Tagged: obiterphotos

09
Jun
2010

PREFERABLY NOT A CAREER PROPHESY

Every year Flyinge school hosts Tokiga Dagen a couple of days before classes are out for the summer. Tokiga Dagen means “the Crazy Day” and the kids dress up in all kinds of silly costumes and have a parade and winners are picked for best outfit and they have different stations to go to and play at all during the day. One year she wore Anders’ much-too-big-for-her suit & dress shoes. Last year she was a hobo. This year? She was a hotdog stand. It was all her own idea. Anders helped with getting a box down from the attic...

18
May
2010

GOLDEN AGE

Warming temps and sunny skies have lightened my mood considerably. Though yesterday I was so tired when I came home from work that I went to lie down “for half an hour” at 7 p.m. and awoke, completely groggy and disoriented, at 9:37 p.m., just in time to say good night to the kids and cast myself back upon the shores of sleep. Behind our house: a glowing ocean of golden gorgeousness; the rapeseed is in bloom. It’s not all the way blown, as I discovered when I walked out to the edge of the field. Each blossom is topped...

16
May
2010

SO THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

It’s hard to unwind and relax into a long weekend when you’re as used to go-go-going all the time as I am. I had to deliberately stop myself from checking work email. I had to force myself to stop, drop and go back to my book instead of latching onto a project. But it wasn’t as hard after the first day as I thought it would be. Even with a dog in the house, I managed to sleep in. It actually helped that it was such crappy weather all weekend long: chilly drizzly cloudiness. My hair has been barking all...

04
May
2010

SPRING IS SPRUNG, THE GRASS IS RIZ

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you! 😀 Spectacular cloudscapes, slanting sunshine, a sudden downpour of rain washed over Flyinge with a fleeting fat rainbow to top it off. The forsythias are so bright, they look like miniature suns. Cherry trees are blossoming: our little cherry is studded with white blooms up and down each branch; harbingers for a bumper crop, I hope! The bird cherry across the ditch has exploded like a stupendous slo-mo popcorn tree. Sparrows are nesting in one of the birdhouses on the side of the playhouse and pheasant calls ratchet through the...

03
Apr
2010

I HOPE MY KIDS NEVER GET TOO OLD FOR THIS STUFF

This has been an altogether lovely week leading up to Easter. Lots of sunshine and a wonderful dog in the house to love on. The kids were home all last week so they went out walking and playing with London several times a day in the sunshine and then we went for a long walk in the early evenings. Tiny, tight green buds are starting to show on the tips of every branch. Easter flowers are blooming: crocus, daffodil, snowdrops, wood anemone. The furled knives of tulip leaves have stretched up tall in gardens all over the village. Tractors are...

28
Feb
2010

FIVE DAY DOG

It’s no secret that we would love to have a pet with fur. And no secret that we, sadly, can’t; at least not of the dog or cat variety (and the other choices aren’t palatable or preferred). So we dog- and cat-sit whenever we have a chance, with the caveat that it can’t be for more than week, which is approximately how long it takes for Anders to break out the inhaler or my eyes to start itching like crazy. I’m a confirmed cat-person and my willingness to dog-sit is mostly done for the sake of my children, even though...

30
Jan
2010

SMOOTH AND CLEAN AND FROSTY WHITE, THE WORLD LOOKS GOOD ENOUGH TO BITE*

Yesterday, when I drove to work, everything was coated with hoarfrost, making the trees look like diamond-bright winter caricatures of their leafy green summer selves. No chance to take photos, since I didn’t have a camera with me, and the frost had melted by evening. Crisp and clear and blindingly sunny today; our backyard is a pristine white blanket of snow. I filled the bird feeder and hung it in front of the kitchen window. There are no berries on anything, the birds have stripped every bush and tree clean. Most of the birds I saw today were sitting hunched...

23
Jan
2010

ROOM RENOVATION

I didn’t get my own room until we moved to Belgium, the year I turned 13 but once I did, one of the best things about having my own space was getting to change things around to suit myself. I loved to rearrange my room. I’d move furniture around every so many months, trying out every possible combination of filling the space. I’d move the pictures I had taped or tacked to the walls. I’d rearrange the books in my bookcase and on my shelves. Interior design was an appealing career path. I still feel this way, but having a...

24
Dec
2009

WHAT A BRIGHT TIME, IT’S THE RIGHT TIME!

Sleeping in, Finished a great book, house spotless, and refrigerator stuffed with all the trimmings for a complete Swedish julbord and ready to go! Anders’ parents got here just after 3 p.m. and the kids watched Kalle Anka until Karin and I left to pick up John & Simone at the airport (on time! smooth sailing!). There is still a ton of snow and there are lovely advent lights in stars in the windows of every house. We had a wonderful evening stuffing ourselves silly on all the good food that Anders and his mom had prepared and then (finally!...

20
Dec
2009

IN THE LANE SNOW IS GLISTENING

Look what happens when someone leaves the snow on overnight! 24 hours plus of snowfall and we have over a foot. I threw the kids outside with a camera and told them to take photos. “Of what?” they asked. DUH! Of things covered in snow! When I got the camera back, they had taken pictures of both the cars and the mailbox and some blobs of snow on the side of the house. Anders is out shoveling, the kids are out sledding and I, in a hilarious twist of irony, am about to DEFROST THE FREEZER. Hahahahahaha!! ABOMINABLE! Clifford the...

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