Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

I got a call from my alma mater asking for money, and the student-for-philanthropy started off by asking how my day went. I responded that it was great. She asked why. I said, "Because I have so much material for funny stories." This is the story, and I'm sticking to it. I went to get the mail, in my jeans and pseudo-crocs/clogs and a hoodie. There was only one piece of mail in the mailbox, and it wasn't for me, and it looked like junk anyway. Darn. So I walked back to my apartment, and as I neared the front door, I heard a kitten crying. I set the junk letter on my bushes, and walked over to the fence at the end of the property (which is only a sidewalk-width away from my house). I peeped between the slats, I got on my hands and knees and peered under the fence, and I could see nothing. But the kitten was still meowing, so I grabbed the junk letter in case some weird person wanted it, and examined the fence for a way over. The fence is like 8-10 feet tall, with po...

There comes a time when I realize, "Oh my gosh, I haven't finished blogging about Norway!" And then I go to bed or something. But here we are for real, continuing the theme of biblical houses. By which I mean churches. This is the Domkirke (pronounced dome-sheer-ka). Kirke means church. I'd assume Dom means dome, but I don't remember a dome...just arches looking toward the front door The Resurrected Christ inset of Christ Window above the altar  The Domkirke is the oldest cathedral in Norway, dating to around 1150. The outside front is getting renovated, and it's been renovated at least 2 times in its past. But still, really old. The other noticeable church in Stavanger is the Rodkirke. I don't know if that's its real name, but that's what I call it, because it is the red church, and that is what Rodkirke means (although the o actually has a slash through it to make an "u" sound) It had a cool or...

Preikestolen. Pulpit Rock. Remember that rock we looked up at from the cruise boat in my last Norway post ? Well, it's time for more amazing photos of that rock. That sign is in Norwegian. I didn't understand much of it. It told me we were hiking up to 604 meters, but that didn't mean much to me either. After the hike, I learned that was almost 2000 feet. My lungs totally understood that, especially with supporting evidence from my hamstrings and eyes. A look down the Lysefjord Tammy, Mark, and I (plus Elvis the dog) started out early in the dark and cold to make the drive to the trailhead. As the sun came showering on the landscape, I saw that Norway was a photogenic country Waiting for the ferry to cross the fjord Add caption somewhere on the hike ditto I started out with four layers: short sleeve top, long-sleeved top, jacket, gortex rain coat. As we made our way up, I started peeling layers off. But then, as we got into parts less prot...

I was thinking today, on an abnormally cold morning, that it would be fairly easy for God to make me warm; far easier than giving me the energy to get up and make myself warm. So I was about to bargain about this, but then I had a thought: if God's goal were to make me warm, then my logic is great. But that is not God's goal. His goal is to raise me; to raise me up, as it were. And so actually, with that goal in mind, it is better to give me the energy to do the work myself than to fix it for me. Some people think God does not exist, or that he is ignoring us, or something along those lines, because our problems are not usually taken away. To me, I find that Him watching and waiting for the right time a far more powerful testimony of his divinity than if he gave me whatever I wished when I wanted it. He watches and waits and guides to help us grow. If his goal were to get a job done, then it would be much faster and more efficient if he did it himself. But, as I said, his goa...

The reason I went to Norway was because I have a friend there, and I have a friend there because her husband moved there, and he moved there because of oil. So basically, what got me to Norway is oil. This is a monument to oil workers. Also another depiction of wind. Just a brief tribute to oil in memory of this opportunity: oil companies approached Norway about harvesting oil (I don't know what it's called. I'm not a petroleum engineer, okay?) sometime in the last 30 years. Up to that point, petroleum terms were not even in the Norwegian language. Because Norwegians are slightly stubborn about using their language, a team of linguists "Norwegian-ized" a bunch of oil terms. I learned this from a coffee table book at my friend's house. That is as much as I got out of it. I thought it was meaningful. Annnnd moving on to other things. More meaningful things. Like my friends. This is Tammy. I call her my third mom. Mark, Tammy, and Elvis the dog T...

I use the term pregnant  rain to describe Norway's climate for two reasons: One, I am pretty sure it rains 9 months of the year; and Two, the rain is rich in resourcefulness and possibilities of development (that's like a direct quotation for the Merriam-Webster definition). Norway does have a lovely summer, but as I was there in autumn, I mostly experienced rain. So basically all of my photos of me have me sporting a rain coat. Raincoat A Raincoat B. plus rain boots The grey clouds actually enhance the green landscape, so I didn't mind that. But when the wind got thrown in the mix, throwing raindrops at me like mini-missiles, I was not as enthusiastic. This was an uplifting experience The most memorable weather day was on a Sunday. The morning and early afternoon were fine, so my friends and I went sight-seeing. It started raining, but we had an agenda; they wanted to show me the viking burial site. So we park on the side of a field, and get out and pull our...

Yes, it is true. Of the top of your head, I bet you can say that Norway is Scandinavian (true!) and that the people speak Norwegian (also true!), and maybe that the country is famous for fjords (correctomundo). But let's dig deeper. Did you know that the band who sings "What does the fox say?" is Norwegian? Or that visits to Norway picked up after the Disney movie Frozen hit the general populace? The look of Frozen was based, after all, on Norway. Or that the film How to Train your Dragon , though without any particular location base, is still following the Norwegian Vikings (pronounced vee-kings in Norsk) and still shows the fog, rain, and mountains pretty accurately. Or that the Nobel Peace Prize is presented by the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo (the capital of Norway). Or that trolls come from Norse mythology And let's not forget the rest of Norse mythology: Odin, Thor, Valhalla, etc.  You know this stuff. See, you are smarter tha...