Tuesday, November 30, 2010

It's CHRISTMAS!

Oh, well. It starts tomorrow. But in the kindergarten Christmas has been on for a long long time already. Christmas music playing, singing carols (we have to practice for a long time so they all learn it in time for the annual Christmas concert), baking...making Christmas presents. Almost get tired of it. But Sunday Christmas started in OUR new apartement. I love it and I love the apartement.


































Freezing skies behind our advent star in the window. We have had at least 2 weeks with below 15 minus degrees every single day. COLD.



We have inherited alot of stuff from my parents after they sold the house this spring. I got an old desk, kitchen table and chairs, bowls AND one particular thing I requested - The painting in the pic above. It comes from my grandmother's house, where my parents now live. The painting used to hang in the bedroom I always slept in when I visited my grandmother. When I got older, I decided that THIS painting was gonna hang in my "house". And now it does, and I'm so pleased. Old things make me happy...

It's been a month since I last blogged. Last year I had a blog advent calendar. I doubt it will happen this year.

I miss the days in Ghana when just taking a taxi could be worth blogging about.

One day, in Tema:
Taxi Driver: How old are you?
Me: 25.
Taxi driver: Nooo, you can't be only 25!!!
Me: Yes, I am. How old did you think I was?
Taxi driver: 50!!
Me (horrified): Whaat?? WHY?
Taxi Driver: You are SOOO fat! So very fat. But VERY beautiful.
Me: ..............

Those were the real blogging days! Fingers crossed for Ghana 2011! Unless we decide to get one of these:
My friend made this...

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Heloooooo

WE have moved to a bigger apartement! We have been without internet for 2 weeks. And I haven't really missed it! At all! But now its back and I'm glued to the screen. Blah. :-)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Cake Boss

On TV there is this programme about this bakery in New York which makes amazing cakes.

So I decided to do the same. :-) My nephew turns 2 tomorrow. Terrible two's they say. I think he is adorable of course, and so smart and talkative and every day he says something new, and I'm just as shocked each time.
He lives on a farm, the father is a farmer, he is a boy and is naturally extremely interested in tractors. He knows the name of all the equipment, and his favorite thing is the machine that ...makes balls out of hay and wraps them in plastic. Hum. I'm sure those are two different machines... ANYway. I had to make a cake for his birthday party.
So I decided to go beyond my abilities. That meant spending 6-7 hours on Saturday night, baking, building, decorating. Building you say?







I'm so proud of myself. My nephew though, said "firetruck" when he saw it. Don't really know how to feel  about that... The white marshmallows are supposed to be the hay balls...by the way. He immediately reckognized those though!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Nothing but the truth

I just re-read an amazing poem my blogging friend Nana Yaw once wrote. It is as true as it can get.
It's about loving somebody.

You have to view them
Like a star on TV.
Do not examine them
Under a microscope.


Examining your lover under the microscope is what we do all the time, Searching for flaws and pointing them out. Trying to change them. How often do I come home from work, exhausted and wet from the rain that keeps pouring down, and see hubby as a STAR? What are the first words that come out of my mouth?

Odo, you are a star ♥ 
Thanks for dinner :-)

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Lucky me!

I went to a dear friend and colleague last night. For some knitting lessons and some soul food. I am knitting. But I'm not really good at it. But I want to get good. Sissel helps me with that.

She is REALLY good at it! Knitting, sowing... all kinds of handcrafts. She has a whole room full of yarn, fabric, sowing machines, all kinds of scissors, needles, knifes...and a big working table. I'm so jealous of that room!

That room is also constantly full of finished products, that she gives away or sells. Yesterday she just gave away two beautiful things. Just like that. To ME!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Happy days

My blogging has been very down lately. Too much other stuff on my mind, and work feels like it takes over everything and everyday. But I am enjoying it, dont get me wrong. It's just very busy.


Now over to the good news.

We are moving. For those who have read my blog for a while knows me and Hubby have lived in a TINY, crappy, cold apartement for way too long. We have been searching high and low for a perfect apartement for ages. One that is big enough, central enough for two car-less people, and cheap enough for two cheap people :-) And finally we found it. I hope. We wanted to buy but it was too expensive and risky, and when my mom said they rented the apartement I grew up in for 10 years, (and they were in their 30s), I dont feel so un-accomplished for still renting at the age of 27. I feel it's connected with being a student, renting, but who cares... At least it's something we can live with, financially. This apartement has 2 bedrooms, recently renovated, it has a fireplace (WARMTH), electrical appliances..even furniture could the landlord get us if we needed something. And it's close to work, and close to town. Now we live in the MIDDLE of town. I will miss not having the supermarket 20 metres away, miss not having the post office right there, the train station... But where we are gonna move is actually really central, for those in Levanger who lives far from town. I feel good. Can't wait to pack!

Other good news. I have known my husband for 5 long years. On Thursday it was the anniversary for the first time we met. I'm not one of those date-freaks that remember every little detail that has happened through our relationship. The only reason we remember the day we first met, was cos it was on an information day for exchange students at the University of Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania, and I wrote about that in my Norwegian blog back then. Anyway, this is what I came home to on Thursday:

My favorite magazine, and chocolate! He knows me well. I baked him a carrot cake in return... <3
Food = love. Appearently.

Tomorrow a good friend is coming to town, and my 4 best girls will be gathered tomorrow night with red wine and good food I guess! Looking forward to it.
Tonight I had another wonderful friend over for "kveldsmat". Supper maybe is the word in English. The menu was very Norwegian. Rolls, sausage, ham, cheese, jam.. and hot chocolate. Mmm. I love my friends. She has a little bundle of joy in her stomach and I'm so excited fot IT to come out :-)

Anything else positive to write about?

As I said in the last post, it has been a tough September and now I'm writing about all the good stuff to convince my brain I am actually a very lucky and blessed person and I should focus on the good and be happy about it! LML as the teenagers appearently say!

Another thing to be happy about
<--
The world's cutest boy helping auntie bake!





Have a good weekend!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Sunday morning Sun is Shining

Guess I need a new project. After the summer my motivation has been at the bottom. Work has taken it's toll on me, I've changed group at the kindergarten, I now work with 12 babies, all born in 2009. That is work! The parents are surprised we are still smiling at the end of the day, taking care of 12, while they only have 1 to "deal with". :-) But they are so adorable and step RIGHT into your heart after a few days of knowing them. They NEED you and that really gives you something.

Well, enough about that. I never wanted my blog to be reciting my daily life. I have to write something with meaning, not just go...: Today I went to bla bla bla, and did bla bla bla. Therefore, I need projects. Give me some.

Today I'm gonna climb a mountain. I need to get something out of my weekends. Last weekend I was sick, the weekend before I was sick, yesterday I was having the worst headache of my life. Today, me and a friend are gonna climb 800 metres in sparkling September sunshine!

This is my nephew. No other reason to put his picture in this post, apart from him being the cutest being ever. ♥

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

mamma mia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!! 

This is my mom. Tomorrow is her birthday. Yay. Here she is cleaning cloud berries my dad went to pick. My mom lives far away. Hope she comes to visit soon! :-)  ♥ ♥ ♥

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Home, sweet home

Hey guys.

One week ago I came home from my lovely vacation. The first week of vacation was busy, Oslo, Germany, back to Oslo in one week. The second week was all about being home in my parents house. Although my parents house is my late grandmothers house. They sold THEIR house in April and moved into my grandmothers house, in a beautiful village outside my hometown. I am always awestruck when I come back there. The air, the nature, the tranquility, the smell of the ocean, the beauty. It's just a perfect place, and when the sun shines, it gets even better. It is a place that makes me want to take walks. Im not much of a nature girl, although being Norwegian appearently is being a nature loving tree-hugger. Well, I'm not. Nature is nice, but I don't drop everything to go be with it. But in the village, called Ekkerøy, the freedom out there really does something to me. When I'm there, I get crazy thoughts in my head to move back home ... I don't wanna go live in the North with 10 months winter, and 2 months supposed summer.
It is beautiful to come back.

I thought coming home for the first time to a different place than my childhood home, was gonna be weird. I thought I was gonna miss OUR house. I drove past it once, saw new cars outside it, a new mailbox and other things. It felt weird, wrong. And right there and then, my childhood home was gone for me. I don't think I'll be passing by many more times. I won't be walking down the street I spent my childhood and youth. Home is where the heart is. Home is where my parents are. Home is that beautiful, little white house by the beach in Ekkerøy.

My grandparents who lived in the house























My friends posing in front of the mighty ocean.




 Life on my beach.

Wish I could have stayed a month. But that dream life is already a week of reality away....

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I am here.

And here.
And I sleep here. In this house. And in the top window I sit on the computer. And look out at the sea.

If you need your soul to be at peace, come to Ekkerøy.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

HOLIDAY!

I have HOLIDAY! 21 glorious days! Yay me.
The first real holiday day was today. Slept in, long breakfast, went to the banks to check if I can get a loan to buy an apartement (iiih), bought a new wall clock in the second hand shop, found a new (old) coffee table in the second hand shop I'd like to get, visited my very cute, sick nephew and gave him grapes, but he only wanted ice cream, made a nice dinner, tried to do some sensible house chores (tried!!), watched senseless realities, ate ice cream, watched Alice in Wonderland with lovely hubby, and now - geek time for both of us before bed. And another holiDAY containing nothing known so far apart from a meeting with a councelor in the bank (help).

From Friday on, I'll be on the road. To Oslo, Germany and my beloved hometown, mommy and daddy!


Uncle and nephew kicking the ball around. On the beach. Summer!!

Yey for HOLIDAY!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Our fridge

In our kitchen is a nice, big fridge. When (if) we move out and buy our own place, I'm gonna miss all the things that come with rented apartements...
I wanted to show off our fridge because: 1) There are alot of meaningful things on it and 2) I don't have anything sensible to blog about.
So there it is. Our fridge.




The newest addition to the fridge.



























The gym schedule. Not looking at it much these days...


Work schedule... One  more week before 3 weeks off!


A little inspiring piece of "art" made by moi, with pics from Kokrobite, of a friend and an old, drunk lady.







Yeah, I've got a new camera that can zoooom!




An artwork made by my nephew, sister and brother-in-law ♥

                            Valentine's card from Hubby when we were still separated by distance.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

help

What do you do when you realize you have made a fatal mistake? And correcting the mistake means ruining peoples lives and making mega-changes in your own?

Just wondering, really.

Should you correct the mistake to better your own life, or keep it "wrong" not to ruin others lives?

Friday, July 9, 2010

Adorable


This is what I get at MY job.

Just gotta love it.

The girl with the crown is me. I am a princess. I have big earrings and a scarf. And glasses of course.
I think my little cat is hiding in the right corner. But it might not be a cat. Never suggest what a 6 year old has drawn. You might end up seriously offending her. "It's not a CAT! Can't you see it's your boyfriend??" Ohhh, yeah, of course, now I see it.

Another portrait of me, still with a crown.

Two girls who are about to take a huge step into their future, by starting school, gave me these drawings the other day. *melt*

The text says: "In the kindergarten, you are the best."

But if I'm gonna pick on their writing skills, it really says: Selma from. In the kindergarten est you are the b. vildYng to.

But I'm not gonna pick on their writing skills. They are so smart and didnt have any help. They have just cracked the code of reading and writing.

I'm gonna miss these two creative, interesting, naughty, lovely girls!!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Sunday, July 4, 2010

The first time

One year ago, I did a lot of firsts.

First time I got my hair made into a faaaancy hairdo in a salon.
First time I had my make-up done by a professional.
First time I had fake fingernails.
First time I felt like the absolute most important person in the world.
First time I felt SO pretty.
First time I walked up the church aisle with my father.
First time I danced the first dance.

 First time I got married. And last.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

This time for Africa!

Football has never hurt before. Unless it was a ball kicked in my face or something.

Yesterday's Ghana-Uruguay match was torture. I have never put so much feeling into a game before. We all know how it went. I'm not a good Ghanaian loser as Maya and Kajsa are writing about. I keep picturing Gyan missing the penalty.

That poor guy. I hope he rises.

If it was Norway playing, I don't think it would have felt as bad. In my head it wasn't a football game alone. It was Africa getting on top. Africa getting an energy boost they needed. A joy the whole continent would share. Showing that Africa can do what everyone else can do. Africa deserved this.


But as my brother in law writes on facebook; We will be back in 2014.

We will try to forget the pain from yesterday. We are off to the "big city" to celebrate our wedding anniversary. After all, there are more important things in the world than football.

Monday, June 21, 2010

MidsummerWinter

Oh my Gooood, you guys don't know how badly we need the sun up here in the Central region of Norway. We have had a freezing winter, with long periods with temperatures below -25 degrees celcius. For days on end. Ice on the inside of the door and windows. Hair freezing on your head. Difficulty breathing. Humungous electricity bills. Downer number 1.


Spring finally came. The snow finally melted. And it started raining. It rained and rained and rained and it wasn't hot and it wasn't sunny and it was raining. I travelled to Oslo for a long weekend, hoping for sun. It rained in Oslo almost the whole time. Downer number 2.

The calendar passed June 1st. It IS summer when it is June. At least if you live South of the Polar Circle (which I do, but born North of it). Did anyone see the sun? Have you ever seen the rain? Yes. It rained, rained, rained. The stupid weather sites online kept telling me that "next week we will get summer temperatures", and each week that came and went, the summer stayed wisely away. The weather report said: Neeeext week. It rained. There was FLOOD in our region. The temperatures didn't even rise over 10 degrees. Everyday in the news: Summer has come to OSLO! Swimming in the SEA! Summer this, summer that, summer f.... it. Who cares? We are suffering. We are so weather sick. Living any other place than up North in Norway, Sweden or Finland, makes you unable to understand. We are about to throw ourselves in front of the next train that passes by, it's so depressing. All we want is a bit of SUN!! And not having to wear wool underwear in the end of June. Sun makes happy Norwegians.

I'm so sick of having to let the weather control my mood. But that is how it is to be Norwegian. Unfortunately.

Please SUN, can you visit us soon? And you are welcome to stay as long as you want.

The funniest thing is today is Midsummer, when the Sun turns, and it goes towards darker times and autumn. If the sun went and did a frigging parachute jump, we wouldn't have noticed. So sun, turn as much as you want, travel to Mars for all we care. We won't notice you are gone anyway. You were never here..

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Click!

I am far from an expert in photo editing. In fact I barely know anything about it. I'm dreaming of a big fancy camera, and using my Photoshop to create the most beautiful things. But I have a tiny compact camera, and I have NO idea how to use 99% of the tools in Photoshop. But I try to edit and sometimes I am happy with it.

I had a beautiful model last Sunday, a white background, a face full of expressions. And a crappy camera, and no skills in photography. I was disappointed to see my pictures, grey and grainy.

But a little editing here and there made them look a BIT brighter and nicer. Telling me that if I aquire more skills in editing (AND a big, fancy camera..), I can create nice things after all.



Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Hello, is there anYbody out there?

My readers, my readers, WHY have you forsaken me?

Am I too boring? Want a new topic? just a comment, how it would brighten my day! :-)

Or are you just all watching the World Cup? Go Black Stars...

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Bliss

Hi, guys. Did I tell you it was summer?

Yeah. It came on Wednesday, and left this morning.

Oh, did we enjoy while it lasted. This is my table on my veranda yesterday. Well, it is my landlord's veranda, and he who has bought the furniture for the veranda, bless his heart.

I read a book, listened to the radio, my skin got a liiiittle less bluewhite colour. I felt refreshed.

Summer is so lovely in a place where you really know how to appreciate it. When it comes in Norway, we ALL do all the summery things we can think of. If the temperature rises above 15 degrees, it's t-shirt, grilling, ice cream, sitting outside in cafees and bars... It's been a great last few days. Specially since my job involves spending time outside all day long, I get to enjoy the summer more than those working in offices, or just buildings in general. I work in a garden, at summer time. Hope for more summer next week. But today it's grey and rainy.


Happy feet!

Rain or sun, we are off to celebrate my birthday in advance with my mother who is visiting (but leaving before my real birthday). She wants to bake cake and celebrate the birth of her favorite daughter, so I gotta let her. Haha. And yeah, the pink roses are from my husband. In case you wondered...

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Look what I made!


    Making things REALLY make me happy!!

P.S. It is supposed to be a cosmetics bag

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Sunday, bloody Sunday

I really hate Sundays. Most of them, anyway. There are some nice ones in between, but usually they are not nice days in my book. I don't know why! In our house, my "Sunday mood" is an established notion. Hubby will ask: Are you in a Sunday mood?
Sunday mood is B-A-D news. On Sundays I just can't think of any fun thing to do. Norwegians use Sundays as a day to take walks, preferably into the bush, far away from civilization. At least, Sunday means outside day. For families. And disgustingly cute couples who walk hand in hand, enjoying a WALK, in the usually not so nice weather. Oh, how fun it is to walk around without a goal. I'm really a negative Norwegian.

I'm not really an outdoor person. That always make me feel like I don't fit in in Norway. Every thing that should be organized, should be outside. "oh, we can have the party outdoors, in the mountains, oh we can go hiking as a team building thing at work, oh, we can have the kids birthday party outside, skiing...etc". And the most shocking for me is when my colleagues at the kindergarten suggest that we should have the summer party outdoors in the garden of the kindergarten... in this wooden hut we have built. With a fireplace inside.
Come on, you guys?! We spend every single day outdoors! Hours on end we are outside, in rain, snow, wind, and occasionally, SUN. And we wear ugly mountaineer clothings. For once, we are gonna have a party, can't we do it indoors, where women can get to put on some nice clothing and make-up and do something we DON'T do everyday? And not freeze? Who says the weather will be nice? When we get home from the party, can the only smoke smell in our clothing be from somebody's sigarette, instead of from a fire outdoors..?
But hey, nobody understands me. I am weird and un-Norwegian! :-)

But the point was Sundays and how boring they make me. I really want to change my Sundays. But what can I do, in a little village, on a Sunday? I get antsy being in the house, but outdoors is of course not tempting me. I could do sensible things like cleaning and cooking and baking. But I don't get around to do it either. The Sunday Mood is a feeling of not wishing to do anything, yet thinking that what you ARE doing (which is nothing), is not what you WANT to be doing.

Ok, I am already regretting sharing this nonsense with you. Don't judge me. I'm not that lazy and boring... Suggestions for fun Sunday activities will be appreciated!

Have a lovely SUNDAY!!

Friday, May 28, 2010

sweet, fat balls of joy

Ye be di den?
Today I wanna talk about the greasy, sweet, soft, melt-in-your-mouth-crunchy-on-the-outside calorie bombs called .... (I'm on thin ice here) Boflot? Bofroot? What is it called? And what is it really made of?

Boflot is a lardy dumpling...made of flour, sugar and fat. Described in this blog it is a "deep fried ball of bread dough" with a little sugar added to it. They are sold from women and men's heads. They carry them around in boxes on their heads, while shrieking "boooooofrooot nieeee" (Boflot is here). Some more established sales women, just sit next to their coal pot, deep-frying the boflots, and selling them at the spot. And they have regular customers who know where to go. When I lived in Atimatim, Kumasi, there was a boflot lady down the road. She isn't there now. SAD.
When we lived in Tema com. 2, a young boy selling boflot came up to our floor one morning trying to sell us in the rooms boflot. Hubby bought from him that day, and since then, he came almost every morning knocking on our door asking if we were getting any. After a while he even knew our names. Unfortunately for us, the very close access to boflot got tempting, and more often than not we bought from him. Unhealthy? Oh yes.

But nothing can compare to biting into a fresh, warm, crisp boflot early in the morning....

*just a moment, AmaBroni is googling for pics of bofroot/boflot/whatever-ot*



These pictures of boflot in the making, and finished boflot resting on it's newspaper wrapping, I have stolen from a culinary blog full of Ghanaian food, called BetumiBlog, described as: BETUMI: The African Culinary Network (www.betumi.com) connects anyone who delights in African cuisine, foodways, and food history.

Want more food, check that blog out!
I'm working my way down my bottle of white wine that I won at my wonderful job, where I, by the way, have been offered a permanent contract - cos I'm so gooood. Yay me.


Happy weekend!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

life is a journey

I'm back. Although I have been back from our little trip for days, I am now back in bloggville. Should I continue the food stuff? Or anyone wanna suggest another topic? While you think hard about that, I'm gonna share some images from me and Hubby's journey southwards last weekend.
All my family members, on both my mother and my father's side have happened to settle down in the south of Norway. Not so strange since my father comes from the South. But my mother comes from the opposite side of the country, yet most of her cousins and other relatives has settled down south too. It all has to do with choice of spouses I guess. My mother has no siblings, my father has 2 sisters. Both sisters found husbands from the north and of course, my dad too found a northerner. Only my dad was successfully tricked to move to the high, cold, far away north. Since Norway is a long, long country that takes 3 days to cross by car, we don't go visit our aunt for a weekend or something very often. We rarely see each other. This trip had one major goal - to meet family.

After my dad's oldest sister died when I was in Ghana the last time, I decided to try to see my family more. I was able to get home to her funeral. All our family from my dad's side was there. It is so rare we are all together. It felt good, it felt like I belonged to a bigger, extended family. And that feeling I didn't get often when we lived up north, separated from most of our closest relatives. At our wedding last year, the feeling of family was revived yet again. It felt so incredibly good to know you have these people in your life who travel across the country to be there at your big day. And the amount of support and love they showed was just amazing. I yet against realized I need to keep in touch with my family as much as I can. So, this trip included visit at my aunt and uncle's, visit at my only female cousin (and my childhood heroine), and a lovely get together at my other cousin's house, where my other uncle and cousins also were.

Ok, enough sentimental stuff. Have a look.
























Looking at gigantic rock carving from ancient times. Where we were standing, in the middle of farm country,  used to be a beach before the ice age melted away and the land rose.





















A sign board at a fortress we visited - Fredriksten Fortress where the Norwegians were protecting themselves against the horrible Swedes. ;-)
In Oslo, I finally got to take a stroll on the new very white Opera House, that has a roof you can walk on. Cool.


 Then 17th of May arrived. The day some brave Norwegian men wrote down our constitution in 1814. It is celebrated this way: Holiday, everybody dresses up, millions of flags, kids parading, shouting hoorray, eating plenty of ice cream and hot dogs, having fun. It's all about the kids really. No military processions like other countries usually have. No display of power. Just kids and happy faces. It's nice. And in Oslo, it's very, very, very crowded!

 Can you spot us? Trying to move down the main street in Oslo. Tip: We are under the balloon.
 The Royal Palace in the background, where the King and Queen with family stand on the balcony each 17th of May and wave to the crowds.























Lovely lunch at my oldest cousin's house and then, sightseeing, still in our fanciest dress (and national costume) with uncle and cousin.