Gjeldsslave

There have been people working on paving our street for weeks and weeks now. It turns out it's not just a question of throwing down some asphalt. They have had to dig up (and by that I mean pound out huge amounts of bedrock) and lay an entirely new road bed and drainage. They're working right in front of our house, so the other night the three of us went out to inspect. Here's some of what we saw:

Yes, that rubble is actually the street. And here's what our house looks like from the road. Notice that we never finished painting the trim (boo!). This is at about 8 o'clock in the evening, and it was quite chilly. We can also really tell that the days are starting to get shorter (hence the headlamp on E).

Today I had a visit at home from a contractor to talk about remodeling our house. KE and I have been making plans ever since my Mom visited us this summer to bump up the roof (the "middle" section above) and add a second floor. The house used to be a duplex with two small units (both under 800 sq ft). When we moved back, we (well, KE) knocked a hole in the common wall and we took over both units. Now, with the prospect of my Mom moving to Norway in the not-too-distant future, we are hoping to convert the smaller unit back into a separate apartment for her and add living space upstairs on our side for the three of us.

The contractor thought our plans sounded totally do-able, but insisted that we really need an architect for the project. Fair enough. He also gave us a ball park estimate of about 1.2 million NOK (a little over $200,000 US). Ouch! But amazingly, that's still way below what it would cost to buy an apartment for her. Like about half as much! This housing market is totally insane.

We're not entirely frightened off by the price though (especially since KE is really happy in his new job), so I guess we'll be moving ahead with the plans. First step is talking to the architects that the contractor recommends.

Since our budget is going to be tight, I am celebrating by making this Lima bean soup. It's still simmering, but smells divine. We'll be eating a lot of rice and beans over the next few years, I suspect, but given my love of legumes, that shouldn't be a problem!

"hippy-mamma"-modus

Why, oh why has no one told me about the wonders of lentils before?! There has been a spate of articles about veganism in both Morgenbladet and Folkevett (the two periodicals we subscribe to right now), which were quite timely. Over the past six months or so we've been trying conscientiously to change our eating habits for the better. We're not out to go full vegan, or even really full vegetarian, but we are definitely interested in introducing more vegetarian and vegan recipes into our regular cycle. Folkevett ran a recipe for red lentil stew that they got off of www.vegetar.com, and since it was really simple I gave it a try. Aren't these red lentils pretty? I took the picture with the macro lens on my camera, but I'm bad at judging whether it's actually in focus or not.

Wow! The stew was de-lish! The actual recipe was mysteriously missing some main points, so I ended up winging it. Here's what I did:

1.  Sauté 1 onion (diced), two crushed garlic cloves, and a chunk of grated ginger in olive oil until soft
2.  Add 1/2 teaspoon tumeric, 2-3 tablespoons of something tomato-y (I used sauce), 5 dl (about 2 cups) of water, 1 cube of vegetable stock, about half a small zucchini chopped, and 250 g red lentils
3.  Simmer for about 30 minutes (I ended up adding 3 dl of water more about half way through)
4. serve

Can't get much easier that that, and it was hands down the best thing I've made in months. I will probably cut the vegetable stock cube in half the next time, as it was a bit on the salty side.

Right before we left for vacation I bought Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser. I still haven't cracked into it and made anything yet, but I'm eager to do so. Here's a peek:

I'm hoping that there will be lots of no-meat dishes in here that will be super healthy and tasty.

Today the book I desperately need for my conference paper finally arrived at the library. I did a slap dash job of going through it and banging out the last paragraph I needed for the paper. I now have a complete draft that I can in a pinch present as is, though I still think it needs quite a bit of work before Wednesday morning (gulp) when I'm scheduled to present. There are two major weak points, but I'm pretty sure the rest is good.

Still knitting away happily on the garter section of Multnomah. Here's a progress shot:

I can see why people like knitting with variegated yarn. I still think it's ugly as sin, but the process of watching the colors change is fascinating, I must admit. I'll have to use this as consolation knitting; I just finished Den orolige mannen and the ending is so incredibly sad. Sniff. I wasn't quite prepared for it, even though Mankell gives tons of hints along the way (I see now, in retrospect). It makes me want to curl up in a little ball and mourn for...well, I'm not exactly sure for what, but mourn for something.

Suppe og søvnløshet

Whoops, up at 3:30 am for the third time in a row this week. Apparently I can only sleep 6 hours straight, so going to be early isn't a good idea for me.

I went to Aftenposten's website and was excited to see a recipe for Tom Kah Gai soup, probably my all-time favorite soup. Excited that is until I read the recipe. It was nothing like the soup I love--no coconut milk, no mushrooms, no chili. Luckily, I wasn't the only outraged reader, and one of the commentors provided a link to this much more authentic recipe. Hmm. I wonder how much of this I can get in Oslo?

Over on the Simple Living Network discussion boards (where I have recently started participating again after a long hiatus) there is a discussion about why people in the US fear "socialism." It is so ridiculous it makes me want to spit. In the first place, there is a huge amount of confusion about what socialism actually is. Then there appears to be a willful disregard for any kind of nuance: no one will acknowledge that countries like Canada or Norway are actually social democracies, not totalitarian socialist states. No one will acknowledge that it its the totalitarianism, not the socialism per se that was the source of the atrocities committed in the name of socialism in the 20th century. The same old arguments that nothing innovative comes out of a socialist country were trotted out (that may be true, but innovations have certainly come from social democratic countries. Nokia any one?). When I brought up Norway as an example of a well-functioning social democracy there was radio silence except for one "yeah but Norway's oil-rich". Okay, fine, drop Norway and look at Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada, or why not the UK, France, or Germany for that matter. But no, the discussion turns back to the "promise" of capitalism--while completely erasing the socialist modifications of "pure" capitalism that even the US implemented. The "promise" of capitalism appears to be a gospel truth. No acknowledgment in the discussion of my point that capitalism is predicated on the impossible paradox of constant growth in a closed system (the earth and its resources). Gaaah. Why do I even try. Nope, socialism equals a gun pointed at your head forcing you to share your wealth with those who don't deserve it, according to a surprisingly large proportion of the self-proclaimed simple living folks. How sad.

Lettvint

Today was one of those days that we live for out here on Nesodden: 20+ degrees celsius, glorious sun and soft breezes. We were outside almost all day. KE needed a little break so he walked down to the marina for the first fishing of the year. He came home with a nice little cod:

We're not huge fans of cod (KE was hoping for mackerel) so I just made an improvised fish soup out of what we happened to have in the vegetable bin, which is to say onion, parsnip, potato, a little tomato, and a little spinach:

Turned out pretty good, actually.

I tried a couple of times to get going on the lace curtain for the bathroom but I just couldn't get the lace pattern to come out right. I wasn't super committed to the pattern anyway, so I gave up and ripped it out. I've been having the urge to crochet for the past few days, so I decided it was time for a really basic crochet project from Helt enkelt hekling. Tove Fevang gives patterns for dishrags using different crochet stitches. Each one has a different edging, which of course you can mix and match. I think I have enough of the Louet Euroflax to make three dishrags. I went for the easiest possible pattern first, since I was feeling incompetent after the lace curtain failure. Here's the end result:

It's the plainest of things, so I staged it on one of our rag rugs to keep the snapshot from being too boring. The rag is about 50 stitches of plain single crochet, edged with one row of single crochet and one row of what Fevang calls "krepsemaske" (crayfish or crustacean stitch). It makes a very firm edge.

In a moment of brilliance (if I do say so myself) I decided I could probably find a piece of old lace that would fit the bathroom window from my stash. I inherited a big stack of doilies from my great grandmother. I have no idea who made it all, unfortunately. As luck would have it, there actually was a table runner in exactly the right size:

It's a great old piece of crocheted lace, with the medallions crocheted separately, then joined with motifs in between. The beige color looks great with the unfinished wood window frame. Unfortunately some of the motifs between the medallions are coming apart. Not sure I know how to fix them, but for now this works perfectly and KE will no longer feel embarrassed when he's in the shower (I'm too short to be seen).

Just a couple of tasks to complete at work tomorrow, then it's packing, and away we go, off to the states. KE's nephew will be staying in our house while we're gone, which is very reassuring.

Hjernedød

Home sick, overwhelmed and exhausted by working through my cold for the past 3 days. I can't even muster the concentration to read a book right now. So instead I tried photographing some projects. First off, here is the official "before and after" entry for my first ever upcycled project:

Before: you may recall the dumpy green cotton sweater that did nothing for me.


After: the fabulous Miss Honeychurch, which I'm very happy with. Hard to photograph at arm's length, so here are two shots:

Much better, no? It's a good fit and I think I'll get a lot of use out of it spring and summer.

This week I covertly started knitting upcycle project number 2, the black Shetland wool. This morning I finished the first sleeve and decided to block it, just for kicks:

It's the Norah Gaughan oversized Guernsey. After lunch I may watch a DVD that I have had lying around (Roy Andersson's Du levande) and get going on the second sleeve. Or maybe just space out.

ETA: Spent the afternoon knitting and reading Norah Gaughan's Berroco blog. Now I'm making this soup for dinner. I don't have fresh spinach or cabbage, so I'm substituting with cauliflower and will add fresh cilantro at the end. It already smells good.