Moving out!

After been working from home for 9 years - I'm finally getting an office outside the house.  It's going to be great! We used to have a great home office in the house - but as the family grew, space got limited and the past few years I've been working out of  a rebuilt walk-in closet in the guest room.

Now I'll get a huge room (compared to what I have...) - and - best of all - I'll have big windows with a great view. I can walk/bike to the office and I'll "leave" the office - which is one main drawback of working from home - you never leave - you're always at work...

I'm keeping my office at home to give myself some flexibility.

Now I'm dreaming of painting my walls with Idea Paint... wouldn't that be soo cool!?

Picture from www.IdeaPaint.com - so cool!

Flying

I must say that so far my flying experience this year wasn't too bad. I gave myself a lot of time and braced myself for crazy security lines - but in the end - I can't say I felt any extra security at all. Maybe no terrorist flies from Zürich to the US? The planes were more or less half full and all my flights had boarding completed well before take off time, came in early and not once was my hand luggage searched extra. TSA had checked my bag between Washington DC and California (leaving their usual little white notice) - but my bags usually gets searched before my domestic flights (which always makes me pack my dirty laundry really nice...).

So - so far so good... My travels 2010 has only just started and it was a good start.

3000 m or 9800 feet above the sea

As a little practice before flying high, I spent the last day of my day in Switzerland on 3000m/9800ft, on top of a glacier, overlooking the Swiss alps. It took 45 minutes and three lifts to get up there and the view was breathtaking. Not only because it was almost hard to breath with the thin air. I didn't ski during my trip to Switzerland - it was such a short stay and I usually get dizzy and really tired from jetlag - a great way to hurt yourself. And I have mountains and snow pretty close by - so I preferred to spend my free time exploring Switzerland. I did take a little walk on top of the glacier and took a walk inside a glacier cave - camera ready - but no pictures can really capture the greatness of this view...

Snow in the Swiss alps

After leaving Zürich, I spent the rest of my stay in Switzerland in Engelberg, about hour drive from Zürich. It's a small little "town" embedded in the alps. The first day when we arrived, it was over cast and hard to get a feeling that you were even close to the alps, only the narrow, steep roads gave you a hint. But the second day, the skies cleared and it was beautiful!

I spent most of my time in Engelberg in conference - but I took a few photos from when walking between the hotels:

Visiting Luzern, Switzerland

During my short stay in Switzerland, I got a chance to spend half a day in Luzern, a beautiful city, also by a lake. A cute old town, filled with - tada - watch stores... It would be interesting to know how many of the stores in the city were watch stores...

The weather was amazing - and we got a beautiful view of the alps from a distance, walking around in this very nice city. Funny enough - we stopped twice at the same Starbucks - which happened to have a great location by the old bridge - first staying in doors to heat up a bit, drinking coffee and tea, and right before going back, now sitting outside in the sun, drinking coffee and tea.

A little slide show with pictures from Luzern: 

Swiss celebration

I happened to celebrate my birthday in the middle of my Switzerland journey. Birthdays are important days for me - and I prefer to be close to family - but this time around there was no way around it - I had to be away. When the waiter in the breakfast room in the Zürich hotel learned it was my birthday he quickly got out a glass of champagne and a nice birthday cake. So cute!

And I can really recommend starting out a day with champagne - it puts you in a good mood for the rest of the day! ;-)

Zürich, Switzerland

My first air travel this year didn't take me to Sweden - but to the country Sweden always gets confused with. Switzerland. It was my first visit to Switzerland - a country in Europe I have failed to set my foot in during all my European travels. So even though it was a short trip - less than a week, with only four full days in Switzerland - I was kind of excited and packed my SLR to try to catch some photos.

I started out by spending a day in Zürich - a beautiful city, by the beautiful lake and the Swiss alps close by. It was a cold day and I went straight from the airport for sightseeing and when the day was over I have been on the go for almost 36 hours straight. By 9 pm, I was beat and off to sleep...

I've selected some of my pictures in a little slide show. The sun didn't come out until the very end of the day - so unfortunately the foggy, cloudy sky doesn't give justice to this beautiful city! Enjoy!

Busy busy bee

I'm taking a little break from blogging here - spending time on our private online diary that needs updating. And there is only so much free time you have these days. I've been writing an online diary for friends and family to follow along - a way to try to bring our daily life here close to those that are far away. The page has been up since 1999, but the diary started in 2003, on the day my daughter was born and I've been writing it ever since, sharing stories and pictures from the kids' life. That means over 2000 diary entries and over 12000 pictures over the past years - and a pretty hefty database that needed to be moved and renewed...

I'm collecting my stories for here and updates might show up a bit "huller om buller" as we would say in Swedish (and that Nordsteds dictionary translated as "higgledy-piggledy" an expression I have never heard...) until I'm back in my normal pace again.

Stay tuned.

An alien package

A dear friend that I've befriended over the fantastic internet and now known for over 5 years, sent me a Christmas gift (that became a New Year's gift), that only a fellow alien can assemble. It almost brought me to tears... I have never, ever as long as I've been an alien gotten a package like this - candy, magazines, books, Christmas stories, Bamse apparel, 2kg "smågodis".... What a fantastic way to start the new year!

Thank you so much my dear dear Lama-girl!

Happy New Year!

2010 started out with fireworks - a nice change from the normal, quiet New Year's Eves we've celebrated here (one of the days of the year when I really feel homesick for Europe). This year we moved ourselves to where the fireworks are - and stayed the night downtown for easy access to the fireworks. We think we might make this a traditions - a new year really should start with some major dynamite explosions!

Flying in 2010...

I don't even want to think about the effects of the latest airplane terrorist attempt for flying passengers...

After the shoe bomber incident we all had to start remove our shoes when going through security... the terrorist plot in London restricted our liquids to 3oz containers in a quart size zip lock bag...

But this terrorist hid explosives in his underwear...

One thing is clear. If you thought it was hard work flying after 911 - it's going to be even worse. Security is going to be worse than worse. The latest news says that all books, blankets, other hand luggage in your lap will be prohibited during the last part of the trip.   Imagine not having anything to entertain your kids with for one hour after an 11-hour cross-Atlantic flight except the in flight magazine? You will start seeing some very creative toys being built out of ripped out pages... 

I doubt there is a way where you can find all possible dangerous items no matter how much effort you put into security. There just is too many people flying and too many bags. In the end - the only thing we can really rely on - is fellow brave and quick thinking passengers, willing to do something, should some bastard terrorist try something. Kudos to the passengers on Flight Northwest 253 on Christmas Day.

Report drunk drivers

When driving home from Christmas celebrations signs like this one is everywhere along the highways (the huge traffic signs are also used for regular traffic information and Amber alerts).Are there signs like this in Sweden these days? And what would the sign say? "Om du ser någon som kör bil berusad, ring 112?".

I guess all that glögg drinking at Christmas time should be a good reason to have the signs up in Sweden too. ;-)

Santa came!

Swedish kids get a personal visit by Santa on Christmas Eve. And even though our kids were born here - the Santa still found them on Christmas Eve. Must be the Swedish parents...
It's Swedish tradition mixed with American since the kids do have their stockings too - and we wonder how long we can keep it going until the kids are totally confused and their peers think they are crazy when they claim that Santa came in person to deliver gifts...  one day ahead of everyone else. But for now we just let him come and ask the traditional question "Are there any nice kids here?" (and imagine - the answer is always "yes!!!").

It's too bad the Husband always miss Santa's arrival...

Merry Christmas 2009

The most common Christmas card we get from our American friends is a nice family picture with a printed greeting - the whole family or just the kids. The most common Christmas card we get from our Swedish friends is a painted card with snow and old fashioned Santas and a hand written greeting. I like both versions - it's nice to get Christmas cards.

Our Christmas card this year was done in August when the Daughter suddenly out of the blue drew this picture on our big white board in the office - we took a picture and added words and a frame. And the funny thing is that Santa really assembles the Husband...

(and no - I might live in California like Anna Anka and other Hollywood wifes - but I do not have botox in my lips...).

Christmas magic

When I grew up, Christmas was magic. Or - at least that's how I remember them - so that means my parents did something right. Now being a parent myself, I work hard to create magic Christmases for my own kids. December, one of the darkest months even here in California,  should be a month of magic and recurring traditions. It's a lonely job, my Husband would be happy with a Christmas magnet on the refrigerator and if he didn't hear a single Christmas song he wouldn't even care.

It's not that I'm over-decorating the house or play the music non-stop - but I have a few pieces that are put up under ceremonies and I do have a Christmas playlist ready to go. But creating a magic Christmas is all about the details, not necessarily the quantities.

And creating days that are special and magic is not just about Christmas, it goes for birthdays and other days too.

When you are grown-up, you don't remember all those regular days - but those days that were made special and magic. And that's what I want my kids to remember when they are grown-up.

Sales, sales, sales

There is always a sale going on here. If you have enough patience - you can get anything you want when it's on sale... Why would you ever buy something at regular price, when it might be with 20, 30 och 50% off the next week. Makes shopping a bit stressful  - even though you can save tons of money if you shop smart.

If you sign up for the stores' news mail - you'll get heads up information on when a sale is coming up. I think I've gotten all of my Christmas gifts this year on sales - the exact items that I planned - but at a heavy discount.

And all those sales makes you wonder... if they can sell these items at such discounts - then buying at ordinary prices really must be a rip-off....

Happy Sales!

"Man tager vad man haver"

Lucia is one of my favorite festivities - love the music, the candles. When I lived in Stockholm, I used to go watch the music schools performance in the big sports arena, Globen, with hundreds of kids singing and catch one or two Lucia processions at different places.

When you live far from Sweden - you have to take what you have - to translate a Swedish saying, and in our case that means IKEA.

Sometime around Lucia - but for some reason usually not on the actual Lucia day, December 13, the little Swedish school is performing a Lucia procession in the IKEA restaurant, among people eating $1 meatballs. It's really cute and nice to hear those songs - but hm... maybe not so... serene...

What?? Snow?

For the first time since I got here - I've seen snow in our city. An unusually cold storm passed by over night dumping lots of snow up in the mountains and cooling down the valley enough for very rare snow to fall. I was up over night with a coughing son and could inspect the pretty heavy snow fall. The ground is still warm and the temperatures go up during the day, so there was hardly anything left this morning after sunrise. But still.

Lot's of excitement. The news sent snow reports all night long and the weather people who normally hardly have any weather to report about were going crazy.

Since snow means freezing temperatures, or as they say "sub-zero temperatures", there is a "freeze alert" in place. Which is kind of funny coming from Sweden and trekking to school through feets of snow. The media has guides to how to cope with the cold weather - and maybe they are needed. If you are totally unused to freezing temperatures, you might have to be reminded to wear warm mittens instead of gloves.

But the last warning in today's paper below, "Cover your mouth with a scarf to protect lungs" might be something I would think would be more useful in... say Siberia or... Antarctica... Not at -2C (or 28F).

Decorating the Christmas tree early

When I grew up we always decorated the tree the day before Christmas Eve, December 23. And then we kept the tree until the beginning of January. In the US, you decorate your tree way earlier, usually in early December and I've changed my "tradition" too. I really enjoy December and want to enjoy the tree before Christmas. Now I usually I clean out Christmas between Christmas and New Year's. So today we got our tree and decorated it and now it is being enjoyed in the living room!

Getting a Christmas tree here is way easier than I remember it was in Sweden. They are all perfectly shaped and almost all the same length. Can you mutate Christmas trees?

Before and after...

"Relax". Yeah right.

Right before Thanksgiving we got a notice from our health provider, Kaiser Permanente. "Relax - there is nothing you need to do", was the headline with a smiling woman under the headline.

THAT got us worried...

And when reading on, we realized that they, with the message, was increasing our monthly payments with $114 (which is something like an increase of 23%) ($114 is approximately SEK 800) and doubling the deductible from $3000 to $6000 (meaning we now have to pay for all health costs up to $6000 a year before the insurance kick in...) ($6000 is approximately SEK 42000). All this with 30 days notice. And for those who had tried to get or switch insurance you know that 30 days isn't enough to research, apply, get approved for another insurance.

"Relax - there is nothing you need to do"...  Well - is there anything we CAN do? The message should have been "Relax - there is nothing you could do - we're going to skim you off your money and you have no say".

We have a private insurance - since we're both self-employed - so there really isn't that much we can do. But to agree that this country sure needs to take a serious look at health insurance - regardless of what the solution is.

As a communicator, I sure wonder about the headline message - but I guess that was the only good thing they could come up with. That you don't have to do anything to get the rate hike, they're just plainly going to take our money.