Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a girl who blogged. She thought it was fun to blog. She used to have long and funny and weird stories from an amazing country where everything was upside down. She could write a whole page just about a taxi ride or a trip to the market. She could blog about something as mundane as dinner or what dress to wear to church. She could blog about funny misunderstandings, frustrating things that could drive her to tears, or joyful things that made her heart dance.

She could always find something cool to take a picture of and blog around it.
She got comments on her blog. People said that she was good at writing, she wrote interesting, funny stories. People complimented her. It gave her motivation and she blogged more.

Then, she went back to the country she really belongs in. The blogging slowed down. Life became SO normal. The things that happened around her didn't catch her attention. Nothing stood out in the crowd of ordinary days. She needed blog projects to even get something down on "paper". Projects that forced her to blog every day. After a few projects, even less motivation. She came to a point where she only blogged once a month or so. Her comments disappeared, obviously. Less motivation.

She doesn't want to stop. She doesn't want to delete the blog. The blog has been her companion through some of the most crazy years of her life. It has travelled far and wide with her. Giving up the blog is like leaving a part of her life behind. She will not delete it. But will she write more? How? About what? How can she learn to be amazed and inspired by the tiny little things that happen in her every day normal life in this NORMAL (for her) country? Writing was one of the things she "HAS". Something she likes, and feels she is good at. She doesn't want to lose it. Sometimes she wishes she could make her living from something like that. She has to start blogging again, about the mundane things.

Maybe it's time? Maybe it's all the other things she has to get done throughout a day? Be an employee? Be a wife? Exercise? Clean the house? Knit baby clothes for a baby not yet concieved? Watch TV? Facebook? Watch her life pass by, without blogging? What is it?


I want to get my blogging mojo back.

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...

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. :-)

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!

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 :-)

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!

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
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The world's cutest boy helping auntie bake!





Have a good weekend!