Last year I created a tag called "there's a reason there is no cooking tag". I have never liked to cook and I have just about a 100% failure rate when I try to do so.

But the past few months I've found that, under Björn's gentle instruction, I am actually learning things and developing something of an interest in the mysteries of the kitchen.

So today I create a new tag. Yay!!

Report from the kitchen:

The risotto was boring and it wasn't even my fault.

This morning Björn taught me to flip a pancake - whoosh - up in the air and back into the pan. The first one landed on my hand and felt like I imagine a little glob of hot lava might feel. But my teacher, while a kind and gentle bear of man, was a good coach and made me keep trying. The next three flips were picture perfect and I am now a first-degree pancake flipper.

Later today I'm making French Onion Soup from scratch. It was actually fun buying the ingredients - like a treasure hunt!

And now for a new tag...

I'm seriously exhausted and I have really bad nausea for a couple weeks now. Thursday when we're grocery shopping, I'm going to buy a pregnancy test. I doubt I'm pregnant, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm just terrified to take the test and have it say negative, because that'll be a bit of a bummer for us. Is my time ever going to come? I don't know somedays. At least we've come to the conclusion that maybe a visit to the doctor wouldn't be such a bad thing. I just can't understand why I'm having the nausea, I never do that. Ever. Maybe it's just nerves getting to me, I don't know.

There's been so much going on lately in other news as well. For example, there are two girls that I went to elementary school with that I've thought of constantly over the years. Ever since the internet was accessible, I've used search engines to try and find them. One of them I sort of know what happened to, and I even went to her wedding right after high school, but didn't even get a chance to speak to her. The other girl and I never spoke again after I moved away in 6th grade, and I've always thought about her.

I always sort of wondered, "Does anyone ever remember me, and wonder whatever happened to me?" "Is anyone out there searching for me too?"

This past week, I went to check my email and got the shock of my life. I screamed and jumped up and down, when I got an email from the one I've always wondered most about, and it turns out, that she's been searching for me for as long as the internet has been around also. She found me first. Good work, I must say! It's been so much fun to accept each other on Facebook, and to exchange emails over the past week. I still can't get over it, and every time I want to write her, it's just so weird, because I want to say all kinds of lame things, but I'm just not sure at all what to write, so I sit here my the computer with a blank look on my face forever before I type anything at all. Maybe it's just this weird nausea and exhaustion that I've got going on. I haven't been able to focus on anything at all.

Also, for the Christmas holiday, I decided it would be nice to try and resolve some issues with other people in my past, so I sent out Christmas cards and letters to some people who I really felt deserved an apology from me. I also have had contact with my ex step-mom who was there for me quite a bit when I was a teenager. We've had a lot of interesting conversations. On top of that, I sent cards to 2 uncles I haven't spoken to in about 10 years because they didn't live anywhere near me, and I'm sure there are other people who I'm forgetting. This Christmas was all about the past though, I can certainly tell you that much, with all my amends-making, with Ray's mom being upset over Ray's dad and grandmother not being there, and so on. I'm definitely not going to say anything tacky right now about the future looking bright, or about the new year ahead, but I will say that I think I'm done looking behind me for awhile. Now wish me luck for Thursday!

*Edited to say I took the test today and it was negative, but that's ok. We'll keep trying! :) I must really just have a bit of a flu.

2amtomorning
If you find yourself at the crossroads of insomnia and insanity, this is the place to channel those demons that keep you sleepless. Vivid pictures, poetry, ruminations, and confessions from the nether hours between dusk and dawn. Originally formed to celebrate the city at night, there's a strong urban theme.

green_future
Dedicated to promoting global sustainability, this community offers a forum for discussing current environmental news, research, and issues with tips on how to make positive, pro-active changes to reduce carbon impact. You'll also find information on how to get involved in eco-activism and learn about events near you (i.e., act local; think global). Offering a wealth of data on earth-friendly products and practices, you'll be inspired to don an organic bamboo cape and save the planet.

wtf_sexism
Self-described as "a little community with a lot of rage," you can soak up impassioned vibes and read blistering exposes detailing sexist attitudes in the news, pop culture, and science! A must-join community if you are, or love, a feminist. (NB: the topic of whether a "man" can be a feminist is outside the scope of this spotlight, but will probably wind up on the Writer's Block.)

Happy New Year to my LJ folks!

2009 wasn't the best of years for most people, but for me it was pretty nice. Times were really hard for everybody, so taking that into account, it's great that we're still here. I did lose my dear, sweet, grandmother, and that makes this year much harder.

But overall, things went rather well. I started my job in January in Nacogdoches - my birth town, and one of the few places I've lived in that I've considered a "home." I got a housemate, and 11 months later a fiance. My relatives, who have always been supportive, have been close enough that I've gotten to get in several visits with all the different branches of the family tree. While I'm still no good at opening up communications (I find e-mails un-opened after 5-6 months sometimes, and never send cards) I have gotten a bit better.

I was never into the official New Year resolution tradition, but perhaps I should be - because I would like to resolve to make that extra effort for family this year. The foremost example - My oldest nephew is going to be 14 and I've yet to send him or his three younger siblings a single gift for birthdays or holidays - what the heck is wrong with me? It feels like said nephew was just born a year or two ago, and it continues to surprise me how much time I have let pass. I always think about them, yet never get my act together. Hopefully I won't fall back into my slacker ways at the wrong time again this year and I can keep my resolution, for my own sake (and theirs.)

I've made a shift in diet the past few weeks. JD doesn't eat vegetables or fruit so I didn't keep much around the house, but now we're really keeping the crisper drawer stocked. Lunch has been rice cakes or soups or salads, and breakfast is only fat free yogurt. It's not so much a New Years attempt as just getting things back on track - I usually eat well but don't work out, and lately I haven't been eating well. I'd like to be a decent weight for my own wedding :P

Too many mini-events happened this year to recount everything. Concerts, fairs, conventions, events, bike rides, movies, and game nights all sorta rolled together to make for a pretty decent time. And while sometimes friends had to stay home or economize due to the budget problems we're all facing, we still managed to get together and enjoy each others' company. So I'm actually grateful for 2009 being such a "rotten year" for most people - I wish everyone a much better year in 2010 -- and after a bad one, we'll be more grateful for whatever we can get :)

When I first moved to Sweden Björn was a part of a small group of friends who always met on New Year's Eve. They were very kind to include me in their traditions the first few years, but we haven't been a part of that gathering the past couple of years. (I'm pretty sure it's not my fault that our invitations went missing but frankly I do wonder if my poor Swedish wasn't something of a factor.)

All of that to say that we haven't yet established a new tradition to hold ourselves to on December 31, but it's been fun experimenting.

This year we had decided to cook a good meal together. I want to try my hand at Gordon Ramsey's risotto and Björn wants to try his hand at Gordon Ramsey's beef wellington. Björn, being Swedish, thought we were to do this communal cooking on New Year's Eve. I, being American, thought it was to take place on New Year's Day. We compromised and are going to do it my way. ;-).

The best thing we did this New Year's Eve was to drive about 3 or 4 kilometers up the road to a ridge where we stood for about 30 minutes right around midnight and saw fireworks filling the skies all around us. From that particular ridge you can clearly see four cities and a couple of small villages. We were all alone on the ridge, literally surrounded by fireworks. Words cannot possibly do the sights and sounds of the night justice. You will all just have to drive to Knivsåsen next year and join us.

Otherwise we've had a very cosy evening at home. Shot off a few of our own fireworks, made and ate a nice steak and potato meal, watched Cabaret on TV, played a trivial pursuit kind of game. It's almost four in the morning now. Björn is snoozing on his sofa and I'm here chronicling the day.

With any luck tomorrow I'll be able to write about a successful cooking experiment. THAT would be a lovely tradition to start!

Happy New Year - may 2010 be THE YEAR for each of you.

I am such a fan of the show "What not to wear". I would totally send a tape and ask for their help and appear on TV in my ugly underwear if they would just help me.

But the likelihood of that show coming anywhere near Veberöd Sweden is pretty slim.

So I turn to you, internet friends.

When I worked in the city, I got dressed every day to look like a professional person and went to my job.

Nowadays I get out of bed about 10 minutes before I need to start working, make a cup of tea and often don't even change out of my nightgown until (maybe) sometime around lunchtime. At which point I put on very comfortable (and ugly) clothes.

I wonder what Trinny and Susanne (or whoever is hosting the show these days) would advise me to do?

There is no need for high heels and fancy silk blouses. But what can a person working from home wear that feels comfortable-enough-to-be-at-home yet not ugly? I don't need to impress with my clothing, but I do have a lovely man here who deserves to see me in more than a cotton nightgown everyday!

What to wear, what not to wear - what would YOU wear?

renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.

I had a dream I was filling out government forms for all my previous boyfriends and even some friends - and very few guys I've ever known have standard names.

Tony - you were the most 'traditional' and the only thing different with your name was that you went by the short form... yeah not much there (I couldn't remember your middle name, kinda surprised me.)

Viktor didn't have a middle name, he had the Russian patronym.

Fredrik didn't have a middle name, he had a 1st and 2nd name like all good Swedes (gross generalization there of course) and Fredrik wasn't even his first name.

JD has two first names and no middle name.

The dream was quirky - filling out gov't forms which required Middle, First, Last names (yeah, really bizarre order.) It was really hard to think that way. JD's best friend even made an appearance in the dream, only instead of Thomas Scott ****** (he goes by Scott, just to continue the trend), his name in my dream was Macraith Angus Macraith - same first and last name. Then the dream just got wacky, with the entire country of Ireland toasting Macraith Macraith every year in a new national holiday... ok.

No more yogurt-covered-almonds and filling out gov't forms just before bed for me.

Worked until Xmas eve, went to my father's for Christmas this year.

He and his family are doing well, and it was nice to visit with him. We "visit" by just sorta hanging out - there's no deep intellectual, spiritual, or emotional discussions - we just touch base. JD came with and it was nice to have him there - we were a unit facing things together, which made me feel even more like I was really with family.

The best surprise was getting to see my cousin Justin again. It's been at least 10 years. I got to meet his wife and daughter Milana ("Meela" for short.) He's just moved back to Texas from liberal Seattle and it was almost amusing (and almost tragic) to hear him trying to introduce the idea to some of my stodgier relatives that environmental responsibility might be a good thing.

I hope you had a terrific Christmas with festivities or presents or food - but mostly I hope yours was filled with love.

I'm off to church (missed Midnight Mass on Xmas eve, and I think that can take something away from the holiday when you don't get to hear those carols and take a peaceful moment in church like that) -- wish me luck getting the minister's ear for a few moments so MAYBE we can at least schedule an appointment to talk to him about the wedding - it's in less than 3 months and because we can't get this guy to commit to even meet with us we don't even have a definite date or location!

As I've written about before, Christmas is usually hit or miss for me, but this year has been spectacular. I wasn't sure we'd be able to pull off a great, or even good holiday. It's been rough in the house lately, and Rita was really dreading her first Christmas without Ray's dad and grandma, which is very understandable. Ray and I tried to focus on it being our first Christmas to organize, and our first Christmas together in this house. Ray grew up here, but everything is so different now. It's been a dreadful year in so many ways, and so I thought that having a good Christmas was crucial to morale here, both for Rita's sake and for mine, as well as Ray's.

I spent most of December listening to Christmas radio, and to be quite honest, I think that made a huge impact on my Christmas cheer. It's amazing how much music can get you in the mood to celebrate. We decorated the house with tinsel and a new tree in the sitting room. We had a smaller tree in the kitchen. I spent most of Christmas Eve in the kitchen, preparing stuffing, making dinner rolls, making devilled eggs, wrapping presents, and then we went out for our yearly Christmas Eve drinks with friends.

Christmas Day we woke up, and for the first time since I lived in America, the first thing we did was open presents. I LOVE opening presents in my pyjamas, with just the immediate family there instead of waiting until the evening with the extended family, like we did in Sweden. I got so much stuff this year it's insane. Between the care packages from my mom and grandma, the package from my father, and the gazillion presents I got from Ray and Rita, I was seriously spoiled. Some of my best gifts included an art set of paints, watercolors, pencils and charcoals from my Dad and Lisa, this dress from Rita, seasons 2 and 3 of The Muppet Show, the new live dvd done by The Killers, Dirty Dancing the 20th anniversary edition (which I cried the entire way through, as I recited every line of it, and constantly reminded Ray that Patrick Swayze was dead. I wasn't even drunk!), and the new Lips game for the Xbox (we had the first one, and there's a new one out), all from Ray. We torment Rita every weekend these days with our karaoke competitions until she's almost in tears and has to go to bed. But it's worth it just to hear her give out to us constantly the next day. Also, she doesn't really hate it. She's even picked up the mic herself a time or two. Oh wait, I think that second time, Ray actually crammed it up to her face. My mom sent me so much wonderful stuff I can't even begin to list it all, but it included earrings, house slippers and boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese! Yum!
We ate dinner around 4 or 5, which is really late in this house. We usually eat our biggest meal of the day between 1 and 3, and then snack for the remainder of the day or have a small supper of sandwiches or soup or whatever later on. I just have to say, it was the best Christmas meal ever! My devilled eggs rocked. They were by far the best I've ever had, and it shocked me so much that I ate 12 of them in the last 2 days. I just mashed up the yolks with mayo, Coleman's spicy mustard, a bit of tartar sauce as I had no pickles and didn't want to use vinegar, and I added some parsley, then sprinkled them with paprika. So delicious! My homemade stuffing rocked as well, and we have so much food left that we're going to be eating leftovers for a week.

Last night we went out for St Stephen's Day and although none of us was in the mood for drinking, we had a great laugh, went to the chipper on the way home, and were in bed early, at 1:30. Today we're going to watch Christmas movies, and I will officially stop celebrating Christmas on the 6th of January, when everyone takes their trees down here. Until then, it’s Christmas movies, more Christmas music, karaoke party on New Year’s Eve, and lots of chocolate and eating and time spent with friends.
Here are a couple of photos of our Christmas dinner...

This turkey was so insanely tender. Apparently putting bacon on a turkey is a common thing here in Ireland. I’d never done it before, but it turned out fabulous.

( More photos here... )

Rita giving us her best Christmas smile!

A photo of our feast. There’s Coca-Cola in the glasses. I point that out because I don’t want anyone to think I’d ever pour a pint of Guinness with no foamy head on it.

Ray getting ready to eat his dinner.

Rita chowing down.  Check out this size of my dinner rolls, oh my god! They were huge, but they were delicious!

Me in the scullery after our meal, after I carved the rest of the turkey. I made it my bitch. There were a lot of jokes, like “Here is your new winner! Final score Helena-1, Turkey-0”. All of the jokes were made by me. No one else would say something that dumb and then hold the turkey carcass up by the upper wing bone, and fling the turkey around.

So yeah, that’s about it for this update. I have a lot of other stuff to share, but since it’s not Christmas related, I’m going to let it wait for awhile. I hope each of you had as wonderful a holiday as we had!

We spent the week of Christmas with Björn's brother Anders and his wife Petra. It was a lovely relaxed week in their cabin surrounded by postcard views of snow-covered everything.

Petra had booked us seats at the movie theatre one afternoon. (In Sweden you book your seats ahead of time and sit where assigned.) The movie was a new period piece about the poet John Keats called Bright Star.

It was not a very good movie according to me (in fact none of the four of us thought it was very good). Near the end of the movie, during a very dramatic scene in which one of the characters got some bad news and began hysterically crying, I got my own case of hysteria: a very bad case of Inappropriate Giggling Syndrome.

It was probably a really sad moment in the film for most of the moviegoers, and there were likely people in the audience who were silently weeping. Not me. I was in the horrible throes of a giggle attack that threatened both to become audible and to cause me to wet my pants.

Inappropriate Giggling Syndrome is not funny. You know you should absolutely not be laughing, but there you are, hopelessly unable to control the spasms in your rebellious diaphragm. You stop laughing for a moment, think the thought, "Oh, thank goodness, it's passed." The very thought brings on a new wave of helpless shaking giggles. You stop again, almost gain control when you feel Björn's eyes upon you. Ohmygosh hilarity!!

Fortunately the movie was almost over and I was able to keep my IGS mostly silent until the credits started to roll. Even now when I think about that very sad scene in the movie I get a little giggle bubble.

I remember getting a bad case of the Inappropriate Giggles in church, made worse by the fact that my best friend was sitting beside me and was also infected. The stern looks of her parents only fed our madness and we were sent out of the chapel by her mortified (and very angry) mom. That was many years ago and I still get a little giggle bubble when I think of my friend leaning over and whispering the magical giggle words into my ear, "Hiram the Housefly." Seriously. It doesn't even mean anything and it totally has the power to get me going.

What's your IGS story?

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

• If you were unable to send out multiple coupons at a time, please perform a hard refresh, and you should be good to go.
• If you redeemed a coupon to upgrade your account and the balance at checkout was $0 instead of $9.95 or $15, this means your upgrade did not go through (nor were you charged). We've straightened this out, so you can now apply your holiday coupon toward the purchase of an annual paid account.
• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
• If the number of holiday coupons you have available suddenly goes up (instead of down), this might be due to recipients declining the coupons, at which point your pool of available coupons will be replenished and, therefore, increase.
• If you need assistance with holiday coupons or pretty much anything else (well, LiveJournal related), please open a support request and we'll be more than happy to help!

Tweaks

• There were some initial glitches displaying results on My Guests, but we've worked them out. We hope you'll check out who's been checking you out!
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Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!