I can't hear you

This year my job is to take care of a group of 2 year olds. So far they are quit good at throwing tantrums. All 15 of them. I guess I shouldn't complain, it is just one or two tantrums... pr minute. It could have been worse, right? Yeah I have fun.

knock knock

yeah I'm still here. I have just been a bit busy this weekend. Friday I was to tired after a long week at work - it is amazing how much more tired you feel when you go back to work after a holiday. Saturday I was feeling a bit down so I didn't feel like posting much. And Sunday, which was yesterday, I was to busy looking at this guy:

He is pretty cute, right?.

Oh, who he is? Well he is a french guy, more precisly tennis player, with the funny name Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (yes I know that sounds like a very girl name). He was 'Mr Nobody' in this years Australian Open. He started the tournament with no ranking and made it all the way to the final.

Hameed liked the guy because he was 'Mr Nobody' and did so well. I too liked him for that, but it didn't hurt that he was cute as well... So we spent last night cheering for Tsonga. The match was pretty exciting and it was very close but in the end Tsonga lost to Djokovic.

I never really understood tennis, but Im starting to get it now and if there is more players as cute as Tsonga I can possible be talked into see much more of this sport...

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Just to add. I have seen several blogs letting their readers ask them questions. I figured I give it a go too. So here is your chance: ask me anything you like and I will do my best to answer. Just leave your question(s) in the comments.

love thursday

I am asking for love this thursday. Love for two of my friends.

On Tuesday a friend and co-worker got a call that one of her closest friends, who had been battling with cancer for the last 10 years, was about to pass away. His doctors predicted he had about 1 more day here on earth. The call came around noon and my friend left work about 1 o'clock. Just before 3 we got a message saying he had passed away. My friend got some more then an hour to say the final good byes to a dear and close friend.

Yesterday a friend of Hameed and myself told us that there was something going on with him. He have been to checked out by doctors and apparently some of the bones in his skull is dissolving and he also have a bump over his ear. He was going for further tests at a cancer center today. They do not know what this is yet, but it is possible that he has cancer.

Please send your love and prayers to these two. They sure need it.

some answers

apparently I can not spell in Norwegian nor English. Drawing pins in Norwegian is called 'tegnestifter' not 'teinestikker'. If I keep this up I will soon invent my own language. It shall be called 'dinalanguage' - a mix of English, Norwegian and made up words. Correct spelling is optional.

shaari was wondering why I wanted to exercises 1 hour everyday and he seemed very impressed with me. He might be a bit less impressed after hearing this;1 hour a day is easy if you are clever (or maybe lazy is the better word) like me. All things that require me to get of my butt is regarded as exercise. I walk to work, that is 30 min walking and because I like to get home at night I get another 30 min of walking. So easy as that I get my 1 hour of exercises 5 days a week. Now I just need to figure out how to get moving a bit during the weekends too.

My very funny husband thinks I look like Harry Potter . I cut my hair almost 2 months ago and got this so called 'side swept' fringe. It looked nice that first day, but then it started to drive me crazy. It was to hard to part it the right way and I spent to much time pushing hair away from my eyes. I am a busy woman, so I had to do something. What I did was to cut my fringe straight of. Not sure if I am digging it. I think my hair possible is a bit to thick for this fringe thing.

I am back to work, I think I have mention that once (maybe twice) before and you know what I miss most about not being home all day anymore? (Well besides from sleeping as long as I want to in the morning). I miss being able to spend more time cleaning, cooking and planning what food to buy. How weird is that. I am not a 'housewife' at all (just ask my mum if you don't believe me) but it was actually quit nice to have the time to do this properly during my break. Now we are both to tired so we live of nutella and the dishes is piling up in the sink. I wish we had plates like this (thanx to Diva for the link)

Harry Potter?

these pins are made for drawing

On Friday I went shopping for new supplies for work with my co-workers. One of the items on the shopping list was 'drawing pins'.

I wondered about that one. Drawing pins? Is that pins I can draw with? Or what is it? We got to the store and I saw what drawing pins were. All this time I have just called them 'pins', but as my co-worker pointed out: there are many different kind of 'pins' . Drawing pins, (obviously) and safety pins are the once that comes to mind right now, I know there are more. Anyway, I smiled a bit about the name 'drawing pins' and was planning to tell Hameed about this silly name.

Today Hameed and I went food shopping and when Hameed was looking at some computer magazines I just looked around and what do I see? More drawing pins. I smiled again and then I remember what these are called in Norwegian;" teignestikker" which literally translated means...'drawing pins'. Maybe is not such a silly name after all...

dealing wih (mis)communcation

When Hameed and I first move to our own flat we sat up our phone with the biggest company here in Australia. We did not do an research before we choose this company and although the guy I talk to when I signed up did list up all my benefits and things I could not do, I still have no idea what he said. Basically things like that make my head spin. I did manage to get him to confirm that I would get a working phone line and yes I would be able to call my mummy. I was happy.

A few months down the track we decided to get internet and it was just easiest to stick with this big company. We had phone and internet with them for about 2 years until one day about 1 year ago a guy knocked on our door. He introduced himself and said he was from another phonecompany and that he could offer us a better deal. My head started to spin before he had said two sentences, but Hameed sat down with him and actually manage to understand what this deal was all about. It turns out the guy was right. It was a better deal for us., it cost less and was better quality internet and I could still call my mummy. So we switched.

Now our old company did not give us much trouble for leaving them. They did send us a check for $ 9.90 which we were happy enough to cash. We never understood how we got in credit as we always just paid the amount they asked us for. Then a month later we got a 'bill'. I say 'bill' because it was not really a bill. It looked like a bill, but instead of saying how much we had to pay it said we had $19.40 credit. Again, not sure how this happen, but whatever. We did not think much about it really. I believe I at one stage thought we really had had 19.40 credit but minus fees and charges and stuff we ended up with the 9.90 we had got the check for.

For a year we got this' bill' every single month. It started to get annoying. I called - twice- asking them to stop it already. And both times the assured me that yes, our account was closed and yes they would not send anymore 'bills' - very sorry about that ma'am.

It did not stop. I sent an email asking them to just please tell me what to do to get it to stop. The problem is that these 'bills' contains personal information, which would make it easy for someone not so honest to make a new account in our name, so we can't just throw them in the bin. It did seem though that this email I sent might have been a break trough. I got a letter.

The letter said; very sorry ma'am (twice!) and then went on to explain that we were getting 'bills' because our account was in credit. To stop reciving this bills we just had to call them and ask for a check. Oki then. I guess I should not complain about people wanting to give me money although I still don't understand how we ended up in credit.

So I called and got it sorted out with this lady, who promised to send my money. She warned me though that the check would take about 6 weeks to come through so I would probably get another 'bill' in the mean time (don't ask me why they do this). When I pointed out that no one had ever told me before (remember this has been going on for a year) that I would need to call them to ask for a check she replied that it was 'generally understood'. Meaning that normal people (more smart once then us I guess) would see their bill with credit on and promptly call to ask for a check...

I know I am slow sometimes, but for a company that specialize in communication they are not very good at it. I really had expected more. I had expected that maybe one of those 2 people I talked to during the year when I asked them to stop. sending. me. bills. already. might had clued me in on this. Actually, I would expect them to send me a letter when we first canceled to say: 'hey you have credit, please call us so we can send you a check'. And maybe even add how we got a credit..

But maybe I am expecting to much. I guess I should just shut up and be happy they give me money.

good health-a-thon friday - update 2

oh boy. Not good, not good, not good at all. Did I say not good?

I am back at work and how am I supposed to eat my 2 serves of fruit and 1 serve of veggies when my boss is feeding me chocolate covered dough nuts? It just don't work. Oh yeah I heard there is something called choice and willpower... I didn't listen to either of them this week. So I failed. And not only in one goal. I failed them all.

I was to busy in the morning so I forgot my sunscreen. I was to busy at work so there was very little water going down my throat. And I was so tired when I came home that my exercise dvd is just laying there, collecting dust. I am glad I can try again next week.

1. Drink 2 liters of water everyday
2. Put on sunscreen
3. Eat 2 serves of fruit and 1 serve of veggies everyday
4. Do some exercise for 1 hour everyday.
5. Save the chocolate for Saturday.

Wish me luck for next week - I'm going to need it.

love thursday

a few days ago Hameed and I were talking about me going back to work today.

Hameed: I will miss you
Me: you will?
Hameed: yes, now I will have to make my own lunch.

He sure now how to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside....

where did it go?

It feels like it was yesterday I made this post. Today was my last day of freedom. Hameed says it sounds like I am going to jail tomorrow. I am not going to jail, just back to work, and I do love my job. Really I do. I just love having holiday more.

I have no idea where all the time went though. I have done what was on my priority list: spend time with my husband, be lazy, sleep, relax and do some cooking. I also manage to squish in one successful trip to the beach (and one unsuccessful). I have been lunching out with Hameed and I have been having lunch with friends. I got a new friend and I made new years eve dinner for heaps of people (which we still have leftover from in the freezer). All in all it has been a good holiday. I wold be happy to have another 27 days though.

and somtimes I am slow

Mir posted a joke at the end of her blog entry today.

A blind man walks into a bar. He says… “Ouch!”

I smiled when I read it because it was different. A few hours later I got it.......and then I laughed (and possible scared some people walking past me on the street)

two mysteries solved in one day

There is two things I have been pondering about and today I found the answer to both of them.

First, the picture is a picture of an Australian mailman. I guess they might have mailwomen too, but I have yet to see one. Anyhow this is how the 'typical' mailman look like. Dressed in orange and riding a motor bike. Now as you might can tell from the picture; the two bags attached to the back of the bike is where the mailman is storing the mail. And that is my first mystery. Those bags is not able to contain much mail. So how does this work? Fair enough, here in Australia the mailman do not carry any junk mail or newspapers. He only carries addressed mail. But still. The street I live in alone have about 100 residence. Does he take several trips? Or do each street have their own mailman or do Australian people not get much mail at all?

My mum used to work as a mailwoman (see in Norway we have women doing this job too) She used our car to carry the mail she had to deliver. Yes, she did also deliver some newspapers and junk mail, but even without that the car would be pretty full. So how is this Australian mailman able to just use these tiny bags? It is beyond me. And I had actually started to think about maybe asking him, but then he might think I was crazy or something...

The other day I did think I might was going a bit crazy though, until Hameed told me that I was not crazy (at least not yet). At the end of our street we have a red mailbox. The other day I noticed that next to it there was a big green box. I had never noticed it before (and there is when I was questioning my sanity). The box had spider web on it so I came to the conclusion that it must have been there all the time, I had just been blind every time I walked past it before.

When I walked past this green box with Hameed some days later, he told me that he had seen them putting up this box the other day, which meant I am not blind or going crazy. What a relief. But even though he had seen it being put up he had no idea what it was used for. My husband do not think it is a good idea to just ask people. Yes, I know he is weird.

Today though. Today was the day both these big mysteries was solved. I was walking past the green box and what do I see? The mailman is using his key, opening the green box and restocking his bags with mail. So that is how it works. The green box is for storing mail and the mailman is able to use a teeny tiny motorbike to deliver his mail with because he restock his bags from these green boxes.

Oh life makes so much more sense now.

did you know

that if you go close to a beach on a particular windy day you can be covered in sand without actually stepping onto the beach? Quite interesting actually. You should try it one day.

the big day

is finally here. My sister Annette is 30 years old today. A big happy birthday to you. Hope you enjoy your day Nette!



PS! the 30's are REALLY much much better then the 20's..

good health-a-thon friday

My first update of my health-a-thon. Here is goes:

1. I will eat 1 serve of fruit each day the next week
I did it! I actually had 2 pieces some days. There is some really really yummy peaches in season right now so it was not to hard to eat them.

2. I will drink 1 glass of water before every meal the next week
Well this one was not to hard either. It is possible because it has been pretty hot around here lately. We had 40 degrees the last 2 days. Cold water is actually very tasty.

3. I will put sun screen on every morning
I missed 1 day, that was yesterday, but to my defense I did not go outside at all yesterday. It was 40 degrees in the shade, warmer then my thermometer could measure in the sun, so going outside was not very tempting.

4. I will try my work out dvd 3 times the next week
Hmm here is were I did bad...very bad. I got it out finally yesterday and did about 30 min. Did I mention it was 40 degrees yesterday? I reckon 30 min in that heat was worth probably 60 min in normal weather. But still I need to step up on this one.

So onto my challenge for the next week:

1. I will eat 2 serves of fruit and 1 serve of veggies everyday
2. I will drink 2 liters of water everyday
3. I will put sunscreen on every morning
4. I will use my work out dvd 3 times during the next week
5. I will try very hard to only eat chocolate on Saturday.

love thursday

A couple of weeks before Christmas I was sitting in church listening to the minster. He was telling a story about how his son once got hurt while their where hiking in the bush. The son could only think of how much it hurt and of course since he was hurt, hiking, was now the worst thing he could ever imagine doing. The boy was perfectly able to still walk even if it was a bit slowly. The minister got the idea of trying to convince his son to just look at the positive things about hiking. It worked. The looked at the good things and where even able to spot a rare lizard on their way back down to the car and the son almost forgot how much it hurt and how he really did not like hiking anymore.

I have been thinking of this story a lot lately. Wondering if there is anything positive about my pregnancy with Sami and losing him. I thought to myself; well I got to be pregnant and I got to feel him do somersaults in my belly. Sometimes so many somersaults that I could not sleep at night, but I still enjoyed it.

Then I read a blog entry by Mata H. She is talking about how she is feeling down on Christmas eve because she has lost all her family and she misses Christmas as it use to be. Thinking about how much she misses her family she realizes that:

The very fact that I had been given in this life something worth missing later was such a huge gift, such a marvel that so many people do not have.

She is so right. That is what I have been trying to tell myself, but not really found the right words for. I am very lucky. Many women, and I don't need to look far to find them, will never be able to experience carrying a baby. They will never be able to feel their baby wrap their little hand around their finger. Never be able to see their baby open his eyes and try to focus on his mummy.

I was able to - and for that I am very grateful.


Thanx for the memories Sami.

Happy love thursday.

our nisse

A belated christmas presents from Elin and Sallah that somehow manage to get pass the custom...Thank you, we love it.

stuff - very scary stuff

Chris is my hero because she is a mother of 7 and still manage to write some very funny blog entries. Her latest thing though is to try to live 1 year without buying anything she and her family really need.
She writes:

I walked through the aisles of my local Target. So many things to buy and bring home. Things I didn’t even know that I needed a few moments before. And yet I manage to fill my cart with these things. Every week.

So the solution was to stop buying things. And how this all goes, for a family of 9, you can read about here

I am a big fan of Chris's main blog so I was only to happy to get another blog to read and when I read how she decided to stop shopping I realized "hey, that is really not a bad idea". Something tells me that Hameed would love for me to stop buying so much things too.

Then I read some of the comments Chris got on her blog and one of them suggested to check out story of stuff and then I got scared and went to hide under the bed...

Well I didn't really hide, but it truly is scary. The video clip is a bit slow to load, so I suggest watching a chapter at the time. I did sort of know what the story of stuff is all about already, but it was a wake up call, and did I say scary, to see it like that.

So I have decided to try to buy some less stuff. We do not buy a lot in the first place and we do not own a car, so we are doing something right. But everyone can do better. And who knows, we might end up saving a penny or two...

superglue - now with new purpose

ABC News report today that a boy in Mexico glued himself to his bed to avoid going to school.

A 10-year-old Mexican boy glued his hand to his bed to avoid going back to school after the Christmas break, authorities said.

"I thought if I was glued to the bed, they couldn't make me go to school," the boy, Diego, said. "I didn't want to go, the holidays were so much fun."

"I remembered my mom had bought a very strong glue," he said of the industrial strength shoe glue he used to stick his hand to the bed's metal headboard, where he stayed stuck for two hours.

His mother Sandra Palacios was unable to free him and called paramedics and police to help.

Diego watched cartoons while they worked to unglue him, eventually using a spray to dissolve the chemical adhesive.

"I don't know why this happened. He is a very good boy," said his mother.

Diego eventually made it to school a few hours late.

Clever boy really, I would never have though of using superglue for that. My ways of avoiding school were more like this

treading the papermill

We are currently dealing with three different government offices in two different countries. What they seem to have in common though is a great love for papers. Lots of forms to fill out, lots of information to read and lots of documentation to provided. We are totally digging it.

One of the offices we are dealing with are the immigration office. We are in the final stages of getting Hameed his permanent visa and I really thought we had already given them all kind possible documentation, but they seem to want more.

So we spent all yesterday filling out forms. Today I made the copies we needed. Hopefully tonight we will be able to sort things out so all I have to do to tomorrow is to get the copies signed and sent of. I am so looking forward to finish this thing. With both Hameed's visa and mine we have been doing this stuff three times now. It seems like they want to know everything about us and a bit more.

I got mine visa a bit more then 2 years ago and I am now entitle to some support from the government as I do not earn lots of money and I am currently supporting two people on my income. I tried to look into what I need to do today and yeah more paperwork. Ugh.

And then we have the tax office in Norway, who is quit happy to send me forms and information about tax in Norway. They also insist that I fill out a tax return form ever year. I have not earn a cent in Norway since February 2003.. What is it with these offices and their love of paperwork?

while the sun shine

in Melbourne and we are guzzling down liters of water in an attempted to stay cool and hydrated my sister, Annette, is wandering around in this :

cracking up

on our way home from the store today I saw a house with large cracks in the wall.

Me: look that house is cracking up
Hameed: someone must have told a good joke

got links?

I have wanted to have my main links horizontal for a while. (See right above this post ^) Today I tried to fix this. I did a search on the net and found some step-by-step directions for how to do it. It look very easy, but of course it was not that easy.

I follow the directions and did everything as the guy said, but when I got to save changes, I was told by blogger that I had done something wrong. What I did wrong I have no idea about as the explanation they gave me could just as well have been in Greek... Html stuff is difficult.

After pouting for a bit, Hameed took over and he manage to get the links horizontal. Yay! Now we just need to figure out how to make them more pretty. I like them to be bigger and in bold.

schindlers list

Last night Hameed and I saw the movie Schindlers list. I had seen the movie before, many years ago, but it was still good to see it again. Good in the sense that by seeing the movie and remembering what happen we might prevent something like this to happen again.

The movie is almost entirely in black and white, which in my opinion really suit. The story is to dark and depressing that colors would not have felt right. The girl in the red coat is the only bit of color there is in the whole movie. This was a girl Schindler noticed when she manage to escape from being killed at the Krystal night. Later however we see her again as one of the causalities and when the movie zoom in on Schinlers face as he notice her laying we can almost 'see' his thought. Why this girl? What did she do wrong? Since she is the only bit of color the audience feel a bit more special for her too and the cruelty of what happen seem to be understood a bit more. No, the people that was killed were no criminals in anyway, they were just people and many of them very young kids.

At the end of the movie there is an interview with several of the people that was on the Schindler's list. People that did manage to get out of there and survived to tell us. They told there stories and we noticed that many of their personal stories had been used in the movie.

Some of the ladies told about how when they were by mistake sent toAuschwitz instead of to Schindlers factory. They had heard rumors about how people were sent to big 'shower' cambers only to be gassed to death. Lucky there particular women got away from Aushwitz a live, but there were so many more that did not.

When I was in high school I had to study german. In my second year, I was 17 then, our teacher took the whole class for a 1 trip to Germany. One of the days on that trip were spent visiting a concentration camp. I thought we did go to Autswitz, but looking at the map now I can see that we probably did no go to that camp. There were several camps and they were all pretty much set up in the same way.

We travelled to Germany in May which is usually a time of the year when it is getting warmer. I remember we were able to wear just t-shirts for most of the trip. The morning of the day we were going to the concentration camp though our teacher decided that we all were to bring jackets and jumpers. We though he was being silly, but he insisted.

It was the weirdest thing. As soon as we entered the gate of the concentration camp it got so cold. It was 1992 then, 47 years after the camp had been in use, but still it was cold and extremely depressing atmosphere there.



We were showed around and the 'showers' which was really gas chambers were the thing that made the deepest impression with me. Did you know that in 1992, 47 years later, we could still see blood stains on the floors on the chambers?

As depressing and awful going on that trip was I am so glad we did. I am praying that nothing like this will ever happen again.

to much spice in my life

I clean out my spice/oil/div junk cupboard before Christmas and I was pretty shocked to see how much odd things we have. You know all those fancy recipe you see in magazines which require at least 3 different 'never before heard of' ingredients? Of course you need to buy them and since the recipe was pretty disappointing you never make it again and the spices you bought... well they are currently taking a lot of space in my cupboard.

Here is the tally:

peanut oil
rice vinegar
pure sesame oil
baking powder
soy sauce
gravy
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
vegetable oil
turmeric powder
parsley
poppy seed
cumin seed
5-chinese spices
ground nutmeg
thyme
curry powder
chicken stock cubs
beef stock cubs
hot madrass curry powder
paprika
ginger
cardemonn
cinnamon
tarragon
garam masala
caraway seeds
pepper
salt
chives
organo x 2
sea salt
garlic salt
lamb herbs
greek seasoning

The once in bold are the one we use frequently. Now any ideas what I can do with the rest? Any favorite recipe out there which calls for tarragon and garam masala or cardemon?

love thursday

when we first got married we will celebrate our anniversary ever month. Every 2nd of the month we will go out for lunch, dinner or just have a little celebration at home. Then I guess we got busy... and our monthly celebrations just fizzled down to nothing, leaving the 2nd of each month to just be a regular day.

Yesterday was the 2nd. And even though I was very aware of the date I did not remember that is was our monthly anniversary. Right before I fell asleep last night Hameed did remember and whispered : "Happy 2 year and 1 month anniversary". Gotta love a guy who remembers special days.

Happy love thursday.

good health-a-thon

Do you know what I did yesterday? I canceled my membership at the gym. Yes you read that right. I canceled it. One that very day that most people start their 'new and healthy' life (which of course they give up 2 weeks later) I skipped out.

Why I canceled? Because I never use it. Seriously. I do love going there and do some swimming, but with working full time and the pool being very very busy at the times I am free it was hard to fit in a work out. Which of course lead to me not going at all. So instead of keep giving them my money every month, I finally manage to cancel the whole thing.

So what I will do now? Just sit around and gain lots of weight? Actually I do hope there will be reason for me to gain weight during 2008, but not the unhealthy kind. What I want to do though since I am no longer a member of the gym is to try to more active incorporate work out and more healthy living into my busy life.

I came across a blog entry on blog her called Good Health-a thon. Kristy challenge people in that entry to make small differences and set smaller spesific goals. I can do that!

So my first goals:

1. I will eat 1 serve of fruit each day the next week
2. I will drink 1 glass of water before every meal the next week
3. I will put sun screen on every morning
4. I will try my work out dvd 3 times the next week

I will give you updates on my progress next friday. Oh I sould also say that if you want to laugh a bit you should really check out Kristy's personal blog 'She just walks around with it'

party is over

happy new year!!

I found 'stjerneskudd' (or sparkles) in the store and of course I had to get some. It was a tad different to waive my 'stjerneskudd' around wearing singlet and shorts and trying not to melt away in 40 degrees weather (yes we still had 40 degrees at midnight).

We had a nice party with way to much food. We probably have leftovers for the rest of the week. (meatballs anyone?? come on over)

2007 had its ups and some very low points. Here is to hoping that 2008 have just ups.