Fair is fair

Hah! Spotted this on Åsa Petersen's blog. I can only agree with her - right on!
Some Christian group have been advertising their view of the "core family" on the subway in Stockholm. Propagating the fact that the family in their view should consist of "mama, papa & baby", the campaign directed against the current discussion to allow gay marriage within the church.

Someone has wisely sticky taped a note with another "mama" on top of the "papa" as a means to enlighten us. Or something. But it is not more than fair I think. Sure the Christians have a right to express their opinion, but so have the gays. Good for them! Good for us all. :-)

Knocked up

The weekend before we had our baby we watched the film "Knocked up", a kind of irony of sorts (we didn't know he was actually going to turn up the day after).
But what we thought was a comedy turned out to be something with a little bit more substance than 'just a comedy'. Apart from being very "close to target" on the actual subject, it was also a little bit deeper and a little bit more daring than either of us expected. The only thing I didn't particularly like was the way they portrayed the male lead's life. It was just a little out there for my taste.

I warmly recommend it, perhaps for anyone who wants to feel good about their own relationship and for anyone who just want to have a few laughs, and definitely for anyone close to the subject of expecting babies. :-)

Imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478311/

Hoovering

Twice as many men as women think vacuum cleaning is the best part of the cleaning process.
Yet many more women than men do the vacuuming.

Source TCO, quoted from a "house owners" mag I was flickering through during breakfast.

The cleaners are coming by today, to look at our new house and give us a quote for cleaning the place on a regular interval. I'm seriously hoping it's not going to be too expensive, we really really enjoyed the luxury of having shiny clean surfaces at least every second week when they were doing the cleaning for us in the apartment.

Fingers crossed! :-)

I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry

We watched "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" tonight, it was well worth watching. Despite it's rather predictable nature it was a perfect Sunday night feel-good movie. :-)

Imdb-link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762107/

I could analyze it further, but our baby is just about to wake up so it's not going to happen. So, watch it, have a giggle at Adam Sandler's and Kevin James' chemistry and enjoy the antics of a few other famous faces and feel good. :-)

Plat du jour

We took out some minced meat from the freezer earlier today, to thaw and use for spagetti sauce for dinner.
But S does his magic (I'm comfortably seated upstairs feeding our son) and instead of a rather 'ordinary' dish he cooks up something completely different - mince with red lentils and Heinz "tomato frito" sauce and mash made of "roots" (swede, carrot, potatoes), baked in the oven with a cover of cheeze and tomato boats. Served with a side of cherry tomatoes and lettuce it made for a delish dinner! :-)

I love being served "dinner surprise" from the house chef... :-)

Wiki about lentils.
Wiki about "rotmos" (in Swedish).
Wiki about Heinz tomato frito.

Ding 43!

Warcraft is not dead.

Our baby boy is sleeping in my lap, in a comfortable stage of "milk coma" and I'm playing my draenei hunter with my left hand. :-D

Nice lazy Sunday afternoon. :-)

Coach

Which is better, a cognitive coach or a cognitive couch?

Heard the word "coach" pronounced wrong on the radio this morning (the English word used in Swedish) and it triggered the thought above. There's nothing wrong with a therapeutic couch, in my world.
In fact, I find most couches rather therapeutic.

Interesting regarding Swedish Waldorf schools

Or rather, "interesting" (as in terrifying) regarding a specific Swedish Waldorf school.

A very engaged mother blogging about the particular school she had her children attend (in Swedish): http://www.thewitch.se/skolan/


I had a notion Waldorf was a neat thing, at least in the pre-school format. Have friends who have had their kids attend Waldorf pre-schools. Must remember to speak with them about this.

It's always interesting to hear something which questions and contradicts your own opinion of something, in this case I only had a vague idea but it's still good to widen my perspective.

So thank you "Häxan".
:-)

He's here

Tobias
3375 g
50 cm
15 Oct 22:54

Our wonderful little Tobias is finally here. Nine long months and two days we've waited for him.
I love him totally and I can't imagine life without him. It's big. It's huge!

It's five in the morn. I've given up trying to make him sleep anywhere else but on top of me (been trying for the past five hours). So I got up and put a robe on and switched on my PC, decided it was better than sitting half asleep in bed getting my back bent out of shape. He's just fed and comfortably asleep in my lap, on top of the special banana shaped breast feeding beanbag pillow. :-)

Life could be worse.
*yawn*

Ding 54!

It was time for my horde undead priest "Glömsk" (weird name, I know) to get some quality action play time. I'm five bubbles from 55, but that's not as exciting as the even numbered dings as the character only qualifies for training and new abilities on the even levels.

Does it sound like I've played too much Warcraft this weekend?
There's no such thing as too much Warcraft. ;-)

New week has already begun. No baby in sight.

Bad conscience

I get a bad conscience when I spend time alone when we're at home together. It's weird. Or, perhaps it's not so much bad conscience as a feeling I should be where S is and not on my own. We spend so much time apart all day long on an average weekday so I feel like I want to "buffer up" some quality S-time during evenings and weekends... :-)

I suppose it's love. It'll pass. ;-)

The comforting thought is that he feels right about as bad as I do. That means we've got the basics 'down'. We both want the same, however practicalities makes it silly to force the togetherness. :-)
I mean, it's not as we're not in the same house, maximum one floor apart. :-)

Ding 42!

First find the mob. Then kill it. Or steal its stuff. Or die trying.

The first part is generally the one that makes you spend hour upon hour in front of the computer...
Or alternatively, like I've been doing for the past hour:

• traveling to hand in quests to various cities and quest givers.
• traveling to trainers in various skill areas (hunter, leather worker, first aid, cooking etc).
• checking the in-game auction house for useful new weapons and armor.
• selling useful items on the in-game auction house so the characters can get in-game money to buy new weapons or other stuff.

Not so much gaming as administration really. But somehow Blizzard manages to make all of these types of activities entertaining too.

My draenei hunter is now level 42, with a nice set of skills a ridable elek (60% increased movement speed) and a hunter's pet she probably should replace with a new one (but doesn't have the heart to) and a pet chicken (just for fun).

And I'm hungry. And there's no baby in sight (although he's making himself known in various ways). Must go downstairs and fix something to eat. Then it's time for bed. High time for bed even. God knows when our last undisturbed night will be... 8-)

Less than fancy

Pickled herring, boiled potatoes, boiled egg, crisp bread and butter. Not the fanciest Saturday dinner ever. But gosh it hit the spot. The finishing glass of milk just topped it up to perfection. :-D

Back to Warcraft.

Ding 41!

And now it's time for din-dins.

Saturday - warcraft day

:-)

Will dedicate this day to resting and Warcraft. And perhaps some assembly of baby furniture.

Ding!

Poney-ding! :-)

I finally reached level 40 and got a ride for my draenei hunter. She looks rather uncomfortable sitting on top of that "brown Elek"... I'm guessing a hoofed creature isn't really supposed to be riding another animal? ;-)

Now it's time to rest my aching body in the lounge before hitting the sack. Will do some 'proper' work tomorrow (go to a conference). Hopefully the baby will realise this and decide to get inspired enough to come out. 8-)

Aspen

The aspen tree is a poplar (in Swedish a "poppel") tree (Wikipedia link in English, Wikipedia link in Swedish).

The English Wiki-link tells us more about the mythological stories surrounding the characteristic shivering leaves of the aspen tree. Rather amusing. The Swedish Wiki-link sticks to the strictly scientific explanation, as we would.

The things you learn when off on a tangent of a tangent of something on the internet. :-D

Another not wasted day in other words (a day when you learn something, is a day not wasted). ;-)

3 bubbles from 40

Almost the same could be said about my own age... :-D

Snuck away and played some Warcraft tonight. S had some friends over to play a game of poker, I stayed out of the way and worked on my dranei hunter's level.

Felt like hanging around Dustwallow Marsh killing some high level dragons etc just to be able to go "ding" tonight. But I'll save that for tomorrow. I'm better off rounding off now so I can get us to bed in a reasonable time. :-)

We have internet

Yay!

Finally. Only four months late. And a little bit slower than promised. But it's here. :-)

Andreas Vollenweider

A colleague gave me a copy of a CD with some music by Andreas Vollenweider the other day, he spoke very passionately about the effect the music had on his six month old son and wanted us to have a copy in case our son would also benefit from it.
The album "White Winds" was originally released in 1984, and me listening to it around then was more my sisters doing than anything else (as she was my main influence in all "grownup" areas of life). It was around the same time as Jean Michel Jarre was big, all in the sparkly colourful 1980's.

To my surprise I find it rather relaxing myself, which was the reaction my colleague spoke of. Whenever his son is in a bad mood they turn this music on and the boy relaxes, focuses on the music and stops being frustrated. :-)

S doesn't find it very appealing though. But I'm still thinking it's worth a try. It may even get to go with us to the maternity ward when it's time... *evil grin* (S will just have to live with it).

Who decides?

North Korea and South Korea are still formally at war, since the 1950's. I heard on the radio news that their respective leaders are meeting each other today/shortly, a rather non-warish move. It's the second time they meet since way back when there was a war. It's great.

But who decides when there is peace?

Never thought about that before.

Cirque du Soleil - Delirium

We went to Stockholm Globe arena to see visiting Cirque du Soleil's show "Delirium". It was a birthday gift from S, he bought best seat tickets already then, back in May. :-)
It was worth the wait!

Delirium is more like a musical concert than a circus show, the acrobats were still doing amazing things but it was the drums and the music that carried the show from one end to the other. And I loved every minute of it. :-)

From reading the reviews available on the net it's easy to tell that not everyone liked the show, people have problems with anything from the "mediocre" music to the lack of acrobats and more. But to me Cirque du Soleil will always be something else. It's not a circus act. It's not music. It's not ballet/dance. It's not a video performance show. It's all of the above! I like the fact that it's slick, that it's designed, that it sounds massive, that it's got a story line that it's nothing like ballet or a musical concert. :-)
My only complaints would be that it was rather short.

If you haven't got the opportunity to go see them somewhere near you or elsewhere in the world I have to recommend watching one or two of their shows on DVD, for instance "Quidam".

More information about Cirque du Soleil here www.cirquedusoleil.com.
Review and newspaper article (Swedish) here www.dn.se.