Yes, have you noticed? It has changed from My Security Box to Virtual Shadows. I realised this morning that my blog is more about privacy than anything else, and ‘Virtual Shadows’ is the name of my first book going to print this week, and besides that I have also bought the domain www.virtualshadows.com that has a redirect here 🙂
Category: Out of the Box
Snow and no water!
Well Winter is going to be fun! You know how it feels that everything that can go wrong does…. well first it was the electric when my husband was away, and now he is away again and it’s the water!
I went for a walk, as usual, today. It’s been snowing an awful lot, so is very beautiful, however it is getting very windy, they are promising 20km metre tonight, so I cut my walk short. It was -3 degrees and with the wind I needed to get home to ensure that the boat was securely anchored, and the chopped wood was in a dry place. Then I took the snow spade. You know there are snow spades? I didn’t. First time I shovelled snow from our balcony I used a normal spade that scratched the balcony, umm my man wasn’t so pleased with my efforts when he got home 😉 That was my first winter on the island often alone as he was in Thailand helping Swedish victims’ families following the Tsunami disaster.
So let’s get back to the water again. After all this effort I jumped into the sauna, beautiful! Took a shower, washed my hair, well I almost succeeded when the water stopped. Just like that, me in the shower naked, hair and face covered in shampoo bubbles and no water!
First I tried to understand the cause of the problem, and I failed. It can’t be frozen, it’s only -3 degrees outside, and the pipewarmer is on anyhow, must be the pump, now I’m clueless. So I rinsed my hair as much as I could in the fluffy powder snow outside. Tried to ring my husband….busy… ummm ok so there’s loads of snow and the good thing is that the electric is working so I can cook snow so I have water, at least until my dear husband is home again tomorrow afternoon. For now I just open up a bottle of cold white wine with my dinner whilst I study (you know that MBA I started in September?). Nice wine….
We have business guests for dinner tomorrow night, not sure how we manage that, maybe a restaurant will have to do this time 😉
Speeding dog
The other day I was stopped when driving my car by the police, I was speeding. I thought that I could talk my way out of it until I looked at my dog on my back seat.
ROFL 🙂
Hot air and management
The following joke was posted on the BCSWoman forum, which is actually quite funny 🙂 Thanks to this linked site for the fine picture!
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He spotted a woman below and called, “Excuse me, can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him, but I’m lost.”
The woman replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon 30 feet above this field.”“You must be in IT,” said the balloonist. “I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”“Well, everything you told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use to me.”
The woman responded, “You must be in Management.” “I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”
no hot water
Yes it’s true, if you’ve been reading my unusual activity of posting over the last few days “Winter has come 😉“, and “still no heating” that is concerning my malfunctioning heating. Now the water is cold, you know really cold…the water heating has stopped working.
Solution was easy, can’t fix the water heater, my dear husband is not here and he is the man of the house, so I took to the sauna again followed by a refreshing cold shower. Now I’m nice and clean, ready for work tomorrow, which means that I can skip the cold shower before I leave in the morning 😉
Obama’s victory
You know I am not much into politics, I have such a problem remembering names…..but couldn’t help but feeling hope and a touch of a high when I heard the news this morning that the U.S. has a new president, the first black president ever! Difficult to write more that does justice to this very interesting development, the press are doing this good enough.
Still no heating
Yes it’s true, almost British nostalgia, you know that feeling that maybe the inside of the house is not much warmer than the outside. Worked from home today and kept the wood fire burning the whole day, and can you believe it after a record low of 16 degrees this morning the house is now 19 degrees! wow!
Took a long walk today after 2 long days working on the mainland and late evenings, is getting dark and cold here at 5pm, but today I did it getting home at 5pm, and it was beautiful. Took my new iPAQ with me, took calls, emails and responded to appointment requests whilst walking. I guess this means that I’ve finally joined the ranks of the “always on”, pretty sad I guess but on the other hand very effective. Did lots of good thinking, also afterwards in the sauna. Yes it’s true as with any typical swede we have a sauna at home, and it is very warm in there 🙂
Winter has come ;-)
Here in Sweden when I say winter has arrived, Swedish say, nooo it is Autumn. Yet it is zero degrees during the night, frost on the ground in the morning, and for me I have a very regular sign that winter has started and that is the trip switch in my house. Every winter without fail it trips and the heating stops working. We call in the electrician, or heating expert whatever to get it fixed. I even know them by their first names 😉
My dear husband is not home tonight, so the house temperature had dropped to 18 degree centigrade, hoping the electrician will call by soon, I lit a fire, and here I am thinking that winter has arrived, sat in front of the wood fire burning, wearing long johns (or long Mary’s in my husband’s view, he believes in sex equality :-)) and a warm fleece top and woolly socks, fine Celtic music on the cd player. I am drinking a glass of fine white wine, and thinking how fine life is, as imperfect as it may be…
“Not dead yet!” Silver Surfer
You have to visit the blog of Judith Taylor “not dead yet!”, an 80 year old silver surfer who won the covetted Silver Surfer Awards 2008 in the UK. She has a very fun sense of humour, interested in lots, and gives a beautiful insight on how social networking can give a very positive dimension for any one of us however old we may be whoever we may be 🙂
wowowow what’s coming next!
Booklert addiction
You may have noticed that I added to my blog the bookalert that gives Google ranking and this is very addictive. Every day I am checking, has it gone up or down. If it has gone up I google the book to see which other book reseller has made a pre-order. It’s amazing, it’s almost as addictive as tweeking my blog, well not quite, but still….