Tagged: famdamily

02
Dec
2020

MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO, MONKEY PROUD

Karin made dinner for us tonight: potato soup with carrots, leek and chicken dogs (cut-up). It’s a soup that she and her classmates made once, on an expedition to Skrylle, which is a nature reserve not too far from the school. She was about 14 at the time, and they made the soup over an open fire and she clearly remembers me asking her, when she got home, if she’d been smoking, because she smelled like smoke, and being upset with me for EVEN ASKING, GOD MOM. It was yummy, and Anders made garlic toast in the oven to go...

17
Sep
2020

INHALE THE FUTURE, EXHALE THE PAST

I write a lot of posts in my head, apparently. And then I’m surprised when I finally get around to looking at LJ and none of them are there. Where is my thought-transfer writing apparatus? It’s over there with the matter transmitter that no one has bothered to build me yet. Damn it. Get busy, matter-transmitter-builders! What are you WAITING for?? If there was a matter transmitter, I wonder if it would be as expensive as flying. I would hope it wouldn’t take as long. And that I wouldn’t need to worry about getting COVID-19 while I was in transit....

06
Jul
2020

BERNICE MCNALLY PANGBORN 1916-2020

My last grandparent passed away today. I’m sad about it, but at the same time, she lived an unbelievably long life and she went peacefully at the end. Just think, if she had managed to hang on for just another 3 weeks, she would have been 104 years old. Still, she beat her own mother, who was 2 weeks shy of 103 when SHE died. It was really tough at the end, for my mom and my sister, who have spent the last three weeks caring for her around the clock. Thanks to the pandemic risks and travel restrictions, I...

01
Jul
2020

LIFE, VEGETABLES & OTHER TIMELY TOPICS

Every day mostly the same. Same routines, same meals, same feelings. I wake up, I shower and dress. I work, I eat something. I read something. I walk on the treadmill. I do laundry. I play games on the iPad and think about writing. I call my mom or my son. I talk to my husband and my daughter. I water the garden and the vegetables and admire the roses. Sometimes, something changes and I see a couple of my friends or we visit Anders’ mom (from behind plexiglas, when it’s not raining). In our garden, there are tiny green...

21
May
2020

SQUEEZY

You’d think with all this extra time on my hands that I’d write more. Our vegetable garden is sprouting! The potatoes are shooting up and the snap peas have made an appearance. The two artichoke plants are hanging in there but I am not sure if they are thriving. We’ve had unseasonably cold weather all week and lots of drizzly mist-rain but it cleared up yesterday and got nice and today is summer-hot. It’s not even noon and the thermometer says 18.6 C. I’m planning to get the kohlrabi, carrots and tomatoes into the ground/pots by tomorrow. Today is a...

21
Mar
2020

LIFE IN THE TIME OF CORONA

I could get used to this working from home thing, even if the social distancing will prove difficult in the long run. I suspect it makes rather a huge difference that my children are grown and (pretty much) gone and it’s just the two of us rattling around in here. There are plenty of weekends that I spend, to all intents and purposes, alone, as it is. This isn’t that much different. We started a rotating work-from-home schedule on Thursday, splitting our entire department into two groups and each of our teams into two as well. The idea is that...

28
Dec
2019

INBETWEEN DAYS

I’m officially bored. I finished watching both the British mini-series of Little Women and the last episode of season 1 of His Dark Materials, and I worked for about an hour altogether and read my book and played iPad games, and then Karin and Anders and I wasted 2 hours and 8 minutes of our lives watching the 2019 version of Aladdin. Why does that movie have such a good score on imdb? It’s TERRIBLE. Apart from a halfway-decent Will Smith, giving his genie his very best shot, the rest of it was leaden and boring. And I don’t think...

24
Dec
2019

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2019

We spent last Christmas in Michigan with Liz’s mom and Martin and our good friends Kathey and Russell joined us there for New Year’s so we had a very happy start to the year! We were back in Sweden by January 4 and back to work nearly straightaway, leaving Martin behind to continue his second year at CCS. At the end of January, Anders went skiing in Czech Republic with friends on their annual ski trip. He had several work trips early in the year as well, all to Italy. Karin continued working at Axis with Liz as her contract...

19
Aug
2019

A WEEK AWAY

I love the Netherlands so much. Although, I call it Holland more often than not, because it’s my favorite place and Holland just sounds a little more cozy. On one of the last days, Karin asked me why I was so fascinated by it as a country, and I stopped and thought hard before I answered. I have loved a lot of different places. I love the drama and the beauty of Switzerland and Norway and Scotland. They give me a mountain fix. I love the smell of the air and the taste of the water in Michigan. I love...

24
Jun
2019

SWEDISH EVERY WHICH WAY

If the first part of this year is any indication…heck, if the first part of this LIFE is any indication, the rest of this year will fly by and I’ll be left gaping at the fact that it’s Christmas time YET AGAIN. I’ve been gone for 2 weeks and even though I managed to post quickly last Monday before we zoomed off again to Stockholm for a week of city and sun and Swedishness, it feels like I’ve not really had a chance to sit down and gather my thoughts here. We had a lovely week, despite some bobbles at...

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