Several of my online friends are getting started on their Great American Novel thanks to National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it’s affectionately if unpronounceably called. The peculiar thing is that in reading about all their preparations and such, I’ve had absolutely NO desire to join in this phenomenon myself. The reason I find this peculiar is because I started this online journal with the intent of kick-starting my own writing again. However, since I work best on short pieces and poetry, I guess it’s not all that strange. Plus, the idea of adding another commitment to my already...

Came home yesterday from work to find our pumpkin sitting in the window wearing a veil of grey and white fuzzy mold while one side of his face was sunken in like he’d had a mild stroke. sigh. We still have one in the garage, but here’s betting it’s rotten too. Pumpkins make the loudest thump when you drop them into the garbage container. Halloween, however, was the biggest success and so much fun, thanks to the capability of my friend Debbie to transform things for everyone around her. She literally turned a neighborhood in Ljunghusen, Sweden into a suburb...

I’ve been added to someone’s blogroll! How cool is that? I know carrieb gets this all the time, and is probably thinking, whoop-te-doo, but it’s my first time and I’m feeling very groovy at the moment. I might have to lean back and smoke a cigarette against the pillows. Go read the She-Dork!

Why am I still up, again? Oh, yes, because I do this TO MYSELF! However, I’m officially, if temporarily, de-poodled, so I’m feeling pretty good. Had a BA* at work today and it was showing, but guess what, I don’t care! *sings I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care!* I vegged at the beauty salon and read most of Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, which is excellent. Got home at 6:30, ate dinner, talked to my brother and then my husband on the phone (plane delayed, argh), popped the kids in the bath and then into...

Nothing much happens in Sweden. Which I’m grateful for today when reading what’s going on in California. The wildfires have destroyed an area the size of Chicago, one paper said. Chicago!? The mind boggles. Things to be grateful we don’t have here: earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires that eat entire states, gigantic mudslides, drought, famine, military juntas, Richard Simmons. I had a 2-minute intense mindcramp this morning when I was thisclose to staying in bed and blowing off EVERYTHING for the next few days. I’m pretty close to crashing and burning and am having to run a little refrain in the...

Summary of Dr. Phil’s The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, so that you don’t have to buy it: Thank you, Witt & Wisdom for making me snort water out my nose.

The birthday party went off without any major hitches, and the kids were perfectly okay staying at Katarina’s place with her very accommodating babysitter while we were at the restaurant. They watched Cinderella, Lady & the Tramp, and Bambi while we were gone, so I’m pretty sure I overpaid the babysitter since she apparently didn’t do much. Oh well, it was last minute, and she did end up with 3 kids instead of 1. The restaurant was tapas, and they were quite good. I agitated to leave pretty early though, since it was a work night and I had the...

This morning on the way to work a bird hit the top of the windshield with a sound like the end of the world. Gone, just like that. The sky looks like an unending field of dirty cotton batting. Everything looks wet, but not washed. The meeting last night went well. I had sushi for dinner, by myself, which was actually kind of nice. We had a guest speaker, a man from India with blue eyes who told us all about the history and manufacture of persian rugs and treated us to a wonderful chicken curry. Did you know that...

while carving pumpkins yesterday…

It’s another gorgeous crispy cold day. I got to sleep in an extra hour because of daylight savings turning back the clock. But I still forgot and had a panic later in the day until I was told that the clock I was looking at was still wrong. Karin seems to be completely recovered from whatever bug she had yesterday. The kids went to Scouts this morning with Anders and they fished for bugs in the lake, but it’s been so cold they didn’t find any. They were also filmed by Finnish TV while they sat reading a story under...