A Roll in the Universe

A little musing and sharing via eleven questions thought up by Lisa and found via Paula . 1) Socks? Love them or hate them? Handknitted socks a co-worker made for Secret Santa. And I won them! They keep my feet toasty in rubber boots. — I have cold feet. Socks, please, and they have to cover my ankles. I've chosen to get different patterns and stuff, inspired by a co-worker wearing a pair of bright orange ones. That's when I realized that colorful socks are important. IMPORTANT. Nobody ever sees mine since I wear bootlets at work. 2) Is there a God? — Paula starts off with "I wonder why peeps are so obsessed with this question." Since I have constantly asked myself this question, I don't find the obsession weird. The answer is yes, by the way. The real question is: What is God? 3) Is a pizza a pizza without cheese? I like Paula's answer (must have cheese!), but since pizza is one of those incredibly flexible dishes, it can also lack chee...

A struggling friend reminded me of a situation I was in the autumn after my dear grandma died. Re-reading that gave me a surprise: I'd forgotten how down I was then. I remember crying during the meeting with my bosses, but I don't remember taking sick days and waking up angry every day. But yes, it all ended up well, better than expected, and yesterday, as I told a potential boss about my strengths and weaknesses during a job interview, I could honestly say I didn't lose my cool with customers or co-workers any more. "I have no reason to be angry at work," I said. Sweet. Today, I woke up feeling pretty good, and I mused on the messages in the book I am currently re-reading (here is a description of my first read ), and my praying to the Holy Spirit yesterday, and that the interview went swimmingly—personality test and all—and it hit me: I didn't second-guess myself after it was over. I usually find some fault with how I interact with people after the fa...

Wordless Wednesday

I am going down yet another rabbit hole. It diverges from the one I was falling down about a year and a half ago . At least somewhat. All roads lead to Rome, but not all are main highways and will get you to your final destination; they do move you forward, though. My new rabbit hole is all about how, if I forgive everyone and everything, we will all cease to exist and happily so. Some background: I accidentally learned of ho'oponopono . In looking for more information, I ended up reading Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits" (and I really liked it). All my decades of swearing to affirmations to accomplish something got set aside while I instead practiced on chanting "I love you" inside my head. I have since gone back to using my usual morning affirmation since that seems to be such a good set-up for me and my day. 1 However, the ho'oponopono method makes perfect sense to me and it is far simpler (and more foolproof) than affirmations. Affirmations req...

I have a bookmark that reads, "You are never lonely with a book." Books have been my allies for as long as I can remember. Getting immersed in a story that takes double-digit chapters to resolve or following someone's theory or life over hundreds of pages adds a break from life like nothing else. And unlike other pauses in life, what you read in a book can stay with you for years, and maybe even change your life. Alice has written about the paper-based book and has linked to an article whose author feels that a Kindle would be as distracting as his computer apparently is. First of all, anybody who wants to have a good read will shut their computer off. You are not a Real Reader if you can’t figure out how to hide away (i.e. have an arsenal of sneaky tricks and good excuses) from things and tasks and people and clocks so you can Read! Secondly, when I’m reading something that really interests me, I lose all sense of time and place, anyway. (Which is absolutely wonde...

Some time last month, I was listening to a new spiritual podcast, and the speaker said that we can all heal ourselves and each other by stating, "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you." Apparently, this series of four short statements healed all the patients of a psychiatric facility, simply by being uttered by a doctor while he was looking at the patient files. I was intrigued. So I googled the phrase and discovered it comes from a Hawaiian spiritual ritual called ho'oponopono .* I found a blogpost that described this "cleaning" process. I found an online article claiming that you can heal the whole planet with ho'oponopono because everything that comes into your sphere of experience is your responsibility.** I searched Amazon for books describing ho'oponopono. I bought Mable Katz 's book "The Easiest Way" .*** And her title may not be an exaggeration. After reading her short book, I have replaced my usual rit...

New Year's Eve. The day when people are either scrambling to get food and champagne for the evening's festivities or are contemplating what resolutions to make for the coming year - or both. For me, 2011 is the start of the next half century of my life. I was 50 in December. It was actually a wonderful way to end the year. 2010 was turbulent at work and in my stomach. At work, the knowledge that our department and in-house printing was going to cease to exist by summer was something we all had in the back of our minds. We were, however, all so old (I was the youngest at 49) to get worked up about it. Instead, the strategy was to do our jobs and behave in such a way as to make management realize they had some great people working for them; we did not complain and we did not sic our union on anybody (though they were apprised of the situation). Our representative from HR was impressed by our good cheer. She said it motivated HR to do everything in their power to help us sta...

I have always been interested in Christianity. More specifically, I have always been interested in the answer to this question: Does Jesus save? I have always struggled with having a faith in Jesus. My own family is made up of theists, but nobody ever bothered with the traditional religions. Grandma couldn't understand why anybody wanted a faith where you looked up at a bloody, half-naked man every Sunday (good ol' Catholics), and I couldn't understand how anybody could put their faith in a man who looked like a hippie (good ol' Protestants). So while Grandma and I both ended up deists (that's not a typo), we found our spiritual sustenance outside the mainstream. Still, I've always had the question. Norway has a state religion. It allows for freedom of religion for everyone - except the nation itself and its monarch. The reigning monarch of Norway must be - according to the country's constitution - an Evangelical Lutheran, since the Evangelical Lutheran ...

Lately, Princess Märtha Louise has been in the news because of her new book about angels , co-written with Elisabeth Samnøy, with whom the princess also runs an angel school with. I kid you not. The funny part is that the usually staid Norwegians are flocking to hear her speak and to buy her book. Nothing like a royal title to get you some free advertising. And sadly, that is exactly what is happening. I like the princess. She has always struck me as a sweet, intelligent and stylish woman who nevertheless remained her own woman, in spite of the strictures that come with being a member of the Norwegian royal family. (She won't be queen because at the time she was born, the Norwegian constitution still held that only male heirs could inherit the throne, so it's her kid brother who is Crown Prince, and his daughter who is next in line now that the law has been changed.) And so she throws herself into a line of work that is far from mainstream or royal. The reaction to princess ...

Hah! I'll bet my blog post title made you take a second look! But I woudn't give up sex. No, it's the title of the song embedded below. In connection with the release this week of a rock-and-roll encyclopedia covering the last 50 years of music in Bergen (Bergen actually headed the rock-and-roll revolution in Norway back before my time), this blast from the past got some airtime. So not only was this band ("Blind Date") Norwegian, it was from Bergen! Yay! And I love the song - still.

So somebody missed me (hi, Protege !). If it weren't for Wordless Wednesdays, they wouldn't know I was still alive. Well, I am, and here's a run-down of what's been grabbing my attention this month: Autumn got busy, as it usually does. I've been trying to focus on my astrology in order to forecast the weather and am rather behind on that. But maybe I'll catch up today because I'm home from work. Which brings me to the other distraction of the month: Inner health I bought a book about adult children of abusive parents , trying to sort some things out from childhood because my shoulder problem (it is doing better, thanks) is related to my stomach problems (I've had IBS since I was a kid), and stomach problems have their root in emotional upsets. Whenever I do a number on my stomach, it usually takes a week for it right itself again. After a party last Friday, I've been queasy ever since Saturday (which I spent throwing up - not good), and finall...

Well-meaning people in the US ship me stuff via UPS, FedEx, TNT and the like (hereinafter referred to as Other Delivery Company, or ODC). The latest to do this was Amazon.com. You know what? They all suck. You know why? Because in Norway, you get the best service from our post office. Seriously. Some mail order firms in Norway will use some alternative delivery system and deliver to a store near you. For an extra NOK 95, I can get my local post office to deliver the same package to my own front door, in the evening when I'm home, if I want. Or, I can walk in the opposite direction of the aforementioned store to my local post office and pick it up myself if I want to save some money. Since I pass by the post office every day to and from work, it's actually convenient for me to use them. The alternative package delivery firms that companies seem to be so fond of are not for regular working people. They are best suited for company-to-company deliveries that take place during w...

Remember me talking about "Getting Things Done"? Well, I used what I could find on the internet about the nuts and bolts of David Allen's GTD system, without having a printed book before me, and cleaned up my e-mail boxes both at work and at home. I think I found the electronic equivalent of the kitchen sink ! David Allen offers some free PDFs at his website (you do have to register as a buying customer, but it's a formality), so I downloaded those that have to do with sorting the inbox, i.e. the flow charts, otherwise known as "processing and organizing". When I say it's like the kitchen sink , what I mean is that once you get a spot totally free from clutter, it becomes an air hole, a place to pop up to catch a good breath while you're working on other areas, and a place that you can be consistent about. Getting my inbox to zero (i.e. totally empty) removed some of the overwhelm I'd been experiencing both at home and at work. Much like di...

I'm kind of having a blast from the past these days. I remember reading time management books and a lot of other management books some 25 years ago when I was a lowly secretary. While other women's hearts get all aflutter at the idea of a bouquet of red roses or a sweet note left for them on their mirror, mine beats faster standing in line at the local McDonald's watching employees helping each other fill orders, watch the fries, responding to empty dispensers. Or working in an inspiring and efficient work place as outlined in umpteen management books. Back then, I so longed for the power to try some of the suggestions but I had no one to boss around. Well, at some point I knew that I would never use the management skills offered in the books because I wasn't going to become a manager. Years later, however, a system appears that doesn't target people in management, but anybody who has to make a lot of decisions and work on a lot of projects. Listening to Merlin Ma...

Sparkling Red has tagged me with a meme about what I would take if I were on a deserted island. At least its deserted. Drives me batty when people say "desert island". Hey, that'd be Catalina off Los Angeles, and there's people and mini-golf and boats and hotels and bars there! No such luck this time. I'm on a deserted island. "Your ship has sunk. You have, of course, been stranded on a deserted island. You have salvaged a copy of the King James Version of the Bible and a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. Nothing else. “The very next day you find one of those Arabian Lamps in the sand. Of course, you rub it and, of course, a rather grumpy Genie appears. “‘Let’s get this straight - there is a recession going on. There are restrictions on the three wishes now. I don’t do water or air transport now so no boats, planes or magic carpets. As for electronics, forget it. There isn’t the infrastructure on this island. “‘I can let you have one book and ...

I bought books. Actual printed books. Expedited shipping from Amazon. In New Zealand, of all places. Took a week to get to Norway. Lookit: I found my camera's manual and managed to take a macro picture of the address label on the Amazon box. You are looking at a first. Please look again. Thank you. Oh, the books I bought? That were so all-fired interesting/important that I bought actual printed and bound books and ordered faster-than-a-snail mail? These: The only thing left to do is decide which to start reading first.

Victoria is a fellow expatriate who has just gotten a new puppy and is about to experience her first Easter in Norway. She posted about that and since I know something about the matter(s), chose to reply here, rather than fill up her comments. I am fairly familiar with the weirdness that is the Norwegian attitude to spaying and neutering. Up until 1995 or thereabouts, the rule was not to neuter a pet because that would infringe on its right to choose. I kid you not. They made birth control pills for the cats (bitches don't go into heat just because it's a Tuesday and a tom is yowling) and I remember giving those weekly to a cat we had when I was a young teen. But those things caused cancers so the powers that be finally decided to encourage spaying cats. The aforementioned cat probably died of something like that because she didn't make it past her third year due to "tummy trouble". Because cats are more likely to stray/become strays, neutering and spaying of c...

...Because I haven't got a thing to say except that I downloaded the audio version of "Start Late, Finish Rich" . Let's see if I get really daring and actually buy *gasp* stock! (I can't believe I'm now in the "middle-aged" target group. How and when did that happen???)

Yep, this is making the rounds (again). I snatched it from Sparkling Red . Fortunately, this time I had a different book lying around. (I'm not tagging but you are welcome to feel tagged.) Rules: 1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people. But there is as it turns out other Egyptian evidence for a tradition of astrometeorology. We shall see from a look at the fourth-century BC Saft el-Henna naos that the hypothesis that Harkhebi was doing astrometeorology is strengthened by comparison with an earlier Egyptian tradition. The Saft el-Henna naos (sometimes called 'the naos of the decades') is now in several major pieces. That scholarly bit of writing is from "Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World" by Daryn Lehoux.

I just bought a book, Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World , partly because of the introductory chapter. There, a method for "borrowing days" to predict the weather was mentioned: The weather on the day before the winter solstice forecasts the weather for the first month of winter, the weather on the day of the winter solstice itself forecasts the weather for the second month of winter, and the day after the winter solstice forecasts the weather for the third month of winter. This method applies to the summer solstice and equinoxes, too. Today we have gorgeous sunshine here in Bergen, and I'm hoping that'll keep be the case all weekend, too. Winter solstice (0 degrees of Capricorn for you astrologers) is on Dec. 22 where I live.