Thank God it's Friday

Dear everybody,
To those of you who usually talk to me in Norwegian I want to apologise for being so international lately, I know some of you have some problems reading it (Ingrid =)). I’ll write a Norwegian post soon. In the meantime you just have to put up with it =)

Today I’ve been to school. It was nice, especially the breaks, if you see what I mean. Really a reason to thank God it’s Friday. We should thank God more. For everything we see and experience; If He hadn’t created it (or us) in the first place we wouldn’t have had it at all. Praising God is important, thanking God is also.

At about six o’clock in the evening, me and eight other girls from school went over to Rosfjord Hotell to look after children hard of hearing while their parents we’re on a seminar. It was a totally new experience for me and the others, but challenging and very much fun. The fifteen children were at age six to twelve. We got two children each to look after. I looked after two sweet girls (even sisters) aged nine and seven. They had a precious mama. We had very much fun, playing games and rolling on the school lawn, while the mama’s and papa’s we’re listening to the seminar. Afterwards we got an incredibly well tasting dinner at the hotel.

We’ll be doing this tomorrow too. Then we’re going to look after the children from eight o’clock in the morning until five in the afternoon, I can’t see how I can possibly make it, calculating in my enormous heap of homework, in addition to sewing, cleaning and laundry that have to be done. Not to mention that I am to go to a Christian meeting in the evening too. But there probably is a way, and if I lay it all in the hands of God, I am sure I’ll find it. I have loved being with these children today. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to do so. I look forward till tomorrow, I really do. Even if bringing fiftheen children that becomes deaf the second their hearing aid is off into a pool and suppose to have control, must simply must be madness. Pray for us. I think it will go well, I pray so.

Now I’ve almost fallen asleep in the very chair I sit in, so I just have to end the post here and move the last meter over to my bed. I tink I can manage that. Have a very good night, and morning and evening and everything. God is so wonderful to love us unconditional; we are completely His. Draw close to Him and you’ll see how wonderful it really feels. He is God.

åslaug

Rest on Sunday

Reading the Bible

The view from my window

Some days I feel like blogging, but I don’t feel like I have anything to share. Other days I have so much to share and so little time to share it. Today is one of these days. I had a post finished that was supposed to be posted monday morning. It is about Sunday. My Sunday, which was a very nice one. Read and enjoy, and bake the cake; it’s incredible tasty!

Sunday was a lovely day. Saturday was cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping and homework. Sunday was.... resting. Such a wonderful peace and quiet Sundays brings when you lay down your everyday work, sit down, open your Bible, spending time with God, or simply rest.

It’s not like the Sunday automatically becomes a day of peace and quiet by itself. But as the Sunday was from the very beginning a day of rest and restitution, so it becomes what it have always been if you just don’t make too many appointments to fill it.


Genesis 2:2-3: ”By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”


So, at Sunday I rested. We had boiled eggs and warm bread rolls for breakfast, I had a nap after dinner, did some sewing, read stories from a childrens bible and read through the original text afterwards, had friends visiting for cakes and blackberry limonade. Sunday, was a precious, lovely day =)

And here’s the recipe on the loveliest chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted (takk, Marita!!!)

2,5 dl is about 1 cup

”Konfektkake”

225 g vegetable shortening, melted
400 g (4,5 dl) sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
60 g (1,5 dl) cocoa
stirred into the butter
3 eggs, one at the time
3 dl all purpose flour in the end

170 c in the owen for 25 – 30 min i 24 cm cake tin.

Frosting:
Bring 2 dl cream og 25 g (2 small tablespoons) butter (must be butter, not vegetable shortening) to boiling.
Stir in 200 g dark baking chocolate.
Put the frosting in the frigde

As the frosting is very thin in the beginning, you may want to put on the middle layer of frosting while the lower part of the cake is in the cake tin and then lay the upper part on top and put on the frosting on the top, before you put the whole thing into the frigde, just my experience.

Cut into to halves and put frosting in the middle and on the top. Cool in the fridge. Can be frozen.
Good Luck. Enjoy!!!

I hope your day was wonderful!
God bless you

åslaug

Summerdays

The roots of one three hugging another tree

Trees in our garden

Tea in the kitchen!!

My mothers very beautiful yellow roses
My sister finishing the last pages of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows"

Our hall with it's usual decorate of rosepaint

and my mothers bridal veil

A beautiful peace of furniture, inherited from my great grandmother

Ripe plums...
I just had to taste them....
Uhm, yummy! Tasted good they did too =P

Our magical garden

Our hedge..

A whole wheelbarrow of cut off branches from our nearly escaping plum tree

A beautiful weed that our neighbour is feeling sorry for spreading to our garden.. I'm not sorry at all =P

Pretty green plant warming the feet of one of our garden trees..
My fathers Lavendel

I haven't been writing much for a while, wich is simply because I haven't been ashore, where my computer of course have been. From July 18 to July 29 my sister and I spent our time onboard the full rigged ship "Sørlandet" and participated in Tall Ships Race from Kotka, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden. It was eleven amazing days, I have never done anything like it before, but I recommend it!! I woke up every morning hoping it would never ever end (yes, even that whole day I spent being seasick). But that's an other story, which I'll tell later (when I get all the pictures and such things), today I have a much better story to tell... Fresh news from Brendehaugen on Stord!! =D

Today have been, not a lazy day; but a very nice one! The sun have been shining all day long, I've been making cookies (which I like to do, and makes me happy), and my sister and mother and I have been home alone, putting stuff down into bags and boxes, so that we'll be ready to leave for our boarding school tomorrow (we're not starting yet, but we're going on a little vacation, so it has to be ready).

We also had to bring a saw with it's garden companions outside for some work. You see, yester day our very lovely plum tree (the best plums of the garden) decided to break free from where it had been standing for (I guess) so many years, and escape over the hedge and out into the forest, to go wild as they say... (I don't know this of course, it's just a theory). The only thing my precious plumtree did forget, was that it had roots, and roots are often very securely fastened in the soil. So, when we came home in the afternoon it was hanging over the hedge and out in the road with all it's thousand not yet ripened plums. End of breaking free adventure. So today we had to cut of all the branches hanging outside the garden. It was a heavy lot of plums on that three so I felt awful to cut such a lot off, but needs must, as they say. But, I hope and trust that the rest of the plums will grow and ripe as usual.. =P

I have also been running around the house and our garden to take pictures, as you can see =D

I hope you've all had lovely day!

God bless you!
åslaug

Rest on Sunday

Sunday. Resting, watching the rain from my window, laugh at the sun running barefeet in the wet grass, spending time with God, sewing...

This have been a wonderful day. We started making cookies at seven o'clock early this morning, and continued eating them througout the day (it's not quite as bad as it sounds like, but nearly). In the evening, Ingvild and I had a little milk and cookies-party of our own.. =D

I've been sewing her a little key-bag to hang around the neck so that she won't loose her keys when she moves to KVS =D

I hope you all have had a truly enjoyable day!

God bless you and take care of you.

Yours sincerly

åslaug

Blessed Blessed Rain

Today it's saturday.

It has been a truly lovely day. It's been raining all day, but I can't say that I dislike it. That might be halfway from the fact that I was supposed to be trimming the hedge, which I couldn't do when it was raining, but it was nice in other ways too... =D

For an example on rainy days you can:

* run down a hill in the rain, laughing along with your sister

*do fun indoor things like making a little cabin between two chairs and under a blanket
*sewing a skirt from an old pair of jeans, or an apron from fabrics received from your grandmothers treasure chest of a house..

*baking a yellow and juicy pioneer corn bread

*go to the shop to buy peanut butter, just to find out that they don't sell it anylonger, just to buy almonds instead and make your own almond butter =P

*Shaking whipping cream in a small glass until it becomes butter, salt it and taste it on freshly baked pioneer corn bread...

*Listen to your sister reading aloud from a Harry Potter book

*Visiting your grandfather and read the newspaper by his kitchen table

*or you could simply sit in the window sill watching the rain and hear its drops dripping from the roof..

Rain is such a blessing, making the whole world green, wet and lovable.

Thank God for your constant, countless everyday blessings, such as the rain.

May the Lord bless your lives with summery, spiritual rain =P

~åslaug~

Fredag den Trettende

Den godt kjente og ofte fryktede "Fredag den trettende" foreløp uten større uhell eller mistenkelige hendelser. Jeg fikk visa-kort, jeg og Ingvild så på mønster og stoffer i sybutikken (fordi: stoff er ulovlig å være i besittelse av, farlig å bruke og sterkt avhengighetsdannende, mens det å "se på" stoff ikke har noen slike restriksjoner på seg...
Den som SovER synder ikke)
Først hadde vi et lyn-middagselskap med lammestek og rødvinssaus og hjemmelaget karamellpudding sammen med Besten og farmor og en tante og en onkel. Så var hele familien (utenom førstebarnet som kom hjem for sent) på norgespremieren av "Harry Potter og Føniksordenen" og fikk et etterlengtet gjensyn med gjengen øverst... Filmen var bra. Mye bedre enn den forrige. Etterpå hadde vi det koselig hjemme i huset vårt. Per spiste middagsrester og smakte på karamellpuddingen vår (som han syntes var god til å være karamellpudding, men han likte typisk nok ikke karamellpudding, så vi fikk resten..) vi laget kakao med krem (får slik høstfølelse av Sunnhordlands-været for tida), diskuterte verdensproblemer, kranglet, vasket opp, leste høyt fra Harry Potter boka og syklet på ergometersykkel. Veldig koselig kveld. Det er sjelden hele familien er hjemme...
I helga skal jeg klippe hekk =D =D =D
På gjensyn!

Chockladbollar

Chokladbollar är en riktig klassiker som de flesta tycker om.
Tid: 15 minuter
20 st
Du behöver:
· 150 g smör eller margarin
· 2 dl socker
· 3 ½ dl havregryn
· 1 dl kokosflingor
· 1 ½ msk vaniljsocker
· 4 ½ msk kakao
· 2-3 msk kaffe
Garnering:
· pärlsocker eller kokosflingor
Gör så här:
Rör smör och socker till en jämn smet gärna med elvisp så går det snabbt.
Tillsätt havregryn, kokosflingor, kakao, vaniljsocker och kaffe och rör till en jämn smet för hand eller med elvisp.
Kaffe kan man till exempel göra genom att blanda 2-3 tsk néscafé med 3 msk vatten.
Häll upp kokosflingor eller pärlsocker i en djup tallrik. Rulla små bollar av smeten och rulla bollarna i kokosflingorna eller pärlsockret.
Lägg bollarna i en burk och förvara i kylskåp. De går också att frysa in.