Summer 2011

Finally it's time for a general update on the summer of 2011, so I can get started on this autumn later on.

Like I said in my previous entry, I have to say that overall this summer has been a really good one! There are a number of reasons for that, I think, but as they are very personal both to me and to people close to me, I won't say anymore. After all, the important thing is that the summer has been pretty good.

The most difficult part has of course been coping with the first summer without Zorro! As I wrote here earlier, the first time I got to the summerhouse without him I basically collapsed, and it has been a lot of more difficult to handle than I had expected.

Even though it was quite an ordeal for Zorro to travel to the summerhouse, I think he really liked it there, and he came to really fit in there. It was wonderful seeing him being able to be outside (as I only have a small balcony where I live) and even though I had him on a leash, it was really long so he could move around a lot!

I also at times feel very much alone when I am visiting my Dad's family. After all, they are a family and while they are all for including me, fact is: I'm not a part of their family, not in that "intimate" way anyway. And I really don't want to be either, to be honest ... I want to be able to visit them and spend time with them and enjoy their company, but I am a grown woman and at the moment, I am my own family. Earlier, Zorro was my family. It was him and me, and when things got really intense we always had each other, at nights and early in the mornings, we could really spend quality time together - and now I have had to deal with the intensity all on my own ...

It has been great spending time with my sisters again - they grow a lot and I have to say that it feels good to see them play well together. That does take a bit of the pressure off their big sister (LOL!) and it's great that they have such a good relationship. Sure, they argue at times and then it can get pretty bad, but mostly, they get on great together - and they grow SO fast!!

Finishing off with a few photos from the summer.

First some nature photos:



And some of my gorgeous sisters:




One day we went to a rather large zoo, which was a lot of fun and we got to see some beautiful animals.





The girls got to go pony riding and that was a BIG HIT, let me tell you! Don't they look great?

Back Home Again!

After about two weeks in the summerhouse, I'm back home for a few weeks now - then I'm going back again! :-)

It's been intense times, so I'm fairly tired now, today has been a very slack day indeed, but I'm feeling a bit better now, so I'm hoping to get stuck into a lot of things tomorrow.

I spent about a week in the summerhouse by myself first, and it was actually a very difficult time for me. It was the first time I was there since Zorro passed away and I was instantly moved back to November again. I don't think I've ever been in the summerhouse without him since around 2002, and it was more difficult than I could have imagined. We had deliberately planned it so I would be out there by myself first, and I think that was a good decision, I could never have coped to be there with my Dad and his whole family straight away.

I tried to keep busy by working outside, but the weather wasn't exactly co-operating with me as it rained heavily almost the entire time ... I did get a bit of work done but I was also left thinking a lot inside ... not that I think that's a bad thing, I think I really needed it - but I won't deny I felt pretty awful.

My Dad and his family came out to the summerhouse the day before Midsummer and it was great seeing them all again, of course. The girls have grown SO much (but then again, I hadn't seen them since February!), and they are wonderful to be around, even though I sometimes find it a bit difficult to adapt to the intensity it brings being around an entire family like that.

On Midsummer's Day I took a train to visit my Mum, and it was wonderful to see her again. We had a lot of catching up to do as she's had some problems with her phone lately, so we haven't been able to talk to each other much for a while. I went back to the summerhouse on Sunday evening, and spent the coming three days there with Dad and the rest of the "gang".

We went to "town" (where they live) on Wednesday afternoon and early yesterday morning, I went home. It was quite a long trip, I think mostly because I was completely exhausted. It felt really wonderful when I arrived home, but I was SO tired!

Unfortunately I didn't sleep very well tonight, so I've been very tired today as well, and I haven't really gotten a lot of things done, mostly little things. Still, I think it's understandable after the intense times that have been.
I am trying to accomplish a lot of changes in my life at the moment, and I know I can't work at that 100% when I'm not in my usual environment but now I'm getting a few weeks here so starting tomorrow I will try to get stuck into that!

Sharing some photos from the summerhouse - and I have a few more blog entries to go through, not sure if I'll have the energy tonight but otherwise they'll be here tomorrow!

2010 Holiday Summary!

I thought it would be best to start this series of blog entries with a summary of the past holidays.





For various reasons, I have not felt great during these holidays. I usually fret the holidays beforehand, as there is a lot to take into account when planning for them, but once I'm up with my families things tend to work out fairly well ... This year however, I felt it was really hard - and I think there are quite a few reasons for that.
I wasn't feeling at all well when the holidays started and that makes things quite difficult. I am used to living alone and minding my own business, so it is a fairly big change to suddenly live around several other people, two of them being children and always having to think about everyone else, adapting yourself after other people's needs and wishes. I guess it sounds like I'm totally selfish and egocentric usually but I honestly don't think I am - it just takes a while getting used to living like that. Often I can cope with it, but I am a very private kind of person and when I don't feel bad, I find it very difficult to interact with others ... so I think that was part of why this Christmas didn't feel great.

Naturally it was very hard not having Zorro around this Christmas! As usual, from a practical point of view some things got easier. I could spend more time with my Mum, as I didn't have to ask my Dad and his family to take care of Zorro if I stayed overnight, for instance - and I didn't have to worry about him not getting as much attention as he usually did. During the trips I only had to think about myself ... but at the same time, I felt very alone without him. Zorro and I usually didn't get much time for us when we visited my Dad and his family, as my sisters usually crave a lot of attention, but the time we did have - usually at night when the others had gone to bed, was such a quality time, we totally enjoyed being together ... and this year I felt completely alone going to bed.

I think I can split the holidays in two, actually. From a practical point of view, they were actually very good! I didn't have to worry about Zorro (which I did quite a lot earlier), I did get to spend more time with my Mum, it was great seeing my sisters again, nobody was ill or hurt ...
But on an emotional level, it wasn't that great. First and foremost of course, missing Zorro. But I also felt it more difficult to be around everybody, probably because I wasn't feeling the best beforehand. I had a hard time being patient with the girls and it was sometimes difficult trying to adapt myself to their routines ... there were other factors too, but they are a bit too personal for a public blog.

One day my Dad and I took a trip to the summerhouse, mostly to check it out, see if rats had gone in and get rid of some of the snow on the roofs of the buildings. While it was quite hard work it was fantastic to get a day on my own with my Dad, and it was really beautiful out there, the sun was shining and quite a bit of snow ...




There will be more entries to come, so do come back! :)

Summer 2010

Well, I thought I'd make a general entry about the summer of 2010, as it is about to end soon.
And I have to say that this summer has been a bit different, compared to the last few summers at least.

For once, I left for the summerhouse rather late, around Midsummer. This did happen last year too (if I remember correctly, but usually I have gone to the summerhouse a bit earlier than that. Also, I didn't feel so great in June, and I ended up stressing like an idiot before being able to leave (Actually, I wrote the last 4 pages on a New Testament paper and sent in on the same day that I left for the summerhouse!!).
My Dad and his family was on vacation when I got up to the summerhouse, which was also something new. They try to take at least one vacation trip every summer, but they've never been away during Midsummer before. This meant that I spent the entire Midsummer weekend with my Mum, and it was a long time since we did that! She came to me in the summerhouse and stayed the night, which was really nice!

Then I had a couple of weeks in the summerhouse, both alone and with Dad and his family, and that was pretty much as usual. I'm amazed at how the kids grow - but I'll make a separate entry about the girls later! :) - and we spent some quality time together, as well as got some necessary work done!

In the middle of July, Zorro and I went back home - and that is very unusual ... I can't even remember when that happened last! :) We took the train (and a replacement bus *sigh*), and I do feel very grateful it is possible to take Zorro like that, because it certainly makes things a lot easier for me! I do feel bad for him, because I know he doesn't like it one little bit, but at least it's possible, he is able to rest and almost sleep for parts of the trip, and I guess that's the main thing!
Unfortunately, there was a pretty extreme heat wave when we were here ... I had high hopes of getting a lot of things done, and I ended up on my couch with a great big fan and lots and lots of ice and no energy whatsoever. I know this must sound pretty ridiculous, but I really truly hate heat ... I can stand normal summer temperatures - even though I don't like them - but when I can't get below 30 degrees inside (86F) at any time, I just feel truly sick!!!
So that trip didn't exactly end up the way I had hoped!

After about two weeks here we went back to the summerhouse, and when we arrived it turned out that my Dad's girlfriend (will call her C for her initial, it's easier!) had gotten a really nasty insect bite that really looked bad - so we ended up doing some emergency packing and cleaning, I went with them to their home (and left Zorro in the summerhouse) and borrowed their other car, and went back to Zorro that night!

I got some alone time in the summerhouse, which was nice, and my Mum and I were also able to take our annual West Coast trip, which was grate!!
I took a trip, alone, to a major animal park called Nordens Ark, but I will make a separate entry about that ...

And then I went to my Dad and his family, taking Zorro with me. They're redecorating one of their bathrooms and needed an extra adult, so we took turns doing that and being with the kids, and it worked out pretty well, although I find it being quite intense living with them - as I'm used to living alone.
I also got to see my Mum a bit, which was really nice!
After a while my Dad and his family, and me, and Zorro went to the summerhouse, to make it ready for the autumn, meaning clearing all the land as well as thoroughly cleaning the house - and when we were done with that, we all went here and my "summer" was over. They stayed for two entire days (three nights) and I think it worked out pretty well, though it's obvious that an apartment this size isn't meant for three adults, two kids and a cat! *lol*
The good-byes are always difficult, and this was no different ... I am truly enjoying my life down here, but it is very hard to say good bye (and more so to certain people ...).

It turned out that I had lived with my Dad and his family for almost two weeks in a row when they left and while it was hard when they left it had been pretty hard for me to be so close to so many people for so long ...

Since the left I haven't done that much, I've been going through a LOT of photos and get that in order, I've been doing some sorting and rearranging here at home, and I'm slowly finding my way back to the fall semester! :) Though this fall is still very uncertain, so I'm going to make a separate entry about that as well!

Finish off with a few photos from the summerhouse!

Update and Photos!

Yeah, this trip home during the summer sure didn't turn out the way I had hoped, that's for sure.
First a little about this week, so far, and then I'll try to summarize the time spend up north ... finishing off will be some photos from the summer so far.

I have managed to catch up with a few friends this week, which feels great, as I'm not home for long this time. On Monday afternoon, Lena came by after work. It took a few transportation-mistakes, but we found each other at last and managed to get to my apartment, but it was WAY TOOOOOO HOT outside .... I had almost 43 degrees (Celsius ... that's about 110 degrees Farenheit) outside my window and 30 degrees (86F) inside ... not nice!! It was, however, nice to catch up with Lena! It's more difficult now, when almost all of my friends are actually working, and working as priests they don't exactly keep regular business hours, so it was really nice catching up with her. She left a bit after six p.m. and I walked with her to the bus, something I in retrospect sort of regret ... it was really really hot, and by the time I made it back to my apartment, I felt really dizzy and barely made it up the stairs ... I sooo don't get along with the heat!

Tuesday night I was supposed to meet Sara in Helsingborg for an "after work" (well, for her anyway! *lol*). I had decided to take the bus there, we had decided to meet at 7 p.m. I got on the city bus, but apparently they were having a carnival in town (they usually do that the first weekend in July but obviously it was later this year), so the buses didn't go through the centre of town ... I felt completely lost, not knowing how the buses drove, so I ended up going all the way out to the railway station and taking the train to Helsingborg instead! :) Despite a lot of misunderstandings on my part, I met up with Sara eventually! We had a few beers and took a little walk and it was REALLY nice!!!!
I have to make a comment on how fantastic I feel when I can do these things ... I still feel nervous, but it's working out without major problems, and I'm just amazed!!! And extremely happy!!! I also have to comment on the fact that the first person (despite something that turned into a great huge big horrible mess!) I REALLY talked to and had contact with, after my sick leave, was actually Sara!! Who would have guessed we'd end up having this fantastic friendship ... ? *feeling quite happy*
The evening was wonderful, and I really need to start doing these kind of things as well, to "de-dramatize" something that has before been very anxiety-ridden!

I wasn't home until about 11 p.m. on Tuesday but I enjoyed every minute of it! :)
Yesterday, Wednesday, I had FINALLY decided to meet Rebecka! We've tried to get together for a number of months now, but it just hasn't worked out! It was fantastic to see her again ... I have quite a history with her, and it's great that we're still keeping in touch! We sure had a lot of things to catch up on, when we first met, I had some major trouble to contend with and now she's the one facing lots of problems! I have a feeling she's dealing with them in a better way then I did though ...

On top of this, I have of course, attempted to get some studying done. Note the fact that I'm using the word "attempt", because this horrible heat wave hasn't made it easy for me. Those of you who know me, know that when most people take out their jackets, I'm sweating in a T-shirt - so having 30-35 degrees (85-95F) has made it pretty awful for me. Also, not sure if I might be asthmatic, or if it's something else, but I'm experiencing feeling very out-of-breath ... just walking for a short bit in the heat and I feel like I can't breath at all!! I know they've warned asthmatics in southern Sweden as the ozone layer is really thin here now, and I'm not sure if that's what I'm reacting to, or if it's something else, but I really haven't been feeling well ... Hopefully temperatures will drop to about 20-25 degrees (68-78F) now, which will make a lot of difference, I'm sure!!!

Yup, that was it for my visit back here. I'm going to intervene with some photos from my trip to the summerhouse (photos span from June 24th to July 3rd) - and then finish with some comments on my time in the summerhouse!




First some beautiful nature photos ...


And little people sure do grow fast, don't they?! :) This being my sisters, the oldest one M being 6 years old and the younger is I, 3½!

I spent most of the time in the summerhouse, and most of it was really good! My Dad and his family were away during Midsummer, they'd taken a trip to Krakow in Poland, so for the first time in quite a long time I spent the entire Midsummer with my Mum. I went from the summerhouse to town to pick her up, and she stayed overnight before taking the train back the following day - and we had a great time! :D

Then I was alone for a while in the summerhouse, and tried to get most done on clearing the land (the summerhouse has about 7000 square meters attached to it, most of it we do by motor driven lawn mower but some of it requires a bit more to be cleared down. The weather put stops to my plans, so when my Dad and his family arrived we had a bit more than half a day of clearing left to do but after that we could take it a bit more easy and spend some time together.
The kids sure do grow quickly, I'm amazed every time I see them!!!!!

M has just turned 6 years old and I is 3½ ... yikes!! It seems like just a little while ago M was born, I got to hold her in the hospital when she was about 27 hours old ... amazing!! M is very smart, she's reading practically without any obstacles at all - which will be a great advantage when she starts school this fall - and I is the cutest thing you'll ever find, she could charm ANYone, I swear!!! :D

Basically, I spent some time with my Dad and his family and then headed back home with Zorro on trains/buses ... and thankfully that is working out fantastically well now!! The first time I took Zorro on a train was a horror, full stop, but now ... give him 5-10 minutes on a train/bus, we finds a comfortable place in his transportation box and falls asleep - fantastic!!!!!!

Wow, this ended up being a very long entry ... :) I guess that's compensation for me not writing a lot here while I've been home! *LOL*

Apologies and Good Bye!

Well, I had hoped to be able to bring this blog back to life one more time before my "summer" starts, but unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Right now I'm superstressed as I'm supposed to go to the summerhouse with Zorro "some time today" - and it's looking to be WAY late today!
So, I just wanted to make this entry to let you know I will be away for a while, and as usual - no regular internet! *sob*
This year my summer is chaotic to say the least, and I will probably go back and forth between home and the summerhouse more than I usually do. At this point nothing is decided now but I hope to at least make some casual blog entries during the summer to let you know I'm still alive! :) And then, of course, I hope to get back into "real blogging" (like an entry a day ...) when I'm back here for good - I know that hasn't worked for me for a while, but at least I'm still hoping, right?! :)

So, this will be Good Bye for now, I hope you are all having a GREAT summer and I hope to return to this blog in due time!

Take care!

Troubled Past and Minor Setbacks!

It's been a few days, again, since my last update, but hopefully this will only be a minor setback - as I am generally feeling better now.

The fact is, this entire semester has been really really hard to deal with. I can't make a list of the specifics but it seems that almost everything that has happened has contributing to things not working out. And since it's been going on basically since the end of January, I'm quite sick of it now.

Instead of making a really long and boring and depressing entry about everything that has gone wrong, I will focus on what has been going right this semester - and I will try to finish off by giving you some insight into how the future will turn out (which I really don't know, but still ...), what areas I will have to start dealing with now ...

One thing that has worked out this semester has been the mentor activity in the Old Testament/Hebrew course. There were a lot of uncertainties for me last year and I very much doubted my own capabilities - so I was thrilled to get another chance this year. And I think it has improved, at least that's the way I feel about it. Not everything has been going great of course, but I think I have handled my "leader role" in a better way this time, and I've had a lovely group of students to work with. I was also quite thrilled to get such as large group. Both the entire group that has been taking the course as well as the mentor group has gone through some changes during the semester, but toward the middle of the semester it started stabilizing in both groups, and by then the entire group of students were about 10 and 6 of them constantly came to mentor meetings! Fantastic!!

Another thing that has been working out (almost completely) has been the New Testament. I was going to take one small course in NT this semester, and felt I really needed to freshen up my koine-greek, so I spoke to the teacher giving that course (same one I had when I took NT Greek). He was only happy to see me at lectures again (lol) so I ended up going to most of his lectures as well. It turned out really well, I like him a lot and I also learned A LOT by picking this up again in this way!

I had some major problems with a smaller essay I was going to present at the end of this semester. For some reason it seemed impossible for me to write it, so I ended up in quite a panic toward the very end. I did finish it, but I wasn't that happy with it, and at the seminar I felt really bad. I can't be "objective" and say what really went on there, because I think I was quite affected by how tired and emotional I was, but let's just say I did NOT enjoy that seminar, that's for sure!!!
I had a few days to correct some things that had been addressed at the seminar and late last week I handed in the final version. And yesterday I had an email from my professor, telling me he had graded the essay and given it the high grade, VG!!! I really did NOT expect that at all, since everything about this essay had been so difficult! Also, I had basically felt that as long as I don't fail it, I just have to deal .... and instead it turned out really well! :D

Letting you rest your eyes for a bit with some photos from one of my nature walks (hasn't been that many of them this semester unfortunately):




And a CUTE Zorro! :D

This semester hasn't exactly worked out well for my Dad and his family either, my Dad being quite ill, so toward the end of May I decided to making a short trip to visit them. It did mess up my other schedules a bit but it was really nice to see them all again! They let me borrow their car, so I took Zorro on the train there (but we ended up having to go by bus the last bit due to some flooding ... *poor Zorro*), but we could take a car back home.
On the way home we went in to see the summerhouse, I just stopped for half an hour. During the end of last summer we redecorated the bathroom, and I was there for the boring part (ripping everything out) but hadn't seen the finished product. Also, we had some severe damage done (thankfully mostly to nature and not to our buildings) due to the heavy winter and snow this year, so I felt I had to see that for myself too.
Here are some pictures from my trip, the kids first (they grow SO FAST!!!!!), and some from the summerhouse at the end:







One more note before I start looking ahead. This Sunday I was at the ordination ceremony where four of my closest friends were ordained for the priesthood! I was there fore the ceremony last year too, for Sara, and this year it was time for Lena, Rebecka, Johanna and Per - it's amazing to be there and share that with them. I didn't attend any party afterwards, since there was no way I wanted to choose which one to attend, but it was wonderful to be there for the ceremony! :)

I think this entry ended up being longer than I had intended! :) So I think I'll save the "looking ahead" for the next entry, as I don't want to cause you to fall asleep in front of the computer! :)