KSena's Journal

Let's continue with where I left off. With my birthday. Or should I say... the day before my birthday.

Since earlier me, my MIL, my mom and my brother planned a HUGE clean-out off our storage. (All swedish apartments come with at least one storage in the basement.) We decided to clean out both the small one and the bigger one.

None of these storages have been cleaned out since Mr P took over this apartment from his mom. So you can imagine how full they were. The big one, that is like a room, a moderately small room. You couldn't walk into said storage, it was so packed full of stuff.

Now Mr P he is one of those people that say things like: "Let's take care of that later." "Let's put it in the storage for now, and deal with it later." Thing is... that 'later' never happens. Instead our storage just got fuller and fuller and messier and messier. And I couldn't stand it, so I arranged this huge clean-out.

That I wanted my brother there is that he has a calming effect on Mr P. Mr P has a very short temper when it comes to things like this. Not violent, but he gets very angry, annoyed, irritated and such... Usually over dumb things, or small things.

Gladly it went really fast! Mr P and my lovely brother took care of the bigger storage, and they were fast as fuck! We'd rented a small truck, so they drove that back and forth to the waste disposal site and the charity. Me and my best friend Ylletyg took care of the smaller storage, trying to be just as fast. We also bought two storage shelves that we put in the bigger storage so we could get some order to the stuff we decided to keep. Which was not much.

Meanwhile my mom and my MIL took care of Alexandra, amusing her. And made sure there was food, FIKA and coffee plus tea for us that worked. :-)

Once we were done, our storages were probably the most ordered storages in the house. :-D SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS!!!

Day after that, it was my 41st birthday. We took it very easy. Just took the last stuff to charity. Went out to eat lunch at our favorite FIKA-place. Was REALLY nice! And then we visited my MIL, she's awesome so that was also really nice!

Then we went home and just took it really easy. :-) Perfect birthday!

After that, I got REALLY inspired by our success. So I did a huge clean-out of our walk in closet as well. It's not a big walk in closet, actually quite small. Just big enough for mine and Mr P's clothes. And towels, sheets and such. Sounds big? Trust me, it's not. With all the things in there on shelves and stuff, you can only be one person in there at a time.

Add to that all the stuff that Mr P figured we could "take care of later". Yeah, there were so much stuff like that in there to, you couldn't see the floor. I rest my case. :-/ But I managed to clean that place out to! ALONE!!! AND got Mr P to clean out all his old disgusting T-shirts as well! AWESOME!!! So that place is in order to!

Day after that, I cleaned out a small closet as well. It was supposed to be a closet for coats, jackets and such. But… There were SO MUCH STUFF shoved in there that had been in there since Mr P moved in after his mother. :-/ Now we can actually use it for what it’s meant to. For coats and such. Which means…. I could organize our hatrack where you put hats, coats and such when you walk in the hallway.

Fuck yeah! Inspired much? You bet!

So today, I’ve organized and cleaned out some more! Me and Mr P has a shared desk in the living room with our two computers. It’s our nerdcorner. (See below at my current location…) There’s quite a few desk drawers in it, and they were full of just… stuff. So today I cleaned out and organized those to. :-)

Of course, we’ve done other things as well.

In between the cleanin out and organizing, we’ve been on a mini-vacation trip to Kolmården for two days. :-) It was Alexandra's wish to go there, since they have a small amusement park in the middle totally based around the swedish comic and cartoon character Bamse. Alexandra loves Bamse, she has a subscription on the comic, so it does end up in the mail now and then. And she has ALL the cartoons as well. :-) It’s a very very swedish comic, and has been around for so so many years. So I think the part of the park with Bamse was her favorite. My favorite was to see the birds of prey show they had and also the dolphin show they had. I’ve been there a few times as a kid, but it was sooooo different now. :-)

Anyhow, we had a GREAT time while there, even though our feet and legs were very tired. (I tracked how many steps we walked with the pedometer in my phone, and in two days we took about 23000 steps or more… o.O)

It did rain A LOT for some of the first day, but it wasn’t cold so with umbrellas, we had a good time still.

Rain is desperately needed all over Sweden. And well, all over Scandinavia, to be honest. We have a terrible drought right now. There’s wild forest fires in so many places here, it’s crazy. Not close to us, gladly. Mostly in the north of Sweden, past the polar circle (!). Not joking. There’s huge big forests there, and since they are so dry, well…

The king of Sweden, His Royal Highness Carl XVI Gustav was there encouraging the fireworkers the other day. They seem to have most of the fires mostly under control now, but yeah… It’s been somewhat insane.

Anyhow, between all this and a trip to Gothenburg and Universeum (which really is not built for people with a fear of heights… Poor Mr P…), I’ve kept busy. In a good way.

Mr P told me sternly that you’re supposed to relax as well during your vacation, meaning I’m too focused on organizing and cleaning out things. Well, I’m relaxing as well. Promise. :-) I did today, when Mr P took Alexandra with him to the zoo, so I had the whole place for myself for a couple of hours. Bliss!

This entry is cross posted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.

A month later and here I am again. Guess I can't stay away. :-) End of 2017. I guess a little reflection of the year is in order.

Don't know really where to start. :-) It's been a pretty good year, most of it. Apart from the autumn this year. Less good that one.

Early 2017 was good. The winter-part and the spring-part. I do work a lot, and I do enjoy it.

I feel like I started to grow into my professional role a lot this year over all. And it started this year, pretty much. I feel more confident. And I know what to do, how to do it.

One thing I do know though, and I am working on it, is that I want to do to much. I have a lot of ideas. Things I want to do at work. But there's never enough time, you know? I did get more time this year. Before I worked only 30 hours a week at the school and 10 hours at a neighboring library. This year I got 40 hours to work only in the school, so that's good. More time. But there's never enough time when you are the sole responsible for EVERYTHING at a workplace, is it? :-)

So this autumn it just got a bit to much with work, family and everything. Usually the autumn blues does not effect me. I've never suffered from it. But this year... This year it hit. Hard. Hard as fuck. Depressed friends told me I showed signs of depression, and that might be true. I had no energy for anything. And I pulled back from socializing with anyone at all, even my best friend. And I stopped logging into my chat programs. Which I used to do a lot before. I just didn't have the energy. I didn't have any energy left at all when I came home from work, and I constantly felt like I lacked there to, despite my boss and colleagues telling me otherwise. The teachers and other staff at school think I do a great job to, but at that time I couldn't take that in. So that was not a fun part of 2017.

And lets not start on the political climate in the world these days. That's a depressing state for sure. Fuck Trump. And that's all I'll say on that, or this post will be even more of a downer.

The Swedish political climate isn't to much fun either, since Sverige Demokraterna, which is the alt-right here in Sweden has far to much power. And is gaining it. And there's far to many areas in Sweden where crime is running rampant (and the school I'm working in is in one of them areas...), but trying to beat it with racism is not the answer. Racism and hate never is.

*sigh* So that was the less than good part about this post, but it's reality, so that's that.

But despite how I've felt about my job, I do like it! Even though I struggle with my hooligans, when I'm alone with them, they're so nice to talk to! It's when they come in a group, things get crazy. And the other kids/teens at the school are WONDERFUL! There's about 700 kids/teens at the school now, and the hooligans are around... 10-15 kids/teens. Soooo many refugee kids though, or children of refugees. Hence why I work my ass off to make sure they get the best possible help to make it here in Sweden. To do that, you need to know how to read...

As you can see much of my life is... work...

Then there's Alexandra, of course. The best thing in my life. :-) She grows SO FAST! It's crazy! And she's growing up to be a really good kid. :-) Spoiled, yes. Both grandma's really do love to spoil her rotten. *lol* No wonder my MIL wants to, since Alexandra is her only grandkid. :-)

She cares a lot of her friends and her cousins. She really loves them. So I hope when she starts school she'll have her friends in the same class. Fingers crossed. Her big cousin Tilda, who is 10 years old, is Alexandras big idol. She follows her like a little puppy when we're at the same spot, and she learns a lot from her.

One thing she's really gotten from Tilda is the love off horses. Alexandra started riding this year, and she has really taken to it! She's always been very shy, but not when she's at the stable. She's really outgoing there, and not afraid of the horses at all. :-D At this riding school you don't only learn how to ride on the horse, but also how to take care of the horse. The whole thing. And she's not afraid to get her hands dirty. Not at all. So that's really impressive! And she's getting really good at riding to, for her age. :-D So I'm totally happy with driving her to the stable once a week. Eventually there'll be more than once a week, I know. But I'm fine with it, since it seems to be good for her, not only physically but mentally to! And she loves it! Win-win!

Her teachers/caregivers at daycare says she is doing really well at daycare to, she's popular with the other kids. She likes to learn new things. To try new things and to explore. And to help her friends when needed. Only time she ends up cranky is when she can't run the games she does with her friends. I think that comes from her being an only child and always deciding the games herself at home.

Another bad thing is that she's inherited two bad qualities from me and Peting... My tendency to 'disappear' in my fantasies, to the point I dream while being awake and not hear or see what's going on around me. So people have to touch me or call out for me to snap me out of it. Alexandra does this to, especially when tired, morning or evening.

Another thing, that she got from Peting, is her absolutely HORRID morning-temper! Now, I don't expect anyone to be cheerful at 6am in the morning which is the time I wake her up, but my GAWD! There's some serious fights quite often when she just refuses to do anything at all, and fights and hits me to get out of it. I've been brought to tears some mornings because I've been so frustrated and this autumn and winter I've been late for work nearly every morning. :-/ Peting is like that to. Well, he is not fighting, but I do avoid going into the kitchen until he's taken a seat and started on his breakfast. Just saying.

Right, so... This last month or two, I've started doing a lot better. I even start feeling an urge to go back to the vampire-LARP, which we stopped doing as well this year. We took a break, but now I'm started to feel energy and urge to go back to that to. They've done a restart this year, so instead of vampires in the modern age, the LARP is now set in the medieval times. Medieval vampires... We'll see if I can figure something out for it. I've noticed that many of the LARPers that moved away from this city for work and education has started to move back again. It would be fun to play against them again. :-)

So as you can see, even though this year has been tougher than previous years, I'm still going out on top. At least that's how it feels like to me. :-) I do have hopes for 2018. Alexandra is starting school! So that's going to be interesting! Onward to 2018!

Books, movies, tv-shows... I'll just have to make a separate post for that! Kudos if anyone had the energy to read through all that!

I made a deal with hexenhasel today to be better at posting, and I'll try to do that. I'm not sure I can jump back so far to catch up, so if there's any post you want me to read specificlly, link to it in a comment or just tell me whatever you want me to know. :-) I'll jump back until December 1'st, and then keep up from that.

This entry is cross posted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.

So, Peting had his birthday party. It was actually a lot of fun!

Mom wasn't here, but she'll come over tomorrow. I can't wait. My little brother was here and I gave him a great big hug, because I've missed him. I've missed both my brother and mother lately, because life and especially work has been just a little bit crazy. And still is, to be fair, even if it does feel like I'm more in control now then I was before.

Anyway back to the birthday party!

Peting's relatives and mom came over, obviously, which was a lot of fun! I love my MIL, I really do. I do know she reads here at times though, and I found out later that she was worried I was mad at her about all the carb-talk, but I'm not MAD. I was IRRITATED about it, but you know. Big difference. And that comes and goes to. There was not much carb-talk today though, maybe a mention. And I did give her a grand big hug telling her I do really love and she is a great MIL. WHICH IS TRUE! And not just something I say. I've written that more than once during all the years I've written here. It's funny really how much like my mom she is, even though my mom is loud and boisterous and my MIL is more subdued. They're still very much alike in a very good way.

There was a lot of gifts for my dear Peting. He got a Yoda bobble head that Alexandra had picked out. Well, to be fair, she'd said that 'dad needs a Star Wars doll'. Said and done, we went to find one. We did, in a game-store. But she wanted to buy the big Yoda softie, which was... a bit big and also a bit more expensive... *LOL* So we went with he smaller bobble head one. :-) He got a gift card to buy something there to, and a thermometer that tells you the temperature both inside and outside at the same time. So he was very happy. Especially when he got a even bigger gift card from his aunt, so he'll be buying A LOT of games in the future, I'm sure. *LOL*

What with how stressed I'd been lately, I didn't bake that much. I made a classic swedish birthday cake with a marzipan cover and swedish farm cookies (on Peting's request), and my dear best friend made salmiak macrons as a surprise! Oh, and I'd bought chocolate chip cookies from a teen at the school I work, since his class collected money to go on a trip together. :-) So there was plenty to eat for FIKA!

Before FIKA we had lasagna that Peting had made. He's REALLY good at that, and it tasted DIVINE!

To say everyone was stuffed after that would be an understatement. *LOL* So the little birthday party was a HUGE success!

My best friend lingered though, and we had a loooong talk before she left. It felt really good. We've both felt a bit exhausted and down lately, so just to sit and talk for hours was JUST what we both needed, I think. We've known each other for so long now 25 or 26 years, I think. So we know each other inside and out by now. And we know that sometimes we have to push a little to get each other to talk. This time I needed a little pushing. And she knows just how to. She didn't leave until a bit after 8pm, way after Alexandras bedtime. But she got to stay up a little longer today since it was a special day and all.

Thank anything holy for my best friend. Seriously. I don't know what I'd do without her. She's so good at getting my head straight when I mess myself up. She claims I do the same to her, even though I don't know how. Maybe I don't have to? Safe to say we help each other out when we need to. :-)

Now it's defiantly bedtime, and I'll get to hang out with mom tomorrow. Awesomeness!

This entry is cross posted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.