Kitty’s Place

Yes it has been disgustingly long since I updated here. I spend so much time on Facebook that I neglect this blog. I must remember that while their kids are on Facebook, my siblings are not and need occasional updates. *laugh*

What to write about …. life just rolls along at its’ frantic pace. I have been extremely ill and some days I think I will never be healthy again. At this point in time, after a hospitalization for acute pylenophritis, I have two kidney stones that need to be surgically removed, but because of the damage to my kidney from the infection, it must wait at least 6 months before we can do surgery. In the interim I have recurring infections, am living on antibiotics, have lost most of the term at university and now, just to make life a bit more fun, I have pneumonia. If I can stay fever free and mobile for long enough, I will have an individualized study plan at school, to get me back on track academically. But if I am too ill to attend classes, it isn’t going to be a big help. *laugh*

LL is doing well. He got a 32 inch flat screen tv for his room at christmas. His room was redone this fall, new bed, new desk, new shelves and his own computer. My little boy is growing up! At this point in time all he needs up there is a little fridge and he would never have to come down. That said, he spent last evening down here with us, watching tv and playing on my laptop, because he is a social creature and it is not fun to watch tv or play when there is no one to talk to about it. The idea with the tv was that when he has friends over they can play PS2 games up there without having to battle the dog, who wants to be included.

Ibo is busy as always. Politics takes much of his time and he has just taken a new position at work with more responsibility. I was thinking yesterday that the general “man on the street” have no idea how much time their elected politicians spend at it. Here we have “fritidspolitiker”, meaning that our alderman etc do politics as something extra and still work fulltime at thier regular jobs. So in addition to meetings for different committees as well monthly council meetings, there is a lot of time spent planning the future of the municipality. In Ibo’s case he has responsibility for BUN, the committee that oversees education from daycare to middle school (here that ends at 9th grade and high school starts in 10th grade). He has many meetings, often during work time, which means he must make up that time by working later or in his case because he works with IT, from home, late into the night. It is his dedication to making our society a better place that drives him and I respect him and the other aldermen immensely for that.

As for me, we have had a crisis to deal with in our committee (UAN) that oversees high school, adult education etc. Since I am a reserve member of the committee I am not obligated to be at all the meetings but in two years I have only missed two meetings, the first because I had made another commitment for that date, before I was asked to sit on UAN and the second when LL was very ill and Ibo was out of the country at the time. I feel that since I said yes I have a responsibility to be at the meetings as well as read everything that comes home and also to research on my own, so I have a broad understanding of the motions we vote on. It is only a small part I play but I take it seriously, it is that upbringing we had! *laugh* That said, it has been stressful the past few months for me as a peripheral member so I can imagine how hard it has been for those who are chair and vice chair of the committee. Hopefully things will soon get back on track here.

I hear that my sister is in Florida, how nice for her! Sun and relaxation … I would kill for that at the moment. *laugh* I suppose the rest of you have been vacationing in warm sunny places as well? I do know that calls to Canada go unanswered often so you must all be on the go as well.
We had a nice christmas, a quiet new years and LL and I went down to Gothenburg for 4 days after new years. He had a riot, saw an airplane museum where they got to climb in the planes and use a flight simulator, went to the observatory and saw Andromeda as well as a film, went to the natural history museum, which he informs me is much better than the one in Stockholm and played for hours with his friend Johan. I spent the time doing school work and battling a non stop fever, but we did get a bit of shopping in at least. *laugh*

Today I was out with Rusty, a mistake on my part. Pneumonia, active 30 kg dog, cold windy weather …. not a great combo. I am thinking I need to have a nap before the kidlet gets home from school.

Wow, it is the 1st of May already? Life is running by at a mad pace lately. What have we done since my last update you ask? I had a lovely birthday, no big fuss, dinner out with Ibo and Llywellyn, which is just what I wanted. There was also a surprise party for me at Ibo’s uncle’s, the excuse for going being that we had not yet seen their new son. He is a darling little baby and it was funny hearing his mom say to a 3 week old, “this is your cousin’s sambo, she just turned 50″. *laugh*

We attended something called a party district congress, a meeting for social democrats from the Stockholm region. I was not picked as a delegate, Ibo was of course. But I was asked if I would be a reserve delegate if someone didn’t show. So at 0715 on Saturday morning, the phone rang and it was Anna saying that I needed to go along. *laugh* There were activities for kids as well, so we all went and it was a very interesting weekend. The only difficulty I had was when one of the speakers was from Denmark and it took a couple minutes to accustom my hearing to his accent.

I am in training for Tjejmilen again. This year I want to jog it, not just walk, so I started their training program last month. It has been a bit erratic with the kidney stone treatments but it is going well.

Kidney stone …. I am booked for a fourth session of blasting in 2 weeks. Monday after the 3rd session I saw pictures. The stone was originally the size of the first joint of my thumb and was located high up under a rib. It was not an easy angle for blasting but after the second session it moved down to a better spot so when they were done the 3rd blasting it is now the size of my thumbnail. As long as it is not moving it doesn’t hurt and hopefully the next session will be the last.

School is going well, big exam next week. Family is doing well, Ibo is as busy as ever as is LL. Ibo has started training Rusty to search and he seems to like it. The first morning they went out I was home and after Ibo dropped him off and headed off to work, he sat beside the door and cried for ever so long. Susan is the same as always, she sleeps, eats, sleeps, eats. I have been taking her along when I train, it is a good pace for her. Rusty wants to run so I don’t take him, I am jogging not running and I am worried that he will pull too hard, in excitement and my shoulder will dislocate again. We do go the dog park so he can play with his friends, whenever I have a self study day. Majong eats, goes out, plays with all the neighbourhood cats and comes home at night to sleep. He will be a year old soon and Rusty will be two next month. Our Applegrove “kids” are growing up. *laugh*

LL is playing violin now as well as dancing. He has a little circle of close friends that visit back and forth and he is settled and happy. It took a long time for him to be settled again after the summer of 2006, but he is finally almost back to the happy carefree boy he was before.

Me, I am content, we are getting along and happy together, as a couple and as a family. I take each day as it comes, I will never really be the trusting, naive person I was 2 years ago, but life is like that. You live, you learn, you move on. *laugh* Post accident, my arm has almost full range of motion but it is still nowhere near as strong as it should be, but it is getting stronger. My sight is the same, I can’t read for any extended periods without blurring and have to sit in the front row for lectures, but there seems to be some improvement, albeit minuscule.

Yesterday was Valborg, so LL and I went to the carnival and the bonfire together and stayed to watch the fireworks. Ibo was out with Rusty and a group of politicians, nattvandring (night walking?). Because Valborg is a big night of drinking for kids, there were a lot of different groups out walking and checking that no one got into trouble or hurt.

Today is labour day here so there were festivities at the local town center, it was fun, I took Rusty along but Susan stayed home. LL met a friend there and they had lots of fun. The guest speaker brought along a friend from the US, who is a supporter of Obama and he made a speech about why Obama is going to be the next US President. It was fun to have a speech in english for a change. *laugh* LL went off with his friend to play and we came home, both night hawks are now napping.
That is the story of life in our house at the moment. *laugh*

So school is going well. Monday morning our group of about 120 new students boarded buses at the university and made our way out to a place called Barnen’s Ö, a summer camp for kids that is also used for team building sessions by different companies and obviously by the universities for introduction events. It took a couple hours to get there and then we dropped off our luggage in our assigned cabin and met in the main building for lunch. After lunch we had a number of speakers, fika and a tipspromenad. Then we went back to our cabins to change for dinner. Dinner was at 1900. We had so much food it was overwhelming. *laugh* After eating, we heard the answers to the questions we had answered on the tipspromenad and then each group had to perform a little skit or song. It was great fun. At 2330 dinner was done and the sauna got turned on and the music started. I went back to the cabin and went to bed. Apparently a number of the others came in late and then laughed and talked for an hour but I never heard a sound and slept straight through until 0930. It was lovely since I am getting up so early these days. We had a huge brunch at 1000, then our group went to clean up in the sauna, each group had assigned tasks. We gathered up a garbage bag full of empty beer cans, a case of unopened ones, a bikini, socks and towel. In the middle of cleaning a woman came and asked if we had found any clothes, we said yes and told her what and she said “you didn’t find a dress and a bra?” and then turned to her friend and said “I must have left it somewhere else.”. I am really curious about where she lost a dress and bra in a snowstorm. *laugh* After clean up, we had lunch at noon, crepes. Then we headed home. It was a nice time, we did get to know each other better and got some good info.

I was home at 1645 and went to meet LL at dance. Then we came back and headed out to stamp club. Ibo and I ended up staying and talking with Anna, upstairs in the party headquarters, while LL had his stamp club downstairs. Then it was home again and I read some for school before bed.

Wednesday we had our first official lecture, an introduction to ethics. It was interesting and I took many pages of notes. I was done at noon, picked up my student keycard and then headed home. I was here about 1330, took Rusty out to play some, took Susan for a walk, started doing laundry and dishes and just generally caught up. It was lovely that none of us had anything booked and we had a nice family evening in the middle of the week.

Today is a study day, I slept in an extra hour, took Rusty out for an hour and now I am working on formulating two questions to send in before tomorrow’s seminar. Tonight both Ibo and I have nämnd meetings so LL is going to his grandmothers. It will be a bit odd for him because his aunt won’t be there, she headed off Tuesday for a year long adventure in Australia.

Here we are a month later. What has happened the past month? School, homework, politics, the kidlet turned 9 and I fell last weekend and did some major damage to me. *laugh*

School and homework take up a lot of time and I am feeling overwhelmed some days. It seems to be going well though if test results are any indication. The kidlet is enjoying school as well. My fellow is back in the swing of things politically after a fairly quiet summer. I was at a couple meetings and am back in the swing as well.

LL turned 9! Imagine! He had a party at home and it was fun. I was wishing I had a video camera to record the kids sticking their faces in the whipped cream part of the birthday cake. It would have been fun to show them all when they are 19. *grin*

Majong is at home, thinks he is a dog and attempts to go with when we take them out but when we actually take him out he is still overwhelmed with the big outdoors. Susan has put on weight from snacking in the cat’s bowl and from Rusty’s as well. So she is back on a strict diet and the other bowls are out of her reach now. Rusty is not eating so well, he would prefer our food and begs or steals every chance he gets. So we are going to try changing his food again. There are pictures up on the Applegrove site of Rusty’s half siblings that were born in August. They are just too cute and if we had the room and the time I would love one more. I will not say that to my fellow though, he would go white with fright. *laugh*
So what did I do to myself last weekend? It was a lovely Saturday, we went to the bus garage where there was an open house. We toured the building, rode in an old bus and went through the bus wash. Chatted with our neighbour who is a bus driver and LL explained to the man conducting the tour that he had been in a bus garage before in Canada where his uncle is the boss. *laugh* It was overcast and misting rain when we came home. My fellow headed out at once to a meeting and I took Rusty for a walk. We were on our way home, maybe 20 meters from the door when I ended up flat on my face on the asphalt path. I heard a thunking noise and thought “crap, I have broken my nose”. I still can’t say for sure what happened, it was raining fairly steady and there were wet leaves and berries where I fell, so I have to assume I slipped on those. Poor Rusty ran ahead about 5 meters and when I called him he would come just out of arms reach and then run away again. He was so spooked from the blood and there was a lot of it. Finally he came close enough for me to catch up his leash and get him to stand beside me so I could hug him and get up to my knees. It was then I discovered that I had hurt my right arm. I got up to my feet with Rusty’s help and walked home sobbing, covered in blood with my right arm clutched to my chest. I had to ring the bell to get in, my phone and keys were in my right hand pocket and I could not get to them. The kidlet did what he is supposed to do, looked out before unlocking the door and what a shock it must have been for him. He opened the door just as I rang a second time, asked what happened and then said “ok, what do I need to do”. He was so brave and level headed I was amazed and very proud of him. I told to call his dad and when he had done that, I asked for a wet cloth to wipe my face. Then I went and looked in the mirror and it was not a pretty sight. My fellow came directly home and drove me to the ER where I was attended to in record time. I did break my nose, but it was a small fracture that the doctor manipulated manually last week and set. I had 2 lacerations on my forehead above my right eye that eventually required 11 stitches. Because they were so deep, I had a CT of my skull and face that showed I had not fractured my skull and there was no bleeding or swelling in my brain. (and here I was thinking there was nothing up there *laugh*) The worst injury however was the arm. By the time Ibo was home I had had time to assess the injuries myself and I knew it was a dislocated shoulder, not a fracture. I also knew it would have to be fixed without sedation because of the head injury. So I was not a happy girl, very scared. The first orthopod looked at me and was smart enough to go and get someone who had dealt with dislocations before. The second orthopod tried two methods of getting the shoulder joint back into place with no success. So they used the bedsheet method, just like I knew they would. I have done it myself when I worked in the ER but always on people who had had sedation. It worked like a charm, a little counter pressure, a twist of the arm and an audible pop when the shoulder went back into the socket. The absence of pain when it was done was amazing. *laugh* As soon as they had the shoulder in place my fellows came back in and the kidlet saw that I was ok. Then his dad took him to a birthday party he had been looking forward to. It was a long time in the ER, 8 hours before I had all the xrays, ct scan and suturing done. So the arm is in a sling, I am not supposed to use it at all at the moment and it is extremely painful because it spasms so much. I go back to Danderyd (hospital) tomorrow to see and orthopedic surgeon and have another set of xrays done. I am going to ask about some type of medicine for the spasms. At the moment the only thing prescribed for me is Tylenol and it is not cutting it.

So there is the excitement in our house. My fellow has not gone to Amsterdam since my fall and he has taken out the dogs morning and night. Thank goodness he is home because I have discovered something. It is really really really hard to do up your bra when you have one arm incapacitated. *laugh*

Here we are at the end of another week. It went quickly. Tuesday the kidlet had a dentist appointment, he has cavities but they are in teeth he will be losing soon. The dentist showed him how much stuff he is leaving behind because he is lazy about brushing. She told him the same thing Ibo and I tell him every evening, who knows if it will sink in. I usually inspect his teeth and send him back to brush better but Tuesday I let him brush his way just so the dentist could see and talk to him about it. I went to class and left him home on his own. He had his phone and knew he could call if necessary but all went well. Once I was home farfar came over and took us to do a big grocery shop. What a treat that was. Those big once every 4 or 6 weeks grocery shops are a horror. The kidlet and my fellow follow along, kidlet scanning and commenting on prices, fellow saying every 5 minutes “are we done now?”, “ok now we are done, lets go”, “ask your mother if she is done yet”. *laugh* Tuesday farfar took the kidlet and they window shppped in the mall, I shopped, scanned, packed my bags and met them just as I was getting the final item on my list. It was like a holiday. Then we came home, unloaded the groceries and farfar took the kidlet over to farmor. I put away groceries, fed the animals and walked the dogs then I went to my meeting. It was political and interesting.

Wednesday I stopped in to farmors office after getting an sms from her. The kidlet had forgotten his glasses in the morning but it was not a big deal, he will stop wearing them in 3 weeks and he was going to be at the public pool with school so it was likely better he didn’t have them with. Then she told me that my fellow was home. I was shocked. He neglected to tell me that even though he was away for 10 days, he was flying home Wednesday afternoon for a political function and then flying back down to Amsterdam later that day. So I called him and he was on his way to his function and we arranged for him to call when he was done. We ended up picking the kidlet up together, he was really happy to see pappa and I was thrilled. I miss him so much when he is away. We had dinner together and then took the kitten to the vets for his vaccinations and had time to cuddle up with my fellow before he left.

Thursday morning I was up early to take the kidlet to school on the bus. I woke with sore ears and a scratchy throat. We faxed off an application for the kidlet to go to dance classes at the culture school and then I came home to take out the dogs. By the time I was done I was hoarse and had a fever along with the sore ears. So I spent the bulk of the day in bed. I did go over and hand off some books that I had promised to a former  classmate from SFH and then I went back for 1800 for civics class because it was the first class of a distance course and it doesn’t do to miss any class when it is a distance course. That said, I will have to miss the next one, because I have a board meeting. Luckily the rest of the classes don’t take place on the evenings I have to put aside for politics. The teacher said we will sort out something to do as far as this missed class, so that is a good thing.

I haven’t spoken much about the teachers this term. I have 5 classes and 3 teachers. One of them I have for 3 of the classes. The science teacher is young and cute and did cancer research in Uppsala in the past. I had heard about him before from a former classmate, he is a good teacher, clarifies things in a way that is easy to grasp but doesn’t simplify things so you feel like you are a child.

The math teacher is really good, he also clarifies things well. I actually was able to take a word problem and figure it out, a real problem for me. I have no problem with the numbers, that is very straightforward, but give me a problem where I have to take a problem and think of it in a mathematical way and I get lost. The one we had involved a theatre with x number of seats, adult tickets one price, children tickets another and a sold out night where they took in x amount of money. We had to figure out how many of each type of ticket was sold. Now for people who think mathematically that is easy, for me it isn’t. My first thought is “well kids need a adult with so there has to be an even number of each” *laugh*

Then there is the teacher I have for swedish, religion and civics(social studies). Poor man who is going to have to read all those assorted assignments. *laugh* I really like this fellow. He is an older man and you can tell when he talks that he loves what he is teaching and enjoys his job. He reminds me of Arne. I am a bit sad I couldn’t study history as well, I am sure he would make it really interesting and I love history. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up in nursing when my best and favourite studies were english and history. The math and science I needed for my job were both things I struggled with. But so goes it in life. *laugh* After class I phoned and said goodnight to my son, who was picked up by farfar and spent the night at farmors. Then I came home and took Rusty out to run, he really needed it since I had slept in the day and he didn’t get his usual between classes exercise. My fellow worked till the wee hours of the morning and I stayed awake here talking to him online. It is next to impossible to sleep without him, I will be so glad when this new head office is completed and he doesn’t have to fly out of country so often.

Today I have been catching up on housework, have done dishes and laundry and gathered up throw rugs so I can vacuum and wash floors. I still have a fever and a sore throat and am taking Tylenol to battle the cold. I did sleep in till 0900, what a treat that was. *laugh* I need to pick up some books at the library, reading for swedish class. We had a long list to chose from and it was hard to pick out just 4 but I know that it will be difficult to manage those 4 even between the course load and personal responsibilities.

Valborg was fun. We took the kidlet and Rusty but Susan stayed home. LL was in the procession that lit the bonfire, he played a ball toss game and got cotton candy. He opted not to wait for the fireworks because he managed to hold the cotton candy with his hands and they were both covered in sticky sugar. So we started for home but made a detour to ICA Statoil and got some pop, chip and popping corn. On our way back we saw the fireworks and then we went home. LL wanted to stay up until midnight so he could changed the calendar from April to May. We had chips and pop and popcorn and he fell asleep about 20 minutes before midnight. We woke him at midnight, he turned the page and then crawled into bed. He is a sweety.

Monday my fellow was up early and ran with Rusty. LL and I slept in some and then we all went to the May 1st family day celebrations at Satuna park. It was fun. LL played with some of the other kids, won a prize at the ball toss, ate cinnamon buns and hot dogs and fished at the fish dam. My fellow took lots of pictures and visited with a lot of people and Rusty and I walked about, listened to the speakers and visited too. At one point Rusty was up on his hind legs with his front paws up in the air, singing along with the International song (well he didn’t do the singing, just the actions *laugh*) It was fitting that the big red dog was there with all the red jacketed social democrats. As for me, I don’t have a red jacket so I had my new red boots that I got to go with my new red purse.

After the family day, we went and got gifts and LL went to a birthday party for the twins he goes to school with. My fellow and I went out for lunch at our favourite sushi place and had a nice couple of hours together, talking and laughing. I was telling him some of the funny things that happened in London, like going to the jewellers that had a sign in the window saying “we change watch batteries” and when I went in to see if they could put a new battery in my watch they said sorry, we just change them, we don’t sell them. *laugh* They did direct me to a store down the road that sold batteries but they of course couldn’t sell me one because we didn’t know which one I needed for my watch. It was like something you would see in a cartoon. *grin* Another thing that made me laugh because of the bizarrness of it was that when our bus stopped in Bath, we stopped outside a bookshop. I saw the book in the centre of the display in the window and said to Ludde, “they have a book called The history of Cannibalism”! He didn’t believe me at first but after we got off the bus and went to the window, he saw it too. Just who wants to know about the history of cannabalism …. Hannibal Lector? *laugh*
I have some of my pictures resized now, there aren’t a lot of them because I just had too much fun to think about taking photos …. isn’t that how it is supposed to be on holiday? *laugh* Here I am at Stonehenge, it was very windy but that didn’t matter a bit, it was magic!

Shhh, don’t tell anyone that I actually own running shoes, it will spoil my high heel image:

The architecture was what mostly caught my eye when I had camera in hand. This old wall that was the back of an old prison in Southwark called The Clink:

An old operating theatre, that I wanted to go back to but never did …. an excuse to visit London again:

This building with the cool doorways:

And this is England to me, with the vines climbing the walls of old buildings, this is part of the medical university:

Here we have the stage at the Globe Theatre:

So there is a sampling of my trip to London.

Yesterday was back to school and then I took LL to the optical store because he had managed to bend the frames on his glasses. I feel like I live in that store. My fellow had a meeting but was home a bit after 2000, so he got to say goodnight to the kidlet, who had just informed me that he was missing his dad. *smile*

Tonight I have the first of 3 lectures on “meeting techniques” but before that it is dinner with my fellow’s mom.

This is how it still sounds at our house. *laugh* All of us sound better then get sick again on a regular basis. Ibo is still not well, having pain when he coughs but he did see the doctor and that is a step in the right direction.

So what is up in our lives? I did laundry all weekend and at this point in time there is one load of bedding left to wash. Yay! There were probably 5 laundry baskets of clothes when I started (but we only have two so the rest of the stuff was in a huge garbage bag). I also did the cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, floor washing, batrhroom scrubbing etc. and it felt good to have that caught up as well, since it was a bit pushed to the side when we were sick. Friday we went and got sushi for dinner but Ibo was not feeling up to eating so he had his on Saturday. Saturday LL had a friend over for the day, they played in his room, then on the playstation and then we went to look för new glasses for the kidlet. The stores were closed though, so we took the boys to Barnens Djungel and they had a blast. Sadly we didn’t have time to go out with their snow racers but we can make another date for that. Sunday I woke up with the worst case of laryngitis and a cough of the sort that you cough till you throw up. So that put a dent in my plans for the day. I had invited LL’s friend and his dad for lunch but instead LL went to their place for the afternoon. Ibo took Rusty out for a long walk and playtime and I cleaned house (although I really just wanted to sleep). After tea and honey my voice was better, the tylenol kept the fever down and then at 1600 we headed to Sigtunahöjden to see the chinese new year fireworks display. We were fetching our son from there. It was fun, we saw a lot of people we knew, the boys had a great time. Then it was home again and time for dinner. I did some homework after the kidlet was in bed and called it a day fairly early for me. *laugh*

What have we been up to otherwise? I went to my first ever nämnd meeting last week, after a day of learning about the municipality. We had a full day of seminars on different aspects of the municipality and then a bus trip around to the points of interest from a political viewpoint. Ibo was with in the morning but then had to go to another meeting before lunch. Our bus trip finished early so I called him and he came and got me. I didn’t realize it was him though because there were two adults in the car and I was expecting him and LL. *laugh* He had Anna with and after we picked up LL we all went to Tant Bruns (a quaint little cafe in Sigtuna) to fika. Then we dropped off LL to his grandmother and I went to my meeting while Ibo went home to take out the dogs, feed them and then go to his meeting. I was done first and met him so we could go home together. It was really interesting and I enjoyed it very much. I am enjoying all the different info I am learning and it is expanding my vocabularly in a big way.

Before that, we had open house at LL’s school the previous weekend. It was a lovely sunny freezing day. *laugh* Stefan came along to photograph the kids and I am looking forward to seeing the pictures. It was a nice day, lots of visiting among the parents and there were a few kids who came along with parents to look at our school, so I hope we get our 10 new and more for the fall.

Llywellyn has been feeling a bit left out. Ibo was in the paper ( http://www.sigtunabygden.se/ ) week four. A full page about him and his new position as chairman of the committee for grade school education. Week 6 there was a 2 page spread about LL’s school and while he was in one of the pictures, it was from the back and his name wasn’t in print. Week 7 my name was in with the list of people who make up the committee for high school, adult education and job market. I guess we need to get his name in print asap. *laugh*

So that is a little summary of our lives. We are busy, we are happy and next week is a “march break”, called sports break here. I am hoping to get a lot of unpacking and organizing done so our home looks more like a home. LL will likely spend a couple days with his grandmother so I should be able to get a lot done those days. *laugh*

Have 5 minutes on the computer at school to do an update. Still have no internet at home, no idea when we will have it. The new washing machine and dishwasher are installed and what a treat to be able to actually have clean clothes again without hand wringing and 6 hours of drying time. Now the first load is dry by the time the second is washed. I will try to get get caught up with laundry this weekend.

Rusty is still growing like a weed, we weighed him last week and he is 30.5 kg. He still wants to pull when we walk but it is so much better since the puppy course. Coming when he is called is still something we are working on though, he just is so interested in everything else. *laugh*

Everyone is well finally, although Ibo is still not quite back to healthy after his terrible cold/virus. He is as always busy with work and politics, I am busy with school and politics and LL is just busy with kid stuff. *laugh*

It is official, the Social Democrats along with the Center Party, the Green Party and a local party, Action for Sigtuna municipality, have formed a majority government in our municipality. There is a press release at http:www.sigtuna.se .

I am so glad this is all worked out now and we will have four more years for the social democrats to continue improving our municipality.

So here it is Thursday already!

Sunday LL had a birthday party to attend. We went and picked up my shoes and tried to fika but every place we went to was closed, so that was a wash. *laugh*

Monday I finally made it to math class! Big thing since I have managed to miss every one of them since school started at the beginning of September. It was easy to get into it, we are doing algebra and mostly stuff I have done in the past. Study hall was interesting too and then I headed home to take out Rusty and go to Stockholm.

Tuesday was swedish all day, lots of fun and very interesting. After Ibo got home we went out to get a gate to keep Rusty in just one room here when we are not home. Instead we got some fencing material and built a pen for him where we have his water and his toys in with him and that is working well. We come home and take him out and play with him at lunch and then we are back home again just after 1600 and we take him out and play some more then. He is much calmer and less destructive when he is out now, so I think being free to roam and get into stuff was not really good for him. We have enough to double the size if necessary but hopefully we can take it away once he gets past the “put everything in my mouth” phase.
Wednesday we had civics and it was really quite interesting too, I really am enjoying school a lot this year. I was home a bit before noon, worked a bit with Rusty in the afternoon and then went out to pick up LL at 1600. After dinner we went to a members meeting for the social democrats and heard the latest on who won the election here in our municipality. The winners were the social democrats but the problem is that they don’t have a clear majority yet. Lots of talking has been going on with the center party who are not allied with either right or left. With them onboard, we have a clear majority, if they align with the right, they have no majority, both alliances having 25 mandates and the sweden democrats (the racist party) have the one remaining mandate. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, it must be decided soon I think.

Today was math again, then civics again and I raced home to let Rusty out and played with him some. We went out and worked on sitting and staying. Then I headed back to Sigtuna and picked up LL after his english class. His new english teacher is impressed with his reading skills in english and said he is reading at a very advanced level. I guess reading to him every night since he was born has been a help. *smile*

We sent in the application form today to the Uppsala kennel club for showing Rusty in November. It is an unofficial contest and we thought it was a good place to start with him. This Sunday we start the puppy class with him. One of the things he has been learning is to climb, in our dog run area. There is a big rock he loves to climb up and they have a number of different activities for the dogs there so we have been slowly letting him get aclimatized to the equipment so he isn’t scared of it. It is really fun for all us.