Category: general

01
Dec
2006

AND I’M NOT EVEN IN A POST-NABLOPOMO SLUMP

Heading into Christmas crazyness and I sit here and feel I have nothing to say that is interesting (even to me) since my life is one gigantic to-do list right now. I did SO MUCH today, I am giving myself a pat on the back for all my accomplishments, and it’s only 10:30! Who knows what else I can get done before I go to bed? This weekend the kids and Anders are going to an overnight Christmas Scout camp, and I am singing in 5 concerts at elderly care homes around Malmö. It’s fun but it sure takes up...

28
Nov
2006

COOKIES REDUX

What’s better: taking a bag of Reindeer Poop cookie bags to divvy out to a bunch of excited cookie-loving women, knowing that they are the BEST (also best-named) COOKIES THERE… …or bringing home 12 bags of different kinds of cookies, INCLUDING 2 bags of your very favorite cookie in the WHOLE WORLD: *crescendo* Fudge Puddles! Or, as I like to refer to them: double-stuffed-addictioncup-porncookies. After a fairly stressful day and a VERY stressful 2 hours after work, when I raced home to pick up the kids, drove to farmor and farfar’s house to drop them off, raced off again with...

27
Nov
2006

HAPPINESS IS A HAPPY LIST FULL OF THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

Reasons for happy (other than COOKIES!, which really, what more do you need? I am spoiled rotten with the good things) Anders is on a business trip to Germany, but that’s not the good thing; however, he gets to spend the evening with my brother John and his lovely wife Simone, and I’m glad about that. Leftover turkey in sandwiches and with stuffing and coming up, in a casserole! YUM! I did an 8-page brochure layout at work and my colleague, who is the Approval Master Past Whom All Collateral Must Flow and who is really, really good, albeit really...

26
Nov
2006

C IS FOR COOKIE, THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

Considering that I didn’t go to sleep until 4 a.m., I think only sleeping in until 11 was pretty good. Other than running the dishwasher 2x and handwashing a boatload of wineglasses and reading a really good modern fairytale, I spent most of my day with chocolate hands:

25
Nov
2006

ANTICIPATION

I’m just waiting for the guests to arrive. Everything is done and in its place. Karin and Martin helped clean the house and picked up their rooms with dispatch. Karin went beyond the call of 7-year-old duty afterwards by dusting, windexing and wiping lightswitches and doorsills. I zoomed off to the grocery store for the last-minute items and when I returned I vacuumed and set both tables…after taking an hour’s rest to lie down and finish my book. Anders finished the other turkey a moment ago, the house is redolent with good smells. Potatoes are peeled and in the pot...

23
Nov
2006

GRATITUDE IS THE BEST ATTITUDE

It’s Thanksgiving in America, but here in Sweden it was just another regular work day. Except for all my American colleagues who wished me a Happy Thanksgiving and the thanks-filled posts I saw online and an elevated mood on my part (defiantly ignoring the rain), there wasn’t much different about the day. We had our annual wreath-making workshop tonight and despite the fact that half the people who were signed up bailed, the 4 of us who were there had a great time and lots of laughs, while the rain pounded futilely on the corrugated roof. Haha! we said, you...

21
Nov
2006

WRITING IS THINKING WITH YOUR FINGERS

My days are sandwiched in darkness. Every morning shines a damp and lambent greeting from a rain-streaked windowpane. The street outside glows wetly, it brightens slowly with the cloud cover as the sun comes up and pales everything to a lighter shade. As I drive to work, quietly humming to the split-splat of water on the windshield and the swish-swish as the silver ribbons are wiped and renewed from the glass, the streetlights are just turning off. I’ve been barely taking 15 or at the most 20 minutes for lunch lately, it’s been so busy and with the clouds hunkered...

20
Nov
2006

SPINNING RIGHT ROUND BABY RIGHT ROUND

I am rocking the Christmas present buying all over town! Go me! woo hoo! Yeah. That’s what I spent my evening doing and now I am officially half done. Well, maybe more like 2/3’s done, but still. Much closer to done than I was this afternoon. Work is killing me with the busyness. Life is killing me with the busyness. I am so busy that it feels as if my hair is a-crackle. As if my neck vertebrae are not up to par, since they are squinchy and tight. As if my head would spin round if it could, but...

19
Nov
2006

THERE’S SO MUCH THAT WE SHARE, THAT IT’S TIME WE’RE AWARE

On Friday, Anders and Karin accompanied me to dinner with the AWC at a Thai restaurant in Malmö (Martin was at a birthday party). There were 13 people signed up for the dinner, but after 20 minutes only 7 had showed up so one of the other girls and I proceeded to make a few phone calls to the missing people to make sure they hadn’t forgotten the event. I called Katie and when she answered the phone, said brightly, “Hey! Did you forget it was Thai Night?” only to hear her catch her breath and try to stop a...

18
Nov
2006

PARTY PRETENDERS

We’ve been invited to a black tie cocktail party tonight, hosted by a colleague. We only had a week’s notice on the invitation because Francois knew I don’t drink so he thought I wouldn’t be interested in attending a cocktail party but my other colleague Barbara told him he should extend the invitation and let me make up my own mind whether or not we wanted to come. The biggest problem with this invitation wasn’t at all the drinks issue, it was the BLACK TIE. We are just not black tie kind of people. We don’t have any clothing that...

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