Decisions, decisions

I am trying to make some decisions in my life! I have some big questions, like....What am I meant to be doing with my life? What am I meant to be involved in in my church, in my free time etc etc? Life gets busy and there are only so many hours in a day. I have decided to stop up and do a sort of infantory of my life. What is really important? What is it God wants me to do? What do I burn for?  

I find it so easy to say yes to things and I have a hard time saying no, so before long I find myself involved in so many different things and sometimes I wonder if I should be involved in any of it. Has God something else for me to do?  I am a confused irish woman these days!! 

Anyway the other night when my friend Jette and I were out drinking hot chocolate she suggested I take some coaching lessons. She has been to a coach and it has really helped her. Well I think I have the greatest coach on earth - GOD!! He knows exactly what I was made for!! So first and foremost I am seeking Him.(ok - wait a moment while I shine my halo!! haha)  

Now my friend Rhoda can do this coaching thing, but it´s hard to get a time to chat when she lives miles away across the water. So I decided that in the meantime I would just check out some things on the web. I found a site with the title - "31 days to reset your life challenge." I liked the sound of that! So I signed up. It was free, you just get emails sent every day with different instructions. I´m not sure what the different instructions will be, I have only received day 1. 

So for day 1 I had to first find a notebook that I could record all my thoughts in, - DONE. Then I had to  find a quote, a postivie phrase or statement for the purpose of motivation or encouragement.  I had to choose one that represented what I hoped to become or believe by the end of the challenge. Ummhhhhh what could that be.....one moment please.

Ok I found one:

"Your time is limited, so don´t waste it living someone elses life. Don´t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." 

I picked this quote because it sums up what I want to achieve. I am a people pleaser. I find it hard to say no. So at times other peoples agendas can run my life. I don´t want to live someone elses life, I want to live mine.  I can let their opinions drown out my own inner voice or rather the voice of God who is telling me to do His will, and since He only has good plans for me, His will is the best for me!! I need courage to follow that voice!

Ok,- I think I have been "deep" for long enough. Time for me to hit the sack, the morning comes early, as my wee mummy and granny used to say:-) Goodnight all!

A quick update

It has been a lovely weekend - just too short!


Friday afternoon was spent food shopping and organising the kitchen. Friday evening was spent trying to find ideas for my Sunday school lesson. I was totally blank and had to give up in the end. (Panic was beginning to set in!)


Saturday morning Kristian and I were up at 8.30am. It was our weekend to clean the church. Our team cleans every 10 weeks and it was already our turn again. Those 10 weeks inbetween sure go by quickly. 


After cleaning we decided we would go to town and do a bit of window shopping. We had a cosy few hours walking around dreaming about all the things that we would like to buy. We had a quick lunch at a newly opened cafe. It was very good! It will not be the last time we visit there! Then it was home to try and sort out my Sunday school lesson. Finally the ideas came! Phew - that was a relief! A few hours later and the lesson was finished. All planned and packed away ready for Sunday morning.


Saturday late afternoon we headed out to visit our friends, Birthe og Henrik.  It was Henrik´s birthday so Birthe had arranged a small get together to celebrate his birthday. We were 8 in total. (Birthe is the leader of Leah´s choir and her husband plays the piano) We had a brilliant evening. Great food, great conversation and alot of laughs. We played a game called Scrupples (I think that was the name) - it was soooo funny.  It was once again the wee hours of the morning when we got home. 


Then today we were up early again and off to church. Sunday school went well but I was glad when we got home again. I was in need of a rest. I quickly got my English lessons planned for tomorrow before I finally got to put my feet up and relax!!!


Now I have just been sitting thinking about my Bible verse challenge. I decided to wait until this Sunday to change the verse, so that I start at the beginning of a month, well it will be a new month on Tuesday. So my verse for the first two weeks in March is from Ephesians again. 


Ephesians 3, 17b - 19a


"And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. and to know this love that surpasses knowledge..."


Just feel like meditating on a verse that speaks to me about how much Christ loves me! It´s just great to know that you are loved but sometimes I forget how much He really does love me! I want to grasp that truth about how great His love is!!

One day left.....

 So there is only one more day of holiday left. It has been a really wonderful, relaxing week. In fact I have relaxed so much that I haven´t done any housework all week, so today the house really needed a good clean. The whole family got involved!! We cleaned and organised everywhere. The big thing for me was to get my desk sorted and that I achieved today!! Long may it last!


After a day of housework, I made a delicious meal, even if I say so myself, and then Kristian headed off to the airport to collect  Sara. She has been in Belgium all this week visiting Alessio. She had a great week, but it sure is nice to have her home again!  


After my hard day of cleaning, I was needing a bit of relaxation, so out came my pencils and sketch pad. 


Above you can see my first drawing of the evening.  The second one (across the way) was actually really hard to do. Harder than I thought it would be. Who do you think modelled for me Kristian or Andrew?? hahaha


Anyway there is room for improvement on both pictures but the main thing is that I had fun. 

Good food and company...

....Yes, good food and company was what we enjoyed last night. We went to visit my friend Anne and her family. The plan was that we would order Chinese food so none of us would have the bother of cooking but Anne can NEVER keep her end of the deal. Already in the afternoon I had an idea that she would be making food, so I texted her! Sure enough she was making food!!  So there was no Chinese for us! Instead we had a wonderful home cooked meal. It was really delicious and we ate far too much as usual! (Thanks Anne!) 


 I was able to contribute to dessert - nothing exciting, just lots of different delicious ice creams with chocolate sauce and sprinkles!! You could have rolled the Rasmussen family home by the end of the evening, we were so full!!


The evening went by too fast. We played some new games on their PS3. My favourite was the shooting game - great fun shooting all the cowboys! It was the wee hours of the morning when we were getting home. Poor Kristian, he had to get up for work while the rest of us could sleep the day away!! I always love our evenings out with them....so relaxing and great fun!!

A relaxing evening.....

So after a stressful mother and daughter day out on the town, Leah and I needed some relaxing time, so we decided to draw.

Leah has a book that explains how to draw things step by step. After looking through all the options, she decided to draw a car - a mini cooper! The result can been seen below. Well done Leah!

I wanted to try and draw a face. I have tried before, many years ago but always ended up giving up. It was just too hard. I never knew where to begin or what to do and so the face never turned out like the person. So I went in search of help on the internet! (What a wonderful invention the internet is!!) I found a video of an artist who showed, step by step how to draw faces. This was what I needed! I sat myself down and followed what he said. The result is below:-

It´s a portrait of Michael Jackson. I am rather pleased with it! I don´t think it totally looks like Michael, the mouth is not totally right, but as a face I think it looks ok. So I hope I can do some more. The main thing is that it´s soooo much fun to do and I relax so much when I am drawing.

Then I saw that he had a video on praying hands. I thought I would give it a go. Now if I was to sit down and draw after these hands I would not have a clue where to begin. But he broke it down into steps and I could not believe that I was actually drawing hands, this was another thing I could never draw!! They were just too hard.

His drawings are fantastic so I am looking forward to checking out more of his work. If you want to check him out his website is www.merrillk.com

Mother, daughter day....

Today Leah and I had planned a mother and daughter day out. We wanted to go shopping, but to shop you need cash. Well out on our balacony we had the solution to that problem. We had a nice pile of money stored out there in the form of bottles.

In Denmark you get money back on bottles and we had been saving bottles since before Christmas. There was now a nice pile of them to return and get money for. So the first stop was the bottle return machine were we managed to get 140kr (about £15) for our returns - not bad!!

Then it was off to shop till we dropped and drop is what I literally did!!

It was at the start of our trip. We were crossing the road. We were almost across when I tripped. It´s amazing what can go through your mind while you are falling!!

At first I thought I had saved myself and had regained my balance only to realise that I was still stumbling. Then I thought the same again, but once again realised that I was still stumbling! After thinking twice, that I had saved myself I finally realised that I was going to crash to the ground - there was no way out!!! The only thing I was hoping was that I wouldn´t smash my teeth. I fell with a mighty blow unto the pavement. I landed in an X shape. I was soooo stunned. Poor Leah thought I had knocked myself out. We both didn´t know whether to laugh or cry. What a sight it must have been!!haha

I was soooo thankful that my face had been saved. I hadn´t hit my teeth, nose or chin. The only thing was my knees. They were killing me! For about 20 minutes after I fell I could hardly walk, I struggled over to the shopping centre were I could sit down and recover for a while. (It was then Leah and I had a good laugh about the whole thing!)

Thankfully I only scraped the right knee a little, my jeans were good and thick and they saved me, but boy are my knees sore even now!! (especially the right one!)

Anyway once I got over the shock we had a really nice shopping trip. We walked around for a couple of hours. We bought some art stuff and Leah bought herself a book. Once we got the art stuff we both wanted to get home to sit and draw and paint, however we were a little hungry, so we decided we would make a quick stop at McDonalds for a burger.

Well, the quick stop turned into quite a long stop!!

You see the front door in my car is broke and so I have to crawl into the drivers seat from the passengers side. Well my knee was killing me, so when I parked the car I was thinking how on earth I could get out without hurting my knee even more.

I twisted and turned and managed to get out of the car with as little pain as possible. When I was outside standing I breathed a sigh of relief and put my hand on the lock, locked the door and banged it shut.

As soon as I did that I screamed "NOOOOO" - yeah you guessed it!! My keys were still in the ignition. I had been so preoccupied with getting out that I forgot to take the keys with me! Aaarrrggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!

So it was into McDonalds for some food and a phone call to hubby to see if he could get out of work and come rescue us!! Honestly!! So our quick visit to McDonalds turned into a 1½hour stay! Finally our knight in shining armour arrived and rescued us. (Thanks Kristian - u r one in a million!!)

I think tomorrow we will just stay at home!!

A cold winter`s night....

.....just the kind of night that any sane person would be in their warm house, wrapped up in a blanket, on their sofa, watching a good film and drinking hot tea. But not me!! No - I had arranged a night out on the town with my friend Jette....and it was wonderful!!

We decided we would eat dinner at home and just meet up for a coffee/hot chocolate. We went to a new cafe that has recently opened. It was so cosy. Even though we had eaten dinner at home, Jette was feeling a bit hungry so she ordered some Nachos. I was freezing so all I wanted was something warm....a lovely hot chocolate would do the trick!

I then saw the menu and was totally tempted to order a Banana Split:-) So I gave into temptation. It was delicious! The pile of exotic fruits that came with it was wonderful. I don´t even know the names of half the things that I ate!!!

The food was not the only good thing. It was great to see Jette again and catch up. We even got around to organising our lives! Plans, schedules, goals and lists were made! It was fun! Now from tomorrow a new life begins - but more about that tomorrow:-)

It went too quickly....

....our weekend away just flew by. Kristian arrived home from his exam Saturday at noon to pick me up. We were on our way to Copenhagen to explore the sights and sounds for 24 hours!

It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies. It was -1 degrees and I could feel the nip in the air! I think the sentence that I have repeated the most in the last 24hours has been.... "Oh it´s sooo cold!"

We decided to take the coast road down to Copenhagen instead of the motorway and we decided to make a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was Rungsted Kyst. One of our favourite places in summer. We parked the car and went a quick walk around the harbour. It was sooo beautiful. It even put me in the mood for summer! (yes me who loves autumn and winter!!)

From there we drove a little further down the coast and stopped to take some pictures of trees. We love trees! Kristian went mad with his camera and I went mad with mine. It was so much fun taking pictures together. (It reminded me of all the times that I went out with my dad and took photos. I was about 12 or 13 and we would go to different parks with our cameras and take loads of pictures. Do you remember that dad? Only difference being that back then I had a really good camera!!haha)

We drove a little further and wandered through the nature....

There was all sorts of nature to see........

haha....yes there was the nude type of nature to see too! (Welcome to Danish culture!!) Must say, I take my hat off to them. The older folks go swimming all winter long - in the sea! It was -1!!! We honestly took this photo yesterday, it´s no joke! They are crazy but brave!

Finally we had had enough nature, it was time to drive into the city. We arrived at our hotel. It was situated close to the central station but on, what is known as, the "rough" side of the station. When Kristian heard the name of the street he started to laugh. "Don´t be surprised if there are topless bars and stripclubs close by" he said.

Well, he was right. just beside the hotel and right across from the hotel we found both! (Leave it to me!!!)However the hotel itself was lovely. It was clean and cosy and very central to everything and actually the area was very quiet too!!

So after leaving our bags off at the hotel we headed out into the big city! After walking around for a while we found a restaurant that we BOTH were happy with. Yummie, the food was good and the company was rather exceptional!! haha

After dinner we headed over to the largest cinema in Denmark, in fact it´s the largest in all of Scandinavia. It can seat 1100 people! We went to see "The Tourist". It was really good. Just our type of film! Then it was home to the hotel which was only a 5 minute walk away:-) (But I was frozen to the bone by the time we got there!)

This morning we had a wonderful long lie in before eating breakfast and heading out to explore Copenhagen once again.

We decided to visit the "Round Tower". We have been there many times but it´s wonderful to see over Copenhagen from the top of the tower. Also there was an exhibition there that we wanted to see called "Hungry Planet."

There were photos of families from all over the world showing what their food consumption was for one week. The families stood with all the food for the week, laid out on a table before them. It was amazing to see how much food some of us people consume. There was loads of information about the country and the family. There was also information about how much the food cost the family. One family in Germany spent 3000 kr on food in a week! (That´s about £330!) It was interesting to compare the european countries with each other and then compare us with places like Ghana and Chad. It was such an interesting exhibition.

Over the years we have explored many places in Copenhagen, but one place we never have been is The National Museum. So after visitng the Round Tower we headed there. It was very interesting, although Kristian and I both agreed that we were more art gallery people. One good thing happened in the museum - I met my knight in shining armour!!!

After walking around the Museum for an hour or so, we thought about going over to the Museum of Art to see some paintings. Unfortunately our poor wee legs refused to carry us any further. We are just getting too old and can´t do as much as we would like, so I think another date in Copenhagen needs to be arranged!!

It has been a wonderful 24 hours and when we came home the house was still standing and the kids were still alive!!

New blog....

From a new look on this blog to a totally new blog!

I made a new blog tonight. I thought I would make a blog just about God! A blog where I could share Bible verses, thoughts, and things that have been challenging or blessing me.

The new blog address is:

www.treasuresfortheheart.blogspot.com

I wont promise that it will be updated every day but from time to time I will write down some thoughts.

A productive day

Yes it has been a wonderful, productive day!

It started with me waking up at 7am. After looking at my clock and realising the time I jumped up out of bed and shouted...."Arrrghhh I´ve slept in!!" (Usually I start work at 7am!!) Kristian started to laugh at my panic-strickened antics. "It´s Wednesday" he said "Relax you´re off today!" Boy was I glad for that bit of information!!

Late morning my friend Rhona dropped by. We had talked together earlier in the morning and decided that we would meet for lunch. She would bring leftovers from yesterdays dinner and we would supplement the leftovers with pancakes. It was a real feast! Tasted delicious! It was a real treat for me! Not only good food (supplied by Rhona) but a great afternoon of chatting and sharing with a really good and special friend! (and when I say special I mean in the good way!! haha)

After Rhona left I went to town and got some food shopping done. We had very little left in the cupboards, hence why Rhona had to bring her own food!! haha So I got some more goodies to last us until Friday. Then it was home to do washing, washing and more washing. Where do all these clothes come from - oh yeah I know - PRIMARK!!!! Remind me not to go there with my girls again!! They have too many clothes!

So now there are only 2 washes left to do and then my washing basket is empty!! But for how long?? That´s the burning question!

Yes, all in all, a very productive day!

A new look..

I decided to change the look of the blog again!!! I saw this background with the hearts on it and thought it was very appropriate for the month of February! Remember girls in one week it´s Valentine`s day, so get those thinking caps on and see if you can come up with some great romantic ideas for the man in your life:-)

Check out the new gadget on my blog. It´s a small button on the top left hand corner, under the title "My favourite songs". This small button says "off", if you press it, it comes "on "- there is a short advertistement and then you can hear my 5 favourite songs for the month of February. (But only if you want too! No pressure!!)

A challenge....

Anyone up for a challenge??

In church this morning we were hearing about the importance of God`s word. The sermon was from John 15 and the speaker brought out many great and challenging points. It was great to be reminded of the importance of knowing God´s word, and spending time in His word.

I then came home and checked out the blogs. While checking out Etta´s blog I went in to have a nosey at some of her friends` blogs. One caught my eye. Her friend Teri´s blog. I enjoyed getting to know Teri a little as I quickly read through her different posts. One thing that Teri is involved in got me really excited. She is part of a group of ladies that memorize two scriptures a month. She picks a verse to memorize from 1st-15th of the month and a new one from the 15th-30th(31st).

What a great idea, I thought!! - I could do this, 2 scriptures a month = 24 scriptures a year! It was then that I thought of you all. Thought it might be fun to start our european group of ladies who memorize scriptures together. Is anyone else up to this challenge? It´s not to become a burden or a legalistic rule, just a way of helping us get God´s word deep into our hearts.

So the idea is that you pick your own scripture. You decide what scripture you need to learn. A scripture that will help you with the situation that you find yourself in. You write it down on a few pieces of paper and you put the papers places where you find yourself throughout the day.

For example, for me, I will have one in my jeans pocket so I can take it out at work and read it over a few times. One in my coat pocket, one at my desk, one stuck on my fridge, and one stuck on my wall by my bed. Then throughout the day when I find myself at these places, I read the verse. I am going to give it a go:-)

So my verse for the next 14 days is:-

Ephesian 1:17 "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better!"

I picked this verse because this is my prayer for myself right now, that God may give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may know Him better!

Smart box....

About 6 months ago Kristian and I got a "Smart box" from some friends. A "Smart box" is a gift box for different experiences, for example a brunch, a luncheon, wine tasting, make-overs etc. Ours was for 1 night in a hotel with breakfast.

Well the gift card needed to be used before the end of February 2011 - which, as you know, is soon! So we decided we better plan our weekend away. Kristian left it up to me to choose the where abouts and hotel. It was to be a surprise for him. I would plot the destination into our GPS and he would just follow the directions.

Yesterday I decided that I better get the whole thing organised and booked. I must have spent 2 hours investigating all the hotels that were in the book that came with the smart box. I narrowed it down to 6 different hotels - all in a place we hadn´t been before. I checked out the area and what there was to do. I checked out nature spots for going walks. I then checked out the distance from home to the different places. I finally settled on one. A cosy hotel overlooking a harbour, in a cosy town, with wonderful nature places nearby to go walks.

All that was left to do was book it. In I went to the "Smart box" website and followed the instructions. I put in the date we wanted, yet my hotel didn´t come up. I put in other dates, still my hotel didn´t come up. None of the 6 hotels that I picked came up!! Arrrgggghhhhhh. Apparently there were no rooms available on the dates we wanted.

The only hotels available were far away on the other side of Denmark. Now this normally would not bother us, but the day that we are going, Kristian has an exam . He is first finished at noon so the day would be nearly gone if we were to travel far.

However there was this one hotel that was available that wasn´t so far away- it was in Copenhagen!!! I know, I know, it´s a place we know well and have been a 100 times, but I decided to book it anyway. :-) The more I thought about it the more fun I thought it could be. Being in the city, exploring different things and then going back to a hotel right in the heart of it all, appealed to me. So even though our weekend away is only ½ hour from home, I am soooo looking forward to it.

I told Kristian where we were going, so he wouldn´t be disappointed when the GPS told us to drive to Copenhagen! He was happy enough. I suppose it doesn´t really matter where we are, as long as we are together! (I know, you want a bucket - don´t you?)

So this Smart box thing - I don´t know if it´s really all that smart after all:-)

(well, I suppose I could have been a bit more organised and booked the room a few months ago. Now we only have 2 more "Smart boxes " to use - 1 for a brunch and another for lunch. I really do love these gifts:-)

Back to normal...

Yes, Sara is feeling like her normal self again!

Saturday morning we all headed down to Kristian´s mum and dads for brunch. This was the first time Sara had been out of the house since her operation and she managed to eat 3 of her granny´s pancakes:-) Since then there has been a big improvement! She is eating normal and is up and about. She has even got a bit of colour back into her cheeks again!

Kristian´s younger brother and his family were also there. It was great to see them again, especially our neice and nephew!

Leah and Andrew enjoyed playing with them and they kept us all entertained:-)

On Sunday Kristian´s cousin Jacob came to our church to show off his new baby daughter. Jacob and Louisa live on the other side of Denmark so we don´t get to see them very often. In December Louisa gave birth to the most beautiful little girl. We got to meet her on Sunday, she is just sooooo tiny!

I must admit holding a wee tiny baby again made me want one!! So I have decided that I am just going to have to buy myself a fake baby! I think they are called reborn babies. I saw a programme about them and they are works of art! (Take a look at the picture below, it´s a reborn!!) They even come in different weights!!