Tagged: famdamily

20
Feb
2010

IN JUST TWO DAYS, TOMORROW WILL BE YESTERDAY

This is the 3rd weekend of February. Before you know it, Christmas will be here…that’s how fast it feels like it’s going. It snowed again last night, or this morning: really heavy wet snow. The kind that soaks your mittens instantly when you scoop up a double handful and shape it into a ball and fire it at the nearest person who is ducking to scoop their own. It snowed again this evening: sideways horizontal blizzard snow that clung and stuck to every surface like flocking. We spent most of the afternoon shopping. The kids needed indoor gym shoes because...

11
Feb
2010

IT’S ALL RELATIVE

In January I passed my 13th anniversary of our move to Sweden, and later that month a cousin of mine finally made the move here. She’s also married to a Swede, but because of their careers they’ve been commuting back and forth from Sweden to the US for TEN YEARS. She said part of the reason for the decision to finally choose one place was motivated by how tired her husband was starting to look. I’m boggled that it took that long, but delighted that they chose Sweden. My mom’s family is huge—her dad had 7 sisters and a brother...

23
Jan
2010

ROOM RENOVATION

I didn’t get my own room until we moved to Belgium, the year I turned 13 but once I did, one of the best things about having my own space was getting to change things around to suit myself. I loved to rearrange my room. I’d move furniture around every so many months, trying out every possible combination of filling the space. I’d move the pictures I had taped or tacked to the walls. I’d rearrange the books in my bookcase and on my shelves. Interior design was an appealing career path. I still feel this way, but having a...

10
Jan
2010

NO ONE NEEDS A VACATION MORE THAN THE PERSON WHO JUST HAD ONE

The wind has been scouring Skåne for days now. It’s blown all the frozen snow away from every surface and left the fields bare. Driving at night, you could see the wind pouring like water across the surface of the asphalt, only better because it was blowing snow along with it: white wind, white water. Today, mom and I went to the grocery store and as we got in the car, I looked down at the blown-up drifts around the driveway and thought, hmmm…that’s weird, the snow looks kind of…beige. And as we drove out of the neighborhood, it got...

24
Nov
2009

LOOSE ENDS, FOR A MOMENT

I got shot in the arm this evening. I have to say, I’ve been sort of dreading getting the H1N1 vaccination…I never get flu shots, I have always just taken my chances, but I guess something about a) the fact that if I did get sick with it, it would be 2-3 weeks of illness versus (hopefully) 1-2 days of potential side effects from the shot and b) how can you say no to getting a vaccination that the country you live in has bought for every single one of its residents? Not only did they do that, they also...

12
Nov
2009

THERE’S A POINT IN THERE SOMEWHERE

I’m starting to get excited about the holidays now. Especially since I just got the news that my mom is coming! YAY! She’s coming AFTER Christmas, but that’s okay because she’s staying for nearly a month. Woot! And hopefully, my brother and Simone will be able to come up for at least a few of the days between Christmas & New Year’s, too. Hope, hope! Question for parents: how late do your kids stay up? (did I ask this before? or am I just having déjà vu?) If they stay up until 10 on a school night, what age were...

20
Oct
2009

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: CLUBS & FORTS & RECEPTACLES

I have work to do and yet I am not doing it. Not yet. Soon. I thought I needed to write something here instead. Something not very profound, something just tossed out there to the wind and the weather and the mental receptacles of anyone who might be reading. It’s not work for work, though; club stuff. Club stuff. It feels corny to say I belong to a club. A women’s club. Even though it’s not all women anymore. And even though I never go to lunches (anymore) or teas or knitting circles or whatever. Still. I wish we had...

23
Aug
2009

OH YES

Today’s Treadmill: 43 minutes/3.3km/103 cal…I seem to be caught in work-out-OCD. I planned to walk 40 minutes, but couldn’t stop because I was just under 3 kilometers AND just under 100 calories AND the song I was listening to was still playing when I hit 40 minutes, so I had to round everything off. Later, walked into the kitchen and found FIVE wasps in various states of upset against the kitchen windows. I am the catch-and-release queen. My nephew is ill in the hospital with an acute kidney infection AND the flu. Feel awful for the little guy. They are...

03
Jul
2009

THE REASON IS YOU

I know just how blessed I am. It’s not the time away, or the weeks off work, or the downtime reading relaxation. It’s not the wind or the water or the rocks or the little fishing villages with their red houses all in a row. It’s not the things we’ve seen or the things we’ve done. It’s not even the sunshine. Okay. It IS the sunshine, at least part of it is. But mostly it’s these: Photos of Karin, Anders & Simone by John Slaughter; Photos of Martin and John by Anders Ek Cracking Me Up: Where the wild things...

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