Archive for April, 2010

Just testing wordpress app for iPhone. Seems to be functioning Good thing! Night…

I’ve been a bit unsatisfied with the camera on my iPhone. I just couldn’t get it to take good photos on a regular basis. So I almost never used it. Even though I carried the phone with me far more often than my other big camera (especially during our cold winter…).

That was until I tired a few of the many photo apps for iPhone.

I’ve had so much fun today, and even thought it cost me a few bucks – it was well worth it (and I  really could not buy ice cream this week anyhow).

Now I plan on using the camera on hand more often, so nice to capture the moments when it happens.

So far my favorite app are: ShakeIt Photo (I just love the sounds it makes; and yes, I’m easily amused) I also like CameraBag and Best Camera and look forward to explore more later. Here are a few more photos I shot today:

Do you have a favorite app?

Happy Birthday, sweetie!

MT have celebrated today, for many hours, with his class mates from school. The photo is from a little present excitement from early this morning, before he went to school. I had a few hours by my self to prepare the party, sadly too few to be as creative as I would have liked. But this week has been soooo busy and tiering already, I just didn’t have it in me (and cleaning the house + baking cake took most of the energy I had left anyhow).

Still, the kids had some fun.

I walked them home from school. It was the first time any of them had visited us, so MT had much to show. In their counting of rooms on the first floor (we live in a big house; it’s not ours…) they discovered a dead bird, so before the birthday could take off – there was a little funeral in the garden.

Then it was time for the presents (MT LOVES to open presents – off course!), we had a simple dinner, before more indoor play and fun. Lots of music, lots of high happy voices and interacting. It was special fun for me to see them together as a group and get to know MT’s friends a little better.

The kids played outside as well, I’m so glad we had a sun filled beautiful spring day. Later in the day we went back in to eat some cake. I had made both chocolate cake and cupcakes – and they ate plenty Since MT doesn’t (normally) like icing on his cupcakes I made two bowls with blue + yellow icing and then a some cake decorating items in a few small bowls. I told them to decorate the cakes themselves using whatever they liked. They had so much fun – and the cupcakes looked wonderfully sweet (pun intended) by the time they got around to eat them. Even MT loved the icing this time…. LOL.

At the end of the party I hid some candy for them outside, took a close up photo of each place a treasure was hidden, showed them the photo hints and let them go treasure hunting. They had so much fun! Some found their treasure fast others had to get help searching before they found it. I love that something so simple work so good!

Now MT is in bed and I’m sitting here by the computer, almost falling asleep, but I wanted to put the day in words before I forgot it. Photos will hopefully follow another day. Tomorrow is another busy day – and the start of our confirmant camp weekend. Yahoo!

Can’t tell you how glad I am for having next Monday off – and for MT to be home as well – we’re going to be walking around in our PJ’s all day long!

Sleep tight!

I’ve been scrapping today.

So far 5 layouts are done and 4 of them are printed. The above layout I did for my assignment for Sweet Tomato Designs Creative Team that I’m on. She has this new kit out FOCUS (she is collaborating with two other designers on it too, the link will take you to her store and more info about it).

It feels so good to just focus on the photos, papers and elements, finding the words and titles that goes with them – and stop worrying about everything else for a few moments. It really helps me use my creativity as well as it helps me telling our story. Getting the words down. I love taking photos and I LOVE making something with them; makes them even more meaningful to me.

I only wish I could remember to write down the things MT says. Sometimes it is GOLD, other times it makes me laugh out loud. He is a funny guy, but he also is a thinker and cares about other people. And then he is a boy; loves to play with guns and swords and being a hero. I can’t remember caring that much about such things (I might have forgotten, though.) – but this is really important to him – even though he knows movies and games of that kind has to wait until he is old enough. Like 30 or something….

Anyhow, this post went in another direction than planned. Expect one of my coming scrapbook pages to be about MT Not that they aren’t already are mostly about him anyway…

Ok, getting back to what I planned to write about. My 365 – kind-off  project of the year. I’m not doing it in the same way as last year. Then I took a photo each and every day (more or less), but I never got even close to scrap the photos like I planned – and my dream of making a book with all the photos in them was something I gave up on during the summer (I still haven’t scrapped all the photos from our summer vacation, even though most of them is sorted and ready to go.. Ahem). So this year I’m still taking photos each week. I’m focusing on capturing the moments of everyday and the happenings in our life as well. Each month I take 12 photos on the 12th (got the idea from Cathy Zielske), then I try to get those photos scrapped as soon as possible. So far January and February are done, in March I forgot to take photos on the 12th – but I’m covered by another project that month so that is okay. This month I remembered to take photos (although not until noon), and off course I still have  a layout to make with them. In addition to this monthly layout I’m trying to do another thing: making a weekly double pager (or sometimes two double pages) with my favorite photos of the week.

That’s what I’ve been doing today (mostly) – and it is so much fun!! I keep it simple, write in Norwegian and they are for me and my family and friends – and not for the whole world to see – so I can use any photo I want (like MT with his friends and photos of my family too). I found some templates that are suiting my style and easily can hold a lot of photos – mine are made by Kitty Designs at O’ scraps (I’m drooling over some of her newest templates at the moment; they got curves). I let each week have one background color, this way there is a connection and it’s easy to see when the weeks shift. I love papers with structure in colors or cream and browns. Sometimes I use patterned papers as accents with the photos. I use only a few elements, maybe some stitching or some ribbons. And that is it. When finished I print it out here at home (size 8×8) and stick it into an album. And I can’t help myself from looking through the pages from time to time. I love these pages.

Please come by my house – and I’ll show them to you – but for now, here is one example:

And next time I’ll tell you all about how much I love Pioneer Woman for giving actions out for free. Actions for Photoshop Elements too! Yay. They make my editing so much speedier, not to mention better! Ok. Another post. Now it’s time for some geek fun here at my place, The Big Bang Theory is on tv tonight (the only thing I watch all week long)!

After a really busy week (and knowing tomorrow will be a lot of work too) – we have spent the day at home doing as little as we possible can. It’s nice to have a day to just be. No dead lines, no floors to wash, no emails to send or people to meet.

Just the two of us at home. All day long.

It’s done us both some good. But now I’m ready for tomorrow. I look forward to church and the rest of the day. Hoping to see a lot of people and for many smiles to exchange.

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And no, sorry, the comment issue aren’t fixed yet. But it will be eventually. As will my blog header (and overall design). I’m embracing. AND THE COMMENTS ARE WORKING AGAIN! YAY.

We are discussing school issues in our neighborhood right now.

It’s not easy.

We’re living in an rural area far north-west of the much bigger town where the town council is and where most people of this area live. To put is simple: Our local school costs more money than the big town schools do, so a comity is telling the council that moving grade 8-10 (Norwegian grades, btw) out of our village and to the big town 30 kilometers away (some of our far away neighbors have over 45 kilometers to drive to the big town) is a way to make the money-spending more fair to all of the inhabitants of this area.

And the argument? We need schools with better quality so our youths can learn and get something positive out of all the years they spend in school. But here is the big thing; we already have a great school – in fact the best school in the area (and that is documented, not just me saying that it is so). We have highly educated teacher and good students results. And most students, teachers and parents are really happy with how things are. And even though there sometimes are too few pupils in some grades (kiddo’s class is for example only 5 pupils), it is common for two and two grades to share a classroom (so it still gives him plenty of  pals to play with. He’s not, after all, limited to only the kids at the exact same age as his…).

Tonight there was a meeting at the school discussing this. A lot of people attended and all agreed: we need the school here for all the grades (1 through 10). Off course there are sometimes the right thing to do to let some of the pupils go to another school (in Norway it is common to go at the school nearest where you live, very few are home schooled and only a few attend private schools) – no one wants any youths to feel terrible about going to a school where they have no friends! And sometimes it is better to sit on a bus for a couple of hours (or more) to go to a school where you find higher quality of learning or learning the things that means the most to you. But really; isn’t it just as great to go to a school in your neighborhood and use the couple of hours not sitting on the bus to have fun with friends, do sports or homework?!?

And another thing. Even though they don’t plan to send grades 1 through 7 out of the neighborhood any time soon. I’m sure the school will fall in quality when loosing 30 % of the students and ca. 40 % of the teachers. And there will be far less people to socialize with too – and some people are already worried about our youths not having large enough groups surrounding them as it is, thinking it might make them less social. Think about what this will do to our younger kids..?! Loosing all those great bigger kids to interact with. (Ok. That last one was sarcasm, sorry!)

So please, people of the big town, find another way to increase the quality in all the schools in our area, not taking from the smaller schools.

Big isn’t always better. And why must we all be the same anyway?!

Oh, and yea, just a reminder: comments still don’t work – and I’m going to bed now…. Night!

I almost forgot to take photos today. But then I remembered it was the 12th day of the month and decided to take photos of 12 current favorites. It was fun! Photos will follow later, but here is the list of favorites (in no particular order):

MT’s new Ethiopian national costume | daffodils | sunshine | snow melting | back yard stair case (can’t wait to drink coffee there in the afternoon) | colorful books | my candelabra | my yellow den | MT’s summer caps |music in my ear | my kid | view of the river and mountain

It’s another sunny day here at my place. IT FEELS SO GOOD!!

After 4 moths without sunshine (on our house, I might add) – I simply can’t get enough of those beautiful and warming sun rays.

Today I plan to do a lot of this and that. Getting my house in a cleaner shape and get a good start on a few things I’ve been putting off for too long. I have the whole day by my self since MT is going to a birthday party after school and will be gone all day. He’s going to have SO MUCH FUN (they are going to a swimming pool and he just loves that! Poor teachers, they are going to have a hard time getting the class to focus ). And I plan to have some FUN here all by my self. Drink a lot of coffee, play music and catch up on a few games on Facebook. And, off course, do some house chores as well (can’t forget about the initial plan, now can I?!) And if I get around to it I will see if I can get the comment-issue fixed here on my blog (and do a little upgrade too). Not to mention that my laptop is driving me crazy and is in need of some attention too. Ok, I’ll do one thing at a time and then we’ll see how far down my list I can get Nice to have some time to relax and regroup as well.

Enjoy your Monday!!

NOTE! My comments doesn’t work. I’m working on figuring out why..
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Lately I’ve been thinking a bit about why it is that I believe in the impossible. Yea, because I do! And sometimes I wonder why that is. Because, in a way, it would be so much easier to just don’t believe – to just say “well, I don’t think it is that possible to be raised from the grave” or “I’m sure the disciples just missed him so much that they started to believe he had resurrected, even though it all just happened in their minds”  (just to take a few of the many reasons not to believe).

But, you know what? I still believe. I can’t use these (or other) sentences because I do think the impossible is possible, I do believe that God is bigger than my understanding of him is. And I can’t find any reason for the change that occurs in the disciples behavior and attitude, other than in believing they tell the truth.

Thomas helps me find my faith in the resurrection. And in a way this is his Sunday. He wasn’t with the others on Easter Day. For some unknown reason  he wasn’t there when Christ came visiting. And when the others, with joy in their voices, told him that they had met Jesus. That he was alive and not dead. Thomas could not believe, not until he could see it with his own eyes. The next Sunday (as in this Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter Day) Thomas was together with his friends and he got to meet him. He got to see, he got to touch, he got to say with joy and wonder in his voice: “my Lord and my God”. He knew now, as the others had known for a week already, Jesus was risen. It was the truth. Jesus is alive.

I’ve been there with Thomas today. Stretched out my arm, touched the wounds, feeling the joy and wonder as I too have said: my Lord and my God.

I don’t understand it all, but I do believe.

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read more in John. 20:16->

On New Years Eve I found a new word for the new year (her is a little bit about my word for 2009). It’s kind of nice to have this one little word to think about and grow into for one whole year and I love the idea. I first got it from Ali Edwards, but I’m also inspired with the way Janet Philips approached it this year.

My own little word for 2010?

EMBRACE.

(I wish I had a scrapbook page to show off, but it’ll be here here eventually.) This year I’m embracing the good, the bad, the ugly and all in between. Embrace how my life is, how my day is – and I don’t want be tougher on myself than necessary; embracing that I don’t manage to do it all, but still embrace the trying. I want to practice thinking good about my self and to approach life with a positive attitude. I want to embrace the good in us moving to a new place and me starting a new job, as well as embrace the hurt and bad feelings from where we’ve been the last couple of years and slowly leave it behind.

In short: I want to be present in the here and now. I want to do my best, but not doing it all at once. This year I’m EMBRACING life!

I’ve done a lot of thinking, feeling and being present lately. And all this focus on embracing (and a few other things too, to be honest), made me too tired to even thinking about blogging for a couple of months. It just felt a bit too overwhelming. I’m getting around to starting, though. The last month I’ve been writing out blogposts in my mind again – and today I knew it was about time to start typing those thoughts up – getting my words out here again.

A lot have happened during the first months of this year, and I don’t even dare to promise to tell you anything about it. But I have lived and my kid has grown into an almost 7 year old.I’m just going to embrace that I’m back here again and that it feels good – like talking to an old dear friend(!)

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On another note. Have I told you how much I like having a spell checker? A LOT!!

Keep enjoying life and the weekend(!), we have had some sun today! And I’m off to play some meaningless, but still fun, games at facebook. I would love it if you join me And after that, and some sleep and maybe a few days of procrastination I’ll be back and change the heading to something spriny – and maybe find a new blog wear?!? We’ll see