Up So Close

Since the weather is so nice, we're going to fire up the grill (that we got off Freecycle) and make some hamburgers.

My parents are heading over to enjoy a late afternoon/early evening meal.

In the meantime, we're going to correct some of the craziness in the house resulting from our hasty departure to my cousin Holly's wedding shower. (I spent nearly an hour searching for my keys only to discover the kids had them in the car so they could listen to music on the car's stereo.)

Which reminds me, I have a running car! The window was stuck in one position, unable to roll up or down when we got it, meaning that we had to tape it shut on rainy days, but it was fixed last week. The urgency for fixing came on an especially hot day when I untaped the window and it slowly dropped to nearly completely open with no recourse. Ack!

My computer is now in worse condition than ever, forever cycling to try to update to the next critical update for Windows but never completing. This is probably the worst thing, since it means there is no chance of retrieving the important files from it. The USB ports stopped working before this happened, so I couldn't transfer to those, but I was hoping to pull the data over the network to the kids' computer.

Now I have hijacked Tyler's computers and we have had to start some new rules. I've noticed since we got home to Columbus, there has been a lot of TV and computer time prioritized over more important things like keeping the house picked up and getting homework done. This is convenient, in one sense, because now it gives me a push to start limiting it- not just because of the work I need to do on SOME computer - but because it's a great incentive to accomplish other things to earn the computer and TV time.

The twins let me sleep in until like 11:30 this morning. Super nice. The rest of day will be fabulous, I can feel it.

I like the quote that titles this post. It's from a Jewish Proverb. It shows the importance of the role mothers play- and all parents for that matter.

I woke up with the song "Just Checkin" by Beautiful South stuck in my head, and it's still there tonight 16 hours later.

There hasn't been much time for reflecting and writing since I arrived back in Columbus Ohio. Good old USA.

I've been a little hesitant to post anything at all, because I had a really bad string of luck / events / situations upon departure from Sweden.

From SAS not routing us properly through the right airport (layover 24 hours in Brussells), my laptop crashing and the DVD drive won't let me ressurrect the sucker, to the car accident last week, I've been holding my breath thinking, "If we just get through THIS..."

This is not to say that I haven't also seen a lot of good luck / events / situations. There's been a lot of those too.

Thanks to a few generous people, we have an apartment. We have most of the furniture we need for our dining room and living room. We have a car (though it's being repaired).

The twins and I have had wonderful bonding time. I've realized how much I like being “on my own.” I miss Mattias, but things ended well between us, and I know that he and I will always be friends. I think we just need and want different things for our lives. It's weird not having a big dramatic reason to break up with someone you love. When people ask, I almost feel guilty.

But then I realize that people have to have some sort of shared vision for a relationship to succeed. And there's no shame in our relationship ending because it was simply not able to hold both of our visions.

The kids are handling the stress from everything surprisingly well. I don't really know what I expected. I didn't expect. Maybe that is it. I've had at least one brawl in the house between the girls where I had to force them apart because a serious injury might occur. There was another thing that was a little more worrisome, but I am holding on to the idea that the schedule and order from being back at school again will even the emotional environment at home out. We have contingency plans if needed.

I think the most interesting thing I have learned so far is that no matter what you plan, try to head off and try to foresee, there will always be something you missed, forgot, didn't think about, or didn't expect.

Unfortunately, my fresh eyes for Columbus Ohio have already started to adjust back to life here. I say unfortunate, because I had intended to write all the things I noticed coming back.

The only thing that comes to mind is that I felt like taking a picture of the milk cartons here to send to my friends in Sweden. Which brought me to think about the differences in grocery food, and the differences in consistency and taste of food (SMAK!), and the quality of the food here and there.

That's it. That's all I have.

Mattias has the day off, and it was my turn to sleep in. We're borrowing his mother's car so we can get in to the bus and he was going to drive Tayler to school.

I was up entirely too late last night trying to figure out finances.

I fell asleep after coughing fits, and was deeply asleep dreaming about something very interesting when something tugged at me to get up.

"Go ahead, you can have a baby."