Archive for December, 2006

For the second year ever I’m going to celebrate New Years with my son, for the second year (if I’m lucky) he doesn’t know about the celebration and the fireworks If I get it my way he’s in bed by 9 pm (that’s late for him, by the way). Next year I might wake him up for the firework, but we’ll see!!

I’m, on the other hand, going to be awake the whole time. We’re going to visit some good friends of ours for dinner and MT’s going to spend the night there since I’m going to lead a midnight service in our church. I look forward to it on one hand and do not want to leave the others on the other hand, but I have to….. They’ll do great and tonight I’m going to have my whole bed to myself without a tiny little boy taking up most of the room – oh, yea, I’m going to miss him!! But by breakfast time I’ll see him again, so no reason to worry!

With a few photos from our Christmas I wish you all the very best for the New Year and Gods blessing!!

And give you the most hopeful words for the year to come (this my sermon is about…)

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:1-4.8-12

Sorry for not writing and not reading lately, my son and my work have consumed me and my time. Hope I’ll get the hang of it soon, I miss blogging and reading what you write on a regular basis (not every once a while). Hope Christmas was good and will (in case I might not return in time…) wish you a blessed new year!!!

Hugs from me

and no; haven’t forgotten you at all

1. Write Christmas cards to friends and family
2. Send them….
3. Buy all the gifts to family and friends living far away and wrap them
4. …and, off course, send them!
5. Bake gingerbread man with friends and my boy and his friend; it’s going to be both fun and exhausting.
6. Buy a Christmas tree for our living room, I’m not going to decorate it before December 23rd but this year I don’t want an “old” tree (that has been cut many weeks ago).
7. Clean and tidy up the whole house.
8. Roll candles with MT (of the honey wax kind, I’m not sure of the proper English word for this….)
9. Buy the last of the packages for MT and friends close by. Wrap them and deliver them
10. Write sermons for the Christmas and New Year services (then I can spend all my free time with my boy; a smart move!)
11. Make something like a wreath to hang on my front door, maybe a heart made of fresh cut branches??
12. Buy new light bulbs for the outdoor lighting and change the broken ones(!)
13. Make this LIME more Christmasy (it’s about time)!!!

HAVE A LOVELY ADVENT TIME PEOPLE

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

1. Amy 2. (your next!)

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MT had his first ever experience with St.Lucia day today. He was a star boy. And so proud of him self; so was I

I like the tradition of the day, but I wish people knew who Lucia was and that she was more than a nice person. She was a young woman with a strong belief and faith in Jesus, she dared to help those who did go into hiding because of persecution.

Here is our local little Lucia:

A few years back I wrote this little post about her……
(St.Lucia not our little girl).

When trying to access internet, – make sure the line is plugged into the wall socked before you give up trying to surf the web….

Sadly I remembered it first when I was in bed last night why I wasn’t able to log on; the night before I had removed the line because the weather forecast said thunder storm.

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code. Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

From me not a Christmasy red; but a summer red

So did you feel it??! I just upgraded from wordpress 2.0 to wordpress 2.0.5 in a few minutes. What have I’ve been so afraid off, putting it off for several weeks….hehe; I’m happy now. And I have to go to sleep, during the process our time passed midnight – and I’m sleepy!

See you tomorrow, maybe I get to do some holiday cleaning here at lime as well as in my house?!

Since Sunday neither me or the boy are able to locate the remote for our satellite decoder. It’s so frustrating!! Last time I saw it (as I remember) was when MT held it in his hand pointing at the TV telling me that he would turn it on while I – repeatedly- told him no! I can’t remember if I took it away from him or if he hid it somewhere, but since then; no remote!! I’ve search all over the “normal” places to put it and a few un-normal ones too, MT has search as well – and claim he didn’t hid it from me. Do I have to search the whole house, and the garbage as well??

If you see it, please let me know

This will be a TT in a hurry. In a few moments I’m driving to our good friends one hour north of here, and every minute with them are precious. But it has been a while since my last TT and I do want to take part this week!! So here is my Adventy Thursday Thirteen:

1. Advent is violet
2. Advent is the time of light
3. Advent is the time where all the smells of Christmas is planned…
4. Advent makes me prepare for him who came
5. Advent reminds me that Jesus still lives and comes to us every day, only in a different manner than when he was a child and man
6. Advent is the time I bake my favorite cookies: gingerbread man; this year I’ve promised MT a house(!)
7. Advent is the time to be kind and share
8. Advent is crawling up in the sofa and read a long story for MT
9. Advent is the time to buy presents for friends and family and look forward to give them away
10. Advent calendar is a good thing to make the time move a bit faster, if you’re a child – for adults Advent can’t be long enough
11. Advent is the only time during the year I take time and write cards to a lot of people. I love making my own cards if time permits

HAVE A LOVELY ADVENT PEOPLE

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

1. Terri 2. Stephanie 3. Brony 4. (your next!)

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So…advent is upon us
I’ve had a few busy days, so I’m a bit late with the decorations – both in my house and at my lime. Sorry, hopefully I’m getting the lights up before we light another candle in our advent wreath!!

So what have we been doing?
Thursday we boated out of here. My boss had arranged a meeting overnight, and was kind enough to let me bring MT. The meeting was with all the other pastors in our area (half of the Sognefjord’s length….) and it was a good one, even thought I got tired. MT was nice and played quietly while we talked. He watched a bunch of dvd’s as well. We ate good food and slept in nice surroundings, but still – in the end I was soooooo tired that I hardly could think(!)

It felt so good to open up our door and be home again. And off course, the boat ride back home with our express boat (a catamaran type) was a bumpy one. I can handle that quite well, most of the times – but not like MT, he had the best of times and laughed out laud when the waves made us jump up high. Silly boy

We got a good night sleep, but MT woke up far to early and run down to the telly. I stayed in bed a bit longer…..
We spent the early day together, doing our things. He playing and running around. I doing some laundry and dishes and drinking coffee In the afternoon we went to our friends and joined in the gingerbread men-baking.

It was fun, and MT made some real surreal decorating… he he. After we stayed for dinner, and it was so good and nice – but it became far to late

No wonder we were tired and a with a bit of bad temper Sunday morning, even though I tried to play nice….. Anyhow, we had a busy day. First a family service at the south side of the fjord, where four four years olds came and received a book gift from the congregation (this is tradition) and we talked about how Jesus came to us – not only as a child, but also as an adult. I brought a donkey (small one, in MT’s advent calendar of this day), a crown, some branches of a tree and a purple heart and talked about how Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey while the people sang to him like he was a king (which he off course is..):

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

We was back home at 1:30 pm and had time for a quick dinner. Then we went down to the pier to watch the Chirstmas tree be lighted. A brass band was playing and Santa was coming with presents to the children.

MT was so happy about the big balloon that was in his bag! Then we went home to rest a bit, MT was not in a good mood. But still there was more to do that day, I had a second service to prepare and MT should be with our friends for a while and walk in a torchlight procession to the church later on. In the church the service is called “light service”, we usually have this each Advent with the confirmants being deeply involved. A lot of people attended and I got to stress the important sentence – Jesus is the light for our world!

Today we slept in. MT didn’t wake up until 9:30 am, good thing he got some sleep finally. I called the kindergarten and told them that he’s late today, and didn’t bring him there until 11 am. Now I’m just sitting here writing and drinking coffee. In a few minutes I’m going to load up some photos to go with this and drink some more coffee. Later I’m joining my friend for a little walk and talk… Tonight I promised MT to hang up our Advent starts in he window, if the rain stops we might get the outdoors light up in the tree as well.

See you around!

Update: Drank my coffee, but used to long to get the connection established with flickr to add the photos; so check back later tonight – or visit my flickr…. Now I’m going walking