Sunrise/Sunset

Life is back to the basics now that Mandy is gone. 

Kory and I were up at five this morning in order to take her to the airport.  The gorgeous sunrise was a gift from God, rewarding me for dragging myself out of bed after only four hours sleep.

We saw Mandy off and high tailed it back home and to bed again where we didn’t rise again until nearly nine.  I love the weekends. (That was a joke… since everyday is a weekend for us.)

It was a lazy Saturday as Kory sat in his chair entertaining himself with his I-pad.  He can’t do much with his right hand out of commission, but thankfully his left fingers know how to dance across that I-pad screen and he has many options for entertainment on it.  I cleaned house a bit and got dinner going for our guests tonight.  We had Kory’s two cousins over, Rune and Ketil – both brothers to Odd and sons of Tante Kari.  They brought their women with them so we had ourselves a nice long visit and a lot of laughs.

Kaleb spent the bulk of the day up at his friend Toban’s house (above).  They rode their bikes back to our house and Toban stayed on for dinner since I made plenty and wanted to eat up all the food in the frig before we go on our trip to Sweden next week.  (I guess we can’t really call it a vacation since we are already on one.) 

Toban is one quiet kid.  The boys played cards, chess and looked at photos, but I didn’t hear a word out of that guy.  Kaleb did all the talking.  I’m glad they are friends but I worry that Kaleb would rather sit and read a book than go hang out with anyone.  Sometimes when he has friends over, he does sit and read a book.  Oi.  Bad form.

I only left the house to run Kaleb and Toban back and forth and Kory only left to go get a few things at the store.  He’s babying his right hand, as well he should, so he’s very limited in what he can do but at least he can do some things – like run and get a few lemons at the store so I could make blueberry pie.  It’s humbling to know I can’t do it all, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

When the house was quiet, I managed to get another article written about Norway for “The LaConner Weekly News.”  I swear every week will be my last, as I can never think of a topic to write on, but then something comes to me and I am able to keep going.  I’m not sure how entertaining it is, but I still get people telling me it is great, so that keeps me motivated.  This week’s article is on Trolls.  Turid really opened my eyes a bit on them as I’d previously just considered them a fairytale invention, but she swears they are real, as she has seen them.  I guess a lot of people have.

From the sounds of what Turid told me, and from things I found on the internet, I wouldn’t hesitate a bit to say they are demons.  If people can see angles, which I know many who have, then they can certainly see demons, and Norway, apparently, has more than their share.  Kinda creepy.  I need to double up my prayers for this land.

So dinner was pretty tasty and no one went hungry.  I made chicken kebobs for our guests and Kory and I had marinated portabella mushrooms.  We are loving our new portable grill.   I even managed to make dinner only spending about ten bucks today.  Normally, when I go to the store to buy a few things to round out dinner, it’s always about a hundred bucks.  But I’ve managed to stay within our budget for this first half of our time here, but now I’m down to the last few kroner until we go on vacation Monday.  Thankfully, stores are closed on Sunday so I won’t be spending any money tomorrow.  Monday, the vacation budget kicks in.  Kory hates how I do money, since I parcel everything up into bits and chunks, but it’s the only way I can keep track and not overspend.  It’s such a relief to know I’m still on “schedule,” even with the unexpected expenses with the car this past week and all my thrift store shopping!  God is good.

Tonight we were treated to quite the sunset show out our window (photos above).  I kept popping up from the couch, in the middle of our visit with the cousins, to take photos.  Hard to believe the morning and evening were so gorgeous when we had gray skies and rain all day, sandwiched between those two colorful events.  And all next week the forecast is for rain, so our trip to Sweden won’t include many days at the beach.  But I hear their thrift stores and museums are great, so that’s something to look forward to.  Each day is such an adventure around here.