500th post Giveaway Winner

Life goes on and so do we, and with a few days delay due to the recent events it’s time to draw the winner of my 500th post giveaway.

Random.org has done its little magic number act and the winner is No 5, my friend Sherry Edwards from UK, fabulous mixed media artist and boob maker who wrote:

“Congratulations Nina Lise on 500 blog posts - and on a lovely, always welcoming blog too. On the subject of your English vocabulary and grammar it's probably better than mine! LOL
I love your funky characters on your pillow cover and thanks for the chance of winning!
Have a lovely Summer with your family and friends x”.

Congratulations to Sherry; Clara and Fredrikke will soon be flying your way safely wrapped in the fabric package. I will be emailing you asking for your mail address and for you to pick a pattern. To the rest of you, thanks for playing along and for celebrating my 500th post with me!


I would also like to thank you again for your thoughts, prayers and sympathy; knowing so many people from all over the world are thinking of us means a lot.

The engagement of our people the last few days has been amazing. Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in memorials all over the country, marching, putting down flowers, flags, notes, lighting candles, being together, so peaceful. It’s almost surreal, heartbreaking and beautiful....................(Breiavatnet in Stavanger, picture from Aftenbladet.no)

I’m sure the catastrophe of July 22nd has snagged loose ends in many barrels over the world; I sure have been revisiting some of mine.

Surrounded by enemies

................... (Flowers and candles in Oslo, picture from vg.no)

Surrounded by enemies,
go into your time!
Under a bloody storm -
devote yourself to fight!

Maybe you ask in fear,
uncovered, open:
with what shall I fight
what is my weapon?

Here is your defense against violence
here is your sword:
the belief in our life,
the worth of mankind.

For all our future's sake,
seek it and cultivate it,
die if you must - but:
increase it and strengthen it!

Silently goes the grenades'
conveyor belts
Stop their drift towards death
Stop them with spirit!

War is contempt for life.
Peace is to create.
Throw your strength into it:
Death shall lose!

Love and enrich with dreams
all that was great!
Go towards the unknown
wring answers out of it.

Unbuilt power plants,
unknown stars.
Create them, with spared lives'
bold brains!

Noble is mankind,
the earth is rich!
If there is need and hunger
it is by deceit.

Crush it! In the name of life
injustice shall fall.
Sunshine and bread and mind
is possessed by all.

Then the weapons sink
powerless to the ground!
We create human worth
we create peace.

Those who in the right arm
carry a burden,
precious and inalienable,
cannot murder.

This is our promise
from brother to brother:
We will be good to
humanity's earth.

We will take care of
the beauty, the warmth
as if we carried a child
carefully in our arms!

Poem by Nordahl Grieg (1936)
Music by Otto Mortensen (1962)
English literal translation by Morten Årstad (2011)
Sung in many churches in Norway yesterday.

One day

July 22nd 2011. One day in history. 93 casualties. 96 injured. An unknown number of people missing. My little country.

Thank you for all the supportive mails and comments, it means a lot to me! My family was lucky; as far as we know no one we know was present at the bombing or the shooting. When they release the list of casualties, probably tomorrow, we’ll know for sure.

It’s all just too much to digest. The fact that someone can be putting such a horrible mark in our history makes my skin crawl. We are watching the news, morning, day and night. I am impressed by our authorities - our police, our prime minister, our government, the press; they have been dealing with everything in such a respectful manner; heartfelt but professional.

My heart goes out to all the victims and their loved ones.

I’ll be posting the winner of the giveaway later this week; I do hope you understand.

Take care!

Day Three: Heaven

I’m just resurfacing between family visits to post the last few pictures from our little road trip: grandma goes shopping. Going into the Stoff & Stil store I was only going to buy 3 things: fleece for backings, thread and sewing machine needles.

Yeah
Right
I added just a few items; all useful stuff I’d say.
We had a great time with my parents this last few days; great weather, great outings, good food, lots of laughs and wonderful new memories. My younger sister and 3 nephews are coming this week so I won’t be around much here in blogland until next week. Hopefully I will make some progress on the confirmation quilt though; September is rapidly creeping upon us isn’t it..

See you around!

Day Two: Animals

Day two of our little trip was mainly about animals; that is after we spent two hours for grandson to take a 10 min trip on one of the boats from the show. I’ll tell you the only thing worse than rain on such a day is being trapped standing (or sitting in a rented stroller) in a line without covers during a major shower. It was pouring down but we had already been waiting for almost an hour and there was no weather that could get us to leave our spot. Anyway, the sun came out again, grandson got his boat trip and the back of my shirt dried up a couple of hours later, so we were all happy.

I haven’t been to a zoo for years but I found myself more fascinated by the lines and shapes than the animals, except for the giraffes with which I fell totally in love.
Lines in the monkey area
a fabulous man-made (?) tree
fun bird shapes
and gorgeous stone.
Tired feet at the end of the day, Chinese dinner, early to bed chatting and laughing and generally having a wonderful time; all good.

Day One: Pirates

Day one of our little trip was all about pirates; the one and only highly commercial Norwegian pirate show and money-maker Kaptein Sabeltann. Looking through the eyes of a 4 year old (and cutest pirate ever) finally seeing his hero alive (sort of) it was totally worth the time and effort and even quite magical for us grown up as well.
The show starts at 23:00 (11 pm) when it’s getting dark, and sitting there with so many people waiting for the music to start and the pirate ship to arrive was exciting. Never mind the hard wood benches with no back rest, the fear of heights (mine), a little one already 3 hours past his bedtime; we had seating pads, fleece blankets (think gigantic light blue IKEA fleece monster), popcorn and good company.
I was too busy enjoying the moment to take pictures during the show but I can tell you there was a beautiful pirate ship, singing, dancing, ghosts, pirates (no surprise huh!), lots of people running around, a few funny jokes, some quite good music, some not so good, fighting, smoke, noise and a really really amazing light show. Grandson thought it was scary at times, but we made it through to the end and were back at the hotel around 01:30. A long and fun day indeed.

My parents are arriving today, so I’ll be posting more pictures if I have some free time during their visit; otherwise I’ll be back on Monday.

See you!

Perfection

I’m off on a little road trip with my favourite mother/child duo – daughter and grandson - while husband stays home doing husbandy (yes, I know it’s not a world, but it should be!) things.

No, we are not driving a fabulous orange Porsche 911; it is just eye candy ‘cause this is pretty much perfection to me.

Maybe I’ll fill you in on my previous obsession with collecting cars one day, but until then – have fun, stay creative and do a little dance in the rain if you get a chance; you’ll be glad you did.

I’ll be back on Wednesday!

Apologetic Make a Boob update

I received 3 envelopes with boobs right after the last update, photographed them and filed the pictures in the appropriate folder on my computer. Unfortunately they were left there until Terri asked if I had received her. Not only did I forget to post the pictures, but I also forgot to send the usual confirmatory email. In my book it is only polite to let people know that I have received what they have sent me, and to say thank you. I can only do that when I have an email address though.

Ellinor, Brit and Terri; I am so sorry it has taken so long to post your wonderful Make a Boob contributions (they were posted at the Make a Boob blog yesterday, click the name to go to that particular post).

Finally; here are a total of 38 beautiful boobs from
Ellinor
Brit
Terri
A big Thank you to each and every one of you; your contribution and support means the world to me and I’m truly sorry about the delay!

Pre-emptive mourning

I’m mourning things that have yet to happen which is not like me at all but there it is. Life is full enough of real things to worry about (right?), but yet I have found it difficult to shake it off this week. I tried a little retail therapy but it did not do the trick although I came home with paint and ink that were on sale and some thrifty goodies including old books and a Portuguese calendar from 1993 for collages.

Last night I craved some instant colour fixes to soothe my restless mind and oh man, it worked like a charm. With pages from the calendar as basis I painted, glued, pasted, ripped, coloured, drew and shaded and it was exhilarating. No thinking, no worries, just letting my intuition take charge without thinking about the next step. My friend Corrine from Dosfishes is, among other things, working with intuitive painting and has been setting up a new studio called Sparkle Days Studio to teach classes. I get it, Corrine; totally liberating!

This is what I started with this morning. Last night I primed the calendar page with tempera (hot orange and burnt umber) mixed with glue and pasted pieces of orange and turquoise handmade paper on top. Then I added scraps of tulle, pieces of a newspaper, fiber and watercolour paint.

This is my finished piece “Pre-emptive mourning” after slashing, gluing onto handmade carton and stitching with a metallic thread. It was a bit scary stitching through all those thick layers, but my machine stayed cool and calm throughout the process. So did I.

I love how different it looks from different angles
and the textures
and the raw edges
but it’s waaaay too small. It should have been huge so I could frame some of the details...

Vaulen

Vaulen is a recreational area not far from our house.
There are small beaches, lawns, trees, paths, playgrounds; all elements of an enjoyable Sunday trip.
The fjord is Gandsfjorden, the same fjord that we see from our house. It is so beautiful, even more with all the new buildings as a backdrop.
All is very green
and grey,
beautiful shimmering greys

with little speckles of yellow

and glorious oranges.
While my guys were building a river
I was wondering how these holes were madeand how there can be this much moss on a tree.Lots of people bring picnics and disposable barbeques and eat their lunches and dinners on the lawn. We will definitely join them next time!

Then there were 14

I love how the Prayer Flags look tied together. They seem much happier banner-style than as singletons; like a huge slightly secretive smile cheering in our yard.
The first flags are still withering away in the sun and the rain. I am more attached to these, probably because they were made for one particular moment in time.

Thankfully the patient husband has yet to put his foot down demanding tree-decorations to be limited to Christmas.

Happy 4th!

Last week was a crappy one, just one blow after the other, but none so bad that I couldn’t enjoy these:
The sunset which colours the mountains on the other side of the fjord red
The view of the finished road outside our house after 10 months of dust and dirt
What’s left of our front yard is finally getting sprinkled with green
Our beautiful brown new fence (we need a new house now; seriously!)
The grass finally peeking through
Getting a trampoline up with a little assistance
Life’s not bad at all.

Happy 4th of July wherever you are!