Ellen’s “congrats on a new home card”

Yet another card made. This was for Ellen. She’s resently moved to Oslo and moved into a rented apartment the 1st of May. Yesteday I visted her for the first time. Of course I needed to bring a housewarming gift. I bought a yellow and off-white stripy tea-cup and some fresh tea (ceylon breakfast tea).

The was happy about the gift and the card! When she’s happy, I’m happy.

When I was visitng her, we made dinner (mexican stue), chatted a lot, played some board game (the worst case senario game) and Yatzee. We also saw Pimp My Ride, which is an awesome show. The best MTV has to offer. That doesn’t really say much because MTV is mostly just crapy (realityshow and stupid lets-hurt-ourself-looking-stupid-and-laugh-at-it-later-showes!) Where’s the fucking music?! Why not change their name to DTV - Dumbass Television? 

We had a lovely evening. I went home around 21.15 ish with a plastic bag full of my own cd’s that Ellen had borrowed. On the subway home I read in Natt & Dag (night & day) - a free magazine.

Lovely saturday in the sun

Linda called me yesterday, right when I was on my way up. I slept long yesterday. She was in Oslo and wondered if we could meet up. She wanted to visit the new opera house. So did it.

So she came and we went downtown. First we went to the opera house. It was sunny and lovely weather. Lots of people visited the new opera house.

The opera will be a big tourist magnet this summer. It is such a great architecture-piece. It’s located by the harbour and it’s surrounded by the fjord. You can walk on the roof of the opera and that’s pretty cool.

Note to self! I have to go back to the opera house to take more pics. I think I can get some great pics. Look out for them on flickr!

After the opera, we walked around the city - eating icecream, enjoying the sun and visiting a few stores. I wasn’t supposed to buy anything… Ok. Ok. I confess. I did buy a few things. A new bathroom rug (on sale), part of a birthday gift for mum (also on sale) and a new scissor for my hair.

When I’m with Linda, it’s impossible to not spend any money. Sigh. Is it bad of me to almost lay the blame on Linda for my shopping? :p

On our ”tour” downtown we saw a parade for legalizing hash, a woman with way too little clothes on and a girl sitting in a stair just finished puking! *shakes head*

We ended the day in Oslo by eathing chicken and white bread at my place. We also ate chocolate-cake, looked at pictures and listened to Bruce and Robyn.

I went home to Lierfoss with Linda. We went straight out to visit Tonje at work (gas station) when we came home. Then we rented a movie (Varg Veum no. II) and saw that with Linda’s friend Ragnhild. The movie was good. Not as good as the last Varg Veum movie I saw with Ellen two weeks ago, but still ok. Just as you know it, the main characther is hot hot hot He’s a good actor too - it’s not just his looks.

Yet another new card

This card is for my friend Bjørg. She had her birthday yesterday. I haven’t been able to give it to her yet. I haven’t got a present either. I’m a little clueless on what to buy. A gift certificate is an easy solution, but I don’t know… it’s a bit boring. I’ll see what I’ll come with.

I’ll have another card to make too. Ellen is moving these days and I need a card that goes with the housewarming gift I’ve bought her. I’ll try to make the card today! Let’s hope I’m inspred!  

 

the Shining Hour

When I was something between 16 - 18 (my memory’s gone bad!) my sister introduced me to an american group called Grant Lee Buffalo. It didn’t take long before I was sold. Their second album Mighty Joe Moon took me by storm and is their best! Their first album Fuzzy is great too. I listened to those two albums a lot.

The band slip after two more releases - the last one in 98′ After that Grant Lee Phillips went solo. He’s released some nice albums on his own; Mobilize and Virginia Creepers are fine examples!

I never thought I would be able to see Grant Lee Phillips live. I never thought that opportunety would came, but I was wrong. Last night he played at Rockefeller. I was there!

Luckily I got a friend that likes Grant Lee too.  So Ellen and I went to see him last night. I also got the ticket cheeper than normal. Since I subscribe on Aftenposten (newspaper), I’ve got a discount card, I can use on different acitivities.  I saved 60 NOK on each ticket. Woot!

Ellen came to me ater work was done. We ate home-made mashed potatoes and weiners.  Not long a go I bought a new food-color and it was time to test it out.

This is how it came out. It looks more like mashed carrots or something. After dinner we shared a bottle of white wine. A riesling, which tasted ok, but nothing more. I’ve had better wines, but worse too.

We were at Rockefeller almost right in time before the support act started - Seven Doors Hotel. Norwegian band, but the singer was solo now. He played some songs, in sort of the same alley as Grant-Lee. He was ok. I’ll have to check out that band later some time.

Grant Lee was great! He song some new songs and lot of old ones. He even song some requested songs. Early in the show he said that if someone had a request, they shouldn’t be afriad to shout it out. It might happen that he would sing it. three song were requested and he sang them

The song that made me the most happy was my two fave songs Mighty Joe Moon & Fuzzy and Honey Don’t think, Jupiter and Teardrop, the Hook, Mockingbirds, Rock of Ages, Happiness, Lone Star Song and the Shining Hour.

I’ll live on this concert for a long time. Until my next one. Uhm… that won’t take long, cos I’m gonna see Kurt Nilsen next saturday with my Dutch Tulip Chantie

I was home around midnight. Then I ate some in front of the TV and fell alseep there. Only for a good 15 mins I think, but still… *shakes head*

Photo-contest

The county Council where I grew up has announced a photo-contest. The theme is natur and you can win money. 1st place 1000 NOK. 2nd place 500 NOK. Not a huge amount of money, but still… it’s some. The only rule is that the picture has to be taken within the counties border.

You can send in up to 5 pictures. Due date is 5th of June. The winner will be published in a magazine the County Council gives out. The county Council can use the winner picture to whatever they want in the future though… that’s the only downside, but hey - you win some, you lose some.

So, I’m gonna enter this contest. I don’t have any expectation of winning, but you never know.

Two years ago I entered a photo-contest in a national newspaper, Aftenposten. I didn’t win, but I got one picture in the newspaper and one in their online site I cut out the piece in the paper and it’s on my board in the hall. thihi.

I also saw another photo-contest at vegvesen.no I wanted to enter, but I was too late. Bah!

I’ll post the pics I will be sending in later when i’ve decided which ones. I have already one in my mind and the rest I think I have to shoot first Let’s hope the good weather stays until the weekend comes. I’ll be heading home tomorrow or saturday, so I’ll have sunday to go shoot.

Yay for sunny sundays with camera.

Another birthday card :)

This is the latest birthday card I’ve made. I sent it to a friend of min, Hedvig, that turned 30 on the 30th of March. I was of course a little late sending the card, but hey - at least she got it.

All the stuff I used on this card was bought in   Sweden when I was there during Easter. In Charlottenberg they have this big mall and I went to Panduro (a hobby store). They had some scrapbooking things and I just had to buy some stuff.

I like the card. It’s spring-ish with the green background and the light colors. It suits a birthday at the end of March

Next card I’m gonna make is for my friend Bjørg. Her birthday is at the end of this month. I don’t remember the exact day to be honest - I think it’s the 30th actually. I have to look it up later.

I still haven’t bought anything from website I told about (bikuben.com). They have so many things and I don’t know what I want right now. I could use a little bit of everything actually. hehe. The thing is that it is so many different colors that I think I might need to go in one direction color-wise. Maybe earthy colors or pastels… I dunno.

I think I have to go see that store - not online, but the actual store. Not sure when that will be. It’s only open until 17.00 on weekdays except thursdays when they’re open until 19.00. I could go a saturday but I’m busy this saturday and next. I’m busy next thursday too I think.  Oh well… I’m not that desperate. I can wait!

new cats and funny names

My sister called my parents yesterday. Dad put her on the speaker so everybody could hear. She and her boyfriend had been thinking. And my sister said there had to be some cats at home. My parents couldn’t have a home without any cats.

So she thought that they should get some new -and not just one, but two. And they should be male and brothers. Then they could play with each other and they wouldn’t fight that much.

My parents sort of agreed that it was a good idea. But they said they had to wait until they had had their summer vacation – which is a good plan.

And while my sister and Geir had been thinking, they had been doodling over names for the cats – funny names. Here are the ones I remember:

- Klabb and Babb
- Snipp and Snapp (the two squirrels from Walt Disney)
- Hokus and Pokus
- Tommy and Tiger’n (as in Calvin and Hobbes)

I’ve been thinking myself on names myself. If they’re going to have matching names / names that are related to each other my ideas are:

- Tor and Odin (from Northern mythology)
- Knoll and Tott (the Katzenjammer kids)
- Smitt og Smule (names of two hands from childrens TV when I was young)

If they were having one male and a female cat, I think these would be fun names:

- Adam and Eva
- Ask and Embla (Northern mythology) 

I will surly come up with other names too, but I can’t think of any right now.

Oh. As a last thing I’ll do regarding Pelle, is to write him an ode - like I’ve done with Kasper and Balder. He deserves an ode too. It will be hard since I’ve already written two and there is only so much to write about when it comes to the cats and words that rhymes.

Pelle <3

My dear cat Pelle died Saturday night – 13 years old.

My parents had seen he hadn’t been feeling well since Thursday. They found out he had pain in the back part of his body and it hurt when he jumped down from a chair onto the floor. He had trouble walking Friday morning, but he looked better when they came home from work in the evening.

Saturday morning he lay in bed with my parents – on my mum’s side. Mum didn’t mind. When they went shopping later that they he was nowhere to be found. They picked me up on their shopping round and I went home with them. We didn’t find him when we came home.

After I had visited my friend Linda, talked to her for a while, been in the kiosk and came back, dad had found him under a couch. We decided to call the vet, because now we saw he had peed blood. The vet back home were my parents live has a 24 hrs duty – you can call if there’s an emergency. We called and she said she could have a look at him.

So we went straight to the vet and she examined him with ultrasound among other things. She found out he had bladder that was full. It was a size as a tennis-ball. She drugged him down and had to empty the bladder. First she took out a lot using a needle. After some more drugs to make him more relaxed, Pelle peed naturally – the vet squeezed the bladder until it was almost empty. 

We got a special diet, a cure against worms and some cat sand. We were told to keep him inside so we could check out if he managed to pee by himself.

The vet stressed that this was serious and if it had infected his kidney it wouldn’t be any hope. But she didn’t say anything about his kidney after the ultra-sound and she were very optimistic.

We went home believing we had saved his life.

Pelle got placed on the bathroom floor where it was warm. He needed to lie on a warm place for a while. It would take up to three hours for him to wake up from the drugs. We all checked on him from time to time.

When the three hours was over, I could see he was trying to wake up. He “talked” a bit more and his paws were more active. I went to dad and we both went inside the bathroom. Mum was already asleep.

We looked at him for a short while.

“Pelle, you’ve been sleeping enough now” dad said. Not long after he stopped breathing. I nearly stopped breathing too. Dad and I looked at him, both very worried. Suddenly he got his breath back – but only for a few more seconds.

“Did Pelle just die?” dad said out in the air.
“Nooo” I said out loud. Then the tears set in.

I almost freaked out. I ran into mum’s bedroom without any clue on how to tell her Pelle had died. I didn’t want to use the words he’s dead. I cried and said his name. Mum didn’t understand anything and asked me to calm down.

“I think Pelle stopped breathing” I eventually managed to say to her.

Mum got up and we went into the bathroom again. Dad sat near Pelle and just looked at him. I placed myself on the toilet and sobbed.

This was not a part of the plan. He shouldn’t die. We had taken him to the vet and she had saved him – we thought. Then he stopped breathing three hours later.

It got too much for him. His little heart couldn’t take it.

We held a “funeral” for him yesterday. Dad even made a wooden coffin for him. Mum put some sheets in it and along with him, we placed four flowers inside the coffin. We all used to call him ‘King of Lierfoss’ (Lierfoss is the place were they live) and therefore he needed a proper funeral 

It’s weird that he’s not around. He’s been a part of our lives for 13 years.

b-day card, creativity and a potensial bonanza

I managed to finsih the b-day card for Linda yesterday. It was so much fun. This card is, if I may say it myself,  pretty

I also made a card for my uncle. He’s turning 60 someday soon. I have no idea when, because I’m not up to date on those birthdays. The thruth is, I don’t really care ;-p

I have fun when I can use my creativity. And makeing cards is a great way to do so. I could spend hours just making cards. I think, if I wasn’t working in the office I am, I could have a full time job making cards :)  i do already make cards for others than myself. Not much though - so far I’ve made three cards for my mum.

I had a look at bikuben.com today. It’s a online shop for scrapbooking things / things to can use to make b-day cards etc. They have a store at Strømmen too (15 mins by car from Oslo). Oh my! I looked around in that shop and I could easliy go crazy inside there. I found so many things I wanted.  I’m sure I could spend half my salery in there - easily.

I really, really, really want to take a trip to that store and have a look. But I’m afraid if I go there, I’ll be broke in no time. You want a little of this and a little of that and suddenly you got too much!

I did get my salery yesteday, but I’m not sure how things are actually. I need to sit down and do some calculations really. There are so many things I want and I’m not sure where to begin…

organized work

I had my annual talk with my boss two weeks ago.  We sit down and go through the last year; what has been bad and what has been good, what can be improved etc. There was a huge survey we had to fill out before the talk. Lots of questions to answer and not every one was easy to answer.

I was very nervous before this talk - as I always am. I do handle critisism well, my boss actually told me that, but I was still afraid - afraid that there would be things to critic.

The meeting went very well. We were on level about a lot of things and she didn’t have that much bad stuff to say. There were a few minor things, but it was things I was aware of. We both agreed on that I should make a daily  / weekly plan over what I’m supposed to do, so I get more structure on my workday. I’ve done that now and things feels better.

Right now I feel like I’m doing my job in a better way. I’m up to date on more things and today I actually did some document scanning which I normally hate.  I’ve set aside 20 mins a day from 12 o’clock just to scan, so I can get rid of that huge pile of paper that isn’t scanned yet. My desk was almost clean when I left the office and I felt good when I left the office.

I really hope this good vibe can stay with me. I usually have some really great days at work, but after a while I tend to fall back into bad habbits again. I really have to focus on keeping what I’ve got! If I can do that, things will be much better.

I’m gonna start tomorrow with telling myself to stay focused and take babysteps towards a better work-day. And then I’m going to reward myself with a piece of chocolate from the goodie-drawer