When looking at several generations in my family, I see the same things happening in more than one generation. For example, my mother was 35 when she had her first child, my older sister was 34 when she had her first (and only) child, and I was 33 when I had my first child. So we are a family that has our children relatively late and thus other things connected to this happen when we are more mature.
Let’s look at my parents first. My mother was born in 1907 and my father in 1911. They got married in 1939, moved from one country to another in 1946 and bought their first (and only) house in 1947. So my mother was 40 years old and my father 36 when they got their first house. They already had one child and the second child was born in 1949, shortly after they had bought the house. So for about 9 years my parents lived in rented accommodation before they were able to settle enough in one place to purchase a house.
2970 West 37th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Picture taken on 2016.06.25 This is the house that my parents bought in 1947 and I grew up in. It was always grey, but we had white and green trim. The front door was dark brown. The flower beds had different plants when I grew up. On the whole, there are very few changes to the house itself on the outside.
My parents-in-law were born in 1906 and 1916. They got married in 1942 and adopted two children, the oldest being born in 1948. They bought their first house in 1951 in New Westminster. So they were 45 and 35 years old when they bought their first house.
My husband was born in 1948 and I was born in 1949. We got married in 1978, moved from one country to another in 1980, had our first child in 1983, our second child in 1989 and bought our first (and only, so far) house in 1991. So we were 43 and 42 when we purchased our house. We are still living in this house 30 years later.
Between 1978 and 1991, about 13 years, we lived in a variety of rented accommodation, ranging from apartments (Port Coquitlam and New Westminster), to primitive housing (Aukra and Inderøy) to basement suites (Molde), to student housing (Molde and Bodø) before we were able to purchase our own house in Inderøy.
The name of the house is “Fjellheim” (literally “mountain home”) and was given to the house by a previous owner.. This picture was taken 2020.08.05, before the old flag pole was removed.
Why did we choose this particular house and this particular time to purchase a house? There were several factors involved, including opportunity and financing.
During our first years in Norway we had very little income and had to find very inexpensive housing to keep a roof over our heads. We rented an inexpensive, older house, with only cold water and no indoor toilet facilities for two years. The arrival of our first child made a move to a basement suite in Molde necessary. We got an inexpensive basement suite based on looking after the owners’ dog while they were out of the country. When we shifted from student life to working life (with income!) we moved to Bodø and got student housing through my husband’s employer. Slowly we acquired our own furniture having progressed from rented, furnished housing to having to have our own furniture. The move to Inderøy eventually resulted in a move to a house when we were expecting our second child. When the owner of the house died, we bought the house, an easy solution to the problem of moving again.
However, being able to purchase the house that we did was also dependent on us being able to finance the purchase. My father had died in 1989 and so I inherited enough money to be able to have a down payment on the house which we purchased at the end of 1990 and became officially owners of the first of January, 1991.
As I look at these three couples, who all purchased their houses at approximately 40 years of age, I see some similarities.
First of all, is the desire to own a house. When I was in my early 20s, I wanted to rent accommodation so that it was easy to move whenever I wanted to. I did not want to become settled in one place. The time was not right for me. Often owning a house is also connected to being part of a couple. This need to settle is often connected to having children and feeling the need for more stability in one’s life. It was after I had my first child that the need to own a house was something that I felt.
Second, is the ability to finance the purchase of a house. A house usually costs much more than a person or a couple can afford to pay off at once and a loan must be taken up to spread the cost of the house over many years, often 20 or 30 years. Being able to go to a bank and ask for a mortgage is dependent on having a steady job with an income that is high enough to pay for the mortgage on a monthly basis. Here in Norway, usually both people in a couple will need to be working to afford to buy a house, though this will depend on whether you live in a large city (where the housing is very expensive) or a small town or village (where housing will be more affordable).
Why did I want to write these thoughts? Both of my children are now in their 30s. Neither of them have children nor own their own home. I wanted to share with them some of my thoughts about owning one’s own house.
With a large dump of snow in April, I have been thinking about what are the signs that spring has actually arrived. First of all, I think that the disappearance of the snow is an important sign.
Let’s look at what the definition of spring is for Norway. This excerpt is taken from the Store Norske Leksicon: Vår er er årstiden mellom vinter og sommer, og den perioden av året hvor normal døgnmiddeltemperatur er mellom 0ºC og 10ºC (disse inkludert). Temperaturen stiger gjerne i denne perioden and quoted on www.met.no. Translation: Spring is the season between winter and summer and that part of the year when the normal average day temperature is between 0 degrees C and 10 degrees C, including these temperatures. The temperature is usually rising during this period. Calculation of the average day temperature will differ depending on the number of readings taken during the day. The simplest calculation is the highest temperature is added to the lowest temperature and then divided by two (for example, 10 + 0 = 10, 10/2 = 5)
Another common definition of spring is the time between the spring equinox in March and the summer solstice in June, but this is a bit too general for my way of thinking. I prefer the previous definition which is tied to temperature.
If I look at some weather statistics for areas near here, but measured near sea level, there are very few days in March when the average day temperature is below zero degrees Celsius. By the end of April there should be none. This does not mean that there will not be freezing temperatures at night, but that the temperature rises sufficiently during the day that the average temperature is well above zero.
Spring is often thought of as that time of the year when the first flowers come out.
Colt’s foot (Tussilago farfara) is one of the first wild flowers to come out in Norway. It grows along the edges of roads, especially where the snow melts quickly and the sun warms up the earth. Its leaves come out after the flowers are finished.
Another early bloom is the anemone Hepatica nobilis, a member of the buttercup family. The leaves are green all year round.
Crocuses are planted and this one is almost finished. Many of the early garden flowers come from bulbs.
These small irises come out early.
I live in an agricultural area so another sign of spring is the outdoor work of the farmers. They also give us some less pleasant smells as they spread their animal manure on the fields.
Tractors in the fields and on the roads become more common. Note that some of the fields are becoming very green as the grass starts growing again in the warmth and sunshine.
This field has been ploughed. Many of the fields near us are used to grow grass for animal feed, or for letting the animals graze in the summer months. They will not be reseeded every year, but dandelions can be a persistent weed so fields will be ploughed up and reseeded on a regular basis.
On today’s walk up to get eggs at a neighboring farm, I saw this hose just laying on the field. It is used to spread manure on the fields.
Here is the attachment that the tractor pulls across the fields making sure that the manure goes primarily into the ground. When we first moved here, the manure was sprayed into the air to spread it. What a stink! With this newer method, there is much less smell, but there is still some.
There is the large container for the manure and the pump to get it into the long hoses that are dragged across the fields.
More pleasant signs of spring include the return of birds. We have several species of seagulls that live near us. Some of them are here all winter long, but the noisiest one, Larus canus, loves to follow the tractors around as they plough the fields. They like to soar on the wind and often fly in large groups. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to include about this species.
Another common sign of spring is the oyster catcher who likes to feed in the shallows at low tide.
Pussy willows on the ground are a good indication that the willow tree has started its spring routine.
Here is the willow tree itself. It hasn’t lost all of its flowers yet. It is a sign that there will be pollen in the air for the next couple of months. The leaves will come out after the blossoms are finished.
I would like to finish off this blog with a few pictures of plants in my garden. I enjoy going out to see what has started blooming and what has started sprouting .
This columbine is just starting to put out its leaves. The flowers will come out much later.
Sedum acre is already blooming and the daffodils won’t be long now. They just need a day or two of sunshine. The one tulip that has come up may not bloom. They are often eaten by the deer that like my garden.
I’m not sure what this one is called, but it is an early bloomer too. It comes up under the rose bush where I put out bird feeders in the winter time. I put out mostly sunflower seeds and you can see the empty seed shells fertilizing the ground.
You may have other signs of spring in your area, but these were the things that I thought of while going on my walk today.
As I write this on the last day of 2020, I am thinking of all that has happened during this year, both to myself, my family and the world. Some things have been constant in my life and other things have changed quite a bit.
Throughout the year I have used Duolingo to help keep my brain in shape. My old standby language is French, which I first learned when I was 14 years old. I grew up in an officially bilingual country, so French has been with me most of my life. Even in kindergarten I remember learning to count, in French, the number of elephants on the inside cover of a Babar book. Over the six years that I have been using Duolingo to learn languages, French has been my constant language that I have worked on almost daily. If I have finished what was on Duolingo in French, it didn’t take long for them to add more lessons and I have experienced at least two upgrades in the French course during 2020.
In addition to French, I was studying Italian at the beginning of the year and now I am studying Swedish, which is perhaps a more practical language for me that lives in Norway and shops at many Swedish chain stores. Swedish is easy as it is so close to Norwegian, but there are things to learn which helps my brain keep in shape and learning new things.
Also during 2020 I have tried to get out walking several times a week. Those who read my blogs will have seen descriptions and pictures of quite a few of the walks I have taken.
Looking westward from Brekkefallet, Mosvik. Picture taken on 2020.09.02
January 2020 was, in retrospect, a normal month. We were working on plans for an extended holiday of several weeks to San Francisco, Detroit and Bergen. Reservations were made and plans agreed on. News from China that there was a virus on the loose that was causing a lot of deaths had started to filter through, but though I hoped that we wouldn’t come across it in the Chinese part of San Francisco, I didn’t know how that virus was going to affect the rest of 2020.
Towards the end of February, my husband and I left on our planned trip, meeting up with my son in Oslo and then flying to San Francisco where my daughter lives. We also met up with my sister there for some of our stay, with her staying in the same hotel as us three visitors from Norway.
I enjoyed our trip to San Francisco, having time to relax with family and spending time with my sister and daughter who I don’t see very often, but do keep in touch with on a regular basis. The weather cooperated with only one day of rain and temperatures were much warmer than they would have been at home. San Francisco has lots of things to do, but as we were staying at a hotel in the downtown area, I noticed in particular the number of homeless people that were just living on the streets. It was a stark contrast to where I live, where the local community gives those not able to look after themselves a place to live.
Many of the streets in San Francisco are quite steep, though it is good exercise walking up them,
After two weeks in San Francisco, my son, my husband and I flew to Detroit. At this point in the trip, the corona-virus is becoming news, but it is not affecting what people are doing with their days. Traffic in the airports was normal. The reason for Detroit as a destination was to visit my husband’s half-brother and his family in their home environment.
Now we were staying in someone’s home and the television was on most of the time. But there only seem to be two main items of news – the up-coming presidential election in the USA and the corona-virus problem. The latter was becoming a great problem in both Europe and the USA. We were in Detroit for a little over one week, but suddenly things were not normal. A trip to a museum indicated that though there were still some people around, the place was not as packed as one would have expected. A trip to downtown Detroit was even more revealing, as there was almost nobody walking around and nobody on the light rail through the city center. The pandemic as it would be called was creating changes in the way people spent their waking hours.
Downtown Detroit, photo taken on 2020.03.13. Notice how few people are walking on the streets in the middle of the day.
During this week, we had to reschedule the rest of our trip. The week in Bergen was cancelled. The hotel we had booked was closing down and they would relocate us to a different hotel. My son who was working in Bergen at the time was given home-office so he decided to move his home-office to our place in Vangshylla. Plane tickets were rebooked, still going through Amsterdam but now our destination was Trondheim airport, rather than Bergen. Already, the airlines were reducing their numbers of flights and flights between the USA and Europe were becoming less and less frequent.
The trip home from Detroit was very different than the trip out. The airports had almost nobody in them. However we met one of my daughter’s friends in the Detroit airport and also in Amsterdam, so we spent a bit of time talking to her and her family. I have never seen large airports with so few people in them. People were starting to wear face masks. The planes were only half full. On arrival in Trondheim airport we were met by people fully covered in protective clothing. Though foreign citizens, we were official residents so there was no real problem, but it was a stressing situation. Taking the train back to where our car was parked was also different, with almost nobody on the train.
We had to spend 14 days in quarantine as we had been out of the country. I didn’t mind the rule as we had no idea if we had picked up any bad viruses on our trip. We arranged with people who lived near the food stores, to pick up groceries for us so that we had at least some fresh food in the house and I was hoping we had enough dried food so that we could eat varied meals. We picked up our bags of groceries outside their homes and avoided contact with them.
Home again, the news was getting more disturbing and the corona-virus spread around the world. Those who got sick, got really sick and many died, particularly those who had previous health problems. My husband and I were suddenly in a high-risk group, those over 65 years old. Thankfully, we live in the country, with lots of nature right outside the house, so we could go for walks and keep a reasonable physical health even while in quarantine.
The two weeks of quarantine passed and we didn’t get sick, but the world around us had changed. For us, the most noticeable difference was that my son was living at home again, not able to get back to Bergen until the beginning of August. He also ended up coming to stay with us again in November when Bergen had a lot of contagion. Then he got a new job, in Oslo, where there was also home office and so he moved out of Bergen and is currently living with us until the contagion in Oslo is reduced and allows easier access to the city.
My husband and I have a life-style that is not very much affected by the pandemic on a daily basis. Neither of us likes crowds of people. We have lots to do around the house and garden. My husband is busy fixing up the house in stages. The spring and summer went to finishing the terrace. Unfortunately the nice summer weather had come and gone before it was usable, but we have it for next year. Then there was new windows and siding on the next side of the house. This outside work was done as the days were getting very short on daylight and not very warm either. But every bit done, makes the house better than before.
The new terrace deck before the glass railing has been installed.
I spent a lot of my time knitting and sewing, sweaters, toques, kid’s clothing, shirts for my husband and tops for myself. I also spent time in the garden, trying to keep it in order. A lot of the summer months were spent painting, both things for the terrace, the wall, and furniture for inside. When you have a house, there is always something that can be improved.
Sweater knitted for my husband.
My son also contributed to improving the garden. His window looks out on some of the lawn and he started by removing moss from it. Then he got several loads of dirt to even out bits of the lawn. Then he planted grass seed. The improved lawn made a great improvement to the garden.
My son and I took two different day-trips to visit nearby islands, Ytterøy and Jøa. We were not in much contact with people, and during the summer there was much less contagion, but people were mostly still aware that there was a pandemic and that foreign travel was discouraged.
My husband and I had several trips to our local IKEA store, which is about an hour and half drive from home. This actually makes it into a day trip. But on one occasion, we found that the store was so crowded that we didn’t really find it comfortable to be so close to so many other people. We then made sure we planned the next trip at a time when there would not be nearly as many people in the store.
Just recently I have read a book in Norwegian, called the Corona Spring, a day-by-day summary of what people were experiencing during the spring of 2020 in Trondheim. It made me think about my experiences in this pandemic and how it has changed things for me. So what are the effects really for me?
Better hand hygiene, especially when having been out in stores or other public places.
No hugging of friends that I meet, either casually or otherwise.
Less contact with other people than those in my household. I have two girlfriends that I meet regularly, but otherwise there is little contact with people.
Trying to keep a safe distance between myself and others, primarily when in stores, but also when meeting people when out on walks and stopping to chat. With a hearing disability, this isn’t always easy.
Almost no restaurant or cafe visits. I’ve never been a big one for this anyway, but there have been almost none this year once we were home again from our trip to the USA.
No planning of major trips, either within Norway or outside of Norway. Staying at home is safest.
As 2020 ends in just a few hours, and I look ahead to activities in 2021, I expect my daily life will be much the same. Meals will be made and eaten. Projects started and hopefully finished. The dark days of winter will become the bright days of summer, then the darker days of autumn and winter again. The years go by faster and faster as I age. I hope you will have a good year in 2021.
I have done jig-saw puzzles since I was a child. My mom liked to do them, and she had a special tray that she did them on so that they didn’t take up a table and could easily be moved. When she had finished a puzzle, I liked to take out a small section of it, perhaps a corner, perhaps 50 pieces or so, and put the pieces back in place. Now that I think of it 60 years later, it was probably a good way at getting practice at doing jig-saw puzzles.
500-piece jig-saw puzzle by Ravensburger
I have collected jig-saw puzzle for many years. Some have been terrible to do, for example, when the same piece can go in several places. Those have been thrown away or given away quickly. Others have been enjoyable to do and I do them again and again.
What makes jig-saw puzzles a pleasure for me? First of all, the picture has to be something pleasing. I usually like landscapes, often with a building and mountains. When I buy a new puzzle, I only buy the ones that I enjoy looking at the picture. The picture itself should be relaxing, hence landscapes. There should also be enough variety of colors in the picture so that it is a pleasure to do, not annoying.
500-piece jig-saw puzzle by Clementoni
Most of the time I do puzzles with 500 pieces, as the easiest ones take only a few hours and I can get the table back quickly. I have quite a few with 1000 pieces, but then I need to be able to use the table for several days. Just sorting through the pieces takes twice as long with the larger puzzles. I have very rarely done anything larger than 1000 pieces as they just take up too much space.
Secondly, I enjoy the slow putting together of a picture, piece by piece. It is like knitting or weaving, though in a different medium, as it slowly becomes more done and the project becomes finished. When the last piece is put it, I can say to myself, “Done!” Even doing the same picture several times will give the same joy of having accomplished something.
500-piece puzzle de-luxe puzzle by Liveworks and British Heritage Ltd
Every now and then I like to have a greater challenge. The puzzle of London is quite difficult, even though I have done it several times. It is not one that I would have chosen myself, but my son gave it to me after a trip to England. There is writing on many of the pieces so one can tell which way the piece should go, but remembering where everything is in the picture is part of the challenge. It makes me think of the geography of London as well as where in the picture a particular place is. This one was on the table for three days.
Doing jig-saw puzzles is not for everyone, but it is something that I find relaxing and enjoy doing. The boxes require quite a bit of storage space, so I can’t afford to have too many in the house. The current tally is 69.
My mom used to write a lot of letters, usually once a year in November or December to keep in touch with relatives overseas, particularly my dad’s brothers and sisters. I read a lot of novels set in the past and one of a woman’s daily tasks was to write letters. How times have changed! In our family it is my husband that writes the letters, when necessary, though most of them get sent as emails now.
Yet, as I am going down memory lane and trying to recall trips that I have taken in the past, it is the written letters and postcards that were sent and collected afterwards which have become a permanent record of what happened at that time. Our memories are haphazard and not really to be relied on. Most things have been forgotten 50 years later. Only a few isolated incidents or images remain. So finding letters that were written at the time, gives some insights into what actually happened, or at least what was recorded.
What happens to diaries that have been written on a computer? Are they stored somewhere where they can be retrieved? We have old diskettes and discs in a box in the attic that are impossible to read today. What are we doing to save the information that we record now? Will this blog be accessible in 20 years? I doubt it.
Typewritten information is a lot easier to read than handwritten information, especially if the handwriting is either small and cramped (and old eyes are trying to read it in poor light) or is a style of writing than we haven’t mastered reading. In the novels that I read, in the 19th century people would write in both directions on a piece of paper to save the cost of sending an extra sheet of paper in the mail. That, of course, made deciphering what was written even more difficult.
Today’s older people have the challenge of becoming more digital, but on the other hand, I think it is important to retain a lot of information in a digital format as well as, but not instead of, information on paper. Digital information becomes much easier to share with others, for example, a younger generation and those living far away.
What I would like to have time to do is to record old letters that are worth keeping (though not necessarily all letters may be worth the effort) in digital format, but it must also be printed out on paper so that later generations will have access to it.
Some years ago my sister typed out all the letters my mom, who was living in Glasgow, Scotland, wrote to her own mom during the Second World War. This allowed my sister to share the contents of these letters with me. I still have them on my computer, but perhaps I should also print them out so that they don’t get lost.
In 1966 I took a eleven-week trip with my sister and we visited Ireland, Scotland and England. In 1979-1980 I took a nine-month trip with my husband to several countries in Europe plus Israel. These letters too should be made more accessible. I would enjoy having opinions from my readers as what they would like to read more of and what their recommendations are for long-term storage of old documents. Please use the comment area at the end of this blog.
My daughter has just given me this book and asked me to write in it. My first response was that I had wanted to write some of my memories in this weblog. My second response was how interesting the questions in the book are, as they make one think about different aspects of the past.
I have decided to hand-write in the book periodically, but also to put some of my memories in this series of blogs.
I have often thought about writing down some of my memories. As I got older I would have liked to know more about my own parents’ lives . Unfortunately we lived far from each other and communication wan’t nearly as easy thirty years ago as it is today with the internet. I think this book will help me write down memories that are worth sharing with the younger generation.
One of the reasons that relating memories can be important is to show how things were done differently in the past. In addition, I grew up in a big city with lots of other children to play with while my children grew up out in the country with few playmates close by. My experiences are not their experiences. Relating some of my memories may help them understand how I came to be the person I am.
When the moon is full and there is a storm coming to the west coast of Norway, the tides can be higher than normal. This is the situation at the moment (Sunday, at 11:30 am).
High water at Vangshylla, Norway, at 11:37 on Sunday, 9th of February 2020
The calculated high water at Vangshylla at 11:42 was for 322 cm, but the registered high water level was 368 cm at 11:40. So there is a difference of 46 cm. The forecast for the next few days is for even higher water levels both on Monday and Tuesday.
Our closest measuring station is at Trondheim, which is on the same fjord, but closer to the coast. There the calculated high water level was 309 cm and the registered high water level was 355 at 11:40, making a difference of 46 cm.
With the wind and the high tide, it isn’t safe to walk out on the molo today. Not much clearance and the waves are breaking over the molo.
On Monday, the expected high water level is 381 cm at Trondheim and on Tuesday it is expected to be 398 cm.
At Vangshylla, the high water level on Monday is expected to be 393 cm and on Tuesday at 412 cm. It is going to be interesting to follow up the next two days when the highest tides are in the middle of the day.
After watching a program from Norwegian television (NRK) called Line fikser maten (Line makes food), I am even more convinced that cutting out meat and fish from our diet is good for both my body and the planet.
I first became aware of the problems caused by the consumption of meat when reading, Diet for a Small Planet, back in the 1970s. The author, Frances Moore Lappé, was concerned that eating meat was not sustainable on our planet and she showed how one could use plant products to supply the protein we humans need to consume. She showed how to combine foods to create good nutrition and give enough protein on a daily basis. She also provided lots of recipes so that one could get started with creating a new healthier diet.
Published by Friends of the Earth and Ballantine Books, New York, 1971. My copy is from the 12th printing in 1974.
Already at that time, I went over to a diet that used proteins from plant products and reduced my intake of meat, fish and poultry. It has since been shown that one doesn’t need to complement foods in the way that Lappé suggested to get adequate protein, though one should still think carefully about which types of foods should be eaten during the day.
In 1980, my husband and I moved to Norway and had very little money to live on. We lived on the coast, so fresh fish was affordable, but meat was not. We rarely ate meat, except for the occasional ground beef. Poultry was also not nearly so common back then and not particularly cheap, at least for our income level. A wide variety of legumes was not available either, so we lived on quite a restricted diet. I never felt that we had poor nutrition though I do remember trying to buy everything on sale, especially canned goods.
Once we started working in Norway, and our income improved we also started eating more meat and poultry. The cost of meat became relatively cheaper and certainly poultry became cheaper and easier to get hold of. Over the last forty years, the availability of a variety of food has improved and imported food has became much more common.
Now we eat a wide variety of legumes, most of which are imported from Asian countries. Though I do prefer to buy vegetables that are grown locally, not everything is in season year round. As an example I was able to buy the first locally produced tomatoes today and they haven’t been available for several months. Much of our fresh produce comes from Spain, Israel or South Africa.
We live in an agricultural area, surrounded by farms. We have an egg farm as one of our nearest neighbors and we walk up there to buy farm fresh eggs. Some of the farms nearby are meat producers, either beef or pork. Potatoes, carrots and other vegetables may come from neighboring communities. But bananas, oranges and grapefruit are still not grown in Norway. However with climate change and the increasing use of greenhouses to produce plants, there may come a change in what is locally grown in the future.
It is always interesting to look back at what one has actually accomplished during a calendar year. My husband writes an annual letter that is sent out electronically to our friends. While writing this letter he asked me what I had made this year. I usually take a picture of each thing I have either sewn or knit, so we went through my pictures and counted up what I had made. It surprised me that I had actually made so many things. Many were gifts for others (such as sweater, shawls, or toques). Some were for our home (such as curtains or place mats) and other things were clothing items for ourselves (such as shirts, socks, or sweaters).
He also put into the letter what changes had been made to the house this year, such as installing a central vacuum cleaner and installing new inside doors. He had been busy too, even though we both looked at all the things that hadn’t been done yet, especially large projects that had been started but not yet finished.
Sometimes we are too busy looking at what we haven’t done instead of looking at what we have done. It is actually the latter that is most important. For quite a few years now I have been writing a diary. I have even started two separate small books where I write down what has been accomplished on knitting projects and sewing projects, as these sorts of projects often go over several days, weeks or months. Using these books I can see how long a project has taken and they help me plan future projects better.
Though there is an occasional day where I don’t do much at all, by writing down what I have actually done, I see that my day has been full of practical, useful things that keep me a healthy person. I also have a chart that I fill out every day where I note which regular activities have been done. Here are some of the things that I think are important for me to do every day.
Working on learning a new language (at the moment Italian) and refreshing my knowledge of French, both using Duolingo (an online language learning website). I have now been working at Duolingo every day for over 1000 days in a row.
Working on my craft projects, either sewing or knitting.
Reading books, either fiction or non-fiction.
Getting exercise, usually by walking, preferably outdoors. When it is dark or the weather is bad, we live in a house where I can walk around in circles indoors.
Other activities that are not daily, but I keep track of are:
housework, such as laundry and cleaning
social activities outside of the house
time spent gardening during that season (basically April to October)
As the start a new year approaches, I realize that I have had a good year in 2019. I have accomplished a lot. I have made things that are visible. I have spent time with others. I am looking forward to another good year in 2020.
In my last two years of high school, I belonged to the library club. This suited me fine. I took my lunch to the back room, where we were usually several girls. This small group, instead of a huge number of people in the school’s lunch room, suited me fine. In my senior year at high school, I got more responsibility for both running the library club and the library itself.
At the time, I decided I would like to become a librarian, which required a bachelor’s degree at university plus one specialized year. So off to UBC to get my bachelor’s degree, eventually focusing on English and foreign languages (French, German and Italian). In my fourth year at university, I was starting to get tired of going to school. It was now my sixteenth year of school. I had planned to take one more year to get my library degree, but then they changed the one year program to two years. That I couldn’t take. So I left UBC with a bachelor’s degree, but no library training.
Fast forward a lot of years. I have moved to Norway and gotten two children. I have become a teacher at a high school, but because my son has English as a mother language, and not a foreign language, he gets his mother as his English teacher. We sit in the library at the elementary school. Often he must just sit and work on lessons preferably without me hovering over him. I start working with the books on the shelves, getting them in order, straightening them. I don’t remember now how it happened, but after a bit I have been asked to look after the school library and it moves into a better, newly built room. Now I not only am a teacher, but a “librarian” for a small elementary school library.
I have no special training, but the public library in our municipality trains me with their computer system and I start working in the main library part time. In addition I look after the library in another elementary school, one day a week. I am officially part of the library staff.
I find that I can take some of the library courses needed for library qualifications as part-time correspondence courses (yes, back in the days when everything was sent by post). I started working on getting my qualifications, course by course.
Through the librarian at the high school I work with, I hear about a part-time library course for those who are already working in libraries. I sign up and continue getting my qualifications. I am enjoying working in several small libraries. I pass my one-year course, but to get the next level of education I must take travel away from home for a year. That I am not willing to do!
My dream of becoming a librarian, though it has come true, in a very small way, takes a turn at this point. Having been a teacher for several years, I make more money being a teacher, than being a librarian. My salary as a teacher is important for my family’s income, so I drop the idea of becoming a qualified librarian. I continue working in two small elementary school libraries until my younger child finishes elementary school and then I quit that job.
A few years pass and the situation at my high school changes. The school now has to buy the textbooks and lend them out to the students. This is a reform that puts a lot of work on the librarian, and he is not willing to do the work. My hearing disability is causing me to have problems with large classes, so the principal of my school suggests that as I have some library training and experience, I could take over the work with the textbooks and let the librarian continue with the other parts of the library work. I agree.
The first few years are difficult. Rebuilding the school takes away the library, which gets packed up into boxes. The unused textbooks are put into a room in the cellar. Though most of the work is at the beginning and end of the school year, there is some work to be done during the rest of the year.
Several years go by. I get a system that sort of works. Mostly I am down in the cellar in an environment that is not very good. I think of it as working in a dungeon. Eventually the library gets built, a lovely open, bright room and I get to work there too. I have been given some other things to do, spending one day a week in the library and teaching only part time.
Then the librarian at the school retires and the job as librarian is advertised. Shall I apply for it? I think carefully through the issue and decide that I would rather be a teacher than a full-time librarian. It has been fun to do library work part-time but I would not like to do it full-time. Teaching is much more rewarding.
At home, we have amassed several thousand books over the years we have been in Norway. Books in English for the children. Textbooks for courses we have taken or given. Fiction for relaxation. Non-fiction to learn more about many subjects. Chaos on the shelves. So I buy a small computer program designed for home libraries, and the work starts at entering all the books we have in the system. This takes several years to complete, but it is nice to have a record on my computer of the books on our shelves. To date we have 3 428 books in the program.
But times have changed. Most of our new reading material is digital, stored somewhere, and I am no longer in charge of the new acquisitions. I have retired from the job as home librarian as well.
