Kindle me softly!

I see them everywhere. On the subway, at work, on trains and in cafe’s. They sit there, doing one of the things I love the most doing. They’re reading. But what is this?? No book?? It’s some kind of tablet. It’s all so confusing. Well, not really 😛 I really do see the practicality of it. It’s smaller than a book and it’s easier to handle on a crowded subway with only one hand free while the other one’s struggling to keep you from falling. It weighs less and doesn’t change no matter how short or long a novel you’re reading.

In spite of all of this positive and practical reasons I just can’t see myself ever getting one. I love technology so I should probably be embracing this but no. I love the feeling of holding a book, flipping the pages and even the weight of it in my purse. I feel somehow lost if I leave home without a book. I’ve tried reading e-books and listening to audio books but it’s just not for me. I need to have those letters on papers. I need to feel the book in my hand. I love how technology makes a lot of things simpler, more handy and even better, but for me there’s nothing technology has come up with that has made books better. To me, reading a book is so special. To be able to escape to different worlds through the pages is pure perfection.

Sorry technology, you lost this round. I’m sure I’ll see a lot more of you though. A lot more…

Insomnia

We’ve all been there, right? You know that you have to sleep. There are few hours left of the night before you have to get up to school or to work. You’re lying in bed, tossing and turning, closing your eyes and trying to sleep. You close your eyes and hope that you’ll fade into the land of dreams, but no can do.
For some reason you are wide awake.
I’n having one of those nights right now. It’s now 4.20 am in this writing moment. I have to get up at around six am and I’ve been trying to sleep since the timer passed one am. About 30 minutes ago I passed the point where I wanted to try any longer and I got up and am mentally prepared for a night without any sleep.
So whats keeping me up at night? I’m not really sure at this moment. Tomorrow is my first day back at work after the Christmas holiday and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. We open the store at seven am which I find just absurd! Who has the need to go out shopping that early??
And of course my body has gotten used to having a few days off work. Being able to completely relax and not having to worry about anything and I’m so not ready to get back to reality just yet.
Luckily I only have two days of work before I have four days off again. My whole body and soul aches for those days! I need a break! I need time to focus my body and mind on the things that really matter!

And to be honest, my job now a days are showing me none of that. The Christmas consumerism is off the charts! People are using insanely amounts of money on gifts that aren’t personal at all. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I’m not saying that it’s true for everyone. I see some costumers who’s thought there gifts through and really want to put smiles on friends/families faces. But there are a lot more of meaningless exchange of money these days, unfortunately.
Maybe I just get extra depressed and negative about all of this because I work in a shop. The one work place where you really see all this and I don’t see all the other things that they do. And maybe I’m just too darn negative because I’m exhausted and didn’t get recharged as much the last few days as I was hoping for. No matter the reason, I’m stuck here in the kitchen wide awake writing about it and imagining how it would be to lie on a beach somewhere warm and quiet. To be able to work on my writing and to have fun with my son and my boyfriend.

Enough with the long face here.. I’m going to dive into my Stephen King book and forget the world around me until my alarm goes of and I have to get ready for work. I’ll put a smile on my face and do what I always do on a bad day; I’ll pretend that it’s the best day ever 🙂

I wish you all a wonderful day and night! And I promise to be in a more positive mood next time my fingers find their way to the keys.

Christmas Craziness

iPads, laptops, phones, cameras ++

Doesn’t it look familiar?

My niece and nephew’s wishlist looks exactly like that. Not one thing on them that I can afford to give them.

And do you know what? I hate giving away money for Christmas! I think it’s impersonal.

I like to give gifts that means something. Something that I’ve thought through and put some effort into.

I remember being little and writing my own wishlist for Christmas. My mom didn’t really have a lot of money and I remember that my brother and me knew that. We usually put one or two expensive thing on our wishlist that we didn’t expect to get, but wishing for other things as well. We did this because we knew how sad it would be for our parents to not be able to give us anything from the list.

And when you think about it, there’s always nicer to get those small things that really means something.

I wished for the same thing on top of my list every birthday and every Christmas for ten years.

I wanted a cuckoo clock. And when I finally got one I almost couldn’t believe it!

Mine looks pretty much like this 🙂

The cuckoo clock has become a part of who I am, and I love it so much! It was worth the ten year wishing wait.

I now work at an electronics store and I see the Christmas craziness on a daily basis. We’ve become spoiled and some people’s expectations for their presents are just beyond anything I’ve ever seen before.

Why are people so obsessed with giving gifts of the same money value? If you think about, aren’t we just swapping money then?

I love giving away homemade presents. Jewelry and accessories are fun to make and fun to get. You’re giving away something unique. Something that everyone else doesn’t have.

The price tag ain’t important really. You have to look at what you can afford and what would make that other person really light up 🙂

Maybe he or she needs something that they haven’t thought of themselves.

So lets drop the Christmas Craziness, slow down and enjoy this joyful time.

Put more thought into your gifts and personalize them into something special.

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

– Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Welcome back Google Maps!

It would be quite the understatement saying that removing Google maps from the iPhone and replacing it with their own map system did not turn out as much of a success as Apple would have hoped for.

It didn’t take lang before we had maps showing oceans where there weren’t, land where there’s ocean and islands that doesn’t exist.

And lets not forget the 3D mapping 😛

So now that Google Maps has reappeared as a free app in the app store, no wonder it’s on top!

Well what can I say?

It’s okay to try to go your own way, but sometimes it’s really not a good idea to try to fix something that ain’t broken.

Welcome back Google Maps! You’ve been dearly missed by iPhone users around the globe!

My (not so new) obsession!

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series for a while now. It’s taken me longer than it usually would to read them, but I’m picking up pace now a days.

I’m on book number five at the moment “Wolves of the Calla”, and these books just keeps on surprising me.

I’ve never read anything that that has made me as confused and as mesmerized as these books.

The mind of Stephen King is nothing short but amazing, and he is one of the authors that inspires my writing the most.

The story of Roland the Gunslinger takes you into different places of the world at different times. It’s a whirlwind of emotions and beautiful imagery.

It’s hard to say anything about the story line without giving too much away, and frankly it’s even hard to know where to start.

But the story revolves around Roland’s search for the Dark Tower, and the people that he meets along the way.

Roland as a person is a complicated person and quite a mystery that unravels a little bit at a time.

If you like western, fantasy and thrillers then here is a series of novels for you.

Let Stephen King take you to Roland’s world and spellbind you!

I highly recommend it!

Never get tired of these videos!

I’m a huge Simon’s Cat fan and I get super excited every time a new video or book comes out!

A new video was posted 4 days ago and I just had to share it 🙂

Enjoy!

Dare to be great!

I hit that send button with a lot of thoughts going through my mind.

Maybe I should have written it differently. Maybe I bragged too much. Or what if I bragged too little?

I would be perfect for this!

I wouldn’t have a clue..

Maybe it was a mistake…

By the time the word “mistake” crossed my mind, I wanted to slap myself.

All the pep talks, the inspirational quotes hanging over my desk, every written word through the year and of course my big life long dream of becoming a writer, and now I just told myself that I wasn’t worth it?

That the opportunity shouldn’t be taken? That I shouldn’t dare to be great?

Obstacles are what you see

when you lose track of your goals.

I never completely lost sight of my goals, but I hid them away. I filled my time with other things, having a piece of my heart watching over my big dream while I tried out the world and looked for ideas, but only found excuses. Too many excuses.

I wasn’t getting any closer to my goals, because I stopped trying to reach for them.

Upon realizing that the fog of confusion and self doubt was what was keeping my dreams away from me, I sat myself down and gave myself the peppiest of all pep talks.

Why shouldn’t I give it my all? Why shouldn’t I take some leaps of faith?

Why shouldn’t I dare to be great?

No one is perfect and no one can ever become perfect, but no one should try to be anything but true to them selves.

I’m a creative person. I’ve known that all my life. But growing up I knew that I wasn’t going to become painter even though I enjoy being creative with a pencil. I wasn’t going to become a singer, even though I often do a heck of a one woman show in the shower. I’m not going to become a poetry reciting astronaut even though I let my thoughts wander into space.

But do you know what? I’m already a writer! I’ve always been a writer. A writer in progress. A writer by heart.

My not-yet-finished novel isn’t in bookshelves around the world, and I haven’t made a decent salary from writing yet, but that doesn’t make me any less of a writer as long as I keep on working, and write from the depths of my heart and the dark places in my soul.

Suddenly my goals were as clear as they have never been. And right then I decided it was time.

I was going to a leap.

No!

I was going to take many!

And now I’m proud of myself for daring to send that email. That application for what might be the perfect job for my writing heart.

I might not get it because of lack of experience in the field. But should I be so lucky to get the opportunity then I would dare to be the greatest at it.

If you find a job that you love

You won’t have to work another day in your life.

Just give me time.. I’ll get there 🙂

And so should you!

Words I couldn’t say…

Have you ever had your mind filled with words for a special person that you just couldn’t get yourself to tell them? Did you write that letter that you never sent? Or maybe you just had the words on your tongue every time you met the person?

I can put a check mark on all of the above, and I don’t think I’d be wrong to guess that most of us can at least agree to one of them.
A late night some weeks ago I watched something emotional on my netflix and I realized that I had a lot I wanted to say to a special person, and I didn’t want to risk not to have said it before it was to late. Because the truth is that all the people around us are just borrowed to us and we have no idea for how long. You could lose someone you love this second, and it might not be anything you can do about it. And to leave things unresolved, and never having the possibility to resolve them has to be the worst.

So I sat down and poured my heart out. I wrote several pages with words that has been hiding deep inside of me for many years. I cried a lot that night, but I went to bed with a tiny smile on my face. Because even though it was hard to write it, it also felt good to finally get it of my chest.
But the job was only half done. I also had to send it, which proved to be harder than I had first thought. It came to be a well traveled letter in the end. I had it in my purse when I went to Bodø, Turkey, Tønsberg and pretty much with me everywhere I went for a month. My purse felt heavier and heavier the longer the letter lingered there, but one day on my way home after picking up my son in kindergarden I found the strength somewhere in me to take it out from my purse and finally mailing it.
Days went and I finally got a text from this person. My hands where sweating and I was afraid to read it, but when I finally did I couldn’t help the little smile on my face and tears in my eyes. The person thanked me for being so honest and promised me a letter in return that I shouldn’t be afraid to read.

It might not turn out this well in all cases, but wouldn’t you rather have told and knowing than to never have told at all?

So today I dare you to say the words you couldn’t say! In a letter, in person or even in the mirror! We all have some things we wish we had said to someone, so why wait?