HOME HELP WANTED

.....boy it´s hard being a working mum and wife. I now realise how spoiled I was over the last 6 months. Kristian really was a great home help. Now when I come home from work the house is back to normal - unmade beds, piles of unwashed clothes, dust everywhere....as my friend Jeffrey says "there´s nothing like a REAL home!" Ours certainly is that again!

So what has been happening in the Rasmussen household over the last few days.......

Well on Monday I worked late. Then there was the shopping to do, the dinner to make, laundry, clear up after dinner, helping with homework, in other words just a normal day. Then for some crazy reason I decided to bake some baps for the kids lunches. (Still trying to be this amazing mum who makes great lunch packs for her kids!) After I started making them I wished I hadn´t, the kitchen just ended up in a mess again, and the stupid things took me all night to make. Before I knew it, it was time for bed. Now where did that day go?!



...Tuesday was also a busy day, although this day was more fun. I was going out with my friend Audry to Ikea. It was our girls night out!! So after work I came home and relaxed a bit, (I didn´t care that the house needed a good tidy up, the clothes needed washed, or the kitchen needed organised - I just closed my eyes to it all) I sat down on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and watched "Extreme Makeovers". It´s an American show where they knock down and re-build a new house in 7 days. It´s amazing and they decorate it just soooo beautifully. I had a good cry at this programme. It was just so touching, so good!!

Then it was off to Ikea for the evening, leaving Kristian to make the dinner. Audry and I had a great evening wandering around dreaming and planning. At 9pm when Ikea closed we headed over to McDonalds for our burgers and spent an hour or so chatting.

....Today, (Wednesday) has been nice. I have had a wonderful afternoon in town with Leah. She took the train (for the first time) all by herself and met me from work. We then went to my wee "french" café for hot chocolate. It was perfect weather - the rain was pouring down! So we sat in this cosy cafe drinking our hot chocolate and watching the rain.

It was then around the shops to look for birthday presents for her birthday. Today I could devote all my time and attention to her, so we had so much fun spotting things she would like for her birthday. (Hope I can remember them all when I go tomorrow to get some things!)

I am now about to head into bed. How I love my bed!!Tomorrow is Thursday and the weekend is just around the corner - isn´t that wonderful news! I´ll get to sleep long on Saturday!! YES!

Today was Kristians 42nd birthday!!
Happy Birthday to you!

We started the day the usual way, by waking the birthday boy up with a song. In the living room we had the presents on the coffee table, the living room was decorated with flags and streamers (never too old for them!) I had actually forgotten the sweets - oops, usually we write the persons age with sweets on the table....no-one noticed that I had forgotten that, at least no-one mentioned it.

We had a few surprises for him. Kristian loves music DVD´s, so he got one of Stings DVDs. He also got a film (Rush hour 2) , a CD, and two new shirts.

As you can see my family are not really morning people. That or Kristian thinks this birthday is rather boring.

Ah good, a smile. No more yawns - at least not that I captured on camera.....

I had a very happy husband. (He got a Michael McDonald CD)
We had invited some friends over for dinner, so this afternoon I decided I would try and make a pavlova. Well low and behold it turned out really well. Have a look for yourself...

Kristian wanted chinese for dinner, so I made 3 different chinese dishes - whew, it was hard work. We had chilli chicken (absolutely delicious), chicken curry (also rather good) and then I cheated with the last dish - chicken nuggets with Uncle Bens sweet and sour sauce. It all turned out really well (I dont know what happened to me today!)

Dessert was the pavlova. This is one of Kristian´s favourites, so he was very pleased to get not only his favourite chinese food, but a pavlova too. Our friends had never tried pavlova before, and they were wild about it.....there wasn´t very much left in the end.

I think I can go to bed content. It has been a successful birthday, a successful meal and a successful pavlova. What more could a girl ask for.

Crazy Days

It has been a few crazy days. I really haven´t been home since Wednesday evening!


It started on Thursday. After work I went to visit some of the old people that I looked after while in the HomeCare. (I keep contact with a few of them, those that don´t have any family, they are very much on their own.) I had a lovely afternoon with them. They are just so thankful for having you come by for an hour. I get sooo much out of these visits. But I first got home at 6pm! So I was actually gone from home from 6am to 6pm!! (Well that was ok - the kids were all doing things that afternoon, so I had freedom to stay out.) It was a quick dinner and then I had to go and shop for some lunch stuff for Friday - we were low, so off I went to the next town (as their supermarket is open to 8pm). Finally I arrived home at 8pm. Then my friend Laura popped over with her computer, Kristian was going to take a look at it. Thankfully he was able to fix it. Finally at 10pm I fell into bed exhausted!!


Friday wasn´t much better. Went to work and stopped work at 2.15pm. Had to do a bit of shopping on the way home. Leah rang - she was sitting on the toilet and we had run out of toilet paper, so with no toilet paper and no kitchen roll she was in a panic. I was on the train on the way home, so I did a wee detour to the shops to get what we needed. I sure miss my homehelp!! You can really tell Kristian has gone back to work!!

I finally arrived home at 3.00pm! It in for a quick shower and change of clothes. I said a quick hello to the kids, a few explainations about what they should tell their dad about dinner...and then I was off again. I was going out with work. The whole school - teachers, cleaners and the board members were going out for an evening. A treat from the school.We drove up the coast to a town north of where we live. It was known for helping the jews during second world war. We got a guided tour of the town with stories about the jews, where they had hidden them, things that happened to them. It was really interesting. We ended in the old church were we climbed up into the roof, were 80 jews were hid but were found by the Germans.



We then drove into Copenhagen to "The New Harbour". Here there is a lot of cafés and restaurants. We were having dinner in one of these restaurants. It was delicious. It was also really cosy. It was such a beautiful evening, very mild. I have been to "The New Harbour" during the summer. It´s always popular to go there and get an ice cream. But I have never been there in the evening. It was something special. I now know what I am going to do for next years anniversary!!! (sssshhhh - I will say no more, but next year I´ll be organised!)

We walked along the harbour back to the bus and we saw the new opera house. Isn´t it beautiful. (Girls - don´t you fancy a weekend in Copenhagen???!!! Isnt it just a little tempting!!) I was first home at 12.30!! Exhausted again - but it was a good evening!

Today has been busy too. Tomorrow is Kristian´s birthday, (and my good friends brithday). Sara´s friend is also 18 today and she is going to his birthday this evening, so we had 3 presents to buy today. Kristian was going down to the south of Denmark to play his saxophone at a wedding. (A surprise the groom had arranged for his bride. - Isn´t that sweet) Kristian´s sister would play piano. He would be gone till late afternoon.

So after some food shopping (we had absolutely nothing in this house when we woke this morning!) Sara, Leah and I headed to the nearby town to shop. And shop we did!!
I was getting totally stressed in my mind with all the presents I had to get. Sara was wanting help with her friends present and I was trying to figure out what to get my hubby and friend. On top of that Leah has a birthday a week on Tuesday, so she was running around showing me things she would like. Phew!! What a day!!

Finally by 4pm we had everything and could head home to a really, really, messy, dirty house. Kristian arrived home the same time as us, so we both got stuck in. I took the kitchen and living room. He took the bathroom and hall. We got this place cleaned up in no time!!

So now Kristian is driving Sara and her two friends to the birthday party. I am about to clear up the kitchen again after dinner (with a little help from Leah) Then it´s chat time. So looking forward to chatting to all my friends again. See you all at 8pm!! (english time!)

Inspiration!

I was getting inspired! Two of my friends (Lisa and Pauline) are really into baking. They, like me, have a blog with different stories about receipes they have tried. They make it sound so wonderful and easy! So I thought that I would give it a go.


The plan was this.... Kristian was going down to church to practise his sax for a while. While gone, I would bake some cakes, with a little help from Leah. We would then light some candles for daddy coming home, make some coffee and tea, and have some delicious cake. So we got stuck in. It seemed to be going well. The cake looked good when it came out of the oven, maybe a little thin....(as the receipe said to cut it down the middle so that cream could go in there. I really didn´t think we could cut this in two! ) But that was ok, we would just put the cream on top....no problem!

The problem came when I tried to get it off the tin. It was a springform, so I thought it would be easy to take off. No! I must have used glued instead of butter to grease the tin with! Leah and I struggled for about 5 minutes to try and get the cake off the tin. We won the battle in the end but the cake did look like it had been through the wars.

So we then decided to bake something that I had tried before....wee buns. Now that just can´t go wrong - right?!! WRONG....I think I must have filled the cases up a little too much, (but I just wanted to make sure they were big wee buns), or else the mixture was too runny....but see the results below. Not very eye appealing eh?

I think the baking went to my daughters head. She ended up running around the house with her shorts on her head - don´t ask me why!!! So needless to say we didn´t light any candles, I didn´t make any coffee or tea.... All I got out of tonights activites was a messy kitchen and a pile of dishes to wash! Lisa and Pauline I am leaving the baking up to you two. How on earth can you enjoy something like this!!!

Kristian crowned King of Romance - at least for today

Well today was our 18th wedding anniversary. It has been a lovely day. If you read the post last night you will know that I was NOT organised for today. Usually I am sooo organised and full of surprises - it´s my husband who never has anthing ready. He usually ends up picking up a card on the way home from work. So what a surprise I got this morning, when sleepy eyed, I walked into the kitchen to find a beautiful card and a present sitting on the kitchen table.

At first I thought I was getting a CD (possible Mamma Mia CD) but on opening the present I realised it was a gift card for a wellness experience. (This is something I have talked about from time to time.) So Kristian had remembered! I can take my pick from different beauty/spa/massage places, I just need to ring and book a time and then give them my gift card. I can get a massage or manicure or facemask etc. Different places specialise in different things. The one I actually fancy is a massage with chocolate!! Yes, you read right. It starts out with warm stones and then goes into a massage with melted chocolate....maybe I could get them just to leave the chocolate for me to eat while they give me the massage. haha Sounds a bit messy but fun. So who know´s I might give it a try! I have never had a proper massage before so I am soooo looking forward to that.So needless to say I was totally speechless. That my husband had remember our anniversary and actually bought me a present really blew me away!

After work I had to think of something for him, again I was totally blank - I wandered around the shops not knowing what to get. Finally I found a DVD with Phil Colins. He likes his music, so the DVD with a few of his favourite chocolates would do the job.

Kristian arrived home after a really good day at work. His colleages are really nice, and they made him feel very welcome. He thinks he´s going to like this place! The two girls he will be working with have funny surnames, one is called Summer and the other Winter!! How funny is that!When Kristian arrived home he had some flowers for me. Well, this was really too much! A present and flowers - wow I really was in shock. haha

We both weren´t feeling up to a long evening out on the town, but did want to get out on our own for a short while. So we fed the kids and then Kristian and I headed out to our local chinese restaurant. It´s a really cosy place and we had the most delicious buffet.

While at the restaurant this guy came over and said hello to me. I nearly didn´t recongise him. It was a fella that had come to our Bible club as a kid. He´s about 18 or 19 now. He was out with his girlfriend celebrating their 2 year anniversary...aahhh, it was so sweet. Wonder if they will get married? Young love! We agreed that 1st September was a good day to celebrate love! haha

Then it was home to give my husband a nice relaxing food bath. (I had bought foot salts while in town today) The water was a little too hot for his liking - took a little time to get those feet in there.

Seeing how relaxed he looked (well, maybe not in the picture above!) I decided to give it a try too. So we spent the evening relaxing while watching the Phil Colins DVD. Yes it sure has been a good day and a relaxing, romantic evening.

To the man in my life

Today it´s my 18th wedding anniversary! Scary were the time has gone.So this post is especially for my hubby. The two songs below are for you Kristian - Happy Anniversary! (For anyone else reading this...even though it may not be your anniversary, why not go play these songs for your husband or wife!! Take them in your arms and have a wee dance around the living room!)






Even after 18 years - Kristian you are still the one!! (I wonder how many people thought we were nuts when we got married - you lived in Denmark and I in Ireland....we saw each other just a few times before we got married...yet it´s still going strong!)