Tagged: goodthings

16
Jan
2021

HOMEFULNESS

One full week of work down and we’re on to week 3 of the new year. Which feels the same as the old year, still. My mom is out of her house, and now officially “homeless”. She and my sister stayed last night at the condo she’s been offered temporarily by a friend, but are leaving tomorrow for my sister’s home in North Carolina for about 3 weeks. I’ve had text conversations with my sister, but haven’t really talked to either of them, other than to update them on what’s going on with Anders’ mom, since they had so much...

30
Dec
2020

RETROSPECTIVE

ad a laugh just now when I looked back at my Retrospective entry from last year, and the expectations I had for the first year of the 20’s. Well, THAT certainly didn’t turn out as planned…for any of us. The H at the beginning of this post really sums up the entire year of 2020 for me. The terrifying split that is defining my birth country, the polarization of politics, the crisis of the global pandemic, the destruction of all our plans for the year. And personally, the passing of my grandmother in July and the sale and packing up...

13
Dec
2020

LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

We’ve had approximately ONE hour of sunlight in December so far. And in the past month, we’ve had a total of 24.3 hours of sunlight…spread out over 3 days. I looked at the weather app for Lund for the coming week and all it showed was clouds and rain. I’m guessing that even when the solstice comes, it will make no difference for the next couple of months. Normally this time of year we average around 52 hours of sunlight, which is still AWFULLY little. Seems like weatherwise, all we have to look forward to is depression and sadness. I...

08
Dec
2020

BRING IT ON

I’m feeling on top of things concerning the holidays. I wrote and printed our Christmas letter several weeks ago, which felt idiotic because usually it’s a rundown of the things that have happened in the past year, and like everyone else, NOTHING happened in the past year, because everything that was planned got canceled, and we’ve only been at home. I sat and wrote out my short list of Christmas cards during the AWC Zoom meeting the last week of November and got them in the mail last week. I only send printed cards to people who reciprocate so the...

27
Nov
2020

ABUNDANCE

Thinking about things I’m grateful for is on my mind this week, like it’s on all the Americans minds, of those who celebrate Thanksgiving with at least some investment in what GIVING THANKS means and not just that it’s a socially sanctioned opportunity to stuff yourself until you feel sick. I found myself getting very upset with some of my relatives who were having family and friends over (in the US), when I’ve spent the last two weeks discussing the situation with my mom and son, imploring them to not get together, and just stay safe, which feels like hypocrisy...

25
Nov
2020

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE

Choir practices Massages 2020 work kickoff AWC lunches AWC monthly meetings Charlie Caper at Victoriateatern Martin’s visit home Bookworms Choir weekend Work trips Valborg bonfire & BBQ Lundaloppet Midsommer Visits with Anders’ mom Independence Day BBQ My grandmother’s decline and funeral Summer vacation in the States Movie nights Crayfish party Flyinge loppis Karin’s university start Dinners with friends Wreathmaking workshop Funny Girl at Malmö Opera Friendsgiving Julbord AWC media sale That’s the short list of cancelled events and activities so far this year. I’m thinking about Thanksgiving since it’s tomorrow, in the US, and normally, tomorrow, I would be meeting...

22
Nov
2020

CINEMANIA

We’re working on getting into the holiday spirit around here. Karin came home this afternoon; it’s the first time we’ve seen her for any amount of time in nearly 3 weeks as she’s been quarantining…two COVID tests, both negative, thank goodness. I’ve been getting Christmas shopping done…have my sister and her family sorted, and my mom, and my brother’s family except for him. I have Martin nearly done, and Karin and Anders started. Pretty good work for a couple of days. Karin and I went grocery shopping, and then brought all the Christmas decoration boxes into the house and got...

02
Aug
2020

WHAT TO DO

Ermagerd, it’s already August. How time flies when you’re… oh, never mind. Time isn’t flying, actually. It’s moving, at least. All the things that I usually look forward to about the fall and the holidays feel very far away and unattainable right now. Everything is still canceled. Things are still closed. We’re not seeing friends or going to parties. I don’t know if anyone is planning on hosting a crayfish party this year, but even if they were, I’m not sure we’d go. We have no info about Karin’s starting university in a…month? some weeks? We have no date and...

26
Jul
2020

NEWS FROM THE INSIDE OF MY HOUSE

Where do people go when they stop blogging? How can they stand not knowing what’s going on in the lives of the friends they’ve made online? How can they stand not knowing how the story continues? Even though I can go weeks without posting, I can’t imagine stopping forever. Or, well, I can, but I don’t want to. I like having this record of my life, my thoughts, my obiter dictum. I still think about blog friends, online friends, who left the blog world years ago. Just dropped off, stopped writing, as if no one cared that they were gone....

21
Jul
2020

MOVING FORWARD, MOVING UP, MOVING IN

Anders is on vacation and so far, he’s made an awesome start on his vacation project, which is redoing the entire deck and making the glassed-in porch bigger. In 2 days, he’s already ripped out and removed the entire deck and the porch walls. Tomorrow he has a trailer all day to take multiple loads of wood to the dump, and on Thursday he’s rented a container to remove all the sand that was underneath the deck. Right now, he’s doing a side project: removing the stump of the plum tree. Not easy! I am still working. If I can...