Spontaneous is better

This blog been lying around her for a while, silent. I've sat a few times in front of this page a few times with no words finding their way to this post. I saw an interview on TV with a blogger earlier this week and he said something like if you sit down in front of the computer and intend to write something for the sake of writing, forget it. You need inspiration and you need to write it down before the inspiration dries out.

This post was actually written as I sat down in front of the computer in order to write something for the sake of writing and I got inspired to write about how spontaneous blog posts are better then the daily blog at 9 PM. Well they are...

Unless you have a really good post, those that need planning, everything from hours to weeks, that feels so important that the inspiration doesn't dry out until they are written...

Waiting for the storm

According to yesterdays weather forecast we would be hit by massive storm today. I work for a power company so they had prepared for a long evening and night. I'm working the night shift tonight and I was expecting a very busy shift. Power outages was expected, up to a feet of snow and really bad road conditions. At home I put everything that could blow away in the storm in the garage and I put on winter tires on both cars.

Then nothing, well there where some strong winds, lots of rain and the snow that fell melted away immediately as it fell to the ground. It's good that the storm wasn't really a storm, but I'm sort of disappointed. All this preparation and it's just another rainy night in the fall.

I haven't stopped blogging

I still have a blog and I haven't stopped blogging. I'm simply having a break or something, due to laziness, lack of inspiration or a full house. I don't have the time or the inpiration to be a productive blogger right now. Maybe when the kids go to college ;-P. But seriously I'm trying to kick start my inspiration and this is a small step for a blogger ...

Barefoot or why I'm not allowed in the kitchen

Right now I'm at work without shoes or socks. I'm barefooted and there's a good reason why I am. I think it was on Monday (but it could have been Sunday too) that we had some sticky leftovers in a pan and I decided to boil some water in it to get the rid of the sticky leftovers before I put it in the dishwasher. The sticky leftovers were soon seen floating in the boiling water. I turned off the kitchen stove and waited until the water had stopped boiling.

I then proceeded to pour out the hot water in the kitchen sink ( I always turn on the cold water tap when I do that, just in case). Unfortunately the pan was sort of full of hot water and I dropped some of my left big toe and it was hot enough to give me a singe. Let's just say that it's easier to use shoes and socks as little as possible right now. But I should be able to walk normally with shoes and socks next week.

It's been a month

It's been a a month since I last updated this blog. A busy month in both good and bad ways. The twins are really keeping us busy. Fortunately  I only have to get up at 6 AM four mornings every third week because those nights before I get about four hours of sleep. And I really don' t get the sleep that I need after my night shifts but then again that's only four nights every third week too. That's the good way because in my mind children are the meaning of life. Whatever happens down the road they have profoundly changed your life in a positive manner forever.

But strange things happen in our world, call it karma or the will of (the) God(s) but sometimes when life is given to a family another life is taken. Four weeks and one day after the twins where born my mother passed away. We had the funeral last weekend and two weeks from now the twins are going to be baptized. I'm sorry for the fact that we really haven't had the time to mourn my mother. Her passing and funeral passed by in three weeks and now it's gone. We are now busy planning and arranging for our twins baptism. The birth-death phenomenon are quite common so people who have experienced that says that you will mourn when you have time to mourn, whether it's a year or three years from now.

In this gloomy mood it's only fitting to be in the beginning of the fall. The days are rainy and right now it's about 10 °C and it's in the middle of the day. But I like seasonal changes. The fall can be incredibly beathiful with all the red and yellow leaves and the brisk cold air always makes me feel so awake and alive.

Twins

I'm sorry for the lack of updates lately but I have a good excuse. Our twins(boy and girl) were born on July 5. Having twins are not easy and there were a few medical complications along the way. But everybody's home and doing fine right now.

This is my first day at work after my paternity leave so I finally ha time to write a blog post ;-)

My batteries are recharged

I noticed one thing when I wrote my blog post yesterday. It was error free. I even dragged it trough MS Word's spell and grammar checker and it was flawless. I always have the spell checker on in Firefox, to correct my errors, which are plenty. I have at one point even suspected that I'm dyslectic. I can now confirm that's not the case.

But usually I have so much going on in my life (family/work/virtual reality) that I can't really concentrate on how I'm writing when I blog. I do know however what I'm writing about. So having a vacation once a year is a good thing =).

Vacation is over

My four week vacation is over and I'm back at work. I'm doing my first morning shift out of four on Midsummer Day. In this part of the world Midsummer is as big as if not bigger than Christmas. So today, everything is shut down, except us who keep society running when everyone else is out partying in their summer cottages.

The weather is cold and I 'm pretty sure it will rain later today so partying outdoors today wouldn't be much fun. And my fiancée is expecting twins at any moment. Expected date of delivery is the 31st of July but the twin's estimated weights at this point are around 7-8 pounds EACH. If we where expecting just one child he/she would still be considered to be a BIG baby at that weight. We are awaiting c-section within the next two weeks but the doctors haven't set a date yet. Then of course the delivery could start at any moment so I feel slightly nervous sitting here at work, actually more nervous than when Mirelle was born.

During those four weeks of vacation I have also taken a partial vacation from the Internet. No blog writing, no Facebook updates (except mentioning that I'm on vacation). I've played some World of Warcraft, read the news and a few blogs, made a comment or two and logged on to Facebook every now and then to see what's going on. But that's it, no active social networking. It feels good to be offline for a while, to live in reality. But it's good to be back =).

This weekend Vasa is hosting a US Naval visit. The United States Navy guided missile frigate USS Simpson is open to the public between 13.00 and 17.00. I go off work at 15.00 so if it's not raining it should be an interesting ship to see.

Separation anxiety

Six nights ago we began what had worried us for some time. We moved Mirelle to her own room at night. We worried about what happens if she wakes up in the middle of the night and we're not there? Will she cry? Will she feel lonely? What if she suddenly figures out how to climb out of her bed and falls to the floor?

She has never slept better, ever. During those six night she has awoken us once, it was the second night and after a half hour in our big bed she was sleeping again and I carried her back to her own room. She sleeps to around 9:00 every morning. She woke up anywhere between 6.00-10.00 when she was sleeping in our room and usually at least once every night.

So we the parents had some sort of separation anxiety that was uncalled for and Mirelle sleeps much better in her own room.

MSN?

What was once called MSN is now called Windows Live Messenger, although most people still refer it by MSN. It's probably the most popular IM or instant messenger out there. ICQ was once the most popular IM out there, but then it sort of faded away. I'm beginning to suspect that that was a forecall of things to come, the end of IM.

People still like to chat but everyone's got Facebook and Facebook got a chat function. It's not even close to how advanced MSN was about 10 years ago, even further back when it was called Windows Messenger. But that is everything else in Facebook is for.

I log on to MSN every now and then, usually when I'm at work and there are about two people I talk to regularly although I got about 70 people on my contact list and there was a point in time about 5 years ago when I thought the 150 people limit on your contact list was set too low. When I log in there are quite often a couple of bots that has either sent me a message or try do add me to their contact list.

IM isn't dying but it's definitely fading away, and has largely been replaced by Facebook and/or Google...

We don't call ice cream ice cream anymore

The word for ice cream in Swedish is "glass". Unfortunately our daughter knows what glass is and she knows where the freezer is. So we have began talking about "jäätelö" instead. That's ice cream in Finnish. But I think she might be on to us so we might eventually have to begin talking about "ice cream". Being somewhat trilingual have it's benefits but at some point we might have to resort to code words...

Learning the art of photography

A few weeks ago I bought a new camera. Our old digital camera was of the tourist type of camera and our daughter managed to get hold of it and the battery hatch is now kept shut with duct tape. Nina's birthday is also coming up next week so it was definitely time for a new camera.

The camera I bought is a Nikon D3000. I have read trough the manual and I have taken some pictures. But I have realized that I need to sit down with the manual and the camera. Read trough a section of the manual and then try it out with the camera and then read another section and try it out. I have taken some really great pictures, far, far better then our old camera. But then there are a lot of crappy pictures. I realize that an SLR camera is a bit more complex and that I need to learn to master it if I intend to take those really great pictures.

So I'm slowly learning the art of photography picture by picture. It's spring here and soon nature will become green again and I'll have many opportunities to practice.