Tagged: goodthings

19
Jan
2007

RAISIN THE CURRANT STANDARD: A POST WITH A-PEEL

I’m really weird about fresh fruit. I love it, but it has to be perfect. It has to be just right. Take apples, for instance. I can’t eat most apples, they’re too gooshy and the peel comes away from the flesh and feels like a wet sticker, still with the adhesive on, that slightly mushy fruit meat. I only like Royal Gala apples: so crisp and clean and crunchy with a peel that seems like part of the fruit, like a coating of flavor instead of skin. I like d’Anjou pears, the ones that look terrible, bruised and swollen, that...

17
Dec
2006

I WAS GOING TO COUNTDOWN BUT I ONLY HAD FOURS AND FIVES

Only 4 more days until the solstice and the days will begin lengthening again! Only 4 more days of work before Christmas vacation! Only 5 days until my brother and Simone arrive for a week! Only 5 more little presents to buy and I’m done! Only 5 more days to payday, thank goodness! Things That Made Me Happy This Weekend: talking to my oldest best friend Becky last night and hearing how well things are going for her this year after a couple of really rough ones; reading the pregnancy announcement of a dear online friend; receiving a box from...

10
Dec
2006

I DON’T KNOW IF THERE’LL BE SNOW, BUT HAVE A CUP OF CHEER

I joke about stressmas, but the truth is, I love Christmas preparations and I love Christmas. I do as much as I can to make sure that the holiday magic is there for both myself and my family. If that means knocking myself out for a month, so be it. The thing that actually causes the stress is that I can’t leave off doing all the regular daily stuff to just concentrate on the holidaze! Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the cookies, the tree, the ornaments, the nativity and all the hope that goes with it, the decorations, the cookies,...

28
Nov
2006

COOKIES REDUX

What’s better: taking a bag of Reindeer Poop cookie bags to divvy out to a bunch of excited cookie-loving women, knowing that they are the BEST (also best-named) COOKIES THERE… …or bringing home 12 bags of different kinds of cookies, INCLUDING 2 bags of your very favorite cookie in the WHOLE WORLD: *crescendo* Fudge Puddles! Or, as I like to refer to them: double-stuffed-addictioncup-porncookies. After a fairly stressful day and a VERY stressful 2 hours after work, when I raced home to pick up the kids, drove to farmor and farfar’s house to drop them off, raced off again with...

27
Nov
2006

HAPPINESS IS A HAPPY LIST FULL OF THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

Reasons for happy (other than COOKIES!, which really, what more do you need? I am spoiled rotten with the good things) Anders is on a business trip to Germany, but that’s not the good thing; however, he gets to spend the evening with my brother John and his lovely wife Simone, and I’m glad about that. Leftover turkey in sandwiches and with stuffing and coming up, in a casserole! YUM! I did an 8-page brochure layout at work and my colleague, who is the Approval Master Past Whom All Collateral Must Flow and who is really, really good, albeit really...

26
Nov
2006

C IS FOR COOKIE, THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

Considering that I didn’t go to sleep until 4 a.m., I think only sleeping in until 11 was pretty good. Other than running the dishwasher 2x and handwashing a boatload of wineglasses and reading a really good modern fairytale, I spent most of my day with chocolate hands:

25
Nov
2006

ANTICIPATION

I’m just waiting for the guests to arrive. Everything is done and in its place. Karin and Martin helped clean the house and picked up their rooms with dispatch. Karin went beyond the call of 7-year-old duty afterwards by dusting, windexing and wiping lightswitches and doorsills. I zoomed off to the grocery store for the last-minute items and when I returned I vacuumed and set both tables…after taking an hour’s rest to lie down and finish my book. Anders finished the other turkey a moment ago, the house is redolent with good smells. Potatoes are peeled and in the pot...

01
Nov
2006

YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH OF WHAT YOU DON’T NEED TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

Everything’s good and it snowed all damn day and it’s colder than cold here. Brr, it’s cold. I guess my days of wearing moccasins with no socks are over for this year. Such a bummer, that. Anders is home and O! I am glad. He also brought me one of these: So, yay! We’re a 2-camera family again. I expect we’ll find the missing one any minute now, since that’s how these things work. We have: 2 cameras* 2 cars 2 children 2 cheese slicers 2 colanders 2 printers 2 calendars We need the 2 cars, sadly. We need the...

31
Oct
2006

COUNTING MINUTES BY SENSATION MAKES EACH MOMENT A DAY*

Hallowinners: The weather today was miserable, raggedly grey and rainy drizzle. Around lunchtime I began to despair, thinking that the kids would be wet bedraggled rats during the evening festivities, but then, just as I was leaving work, it cleared up COMPLETELY and the sun spread like butter across a washed out blue sky. There were maybe a handful of houses or so that didn’t participate, one with a sick child, and a few who weren’t home, but otherwise we had an excellent turnout for our first Platanvägen trick-or-treating Halloween, with around 30 kids and some parents who tagged along...

14
Oct
2006

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Newsflash! Manic fireflies swarm Eiffel Tower at night! Sitting outside a café on the corner of the Boulevard de Grenelle at a tiny table with drinks in front of us, as the endless streams of Parisians eddied and swirled past, it made me smile to see how many people in Paris actually DO walk home from work with a baguette clutched tight in one hand as they pull pieces from it to nibble on with the other. It made me smile to see the flower shops open until 9 at night, their wares overflowing from inside the shop to cover...

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