Lizardek

16
May
2023

UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

Work is crazy right now. Which makes me laugh, because when is work ever not crazy? Work is ALWAYS crazy. The stream of incoming work is always equal to or bigger than the stream of finished, closed work each day. Even though I truly love my job, and what I do, sometimes it’s a lot. Sometimes you just want to take a breath and sit back for a minute. Sometimes you just want to be able to really concentrate on designing something excellent, instead of putting out fires and scrambling to get things done as quickly as possible because you’ve...

14
May
2023

MEDICALLY SPEAKING

We’ve had better weeks. I’m hoping tomorrow starts off a new week with more positive things in it than negative. Even though I don’t write much about the negative things, especially on FB where I write daily good things lists, there are still sometimes unpleasant or bad things happening in my life that color everything else. Even if I can always find good things each day, that doesn’t mean that an accumulation of non-good things doesn’t sometimes take its toll. On Wednesday, I saw the diabetes nurse, and my blood sugar levels were up again. No surprise, considering they were...

02
May
2023

FILLING UP

May and June and July calendars are rapidly filling up. I’m still boggling over the fact that it’s already May. So much going on right now that it makes my head spin, and since it’s full-blown allergy season right now, that’s not necessarily a good thing. We just had our first long weekend, kicking off the long weekend season. It’s the first holiday since Easter, which was the the beginning of April, and itself the first holiday of the year after January 6th. It’s a long way between January 6 and April 7 (Good Friday this year). You’d think they’d...

25
Apr
2023

THIS TIME EVERY YEAR

I suppose bitching about the US government and their continuing insistence upon forcing their citizens to file taxes every year, even if they live and work in a foreign country and pay taxes there, is not a smart thing to do, but ARGH GAH $^$££$&*(!!! EVERY year, I have to file tax reports for the US and use their stupid, overly complicated forms that change EVERY year, that I can’t even file online because it’s so complicated and the forms I need are difficult to enter in an online way. EVERY year, I have to figure everything out myself, with...

22
Apr
2023

GONE TOO LONG

I put together a list of things that struck me as weird while I was in the States. I dictated it to my sister during our road trip, because it had been taking up space in my brain for the first 3 weeks I was “home” but I hadn’t yet written it down or, really, formulated, what was so weird about these things. Some of these things are maybe specific to the Carolinas, or the South, but both of those things are just smaller subsets of things that struck me about being back in the USA after such a long...

16
Apr
2023

BORTA BRA MEN HEMMA BÄST

Back in Sweden after an entire 4 weeks in the US, which wasn’t going fast at first, but sped up amazingly by the fourth week, and now I can’t believe it’s already over and I’m home. Karin arrived home from Italy as well, on Friday, and I flew in early Saturday morning, so we are all home together again…aside from the fact that Martin moved out a week ago, to an apartment in Malmö, and Karin has already disappeared off with friends somewhere in Malmö or Lund, who knows. 😀 I had a GREAT time, and it was so worth...

30
Mar
2023

HOME-ISH

I’ve been in the US for nearly 2 weeks, and it’s mostly weird to be here. I don’t know if that’s because I’m in the Carolinas instead of Michigan or because I’ve been away from the US for so long. I’ve read that it only takes about 5 years for someone who has moved abroad to find things have changed so much in their home country that when they return it’s like coming to a foreign country. One that SHOULD feel like home, SHOULD smell like home, SHOULD behave like home, but doesn’t. I’ve not been back for 4.5 years,...

14
Mar
2023

HOMEBODY

There seems to be a fundamental battle shaping up after the pandemic, between employers and employees, in regards to working from home. Before the pandemic, we all basically worked in the office (at least those of us with white-collar office jobs). Now, three-plus years later, we’ve learned, adapted, and adjusted to the hybrid reality of post-pandemic work. My company began sending people home part-time fairly quickly once the pandemic became a known issue, and we went home full-time before the end of 2020. We worked from home for nearly 2.5 years, with lots of benefits and help with materials and...

09
Mar
2023

IN PIE WE CRUST

We hosted Pie Night for the AIC Malmö last Saturday and it was a smash success. We had 25 people (including myself, Anders, and Martin), though originally 29 were supposed to show. We’ve had Pie Night at least 7 times now, if the oldest one on the AIC website in 2016 was actually the first. As usual, Anders made 2 taco pies at my request, and I made 2 fruit pizzas. We had 6 different savory pies for dinner including the taco paj: spanakopita (which was delish), chicken tamale pie, French leek quiche, shepherd’s pie, and steak & carrot pie....

06
Mar
2023

MOVE FORWARD, LEAN BACK

Once again, time has run away with me, and I’m guilty of posting all the time in my head, but not at all the past couple of weeks here. But I just thought of an interesting topic to write about, so here I am! I’m thinking about the difference in enjoying something new vs. enjoying something old. How often do you have to make the choice between trying something new or sticking with something familiar? I wonder what the percentage is of people who choose new over tried and true. When you pick a book to read, do you always...

May 2024
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