Frustrations.

Today I have to fight back lots of frustration. My wife is constantly nagging about all the things we have to do. During this she is talking about how I need to prioritize my time to be able to do everything while she is too busy to participate.
During the discussion she is making a point out of what she needs me to do during the summer and the next second she is planning the vacation not considering that three weeks away means three less weeks working on the projects.
A few minutes ago she told me what was the most important thing getting started with. Now she is telling me about three or four other projects and what she needs me to do.
Her self is not able to go to the shop ordering tiles without me. I'm just fed up doing all the work and at the same time listening to her talking about how busy she is, and how frustrated she is about the things we should have done.
She is also constantly nagging about the flaws about the work that me and others have done, never talking about the things that are good.
I'm really trying here, but I've soon had enough of her. I once loved her, now I'm not sure.

Easter holiday

We spent our Easter holiday in beautiful Loen celebrating my mother in laws 70th birthday. We spent 3 nights at hotel Alexandra enjoying the breathtaking nature and spending time in the swimming pool and at the spa.

It's fantastic to wake up every morning to this view

After a late, and slow breakfast we spent most of the day at the swimming pool and at the spa. I brought my book to the pool area but with the beautiful scenery I spent most of the time just enjoying the scenery forgetting my book. The spring sunshine was actually warm enough to relax on the sun bed in the swim suit.

Young artists

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at our youngest sons school. Where they had different displays at each grades classrooms. The second graders had, amongst many things, a display about the life in the ocean.
We had a great time looking at what they have been working with the last two months and talking to other parents and the teachers.

Lobsters.

Jellyfish.

Fish.

Swimming in the sea.

It's fun to watch and see how proud the kids are showing their family what they have made. Well done.

Turning things around.

There are lots of things in my life that I needed to change.  Last autumn I started doing these changes making one small step at the time. But now it seems I've made a few mistakes. The first one is waiting to long before I made the changes. It's not critical but if I've started earlier I would have come farther than I'm now, and that feels frustrating. The other one is much more critical. I didn't involve the most important person in my life, my wife, in the process. My plan was to fix everything before I told her what I had been through. Doing this I've pushed her away from me, and I can't forgive myself for that. I must do everything to win her back. Starting with telling her how much I love her and that she is the most important person in my life. Making changes won't do anything if I'm loosing her in the process.

Building a new bathroom.

It has been a few days since I had the last update on the progress building the new bathroom.
I've not been working there since Thursday but here are some pictures of what it looked like when I finished Thursday afternoon.

As you can see there's lots of work left. The next week I will not do anything due to work, but hopefully I will be able too keep on working when we reach the weekend.
I still hope it can be close to finished when we reach April.

Aiming at one thousand.

Blogging for at bit more than three months I've realized that I'm not competing with the most popular blogs that are out there.
I've read about blogs with several thousand readers every day.  That's not me. I'm close to that number in total during my three months of blogging, meaning I won't quit my day job just yet.
I'm also still waiting for the first comment in my blog, wondering what I will do when that happens.
Anyway happy reading and a wonderful day for those who visit my blog.

A night out.

We spent Friday night out with some good friends. Before we went out for a Quiz we had a meal and a few drinks.

We didn't win the quiz but we had a great time both at home before the quiz started and at the quiz talking to wonderful people from our neighborhood.

We had planned a full night out but we finished earlier than we had planned. Anyway we had a great time and will join the next quiz at our local public house.

Still working on the new bathroom

Due to a weekend where I have been working nights we haven't done much progress on the new bathroom. But every little thing is progress and as you can se from the pictures the floor is getting ready for the tiles and we have done some work on the walls.

Yesterday we where planning what we need the electrician to do and now he's working downstairs doing most of the things we need him to do.
Hopefully we will start on the ceiling during the afternoon before I get to work for the last night shift this week.

Tuesday I will sleep most of the day leaving Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday for me to continue finishing the bathroom.  I am still optimistic hoping to be ready for the finish with the tiles, getting the bathtub, sink and the toilet in during the week starting with the 20th of March.
If everything is going well we will have a new bathroom when we reach April.

Slow and steady.

During the last few days my father in law and I have been working on a new bathroom in my family's house. The floor heating has been installed and the new plumbing has been almost finished.

We will continue casting the floor before we start to work on the walls. Hopefully we will be ready for the bricklayers during next week. The week after I will work five 24 hours shifts in a row so there will be no time to work in the new bathroom. Anyway we are on the way getting a new bathroom for the teenagers in the basement.

Working night shift.

In January I started working night shift part time. It's a perfect match to my new project involving my new firm.
After working two or three nights I've got a week off. Combining this with working four 24 hours periods in a row every third week it adds up to a bit more than a full job. Still I do have several days in a row of where I can evolve my new project.
The two first months of this year has told me that this is a perfect combination for me, enabling me to consider even a few more projects.
I will have an evaluation in June deciding if I will continue or if some changes is due.
Working night shift is something that appeals to me and I am quiet sure that what ever the evaluation in June is telling me. Working night shift will be a part of the future.

Building a new bathroom.

The teenagers in our household has patiently been waiting for a new bathroom. Monday this week my father in law arrived and we started building a new bathroom. It's frustrating waiting for plumbers and electricians when we need them but at least we have moved from demolition to building during the last day or so.
This is what it looked like two days ago.

We will continue working and I will hopefully update with pictures of a new bathroom coming to life.

My mothers battle.

Wednesday my mother got her plan for fighting cancer. She will go to the hospital tomorrow, Monday, to start the preparations for  5 weeks with radiation therapy. The plan is an operation after radiation.
She is a tough woman and if optimism can fight cancer this will be no problem.
The rest of the family will support her and be by her side during her battle against cancer.  

Friday night on the couch.

I've spent 78 of the last 120 hours at work. That is resulting in a Friday night on the couch in front of the TV. I will have a quiet night with a beer or two and will go to bed early. I will not have the alarm clock waking me up tomorrow. I will sleep until I wake up by myself knowing that it is almost a week till I will be at work again.

I will spend the week at home starting to renovate a bathroom giving the 18 year old and the 16 year old their own bathroom in the basement.

Enjoy your weekend where ever you are and whatever your plan are.

African books.

I'm lucky having a few good friends from the African continent. Amongst them one from Morocco and a few from Uganda. I've spent parts of the day with one of my friends from Uganda and our conversation amongst lots of things was about African litteratur. He told me, in spite of loving to read and the fact that he had read lots of books at an early age, that he was almost 30 years old the first time he read a book by an African author.

He said that Africa as a continent, as far as he knew, and also Uganda doesn't do enough to  "market" the authors of the continent. As we where talking I asked him to recommend me a few books. And so he did. He gave me a list of three, actually it's five, books.

So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I'll start the hunt for African litteratur and start reading. Please give me more recommendations.

Terry Hayes. I Am Pilgrim.

I've just finished reading the book I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.

Last thing first, this is a book I will recommend you to read if you like thrillers and suspense novels.

It's a thick book but the biggest challenge is to stop reading once you have started. I read it in just three days and was disappointed that it didn't last longer. The book is a big, breathless tale of nonstop suspense.

Get up, get out and borrow or buy these 612 pages and start reading. But make sure that you don't have any plans or obligations before start the adventure.

Cancer is back in my family.

My aunt was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. She lost the fight after one year and died one day after celebrating Christmas with her family around her.

A few months after my aunt was diagnosed my father was diagnosed with cancer. He looks like winning the fight. The cancer is gone and so far it's not looking like it will be back. But we can only hope and pray.

Two weeks ago my Mother was diagnosed with cancer. And these weeks has been frustrating. She was scheduled for an operation one and a half week ago.
But the operation was cancelled because they wanted an expert to have a look at her X-ray pictures. The pictures was sent to another hospital where the expert would look at them last Tuesday. Wednesday she was told that they didn't have time to look at her pictures. This is something that they only do on Tuesdays, therefore she had to wait another week. We can only hope that they had time to look at the pictures today. Hopefully she will get information about the progress and the plans for her treatment tomorrow.

Making changes.

During the last months of last year I made som changes in my life. It's been a tough journey but finally I'm starting to see some results.

For the first time in more than a year I'm looking forward to going to work. I'm currently holding two jobs.

One is my safety. A job that I love with incredible talented persons doing a fantastic job. I'm proud and happy to be a part or it. And it's a job that I'm planning to keep for many years to come.

The second one is my dream of independence. A small project that I run with a good friend. Doing things the way we want and think is the right way of doing things. Recruiting dedicated people who are independent and giving them freedom to shape their own day at work. My plan for this project is to make it grow steadily and hopefully this project continue to be a source of both a safe income and inspiration.

After almost 10 though months I can see that this is a Wonderful World and I'm ready to appreciate it.

Fake news

I'm watching a program about fake news.  It's scary to see what the world has become. But one of the guests in the program is talking about a cure that appeals to me. The way to fight fake news is with truth and facts, with truth and facts.
It's not an American problem, it's also a big part of the news in Europe. It might be one the biggest problems our world is facing.
I'll try to focus on truth and facts, truth and facts.

The Internet of things, and security.

Most people are not security experts. And I'm absolutely most people. It's scary getting aware of the fact that the Internet of things is a security risk. Many of the things in our life is networked and are at  risk of becoming hacked. Hackers are even able to hack our modern cars. It's both interesting and scary.
Pessimistic researchers claims that in our near future we will experience periods up to a week or two where the Internet is down. As we are becoming more and more reliable of the Internet, especially because of all the gadgets in our houses, cars and where ever we are. It's difficult, almost impossible, to imagine what it will be like. Let's hope we will not experience it.

Me time.

We still have some challenges coping with our daughters tough time. Trying our best to help her is draining our energy and I should probably have gone to bed as it's almost midnight here in Norway. But I need some me time with my book in a quiet house where everyone is sleeping.

Family.

My family and it's well being is the most important thing for me. Therefore I have a tough day today when my daughter is telling us she has a hard time. She's a fantastic girl but all to often she is hard to her self. I also believe that she, like many youngsters, is struggling to find her place and who she is. It's also hard to see her always comparing herself with others and not being able to see what a wonderful girl she is. It's breaking my heart seeing her unhappy and feeling unable to help her.

Happy new year.

It has been a hectic period the last few weeks, and it will probably continue through January. But I am feeling confident that this is the beginning of something better.
When February arrives my plan is that things will be more stable work wise and my income will be close to what I had in November but the hours spent will be considerably less. And the most important I will be happier at work, working with people who bring out the best in me.
2017 will be a fantastic year, because I say so, Living the good life in this Wonderful World.