This weekend has all the prerequisites to be a really great weekend!
We’re starting off tonight with tacos and hockeygame (Sweden vs France). Then tomorrow we have another Star Trek day in Skarpnäck. And on sunday we’ve got the Formula 1 from Turkey. And all the while the weather is supposed to be extremely good. And we’re gonna fix the concrete slabs for our greenhouse! Throw in some good sex in there and I can’t see hos we can fail to make ot great!!
This is the real first day of my parental leave! Helena has gone back to work now and I’m left solo with Sam, looking after, stimulating and feeding him as best I can and taking care of the household.
I’ve been way too busy in the past weeks to call this a vacation! My sister Amy with her family of four very well behaved kids and a hilarious husband was here in Sweden for a few weeks and I got to see them quite a few times, including a 20 hour cruise we took again (this time without the bad food that had me in bed by 20:30 last time!).
All in all, life is good right now 🙂
I’m officially on vacation right? I certainly haven’t noticed since I’ve been busy doing all those things I never had time for. Some of those things have been caught on camera and I’ve done some updating of my photo gallery.
1 – Midsummer Weekend with Helena’s brother and his family.
2 – Putting our pontoon back into the lake.
3 – Taking a stroll in Lövhagen with my family.
4 – Going to Kolmården with our neighbours and then a visit to the icecream restaurant in Söderköping.
And ofcourse some updates to my gallery dedicated to my son Sam.
Here’s hoping next week will be a little less eventfull!
Today is day 4 (of what, 190?) at home with my family. Although it’s been a weekend so it doesn’t feel as strange yet. Maybe it’ll hit next week when I haven’t logged in and checked the status of my Sharepoint farm at work 🙂
Biggest problem so far has actually been the heat! Our son really doesn’t like the heat we’re having now! He can’t sleep and is just grumpy all the time. So we’re thinking of a small air conditioner unit here if this goes on. Which based in the weather reports it will.
Other than that, we’re BBQing, watching movies, doing some home improvements and in 3 hours we have the Formula 1 race from Silversone (been there!).
Although it’s 16 days until I go on my parental leave, only 12 of those are days I have to spend at work. And believe me, I am counting every hour now! Still not sure how it’s gonna go with me and my son when Helena goes back to work on august 1st…
And stockholm is back to it’s normal self now after a few weeks of crazyness with this royal wedding and all. I’m not a huge fan of monarchy but I ended up watching it on television anyway. And it was cute and all but a bitter taste that most of it was paid by us the taxpayers and no matter how hard I try or how much money I spend on my wedding… what are the ods I can close down stockholm like that when I get married!?
So now I’m 35 years old. I dunno why but that most definitely feels like a limit where you can blame “immaturity” anymore without sounding silly 🙁
But as far as my life goes, it’s certainly picked up in the past 2 years going from “sitting home alone (but far from lonely) playing my computer games and watching my movies” to “sitting on the terrace of our lovely house with my lovely fiancé listning to our lovely boy not wanting to sleep”.
Life is pretty good to me at the moment. Unfortunately it’s not as good for everyone 🙁
So who’s the most wrong in that conflict down there in Israel? Because no matter how you look at it there isn’t a single right anywhere!
It certainly isn’t right to seize ships in international waters and use deadly force. Then again Hamas are terrorists. But then again the palestinian people did vote for them in a democratic election. But they only did that because Israel has been pushing them that far. And the shitty history goes on and on. And on the sideline is the supposedly number 1 freedom fighting nation in the world and not doing anything. So it’ll probably continue until someone changes their minds 🙁
We got our permit to put the roof up over 1/3 of the terrace so I’m busy doing that. And Helena is busy taking care of the rest of the house, our son and planting all the flowers and trees and stuff we bought yesterday for approximately 10.000 swedish crowns!
Man it’s gonna look good and smell awesome when we’re sitting under the roof on the terrace with the BBQ on and the rain is falling down again!
I’ve also updated som photo albums:
The terrace-build, although not 100% up to date after I’ve started with the roof.
Our new carpark with the bricks that the Irish guys put down for us.
Our latest family get-together for my father’s birthday.
And as always added some photos of our wonderful son Sam.
What a weekend! I’m totally exhausted! We’ve been putting up the floor on our terrace and my knees are pretty much gone and my back is… not well! We would have been done with floor had it not been for 1) me being called into work because of an overheating alarm from our datacenter 2) Formula 1 weekend 3) friendly neighbours interrupting and 4) Sam having a very bad sunday and screaming his lungs out! Fortunately Helena is the handy type so when one of us was busy with Sam the other kept building. But we’re so very close now I can taste it 🙂
Check the image gallery 🙂
Now I just wanna go to sleep, but we’re off to a small BBQ with our neighbours. Meat and beer, great way to end this weekend!
>Usually when I really put effort in something I’ll do it so very detailed it’s scary – covering every little thing. And this terrace-build was a huge project and I was thinking of every thing that could go wrong, covering every angle. I even had extra bits for my screwdrivers! And it was particularly important that weekend because saturday was a national holiday in Sweden so couldn’t easily get new stuff.
But there was one not so minor detail I miscalculated – when I rented the drill I rented a drill that drilled 20 cm wide and 80 cm deep holes. The slabs I was putting in was 18 cm wide and 70 cm deep. Should’ve worked right?… wrong! The slabs where 18 cm but square, not round, so the holes needed to be 23 cm! And it only drilled 55-60 cm so not nearly deep enough! So we spent the better part of Saturday on our knees digging out the 27 holes wide and deep enough. But once that was done, the frame and beams went up like a beauty! At 9 pm on Sunday evening I waved off my workforce and this morning I put in 4 beams for the floor and it looks good!
Check out the gallery.
And thank you dad for doing so much of the work! Thank you AC for doing so much of the digging! Thank you mother for taking care of Sam, too bad he had a bad day on Saturday! Thank you Ricki for your help! And thank you Helena for keeping up morale and serving drinks and buying hotdogs and making sure everyone was happy!
I have very good family & friends!!
As a homeowner you have to have projects to improve the house in some way. And the first project that have been on my mind since we moved in is the terrace!
We plan to have a huge terrace – 4 by 16 meters – that’s 64 square meters addition to the house! It’s gonna be awesome! 5 meters will be under roof, a cozy area if you will on those rainy august days.
My family will come out in force on saturday and help with everything from building to babysitting so we can hopefully get most of the building done before end of the weekend and I’ll spend weeks putting in the floor. Then it’s time to put up the roof on the sucker, fortunately Helenas big brother will help out with that!
You can follow the build in this photo gallery.
My new life as a homeowner and father is progressing pretty well. My son is growing well over the curve and our house is still standing!
The biggest effect has actually been my abstinence when it comes to buying new toys! A year or two ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to buy a new toy like a new graphics card or camera. But for the past months I’ve given it a second, third or forth thought and decided that my money was better spent elsewhere.
Until now!
After spending easter weekend with Helena’s family I got inspired to buy a new real digital camera, not a small cheap one we already have. A real one this time. We’d already decided we needed one and was gonna wait until summer but after that weekend and realizing how many photos we’d miss out on of our boy growing we decided to buy one now on credit. A Canon EOS 450D with a normal 18-55 lens and a 55-300 zoom lens. With accessories and stuff it ended at about $1300 but totally worth it!
Or what do you think?
I’m baffled at how mankind is still alive!
During the past year I’ve been surprised again and again and how much can go wrong with a pregnancy and how it all of a sudden can go bad! Ofcourse I knew it had it’s risks, I watched E.R like everyone else in the 90’s but still didn’t know it was that much that could go wrong! Not to mention the actual “giving birth” part! I’m a bit scared to even imagine how they did it a thousand year’s ago.
But now that he’s actually out there’s still a few hundred or so defects that won’t show up, like PKU (“phenylketonuria”), I’d never even heard about that before!
And to top all of that – the infant is completely helpless and at mercy of others for a solid 2-3 years atleast! Check the animal kingdom, what other animal needs to protect and feed it’s offspring for that long!? How long does it take for a foal to walk? Hours? Takes a year for a human baby!
It’s really quite amazing how we’re not extinct!!
Here we go again! One more olympic games and once again the media is doing what they can to make us think sweden has a good chance at bringing home some medals. And so far nothing has worked out and they are saying “what tha hell happened!?”. I’m saying “sure they may look good in the pre-olympic events but this is the best of the best!”.
I’d like Sweden to win medals. It’d be a good thing. But I still hate it when the media pushes up the expectations and we fall flat and are left with feelings of disappointment. But not me. Cause I don’t do that anymore 🙂
Go sweden, go, bring home those medals! And if not… well that’s ok too 🙂
And no baby yet, sorry to disappoint!
Since every other site is summoning up the past ten years I thought I’d do the same. Because the past ten years have been completely revolutionary in most ways for me.
10 years ago I was just settling into my rental apartment in south of stockholm, never having set foot in the northern parts of Stockholm. Didn’t have a drivers license, worked at the “customization” department at a computer retailer, didn’t have a girlfriend or even any prospects and was rarely going outside the Stockholm region.
Then I got promoted, lost my job, got a new job, got my drivers license, got to travel the world for the state department, got laid off again and got a job at a former customer. And that was just in the first five years. But then I got so comfortable that I have really no reason to look for any other job!
In 2005 I had my 30 year crisis and was slowly realizing that you really need someone to share your ups and cheer you up in your downs. But it wasnt until 2006 that I really understood just how much I needed that and after “playing the field” for 2 years I was almost ready to give up when I was contacted by Helena through an internet dating site and I realised quickly she was something special! We met for the first time 3/3 in 2008 and by September I was moving in with her. Then in April we signed the papers to have a house built and in June when the house was being built we found out we were pregnant.
So now, 10 years after, I’m living in my own house (north of Stockholm!), have a good job, good friends, awesome fiance and in 7-8 weeks I’m gonna be a dad. So except for still going to “Star Trek” events, watching Formula 1 and playing computer games nothing in my life today is as it was 10 years ago.
Overall the past 10 years have been very good to me. Except one huge thing. 10 years ago my best friend was Eden. I loved that guy and for who he was. In February 2002 he died only 32 years old. That was a huge bummer but taught me a little bit about appreciating live. Still find myself thinking about him.
And now for a very adult comment – I really hope the next 10 years is way less eventful! I don’t want to move and don’t want to lose my job and I don’t want to lose anymore friends. 🙂
Have a great 2010 everyone!
Although it was a hectic few days to get everything ready for our very first Christmas dinner ever it was so worth it! We were about 13 people there over the day, 6 stayed the night so a bit of planning but it was so fun! Helena’s brother with his family and my sister with her kids and my brother, and Helena’s mother, grandmother, it was all fun and most people had a good time. It was a bit tough in the evening trying to make sure people of four generations had a nice time (what can you do when the kids wanna play Guitar Hero and the grandmother wanna watch the news!?).
Then on Christmas day we went home to my parents for a more British christmas with turkey and the crackers and even more fun was had by all.
All in all a very merry christmas! Thanks everybody!!
Some photos can be found here.
It looks like it’s going to be a very, very white Christmas here in Stockholm! It’s been snowing for days now and although the temperature is almost up to 0 again I hope the snow is gonna last atleast a day more so we can all enjoy a white christmas for the first time in I don’t know how long!
My darling Helena has worked her butt off trying to organize the perfect Christmas dinner! We’re having 11 guests over for Christmas eve so it’s gonna be busy! But it’s gonna be a blast I hope but it does hurt when you go to the supermarket and the total is up to $200!
And this winter landscape encouraged me to take out my old camera (since our new one sucks, we sent it back to Canon to have a look at it ’cause it must be something wrong with the optics) to take some “screenshots” of a white christmas. And the best photo of them all is here. I liked that one, alot! 🙂
I’ve added a new album in my image gallery so head over there.
And Merry Christmas if I don’t have time to write something tomorrow!
Yesterday I was flipping through our channels and actually stopped on National Geographic. They were showing a 2 hours documentary called “Six Degrees Could Change The World“. And it’s just what it sounds like – a documentary with scientists and sociologists going through what would happend if the earth got one, two, three, four, five or god forbid six degrees hotter. The conclusions were not pretty. At two degrees it’d start spiraling away beyond what we could control and at 6 it’d be game over. And when it was produced we were at 0.8. And at the same time all the world leaders can’t unite in Copenhagen (which in itself is a huge CO2 fest flying in all the people all over the world)! And this morning in Metro they said behind each kilo of ham on the dinner table at christmas is atleast 10 kilos of CO2.
If that doesn’t kill the christmas spirit I dunno what does!
One of the things I had fixed for Helena’s birthday was to prepare a romantic weekend at Villa Fridhem in Norrköping for us in December so we could just get away and enjoy ourselves. And my family chipped in and set her up with a massage at the spa!
So on saturday we were off. After driving for two hours we checked in and the champagne was on ice! Ofcourse it was alcohol-free but that didn’t matter, the chocolate and strawberries still made it perfect! Then we had our first disappointment – the afternoon tea. It was just 3 cakes and one was just finished so we had two cakes and neither of them was any good. No cookies, nothing. Ok, we didn’t pay any extra for it but we were spoilt rotten the last time we did this in Söderfors Herrgård! After that we walked around abit and the feeling that hit me was “if I was in charge of this place I really would fix these million small things that they are missing”. Like when a horse pooped right in front of the entrance, took them hours to clean up!
Anyway, after that it was time for Helena’s massage – and it was good and went on for over an hour! Meantime I was enjoying myself in the swimmingpool with a cold beer! And as I was floating around I had one of those perfect moments when everything is good, no worries, no problems, nothing, cause everything is good! It sured helped that the day before we had gotten all of the assurances in the world that our baby was ok, and that one week before we had frozen two of our three mortgages for the house for 2 years and making sure that interest wouldn’t run away, and everything else was just good!
After that we had a shower and was off to the typical swedish “Julbord” (a buffet of traditional christmas-type food). And I kept eating and eating and at around 9 pm we were both so stuffed that we couldn’t do more than go to our rooms and watch some TV and talk and then go to sleep! It was ridiculous really. And we woke up the next morning still feeling pretty full but then it was time for breakfast which was pretty good but again, small things they should’ve changed to make it better. Like the waffles, took 10 minutes to cook a waffle!
After that we walked around a bit, took another dip in the pool and then we were off going back home. And then we stopped by the christmas market in stockholm city and bought some candy and sausages.
All in all a kick ass weekend! But I can’t help to shake the feeling that life is going a bit too good right now… just praying nothing kicks me down to reality!
And if you want photos they are located here in my new gallery.
Btw, you’ll need a logon for the ew gallery. The username is “friend” and the password is the name of the company I work for, with a capital first letter.
Yeap, you read that right – I officially regret buying our house. It’s not due to any problems with the house or the building of it. Or the worth versus cost. Because it’s a good house and definitely worth what we paid for it. No, the reason I regret it is that I gave this guy our money!
To summarize – it’s our version of “CBS 60 Minutes” who try to nail “the powers that be” and this time they were after “Älvsbyhus” which is the company building the most houses in sweden per year. And they had 3 families who had their dreams turned into nightmares because of leaky roofs and heavy rain on the day of the assembly but most of all because of “Älvsbyhus” poor post-building customer service. Or lack thereof. When we got into this whole thing we quickly realised one key factor was if it was gonna rain on the day they’d be putting the house together, then we’d be in for a nightmare trip. And we also knew that you get what you pay for and “Älvsbyhus” is the cheapest option out there. But we also figured if they build 1.000 houses per year they kinda must know what they are doing. And we haven’t had any major problems (although we still have four outstanding issues after our inspection but they have promised to take care of it).
But then when you see the segment in “Kalla Fakta” and when they interview Donald Johansson, the CEO of “Älvsbyhus” and the entire thing gave me a terrible feeling of being ripped off. I actually gave my money to this guy!? They make some 150 million swedish crowns per year but his ego and “we are never wrong” mentality stops them from the goodwill factor of fixing these three families nightmares that would’ve cost them a maximum of 1.2 million swedish crowns and saved them from being blacklisted and that PR nightmare that was shown on the TV?! The arrogance, the condescending “you don’t know what you are talking about little girl” towards the journalist.. That f*cking old fart made Göran Persson look like a big care-bear!!
If I had seen this before we signed on I’d never have bought it and I sincerly hope they get alot of “we changed our minds” calls today ’cause a company that has a CEO like that deserves to go out of business. In my opinion.
Then again, if we hadn’t bought that house we wouldn’t be friends with Hanna, Micke and the Westbergs 🙂