Frigg

Christmas Eve

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:32:40 GMT

Parents fed and given left-overs to take home, presents exchanged, Lia being an attention-seeking pain in the butt, Murphy and Orlando being lovely, playful and cuddly and now we're alone again.

Evening went well, food was good, company was good with no mother incidents at all.

The only mishap was that I burned myself AGAIN on those *ç%&****!!!! caramelized potatoes (on the pan this time, not on the sugar) and spent the first 3 hours of the evening in pain with an ice cube wrapped around my little finger. It's finally stopped hurting, but with all the burn-marks my right hand looks as if I've given it a triple small pox vaccination.

EDIT: C did give me the item on my wishlist! A LaCafetiere stovetop kettle, so that I no longer have to use a small pot to boil water for tea. :)

He also gave me something I had almost given up on owning, because as he says "We have enough kitchen machines as it is" (and he's right), buuuut now we have one more: a pasta machine!

Our presents to each other (I gave him a book about whiskeys and a brunch/sandwich cookbook) really reveals what little food and drink piggies we are. *grin*

Christmas Eve

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:29:01 GMT

Turkey roasting in the oven - check
Ris a la Mande - check
Rescue Ris a la Mande from husband's tasting - check
Exercised the dog - check
Fed outdoor kitties - check
Boiled turkey heart, lung and kidney for dog and outdoor kitties - check
Table set by husband - check
Potatoes brought in from stables and peeled by husband - check
Downstairs bathroom cleaned and kitchen tidied after cooking - check

So all I need to do now is to shower and get dressed, before the last minute preparation of boiled potatoes, caramelized potates and red cabbage sets in.

Oh, and I'm going to try to use our own home made cherry sauce for the cheery sauce that goes with the Ris a la Mande*. Just in case it's an epic fail I have a jar of store bought cherry sauce to heat up.

Caramelized potatoes

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:32:30 GMT

After an epic battle, which included hot caramel burns on my face and hand from a sputtering pan, I finally managed to make perfect caramelized potatoes after two failed attempts using the standard recipes - after burning myself I searched online and stumbled across a funny recipe that basically said all the standard recipes were crap - and this recipe worked!

The spatter burns hurt like s***, but luckily I just have to make caramelized potatoes again tomorrow and then I won't have to do it again until year 2013.

Hehehehe...

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:08:24 GMT

I found my present! I didn't touch it, but I saw it all nicely wrapped up hidding in a bag in the library behind my piano chair.

I have been suspecting C to get me either one of two things and the size of this one automatically exludes one of these, but then with C you never know what you'll get, as he doesn't give a hoot about wish-lists or price ranges, he has no set minimum, nor a set maximum.

We're having my parents over for Christmas for the first time. Since nothing I ever do is good enough for my mother anyway*, I've decided to take C's advice and for the first time take it easy and not clean the whole house last minute, not do extra Christmas dishes beyond the usual stuff and I've baked just one type of cookies instead of three types like I usually do.

I have not been completely unproductive, though:

Saturday: Shopping, wrapping X-mas presents.
Sunday: Shortened C's new trousers and the bathroom curtains.
Monday: Made cookie dough
Tuesday: Baked cookies
Wednesday: Cleaned living room, including washing the glass in the French doors and washing living room windows, vacuumed and washed downstairs floors.

Tomorrow I'll clean the bathroom, tidy up the kitchen and cook the turkey with side-dishes and make ris a la mande and that's it.
________________________________________________
*Last year for the Christmas lunch, C prepared 2/3 of the home-made food, I prepared 1/3 - the rest was bought and we both worked together to arrange it nicely and heat up whatever needed to be heated up.

I also cleaned the whole house, washed the windows and set the table. The first thing my mother did upon arrival was to run her finger over the surface of our Playstation 3 and annonce that the place (which has been dusted 3 hours previously) needed to be dusted. All year she's also been praising C's lovely cooking and saying how no-one could ever make a Christmas lunch that measured up to the one he held - and what an effort he must have gone through to put all that delicious food on the table. And yes he did make a huge effort, but...

SNOW!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:59:49 GMT

Finally! All of Denmark seems to have had snow for weeks except us, but now it's here and Lia is over the moon, as am I. The advantage of having a dog is that all my weird behaviour is excused. Throwing snowballs? I have a dog. Rolling around in the snow? I have a dog. Walking through the highest snow-drifts? I have a dog, obviously. *grin*

Bold and Greedy are less impressed. They lay in wait by the door and ran inside as soon as I opened it:

"We're indoor cats now! Yes, yes, we live inside with big, fat, fluffy kittiessss."

____________________

Speaking of dogs and snow. My pack-training mentality, where I cover 95% of all my dog's needs including play, backfired a bit today, as Lia during a hyper-flip in the snow decided to wrestle:

Lia: Wrestle! *grabs May's arm and tries to drag her to the ground*
May: HAVE YOU ABSOLUTELY LOST YOUR MIND?!!!!!!
Lia: *lets go immediately and flips onto back to show tummy* I'm sowwy...
May: Hmmmm...you're forgiven.
Lia: *leaps up again* Wrestle?
May: *sigh*

Lost in Translation.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:17:59 GMT

Remember this post: http://frigg.livejournal.com/442036.html ?

By all means let's add a FOURTH language to the translations my husband wants me to do for him. Swedish!

I'm not sure what he was thinking, as the producer website he got the Swedish text from also has an English version - and while I do understand 95% of all written Swedish, my English is still better than my Swedish.

Some Swedish words do not even remotely remind me of their equivalent Danish word - or any other language I know. Take a word like zipper:
English = Zipper
Danish = Lynlås
German = Reissverschluss

and

Swedish = Dragkedja

...also I'm pretty sure that "Slätt foder i ärmarna" doesn't mean "Bad animal food in the sleeves", which is what it sounds like in Danish when I read it out loud.

Dog Training

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:30:01 GMT

I plan to start up again with Lia as soon as the weather becomes more tolerable. To prevent us from looking like complete nitwits, I've spent my lunch-break looking up DCH's C-group competition requirements, so it's time for some goal oriented training.

I've never trained in DCH or competed before with a dog, so I started by looking at the requirements for the E-group assuming that since A is the best group then E must be the worst. What a shock! I was quite taken aback at the level of obedience required by an E-group dog...that was until I realized that the E stands for Elite, so not the E-group, but the Elite-group. *phew*

Effective shopping!

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:15:02 GMT

We went shopping in Herning (20-30 mins drive away). Bought Christmas presents, shelves for C's shop and shopped for Christmas Eve Dinner and the rest of the week. Even had time to potter around Herning Centeret to see the new extension and shops.

Left home at 13:20. By 17:00 we were home again with 6 bags of shopping packed away, and all 5 Christmas presents wrapped by yours truly.

For E, who looked after me when I was little, I bought various goodies and pretty red wicker basket, lined with red and white chequered cloth, to put them in:

May: *struggles to put everything in basket*
C: *eyes all the goodies* Let me try.
...
...
C: It's not possible, the only way you'll fit everything in there is if you leave out the chocolate. WE can eat it!
May: *Empties basket and puts in chocolate as the first item*
C: *loooong face*
May: *tries to fit everything in, but finds no space for a jar of pickled peppers*
C: Oh! We can keep that one!
May: We're not keeping anything.
C: You're so stubborn. It won't fit!
May: Voila!
C: Is everything in there?
May: Yup.
C: What about the little jar?
May: It's there, under the burnt figs. See, it pays to be...I won't call it stubborn, but...determined.
C: Well, I was quite determined to keep some of the stuff.

The Prince and Me

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:01:18 GMT

C: They are showing the Prince and Me on TV!
May: *grumble, grumble*
C: I know you don't want to see it, but why don't you give it a try? Maybe it's not as bad as you think it'll be. It's a sweet romantic comedy, you like those.
May: hrmmmmpppffff. Okay, I guess I can't complain about it without actually having seen it.
C: Gooooood girl
May: One would think that they would at least have looked into the Danish Government form.
...
...
May: Riiiiiiight.
...
...
May: *snort*
...
...
May: U.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e.
C: Okay, stop watching now, please.

Ohhhhh new shiny idea!

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:02:15 GMT

*must not give in, must not give in, must not give in*

Maybe just jot down a few keywords?

More or less as seen of Facebook:

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:11:30 GMT

"Win 1 year's consumption of burgers and coca cola at known burger chain"

This is just mind-boggling on so many levels. Who are the people where this would be a good deal? And what if I were to fill out the contest questionnaire and, as a side note, allow 50 gazillion advertising companies to contact me through phone or letter* - and then won?

Would this mean that I would feel pressured by the whole free meal thing to visit known burger chain more frequently than I do now**? What would this do to my weight? And my taste buds? And would I *gasp* become addicted to junk food?

I can just see myself; a blubbery mass living on the couch with the phone within reach so that I can answer all those "Do you have a thigh-master?" and "Buy three electronic keyhole cleaners today and pay for just 2!".

Is this even a prize or is it just evil?
_______________________________________
*Which, with a very few exceptions, is otherwise illegal in Denmark without the poor marketing victim's consent.

**Last time I went was in 2008 - and only because a friend wanted to bring her toddler there.

Plzzzzzzz

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:22:15 GMT

Dear Deliverer,

Please stop writing "plzzzzz...." in your official business letters. I just cannot take you seriously when you do that.

Love,
May

Gah!

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:02:07 GMT

I swear my memory is like a sieve. Just remembered the cup of tea I'm steeping. The bag must have been in there for an hour! Think it's strong enough?

She's a Belgian Shepherd Dog alright.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:35:40 GMT

*Neighbour and his huge rottweiler male walks on the road at the end of our field*

Lia: MY TURF!
May: Lia, no!
Lia: *ignores, runs toward man and dog* MY TURF! SCRAM!
May: Lia, no! Come!
Lia: *half turns, stops, turns back* WOOOF-WOOF-WOOF-WOOF!
Rotterweiler: *starts to look a bit worried*
May: NO! COME!
Lia: *RUNS back to crash into May*
May: Goooooood girl.
Lia: Let's go get'em. We can take them out!
May: In case it escaped your notice, that's a full grown man and a full grown rottweiler.
Lia: So?
May: That dog probably weighs the double of what you do.
Lia: We could do it! *convinced*
May: Of course we could.

*%&ç#¢¢!!!!!

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:53:14 GMT

I forgot my neurologist appointment in Holstebro today!!! It was at 10:00 and I just remembered. Argh!

They have such tight schedules and are so busy, so my forgetting is a huge inconvenience for them. Double argh!

Fail!

Oh those Danish names...

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:34:47 GMT

C: Regitze? What kind of name is that?
May: Don't you think it's nice?
C: No, I think it's weird.

C: Is Jess a male or a female name?
May: Male if it's Danish, female if it's English.
C: Poor guy.

C: Preben, male or female?
May: Male! You think it sounds female???
C: I don't think it sounds like a name. It sounds like a dish-washing liquid.

C: Jette, male or female?
May: Female.
C: *sigh*

There's no such thing as a stupid question.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:00:51 GMT

But there's certainly no shortage of stupid answers. *groan*

And I'm not talking about guessing an answer to something or being misinformed. I'm talking about nitwits who insist on voicing an "expert" opinion on something they have clearly no clue about.

Example:
Question: What is a Chiton?
Answer: There is no such thing as a Chiton.

Aaaaarrrrgh....shut up! Shut up! Shut up! At least do a quick google search before spewing such nonsense! OR you could say "Are you sure there's such a thing as a Chiton? I've never heard of it before." - either would work. Thank you.

____________________________________
"There's no such thing as a stupid question" has always been used by most of my teachers to encourage their students to ask if there was something they didn't understand.

1200

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:05:51 GMT

1200 or "How I loose weight"

It's not fancy, it doesn't require powders, a personal trainer or a list of forbidden foods, but it works for me.

1200 is the amount of calories I burn on a non-active day, being small and bird-boned has its disadvantages, apart from not being able to reach the top shelves in supermarkets and libraries.

I'm counting calories again. I have a max. of XX kilos that I will allow myself to weigh. This is the weight were my underwear begins to block off the blood-supply to my legs and where my double chin becomes more prominent than usual, so every time the bathroom scale hits XX kilos; the calorie counting starts.

I also have a minimum of AA kilos that I will allow myself to weigh, but let's face it: That hasn't been a problem so far...hahaha

Counting calories has always worked for me, because:
1. It's not actually dieting and I am allowed to eat whatever I want to eat, as long as I exercise sufficiently to end up with a daily calorie balance or, preferably, a calorie minus. For someone like me who loves food, this is a huge advantage.

2. Because I have to exercise to burn off any extra consumed calories, I'm much less motivated to eat junk. For example a Lion Bar is approx. 250 calories. Is it *really* worth 1 hour and 40 minutes walk with Lia or 18 km on the exercise bike? I don't think so. Yes, I'm using my own laziness to loose weight. ;)

3. On the other hand, I am more motivated to exercise, because this means that I can EAT more.

The XX and the AA also works really well, as the XX is set low enough to prevent yo-yo weight and so that I don't have to struggle for years to loose the extra kilos.

Productive!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:53:09 GMT

I've neglected both husband and dog, but I caught up on all my return reviews, deleted all my old submissions and posted chapter 6 of Elpida and When Cats Return to the OWW.

And now we're off to the supermarket, I need eggs to bake a pear pie for my parents' tomorrow, and since we're at the totally random information, I have a large bruise on the back of my right hand, which I have no idea where came from. Same right hand is still aching after the fall this summer. Doctor say I have to learn to live with it. I think that's crap.

High school reunion awkwardness...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:18:05 GMT

...might be eminent with a former friend whom I've known since I was 12, although we didn't become friends until we were 16-17 years old. The friendship lasted about 8 years and it was her decision to end it.

What happened, the short version:
As a newly graduated lawyer, against the advice from her boss, she took on a case for my neighbour who had decided to sue me for what equals 450 USD. In her own words "We're both reasonable, objective and intelligent people and I know we can keep the case separate from our friendship. It's nothing personal, I'm just doing my job."

And I agreed. We continued to hang out, meet up for dinner, shopping etc., not mentioning the case with one word. I took all the paperwork to a free lawyer in town who laughed.his.arse.off. It was apparently ridiculous, there was no case, I had done nothing wrong. I was to keep all the papers they would send me but do absolutely nothing.

So I did. Over the course of the few months, with fines and added lawyer fees, the amount went from 450 USD to 1800 USD - and then the letters stopped coming. As did my friend. She was supposed to come for dinner at my place but never showed up. I tried to call and drop by her place several times over the couple of weeks, but the phone was not picked up and the door not opened, even though there was light in her apartment.

In the end I wrote her a letter, saying I hoped that it was not the case that had come between us and that I would be sad to loose our friendship and would she please contact me? If I did not hear from her, then I would assume that she felt that she could not continue our friendship because of the case and that I would of course respect that.

That was 11 years ago.

Now how does one react at a high school reunion party? I'm not one for fake smiles and pretending nothing ever happened, so then what? My game plan at the moment is a polite hello and then do my best to discreetly avoid her the rest of the evening.

I was disappointed at the time, but I'm not hurt, offended or insulted. Friends should be friends because they want to be friends. I just don't have the energy to deal with her, although we were close at one point, she could be difficult enough to be with while we were friends. I just hope that if she attends the party she will leave me in peace.

Does he miss the eye-less faces?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:02:25 GMT

Last week C suggested that I should take the time to paint and yesterday he asked when I would start taking portrait commissions again, so either he misses me doing art or he's looking for an extra source of income. *grin*

That said, I have no orders so far today, so I am considering taking the day off to work on the painting, do some OWW reviews and revise the ending of "Zen of a Housecat". The title never really felt right, so I've renamed it to "When Cats Return". I'll be posting it to the OWW as soon as I've caught up with return reviews.

Elpida and Adric have also been busy in my brain, so maybe there will be some novel writing as well. Adric will have to wait until the first draft of Elpida is down, though.

EDIT: Revised "When Cats Return", finished return reviews for Elpida Ch. 3 and deleted it from the workshop.

This and that.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:08:54 GMT

- I sent in my VAT statement for the 3rd quarter of 2009 and arranged to it to be paid tomorrow! I can't even begin to describe how nice it is to have it over and done with.

- I have wicked plans involving the bathtub and a book tonight.

- A friend posted this video link on Facebook. It's rather funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxtUH_bHBxs

Sleeeep!

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:19:19 GMT

Not Brain and Guilt Monkey this time, but Body. Body found dinner last night too heavy and in the middle of the night decided to do a complete purge. It wasn't pretty, so I'll spare you the details.

C, after a few sympathetic murmurs, opted to look on the bright side: "Think of all the calories you can eat today!"

Right. Breakfast is a cup of white tea and a clementine. I don't even want to think about calories or anything heavier than a glass of water.

How many jig saws does a man need?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:57:09 GMT

Well, the answer seems to be 3. At least that's how many I found while trying to tidy up the basement earlier. Basement tidying is actually a low priority on my to-do list, but I cannot find the small electrical sander*, so might as well tidy up while trying to find it.

The plan is to find the sander, sand down stairs, stain, oil and paint them, which of course requires locating the sander. I could do it by hand, but that would takes ages.

I've realised that the Brain-Guilt Monkey conspiracy is for a large part fed by the unfinished, messy state of the house and garden. That, and of course the bead shop**, writing and art. The sheer amount of work has been daunting and limiting as in where to start? What to do? Since all my planning, lists and schedules haven't been terribly successful, I'm now going with a "I'm just going to do something and whatever I manage to do, I manage to do." - and since plodding on is one of the things I do best, it actually seems to be working in a sense that I do get more things done than before.

Of course Brain and Guilt Monkey are still having a ball, but I'll get them eventually.

___________________________
* Yes, we also have a large electrical sander.
** Need to report my VAT for the 3rd quarter of 2009 and pay it before the 1st. of December. Plus the stock room still looks like a bombsite.

Living on the edge.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:51:36 GMT

Post injection day and I just came back from the doctor after getting an flu vaccination - regular one only, I don't know if I'm allowed to get the H1N1 vaccination, have to ask at my next appointment with the neurologist.

And...knock wood...I feel fine for the second week in a row. Just a bit cold and tired, but that's okay. The weather is also playing along, a bit windy, but bright sunshine and not too cold, so Lia and I will be making the most of it before sunset, which is around 15:50 at this time of year.

EDIT: It's 16:30 and dark. We didn't make it out before it started raining. Serves me right for trying to stall the exercise so that the dog will not regain too much energy before evening. So it was a quick walk in the rain, indoor brain work/trick training and some serious grooming, brushing off all the loose undercoat from Lia's fur - one day I'll make a dog sweater.

Shoulder where I got the vaccination is a bit sore, but still feel fine!

Frigg

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Caramelized potatoes

Hehehehe...

SNOW!

Lost in Translation.

Dog Training

Effective shopping!

The Prince and Me

Ohhhhh new shiny idea!

More or less as seen of Facebook:

Plzzzzzzz

Gah!

She's a Belgian Shepherd Dog alright.

*%&ç#**¢¢**!!!!!

Oh those Danish names...

There's no such thing as a stupid question.

1200

Productive!

High school reunion awkwardness...

Does he miss the eye-less faces?

This and that.

Sleeeep!

How many jig saws does a man need?

Living on the edge.

*%&ç#¢¢!!!!!