A Simpler Life

We had snow off and on today, which made me happy. I was worried it all might turn to rain and get slushy before we could get out and enjoy it a little. Even though Kaleb and I slept in until 11am, we still managed to get outside before the sun went down. Kory drove us out to Langevåg with the intention of shopping at the sweater factory there, but alas, they were still closed for the holidays. But as it goes in these parts, we ran into people we know, so it wasn’t a wasted trip afterall. The sweater factory has a nice café attached to it (which WAS open today) and there sat our neighbor, Tone (Sabina’s mom) at one table, and Josef Kloven and his wife Camille at another table (a guy we know from Seattle who lives here now). So we ordered up some cocoa and did what the locals do on a winter weekend afternoon, we sat down for a chat. It felt so decadant to have both the time and money to just sit in a café and order something to drink and have nowhere in particular we needed to be. It was the first time we have done that since we’ve been here. Afterwards we drove around Langevåg and gave Kaleb the “Kory history tour.” We showed him one place after another that had some significance in Kory’s life – the school he attended, a house where he once lived, the dock where he took the ferry over to his grandparent’s home, the spot where he got in trouble for hitting a pig just to make it squeal, a house his father built, the place where he started a fire and nearly burned down a house, and the grave of his grandfather (that he never knew). We also drove out to the lake where he first learned to swim and where he’d go ice skating in the winter. It was frozen over today (see photo), but not solidly enough we could venture out onto the ice. Evenso, Kaleb enjoyed stepping on the edge just to see how much weight it would hold before it cracked (I was holding tight to his hand while he was doing it.) The snow came and went all afternoon and I got some nice photos as we were driving around. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. And when we got home I went for a long walk around our own neighborhood just to see all the Christmas lights one last time as they will soon be coming down. Christmas trees were all still up and with the snow on the ground, it nearly felt like we had a White Christmas afterall.

A few people forwarded me an e-mail a few weeks ago that showed Christmas trees from around the world. They were all spectacular trees with fancy and abundant lighting, but I knew for a fact, I wouldn’t encounter a picture from any tree in Norway. Norwegians are pretty simplistic when it comes to lights and Christmas decorations. The average Christmas tree around here has 20 lights on it – that’s it. Even the big tree in the center of town has just a few dozen lights. They seem so incomplete to me, but that’s just the way they are. I heard someone in my Norsk class talking about it too – that she was at the lighting ceremony for the city tree and when they turned on the lights she yelled out, “That’s it? That’s all the lights you have?” It’s almost comical how few lights there are but I’m sure it comes from the tradition that not that long ago they didn’t use lights – they used real candles – and there weren’t that many that could be lit all at one time on the tree, so it makes sense from that standpoint, but it sure makes American Christmas trees seem gaudy. But then, many things we American’s do are gaudy and excessive by Norwegian standards.

Tonight Jonathan and Espen (Kory’s bosses) came over to discuss the The Sinking Houses. The paperwork needs to be submitted next week to complete the sale, but first they need an appraisal done because all the bank financing hinges on the value of the houses and none of us know just what that might be. Because of all the bad press around these places it could be a very low amount, but we have no idea. When the houses were new and unfinished on the inside, each house sold for about $240,000 but now they are being sold for $85,000 each because of the sinking ground. If they appraise for a high enough value, there is a chance Jonathan and Espen can get 100% financing and they won’t need our help to buy them and then we won’t need to form a partnership. But if they need our help, we’ll have to figure out what kind of partnership arrangement we should have since they will be the most hands on and we’ll be long gone. Kory is still very excited about all this and I’m just trusting God for whichever way it goes. I can take it or leave it as there are risks and rewards if we go in on the deal and “life as usual” if we don’t. I keep wanting to simplify things, but it just doesn’t happen. Our life is already so darn complicated I can no longer do our American tax return and have to pay an accountant to figure out how much money we need to pay the governmnet. There seems something inheritantly wrong with that whole scenario, so when I think of “partnerships” I think “complicated tax returns” and ours is already complicated enough. Maybe there is some wisdom in the whole simplistic way Norwegians do things - even decorating a Christmas tree - as it’s not very complicated to untangle a string with only twenty lights.