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Home ...
I was born in December 1975 and grew up in Mound, Minnesota, on the
shores of Lake Minnetonka with my mother Mary, my father Harold and my younger sister
Kristina, who is about three years younger than I. Mound is a fairly small town of
around 13,000 people located about 30 minutes west of Minneapolis in Hennepin County.
Mound used to be known as "The Truck Capitol of the World", having been the
headquarters of Tonka Toys, but the company moved to Texas back in the 80's. Toro, the
company which moved into their old building, still displays some old Tonka Toys trucks
in the windows, perhaps for nostalgic citizens? Nowadays, the city has the somewhat
dubious distinction of being the hometown of Hercules' Kevin Sorbo. They've even named
a park after him.
Childhood ...
Some of my favorite activities when I was young were climbing trees and
building (or trying to build) tree-houses, reading, crocheting endless piles of granny
squares, selling shells with my friends (we all would get out our seashells and display
them on an old towel on the curb, then we'd walk around to each other's "shell
stands" and buy/trade them for a few pennies - envied was the one who had amassed 7-8
scallop shells each fitting inside the next!), playing with LEGOs, trading stickers (I
still have them all somewhere), making trails alone in the snow in the empty lot next to
our house, and a peculiar activity which involved packing up my wagon with blankets and
some coloring books and pulling it around the neighborhood, occasionally plopping down and
"camping" in someone else's yard before packing up and moving on to another
yard. Throughout my childhood (and even still now) I have had numerous penpals from all
around the world. I've always loved correspondence and I still do enjoy it quite a bit,
though I have to admit that nowadays I've become a bit lazy in keeping up with replying
promptly.
Grade School & Friends ...
I began kindergarten in the fall of 1981 in the Westonka School District and attended Hilltop
Elementary School for grades 1 through 5. Grades 6 through 8 were spent at Grandview
Middle School and, finally, I attended Mound Westonka High School, where I received my
diploma in 1994. Throughout my entire childhood, my friend Kari lived in the house just
across the street, and were nearly inseparable while growing up. After graduation, she
went to study at Boston University in Massachusetts. My other two best friends from school
are Liz, who has graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Wisconsin, and Heidi,
who has graduated from Luther College in Iowa with a degree in accounting. Heidi got
married in October 1999!
In addition to two-legged friends, our pets were always
important companions while growing up. At one time or another, we had dogs,
birds, gerbils, hamsters, mice, rats, fish, a frog and a hedgehog.
Off to University ...
In the Fall of 1994 I enrolled in the University
of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. I lived in Ogg Hall, one of the residence halls,
my freshman year, where I was randomly paired with a girl named Shannon. We got along
pretty well and we remained roommates throughout my four years at UW, even after we moved
out of the dorms and into apartments. Sonja and Holly were also some friends with whom I
shared an apartment during those years. Shannon is continuing to study at UW, intending to
go to medical school, Sonja is finishing her degree at UW-Eau Claire, and I believe Holly
is currently attending law school in California. So, what happened to me? When I had first
enrolled in the university, I had been undecided on a major, though I had originally
thought I might want to major in anthropology. After taking a few anthropology courses,
however, I soon realized that I enjoyed it as a hobby rather than something in which I
wanted to pursue a career. During the next two years, I began taking classes in a variety
of different areas, hoping to find the thing that would strike me as what I really wanted
to do, but sadly, I never could seem to find it.
Discovering the Internet ...
I did find something else though. In my spare time at the university, I
had discovered the Internet. While mudding
sometime during the summer of 1996, I began to chat with another mudder named Jonas, who
played from Sweden. We had been acquainted only a short time when he had some vacation
time coming up. Though he'd originally planned to vacation in Scotland, he asked if he
might visit me instead - something silly along the lines of, "You sound kind of fun.
Do you have a few days free?" Perhaps I was a bit foolish to go along with it,
considering I really didn't know him very well at all, but looking back, I'm rather glad I
did. We got along famously those two weeks, renting a car and traveling a little around
the Midwest. It was pretty tough when he had to leave; though it was unintentional, we'd
become somewhat romantically attached. Not really knowing what, if anything, would come of
it (I'd always been - and still am - cynical of long-distance relationships), we resumed
chatting online for the next few months, and during the Fall of 1996, we made plans for me
to visit him in Sweden for a month around Christmas. It was my first visit
to Europe, and I had a really great time getting to meet his family, meeting some
other friends and acquaintances from the MUD, and making a small road-trip around Europe.
Though I had doubts about the feasibility of maintaining a long-distance relationship,
when the month was up and I was to go home again, we both felt pretty strongly about our
relationship and were willing to give it a try. After five more months apart, Jonas
arrived in the US in with a six-month visa and we lived together from June 1997 through
December 1997 in Madison, Wisconsin, while I studied. As one might imagine, living
together for several months (sometimes even just a few weeks) can either make or break a
relationship, and we were pretty realistic about the possibilities from the start.
Fortunately, as those months passed, we grew closer and more secure about our our future
together, and while vacationing in Washington, D.C., Jonas proposed on the stairs of the
Lincoln Memorial on 18 December, 1997. We spent Christmas with my
family before his visa expired and he had to return to Sweden.
Living in Sweden ...
After Jonas left, we began concentrating on more long-term plans,
particularly how to get us both living in the same place for longer than just a few
months. Ultimately, we decided that the best solution would be for me to apply for a
residence permit to live in Sweden. The decision for me to leave the university and move
to Sweden was made easier by the fact that I'd still felt directionless in my studies. In
my last two semesters I had, in fact, only been studying part-time, and those classes were
the Swedish language, at that point quite obviously more for personal reasons than
academic. After several more months apart, I arrived in Sweden in May 1998 with a
residence permit. We lived in the city of Örebro for 16 months and had a fantastic
wedding on 15 July, 1999. In going along with our plans to settle permanently in the U.S.,
we got the immigration process going and flew back to Minnesota in the end of September
1999.
Now ...
Since returning to Minnesota, Jonas and I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment
in Eden Prairie, a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis, for almost four years before taking
the plunge and buying a house! In August 2003 we built a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, two-story
home in Chaska. It has been an adventure!
Jonas was initially teaching at a computer/business school,
but has moved on to network administration for a fitness club corporation. Since December 1999
I have been working for Hennepin County Libraries.
What the Future Holds ...
There are likely some children and pets in our future, perhaps soon or perhaps later. We
hope to take at least one more European vacation before settling down with kids. Jonas is
also considering U.S. Citizenship.
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