Tagged: famdamily

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...

02
Jul
2009

WIND & WATER

Since I was in college, I’ve always liked canoeing. We went on several canoe trips with all our floormates from Akers Hall, and even after graduation, dispersal and my move to Chicago, we continued to organize weekend-long canoeing trips in Michigan for several years. We’ve only gone a few times since moving to Sweden…the local river is a fairly easy one and we’ve only rediscovered the canoeing bug now that the kids are old enough to paddle as well, and we also have access to the canoes that belong to the local Scout troop, which we’re members of. On Friday,...

01
Jul
2009

SOME MORE THINGS WE DID

Busy every day but in a leisurely way with time to sit in the sunshine and read books and walk along the piers of the little fishing towns. On Thursday, we drove north to Tanumshede to see the bronze age rock etchings that dot the area. Apparently there are more than 10,000 boat drawings alone, scattered around Sweden. They are colored red in order to be seen better by tourists, as in their natural state, they’re scarcely noticeable and many have eroded badly due to pollution and weather. The world heritage site at Tanum included a replica bronze age settlement...

30
Jun
2009

SOME THINGS WE DID

We crammed in a lot of activities during our week up north. Even though I could have easily turned into a slug, something about the early early sunshine got me going much faster than I would normally have liked managed. Simone was up in the early yawning every day, doing pilates on the cliffs and she and Anders took turns biking into town for fresh bread and breakfast rolls. We did most of the things on our list of things to do in the area, though we never did actually make it to Smögen. Uri the Amur Tiger at Nordens...

28
Jun
2009

IN THE MIDDLE

I am back, but I am not sure I want to be. I am back, for now. I will be gone again. Soon. I am still on vacation and enjoying every sun-packed lazy-ass moment of it. It’s weird being offline for a determined length of time. One gets out of the online habit so easily. It was difficult to open this window and start typing; difficult to think of what to say, difficult to know where to begin, or whether. We couldn’t have had better weather in Sotens Fiskarby: sunny and warm with a constant cool breeze. We went to...

20
Jun
2009

LONGEST DAY

Family, friends, a midsummer pole dressed with 7 kinds of wildflowers, dancing like tail-less, ear-less frogs (kouack kouack!), toads under ferns, swan babies, 6 kinds of herring, strawberries, singstar silliness, a hotdog-begging kitty, reading on the trampoline or alternately, bouncing on it, downpours with hail, giant fluff-clouds, sunshine! a walk in the woods, hotdogs on the grill, 2 puppies to pat, schnaps songs, packing, games, laughter! Happy midsummer everyone! The kids, with John & Simone’s help, were justifiably proud of their midsummer pole! (photo: John Slaughter) Sillybutts! (photo: John Slaughter) Karin, Liz, Martin & Simone (photo: John Slaughter) The Ek’s...