Author: lizardek

11
Jan
2014

SEVENTEEN

17 years in Sweden, today. 17 years of lagom and fika and myskväll. 17 years of eating mazariner and semlor and kassler and köttbullar. 17 years of taking my shoes off when I come in the house. 17 years of speaking and thinking in and dreaming in Swedish. 17 years of trying not to complain about the weather and being glad every time I see the sun. 17 years of meters and liters and celsius. 17 years of missing family and friends from the States, but 17 years of making new ones here, both friends and family. 17 years of...

10
Jan
2014

THREE STRIKES YOU’RE OUT

Today was my day for what Martin so amusingly terms my “spelunking procedure” or in other words, the hospital visit to have my IUD retrieved and replaced. I got a call from the nurse on Wednesday to tell me my operation time was at 10:00 a.m. and that I was not to eat anything after midnight the night before, and that I could only drink water or “clear liquids” up to 2 hours beforehand. Does vodka count as a clear liquid? Inquiring mind wanna know. Last night I was kind of freaking out about the whole thing and I couldn’t...

09
Jan
2014

A LONG TIME AGO

When I was a kid, we often went on road trips. I suspect this was because, as a military family, we never lived in the same state as our grandparents or other relatives and had to travel to see them, which we did a lot. We drove to Michigan to visit my mom’s parents and see all our cousins and aunts and uncles and we drove to Chicago to see my dad’s mother. There were three of us kids in the back seat of the station wagon… the big boat of a brown station wagon with wood side panels. Often...

06
Jan
2014

ERIN GO BRAGH!

Today was a holiday (Twelfth Night/Epiphany) and I had hoped to get outside for a bit but it was pouring down rain most of the day, so I stayed inside and worked on projects instead. Anders removed the lights from the trees and took them apart. You should have seen the circle of green needles on the floor in the playroom! An inch deep! It took me nearly all day to pack up the tree ornaments, but I finally got it done, and then promptly covered the dining room table again with DVDs. I want to inventory what we have,...

04
Jan
2014

WHAT’S GOING ON

2014! I have only worked two days, since last week was a short week, and next week is a short week too, with this 3-day weekend inbetween and the fact that I have next Friday off to go to the hospital and have the you-know-what RETRIEVED and REPLACED. I think all the weekends should be 3-day ones. Don’t you? My first project on my giant long project list is done: cleaning out the computer room closets and organizing the cables. OMG the cables. When I spread them all out, they covered the dining room table. And then I found some...

31
Dec
2013

RETROSPECTIVE

haven’t checked to see how many years I’ve been writing a retrospective on the last day of the year, but it’s been several and it’s always fun to go back and look at what I was reading and watching and listening to. My goals don’t seem to change much, but that’s okay. Debbie, Camilla and I had a sleepover a couple of nights ago, which was very fun (and caused my daughter envy) at which we just talked and ate and watched movies. We saw Bright Star and The Adjustment Bureau, both of which were excellent in very different ways....

30
Dec
2013

NO COAL AT ALL

Just a select few of the photos that Anders and Mom and I took during her visit and the holidays. She’s already gone to Germany and it went too fast, as always. We haven’t even heard that she got there okay…assuming she’s adjusting from teenagers to toddlers & babies! I can’t believe there is only one more day to 2013! Happy New Year! Anders with his mom on Christmas Eve Julbord! Martin opens his big present OMG a typewriter! Be careful what you wish for! (actually, it’s really cool and over 100 years old!) Best for last, of course! New...

26
Dec
2013

TIME FOR JOY AND TIME FOR CHEER

Karin was going crazy in the days leading up to Christmas: the anticipation was too much for her. She couldn’t sleep and she counted down the hours like a proper OCD sufferer, mentioning the fact that it was “nearly Christmas” almost every hour of the last couple of days. On Christmas morning I found her asleep on the living room sofa…she hadn’t been able to fall asleep in her own bed. We had our usual Swedish/American traditional mix of celebrating: Swedish on Christmas Eve with Anders’ family over, a Swedish julbord made by Anders and his mom that included homemade...

24
Dec
2013

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER

How can it possibly have been a whole year since we were home for the holidays in the US last Christmas?? Every year I say time flies, and every year it just flies faster. This year, for once, Liz did more traveling than Anders! She went on several work trips, including jaunts to Madrid, Turin, Paris, Singapore (!) and the US. Anders did a 2-week stint in Bangkok and a week’s conference in Finland. Anders was honored at a ceremony for his 25-year anniversary with Tetra Pak (it was actually 27 years!) and received a gold watch. He went on...

17
Dec
2013

DO YOU NOM WHAT I NOM

I am officially on vacation! WOOT! We’ve been baking and wrapping and decorating and shopping and eating and putting up trees. We have a HUGE tree in the living room (the big tree) and a little tree in the playroom (the kid tree) and both of them are now decorated, though there are a lot of ornaments that didn’t fit, even with TWO trees. We went last Saturday and cut down the big tree and then bought the little tree but when we put them up, and got the lights out, we discovered there were two many sections of lights...

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