Random Stuff I Feel Like Writing

Today I gave a 10 minute talk in church, in Swedish. It felt good to use what I have been trying to learn. Although I resorted to my least favorite method of speaking, which is reading from a script I wrote ahead of time. A pre-scripted spontaneous joke is sort of an oxymoron, you know?

At first I tried to write it in Swedish, but that totally stifled all creative thinking. So I cheated and wrote it in english and then used translate.google.com (amazing!) to make the translation process faster and more accurate. Even though I explained that before I began my talk, I don't think very many people, if any, realize what that website is and so now everyone I go to church with thinks that I am way smarter and better at Swedish than I actually am.
Normally I totally wouldn't mind people thinking I am smarter than I am, except that now they expect me to understand much more of what they are saying to me than I actually do. Just because I can read Swedish doesn't stop it from still sounding like jibberish when I hear it.

I got to throw in a great quote:
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." - Mark Twain

Michael was sitting in the pews making squaks, farting noises and blowing raspberries the whole time. At one point I made the mistake of looking at him being a total clown and making a ruckus, and I broke mid-sentence with the beginnings of laughter before I regathered myself. He is such a goof.

In other uninteresting news about my progress with the Swedish language, a couple months ago I actually read an entire book in Swedish. Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I think I read it as a kid in like 6th grade or something. It was really fun to read again and totally enjoyable as an adult. And I don't think I have felt that sort of pride for reading a book since I was in like 2nd grade. I was beaming when I finished. I wanted to make a book chart for myself so I could put a gold star on it.

It has been a really, really long winter here. So dark and cold. Shoveling snow off our driveway is a harder and harder task every time, because the stack on the side is becoming a pretty high fortress to throw the snow over. All winter I think there have only been a total of two sweltering hot days when the temps reached a high of 33 degrees - so nothing ever melts off.

One thing I took up to make the winter more fun is cross country skiing. I LOVE it! There are groomed trails all over our island, but the ice is thick enough that I've even been out skiing over the ocean. I've also gotten out before the snow plow came and skied literally right out of my driveway. This is honestly a dream come true for me. One day I went to a local spot with good groomed tracks and decided I was going to have fun and "race" some people. They did not know they were racing me, the poor fools. It was some of the most fun I've had since pre-pregnancy. I really really need to find a real race to enter sometime soon, even though I will totally get my butt kicked once anyone is actually aware of the fact that they are in a race.

Rob is pretty amazing, getting through the long winter by refusing to wuss out on his bike to work goal even on the most blizzardy of days. He had studded tires for the ice, but it hardly helps when it is fresh snow. He has slipped, but then he landed in a nice soft pillow of deep snow so that it was no harm and actually sort of fun. He is a strange mix of hot-and-sweaty yet cold-as-ice when he comes in the door at night, with grime all over. What a man!

Here is one of Biggie Small's favorite activities this month: