Lazy friday morning

Tags

Friday, Good life, Tea, Weekend, Work

Honestly it’s not all that lazy, or the morning is slightly lazy, but then I have to be super effective for the rest of the day. I’m working from home today. Which means after dropping Son off in kindergarten I went home, made myself a cup of tea and sat down in the kitchen with a pile of work. I have candles burning, a cup of custom-made (!) black tea and a bit of fruit on the side.

I visited a local tea shop earlier this week looking for a fruity black tea. These dark days require something stronger than green tea to keep me going from morning till night. Unfortunately the only teas that met my requirements were pre-bagged – tea-bags are just not as much fun as loose-weight tea. Part of my daily routine is to find a bag of tea, bring it up to my nose, inhale deeply and truly enjoy the scent, before I turn on the kettle and prepare the cup of tea. You can’t do that with a tea-bag… The shopkeeper soon realised that a carton of peach flavoured black tea would not make me happy, no matter how good the quality of the tea was. Lucky for me he still knew what to do to keep me coming back to the shop: he found my favourite plain black tea among the number of huge jars sitting on a table in the middle of the shop. He then lead me to the other side of the table where I sniffed out my favourite fruit tea. Then he mixed the two, sending me home with my own blend. I think I have to go back and find the perfect blend for every mood and every need! The tea I came home with is a black tea with passionfruit (there must be citrus in it as well). A perfect round smooth taste from the perfect black tea, and a shock of vibrant fruit flavours from the large pieces of dried fruit. Perfect!

As you can see I’m having the perfect start to the weekend (all I need now is an increase of songs in my spotify playlist – I need writing-friendly, good-spirited music that’s perfect for efficient days in front of my Mac. Do you have any songs you could recommend?). I hope you’re having a wonderful Friday and that your weekend will be a blast 🙂

All work and no play?

Tags

Work

Are you working long days at the office. Sun is shining outside but you’re sitting inside watching the world go by outside? Well, consider yourself lucky. You’re not wearing this:

We came by this poor bugger in the streets of Cracow, Poland. 25 degrees celcius, high humidity and plenty of tourists. I’m glad I’m not in his shoes, or sandals that is..

Staying at home with babies

Tags

Babies, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave, Stay at Home, Work

Here in Norway we have one of the greatest systems when it comes to maternity/paternity leave. Yes, paternity leave is a word here. One part of the leave parents are given is given to dad and dad alone. A smaller part, actually, is given to mom and a third part is left for the parents to share. How you share this is up to each and every couple. The parents are given 46 weeks of leave with 100 percent of their income covered (only one parent at the time, of course) or 56 weeks, with 80 percent of the income covered. The income covered is that of the parent who chooses to stay at home. And there are rules for how much that comes to depending on how much you’ve worked the past year before having the baby. Three weeks before the baby is due and six weeks after it is born, is given to mum. Dad usually get two weeks off after the baby is born, but where he works determines if those weeks are paid or not. Ten weeks of the leave is set to dad, and he can take those weeks off however and whenever he want, before the child is three years old. The parents can then freely distribute the rest of the weeks among themselves. This means that dad is given a larger part of the leave than mom, but in real life mom usually ends up with most of the shared quota.

There have been discussions lately of changing the division of the leave between the two parents. I can’t be bothered to translate this unless someone is truly interested. If you are I will have this post in English as well, if not, then just see this post as me bragging about the welfare system in Norway. 😉

Monday view

Tags

Nature, Office, View, Work

I’m sitting in my office, freezing. The room just won’t heat up today… But well, that’s also all I have to complain about. And who am I to complain? Look at this view I have from my office window.  That’s a biologic farm in the background, so we have a hens running around here all day and roosters to tell us when to stop daydreaming and get back to work. Deer visit almost daily and are a welcomed distraction. Now I need to put the kettle on again and make myself a cup of tea.

Hope you’re all enjoying your day!

Jeg sitter på kontoret og fryser! Rommet vil bare ikke bli varmt i dag… Men, men, jeg har egentlig ikke mye å klare over. Sjekk ut den utsikta jeg har fra hvor jeg sitter. Kontorbygget ligger rett ved en økologisk gård og en skog, så her har vi høns som springer rundt, og en haner som galer for å få oss tilbake til arbeidet når dagdrømmene tar over. Vi har også rådyr som nesten daglig tar seg en spasertur rett utenfor vinduet, en distraksjon som alltid er hjertlig velkommen. Nå må jeg sette på vannkokeren så jeg kan få meg en kopp varm te.

Håper dere alle har en fortreffelig mandag 😀