Zest for Life

A status at the beginning of a new year

2012-01-01T21:36:00.000+01:00

Actually I didn't feel like writing this kind of post. And it won't be a cavalcade of all my blog-achievements, because they have been few and far between.

But I did feel like saying goodbye to 2011, that has been a year like most years are - a colorful quilt with a pattern diverging from the one I had expected.

Of course, many things were like planned and expected. I didn't switch jobs, husbands or houses ind 2011. I didn't get into wild projects or new hobbies.

It's been a busy year, but that was expected too. Job wise I've been extremely busy at times, and it's been fun and hard at the same time. I've been keeping the number of overtime-hours down as much as I could, because I don't want to work 20 extra hours a week. 20 hours a month must be plenty - I believe it is a lot about priorities, skipping redundant meetings and activities, and that kind of thing. If you do that, you can get a lot done without toiling like a Maersk-suit.

When I look back at 2011 I think about being tired. Mostly because I've gotten up early many mornings to put down my overtime there. My dear husband have not had much pleasure out of my company at night, because many an evening news have shone its blue light on my snoozing face on the couch.

At the end of the year I was a bit betrayed by my body. Perhaps I have neglected it a little, because even though I've struggled to keep workout and running going, it's not been a great exercise year. Anyway in december my doctor stated that my blood pressure was to the high side.

You could have heard my jaw hitting my knee with a slap, because I had NOT seen that coming. I am usually quite smug when I talk about my super low blood pressure (normally at 120/70), and a measurement quite a bit over that is a bit of a slap on the face.

I didn't get pills, because the doctor and I agreed to wait a month and do a series of measures again over a weekend. Until then I plan to be good and treat myself better with food and exercise, and if that does not work out, I will probably have to go on meds.

When it comes to love, 2011 has been a fine year. My Bruno and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in november, and I still start every day relishing the fact that I am sharing my life with just him.

But we are getting older. In 2011 my kids are 15, 18 and 24 (!!) years old, and my siblings are ranging from 51 (my gorgeous young big sister) to 54 (my distinguished oldest brother). I am the only one of us who yet has to find a gray hair (I keep my hair dresser checking!).

My mother just turned 78, and that is quite the age.

An odd thing has happened this year. Print on milk cartons, rice bags and in books has gotten smaller and smudgier lately. That is why I have been seen balancing cheap glasses on the tip of my nose (eyeglasses, that is - don't get any outlandish ideas), trying to counter this strange tendency. I will consider a proper pair of prescription glasses in 2012, but so far I am in denial. And I guarantee, that as soon as possible I will rush to my local eye clinic and have them fix my near- and farsightedness!

So goodbye 2011. I am not quite sure if I learned to like you, but now you are over. You go where used up years go to die, and I enter 2012 - a little aloof, but still trusting, because 2012 is just a more beautiful number than 2011.

Happy new year. If you've made it all the way down here, I greet you. I wish for myself and for all others, that we may have the strength and the perspective to make the right choises that will make 2012 a great year for us.

Over and out.

Darwins danish inspiration

2011-12-30T20:17:00.002+01:00

Until earlier this year, I didn't know that a danish scientist actually participated a lot in the creation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. I became aware only when I listened to a very interesting radio program about scientific development through time.

It seems at first, there were these bishops who honestly tried to contribute to the scientific pool of knowledge. They were trying to put an age on the earth, and based their theory on the number of generations in the Old Testament. On this basis they believed that they were able to estimate the earth's creation to have happened 4004 years BC.

It was a nice try - the error was of course that their starting point was completely wrong, as the Bible is not exactly scientific record material.

It wasn't until much later that more serious bids on the earth's age came about, and today we know quite precisely (within one million years :D) that the earth is 4,567,000.000 years old. That is quite a bit, but his bishop Usher was onto something - - it was a number starting with "4"!

The really fun part of the program, however, was the story of Nicolas Steno - or Niels Steensen, as he was called in Danish. He was from Copenhagen, and he was born in 1638. Steno wanted to be a scientist, so he studied medicine, to be a doctor. It turned out not to be quite what he had imagined - a little too much "barber" and not enough science.

So Steno swapped to anatomy, where he actually made a really good name for himself - among other things by noting that the heart is a muscle. He became recognized enough that he toured Europe, and on his way he revised the contemporary view of how the brain works.

At some point an Italian duke - one of the Medici - noticed him. He sent Steno a shark's head to Steno, so he could study the shark's teeth, that were oddly similar to little rocks that were found in the mountains - and by this, Steno's road to the science of geology had started.

Steno began to wonder why fossils of sea creatures that were found far from the nearest coast, and it led him to the conclusion that the earth was not just a static thing, standing as it were created by god, but that it is undertaking constant change.

By this, he was skirting a dangerous edge - at that time the priests of the Inquisition had a sharp lookout for scientists challenging what was written in their sacred books.

But through diplomacy and probably also because he was a sincere Catholic, he succeeded to avoid a sudden loss of his head.

Steno published several scientific writings during the course of his career, and actually his methods were to be the foundation of modern geology. Charles Lyell, who published Pricipia (Principles of Geology) actually wrote in his introduction that his theories rested on Steno's principles. And Charles Lyell happened to be one of Darwin's major inspirations, as well as friend and mentor.

The fact that Steno is not better known today, is first and foremost that he was not an Englishman. His religiosity made him an outcast - in Denmark because he had converted to Catholicism, and further south because he originally was Lutheran.

The man did not let his religious background stand in the way of his science, however, for he believed that when science and the Bible did not match, it was because the Bible was interpreted incorrectly:) - a relatively healthy starting point if you ask me.

Some people actually claim that his contributions to modern science was on a par with Newton - and that it is quite unfair that his legacy is not greater.

Regardless, I think it's beyond cool that we in Denmark have a scientist on record, who helped to form an important basis for Darwin's theory of evolution - albeit in a roundabout way:)

Selective body memory

2011-12-30T14:14:00.001+01:00

Today I ran by the beach, and I noticed that the water was very still.

Actually I think the few creases on the mirror-like water surface was caused by the heavy tread and almost as heavy breathing that came with a certain runner.

That got me thinking.

I've often heard the claim that your body remembers. It's got a memory containing what you and others have done to it. It sounds a bit new age to me - no clue whether it is just woo, or if it's been scientifically proven.

Anyway - I wonder why my body finds it much easier to remember how overweight I was 10 years ago (and why it insists on trying to ease back up on that weight) than remembering the half marathon I ran 2,5 years ago - and all the lovely hours of training that came with that? Bad body!!

However I will try to keep in mind the great feeling I had in my body after today's run, as I undressed to shower. It might make it easier to get my butt out there, working those running shoes.

My heathen christmas

2011-12-15T16:47:00.001+01:00

I like christmas, even if I am not a christian.

There is so much to like!

Candles spread all over my house, lighting the dark days (about 6 hours of daylight at the moment)
The electric lights in the bushes outside, that makes the dusk at 3 in the afternoon easier to bear.
The delicious cookies, and cozy get togethers with friends.
Good, homemade glögg, both the white and the red variety.
Oatmeal candies - home made.
My family getting together, eating, talking, playing boardgames.
Days off from work - peace and quiet.

I think it is a lovely, cozy season, even though I could easily do without the christmas gift craze. I think it's difficult to think of good wishes, and I know astoundingly many people that feel the same way.

Our christmas eve is quite ordinary, with a christmas tree and carols. We obviously don't go to church, and we don't say prayers at the table or read the Christmas Gospel. We still sing the christmas songs and hymns - many of them are beautiful, and remind me of the family christmas of my childhood. I love to sing, and the old traditional hymns are nice to share with your family.

One of the really good things about christmas is, that this is the solstice - the days stop getting shorter, and start lengthening. When I light up my calendar candle and my advent candlestick, that is really what I am counting down for. Originally christmas was a heathen fest of the light, and I think it is so much worth celebrating that darkness starts to let go and the days just get longer and longer.
I can't wait for the light to come back into the days - but in the meantime I'll try to light up the darkness around me.

On sexual harassment and good judgment

2011-11-25T14:05:00.001+01:00

This week one of the big stories going around in the danish media has been of sexual harassment.

Appearantly one our new ministers got himself in a spot of trouble last christmas. At a christmas party, he said to a newly divorced female secretary: "So, are you going to get yourself a new man anytime soon?"

Whether it's sexual harassment is difficult to say when it's taken out of context. I don't know how well he knew this lady, or whether they had the kind of tone where something like that would be a normal, jokingly thing to say. I don't know whether he said it with a kind smile, or leaning over her and breathing booze in her face, while caressing her knee.

Either way, I think it's an unsensitive and hurtful and stupid comment, and it seems the lady in question felt the same way. She filed an official complaint and her union took out a sexual harassment case, that ended up in a settlement.

I could write about what this kind of behaviour, whether its lewd or just rude, speaks of that specific ministers sense of judgement, and his suitability for leading a ministry, but I won't.

Because what really surprised me was how the online media commenters reacted to this case: They were lining up to defend this man, and simultaneously putting down the secretary, commenting how "she was too delicate and prissy" and that "perhaps she should not have gone to the christmas party."

Whoa, wait up a minute.

So, if I as a female, go to a company party, that I have been specifically invited to, I thereby send out an invite for any drunken co-worker of the opposite sex to breathe booze-stinking lewdities in my ear whilst fondling my thigh??

Hell, no! Nobody feels me up without being invited - and just coming to the party is NOT an invitation - not even if I dress up in something more sexy than a burqua, wear perfume and heels!!

The scenario gets even worse, if the breather-slash-fondler is your superior (work wise, that is). It can be a tad more difficult to administer a hearty shove to the guy that is in charge of setting you up for raises and promotions. You might be more inclined to try settling things quietly, and thus you might get your borders invaded even further.
What kind of a boss puts their people in that kind of situation??

My guys at work can certainly rest assured that I will NOT squeeze their bottoms or do a lapdance on top of them, when we attend this years christmas party. And I am not even a big shot boss, just a small time project manager.

And if the commenters mentioned above reflect the general culture, a damn boring old bird.

Me and the US of A....

2011-10-25T22:25:00.003+02:00

Stuff I love about USA (in random order):

how nice, helpful and service minded people are.
italian sausage on pizza.
hell - italian sausage on ANYTHING!!
shopping ... stuff is so CHEAP! (If you see the economy going up in october, that was me).
the absolutely stunning beauty of New England
how you can order anything at a restaurant (like, if you want your burger without a bun or with two buns, or with whipped cream ... anything goes, I think!)
the style of houses - be it the pretty wooden houses or the amazing glass towers.
the diversity of the culture, and how everybody knows where their family is descended from.
breakfast. You gotta love pancakes with syrup and all the eggs ... and oh, the wonder of breakfast sausages!!
starbucks. Because they serve proper coffee ;)

Stuff I wonder about USA (also in random order):

why they serve dark brown water and call it coffee?
why you have to pay tips - why don't they just pay people a proper wage?
the sizes of helpings in restaurants. No way I could ever eat that much. And I have the appetite of a lumberjack.
why so many people that claim to be christian bitch so much because they have to chip in when people of no financial means get ill...
when the otherwise nice lady at the diner goes into a rant about the stupid mexicans and the lazy black folks Ö
why an advanced country has to put chlorine in their drinking water, even out of the big city (yuck - smells nasty and tastes bad!)
no rugbrød ... that IS a major error!
why people riding bikes all have their seats placed so low. It looks really funny, but must be quite uncomfortable?
breakfast. I'd get HUGELY FAT if I had that kind of delish stuff available all the time!

On running and the shape of running shirts

2011-10-08T17:13:00.000+02:00

I've taken up running again - again.

After I ran into (pun intended) an injury shortly after my first and so far only half marathon a couple of years ago, I've tried starting up several times, but never with much luck.

Recently, I decided to give it a shot and started up very gently. I found a beginners program, looked at it and immediately jumped to week 4 (there's gotta be a limit to HOW gently you can start up!).

Now I am almost done with week 7, and it is going really well! When I started running last winter, I never got out of the very short street I live on, before I felt the existence of my right back thigh. This time, I haven't felt it once (and I know my thigh is there ;).

So I am happily running along, and to encourage myself, I've purchased a bit of running gear - a couple of extra of the below-knee tights I fancy, and a slightly used (2 or 3 times) Nike running jacket that used to belong to my neighbor. We had a big yard sale recently, and this guy owns a sporting good store, so I thought I'd rummage through his stuff :)

I love the jacket! It's really nice (was expensive to begin with, I think) and I am sure it will be in every single wash for the rest of the long sleeve season.

Thing is, my neighbor is a guy.

I've tried buying running gear for women. The tights are okay, but jackets and shirts just don't fit me. I am not petite, but not grossly fat, but I have broad shoulders, and women just aren't supposed to be made like that.
So a men's size small or medium fits me way better than any women's size. The men's shirts are long enough, wide enough in the shoulders and chest, and they don't flap in all the wrong places. I've learned, but now I am stuck with all the freebies I got at women's races I've been to.

I guess I just don't have a typical feminine body shape. Nevertheless, I've lived 45 years and never had anyone run screaming out of a room when I entered. I've even managed getting married and having kids :-)

So perhaps it's not as bad as all that.

The ninja blogger up for adoption

2011-09-19T18:32:00.001+02:00

As bloggers go, I've been quiet like a ninja.

I don't run around looking really mystical and killing people with unlikely objects, so I am probably not really a ninja. Actually I am big, blonde and noisy - whoever saw a ninja like that??

So you might wonder what I've been up to since I came back from my vacation. Except for working my butt off.

Well, for one thing, Bruno and I have fine-planned our trip to the US - coming up soon.
We will be visiting Roberta in Connecticut, and of course we will spend a couple of days in NYC. But we are also going to go see Niagara Falls.

Not just because I really like big waterfalls. I can't tell you if I do, because I've never seen one. Something happened, though, that made me really want to go see this one in particular.

I've adopted myself a father.

I had a great one - but he passed away in 1999, much too young - at 69 years. I've missed him, and I guess I have missed having some kind of father figure.

Frequently, I can be found present (in my online form) at a discussion forum - I've hung around there for over a year, and met some really nice people. One of them was Victor - a very smart canadian guy, 70 years young. In a thread a while ago, we got to talking about me not having a dad, and him not having any daughters. So I adopted him.

In jest, really - but we started exchanging private messages and later emails. Finding out we really like each other, we've made the adoption final :) not legitimate, but true in some sense anyway. And with Vic and his wife Pat living just a few hours north of Niagara Falls, we decided to meet up there.
So we are meeting my adopted dad and his wife for a day or so, and I really look forward to it.

Long ago, Roberta and I declared ourselves sisters. So of course, Vic had to take Roberta as part of the deal ;) A little online family, if you like. To tell you the truth, I am sure he is delighted - she is a lovely lady.

I can't wait for our trip to the US. It means a lot to me that Bruno finally get to meet with my dear Roberta and her Mike - and I am really excited to meet Vic and his wife in real life.

The internet really is an amazing thing, isn't it??

End of vacation - what do I do??

2011-08-06T12:37:00.002+02:00

In just a bit, I've spent all of my 3 weeks of summer vacation.

It's been good! One week in Austria, with mixed weather, but singularly beautiful surroundings, and in the lovely company of my two youngest and my better half.

We hiked, went swimming, shopped, drove around, and had the meanest wars of card- and other games.

Then we came back home, and after a couple of days doing the laundry, it stopped raining - and the weather was nice, warm danish summer weather. So it was time for caipirinhas in the garden and all sorts of food on the BBQ.

This last week we had my mom visiting a couple of days. Good times - just mentioning our trip to the local english pub (only for adult ladies) with czech beer and pub food for lunch!

Yesterday we wrung out every bit we could of our last official day of vacation! Bruno, Andreas and I were in Vejle to watch a stage of Tour of Denmark, the biggest pro cycling event in this country.

We found ourselves a spot on the worst up-grade hill, where we actually had a chance to have time to see who was coming by us :) It was great fun!

On top of that tough afternoon, we decided to let Katia be in charge of our dinner. It was - as always - a lovely pasta experience, and we went home delightfully filled up. We love Katia's pastas - the tough bit is choosing which one to have :)

Today is saturday, and officially no more vacation - - only weekend :-(

Andreas has caught a train and is on his way to Aalborg, so in a bit I will strip the sheets of the bed in the guest room and let it go back into hibernation, until the next time we have overnight visitors.

I want to clear my laundry basket, iron the stuff that needs ironing, and try to mentally prepare myself for going back to work again.

Now I've been lounging around with no shoes and makeup for great parts of the past 3 weeks, and my hair has only been washed, never styled for weeks. Can I even figure out how to put on proper clothes again? Will I be able to find my lashes with my mascara (well ... I guess ... I did do a test run yesterday)? Can I figure out how to be a professional, plan and estimate, find my way around the tasks waiting for me?

Have the boys been snoozing their days away, leaving a disaster for me to come back to? Have there been any problems, that we didn't see coming?

Can I handle a full day of work without a break of 10 minutes, lying in a couch with a book? Will my eyes even open before 8.30 in the morning??

....well, I will probably manage, even if it seems a bit unclear right now. And actually, I am looking forward to it. It will be nice to see my co-workers again, and even the drive to Silkeborg I look forward to - my oasis in time with a sound book and coffee driving up the middle of Jutland.

Right now I have half a saturday and a whole sunday, where I am just enjoying that it is summer, and that I am really not sad at all about going back to work on monday morning.

Even though I COULD have used a few more days of vacation.

Summer is finally here!

2011-07-31T22:29:00.002+02:00

All in all, it's been an awful summer, if you look at the danish weather.

Rainy - cloudy - cold.

It was like that in the first week of our vacation, but fortunately we were in Kärnten, Austria, and even though we didn't have mediterranean temps there, we did have mostly good weather.

Kärnten is absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous. We lived in Rosental, not too far from Villach, in a spacey, comfortable holiday apartment that we rented from an austrian lady, Sonja. It used to be her dads house, and he built everything there. He died a few years ago, though, and now it's been turned into a place people like us can stay :) You have the valley to one side of the house, and the mountains on the other - and when you walk just 5 minutes uphill, you hit a hiking trail that will take you up on the mountain.

We speak a bit of german - and the austrians like that. Actually, once you've said a few sentences in german, they decide you are fluent, and they chatter like there was not going to be tomorrow. If you've ever heard austrians - particularly from the south - speak german, you'll know that the accent differs A LOT from regular german. So we were straining our ears trying to get what people were trying to say to us :)

I've decided to work on my german, as a result of this trip. So I bought a crime novel (by american writer Karin Slaughter, actually) in german, that I plan on reading when I finish the book I am reading right now. I'll keep my dictionary close at hand, but if I manage to finish and understand the german book, I'll get my hands on more of them. In my experience, that is probably one of the best ways to keep updated in a language you've allready learned.

I have most of my vocabulary in english from reading novels, news stories, blogs and bunches of other stuff in english. So I have great hopes for improving my german this way.

Well, we came back to Denmark after a week in Austria, and it was RAINING and RAINING ... but only for a few days. Then it cleared up, got warmer - and now we are enjoying a spot of wonderful, warm summer. It is supposed to stay nice all of next week, and that is what remains of our vacation.

This will probably be bad for the work we won't be doing on our room with the bay window - the one we are restoring - but hey! You have to be out to enjoy the weather!

Another full week of spare time, summer and the company of those I love - life is good!

Counting down

2011-07-10T18:19:00.002+02:00

I can feel my body and mind counting down for vacation! On friday, my vacation starts.

3 weeks - I look forward to it every single year. Much as I like my job, I really dote on my summer vacation.

This year part of it will be spent in Austria - in a province called Kärnden. My husband, myself and the two "little ones" (15 and 18 years old) will be going there to hike in the gorgeous landscape. Meanwhile, Andreas - my oldest (24) is coming home to mind the house.

The rest of the vacation we'll just enjoy not having to do anything :)

At the moment, I put in extra hours every week. I am momentarily stationed in Silkeborg, a drive of an hour and 15 minutes each way. So many mornings, I get up early in order to be there at 8. I drive in the wee hours of the morning with my sound books, my coffee and my cheese sandwich, through pretty morning landscapes, and I return again in the afternoon. Most days I am home around the same time I normally would.

But I still feel the extra hours, and the extra tension it gives to know we have a huge task to accomplish before next fall.

We are converting a big bank into our system complex, and a lot of functions need to be added to our existing systems before that can happen. That is what my team and I do. And I am acutely aware of each week that passes.

But when I go off on vacation, I will cleanse my mind of any thoughts of work. I will enjoy spending time with my family, I will take time to read books, sleep late and just generally enjoy myself.

I will recharge my batteries, and be ready for the hustle and bustle when I return.

I am counting down!

On being happy as a clam

2011-06-11T21:50:00.003+02:00

A while ago I got a phone call from a blogger, that I've been exchanging comments with, and sometimes had one-on-one contact with online for a number of years.

The call was a nice surprise, because she is a lovely lady, with lots of interesting angles on life.

She was, it turned out, a bit worried about me, because I blog more rarely, and when I do, it seemed too rosy - could I really be that happy, and could things be that all-round-good in my neck of the woods?

I thought about it for a long time, and since then I wondered - am I really as happy as my blog postulates?

The answer turns out to be - yes, I am. My life actually is devoid of great sorrows and relatively free of weltschmertz.

I am in a relationship with a man, that manages to make me happy morning, noon and night. Even when he is not here, it makes me amazingly happy to imagine his face and think that he will come back home to spend his life with me in a little bit.

Our life together is happy, giving and receiving and completely uncomplicated. In the 10+ years we've lived together, we've probably had 2 fights. We don't always agree, but we embrace each others person with love, and we find solutions to our differences.

My kids have grown up to be lovely adolescents and adults. Bruno and I have 5 children all together (3 of them mine), and when you have kids, you have worries - but not the kind that keeps me up at night. These days even my relationships to the father of my children is tranquil, friendly and cooperative.

When it comes to my extended family, I can't find any problems either. Our parents are aging - all in their 70'es, and disease and age do cause worries - that is not to be avoided. But still, harmony is dominant. My mother is an agile and sharp-headed lady of 77, and my mother-in-law is one of the toughest, most fun and positive people I know, in spite of my father-in-law's illness - he has a bad case of smokers lungs, which is known to be quite debilitating.

At work I thrive with what I do. And I sincerely like and care about my nearest colleagues - the guys in my team. They are nice, fun and professionally able people, that clearly don't mind going the extra mile, and we have a good time while getting the job done.

I live in a lovely house, that my husband and I picked out ourselves, and that we are restoring room by room. I love being close to town, and the life that it provides. I adore the little, cozy spots in our small garden - the morning sun on the terrace, the shady spot under the pear tree - and we have nice neighbours.

Even my car makes me happy :) When I pick it up in the parking cellar after a day of work, I smile at it, when it greets me with flashing headlights. Then it treats me to a lovely, comfortable drive, where coffee is served (if I remembered to make it) and a nice story is read to me - I like crime stories the best :) The drive takes us through a nice moor landscape, and it doesn't really feel all that long any more.

Oh golly! Sometimes I think, like beforementioned blogger - I've gone soft and content with too little, but making status, I find that I have incredibly much! Including all kinds of ways to improve my life and myself even more.

That I happen to have been granted a positive and easy going personality, probably accents it and makes it even easier to be me.

But my conclusion has to be - I AM that happy, and my life IS that good. There may not be a colour coordinated flower setting in my garden, and my everyday plates may still be the dull white ones we bought in bulk when we moved in together. My garden chairs may have white paint flaking off (thus becoming shabby chik at a point where it is not really modern any more) and I may need to lose a pound or ten (but I don't bother right now). My bookshelves may be messy, and my tiny lawn may need mowing. My current knitting has been halfways done for months - but hey!

I am pretty good. Life is fine.

Even when I consult my deepest gut feeling.

Adventure on a saturday

2011-05-15T15:35:00.003+02:00

Sometimes Bruno and I go off on an adventure.

Well, not a big, epic one - just small ones, where you see what is great about the small stuff. And we had one of those yesterday.

We know a guy who likes to go hiking with his wife, and when they talk about it, it sure sounds like a nice thing to do! So we talked about trying it. But you gotta start out small - and certainly when you have a slipped disc that likes to act up, which my dear husband has.

Yesterday we planned a slightly longer walk on Addit Næs - not very far from Silkeborg, where I work. Bruno biked up in that area not too long ago and liked it, and he also had a nice map of the area, that we could use to avoid getting lost.

So, yesterday morning we stuffed a backpack with raincoats, coffee and other essential stuff, and got in the car. Near our starting point we went into a bakery for a couple of raspberry cakes (yummy!) and soon we were driving down very narrow forest roads.

Fortunately Bruno knew where we were going, and soon we parked the car, and off we were, walking out into the forest.

We walked about 10 km in Addit Næs (I'd forgotten to charge my Garmin Forerunner, so it ran out of juice after 7 km), and we only met a few people on our way - the forest maintenance guy and a runner. Very different from the areas we usually walk in around our home, where you almost need traffic rules to handle all the people walking dogs, running or riding their bikes.

About halfways we found a nice place to sit down with our coffee and cake, while we looked at a small stream with lots of little bugs and snails - you know, the little skater bugs that run on the surface of the water? There were also a mosquito, that really wanted to get in close contact with Bruno, but he was not very interested!

Back at the car we drove a few miles up to Klostermølle, not far from Gl. Ry. Here we took another walk for about 3 km, to a peak called Sukkertoppen, where there is an amazing view of the area.

It was a great nature experience, walking in that area. The wooded area is rather big, and Bruno claims that he could plan 10 trips like the one we took, without walking the same paths. It was beautiful, varied and nicely un-crowded. You feel a bit closer to nature, when you don't meet dog-walkers and runners every time you turn a corner.

There was plenty of other stuff to look at ... great, wide-spanning views, with trees in all shades of green. Tiny streams making waterfalls, and loads of pretty lakes hiding between the trees. Places where the forest would suddenly open up, and make room for a stretch of moor.

And you talk so well, when you walk. We touched on all kinds of subjects, and fantasized about all the places we'd love to hike in. We planned a weekend trip canoeing on Gudenåen, and a hike from shelter to shelter in Sweden - and loads of other things.

It is so much value for money, a walk like that. A couple of bucks for cakes, and the gas to get there - and we brought coffee, water, and a couple of cans of coke, carefully wrapped in wet newspapers by Bruno, so that he could surprise me with a cold cola at the right time :)

That bought us a wonderful nature experience, exercise (several hours of walking must count for something) and quality time spent with each others.

We finished off the day by driving to Silkeborg and eating at a greek restaurant. As I go there every day, I spotted a place named Zorba (is there a law that all greek restaurants MUST be named "Hellas" or "Zorba"??). I like greek food, so we went there for late lunch / early dinner. We had 8 mezes (like tapas, only greek) with nice Mythos beer, and coffee with chocolate cake & vanilla ice cream. It was good food, and I'd gladly go eat there some other time.

All in all, we had a lovely day. Well spent, and we were good & tired by the time we were back home.

We plan to go on more trips like this - it is good for the body and the soul :)

Melodies for the road

2011-05-11T21:28:00.002+02:00

Before I got the flu, it was my birthday. And one of my presents, from Bruno, was an album by danish artist Agnes Obel.

This is her debute as an artist, and it is not like anything else you hear, really. Her soft voice is accompagnied by a classical sounding piano score, or by something as whimsical as a harp. It works beautifully, and even more so because of the quaint harmonies and the way she handles rhythm.

The music makes me think of cool mists over dusky moors, and I keep finding more little details to catch my ear.

These past days this album has provided the soundtrack for morning sun over Vejle Fjord, and has carried me through the moors of mid Jutland going home.

I am sure my driving is a little calmer and safer while I listen.

If I believed in Nemesis...

2011-05-02T21:51:00.003+02:00

... I would curse myself for declaring me almost well again this saturday.

Because I wasn't really that hot sunday. And the cough was back, with its older brother.

So today I went to let my physician listen to my cough. He pulled out the stethoscope, listened some more and swiftly wrote out a prescription for antibiotics that should make the rattling sound make like a tree and leave.

With the penicillin in hand, I now believe I will soon get better!

Or else!!

Hrmpff.

Revival of me & my blog

2011-04-30T18:09:00.003+02:00

So, spring has really come to Denmark!

These past 2 weeks we've had almost-summer-like temperatures, and I, for one, overdid it completely.

I don't know how many days off people have in other countries - I remember the US having not very many days off around easter - but here we have thursday, friday and monday off around the easter weekend. Also, the vacation days you get at work expire on may 1´st and then you get a new batch. So I took 3 days off before easter to enjoy a full 10 days of r&r.

My days off were great! Lovely weather, spending time in the garden, hanging out with my kids ... doing stuff I felt like. Wednesday my youngest son and I rode our bikes to a nearby beach - all in all 25 kms - and I guess I just got carried away with the summer spirit.

I like to ride my bike at a good pace, and even though my son is 15 and taller than me, I am still quite a bit stronger than he is. So I sort of wore him out going too fast on the way out, and that marked our pace on the way home waaay down. And I got cold, having broken a sweat on the way out there.

The next day I said to Bruno "I think I have a spring cold coming on," and boy, was that an understatement!

Because from last friday and up until today - saturday, more than a week later - I have been totally on the bench. Coughing, headaches, sore throat, fever ... you name it, I had it. And I managed to contaminate both my daughter and my loving husband - oh well, that got me company in the couch this week.

Yesterday I was still wondering whether I'd be able to make it to work on monday. Today, however, I am loads better! Not quite back in fighting shape, but I will be there in a few days.

Today, Bruno and I actually put on real clothes (as opposed to sweatpants and a tshirt), and walked downtown to see an exhibition on the plans for the new neighborhood that is going to be developed on the site downtown where we once had a huge fertilizer factory sending out its poisonous fumes. It looks like it is going to be a great place in 15 years from now.

We actually mused on the possibility that this could be a great place for us to buy an apartment when we retire :)

Well, the point of this post was really how I wasted an entire week of lovely spring weather nursing a stupid case of influenza. And how I am now rejoining the living.

And how I thought I'd revive my english blog in the process ;-)

House plans ...

2011-02-27T20:20:00.002+01:00

Come april it's been 3 years since we carried the last boxes out of our 70'es house in Snoghøj and moved in here at Fasanvej - in our charming red brick 2 story house from 1926, close to the center of town.

One of the things we fell in love with then was the pretty bay window in the room next to the living room - and we could imaging how nice it could be. This room was, in short, ugly - with the brown 70'es windows, the kiddie carpet, and the strange two-tone floor underneath, the terrible cigarbox ceiling and the unpainted walls - but we saw the a potentially lovely room.

A combination of an office and a living room. No TV, to nice chairs by the bay window, a small table for our cups of coffee or glasses of red wine, soft colors, the floors stripped, new windows...

We changed the windows 2 years ago, and the kiddie carpet is long gone. But the ceiling and the walls are still unpainted , and the room is, besides being my home office, a storage room, where unwanted things go :(

But it ends now!

Yesterday we sat down with our original list of projects, from when we moved in. It was a long list, and a lot of things were ticked off. But we needed to get the big perspective, and to get the jobs categorized, in small and big tasks, and the kind that we need to buy help to get done.

As we got our remaining projects in order, we decided that our first project we'd start on, would be the room with the bay window.

Today we started out a little bit. The first step was to organize and empty the room, and get rid of all that was in there, that we did not want to keep. And today I went through the bookshelves in there, so it is now ready to empty, take down, and reassemble in the basement, where it will keep all of our stuff while we renovate the room.

There is a long way to go. The room needs new ceilings, and we are going to raise them to the original height, because in the 70'es somebody lowered them. The walls need to be re-done, as they are covered with a kind of insulation that burns very easily, and we want to replace that with plaster walls.

Perhaps the wall separating the bay window room from the living room will need to be made higher - we think it's made after the ceiling has been lowered.

We also need an electrician to come and make more outlets - there is ONE in the entire room - and a carpenter to strip the floor.

We need to paint the room, and get new furniture.

A couple of comfortable chairs, a small table, and a sofa that converts into a guest bed, lamps, a new work station table - I can almost see how nice it is going to be!

All this energy - it must be the spring setting in :)

Teaching old dogs new tricks

2011-01-14T20:43:00.003+01:00

If you don't already know, I work at a company that makes software for banks.

And last september, the news came out that we were going to take in the 3rd biggest bank in Denmark by 2012. Up until now, this bank have had their own IT unit, but as demands from laws and than kind of thing has been growing, they found it less and less attractive - they were spending a lot of manpower meeting legal demands, and as a result had too little manpower left over to develop new systems to help support their business.

As they looked around, they found a willing and competent partner in my company - Bankdata. It is owned by a number of local banks, the largest being no. 4 in Denmark.

What followed was - a number of people working at their IT unit in Silkeborg, had to swap places with a number of people working at my company in Fredericia. The two towns are a 75 minute drive apart - so to make up for that, driving to work is paid for, both the expense and the time, up until the final conversion of their systems into ours in october 2012.

By november it became clear that my department was being sent to Silkeborg, and I was really fine with that, given the good conditions we got. I mean, I am quite fleksible - or at least, I thought I was.

Now I have worked in Silkeborg for little over a month, and I can say that it has been a lot harder than I had figured at the time. To be quite frank, moving my work base that far away hit me like a ton of bricks - for a number of reasons.

For one, the drive. It is a 91 km drive to Silkeborg, and the last half is on smaller roads, where passing slower vehicles is very difficult. Add to that a lot of snow, slippery roads, and temperatures down where the salt they spread on the roads don't have any effect whatsoever. Even though I am not a nervous or anxious driver, a long trip in the dark (morning starts around 8 this time of year), with your senses at high peak to be ready for all kinds of situations, is tiring.

Another thing - new surroundings. A new office building. New people. Having to figure out where the cafeteria, the printer, the meeting rooms, the coffee automat - pretty much EVERYTHING - is. Not being able to book meeting rooms, not being able to operate the video meeting equipment. Working on a technical setup that is far from good (actually feeling like a VERY temporary setup), and working out all the quirks on that.

The change in pace - because driving is part of your working day, as a rule you lose 2,5 hours of working time e-v-e-r-y day. It really makes your cadence go down seriously - and even though I know those are the terms right now, it is very frustrating for a result oriented project manager. So far, we have managed to make ends meet in my team - due to the guys being really good sports and using extra hours on the bonus deal our company has given us (put down 100 extra hours the next year and get a money bonus on top of your overtime pay).

The change in your everyday life. A lot of my working days start at 6 in the morning, when I leave Fredericia to drive to Silkeborg, I choose to do my overtime in the morning, to have it affect my family life the least. So I have to change my sleep pattern, or be very tired at the end of the week. And I don't get the nice mornings with breakfast and coffee and breakfast table chit-chat with Bruno and Kristian that I am used to.

Also, I am suddenly far away from my kids, my doctor, my hairdresser, my dentist, my chiropractor.... it takes a bit more logistics to make things work.

So, all in all, there has been a lot of change. A lot of it not positive. And I have had times where it has been difficult for me to focus on why this is a good thing. Even though I know it is for a bigger purpose, and that it will make sense in the end, it has been a hard pill to swallow.

To be perfectly honest, I've been experiencing slight stress symptoms this december. Notice: I have not had STRESS, but I've had a couple of alarm lights flashing, that I recognize all too well. For one thing, I have been sleeping poorly. A classic stress giveaway for me. I've been waking up in the wee hours of the morning, and not been able to go back to sleep. Most frequently on the nights, where I've had to go to Silkeborg the next day. My moods have been up and down - mostly down - and my usual love for my job has been faltering. I have not been feeling happy at all.

I guess it must have been showing. Because about a week ago my dpt. manager looked at me during our weekly status - actually I was just catching my breath after a long ramble explaining how things were going in my team - and said "How about you - are you okay?".

Difficult question. But I had to fess up - and say that I had been happier.

"I know," he said "You are usually a happy girl, but you haven't been smiling lately." Good leadership work - he is a busy guy, and I am a fairly good actress.

Sometimes I've had this unpleasant experience that I found my mouth opening and a lot of negative stuff came out. And that is really not the kind of person I want to be. But it seems like somebody was taking over my body, and I was sitting on my own shoulder yelling "HEY!! Stop it!! This is not me, I am happy, positive and flexible!!"

So - I've been working really hard with myself to solve this situation. I've been thinking about how I could fit this challenge into my life in a way that would make me find my smile and my love for what I do again. The good news is, I thing I am winning this one. I've found a set of routines and a mindset, that I can work with.

And this week, the amazing thing happened: I sat at work, and I heard myself laughing. Hard and hearty, and I have felt good and energetic. My joy at working is back, and best of all: I sleep like a baby all night, every night.

So - it is possible teaching an old bitch new tricks. All you need is time :-)

I am still around, you know :D

2011-01-09T14:22:00.002+01:00

I know it's been quiet here on my blog.

December just came and went in a hurry - and my focus was otherwhere.

I spent my time on extra xmas activities during december, including a couple of concerts with my vocal group, X-tetten (they went really well, thank you :). I had xmas parties to go to and cookies to bake and presents to buy. I took more time off for xmas than planned - I guess I needed it.

And I worked at getting used to the drive from Fredericia to Silkeborg - and learned that driving 182 km (bit more than 100 miles) every day on roads as slippery as a skating rink is not something I enjoy.

I worked out a little to little and ate a little too much.

And here I am, it is 2011, and a brand new year lies at my feet. I have no new years resolutions, and no goal for this year. But I am here, still blogging (every now and then), alive and kicking, and in fine shape (well - working on the shape).

I plan to go to the US this year, though. I want to go see my bestest friend in Torrington.

And I might blog about that, too :-)

Love and hate

2010-11-22T21:15:00.003+01:00

I Denmark we like to see ourselves as tolerant.

And in some respects, I honestly thought we were.

Tonight, though, I was watching TV - there was a program about hate crime against gay men. Part of it was a hidden camera recording of two guys walking down the street, holding hands or with their arms around each others shoulders/backs.

I was astonished - not only did people turn and stare, some gave them dirty looks, and as evening came, so did name-calling and shouting.

There I sat - thinking: Is this liberal, tolerant Denmark, where people of the same sex can marry and adopt and live in peace?

Actually, I felt embarrassed.

I know quite a few people that are so disposed that they love people of their own gender. You know, it is something I note - like if I hear someone plays the harmonica, plays chess really well, or have diabetes. It is a bit of information about that person, that I use to understand them. Or don't use at all.

A number of the gay people I know are co-workers of mine. They are colleagues like everybody else. Some are waaay out of the closet, others are keeping the cards closer to themselves. A number of them bring their spouses to the annual company party, and hey! Nobody cares! Well, at least not in a bad way - like, I was happy to meet Michaels husband, because I know Michael quite well and had heard loads about his spouse. Anyway, no big drama. You're gay, so what?

When my husbands daughter came home to break the news that she'd gotten herself a girlfriend, there was absolutely no drama either. We want our children to be happy. And when we found out that our new family member was fun, sweet and overall a great gal, we were just happy. Because she made our kid happy.

So the hate, the violence, the shouting ... it is very foreign to me. It saddens me. It upsets me and makes me angry. It makes me wonder, what makes people so hateful and small and frightened?

And it makes me wonder:

How can you hate someone on account of who they love?

Weekend bliss!

2010-11-14T22:31:00.002+01:00

What a great weekend I had!

I started out really healthy. I went straight from work to work out - half an hour on the treadmill and half an our pulling weights. Then an hour of zumba - and then I was spent :)

AND hungry - fortunately I was going straight on to dinner with the girls club (a bunch of woman co-workers that meet to chat every 2 months or so). We had delicious food and a good time at Irmas house...

Andreas - my oldest son, who is 23 and goes to college in Aalborg 200 km from where we live - was coming home for the weekend. Friday night he was spending with a childhood friend, but the rest of the weekend was open for us to spend together :-)

Saturday night we decided - on short notice - to go hear a blues concert in town. We have a place 5 minutes walk away that arranges all kinds of concerts, and some of my friends were going and told me about it.

So Bruno, Andreas and I went - and later came along as our company decided to go to the nearby pub for a pint. This way I happened to spend the night in a pub, drinking beer with my oldest son ... a little strange, but we had a great time!

Fortunately we'd planned NOTHING for today - sunday. We slept late, and actually I never really got properly dressed today. The boys watched formula 1 on tv and I managed to actually see the beginning before I fell asleep - F1 does that to me :)

For dinner we got pizza and ice cream ... the lazy solution.

A bit later Andreas caught a train north - the weekend was coming to an end.

It has been a great weekend, and I am charged up to meet the working week.

Bring it on!

I confess...

2010-10-31T20:18:00.003+01:00

...I really like my job.

Actually, it sounds kind of boring when I tell others what I do. You know, I work at this software company that supports a number of danish banks. Specifically, I work in the department that develops eBanking systems.

I am the project manager of a team of 7-8 people, and at the moment we are making usability improvements on the investment side of our online bank.

Might not sound awfully exiting, but I love my job.

To me, it is the perfect mix of dealing with people and their oddities (my lovely colleagues as well our costumers - the banks), and using the mathematical/logical side of my brain to help along the analysis side of the project.

I love planning a sprint with the team, following the progress during the sprint and summing up how it went, when the sprint is over - and using the result to make our next planning a bit more precise. I like sitting in meetings, talking over solutions, and watching things come together. I like finding out what my co-workers are really good at, and I like trying to help them get even better.

I even like it when things get politically charged ... I might bitch about it, but the truth is that it just makes my job more interesting. I like learning the trade I do, and I like the feeling that I am getting more and more competent at it.

You might even say I am slightly in love with my job ... it is a combination of working with the right things, the right people and in a position that challenges me just enough to keep me on my toes. I am a lucky lady, because I go to work most days with a big smile and looking forward to the things I have to deal with.

Being a cog in this big and smooth-running machine pleases me. I know I am not changing the world, helping the poor or healing the sick - but I am as happy as a clam.

I just never want it to end :-)

Fooling fools

2010-10-30T23:49:00.002+02:00

I am at the moment watching a show on tv, called "the power of the spirits".

In short, a man claims to have had paranormal activity in his apartment (most of the stuff rather explainable, in my opinion).

They bring in this wacky priest, who does a very obvious number of cold reading (firing off a bunch of factual questions - "I sense he is young/old/I smell tobacco/wine/have you felt thirsty/was this apartment originally two apartments" - and gets one in every 15 or so right. Every time he gets something just nearly right, the guy living in the apartment gets all awestruck. Very funny.

Then they sit down to conjure the guy to show ... nothing happens, of course, so the wacky coldreading priest "sends him across", and gives a long crazy explanation of where this assumed ghost came from.

If it wasn't so horrendous, it would be funny. If I were cynic enough, I think I'd pursue an alternative carreer. People are standing in line to be cheated.

A hole in time

2010-10-14T20:32:00.003+02:00

For 70 years an apartment in the center of Paris stood untouched and unused.

Nobody came or went there. Just the years passing by. The dust fell, silently. No voices marred the silence, no hands separated the curtains to cast a glance outside.

Then the lady renting the apartment died, and it was opened.

Everything stood the way it was left 70 years ago .. and for the first time in many decades somebody stepped in and broke the silence.

When I read about the apartment in the newspaper yesterday, it triggered my fantasy madly. That stately apartment, left one day. Maybe a book lying on a coffee table. Perhaps a drinking glass left in the sink in the kitchen. A pair of slippers, abandoned in a corner. A hairbrush on a bedside table.

And quiet. Quiet. Quiet. The dust settling, the years passing. Soft sounds of the world passing by. Outside.

If I were a writer, I'd write a book, inspired in that abandoned apartment, quietly dusting over while life bustles around it.

It would make a fantastic, gloomy, odd story, I think.

End of vacation coming up...

2010-08-05T11:33:00.003+02:00

I have to face it: my summer vacation is threatening to be over!

Monday I go back to work, and I already know that my first week is going to be a busy one. I have a project taking off ... and in order to have something ready for my colleagues to do, there are preparations that have to be made. This means that I will spend monday afternoon working with the guy acting as analytic on the project, to prepare for a long meeting on tuesday.

I could go on ... there will be plenty to do for me and my colleagues. The main thing, though, is the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I face that busy week coming up (or those busy weekS, if you want to be realistic). And my stomach feels good.

I look forwards to coming back to work, back to the guys in "my" team, and back to all the fun and challenges.

I love to spend time at home, and to just putter about. I've gotten a lot of suntanning done, a lot of reading, and practical stuff too ... scrubbed a couple of floors, sewed drapes for my bedroom, worked in the garden. But I also love my job, the company of my co-workers, and the tasks I have to fill.

So it is all about life balance. I like to think I am balanced - and my gut feeling confirms it :-)

Because I am worth it?

2010-07-25T08:59:00.003+02:00

On danish TV they keep showing a commercial for l'Oreal wrinkle-cream!

There is this american actor - Andie McDowell - with a slightly stiff facial expression (due to something other than l'Oreal cream, I believe) who is talking about "You know, these lines, that you can actually feel!" while touching her own forehead with her fingers.

Oh the horror!! Wrinkles that you can feel with your fingers! Well, that IS the end of life as you know it, that is obvious.

I checked, and I definately felt something on my own forehead, and around my eyes.

Still, the earth didn't tremble underneath me, as if it might open and swallow my poor, middle aged, wrinkled self. But on the other hand, I make a living from what is inside my head, and not from my outside, my looks ...

...that I actually am quite fond of. Oh well, there is more than miles from Hollywood to Fredericia.

And yes. My face shows that I have done my fair share of smiling and laughing. That kind of behaviour is bound to leave a trace.

So sue me. Not that I'm worth it. :-D

Summer vacation is here!

2010-07-19T20:54:00.003+02:00

Today I started my summer holiday!

For the next three weeks, I will not be found at Bankdata, my home away from home. (If you are english speaking and press the link to my workplace, just click the little Union Jack on the top right of the page).

Because - my summer holiday is here!

Well, actually I woke up with an awfully full bladder very early this morning, and while visiting the downstairs bathroom, I realized I'd forgotten to write an email this friday, to a costumer that is participating in the project I am currently heading. Making a mental note of it, I went happily back to bed and slept on - but I just had to sign on and WRITE that email to be able to fully enjoy this first real day of my vacation.

The going-downstairs-to-pee-situation actually changed today! Bruno installed the toilet, so now we can both shower and go potty upstairs ... things are really looking up! Tomorrow he plans on installing the mirror light-and-cabinet and the drawer-thingy that will hold the sink, and then - lo and behold! - we will have a fully functional bathroom, only lacking details like paper holder, towel racks etc.

About time - we took down the old bathroom in the beginning of april. But then, we have done all sorts of things up there - changed the tiles, put up new wallpaper, painted, put in a new door, and changed everything from the shower cabin and up.

This is what the functional part looks like right now:

Nice huh??

In case you wonder - and if you can't tell from the pic - we painted the walls grey. It looks good!

A day of sports

2010-07-11T18:25:00.002+02:00

Today is a fantastic day - sports-wize.

Probably not to most americans - because even though both pro-cycling and soccer has grown as sports in the last couple of decades, they are still minor sports compared to football and baseball (tiny, almost non-existant sports in a european mind).

But today is not only the World Championship final of the sport we call football (soccer, to americans) - it was also the first real mountain stage of the EPIC cycling event of the year ... the Tour de France.

I have been semi-watching todays mountain stage most of the day, turning on the tv every now and then to check on the event, doing the ironing while watching, and finally sitting down to watch the last 50 km. (oh ... 50 km ... equals in the area of 35 miles, I guess...)

The funny thing about a stage in the TdF is - the main thing is really not who wins the stage, even though it is a big thing. No, the main drama is ... how do the favourites end up? Does Schleck manage to take seconds from Cadel Evans and Contador? Who gets rubber legs and end up losing minutes? Who shows strength, and whose team can hang on to help their captain all the way?

Most danes cheer for Team Saxo Bank. It is a danish cycling team, led by once TdF-winner Bjarne Riis. This year we have no less than 4 danish riders out of 9 on that team - not riding as captains, but still! The captain of the team is a young guy named Andy Schleck. He is a huge talent, and today he actually managed to take seconds from the other favourite, and take the stage win as well!

So I am hopeful - he might yet climb the other favourites into the ground. And he has to do that, because he is bound to lose seconds on the time trial later in the race.

GO ANDY!

As for football, or soccer, if you wish - as a dane, I should cry (Denmark performed miserably and exited early), but as a european, I can snicker in the smuggest way. The final is - of course, I might say - between two european teams, Holland and Spain.

Problem is, I really don't know who to cheer for. They are both great teams playing lovely ball, so it is difficult.

Holland could be my favourite - just because Holland is a country that is very like Denmark. Not very big, quite flat, and with a very liberal and open mentality in a lot of ways. Dutch people are a lot like danish people, I believe.

But Spain ... Spain is kind of close to my heart too! My son loves Spain and all things spanish, and the language is just SO much lovelier than dutch (that actually sounds like a german with a throat disease - sorry, dear dutchies) - it is a gorgeous country with great food ... and the wine ... *sigh*

So I guess it is a tie, and no matter which team wins, I will be happy.

Sunny days

2010-07-10T12:58:00.002+02:00

The weather is being quite un-danish at the moment.

Hot days, tropic nights, breakfast in the shade outside, and long, lazy afternoons in the sun in as little clothes as possible.

Watermelon wedges straight from the fridge, ditto white or rosé wine, long evenings spent outside reading or talking.

The sun goes down around 11 at night, and comes back up before 5 in the morning. Blacktops melt and people go for ice cream and lounge at the beach.

I SO love summer, when it goes all south european like this!

I don't moan about it getting too hot, or long for an overcast day or rain.

But then, I have a number of things going for me ...

I live in an old house with double walls, that stays fairly cool
I work in a nice airconditioned office
My garden provides a choise of shade or sun, at any time of the day
And I guess I do have this inner latina that just makes me thrive in the heat.

So bring on some more of this tropic summer heat! I can take it!

That feelgood mood...

2010-06-28T20:55:00.003+02:00

Here I am, sitting on my porch on a lovely summernight with my dear husband (Bruno) and my trusty Mac (Albert). It's almost 9 and the sun is just slightly in my eyes in that blinding-a-bit-through-the-big-treecrown kind of way.

It is still warm, the birds are singing, and I can hear a car rolling by slowly in a nearby street. The youthful (and somewhat goofy) sounding guys in the garden across from ours has gone inside, and the neighbours have tucked in their kids. It is lovely and quiet, and I am sipping gin&lime from a dewy glass, enjoying the soft clicking of the ice cubes.

We have every day from 4 pm to 8 am at our disposal, and life is good.

What more could I ask for? (Well, besides maybe having 8 am to 4 pm at my disposal, too)

Summer night

2010-06-23T22:59:00.003+02:00

Tonight is the shortest night of the year.

And summer nights here are really short.

It is probably what I love the most about danish summer: the time of year when the sun goes down after 10 o'clock at night and dawn starts around 3.3o in the morning.

I remember walking home from parties in my youth, and realizing that dawn was here, just walking through sleepy neighbourhoods at 4 in the morning, listening to the birds coming alive.

Just the other morning, I woke up at 3.55 to pale daylight. I went back to sleep with a smile, knowing from the quality of the light that I would wake up to a sunny day at 6.30.

I wish it was like this all year.

Because, you see, the marvellous danish summer nights come with a price. The one you pay in december, when you leave for work in pitch black night a bit before 8 in the morning, and drive home in the sunset at 4 in the afternoon. Where you have to focus on each minute of extra daylight, and light candles everywhere to survive.

For 2 or 3 months you think that the bright summer evenings will never come back. But eventually, they do.

I wish I could stop time right here, and that every night was a summer night.

I just have to enjoy summer immensely while it is here...

Looking at Fredericia from above

2010-06-20T22:07:00.021+02:00

My town is a quite old one. It was founded in 1650 as a fortress, built to protect Denmark from the swedish and german armies. It was difficult, however, to make people move to the brand new city, so to attract citizens, it was made in to a religious free-zone.

Thus, jews and huguenots and other religious minorities came to set their mark on Fredericia. Even today, names like Honoré and Fournais are common here.

Still, it is easy to see that the town was once a military fortress. All around the center of town, the ramparts of Fredericia still lie - nowadays more a town park and recreational area - but probably the best maintained ramparts of any town in Denmark.

Only a little of the ramparts have been erased - that is by the industrial harbour, where the trains come into town. Other than that, you can still walk most of the way around the center of town on paths in the rampart area.

Today I went to town - actually I was going to the vegetable shop to get fruit - and on my way on foot into town, I realized that the water tower on top of the rampart was open for visitors.

With a shameful face I have to admit - I've never been up there. And as the day was sunny (finally - it's been a weird kind of april weather with rain and sun and rain again today), I decided to skim up the side of the rampart and do a little photo expedition.

So here you see the water tower. I don't think it is used as a water tower any more, these days - but it looks nice up there in all the green.

I laid down 10 kr. to get into the tower ... pretty cheap, it is the same as 2 USD. So I shimmied up those stairs, and got myself an eyeful of my town. Actually, Bruno and I gotta go up there some time and bring coffee. They even have chairs and tables so you can do a picnic thing, if you like.....

I just had to check to see if I could see the roof of my own house from there. Because really, it is only a five minute walk from my house to the water tower. I couldn't, though ... but if you look at the cluster of red ceilings over behind the trees, on the left side of the long red building, that is about where I live.

Like I mentioned ... the ramparts are really a lovely kind of park, that cuts through town and stretches most of the way around the center. On one side it goes all the way out and meets the waterfront. I run up here a lot, and it is possible to run 6-7 km without really leaving the ramparts and the beach area.

This picture is from the water tower, taken in the direction of the beach.

The view of the city from here is really nice. You can also see the industrial harbour - and I even managed a fairly good shot of it, even though I didn't bring a proper camera, so I had to do this expedition with my iPhone :D

Here are a couple of other pictures, overlooking the outside of the ramparts, and the centre of town.

When I had my share of pictures and pretty views, I decided to go run my errands, before the shops closed on me. Actually, a lot of stores never open on sundays, but we have this one supermarket and veggie store that is open until 4 in the afternoon on sundays.

Back down on the ground, I went by Riddergade to pop into Midtpunktet, where my shopping was happening. Riddergade - in english Knight Street - is a special place to me, even though it is a rather small and insignificant street.

This little street is where the very first place Bruno and I shared is located... we had a rented flat in there for 6 weeks - a wonderful, scary, confusing and happy time of our life.

A bit further down you find our favourite restaurant in Fredericia - Caffe Katia - where we usually go to celebrate our birthdays, for saturday lunch ... and whenever we long for good food and nice company.

On this picture you see two similar houses. We occupied a tiny apartment at the very top of the one to the left - way up under the ceiling.

I am happy to be back in town, and this time in a real house of our own! I love Fredericia - it is a small town, but with all the accomodations I need, and I really feel at home here in this pretty, charming town.

Going back home I went through what was until about 1925 the main entrance into town. Most traffic went through this tiny gate! When Danmarks Gate was opened close to here, Prinsens Gate was closed for motorized traffic, so now it is only people on foot and on bicycles that go through here.

I read that frequently they had loads of hay and other high loaded wagons that got stuck going through ... I can easily imagine that, as I look through the tunnel going through the ramparts.

It is a lovely walk - and on a day like this, where it rained hard, and the air is fresh - and the sun is out and warming up the moist earth - I just enjoy being able to combine my shopping for groceries with a lovely walk like this...

And even after having passed through Prinsens Gate, the signs of the fortress that was are everywhere. Mostly these canons are used by kids for climbing on, and pretending that they are battling the enemy...

Going back home, I give you a final peak at the moat. Once a scary place where the blood flowed, and now a place for kids to ride rafts and catch fish, and for ducks to float peacefully around ...

Just a few minutes after I took this picture, it started dripping rain. I barely made it home before the sky opened up, and it was pouring like a crazy april day again.

Latina-licious

2010-06-16T21:05:00.002+02:00

I quite fancy a hot redhead named Tine.

I first met her about 8 or 9 years ago. Back then she was the instructor of a class called Abdomen-Thighs-Buttocks, and I started in that class being completely and utterly un-fit. The first thing I learned was, that it was impossible to be low-energy and unhappy when I was in Tines class. She is, in short, a walking vitamin injection.

In the meantime I took Bodypump with Tine, Spinning with Tine ... and now I have Zumba class with Tine. She's had a couple of kids, and gained some pounds on that account. And she was never the skinny type.

But there is nothing better than looking at Tine, and seeing a lovely, goodlooking lady, obviously weighing more than most super models, and being a bit older than 18 - she shakes her booty and is SO latina-licious! Even though she is clearly 100 times better at all those groovy moves than I will EVER be, her acceptance and self-liking, along with her energetic and positive personality makes even a motorically challenged like me forget myself for a moment and turn into Shakira. Right until the point where I accidentally catch a glance at myself in the mirror... :D

Tine is indisputably a hottie. And I am tremendously happy that she chooses to spread her joy and energy every tuesday at my gym.

Old houses

2010-06-13T20:10:00.003+02:00

I live in an old house.

It was built before anyone ever heard about Adolf Hitler, television or the internet ... the red bricks were stacked back in 1926, before my mother, who is now an ageing lady, was born. It was way back when my grandmother was young and rosy-cheeked - and she would be pushing 100 were she still alive.

I love the style and the soul of this house, with its old fashioned windows, the red bricks, its high cellar and the old wooden floors. I love the way the stairs wind their way to the 2nd floor, and the way solidity and economy is joined with beauty in this structure.

I like living in a house with a history ... I feel the weight of the years, and I let my fingers trace the house name next to the front door ... "Rosa" ... and I wonder who named the house, and why they chose that name.

But it is also a lot of work. living in an old house like that. The people that lived here before did a number of things - changed the roof, for one thing, and re-did the joints of the brick walls. But after we moved here more than 2 years ago, we've put in new windows. We have re-done the steps to the front door. We moved a wall upstairs, and stripped the floors up there. We renovated the stair to the cellar, putting on new steps to replace the old ones, that were rounded with the many feet that went up and down over the years.

And now we are redecorating the bathroom upstairs - new tile and everything. At the same time, we had plumbers come in to re-do all the waterpipes in the house - the old ones were clogged with age - and put in a new water heater to replace the old one, that was from 1968 and nearly rusted through.

The plumbers left the basement messy and dirty, and today we cleaned up and washed the floors down there. We also threw out a bunch of stuff that has just been sitting there since we moved in april 2008.

Rummaging around down there made me very aware, though, that the basement is also very much needing a loving hand. Some of the outer walls are in bad shape ... we should waterproof them ... and tile on the floor instead of concrete would look nice. Lots of paint should be applied, and we also have plans to make the bathroom down there a bit bigger and more functional.

I guess its just the way it is, when you live in a house that is old. It is always needing your attention, there is always a place that could use a coat of paint or something other.

But I do love my house, as it is ever changing under that hands of my husband and me. I don't think we will EVER finish! But I just want to stay here, live here until I get to old to live any more. This is the most home-ish home I ever had in my adult life.

Here's that rainy day...

2010-06-11T15:50:00.002+02:00

Such sang Sinatra, and it sure is rainy today.

But my internal barometer is on a steady "Sunny", because my life really is grand, and to top it off, it's friday!

Friday is a special day - not only does it bring weekend, but here in Denmark most people have a shorter workday on friday.

When I was a teenager, my parents worked 40 hours a week. Today most people have a workweek, that is only 37 hours long - and mine is just 36, due to the fact that I work in the IT trade and thus have a number of odd hours on weekends sometimes.

That means that I go in for work on 8 in the morning and go home at 4 in the afternoon - and that my friday ends at 2.30. That makes for a very nice beginning of the weekend.

When I compare with the friends I have in other countries, I feel privileged - when I started work more that 20 years ago, I had 5 weeks of vacation every year. Now I have 7. And of course, all with full pay.

During my pregnancies, I didn't have to worry about doctors bills, it's all paid for over my taxes, that supply our health system. Also, I went on maternal leave 4 weeks before I was due, and didn't come back to work until 5 months after I delivered. The whole time, I got my salary.

What I do feel, though, is that I could easily work many, many more hours. Sometimes I wonder if, when they cut of the hours of the working weeks length and gave us longer vacations, they kept the workload constant. So we really just have to do the same amount of work in a shorter period of time?

Never mind that, though. My busy is the good kind of busy, and the rain outside won't kill my friday mood. My kids are here (at least the two of them that are presently in Denmark), and tonight Bruno and I are going out with a couple of very good friends for dinner.

I know it's gonna be a lovely weekend, no matter if it rains all through it!

Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse?

2010-06-10T17:10:00.002+02:00

I was almost grown up, when I, to my great surprise, found out that the main Disney character in the US was not Donald Duck - but Mickey Mouse!

All through my childhood years, my mother went and got the weekly Donald Duck & Co. cartoon magazine for me and my brothers and sister. And the main star and attraction was, of course, Donald Duck. The temperamental, and not always very lucky guy, who yells at his nephews, it treated unfairly by his rich uncle, and can never hold a job...

Sometimes I'd get lucky, and my mother would get me one of the cartoon books - a fat volume with longer stories. It lasted for days!

My favorite was not Donald Duck, though - but the Superman version of Goofy. He'd eat a peanut off his special bush, and then he'd turn into Supergoofy (or whatever his name was) and fly around in red woolen underwear and a blue cape. Awesome!

But Mickey Mouse? Sometimes I'd actually skip the stories he was in, because he was actually a bit dull. Kind of like a sissy cousin to the other cartoon characters - the one that always does the right thing, and remembers to bring a red apple (polished, of course) to the teacher.

So I always wonder why HE is the big shot in the american Disney universe. They love the dull goody-two-shoes, and we just adore the clumsy, hysterical, unfortunate slacker.

I don't dare think what an anthropologist would read into that. ;-)

Travel plans

2010-04-30T10:54:00.004+02:00

At the moment we are - rather late, I know - planning the details of our coming-up trip to Granada in Andalucia, Spain.

We are leaving in a weeks time, and we booked the plane tickets a long time ago. Flying is cheap these days, so we got a good deal back then - pretty good even now, when icelandic ash clouds have made the airlines desperate to sell tickets.

Just a week or so ago we realized that it is SOON ... and we had no hotel bookings, no car rented - no nothing, actually :-)

Now we have managed to book hotels for most of our trip - one night in Malaga as we arrive there too late to make the trip to Granada, and a number of nights in Granada. We also got a car booked, to transport ourselves around.

The last 2 or 3 days are open - we plan to visit Gibraltar, and we are going to make hotel bookings once we get to Granada. We sort of like to have open plans and make up as we go along.
Andreas is looking forward to seeing us. Because he is the main reason that we gather his siblings, Bodil and Kristian (my lovely 17 year old daughter and her handsome 14 year old brother) and go to Granada.

Andreas is studying at the Universidad de Granada as part of the education he is taking. His normal campus is at University of Aalborg here in Denmark, but as he is studying Business Spanish, they recommend a semester in a spanish speaking country. I am just happy he didn't choose to go to South America! That is REALLY far away.

Over easter, his girlfriend (with whom he shares an apartment in Aalborg) visited him - now we are going to go there and spend a weeks time with him, and I just can't wait to see him. He still has 2 months to go - on july 3'rd he will be on a plane headed north.

I am sure his spanish is reaching heights they never would have just attending school in Denmark. He lives in a boarding house owned by a spanish lady, goes to classes with spanish students, and most of his everyday life is all in spanish.

He does get to skip one class, though - he went easy on himself and signed up for english ... and as his english is just as good as mine, the teacher really doesn't want him in class. Spanish people are known for their appalingly bad english, and his level is just way above the spanish students.
But the english class gives him some easy points, that he claims to need - I think studying university classes in a foreign language is quite the challenge.

Well, I look forward to having a spanish speaking guide, who knows his way around Granada. I can't wait to see the Alhambra, and being back in South Europe. I sometimes believe I was born in Denmark by mistake - being the latina I am :-)

I love the heat, the slower pace, the music, the food ... and of course, the wine ;-)

I also love spending time with my 3 kids (grown up as they might be) and the man I love - and just being the 5 of us is a rare occation, these days - Andreas being grown up and having flown away from the nest, and both him and Bodil having a steady girl-/boyfriend.

So it will be a week to cherish and enjoy.
I am ready to go.

My body and me

2010-04-27T20:15:00.003+02:00

For many years I neglected my body in the worst way.

Not that I didn't feed it ... actually I took care of it in all ways but one. I neglected to keep it in shape.

I used to joke: "I am in shape! ROUND is a shape too!!"

But having to buy my jeans in a size where no matter how nice the cut, you look like a whale - it was no fun. I wasn't obese - like the ppl you see on tv shows where fat people get bossed around by little skinny ones, and compete in losing the most blubber in a week. But I was fat enough that my BMI was pushing 30 (and at times passing it, I think ... I didn't much like scales at the time) and my knees were starting to complain.

Fat enough that I sure as heck didn't like to see myself naked in a mirror. Fat enough to find all kinds of excuses WHY I didn't have control of my weight (even though I AM smart enough to know it's all about what you burn and what you take in), and fat enough to be deeply embarrased at this obvious sign to the world, exclaiming that I was not in control.

Fat enough to hate myself a little bit.

Later I might tell you how I managed to change my bad eating- and nonexistant exercise patterns, but for now, let me just say that I started eating differently and exercising on a regular basis about 10 years ago. I lost a lot of excess weight and gained quite a bit of muscle (I think my calves are the same size - but they look and feel very different ;-) and I learned to love my body again.

That - loving my body - was one of the two great things I learned. The other was to forgive myself. Because I still fall of the wagon, so to speak, and gain weight. Not up to the point where I once was - but still, I wish I didn't.
When I do, I don't whack myself on the head, and tell me how BAD, how WEAK I am. I just shrug and start up the food-and-exercise change again.

I am never going to look like a Baywatch babe. But I do look at myself in the full size mirror in the morning, as I pass it naked on the way to the shower. And most mornings I give myself a little wink and think "Hey girl ... you look pretty good today!".

I also love my body, when I run, or when I have to get down to pick up something from the floor, or reach for something in the back of the bottom shelf in my kitchen cabinet. I love running up a flight of stairs without feeling winded, love to feel my lungs, my thigh muscles working smoothly.

My body is paying me back for taking care of it, and it is making my entire life better. I don't ever want to be queen size again.

So I stick to my routine of running, spinning, working out and biking - and I try to eat healthy most days - and I thoroughly enjoy the red wines, desserts and snacks, that my routine makes place for in my diet.

Spring - a re-run!

2010-04-24T14:42:00.002+02:00

Spring is here ... again!

Last week was bitter cold. We even had snow and hail pelting those unfortunate enough to be outside at the wrong time.

But today - hey presto! - spring is back.

I have been nursing a fibre-thingy in the upper back of my thigh ... right where my thigh starts to get really interesting, according to my handsome hubby. So running has been impossible, or near so. Over the winter I have gradually eased in longer and longer runs on the treadmill at the gym, starting from a minute and adding on.

Today I took my first outdoor run in a long time! I am very, very far from the shape I was in last spring, where I was training for Lillebælt ½ marathon, but I ran intervals up to 10 minutes today, and ended up doing a 4,5 km in 35 minutes or so.

No pain, except from the pain from my wheezing lungs (spinning does NOT do the same for you as running), and that I can - and will work on. I have missed my runs so dearly, and now I feel I am back on track!

I sounds a little weird to be addicted to running, but I am - it makes my body feel (and look) good, and allows me that extra slice of fresh bread and even makes a good glass of Pinot Noir go down with not a trace of guilt.

So until the next injury pops up ... I'm gonna run!

The old guy with the velvety voice

2010-04-19T21:23:00.003+02:00

Today I bought tickets to a concert with a man, whose music I have loved dearly since I was a mere teenager.

Back then I stumbled onto the song Suzanne. I remember the velvety voice, and the wavelike rise and fall of the song, and the strange and beautiful lyrics.
Actually, it was my guitar teacher that got me hooked, just like she made me a lifelong fan of Joni Mitchell.

And since then, the man with the heavy, sad face and the jewish canadian background has been a part of my musical tapestry.

Strange words like:

I lit a thin green candle
to make you jalous of me
But the room just filled up with mosquitoes
they heard that my body was free
and then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe
and then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through..

entered my head and made marks there. They made the world a more beautiful and a more oddly twisted place to me. I believe they made me grow, and helped me grow up.

Leonard Cohens songs broke my heart and put it back together again.

Later in life, the man I love quoted "There aint no cure for love" to me. And still, I turn to Cohens songs for the strange consolation that hurt and loneliness can be beautiful.

And this august, in the late summer of my life, I am going to my first Cohen concert.

I might cry as I go under the spell of the awesome beauty of this old singers voice.

But it is okay.

5 sure signs that spring is here!

2010-03-27T20:10:00.002+01:00

Leaves have been raked, and the garden chairs come out of hiding..

The snowdrops are in full bloom, and the stems are getting a bit long...

Bruno does gardening :-)

Clean clothes dance in the warm spring air...

And we take in our coffee at the good spot in the back of the garden.

Spring is here!

2010-03-25T19:58:00.002+01:00

The weather has been delightfully spring-ish today!

I sat all day inside, sighing deeply whenever I happened to notice the sun outside my window.
When I got off work I had an errand - I took Kristian to get a much needed haircut - but THEN I just had to get outside!

So Bruno and I took a nice long walk around time, enjoying the wonderful weather, the beautiful old houses and buildings with all their quirky details. It was great to feel the air, finally not icy cold ....

There were so many things I wanted to take pictures of, I can just feel a photo safari coming on. Soon - coz next week is easter and I'll have some time off. Then I'll take you all through my town.

I know Roberta will love it :D

Brain on weekend

2010-03-23T16:34:00.002+01:00

My brain just went on weekend and it's MUCH too early :D

The main cause is probably that we had a wine tasting event yesterday.

For those of you who don't know, I work at a fairly large software house, developing software for banks. Besides my regular job as a project manager, I am part of the board of our wine club at work.

The wine club arranges tastings, and selects and distributes wines to our members. The advantage of buying wine through us is, that it's been validated for quality and price by us. We have a number of members who actually claim to buy all of their wine from us, and we distribute wine for about 40.000 USD pr. year ... quite a bit, actually.

Last night we had a tasting, and the wines were very nice. The best was a wonderful thing from California - Patz & Hall Pinot Noir - it was VERY good stuff!!

Actually this wine ... and all the others ... were WAY too good to spit out. So I woke up this morning rather more tired than normal.

Fortunately I've had a short work day - at lunch I called it a day and took the rest of the day off. And tomorrow I have a day off too -- my youngest sons 14'th birthday is due, and my mother has come down from Aalborg, where she lives, to celebrate it with us. So we'll just putter about tomorrow and enjoy each others company.

BTW I think I might have ordered some of that fab pinot noir. So I'd better do some overtime later this week, or go ask for a raise or something.

The path to my hunting grounds

2010-03-20T17:28:00.003+01:00

I have somewhat exotic shopping habits, if you look at it from the other side of the pond.

On the other hand .. in the US I watch in amazement at large areas of stores, with huge parking lots, and not a sidewalk or a bike-path in sight. Everybody go everywhere in cars, even if you just have to go 2 blocks down to shop.

Most of my shopping I manage to get done on foot, with a few hefty shopping bags and a backpack for the heavy stuff.

I live 5-10 minutes walk from the centre of the town I live in - a moderate sized town by danish standards, but rather tiny compared to a lot of larger american towns.

So I take off on foot, to a nearby square, where there is both a grocery store and a veggie pusher. Not that you can't get vegetables at the grocery store, but they are just fresher and more varied at the vegetable shop. I start by picking up my fruit, and various onions, broccoli, eggplant and whatother favourite I have this week .. and what looks good.

Then I go to the grocery store, and get basic stuff like milk, flour, yoghurt ... the basics. Not cheese, though --- I prefer to go to the cheese shop downtown, where I can taste the cheese I pick out, and look at the large variety of cheeses, crackers, salts, vinegars and jams they sell there.

On the way home ... very close to where I live ... I pop into the butchers to get whatever meat I need. I usually only get meat for a few days, coz I want it fresh, and if I can avoid putting it in the freezer, I will.
We get most of our meat from the butchers. You can get a variety of meat at the grocery store, but the past few years we've had a lot of meat-scandals in Denmark - where grocery stores were exposed for selling meat that was marked to be fresher than it was, germ-ridden, fatter than it was labelled to be, and even containing other meat than labelled.

After that, we started going to our local butcher and found it
a) no more expensive than the supermarkets
b) immensely more fresh ... frequently they run it through the chopping-mashine while we look
c) less fat - our hamburgers suddenly don't shrink to 2/3 the size any more when we cook them.

All this I manage to do on foot. Partly because we only live 3 people here on a daily basis, and partly because I go 2-3 times a week, sometimes with Bruno along to help carry (and for his delightful company too).

I see people going by in cars, and I am so happy that I can walk back and forth. That used to be me, when the nearest shop were miles away from my home. I've considered getting a little trailer for my bicycle (I have a very nice 7 gear citybike that gets me to work and back when the weather is not too bad - 6 or 7 miles both ways, it's a lovely way to get a little extra exercise in), so I can go further and shop bigger, but so far I am content with walking back and forth.

Walking, and in particular biking, is very common here. A lot of households only have one car - cars, and the gas they run on, are a lot more expensive here than in the US. I laugh when I hear americans weeping at their gas prices ... come to Europe, dears!

The effect is that small cars are a hit, and that a lot more people transport themselves by bicycle. Copenhagen is packed with bikes! And every village, town and city have bikepaths as a natural part of city planning. We don't drive our kids everywhere ... they ride their bikes.

So ... I am not exotic. Just a danish town dweller, with danish habits :-)

Why I love Facebook...

2010-03-19T20:33:00.003+01:00

Actually, I have a lot of reasons to love Facebook ... it keeps me in touch and provides ready and varied entertainment.

But one of the reasons I REALLY love Facebook, is the same reason that I revived this blog.

Right around the turn of the century, I chatted a lot on a site called RendezVouz.

It was the absolute ideal chatsite. Like a small village - with a core of regular chatters, that pretty much all knew each other. Most were educated people, or at least people with a certain level of reflection and thought and intellect.

The atmosphere was nice there. Warm and friendly, and intellectually challenging if that was what you wanted. I made great friends there ... and in all the years from then till now there was a handful I never forgot.

When I got on Facebook, some of them started showing up there. And I find it absolutely wonderful.

I am Facebook friends with the ones I liked the very best, and that I missed the most, when my life changed and I chatted less. I tried returning there a few times, but it was really dead - the magic, the life and spirit, was gone from there.

Our host was Rochelle ... aka Eden. She was Ms. Rendezvous, situated in Canada. A smart, pretty lady, always good for a nice chat, and we had great talks about all kinds of things .... she taught me a lot about how alike Canada and Denmark are in a lot of ways...

Then there was Cindy ... or Baf, as she went by in there. Fun and quick-witted, and wise in the ways of the world. AND a grandma at an age that I could hardly believe ;-)

Luis - or Louis - was always fun and games, and if you felt crappy one night, you could only wish for Luis to be online. He could pick you up and make you feel great. Hard working and lovely guatemalan guy (right?) that moved to Canada - and I know he has been a great friend to my glorious sister Roberta too, after she moved to Connecticut USA.....

Oh yes Roberta ... she was why I was in there! We met at RV to talk online, and I just got caught in there! Her handle was Kika, and my Kikinha she will be for ever. I knew her in person before I met her online, and we never lost touch - and I can't see why we ever should.

David - nicknamed Canes, coz he loooved some sportsteam (don't ask me if it was football or basket or...) named The Hurricanes. Southern boy, smart, sweet and with a quiet kind of humor. A guy that I was really glad to call my friend, and always a pleasure to meet online. Movie buff numero uno :-)

Sundance - or Jim, as he was called in the real world - was tremendously smart. A radio journalist, well oriented and lots of opinions, and a great heart. He lived in Texas - sadly, he died of cancer - while I was still a regular at RV. He left a hole in RV that was difficult to fill.

These were the ones I talked to the most. There were a lot of other, really nice people, but they didn't stick with me the way these guys and gals did.

Last night I had a good chat with Cindy, and it really brought back the pleasure I got from chatting late-night way back then. I never met most of them, but they were my friends - just as much as the real-life crowd I saw in the daytime. I missed them dearly when my life shifted and I didn't get to go online as much as I had.

And Facebook has brought them back to me.

Great huh?

Revival of "Zest for Life"

2010-03-19T19:55:00.002+01:00

So I decided to revive my english blog. Not that I have too much time on my hands - but I find myself missing the process of expressing myself in english - a language that may not be my first, but one that is certainly close to my heart.

To some extent this blog will mirror my danish one ... not to to the point where I will laboriously translate every post word by word, but if a subject is for some reason important to me, I'll do posts in both languages.

Sometimes I post something on my danish blog, that is just plain irrelevant (like commenting on danish politics, danish puns etc) to my english readers - I will leave that out here on Zest.

On the other hand, some posts may appear only on "Zest for Life". I know I don't have a lot of readers here, but I won't let it keep me from sending out words into this little slot of cyberspace.

So after one and a half year of silence, I am back.
It'll be good for me.

Coquetteries with a fan

2008-07-28T21:12:00.002+02:00

Bodil - my flamboyant doll-up daughter - bought a fan in France. One of those fancy-spanish-lady-things.

She brought it to a restaurant one night on our vacation... and we got a lesson in flirting-with-fan, even though it slid into pure giggles and fun. Which will show in the following series of pictures.

"Gee ... it's really warm here ... for a fragile little creature like me..."

"Coquettish? Me?? Nooooo .... you make me shy... "

"Mom, there is room for you here too!"

"Yes ... Kristian, hold it still, right there ... Bruno, dont glare over the top of the fan..."

Sigh... it was a great vacation...

Saturday morning mood

2008-07-26T09:56:00.001+02:00

Saturday morning.

Bakery bread.

Sun on my porch.

The handsome man sitting across from mig. Chatting over the newspaper and bread.
The sun on my left shoulder, on my cheek.

Saturday morning. The forecast is sunny.

Woke up by myself around eight, no alarm clock. Looked at the man sleeping next to me for a while, as my heart got soft. Didn't touch him, though - he was sleeping so sweetly.

Life is good. I dedicate today to enjoy it.

Babytalk

2008-07-26T09:45:00.002+02:00

I held a baby the other day.

One of my colleagues had brough this downy, little, milkscented creature, produced by him and his wife - and her just as button-cute big brother of 2 years age.

They are indisputably cute, such little critters. And I actually DO remember when my kids were small and soft. There was nothing in the world softer than Andreas, when he just woke up in the morning (very frequently in my bed) and put his pudgy little arms around my neck.

And Bodil - my pretty baby with dark hair and a mind of her own. She was so dear - well, actually she still is :-)

My baby, Kristian, can be a bit hard to keep up with. Before I know it, he is a big boy. He was a slightly built boy, with huge dark eyes, and the one that started talking late. He has certainly caught up with the talking.

Nope. They are not very small these days. But I love them at least as much as I did then :-)

Little kids are heartwrenchingly cute. They have to be, because they are completely helpless - and the cuteness is natures way of making sure we care for them. My kids are not helpless any more, and perhaps not cute in the way of little babies. But they are mine, and I am proud.

I just know my colleague and his wife has a lot of fun to come - to me, there is nothing greater than experiencing those downy little kids growing into real people, with a personality, and opinions and ways of doing things that their parents hadn't imagined at all.

And there IS an indisputable charm in NOT being awakened at night, becouse someone is hungry/lost the pacifier/had a nightmare/has wet the diaper etc etc....

Amalia Rodrigues sang fado

2008-07-24T18:28:00.001+02:00

If you can handle a beautiful vocal experience - one, not likely to be heard on your radio playing hits in the background - then listen here.

Sigh, heart - don't break ... what a voice ...

Is it okay just to close up a town for the summer?

2008-07-16T21:39:00.003+02:00

What is happening to my town??

These days I am realizing that Fredericia is really not a tourist magnet ... difficult to understand.

The other evening Bruno and I went for a walk in town, and there were REALLY a lot of restaurants and smaller stores, that had big signs saying VACATION - CLOSED in the window.

Yesterday we came home from Øster Hurup - with a dire need for lunch and rest (and nursing a slight red wine poisoning) - and we realized our bread was moldy.
So I wanted to pop down to the baker on Vesterbrogade - it takes 2 minutes from here.
The first strange thing that happened, was a strange lack of cars parked in no parking zones on the corner of Fasanvej and Luthersvej. Well of course - Lucullus, our local smorgåsbord-expert, were on VACATION - CLOSED.

I walked happily on nonetheless, headed for the bakery. But as I reached the shop windows, they appeared void of raspberry shortcakes, cocks breasts (really - it's the name of a cake!) and mayors bread. There was, of course - VACATION - CLOSED.

Fortunately I could cross the street and get my bread at Netto, the supermarket on the corner of Indre Ringvej.

But what's the deal with Fredericia?? You can't just close the entire town up for vacation? Maybe I should call Uffe...

Short resume of France vacation...

2008-07-14T10:46:00.001+02:00

Great treks with wonderful views...

Resting on the way .. also with great views, as well as happy kids...

Grand nature ... here it's mrs. Hausgaard overlooking Point Sublime...

Wild animals ... Bodils snake, which according to her camp-friend Thomas' dad was rather poisonous...

It was a great vacation, and more about it later. Today we go to not quite as exotic northern jutland - we are visiting my sister in Øster Hurup, bearing red wine, tent wagon and a good mood!

Which tarot-card am I?

2008-07-12T17:25:00.002+02:00

Perhaps a bit bizarre for a completely non-superstitious person as me to take a test showing which tarot card I am. But ... it's a bit fun, isn't it? Seen at Robertas site.

And ... tadaaaa... for once a test delivers html, that you don't have to tamper with to make it work!

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Home sweet home!

2008-07-11T21:40:00.002+02:00

There is no place like home, when you have been away on vacation.

We are back at Fasanvej after a lovely vacation in Castellane - and we have one more week of off-time on our hands.

It will be used on this and that - first and foremost a huge mound of dirty clothes that clotter my washing room.

In the meantime, I can inform you of the following:

* it actually gets rather COLD at night in the alps ... one morning we measured just 11 degrees celcium.

* you can make "burning camping love* - out of powder mashed potatoes, onions, garlic and the local chorizo.

* my daughter is too cute. She attracts camping teen-boys, little kids and grown men, who comment on her unique style (to me, at least), or sprinkle fountain-water down her back.

* there are snakes in Provence. And some of them are allegedly poisonous.

* when you ask a french person "Parlez-vous anglais?" and they reply "A leeetle", you have just been presented with their complete vocabulary.

* coffee in France come in very tiny cups, and you can remove paint with it. But it is drinkable if you add sugar.

To be followed by pictures. When I feel like it :-)

2008-06-22T20:56:00.002+02:00

Another lovely weekend.

Friday night we went to a Mexican party with Kristians class - Bruno and I biked there, while Kristian and his dad came by car. Practical - coz then they could bring the cake I made.

It was a nice evening. There were quite a number of people we knew.

Saturday we got the house cleaned and some gardening done. Bruno cut our hedges, and I cleaned downstairs. From the morning the weather was lovely, so I started out the day by going to town on a few errands.

Axeltorv has become so goodlooking! That is where our produce market is every wednesday and saturday. Above you see our
nice new fountain, and Fredericia Bryghus in the background.

You can tell that the rebuilding of the square is almost over - the shops are returning to the produce market again! It had gotten to be a little sad.

I got the eggs I came for. There were fresh, danish strawberries - yum!

On the way out of there I was pleased to note that Fredericias ugliest house had been torn down. It looked like this:

Now, when you look up, all you see is blue sky. That is a nice change - even if Bruno is sentimental about how he put in the windows in that house - that must have been a loooong time ago!

On the way past the City Hall Square I stopped to take a picture. I promised Roberta more pics from Fredericia - she is insatiable! :-) It was a bit difficult to get the whole square, because someone transformed most of it into a water playground.

On the way home I had to visit Lund+Lund.
I had my mind set on a nice little piece of handcraft for my summer vacation - something that is not too big or too hot to keep in my lap. I had a little chat with Jytte, who is both a "neighbour" from down the street, and also the sister in law of my colleague of many years, Susanne (the other Lund).

And I DID find something really cute:

This pretty, light scarf is designed by Susanne, and you can purchase the yarn at their website, if you would like something similar. There were quite a few pretty colours, and Jytte helped me pick out the perfect trimmings. I can't wait to get started!

On the way home I thought I'd enrich your lives with a look down my tiny little street...

This is where my home is.

Sunday - it rained! I got the morning to myself, as Andreas and Kristina slept (they'd been out yesterday) and Bruno went out to bike.

I got a little work done, and after that I've mostly just enjoyed myselv - felt the warm air drifting in from the open terrace door and listened to the sound of summer rain. Got a long chat on the phone with my mom ... very cozy.

Then home came a happy Bruno-boy wit his new bike, that will be taking him over the alps later this summer.

Yes ... it has been a lovely weekend ... and I wouldn't mind for it to be just a bit longer.

Girls go to the movies

2008-06-17T19:18:00.002+02:00

Bodil and I are taking off in a little while... we are going to Panorama in Middelfart to watch Sex and the City - the movie ... yeah!

Bodils favourite SATC-girl is Samantha. I like her a lot too - coz she does what she feels like, and because she is sassy and has great self esteem. But I also really like Miranda - funny, sharp and sarcastic...

Its a real chick flick. We look forward to it!

And no - we haven't been drinking Manhattans all afternoon. Or gotten out the Gucci-bags and Manolo Blahnik heels.

We don't have a problem going just the way we are. :-)

April weather in june

2008-06-16T16:45:00.002+02:00

Yesterday they said on TV, that we'd be getting april weather today.

They were dead on!
I've been having a day off, and have been doing a little laundry.

This morning the weather looked fabulous!

My garden, bathed in morning sun, the air crisp from the night rain ... aaahhh!

But every time I hung my laundry out to dry, it started raining. First time I was being cocky - I hung it on the strings in the back of the garden - and 5 minutes later it was dripping from the sky.

Second time I was being more careful. It looked nice and blue, but I didn't quite trust it. I hung the clothes on my little portable string-thing, and placed it close to the house, near the stairs to the cellar. 5 minutes later it was POURING.

Now I just went on a garden excursion. I was scrutinizing our pear tree to find pears. I didn't see many - though there were some!

Do you see it? Dead center of the picture. But the tree bears other fruits. I opened - nonchalantly and unthinking - the birdcase hanging much too low on the pear tree - and hurriedly shut it again. Later I snuck down to take a picture - and now I will leave the little tenant alone!

It looks like what is called a "mejse" in danish - anyone know what it is? I think it is roosting (it that what it is called?) and I will leave it at peace in the future!

I just hung out more clothes. And it's been more than 5 minutes - it is still not raining. How lucky can you get?

Full house

2008-06-16T08:53:00.002+02:00

Andreas is home again - it is very nice!

Things marched into columns all by themselves - we were invited to daughter in law Mettes 30th birthday saturday, in Roskilde not too far from Copenhagen. It was nice, meeting her family and friends, and fun meeting Christinas roommates in her new apartment in Amager.

We stayed the night in a camping cottage on a lovely camping site in Roskilde, and left there early sunday morning, coz Andreas was due to arrive at 9. It got to be a bit later - but oh my, it was great to see him and Kristina again!

We drove home, and Andreas found it a bit odd that we were going to Fasanvej - when he left, we still lived in Snoghøj.

One of his first actions was to open the birthday presents awaiting him. He turned 21 last weekend. One of the gifts was a russian military hat from his grandparents in Kibæk.

Andreas is so lucky. He's got a "mormor" (mothers mother), a grandmother and a grandfather, plus his grandma and grandpa. Mormor of course is my mother. Grandmother and grandfather are my exhusbands parents - they have known Andreas since he was 3, and to them he is 100% their grandchild. Grandma and grandpa are Andreas' biological grandparents from the US - so he is a young man with many grandparents! :-)

We got around to setting up the guest room so it works for him. His TV came up yesterday, and today we add a desk for his PC. His clothes are in a bedroller under the bed, and the rest of his belongings are stacked up in boxes :-) We don't count on him living here for too long.

Andreas managed to stay awake all day yesterday, and to go to sleep at about 11. Then he slept like a rock until 7 this morning, so I think he's got jetlag beat. He sure looked well rested!

Good for him - he starts working at Coca Cola at 2 in the afternoon today - there is money to be made now!

It is wonderful to have him home - even if it's just for a short while, before Kristina and him move to Aalborg as planned.

I've taken a spontaneous day off (thank you project manager Hans) and will enjoy having the kid to myself for a bit...

Visitors, School trip and a summer sonday

2008-06-01T22:21:00.002+02:00

Oh.

What a glorious weather we've had this weekend, and what a lovely weekend it has been. I feel the sun in my skin - not too much, because I have slapped on factor 20 on my face, neck, decolletage, shoulders and arms - where I usually get too much sun.

Friday I worked at home. Sigh. It's tough when the weather outside is wonderful and green, and the view from my workstation is as alluring as mine.

Somehow I got a lot done, as you do, when you get to work undisturbed. And when my working day was suddenly over I was a busy bee and baked bread. I am a great fan of ready-to-mix pumpernickel. When you use them, you have 30 g left over yeast, that you can transform into delicious cinnamon rolls.

I invented the recipe myself.

About ½ a litre of luke warm water is added to the yeast to dissolve it. Salt, a bit of suger and a dash of oil is added, and then you add a suiting amount of flour, one egg, a handful of cinnamon and a good amount of raisins. Leave the dough to rise to double size.

Put the rolls on baking plates and leave to rise for 10 minutes, then bake 10-12 minutes at 200 celcius.

They taste great, and then you don't have 3/5 of a package of yeast rolling around your fridge.

Our guests friday night didn't get cinnamon rolls. They got bbqed pork chops and sausages (I have a colleague that sell grill sausages made out of limousine beef - yum!) with parsley/garlic potatoes, good homemade bread, salad and tzatziki - and a couple of bottles of Ch. la Pujade.

We had a massively nice time.

Saturday morning my mouth tasted bad - as if a clove of garlic had crept into my mouth to die in the course of the night - along with a foul old wine cork. Eeew. But I hurried up and got myself all perky, coz we were to visit Bodils school from next year - for new-students-day.

First we swooped by Germany for coke and other supplies. The kids were in a great mood - not very sibling-like in this pic:

After that we went to the school. It's in a tiny town - Højer - not too far from Tønder. It is a long way out in the country.

But they focus on design, and Bodil really wants to learn more about textile design, which is on of the lines on that school. She is really looking forward to starting there in august.

Today Bruno has been out biking with Carsten. Meanwhile I have enjoyed the sun and done laundry.

Ahead is a busy week. Monday and tuesday is covered in meetings, and wednesday I will be busy catching up. Thursday is our constitution day - and friday I have taken a day off.

Wednesday afternoon Bruno and I take off in the general direction of Paris. We are having a lovers weekend in the city of cities, my honey and me.

A beautiful man, a beautiful town - and a summer that has just begun.
Can one wish for more?

On sexiness in men

2008-05-26T20:16:00.002+02:00

Ask any woman what is sexy in a man, and she will start thinking looks: hands, ass, shoulders, smile, eyes, face.

I am no exception to that rule.

I don't know where it comes from - because the truth is, that sexiness is not the product of a mans looks. And I don't know why we always start out our line of thought on the subject right there with the ass and the shoulders.

Maybe it's pure reflex. Maybe it isn't the men, that are simple, lust-controlled creatures - maybe it is really us women. Anyway, I am more inclined to believe, that what we do is just grab the easy definition of sexiness.

Imagine the man (or woman, if you like women) that you find the sexiest of all. Is he completely perfect? Does he have tight buns, polished paws, the right hair, a smile like Nicolas Cage (or Julia Roberts) or the elegance of Johnny Depp (or Penelope Curz)? No??

My beloved is - objectively - not completely perfect. Were he to audition for a model, he would probably be told that he is a bit on the stocky side, and that his legs could certainly be longer. He hasn't been madly into skincare or have had botox shots, so you can tell by his face that he's lived.
But I think he is very hot!!

I actually know men, that objectivly are leaning towards ugly - who just have personalities that make them quite strongly attractive. Sexy, even. A friend I had years ago, actually assembled Goofy a bit, but once you'd spent 5 minutes with him, you didn't notice at all.

Same goes for women. Don't you know her - Yes, the one that you see at parties, allways where the action is, never lacking dance partners? She might not be very young, skinny or particularly beautiful, but she's got something else. Precense, to name one thing.

When I elect to wave off the hormone-daze, when posed the question of what is sexy in a man, the answer is actually quite clear. And it doesn't have a lot to do with looks. The five primary factors, that makes a man sexy to me is:
* He's got brains and is able to challenge me
* He's got a sense of humour and likes to use it
* He uses his wit and humour to have fun - not to hurt
* He gets involved and exited and carried away with ideas
* He masters listening as well as speakin

A non-modelish-male with the above qualities can make me short of breath and shiny-eyed.
On the other hand, he can look just like Brad Pitt - if his head is empty or he lacks humour, he is indifferent to me.

I admit - there are turn-offs (and turn-ons) in exterior things. A man can be funny, smart and engaging - if he is not well groomed, he'll never hit sexy on my scale.

It is actually quite lucky I feel that way. That the inside has impact on how you see the outside. I mean, how often do you see physically beautiful men with a pudgy, middle aged, slightly flat chested girl on their arm?

But isn't it strange, how we always leave more space for "nice ass" and "wide shoulders" more space in our vocabulary? When a well-shaped brain is as least as sexy...

The weekend that disappeared...

2008-05-25T20:34:00.002+02:00

Oops ... this weekend is nearly gone.

The kids have been with their dad, and Bruno and I worked - primarily on the picture window room, and cleaning the house. We took the old kids carpet off the floor and cleaned the floor underneath.

We patched the holes in the wall and made it ready for painting. And Bruno painted the hall upstairs that had a ghastly 90-ish salmon colour.

Saturday we worked until 8 at night, and then we went to town to find some dinner. We ended up at Fredericia Brewhouse, where we had nachos with chicken and the house beer.

After that we went around town for a walk. Going past the English Pub we noticed that Tom Donovan was playing in there. We decided to go in there for a beer, and ended up staying for the concert. We were home at 00.30 - it was really a fun evening and completely unplanned.

Today we worked on, enjoyed the sun or a bit and watched a bit of Giro d'Italia - they are in the mountains now, so we like to watch it.

What a lovely weekend.

Kristian is home from his dad - Bodil stays there until wednesday. Its nice that she has a good time with him, that makes me happy.

Tomorrow the working week starts - and for once a WHOLE five day week :-)

Have a nice working week, everyone...

Dream analyzer wanted

2008-05-23T10:16:00.002+02:00

Yesterday morning I woke up and wondered.

Where the heck does it come from - all the weird stuff I dream at night?

The alarm clock tore me out of a dream, where I was camping with the girls I sing with in X-tetten. I was skating my way around the campingsite on rollerskates - going downhill. In my hand I had my lunch in a plastic bag, and I was wearing a plastic bathing cap on my head (?!?).

A normal happening in my life - NOT!

Anyone good at analyzing dreams around?

Is it possible to have too much garden furniture?

2008-05-12T22:44:00.002+02:00

One of lifes great, existentialist questions.

When we moved in together about 7½ years ago, we had an old door that we put up as a garden table, and then we dragged our kitchen chairs out on the porch.
Da vi flyttede sammen for snart 7½ år siden, havde vi en gammel dør på nogle bukke,
og så slæbte vi køkkenstolene ud på terrassen.

Some time along the way we got ourselves a bit of garden furniture. The white wooden Skagen-set, with an extra large table, a bench that sits 3 people and 4 chairs - we wanted to be able to sit down with all of our kids at once.

Later we got a small, cheap hardwood set, with 2 chairs and a 2-seat bench.

And then we have the red chairs, and I brought a deck chair into our relationship - one that I got for my 30th birthday.

So we have a lot of garden furniture. Specially now that our garden size has been seriously reduced. But today I think we managed to find a place for every chair.

We tidied, swept and weeded the terrace at the bottom of the garden, and then we switched the furniture around, so the white bench, table and 2 chairs is now on our wooden porch.

It is a bit of a puzzle to get it all placed, so it doesn't look like an attic for storing garden furniture :-) but I think we were succesfull!

It's a bright sunshiny day

2008-05-12T14:31:00.002+02:00

...again!

I wish this warm spring weather would never come to an end. Sadly it looks like we will soon have to get used to gray clouds, raincoats and closed windows and doors - at least for a while.

Today, though, it is lovely. A little windy, but nice and warm.

In spite of that Bruno and I cleaned the house today. You drag in a lot of dirt on warm days, and the bathrooms don't get less dirty just because the weather is good.

But now we can face the working week calmly - and with clean toilets :-)

We have been spontaneous-social this weekend - saturday we dropped by a colleague and his wife, that recently moved into town. We came by to see their house, and got a chat and a glass of white wine on their rooftop terrace - very nice.

Today another pair of my colleagues came by. They live a bit longer outside town than us, and I pointed out to them, that they drive right by our house when they go home from town. We showed them the place, and they hung around for a cold beer on the porch at the end of the garden, where there is sun during the mid-day hours.

Its a nice and relaxed and stressless way to see people that way.

This afternoon Bruno is going out biking with our buddy Carsten, who also stays for dinner. We're going to bbq a chicken breast - always good.

Later on Kristian is coming home from spending the weekend at his dads. Bodil stays out there until tomorrow, and takes the bus to school from where he lives. It is great that they can just do it the way they prefer.

Life is good!

Amazing what a layer of paint can do!

2008-05-11T18:32:00.002+02:00

On our new house there is a lovely wooden porch.

We've allready enjoyed it a lot! It's got sun in the morning until about 10 am, and the sun comes back around in the afternoon, and bathes it in sunlight all evening.

A while ago we agreed to paint it some time - and we got a bucket of black paint, thinking black would look great with the white paned windows we plan to put in the house.

It was in dire need of paint. And the weather was great again today - so we lunged at the task this morning, and painted like madmen (and women).

It really looks good!

We love our "new" porch ... and soon we will give all of the garage a layer of paint, too.

When we were done, it was five minutes after lunchtime (our stomachs RUMBLED) - and we really deserved lovely lunch with cold Leffe beer in the sun...

Bikes in town

2008-05-11T01:07:00.002+02:00

We have a large Harley Davidson event in town this weekend.

And they are literally everywhere, and have been since wednesday, where the first started to show up. There are funny types, shady types, peculiar types, criminal types - everywhere. AND their shiny well-kept rides are parked whereever you look.

Its been rather peaceful. We do hear a little music now and then, from the festival area. And the sound of Harley engines, very regularly.

So all in all it's a fine arrangement. And good for town, the shops and the restaurants alike.

We went for a stroll in town this morning - had a few errands and enjoyed lounging about in the sun, looking at bikes and people. On the city hall square we didn't see much of the bikers - I think everyone else went there.

We went to pick up contact fluid and bought plants for the garden. And my sweet, patient husband waited patiently in the sun while I was nosing through various stores.

It was lunchtime all of a sudden, and I remembered what delicious sandwiches they make at Caffe Katia - my favourite spot in town.

So we just had to stop by there, and I had a chicken sandwich that had me hearing angels sing - I think it must have been the delicious pesto in there. After lunch we had a great cup of espresso, and then we went home.

It was difficult to go, coz I'd just started reading Paolo Coelhos "Veronika decides to die" - I am going to have to borrow it at the library and finish it.

Even though we were rather full, we still got a few things done this afternoon. Bruno fixed this and that around the house and the garden, and I painted our red garden chairs - boy they needed a layer of paint!

Before:

After:

wow ....

You know you are in Fredericia...

2008-05-10T18:36:00.002+02:00

... when the traffic lights look like this:

...and like this when you can walk:

Haha ... funny! I don't know how long they've looked like this, but anyone knowing
Fredericia will know, that it's a tribute to out town-hero - the soldier - that looked like this in the passover sun:

What a grand idea! And I wonder how long I would have taken to notice it, if not for my bright daughter, who pointed them out to me last week.

Summer is here.

2008-05-09T13:01:00.001+02:00

Seen in my garden:

One of the very summer-like sights to be seen in my garden this week :-)

Garden life

2008-05-05T20:13:00.002+02:00

We live a lot of our life in our garden at the moment.

Not that it's inbearably hot, but after a long dark winter it feels so wonderful to be outside in the sun, with no coat on, and even exposing white limbs some days.

And it is so pretty this time of year.

The pear tree has bloomed in white. Now the blossoms start to fall, leaving the garden white dotted.

We've been weeding and nipping and pouring earth on and sowing grass and nursing our garden, to make it a bit more like we want it.

And sometimes there has been time to take a cozy break in the sun with a can of pepsi and this gorgeous man...

The other day we fell for an offer on a wine vat, that we will be using to collect rain water at the end of our garage, where the water has just spashed all over the terrace. We put it up today, and my oh my there was a lovely scent of red wine wafting into our nostrils as we cut the hole for the rain water pipe.

I got quite an urge for red wine. But it IS only monday today.

Back in my running shoes

2008-05-04T11:26:00.002+02:00

It's been a little over 2 weeks since I slipped down the cellar stairs, bruising my tailbone badly.

It's been rather painful, and it is only this weekend I haven't been taking painkillers continuously.

Today I dared one eye and put on my running shoes and clothes, and set off on the route I'd started using before my fall.

Actually, I'd started from scratch. I've been having some leg problems, so my physical therapist recommended I use a beginners program (!!) - so I got a hold of one, and changed it a bit - seriously, 3 sets of 3 minutes is just not enough - so I added a 4th set. Seemed more like my kind of program, then.

And still so much gentler - my start-up-running-motto is normally: "You can always run five kilometres" - and even though that is actually true for me, it is not necessarily what my legs need.

Back to todays run.

A week ago it hurt nauseatingly if I forgot myself and ran a few steps - but as I started running down Fasanvej in the direction of the rampart, there was no nausea and very little pain - and that bit of pain faded fast as I ran.

So - YIPEEE - I'm back on track - you just watch me in another 10 weeks!

A mini-holiday

2008-05-01T19:29:00.004+02:00

I am so lucky! I have today and tomorrow off, 4 days of vacation!

It's been a short but very busy working week! But it's okay, because now I am on vacation.

The weather has been nice today - it rained this morning, but before noon it stopped, and in the course of the afternoon the sun chased the clouds off the sky.

I have not been idle, but made sure, that I can relax completely for the rest of my days off: I cleaned the house from the top to the bottom, and did all of my washing and ironing.

The kids have been with their father at their grandmothers birthday today, so it's just been Bruno and me. Bruno did some stuff around the house, took a bikeride and mowed the lawn. Now the last load of laundry is drying outside, and the house smells nice and clean. A pot of indian curry is bubbling on the stove. Kristian is at a birthday at a classmates house.

In a bit I am going to open a bottle of red, we will enjoy it in our new Spiegelau-glasses.

Tomorrow Bodil and I are going out for a girly-shopping-spree - she is in need of clothes, and it's been a while since we had a girls day on the town - and it's so easy now! Saturday we are going to my nieces 18th birthday in the afternoon, and at night we are going to the concert, that Bruno gave me tickets to for my birthday - Led Zeppelin Jam at Det Bruunske Pakhus.

Sunday? So far no plans. And that is okay :-)

The first day of summer

2008-04-27T20:33:00.002+02:00

The first day of summer was in april this year.

I say that because - it felt like summer today - around noon the sun came through the clouds, and the temps have been on the right side of 20 celcius. I worked in my flowerbed, and got another bit of the way - and then I washed our white garden furniture, they were in dire need.

My face is a bit cooked now.

Lunch and afternoon coffee was taken outside - the latter in the company of Christina, who is visiting on the way home from a seminar near Aarhus, and with Andreas - sort of, that is - I had him on the phone, and it was just great to hear his voice.

He's been sick from a strept throat this week, and had the doctor out - he got some penicillin, poor boy. In Costa Rica they appearantly think they only get full value for money, when the doctor pops out the syringes, so he got a shot in the bum.

Now he is coming around again - lucky, since they leave wednesday for a trip around Costa Rica. Then they are going to San Fransisco, and from then on to Chicago to visit his fathers family - and then home to mama...

He is a grown young man now - who survived the queens guard with long boring shifts and all. But I can tell he misses me and his family, along with danish food - and just DENMARK in general.

Need I say, we miss him too?

This evening Lasse came by to say hi - and got a bite to eat along with us. It was really nice, having four out of our five put-together kids here all at once.

Life is good. And there is only 1½ months until Andreas comes home :o)

In a garden mood

2008-04-27T10:17:00.002+02:00

Maybe the sun wasn't shining from a clear blue sky yesterday, but it was nice and warm, perfect for gardening.

So we did just that - after lunch, coz we had some indoor stuff to do, and a trip to the store to take.

One thing we did was hang these drawings. Bodil did them, after photos - and those who know her see instantly that they depict herself. She is a talented one!

There were other little stuff to do inside, but pretty soon we went outside, the garden was awaiting us, and we'd bought lots of summer flowers.
We have had plant boxes on our old terrace - now they brighten up the front of our new house. Once there was a garden in front of the house, but for practical reasons it's been covered up - and it can get a bit bare without flowers.

Once we change the windows into white painted old style windows, it will look REALLY nice...

Behind the house we were also at it. Our porch has a "view" of our old, ugly garage roof, so we got some flower pots up there to camouflage a little.

On the side of the house there is a strange bed sticking out from the wall, there was nothing but weeds in it when we moved in. We talk about covering it, but for now I put this scrawny little lilac in it. I found it at the store one day, took pity on it and brought it home...

I rarely saw such a little runt ... lets see if it makes it.

Behind the house is a good sized bed. Strawberry plants has been put in, to try to cover the ground. Been there, done that - got the trouble of weeding in between. You imagine BOTH not having to weed AND harvesting lovely berries, but one thing is, that strawberryplants only look nice for a short period of time, and another is, that they give good harvest on the 3rd year, from then on it just goes downhill. Besides, they don't fill in that well - so you get the pleasure of weeding out in between them.

Nobody had done that for quite a while here. There were all kinds of weeds, and a undefineable, yellowy and shapeless bush of a sort. There were also a cute little weeping willow and a pretty troll hazelnut - they get to remain.

I couldn't dig out the whole bed - it hurts lik the devil in my stupid tailbone when I go on for too long (at least I don't get to continue long enough to cause trouble for my shoulders) but I did make it quite a part of the way - and Bruno dug out the strange bush (and the 3 ugly tujas in the lawn).

Instead of the shapeless bush we put in a cotoneasters, that we had in a pot, and that is looking a bit sickly. Lets see if it feels better in the ground.
Good thing is I can see my progress in this flowerbed! And I managed to do more later.

Rhubarbs is a must. So I planted a couple of those in my newly dug piece. Bruno also planted a pot with one of those purple thingys ... forgot its name. But it's pretty .. yeah, the flower, too... ;-)

Damn, we were laborious! So we honestly deserved a cup of coffe in our livingroom (now with pictures on the wall).

Castellane - je t'adore!

2008-04-20T20:23:00.004+02:00

About (let me count ... hmmm) FOUR years ago we went on a camping holiday in Castellane, in the heart of wonderful Haut-Provence. Where the lavender- and wine-fields mingle, where every market in every village sell big round cheeses and yellow stoneware with olives on, and where the river Verdon twist its way between the mountains and through les Gorges des Verdon.

To me it is the most beautiful and peaceful place we ever visited. It was in Castellane we walked up and up to visit a churc overhanging the village of Castellane on a cliff. To me Castellane is the essence of Southern France - and now we will be going back!

We booked a site on a camping ground named Chasteuil-Provence a bit outside Castellane. I am allready looking forward to the sun and heat and the special atmosphere down there...

Bean there, done that...

2008-04-20T20:03:00.002+02:00

It's been a great long weekend - well, at least if I ignore certain parts of my anatomy.

Saturday I woke up to the fact, that I'd survived the night after my staircase-crash. Helped along by non-prescription drugs, cooling and ½ a bottle of Errazuriz Max Reserva. I'd gotten the idea of cooling on the internet, where I found a homepage telling about what to do with lesions of the tailbone. As we don't really know where our ice packs are, the job came down to a bag of haricots verts - or green beans, in plain english. They are actually quite good for the job, as they don't lump up after having been thawed a couple of times, the way peas would.

But you do feel a bit freaky sitting there with a bag of green beans on your bum. Bean there, done that, was this weekends catchphrase...

Saturday morning Conny, Carsten and Stine came to visit, and fortunately I was able to handle a walk down town, window shopping ... it's not really a long way, and by the aid of medication and frozen beans, I managed. To break up the distance, we took a beer on Ryes Plads - sitting on a bench outside the English Pub, in the sun.

Other than that, the visit contained an afternoon walk on the city ramparts, and a lot of dinner chat and good times. Carsten was as usual the last to give in and go to bed, around one. Bruno lasted about an hour later than that, and Conny and I really talked through, going to bed to the sound of the first birds at 3.30. We'd had a bit of red wine. But not too much - we all felt fine this morning.

Here are a few pictures from our walk last afternoon. I should probably have taken pills BEFORE we went, coz I nearly didn't make it all the way home...

Bruno and Carsten setting the world straight, in the absence of car dealers, where they could go and kick tires.

Kristian and Cujo had a good time.

We made it all the way down to the blue Lillebælt.

Sister posed on the Danmarksporten (Denmarks Gate).

The Landsoldaten (country soldier) posed at his usual spot - he didnt look as good as sister...

How you go from mobile to handicapped in 4 seconds

2008-04-18T20:21:00.002+02:00

Here is the recipe:

Take 1 steep and worn basement staircase and add 1 busy woman on the way down to the laundry basket.

A sure attention grabber. 10 secs later I had Bruno hovering over me looking worried, while I pitifully moaned: Don't touch me - I'm okay, I just need a bit of time...

When I'd recovered enough to be able to stand without fainting (I have this rather troublesome habit of passing out when in pain - cute if you're a little dainty thing, but rather impractical when you are tall, strong and non-portable like me), I got myself up the stairs again and into the couch - just in time to avoid fainting.

There I was, whimpering and feeling sorry for myself while making inventory:
* one good blow to my lower back - sore but not serious
* one very painful blow to my tailbone - OUCH OUCH!
* one blow to the elbow that quickly had to abandon the stage in my mind for the other aches.

WOW I'm gonna be yellow and blue! I bruise very easily, so I'll be one work of art!

After a bit I sent Bruno off on his bikeride, planned before my fall - I was ok on the couch and I almost got stressed from him sitting there, watching me with a worried look - the sweet man!! :-)

Now I am fairly mobile. I'm a little slow on the stairs, and getting in and out of a sitting position. I'm afraid it will be a couple of days (weeks?) before my running shoes get to go outside again. :-(

Oh well - at least its a great excuse to drink red wine tonight - for MEDICAL reasons, right??

Caffe Katia - possibly the most pleasant restaurant in Denmark?

2008-04-17T08:40:00.002+02:00

Imagine a restaurant, that don't look like much from the outside.

But once you get inside, you look around and think: whose livingroom did I just walk into? You see bookshelves with books, magazines and newspapers. You see cards and board games. The pictures on the wall is not one specific style, but obviously an expression of the owners personal taste. In a corner you see a couple of wicker chairs with blankets slung over, and a small table in between.

At a table sits a man with a themos of tea and a newspaper. He looks like he's been there a while.

You manage to take in all these impressions in the short amount of time before the owner, Katia, comes to meet you and greet you. A small, dark woman with a big, friendly smile. Or maybe it is the nice young man that works in there - well taught as he is, he greets you as warmly as she does.

We discovered this place over easter, while we were working on this house. One day we needed to grab some lunch, and decided to walt into town. We ended up at Katias, and as we had little time that day, we agreed to go back some time where we had more time on our hands to take in the experience.

You pick your table of choise, and then your menu arrives. Not overly big, this menu, with a heavy touch of Italy. But there is not a pizza, hamburger or french fry to be found on there, instead you find delicious pasta-, meat- or fish-dishes. And of course, antipasti, salads and soups.

While waiting for the food to come this night, we chattede, leafing through books from the shelves. Bruno told us all about insects, and Bodil was engulfed by a book on Winnie the Pooh and the Philosophers.

I'd ordered a pepper steak, and had a large, tender, perfectly cooked steak. Aromatic soft sauce, fried potatoes and the loveliest veggies: broccoli, asparagus with bacon around, large pieces of grilled peppers ... I was happy that I'd ordered extra veggies.
Bruno had a fish dish and he was purring his way through it. The kids chose lasagna, and their eyes were almost spinning in their heads with pure joy.

Several times during the course of the meal, the staff came by to ask if everything was allright. And it REALLY was...

It was fun that we could here the chef singing in the kitchen, and Katia was singing along as she worked.

Bruno and I skipped dessert - I had a piece of chocolate cake in the way, I think. The kids had ice cream desserts, we just had coffee. I had the loveliest Caffe Latte with hazelnut syrup - that was dessert enough for me...

We went home very pleased. Agreeing that the high quality of the food and the unique feel of the place was something, we'd like to try again.

A small piece of Southern Europe - right in the middle of Fredericia!

It didn't hurt one bit....

2008-04-17T08:15:00.003+02:00

First you wake up in the morning to birdsong, and once you get up, yo see the sun shining brightly.

Then you sit down for breakfast with coffee, rolls from the local bakery and NICE PRESENTS...

(including the blouse I am wearing in the pic - a present from my mom)

....and then off to work where you co-workers put no less than 16 flags on your table...

I love my presents! Pretty earrings and a cd from Bruno and the kids, and from the man himself tickets to a concert in Det Bruunske Pakhus. From my mom - a blouse, a cd-box with Simon & Garfunkel (pure nostalgia!) and a lovely new wallet ... the old one was in shreds!

With Bodils usual sense of details the "card" was a glass cup engraved like a birthday card and all their names ... funny!

When I got home, she'd made a chokolate cake that we had with coffee and a lot of nice chat. In the evening we went out - more about that in the next post, that will be a praise to our new fave restaurant...

Nope - not bad at all, turning 42...

I wonder if I can sleep tonight...

2008-04-14T21:30:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow is my birthday, and this afternoon, there have been whispering going on behind my back.

What are they up to??

We plan to go out tomorrow night - we must enjoy now, that town is right next to us! And we've found a lovely little cafe/restaurant in town, that we now plan to test in the evening-way...

I wonder if I can sleep tonight, with all this exitement ;-)

From me to me...

2008-04-06T16:41:00.002+02:00

I know it's not my birthday in another week and a half.

But now I got myself a present - i bought it friday, and got it saturday, where I proudly brought it home.

My gorgeous new 7-speed MBK will bring me swiftly and safely back and forth between Fasanvej and Teknikervej every day. It's 4,6 km, so it's not too far to bike. And it will be a pleasure, on my handsome new bike.

Now, all I need is a bike helmet like
Nu mangler jeg bare en cykelhjelm Thereses... or maybe my black Bell helmet is more my style... ;-)

About being too much

2008-04-05T21:20:00.002+02:00

During my life, I have sometimes been labelled "too much" - to my face or behind my back.

And for long periods of my life I've tried toning down. I haven't had much luck with it - I am who I am, and the tiger stripes have a way of shining through...

I've learned being good at making space for others, too. So I don't use all the oxygen in the room. It's really not that difficult, and it doesn't hurt.

On the other hand it's difficult to change that you are a person that is - if not TOO much, then at least - much.

I smiled when I read this post(Warning: it's in danish) on the subject at my old friend Johnnie's.

And then I thought:

Some people think it's really awful when somebody else is "too much".
But isn't it really a lot worse - being too little?

Piles are melting away

2008-04-03T20:35:00.002+02:00

The piles in my house are deminishing every day.

But darn, we have so many THINGS ... I almost get a bad taste in my mouth when I see how much I own. Maybe they do have a point, those simple-living-people? I know it would be a lot easier moving, if we only had 8 towels, 3 pots, 2 candleholders and one set of bedlinen per person.

Not to mention the wardrobe of the mistress of the house ... I threw out a LOT when I packed, but I still have a ton - and still not a thread to wear! ;-)

The basement was stuffed full of boxes, and you had to edge your way around upstairs on saturday, when our movers went home.

The basement is STILL full of boxes, but most are gone from the kitchen and living room now, and you start to see the floor here in the picture-window-room, where I am sitting with my computer writing (and listening to Amy Winehouse "Back to Black" REALLY loud, as I am alone at the moment).

This room has been our "dump" - along with the cellar, but now the "lovely" kids-carpet is starting to peek out under the mess.

We still sleep on our mattress on the floor. We have priorited putting together our cabinet for clothes - so now we have a 2 by 1,36 m space to put clothes. That helped emptying some boxes! AND it put variety back in my work wardrobe.

We are so happy for our choise of house! And it will be with only a small twinge of sadness we leave the key to our old house to the new owners on saturday.

One of the best things about living here is waking up at 6.15 in the morning - and listening to the only sound outside: the birds singing in the pear tree.

Then we can close our eyes and pretend we're in the middle of a forest.
It sounds that way.

The hidden meaning of my name...

2008-03-24T21:51:00.000+01:00

Just so you know!!

What Liselotte Means

You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow.

You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily.

Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.

You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.

You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.

You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.

At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life.

You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you.

At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself.

You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life.

You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home.

You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Birthday on two adresses

2008-03-24T21:07:00.002+01:00

Today is Kristians birthday!

He has been celebrated on two adresses - we started out with breakfast table with presents and flags, and then Bruno went to work in the new house. In the afternoon we took our coffee table with rolls, cookies and a cake-man and packed it in the car, and had a birthday-picnic with the hardworking hubby in the new house.

Bruno had a much needed break, and Kristian had a good time - at least he looks like he did :-)

We got to check out the latest progress - all that had happened since yesterday. The latest was that the bedroom changed colours from salmony orange to the loveliest blue colour that matches the white trimmings beauuutifully (and also the white wardrobe that we have our eyes on for the bedroom).

Bodil checked out her new room, and also looked quite content.

It is showing now, that WE live there ... well, we almost do! We have moved many boxes by now, and that is a good thing, as it will make our final move on saturday easier.

So it goes fast and it goes well ... now our vacation is almost over, and fortunately we made a lot of progress in the course of it. More pictures is visible on my flickr, if you are curious. The coming week has the work-kind of busy in stor for me - a project workshop on monday, and a seminar wednesday and thursdag. Wednesday will be a late one for me as the schedule runs until 8 at night. Friday I've taken a day off - I will probably need it too :-)

So if I don't update my blog much this week, you'll know why...

Have a lovely working week!

You harvest what you sow

2008-03-20T10:38:00.002+01:00

And I sowed a bad crop yesterday.

Like I mentioned earlier, my shoulders have been just fine with the work in the house. So yesterday, while Bruno was working on Bodils floor, and Kristian and I had finished painting the brush-work in his room, I was a bit annoyed at not being able to move on. I figured, since things are going this well, I might just as well grab a paintroll and finish the job.

I paid dearly for that last night. Half a bottle of red was not enough painkiller for me, so I had to take som pills and go to bed. It hurt like a bitch in my shoulders!

Today it is better, but I guarantee that I will keep away from the paintroller. :-(

Another little bit...

2008-03-18T21:16:00.002+01:00

Today we got a bit further again!

Kitchen and livingroom is now ready for us to move in. I painted the last edges, and the foot panels in the kitchen - they needed it badly.

In the afternoon we went to the lawyers to sign the papers on the house. It was easy, because the lawyer we use for the buy is right on Høgevej - not very far from Fasanvej.

On the way back I got a snap of the streetsign - in one end of the street you can see a nice old streetsign, hanging on number 1. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that it dates back from when the street was new - back in the twenties. I have been told that before there were houses, the area was named Rosenvold, and the city dwellers had picnics there on sundays... a funny thought, as the house is now in a central part of the town.

The street is quite small and narrow - there is no sidewalk and the houses are quite close. A few houses are alike, but ohterwise it's mixed - some look like ours, there are a couple of two family houses, and a "skyscraper" with 3 stories, containing apartments - and in the middle of it all, there is a single house dating from the sixties.

Otherwise todays status is ... I got started at painting the edges for Kristians room. Tomorrow he is coming along to help. These colours certainly need replacing...

Down in the basement Bruno was working hard. He has the supporters for the floor sawed out, and he has put down the plastic to keep damp out. Tomorrow he has to do the precision work of making the floor level - good thing I don't have to do that! ;-)

Suddenly it was after six, and we hadn't anything planned for dinner. Fortunately I was just out of paint, so I washed my brush and drove by Føtex, where they have so much food they sell it to anyone who has money.

While I was in the kitchen rinsing my brush, I enjoyed the view from my kitchen window ... pretty, huh?

The sun poured gold over the whole thing and I considered how different things look on a day like this, compared to when the clouds hang low and the rain soaks everything.

I guess it just takes hard work!

2008-03-17T19:17:00.002+01:00

I visited the physical therapist today - I was a bit worried what he'd say to me because
* I haven't really made as many of my exercises as I should have
* I've painted and cleaned like mad half of saturday and all of sunday
* I haven't thought as much about having the right posture as I should
so I thought he'd be rough on me.

Much to my surprise it was better than it has been for a while ... good enough for him to cancel my appointment this wednesday.

So I guess it just takes hard work!

I went to the hairdresser today too, so now I have a summer hairdo!

Bruno had to work today - a meeting with a client in Horsens - so all in all the work on the house was suffering today.

Instead I packed a few boxes - we have an AWFUL lot of books, and we can't spare a single one! well ... actually ... we have just sorted them and are ditching a big box of them.

So now we only have about 10 boxes of books left...

We did make a short working session in the house late afternoon. Bruno got the livingroom painted again, and I readied Krisians room for painting, and also filled holes in the walls of Bodils room.

Tomorrow we start off the day by a shopping trip to Germany. We're all out of cola - and the will NOT do, when we have to work hard on the house! We leave early, so we can get back and get going with some more painting.... I'd really like to give Kristians room the first coat of paint tomorrow - let's see if I make it.

Labour of love

2008-03-16T20:48:00.002+01:00

We worked hard today.

I woke up - just woke up for no reason - a bit before seven. It's unusual, but as soon as my mind was near waking, my brain got active ... what are we doing today??

That way we were actually in our new house before 9, and that was fine! Status tonight is that we got all of the kitchen, the dining area and the living room painted with the first layer. This is how our kitchen looks like. It is fairly new.

There were still some cleaning to do ... I think there had been a lot of cigarette smoke in that house. The window was yellow, but some serious scrubbing with heavy soap water made the wood go back to a pretty white. There were a couple of pipes that were in need - of paint, Bruno thought, but my experience with the window made me try the soap water and knuckle grease solution. Note to self: Pipes need cleaning sometimes ... otherwise they get REALLY gross...

It's easy to see how far you get.

Because of my shoulders i frequently have to take breaks from painting. Then I do other things. Carry stuff in from the car and put them away. Wash the dishes from our last coffee break. Clean a bit here and there. And sometimes just walk around the house, enjoying the lovely rooms of our new, wonderful home.

This is a favourite room of mine. The room with the panorama window, where we will have our den - with our computers, some easy chairs to read in - and it will also be our spare guest room, but it will have to have room for bookshelves.

Next to this room is our future living room. It needs a layer of paint on this picture, but we allready fixed that.

Later we will do things to this room. We want to pull down the ugly ceiling and restore the old stucco hiding underneath. Between the dining area and the living room is a weird opening. We want to make it square ... and we have tons of other plans, too!

Meanwhile my sweet Bruno painted. He is untireable.

We have a good time. We work well together. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we dont. Sometimes we have a conversations across rooms or floors. Sometimes one of us start whistling or singing, and it turns into a duet.

We take breaks and drink coffee and weaves dreamwebs of our new home. We talk about the neighbours we allready met - they all seem really nice and open.

We talk about how it will be to wake up for the first time in there. On Fasanvej, in our big, bright bedroom in that beautiful old house.

It'll be great - and it'll be in less than 2 weeks!

The name of the house is Rosa

2008-03-15T21:01:00.002+01:00

The big day finally arrived. It was getting-the-key-day - the red house on Fasanvej (meaning Pheasant St.) was finally to be ours!

We started the day with an early trip to Bauhaus - to buy some building material and paint. We packed a box of things useful to make coffee etc. in the house, and we dug out our painting gear and other stuff.

We got our new mailbox ready - put names on it and all.

And somehow the arms of the clock crept to twenty to 12, and we were bound for Fasanvej. I had a tummyache, all from the exitement - literally - and I managed to pass it on to the kids (and to Bruno - of course he wouldn't admit it!)

Just as soon as we had gotten the key, read off heat etc, and the former owner was gone, I started up with the camera! We wanted before-pictures - given some time the house will change, and it will be fun to see what it looked like when we got it.

Yeah - I know I cut off part of the roof, but there was a limit to how far I'd venture into the driveway of the house across the street to take the picture...
The windows will be replaced. Maybe this year - otherwise they'll get a layer of white paint. They are actually healthy enough, but the house would look so much better with the old style windows it was born with.

The name of the house is Rosa. And someone took the pains of depicting it on the house. Later on, someone slathered red paint all over it - a pity, but fortunately it is reversible.

An easy, small and cozy garden. That was an important factor in deciding for this house. The tree is said to give a good harvest of pears. And I can easily imagine myself sitting under it with a book on a warm summer day.

This our house from the back. The former owners changed one window - it leads to the kitchen, which has been replaced within the last 5 years.

This room means a lot to Bruno! This is where his shop will be - I can allready see him tinkering with his bikes down here - it is a nice, good sized room - and the picture gives an idea of how bright the cellar is.

When coming up from the cellar, you can enjoy the cute hobbit window in our hallway. It is right next to the front door - symmetrical with the name plaque.

Upstairs this door leads from the stairway into the hallway, that is on the upstairs floor. It is there because the house once was two apartments - it is actually an old outside-door. There used to be one downstairs just like it, but the former owner gave it away - pity, I really find it very pretty.

The first floor has three good rooms and a bathroom. The room facing the garden will be our master bedroom. It will be a step up from what we had, it is rather small.

The stairway doesn't stop here, on the first floor. A small stair leads up to the nicest attic - a good, easily accessible one with a stable floor all over. I couldnt take good pictures there - but the stairs were easy to photograph. :-)

The stairway is, as they are in houses from the 1920'es: absolutely charming and very solid. With a twisting railing and real landings - it will be lovely once we get to renovating it.

There is plenty to start with. Today we took the floor out of Bodils cellar room - there were four layers, on top of a floor that was bumpy because it wasn't finished. Sometime in the closer past, someone put a rough layer of concrete. The top layere was never put in, though - there was just put 4 layers of carpet on top, probably over time, without a damping shield underneath.

We are going to finish the floor - or rather, Bruno is - good thing I am married to a handyman!

Other than that Bruno got the living room and the kitchen ready to paint - and I cleaned the kitchen thoroughly (I just had a clear example of how NOT to leave the kitchen, when we move - yuck!).

Tomorrow we start out by painting the living room and the kitchen. We can barely wait to go back in there and start up again!

When I nearly killed a dear colleague...

2008-03-12T19:47:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I nearly had a dear colleague harmed in an accident.

Well - actually it wasn't my fault - I blame Lene from Liber Vin for it.

She was the one that wanted me to taste some of her REALLY good wines - in order for me to sell some to my colleagues. So she set on the table a very fine St. Emilion, and right next to it - there it was - that 2002 Maison Louis Picamelot, AOC Volnay 1er Cru "Santenots".

It had an incredible scent. And when I tasted it, I spontaneously cried: "I'd sell my body for this wine!"

Helge is normally a very level headed guy. It takes quite a bit to shake him up, but that outburst sure did it, even if it wasn't meant literally.

Poor guy had just filled his mouth with the good red stuff, and he sat there with an odd look, making half-choked giggle-sounds, whilst trying not to spew the expensive and exquisite drops all over the room.

Fortunately he did not choke on the wine. Even though I believe he would find it a worthy death*) to choke on an outstanding burgunder, he is a bit too young to pass away.

Later we agreed, that even though we like to use the spontaneous comments we make on wines in our sales-email, this comment was best omitted. But who knows - maybe it could sell a couple of bottles, even at the going rate of 450 kr. a piece...

*) As W.C. Fields put it: "Drown in a cold vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting?"

It's getting close!

2008-03-12T07:32:00.003+01:00

The day is getting close ... this coming saturday we take over our new house!

From then on we have 3 weeks, where we have 2 houses - our plan is to move on march 29'th, and that leaves us with a one week margin. Plenty of time to clean the old house properly for the new owners.

Someone asked me if I was not the least bit sorry for leaving this house, and the answer is: no, I am not.

I've had some of the happiest years of my life here, but that is not due to the house. I would have been happy in almost any house.

And now I am moving to a house my love and I picked out together - far from ex'es, old neighbours and all of the history that in time has gone bad on us.

I can't wait to see the house - just with us in it! To look in closets and peek under carpets. To own it!

Last weekend was well spent. We went out on friday with some of Brunos colleagues, and saturday was the big Bankdata party - nearly 800 people in Forum Horsens. It was a fine party, allthough the food was somewhat lacking in quality.

Sunday I was ... well, indisposed. Hung over.

Now I have some busy days until friday, when my vacation starts...

About being priveleged

2008-02-29T14:46:00.002+01:00

When it comes to hard physical labour, I'm not worth much these days.

There are lots of things, I can't do at the moment. Fortunately my mand stands by me and cheers me up - and also knows when to leave me to be cranky on my own.

With him I am in the best hands. He can vaccum and make pizza dough, now that I can't.

And he reminds me of all the other stuff I do.

He is wonderful, and I am mad about him. Yesterday, when I was at the hairdressers with Kristian, I heard Shania Twains "You're still the one" playing on the radio - and that song just sums up how I feel about him.

Way back when we started, there were enough people that didn't give us a chance - even some that wanted badly to see us fail. Some, that were nice enough to remind us, that the honeymoon would soon be over.

To those people I can only say: :-P
TOO BAD!

As Shania sings "...we're still going strong..."

Time and relativity...

2008-02-25T22:49:00.003+01:00

You know what they say about time, don't you?

How it speeds madly, when you sit around the table with good friends and a meal. How it drags it feet when you wait in the dentists waiting room.

Or if you are waiting for something good to happen.

Now there is a little less than 3 weeks to the day when we get the keys for our new house. I have never imagined that 3 weeks could be SUCH a long time. And it is quite unfair.

I want my hoooooouse!! I want to go and look in the closets, peek under the carpets, putter about in the garden - and make it all mine. I want to start painting and moving things in there. And I would rather have it happen today than tomorrow (okay - maybe not today - but rather tomorrow than the day after that).

For such a long time I have worn my house-eyes. When I saw a house, I gave it the old up-and-down. Did it look good?

The house-eyes are now converted to interior-eyes. I can't see a magazine, a tv-show, or walk past a house with lit windows - I have to check the colors, the decorating, how it is furnished ... I get ideas and evaluate.
My sole issue of Isabellas is worn thin, and I study all magazines ardously - much more intensly than I ever have.

I dream.

And most of all I wait and long - intensely! - to meet my new house. My new neighbourhood. My new neighbours.

This new chapter in my life.

The recipe for a lovely sunday afternoon

2008-02-25T15:00:00.002+01:00

1. Send your kids off to visit friends.
2. Wave a loving goodbye to you husband, who is leaving for his workout
3. Lower you bum carefully into the couch whilst arranging your blanket precariously over your legs
4. Turn on chapters 4, 5 and 6 of "Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and (sigh!) Colin Firth
5. Add the remains of last nights chokolate, and your perfect sunday afternoon is secured.

Sometimes you just gotta give yourself the pleasure of doing exactly what you feel like. I did yesterday.

I'd watched the first chapter of named series saturday while doing an enormous pile of ironing. The other two were my prize for overcoming this enormous pile, and yesterday I decided to grab the remaining 3.

I love that series. Kristian asked me yesterday how many times I've seen it, and I actually didn't know the answer. I'll never tire of the pace in that series (being low - few cuts - almost like theatre) and the beauty of the language spoken in it. I love the surpressed, underplayed emotions, and yes - I find Colin Firth an almost unbearably manly and desirable Mr. Darcy.

When I was almost finished with the last chapter, the Mr. Darcy of my life came home from the gym. Then my "break" was over - but I didn't mind at all :-)

Freedom stuck in my brain

2008-02-19T19:42:00.002+01:00

I go around singing "FreeeeeeeeeDOM - FreeeeeeeDOM - FreeEEEeeeeDOM!" at the moment. X-tetten are in the middle of a really big project with JRs Big Band in Middelfart - and a handful of gents.

Our piece is Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington, and everyone that knows it, will recognice the fact that the word Freedom comes up a few times...

I try to learn by listening to the cd at home, so now Kristian is humming "Freedom is sweet - on the beat - Freedom is sweet to the reet complete..."

Here we have Michala - she's happy because she managed to find a Freedom-free song:

On break we have a good time. Maibrit and I have always had a thing for each other - I believe it's from when we did a duet on "Skibet skal sejle i nat" - a danish traditional love song. Now I have been banned from singing soprano, because we have Karina, who is a "real" soprano - I am a mere mezzo...

It's a break to be with the X-tetten gals. It widens my horizon and I can feel how balanced and mature I feel, when I leave from there. Maybe it's because I really re-live my teenage years in their company??

News from Andreas

2008-02-19T19:24:00.002+01:00

Yesterday brought signs of life from Andreas!

I was tossing up a salad for dinner (Lasse was paying a visit), when Kristian called out for me to come - Andreas was on messenger.

So we had quite a chat via messenger - dinner just had to wait.

It sounds like they are fine - and darn, he is tan and blond by now :-)

It was so nice to hear from him...

Be my valentine...

2008-02-14T15:51:00.001+01:00

...is how it says on tons of shiny cards dragged around today by primarily the american mailmen.

To me, Valentines Day was new, strange and very foreign, when I first learned about that custom as a very young woman in the US.

I'll probably never go whole hog - just like I won't cry my eyes out if my kids don't shower me with flowers, chocolates and socks/mugs/tshirts saying "The worlds greatest mom" on mothers day.

But it's always fine to be a little romantic - so I was, as I put together Brunos lunch last night, when he attended a meeting in the biking club.

Yes, cold cuts on pumpernickel can be romantic too.

Of course I kept my face straight this morning - and waited anxiously for him to write "WHAAAAAT" in an email. But not a sound.

So around 2 pm I write him to ask if he enjoyed his lunch, and he says "No, we had leftovers from that seminar yesterday - but I put it in the fridge, it's fine for tomorrow!"

DOH!

That'll teach me...

Spare part wanted

2008-02-04T12:29:00.000+01:00

Lately my shoulder has been causing me problems.

Pain. Tingling fingers. That has been part of my everyday life.

Yesterday it kept me from participating in Winter Cup - annoying, since the weather was so fine. But I couldn't face clinging to the handlebars of my mtb for 1½ hour.

Thursday I'm having my shoulder x-rayed. They will check if there is arthritis or something like that in there. I don't believe they will find anything on the x-rays, but it's worth a try.

Last week I had 4 days of hotline work, and that was bad for me. My regular job is a lot more flexible, so it doen't strain my shoulder as much. Hotline, however, keeps me bound to the keyboard. My shoulder does not like that at all.

I wish I could just get a new shoulder like you get spare parts to your car - but it's unfortunately not as easy as that...

Andreas on his way

2008-02-02T15:56:00.000+01:00

So yesterday we said bye-bye to Andreas.

The last couple of days have been busy for him. He's had plenty of things to settle, shots at the doctor and a room to pack into boxes.

These boxes contain most of Andreas' belongings...

There was a backpack to pack, too. Kristina and Andreas travel with the backpacks that Bruno and I got, when we went on our backpack trip to Greece in 2005. One of our packs went with Christina to China, so they do get around more than their owners :-)Bruno helped him adjust the straps to a perfect fit.

My mother came down thursday. We had a going away dinner for Andreas, the menu of course being Flæskesteg (danish traditional roast pork) with gravy and boiled potatoes and red cabbage. Michael, a friend from childhood, came by to say goodbye - the rest of his friends he spent time with earlier this week. And then suddenly it was friday - the last day he would spend home in 4½ month. Time ticked away to hours and minutes, and at once he was saying goodbye to his room and walking down the stairs for the very last time... backing out of the driveway he waved goodbye to the house - that he will not be seeing again.

At the train station we waved goodbye along with Kristinas father, little brother and mother who were also there to bid the kids fare well.

The train was packed - a good thing it was, that they had reserved seats. They spent the night at Kristinas family's near the airport, and I got the final call from Andreas when they were waiting at the gate. Now they are on the plane to Atlanta, Georgia, and from there they will fly to San Jose.

The first week they will spend at a place called "Mikes Lodge" - in the jungle. So we won't hear signs of life until next saturday, when they arrive at Coco.

And my kid wont be home before june 15.

It's very strange that he wont be here with his bright smile, loud outbursts, his messes and his warm presence. He's been a fixed part of my life for nearly 21 years and I will miss him much.

But I hope he has a fantastic and adventurous trip, and a lovely memorable time with his sweet girlfriend.

Lovely sunday

2008-01-27T13:10:00.001+01:00

The past week has been rainy and stormy. We've gone outside only hesitantly, and even then with a grimace displaying our discomfort of this ugly, hostile weather.

Today the world seems transformed. The sun is shining and the air is mild. What a delicious change!

My sons chose to use the good weather for tossing around a ball in the garden. Kristian is not to fond of playing ball, only when his older brother asks - then he is all for it!

I grabbed my camera (I SO enjoy having the use of it again - good thing I went and bought that new charger for the battery) - thinking it may be a long time before my boys play soccer again - and it may be the last time on this lawn.

I will try to take many pictures of Andreas in the next few days. Because friday he gets on a train to Copenhagen, and I won't see him again until june 15th. It is strange, but I think he will have a marvellous time and I wish him the best. No clingy mother am I - and even though it is a strange thought that my son will probably never live permanently with me again, it is really what a parent strive for: that your child is able to go out and make a life of his own. To me, that is success.

After taking pictures of my lovely boys, I laced my NB's and went out for a run. It went marvellously! I have cut off more than 5 minutes of my usual 5 km run, since I started running again 1½ month ago.

Running today was a treat. With the air mild, and even the sound of birds in nearby gardens, and suddenly I noticed the first touches of green in gardens I ran by. Also, the feeling in my body was different. This is the first really pleasant run I have had in more than a year. I am finally to the point where I run effortlessly - I get winded and sweaty, but running just feels so good. I wanted to run further, and even after unlacing my shoes, I wanted to put them back on and run some more.

I might go again tomorrow! It just felt so sweet.

When I got home, the kids were ready to take off. They have now gone to visit their grandparents, and they won't come home until later tonight.

So far, it's been a lovely sunday.