'Tis the season to be jolly

'Tis also the season of the office christmas party. We went to the one at Husbands work last night. It was in walking distance from our house, which meant that we could both imbibe. Husband hasn't tasted alkohol for 8 or 9 years. Don't think he missed it much. He had the welcome drink (a very sour bubbly wine), but I noticed that he stuck to soda after that. I didn't like the welcome drink either. At dinner I tasted all 3 kinds of wine, and found them all either sour or bland and ended up drinking soda as well. Finally they served brandy / baily's with desert. I usually like baily's, but just couldn't warm ut to it this time. I'm starting to wonder if I have just lost the taste for alcoholic beverages. 

   

Christmas  shopping I am mostly finished with. I have had a lot of fun making Husbands present. Had part of it brought by courier from England. Then spent several hours on the computer putting it together. 

And here is one of my famous no-brainers: One day Oldest Daughter wondered on Facebook whether it was wierd that the 2 packages that I had ordered from Amazon to be sent to her hadn't arrived. I figured amazon was just backed up in the pre-holiday season, but a day or so later I heard from Youngest Daughter that the 2 packages that I had ordered sent to her had arrived. So I went onto amazon to check whether they had dispatched the stuff. Turned out I had given them the adress where Irene was au pair over a year ago. Luckily she had kept the family's phone number, so I was able to contact them and very nicely ask if they would forward the packages to Irene in Cornwall.

   

I love this poem by the Norwegian poet Alf Prøysen, which can be sung to the melody of "Musevisa". For a good laugh, non-norwegian speaking readers, my I suggest you cut and paste the song into google translate. I tried it and the result totally cracked me up. Jul (christmas) translated as july at the end of the refrain; the plate of cookies getting burnt is, in our modern world, translated burning a disc. Incredible!!

"Nå har vi det de voksne kaller julestri

Da skal jeg si, de henger i

Men alle barn i verden synes slik som vi

At jule stri det er en deilig tid

Ja, dette har vi venta på så lenge,

Å så lenge, å så lenge,

Ja dette har vi venta på så lenge

Og en, to, tre, så er det jul.

Når mor skal bake kaker da er gleden tent

vi står så spent, og ber så pent

Men mor blir sint og sier: "sitt i ro og vent!"

men endelig så blir en plate brent.

ja, dette har vi venta på så lenge...

I am well underway with christmas baking. The challenge is my cookie-loving husband who is constantly hovering over the dough and the finished cookies. I am like the strict mother in the song, doing my best to protect the goods until the holidays. If we are to get through the next month without running out of cookies I will probably have to put them under lock and key.

Today I decorated the house for advent: hung up the christmas star in the window, set the table with an advent cloth and the advent candle "wreath". Started the creche on top of my desk, and set up an advent calendar. Finally I made gløgg with homemade red+black currant juice and gløgg spices and we had some of the cookies that Husband and I have been baking this week.

  

 

Counting blessings

It's supposed to be Thanksgiving for Gods sake. A day for counting your blessings. Why then do I find myself listing up everything that I am unhappy about. Why do I feel so lacking in energy and motivation? Why do I feel so strangely dissatisfied? Is it just because of the cold, the grey, bleakness of winter, the cold wind that blows right through me freezing me to the marrow?

Why do I focus on the chill and bleakness outside, instead of the fire crackling comfortably in the stove, the scent of cinnamon stars and chocolate hearts bringing the promise of sweetness to come?

Why is it the bleakness that gets to me, instead of the snow on the ground, softening and lightening the sharp contours, the shortness of the days and length of nights instead of the gleaming stars, studding the sky like jewels, and moonlight flooding the snowcovered ground, filling the night with silver light. 

My life is comfortable, full of challenges: I am learning spanish, I am learning new, more effective ways to train my dog.

I am living in a country which seems to have avvoided the brunt of the economic crisis; free from the threats of massive layoffs, and reduced pensions. Where there is national health, where the work week for those working round the clock shifts has been reduced to 35,5 hrs. 

I love my work: I find it challenging and rewarding. Okay, so I don't feel properly  valued at my current job. But I have another job waiting for me: where I seem to be greatly in demand and where I will be able to grow proffessionally. Yes, I studied nurse anesthesia, and yes, it is proving nigh impossible to get a nurse anesthetist job. But have I not always loved ER nursing? Am I not finding myself more capable and competent as a result of my anesthesia training? So it isn't for nothing is it?

I love my husband. So why do I keep wondering what it would be like to be alone? I know what it would be like. It would be lonely!! Why focus on the areas of conflict when there are so many areas of harmony? We share so many values: ecology, economic prudence, a love of traveling and exploring the world, a love of animals. And face it: if it werent' for him I probably wouldn't be staying in shape. The house would be mess, not to speak of cold (Husband is, after all, the one who vacuums weekly, dusts monthly, and paints shabby looking walls, not to speak of cutting and splitting the logs of firewood that are delivered each winter from the common forrest, from which my farm has firewood rights). Cooking and baking would be boring, with no one to enjoy the product of my culinary exertions, and I would probably be bankrupt. 

While I am counting blessings let me mention how I enjoy the close relationships with my sister and mother. And how I enjoy watching from afar as the children struggle along at various stages of creating their adult lives and finding their places as adults in the world. I am so gratefull that they let me share and watch. 

The sun just came out. I read once that it is all a question of focus. And I see, now that I have finished this post that I have made the transition from depression and negativity, to hope and thankfullness. 

In Memory of Trygve Sund

What I remember best about Trygve was working in the barn together. At Alm when 2 people did chores together the responsibilities were clearly defined. Working with Trygve was very fluid. Each knew where the other was in the whole of the work to be done, and could overlap into each others areas of responsibilities as appropriate to keep the whole work flowing, thus working in harmony until the job was done. It is for me the prototype of team work.  

Trygve was the first in this area to decide to farm organically, even bio-dynamically at a time when such a thing was unheard of (around 1970), and certainly recieved no support from the agricultural authorities. He was scoffed at, and ridiculed but carried on. Now the impulse for organic and biodynamic agriculture has taken root in Stange with many farms all around, and many of the farmers were at the funeral. 

I know that Trygve traveled all over the world to lecture about bio-dynamic agriculture. I mostly saw him as pictured here: in worn work clothes, hair awry, hands dirty. It was said at the funeral that it would be typical of Trygve to be combining or plowing until far into the night. Then early next morning to be off on one of his lecture trips.

Trygve was always cheerfull, always friendly and kind. His wisdom was very down to earth. In light of my recent financial troubles a particular thing comes to mind. Trygve told me that the trick to always having enough money,  is to match your needs to your means. Wise words indeed!  

Trygve is buried in the family grave site at Stange Kirke, the old stone church from viking times whose churchyard borders Alm Østre, the farm that Trygve tended all his life. The church overlooks the lake and the farmland all around. A fitting resting place for a man who did so much to change farming in this area. Rest in Peace!

Clicker training - voluntary "heel"

A funny thing happened when I was walking the dogs. I had decided to use clicker training to teach Lucy to stay closer, since she mostly gets to be off leash. I started by clicking every time she looked at me, and she would come running to get the treat. I also clicked every time she approached me. Gradually she started hanging around very close to me and I was having trouble not using up all the treats before we got home. So on the next walk I only clicked when she walked at my left side, then only if she also looked up at me. Gradually I waited for 1, then 2, and up to 5 steps walking at my left foot and simultaneously looking up at me before clicking. That day she walked at "heel" voluntarily for hundreds of yards. When I teach "heel" it normally takes major concentration just to keep it up for 10 - 20 yards. With Lucy I used to pretty much have to hold the treat in front of her nose the whole time. The next day I started increasing the distance that she has to walk at my left side while looking up at me to 20 steps. I then varied between 5 and 20 steps and she still spends a lot of time "heeling" voluntarily on our walks. I've even tried left and right turns and changes in tempo. She "heels" like a champion. Now I have added a new aspect. If I feel her body against my leg, I immediatly click and treat. Otherwise she has to walk 10 - 20 steps before I click. The idea is gradually to get her glued to my leg for "heel" excercises. On our walks it has all been voluntary, and probably I will keep it this way. However I plan to add the command on our training sessions soon.

Another Day - Another Worry

Today I went to a seminar about the work environment called "Ny dag - Nye Nederlag" (new day - new setbacks). The idea was that by looking hard at how you can make things worse, you can see catch a glimpse of what would make them better. But another aspect of it was that a seminar aiming directly at educating on how to improve the work environment always has a rather serious "get your act together" type of atmosphere and one easily feels overwhelmed by the demands of the situation. On the other hand, this humorous and irreverent approach led to created an atmosphere in which the individual could find an impulse in himself to work towards actually achieving something in improving the work environment.

I'm wondering whether this can be applied to other aspects of life as well. The home environment for example. Now I have, once again, been in a phase of more than usual scatter-brainedness. For example no matter where I go, I seem to forget to take along some essential item (my keys, the dogs leash, my lunch, wallet, towel and shampoo to the gym etc). Add that to leaving the stove on, the water running etc, I sometimes wonder where my head is at.

Somehow in the past 6 months I have sunk into an economic quagmire. For one thing I must have spent more of my student loan money than I was aware of during the 18 months that I was only working half time. In hindsight I probably couldn't really afford the new car that I bought in june either. But I was plugging along with a fair (but unrealistic as it turns out) hope to getting on top of things by christmas when I mislaid a bill in the cronic mess that is my desk. That was in July. I found it in August when Husband had finally pressured me into cleaning up my desk. By that time payday had come and gone, the bills had been paid and my bank account was again empty. So I paid it from my credit card, since I was too embarassed to ask Husband for a loan. Anyway, after that every month seemed to get worse. When all the bills were paid except the credit card bill, I had no money left, so I could only pay the minimum charge, and I was also unable to pay my share of the housekeeping. To top it all off I get a letter from the Student Loan Bank to the effect that they are taking back the grant that they awarded (for having completed my courses) because I had earned too much in 2009 to be eligable. Great! So on top of the steadily increasing credit card and household debts I have a student loan to pay off - and they are going to want interest. At this point Husband (who is the one around here with savings, whereas I live from hand to mouth, in spite of having the greater salary) generously offered to "refinance" me. This is a relief as when I start my new job in February, I will have the extra expenses of commuting 65 miles by train and renting a room to stay overnight when my shifts are really close together. Provided I don't actually end up unemployed. Because though I resigned from my current job two and a half weeks ago I have not yet recieved my employment papers for the new job.