tap, tap, tap

*clears throat*

Well it's been a while! I'm resurrecting this blog because on Friday I'm heading to Sweden for a week and putting stuff up on social media is fun for the likes, but isn't easy to look back at later. I don't know if I will REALLY update this every day, but I might.

Agenda:

• arrive Stockholm on Saturday the 21st, explore the city all day Sunday & Monday. Take an overnight train 12 hours north to be above the Arctic Circle. 
• Tuesday night: stay at the TreeHotel in the MirrorCube 
• Wednesday night: stay in the Abisko Mountain Station at the one combination hotel/hostel. I'm vague on what this thing is - but the entire point is to go to up a chairlift to the Aurora Sky Station for a swank dinner and then a Northern Lights observation (we hope)
• Thursday night: stay at the IceHotel - yep. Yes, we will be sleeping in a room that is cold enough to have its very own ice sculptures. Yes, I am open to the idea of finding the sauna and sleeping there! 
• Friday: fly back to Stockholm, last night there in a yacht hotel! 
• Saturday: bonus excitement, flying back in international business class as a way to extend the vacation just a leeetle bit longer. 

What else is going on with me?
Job: I'm five months into my new job and it's still feeling pretty good. I took a month off between jobs (which was SO GREAT) and then was in training for pretty much the entire rest of 2016 (which is an astonishing investment for a company to make). I'm actually/finally now going fully live on doing my job and it's a lot to juggle but so far I am very happy I made a change.

Fitness: this fell apart. I did summit South Sister with friends in August, and it was so hard - 13 hours of hiking because it was a LOT of very steep up and down, and I'm slow. But my running practice ground to a halt and hasn't been replaced by anything. I have intentions of getting back into it if we ever see the ground again.

Snow! We get snow here in the Pacific Northwest every now and then but we got about 8 inches a week ago and it's just lingering. It's been temps in the 20s, we don't have plows, ice and snow still all over the side streets.. I haven't been in a car since last Tuesday, and I ventured out on foot last Thursday night and on Saturday afternoon - that's been the extent of it!

The state of the world: big enormous panicked grump. Trying to focus on the good, learning how to use my voice politically. Very sad I'm going to miss all the amazing energy of the political protest march here in town on Saturday - I think it would be enormously uplifting. Stockholm is hosting a march that day as well, but I don't know if we will get there in time to participate.

January challenge: For the weeks between Christmas and Sweden, I've done a challenge to have no sugar/no alcohol/no restaurants. Part of this is health-related, part of it is financial: I think by spending NO money (except on groceries and doing some political activism), I will balance the spending in Sweden and come in okay for the month's total.

On the plus side: Cutest niece ever. Knitting some more. Cooking a lot of good food.