Lizardek

12
Aug
2012

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

OMG halfway through August and where have I been? Busy busy busy and obviously not writing. I haven’t even been online that much though I have tried to keep up with reading as much as I can. Kicking back into work routine has consumed most of my mental energy and what hasn’t been occupied with that has been eaten by Lego. No, still not done. I will never be done. Last night, Martin and I went out with sweatshirts and mittens and blankets to lie on the trampoline and watch for shooting stars. It was super clear as I drove...

30
Jul
2012

BACK TO THE GRIND-ISH

I’m the only one that has to smack the alarm clock beeping in the early a.m. and get out of bed and get moving…Anders is still of vacation the rest of this week and the kids don’t go back to school until August 20th (crazy!). I went back to work last week but there are so many colleagues still on vacation that it doesn’t really feel like normal yet. People are slowly starting to come back; there were more in the office today than last week, but even so, most of Sweden’s companies are still on half-strength and ours is...

24
Jul
2012

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT OUT TO GET YOU

When we were in northern Germany, we stayed in a 2-bedroom apartment up a steep flight of stairs. There was no living room, just a small dining area, a long skinny kitchen and a dinky bathroom. Anders and I got the big master bedroom, while Mom had a twin bed in the kids’ room: they shared a bunkbed, Martin on top. I don’t know if the room was actually ever a child’s room but there were mice & mushrooms painted on the window in that special translucent paint for glass and a small bookshelf with some careworn and obviously discarded...

20
Jul
2012

WEEK IN REVIEW PLUS A BIRTHDAY GIRL

Liz: Tomorrow you’re going to be a teenager and I’m going to be old. Karin: You’re already old. Hrm. Obviously, she’s been practicing. Karin turned 13 on Friday the 13th but there were no thunderstorms to mark the occasion like there were the day she was born. And nothing unlucky happened either, except that the Converse sneakers that she got from my Mom didn’t fit and are going back to the US to be exchanged. She got the soccer shoes she REALLY wanted and tickets to see Veronica Maggio in concert, among other things. 2 days later she left for...

10
Jul
2012

NO PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO, NO PARTICULAR THING TO DO

Why, when we aren’t really doing ANYTHING, is it so hard to find time to sit down and post? It’s 11:30 p.m. and I should be in bed falling asleep because we are getting up early tomorrow to go Öresunds Runt (around the Öresund) ending with dinner in Copenhagen, but instead I’m catching up on reading blogs and hoping I don’t dream about Lego again tonight. Even my mom has been sucked in to the Giant Never-Ending Lego Project. We have many many kits completed but unfortunately, the majority of them are missing a piece or two. HOWEVER! Lego.com sells...

07
Jul
2012

SHOT

Not surprisingly there are few to no images of the men behind the cameras during our family reunion in northern Germany…I ended up with none of Tom, Sarah’s husband, and only got some of my brother because my mom shared her photos with me. John, Sammy & Mom (photo by Simone Slaughter) John & Sarah (photo by Linda Slaughter) Sammy & Simone (photo by Linda Slaughter) Rachel (photo by Tom Fletcher) Sarah (photo by Tom Fletcher) Simone, Sammy & Bryce (photo by Tom Fletcher) Anders (photo by Karin Ek) Bryce (photo by Karin Ek) Typical pastime (photo by Anders Ek)...

01
Jul
2012

WHERE THE HEART IS

There are some times when I fervently wish that I lived closer to my first family. My brother lives in southern Germany, my sister in the middle of Illinois and my mom in the thumb of Michigan. And no one gets me the way they do. A look, a shared sense of humor, a laugh, a dig at someone else’s well-honed defenses…there’s just nothing like the connection between you, your parents and your siblings. Last week, my brother and his wife and their almost-one-year old son drove up from the bottom end of Germany to the top end, bringing along...

21
Jun
2012

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I no longer have any faith in my parenting skills since the lessons that I thought I was working so hard to impart are either being ignored, bypassed, dissed or misinterpreted. Where’s Mark Twain’s barrel when you need it? First day of vacation: a gorgeous day full of sunshine and wind. When the wind is blowing, the grass and wheat fields look like moving watered silk. The grasses are light green, dark green, silver, red, purple and gold. The edges of the fields are trimmed with poppies. It’s nearly 10:30 p.m. and the sun is still glowing on the horizon...

15
Jun
2012

THE SMALLEST THING ABOUT SUMMER THAT MAKES ME HAPPY

One of my best blog friends, who I sadly have not (YET) met in real life has also been kinda stuck with writing lately, so when she posted not too long ago and lamented this fact, I gave her a writing assignment. I asked her: What is the smallest thing about summer that makes you happy? And she wrote a lovely long post about the small things of summer that make her happy, that kept turning out to be pretty darn big things. That’s the thing about summer. It’s too big in all its beauty to be boiled down to...

14
Jun
2012

HOW TIME FLIES

It’s the middle of June and I’ve posted only 3 times so far this month. This makes 4. How sad is that? When the end of the year comes around and I start working on my blog book for 2012, I’ll only have myself to blame for how THIN it is. Tomorrow is the last day of school for both my kids. Neither one of us is invited to whatever end-of-school ceremonies they are having. Those days are over. We are officially parental persona non grata. Personas non grata? Persona non gratas? Whatever, we’re not wanted. Since we both have...

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