each time I pass a tree or a bush of them, I incline my head and take a great walloping sniff and say AAAAH. I can’t always smell them (thanks, allergies!) but it’s fun to try, and when I DO get a whiff it lasts for a really long time, long after the fact, long after I am gone away from them. It’s the memory of scent and the memory of green and of new and of BURGEONING that gets me through the winters here. All the long dark dreary winter days I...
A Saturday with absolutely no plans* has resulted in the following: sleeping in until 9:30 and then dozing for another half hour finishing a book and beginning another 6 loads of clean, sweet-smelling folded laundry, including a million towels and the bedding from every bed in the house 3 clean, sweet-smelling, freshly-made beds 6.5 bags of outgrown children’s clothing a logic problem conquered on the second try Chinese take-away for dinner a quick run to the store for milk a half-vacuumed house myskväll with shrimp crackers, fortune cookies and a new movie to watch (Enchanted) a journal post!…of sorts *for...
2 solid weeks of sunshine? Anticipation of book group tonight even though she hasn’t read the book? The lovely lovely lilacs? The decision to take off for lunch in town tomorrow and then play hookey for the rest of the afternoon before attending a party in the evening? The fact that tomorrow is Friday and she has no plans for the weekend? ALL OF THE ABOVE?
Bouncy Flouncy Pouncy Piles of Birthday Wishes to redpirk!
Hey! Who turned off the heat? The temperature plunged today, in half, and the wind is blowing cold. The pansies are happy about it, though, if no one else is, since they were beginning to wilt. I was afraid it was too good to last, and though I’m very hopeful that the last week and a half of absolutely perfect weather won’t be the last we’ll see all summer, I’ve lived in Sweden far too long to be sanguine about our chances. So, hold your thumbs that Swedish summer has not come and gone already in May! It’s exceptionally poor...
Karin competed in her first karate competition today. She was in the 8-year-old girl’s group, competing in kata, which is a short, choreographed series of karate moves. She was pretty nervous about it, but thought it was a lot of fun, and she came in 3rd place! Not too shabby! 🙂 She got a huge 3rd place trophy along with her participant medal and a new t-shirt. Read Karin’s summary of her accomplishment.
Does jetlag get worse as you get older? Or is it just my crazy life that has eaten away the foundation of my stability and left me unable to balance evenly? Nearly a week since my return and I’m still waking up at 4 a.m. every morning…of course that could be the fault of the BRIGHT SUNLIGHT streaming in at an ungodly hour and the fact that still, after nearly 6 years in this house, the windows in our bedroom remain shade- and blind-less. Wednesday was choir (first practice in 4 weeks—croak!) and yesterday my husband celebrated a birthday. It’s...
Oh GOD STOP RUBBING YOUR EYES, stop stop stop stop !!! AAAAAAGH. *rub rub rub* I love allergy season. Not. Flattened by jetlag, I have zombied my way through work today and a parent-teacher conference, with my eyes reduced to tiny, itchy slits through which I peer at people blurrily and then sneeze a few times before blowing my nose. SO beautiful! THANK YOU to Chuck for being exactly the person you come across as. For being as comfortable and down-to-earth and humorously self-deprecating in real life as you are online. Thank you for flying all the way across the...
It’s strange to think I’m half a world away from where I was this time yesterday, and with the busy week ahead I shall be flung back into routine quickly. I’ve come back to summer apparently. All the flowering trees were in full bloom in Boston, but here everything is leafed out, the grass is green and and high and the rapeseed is lying golden and full in the fields. After 24 hours of traveling, my body is only craving motionlessness and sleep and O! how glad I am to be home. I feel badly that I haven’t been writing...