Lizardek

24
Dec
2011

MERRY MERRY!

Anders and I just finished the wrapping, and all we have to do is put the last of the gifts under the tree after the kids are in bed, which they will be in a moment. Martin wins the biggest present under the tree this year; he’s going to goggle when he sees the package…it’s as tall as me! 😀 Our annual Ek Family Christmas letter is below, and here is a link to the photos that go with it. I’m glad that the only thing I have not managed to get done in the week since mostly recovering from...

22
Dec
2011

NOT QUITE STRESSMAS

Why is it that every year when I’m buying Christmas presents, and am so careful to keep the piles even, there inevitably comes a day about a week before the 25th where I get all the bags and boxes out of the closet and put them on the bed and divide them into their respective recipient piles and discover that one of the kids has a disproportionately larger pile of loot than the other, necessitating some rather panicked shopping expeditions in the worst of the holiday madness? Thought I was done. Turns out, I’m not. Even if it’s only a...

19
Dec
2011

KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

2 weekends ago, after I had spent Saturday night throwing up every hour on the hour and was lying in bed Sunday morning completely exhausted and feverish, my husband put his cool hand on my forehead and said, “STAY IN BED.” He brought me ice water and ginger ale when I moaned. He went to the store and bought a tin of gingersnaps because I thought I might be able to keep them down. He checked on me every so often and rubbed my neck when the headaches struck. When I was throwing up, he brought me water and went...

17
Dec
2011

DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

Being sick and bedridden for a week and a half does not make for exciting blog fodder. Disgusting blog fodder, maybe, but who wants to hear about that? I have not weighed myself to see how much weight I have lost in the past 8 days of not eating anything because today I ate. Actually I ate yesterday, too, but it was pretty minimal, and it was MEDICINAL and also, full of love vitamins: Anders made me chicken soup from scratch. Wasn’t that nice? There is a little bit left, and since there was also leftover macaroni from yesterday, I’m...

15
Dec
2011

NOT QUITE BACK FROM THE DEAD

In the past 8 days my to-do list has been quite ferocious. One might almost say it has been doing ME. I haven’t been tackling one or two items at a time…I’ve been coping with them pretty much all at once: sore throat head cold stomach flu fever chills aching diarrhea pneumonia (!) hacking cough and as if that list weren’t enough…menstruation Apparently, I even multi-task ILLNESS.

06
Dec
2011

UNINTENTIONAL HIATUS

You may think that managing to post every day in November wore me out so completely that I haven’t been able to manage a post since the 30th rolled by, but you’d be wrong. I actually barely squeaked my last NaBloPoMo post in because our Internet has been misbehaving (Bad Internet! BAD!) since then, and is STILL acting up. It won’t connect, or if it will, then it just as quickly disconnects, and the wireless won’t work and Anders is still traveling and AAAGH. It’s making me crazy. HOW DID WE LIVE WITHOUT THE INTERNET BEFORE?! Thank goodness I can...

30
Nov
2011

OUR MOM

Someone suggested that Martin and Karin write an Our Mom post like the ones I did about them. I will plan on doing one about Anders sometime, but he’s a lot more private than I am so I have to check with him first. 🙂 So, here is My Martin and My Karin about ME! —– Our mom is very weird 🙂 Our mom is veeery *cough* funny 🙂 Our mom embarrasses us by singing when our friends are here. Our mom is loving and caring, most of the time… 😉 Our mom wishes Karin would play Wordfeud with her...

29
Nov
2011

YOUR TURN

Augh! Only 2 days of November to go and damned if I know what to write about tonight! Anders left for Italy this afternoon. Now I have to get up early for 2 weeks to make sure Karin gets to school on time (she leaves before Martin & I do), URGH. I finished another project today and crossed a pile of stuff off my to-do list. Why is it that every time I upgrade iTunes or the iPad something doesn’t work?? I can’t get iTunes to open even though I’ve reinstalled it; it just keeps freezing. ARGH. Anyone out there...

28
Nov
2011

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

I realized a little while ago that I had never posted about the amazing job Anders did on renovating the playroom. I don’t have photos of the whole entire room, because we still have to hang paintings, but that’s not the important thing. The playroom was the first room, after the kids’ bedrooms that really needed an overhaul. It was very much a playroom from the beginning, when we built the house and the wallpaper was very much child-focused with blue skies full of fluffy clouds and green meadows full of fluffy sheep. We had shelves filled with games, lego,...

27
Nov
2011

AFTERMATH

Yesterday was great…everything went well, despite a last-minute cancellation from one family which brought our total down by 3 but ensured more turkey leftovers all around. The food was fantastic, from the main courses all the way through to 2 perfect pumpkin pies and an out-of-this world chocolate cake with candied cranberries on top. This year, people left at a fairly early-ish reasonable hour, which just meant that we were able to get the majority of the clean-up done before we went to bed last night. Karin took photos of the tables: we had 2 set up, one for the...