Author: lizardek

One of the things that arrived in the several packages that we’ve gotten recently from my mom is a CD of American patriotic songs, which I asked her to find. I wanted it for my kids because otherwise, there are hardly any occasions here in Sweden where they will actually hear these songs as they grow up. I just put it in the CD player to listen to while I check email tonight and by god, it’s stirring! 🙂 Okay, well, maybe not stirring, but as a military brat, it does give me a certain frisson of patriotic emotion that...

Halloween cards for the kids (hey, where’s MINE?!) came in the mail yesterday from my mom, and since they were full of stickers, the kids were thrilled. Martin had a card with pumpkins and the stickers were the parts needed to make jack-o-lanterns out of them. Apparently, they’ve been talking about ghosts and goblins for 2 weeks at school, and now Martin is scared of the dark. He freaked out on a walk around the block a couple of nights ago with Anders and Karin, and Anders said he was literally shaking. This was WITH his father and sister, on...

22nd: Choir 23rd: Grocery shopping, laundry, work on AWC website/newsletter 24th: Overnight work event 25th: Martin to birthday party, finish AWC website/newsletter 26th: Martin to birthday party, carve pumpkins 27th: AWC monthly meeting 28th: Surprise birthday party for a friend, Anders leaves for 3-day trip to England 29th: Choir 30th: Haircut/color, make Halloween desserts, gather Halloween decorations for Saturday 31st: Halloween party & trick-or-treating 1st: AWC Halloween party

work: competent, helpful, fast, busy home: impatient, tired, silly, happy, busy club: generous, energetic, friendly, busy

Yesterday morning, and after we got home from Helsingborg, Martin spent several hours engaged in putting together a godisjakt (candy hunt) for Anders and Karin to do. He worked really hard on it, and the whole thing was his own idea. They’ve been practicing following complicated instructions at school, so I’m guessing this is an offshoot of that. He came to me early in the morning and asked me to spell a few things for him, and spent about an hour cutting out letters and drawing little faces on them. Anders told me later how it went. First they had...

The lemurs were loose. The tamarins were, too (and some had babies!). So were the iguanas. The Tropikariet was great, and the kids loved it. First, we drove to Helsingborg and had a very American Sunday brunch at a place called O’Leary’s. There is a new owner who turned out to be quite the asshole, as he apparently gave Neitha a huge headache when she called to reserve our tables by telling her that they didn’t do the buffet anymore. She held him to the promises the previous owner had made her, and he was rude to all of us,...

That’s what I’ve got. They’re huge. I hate them. Today I’m wearing a brand new bra that my mother got for me, and unfortunately, I feel like I ought to be wearing an 1800’s decolletage gown that pushes up my bosom, at a ball, with a lacy fan in front of me, my hair up in sweeping curls and a beauty mark on my cheek. Whoa. Our house is getting to the point of being so clean that if the sun was shining, it would sparkle. 3 more rooms done today and the floors in the entire house except the...

Märta and Einar will be here any time to start the cleaning marathon. However, first I MUST go to the store because we ran out of toilet paper. I’ve known it was coming all week, but was too busy and never near a store to do anything about it, and Anders didn’t remember either. He probably never thought about actually, because he’s a man, and men don’t have running grocery lists in their heads at all times. The sushi dinner last night was good, if a little weird. There was lettuce in all the rolls. It wasn’t bad or anything,...

I thought I was just getting used to it and didn’t hear it anymore, but it turns out the woman that owns the farm behind us has “eliminated” one of her roosters. His constant crowing, 24-7, and egging on all the other birds finally did him in. I can’t believe it took nearly TWO years for her to do something about it. Someone must have complained. It wasn’t us, I swear, even though the constant crowing, starting around 5 a.m., and continuing throughout the day had us daydreaming rather frequently about coq au vin. I saw today as I stood...

Thank God It’s Almost Friday 🙂 Anders and the kids made homemade pizzas for dinner, just as I was heading out the door for social circle at Sigurborg’s. I wanted to stay so badly…but, commitments… 🙁 argh Anyway, it was a nice evening, even though I was the only other member of the AWC there. Sigurborg had invited 3 of her neighbors (1 didn’t show) and another woman from Iceland who is planning on joining. We spoke Swedish the entire time, and each one of them at some point complimented me on my Swedish. I’m really beginning to wonder when...