I’m not content changing jobs, I have to change car too!!
No seriously, what happened was that me and H (neither of which are very handy with cars) are just fed up with worrying about the car, if something’s gonna break, and most importantly what it’s going to cost us. And the annual road worthiness test is always something you worry about what they are gonna find and what that’s going to cost.
So we looked for options.. buying a new car? Sure that was a possibility but after 3 or so years we were back to worrying about something breaking and all those stuff. Sure we could buy a new car and sell it after 3 years and buy a new car again, but our limited experience selling cars isn’t anything positive at all.
So thankfully for us Volkswagen had a drive this august for consumer leasing a pretty spacious brand new Polo for only $300 per month for 36 months. “Are you mad, paying $300 per month for three years and you won’t even own the car or anything!?” – yeah sure, that may seem like an idiotic thing to do. But the way we see it is we don’t pay for the car itself or anything that can be measured physically. We’re paying for not having to worry about having car problems for 3 years. For 3 years we have the knowledge that no matter what happens with the car we’re not gonna pay for it. Either the insurance, warranty or service-deal will take care of any and all costs… that’s the theory anyway. I’m kinda skeptical so we’ll wait ’till after the first breakdown to say if it works in the real world.
You may remember I mentioned a few weeks ago that I there was something big going on. Well now it’s done. I have officially quit my job. Not before securing a new one ofcourse!
After I had been on parental leave for 8 months and came to work I started getting more and more frustrated over some issues at work and after coming home day after day being pissed off and bitter about things my wife told me to take the bull by the horn and if it wasn’t gonna get better I should try to find another job. And after landing an interview with a bank I informed my boss about my intentions and he kinda felt it coming and wished me luck. I didn’t get that first job but I got another interview and they liked me and I liked them and then it took some time for the paperwork because of all vacations but now the paperwork has gone through so from november 1st I’ll be working at Carema in Sundbyberg, which is alot close to home too. And it is a promotion of sorts since I’ll no longer be on first- or even second-line helpdesk so all is good.
And as I went to bed last night I realised that this is the first time I’ve ever quit a job! 🙂
I got another small vacation coming now! After working for 2 weeks I got 2 weeks off. The first one will be spent trying to keep Sam entertained and stimulated which is getting harder and harder all the time it seems. Can’t wait for him to become a slacking teenager lying in the couch watching bad TV… just like his old man!
And after that he’s gonna be starting kindergarten. And this time a real kindergarten! Not one made up of some barracks and people picked from here and there, no this is a real established kindergarten that’s a few hunder meters from the house. Which will make dropping him off and picking up a bit easier. I’ll be with him the first few days at the new kindergarten so he eases into it a bit and by thursday I’m counting on dropping him off at 9 and go home to just slack and slack all day for once! I am after all on vacation!
Unfortunately we’re in a bit of a Formula 1 drought because the crews needed a vacation too after two back-to-back races and just when it got interesting as Ferrari are getting their act together 🙂
Last weekend we went to Eskilstuna Zoo along with Helenas brother and his family. Last time I was there was over 20 years ago. And I hardly remember anything about the Zoo itself except the “Fantomen”-cave. But the memory I had of the theme park was that it was big. But I knew my memory had to be wrong since it’s too small of a town to have a big theme park like “Gröna Lund” in Stockholm or “Liseberg” in Göteborg.
And after a 1 1/2 hour drive in the heat (our AC in the car isn’t fixed yet) and with a screaming Sam we finally arrived. And as expected the theme park was really really small. Big enough for Sam for a few years I guess but not much for me. And the Zoo part? Well we didn’t see much interesting stuff, mostly stuff we’d already seen before. And Sam wasn’t at all interested in the animals. He has a weird fascinating in pushing things – the pram, chairs, cleaning carts or anything else with wheels. And as usual in places like this the prices are doubled for even a small cola!
But I still think it was totally worth the trip! Firstly it’s always good to get away for a day. And we got to meet Helenas brother and family again. And she had fun. So even though I missed the F1 qualifying (thank good for our digital recorder) it wasl totally worth it.
This week has been a good one for us I think. Except my throat being a bit soar we have all been healthy and well, especially Sam. And you can really tell the difference!!
But now he’s done with the temporary kindergarten! Now we have about 6 week vacation and then he’s off the the real kindergarten that’s just around the corner from where we live!
Today we went to my parents. We were supposed to be there last weekend but as I wasn’t feeling well we never made it. Anyway, good times, good food, good company and Sam had fun! Tomorrow off to see Transformers 3 at the movies with my sci-fi friends. Here’s hoping it’s better than the second one!
Here’s a little recap of what went down last weekend.
We started the weekend off on friday evening with a nice dinner in front of the TV with wine and beer, some cookies and cheese but went to bed early since we knew what a big day we had ahead of us.
On saturday morning my sister AC arrived to take care of Sam for us. We love the little guy but to really relax we needed someone to “off-tank” him (all you Warcrafters now what I mean). We suited up, took some photos and headed into Stockholm. Since we didn’t know exactly where we were supposed to be (Stockholm’s city hall is a big building!) we went a bit early. After doing some recon we sat down for some coffee and a muffin and a nice lady at a table next to us wanted to take some photos of us with our camera since she thought we looked like the cutest couple ever. And then my dad called my to ask if they could stop by so we had to tell them that “nope, because we’re in Stockholm getting married” which they had no clue about. At first he wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not but soon realized I was.
After that I took some nice photos of Helena by the water with the wind all over her dress! Then we went in as instructed 15 minutes before the service and it was totally packed! We thought this is where people went that didn’t want to have a big wedding but we were wrong – almost everyone had their families with them, all dressed up and wedding dresses and tuxes, made us feel a bit under dressed. And when it was finally our turn it was over in 5 minutes. Just a quick “do you” and “do you” and some text that I don’t remember that much about. And fortunately one of the assistants helped us by taking some photos of us, even though she wasn’t that camera savvy so half the photos are out of focus.
After the ceremony we got into the car, texted all the people that should know we got married and then drove off into the sunset… or to Norrköping where we had booked a suite with their “Love”-packaged. Got champagne on ice and fruit and chocolate, that was really nice. After winding down and walking around the city for a bit it was time for dinner which was at their local pub. Not really the fanciest place to have a post-wedding dinner but it worked for us. Then enjoyed a drink in the bar and then bed time. Yeah, I know, we actually go to bed early nowadays. But we slept really late on Sunday 🙂
After we finally got up on Sunday Helena tried out their Jacuzzi while I was just l laming around just enjoying not being stressed or worried or entertaining Sam or anything, it was just us! After we checked out we went to Söderköping for our annual visit to the ice cream restaurant. Then we drove to Huddinge hospital to check up on a friend of Helenas that had a daughter a few weeks ago. She was tiny as hell but she was born way WAY premature so not surprising.
Then home again and take care of Sam so AC could get back to her real work.
So that was our weekend. Except for the mediocre dinner it was awesome!!!
Pictures are here by the way.
Yeah, we finally got married!!!
After we’d built the house and we knew we were pregnant and agreed we’d go with it I knew this was the woman I was gonna spend the rest of my life with! Not only did we have a house together and a mortgage to go with it, not only because we were gonna bring a child into this world. Nope, it was really just love! I knew I was gonna love her no matter what because she’s just such an amazing person! So for me getting married was a given. We just needed to get some cash flow so we could have a party. But after being home for a while and doing the budget we realized that wasn’t gonna happen so we just agreed to do a normal ceremony at city hall in Stockholm because neither one of us is particular religious. For us the most important thing was to just be married with all the benefits and security that brings if something would happen to one of us. And Helena also wanted to have the same last name as her son. They had a 6 month waiting list and pushed it another month to wait for our tax return. We got my sister to take care of our son and made reservation at a hotel in Norrköping so we could swing by Söderköping for our annual visit to the ice cream restaurant.
So here we are after that amazing weekend! If you followed me on facebook you know how much fun we had and how glad and cute we looked all weekend 🙂
But I do feel bad about not throwing the party but we simply couldn’t afford it. I feel particularly bad for Henke and Markus who invited me to their wedding and I couldn’t return the favor. But after over a year of one of us staying home with Sam our economy is just recovering.
I’ll post something tomorrow about that awesome weekend but for now… I can’t believe she said yes!! 🙂
To kick things off Helena got a new job at the telecommunicationscompany that she’s working for, so that’s a great start to the weekend! Exactly what this means is anyones guess but she wanted, she got it so I’m happy 🙂
Then tomorrow H’s brother, his wife and two kids are coming over to.. well celebrate my birthday is the official excuse, but it’s been a long time since they saw Sam and H so I’m not taking full credit for it. But good food, good company and good weather!
Then on sunday my sister with her kids are coming up late afternoon to enjoy pizza, the company and most of all the Formula 1 from Canada!
So all in all we’ve got a helluva good weekend ahead of us!
That was quite a switch from “cold” to “this is perfect” to “cooking” in less than 3 weeks! I’ve always prefered being too cold to being sweating as hell in bed when trying to go to sleep but when it’s closing to 30 degrees in the bedroom you really do think about investing in an AC. Then you’re reminded how much they cost, the noise
they make and the hose that has to go somewhere and it’s not a good idea anymore!
Fortunately Sam is taking it alot better than I am. He still goes to sleep before 8 and sleeps pretty much all night and wakes up between 6 and 7 ready to rock. But we’ve noticed that he’s way too understimulated at home! Although we try to read to him, play with him or go out walking he still has all that energy that we don’t have.
It’s times like that that you are thankful for kindergarten!!
Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of summer of the year here in Stockholm. So what does me and my friends do? Yeap, sitting in the dark watching Star Trek in Skarpnäck ofcourse!
It’s one of the few things from my old life as carefree single immature guy that I have left so I have to keep at it! Although back then I used to spend 10 hours there, this time it was barely 5 because me and H haven’t spent much time together this week at all, mostly because of work, sickness or something else. But now we have all sunday and monday together! 🙂
On friday my sister and brother took me out for a night on the town. 5 years ago this would have included dining, beer, clubbing, drinks, blackjack and a cab home because the last train home is at 1 am.
But things are different now. We still went out for dining and beering then we went to O’Learys at the central train station to get some blackjack in.. but no dice since they didn’t have that anymore! So we took a beer, had some popcorn and then calling it at 22:30. I could’ve gone on and on for a few hours more but didn’t really feel like it. Plus today I can’t spend money on myself without feeling a bit like “should really save this for a baby seat on the bike” or something else.
But it was good fun and thanks for organizing it sis 🙂
I had an awesome weekend! We didn’t have any major plans, we only had some neighbours coming by on Sunday afternoon but other than that it was all me and H and Sam! And Formula 1! And movies. It was great, and we had planned to BBQ on Sunday evening to close it on a high note!
Unfortunately on Sunday at around 6 I started feeling a bit queasy. So no BBQing and I went to bed at 8 pm hoping to get some sleep. But at around 10 my body decided that we weren’t gonna have any of that and I ended up crawling on the bathroom floor after having everything I’d ever eaten that weekend shoot out of my body like a bat out of hell. The first time was pretty bad but the second and third one just got worse and worse and before the night was over I’d visited the toilet atleast 6 times and it really wasn’t pretty. It got so bad I lied in bed shaking like if I had Parkinsons! And man was I delirious! Through all of this though was my Helena comforting me and holding me, making sure I had something to drink all the time and painkillers.
Today I’ve only had to pay two visits to the bathroom but right now I’m starting to feel ok again. And that’s probably because the nicest neighbour in the world brought over some coca cola! That’ll settle any bad stomach!
I’m just happy it was me and not Sam or Helena!
I don’t think anything hurts more than when your child is in pain and there’s nothing you can!
Sam had a bit of double-trouble this week. On Tuesday his molars started pushing through which apparently hurts a bit. And for Sam it was more than a bit! He couldn’t quite fall asleep at all in the night, only slept for like 15-20 minutes at a time then woke up crying. And on Wednesday Helena stayed home with him and he cried so much he lost his voice. Or maybe it was the cold he’s had for a few weeks now but he couldn’t even cry or scream or anything and that made him even more upset. But it really hurts, holding your son, trying to comfort him when he’s in pain like that. On Thursday I stayed home with him and it got better and by the afternoon I could hear his voice coming back and he didn’t seem to be in pain anymore. And on Thursday night he actually went to sleep and slept for 11 hours!
Today we handed him in to the daycare, no problem at all!
As expected Finland whooped our asses in the hockey world championship final. Although I still say it was a lot thanks to the refs! Their first goal was a direct result of a questionable penalty against Sweden. And right before their second goal the refs could easily have taken a penalty against Finland for the mowing down of a Swedish player behind the goal, but oh no. And right before their third goal Finland should definitely have gotten a penalty against them for putting his stick up in the swedes face. And the rest was just because the swedes stopped playing.
But I can’t say that Sweden played better than Finland so it was a fair cop I guess. And at least Canada didn’t win it!!
But it looks pretty promising for the future generation of hockey players in Sweden because most of the players were pretty young and we didn’t have many NHL pros with us, yet we still managed to end up second. But it’s only a sport 🙂
We used to have two cars in our household which is really practical but not really financially sound and since the oldest one wasn’t gonna go through the yearly car inspection we decided to try to sell it. On Saturday we put in an ad in Blocket asking a modest 1.000 SEK, which is really nothing for a car that can still do 130 kph without breaking a sweat. Sure there was some things to do but we thought for a mechanic that either had parts or knew where to get them they’d buy it, fix it up and sell it for ten times that.
As it turns out it really wasn’t that simple! We had around 8 people calling about the car, 5 of which said “I’ll come by to have a look at it” and 1 “if you can drive it to me I’ll buy it without having seen it”. Only two people actually came to look at it. It’s so frustrating people saying they wanna buy it and they’re coming around ’cause we’re nice honest people and tried to hold it for the first callers that said they’d show up and never did. So after that it was first come first serve.
Eventually we got it sold however but not even that without a huge problem! Since it was Helena’s car I kinda made it her business to handle it which I now regret. Because when she finally did sell it (while I was at work) she did it without getting the proper paperwork done! She’s the nice honest and somewhat naive person that trusted the buyers that they would sign and send in the proper paperwork. Now I’m different in these kind of things. I assume the counterpart is hellbent on screwing me, and not in the nice way. I assume they have ulterior motives. So what I’m seeing here is that because the paperwork isn’t in order, all parking tickets and stuff like that will be on Helena since she is still legally the owner of that car. And she can’t counter by reporting it stolen since they have paperwork that she signed it over to them!! And the fact that their cellphone number was a cash-card, i.e no registered owner, doesn’t make me feel better.
Of course I’m hoping for the best and I don’t think it will be that bad. But .. why’s it gotta be so complicated??
And not to be too racist here but guess how many of the people that called where swedes (and you know what I mean without having to define it!)? Only 1. And unfortunately it wasn’t the one that bought the car.
All we wanted was to get rid of the car and get something for it.
I think pretty much everyone is surprised at how well the Swedish team is doing in the hockey world championship right now. They’re all set for a showdown with Finland on sunday. And I’m pretty damn surprised too ’cause when looking at games like Russia vs. Canada it’s a whole different energy than the Swedish team but somehow they’ve managed to get this far. I still have no doubt Finland will win on sunday but they are defenitely doing better than I thought.
This weekends plan including getting rid of one of our cars (cause we don’t really need two), starting to put in the glass on our greenhouse, a trip to Plantagen and maybe some BBQ.
A few years ago, about the same time that we built the house, I started feeling some chest pains. But I didn’t really worry that much about it but after a while although it didn’t get worse it didn’t go away. Describing the symptoms was pretty hard but if I had felt shooting pain in my left arm I’m pretty sure I’d met all the criteria for a heart attack or something.
And having lost his best friend 9 years ago to a heart attack you’d think I’d be more worried and lookup a doctor for it. But nope, not me. I’m the kind of guy that just lives with it since my Restless Leg Syndrome and my tinnitus is more troublesome than this.
Well a few weeks ago I had the annual physical and I decided to mention this to this nurse and she didn’t think it was much to worry about but still set me up with a specialist. Thankfully we have a very good health insurance at work so I got an appointment within a week. He wasn’t the least bit worried and just said it’s my asthma acting up prescribed me inhalers (that I haven’t used regularly since my teens!) and said he’d call me back in a few weeks. I was very skeptical that asthma can present itself like this, like your chest collapsed. But I’m not the one to argue so I went along.
Yesterday he called me and asked how it was going. And when I thought about it I realised that I hadn’t felt it since… well since I started the inhalers! So I guess the dude knew what he was talking about. And he set up a prescription for more inhalers and when I asked for how long I should be using this he just said “for life”. Literally, that’s what he said. In English too! Although I can’t say I’m one of those people who’ll die if I don’t get my meds because I’ve lived with these symptoms for years.
I just hope my son doesn’t have any of this crap!
As I’m slowly rebuilding the blogposts I’ve come across alot of my old Bush-bashing posts of 2003-2004. And I guess it wouldn’t be right of me to not write something about them offing Bin Laden.
Obama says that it was justified and he had it coming and anyone who doesn’t agree should have their head examined. That’s a helluva diss of most of the western world who, for over a century, have abolished death penalty and never consider it legal to execute anyone. Let alone someone who’s not a citizen of that country. But US of A have no problems justifying killing a citizen of another country without trial or due process. Or are they playing the “self defense”-game? There’s a reason why we have that tribunal in Hague! And having the entire might of the american army and intelligence service and it still took them 10 years to track down one guy, and they are celebrating it?? It’s a matter of taste (or maybe national pride) if you think it’s ok to celebrate the death of a person but noone can call that manhunt a success by any means. Cause if you ever worked in the private sector you’d know that just wouldn’t work.
Having said that… does someone have cookies? Anyone?
Really good weekend there. Our “Star Trek” day was everything it was supposed to be – good episodes, good company and good calories! The F1 was pretty ok, could’ve been better since Ferrari didn’t win.
And we also got alot, and I do mean ALOT, of work done around the house. The greenhouse we’re building is now cemented in place and it’s time to fit the glass. That’ll take alot of weeks to sort out but I’m not in any rush. Helena unfortunately is since the stuff she’s already growing needs to move out of the house and into the greenhouse before it takes over our bedroom! It’s pretty amazing how I’ve gone from spending a sunday morning/afternoon in the World of Warcraft to spending it building a greenhouse and still being happy about it!
I have no ideas what’s gonna happen this weekend, remains to see if we’re gonna have another couples dinner with Helenas friends or just the two of us. Maybe we can make a breake for it and catch “Thor” in the movies somehow … anyone willing to step in and take care of Sam a few hours ? 🙂
I realised it while trying to watch Twilight and Smallville I kinda hoped it was a one time thing. But yesterday there was no more denying it – I’m really am too old for high school movies!
Yesterday we saw “I Am Number Four”. Pretty good story and everything but what ruined it was all the high school drama. The stereotypes set by John Hughes 25 years ago were still there. And what tha hell was that teen-party thing they threw in completely misplaced and irrelevant! No I am most certainly too old for this!
Which is kinda sad considering some of my all time favorite movies belong to this genre – Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Ferris Beuller, Can’t Hardly Wait, Pump Up The Volume, Heathers and there are probably10 more I forgot.
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