In an effort to do something useful besides sit around being uncomfortable and impatient, I decided last night I was finally going to finish organizing our DVDs into a database. A while back I bought some great software called Movie Collector (from collectorz.com) which is essentially a movie/DVD cataloging tool. I also bought a barcode scanner to make the process easier, so all I had to do was scan each barcode, and download the details for each DVD from the central database. The level of detail for each DVD title is impressive, including such information as region codes, thumbnail images of the cover/s, running time, release year, director, actors, plot summary… you name it. Read the rest of this entry »

I am now halfway through my third week of maternity leave and have to admit to severe boredom and impatience. I’m not officially due until Monday, which also happens not only to be Norway’s national day, but also both Chris’ and my late grandfathers’ birthdays. So of course everyone is hoping that our little Blobbette chooses to arrive that day, but personally I’d be pretty happy to see her before that. The waiting around is a killer.

If one more person says any of the following unhelpful comments, I’m going to smack them:

• “First babies are always late”
• “Not long to go now, eh?”
• “Enjoy the quiet while you still can!”
• “You should get lots of sleep. You won’t get any for the next five years!”
• “Wow, you’re getting big!”

You get the idea. A little advice for anyone thinking of making any of these comments or similar variants to a 9-months-pregnant woman: Keep it to yourself. We don’t want to hear it! Seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

After almost a year of searching, one loss to forkjøpsrett, one loss to indecisive, greedy sellers, price peak after price peak, we finally have a new apartment. And despite the frustration and tension we have been through, I can honestly say I think we have found our dream apartment. It was renovated just last year, and it needs nothing done at all. It’s just perfect and I absolutely love it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to alert reader Julie, I was informed yesterday that my blog had been hacked. I have completely cleaned and reinstalled everything, and as far as I know it’s all fine again now. But if you have recently visited the site and gotten a warning from your virus software, make sure you run a full scan to make sure you weren’t attacked.

If you have a WordPress site, I would strongly suggest you check it for signs of hacking and change your admin password.

Damn hackers.

In my usual fashion, I have not been very good at regular blogging, so it has been almost six months since our notorious trip to Turkey, and boy how things have changed. At the very least, my body has changed quite a bit. Here I am at about 14 weeks pregnant:

And now here I am at about 24 weeks:

Please ignore the goofy expression. Chris had just told me to picture someone we know dancing, in an attempt to make me smile for the photo.

With only a couple of weeks left of my second trimester, I’m guessing there will be a lot of growth happening soon. I’m still not quite as bumpy as other friends who are at about the same stage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chris and I have done a lot of travelling together over the years; Australia, Norway, London, Edinburgh, Paris, Hong Kong, Latvia, Germany, Switzerland… but we realised when we started talking about what to do for our summer holiday this year that we have never had a relaxing, warm beach holiday together. The closest we’d gotten to that was taking Chris’ mum to the Gold Coast back in 2002. Not always the most romantic trip when someone’s mum is along for the ride.

So this year we started looking at resort holidays in places like Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Croatia and all the other warm European destinations. There were so many to choose from we just didn’t know where to start. Overall, Turkey seemed to offer the most for our money, so we chose that as a destination almost right away. But there are just SO many resorts and hotels, how does one choose? So we took the scientific approach; we went to the Ving website (a Scandinavian charter tour company), clicked on Turkey and the dates we wanted, and clicked on… well basically the first thing that had a nice looking photo. What did we find? The Barut Hemera Spa and Resort in Side, in the Alanya region. We booked pretty much right then and there.

Oh how little we knew about how lucky we were! I had read a few positive reviews on the Ving site, and we were happy to go ahead and book, but it was only after our booking that I started reading TripAdvisor reviews. “Glowing” doesn’t begin to describe!

Read the rest of this entry »