{"id":2077,"date":"2011-12-30T22:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/12\/30\/retrospective-4\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T12:36:06","slug":"retrospective-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/12\/30\/retrospective-4\/","title":{"rendered":"RETROSPECTIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/I-10-cap.png\" title=\"Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische\" align=\"left\" alt=\"I\" \/>n just over a week, I will have been in Sweden for 15 years. It&#8217;s hard to believe that much time has gone by, because mostly, it seems to have happened in the blink of an eye. Didn&#8217;t I just move here? Can I really speak Swedish? Are my kids really this tall? This has been a good year for us, and it has also zoomed by almost too fast for me to keep track of. I&#8217;ve managed to slow down to an almost dead stop this week though, and have found (rather to my surprise), that I really NEEDED it. I&#8217;ve gone to bed mostly on time, read until the wee hours, slept in like a giant slug, and done pretty much nothing most of the days.<\/p>\n<p>This year is quite different weather-wise from last year (and the year before): there is NO snow. It&#8217;s been pretty warm, even up to 10 degrees, which is the temperature that SPRING arrives with. The grass is still green and the ground is spongy with damp. I&#8217;ve noticed that the moss is appearing on every surface: trees, houses, roofs. The white house around the corner has one side wall that is nearly green with the algae growth. <\/p>\n<p><b>Family &#038; personal highlights of 2011<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A fantastic family vacation to Iceland in July<\/li>\n<li>Karin switching schools from Flyinge to Sandby<\/li>\n<li>Martin volunteering to sing a SOLO at his school Christmas party<\/li>\n<li>Mom&#8217;s 3-week visit this summer<\/li>\n<li>The birth of my brother&#8217;s little boy, Sammo<\/li>\n<li>A week and a half with Mom in Massachusetts in September, including a visit with Elizabeth at the Squam Art Workshops<\/li>\n<li>New gadgets: an iPad with my bonus money in the spring, and a new computer for Christmas<\/li>\n<li>Anders getting to pet tigers in Thailand, and visit with Kathey &#038; Russell in Texas during his business trips this year<\/li>\n<li>Karin joining the Innebandy team, as WELL as continuing with soccer<\/li>\n<li>Karin&#8217;s first (and hopefully last for awhile) boyfriend!<\/li>\n<li>The growth of my team at work, which has begun to relieve some of the pressure<\/li>\n<li>Posting every day in November!<\/li>\n<li>A whirlwind weekend visit to southern Germany for Sammo&#8217;s baptism in December<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I read 104 books this year, many of them re-reads of old favorites and some of them huge bricks of books that took me much longer than usual to get through. It was only 3 more books than 2010, but my average was basically the same at 8.6 books per month.<\/p>\n<p><b>Best Books of 2011<\/b> (in no particular order and not including re-reads)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks by Rebecca Skloot<\/li>\n<li>Just My Type by Simon Garfield<\/li>\n<li>The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O&#8217;Farrell<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t Let&#8217;s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller<\/li>\n<li>The Help by Kathryn Stockett<\/li>\n<li>Fall of Giants by Ken Follett<\/li>\n<li>Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich<\/li>\n<li>At Home by Bill Bryson<\/li>\n<li>The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti<\/li>\n<li>Thornyhold by Mary Stewart<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As always, I didn&#8217;t keep track of films and have no idea which ones I saw in 2011 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><b>Best musical discoveries in 2011<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eliza Doolittle<\/li>\n<li>Cee Lo Green<\/li>\n<li>Katherine McPhee<\/li>\n<li>One Republic<\/li>\n<li>Gotye<\/li>\n<li>Neon Trees<\/li>\n<li>Adele<\/li>\n<li>First Aid Kit<\/li>\n<li>Coldplay (I know, I&#8217;m late to the game)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Some manageable goals for 2012<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WALK WALK WALK<\/li>\n<li>Midsummer with my entire first family in northern Germany!<\/li>\n<li>Possible family vacation to Greece<\/li>\n<li>Thorough clutter cleaning in the whole house<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tomorrow we will spend New Year&#8217;s Eve with good friends that we have been celebrating New Year&#8217;s and Midsummer with for years here in Sweden. Traditions are a comforting thing and nearly always something to look forward to. I hope your New Year will be filled with good things, laughter, love and friendship!<\/p>\n<p><font size=\"-2\">(Drop cap courtesy of Jessica Hische&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/dailydropcap.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daily Drop Cap<\/a>)<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>n just over a week, I will have been in Sweden for 15 years. It&#8217;s hard to believe that much time has gone by, because mostly, it seems to have happened in the blink of an eye. Didn&#8217;t I just move here? Can I really speak Swedish? Are my kids really this tall? This has been a good year for us, and it has also zoomed by almost too fast for me to keep track of. I&#8217;ve managed to slow down to an almost dead stop this week though, and have found (rather to my surprise), that I really NEEDED&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-goodthings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4308,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/4308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}