Category: general

21
Mar
2012

HOLES TO HEAVEN

When the sky is clear at night and pitch black, we can see millions of stars. We can make out constellations (though sadly, we only know about 4 of them by heart) and we can practically reach out and touch the moon when it’s clear. It’s so CLOSE. It’s so bright! The moon isn’t full tonight, but the air is clear as all get out, which it was today as well, after the heavy fog cover burned off just past noon. The sky was a translucent robin’s egg blue, all over, with no flaws and no clouds. The flags around...

18
Mar
2012

I JUST CAN’T CONTAIN THIS FEELING THAT REMAINS

Aaaaand, there goes another weekend! The sun has set though we didn’t see much of it the past 2 days. It’s been grey and foggy and now it’s raining. I have been cleaning all damn weekend, so it doesn’t feel like I had any real time off from WORK. Just a different kind of work. Though I did take a 2-hour nap today after Martin and I got home from cleaning at his school for 2.5 hours. It’s a parent-cooperative and we are supposed to go twice a year on their Fixer-days and clean. I would rather pay something to...

12
Mar
2012

THAT PUNCHY FEELING YOU GET IN THE WEE HOURS WHEN EVERYTHING IS FUNNY

I used to stay up late, crafting the perfect post, meticulously searching for the right words, the best phrasing and the funniest anecdotes. Now it’s barely 10 p.m. and I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open. Something keeps waking me up around 4 a.m. on work nights. I can’t really get back to sleep and only doze on and off until the alarm blares to life 2+ hours later. I don’t know what it is that is waking me up. Could it be the birds starting their early-morning chirp-fest since the light is brightening early again? Could it...

09
Mar
2012

EAT. PIE. LOVE.

At the last AWC board meeting, we were discussing the seeming apathy of our club members who aren’t signing up for or participating in many of the activities that are being up on the calendar by our hard-working activities officers. It’s hard organizing activities; it’s a total crapshoot. You never know what’s going to work and what isn’t…some years things get a great turn-out and the next year the same thing has to be cancelled. There are so many factors: time of year, day of week, whether the activity costs money, whether it falls after payday, whatever. You just try...

07
Mar
2012

WAITING FOR SPRING

Being alone makes me introspective; how could it not? I think about things I don’t normally have time to think about, when there’s no pull of constant obligation tugging at my sleeve. I wonder what I’m doing here, what I’ve done, if it was worth it. I’m not done yet, not by far, but sometimes I wonder what exactly I am planning to do with this “one wild and precious life”. (…time passes while I go and read Mary Oliver poems online…) Dichotomy at play: years of experience fill me up and yet there are so many things I haven’t...

05
Mar
2012

THE OLDER WE GET, THE BETTER WE USED TO BE*

Some days I can’t settle at all and others that’s all I seem to be doing. I look at the backs of my hands and think how much smoother they used to be. The crosshatching has always been there; I remember it clearly yet it seems so much more prominent now. The knuckles knobblier, the grooves …groovier. I still bear, here and there, the tiny white scars of cat scratches from long-ago, they’ve faded a great deal. The veins, on the other hand, are not fading, quite the opposite. My hands are still smooth, but not when they are bent...

03
Mar
2012

BITS OF TID

FBAR: forms for the past 6 years have been completed, printed, ready to copy & mail in…what a load off my mind! Double Dog Dare: Swedish Citizenship application has been mailed in! I’ve heard everything for turnaround time from 2 weeks to 8 months…here’s hoping for shorter, since I need my passport back by May. Family: off on their ski vacation; so I have the house to myself until Thursday night! Game: The whole family is addicted to Draw Something. Do you have it on your iPhone or iPad? It’s like Pictionary in your pocket! Barky: losing it. The amount...

26
Feb
2012

THE BOOK OF MARTIN & KARIN

One of the perfect present projects that I did for this past Christmas involved going through hundreds of digital photos on the many, many DVDs we have. I was collecting the best photos of Martin and Karin through the years to produce a photo book that would be printed and bound for the 2 grandmothers. The problem was that my kids are so darn cute it was nearly impossible to edit down the giant folder full of photos I ended up with. And that wasn’t even counting baby photos, which I didn’t include at all. The photos ranged from about...

23
Feb
2012

EVERY LINE IS THE PERFECT LENGTH IF YOU DON’T MEASURE IT*

Did you see the moon smiling at us tonight as it rose tonight? I wonder what it saw that made it so happy? The sky was so clear and black and spangled with stars and that cheshire-moon grinning down. If he’da had fingers, he’da snapped ’em! The other day at work, one of the product marketing managers came over to ask me what the correct measurement term in English was to use for a length that was longer than feet but not into miles. “Yards,” I said, “Football fields are measured in yards, and that’s a long distance,” but then...

18
Feb
2012

SNIPPETS, GAMES, PAPERWORK & DOGS

Loads of laundry so far today: 5 and counting Piles of paperwork I have waded through so far today: 42 and counting. Seriously! The paperwork! Holy deforestation, batman: SO MUCH PAPER. When I think of all the paper I have received, used, wasted, saved in my life, not even including how much paper is in ALL THE BOOKS I’ve read, borrowed, bought, loaned, given away) my head hurts. The amount of BANK STATEMENTS alone is discombobulating. We keep binders full of “important papers” that go back, in many cases, around 10 years, often more. They include bank accounts, fund statements,...

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