Good morning!  Today is Mother’s Day here in Norway, but it’s also a day for new beginnings.  Today is February 10th, 2013, which means it’s the start of a new and prosperous year for many around the world.  Since it’s an extremely busy month I haven’t really made any plans but I still try to keep our traditions strong.

After we ate Mother’s Day waffles I presented my children with their red envelopes.  I think they’re happy

ETA: Yes, I now realize that it’s the 17th and not the 16th.  I guess you lose track of which day it is when you’re not at work.  Meh.

Ok it’s almost October and I’m still not tired of Gangnam Style.  I was listening to it last night in bed and Ørjan turned to me and said, “Ok, that’s it… no sex now!”  I think his reaction although funny it made it clear that I might have a problem with this song.  If you haven’t heard it or seen it somewhere on the net where have you been for the past couple of months?

A friend of our family died tragically a week ago.  It was an accident and no one was prepared.  I was gutted.  I cried during my morning runs to let it out because no one would hear or see me, but eventually I just exploded and I struggled to hold myself together.  When it comes to mortality I’ve usually tried to hold my feelings back.  Many people in my life died early before I reached adulthood.  Now that I am an adult I still find it difficult to talk about death.  With this person in particular I just couldn’t fathom how this could have happened.  He was the epitome of what we all want to be.  He was inspiring, caring, patient, and always made time for others.  He was a great teacher.  Every so often I’d receive emails with news from the family, and of course there were those annual Christmas cards with photos I always looked forward to.  I still haven’t quite decided how to organize my feelings and emotions.  The one thought that I can’t let go of is that eventually Ørjan and I will have to sit down and make our final wishes clear.  I’m not even 30 and he’s not even 40 but if something would happen to us both we’d leave behind 2 young children.  It scares me.  It doesn’t necessarily scare me when I think of my own death, but it’s frightening when I think about what and who I’d be leaving behind.

So here we go again.  It’s been months since I’ve made any kind of post around here but I have some amazing news to report.  While I’ve been away I made the decision to start investing in myself.  I’ve been eating better and exercising regularly.  Recently I’ve taken up running.  Yeah that’s me on the left.  (An early morning run on our last day in Trondheim.)  I feel great.  I haven’t had this much energy and I haven’t felt this fit since… jeezs… I really don’t know when.  All I know is that I don’t have any plans to stop!

The kids are getting bigger and they’re just as funny as always.  This month I celebrated my 28th birthday, Ørjan celebrated his 38th birthday, and together we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.  Ørjan is doing well and lucky for him he still has one more week of vacation.  I’ve been back at work for a week and I already feel the stress hitting me.  Luckily now when I feel stressed out I take it out on a work out instead of burying it deep inside.

It’s been almost two weeks but in even bigger news – my mum and my aunt were here visiting from Canada!  They had a couple of days in Bergen before they arrived here to Hemnes.  It was a great two weeks of food, photos, and laughter.  I don’t think any of us had eaten that much food for a very long time.  I prepared many traditional Norwegian dishes from reindeer stew to leg of lamb.  We even had cod tongues for lunch one day!  When we weren’t going on long walks and taking in the nature of the north, we were were taking it easy talking about older and more recent times.

Now it’s time to get some rest because my alarm will be screaming at me around 5am.  It’s my intention to get in a good run before I have to head off to work.