My New Norwegian Home

Finally. The day has come where I have met an American in Norway. The fact that she is an American the same age as me doesn't really matter. It's nice to consult in a friend, no matter where they are from. A person is a person. BUT of course it is nice to speak with someone who has the same type of background and culture as you as well as trying to learn Norwegian with having the same mother tongue. Although she is from busy, high trafficked Los Angeles, California and I am from back woods, rural Kentucky (two different cultures right there) it's very interesting comparing the two states and backgrounds, yet still having the same nationality and other things in common. She comes from a state where marijuana can be prescribed for tons of medical issues and I come from a place which was a dry county and it was illegal to even buy or sell alcohol until a recent vote 2 weeks ago (although Kentucky is one of the largest whiskey and bourbon makers in the world!). I come fro...

There are a million things I could update on, but I'll just start with the very present. We're home! All 3 of us! After delays, traffic jams, and not knowing where to pick up my cat after our long flight after 30 hours of traveling, we have made it to our home. :-) I am awaiting 3 more boxes I shipped while in America, but I've unpacked the other 15 and have now made my place in my new home and of course we do need a few more shopping trips as my husband has been a bachelor for 29 years and we are lacking things like extra clothes hangers and shelves. Stella (my cat) is now settling in quite well. We of course knew this trip would be a lot of stress on her and we were worried about this, but she did just fine. I hope we've made up to her by giving her a nice play room. I'll be making a thank you card for her vet soon as she and the staff at our former clinic have been very supportive and had a major headache of trying to get paperwork to this place and that ...

And we left off with waiting... Our lives went back to "normal" and he went back to his work and friends and family and I went back to school and work and family. This time in full wedding planning mode. We finished up our pre-marriage counseling, we picked out this and that and the majority of our wedding planning was finished during this time. Days passed and I continuously checked my vacation approval status only to be disappointed every time, so I tried to ignore it rather than check it every day. I began to ship a lot of boxes to him of my own things. I've only discovered from all of this I have a severe clothes addiction because that's mainly what the boxes I've sent consist of. To help pass the time by, I tried my hand at fixing Norwegian meals and I also welcomed my Christmas break from school, so I studied quite a bit of Norwegian. While I did this, he called this place and that place with questions that I had as well as his own questions and con...

Ah, so picking up from where I left off… counting down the days… We soon decided on this next trip in order to be a normal couple we needed to do a proper proposal. So we ordered our engagement rings. I ordered his and he ordered mine. Everything in our relationship has been planned and documented, so there are no surprises and that has included engagement as well. During this harsh waiting period one Saturday night (Saturday has and probably always will be our night for quality time. It’s the night we sit and talk, hang out, watch movies or TV shows, play games, whatever) he thought it would be fun to look for tips on how to be more of a normal couple in long distance relationships. Loving from a Distance <--- here’s the site we visited Now, being 6 time zones away is quite difficult, but he has always been a bit difficult with sleep and when we started our relationship he suggested if anyone screws their sleep up it would be him as I have school and a changing wor...

Continuing from the last post…. I think I'll break this down into 3 parts and this will probably be my only post this week due to being crushed with papers for school. So for now, here's a short one. First to update on a few things: Wedding: Just a few more things to wrap blue ribbon around and I'm done for now, Arild has made our CD  for the walking down the aisle song as well as another CD for background noise at the reception. Arild's wedding band came in and so far so good we just hope it fits him! Moving: Stella has one ticket bought now, but I have to contact the PetSafe agency again and purchase her other ticket from New York to Oslo. There's been so much calling this place and that place and trying to get everything set up so we have no mistakes later I really can't keep up with everything. I do go on May 31st to sign up for my language classes!!! :-) Apparently this requires testing for placement. Sounds like fun! I'm also down to my last...

I just have to say, I'm getting a few e-mails from my readers and it's a very bizarre moment for me to realize I'm openly writing about the craziest thing I've ever decided to do with my life and receive e-mails from other people in similar situations. I greatly enjoy talking to others in situations like mine! It's very hopeful and relieving! I understand when people read blogs like mine, this is the sort of thing they're looking for. I've purposely made this particular blog extremely personal just for this matter. I guess I'll have to start off by saying I would never jump out of a plane without a parachute. I've done research on Norway and have spent countless hours talking to Arild. Being a high-anxiety person in general, I think this is a crazy crazy thing to do, but I am so happy and so excited to be able to experience this! I'm often asked if I'm scared doing this. I'm not. Not at all. I'm scared of falling off the bed in my s...