Tagged: famdamily

26
Dec
2021

POST-HOLIDAY BLISS

It’s the day after Christmas, at the end of 2021. It was a good Christmas in many ways…the four of us back together and everything ready in plenty of time so no one was stressed. I had most of my shopping done by the end of November, almost all of it done online, and the last of the things I ordered arrived well in advance. Karin helped Anders with ordering stuff for me, so he wasn’t stressed out either, at least not that I could tell. 🙂 We did a big grocery shop for both Christmas eve and Christmas day...

23
Dec
2021

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2021

This year started as the last one ended, with the pandemic still in full swing. Liz worked from home full-time all the way from October 2020 until the end of the summer this year, when she started back in the office 50%. She’s now up to 70% but is actually hoping to still be able to continue to work from home part-time. In January, Karin moved into a new apartment in Lund. She was still working at Flyinge School. Martin was working at Dominos Pizza in Detroit, still basically hunkered down in quarantine mode. On New Year’s Day, we got...

04
Dec
2021

COUNTING DOWN

We’re now in the end run, counting down through the last month of the year. The clock on 2021 is running out. Thankfully, the clock to the winter solstice is counting up and it’s only a month, give or take, until the darkest day, and then the slow return of the light. We’ve had snow on the ground for a week, and extremely cold temperatures. Here in Flyinge, for some reason, everything sticks and ices over and hangs on for weeks after the rest of SkÃ¥ne to the south of us has melted. It’s pretty, so I mostly don’t mind,...

28
Nov
2021

GIVING MEANS GETTING AND WE DO, IN SPADES

Yesterday was our annual Friendsgiving. We were looking forward to it SO much and it didn’t disappoint. It was the first time Martin has been included in 4 years (he DID have family Thanksgivings in Michigan with my mom, and occasionally my sister so he wasn’t totally deprived). The first year after we moved to Sweden, when I was hugely pregnant with Martin, we had Thanksgiving in our apartment, with my mom and Anders’ family, who had never been subjected to traditional American Thanksgiving food before and didn’t quite know what to make of the stuffing or the pumpkin pie....

20
Nov
2021

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEKEND

Dang, this month is getting away from me. It’s the weekend again and I’ve been thinking that I need to get a post written so here I am. This morning I woke up slowly, from very complicated, weird, but interesting dreams that of course I can no longer remember. It’s nice to wake up with a nice feeling like you were in the middle of a good story dream, even if it evaporates all too quickly. I wouldn’t tell you what it was even if I could remember it, because I believe dreams are of zero interest to anyone but...

31
Oct
2021

PUMPKIN TO TALK ABOUT

There’s no knowing when you will do something for the last time. I suppose this is why we cling so to tradition. It’s a continuation in an uncertain world. All those years of holiday celebrations, dressing up for Halloween, coloring eggs for Easter, cooking turkeys for Thanksgiving, filling stockings for Christmas; they’re all ways to hold on to what we have, and what we want to remember and most of all what we want to pay forward into our lives. Yesterday, I went and bought Halloween candy and filled our biggest bowl in anticipation of trick-or-treaters tonight. Last year, trick-or-treating...

03
Oct
2021

SUNDAY MUSING

It’s another lazy-ish Sunday. I woke up at 6:30, feel back asleep until 8:30 and then around 9:30 actually stopped dozing and woke up enough to put on my glasses and read in bed for another hour or so. All I’ve done of note so far is water plants and put some clothes away (apart from showering, dressing and eating). It’s another cloudy, rainy day. We went yesterday, despite the weather, to meet Debbie and family on a boat tour of Malmö along the canal, featuring a surprisingly hard quiz about Malmö. I’ve done the tour boat trips for tourists...

28
Aug
2021

AUTUMNAL PREMEDITATIONS

Hello from rainy SkÃ¥ne! We had a few nice days at the beginning of last week but it’s back to rain and grey and solid cloud cover. I was really hoping for a nice weekend, but it’s not looking like I’ll get my wish. Tonight we are going (with Karin) to the annual crayfish party, hosted and attended by friends we haven’t seen since the start of the pandemic (with the exception of 1 couple). It will be weird but nice, I’m sure. Everyone is fully vaccinated, but crowds of people make me nervous these days, so we shall see....

20
Apr
2021

NEW CHAPTERS

I threw my back out this weekend, moving furniture around in the kids’ rooms and then made it worse by continuing to work, and then cleaning out the fridge. By Sunday I could barely walk. Getting up from a sitting position or from bed was torture, walking hurt, sitting hurt. Everything hurt. Thank all the gods for ibuprofen and heating pads. I had a massage scheduled yesterday after work as well and Emily spent extra time on my lower back, getting at the place where the muscles were protesting. I had a couple of bad nights, but this morning, despite...

28
Mar
2021

WEEKEND WRAP-UP

The people behind us are slowly but surely cutting down ALL the trees and bushes and shrubbery that block the view of their backyard and farm from our backyard. It’s making me sad. They decimated all the trees that were there before and now he’s out there again with a chainsaw buzzing away. If he cuts down all the lilacs that are growing by the ditch, I’m going to be very very sad. All the natural greenery that hemmed in our yard: gone. I don’t want to look at the back of their carport and stable and parking area. Our...