I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a language snob, and perhaps even a word fetishist. I know (oh, boy, do I know) that not everyone shares my love of grammar and of words, but I find a well-turned phrase a thing of beauty. I can spend countless minutes–hours, days, years, even–mulling over in… Read More Carolyn got me started …

I think the time has finally come to admit that my waistline has expanded quite beyond my normal pants’ ability to contain it. I’m always somewhat resistant to wearing maternity clothes and I put it off until the last possible day, even when I’ve got a closet full of cute and comfy pregnancy pants. I… Read More Mama needs new clothes

I have a new hero and her name is Debbie! The other day, when I bemoaned my lack of a good recipe for chicken and peapods, she came to my rescue and told me everything I needed to know. Though I wasn’t one-hundred percent confident that I would get a good result, I gathered my… Read More Kitchen Triumph!

It’s amazing how much a brief encounter with a stranger can affect your mood. This morning I trudged off rather reluctantly through the snow to my physical therapy appointment. As usual, I didn’t much want to go–I don’t know why, really, since the physical therapist is perfectly nice and the treatment makes my knees feel… Read More Appointments, appointments

When I still lived in the States, I worked for the U.S. Postal Service reading and keying in the addresses for pieces of mail that the electronic readers couldn’t decipher. I worked there for four years and to date it’s the only “real job” (meaning that I worked there full-time, year-round) that I’ve ever had.… Read More Saturday

This whole business with the unexplained knee pain is really starting to wear on me. Seriously. It’s getting worse by the day, and before too long I’m going to be totally wallowing in self-pity (and I really hate self-pity). I started going to physical therapy last week and so far have had two appointments for… Read More Pain in the …

I could totally go for an ice-cold Coca-Cola right now, but in an effort to break Olof’s two-liter-a-day habit, we made a pact a week or so ago to stop buying pop. Being that I’m pregnant (cravings, ya know) and that it’s not me who has the addiciton (I can quit anytime, really), I tried… Read More Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing

I’ve decided, as I do now and again, to start making bread instead of buying it. It’s much cheaper, it’s a task that I actually like, and I’ve got plenty of time to do it, at least for the next few months. The only real downside is that when I make bread, I eat bread.… Read More Wednesday

Tage has been so loud and crazy for the past couple of hours that I feel in real danger of losing my fucking mind. He gets so wound up sometimes that it takes what seems like forever for him to come back down, and it’s anyone’s guess why he gets this way. Days like this… Read More Tearing My Hair Out

So, I was very housewifely today and by mid-afternoon I had two loaves of freshly-made bread on my kitchen counter and a pan of spinach lasagne assembled and waiting in the refrigerator to be baked for dinner. After making sure everyone knew that I would be putting the lasagne in the oven at five o’clock… Read More Diary of a Mad Housewife