No, I am not crying

on New Year's Eve. I've got pain killers now. :)
Today, I've had the honour of doing the full byreaucratic round in our new town. In the morning I called a private hospital only to be told that I was welcome after I had received a referral from a GP (which I don't have..).

I was told to call the national health helpline, who gave me a bunch of telephone number to different practicies in my area. Upon calling a GP practise, I got an appointment in the afternoon, but they then changed their mind sending me directly to the emergency unit at the hospital. At the hospital, I did my waiting among other not so lucky New Year celebrators only to hear from a doctor that this was the completely wrong way of finding an ENT specialist. Yes, they had an ENT unit there, but I could not meet them by going to the emergency unit, I had to get a...

GP! When I told her that I had had serious trouble breathing last night, she took a look in my throat and told me "well, you can breath now, if it changes, call an ambulance.."

So I managed to rebook my appointment with the GP surgery, same slot as before and upon seing this doctor, he told me that sinus pain was nonsense and had I ever tried steam....

Seriously, this almost brought my good mood back, these middle aged men are soooo stupid, I am not going to loose to them! No way! I am better than that. I told him, that he really had to write me a referral because the only reason I was sitting in that chair was because I had to, to be able to see someone who actually dared looking in my nose.

I got the referral from a very grumpy man, but by then the private hospital outpatient had closed for the holidays.

But, my tears at A & E produced a couple of pain killers, so New Years Eve is very pleasant at the moment.

So champagne is out for me tonight, but we have been looking at old films of our beautiful little ones and really been remembering the good times. We have good food, fabulous other treats, *whispering* Grey's.. and I have promised to wake C just before midnight, our new countrymen are known for their fireworks display at New Year and I am hoping some will be viewable from our kitchen.

Note for 2008: Take out the camera during the good times and remember them!

Happy New Year.

New Year Tears

Feeling really blue and "deja vu" today. After making it through Christmas on some left over pain killers from my surgery in February (did sinus surgery) today it really hit me big times.

It's happening all over again. Here I am, new city, new outlook on life, new opportunities around the corner, still here I am stairing at the ceiling trying to cope with pain, alone, while my husband and beautiful children are out on a family day out of fun.

Without me.

It was such a reality check I just lay there crying, wondering in how many bedrooms this has repeated itself. I HATE missing out, I cannot begin to tell you how it wears you out not being able to be with your children, not being able to do fun things together, always have to tell them, no sorry mummy can't, mummy is not well.

So I have emailed my new GP on holiday to see if he knows any good speicalist I could turn to on New Year's Eve, because I have to find someone tomorrow. I definitely have a cyst again, I shouldn't complain, the risk of it being life threatening is minimal, but sometimes I wonder. Is it so bad to live a healthy life only to drop dead all of a sudden, rather than not being able to live your life year in and year out because you are not all rather well? Every year lost is a year of your children's childhood lost. It is a very painful realization.

With the pain and the realization comes the thoughts. What are we doing here? Why are we not together ever day? What have I done? If we would have stayed, C would have gone to a familiar school, where they don't wear shorts. *I know it's propbably pathetic, but it feels unbearable big and ..just to much at the moment*.

To have O here every day have made me loose my guard and I am really afraid of putting it up again.

I don't want to start a new year, I want to hide.

PS. Not me in picture above, my eyes are all red a swollen, but I thought my depressing text was sort of enough..besides the beauty of internet is that you can project a certain image of yourself, so anyone out there who don't know what I look like all red-eyed from one day of sobbing, feel free to believe this is how graceful I look in my worst of moments..

Dan fore dan fore dopparedan..

A Swedish say, which means the day before the day before Christmas Eve *which is the main day of Christmas. "Dopparedan", the "dipping day" comes from older traditions when you dipped bread in the gravy from the cooked Christmas ham *the Swedish eat ham instead of Turkey for Christmas*

So..on the day before the day before Christmas Eve, I've been all around the town, in and out of stores and

*I found my herring at Harvey Nichols *actually we more or less cleared their shelf*
*Have bought all Christmas food, both Christmas ham for Christmas Eve and turkey for Christmas day.
*I have cooked dinner for my family, who has arrived.
*AND I am hardly even tired and this is only after 1 tablet of antibiotics (GP thought I might have some since blood tests showed an infection and this must have been why I've been so terribly tired and down the past 3 months..

Biggest news of all, C has lost his first tooth! He was adamant to stay up all night to meet the tooth fairy and when I checked on him 5 minutes after bedtime he was excitedly staring at the ceiling to try to stay awake, but a further 5 minutes later he was fast asleep.

Will post pictures tomorrow!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas..

Not my picture, our neigboring and later favorite park while living in the Big City. C was so used to seeing these deers when he was a toddler, that when he went to Sweden he was astounded by..cows!

I am seriously dreaming of a White Christmas now, yesterday we had (at itsy bitsy bit) snow and today the frost has not disappeared at all. It is beautiful outside, but all outside experience I have had today is sliding my way to the parking meter and then back up again with the children watching in the window..

O arrives any minute and I have made my brother's bed, which is waiting for him in the study.

Christmas is seriously beginning now.. *ignoring super long list of todo's before Monday, at the moment the house is quiet and I am dreaming..*

PS. Have realized that Harvey Nichols is situated just a couple of minutes from home. They have a food hall, maybe I can find my herring there, for our Christmas Eve dinner. *hoping* Will go there tomorrow.

Seriously..

ok, so I am completely obsessed with Grey's Anatomy, but I still think that expression can be applied on my day.

Yesterday I just said to O, "I am actually feeling rather well today, but then again, that's how I have been feeling every Monday, only for it to take a turn for the worse on Tuesday and then seriously downhill during the course of the week."

True to my dooms day feeling, at 3am this morning, C woke up with a terrible cold. Yet again. Ok, so one day at home and then off to school for his last day. And then the tummy bug hits us again. What IS this?! I NEVER have tummy bugs, but now? And ALONE.

I feel terribly sorry for myself at the moment.

On a good note, I received my new lovely table runner from John Lewis: Nice, isn't it?

I also received a quite encouraging email from my new GP, who did run a long list of blood tests on me last Friday.

Verdict:

I am out of the woods regarding my iron, it is now normal! (I managed to run down my iron stores to 5 after J was born and it came with heart condition and other not so nice side effects.), but this is now fine.

Good news number 2 was that kidneys are just fine (my blood pressure is mysteriously rising since the birth of my 2nd child), but thanks to my new GP I am going to an impressive specialist on the subject (I have done some googling and he has done a lot of good!)

Cortisol level is still up a little bit, and needs further investigating by my Big City endocrinologist who started an investigation last year, but wanted iron to be up before doing anything further.

Admit it, this must have been my most interesting post this far?

Oh..

I have just ordered just about all the children's Christmas gifts from a company, which had their last date for assured delivery before Christmas today, only to realize after placing my order, that before Christmas could just as well be on the 24th, which is the day we celebrate. And just to make it extra fun, I chose gift wrapping and then deticked that option the last thing I did before clicking on confirm order.

At least we now have a large kitchen table again and no more IKEA items to assemble.

The picture above is taken last summer. She still feels like this many days of the week...and she is now my faithful assistant during my Christmas preparations.

Promise to self: I am going to make it so Thursday, when our guests start to arrive without loosing my sanity.

PS. And then keep it a further little longer 'til they leave..

The Christmas Card

For being a day completely dominated by the 3rd wave of migraine this week, I shouldn't be to disappointed that I wasn't able to check more items on my todo-list last night.

I packed the *hopefully* last mountain of workrelated parcels this time of Christmas. We now have all furniture up in the bedroom and the Christmas flowers ordered for Christmas.

Crille and Eva stop reading here! Off you go to Aftonbladet, eller nat..

We also washed J's hair (she absolutely hates it!) and afterwards, I managed to cut her hair, then the children jumped in some nice clothes and I tried to take a picture to put in our Christmas Cards (and a Calendar we are giving our family). Here are the calendar pictures, enjoy:

January

February

Mars

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

The Arrival of the Tree

O and C went out to get a Christmas tree today. O said during lunch, he thought they might have picked a bit to small a tree, but when it was delivered and he had to carry it up the stairs, I think he thought otherwise. The arrival of the tree was seriously the beginning of Christmas for me. I was jumping up and down with joy and then we played Wham's "Last Christmas", whilst decorating it. *It's nice to approach the 40s as you nowadays can rock to any old music with ease and no embarrasment what so ever* and packed up our Christmas boxes.

It was a close fit

I particularly liked the base of the tree as "getting the tree straight" with a Swedish Julgransfot *a cup with 3 screws, which you spend a couple of annoying hours adjusting to get the tree standing straight* is usually one of the pet hates of the Christmas. A time at the holidays where we always end up cross with each other. Me for B not listening when I am instructing him and he for me giving him to many instructions..

J overcame her fear of the vacum cleaner today..

The result, knowing myself, I will make my own adjustments when the children are not looking, like the santa and angel party C arranged on one of the branches..
I also sneaked outside to see how it looked and it was a very cold and crisp night outside. I felt a little bit smug when I noticed that our tree was bigger than fancy lady's downstairs.., but I am not going to feel guilty about that, because the last time I met her, I was really nice to her, I was just coming back from my hair dresser and I told her so. She looked at my hair, made a face and said: "Well, the wind probably blew it around a bit.." *oh, she's pure joy to be around...*

Show time!

Today it was time for the big Christmas Nativity play at Cs school. He has been practising for weeks both at home and with his class and J and I was very excited to go. J didn't really have a clue of what was going on and she kept sitting on only half the seat, saving the other half for C.

I earlier wrote just over 2 pages of ranting on how I would like to kick myself for not looking for the missing cord to the camcorder earlier, or buying that new camera I have been talking about, because trying to take pictures of your little shepherd singing across the stage with a %$$£"£$ compact one is quite impossible, but since the %%!!&%% laptop decided to reboot in the midst of my ranting *and nothing was saved..* I am taking that as a sign that maybe I don't have to let you hear all my thoughts of my non excisting organizational parenting skills at the moment..

Here is the whole ensemble, my shepherd is sitting just to the right of the silver star in a light blue stripey top and a tea towel on his head.

A blurry zoom in to show my gorgeous shepherd.

During rehersal (for the older children at school) yesterday, C had been clapping his hands in between the songs, so to prevent this, he had a cunning plan. He held his own hands in his lap and afterwards he said: "And do you know what, mamma? My plan worked!"

Then back home to wait for Os return!

PS. Great, I just realized that I have had my chocolate tarts I was making for O's return in the oven for about 60minutes rather than 11min..%^&**!!! Hope that the fire alarm doesn't go off when I open the oven...

PPS. It didn't, but baking confidence has just gone down the drains..

Ordlos onsdag / Wordless Wednesday

More Wordless Wednesday contributions at
Nejma in Marocko.

My first EFIT / OPPH

Inspired by Boel in Brunei, I decided to have a go with an EFIT projekt. EFIT means Ett Foto i Timmen, translated One Photo Per Hour. Welcome to a day of my life:

7.13 Ironing Cs shirt, I went up at 6.30, but only remembered my EFIT by the ironing board. The children are still asleep, so it is a nice and quiet moment.. I am thinking about O who has probably touched ground in the big city by now (he left at 5am).

8.13 J och C on their way to our car. Time for school!

9.17 back again and J stands very nicely by the garden fence while I get the buggy out of the car boot.


10.25 after 1h of playdoughing, J watches TV and I check out how we did yesterday on the internet.

11.19 J is brave enough to play with Cs TRex. She is sticking her finger in it's mouth and then presses the remote, so the mouth closes with a growl..
(note, angle of camera, I am still in my comfy chair..)


12.23 J is in bed and I have just had a round to the parking meter, peaking into the private park that we we've been promised keys to.

13.11 Working, while J is is bed refusing to sleep

14.24 J has an unexpected shower as she decided to have a little nappy disaster just as we were on our way out the door.

15.17 From the car on our way home from school. I was actually going to take a picture of the city landmark, but it was to grey so I took a picture across the street instead, of some winter trees.

16.37 Dinner Pyttipanna from IKEA

17.29 I had a weak and overly postive moment yesterday, when I promised C we would make pepparkakor (gingerbread biscuits) today. The dough is from IKEA, but still. Children thought it was great fun, though!
(but I have to find the rolling pin until Grandma arrives before Christmas..and the aprons..)

18.09 Time for the Lego calendar, ginger bread biscuits and Julkalendern at svt.

19.17 I am speaking with O on the phone when I hear the children playing in the hallway. When I am finished I find J walking on a pile of flat packs in my 2inch (6cm) boots! *gulp* "J e Tant Surtant" ("J is Lady Grumpylady", a witch from a Swedish Children's programme on SVT), (Haxan Surtant pa SVT)

20.33 Children are in bed and I sit down for a work session. When I start coughing, J wakes up again and I get so frustrated I tell her I am actually brushing my teeth and if she doesn't lie quietly in her bed I won't be able to sleep and mummy is soooo tired. Then I go into the kitchen and open a "Swedish Fish" bag from IKEA.

21.22 It is now quiet again and I get some work done. I usually do this while skyping with O, but I don't have skype installed at the moment. We are emailing a bit though before he heads for his hotel.

22.45 Finished working for today. Put the TV on record for Julkalendern, pack Cs bag. He is going to be a shepherd on Thursday and *thankfully* it doesn't involve any sewing, he will wear a stripey top and black trousers. The rest of the outfit, I am going to let the school kit him out with.

I was planning on a luxurious evening in our new bed with laptop and some leasure browsing, but I am to exhausted to even contemplate bringing my new red friend. So I say good night and hope you have enjoyed my day. Have a good Dec 12!

Sunny Monday

This morning, the sun was shining for the first time in weeks. I mean on a blue sky. It was lovely to see, it was also very handy as I needed to play photographer for work. Nothing beats sunshine when it comes to bring out colours in a photo.

C was happy at school today, because his teacher was back from being home ill and he played really nicely with J after school.
Evening was spent assembling our Hemnes bed and I have now promised myself that I am not going to go down "blue lane" this time when O leaves, I am going to keep the mood up.

However, I am not sure how I am going to feel tomorrow. C had a note in his school bag "Don't forget the costume tomorrow...". I instantly phoned the school to ask what costume he is supposed to bring and off course it was the one for the nativity play on Thursday. I have to ask his teacher tomorrow what part he is playing (he didn't know..), fingers crossed, it doesn't involve any sewing..

Also a big thank you to Crille och Eva who sent a card to J. It is always C who receives all cards, so the was over the moon about her mail. Thank you, you are so sweet!

Back to reality

So who says that the 2nd of Advent has to be all nice and candle lit..
IKEA delivery no 2 came today. At least I had a bit of metime with my new red friend, the Vaio in the morning, while O and the children went outside. It really calmed my nerves, but the afternoon was spent assembling furniture.

J must have some kind of IKEA gene, because she is perfectly capable of fixing a scew with a cordless screwdrives and she is only 2 1/2years old!

She said: "Ingen fala mamma, J siktig finglet" *No worries, mummy, J careful with finger"

Last night was actually spent programming, (O enlessly configurating the tv card and I another blog) I just had to sit with my laptop and while I was on it, I visited a part of my brain, having been asleep for a while. Very pleased to say it worked quite well. Not all mumsy up there. No, quite sharp if I may say so myself. *eherm*

Haven't started the book yet, but as least I now have a nice little bedside table to put it on.

Comment of the day: Everytime we assemble IKEA furniture J learns something new. Today, she has been saying: "Va detta dumheten!!" ("What's this nonsense!")...

Oh lala!

You're looking at my new life! We've just realized something, every year in January our computers break down. This year my computer gave us a little warning, so this weekend, O is buying me a Sony Vaio!! Iiihh!! (He actually bought me one this summer, but we realized shortly afterwards that he was the one always on the go, so he got it..) and now it's my turn!! (it just fits so nicely into our December budget..)

But, that aside, just look at the picture, this is how my life will be. I will be perfectly calm, apparently it comes with a complete rehaul, so pedicure and manicure are my new middle names and a white spotless sofa!!

I can't wait.

PS. Please note my new positive tone. I could have told you about the tummy bug that hit us 1h after O left 2 days ago or how FUN it is when computers break down, when you have a business depending on it, in December.., but not me. Nope.

Dad Rocks

I am growing increasingly tired of all the goodbyes involved in our daily life. Today O left in the evening instead of sneaking off in the early hours. C cried several times before he left, but the last thing they did before the taxi arrived, was to have a "band session",where they dance and sing to one of the CDs O and C have put together. Above they are performing to Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself". C decided who got to sing, or drum *with dinosaurs* or play the "rocket roll" *the whisker, C is playing the guitar with on the picture*.

Now, the flat feels very empty and we start our countdown til daddy returns home.

Only 50h to go.. *Miss you, O!*

I could probably give birth right now and not even notice..

that is how tired I am at the moment..

We had a break on Saturday evening, but that was about it really. Today, when our landlord arrived, the house was very representable *well, at least comparatively speaking*. I got the thumbs up to put in some new flooring and then they were off. 70h of frenzy and then...*bliss*

The fact that is was all over, catapulted me into such a good mood, that I put the advent lights up in all our windows. *the window sill was to small, so I had to stick them to the window with sticky tape...* We live on a corner, so I hope it looks really cosy with all the lights in all the windows. Here is our cosy office:

Oh, *I get goose bumps now*, the children on the ground floor are standing outside playing the national instrument now! 1stlady, is this some kind of ceremony, standing outside playing, or is it just the parents asking them not to practice indoors?

Today, J found her snow globe. She took one look at it and said: "J se snow!!", she is remembering it from last year and then, she was only 1 1/2y. Both J and C were fascinated by them for a long time and we had a little feel good moment there, O and I watching them..

Comment of the day: O asked me to read through a report he was sending off and since I didn't find my glasses *yes, forgot to tell you about that, I have glasses now!*. Anyway, I took my sunglasses, since I have lenses from the optometrist in my new sun glasses as well. J came walking past me sitting with my sunglasses in front of the computer and she started giggling saying: "Mamma kojig" (Mummy looks funny)
Me: "But I have my cool sunglasses on!"
J: "Nej, mamma Mr Bean!" (No, mummy Mr Bean..)

Oh, well I have to live on Cs comment when he saw me in my sun glasses: "Mum, you look like a rock star!"