The sun has been shining for an unprecedented number of days in a row. Yesterday the sky was solid blue all day long and today there are little white fluff-clouds floating around. The trampoline is up and the pots have been planted with multi-colored pansies. Spring is here and we want to wish YOU a very Happy Easter!
Counting down at work and getting a bit stressed out because there is always so much to do before you take vacation, and I will not, WILL NOT, work evenings if I can avoid it, even though I know I would get at least a bit more caught up. It’s a river in flood, and sometimes it’s all I can do just to not get swept downstream. One of the women in our department recently left and the majority of her workload descended upon the two of us who work with the marketing implementation work…mostly datasheets for our products, and...
Hearing that (another) friend has been diagnosed with cancer has put quite the damper on my weekend, even though I think, given today’s medical advances, that she can beat this, it’s still a horrible experience for her and her family to go through. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. I’m not thinking about what it would mean to ME to receive such a diagnosis; my mind skitters and leaps about it, looking distractedly in the other direction, pulling my sleeve and pointing, not letting me dwell on any of those grotesque and overwhelmingly awful scenarios. *** Martin and I took...
Reading travel books about exotic places is a stimulating torture process. Even though we have vacation plans that actually involve travel this year, they are not, sadly, to somewhere we haven’t already been. After finishing the travel book that has taken me much longer to read than any book has a right to, I’m now yearning to explore European destinations I have yet to visit: Prague (yes, I know!), St. Petersburg, the Italian coast, more of Greece, Ireland, Wales, Portugal, France (when all I’ve seen is Paris). And that’s only grazing the surface. Poland! Croatia! Budapest and Zagreb. I’m not...
I’m so focused on other things (work, mostly) that I’m continually surprised by the promise and the preparation that the Earth is making for the return of spring. Driving up the hill, out of the corner of my eye, my mind registers a patch of what can only be snowdrops. Another garden, caught in peripheral vision, seems to be polka-dotted with tiny yellow bulbs…surely not crocus already? The sun has been shining inbetween times, but with my head bent to the cyanotic glow of circuitry, I keep catching only the tail-end of it, as I leave the office. It’s not...
It’s snowing like crazy outside. Fat white fluff-flakes floating dreamily down, down and around in the white light of the streetlights. The street is filled up with snow. Clifford the Big Red Rock has a sparkly white skullcap. The plants are hunkered down, puffed up with the white stuff. We’ve had snow on the ground for almost 2 weeks now, though really it hasn’t been that much; it keeps melting down to a thin covering and then freezing. All the footprints in the yard: kid, dog, neighbor’s cat, are softening at the edges and filling in. They’ll have to stomp...
Yesterday, I was a guest at an evening activity with one of our vendors. We were divided into 2 teams by our hosts: two delightful chefs who are making names for themselves in the Öresund region. David Fernandes, who owns the S:t Gertrud Patisserie and Tareq Taylor, who made a name as the owner and master chef of acclaimed Malmö restaurant trappaner. The activity was cooking our own dinner, under the leadership of our two chefs, and then sitting down to enjoy it. It was great fun, and the food was fantastic. One team (mine) was in charge of the...
Craving sunshine nearly as much as I’m craving snow, I was delighted to see the sun smiling in a bright blue sky when I woke, vacation-late as usual, this morning. Anders and the kids were headed out the door to their grandparents; Anders is going to help them paint their bathroom this week, and I, quite honestly, am glad of some alone time. I worked on my editing project for a couple of hours and ate a big salad for lunch, and then the call of the sunshine overwhelmed me at last and pushed me out the door. Brrr! It...
Even though I decorate my home with a peaceful palette of pale greens and tend to wear black and chocolate brown and other dark and dusty colors like forest green and eggplant purple, it’s orange that is my favorite color. Orange with its bright unexpected blast of color, orange that brightens a day immediately like an adrenaline shot of sunshine, orange that makes you smile and lifts your mood and shines out with a reverberating vibe of energy. It’s the color of pumpkins and Japanese lanterns and clementines and salmon nigiri. It’s tiger halves and tabby cats, tiger lilies, monarch...
It’s 8 o’clock in the evening and the church bells just rang in the little white church tower with the verdigris onion top that I can see out the window, across the pasture. They ring on the hour, but they don’t necessarily count it…this time there were only 5 bongs. This morning at 6 a.m., as on most mornings, there were, like, TWENTY bongs. It’s a crapshoot, apparently. And sometimes the bell peals out again at a quarter after, just to see if you’re paying attention. This is what I see from the window: the crossed wooden bars of the...