How to live slowly on a rainy day with thunder and lightning outside !

 

How I am spending this rainy day with thunder and lightning outside :

 

Staying long in my bed eating a nice breakfast and reading a good book.

 

Down loading a couple of movies for tonight.

 

Getting dressed with clothes I feel  and look good in.

 

Driving to the next town over to look in shops with interesting interior (not buying anything, only to get inspiration for my day dreams).

 

 

 

Bying myself a new tea, this time with carpiriniha taste, I am so looking forward to try it later tonight.

 

Bying a tall coffee to go and then driving home to  downloading favorite music I have heard this Summer.

 

 

Later on I will make home made pesto, have a look here.

 

 

 

When it gets darker outside I will lite som candles and enjoy myself.

 

 

 

Have a nice day!

 

My wrapping this year!

Here are how i wrap my presents this year. I hate wrapping presents, but I am quite satisfied with this years wrapping. I have used red silk ribbons, ribbons with "God Jul" (Merry Christmas) and red hemp. For tags have I used pictures with Christmas motives in a Old Fashion style bought at my local scrapping store, Bikuben.

Here are the results:

Girsl out on a shopping spree

Girsl out on a shopping spree tends to turne out quite expensive. I wrote in my last article about the "LBD" that I am not particular fond of shopping for clothes, but every once in a while when I am out  shopping with friends I think its fun. Last weekend I was going to Sweden to buy lactose free and low fat milk. I ended up buying three more items that was not planned that day.  When that is said, I have thought about buying them for a while and I can easily defend each purchase:

• My first purchase, a small umbrella. My other two are broken and I need a small one to carry around in my bag. It has to be small since I need to take it with me when I am out on town, so it has to fit in a small purse also. On this note I come to my second and most important purchase of the day....
• A clutch bag that is big enough to fit a small umbrella, a hair brush (I am so vain when it comes to my hair), my cell and a couple of other small items.
• The third purchase of the day was a shawl in a lovely dark pink with frills, I quote my friend "I didn't know that you had a little hippie inside you". Why I bought it is as simple as this, I need a vest this fall, so instead of a vest I will wear this beautiful shawl.

 Already last Saterday night  I had an opportunity to use my new clutch bag along with my "LBD", and I rocked the outfit with high black boots and some jewellery.

LBD - A little black dress

This week I finally became one of the many women around the world that has a LBD in their wardrobe, my search for this little piece of resistance has been long. I don't wear skirts or dresses to often but I like to dress up once in a while. For years the mantra that "every woman should own a simple, elegant black dress that can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion" has been luring on  my mind, but I have never stumbeld over one that I like and that was affordable until last week. I am not partically fond of shopping clothes, so if I find something  it just by good luck.
The origin to the little black dress dates back to the 1920s design of Coco Chanel who wanted to create a dress that would be long-lasting,versatile, affordable, accessible to the widest market possible and in a neutral color. The little black dress has for years been referred to as the "LBD". It is also said that if the dress is clearly part of a trend it is not counted as a "LBD", it has to be a dress that is classic and can survive for many years of fashion trends.
What I love about my "LBD" it that it is made of a fabric that dont wrinkel, so it is easy to put in a bag for a trip  or a long weekend and I can just pulled it out of the bag and give it a shake and it is ready to wear.

One of the most famous "LBD" was worn by actress Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I would like to dedicate this article to my good friend Anne, who has been my inspiration to become a mini fashionista . Love you Girl!

Is it Fall or is it a second Summer!

A couple of weeks ago my Mum took me around back at her house to show me what she had descovered a couple of days earlier. I thought it was some kind of exotic mushroom since it is Fall and she loves to go "hunting" for mushrooms in the surrounding woods, but no it was the wild strawberries that had started to bloom again with flowers and unripe berries.
Later that week I also heard on the radio that the chestnut threes was blooming for the second time this year.
This makes me wonder whats happening to our world, global warming and etc.

Something to think about!!!!

Handsome firemen and a "desperate" single Woman?

Today we were suprised by two very handsome firemen who came to my work claiming that the firealarm was set off. They came in a brand new yellow firetruck, I must admit that I like the old red ones better. When I went outside all the Ladies, my dear colleagues yelled, "Hi, Beatrice was it you that set of the firealam to get the handsome Firemen here"
I wonder what made them immediately think it was MY doing! True, I am single. True, I am on the look out for Mr. perfect, but really Ladies I am NOT that desperate that I have to set of a false fire alarm just to get a good look at two of Lørenskog hottest firemen! REALLY!

My August adventure! Pip - The Guniea Pig!

A few weeks ago I voluntered to "baby sit" Pip, the guniea pig. We have spent 6 days together now and I think we are starting to bond. I am more of a dog person than a cage animal person, but I think this is turning out well. Maybe after spending three weeks with Pip, the guniea pig, I might even consider one myself.
One of the things I like about Pip is that she smells like a clean stable and I do like spending time with horses and in a stable.

Pip enjoy her delicious treet, a cucumber.

Is she not just adorable!!

Where is the toilet brush????

I spent my last week of vacation this Summer in Stocholm with three friends. After getting up at dawn to catch a early flight to get in to Stockholm early for some seriouse exploring I had to use the bathroom at our hotel just after we checked in at Sheraton Stockholm. After doing number 2 I was in a serious need for a toilet brush to clean up after me, so my roomie on the trip could get out of there with a bill of clean health.
I thorougly search our bathroom and our friends bathroom, but there was no toilet brush to be found. As long as my knowlegde of Sheratons largest group of guests, The Americans. They do use the toilet, doing both number one and number two, so why are'nt the bathrooms equipt with toilet brushes?. Even the Youth hostels in Denmark equip their bath rooms with this necessery tool.

So my request of the Sheraton Hotels around the world is, please equip your bath rooms with toilet brushes!!!

Thank you!

I am never getting to old to get gifts!!

Sometimes when my Mum or my Aunt have been traveling they bring me small gifts, they have always done that and I think that I will never get to old to love suprise gifts like that.

Last week my Mum came back from her trip in the Norwegian mountains to watch the farmers letting their horses out grazing in the mountains for the Summer season and she brought with her a suprise for me.

The suprise consisted of a nice tea cup in a unusual shape ( which I loved) that fits perfectly in to my hand, a tea strainer with a little dark blue tea kettle with stars and moons in gold on it, it is sooo cute and a couple of bags of tea. One with lemon tea and one with Aunties green tea.

Strawberries, one of my Summer favorites

Every Summer since I was two years old running and around in my Grand Parents strawberry fields I have been waiting for the strawberry season to begin. I like my strawberries dark red and sweet with no cream or sugar on them. I am told that that's was how my Dad liked his strawberries to. He died when I was 6 months old, so it is nice to know that we have some things in common.

I also love the sweet taste of wild strawberries, but they are so tiny to pick and they are gone in a second or two.





Strawberries from my Mum's strawberry field.

 





Wild strawberries carefully picked with much love and care by my Mum. The greatest Mum of all!



My favorite Summer dress, worn while eating the sweet and delicious strawberries above!





How to get the mail out in the Summer time!

I got a good laugh the other day looking out of my window. Here is the mean of transportation the Summer postman (boy) gets around in. I guess that a lot of the teenagers that delivers the mail in the Summer time are under 18 and don't have their license yet.
 I kind of like this little quirky little motor scooter.

Have a great Summer!

A cute little basket with flowers

I work at a day care center and today we had a "Summer Party" with BBQ. Four of our oldest children are starting school this fall and today we made our goodbyes and farewells. All the four children got a album with photos of them self during their time with us and drawings and other artistic creations they have made.
There is also a tradition that the parents of these children buys a little gift to us "adults" and today I want to share the cute little basket with flowers we got.

Thanks to our wonderful four children that are leaving us this Summer, We will miss you guys a lot.

Fat reduced cocoa for baking and drinking

One of my greatest losses when I had to change my diet not to be able to eat my delicious and sinful brownies. I have tried to make a fat free or fat reduced brownies, but I have not manage to find a recepie that has satisfied my tastebuds, I guess they won't be perfect without butter. But I will not give it up yet.

In the mean time I am trying out different types of cocoa so I can try to make a satisfying chocolate cake.

Fie who is the writer of Flo's Diner  (in Danish) a great blogg with fat redused recepies and other fun topics and Mother of a beautiful girl who is diagnosed with VLCADD who is on a diet much like mine. She also makes a lot of fat redused cakes such as I. She wrote about this fat reduced cocoa that she buys in Denmark. I happens to be so lucky that one of my colleauge is Danish and she goes to Denmark all the time, so at Easter I gave her a shopping list to buy for me. She came back with two glasses of baking cocoa and two of cocoa for drinking, since I had not made a note specifing what kind of cocoa I wanted.
There is only 12% of cocoa fat and that is half of the amount of fat in the cocoa I can buy in Norway. This is a great discovery for me, so either I have to fly down to Denmark with a couple of good girlfriends and have a Girls weekend in Cophenhagen soon  and hoarding cocoa or get Jonna to buy me a big suply next time she goes south to Denmark so I can fill up my pantry.

I do live in the wrong contrie to be on a fat free diet, both my neigbouring contries Sweden and Denmark has more products that are fat redused/free than Norway. That sucks.

Canada Dry, ginger ale in "Norwegian"

Ginger Ale has been a childhood memorie from my Summers in New York. My favorite brand has always been Canada Dry. I don't know why,but Schweppes don't taste as good. I almost gave a shriek of joy when I the other day discovered that Canada Dry had come to Norway and I could not leave the supermarked without buying a couple of cans. I was really exited if this would taste as wonderful as when in New York, most food or drinks do not taste as good when it is removed from it natural habitat. However this ginger ale did'nt taste to far off it's original taste.

While taking a big longed after sip I noticed that this can can be recycled in Norway, it says "kun for Norge" (in Norway Only). I thought that was kind of funny. It turnes out that some of the rules and regulations of the Norwegian Goverment is that beverage cans and bottles that are imported into Norway has to be recycled in Norway.

What kind of goose am I.........?

 Last year  the ladies I work closest with started a tradition, several times a year we arrange dinner parties that we rotate to host. We have so much fun at this parties and on Friday we started talking about what kind of animals we are, one of my colleagues is born with a huge imagination and she has a free spirit. She is also a great actress and improviser. She makes the most hysterical accents and play a lot of different characters. So we had many great laughs when she started to give us different animal characters. She managed to give my collegues several animal characters they could be, but she had some trouble giving me an aminal that fit me.

After some hard thinking she decided that I must be a goose.

 I am not sure which charcter marks I have that makes me a goose, but it must be the funny waddling walk I get when my muscles are tired and I use my hips to lift  my feet. This walk is a part of who I am so I don't think that is a negativ character mark, but I would much rater be compared to the fairy tale character "Mother Goose" whose origin have been under much discussion over the years, here are three of the stories I like to be associated with:

• A Bostonian Mother of 16 and a Grandmother who used to sing songs and ditties to her grandchildren all day , and other children swarmed to listen to.
• A Queen of France many years ago that according to French legeds made incredible tales that enraptured childen.

or this romantic image

• An elderly country woman in a tall hat and shawl, a costume identical to the peasant costume worn in Wales in the early 20th century, but is sometimes depicted as a goose wearing a bonnet.

Some of the animal charactes that was given away on Friday was a badger,  a bear, a gorilla, a cat and a dog. 

A perfect recepie on how to get out of the blues !!!!!

This music video by Kenney Chesney  get's me right out of the blues I am feeling about a boy. Who would not get in a happy mood watching white beaches, crystal clear water and good looking, half naked and sun tanned men. I am in such a better mood after watching this video. It also helps to have so many good friends that are sweet talking me out of the blues !!!!

My very own olive tree, almost like in Seillans,Provance

I have been in love with the silver greeen olive trees since I went with my Aunt on a search for a old stone house with a small garden and a olive tree in Provance for more than 13 years ago. We did found our dream house in a lovely medival village. At the bottom of our village, Seillans there is a beautiful olive grove and there is nothing as beautiful as a olive grove in the early morning sun with last nights dew glittering in the sun light. I have wanted a olive tree in my living room for over a year now since I redecorated last Easter. I thought that the silver green leaves would work wonderful next to my new wall paper.

A couple of days ago one of my colleagues talked about her trip to IKEA to buy olive trees for her and her two children. She offered to stop by on her way home from work that day to see if they had some left, and they did. The very next day I was the proud owner of my first olive tree.

 It is not a Provance style olive grove, but I think it looks wonderful in my living room next to my modern wall paper.

A beautiful estate in our village

The olive grove in Seillans