Paris Metro has rubber wheels on some lines. Here I’m looking at the Arc the Triumph.
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Tag Archives: Work
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Püff is on its way
Today was a very special day. And no, it wasn’t the fact that I’m back at work after more than a year of parental leave that made it special.
Today we saw Püff for the first time. Püff is scheduled to be born in the beginning of January and will be our third kid.
Here is a picture from the ultrasound. We are looking forward to become a family of five!
Time to be a house husband again
Since today I’m a house husband. I will stay at home taking care of my kids, the kitchen and all other things connected to the house while my wife goes to work. The last two years I did the working, but now it’s Susanna’s turn again.
I have done it once before, one year, when I stayed home with our daughter, now it is time for me to take care of our son and our daughter since she only is in preschool for 15 hours a week.
Preschool started today too, so today was really a day of changes. Our daughter needs more friends to play with than we can provide here at home so preschool it is. We have gotten a place at a really nice preschool in the next village to the south from us so it’s not far away. I’m just missing the bicycle path there; otherwise I would have used the bicycle trailer most days. Now I think I might do it once or twice as I have to take backroads that are more than twice the distance. I just don’t bicycle with my kids along a main road with a speed limit of 90 km/h.
That is just one way this time will be different than last time. Living in a house changes things too. There is always something to do when taking care of kids and household isn’t enough. I doubt I will get bored. I doubt I’ll get many other things done, kids and household has a tendency to be more time-consuming than I anticipate.
Anyhow, if you have your ways by Gamla Bo, give me a call and maybe you can stop by for a cup of tea.
Sometimes I’m crazy
Sometimes I do crazy things. Like today. I biked to work. All the way. It ended up being 58 km. I took a wrong turn at least twice. The entire trip took me 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not too bad as I haven’t biked much this last year. Now I only have to get the bicycle back home.
I love biking to work. It’s so liberating. I get to enjoy the great outdoors in the morning. Sunrise is a wonderful thing. Today it was hidden in the clouds, but the clouds left and the sun started to shine.
I just live too far from work to do it on a regular basis. I won’t bike when the weather is bad or if I already biked once that week. It would just take too much of my free time. But if I do it twice a month I should be satisfied.
Now the bike will get some new parts, a bunch of the gears just don’t work anymore and the chain is stretched. Then it will be an even more pleasurable experience.
Spring!
Today was a nice and warm day. It is so nice walking back to the train station from work when the temperature is 12°C, birds are singing and the wind is from the back.
Then I saw something that made me really happy:
The first spring leafs. I’m so happy to see them. This is so much earlier than I’m used to from Stockholm. The last couple of days Facebook was been swamped with pictures of snow. Sure we haven’t had super spring weather here either, but it didn’t get cold, only windy and some rain.
This is something I have been looking forward to moving to Skåne!
The art of settling
We have now lived here in Höör over one month. Time has gone really fast. We have had plenty to do. But now things are getting to some kind of normal. And then it all will change again when I start working in three weeks from now.
The apartment is getting into shape. We only have a dozen of boxes left to unpack and they are mainly things that belong into our children’s room. (That room also houses all the empty boxes, 179 so far). That doesn’t mean that the room is not used yet, our daughter uses it all the time as we have made her a little desk there where she can paint. We also put most of her toys in the room, leaving the rest of the apartment less of a mess.
Susanna is getting into her “new” job, just the way it was planned. The days are not that much longer than in Stockholm, though she starts earlier to get home in time for dinner. Traveling by train is also much more pleasant for her than traveling by underground. We visited her at her job once and had lunch at the Malmö festival.
Living in a small town so far has had mostly pros:
- There is walking distance to most places.
- If it isn’t walking distance it’s only a short bicycle ride away.
- Traffic isn’t too heavy for using the bicycle.
- People are friendly. (Not that we have met all but the ones we met were).
Living in Höör gives a few extra pros:
- It’s close to my parents in law.
- It’s close to Malmö and Denmark.
- It has a zoo. (We haven’t been there yet though).
- It has a butcher. Meet just tastes better from a butcher than from a supermarket.
- It has a few lakes to swim in that are within bicycle range.
- It has beaches (nice sandy ones) within one hour by car, in two directions so one can chose depending on which one might have the warmer water.
There are some cons to though:
- It’s far from my parents.
- The place we live in doesn’t have that nice a view like we had in our place in Blackeberg.
- I won’t be able to take the bicycle to work.
- It’s far from many of our friends.
We have also started with looking for a more permanent place again. So far we have looked at five (if you read this after Sunday afternoon six). We now have plenty of time to find the right place. But it is so hard. One place hade everything but was located too far out so that we would have to take the car for 10 minutes just to get to the closest store. Even the closest bus stop was three kilometres away. One other place had a beautiful garden. Just a little bit too beautiful, we don’t need a garden that takes all our free time to take care of. We want one that is practical and where we can grow our vegetables and have some chicken in the future. Basically a big grass lawn with a few trees would be perfect, not an intricate sculptured garden with bushes, ponds and flowerbeds that want plenty of attention to not look unkept.
What about this moving business?
As you might have seen, we will be moving to Skåne before the end of July. That is a big change for me. I have all my adult life lived in Stockholm (and Solna, but that was even closer to downtown Stockholm than where we live now). Before that I grew up close to Stockholm, coming here when I was 3½ years old.
Stockholm is my home. I know the city fairly well after 5 years of working as a bus driver. The last couple of years I have been less and less in the downtown area though. I started working in Solna in 2008, making in unnecessary to go into the downtown area to get to work. As Susanna and me hooked up there were even less trips into town, as I didn’t meet with friends in town as much as before. Now that I have a kid it’s only on special occasions that I actually get into the centre, like tomorrow when there is a wedding we will go to. Living in the western suburbs is easy; there are very few everyday things that can’t be done here.
I do have a lot of friends here. I will miss them all. Some of them more than others. I think that will be the biggest change. Up until now the friends that moved away were in some way just leaving my life. If I didn’t make an effort or they didn’t do it either they would just drift away into the one card a year type of friends. I don’t want it to be like that, but somehow when you have a family it’s a lot easier to stay in touch with the people you regularly meet anyway.
Now we will be the ones moving away. It’s a different feeling. For me anyway. For the friends that stay behind probably not. I will try to make an effort to stay in touch. We will have a guestroom so if you pass Höör you can stay the night. (Just let us know a few days ahead so that not all of our friends show up on the 17th October). We will try to meet with as many of you as possible before we leave but everything went kind of fast so there is not that much time and we do need to pack and organise our things too. (This time we’ll try to get rid of some stuff that we definitely won’t need).
There are a few other things I will miss leaving Stockholm.
The water: I think this is Stockholm’s best feature. Just like today when I went on a bike ride with my daughter to Drottningholm to have an ice cream. The water makes it all so much nicer.
Our view: We just have a lovely view where we live. The place we are moving to doesn’t have a view. We don’t know where we will live later; maybe there will be a view there. We just don’t know.
Our apartment: It’s really nice.
My parents: They are still living here. And who knows if we ever will convince them of following our footsteps to the south?
Our church: The church I have been a part of since 1996 or was it 1997? I started doing sound in 1999 and am still doing it. It has been a second home for me and it contains many of my friends and memories.
All the places with memories: There are so many places with memories here. Sure, some of them are bad and I won’t mind not seeing these places as much, but there are so many good memories that are connected to places here. And when I see a Bus nr 4 I just remember how it was driving down Odengatan early in the morning, as most people still slept. Or when I pass Tranebergsbron and I remember the first of November when it became so slippery that people pushed the cars over the top one by one. (Sure some people don’t have that as a good memory I guess). When I jog down Bergslagsvägen I remember the times I drove to my friends at Tempus for some games of just fellowship. Or when I pass Tomteboda I remember the sunrises over Stockholm that were so beautiful after a late night of work or partying.
I will come back to Stockholm every now and then for sure. As long as my parents live here probably often. It will not be the same thing though.
I will get new memories. There will be new things that I love about the place I live. (Just check in the old part of my blog).
Now I have got start sorting out old broken shoes. I shall not move broken shoes!
New job, new place, time for an update maybe?
The last couple of weeks have been eventful. As I wrote earlier we have decided to move to Skåne. We want to live in a house. Finding a house 600 km away isn’t easy. So we will move anyway. To a rental apartment first so that we can look for a house while we already live in the area and we don’t have time pressure.
First things first:
I have a new job; I will be starting in September working at Ramböll, a consulting firm with an office in Malmö, with similar things that I was working with before I left for parental leave. There will be some new tasks, I’m looking forward to learning new things and this is broadening my possibilities. I think this might be my dream job; it is at least at the company where I have been dreaming of working.
I had to quit my current job because of that, they did know that I was moving though so it didn’t really come as a surprise that I might want to try something new.
More new jobs:
Susanna will work in Malmö too. She will start there and when I start working she will be staying home with our daughter. This got final this last week too.
What about a house?
During our trip after Easter we looked at 13 houses. Here is a description of that; it was posted before we looked at the last house though. The last house was a bit of a tricky one, good location and plot of land, but an unplanned house with far too many stairs. And there were some parts of the house that weren’t ready.
A few weeks ago we went down there again, this time with my parents. We wanted to look at a house again. Good we took them along, to live in that house we will have to invest some money as it had some major flaws that we as laymen didn’t see.
We did look at two other houses too:
The chicken farm:
First we looked at an old chicken farm. The house was nice and all, but the old chicken barns would have given us a bit much to do, keeping the place in good order. The barns hadn’t been used for chickens for a while; they were rented out as storage for old cars during the winter months, we could have kept that concept, but then we would have to keep the roofs in perfect condition.
The house with the humongous living room:
The house with the humongous living room was right by the railway-line between Malmö and Stockholm. The house was a converted summer house, extended in several steps to its size. The plot of land was nice too, a bit forest, close to a lake and close to a future (maybe in one year from now) railway station. A few things would have to be done with the place for us to move in though.
We can imagine ourselves living there, but we didn’t want to make a fast deal because we want to do it right, and we want the place to be the right place. But as we had our jobs organised we need some place to stay.
Some place to rent:
So we have started to look for a place to rent for the time until we have found the house we want to live in. We haven’t signed anything yet but there is an apartment that we were offered and we will (if nothing happens till Monday) let them know we want it. That would give us a place to live from the first of July. (Hint hint: If you want to help us move, it will probably be by mid-July).
We have also cancelled this place, we didn’t want to pay double rent for more than two months, so now we really hope everything works out otherwise we’ll be homeless by the end of August (actually by the end of July as we need the home to be less far from Malmö by then).
So this was a short update on what is going on here. Life is exciting.
12 houses
We have been in Skåne again. This time we had one major task, find a home.
I haven’t written about this here before: We have decided to move to the south. We have always had a long term plan of owning a house. In Stockholm houses are really expensive. Too expensive for the life we want to live. So we figured out that to own a house we need to find a better way. As we have family in Skåne (Susanna’s parents live here) we thought it would be a good idea to move here. One other thing that makes Skåne a good place to move to is that it’s possible to work there in the professions we have. The move should be made before our daughter would start school.
Last year we visited my aunt. Her husband said one thing that made us think. Start with your dream now. Don’t wait, start now with something simple and work your way up to what you want. In waiting you only loose time. We thought about how this would apply to us: We probably should start to rethink the time frame. During the Christmas-holiday we had time to think. We decided that we should change our time frame a bit. Now the goal is to move to Skåne by the end of August.
This means:
We need jobs in Skåne. (We are working on that).
We need a place to live in Skåne. This is why we went down here this time.
We have during the last week looked at 12 different houses. It’s hard work looking at houses. We have been so fortunate that Susanna’s parents have a good hand with our daughter so they have looked after her the days we had many houses to look at.
After looking at 12 houses we do better know what we want. Five of the houses were really interesting. None of them had all the things we want, but that might be impossible as we have a budget to stick to. Most of them were okay places, but just not for us.
We looked at one house were we would have been owners of 30 meters of E6. (It was hardly a place to bring up kids, living at the edge of heavy traffic). The house wasn’t that nice either.
We looked at one other house where after walking up the stairs I decided it wasn’t really a good idea to be two people on the stairs.
We looked at an odd house in the middle of the forest that really more looked like a big tent and it was filled with cats, (I counted 5 I think), the only thing missing was the crazy cat lady.
We looked at a small house that had a nice plot of land by Rönneå, just that the house was not really a place for a family and needed a lot of work.
We looked at a house with more birdcages than Skansen. It had a pool and I think it was four ponds. The plot was over landscaped, it was nice and all, but just too much.
We looked at a really beautiful house that had a too small plot.
We looked at a simple house that needed plenty of work and was only heated with wood.
Then we looked at five houses that were more interesting.
One nice one with a view of Denmark. It wasn’t possible to see the water between though. It had the rooms we need, a bit small plot, but it will be easy to rent land from the surrounding farmers as they have land that is difficult to use for them. The current owners do this as they have horses.
One small one with a lovely plot of land.
One that we looked at already in January. It was a well-built house, using very little energy. The plot was half in a nature reserve and half outside. Parts of the house had barely been used.
One that was super-cosy. It was small on paper, but the layout was really smart, making it one of the bigger houses despite the numbers. It also had a lovely plot of land. It was just a bit far off, actually in the same neighbourhood as the tent.
And one with a winter lake view. It had a fine but messy piece of land and the house had high ceilings and plenty of bathrooms. And it had rhododendrons. Big rhododendrons, as big as on Roan Mountain, just not as many. Here it would be possible to go swimming, as Ringsjön is close.
Now we have to figure out what we want. When we have our jobs secured we will go on and make an offer, so we have to look at some of the houses again, with help of people that know more of houses than we. I’ll keep you posted…
New Year what will you bring?
As most of you noticed a new year has started. (Sure in some areas it hasn’t started yet or it had started a bit earlier than here, but I’m thinking of us living in the part of the world where time is related to the birth of Christ).
Some years are just normal years. The last one was that in some way. Normal years are good, they give you time to reflect on life. No real life changing thing happened. As far as I know anyhow. (Some of the life changing things have the tendency to first show themselves after some time).
Will 2013 be a normal year again, or will it bring big change? I don’t know. There are things brewing, but nothing is actually planned.
A few things are more certain:
- I will go back to work. (Just the date is not decided yet).
- Our daughter will turn two. (She actually turns 16 months today).
- We will travel to Skåne a few times, the first trip to see my cousin in law become a priest in the Church of Sweden.
- Our daughter will learn so many more things.
None of these things will qualify this year as non-normal.
I just hope I can make the most of every moment of this year anyway. I have started out good I think. Like today, when I took our daughter for a ride in the bicycle wagon to go shopping despite the snow. (You who know me know that I like bicycling in the snow). After dinner tonight I also took a few rounds down the slope beside our house on the snowracer. I think I might enjoy it more than her, but she likes it too. Now the snow is really fast so we have to turn around the house to not go through the thorn bushes and down the steep slope into the nature reserve (that contains plenty of trees before ending in the lake Mälaren, that isn’t frozen over here so far).
This morning I saw this post on facebook where there were 45 good advices given by a 90 year old lady named Regina Brett. I looked it up, since I liked the advice given and found out it wasn’t a 90 year old lady after all giving the advice and it wasn’t only 45 but five more. But it is good advice anyway so I shared it there, and I share it here too: http://www.reginabrett.com/life_lessons.php
I think I might print them and post them on my board here at home.
The other day as I was bicycling home from church I went by a little group of people that were taking photos. I thought that one of them looked familiar, but she lives a bit away nowadays so I thought it is just someone similar. Then when I glanced through her blog the other day, I recognised a picture taken at the spot I bicycled by. I should have stopped and said hi. (And here is the link to that blogpost: http://litenlisa.blogspot.se/2013/01/en-ovantad-grej.html)
After Susanna proofread this post she said she wanted to show me a thing. We had the book that Regina Brett wrote on the 50 advices standing in our shelf (translated to Swedish). Now I have a new book to read.
This is it folks!
I think 2012 will in my mind be remembered as a year with much joy in the everyday life.
It hasn’t been a year of big things like the year before (when we had our daughter) but of many small things.
Like:
Our daughter learning many new things to our and her joy. (This could be a long list in itself).
Having a few short vacations to Germany.
Having a nice summer vacation driving around Sweden.
Having my brother coming over much more than before. (See his homepage for updates: www.wolfmaier.com)
Being home with our daughter (that will continue well into 2013 too).
A few business trips to Gothenburg and Malmoe.
A beautiful snowy December.
Now it’s coming to an end. I’m writing this while our daughter is playing with the pens on my desk, right after our New Year’s dinner. It has been a good year. I have learned new things about myself. I have learned to enjoy new things.
I’m so happy to share this year with my family. Susanna is the best wife I could ever have found. Our daughter is just the cutest there is. We enjoy our company and like doing things together. Basically most things we do together end up being fun. Even fairly boring things like shopping for food.
Happy New Year!
Full time parent
Now I’m officially on parental leave. We have a great opportunity here in Sweden where we can stretch it to relatively long times. I will be home for at least half a year, but probably longer.
I have actually not worked since Wednesday, as I had worked some extra hours during the summer making it possible for me to take Thursday and Friday off. Having four days all three of us was really nice. On Friday we all went into town and had my parents over in the afternoon. They really love being with us, especially our daughter. She likes them too; she brought almost every one of her books to my dad and he read them to her.
On Saturday we did a little excursion to Drottningholm with our bicycles. That is always nice. We looked at the sheep, gees and tourists walking around the park.
Today was the first day I was home with her alone. I didn’t know how it would be. I couldn’t even imagine it before. Would I be able to take care of her in a good way? Would there be time to do all the things I wanted and had to do? Would I be able to comfort her when she was missing her mother? Today it all went fine. I think anyway. And I even had time for a shower. (With my daughter playing with the shower curtain at the same time).
The hardest thing was to comfort her when she was longing for her mother. She walked over to the door and sat down crying for a little while. I picked her up and talked to her, after a few minutes she stopped crying and started playing again.
She is just so cute when she talks her own little language. I wish I knew what she is saying. I think she wishes we knew too.
One thing we didn’t do during the day was taking a nap. She does need a nap during the day. Today she took the nap at 6 in the evening, making it hard for her to get to rest now while I’m writing this.
So this was the first day. Now there will be many more to come. Tomorrow we will go swimming and we will do that a few more Tuesdays. I don’t have that much planned. I should have the dinner of this week planned, but I still lack a vegetarian meal on Thursday, so if you have a good idea that isn’t oven-roasted vegetables give me a hint.
How to get wet and enjoy it.
How to get wet:
Work half an hour longer than planned. (I wanted to start a simulation before leaving).
- Get yourself on a bicycle.
- Move towards the dark clouds.
- Don’t stop and put on a raincoat.
- Don’t even bring one.
- Continue biking.
- As the rain starts: Don’t take a break under a bus stop.
- Continue even as the water rises on the road. (In this case about 1 cm).
- Drive close to cars, they splash some on you.
- Drive through the river that comes down from Blackeberg. (It used to be a road).
If you aren’t wet by now, you might be water-repellent.
As I got home only the back of my underwear was still dry. Probably the spot I was sitting on. Luckily I have the best wife there is: She handed me a towel as soon I entered the door at home.
Now how to enjoy it:
- Don’t regret biking home half an hour later than planned.
- Don’t stop under a bus stop, you might stay there all night.
- Let it be summer, or at least above 15°C.
- See it as an adventure.
- Switch on the lights. You really don’t want some car rear-ending you.
- Don’t stop. You get cold standing still.
- Feel everything getting heavier. It’s a funny feeling if you think about it.
- Enjoy the squeaking sound wet shoes make.
Today I managed well. I followed all the points above and I really enjoyed it. I might not be wearing the same shoes to work tomorrow though.
On a totally different note: My daughter does not really walk yet, she has done a few steps on her own, but she does want us to hold her hands while walking to not fall over. Sometimes that even doesn’t help. As soon as that changes I’ll let you know.
2011 in pictures
It’s about time. I finally got my picture-documentation of 2011 ready.
It was a year with many things happening but not as many pictures taken. Still I have managed to put together a little resume like the previous years.
A little preview:
From winter,
from trips,
a few trains,
and of course us.
Here comes the link to the page: 2011 in pictures
Enjoy!
Some days biking is fun
Some days the bike ride to work is easy, other days it’s just plain agony. Yesterday it was fun.
This week I’ve only biked to work two times. Due to a trip to Gothenburg and Malmoe this week I couldn’t bike as much as I like. On Monday I biked to the Old Town in the morning. I was surprised with the amount of people biking to work these days. Back when I worked in town there were maybe 3-5 other bicyclist at the traffic-lights on good days. Now it was maybe 10-15. That’s some change.
So many other bicyclists are a bit of a hassle, the bike-paths are just not made for that much traffic. I had to break so many times not being able to overtake due to oncoming traffic. I can imagine doing this every day makes you do stupid things like cutting people off or just do a chicken-race with the oncoming bicyclists. I did see that happen a few times on my ride into town. Good I’m working in a different direction. I only overtake maybe four or five others on my way there and that’s just not as stressful.
Yesterday it was a rainy day. Most of the times I don’t care too much about rain biking. But yesterday it was just right. First of all I wouldn’t have any traffic. (There are just less people out bicycling on rainy days). Then I would really wake up. I have been a bit tired after working and travelling a lot. I had a meeting early at work.
The best part was that I had prepared good. The most important part was that I had my shoe-cover. This keeps my feet dry, even though I have a few really big puddles along the way. Then I did remember to bring a second set of dry clothes. It’s so much better not to have to change to damp cloths after work.
I was soaked getting to work, I didn’t get as wet on the way home, the rain had lightened up. This made up for two really fun bike-rides.
New Train Company
Second of advent I went to Gothenburg with work. As usual I went by train. But I didn’t take a train from SJ on the way down, “Blå Tåget” (the Blue Train) a new train-company was my choice this time.
Blå Tåget has been in service for a couple of months now. It is run by Skandinaviska Jernbanor. Their homepage talks about a new experience in travelling with train in Sweden. (Here is the link to their page).
The ride takes a little bit longer, but that is compensated by higher comfort and good food. And the food is served on real plates not in plastic containers, at the table. The carriages are old Swedish first class carriages and an old German diner. All restored to high standards, equipped with wifi and power outlets at every seat.
One thing that is on most peoples mind today is if the train is on time, so many aren’t. This one was, but it is a bit easier to be on time when one doesn’t go as fast as most passenger trains. We’ll see how it develops, they have spare engines and carriages if things break and for a company that only has one train a day from Gothenburg to Uppsala and back that is something.
Here is a picture of the interior:
Here one of my dinner:
A few things are maybe not as good as they could be.
The power outlets are above the windows, leaving ones cable dangling around. Not the ideal position really.
I didn’t have an assigned seat. Not a problem when the train is half empty like this time, but when there are more people on board it would be nice to have a choice of seat, preferably pre-bookable, like many airlines do.
My total review of this new concept is good with only few ways of improvement.
Good luck, hope they survive.
I have reached a goal
Last Wednesday I reached a goal. Since the 9th of June I have biked to work 80 times.
Not much of a goal to reach, but I’m happy about it anyway.
In reaching the goal I have biked more than 4 out of 5 days I have been working. That was what I thought would be reasonable to manage, in regard to weather, work trips summer holiday and days off when Ellinor was born.
So now I’m on bonus time. I’m working three more weeks this year; will I bike 12 more times? Probably not, this week I’ll be on two business trips, it’s a bit tricky to bike to Örebro and Göteborg just for the day. (And I have got train tickets already). That make two out of five (I’ll be staying the night in Örebro, first night away from home since Ellinor was born). Then in two weeks I’ll be going to Göteborg once more. So if I bike every day (I have already biked Thursday and Friday after I reach my goal) that I am at the office (as far as I know now) I will be biking 11 more times. In total I will have biked 93 times to work since the 9th of June. We’ll see if that will happen; as long it doesn’t snow so much I can’t bike, but then I probably won’t be able to get to work at all.
Within the next two weeks I will have biked more than 4000 km since I bought this bike. Not bad for one and a half year (I bought it in September 2010) mainly commuting.
More than two months
Last week Ellinor had her two months birthday.
This weekend my in laws and brother in law are here. It is nice to have the home full with happy people.
Friday when I got home from work, a bit earlier than usual due to more work on other days, I was struck with fatigue like coming back from a week of hard labour.
I haven’t changed jobs; I haven’t had super exhausting things going on at work. So that shouldn’t be the problem.
I have slept okay, something between seven and eight hours every night, just like I always have.
I haven’t helped more with home chores than before. Making dinner some evenings, but not even close to every. Taking care of laundry a bit or cleaning a bit, nothing out of the usual.
So why am I so dead tired?
I just have to look at the differences: I just can’t dough down in the sofa when I get home. There are diapers to change, a daughter to entertain or a wife to give some extra time too. Not big things in my mind.
Obviously my body thinks different.
I have to get into better shape to cope with it. Or get more rest. Or just learn how to deal with the fatigue.
Friday morning I went to the gym, like I do most Fridays. That’s a refreshing thing to do and since we have breakfast at work on Fridays it’s the perfect day.
I have a hard time to eat somewhat fast in the mornings, if it’s not white bread with sweet spread on it. If you didn’t know it, white bread with sweet spread isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to eat. So I eat oat porridge at home on weekdays. (Weekends I’m too much of a sweet breakfast kind of guy, so that just happens).
So I do things to keep in shape. Main thing is bicycling to work. I have the intention to go running once a week, right now it’s more like once a year. And I do some cross-country skiing, but that’s on hold until the snow comes, who knows when that is?
Okay, enough with the rambling!
I’m so happy I have Ellinor and Susanna in my life. Being more exhausted on Fridays is worth it all and a bit.
I have to change some things
Last week I worked full time for the first time since Ellinor was born.
When Friday came I was so tired I didn’t even get that extra boos my trip to the gym normally gives me in the morning. When I finally came home, I almost fell asleep standing.
That’s just not okay. I have to try to do something about it.
Now you think: “But Johannes, you are a parent of an infant now, get used to it!”
“Why?”
There are things I can do to actually improve my sleep, without neglecting the family. (Actually I think not being awake while awake is even worse than sleeping a bit more).
I have to start getting to bed in time. Shouldn’t be that hard, lat in the evening Ellinor is feeding, I could then go to bed. Last week I somehow waited to her going to bed too, leaving me with just under seven hours of sleep, with a short break when it was time for the night-feed.
This week I’ll be trying to get to bed earlier.
Just hope I don’t get stuck here.
She is growing
Today I was back to work fulltime. The day went fast, I think because of a fun task, (making a map) and an afternoon meeting.
I picked up the last part of the bike-trailer on the way home, so now it is fully functional, except the fact that Ellinor still is a bit too small to use it. We’ll have to wait to try it out on her until spring, now it will only be used for shopping or other transporting tasks.
Ellinor is growing! That is always exciting. She still doesn’t like to sleep when we want, but I guess that will stay until she has moved out of the house, sure it will be easier in a while and some nights it already is.
We realised that there are plenty of pictures of me with Ellinor. Like this one:
But not many with Susanna, so we made one with her too:
They are just lovely!
This was just a short little update; more comes as more thoughts show up.