No holes....

....It´s now official:-) I have no more holes in my teeth!! (at least for the time being!)

Today I had my last trip to the dentist for a while. The last hole was drilled and filled, without me getting any injections to freeze my mouth!! I am turning into a real Viking!! So the holes are all gone in my teeth, but I have a big hole in my purse!! I got the bill! It was for 6900kr (about £780!!!) I was acutally relieved! If you remember back to the quote I got at the start of it all, it was for 13900kr (about £1600) so a mere 6900kr was a real blessing:-) I also get 4 months to pay it off, so thankfully we will not die of stravation because of my dentist bill!!

However Sara just might die of stravation!! The poor wee thing has lost 3kg since Friday. She is sick of ice cream, smoothies and slush. She is soooo hungry for real food. I offered to make her toast and give her a bowl of crips, but somehow she

wasn´t interested:-)

She is still in a lot of pain. It hurts to swallow, so even though she is hungry, getting food down is such a task. Today I decided to make her mashed potatoes and carrots. I put it through the blender and let it cool right down. Slowly she got it down. Finally something to ease the hunger pains. It has been a hard 5 days for her but in a few more days she should be feeling a better.

One thing she hasn´t lost is her sense of humour. She texted her dad today, a text that made us smile. I should explain that Kristian has been after her because of her huge telephone bill, which she now has to pay. (That´s an important piece of information so you understand the text) It said...... You don´t need to worry about the phone money, I´m going to die soon of hunger and then you can sell all my things. I only ask that for my funeral, I be clothed in my black new years dress and my new shoes....everything else I own is yours, oh except my ipod, it´s coming with me:-) haha

Today I had my old neighbour visitng. She and her husband lived for 30 years in Germany, but came back to Denmark when they retired. They moved into the apartment below us, the same time we did. We got on so well with them. We then moved to a bigger apartment in the complex here, but from time to time they would come by for coffee. It has been a while since we last visited, so it was really special to have her here today. She came for lunch and before we knew it it was getting dark outside. The afternoon had just gone by soooo fast. It sure is nice to have good neighbours:-)

It´s very quiet....

......Sara has hardly uttered a word since Friday morning!

I was off work on Friday as Sara was going to the hospital to have her tonsils removed. There was no luxury of sleeping long for either of us. We were up at 6am and ready to leave for the hospital by 7am.

We sat in the waiting room from 7.30am till about 10am. Finally the nurse came and got her into the hospital clothes and she was taken away. I was told she would be gone about an hour. That gave me an hour to get the weekly food shopping done and to get to the chemist to buy pain killers for her to use when she got home. Everything went according to plan. I was back in the hospital about 10 minutes when they came and told me it was all over and she was in the waking up area and that I could go down to her.

When I went into her she just looked so helpless and pale. She was in that dopey stage, whispering things in my ear, half crying, half sleeping. (She better pay me big money to keep quiet about the things she told me in those waking moments! hahaha ) She was in pain though, so more morphine was given and that seemed to help.

We were in the hospital until 6.30pm when she was finally allowed to go home.

It´s been a quiet weekend. She has been sleeping most of the time and in her waking moments she takes her painkillers, eats her ice cream and slush and then falls back to sleep again.

We are looking forward to seeing her smile again and hearing her chatter!!

Meanwhile life goes on with the rest of us. Leah has had her friend Benedikte staying here this weekend. They got our bed and Kristian and I moved into the livingroom and slept on a couple of matresses, which was actually really cosy.

The girls were going away Saturday morning to a Gospel Festival weekend. It´s basically a group of people who get together for a weekend to sing. They form a choir and practise songs together for 2 days. They have had a blast!! There were 150 singers, both old and young. They were finished at 9.30pm last night. Then early this morning I drove them to the church again for another day of the festival. It will end with a big concert this afternoon.

Half way....

.....yes, half way through January!! Isn´t it crazy how fast time is going!!

Life has now settled down into a normal routine again:-

Monday: Good day at work, Love my 3rd graders, they are soooo into learning English. Home did some washing, cleaning, cooking and homework.

Tuesday: Work - shopping for the old lady and then a visit with the old lady, good old chat - Junior club started again after the Christmas break. By the time I got home I was ready for bed!!

Wednesday: Free day!! Dentist - got a filling without getting my mouth frozen!! I am brave!! Have now no silver fillings on the top left hand side of my mouth, all plastic WHITE fillings, I can see the difference!! Why was I sooooo scared of going to the dentist?!!! They are wonderful people! My teeth are slowly, but surely, getting fixed up! Met an old neighbour in town. Drove her home, we have arranged a lunch date later in the month. Prepared some English, watched some TV, did some housework and had rather a nice day!

Thursday: Totally exhausted!!! I dragged myself through today!! Would gladly have crawled into bed with a duvet already at 10am!!! Somehow got through work. Came home. As soon as I walked in the door the sofa crawled unto my back! I could not get it off me, so I gave it. I lay and watched TV, then fell asleep. I felt much better after a wee nap. Got the dinner ready, got English ready, got some correspondence done and then it was time for bed!! Slept like a baby!!

Friday: Felt much more refreshed! Work went well. On the way home from work I did the weekly food shopping. No kids home this evening. I made a delicious dinner for Kristian and me which we ate in front of the TV. Guess what we watched??? (here´s a clue...it´s our favourite show.) To end the evening I played taxi driver and collected some kids!

All in all - a good week!

What´s been happening with us....

Time for a quick update.

Sara has been on penicillin since Tuesday. Wednesday she had no fever but was feeling rotten. However she was trying to convince herself, and us, that she was fine.

Thursday she still wasn´t feeling the best. She was alot better than she had been, but yet not totally on top. She decided that she would take the train into the airport to see a friend off. This would be a test for her. She could see how she was feeling after a 45 minute train ride each way. If she could handle that then maybe she could handle a flight 24 hours later.

Well she didn´t handle the train journey. She rang me at work to tell me she had just thrown up in the train - luckily into a plastic bag! It was soooo awful for her and the train journey just knocked her out. She came home feeling rotten and had to admit she could not travel the next morning with her class. She was sooooo disappointed, many tears were shed that evening.

We were then busy getting everything cancelled, ringing the school, insurance companies etc. I had to go to the doctor and get her to sign a medical report to send to the insurance company. I could not believe how much I had to pay for this 596kr!! £65!!!! Daylight robbery!!! All they have to do is fill in a few sentences and sign the paper!!

Sara is still not on top. She is alot better than she was. She spends most of her time in bed with her laptop or else sleeping. On Wednesday she is hoping that she is well enough to make a train ride over to visit her friend Winnie. That is giving her something to look forward too, so I really hope she is feeling strong enough for that. She will stay with her until Saturday.

Meanwhile I was up yesterday (Saturday) at 4am!! I was going away with my work to a teachers confernce. All the private christian schools were together for a day long conference. (750 teachers!!) It was a 4 hour bus trip there and back and a day packed with different speakers and workshops. It was actually really good. (I really was expectng a boring day of lectures!! haha)

Last night when I got home, Leah and I continued to watch Anne of Green gables. I got the whole series as a Christmas present. Last weekend we started to watch the first DVD - and we were hooked!! There is about 10 hours of film.

I watched the series about 14 years ago with Jette. She had taped them from the TV unto video tapes. She would come home to us one day a week and we would see only 1 hour of the tape then stop it. We could hardly wait to get together again to see the rest!!

I must admit I could only remember the start of the series. Leah has never seen them. She has sooo enjoyed seeing them for the first and I have soooo enjoyed re-seeing them again. During the week we have been watching them and tonight (Sunday) we watched the last 3 hours. We have laughed, cried and gone through every pain with Anne. It has been really special to sit and share this time with her. I am going to miss Anne, my kindred spirit!!

The trials have begun....

....my last post ended with a goal, that in 2011 I wanted to keep my peace and joy no matter what the circumstances. I wanted to find the treasure in every trial. I ended the post by saying "I wonder how many trials I would have to face to learn this!" Well the trials have begun, question is, will I pass the test?!!

2nd January: Kristian went down to start his car to get it ready for work on Monday morning. The car started, but the brakes were locked, jammed, stuck, whatever you want to call it. He tried everything he could to unlock them, nothing worked. In the end he rang the AA car rescue service and got the car towed down to our local mechanic.

3rd January: Kristian rang me at work. "Are you sitting down" he asked. " No - why?" I replied. He had just talked to the mechanic about our car and our car was sick....VERY sick!! The amount of money it would take to make it better almost made me drop the phone!!! Now I had a choice... I could start worrying, get mad, get fed up, complain or even get angry!! But I decided to do none of them, "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory." So now it´s in God´s hands.

4th January: Woke this morning with 2 sick girls. Leah has been sick for a few days now. A bad cold, fever on and off, and sooo much coughing. However Sara woke this morning with high fever and a sore throat - AGAIN!!! So I went to work for a few hours, then home to get Sara. It was off to the doctor with her. She got checked again, this time her blood count for infection was really high!! I was told to take her to the hospital so the specialist could look at her. They were afraid that the boil/blister had returned. If it had they would rush her in for an operation today!

Now Sara is going away with her school to Lanzarote on Friday for 1 week. It is part of her course. They are going to a sports facility and doing a project down there as part of her exam. If she doesn´t go she has to take the year all over again!! (apparently, although we are looking into this!) She has been soooo looking forward to the trip.

Thankfully, the boil had not returned. Instead she came home with a recept for a pile of medicine! Hopefully it will do the trick! This evening however she is feeling really rotten! On top of everything else she is feeling sick, but can´t seem to vomit!! (I know, too many details!!) We hope the medicine will start working wonders soon as she really wants to go on her trip on Friday.

On my way back to work I was thinking - "Boy what a day!!" I then decided to see what CD was playing in my car. I have not listened to any CDs since November, mainly because we had a radio station that just played christmas music the whole month of December, so that´s all I listened too. Well I pushed the CD button and the song that started to play was "Pray about everything"...by Guy Penrod. I had to smile! The text of the first verse says;

Time is tight (yep, had to get back to work)

And money is short (yep - it´s January after all - and we have a sick car!)

River is up (well not really, more like ice everywhere!!)

And the weather man is calling for another storm! (Yep - only it´s another snow storm)

The pressures on, the margins thin (yep - Sara needs to be well for Friday!)

Gotta figure out a fix for this awful fix I´m in! (Sure do!)

Oh mamma, what am I going to do?

Well child there´s only one thing you can do.....

Don´t worry bout nothing

Just let go see what tomorrow brings

Don´t worry bout nothing...PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING!!

What good advice!!

So what treasure did I find in the last few days trials.....

Well for one, the treasure of having my own wee car. Even though it´s old and probably wont last too much longer, I at least had it today! I was soooo thankful for it!

The second thing - the treasure of a great workplace and a wonderful boss. Just to be able to leave work and come and go as I liked was a great blessing for me today!

"Pray About Everything" - Guy Penrod

If you want to listen to the song I heard, it´s in the video below. Be warned, it is a little country!! But I love it:-)

Our New Year was wonderful...

....just the way we had planned that it should be. Quiet, quiet and even more quiet!! (I think we are getting awful old!!! )

We started the evening with a delicious meal. Prawns for starters, followed by steak, chips and a huge salad and ending with ice cream. We decided to eat in the living room in front of the TV. We watched our favourite show of all time..."Everybody loves Raymond" and had a good laugh.

The rest of the evening we played tennis with the Wii and again watched TV. I did try to get my hubby to sing and dance with me, but he was having none of it....really annoying!!

Finally midnight arrived and we toasted in the New Year.

Then the fireworks began. It has been a wonderful evening. We have sooo enjoyed relaxing and just being together. (Leah is at camp with our church, Sara is at a friends house at her birthday/new year party)

2011 - A New Year with, I´m sure, many challenges ahead. Good to know we are not going into it alone but that God goes with us!

A few goals for the new year....1) to get fit, start living a healthy lifestyle again. I have put on weight in this past year and I have not exercised at all. I can feel the difference. I do not have the same amount of energy as I did when I did my aerobics every other day. So that is going to change. (I hope!!!)

Goal number 2, which really should be goal number 1, is to live life with gratitude and praise....I believe that makes a difference. We can choose our attitudes, it takes just as much energy to be sour and ungrateful as it does to be positive and thankful.

Sometimes I don´t "feel" like being thankful, grateful, or positive, but I don´t have to follow where my feelings lead....my goal is to work on this. To "kill" my flesh and not let it decide how my attitude or day is going to be:-)

No matter what circumstances I find myself in I want to keep my peace and joy. Just like Paul and Silas (from the Bible) in prison, even though they were beaten and chained, they sang praises. Not exactly wonderful circumstances to sing praises in. But they had something, something that I want!! I want to be able to praise and be thankful in the most awful of circumstances. I suppose this is my greatest goal for 2011....to find the treasure in every trial. (I wonder how many trials I am now going to have to face so I can learn this?!)

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, I hope 2011 is a wonderful year for you all.