Tagged: goodthings

01
Jun
2023

27 YEARS AND COUNTING

It’s our wedding anniversary today. We’ve been married since June 1, 1996. That’s 27 years. Pretty crazy to think about! We aren’t doing anything today, celebrating, or having dinner, or anything, because Anders is away all week up north in Kumla. He comes home tomorrow, but I already have plans for dinner and a show with Debbie and Camilla. It’s also Debbie’s birthday today. Her husband is ALSO traveling, and I just sent her a text asking her why the two of us didn’t get together and do something, which she laughed at. We don’t usually do much for our...

18
May
2023

COUNTER PRODUCTIVE

It all started with the chairs. When the old IKEA chairs we’d had for ages kept collapsing, it was time. Anders and I did some online searching, which wasn’t fun because I couldn’t find anything I liked, and then we couldn’t find anything we agreed upon. We went to IKEA, MIO, Leander & Persson, and finally, Svenska Hem, where we found the ones we ended up with, almost exactly a year ago. They are a sort of smooth lovely avocado-ey green. And getting the chairs kickstarted the kitchen renovation project. Over the course of the year that followed, we got...

02
May
2023

FILLING UP

May and June and July calendars are rapidly filling up. I’m still boggling over the fact that it’s already May. So much going on right now that it makes my head spin, and since it’s full-blown allergy season right now, that’s not necessarily a good thing. We just had our first long weekend, kicking off the long weekend season. It’s the first holiday since Easter, which was the the beginning of April, and itself the first holiday of the year after January 6th. It’s a long way between January 6 and April 7 (Good Friday this year). You’d think they’d...

16
Apr
2023

BORTA BRA MEN HEMMA BÄST

Back in Sweden after an entire 4 weeks in the US, which wasn’t going fast at first, but sped up amazingly by the fourth week, and now I can’t believe it’s already over and I’m home. Karin arrived home from Italy as well, on Friday, and I flew in early Saturday morning, so we are all home together again…aside from the fact that Martin moved out a week ago, to an apartment in Malmö, and Karin has already disappeared off with friends somewhere in Malmö or Lund, who knows. 😀 I had a GREAT time, and it was so worth...

09
Mar
2023

IN PIE WE CRUST

We hosted Pie Night for the AIC Malmö last Saturday and it was a smash success. We had 25 people (including myself, Anders, and Martin), though originally 29 were supposed to show. We’ve had Pie Night at least 7 times now, if the oldest one on the AIC website in 2016 was actually the first. As usual, Anders made 2 taco pies at my request, and I made 2 fruit pizzas. We had 6 different savory pies for dinner including the taco paj: spanakopita (which was delish), chicken tamale pie, French leek quiche, shepherd’s pie, and steak & carrot pie....

22
Feb
2023

SPRINGISH THINGS

It’s officially spring here in southern Sweden, despite being still February and a full week away from March. Sweden’s meteorological office, SMHI, defines spring as having arrived if the temperature has been above freezing for a week. I call borderline bullshit though, since I had to scrape my car windows this morning and it was ONE degree Celsius at 8 am, which means it was definitely freezing or below overnight (again). We’re still wearing winter coats, scarves, and gloves, though I’ve haven’t worn my heaviest winter coat for a few weeks now…which is nice because it weighs a ton. And...

11
Feb
2023

MERRY CRATESMAS!

The crate arrived yesterday! It was a big event here, but I haven’t written all that much about it. We ordered a crate kit from UPakWeShip, and doing so was inspired by a conversation I had with Annelott about getting stuff for Martin, and stuff from my mom’s to me, over here. I had been thinking that shipping household goods would be so crazy expensive that I hadn’t even looked into it, but she said, it can’t be that bad…people and businesses ship stuff all the time. I had extra savings due to the stimulus checks that we got from...

07
Feb
2023

GOTCHA FOR KARIN

Last weekend, when I was on a Facetime call with my brother, he was talking about his job and the issues he was having with some of the places that he picks up skis from. He works for a small company that prepares skis for the customers of various dealers and ski shops. They pick up skis and service them (cleaning, sharpening, waxing) and then they take them back in time for people to get their skis before they go skiing. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that one of the places he goes to weekly is St....

30
Dec
2022

RETROSPECTIVE

urprisingly, 2022 did not totally suck like the two years before it. Even though COVID finally visited us twice, no one was very ill, and Martin missed it completely. We had a couple of big milestone birthdays, with Anders turning 60 and Martin turning 25, and 2 big, very fun trips, to Rome, and to Bornholm. Mostly, life continues with the usual bumps and ups and downs. I’ve taken 2 weeks of vacation, here at the end of the year, and today is the last day if you don’t count the New Year’s weekend. I start back to work on...

17
Dec
2022

READY SET GO

Today is my first day of a 2-week vacation, if you count weekends as part of vacation. I’m off work until January 2, a whole new year. So it’s the start of something, and the end of something: another year. I’ve been counting down the days at work until vacation started and this last couple of weeks nearly did me in. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to hitting the wall before. Add medical issues on top of work stress, and other things, and it’s been a LOT, this year. So, I’m not sad to see the end...