Woke up this morning with a migraine and was afraid to move for fear of throwing up. Anders dropped the kids off and I laid in bed until I could get up and fetch medicine. Then I fell back asleep. I made it to work at 10:30 but I don’t really feel up to par and I’m certainly not earning my salary yet. Anders brought me home a huge bouquet of red and yellow fluffy-edge tulips yesterday and we picked up the kids and went to Malmö for dinner at Jensens Bøfhus. Unfortunately their ice cream machine was broken so...

It was Friday night and I was a little nervous, although not so much because Linda and Nick were there. Linda, a colleague of mine, had been haranguing me for months to let her fix me up with this guy, a friend of Nick’s, but I was tired of the dating scene and not at all interested in a blind date. Then, on a work trip won as a sales incentive by our entire department, I met her husband Nick, and he started in on me, too. “You’ve got to meet him! You’re perfect for each other…he’s European and you...

A couple that we know, and that we are friends with, and that Anders has been friends with since he was a teenager, made the startling comment the other night at a party that they are not in the market for new friends. In fact, whenever the opportunity arises to get to know someone new or he, for example, says “We ought to invite that new couple over for dinner,” she panics and immediately squashes the whole idea…or vice versa. Considering that this is the first time we’ve seen them ourselves since February 2003, we can sort of understand where...

Things That Made Me Laugh Today: This blonde joke over at Genuine The spoiler on the back of my husband’s new motorcycle helmet A bulletpoint from a list of “Things That Are Different in Sweden” proclaiming that No salad is complete without grated carrots. It’s so TRUE! What’s up with the giant piles of grated carrots, already?! New blog find: Finslippy Being greeted by my kids with little red plastic lawn chairs upside down on their heads as I pulled into the driveway after work + Anders in motorcycle leathers = rowr! And Hey! Did you Ask Me Questions Yet?...

Okay, I’ll join the crowd. Ask me three questions, no more and no less. Three is the number thou shalt ask, and the number of the questions shall be three. Ask me anything you want. 🙂 Baaaa

thanks for the link, lonita! More Radiograph Flowers

Evening sunshine swung down and is shining low through our windows. Everything is lit and glowing. The horse out back is outlined in fire, limned in a rosy halo. I snuck out the back onto the porch, camera in hand, and he tossed his head and took off to the other end of the field. Camera-shy, I suppose. Anders and the kids went to Maria’s for dinner, mostly because her husband owns a welding torch and Anders has plans for several motorcycle pieces. I opted to stay home and continue my downtime day. 🙂 That’s a good thing, not a...

I got to hear the sound of rejoicing today. It’s a pity that we adults no longer remember those moments of epiphany when we suddenly GOT something for the very first time. When we figured out how to tie a shoe, or ride a bike with no training wheels, or how to say exactly the right thing so that Mommy would let us stay up for 10 more minutes. Martin has the most amazing belly laugh. When something strikes him as funny, he laughs his head off. He doesn’t hold back. It’s infectious and so inviting that I’m willing to...

I feel sure that my kids are on to me. We got home so late from the party last night that I forgot about hiding the eggs so they didn’t get hid until the kids were eating breakfast at 9 a.m. After they finished, and found them (in pathetically easy places), Martin made a remark that he had seen his Easter bag the day before in the kitchen. “Really? How strange,” I said and left it at that. They’re buzzing like candy bees now. I’m relatively ticked off at Anders about the party last night and my role as designated...

Dear Blogs I Like, You’re making me all sad with the no posting for days on end. I click on you each day, hoping for some scintillation, or even just a funny anecdote or a little word or two, and your post from February 28th or March 3rd or January 31st is still there. Refresh gets me nothing. Is it so hard to put your life aside for a moment and write about it? How can we who read you obsessively cheer, commiserate and laugh along with you if you stop posting? If it didn’t add to your surely already...