I’m sad and grumpy and snappy these days. Could it be the weather? (grey. grey. rain. grey) Could it be PMS? (3 candy bars consumed in the space of as many hours last night) Could it be work? (stress, more stress, oh and there’s some stress under there, you missed some) Yesterday, Anders took the kids and went over to his friend Mats’ house to practice their roast presentation for Mikael & Lene’s birthday party on Saturday. I had the house to myself. Nice and quiet. I ate dinner, read more of my book, surfed the web for a bit,...

Good: The phone shells I designed for the Z600 telephone arrived yesterday and after handing them out to co-workers, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and flattering. 🙂 Bad: Finding out that Martin’s first day of 1st grade starts on August 18th, meaning we can’t go to the States for the whole month of August and are essentially back to square one regarding tickets. 🙁 Ugly: Marabou has a new candy easter egg, Påsk Ägg, out that comes in a little purple 4-egg carton with two tiny plastic spoons. They are milk chocolate filled with milk buttercream. I am SO...

After having been told to come home at 5:30 for dinner and showing up half an hour late, Karin’s response when she came in the door and heard me exclaim “You’re half an hour late, young lady!”: Det gör ingenting, mamma.* Upon subsequently being told that yes, it does indeed make a difference, and if she chooses to be late again, that will be an end to playing with friends before dinner, now get over to the table and eat: Ni bara tjata på mig hela tiden!** And finally, opening the Easter card she received from Grandma Linda, flinging it...

I have to drag that string of Christmas lights sometime and it would be my own fault if some of the bulbs are cracked or missing or won’t light up, meaning that I couldn’t leave the day with a sad/bad post. Martin’s parent-teacher conference went well and Martin is apparently aceing everything in sight, prompting me to take the teacher aback by asking her about programs to help exceptional children (!) The only thing we need to be concerned about at this point is his tendency to take things personally. He is a sensitive kid and often gets very upset...

Once again, my husband left me with an empty gas tank this morning. argh I almost hit a car this morning on the way to work because the sun was shining from behind me and I didn’t see that he had his left-turn blinker on and thought he was going straight through the little traffic circle. 🙁 Still no reimbursement from work for those damned IKEA frames purchased over a month ago. The bill for over 5000 kronor has been paid by me, so we’re out that money completely for the moment until the finance department gets their thumb out...

Monday: Parent-Teacher conference for Martin Tuesday: Dentist appointment for Karin Wednesday: Choir Thursday: Buy and color eggs for Easter egg hunt Friday: Dinner with Anders’ family for Easter, also start of 4-day weekend, woo hoo! Saturday: Finish coloring eggs if necessary, double-40th birthday party for Mikael & Lene Sunday: AWC Easter egg hunt and picnic Monday: Collapse, muddy and exhausted

Penelope, over at Lopie’s Journal, posted a wonderful bit about laughter the other day and I just went back and read the comments and fell in love with people all over the place. Penelope’s question was “[If your laugh was captured in a jar], What would your laugh look like?” Here are some of the answers: …bright red and twirl around in a small circle and then burst like a firecracker. …composed of precisely one hundred and three twinkly little firefly bums burning bright pink that explode all at once in one wheezy, high pitched HEE. Sometimes the firefly bum...

The wind is playing games, whizzing and buzzing the treetops. Everything rattles and whistles when you go outside. The kids and I walked through sunshine and birdsong and windful flurries to the nursery and bought a flat of pansies and ivy and 2 big bags of dirt. On the way home, we stopped at the playground with the new playground equipment where Martin showed me how quickly he can pump up to speed on the swings and Karin sold me a cinnamon bun made of brown sand and white gravel. It looked like cinnamon and sugar, minus the bun. I...