On the train to town for some shopping, especially at the Science Fiction Bookshop. Ingrid wants the other parts of the Hunger games trilogy and I want some more Brandon Sanderson, etc.


Balancing my two main areas of responsibility by trying to do both at the same time – cooking dinner while providing support to the devs running the deployment at work.

With about five weeks to go until my employment ends, I am focusing on so-called “knowledge transfer” to the team in India that will be taking over. It feels quite futile – trying to hand over during a few weeks all the knowledge and experience that our team has accumulated over the years. The Indian team is understaffed and (frankly) underqualified for this, and they mostly don’t have any time to practice what I’m showing them, so it feels like we’re just going through the motions.

The project not quite a train wreck yet but I can see one looming on the horizon. I wonder when the others will see it. I hope I’m wrong but all the signs are pointing in the same direction.

I have invested so much of my time and energy in building something good. Two good somethings, even – the team and the product. And now I get to see it all squandered.


I have mixed feelings about autumn. I love the beautiful autumn colours, but I cannot help noticing how each day is shorter and darker than the previous one, and remembering the gray, dull months that we have ahead of us.


I used to get a box of vegetables delivered every two weeks from Ekolådan. (Actually from another company first, but then I switched to Ekolådan.) The “cabbage problem” was noticeable from day 1 and never really went away, so I finally gave up.

Instead I signed up to Linas matkasse, a meal kit delivery service. Now I get recipes and all the materials for three vegetarian dinners for four persons. In a way this is a completely different thing – all the thinking has been done for me and I just chop and cook. But it partly scratches the same itch anyway: it gives me new meal ideas and helps me cook something other than the same old.

The meal kits are really convenient, especially for the days when I don’t have time to stop by the supermarket and would otherwise just cook up something quick and rather boring. Now we get something quick and not boring. The kids are not always super happy; there are often groans and sighs when I tell them I will be cooking a “Lina meal” for dinner. But they would probably grumble about some of my dinners anyway.

The cabbage problem is gone. But instead there are occasional herb problems. The chefs at Lina really like their herbs and fresh ginger, and in my opinion wildly overdose them. If I followed their instructions about ginger, some of the meals would be near inedible in my opinion. I generally tone down the herbs as well. Today’s meal is a perfect example – the recipe included an apple and kohlrabi salad with fresh oregano. I halved the amount of oregano and still it dominated so strongly that if I hadn’t prepared the salad, I wouldn’t have been able tell what veggies were in it. (I ended up rinsing most of it away from the salad.) I suspect their recipe calls for “half a stand of oregano” only so that they can say that they waste no raw materials. So now I am throwing away oregano etc instead of cabbage.


She has some way to go with spatial thinking.


New gym clothes, new shoes, because Ingrid has outgrown the old ones. Size 35.5 in shoes, which I would never have expected! And everything has to be black and white, and she thinks the three stripes look pretty.

And off she rushes to her dance class.




Adrian rarely builds with the Legos he has, but the one thing he really wished for as a birthday present was a Lego Chima set. The Chima series is my favourite as well. The zoomorphic shapes are interesting and intricately constructed. If they didn’t get all dusty, I’d be happy to have them as room decorations.


Adrian had his birthday party today. Outdoors, in the Ursvik recreation area. Games, an adventure trail, grilled hot dogs, cake, treasure hunt and all that.

We joined forces with the family of Adrian’s friend H, whose birthday is just two days before his, so all in all we had about a dozen six- and seven-year-olds running around, plus a couple of younger siblings. On the other hand, Ingrid helped out as game leader and kid wrangler. Surprisingly we managed to not lose any of them in the forest.


Summer is over and most of the tomatoes in the garden are still green. But the ones that are ripe taste delicious.


About halfway through my three-month notice period, my most important task at work is “knowledge transfer” to the team of developers in India who will be taking over after everybody here leaves. This process is not particularly organized, so meetings crop up at short notice and with no flexibility about timing, and get cancelled with equally little notice.

I used to have a regular gym schedule and now it’s all in shambles; I keep having to cancel my bookings, or vice versa, I don’t book a class because of a meeting in my calendar and then that meeting disappears.

This affects my well-being more than I had expected. I’m no gym nut; I am relaxed about my workouts – but especially this time of the year, and especially with the depressing work situation, not getting the exercise I’m used to is not good for my state of mind.

I did get to go to the gym today. Yay!