LOL. This is a lot of rambling. Just wanted to chime in and say hello

Wishing you all a GOOD THURSDAY!

And btw Sweet Tomato Design is having a new kit in her store. A girly kit called Finley – she’s also having a huge sale.  :)

Hoping to have a page done with it by tonight…. or Saturday. Ahem.

It’s been a week with mostly rainy weather. So glad to see the sun and blue blue sky around it. We’re up early to set the day off in a good way. MT is in his last week at school and vacation time has just started at work, so more to do for me…. (but then I have 5 week summer vacation to look forward to, so not to bad a deal!). Lately I’ve been trying to catch up on a few things. Both with blog posts, scrapbooking and organizing my home and life. I wish I had a few more hours in a day, but still good to see some progress.

Just a few thoughts for today, got to run – lost of work awaits me. Hopefully the invitation to Confirmation will go out today! Can’t wait to meet all the new wonderful youths come August.

Wish you all a beautiful Tuesday. No matter what the weather looks like

I can hardly believe that May is over. It went so fast and was so packed full of happenings, both good and bad. So much living and so much work. I hardly have words for it, even though I really would like to tell – and looking down the list belove I now see that I do have words, so here we go:

I’m doing this in bullet points.

• I managed to hoist the flag two times during the month of May. Yay me. I was really unsure if I could manage it. But then it turned out to be really easy. (And now, sitting here, I feel kind off bad because I forgot to flag for the funeral last Friday, got to do better next time…. As it’s the nice thing to do, living as close to the church as we do.)
• I joined a speed scrap for iNSD (interNational Scrapbooking Day) and had some fun
• We had some really beautiful Confirmation Services
• Some friends of mine had hard time keeping it together.
• I helped my dad at the farm, a little. It was fun to drive the tractor again and feel the dust. Only  wish I could do it more often.
• We had some seriously busy days at work
• MT started the outdoor football season (soccer), and bought new sneakers to fit..
• We had the last Youth Club of the year.
• And prepared a whole bunch of services. May is full of holy days.
• My nephew celebrated his Confirmation Day. A fantastic day to be a part of. His parents had prepared a feast in his honor and we celebrated with family and a few friends. We love you big kid.
• I helped clean the school yard in time for our national day; together with other parents.
• We had guests from the western part of the country. So nice!! Come back soon, please!
• I got a new hair cut. Got to love that!
• We celebrated MT’s birthday with family and friends. Finally. Almost one month after he had his birthday in April.
• MT had many days off school. Because of all the Holy Days. It was nice. And different. He loved it. And missed school too.
• We celebrated the National Day of Norway on May 17th. MT was proud to walk in the procession together with his class. Singing and shouting. So happy.
• MT had his first (and second) Football Match of his life. It was a BIG day. And he had so much fun. Jumping around on the field, cheering on his team mates (almost forgetting to play himself because of all the excitement).
• I got some really big bills in the mail. That was not so fun.
• I got to know a few of the other parents at school better.
• I had my first meeting with the first couple of several I’m marrying this summer.
• One of my colleague got seriously ill.
• I went on a little 24 hour (more or less) tour with my colleagues and got to smell the ocean. Nice.
• I met Mathilde and Oskar. The class stuffed animals. It was nice.
• We moved our bedrooms away from the warm and light morning sun.
• I had only one funeral the entire month. Great.
• I did a few scrapbook pages.
• I took a few photos. But I haven’t uploaded any of them to either flicker or my computer yet. Yes, I know. A busy month. With a lot of small and big happenings all the time.
• I almost forgot. We’ve already had our first thunder storm of the season. It got me soaking wet trying to rescue the laundry hanging outside…..
• And now. We’re just waiting for the summer to take over…. For that we’ll meet June with a smile!!
• I have taken a photo with my iPhone though, each and every day with the exception of one. I’m happy with that. (And I’ll soon show them too)

As soon as I have gone through these daily photos I’ll post a link to the flickr photo that will take you somewhere. But for now, only the image will do….

See you around! Remember to enjoy life!

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!

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.

…….  …….   ……..
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.

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?!

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!!

Happy New Year!!!

Wishing you all the best and lots of blessings for 2010

We are soon ready to go outside to welcome the New Year with some fireworks. Hoping to catch a few photos as well  (these above is a couple of years old already…), even though it’s chilly 15 below zero here right now (Celsius). Brrr..

Since last year I’ve been following Ali’s blog and especially her project December Daily. This year I promised my self to play along and document our Advent and Christmas season, I even made an album in July (!) for it – and you know what? I’m doing it, slowly (but steadily) it is taking form. I’m printing my images at home and almost everyday has a digital element of some kind.

I started the album on the 1st Sunday of Advent and it’s going through to Jan 1st. So by the end of it it’ll contain more than a month of memories. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up during the holidays, at least to put a few words down somewhere so I have a story to go with the photos. The days are busy with work and living, so we’ll see what happens – but so far I have a few things to show from the four first days of December (click images for credits and more info):

I plan on taking photos of the actual album as well, as soon as I can get around to that I’m also getting back to that gingerbread cookie recipe in it’s own post (with translation to English as well and maybe even some US measurements if I can manage ).

A few things from TODAY:

1. got to bed to late
2. but managed to get out of bed in time
3. fought computer issues at work
4. really frustrated about that – hoping everything runs smoothly tomorrow
5. had an advent/christmas devotion at a nursing home
6. MT came by and we both went home for some dinner
7. and some muffins making
8. we’ve decided that muffins makes as good a christmas cookies as any
9. and MT loved to have a taste before we put them in the freezer
10. I loved the tasting as well…
11. we are reading Julemysteriet by Jostein Gaarder
12. finally MT is old enough to understand most of the story
13. and he loves it
14. talked to my mom
15. and made a blog post
16. hoping to get to bead early (earlier….) – already missed that one, but now this is going to publish
17. must make the card to go in the advent calendar first, though

See you around. Have a sweet Advent

A busy start to the Advent season. But a GOOD start.

I’ve been creating a few project over the last days. I’ve loved it, but my kitchen is messy and my laundry pile is high – so I guess I’d better spend the day taking care of a few things here at home (as well as preparing the many services with children and youths leading up to Christmas). My life is never boring and always filled with things to take care off. But sometimes (like now) I take time to sit down with a coffee and blog a little It’s nice to put a few words out there and it helps me documenting my days – and thoughts – as well.

A few weeks ago I saw Stacy Julian’s idea for a simple, but cute,  advent calendar (look down for the bonus project). I wanted to make my own and told my mom to bring my Grandma’s sewing machine so I could have a go on it. I decided to make a few gifts as well, so I started with those. It was so fun bringing out my Grandma’s old Singer and it’s amazing it still works like a charm. I’m not as good a sewer (by any means) as her, but this project is pretty forgiving when it comes to messing it up. It kind of adds interest. Anyhow, here is my go with the gift projects:

When I finished these I took some time to stitch together a few for my self, but I haven’t gotten around to finish more than one each day (until today, but it’s still a work in progress..). On the back I’ve made a pocket to hold a few cards with 1) the Christmas story 2) Today’s things to do. MT finds this each morning and reads what the cards say, first the story part and then the other with the things to do. So far he’s liked it a lot and he hasn’t even complained once about not getting a gift calendar like he got last year. I’m so glad about that since I felt all the gifts (even though some pretty small) took too much away from the season and the joy of the gifts on Christmas Eve itself. I plan on using this calendar each year – only changing the cards on the back – I like it and it’s also easy to bring along if we are going places in December.

I’ve also started my version of December Daily inspired by Ali Edwards. I’ve made a few new beginner mistakes (like making way to complicated pages – so next year there will be no snowflakes; even though they are seriously cute, but the decorating is a bit too…though). And since I print from home it’s a good idea to have page sizes that have easily room for a 8×8 or 11×8,5 or a 11×5 or … (you get the idea). Next year!!

I started the album on November 29th as in the first Sunday of Advent. So far I’ve finished through December 3rd and are going hybrid on this project. I’ve never been a paper scrapper, so this is a lot of new stuff for me – but I’m starting to get the hang of it. And it’s nothing like looking thought my album and feeling good about all the stuff captured from each day. Now I’ll never forget how this season felt. I’m running out of time right now, but I’ll make a post with the digital elements as soon as possible – maybe I even can get around to do a bit of photo-shot of the album as well?!

I love this season, but I wish for an extra hour now and then. And for documenting reasons here are few things from TODAY:

1. it’s snowing
2. the snow is wet
3. making the roads all slippery
4. the tractor haven’t been her shoveling the snow away yet (he came at 3 pm)
5. I almost did not come up to the house again after driving MT to school this morning
6. I need to order new winter tires soon
7. there is a man working in the cellar
8. he’s making a lot of noise
9. but it’s good he’s doing this job, makes the cellar (and the house) free of house fungus
10. I’m now going to clean out all the milk cartons on my counter before anyone comes to count them (and then figure out how long they have stood there….)
11. I haven’t been sick after taking the swine flue vaccine last Friday (neither has MT), but my arm is sore and I miss sleeping on my left side…
12. then I only have to wait for the photos to upload and then this post is published
13. sadly that took all day
14. I’m running behind on my uploading habits
15. my bed is calling, I’m trying to not listen…. as also is a habit of mine
16. I didn’t cross everything out of my list today
17. but I did a few
18. thanks for reading

See you around!