Skip to main content

Eating mango in the sunshine.

Yes, you can get a hold of mangos in Norway too, although they cannot be compared to the freshly picked, sweet mangos of Fortaleza. Still, being able to sit out on the veranda in the blazing sunshine eating a mango is a bit of a novelty! The gorgeous weather we’ve been blessed with this week has made me remember Fortaleza many times. I was definitely created for warmer climates.

Yesterday we spent the day at our cottage on the beach (yes, it’s not by the beach, but on the beach. Built on rock though, as we all know what happens to a house built on sand when the storms come.) It was great to just relax in the sunshine, work on my tan, and read a book (I read ”The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kid). Even with the 25-26 degrees (it must have been that or more!!), I didn’t venture into the sea; 16 degrees Celsius is still cold, no matter how hard you try to convince me of how refreshing it is!

There was also a kite-festival on the beach. Not kite-surfing (although I spotted one of those the other week also; all alone, battling the strong waves of the North Sea), but your traditional hold-onto-strings-and-fly-them-in-the-air kites. Shame there wasn’t any wind. I think I saw a total of 9 kites, which is quite a lot, but not considering it’s the yearly kite festival. I don’t think it spoiled the day of the hundreds who had come out to the beach though. They spread out on the beach (which made me glad to be able to stick to the cottage veranda and not have to be a part of having to find a vacant spot for my towel, not to mention the infamous sand problem), and quite a few of them seemed to spend large amounts of time in the crystal clear water (bringing the illusion that it was warmer than it was).

Tomorrow the forecast is cooler weather, but I do hope they’re wrong.


Popular posts from this blog

Packing...again.

I just folded the last load of laundry and I’m almost packed. Off to the airport at 5am tomorrow morning, heading off to Amsterdam. I’m excited, a bit nervous, and wondering what it’ll be like. It’s been a good week at home with lots of quality time with family, especially the little nieces and nephew. I’m glad I’ll see them in April again. Well, not much to write and packing to be done and a bit of sleep would probably be a good idea too. Next time I write it’ll be from Amsterdam....
Read more

Single-tasking September: The art of single-tasking.

To change habits and ways of life, the motivation for change has to be strong, and the benefits outweigh the effort it takes to make the change.  For so long it’s seemed like the ability to multitask has been regarded as a great skill, but is it really a good thing? Recovering from burn-out, one of the effects I noticed was that it was harder to concentrate, and especially tricky trying to focus on many things at once. I’d try to multitask, only to realise that all tasks suffered from lack of capacity to complete any one of them. The challenge is that the habit of always doing many things at once goes deep, and when I tried to focus on just one thing, I found that it was actually really difficult.  As I did a little google search on the matter, I found it seems like multitasking isn’t as healthy as once thought, and that it doesn’t help productivity. Some even referred to it as “switch tasking”, in the sense that the brain isn’t doing many things at once, but shifting rapidly...
Read more

Walking through December: overcoming the challenge of language.

I just got done leading a Bible study in Spanish without a translation back-up, and it went really well. I am amazed at what we are actually able to do when we have no other option. It wasn’t a flawless flow of communication (that would have been a miracle), but together we figured out what I wanted to say. And I think it was good. I was blessed and they seemed blessed as well. The girls just left and I am sat here in my living room with the candles lit. It’s windy and rainy outside, and I am smiling. Happy. Not because I overcame the language challenge, but happy because of yet another beautiful time of bringing more of Jesus to the girls in our Bible study. I am thankful for the privilege of knowing them and standing with them in their journeys of knowing Jesus. And thankful that even when language is shaky, love is stronger and is communicated beyond mere words.
Read more