Lizardek

22
Jan
2012

GO GO GO GRABOTE!

Whoa! Where did the week go? Why does this always happen to me? 😀 As glad as I am to be back to regular routine, I think I’d managed to forget how it grabs you and speeds you along without giving you any time to get your arms and legs inside the ride. What with the crazy busy at work all day and some activity/errand/to-do every evening, 7 days fly by before I can take a breath and realize it’s the weekend again. And too soon, another new week. No wonder Christmas seems to be constant…it’s already the end of...

16
Jan
2012

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

For some people, a to-do list gets the job done: just seeing their projects or errands laid out in black and white is enough to get them buzzing. But for other things, the ones that sit and percolate in the back of your mind, but never seem to get bumped to the top of the priority list, it might take something a bit more drastic. One way to get motivated when you have things to get done is to set yourself a deadline. Another way is to dare yourself…or better yet, have someone else dare you. People procrastinate for all...

12
Jan
2012

THE WEEK OF GOOD IDEAS

I don’t know if it’s the mental stimulation of getting back to regular routine after what seems AGES of being discombobulated by first major illness and then seemingly endless holidays, but I have been a font of great ideas this week. It’s a fun feeling, I have to say…especially when they come all in a bunch. Every year at work, we publish our Strategic Outlook for the year. I’ve been doing the creative layout for several years, getting the content from the CEO and CTO and various other management team VPs and putting it together into an 8-page brochure that...

11
Jan
2012

15 YEARS IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

15 years ago I landed in Sweden, on January 11th, the day after Anders’ sister’s second child was born. We went straight from the airport to the patient hotel to see her and the baby. Last night, after we toasted Henrik’s birthday, talk turned, as it does every year, to the fact that it was an anniversary for me, too. I wonder if Henrik gets sick of hearing about my moving to Sweden every year on HIS birthday. Anders and I had been married 6 months. I had been to Sweden 3 times: a visit during Christmastime while we were...

09
Jan
2012

STARTING LINE

I’m motivated to do some things, but not others. I have a long mental list of things I want to get done, resolutions to get started on, overdue and neglected projects to start back up. Instead, I find myself reading. Big surprise! I haven’t even made a real to-do list for much of it because I …can’t figure out where to start. If I send myself email reminders about urgent or semi-urgent things, I get them done, but though it seems smart to send myself emails that say: Call the immigration board about residence card or Schedule appointment with new...

05
Jan
2012

SOFT START

The Swedes have a saying about getting a “soft start” on something (mjukstart), which means to ease in gradually. Right now we are having a mjukstart to the year, which we have every year here due to the fact that January 6 is a National Holiday. It’s Epiphany, which is a religious holiday in a very non-religious country. In fact, the calendar year is full of national holidays based on the old religious celebrations, though they did take away Whitsun a few years ago, or rather traded it for Sweden’s National Day (June 6). Last year, after January 6 we...

04
Jan
2012

DISBELIEF

I’m so sad and upset…one of my favorite people on LJ, someone I’ve been reading practically since I started writing this journal, just passed away. She was the most lovely person, full of wonderful, hilarious observations and stories and a quirky fantastic writer. I’m thankful that I ordered a book of her short stories a few years back so that I can read her words whenever I want to, but O!!! How can the place where her voice was be silenced? My heart goes out to her daughter and the rest of her family. jackiejj, you will be SO missed....

01
Jan
2012

FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE

I’ve often heard the adage that how you spend the first day of the year is how you will spend ALL of it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily true. However, if it is, I will be sleeping, eating, reading, listening to music, doing laundry, having computer issues and relaxing. Which, apart from working and my social life, is basically a thorough summary of how I spent LAST year so maybe the adage is backwards! I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions…I find, like most people, that the motivation disappears quickly, and so I try to set some manageable goals...

30
Dec
2011

RETROSPECTIVE

n just over a week, I will have been in Sweden for 15 years. It’s hard to believe that much time has gone by, because mostly, it seems to have happened in the blink of an eye. Didn’t I just move here? Can I really speak Swedish? Are my kids really this tall? This has been a good year for us, and it has also zoomed by almost too fast for me to keep track of. I’ve managed to slow down to an almost dead stop this week though, and have found (rather to my surprise), that I really NEEDED...

26
Dec
2011

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

One thing that I love to do when giving gifts is to shock the recipient into speechlessness. It’s not very easy to do, and it takes a lot of hard work and observation and sometimes sheer audacity and unexpectedness. Anders and I have done a pretty good job of it the past few years when it’s come to the kids’ Christmas gifts. But with a gift they NEVER expected, from parents who have always said, “No way, save your money, those are too expensive,” we managed to shock the both of them into complete speechlessness this year. Everything else they...

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