Samoyed

Monday off

I´m starting to get old- if I´m  too active in the weekends, I need an extra day off. 😉 This weekend was particularly rough: drinks and dinner with an awesome couple from Australia on Friday evening, Christmas market with Sammy and friends, dinner at friends´house later on and an unplanned party at our house and that was just Saturday. Yesterday we had pancake breakfast with our other friends who stayed the night, did some washing up afterwards and saw the Hobbit at the cinema in the afternoon. So today I was dead: When the alarm rang I thought it must be Sunday morning! Fortunately there isn´t lots to do at work this time of the year, so I was able to cut myself some slack and take Sammy to the woods. 😉 It´s been so dark lately anyway and I haven´t felt like getting out of the house, so the streak of sunshine I could spot made me feel besides myself with joy! And because we were in luck, we got a friend to meet us at Frogneseteren, the restaurant on top of the mountain. I and Sammy took the subway half the way and walked the rest. I had cream porridge and Christmas soda, my friend had a Danish and we both walked back with our lattes. 😉 I fell on the ice and almost chipped the camera, but the latte only spilled a bit. 😉 haha! Enjoy the pictures!

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Saturday treats

Yesterday was harsh on my granny self. Had I not known better, I´d swear I was born tired!;-) We left the party at 11, after drinking some coffee, so I wouldn´t embarrass myself too much by leaving at 10, when the others just started to arrive. haha!

I was Morticia and my husband and Sam were Dexter. My friend, Dragana was a holy cow and her husband, Alex was Cardinal Sin. 😉 We had Nicki Minaj, a beduin, a lion (who Sam fell in love with!), a creepy doll, Marie Antoinette, a scary clown, pretty much the whole range of cool costumes. It was lots of fun, but I´m so much of a couch potato that when everybody insisted on standing and dancing, I started feeling out of place after a while. 😉

Today we woke up late and I treated Sammy to a really long walk in the drizzle. The reward for walking that distance in the rain was the prospect of buying a big cup of coffee on our way home. 😉 When the time finally arrived, however, it turned out I had the wrong pin (it´s a card I never use). I was feeling so embarrassed and angry with myself that the barista said I could get the coffee and pay for it another time. 😉 Now that´s what I call a true Samaritan! 😉

Fire in the fireplace, a snoring cat beside me and lots of magazines are today´s recipe for a perfect Saturday. Tomorrow I´m baking American pumpkin pie, stay tuned! What are your plans for the weekend?

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Saturday

This week has gone fast and yet not fast enough. I´ve started working  9-4 with a few exceptions and it´s good to be able to come home and walk Sammy and make some food without constantly being in a rush. I managed to go to the gym once and I hope I can attend yoga tomorrow. It feels good to find some time for yourself. I spend enormous amounts of time on Netflix, but that´s because I´m too tired to do anything else. I´m bad with manicure, but I love it when I have one, so I realized I had to prioritize a bit. Breakfast or manicure? The latter!;-)

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Monday again

This weekend has been a bit overshadowed by the fact that I´m working out of town this week. Not only is it an ugly trial, but I´m living in a small town with literally nothing to do after hours. I was hoping to do a bit of reading, but taking my laptop with me was uninspired, there´s so much on the mighty internet more alluring than Shishkin. I really don´t like Shishkin, the way I don´t like many of the contemporary writers that everybody else is so crazy about! Makes me wonder if there´s something wrong with me. I just don´t buy anything beyond reason, call me sad, but I really don´t. I need people to stick to whatever normal people do and feel and books to depict just that. Surreal is no good in my book. Does it make sense?

Anyway. This weekend was uneventful, but cosy, we had lovely weather and took our mandatory trip to the woods with a happy Sam, made some good food and watched a lot of Netflix. On Sunday it was time to be urban, take Sammy to the Botanical garden and have coffee with friends in lively Grunnerløkka. He´s such a sociable soul, he loves being outside with us and our friends, even if that only means sitting beside us and barking at the passing dogs. 😉

Last night I arrived at my hotel at 11:30 pm, so there was no time for sightseeing. Today was a splendid day, the court room was spacious and had thousands of windows overlooking the sun and I literally died in my cashmere sweater in our little interpreting box! (but it was from Paris!!) No time for much sightseeing today either, although I did spot the city center walking back to the hotel. By the time I´d lunched on a nice sunny terrace, all the shops were closed. The whole town seemed to have gone to sleep, it was so depressing I went in for a nap myself. It seems I should be done here by Wednesday, so I might as well try to enjoy tomorrow as much as I can. Maybe I´ll get a haircut and a massage. Or maybe I´ll just buy a sandwich and soak up the sun. 😉

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Birthday picnic in the woods

Yesterday was great. The sun was shining yet again and our friend, Hege, celebrated her birthday with a picnic trip in the woods. We took the subway and met the crew at Frognerseteren, a venerable restaurant on the top of the hill. After enjoying a coffee or a glass of wine in the sun, we started walking towards Songsvann, our final destination for the picnic. We were 6 adults, a child and a dog. Sammy was happy to explore the surroundings, he jumped up and down, drinking water from small creeks, engaging us in his silly schemes and sniffing every dog we couldn´t prevent him from meeting.;-) On the way I picked some blueberries and served them to the others from Sam´s drinking cup. 😉 They were sweet and tasted like summer. When we finally arrived to a table in a sun, everybody started unpacking the goodies. Food never tasted that good, I tell you!;-) We had bean salad, cheese and bacon pie, cheese and fig jam, chocolate cake, banana bread, chips and drops. Yummy! After filling our tummies, we tok the subway back to the city. We were tired and our feet had started aching when we realized we´d been outside for 6 hours! Now that´s what I call a Sunday trip!

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An autumn Saturday in Oslo

Oslo on a sunny day is like a dream come true! Although it´s mid September, the weather Gods still had some summer in store for us! It was such a glorious day to go for a walk and of course we brought Sam along. First, we walked to Grunnerløkka for coffee and breakfast and had a break in the sun to enjoy the view- colorful people on their Saturday stroll, fashionistas as well as young parents with strollers, dogs and their owners, you name it. Sam behaved himself for once, happy to have both his parents with him, he sat by our feet, squinting and drooling, getting the occasional petting and “Awww, that´s such a pretty dog!” I couldn´t have been more proud!

 

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Boeuf Bourguignon

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I made this dish today for the first time and it was such a success! The recipe is from a national Norwegian newspaper called Aftenposten, I only made minor changes. I served it with bread and white wine. (although French baguettes and red wine is probably better ;-))

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Autumn

This week has been good to me so far and it´s nearly weekend already! I tried to eat healthy, worked just enough hours, took Sammy for a long walk in the woods on Monday, worked out with my Personal Trainer yesterday and went to bed early. And I started feeling a bit better. Last week´s tension had taken its toll on me and left me without any energy. And exhaustion is just one step away from depression, so I try not to end up there again.

Today I´ve taken it slowly, went for a long walk with Sam, spent some time in bed with coffee and Instagram and now I´m about to start billing for a couple of hours. Later on I´m having lunch with a friend, then work for a couple of hours more and this evening we´re entertaining guests for dinner. 🙂 I´m not sure what to cook, I thought maybe I should give Boeuf bourguignon a try. I have plenty of time to wait for it cook to perfection, the only question is if I feel like going to the Wine Monopoly to buy the wine.

I´ve also started therapy. I´ve been dreading the idea for so long I knew I needed to jump into it or else I´d never do it. It´s very emotionally draining, but it triggers a lot of mental activities that help you focus. I believe everybody holds the cure within oneself, it´s just that when life seems to be too demanding, one cannot sort out one´s priorities any more. Enough about that. It costs a fortune, if one were waiting in the health line, one might as well be dead until it´s finally one´s turn.

Can´t wait for the weekend to come! We´re going to a party on Saturday and to a birthday picnic on Sunday. 🙂 I need to find the perfect dress (in my wardrobe) and get the manicure to go with! Until then, I leave you with some pictures from this week´s activities. I hope you have a great one! xxx, Alina

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Saturday

My favorite day of the week finally arrived and I made it count. 😉 We had a long breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon and tomatoes with the mandatory coffee. Later on I pretended Sam was not a polar dog, but an urban one, so I dragged him to a flea market and the farmers´market. Needless to say, he wasn´t pleased and he barked and howled and scared the bejesus out of both kids and smaller dogs. Silly mom, why couldn´t she just stick with the woods!

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This week is finally coming to an end

I can´t remember last time I´ve had such a shitty week. It´s been horrendous. And as it often happens when you´re under mental stress, you mood is precarious and so is your physical well-being. To sum it up, my week mainly consisted of working, sleeping, eating, walking Sam and watching the occasional movie on Netflix.

Yesterday however I was done at 2, which left me time to have a couple of much-needed Proseccos with my husband and a friend of mine and blow some steam. It was a glorious day in terms of weather, sunny as only early September days can be. The air was crisp, but you could still wear ballerinas and short sleeves. I´d bought some fresh local produce at the market and couldn´t wait to get the chance to make some seasonal food. We had lunch at Café Bacchus, they have a lovely garden and serve well assembled salads and summer dishes made from Norwegian ingredients.

 

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