I'm starting to get excited about the holidays now. Especially since I just got the news that my mom is coming! YAY! She's coming AFTER Christmas, but that's okay because she's staying for nearly a month. Woot! And hopefully, my brother and Simone will be able to come up for at least a few of the days between Christmas & New Year's, too. Hope, hope!

Question for parents: how late do your kids stay up? (did I ask this before? or am I just having déjà vu?) If they stay up until 10 on a school night, what age were they when they were allowed to do so? There is some extremely fierce lobbying going on here, and I need ammo.

I've had a lot of anxiety this past year about not writing the way I want to write. But suddenly, I feel much calmer about it: if it's not coming, it's not coming. It's not going to stop me writing, dadgummit. At some point, it will surely be back (and no, I didn't just call you Shirley).

Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: What's so great about literacy and education?

Awesome Eyes: Owl in a box

One jack-o-lantern is moldering, his grinny grimace drooping down to the pavement. Time to bag them up and pitch them before I can't approach without gagging! Anyway, it's time to get them gone, because I plan on pulling out the holiday decorations in another couple of weeks. I already have advent calendars ready for both kids for the first time in...ever. I was joking at work today with a friend that you can't sing Christmas carols until December and then saw that someone in the next office building over already has one of the triangular Swedish Advent lights lit up in the their window. I'm pretty sure you can be expelled from Sweden for things like that. Even our local grocery store already has Christmas stuff for sale, though they at least haven't actually started decorating the premises yet.

Things People Have Said About Me Lately:
"I thought I'd ask you because you have a database in your head and know everything."
"Mama äger att måla! (Mama rules at painting!)
"You're exceptionally weird, even for an American."

Cracking Me Up:
Liz: Karin, what the hell is this mess? Come and clean this up! You don't need to leave this stuff all over the place.
Karin: Sorry.
Liz: Sorry isn't good enough.
Karin: *without missing a beat* Oh please my darling mother, I promise it will never happen again, I grovel before you and apologize.
Liz: That's better.
Liz & Karin: *giggle madly*

Martin's room renovation is proceeding apace. Anders has spackled and removed the last remnants of wallpaper glue which Martin & I missed (there might have been some implications about our patience level in there somewhere). BUT the wallpaper set that Martin picked out has turned out to be too expensive. So, I'm going to paint the trees myself. Martin has chosen the colors: a natural palette of soft greens and browns, and now we just have to get moving so we can get this all done before the holidays. I don't think it will be done before we host Thanksgiving, though, more's the pity.

There's my motivation! I found it! It was lurking...in my brain. Always the last place you look, eh?

Things I did at work today:
Watered the plants, confimed procedures with a colleague on the phone, reviewed a flash card, ate breakfast, laid out 5 case studies, uploaded an updated datasheet and sent out a call for translation for localized versions, reviewed 5 presentations, made a new ad look better, sent out 4 ads to publications, ate a super salad for lunch, found a logo for someone, had a discussion about how best to do the next cheat sheet poster, farted around for 20 minutes while our awesome IT guy fixed my computer (2 new memory boards, 1 new graphics card with an extra fan), answered several questions, thanked someone for a job well done, finalized 9 enewsletters, fixed a typo on 31 enewsletters, updated the enews archive page, cancelled a dinner date, read and answered over 100 emails, finalized another ad and sent it for review...among other things. Productive!

We were supposed to go to the wallpaper/paint store after work but Anders got stuck helping someone and we wouldn't have made it before they closed, so we'll go on Wednesday instead. Martin's room renovation is in full swing. Instead I unloaded the dishwasher, made dinner, read 2 chapters, power-walked on the treadmill for 35 minutes and made a couple of phone calls. I have some other projects percolating in my brain right now...we'll see if they get started tonight or not.

Both kids had their H1N1 flu vaccine shots today and are walking around wincing any time they have to lift their arms. Karin has the most awesome sad "feel sorry for me" face ever. Is it wrong that I can't help laughing every time she tries it out on me?

Even though the weather was for shite today, it always seems like a good day when I have motivation, a good mood and a positive attitude. I get knocked down, but I get up again.

What a busy week! It seems only yesterday that I posted but it was Sunday! And now it's Thursday! Zooooooom. Not over yet, either. It's been all AWC, all the time. I'm officially no longer the Editor, which is a weird feeling. I went through this several yeas ago, when I gave up the Editor position for a year and took a break from the board work, though I helped out a bit with the web work that time. This time, I've just moved positions on the board, and am still 1/2 of the webteam, which probably means nearly as much web/editing work as before, though not the official responsibility for it.

Instead of Editor, I'm now the club representative for our umbrella organization, FAWCO, and am already helping them out on THEIR website with some minor administrative details. I've been active with FAWCO before and I'm a bit wary about getting sucked in to doing too much again, but the position needed filling so...here I am. The handovers from the old board to the new one have gone okay, though I'm a little worried about the activities officers. There are THREE of them this year, instead of the usual two, and two of them seem pretty casual about their election, even though they agreed to step up to the positions. We'll see how it goes!

Get this, though! One of our co-Treasurers, during the August meeting, took in several cash payments from people who were paying their membership dues for the year, and didn't realize until later that one of the payments was in COUNTERFEIT MONEY!! It's pretty amazing to me that she didn't notice but she got cash from 10 people all at the same time and was just receiving and writing names down and stuffing the money into an envelope, without really registering that there was anything strange about any of the money she was handed.

There's no way the person giving it to her didn't know it was fake, either. It was two 100-krona bills and one 50-krona bill. They were all made the same way on the same copy paper and looked like they'd been printed on a home color printer, cut with SCISSORS and then crumpled and smoothed. The worst thing was that at some point they'd gotten wet and the ink had totally run and spread and in some cases, completely disappeared. Unbelievable! And there's no way to know which of the people who paid that night might have done it, but can you imagine? Ballsy!

We talked about whether or not to report it, but it was almost 2 months ago and we have no way to prove anything, so I don't really think it would be worth it. It's not a very nice feeling to think that someone in the AWC is so dishonest, and a criminal, to boot.

***

Karin's had a lot of muscle pain in her left calf over the past few months and been sidelined at her soccer practices and some games, much to her dismay. Anders got her to the physical therapist yesterday and they said she had had a tear in the muscles that had healed badly and therefore, wasn't as flexible as before. But what caused it wasn't so much the sports but the fact that she has very flexible and very flat feet, with almost no arch, and her feet are "collapsing" inwards and straining the muscles of the calf continually. After the appointment, Anders took her to the shoe store and bought her new gym shoes with better arch support and inserts for her current shoes, and we have to get her better everyday shoes as well. We also have to give her leg massages every other day and she has a follow up appointment in 3 weeks. She can still play soccer but she has to be more careful about warming up and if the pain continues after a practice or match, she has to rest the leg for several days from sports/gym. It was okay if she had pain DURING sports, just that it shouldn't keep hurting when she was done. Anders has had some of the same issues in the past himself, though I don't think it's stopped him much from being active and playing different sports; she has her father's feet.

***

Anders is leaving on Sunday for a 2-week business trip to Italy; it's been ages since his last one. But I'm feeling bad about the fact that he hasn't gotten started on the renovation work for Martin's room and think maybe I need to get him to show me how to run the power sander, so I could maybe at least get that part done while he's gone. Hrm.

A Bazillion Belated Birthday Wishes to misschili, gissa and bezigebij!

Karin's been torn between soccer and karate all this past year. She had karate class 2 nights a week and soccer practice 2 nights a week and inevitably one of the nights held both and she ended up having to choose each week which one to go to. For various reasons, soccer began to win out and it's been more and more dominant since the spring. Her team was in a league which was too advanced for them; they ended up dead last, having not won a single game in the entire season, which was very hard on the kids who were playing their hearts out each week.

The season ended in June, when school did, and during the summer they were invited to participate in Eskilscupen, a tournament held in Helsingborg 45 minutes north of us. It meant 3 overnight stays, 3 days of matches and a 2-day training camp the weekend before. Intense! Karin is the only girl on her team so I was a bit concerned about the overnight arrangements, but things have turned out just fine. Her whole team bunked on the floor of a classroom in the school by the soccer fields and one of her coaches is the mother of a teammate so she wasn't the only female in the room, at least. :)

Eskilscupen has been organized since 1968, one of the oldest in Sweden. Last year there were 586 participating teams and I heard the number 800 batted around yesterday for this year's record. Not only teams from Sweden, but from Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia, the USA and Barcelona's Youth Team were there this year. The first day I had to work so Martin and Anders went up to watch the matches. Karin's team tied the first match against Helsingborg IF3 with 3-3 and then were crushed by a far superior opponent: Malmö FF, probably one of the best youth teams in the tournament; to make matters worse Karin's team was wearing their away uniforms which they had never before lost in.


Karin in action against Helsingborg IF3 (photo: Anders Ek)


Serious concentration while playing Malmö FF (photo: Anders Ek)

But yesterday was a golden day! We drove up to Helsingborg in the sunshine for the first match, against Ödåkra at 2 p.m. and cheered on the sidelines as Karin's team pulled together and played better than they ever had. I was amazed at how much they have improved as a team since the matches I watched during the spring season. Karin was Team Captain (see the yellow C on her arm) as well and very conscious of her role. They won 3-0 and their smiles could have lit up the whole sky.


Celebrating the first team win! (photo: Anders Ek)

Unfortunately, one of the opposing team members landed a knee in Karin's thigh during the first match and by the 2nd game at 5:20 p.m. she was walking with a limp, so she couldn't play, much to her disappointment. Her coaches agreed that it was better she rest the leg so as to be sure of playing today. She sat on my lap and we cheered on the team against Önnestad. Much to her embarrassment, since I kept yelling in English. "GO! GO! GO!" I would scream when our team had the ball. Little boys' heads would turn and look at me and I could feel Karin shifting in my lap. "My mom's American," she'd explain with a bit of a grimace. It made me laugh and even more so when I remembered that the word gå in Swedish, which is pronounced exactly the same as go, means walk, so I was, in effect, yelling at the kids to WALK WALK WALK! hahaa!! So I tried to remember to yell SPRING! instead, which means Run! but inevitably found myself reverting to English in the heat of the moment. AAH the joys of being an embarrassing parent! :D

Karin's team won 2-1 ending the day with a real milestone for celebration and a cup-wide disco to look forward to yesterday evening. Despite the fact that she couldn't play, there was a compensation during the waiting period between the 2 matches. Henke Larsson, one of Sweden's premier soccer players and captain of the Swedish National team, was there watching his son play in the tournament. He was injured during his own game the day before and is out for 8 weeks to recover, so he was on crutches and easy to spot. Kids kept swarming him where he was sitting but he waved them away politely during the game, saying he wasn't signing autographs while his son's game was in progress. But afterwards he very kindly accommodated all the children who were so thrilled to see him, and Karin got his autograph AND a photo:


Henke Larsson with Karin (photo copyright: Anders Ek)

Today is elimination rounds. Anders left this morning to get up to Helsingborg in time for the first game which started 25 minutes ago. Martin and I have other plans that needed to be done today, but I'm hoping things will go well. If they win the first game, there will be another match, and I'm sure she'll arrive home glowing regardless of the outcome.

Bonny Bundles of Birthday Wishes to into_the_blue!

Double digits! My baby turns 10 today. 10 years of whirling, twirling, grimacing, roly-poly monkeybutt craziness! What would I do without her? She makes me fly up in the treetops with exasperation and with love. Happy birthday to my beautiful 10-year-old daughter!

This is Karin (Liz kid) and this is my script for a movie that I'm gonna make on a game.
Its a Comedy action romance movie.

The dark ninja

*beach*

(Henry and Elizabeth kissing)

Elizabeth: I don't want you to leave.
Henry: I must, i have a big test tomorrow, and i may not come back.
Elizabeth: Honey, don't say things like that.
Henry: I'll always have you in my heart.
(Henry leaves)

------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*the living room*

(Elizabeth looking at picture and is sad)

------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*Subway station*

(Henry stands waiting for train)

-------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*train*

(Henry boards)

(camera- looks at Henry sitting in train)

(Henry goes off train)

-------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*Neighborhood*

(Henry walking in neighborhood)

(Henry walks into house)

-------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*Living room*

(Henry calls Elizabeth)

Elizabeth: Hello?
Henry: Elizabeth ? Its me Henry
Elizabeth: Oh my dear Henry !
Henry: I'm in your grandpas old house, and I'm just about to go to my test, and i called to say i love you...
Elizabeth: Henry you will come back i promise you.

-------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*rural field*

(two enter)

Teacher: Are you ready to rock?
Henry: I am

(kungfu fight)

(teacher dies in Henry's arms, Henry panics)

(Henry runs out of sight)

---------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*living room*

(phone conversation)

Henry: Honey, I killed my master
Elizabeth: OK...you did what?!
Henry: I accidentally killed my master
Henry: Honey? Honey, are you there?

----------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*neighborhood*

(Henry runs out of the house)

(And then off the set)

----------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*train*

(Henry sitting)

-----------------------------------------------------------

(new set)

*hotel room*

(Henry runs in)

Elizabeth (with gun): I'm so sorry, Henry... (shoots)

Henry (reacts to shot and dies)

Elizabeth: ...but I won't live with a killer.

---------------------------------------------------------

(THE END)

Karin's room is taking shape. We went to IKEA yesterday and bought her bed (though we forgot a piece of it that I had to go back for today), and now we just have to get her bookcase and new dresser, but those things will have to wait until after we're back. It looks really cool, I think you'll agree, even though the walls are still bare, pending furniture placement before hanging anything. You can really see how great the silver trim (Anders' idea) looks in these photos, and you can also see the difference in the red of the dragon vs the red of the walls. We toned down the walls, on the paint store guy's recommendation and I'm glad we did, otherwise the room would have been fire-engine screaming red! Karin's thrilled and that's what matters :) When we get back, we'll start on Martin's room.





Burnished Brilliant Belated Birthday Wishes to travelertrish!

*This makes me laugh, because rum in Swedish is room.

How many gazillion posts can I start writing with no clue as to what I'm going to write about, limping solely along on the determination to post something or die trying? 1703 apparently, as of this one.

My daughter has been, for whatever reason, lamenting the fact that she is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD with an outie bellybutton. I'm not sure exactly how this bit of information has suddenly come to the forefront of her consciousness. Comparison tests in the locker room while changing for gympa? She is the only person in our family, at least, but I hardly think that warrants wailing and despair at her extreme other-ness. To stem the angst, I promised I would conduct a poll of my friends and acquaintances online so I'm asking you: innie or outie?

Her outie is, I think, the result of a rather botched umbilical tie-off, but I think it's cute. It's a little button in the middle of her darling little tummy. She seems to be fixating more and more on her appearance lately, something I keep trying, with a rather decided lack of success, to head off at the pass. Her feet are "ugly", her hair is "bushy", she's "not cute". When I ask where she is hearing this, who she is hearing it from, her answers are evasive. She's certainly not hearing it from us, and frankly, I don't think that it can all be credited to sibling affection in the form of regular teasing from her brother.

It's weird to me, because she's so very much a tomboy in so many ways, that this very feminine affliction would be bothering her at the relatively tender age of nine and a half. Isn't that early for self-image introspection? Are they really growing up THAT fast? It's scary to think that she's already aware of the way she looks and that it CONCERNS her. I know things start young nowadays, but I was hoping we had a few more years leeway.

Her emotions swing from the wildest high to a crashing low, one moment to the next. It's never dull around her, that's for sure. Giving her a compliment can send her spiraling with joy and an off-hand, teasing comment can be completely misconstrued and agonized over to the point of tears. This tough kid of mine has paper-thin skin apparently, and she's already learning about what gets through it. She's weighing and measuring and considering every angle and aspect of her revelation of self. Comparison is just a part of that process, but it's a scarily important part that can have repercussions for years, depending upon which side she comes down on herself.

As someone who has never considered herself much of a beauty, and who frankly, hasn't given much of a hoot EVER for make-up or hairstyles (no need with Barky on the job!), I'm not at all sure I'm equipped to deal with this beyond frequent and honest applications of love and affirmation. What your MOM thinks of how you look, when you're young, has no bearing on reality. It's just your MOM and she's biased, right? Of course she's beautiful to me, she thinks, I HAVE to say that. But my lord, it's true. She's so beautiful! When beauty is blossoming in a healthy glow and crackling energy and funny faces and a boundless capacity for affection, how could I NOT think she was beautiful? How could anyone, including her, ever think otherwise?



***

Kitcheny Cookery Bakery Bookery Birthday Wishes to brief_therapy!

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 their snowy flattened paths all over again.

Everyone else all around the world got clobbered with snow early on. We just had grey. Snow makes everything whiter and brighter and sparkly. Ooo sparkly! Add that to the bright blue sky days, sunshine-filled with freezing temps we've had lately and that's just about the perfect winter weather for me. Sun and snow, who could ask for anything more?

***

Inside Joke at Work, Just For My Own Remembrance
Kristian sent me an email, groaning a bit about the awful DVD project he's working on (one that I very joyfully gave up to him when he was hired), telling me that he had changed his name to Sisyphus. And he had actually changed his email signature to sisyphus@axis.com; I laughed like a maniac. He and I are both struggling with monster projects and too much to do at the moment. I replied that I knew how he felt, as I was resembling Prometheus more and more everyday. The rock I'm chained to being the Technical Guide localizations and the damn eagle that is pecking out my liver every day is the Marcom-Helpdesk that he and I handle (all the million marketing tasks that flood in every day from our subs, and which I've been trying to be front line on this week so that he could get somewhere on his project). So now he's signing off on emails to me as SiSS and I'm signing off on mine to him as PRO. Hee!

***

The kids spent last night at farmor & farfar's and tonight, too, and spent the whole day today out sledding (see above: snow). But this evening Karin called me up with a trembly voice to say that she'd just thrown up. After initial sympathizing and confirmation that she didn't want me to come pick her up and that she didn't think she was going to hurl again, I asked her, with a note of trepidation, where? "In the living room," she replied, sounding very guilty. "Oh, honey!" I exclaimed, "Couldn't you have made it to the toilet?" No, she told me. "My mouth just exploded."

Poor unlucky farmor was cleaning up the mess, though apparently it wasn't that much, but STILL. I'm simultaneously feeling very guilty that I'm so glad I'M not having to clean up vomit and incredibly sorry for farmor. Though, she WAS a nurse, so maybe it doesn't bother her as much as it bothers me.

***

There was more, but I'm stopping now and taking myself off to bed with a book that I suspect I've read before a million years ago (niggling familiar feelings) and am not enjoying all that much now. However, it's for book group and it's not quite (yet) reached the point of awfulness at which I will actually stop and put it in the giveaway bag without finishing it. I keep thinking SOMETHING'S got to happen soon, and the jacket blurb backs me up: someone's gonna kick the bucket and I'm greedily hoping it's ALL of these oblivious, self-centered, vapid women or their stuffed-shirt, insufferable, chauvinist men, though I know only one of the characters, sadly, will actually get the ax.

Sometimes when you are reading a book and a character dies, there is an actual jolt of complete horror and disbelief and then anger at the author for daring to do such a thing: how could they??! But in this book there is no one I wouldn't be rather pleased to see knocked off. I'm feeling very bloodthirsty, apparently, and since I can't kill anyone at work, aggravating fictional characters will have to do. DIE! DIE!

Karin was sick over the weekend, running a fever, complaining of a sore throat and being generally draggy. She stayed home from school Monday, with my chaperonage to make sure that she didn't play games all day as sick kids who stay home from work DO NOT GET TO HAVE FUN. She was allowed to watch TV and DVDs and otherwise she could lie on the sofa and sleep or lie in her bed and sleep or lie in OUR bed and sleep.

I worked the entire day, while she slept and watched and moaned about how boring it was to be sick (sure sign that she was going to school on Tuesday if I had anything to say about it), and when the day was done I worked some more, because I had a sneaking suspicion that she had already infected me. At 5 o'clock, she moaned and groaned so much that we went and laid down together in my bed, whereupon we BOTH fell asleep and Anders woke me up at 7 wondering if the kids had had dinner yet. Oops.

And I got up and ate something and then I worked until 10 p.m., because now I knew I needed to put away some hours against a coming sick day.

Tuesday she went to school and I went to work, though neither of us felt all that great, and I self-medicated with my rapidly dwindling supplies of Tylenol Cold Medicine. By yesterday, Wednesday, I KNEW I'd caught the plague but was pretty sure the super-powered American cold medicine would be able to keep it at bay.

Wrong! By afternoon, my throat hurt so much I knew I wouldn't be able to go to the first choir practice of the year and called with my sad regrets. This morning the plague was full blown: headache, achy muscles, fatigue, sore throat, stuffed up head and sore sinuses. WAH! I slept half the day and worked the rest, and now I'm going back to bed, because I really really need to go to work tomorrow and besides I WILL be better tomorrow, because it's sushi night tomorrow and I MUST BE BETTER FOR THE SUSHI.

It was much better being sick when you were a kid; even if you couldn't play games, you could make forts with your duvet, and read all you wanted and play with the cat, and your mom would bring you chicken soup and toast for lunch, and most of all, you didn't have to worry about work or your other obligations. Being sick when you're an adult, and especially when you're a parent: BLEAH.

Send healing thoughts, please! Sushi, sushi, sushi!

Cracking Me Up: My Rejected Twilight Screenplay