Sick to my stomach this morning, presumably from stress, since I know I’m not pregnant and I don’t think I have a flu bug. 🙁 bleah Getting up earlier than normal and racing around like an idiot getting kids dressed and ready, plus eating breakfast, which is not a normal activity I indulge in, are the most likely culprits. Plus I’m so tired I feel I could just pass out any second. I’m at work, but considering either using the “nap room” or going home for a few hours. I can’t be sick…I have a concert tonight. I feel like...

Raindrops keep falling on my head! But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red, crying’s not for me, oh, I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining… The rain may fall mainly on the plain in Spain, but here in Lund, it falls EVERYWHERE. And lots of it. It’s been pouring since I got to work and no signs of it letting up, according to the solid wall of white above us. I got the news a couple of days ago that my great-aunt Flossie passed away on Sunday evening. She was 98 years old and apparently...

After Quasimodo’s death, the bishop of the Cathedral of Notre Dame sent out word through the streets of Paris that he needed a new bell ringer. He chose to audition applicants for the job himself, and climbed up into the belfry tower with the first handful that applied. Having heard and dismissed each of them, he was about to call it a day when an armless man came dashing up the stairs and exclaimed, “Our Grace, please allow me to audition as your bell ringer!” The Bishop was stunned. “But, my good man, you have no arms.” “No matter,” the...

I ended up with Toby because my boss thought he was my cat, Pooka, and she trapped him under a milk crate behind the café. No one claimed him, and after a couple of weeks he was mine. Pooka, needless to say, was neither thrilled nor amused at the addition of a big, dumb GUY to the household. The vet estimated he was about 8 months old, and he was in good health for having been on the streets for an unknown period. He looked exactly like Pooka except for his size and a pink nose. Pooka was a tiny...

(Be grateful: I left a lot of them out) aunt as in ant been as in ben caramel as in car-ml crayon as in cran creek as in kreek mary/merry/marry are pronounced the same, dammit mayonnaise as in man-aiyz both miss-chiv-us and miss-chee-vee-us pee-CAN unless it’s pee-kahn pie poem has only one syllable, dammit etc = et-setra or et-setera It’s a faucet, dammit umBRELLa dragged (but I have to admit I thought drug for a second) you all or you guys one modal at a time, dammit none of those uses of anymore are acceptable, dammit garage sale or yard...

My daughter has been singing the refrain all day to the Netherlands entry from the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. The song is about Dick—a friend of the singer’s mother. As the result of a cerebral haemorrhage Dick is completely paralyzed. He can only blink his eyes and uses them to communicate with other people. It was called “Mijn ogen zeggen alles” (My eyes will tell), which Karin has been rendering as “mina ögon säger Alice” 🙂 Scored 4 books while in town shopping, and not one of them was on my book list (sorry, Mom!) They’re all hugely thick and...

It’s about as grey as it can be outside without a blanket of fog. When Ericsson was in the middle of the product launch for their first Bluetooth headset, I was asked to come up with color names for the product description*. You would think there aren’t that many ways to describe grey, but you’d be wrong. Knowing a lot of different ways to describe grey comes in handy when living in Sweden, at least when it comes to the weather. I’m sending my children off to terrorize some other poor mother on her day of rest and not feeling...

Next time Anders is out of town and one of Martin or Karin’s little friends wants to come over to play on the day you had planned on relaxing, politely suggest that it’s their turn to host. The decision to stop after two children was the right one, no doubt about it.

I think the sign of a successful potluck is when the dessert-to-other-food ratio is 3 to 1. You would have hated it, galestorm, it was one of those pregnancy/delivery conversation evenings because 2 people were pregnant (a second-timer, and a first-timer with twins on the way) and 1 has a 6-month old, so those of us who have already had children spent quite a bit of time scaring the bejeezus out of poor Laurie with horror stories. 🙂 Hey, it happened to ME, it’s only fair to pass the experience along! muahaha! Since we didn’t get home until after 10,...