vacation notes

Ok - so I guess I took vacation from the blog too... Not intentionally - just been away and I can't deal with dial-up. Is that the epitome of impatience (or perhaps of a Type A personality)?

Nevertheless, I (we) had a lovely and relaxing time in Mobile, home of the Green clan. There was much fudge, divinity, and Honey Baked Ham and very little to do (which was great!). We mostly slept, ate, watched TV, ran/walked in the neighborhood, went to Starbucks, and tried on old jackets from the attic:



The last evening, I did manage to get everyone to get together to play this fun-filled game called Apples to Apples (look - it's so fun that it sold out!). I lost miserably every round, but still managed to have fun (now that is a good game!) :



Rebecka and I also had a mother-daughter afternoon one day and went to see Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It was action-packed (to me) and quite funny at times, but lacked the awesomeness of the books. Rebecka loved it tho, and that's all that matters. But I think she had even more fun playing with Apple David and Apple Mike:



Now we're back in Nashville and spent the better part of yesterday trying to find a comforter cover for our bed. I think we finally succeeded at eddiebauer.com. Check it out (it's the stripes - not the flowers...)! It will have Cardinal colored sheets to go with it. Now I have to figure out the bathroom! Guh - this is just taking way too long... ;)

Until next year then...

ahhhh...

Christmas Day rocks. I love waking up and seeing Rebecka's face when she sees all the presents that Santa brought her. Her favorite presents this year were a walking and barking "GoGo" dog, a pair of walkie-talkies (so that she doesn't have to come downstairs when she wants to talk to us - hmmm...), and a karaoke machine (hearing Todd sing Waterloo is swell!).

Pepparkakor are awesome!!

Victoria's Secret gifts are always welcome...

Todd with his very own Swedish soccer team home jersey.

We also went for a brisk and wonderful walk around our favorite lake. It was perfectly cold and not at all windy. Great for playing with the walkie-talkies. Now it's time to go watch Harry Potter movie #3 and eat some Ris-a-la-Malta!

God Jul Friends!

icy wonderland

An icy blanket covered Nashville and most of this part of the world the night before yesterday. The temperature was somewhere in the teens that morning. Being insane and addicted to running, I decided to go to the gym anyway and slid over there around 7 am.

The gym was dark as I entered and I wondered if it was even open. There, in the dark, stood the friendly man who scans my card in the mornings and calls me "Anna", because that is the name on my card. "Is the gym broken?", I asked. He responded something about it being an NES problem rather than a YMCA problem.

I sat around for a minute and decided to go to work instead. The power was out there as well... I went up to the office, chatted with Pete for a second (he was going to stay, but he has a window and 2 hours of laptop battery life), and decided to go back home (why did I ever leave??).

I made it up the hill (barely) to our house and opened the front door. It was dark. You guessed it - the power was out there too. It was great! I couldn't work, I couldn't watch TV, and I sure couldn't surf the internet... So I wrapped all my gifts, sang while Todd played the piano, and went outside for a winter walk and took lots of pictures of icicles.

It was a good day.

pepparkakor och saffransbröd

Today was the day of the annual pepparkaksbak at the Green house. The aroma of gingerbread and saffron filled the kitchen early in the morning when I first prepared the gingerbread dough and lingers still after the last gingerbread snowman has been laid to rest in the big rubbermaid container...

There were several mishaps - of course. First of all, I think my kitchen scale isn't really working too well... So I ended up with way too much flour in the gingerbread dough. So much flour, in fact, that I broke my 10+ year-old ladle as I was trying to stir it... Not good. But somehow they turned out just fine. Also, I assumed that the saffron that my mom sent me last year (it's so "cheap" in Sweden) was finely ground... Well, it wasn't - so the lussekatter (saffron bread) ended up with small specks of saffron in it. Again - taste just fine - so who cares!?!?

Rebecka was a great helper and even dried some dishes for me(!) She's trying to be good about chores so that we will let her have a dog after the summer. Hmmm... We're pretty much screwed. If we don't get her a dog, she'll probably cry for a year - and that would not be fun.

The little dog in "As Good As It Gets" is cute. I could probably handle one of those. Of course, it would have to be just as well-trained. That is a requirement for sure. They're called Brussels Griffons and apparently there were six of them in the movie... Why do you need six dogs to play one dog in a movie?? I can see using two - but six? Weird...

"It is affectionate, willful and high-strung, but charming." Sound like anyone you know?? :)

back among the living

Just wanted to announce that I am back among the living and will be an impressively better friend/wife/mother/blogger/etc going forward (at least for the next few weeks)...

Presented the big, big, big project that I've been slaving away on yesterday and it is such a relief!! Now I just need to catch up on all the other projects that I've been neglecting in the meantime and everything will be just dandy.

Lunch with the girls today - yay! It's been waaaaay tooooo looooong.

Well, I'm off to the gym in order to get a good start to another fun-filled day. Thankfully it's not freezing cold today... so hopefully no frost on the car. :)

it's snowing!!

Quite pathetically, but still snowing... And with any luck it will still be snowing by the time I finish up this post...

Rebecka is thrilled. She's upstairs putting on multiple layers of sweaters and sporting her newest headband/scarf combo in anticipation of running outside to try to catch some snowflakes on her tongue. Oh the joys of childhood.

Todd and I will remain by the kitchen table with our laptops and dream of a White Christmas.

It's warm in here.

green goblins

Rebecka's basketball team won their last game this morning by crushing the opposing team and reaching some massive score that they didn't even display, in order not to make the losing team too discouraged (max 20 point difference)...

But best of all - Rebecka scored her first goal of the season (thus ever)!!! It was thrilling - and the Green Goblin supporters in the stands gave her a lot of cheers. She's had a great time playing with a really awesome team of sweet and talented girls.

I'm taking her and her friend Katie to get ice cream later in celebration of this great event (I can make almost any event qualify for a trip to Baskin Robbins...). Pralines 'n Cream - mmmm.

Go Green Goblins!!

society for handheld hushing

ever get tired of listening to annoying cell phone conversations...?

check this out!

email

i have 117 in my inbox... i have 52 flagged for follow up... i'm scared to think about the number of emails that i will have when i get back from my vacation... maybe i shouldn't go on vacation...

what sucks...

... is getting to your car in the airport parking lot at night (after an 18 hour workday) and having to scrape frost off the windshield...

however, what doesn't suck is coming home and having some warm soymilk and a granola bar before crawling into bed - mmm - tasty...

god natt!

They live together in a big house.

Being able to write this sentence was the extent of the "language test" portion of my naturalization interview today... And I managed to pass the government/history questions as well (favorite question: "What is the color of the stars on the flag?").

Yay - I'll be able to add a vote for the democratic candidate in the next election!

I started off in Nashville at 7 am this morning, drove to Memphis for the interview (thanks Emi for coming with me!!!), back to Nashville. Now it's 11:30 pm and I'm in a Holiday Inn in Wilkesboro, N.C.

I'm tired.

ps - There's a lady on The Tonight Show right now who is eating a lot of meatballs in 30 seconds. Gross!!!

3 good things about running outside in the winter

It makes you feel alive!

It makes you appreciate the sunny spots...

And it makes coming back to a warm home even more exciting!!

this weekend...

...was fantastic!!! :)

Gone are the woes of previous posts. I'm tired, yes, but everything was just very swell this weekend.

My sweet friend Katie of Wisconsin was in town and I managed to see her every day she was here. Breakfast at Panera this morning was especially pleasant. :)

Went to company Christmas Party - and was thrilled to be at an event where I was not at all in charge of ANYTHING!! Forced relaxation rocks.

Some other very nice things occurred...

Got to talk to both of my parents!

Pulled off the Christmas Musical without any kids falling off the stage or setting fire to each others hair. Had so many terrific people help out with it (thanks M!). Our good friends Pete and Emi came to it, which was quite thrilling. As did my boss w family, which was also very cool.

Talked to my awesome friend Jennifer for the first time in months.

And now I'm chatting with my genius friend Steve.

Hmmm - I should probably be working, but - there's always time for that later! (Let's see how long this high lasts, shall we? I'm betting less than 24 hours.)

come see, listen, and eat

What: Christmas Musical "Light of the World" with my two choirs and other random musicians + potluck dinner following program (entree and dessert provided)

When: This Sunday, December 12, 2004 @ 5 pm

Where: Second Presbyterian Church, Nashville

Questions? Post a comment!

name of the day: anna

In Sweden, today's namesday is Anna. This is my first name (I go by my second name).

Today was the suckiest namesday ever.

However, I did get the movie Chocolat from Todd (thanks honey!). Rebecka made me a candy dispenser and a bookmark (very creative!!). And my mom left me a Happy Namesday message on my voice mail (it's her namesday today too...).

Still the suckiest ever...

I'm tired of working all the time. I'm tired of people looking at me and telling me how tired I look. And I'm definitely tired of being tired all the time.

Ok - bitching time is over. Back to work.

check it out!

Last week, Todd submitted comments to CBS’s Amazing Race website about personal experiences/observations concerning Stockholm. Each week, they publish some of these on their website. Guess who is now a published author on a major network’s website… (look at the 6th response):

Been There, Done That

Read more about The Vasa Museum.

it's all greek to me...

So Kevin (design team member) and I decide to order some take out Greek food from my favorite Kebab/Gyros place to bring back to the office in order to get through an evening of fun-filled work. I tell the guy on the phone I will pick up in five minutes. I get there and he hasn't even gotten started... "Oh, I didn't think you meant five minutes..."

Since when does "five minutes" not mean "five minutes"??

Anyway - on the upside... When you leave work at 5:30 pm to pick up dinner, you can get a really good parking spot when you get back to the office.

paradoxical morality

Today I received an email from my friend Emi which talked about how certain pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for contraceptives based on 'moral grounds'. Apparently seven states have passed laws allowing for these kind of practices just this year.

I'm sure these are the same people who refuse to perform abortions and in worst case scenario go out to the clinics to harass (or kill) those who do based on the same 'moral grounds'.

Hello!?!??! Doesn't anyone see that refusing to provide birth control to women hurts the abortion cause rather than help it?? According to this email, half of all unwanted pregnancies in this country could have been avoided had the women been using birth control.

So first we refuse to give these women contraceptives and then we shun them when they get pregnant and want an abortion...? Does this make sense to anyone? Abortion is not a good thing. Not only is a human life ended prematurely, but this also causes emotional scars in the women and creates divides in families and relationships. If we can prevent this by providing birth control to those who need it the most, why shouldn't we?

To read more, click here.

i'm pooped

Thus endeth my first soccer season ever. Whew! Playoffs today with back-to-back games in the mud. I got kicked in the knee, fell on top of the other team's goalie (which was not all bad ;) - but it still hurts), and had a swell time in general.

Came home after the games and got some Swedish rice porridge started in the big pot, took a shower, started watching Shrek II with the family, and passed out on the couch.

It was a fine, fine day.

Btw - After my shower I decided to see what would happen if I just let my hair dry completely on its own... Disaster. I promise I will never subject any of you to this (poor Todd!!).

ps - I just noticed how in the picture above, half the team is holding their hands in front of them and the other half is holding their hands behind their backs (and then there's me). Wonder if this is linked to personality...?

positive thinking

Went to bed with a slightly sore throat.

Woke up with a much sorer throat.

This is not the time... Need to think happy thoughts:

"I'm not sick, I'm not sick. I feel fine, I feel fine..."

It's all mental.

it has been seen

I finally managed to clear an evening, hire a babysitter (thanks Sam!!), and get away with the hubby to see Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. We viewed it in a very empty theatre with a handful of other Friday night movie goers.

I don't care what the critics said - it was marvelous. Hugh was hot, Colin was hotter, and it was actually really funny. No substance whatsoever, but who cares!?!? It's Friday night and I've been overusing my brain for weeks.

Lovely evening.

don't fix it if it ain't broke...

In the spirit of trying something new, I decided to change up my workout a bit this morning. Instead of running for an hour and then lifting weights, I thought it might be fun to do elliptical machine for 30 minutes, then lift weights, and then run for 30 minutes. Well, the first two parts went fine - then when I got on the treadmill and started running, my legs felt like lead and after 15 minutes, my body said "NO MORE!!"

I think it was due to doing lunges right before the run while still sore from doing lunges on Tuesday... Lunges are awesome - they workout every lowerbody muscle - but if you skip them on even one workout it doesn't matter how much you stretch, you'll be sore...

So, I think I'll go back to my routine of running first next time. :)

Btw - If you live in Nashville, the Greek Orthodox Church is having its annual bake sale this weekend. I won't be going, because I've already put on my allotted holiday pounds and am in the process of running them off. A box full of baklavas at the house would not help the cause.

beware!

The Fox and Fridiots will be on the road next week and they're coming to Nashville... Don't know where - but stay away from downtown, I guess.

Btw - I worked 14 hours yesterday - just another day at the office...