Meet Frk. Reisende Duck

Translate her name to English and you have Ms. Traveling Duck.

We who know her call her by her first name which is Anne. Anne lives in Oslo with my niece and her husband, but even though she lives there she never unpacks her suitcase for long. You see, Anne loves to travel so whenever she gets the chance to hitch a ride with her friends on vacation she gets all excited. When she heard I was going to the states in a few weeks she started to make plans to come along. No one can say no to Anne and who would want to. She is the perfect travel companion. She never complains, she sleeps anywhere, and she doesn’t eat much. Here are some pictures from her last trip to Paris, sadly I was not with on this trip.

Anne loves to fly!

A little freshening up and she is ready for Paris!

What a view...ahh, Paris....

Hanging out with the locals

Site seeing 

New friends

Time for cafe visit

Anne will be making appearances from time to time on my blog telling about her travels. We will be leaving together for the USA on October 8^th, destination Denver, Colorado and Mpls. Minnesota. There will be stops along the way and plenty of adventure. We might even meet another blogger friend, who knows? Want to see Anne dressed up as a zombie at Denver’s Zombie crawl, or how about what she is wearing for a big Halloween party in Minnesota?

Anne is a little nervous about meeting my son and living with a wolf, but she is excited at the same time. She also gets to meet my daughter and grandchildren and is a little nervous about their pets as well, although a small dog and kitten are not as threatening as a big wolf. I am looking forward to this trip and to having Anne along for the ride. I hope you all are looking forward to reading about it, and yes there will be lots of pictures!

"Good-day Mates"...Anne has been to Australia as well and is having a bit of trouble getting rid of that accent.

Have a wonderful week-end everyone.

If I Could Be Anyone...

Today is the 'If I Could Be Anyone, I'd Be...' web splash for Talli Rolands new book, Watching Willow Watts. Almost 150 bloggers have signed up to post about who they would be, if they could choose anyone. Pop by and visit other participants, if you have a chance.

So I bet you all recognize this woman. Yes if I could be anyone this would be the woman I would want to be. I never did get to finish my college education but as a  student of Journalism , this was the woman I aspired to be like. Barbara Walters is an amazing  woman. She was the first female co-anchor of network evening news. She was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's Today, and later spent 25 years as co-host of ABC's newsmagazine 20/20.

On June 14, 2007, Walters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, a Women in Film Lucy Award, and a GLAAD Excellence in Media award. In the fall of 2008, she was honored with the Disney Legends award, an award given to those who made an outstanding contribution to The Walt Disney Company, which owns the network ABC. That same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women's Agenda. On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.

In the late 1960s, Walters wrote a magazine article, How to Talk to Practically Anyone About Practically Anything, which drew upon the kinds of things people said to her, which were often mistakes.Shortly after the article appeared, she received a letter from Doubleday expressing interest in expanding it into a book.  She published the book in 1970, and to her great surprise, the book was a phenomenon. As of 2008, it had gone through eight printings, sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and had been translated into at least 6 different languages. In 2008, she published her autobiography, Audition: A Memoir.

Barbara Walters has been married four times to three different men. "I'm convinced that you stay married when the sex is bad, only because you really want to be," she told The New York Times in 1996. "But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days." She has been around the world and met the most interesting people in her travels. Kings, queens, politicians, religious leaders and movie stars have all been met by her charming voice and interesting question.

Like me she believes that to "not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I`ve done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated."

If you could choose to be anyone else other than yourself, who would that be?

Feeling at Home

The art of a craftsman can be debated. The pride of a craftsman and his integrity is a lost art form. It is all about saving time and money now.  This is something we have discovered during the building process of our house. 

Tools are important, here is saw-man with his latest 

We have contracted out a lot of the building but saw- man has been busy redoing most of their work. The roof tiles need to be replaced. There are many that are broken, bad quality and workmanship. Then we have the windows that have been installed improperly causing broken window panes. The terrace doors have been installed improperly and are impossible to close enough so that they can be properly locked.  The list goes on. There has to be something said for doing everything yourself, but who has the time? That is the conclusion that the saw-man and I have come to lately. It may have taken a long time to get things done, but at least what we have done has been getting done properly. 

Enough is enough and finally we have decided to get more builders in here and get this house done. We will probably have to go pick up a few pieces afterwards, but this living in a closet has got to end. Check out here if you want to know more about this crazy house. The actual building process has been going on now for over a year, we still have so much left to finish, and with winter closing in once again, time is even more important. It gets darker here every day, the rains come and goes more often, but I have to believe that through all this darkness we will eventually see light. Someday we will move out of this closet and have instead a closet to hang our clothes in. The saw dust and building materials will not be a constant floor obstacle and I will no longer have to search through boxes to find my things. Someday I will know where I am and finally feel at home. 

Tell me, how long has it taken you to feel at home?

TGIF?

The magical week-end is upon us and I hear many of you shouting out—“Thank God it’s Friday!” 

There is however those voices out there that do not share the same scream. Even though there are many of you that are working a shift, society puts the norm in a large pocket and tells us to celebrate the week-end. God made the calendar, oh no, I forgot the Romans did. We are supposed to work a 5 day week and on the 7th day rest.  Well that is just not true and I for one am tired of being forced into the week-end box. I have spent most of my adult life working shifts, but for some reason the week-end rules and “Thank God it’s Friday” is strung on a banner across the sky. Who cares and what does God have to do with it anyways? Have a nice week-end can just as well be have a nice mid-week. Who decided that Friday is the end of the work week?  Was it God, or the Romans? Yeah ok I get it, majority rules but take a look around you, is that still true? How many of you are free tomorrow and on Sunday? What makes these days so special and who gets to decide the rules? Do we really need week-ends? Sounds like book-ends to me but I decide where to put them. So for all you that are working tomorrow and have to endure the “celebration” of someone else’s week-end, have a happy midweek.

T

Quick fix

Sometimes we just need to walk away and put some distance between us and the things that are bothering us. Unpaid bills, problems at home or at work…Frustration….Stress…Illness… Avoid these things and run away from it all. 

My dock of the bay and "quick fix" in Larvik

You need a vacation from what is bothering you, you need a break. Computer games and TV are easy fixes. You could go to a movie or read a book. We all have our little escape plans. A month from today I am making the great escape and travelling to the states to spend time with my son and daughter who I have not seen in over 25 years. I need a vacation. I haven’t had one for years. Do you need one too? As for today, I need a quick fix and there is only one thing to do, and that is to go sit and watch the tide roll away. What kind of quick fix do you have?

Insecure Writers Support Group

This is my first post for the Insecure Writers Support Group. What we write about are concerns, fears, and struggles and/or recent breakthroughs or words of encouragement for other writers. You will find the other members of this group at the bottom of my blog. It is still not too late to join!

My biggest fear is that I will lose interest. Life makes so many demands on me that it is not easy to just disappear into a world of paper and pen. Some people seem to think that I can just spit out words and ring them up into the money machine. Writing does not come easy, and despite what others might think I do not write because I think it is fun. I write because I have to. Whether I am painting with oils or with words, self-expression is important to me, and built into my DNA. You might be asking yourself right about now, how I could lose interest if writing is so essential to my being. That is where this blog is so important to me. The friendships and encouragement I have gotten here in this cyber world keep me going. So here is a word of thanks to all my muses out there. I could not do it without you.

 In the real everyday world encouragement is attached with a price tag. How much money you can make, if you should self-publish or not, if blogging alone will get you sponsors…the list goes on. There are many ways the real world will stamp you guilty for not doing something that is financially productive straight away. It would be nice if I could just spit out those words, publish a book and let the money roll in. So here is the book I am working on now, The Troll Inside. I have hit a dead spot. Inspiration has left the building and the pressure of life has killed my muse. 

Contributing to society and the money machine could make me feel less guilty for the hours I spend splashing ink around. Maybe I will get tired of feeling guilty and that will make me lose interest in being what I am supposed to be, a writer and an artist. I could spend my time and conform myself into a sales clerk with a pay check or something like that. If I could join the matrix of mankind and be “normal, “If I could just delete that part of me that needed to be creative, would I? Would you? Sometimes I think it would be easier to just put on a uniform and go to work. Been there, done that. Now I am taking time out to explore this creative side of myself and I feel guilty. I guess women are born to feel guilty, to feel like they have to do everything to please everyone else. So my friends, that is my biggest fear. That my writing will not be enough to please everyone including myself and I will lose interest. That I will succumb to the matrix, my creative self will just wither up and die.

----So I fell onto the sidewalk and a man in a suit reached out his hand to help me up. I hesitated when I saw his face, so like the face of my father. A smile rested there, the kind of smile that said, “I told you not to run. I told you so!” It was so easy then to stand up on my own and smile back. ---- 

Sometimes we just have to fall down in order to practice getting up again. Sometimes we need help and sometimes we just have to do it ourselves.

LABOROUS YET REWARDING

Many of my American friends and family are celebrating Labor Day week-end. We do not celebrate that here in Norway and to tell you the truth I am not sure how one celebrates Labor Day or what it is. Must have something to do with work… right? For me Labor Day reminds me of childbirth and being rewarded for a lot of hard work. Let me know if I am way off track here. What does one do on Labor Day? 
One thing I know for certain is that you do not wear white pants after Labor Day. At least I seem to remember that being a dress code of sorts. Then again, I am not known for following the rules of fashion so I conveniently forget such things.

This week-end I am going to a Barbeque party at Karens Coming down the mountain. Bring some food to the party and have some fun! I am bringing Norwegian Lefse. Folded potato pancakes spread with creamy butter, sugar and cinnamon. Hope you enjoy!

 I do seem to remember that school starts for many after Labor Day week-end. Not for me though because I got some math homework to do today after the party. Karen at Following the Whispers has awarded me with the assignment of figuring out what 7 x 7 is. You think the answer is 49 don’t you? No…No…No….I need to dig deeper and find the root of 7 questions and link them to my past blog posts. Then I get to multiply by 7 bloggers. Oh I do so love a good challenge.

 Here we go, Linky ding to the following questions regarding previous posts of mine:

1.    Most Beautiful: Out of love, a letter to mygrandchild. I picked this one because it was written from the beauty of the heart.

2.      Most Helpful: The art of being invisible. I do not really consider my blog a “How to do it,” Most of my posts are self-help, but I find this one quite humorous. 

3.      Most Popular:  7500 page views Thor and his hammer beats all other posts time and time again. All my posts on Norwegian Mythology have been very popular, most likely due to the movie Thor.

4.      Most Controversial: Norwegian Soil. Terrorism and War, always heart wrenching and controversial.

5.      Most Surprisingly Successful: Games blogfest s right up there alongside Tor, guess we all love our games! Thanks Alex.

6.      Most Underrated: Your Mothers Heart. This post had hardly any views and I found that surprising. Maybe people are bored with their mothers and trying to understand them.

7.      Most Pride worthy: The other part of me. This post was the most difficult one to write. It stripped me bare and opened a lot of old wounds. I am proud of myself for having the courage to write it.

There you have it. I'd like to pass this award (assignment) on to the following 7 Fantastic blogs that you really should visit:

·        Stranger in a strange land  

·        The Eagles Aerial Perspective 

·        Writing in the Crosshairs 

·        Everything Emerald  

·        Dafeena  

·        Trying to get over the Rainbow 

·        My Inner Fairy  

Have a continued wonderful week-end friends, and stay safe.