mandag 30. januar 2017

Menu Plan Monday Week 5

It's yet another Monday and thanks to the blogger at I'm an Organizing Junkie, here comes yet another Menu Plan Monday post. I've found out that writing these menu plans has helped me a lot in having a bit of circulation, not only when it comes to the dinner ideas themselves, but also in order to have a bit of circulation in my freezer, fridge and cupboard when it comes to food related items.

Here is my menu plan for this week.
Monday; Vegetarian burgers
Tuesday; Spaghetti Bolognes
Wednesday; Leftovers from Tuesday
Thursday; Tortelloni
Friday; Chili Con Carne
Saturday; Leftovers from Friday
Sunday; Aloo Mutter

søndag 29. januar 2017

Weekly Happiness Week 4

It's the end of yet another week and here is a few of the things that put a smile on my face lately.

That the cat which was often outside my high school a little over 10 years ago is still alive

Finally deciding on what topic I will write about in my BA thesis
Saving about $75 on some items I purchased this week
That A Month of Letters start next week

lørdag 28. januar 2017

Weekend Cooking; Round Up of Vegetarian Comfort Food Recipes

It's still technically winter and there has been moments when I really wanted to hibernate with some good comfort food instead of being social being at a lecture or do home work. Due to the desire to hibernate, I figured out I could write a round up of vegetarian comfort food recipes, as I guessed I'm not the only one in need of some yummy food. The reason I chose vegetarian comfort food is basically because I'm trying to reduce eating meat, while also showing that it is still possible to eat some yummy comfort food while being vegetarian.

Stock photo from Pexels

So anyway, here's the list of recipes and I hope you will get inspired as I've listed a bit of variety.

Asian-Inspired

Slow Cooker

Sandwiches Etc

Various Recipes

tirsdag 24. januar 2017

Making a Home; Round Up of Cold and Flu Remedies

It is certainly cold and flu season at the moment, so I wanted to share with you a little round up of cold and flu remedies. I might add that if you are really ill with high fever and all, I would probably recommend you a visit to your doctor and not use this as a substitute, but rather as an additional aid considering that I'm not a medical doctor (I do not want to kill my blog readers).

Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup
Recovery Soup
Flu Buster Vegetable Soup
Honey Citrus Syrups
Cinnamon Milk

Even though I had a comment about getting the aid of a doctor if you are really sick, I do believe in the healing powers of natural ingredients (and other things, like taking a walk or creativity), but it all depends on the circumstances. Somtimes, the natural stuff is enough, but other times we probably need chemical medicines in order to get well - it's not like I recommend cancer patients to go on an all natural cure. I do believe in using common sense.

(Found at Pexels)

mandag 23. januar 2017

Menu Plan Monday Week 4

New week and therefore time for a new Menu Plan Monday post, thanks to Laura at I'm An Organizing Junkie. As usual I'm in the mood for quick and easy dinners as I'm often busy thanks to university, esp. now since it's my last term and I'm going to write my BA thesis, but I'll manage.

Here's my menu plan for this week.
Monday; Meat Soup
Tuesday; Fish Gratin
Wednesday; Swedish Meatballs
Thursday; Fish Gratin
Friday; Pasta with Cheese Sauce
Saturday; Chicken Tikka Masala
Sunday; Leftovers from Saturday

Do you have a weekly menu plan, and if so, what's your plan for this week?

Stock photo from Pexels.

søndag 22. januar 2017

Weekly Happiness Week 3

(Contains affiliate links/ads)

We're already over halfway through January, crazy isn't it? Well, nevertheless, here is a few things that made me smile this week.

Finally owning a French press for making coffee
Recieving a gift card with NOK 100 when I spent over NOK 300 at the store where I purchased the French press (it's always nice with a bit of extra cash, esp. while being a student)

lørdag 21. januar 2017

Weekend Cooking; Norwegian Pancakes

I'm one of those people who loves quick and easy dinners, preferably budget friendly as well, as I'm a student (but it doesn't hurt to think about food budget in general, regardless of income). One of my go-to dinners are Norwegian pancakes as I mainly just need a few staples to make it.


Norwegian Pancakes
(serves 2)
4 dl all purpose flour
6 dl milk
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Butter, for greasing the pan

Put all the pancake ingredients in a bowl and combine until a smooth batter. Let the batter rest for at least 10 minutes before using it.

Melt around 1 tablespoon butter in the pan and add around one soup-ladle full of batter in the pan, and rotate the pan so the batter spread out properly. Flip the pancake when you see it's turning a bit brown/golden underneath, or the top seems a bit more "solid" (in lack of better explanations). Cook the other side until it has gotten a littl bit of colour and remove the pancake from the pan. Repeat process until the batter is used up. Only add more butter to the pan when you see it's needed. Norwegian pancakes are a lot thinner than the American pancakes, so don't panic because you think the batter is liquidy or the pancakes a bit thin.

A lot of people in Norway use blueberry jam or bacon as a condiment to pancakes, so feel free to pick and choose to your liking.

tirsdag 17. januar 2017

Making a Home; Decluttering

(Contains affiliatelinks/ads.)

New year, new you? Or at least do a declutter in your apartment/house? I can admit that I probably need to do a bit of declutting myself in various areas, as living in a 45 square meter apartment doesn't leave room for having too much on the floor. I'll give you some tips from my own experience, and I'll also give you ideas for further reading as I am by no means an expert.

My number one rule is finish what you start. It might seem obvious to some of you, but it can potentially happen that some will stop midway as it's too daunting, too little time or whatever, but the thing is, if you don't finish, how on Earth can one expect it to be tidy?

If you are doing a big-scale decluttering, have a few trash bags and carboard boxes ready for the stuff that you want to throw away or donate. It makes things so much easier when the supplies are ready at hand, so you don't need to have a huge donate pile that you can't get rid of because you didn't have a box to keep it in. I just quickly want to refer to the previous tip - if you are going to donate stuff (or throw stuff away) get it done as quickly as you can, so it doesn't stay longer than needed in your place,

Have some structure while doing the decluttering; January Purge Checklist30 Days of Decluttering and 11 Things to Throw Away could potentially guide you a bit. Do thing by category instead of by location, and for that matter, get inspiration from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up : The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, like ask yourself if the items spark joy and if they don't, throw them away. Alright, I'm not advising you to throw away your medicines, as it will not spark joy to get a crappy health due to lack of needed medicines. If you're interested in the Konmari method, feel free to check out the book, plus this checklist printable. I have read the book by Marie Kondo and I do recommend it, though I'm not going to do EVERYTHING said in the book.

Lastly I wanted to share with you this link, because of the Simple Steps to Stary Organized image that shows 10 tips that I found a bit useful.

Do you have any plans on doing some decluttering or do you have any tips?

Declutter and Organize

mandag 16. januar 2017

Menu Plan Monday Week 3

New week and time for a new Menu Plan Monday post, thanks to the blogger at I'm an Organizing Junkie. As usual I'm trying to have relatively easy and/or quick dinners as I'm at university. It's not always easy to come up with ideas, but at the moment I'm trying to get rid of a few items in my pantry, fridge and so on.

Monday; Fish Soup
Tuesday; Norwegian Pancakes
Wednesday; Swedish Meatballs
Thursday; Pasta with Cheese Sauce
Friday; Pollock with Mashed Potatoes
Saturday; Thai Red Curry Soup
Sunday; Pollock with Mashed Potatoes

Stock photo from Pexels

søndag 15. januar 2017

Weekly Happiness Week 2

In the hectic thing called life, it is important to be happy about those small things in life. Here is a few things that put a smile on my face lately.

Drinking coffee and reading poetry at a local café

This video about a senior dog walker
This video about a cuddly cat
Meeting a friend for coffee
Being back again on campus with lectures
The smile on the face of a friend when she recieved a book I had two copies of

lørdag 14. januar 2017

Weekend Cooking; Vegetarian Sheperd's Pie

Sometimes I'm in need of comfort food, esp. during the cold months of the year. As I had some potatoes I wanted to use and I really love mashed potatoes (I'm one of those who can be content eating mashed potatoes straight out of the pot if I get the chance, am I the only one doing that?), I decided to make my version of Sheperd's Pie.

Sheperd's Pie
For the filling;
About 5 sping onions, chopped
250 g sliced mushrooms
4 dl mix of sweet corn, peas and carrots in equal size (in Norway you can buy a frozen blend called "Amerikansk blanding)
1 small can of tomato puré
4 dl stock
Salt and pepper
Garlic
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter

For the mashed potatoes;
Roughly 750-800g potatoes
Milk
Butter
Salt and pepper
Parsley and/or chives, chopped

Directions;
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Boil the potatoes with a bit of salt until tender, add butter, milk and other seasonings and mash the potatoes. Add a bit more milk if needed.

In a pan, add butter, mushrooms and spring onions. When the mushrooms and onions are tender, add the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer until the potatoes are tender and you've made the mashed potatoes.

In an ovenproof dish, add first the veggie filling and then spread the mashed potatoes on top. Place the ovenproof dish in the pre-heated oven for roughly 20 minutes.

onsdag 11. januar 2017

My Dream Winter Vacation

(Contains affiliate links)

Even though I'm one of those who is a champion when it comes to falling while trying to ski (yeah, not ALL Norwegians are born with skis on their legs, I can assure you that), my dream winter vacation actually involves being near the mountains, potentially with snow. Why? Mainly due to the fact that were I live in Norway, we basically got more of a grey slush thing going on, which might turn into ice and then into slush and then back into ice before it melts completely, so I would really love to be at a place where the snow actually stays on the ground for more than a mere few days before turning into a slushy-icy nightmare.

So, just to inspire you guys, and myself a bit, here is a few places in United States, Canada, Switzerland and Germany I would love to rent through AirBnB.

What is your dream winter vacation? Do you prefer someplace warm or cold?




Mountain view studio, dry sauna!


Hailey, Idaho, USA
Located 5 miles outside of Hailey off a dirt road on 20 acres, this cabin is separate from the main house. Secluded, away from town. Private, private, private! Infra-red sauna in your over-sized b...


Nizhoni Hogan


Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah, USA
A Historic Navajo Traditional Earth and Log Cabin that Navajo have used for ceremony and family. The experience is for most westerner's basic, rustic, or a lot like camping but you experience the w...


Beautiful Mountain Condo with Pool


Harvie Heights, Alberta, Canada
This Beautiful condo is only 10 minutes from Banff and 2 minutes from Canmore! With a Pool! Wifi! Hottub! Hiking, Mountain biking, workout room! Fireplace! Full kitchen! 3 Beds, washer and dryer!Ca...


North Yellowstone Mountain Cabin


Gardiner, Montana, USA
Enjoy this 1,200 square foot cabin located in Jardine, an old mining town just 5 miles (10 minutes) from Gardiner and the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park's Roosevelt Arch. The cabin has...



Cozy holiday flat in 16th cen. home


Montreux, Vaud, Sveits
Lovely cozy 2 1/2 room holiday apartment, 55 m2 on two floors in 16th cent. family home in the Montreux area. Separate entrance. Splendid view on the lake and Alps. Access garden, grill, outdoor f...


Holiday @ Bad Hindelang


Bad Hindelang, BY, Tyskland
Spacious and comfortable flat in the quiet location in the middle of hiking and skiing region. With the Bad Hindelang PLUS electronic guest card you can enjoy free recreational activities and many...


Breitenberg*** inkl. SKIPÄSSE


Bad Hindelang, Bayern, Tyskland
Unser Breitenberg*** im Haus Valentins Bergblick liegt auf 1000m, hat 70 m² Raum für 3 -4 Gäste (für die 4. Person mit Beistellbett) ,Garten & fantastischen Blick in die Allgäuer Alpen. INKLUSIVE...

tirsdag 10. januar 2017

Making a Home; How To Save Money on Groceries

We all need food in order to survive, and at least here in Norway, groceries can be a bit of a money drain, esp. since a lot of food is thrown in the waste bin because of expiration dates and similar. So I wanted to share with you a few tricks to save a bit of cash on the infamous groceries. I might add that this is solutions that work for me, but I can't guarantee that they will work for everyone.

Trick number one; only purchase stuff that you actually need. It might seem like a no-brainer, but sometimes the most obvious stuff is worth repeating.

Trick number two; have a weekly menu plan. Not sure what to make? You could have a couple of themes throughout the week, like Meatless Monday, Soup Day etc, ask the rest of the family what they like, take a look at Pintest and/or favourite food blogs  etc.

Trick number three; write a shopping list and stick to it. You end up buying everything you need for your dinners, and you are less tempted to buy random stuff.

Trick number four; this might seem counterintuitive when it comes to the last trick, but some grocery stores, at least where I live, have items marked half down if they are close to the expiration dates. If you come across something that is marked down, have trick number one in mind - only purchase what you need and what you actually will use.

Trick number five; use coupons, in-store reward cards and discounts/sales for that they're worth. I may not be an extreme couponer, but I have managed to save everthing from $5 to $20 just by being strategic and plan a bit. I always check the local ads every Sunday for a couple of supermarkets in case they have anything that I need on discount and it has helped my grocery budget a bit.

It might seem like I have strategies that involves "a lot" of planning, but when you get into it, it doesn't take that long (or at least doesn't need to).


søndag 8. januar 2017

Weekly Happiness Week 1

It's already the end of the first week in January and I feel that it is a bit surreal. Nevertheless, here is a few of the things that put a smile on my face this week.

My little buddy testing out the new sheepskin throw I purchased at the Etsy store Trending Slippers.

Make Sheperd's Pie
Dye my hair red
Have a coffee at Blue Bird Coffee Bar
Planning a "bookshopping date" with a friend from university

fredag 6. januar 2017

Friday Finds; Keeping Warm

Since it is still winter, I just wanted to share a few fashion finds to keep you warm during these cold months.

What is your favourite piece of clothing or accessory to wear/use in order to keep warm?

Keeping Warm

onsdag 4. januar 2017

My Goals and Resolutions for 2017

Considering it is a new year, I wanted to set myself some goals that I will try to accomplish through the year. Some of the goals might be bigger, some of them might be smaller. Luckily not all goals have to be BIG in order to count. In the end, it is often the small accomplishments that count.


My goals for 2017 are these;
  • Shopping detox - don't buy anything unless I actually need it (aka the end of mindless shopping and the "oh, that looks cute, I'll buy it")
  • Create and maintain a budget
  • Finish my BA degree, majoring in English language and literature
  • Do a course at Coursera
  • Get a job
  • Write a novel
  • Write at least 8 posts a month at Add Norwegian Lifestyle
  • Start taking walks at a regular basis
  • Move towards being a pescetarian/flexitarian

tirsdag 3. januar 2017

Making a Home; How am I Getting Organized This Year?

Many of us needs to be a bit organized for whatever reason. I'm no different, as I'm a university student, whether it's lectures, studying, revising and don't forget all the "general stuff" what I need to do, regardless of studies, like grocery shopping and laundry. Due to the fact that I live on my own, I basically need to be a bit organized in order to get everything done and I wanted to share with you my strategies.

Strategy Number One;
Writing everything down in my day planner. Since my dayplanner has one page for each day (except Saturdays and Sundays), I divide the sheet into two main sections; university stuff and private stuff. Then I divide those two sections into two - stuff that needs to be done at a specific time, like attending a 12.15 lecture and stuff with a somewhat "fluid" time, like doing the infamous laundry. I'm one of those that write down whatever I need to do that specific date, whether it is that meeting with my supervisor, do some grocery shopping (I might add what store, depending on if I want to use something on sale/discount), e-mails to be written and all other errands and what-not that needs to be dealth with that day. I do cross things out with a highlighter as soon as it's done, and if it is something that I haven't done that day when I go to bed, I transfer it to tomorrow, or another suitable day (that only applies for those fluid stuff; it's not like I can transfer a ditched class to another day of the week).

Strategy Number Two;
Write a menu plan for each week. You might have noticed a few Menu Plan Monday Posts at this blog, and it does help me in being a bit organized when it comes to dinner so I don't end up eating noodles or whatever for four days straight. It also helps to circulate the foods that I have in my fridge and pantry, so there is lesser chance of thowing stuff away because it has gone bad.

Strategy Number Three;
It is in a sense linked to both the previous ones, but writing lists can be helpful in general, especially if you are a list-lover like me. I can admit that I do get a certain kick when it comes to crossing stuff off a list, feel free to laugh.

In a little while I am going to write a post on how to save a few quid on grocery shopping, so feel free to check back in a week or two. Yes, it does involve writing lists (shocker, I know *add irony*).

mandag 2. januar 2017

Menu Plan Monday Week 1

Yay, time for the first Menu Plan Monday for 2017, thanks to the sweet blogger at I'm An Organizing Junkie. I hope that everyone had a nice New Year's Eve and is ready to tackle 2017.

Here is my menu plan for the first week of 2017.
Monday; Norwegian Pancakes
Tuesday; Indian Fish Curry
Wednsday; Leftovers from Tuesday
Thursday; Norwegian Pancakes
Friday; Chicken Tandoori
Saturday; Leftovers from Friday
Sunday; Vegetarian Sheperd's Pie

Do you have a weekly menu plan? If so, what's your plan for this week?

søndag 1. januar 2017

Weekly Happiness Week 52

Due to the chaos with both final exams and Christmas right afterwards I struggled to find enough time to write blog posts for a while, apart from the ones that was already planned and written. Now, with a new year (gosh, where did the time go?), I figured out I wanted to get back on track. To start the new year in a positive way, here is some of the things that put a smile on my face recently.

My December book haul

My sweet little buddy who loves to cuddle

Coffee at a local café

I ordered the crime novel "The Iron Ghost" and the coffee specially made for that release online on Dec 26th, and the day afterwards it arrived in my mailbox in a pretty gift bag, due to the fact that the author lives nearby (that is what you call speedy delivery and good customer service)

Shopping at a pop-up store for a local publisher

Dogsitting my father's Leonberger

Celebrating Christmas with my grandparents
The Christmas gifts I recieved
Getting C on both of my final exams this term
Drinking Prosecco at New Year's Eve

And plenty of other stuff.

What has put a smile on your face lately?