full moon, eerie clouds
waxing howls tumble over
dead silent mountains
—
Living close against a mountain range means that I spend a lot of time looking out into my backyard, ignoring the street and house lights to the east that interfere with an otherwise uninterrupted view. Though I’ve had my living room window view for four years now, I still find myself looking out, looking up, and always seeing something new and spectacular in the sky. Stepping outside to feel it more. Wanting to capture it in a photograph yet knowing that even Hubble photographs can only represent a fraction of the beauty that is experienced in person.
Some moments are only meant as moments. Trying to capture them, to more fully share or relive the moment, is impossible.
I’m almost two years late to the punch, but I can’t believe I missed this one. It’s a real article! Here it is on the Washington Post.
This is Martine (left) and Marianne walking in downtown Provo this afternoon. I think the composition is suitable for a magazine layout. Please note: Martine’s t-shirt says “I apple VAMPIRES” (a Twilight reference). These girls are goofy and gorgeous and awesome.
Also, Marianne has demonstrated an increased aptitude in sarcasm and deadpanning… I’m so proud of my little Norwegian sister!
It’s nearing the end of February, and I feel like the number of times I nearly forget to blog is increasing. I’m usually brushing my teeth or washing my face, perhaps recounting my day and creating a loose mental picture of the next day, and I suddenly remember: damn personal blog goal.
Sure, I could just quit. Missing one day in almost two months is still impressive to me, the Judger of Goals. I have formed the habit of remembering my blog. I have formed the habit of posting something on my blog even if it’s just a slightly embellished tweet.
But I still have not reached the point where I am truly blogging every day, in my opinion. Where I write something thoughtful and do more than hurry to post something so that I can just go to bed already. I feel like I’m about 50/50 on thoughtful vs. hurried. I would like that to be better. In order to improve that, I really need to begin blogging earlier in the day when I start having viable blog ideas rather than putting it off until I’m tired and ready for bed.
I had to take Marianne to school with me today for logistical reasons, but it worked out well for her in terms of swag. It was “Wolverine Wednesday” at UVU, which is a one hour school spirit extravaganza involving $3 “J-Dawg” sausages and a spin-and-win wheel of fortune.
Marianne’s spin landed on a candy bar, but I asked the student running it if she could have a t-shirt instead. “She’s visiting me from Norway,” I said. It worked, and look how happy she is with her free, high-quality, totally American t-shirt!
Then I also landed on a candy bar, and the guy said “You’re not from Norway. You’re not getting a t-shirt.”
We also walked through the Hall of Flags, where we took an obligatory photo of her by the Norwegian flag.
And then a funny one by the Swedish flag (they had just beaten Norway in a cross-country Olympic ski relay, so it was warranted).
Guess what else happened? The Blu-ray player arrived! Whee! We watched some of the drool-worthy promos on the Wall-E disc, then enjoyed Gattaca. Marianne had actually watched it before in a science class when they were covering genetics, but she wanted to see it again—a girl after my own heart.
Lastly, and officially for the record, Nidar Bergene Melk chocolate is not as good as Freia Melkesjokolade. It’s a harder consistency and has a flavor that reminds me of hot chocolate rather than a smooth milk chocolate bar—and it’s feels a little waxy despite being made of all natural ingredients. You can’t test it yourself (at least not at my house) because what’s left will not be shared. Sorry!
What home is complete without this day bed home workstation slash web surfer’s dream chair created by Manual Saez Ltd? I could use one in every room, thank you very much. Including a converted model for the bathroom. There, I said it. I know you were thinking it, too!
Airlines should also take note now that they’re offering wi-fi in the sky. I’m guessing Virgin Atlantic would be the first to adopt this new style of chair. Maybe for their first moon rocket? I should sign up for an email alert for that flight. Even if I can’t afford it, I could still blog about it.
Marianne and I picked up her three Norwegian friends yesterday and had a fun afternoon in Salt Lake. Anette is an exchange student here in Utah this year, and Martine and Berit flew out with Marianne for the week during their school break. It was nice of them to include me occasionally in their excited, giggle-filled Norwegian chatter as we flitted about the city.
The original plan was for me to drop them off at Temple Square and pick them up later, but Anette forgot her phone so I stayed with them for the most part. We took a driving tour of downtown (THAT was a big building!) and went up to Capitol Hill, which was a first for me as well. The girls (or should I say fine young ladies) were giddy and it was neat to have the near-deserted grounds to ourselves.
Aren’t they cute? There was a guy playing fetch with his little Yorkshire terrier who offered to take a photo of all of us together, but my camera was already tucked away. But about a million photos were snapped among all of our cameras, so I’ll get a copy at some point.
We enjoyed some beverages at Starbucks (though we had to go to two since the first one had closed shortly before we arrived) where I shared some Marianne-and-me tales from my year in Norway (Marianne was only 4 but she remembers a few things). I also introduced the fine young ladies to the largest JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store in Utah (to my knowledge). They all liked it, but Martine L-O-V-E-D it. And Marianne seriously considered how she could take a heavy welcome mat home with her. It had ladybugs. And was 30% off. We managed to escape the store without spending too much money—always an accomplishment.
We rounded out the evening with dinner at Buca di Beppo… where Marianne enjoyed the apple/cranberry/gorgonzola/walnut salad despite earlier protests and we all sang 2 birthday songs (one in Norwegian, the other in English) to Anette when they brought out a giant cupcake in celebration of her recent birthday.
This morning I saw Marianne onto a bus to meet up with her friends before I headed to class. I experienced a strange moment of reflection as she boarded the bus… related perhaps to waxing nostalgic yesterday at Starbucks about the first time I walked Marianne home from preschool—when I spoke very little Norwegian and she was shy and silently captivated by her new big sister from a distant land—and perhaps because I was her current age when I lived in Norway and starting navigating foreign public transportation systems on my own. Either way, we all grow up so fast.
I have five different instances of Firefox open right now with 27 tabs total. There were more a couple hours ago. I’ve been working on closing them, which essentially means that I need to find closure on each topic or site that is open. Many are open because they represent a To Do action item that I have Not Yet Done. Others I know that I will need in the next day or two. Some I could close… but I don’t want what they represent to fall out of my long list of things I just need to remember for whatever reason.
Does that sound like a sickness? I will admit that 27 is a lot, but it’s certainly not the most I’ve ever had open at once. I have been better about bookmarking links, but the problem is that many aren’t links I necessarily want to bookmark. Though now that I think about it, I could bookmark them under a to-do folder and just delete the links as I take care of them. Huh.
My biggest fear is that I won’t maintain the folder and/or it will get too big to manage. It’s easy to keep Firefox instances open—one for each topic, ‘cuz that’s just how I roll—and easy to minimize and temporarily ignore the ones for which I’m currently procrastinating. But it makes Firefox run more sluggishly. And logically, I know I don’t need to keep all those tabs open. It’s cyberclutter, and that just sounds like a dirty word.
I’m going to try the bookmark subfolder and see how that works for the next couple days. It would be really nice if I could figure out how to minimize the number of open Firefox tabs on my computer!
I couldn’t believe that Marianne* didn’t know what pretzels were. It came up when we were talking about sweet/salty combo foods in the car last night on the way home from the airport. So I did what I had to do: went to the bulk section of Sunflower Market in Orem and bought four different flavors: chocolate, chocolate with toffee bits, blueberry, and strawberry. They also sell regular yogurt and cherry yogurt flavors. They are all YUM.
Behind the pretzels is our evening entertainment—Ticket to Ride – Nordic Countries (a limited edition version) happened to color-coordinate with the pretzels. Totally unplanned, and totally awesome (if you’re amused by things like that, which I am).
Sorry for the yellowish photo… I need to learn more about the white balance settings on my camera, and I’m too lazy to fix the color in Photoshop before uploading these fine and vital to documenting my exciting life photos.
I should also mention that a thieving hand sabotaged my arteestic still life photography. I was not surprised. They were delicious!
*my “Norwegian little sister” who is visiting this week
Not really a Norwegian invasion. My little Norwegian sister (who was four years old when I lived with her family as an exchange student) arrived this evening. We have all had a long week, but at least I’ve slept a little more than she has in the last 24 hours. This is what she looked like this past summer when we made and attempted to decorate cupcakes. It was hot and the frosting was melty! They tasted delicious.
