Missing Norway

Have been home for two days, I think. Wednesday night BD1 and I returned from 19 hours of traveling. I did get warm finally, after loading the car--one huge suitcase and 4 smallish ones.

(I'm being a bad mom right now. BD2 has a fever and has been kind of quiet all day; we slept for a couple of hours this afternoon while BD1 went swimming with school friend. So, now that BD1 is home, she's watching TV and BD2 is attempting to color. I am trying to ignore them while I update my blog.)

My head is still in Norway. It surprised me that when BD1 and I did some marketing yesterday afternoon that I really missed Europe and the ways of marketing there. Marketing was great fun in Norway. Doing normal everyday things in foreign countries gives me a kick. I love to go to the market, for example, and my husband tries to get a haircut from a local barber when we are out of our own country. Weird, eh.

Back to missing Norway. We both felt so welcome, so at home, and the thing I miss the most (not counting people) is that gorgeous veranda. It's now famous because of my Norwegian friend's blog of her own. Such a peaceful feeling overcomes a person sitting on the veranda, drinking a glass of wine, a cup of tea, just closing your eyes and smelling the rain, having a smoke, celebrating or contemplating. It is such an inspirational place, and a comforting place as well. Ok, ok, I will attempt to not make it a shrine.

One especially great thing about the veranda in the summer: it was daylight nearly all the time, so it didn't matter what time you sat there, there was always a good view and something to see. The trains coming and going from the small train stop near the house, trekking through the forest and hills, making their comforting whistle calls just, I don't know, comforted me. The huge magpies and their calls added to the enchantment of being there. We heard only a very few planes; perhaps that was part of the peacefulness of being there. Never heard a helicopter at all. No emergency vehicle sirens, no car alarms, no heavy equipment trucks and their obnoxious horns, and only the far away barking dog sounded.

My head of course is still fuzzy. BD1 has already acclimatized to the home time zone, but I feel as if I have a vague sinus infection and cotton in my head.

oh, the time! Just phoned my dh and he's only 15 minutes from home. Have to go pretend I've been cooking all afternoon and "rustle up some grub." That reminds me: I also had a craving for M's "cowboy dinner" to be described later.

more later, of course.