Newsletter 2011
This
year I have been in deep thoughts concerning which format our news
letter should have. Maybe its better to write something close to the
chronicles of the Phantom? They contain lots of heroes, good deeds and
treasures, but the main hero has very ridiculous clothes. Maybe
something like a historical chronicle with lots of important dates
concerning wars and coronations? Royalty usually have very nice
clothes... Finally I decided to go on as usual. There is no use changing
a winning concept :-)
What is
the major news this year then? Maybe having a brand new car? Or maybe that
Cacke after years of dithering finally decided upon the best flat screen
TV to buy? Or that we went to Crete for Easter? Maybe that Johan has lost
a lot of teeth? Or that Axel now plays the guitar? When looking at the
statistics of 2008, the average time to be married is thirteen years, and
approximately 44% of all marriages end in divorce. Therefore the big news
this year must be that we are still happily married after thirteen years!
Cacke usually cites an American investigation showing that as long as things around us improve a little at the time people are happy. We are right now improving our kitchen and that makes us happy. If the improvement or the paint vapors causes the happiness is an open question... We began taking the old kitchen apart in May and we are still not done. Cacke says he enjoys the building process, but I think he only tries to avoid cooking, washing up and cleaning. Cacke creates all the drawings in a CAD program with millimeter precision, so everything works out fine even when we hire people to do things. We have only one funny incident to tell about. When they were concreting the kitchen floor they realized after a while that there was an eddy with a hole in the middle. The concrete was on its way into the basement through at hole in the kitchen floor. Cacke said that he has never before seen anyone moving as fast as the builder running down into the basement to stop the flow. Afterward they had to clean out the basement for hours, something which they were not entirely enjoying.
Last year we
tried to restore the garden after the draining efforts. This year we
continued trying. With the help of two gardeners we have added a couple of
thousand kilos of stone and earth. Following the wishes of the children we
have added to our little hill in the garden, so now we hope for a snowy
winter. We have to try the hill out and see if it has become any better
for sledging.
Axel is now in the fourth grade. He likes woodwork, music, PE, art and learning English. The rest is OK except for math, which is boring. This autumn Axel started taking guitar lessons and he enjoys it a lot. He spent two weeks in the summer with his friend Kalle, and then he flew home himself from Stockholm to Malmö. For his tenth birthday we arranged a movie party where all the pupils in his class went to a movie theater to see Tintin in 3-D. It was a very popular party. His main interests right now are computer games and a card game called Magic. Both he and Johan have learned how to eat with chop sticks. They learned quite fast when they had a bowl of candy to practice on.
Johan is in the second grade. He usually says that the best in school is the after school curriculum. The rest is kind of boring. Johan now has a brown belt with two stripes in jujitsu, and he hopes to have a black belt in the summer. This autumn he got his very own guinea pig called Tim. The entire animal family now consists of Tuva (rabbit), Tarzan (guinea pig) and Tim. Johan celebrated his 8th birthday by inviting the entire class to a jujitsu party. We grown ups enjoyed how tiny little girls managed to over-throw the large male instructors, and how this caused the girls to giggle so much that they could hardly stand. The Mohawk Johan wore in 2010 was first changed to a head full of hair spikes, and now to long unkempt hair.
Cacke continues to be Mr. Know-it-all at work (and at home). This year has not brought so much traveling, only a trip to Seattle to visit his cousin Alexander's fantastic wedding. During the winter he renovated around the entrance. There is a small room, less than 10 sq feet, but with three doors and a complicated ceiling. He has also spent a lot of time in the kitchen (not cooking!) and during this Christmas season the first cupboards were put in place. We hope to be able to host the Christmas celebration of 2012.
I have continued having fun at work. This year PHI has
contracted distributors in several countries world wide. We have visited
them and they have visited us. I have become quite accustomed to
representation dinners, and my wardrobe now actually includes more than
one set of suitable clothing. Most memorable was the trip to Hungary where
I was treated like a princess for six days. The colleagues at PHI probably
enjoyed the Hungarian salami most of all the edible things I brought home
from abroad.
Last update: Feb. 25, 2012 |
