Kitty’s Place

My fellow has been going through a transformation phase the past couple of months. He has stopped eating meat and poultry, stopped drinking coffee and cut back on his refined sugar intake. He has also changed his appearance and it is a striking change. *laugh*

This is us at the Canadian Club christmas dinner last December and this is basically what my fellow has looked liked for the past couple years.

This is my fellow Tuesday evening! He shaved the beard off a few weeks ago and we have been discussing what hair style would look good on him for a couple weeks. This is the first time in 9 years that I have seen him with short hair.

It is a bit strange to wake up to no beard and short hair in the morning but I do like it. Now I need to do a transformation as well. *laugh*

I picked this up at the postal outlet this morning. Earlier in the week I had recieved an email from Carolyn advising me to watch my mail for a parcel from the UK, she had seen something she though I would like. She was so right. I love it, a cup and saucer with the coats of arms of the provinces of Canada! Thank you so very much Carolyn!

One of the things I love about livejournal are the random acts of kindness that go round and round, making it a very family like kind of place. I cannot begin to tally up the number of cards and parcels that have arrived totally unexpectedly, often at times when I was in need of something to brighten my day, from people I have met through livejournal these past 5 years. It is a lucky thing that Lori led the way to lj “way back when”.

Just a quick post. Meaghan was here for 10 days and it was wonderful. The weather was great, we had rain once and it started just as we were walking up the walk to the apartment building. Today she left to go home and literally the moment her plane took off, the drizzle we were having turned to snow. *laugh* So obviously she brought the nice weather with her and we will have to import her here so it stays. *grin*

It seemed like moving it was all I did today. *laugh*

This morning after we dropped LL off at his bus, we came back to Märsta and my fellow dropped me at the hiigh school. Today was the day I was going to be doing CPR training (HLR in swedish), a part of the medical course I am taking by distance. It was fun, interesting, took no time at all for every step to come back to me, even though the last time I recertified was 8 or so years ago, since it was the year before LL was born. The class took 3 hours and then I hurried to the bus stop, took a bus to the station, switched buses there, took a bus to Sigtuna bus station and then walked to my school, because the bus that goes past it, would have gotten me there after class started. *laugh* I got to school with 15 minutes to spare before math class, so I made a cup of soup and a sandwich which I wolfed down, finishing just as class started. I decided about a month ago to leave stuff at school for lunch, since I have this bad habit of forgetting to take mine with in the morning. So there are some packages of cup of soup, a package of cheese slices and a package of crisp bread. They have been lunch often lately. *laugh*

After math class, I took the bus and got off at the bus stop closest to LL’s school. I was waiting on the side of the road into the nature reserve for my fellow to pick me up when one of the other mom’s drove past and stopped to make sure I was actually waiting for someone. *laugh* When my fellow arrived, we headed to LL’s school and had a parent-teacher meeting. Then it was home and time to do laundry and catch up the housework that has been neglected this week while I was doing homework.

So now I am having a little break, waiting for my fellow to come home from a meeting and thinking how cool it is that I am certified to do CPR here in Sweden and I hope I never need to do so. *laugh*

The kidlet went back to school on Monday and did just fine. I missed my bus so I did not go back to school on Monday, I went back Tuesday. *laugh* Instead I worked on my assignment for my medical course. I waited for my fellow to come home from work, so we could have dinner together. He got home about 2200, was not hungry at all so I made him a tuna sandwich and went to bed.

Tuesday was swedish, I finished my Finland project and got it mounted onto bristol board and corrected the book report I sent in before LL got sick. Ibo was late again because he had a meeting, but this time I was smart and ate dinner without him. *laugh* I made a really nice linguini with clam sauce that I will definitely do again.

Today was science class. We had a mock conference on fishing quotas, it was fun. Then we worked on our Baltic Sea project. I did a review for tomorrows CPR class at the high school as well. After school I picked up LL, we hurried home, got changed (I spilled soup on my blouse at lunch, he was in his extra track pants that he keeps at school because he got so wet playing out that he had to change. We had 45 minutes home before we headed out to his 1730 stamp club meeting. He decided when we got there that he wanted to go by himself this time, so there I was, with 90 minutes to kill. Coming home seemed a waste, I would have had 25 minutes here tops, so I looked about for a place to have a coffee but didn’t find one, just bars and restaurants. I went back across the road to the bus station, bought a take out coffee and then sat on a bench outside the building LL has his club meeting in. By then 20 of the 90 minutes had gone by. *laugh* Since it is the same building as Ibo’s “party headquarters” I sms’d and asked if he knew any coffee places nearby. He called me and said there was a place up the street and around the corner but he was on his way to where I was for an arbetarekommunsstyrelse (not kommunstyrelsen, which I mistakenly posted here *laugh*) meeting. So we met outside and I went in with him and warmed up. Talked to some of his politcal colleagues and then it was time to pick up LL. So now I know where to look next time. *laugh* I did write up a summary of a newspaper article for swedish class on Friday while I was waiting, so it was not a totally unproductive 90 minutes. LL had a wonderful time, traded stamps, looked at other kids stamp books and showed off his. He was really surprised that as his group was leaving a group of adults were coming in for their stamp club meeting. I guess he never really thought about adults as collectors. *laugh*

I have a bit more do on my assignment for the medical course, just a short blurb on insulin and then it is done. My fellow said he likely won’t be home before 2200 but I have a casserole in the oven for our dinner, so we can eat as soon as he get here. The kidlet ate before his meeting and had hot chocolate and a cookie when he got home. Now it is time for him to go to bed.

I got the perfect bag today! You can see it here, it is the one with roses. I have two other of these carpet bags and love them, but this one is wonderful because it is bigger, has longer handles so it can hang on my shoulder and tuck under my arm and it zips shut. I was thinking when I picked this up that one day soon I should put out my purses and take a picture so everyone can see my obsession. *laugh* If you haven’t checked out Baba Store, go and do it now, they have lovely things, everything is of wonderful quality and they do great customer service!

When I was a very little girl I spent a lot of time with my Uncle Bob, my dad’s second youngest brother who was still going to high school. Uncle Bob has a very severe speech impairment and apparently when I was learning to talk, I learned to talk like him. I remember my mom telling me that she was scared I would always talk that way but of course I didn’t, I learned to talk like everyone else did. But I did learn to understand Uncle Bob.

When I was a teenager, old enough to go to bars, I used to see Uncle Bob. He would come over and talk to me and my friends, who all were very nice to him but never understood a word he said. New people would say “wow, he is really drunk” because they didn’t know that he always talked like that. These days I don’t see Uncle Bob but I do think about him and the profound effect he has had on my life.

It was remembering Uncle Bob that has kept me working with LL for these past 2 1/2 years with the speech therapist. Days when he balked at being corrected, when we had to make the trip yet again to Stockholm and I just wanted to say “the hell with it”, I would remember my mom telling me that when my uncle was little it was suggested he have surgery to help his problem but my grandparents did not have it done, since it was expensive and they had 8 other kids to care for as well. I vowed that if ever a child of mine had a speech problem, I would do anything to help that child and so I have.

Uncle Bob is an alcoholic, not the only one in my family. I learned early on that alcoholism is a genetic problem and that I needed to be aware of that all the time, because the problem was there on both sides of the family. To this day when I have a second drink I see Uncle Bob in my mind. His drinking never hurt anyone except himself, but I always think that I have this little boy dependent on me and I can never let down my guard.

There is a woman who lives in the complex we used to live in. Being the Canadian I am, to this day I say hello to all my neighbours and have done so since the day I moved here. At first people here looked surprised when I said hej, then they would smile and eventually some of the said hej in return. This woman never ever said hello back, but we saw her often and always greeted her and her family. Fast forward to after we moved to our new apartment. One afternoon I was coming back from the store and met up with this woman. She stopped us and started talking up a storm, she was thrilled to us, she had missed us, had we moved away, she never saw us anymore. It was really funny that she who never acknowledged me for 3 years, was so distressed when we left. We had a chat that day and since then we meet up occasionally around the centrum and she always stops us to talk. We saw her the week after LL had his tonsillotomi and I told her about the surgery. She talked to LL about when she had her tonsils out when she was 11. It struck me odd that he didn’t respond well to her but I thought he was being shy. Today I met her at the centrum again. She stopped to ask about LL. It was while we were talking about throat lozenges and tonsils that it clicked to me that she has a severe speech impairment. Until today, I never noticed it and only did today because a man standing beside us was listening in and got this confused look on his face. So because of Uncle Bob, I have a “friend” here in Sweden.

Friday I woke up so nauseated I took an antiemetic and went back to bed for a bit. No idea what is up with me but I have nausea and my eyes are swollen and itchy. Guessing it is a reaction to something but goodness knows what. *laugh* The kidlet however went the entire day fever free, although he did have a low grade fever at bedtime. My fellow has been going in to work at 0730, since we are still getting up normal time but he doesn’t have to take us to school. You would think starting an hour early would mean he gets home early, but no, he is so busy at work that he got home about 2130 and lately that is not unusual at all. So we had a late dinner together and a quiet rest of the evening. *laugh*

This morning we were up at 0630 because Ibo had to go to Stockholm for a political conference that will be going on both days of the weekend. I got up because I had laundry time at 0700. After I was done with laundry the kidlet and I went to the centrum to get a few groceries and pick up a parcel Sandy sent. I got my parcel, got my groceries, slid home (only falling once *laugh*) and then when I was done putting away the groceries, I discovered I had no parcel with me. I called the grocery store and told them which cashier had checked us out and asked them to check at the cash to see if was there. Thankfully it was and they have put it away for me to retrieve tomorrow. We could have gone back today but by the time we got home from the first trip, LL was coughing much more than he had been so I thought we would wait a day. No point in overdoing it so he can’t go back to school next week.

Today I sat down and started writing out the assignment I have to send in next week to the medicine course. This one was really fun, I had to chose 4 of the 7 case histories I wrote previously and go into detail about the medications used for those illnesses. I chose MS, COPD, Angina and Diabetes. Over the past week I have made lots of notes and today was time to sit down and work them into a readable format. My biggest problem is that I still tend to use english when writing longhand, because it is easier to wait till I am the computer to look up and translate words I don’t know. But that really slows me down later. Also there are medical terms I can’t find in standard english-swedish dictionaries so I have to go back to the text and then out to the internet to try to find the word I want in a relevant document. So it takes me a few hours to write up something I could write in 30 minutes in english. *laugh* The joys of learning a new language. *grin*

The new glasses are a challenge. I have never had reading glasses before, just glasses for distance. So I put them on, everything is blurry and then I have to adjust the distance of the computer screen or my book, for it to be clear. But when I turn from the book to the notebook, to write notes, I have to readjust my focus again because it is farther away. I know it is just learning to adjust but this afternoon I was ready to toss them off the balcony. I did try looking at the text without them and was astounded how blurry it is, so I really do need them. *laugh*

The kidlet is just taking his antibiotics and then it is bedtime for him. He has been fever free for 24 hours now, so here’s hoping he is on the mending side of this illness now. We are currently reading Robert Munsch stories at bedtime, although I through in a swedish story last week just to confuse him. Problem with that is that he corrects my pronunciation … even when I am saying the word right. *laugh*