Gulag camp

Yesterday was my first day back at work after 10 months. Of course everybody asked how it felt to be back and I'll tell you the same thing I told them:
"Imagine having the feeling that you need to see something else, get away for a while. But instead of vacationing on an exotic island you get hauled off to a Gulag camp. So yes, you did get away and it is something new, but maybe not quite what you had really hoped for."

Weight loss fraud

Today I want to tell you the truth. About Muddiz. Or more precisely: about Muddiz and her recent weight loss.

Loyal readers of her blog know that she has been on a cruel, chocolate-free diet for weeks. Her incentive for the first weight loss goal was a winter coat she wanted to buy after having lost 5 kg. She has now ordered the coat, which means that she must have lost the weight.

WRONG! She did not lose that weight - she just forced it off her hips and onto mine! I don't know how she did it or when exactly, but as matter of fact I have gained weight as Muddiz reduced hers. A coincidence? I don't think so!

The real story goes like this: Muddiz forces 5 kg of fat to vacate her body. She shows them the way over to my house. Hunger attacks announce the impending threat. My Gastric Bypass takes on the fight, but 2 kg survive the gruelsome battle and attach themselves to my hips.

It has got to be the weight loss fraud of the year...

The boy wonder

Pontus has been making quite some progress lately. Not only has he learned how to sit up by himself, he has also started to crawl around. It is maybe not crawling in the traditional sense, but he gets around. He has one knee on the ground and uses the foot of the other leg to push himself forward. Depending on his mood he either pushes himself up with his hands while he moves or, alternatively, slides around with his face flat on the floor (very entertaining!). He also seems to have warmed up to his stroller a little more as the last few times we were out did not end in the expected screamfest.

But the best has to be that he started sleeping through the night about a week ago. He usually is asleep by 20:30 h at the latest and then sleeps through until the next morning, in his own bed. What we essentially did was to organize our days, make sure that he does not sleep too long in the afternoon and follow an evening routine. It is really as unspectacular as it sounds - but what a difference it has made.

Crafty corner

With Pontus out of the way (he is spending the weekend with my parents-in-law) I finally had the time to finish the make-over of my room. Goodbye big old computer table, hello crafty corner!

I now got a designated craft table and all of my supplies are sorted and within reach: the smaller items and those I use often, such as paper, decorations or certain tools, are located right around the table and bigger items are stored in the dresser on the left. The computer does not take up much space anymore and I can push in the pull-out panel with the keyboard and mouse on it when I am not using it.







Since my husband bought a new tv recently I also "inherited" our old 37" LCD tv. Now all I need is the Emergency Room DVD set and maybe some more pillows and I will never leave my room again.

A day (or two) in the life of...

In the last 48 hours I

- got my arm stuck in the diaper bin (up to the elbow)
- poured myself a drink only to remember right afterwards that I had already done the same thing less than 2 minutes before
- removed Pontus' bib when he started to suck on the label, fearing that his tomato-coloured spit would leave a stain on his shirt, went to get a new bib and returned to find that he had used those seconds to wipe his whole face on his clothes
- attempted to stomp a sparrow to death on Medborgarplatsen because I thought it was a rat/mouse hopping towards me (We all know rats and mice like to skip, don't we? It's what they do!)
- tried to make Pontus fall asleep, dozed off myself instead and woke up to find out that he had miraculously learned how to sit up by himself
- wondered why my friend kept talking about wanting to become a regissör (director) only to find out (much) later that she had been saying "researcher" the whole time
- poured ketchup into Pontus' lunch and ate it and his fruit snack because I didn't feel that he was as hungry as me
- screamed when the toasted bread popped out of the toaster because it scared me
- realized that we had been using the diaper bin without a trash bag in it
- knocked over the bowl with Pontus' breakfast
- put on my only clean pair of jeans to go out and left the house less than 5 minutes later with huge wet stains on them because Pontus decided to pee on me
- found myself sitting on the toilet, watching in horror as Pontus started to pull the drying rack that was leaning against the wall towards him
- took a nap with my head resting on my keyboard
- got the wrong dressing on my Subway sandwich and agreed to let them scrape it off
and
- washed my clothes together with a paper towel

Sweden's highest mountain

Don't bother travelling to Lappland if you want to see some really high peaks - just come over to my laundry room, where I am currently attempting to break the world record for "highest pile of washed, but not yet folded towels created by a human".

I maybe could (or should?) have stopped with the madness a long time ago, but it has become a sport. Adding ever more towels to the pile is like playing Jenga and Tetris all at the same time: find the free spot, make the towel fit and then gently, gently easy it into place. It's a challenge, it's a thrill - it's better than actually folding them and getting them out of the way. Where's the fun in that?

Why I want to be a Teletubbie

Sitting in front of the tv this morning, half-awake and half-asleep, I suddenly realized that the Teletubbies probably are so very cheery because they lead a pretty sweet life. Their life is so great, in fact, that I wanna be one of them. Let's look at the facts:

TELETUBBIES

- live in a place where the grass is nice and green and the sun shines all day, every day
- get their food from a machine that is easy to operate and obviously never needs maintenance
- have a weird vacuum-cleaning-creature called Noo-noo that automatically cleans up any spilled food and keeps the place looking neat at all times
- sleep as long as they want to and always look rested
- spend their days watching tv and indulging in their hobbies

EVIL BAMBI

- lives in Sweden where the summer has once again been a rainy and stormy disappointment
- has to feed Pontus several times a day while not being given any time or chance to eat anything herself
- is the weird vacuum-cleaning-creature of the household, as nothing cleans itself
- gets to sleep only until Pontus wakes up and/or her husband is off to work, never feeling (or looking, for that matter) rested
- spends her waking hours tending to the every wish of a needy, uncontrollable, neckless little person

And that's why I want to be a Teletubbie.

Happiness is lunch and toilet breaks

Exactly 2 weeks from now I will have my first day back at work after my parental leave. So far I am looking forward to it. The trick is to see beyond the actual work one needs to do and embrace the benefits that come with worklife: regular meals and toilet breaks when you need them.

The mere thought of sitting down and having a full, warm meal in quiet and peace makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It's like having a Care Bear hug my intestines while softly whispering: "It's okay. You deserve food, too.". Add to that the tingling sensation I get when imagining going to the bathroom without having somebody scream at me from outside the door and you will understand that true happiness is indeed lunch and toilet breaks.

"Doing a Muddiz"

The last couple of days I have been a little unfocused and doing what Muddiz claims to be her specialt talent: really, really stupid things.

First there was the Chocolate Mousse incident.
I wanted to make Choclate Mousse, but even though I stirred for a very long time the mousse just wouldn't thicken. It turned out that I had poured the milk into a measuring cup designated for flour, effectively using twice as much milk as I needed. It was a great chocolate milk shake though.

Then there was the Coca Cola incident.
I had poured myself a cup of Diet Coke when I realized that I had spilled some on the floor. It was really just a tiny spot, but I wanted to clean it up anyway, so I turned around to grab some kitchen paper. Imagine how smart it would have been to remove the filled glass first. It was standing on the divider between the upper and lower half of the fridge and when the door slammed shut it knocked the glass over and there was Coke all over the place. I will try to look on the bright side here and say that one could at least not make out that one tiny spot in the large Diet Coke sea that was our kitchen floor anymore. Worst of all: this is not the first time I have made that mistake, but rather the fourth or fifth (plus some "almost accidents"). And I got lucky this time as most of the Coke ran down the outside of the fridge. On other occasions I have had to empty and clean the complete lower half of the fridge. I just don't learn...

And then, today, there was another Chocolate Mousse incident.
I do not only seem to eat Chocolate Mousse way to often, I definitely seem to stupid to prepare it correctly. Even though, in all fairness, the preparation as such was not the problem this time. Everything worked fine until I wanted to clean up. I took the hand mixer to the sink and pressed the button to release the beaters. Which would have been fine, had I been using my usual hand mixer. I was using another one though and that one did not have a button to release the beaters. Instead I turned it on and Chocolate Mousse flew everywhere. Until I figured out what was happening there was mousse all over the place. Another not-so-bright moment.

P.S.: My Muddiz-ness also seems to rub off on other people. Moving our new tv into the living room yesterday my husband destroyed the display of our (also new) telephone. He managed to overlook that a unit of his stereo system (plus remote control) was still left in the old tv bench and when he moved it that unit fell out and on our phone. The tv bench only had 4 shelves and the unit we are talking about here is a black box that contrasted nicely with the light pine wood the tv bench is made of. Plus the remote. But hey, I had already done so many stupid things - who am I to point the finger.

Meteorological misdemeanour

Mr. Stormy Winds and Ms. Heavy Rainfall met in our backyard last night and broke Mr. Birch Tree's arm.