Tagged: karinbean

08
Jul
2007

ADJUSTING MY SAILS

Maybe all I needed to blow some of this mood away was a really stiff breeze. The sky finally began to clear this evening from the smothering low cloud cover we’ve been suffocating and washing away under all week. We drove into town and had sushi for dinner and windowshopped a bit (found a chandelier for the dining room, which I’ll go back and buy this week!) and then decided to drive down to the western harbor and see if we could find any ice cream. The wind was whipping the waves to a frenzy; they crashed and sprayed against...

19
Mar
2007

I WAS GOING TO POST TONIGHT…

…but Karin wants me to come sit with her until she falls asleep. This drives me bananas because I know full well she can fall asleep on her own if she just gives it a minute, and I get very frustrated with the constant drama surrounding bedtime for my daughter, but you know what? Some day she won’t be living with me anymore and I will very likely regret the times I DIDN’T sit with her, so…

17
Mar
2007

THE FRUIT DOESN’T FALL VERY FAR FROM THE TREE

Martin is spending the night…with his girlfriend ! I was warned this day would come, but I didn’t think it would be quite so soon. I had quite an “American” moment when he first asked, but Anders and I talked about it, and we figure it’s fine…this time. In a year or so, it won’t be appropriate, but for now, they’re just kids. He and Ebba have been a special “couple” since they were in daycare together. Apart from a period in 2nd grade when they got teased too much by some older kids and “broke up” they’ve been steady...

06
Mar
2007

DOGNABIT

I always show Martin and Karin the photos of my online friend’s cats and dogs, and of course they can’t get enough of Cute Overload. So, when I saw that the pretty pretty Bluepoppy, who has been in a marvelous frenzy of daily posting lately, quite unlike her usual practice of making us sadly refresh and refresh and refresh wait a few days between nuggets of bloggy goodness, and MUCH APPRECIATED by her adoring public, had posted this scrumptious photo of her darling Daisy pup this evening, I immediately, of course, called Karin and Martin over to the computer to...

12
Feb
2007

RUN IN CIRCLES SCREAM AND SHOUT

Aaaagh! Remember that item on my to-do list all last year that kept not getting done because it required a hefty fee, photos, paperwork and a trip to the embassy??* This one: Renew Karin’s U.S. passport AAAGH! I never got Karin’s U.S. passport renewed! *commence total panic attack* *Which is in STOCKHOLM. Keeping fingers crossed the Copenhagen Embassy will not give me shit when I call tomorrow to make an appointment.

04
Jan
2007

CYBERMOTHER HEN

Suddenly, all this “my kid has a blog” stuff seems much more serious than the funny little frolic I had sort of blithely assumed it would be. Karin had been agitating for a ‘wabsit’ for weeks. She went so far as to draw up an instruction sheet listing all the things she wanted her website to have. Translation for the 7-year-old’s-writing-impaired: Karins website. What there is: spel (games), calendar, search things, send to someone, make books to print, work with letters, write what you want to have and web email. After trying to explain the differences in websites in terms...

18
Dec
2006

KEEPING YOU IN STITCHES

Gah. I hate sewing. It goes all the way back to when I was 13 or 14, taking home ec in junior high. Even though all my girlfriends were in the class with me, and it was only for a term (we alternated to woodshop, which was okay…I made the cutest mouse-shaped cheeseboard for my mom which she still has, and then cooking class, which I also hated, but mostly because the teacher was so awful. She stood over your freshly baked and just-removed-from-the-oven brownies and scratched her dandruffy head RIGHT OVER THEM. *shudder*) My sewing skills are only what...

13
Nov
2006

SOMETHING YOU CAN’T GIVE WITHOUT TAKING OR TAKE WITHOUT GIVING

I just finished the book that we are reading for book group, which meets in a couple of weeks, and hopefully by then I will not have forgotten the plot, the characters, the things I liked and did not like about the author’s writing style. I am already pretty sure that I will show up at the wrong place since it has changed and even though I KNOW THIS I seem to still have the original address firmly parked in my brainpan where it appears to have taken root. The book, Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, was very good...

17
Sep
2006

ONLY 2 MORE AND WE’D HAVE A COMPLETE SITH BASEBALL TEAM

I feel like everything in my head is so disjointed. When I sit down to start writing, it all tries to shove out past my fingertips in staccato sentences and bullet points: bang! bang! There doesn’t seem to be any flow in me right now, no story, no form. Martin and I went berry-hunting today at the schoolyard. All the rowans are ruby-dotted with huge clusters of bright red berries. We figure the birds have more than enough and no one will miss half a bag full for us to use as table decorations for the Halloween party. We still...

24
Jun
2006

PORTRAIT OF THE STARVING ARTIST AS A YOUNG GIRL

Overnight, it seems, my daughter has become obsessed with money. She and Martin have had piggybanks since they were very small, promotional items from our bank, two fat translucent piggies with a lock in the bottom, one red, one blue. They have collected coins of all denominations and currencies up to and including the plastic ones that came with her Baby’s First Cash Register. We are careful not to indiscriminately purchase everything and anything our children desire, perhaps sometimes to the point of going overboard (I have steadfastly refused to let any other form of gaming enter the household besides...

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