book of january: the opposite of loneliness

I remember going to see Marina in a play. My cousin had invited me along, and when we drove up to the blue paneled colonial that housed the theatre I didn’t know what to expect. We were in grade school, and my only previous conception of children in plays was the school produced fifth grade play.  Though I myself did not categorize myself as a child at the time.

It was dark when we arrived, after what seemed like an eternal car ride. The sort of car ride that once illuminated by adulthood is one that could not have taken more than five minutes to span the distance from my cousin’s house to the theatre, door to door. It must have been my anticipation pulling on time, extending it.

At the time I only knew Marina through my cousin, but seeing her on stage I was both awe-struck and inspired. Much the way I am now, after reading her book. My child self went home after seeing Marina completely determined to participate in a play and simultaneously terrified at the prospect. That is how I would describe my experience reading Marina’s book. Inspiring and terrifying.

In my own mind I fancy myself a writer of sorts. I would love to write a book, but put no actual practice to these thoughts. Marina’s book inspires me to write, to put finger to key and create. Though this thought is also terrifying: it is a daunting task. Many of the similarities between Marina and me are also unnerving. The ending of her really hit home for me. Not to give anything away, but I was shocked by the similarities between Marina and me. We are, and though I wouldn’t use the word terrified, I would use the word concerned, about the future of the human race and what that means. While she focuses on the permanence of the written work I focus on the permanence of genetics, and that is where we differ.

With further thought, I realize it may not be surprising that we share much in common. I’m beginning to realize that growing up in the same home town does expose one to many of the same things. Her life is not so unlike my own. I applaud Marina’s work, and the work of her  parents getting her book out into the world.

If you haven’t already read this book, do so.

running like a mad woman

I know you remember how I couldn’t run last year. Last summer my goal was to complete number 13 on my 30 before 30 list on June 13th. It all just sounded nice. But, no dice. While we’re on the subject of running, and in keeping with number 14 on the aforementioned list I’d like to also talk about the time I turned into a  a mad woman.

Now, the point of this post isn’t for you to feel incredibly sorry for me, but that very well may be a side effect of reading it.

2014 was the year I wanted to complete my 25 before 25 goal of running a marathon. I had planned it perfectly, aiming to complete the race in May, a full month before my 25th birthday. Yet, in April of that year I was, sadly, injured. I had been running like a mad woman up until that point. Increasing my training, running farther, longer, harder. You know the spiel. Generally getting ready to run super far all at once. This resulted in me getting an overuse injury in my hip. I felt like an old woman hobbling around complaining about my hip and the weather.

Well, rest and recovery was prescribed, and being the diligent little athlete I am I obliged. Fully recovered for the impending hockey season, I thought the injury train had left the station. Little did I know it made a return trip March 2015, at the very end of the previous hockey season. Literally the last game.

This time rest and recovery was prescribed again, with the addition of a whole helluva lota rehab. I met with multiple doctors and physiotherapists and coaches who finally composed the perfect rehabilitation plan. Though this plan was not enacted between March and June. Which brings us full circle. I hadn’t even been cleared to jog, let alone run, with my freshly separated shoulder, so number 13 on the list was not completed June 13th.

KT tape for holding my shoulder together.

Since June I have been cleared to run, and I do hope to be back on the trails consistently in time to prepare for Å-loppet 2016. I am so thankful to my physio and coach for helping me get back to my A-game. Though I’m not quite at the finish line yet, it is in sight. Å-loppen here I come! At least I think that’s what they’re calling it this year…stay tuned for more…

2016 looking forward

As you know, I didn’t do any resolutions in 2015. Whether or not that was intentional or not is up for debate. Along with celebrating my accomplishments in 2015 I’d like to take the time now, at the beginning of this year, to do a retrospective.

I got the idea from Nate Green who runs a fun little blog over here. The idea is to focus on three questions:

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not working?
3. How can I fix what’s not working for a better result?

 

With this in mind I’ll be focusing on my personal life in the following points.

I’ll take another look back over 2015 to figure out what is working:

• I have a good idea of where I want to be going in 2016 and have laid the ground work in 2015 to get there
• I’ve taken responsibility for my own health and happiness and work daily at these two things
• I’ve had the chance to travel, and taken advantage of that chance

Now on to what’s not working. Personally, I choose to focus less on the negative and more on the positive, so I’m going to take this question to be instead what I hope to improve and/or what I’d like to be better at.

• Strengthen the current relationships in my life
• Refocus my eating habits
• Continue to rehab my shoulder mindfully with appropriate increases in difficulty

So, how can I fix what’s not working for a better result?

• Strengthening the current relationships in my life: My first thought on this one is less phone time. Phone  world is fun and entertaining but also a huge time suck. I’m going to research apps that track phone usage and will give a reminder/alert once I’ve reached a certain amount of phone time for that day.
• Refocus my eating habits: Though I have yet to write my final posts about PN I’m going to use what I learned there and continue to improve my nutrition. First thoughts on this is more vegetables in my life. Mid PN journey I was eating vegetables at every meal consistently, I want to get back there and beyond.
• Continue to rehab my shoulder mindfully with appropriate increases in difficulty: I’m going to print out my rehab schedule (up until now I’ve used a version on my phone). After each completed session I’m going to cross off the workout. I did this one summer and saw huge increases in my consistency, and consistency is key for rehab. (And any lasting change).

Nate recommends that you write for 15-30 minutes on the three questions found at the top of this post. I say write for as long as you like, until you feel you are done. Though this exercise probably isn’t meant to take hours on end, so keep that in mind.

I’ve also tried to give concrete actions that I can take in order to work towards my new goals/improve what’s not working as well. If you check out my answers to the third question you’ll notice three things that I can do (basically immediately) to get the ball rolling. To reiterate:

1. Download phone time tracking app
2. Buy vegetables for my fridge/freezer
3. Print rehab schedule

What’s in store for the future? One thing is for sure, more sneak attacks!

red sox vs. yankees

Speaking of summary activities (see my memory lane series), this August my Dad and I caught a ball game together.

As you may have picked up on, I live in Sweden. I don’t know if you know this, but Sweden is not close to Boston. I mean relatively, it is close, when you take into consideration the expansive universe in its entirety. But it still takes me like 10 hours to get there door to door, so in my tiny human world, it’s far.

For Father’s Day 2015 I got us tickets to see the Red Sox play the Yankees in the major league baseball’s oldest ball park. Opening in 1912 Fenway Park….actually, you know what, you can Google Fenway park if you like, and this isn’t a public tour of the stadium. So back to the game.

My Dad is a die-hard Yankees fan, yet despite his best efforts his first-born was influenced heavily by the local atmosphere and became a Sox fan. This always ends in my embarrassment as we ride public transit in Boston and my father is fully decked out in Yankees gear. He has yet to be assaulted though, so that’s the up side.

Play ball!!

We enjoyed the evening thoroughly with good seats, great company and a little stadium food. Plus, with a 4-3 win for the Sox I was a very pleased Boston fan that evening. Though on the ride home my father became quite the surpuppa (as we say in Swedish). Surpuppa is not only a really fun word, but it translates to sourpuss, which is also a really fun word! Good times all around.

Mandatory Big Papi pic.

 

four blogging years

Can you believe this?! Four years ago in January I started this little corner of the internet, and my have we come a long way.

I’ve posted 285 times. This post you’re reading now is the two hundred and eighty fifth time I have composed word followed by word to send out into the interwebs.

I have uploaded 796 pictures/collages and y’all have viewed my little blog 11,794 times.

Sunday at 9:00pm is my most popular day and time. I should probably start posting every Sunday, eh?

My top three visited posts/pages (aside from the home page) are:

1. 25 before 25, published March 21st, 2012
2. 5 years, published November 1st, 2013
3. Book of December: James Potter, published December 31st, 2012

The top five countries who view my blog the most are:

1. USA 
2. Sweden 
3. France 
4. Germany 
5. Canada 

I want to say: Thank you! Tack så mycket! Merci! Dankeshön! And once again thank you! Without you my lovely readers this blog would be nothing.

 

 

france

Only you have to say it in French…”Fraaance”. Also feel free to be a little snooty about it, but that’s optional.

Balcony views

In October Evelina and I travelled to Paris. My cousin has been living there for about a year with her husband and daughter and now their new-born son. Though his arrival was after our visit. Evelina and  had a great time visiting with them and catching up. The last time I had seen my cousins daughter she was only three months old, so it was quite different to get to play with her as an almost three-year old in the parks of Paris and bounce up and down on a seesaw beside the Notre Dame.

Notre Dame

Evelina and I loved Paris. As they say the city is for lovers.

Eiffel Tower in the sunshine

After we got home I took the opportunity to work on number 15 on my 30 before 30 list. I made a map matte.

Here’s the example picture I found on Pintrest:

And here’s my crack at it:

I just loved the idea of using a map as a matte! I got in almost everything in the matte that we did/went to. We stayed by the Eifel Tower, visited the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, as well as strolled along the Seine eating baguettes in the sunshine.

Paris is for lovers

memory lane: the royal castle

As my fifth and final installment of my memory lane series, please join me in the summer of 2011.

It was my first summer living in Sweden, and the Malloy clan crossed the pond to experience the Swedish good life. I say the good life because Sweden in the summer really is the good life, and there is no denying that.

We visited the Royal Castle in Stockholm. Unfortunately we were not invited for tea with the royal family, but we did get to see their treasure. Before entering I forced asked my family in a charming and convincing way to pose for pictures with a guard. Now I didn’t test this, but the guards here are not like the guards in London, and they will assault you if you stand and yell in their face. Feel free to test that for me next time you swing by the castle.

There are 3 museums in the royal castle, and since it was pretty rainy that day we gladly went in and saw the sights. We first entered some sort of cathedral. Upon further investigation, I now know that we first entered the royal church. A castle simply would not be complete without its own church.

We then went on to the treasury museum and got to see all the jewels. Followed by a tour through some very intricate rooms. As you can see they have some pretty great art in the castle.

Finally we went into the armory. You were allowed to try on the knight’s armor. My brother wasn’t breaking any rules. We think.

The very last thing was to catch a ride home.

It was good fun exploring the castle. Now I just want to do it at night when no one knows I’m there. Like a ninja in the night. Now that I’m a citizen they can’t throw me out of Sweden for “breaking the law”, so it’s totally fine.

looking back: 2015 resolutions

Did you realize I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions for 2015? I did not. Not until now at least, as I’m looking over the past year.

It’s okay though, no need to fret. I’ve come up with something.

Have you heard of the reverse bucket list? I hadn’t until recently, I stumbled upon this…blog? I think blog. Article? Probably not actually an article…Website? I’m really not sure. Anywho! The idea is that you create a list of, not awesome things you want to do – as you would a regular old bucket list, but a list of awesome things you’ve already done. As a way to celebrate the past, and realize how awesome you are.

Now, my wife would state (accurately) that I don’t need any help thinking I’m awesome, but I’m gonna go ahead and reverse bucket list my 2015.

1. Ring in 2015 with great friends in Boston
2. Compete in kvalserien
3. Complete all the Swedish as a Second Language courses
4. Attend summer weddings (Maegan & Joe and Max & Amelia)
5. Get pregnant
6. Rehab my shoulder injury
7. Read a book a month
8. Go to Paris
9. Get accepted to university in Sweden
10. Complete a year of PN coaching

I haven’t yet written about all of these events, though feel free to click on the ones in blue to read about those I have blogged about. And, don’t you worry, I plan to fill in the blanks. In the coming months you can read all about it.