Puzzle progress

While I'm practising and Robi is at work, his mum is trying to put some of my puzzle together. This is our status so far. It's kind of possible to see the outline, isn't it?

Lilies

Pauline grows them in the garden, and now around sunset they smell intense and delicious!

My baby!

It's here!!!

Look, isn't it just cute?
MSI

Now! Take a look at it :)
I've got the red version, of course...

Blizzard

Monday I had promised myself to do some painting on the house. But the weather put a stop to my plan. It was like Thor had gone nutters. Even the house was shaking at times. I put out all the electronics and liv candles, made some popcorn (fast cooking) and had my brain occupied with The Otori stories and my puzzle.

Visit!

Sunday night we invited Liv for dinner. Kind of thank-you for lending me her cello, and taking good care of me. She brought this beautiful bouquet with flowers from her garden and a box of After Eight. A perfect evening!

Step 1

Washing off old paint with high pressure. A mans job!

Hundvåg ink

Robi has got some bruises after the Chinese treatment yesterday, so I took the advantage of it to make a "tattoo". Longevity!

Wild strawberries!

What could possibly taste better after an 8 hour long drive (Oslo to Stavanger) than wild strawberries? They grow in our tiny garden, so I'm not sure the term suits them very well... But incredibly yummie!!
It is great to have my little brother for visit! :)

Top 3 list

My today's top 3 list is as follows:

1. The water kettle.
-it allows me to drink unlimited amounts of hot beverages such as tea and coffee

2.Summer edition of "Intellingent Life"
-Very interesting, and since I don't have any books here it's my only reading for now. Can't hang around the computer or TV the whole days. AND I can bring it outside when it suddenly gets warm and not windy..)

2.Purple colored nailpolish.
-Didn't expect this? Well, now I can cover my great, blue toenail! (without feeling like a worn out prostitute - read: with RED toenails)


...and then it's the matter of my puzzle. It goes without saying, I guess. For now, it's frame is almost complete (1 piece I can't find yet) and I have a few pieces out in the middle section.

Sunday dinner

Pauline invited her russian orthodox part of her family and her mum over for dinner. A true american one, with stuffed turky, mango chutney, mashed potatoes and as company for the coffee-gonger cake. Knert, we missed you! Here, the tired but happy hostess relaxing in the rocking chair.

Groth, Games and Gardening

This easter was filled with the three G's.
Robi and I went to an art exhibition at Rogaland Kunstmuseum with Jan Groths work, under the title of "Traces and spaces" a day when the sky were bursting out its wrath over Stavanger.
We played backgammon in pubs and cafes, and when the weather allowed us to: gardening!

Mum, it's actually very pleasing to do gardening if your patch of land is not too big... And the wild thyme you gave us has now got its own little space in the tiny garden of ours.

Practice lunch

Outdoors! Using our terrace and the cafe table & chair for the first time. Very eastery, yet not really sunny. But I want it to be, so then it is. Yeah.

Šišky, tea and movie

Mum and my brother left today, leaving us lost and bewildered. Now we're comforting our selves with these slovak doughnuts, tea and a movie. Eivind, this fantastic picture is a tribute to you! Isn't it just artisticly amazing? ;)

IKEA...

It's hardly a secret that I really hate IKEA. At least on saturdays. I think it has something to do with all the people. Stressed parents, wild aunts crazy to get the cheap offers, men pretending the shopping wagon is a ferrari, screaming kids... an inferno of noises and limbs. And then it's impossible to get around without bumping into anyone or get run over. Wherever there's a huge crowd of people, you can be sure I'm not. SO - in short: it's not the place for me.
But, yesterday it was ok! We even managed to buy something!! Well, we didn't buy it - we went back today to pick it up. A mistake. I hated it again today.


Robi and I having a rest after struggling through the masses

But as a treat we bought a stuffed rabbit, now called Trupik. (Norwegians, read it as Tropik.) He sits on our sofa, on top of a luxurious, wine red filt. He looks like a king!

After our adventures through IKEA and the city (had to buy a microwave for Rob and other things too) we came home for some puzzle. IKEA puzzle, of course. Amazingly enough it went pretty well. At least better that hanging up the blinds... We need to borrow some electric drill with a long arm (or whatever it's called).

But it all ended well, and we enjoy our Munkholm, crisps and last weeks Top Gear. It really feels like a home now, sitting in our sofa, surrounded by plants, table with 4 chairs around, filts, curtains, (not a carpet yet) microwave, coffee maschine (my old one, but it's superb), water kettle, musicstand with all gadgets I need, TV on and Robi by my side. *sigh*


The dining table from Åse and Arne, with IKEA chairs


:)

Location: In my livingroom
Mood: Happy!
Eating: Cheese Doodles (haha, Robi hates the smell! Can't blame him)
Drinking: Munkholm
Listening to: the TV

Ahh!!!!

Reading my sisters blog, drinking more coffee (I'm having a real sunday again after long time. And coffee combined with auditions are not a real hit, so NOW!) and eating french Mikado's with chocolate flavor. Can it get any better?

First time in our house!

This is our house, the one with open door! I'm so happy :) Some more pictures comes up when I get the cable for my phone and don't have to send them via the phone...
I came yesterday, after a loooong day on the train. Funny enough - a fellow cellist, Silje, was sitting two - 2 - seats in front of me. Equally bored. And we didn't find each other until Sandnes..
Anyway, it was so good to see Robi again! And he has really done a good job with the interior, even though he has spared a lot of the work until I came so we could do some together. (I.e placing things in the cupboards, decorating the walls, curtains in the bedroom, shelves and so on.)
Ingvild, the Super Woman plates I got from you are fantastic!! (btw, can't log in on your site anymore... *snufs*)

Location: My own house!
Drinking: Caffe Latte, made at home
Eating: Bread with cheese and apple (Mammas speciality), another with smoked salmon
Feeling: Great, and at home
Listening to: the silence

I'm slow

But that's old, old news. I'm thinking of getting my phone-blogging going, then I don't have to worry about the chord, and HOPEFULLY I'll be able to update a tiny bit more often.
Just now, I'm so happy about all the snow which is everywhere. Especially today!
A short resume of what I've done recently:

-Bryhn Terfel concert with the Opera Orchestra
-Aunt Tove came for a weekend, she visited Grandpa at the home, kept Grandma company and joined a pre-birthday dinner for me downstairs
-Had premiere of the Nutcracker at the Opera, and Banki joined in!
-Learned a lot about the new Star Wars game for DS by Alexander (who also gave me a lot of birthday hugs since Helene is a bit far away for this kind of sport)
-Tried to help Pauline with her massage machine. Afterwords it felt like I'd been applauding for too long.

I think I'll show Alexia how to build snowmen, and lighthouses :)

Location: At dad's house
Mood: Very happy, got a lot of sweet greetings, and I've got a WHITE BIRTHDAY!!!
Listening to: Nothing yet
Eating: Mandarin
Drinking: Coffee

Gardening

My mums garden needs maintenance - it's old and it's not very well kept. One of our old apple trees fell down this summer (very sad, it was a Åkerø-tree) and now we need to cut it down properly. We don't have a motor saw, so we used the little one we have. I'm sure my arms will hurt tomorrow!!




And then we realized we had a lot of illegal plants too, so mum cut the dry remains of them down and I burned them in mums outdoors fireplace. Unfortunately, it smoked A LOT. Don't think the firemen or police would have approved, but hey - we got rid of some nasty plants! (Gullris and Lupiner) And just last year we all thought they were just very pretty looking flowers...




Otherwise it has been a very nice Sunday - practice, family dinner and calm music from the radio. Just missing Eivind and Robi.

A completely ordinary saturday

...in Norway means that you go for a walk. Preferably a long walk. We had a shorter one because mum had to go to work around 17, and also visited Grandpa at the hospital (he's just living there for the moment while we're waiting for my Grandma to get her eye operations done) first.
I managed to get Rob with us, even though he didn't actually want to go out. The weather was not really good (it was cloudy with some showers now and then) so I don't blame him. I think he was happy afterwords when he saw that we were going to walk on asphalt (not very Norwegian, but..) and that we intended to go to a place with incredibly nice cakes! Gupu. They're known for having a delicious chocolate cake - and it is very yummi! Still, I prefer the carrot cake, I think.
On our way back down to the car, we found lots, and lots of mushrooms. We didn't have any basket to put them in, so mum's hood had to do. And look at all we found!


Two very happy mushroom-lovers!

Rob made us a fantastic dinner of beef with mushroom sauce and baked potatoes. We had picked up Alexia just after mum left for work, so she had a plate too. ("I'm not especially hungry" she said, but ate a huge portion nevertheless.)
And since we had the house to our selves, we got a film (bought a film for 45,- instead of renting it for 55,- Good deal, don't you think?) and snack, put some wood in the oven and made the living room really cozy. Even Banki joined us! He misses Helene so much that we thought Sweeney Todd would be a good choice. Two of her favorite actors, and Tim Burton - it had to be a success. And it was! Just see how happy he was to get chocolate bananas and see a Helene-movie:



...but I think it'll take a while before I eat meat pies again.

Location: The Kitchen
Drinking: Jasmine Tea
Listening to: Robs computer who tells him "no, I won't do that"
Mood: content, glad I'm indoors! (The weather is very autumny)

Home, sweet home

I had to get up a little too early yesterday to manage to do my packing AND enjoy the breakfast at the hotel before the bus left Kristiansand 08.00
As a musician I'm NOT used to such early hours... (especially not the day after a concert)
The bus travel was actually really exiting, thanks to the Olympic-final in handball between Russia and *tadaa* Norway. The bus-driver put the speakers on so we all listened to it.
I was pretty tired when I stepped out of the bus with cello, bag and rucksack with computer and clothes, but heading off for my a "hot-dog-birthday-party" (pølsebursdag) at Ingvilds place. Her son turned 1 and me and Robert were invited. Rob being in Slovakia still had some problems showing up ;P
They had decorated their backyard with balloons, tables with paper cloths and a big hot grill. They served hot dogs, cakes and jelly. It was so nice to see all the guests - family and friends (both with and without children) gathered together. And the wasps. I also managed to proof that yes, you can actually buy friends (with candy...).

When I finally came home I was totally dead. Struggling on and off buses through Oslo with all my stuff - especially my cello - is not easy. The local bus was crowded, and it's quite narrow. Of course there was a baby carriage there too. I ended up pretty jammed, and had to move my cello out of the way every time someone entered the bus...

Just now, I'm so happy to be sitting on my mums homemade terrace (she made it herself!) looking at the way-too-old apple trees who thought the burden of the summer rain to be too heavy and writing this new entry. Mum is soon finished with todays "Porgy and Bess" and Eivind is going to pick her up. He came home on a short visit, which took us completely by surprise. We were on our way up to Østernvann (you know Norwegians, always out for a stroll on sundays!) when he called. The whole family minus Rob will be home for dinner!
Home, sweet home!


Mum by Østernvann. It was a lovely day for "tur"


The terrace!


Here are the two unfortunate apple trees. I'm so sad because it's "åkerø" trees (they taste delicious!)