Category: general

13
Jan
2022

START ART!

I just thought of something I’d like to do for a goal for 2022, and since it’s already mid-January, I’d better get started! I think I’d like to try doing art at least once a month. I haven’t done anything since the early days of this blog in the early 2000s with the collage book I started then. I used to be so crafty and artistic. Now I just LOOK at other artists’ work on Instagram instead of creating my own. Heck, even my mom paints and she’s in her 80s, so what’s my excuse?? It’s an excellent idea for...

07
Jan
2022

TO MULTI-TASK OR NOT TO MULTI-TASK

Do you work on several projects/chores at once, rotating between them, or do you do one thing at a time, not starting the next until the current one is finished? I work the first way. It’s not really multi-tasking, even though I may have several tasks in progress at the same time, because you can only work on one thing at a time. Right now, I have laundry going (the wash load is done, waiting on the dryer, which takes forever), the tree is halfway denuded of ornaments (all of which are laid out on the dining room table because...

06
Jan
2022

CLEAR SKIES, CLEAR MIND

It’s the start of a long weekend, after only 3 days of work following Christmas vacation. Feels pretty decadent, especially considering how long I slept in this morning. I woke up at 7, and was very sneezy and stuffed-up, and at 8 I gave up and read in bed for awhile, before falling back asleep. I think it was my body telling me I needed the extra rest because I felt much better after I got up. Anders (who has been sick all last week) just got the results back from his PCR test: negative, so at least whatever he...

01
Jan
2022

RABBITS RABBITS RABBITS

The first day of a new year. I haven’t even been outside, but that’s fine. We didn’t get home until after 2 am last night, and I slept hard, waking around 9:30, though I didn’t get up right away. When I did, I got a lot of little things done before settling down on the sofa to read. Martin is at work, and Anders had to drive back to Mats & Annelott’s this afternoon because he forgot his phone at their house last night. Hard to believe that tomorrow is my last day of vacation (even if next week is...

31
Dec
2021

RETROSPECTIVE

t’s been another crazy pandemic year and it’s still ongoing so I don’t expect a lot from 2022 at this point. We are all managing to stay healthy, even though as I write this Anders is coughing. Both he and Karin came down with colds over Christmas week, but have tested negative multiple times and he’s at the very tail end of his. I am back at work as of Monday but it’s another short week, only 3 days, so a nice soft start to the year. Martin and I just finished the super hard jigsaw puzzle of a map...

28
Dec
2021

EASE ON DOWN THE ROAD

One of my goals for 2021 was to walk a 5K every month in addition to the nearly daily walking I was already doing. My usual routes are either a double-helix around the neighborhood (approx. 1 kilometer), or a 1.5K zigzagging up the neighborhood and then over and around and down below the school, or a 2.5K which goes around the school, over into the village and all the way down the goats and back. It’s harder to keep up the commitment in the winter when the roads are icy, and they stay icy in our neighborhood for a really...

26
Dec
2021

POST-HOLIDAY BLISS

It’s the day after Christmas, at the end of 2021. It was a good Christmas in many ways…the four of us back together and everything ready in plenty of time so no one was stressed. I had most of my shopping done by the end of November, almost all of it done online, and the last of the things I ordered arrived well in advance. Karin helped Anders with ordering stuff for me, so he wasn’t stressed out either, at least not that I could tell. 🙂 We did a big grocery shop for both Christmas eve and Christmas day...

23
Dec
2021

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2021

This year started as the last one ended, with the pandemic still in full swing. Liz worked from home full-time all the way from October 2020 until the end of the summer this year, when she started back in the office 50%. She’s now up to 70% but is actually hoping to still be able to continue to work from home part-time. In January, Karin moved into a new apartment in Lund. She was still working at Flyinge School. Martin was working at Dominos Pizza in Detroit, still basically hunkered down in quarantine mode. On New Year’s Day, we got...

16
Dec
2021

BEGIN AGAIN

I can’t begin to count the number of times I think about writing here, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of times I think about calling someone I love, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of things I think about taking a photograph of, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of TV series and movies I think about watching, and don’t. I can’t begin to count the number of things that will never live on for posterity because they happen and I didn’t memorialize them in either words or pictures. Ah...

04
Dec
2021

COUNTING DOWN

We’re now in the end run, counting down through the last month of the year. The clock on 2021 is running out. Thankfully, the clock to the winter solstice is counting up and it’s only a month, give or take, until the darkest day, and then the slow return of the light. We’ve had snow on the ground for a week, and extremely cold temperatures. Here in Flyinge, for some reason, everything sticks and ices over and hangs on for weeks after the rest of SkÃ¥ne to the south of us has melted. It’s pretty, so I mostly don’t mind,...