several of my new colleagues have moustaches. i thought moustaches were extinct, but apparently they are just concentrated to jämtteknik. they look really pretty all of them.

today i did my first book*, with the help of the other two editors.

* actually i just translated it from english into swenglish, but it felt like my own, as i had struggled with layout and master pages and imported files and impossible frames and strange words and in the process i learned a lot about the technical system in a vehicle known at work as "the dutch wagon". i'm sure the technicians are going to laugh so hard they can't stand when they read it... i invented at least 15 new words every day. and they were good words too. i don't know how the world has survived without them for so long... but now it's time to start using them!  ¶ 8:50 PM

  good day for a name's day :)

walked to the city from work, despite the 20 degrees below freezing. survived. had lunch with one of the new colleagues. went to a health inspection. passed the tests (the woman who did them said it was clear i was looking after myself-felt a bit proud even though i know that's probably not true).

went with the husband to look at some tv:s and eat a sandwich in a cafe. we came to the cafe 1 minute after closing time, but the nice woman working there said it was no problem if we didn't mind her cleaning in the kitchen. and before we left she gave us two semlor, as we were the last guests :)

bought five books from the "cheap books department" at the library: one pink, one with a funny picture of a face on the cover, one with "chocolate" in the title, one with "sun" in the title and one book for teenagers with a young couple holding hands on the cover.

went "air boxing" with one of the new colleagues (the female one, i don't think any of the others would go). fun. will definitely do it again.

got a kinder egg from the husband when i came home. nothing to build in it, but a fat and happy little mole to play with.  ¶ 9:41 PM

  the galdor cat has a new hobby: jumping over things. he is jumping over the kitchen sofa, the rocking chair, the boxes with books, the bed, the sofa, the chairs, our shoes, ikea boxes, the teo cat, invisible obstacles, etc. etc.

the husband and i bought a new car today. an audi. pale blue. 4wd, so we'll be able to get up to our house :) and in exchange for the fantastic toyota we even got the stereo. it feels bad leaving the fantastic toyota to someone else, but better than having it put to sleep... and we're only allowed to drive it to the end of this month. he seemed like a nice person, and he had a nice accent. i hope he is going to treat him well...

we've now been tv-less more than two weeks (i think?). and i still haven't missed it. so maybe we shouldn't buy a new one... but we looked at some today. didn't find one we both liked though.

oh, and i have a new project! fixing the radiators. or the little things you adjust the heat with, anyway. i don't think there's a single one in this house that works, so some of the radiators are either ice cold all the time (two of them) or burning hot (three or four). but a friend/ex-colleague told me how to fix them, and i'm now working through them the best i can. quite fun. i feel like a handy woman :)  ¶ 9:34 PM

  frustration!!!
i hate it when i'm not good at things. yesterday was my first day in karate class for a looong time. and i couldn't quite get it. i kept moving the wrong way, and the more i tried to think "right" the more wrong i did. frustrating! and today at work there was a girl/woman coming from östersund to teach us FrameMaker, and it went fine at first but then i was stupid enough to ask her a question and the answer was so complicated i lost her and that ruined the whole day. i'm still upset when i think about it. i hate FrameMaker! i got more and more frustrated, and had to leave earlier because i couldn't concentrate on anything after that.

fortunately my friends at the ex-work invited me for dinner after work, otherwise i'd probably still be upset and not be able to sleep tonight. they even gave me a farewell-gift: a fridge pack of coca cola :)  ¶ 9:13 PM

  nope. red fingernails is not a good idea when you have to learn how to replace mufflers and starting engines on bandvagnar. but i got to "drive" it today, so i'm happy. only 10 cm though... to be able to lift a wheel up.  ¶ 8:44 PM

  report from the first week at the new job:

day one: started with a meeting. we're three new editors who started the same day, one new editor/something else who started in december and one new something else. introduced ourselves. had some papers. were shown around. learned how to turn on and off the alarm, which buttons to press if we want to wash something, how to get a car down from the ramp after ten pm, where to find extremely small screws, who to call if we are sick, that we can have as much coffee as we want, what button to press if we want to smoke in the garage, where to sign if we want to borrow the bandvagn, and lots of other things. had lunch. waited for our computers to be unpacked. installed a few programmes. tried to open and close the drawers in my office. it's only possible to open one drawer at the time. felt bad.

day two: had a paper with instructions how to replace a water pump on a bv 206 ("take out the water pump. install the new one"). were left alone in the garage with the bv, lots of tools and a camera, and told to make better instructions. quite fun. i might become a good editor after all. went to get working clothes: shoes that you can wear if you walk in acid (i refuse to try if they work), trousers, jacket, gloves, safety goggles etc. etc. it felt a bit like another christmas, and i started to like the new job.

day three: went to östersund, to meet our colleagues in that office. had a stomach ache. nearly fainted. had a head ache. met the person who is going to teach us FrameMaker and Epic. she mostly talked about her dogs and cats, which was nice as i wasn't feeling very well. she had the longest hair on her arms i've ever seen. had instructions to a digger to proofread until next week. we're not many women employed at the company. in sollefteå there's me and another girl who started the same day (and 23 men). in östersund there's the one with long haired arms, and two more i think. when we were having coffee for the third time i realised none of us is very womanish. so this weekend i'm going to paint my fingernails red again. and i will try to make my office as pink as possible. otherwise i'm afraid i might lose the little femininity i have... the one with the long haired arms in östersund was almost like a man. and she had worked there tree years.

day four: got a phone. wrote down the instructions about the water pump. tried FrameMaker. gave up. went to buy plants to the office (i chose a pink pot for mine). played with the phone. played with a camera. tried FrameMaker some more. started proofreading.

day five: meeting with most of the colleagues. introduced ourselves (i'm allergic to introductions since the last time i started a new job, and we had to do it twice a day for two months). learned how to report how much we have worked. proofread. watered my plant.  ¶ 3:53 PM

  tomorrow will be my first day at the new job. i'm nervous. i'm going to be a horrible editor. i don't know anything about military vehicles. or any other vehicle, for that matter. i try to console myself by thinking that "editor" is going to look good in my resume...  ¶ 5:49 PM

  a new ikea truck came yesterday. this one was smaller and had better tires. it also had a more cautious driver, who refused to even try driving up our slope. so he unloaded our things at the bottom of the slope, and tommy had to drive the things up in the fantastic toyota. i thought that was good, one falling truck a week is enough.

one of our sofa's was missing, and the wardrobe was broken after the accident the day before. but apart from that everything seems to be there. so today i started building our library. it's amazing how quickly you can build a bookshelf!

now i'm tired, and my hands hurt. and we have a new cosy sofa, but no tv... so we're going to watch a film on the computer, pretending that it's nice and cosy :)  ¶ 6:14 PM

  the ikea truck with our sofas and bookshelves (and 6 other people's furniture) fell down our road today. noone was injured, but it took several hours, a towing truck, a crane and several helpful neighbours to get it up again. and we're still completely sofaless, bookshelfless and wardrobeless.

i don't really think you can blame our road for it, though. the truck had summer tires, tried to reverse slowly up the hill, and had no functioning brakes on the back tyres. unfortunately it made it halfway up. fortunately it got stuck on the lid of a well, otherwise it might have fallen over and slid all the way down the slope...
  ¶ 5:43 PM

  the parents in law are here. again. they seem to like us, because they come here all the time. that's good, i guess.  ¶ 8:44 PM

  ooops... the tv just broke...  ¶ 8:39 PM

  i'm back in sollefteå and at work again. we spent new year's in tierp, and i got to see everyone except the biggest little sister (who was working at a skiiing station, imagine that: without snow :).

in sollefteå there was enough snow to make it impossible to drive to our house. we shovelled our slope, but it was too much snow on the road to be able to get enough speed to get all the way up. so we parked the car at a neighbour's. unfortunately jm and christina didn't get to see a single snowflake...  ¶ 8:21 PM