KiwiRia

I am not impressed!

A new policy from the Danish postal service says that as of January 1st, 2010 all apartment buildings must now have post boxes on the ground floor, to save postmen from having to walk up and down lots of stairs. Fair enough, I have no real problem with this policy.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that the board of the building Lars and I live with have declared that all common changes to the building must be done by them (i.e. we're not allowed to put a post box up ourselves - probably as they want them all to be the same kind) and that not only have they yet to do anything about it, they haven't replied to any of our e-mails concerning the matter either - the first sent more than a month and a half ago!

I'd be more than a little pissed if as of January 2nd I have to go to the post office every day to get my mail! Granted, it's not too far away, but it's only open from 9-17... funnily enough pretty much the same hours I'm at work.

Lars went around and hand-delivered a letter to every member of the board this evening, asking them to give us an update, and that we assumed that either the post boxes would be up by January 1st, or that the board have arranged for alternative means of getting us our mail. We'll be following up with a personal visit or a phone call on Wednesday if we've heard nothing before then.

As I said - NOT impressed!

DONE! :) Click for larger version.



It's taken me a lot longer than I care to admit because doing black back-stitch on black background is horrible!, but yesterday I got stubborn, and today I finally finished. Yay :) Now to get it framed and put up next to my books ;)

Perfect timing too, as I received this for Christmas :)

As usual I've had a wonderful Christmas :) Yesterday (the 24th - I know that's technically the day before yesterday, but I haven't been to bed yet, so to me it's still the 25th ;) ) Lars and I went to his Morfar's place to celebrate Christmas together with his side of the family. We left in time for me to get to the Midnight Mass at church. I'd been asked to sing in the choir, but even if I hadn't, I still would have liked to go - if at all possible I try to make it to the midnight mass. There's just something special about it.

After having slept in today, we left for my Morfar's place to celebrate Christmas together with my side of the family. We're close to being too many people to fit in Morfar's apartment, but it means a lot to him to be the host, so we cope ;) Very cosy, and for once I actually didn't have far too much to eat! I know, I'm shocked too ;)

I received some lovely presents :) A wrist-watch from Lars, a calendar with pictures of the kids from Nina, Christian and family, some games, a couple of movies, the aforementioned embroidery and lots and lots of books :-D

Hope you've had as cosy a couple of days, and that the Christmas grinch has stayed far away.

As all Danes know, today is the proper day to celebrate Christmas, so Merry Christmas everybody! ;-) Hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a blessed Christmas Day.

( And now - the end of year meme )

Yay! Despite the busyness of the postal office at this time of year, they came through and got me my BeBook today! As usual under the device that the smaller the gadget, the larger the box it's packed in ;-) I'm not complaining though, I have a new toy!!! But why, oh why do gadgets always have to be charged for hours on end upon first receiving it, when the manufactures ought to know that we just want to start playing already!!! Couldn't they just once deliver it with a charged battery? ;-)

Fortunately it doesn't lock while charging, so I've still been able to load files to it and play around a little. It's definitely not as cosy as a book, but as an alternative to reading ebooks on my computer screen, I think I'm going to love it :-D

Perfect timing - today is the first day of my Christmas break. I have 12 glorious days off work to play with it in :-D

moredetails, I finished Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict this morning. Thanks for the recommendation! Unfortunately the library doesn't have the sequel yet, so I'll have to wait a bit for that one.

Eeeeeeeee!!!

My Bebook One is being shipped today! With just a tiny bit of luck, I might actually get it in time for Christmas!

My colleagues are laughing at me for being so psyched, but eeeeeeee!!!!

:-D

Thanks, supremegoddess1! I totally want to see this movie now!


Parlour tricks of Science - also very very cool

Voting for therealljidol is up! If you liked my post on "Reprobate", please spare me a vote here :)

I have 10 $10 coupons from LiveJournal. If you have a free or a plus account, you can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). If you'd like a coupon, leave me a comment :)

Only 1.5 days left of work before the Christmas vacation. Then I'm off until January 4th! I can't WAIT :) And for once Lars has a proper Christmas break as well - he's off from the 23rd to the 27th! I'm definitely not complaining :)

Taken from book_memes. It was so interesting I wanted to post it here as well to get you guys to take it too! ;) Besides, I'm always looking for new non-fiction recommendations!

1) Are you currently reading any non-fiction? What is it?
Be Angry But Don't Blow It by Lisa Bevere and Do You Think I'm Beautiful? by Angela Thomas. Both Christian non-fiction.

2) List your preferred non-fiction genres, the ones you'll buy more than a couple of books on:
Christian non-fiction, memoirs.

3) Of those, what do you have the most of on your shelves?
I think it's just about 50-50.

4) What non-fiction book have you surprised yourself with by enjoying (i.e. something not in your usual field of interest)?
Kitchen Confidentials by Anthony Bourdain. Unlike any non-fiction I'd ever read before, but I loved it.

5) Do you prefer Biography or Autobiography?
I have problems with both. When reading biographies I keep wondering, "How does the author know that for sure?!" and with autobiographies I keep wondering, "But how do I know the author is being honest here?". At the end of the day I think I prefer autobiographies though.

6) Favourite celebrity/sports (auto)biography? Favourite author (auto)biography?
Celebrity: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Author: The Selected Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery

7) Is there an (auto)biography of someone you'd like to read, that hasn't been written yet?
Not that I can think of.

8) Do you read essays? Who are your favourite writers?
Not generally. I've read a couple, but not enough to have any favourite writers.

9) Do you read war memoirs? What about straightforward war history? Any other area of history?
Occasionally. I used to read a LOT of WW2 non-fiction - history and memoirs both - but got over-saturated, so haven't read any for years. I haven't read plain history in years - found it too dry.

10) Cookbooks or gardening books?
DEFINITELY cookbooks! Gardening books bore me.

11) Do you have craft books of any kind?
Several books of embroidery patterns and paper cut-outs/decorations.

12) Do you go in for coffee table books?
I'd never buy a book just because it'd look good on a coffee table, but I have bought books that would fall into that category, simply because I wanted them anyway. Untamed by Steve Bloom would be one example of such a book.

13) What's the most random, bizarre, non-fiction book that you own?
I don't think I have any that'd fall into that category. I have two non-fiction books written by my dad, if that counts? ;-)

14) Do you read true crime? What's the last one you read?
Occasionally. Unfortunately the last one (Deadly Angel by Fred Rosen) was terrible! Horrible writing and just completely uninteresting.

15) Recommend a book on a non-fiction subject that is readable and interesting, even supposing no initial interest in the people you are recommending it to.
In His Sight by Kate Brennan. It's probably the best true crime book I've read. A definite page-turner.

Auschwitz sign stolen. This is all kinds of sick. Eich!

Well, we're now 3-for-3 on nights without electricity. Yup, it went out again yesterday evening. Thankfully only for 2 hours this time, but still. I'm not amused. Any bets on whether or not it'll go out tonight as well. Not that I'll know, mind you - I'm off to my Christmas lunch at the National Museum (dichroic will know where that is :D ) at 5pm! :-)

I went to the funeral of a dear friend's husband yesterday. One of the sweetest ladies at church got married to her second husband just 10 years ago after they both were well up in their 60s. He was diagnosed with cancer 4-5 months ago, and died last Friday :( I didn't know him all that well (he didn't attend church with her), but wanted to show my support to her. Thankfully the funeral wasn't until 3pm, so I was able to make it despite work. And I have to say, I was extremely touched to see how MANY people from the congregation had shown up. People who didn't have a personal relationship with Gaetano, but who wanted to be there for Lissie anyway. It's stuff like that, that makes me happy to be in my church :)

During the reception after the funeral, my parents told me that they'd just heard that one of my friends from boarding school had died within the last couple of days! Apparently a sudden heart failure or something like that. I was a LOT more shocked and sad than I'd expected to be. I haven't seen him for around 15 years, but we'd recently caught up on Facebook. He was trying to establish himself as a stand-up comedian, and had invited me to come see his show last month sometime. I'd wanted to, but ended up not going for some really stupid reason (it rained, my bike was at the shop and I was too tired/lazy to figure out how to take the bus), as I figured I'd have plenty of more chances. That decision is torturing me right now. It would have been so easy to go, and now I'm out of chances. *sigh*.

Rest in peace, Stefan. You'll be missed.

Okay, this is getting old!! Tuesday evening we lost electricity at 5:30pm and didn't get it back until shortly after 9pm. We were told that the blackout was due to errors on the cables, and that they had rolled out some temporary ones.

When we woke up Wednesday morning, the heat still wasn't back on, and it was 18C in our living room (the warmest room of the house).

We came home from work Wednesday evening and were delighted to find both the electricity and heat on. Especially as it had been snowing all day Wednesday and was COLD outside! We rejoiced... until 8:30pm when the electricity went out again! We called the company and they promised it would be fixed by 9:30... then by 11... then by 11:30. At 11:15 I gave up and went to bed, only to be woken up by the tv and washing machine turning back on at 1:30am when the electricity FINALLY came back.

Hopefully this is a more permanent solution, so we won't risk the same again tonight!

Good thing it had been snowing all day though - we only needed a few candles to have enough light to see by, and Lars had lots of fun playing with his new light sabers ;-)

It's still cold though! It's been below freezing for the past 2 days, and I think the current temperatures are somewhere between -5C and -10C. We have our office Christmas lunch tomorrow, and I'm having a very had time figuring out what to wear. On one hand I'd like to look nice. On the other hand, I'd like to keep warm! The location is being kept a secret, so I don't even know where it's being held. Ah well, time will show :)

"Slambert!" (rascal)
"Skurk!" (villain)
"Lømmel!" (lout)
"Slubbert!" (brat)
"Slyngel!" (scoundrel)

If you ever were to join my friend Henrik and me when we really get going, you are more likely than not going to hear some form of the exchange above. Actually, the example above is uncharacteristically short, but I ran out of English equivalents. In Danish I can keep going for a good 10-20 words!

After hearing us go at it, people have been known to ask us if we even like each other, which to us is the greatest joke ever. Of course we like each other. This is what we do to show it! It's friendly, it's affectionate and more often than not, it ends up with a hug - be it verbal or physical. It's a lovely inside joke, and one of the things that makes me feel closely connected to him.

When I saw that this week's topic was "reprobate", I thought, "Ah crap! I don't even know what that word MEANS!". Not wanting to give up before I'd even started, however, I opened a browser window, typed in the address of my favourite English-Danish dictionary and entered the word.

And then I cracked up laughing. Yet another word totally ruined for me because of my very, very wrong connotations to it.

ordbogen.dk's translation of "Reprobate"?

reprobate (noun)
ex. That old reprobate will end up in the mortuary
Slambert, skurk.

I think I've done this meme before, but it's been a couple of years, so here goes :)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper. I sometimes use gift boxes, but never gift bags.

2. Real tree or artificial?
REAL! I understand having a fake one if you have allergies, but personally it's a real tree or no tree at all. The smell is such a huge part of a Christmas tree.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Growing up we put it up on the morning of the 24th - or rather, my parents would put it up and put lights on it on the evening of the 23rd after we'd gone to bed, and then when we woke up, we'd rush to the living room and start decorating it :)
Lars and I either don't put up a tree at all (I'm still undecided about this year) or we put it up somewhere around the middle of December, as it takes up so much of our small living room that it's pretty much the ONLY Christmas decoration, so I put it up earlier than I would otherwise.

4. When do you take the tree down?
On the day of the Magi (January 6th). It's always been a fast tradition in my family that Christmas decorations stay up all 12 days of Christmas, so that's what feels "right" to me.
( More questions below )

It's gotten so cold all of a sudden!! Checking out the weather forecast we'll be below freezing all week! Brrrr :-( So I'm wearing my thickest sweater that's still dressy enough to double as work clothes ;-)

Yesterday I had a very pleasant afternoon together with Henni. One of our friends was participating in a concert in Hillerød (about 40 minutes away), so Henni and I decided to make a day out of it, and met up earlier to go Christmas shopping... or Christmas browsing rather, as both of us already have bought all Christmas presents.

We found a very nice second-hand bookstore which I HAVE to go back to at some point! It actually had a decent selection, was nicely structured (think the bottom level of The Strand to those of you who've been there) and had reasonable prices!! Many second hand bookstores in Denmark still have books at exorbitant prices, but here they had a bunch of paperbacks for just $3-4 each :D Since we were pressed for time and I had to lug whatever I bought with me to the concert, I ended up only getting 5 books, but I was definitely tempted to get a LOT more than that :)


Odd - neither of these covers fit mine, though I entered the ISBN... Anyway, Barbara Delinsky is a new author I discovered this year (new to me), and so far I've loved everything I've read by her, so I wanted to try some more.

ruthette, I hope you know I only got Sitka because of you ;-) I just saw the author and knew I had to own it... especially because I've otherwise been completely unable to find any Louis L'Amour books in Denmark. Is it any good though?

The concert was lots of fun - our friend is part of a large choir, and they sang part their "usual" stuff ("An Englishman in New York", "As", "Man in the Mirror" etc.) and part Christmas songs ("Lucia" - since it was the 13th yesterday, "Christmas Song" and several Danish ones). Lots of fun, and they weren't half bad either :)

Voting for LJ Idol is up! If you liked my post on "One Touch", please spare me a vote here.

Why is it that some people take the fact that I like something they hate, or that I dislike something they love as a personal insult? I know I've asked this question before, but it still makes no sense to me. It seems especially to be the case for books and movies. Okay, so I get that you're shocked that I dare to find Lord of the Rings boring, but that doesn't mean I'm worthy of contempt. And yes, I actually love the Twilight series despite all its flaws, but that doesn't mean I "wouldn't know good literature if it bit me in the knee" (yes, I've had somebody say that to me. Sheesh!).

Why all the vitriol? Why is it so offensive that we don't share tastes? For crying out loud, it's JUST a BOOK!

Sheesh!

Eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

The publisher I review books for just offered to get me an e-reader!!! They're going to start selling e-books as well, so naturally I needed a device to read those on :-D Their only request was that I did the research myself and sent them the link to whatever I decided on.

I was very tempted to get a Kindle now that the wireless is available in Denmark, because it just looks nifty and I still think "Oh, shiny!" whenever I see it ;-). In the end I decided not to though. Partly because I still disagree with the way they handled the recall of 1984, but mostly because it just didn't support enough formats - pretty much only PDF and Word of the ones I needed.

Instead I decided on a BeBook One. Not quite as nifty, and as far as I can see it doesn't have wireless access, but honestly I'm fine with having to be connected to a computer in order to transfer files, and it supports a LOAD of formats - pdf, doc, lit, epub and prc just to mention a few.

Now to stay patient until it actually arrives... ;-)

Stolen from dichroic

Longest distance ever traveled? In one flight - LA, USA to Auckland, New Zealand (10500km). Including changing planes (but no stop-over for more than a couple of hours) - Copenhagen, Denmark to Wellington, New Zealand (17950km - 11152miles)

Farthest north? Not sure... Norway somewhere, but I'm not sure how far north I ever got.

Farthest south? Dunedin, New Zealand

Farthest east? Gisborn, New Zealand. As dichroic, you can't go much further east than that before you get to west!

Farthest west? Waipahu, Hawaii

Highest mountain? Don't know. I've climbed part of Mt. Cook (3754m - 12316ft) and part of Mt. Taranaki (2518m), and have gone skiing on 20'ish mountains in Europe, but I've no idea how high up I got on any of them.

Lowest point? Again, don't know.

Hottest Temp? Around 45C in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Coldest Temp? -30C in Livigno, Italy. -15C and then an additional wind chill of -15C. It was FREEZING!

Most countries visited in one year: I don't think I've ever gone above 5... I might be mistaken though.

Furthest North / South distance traversed in one year: Copenhagen, Denmark to Dunedin, New Zealand in 1999.

Number of continents visited: 4. Am still missing Africa, South America and Antarctica.

When I was 12 I had a nasty staphylococcus infection in my right ankle and ended up in hospital for 5-6 weeks. I'm very grateful I was so young when it happened - not only were my chances better, but I honestly don't have many bad memories from that stay. Of course it was unpleasant, but the nurses were sympathetic, the doctors nice, my friends and family spoiled me rotten and I didn't have to go to school! To a 12-year-old girl (at least this 12-year-old girl) this all made the stay very bearable.

However, just being sympathetic isn't enough if you're a nurse. I could definitely have wanted at least one of them to be a bit more empathetic at times too... or perhaps just a little less clueless. Because there was this one nurse whose visits I dreaded... I'm sure she was very nice, but I never cared to find out, because whenever she came to check in on me, She. Would. Not. Stop. Bumping. My. Bed!!!

You have to understand, I was in PAIN! No, strike that, I was in PAIN! My foot hurt non-stop - I couldn't put any kind of pressure on it, and any accidental touch made me want to cry with pain. Every bump of the bed sent a shock wave of pain through my body, and it was all I could do to stop from screaming.

I know, I know, I should have cried out. I should have let her KNOW that she was hurting me. I've got no excuse for myself other than the fact that I took an insane pride in hiding my pain, and had too much fear for authorities to tell them they were doing anything wrong. Besides, I was terrified! I was burning up with fever, my foot was killing me (as it turned out this wasn't just hyperbole as I'd originally thought, but that's a story for another day) and nobody knew what was wrong with me. I knew the nurses probably knew little more than I did, but I did rely on them to if not actually ease my pain (although thankfully they occasionally did that too... my cousins still find it a waste that I've tried morphine without even knowing it ;) ), then at least not make it unnecessarily worse either.

Most of the nurses were terrific with soothing words and touches - but that's one touch I would certainly rather have been without!

I love morningstorms' book posts. Here she posts a list of her top 10 favourite books that at some point deal with Christmas, and ask what our favourites are. I don't have any specific Christmas readings (as in books I read every Christmas), but here are books with some of my favourite Christmas scenes.

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. One of the most delightful meetings with Father Christmas after he's finally allowed back into Narnia.


2. The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I just adore the descriptions of the preparations that take place, and how Christmas was celebrated so many years ago. Wonderfully cozy.


3. The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Such a lovely low-key Christmas where Valancy finally gets to celebrate it exactly as she wants.


4. Reden by Estrid Ott. One of my favourite Danish classics. The father is an organ player and the mother is an artist. For Christmas the children get to design a Christmas card each, and the father wakes them up by playing the piano. Gorgeous.


5. The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out by Neta Jackson. By itself the weakest of the Yada Yada books, but the description of Christmas is awesome.


6. The Year of Plenty by Rebecca Brammer. Pretty much for the exact same reason as LIW is on my list. It's just so cozy!


7. Little Women by Louise May Alcott. Both of them actually. Loved the surprise Christmas present of the second one.


8. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. I need to reread that this year. It never fails to make me cry.


9. Anne of Windy Willows by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I love the story of Katherine Brooke's change as she comes to Green Gables.


10. Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon. Again, by itself one of the weaker Mitford books, but it puts one in a lovely Christmassy mood.

What are your favourites?

This is too cute! :-)

My top-ten song list now (in no particular order - it is difficult enough to choose as it is!)
1. The Story of Chess - Chess
2. I Turn To You - Melanie C
3. The Cactus Song - The Lads
4. Faith - Hillsongs
5. Kokomo - Beach Boys
6. Every Heartbeat - Amy Grant
7. Jesse James - Cher
8. Devil Woman - Cliff Richard
9. Games - New Kids on the Block
10. Joyride - Roxette

My top-ten song list 15-20 years ago (yes, I'm defining "kid" as "age 10-15" - any younger than that and there'd be no English songs at all to put on it!)
1. Tonight - New Kids on the Block
2. Joyride - Roxette
3. Every Heartbeat - Amy Grant
4. Jutlandia - Kim Larsen
5. Memory - Cats
6. Le Papa Pingoin - Sophie & Magaly
7. You Put This Love In My Heart - Keith Green
8. Kokomo - Beach Boys
9. How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria - The Sound of Music
10. Snoopy vs. the Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen

Some overlap both in artists and songs... guess I'm old-fashioned to a fault when it comes to music ;-)