Lemon Cupcakes?

Hmm... me and baking. Not a good combo!

Okay the taste is amazing, but they turned out looking like this:

Not perfectly round (I don't have a muffin tray), the frosting for sure don't look as artistic as Alicia's (I think I used too much lemon juice, the icing was way too soft), and would definitely not show them off at work (what would they think about me?).

I'm just happy they taste amazing, and I now just need a muffin tray, less lemon juice and another try, but not right now, because for now its weekend!

My weekend started early

It Friday morning... okay its almost 11, but its morning for me. I slept in late, just because I could, and you know the best thing about it? Well the alarm went off at 5.15 at I didn't have to get up, I could just kick my husband out of bed, turnover and go back to sleep:)

I must have the best boss ever. Last week we were going through the work plans, and we needed someone to close the department yesterday, due to vacations. I figured I was about my time to take an extra shift, since the others have taken some extras and I haven't. So I offered to take an extra shift yesterday, and he offered that I could take today off instead, yeah... I was suppose to work from 7.30 till 16.00 yesterday, but stay till 21.00. So after working from 7.30-21.00 both Wednesday and Thursday I was a bit tired, so sleeping in was okay.

Now I'm going to try to bake these cool lemon cupcakes from The Red Deer, don't they just look delicious? Well they might not look so good after I give them a try, or they might even not taste that good, because I haven't been able to find almond meal anywhere, so I'm replacing that with regular flour... by now you probably know that I'm not a great cook, but these just looked so good that I had to give it at try.

I have a confession...

I have a confession to make, I'm for sure not proud of it, but here it comes... I have become addicted to this season of the Danish "Paradise Hotel". I have never seen a whole season of it before, since I found it ridiculous and brain-dead. Let's face it, its still ridiculous and brain-dead, but these contestants just beat all others before them. Their comments are so incredibly stupid that I just have to laugh. There is especially this one girl, she is trying to use all these idioms, but haven't learned either the meaning of them or the idiom itself. When talking about one of the other girls she said "she is so stupid, and has to leave, that can only go to fast", hmm I thought something like that could only go to slow... when asked if it wasn't a bit early she had had sex after 3 days at the hotel, she answered "we are now in 2010, it would have been different in 2002 that was another season".

via www.tv3.dk

Anyways all these stupid comments have me glued to the TV every night at 22.00. I have never been addicted to a reality show like that before. Well I have watched pretty much every episode of survivor the last 10 seasons (didn't watch the 1st season, due to living in the USA at the time). But then again that show is on once a week, and not 4 nights a week. So I have a prayer for the TV station, that next year please don't cast such brain-dead people for Paradise Hotel! I can't keep spending 4 nights a week glued to the TV. Even worse... my husband have almost become as addicted as I have, I swear that he hates these reality shows more than anyone. But not this season... I guess that must be a success story for the TV station, but not for us.

The Winter Olympics

Well the Winter Olympics is pretty much all that's on TV, but somehow it just haven't caught my interest as much as the Summer Olympics usually does. There could be several reasons, the main reason could be we only have 18 contestants from Denmark competing in 7 disciplines. Lets just face it Denmark are not good at the winter sports. Our biggest hope for a medal, I believe is the women's curling team, and they have lost 3 out of 4 games so far. Denmark has only got 1 medal ever in the Winter Olympics, and that was in Nagano in 1998, where the women's curling team won silver (they lost to Canada in the final). Before the Olympics in 1998 only few people in Denmark knew what curling was. But the women kept winning games, and people started getting up in the middle off the night to watch their games. That is probably another reason I'm not so caught up with the Winter Olympics, the time difference just don't go that well with me, and I can check the results online instead of watching the reruns during daytime.

The other morning on the morning show, they had a journalist showing Canadians pictures of different Danes, in order for them to point out the athlete. That didn't go well, they thought our Prime Minister, The Queen and the Crown Princess looked more athletic than our guy competing in Alpine skiing. So he figured if the Team in 2014 looked something like the pictures below, we might have a chance for medals...

That's our Prime Minister in the middle, and he should be our big hope? via www.team-rynkeby.dk

And the Queen on skis, she is turning 70 in April, doubt there is much luck there for a medal in 2014 via www.tv2.dk

The journalist had the next day bought a lot of Canadian gear and went to watch the hockey game between Canada and Sweden, and afterwards announced that he had converted, and had become Canadian... Go Canada:)

I'm going to Berlin

Saturday night some friends came over, and we had a few glasses of wine, okay maybe a few bottles... but who says nothing good comes from drinking? We decided that the 4 of us would go to Berlin, Germany during Easter. Two years ago we went to Prague, Czech Republic during Easter with the same friends, and had a blast. The only reason we didn't go anywhere last Easter was because we just got married the week before Easter.

My husband and I have talked about going to Berlin for quite some years now, but just never got around to it, but hey its only like 600 km from Esbjerg to Berlin, so it will take about 6 hours to drive there. So we will be leaving early on Maundy Thursday, and have 3 nights in Berlin. I can't wait to see this...

The Brandenburger Gate

Or seeing the TV tower, maybe eating lunch at the top:)

And I can't wait to visit some of all the cafes and great restaurants in Berlin

All pictures via http://www.tgt.dk/

She's got mail

Remember I entered the book swap over at Kateigh from poprocks, and now Marchelle have received my book. I send her a book with 14 fairy tales off a Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen. He lived from 1805-1875, so his fairy tales are quite old, but you can learn so much from them. As I grew up my parents read the fairy tales for me at bedtime, during high school we had to analyse the fairy tales, when I went to the USA as an Au Pair I brought over the fairy tales for the kids... somehow these fairy tales seem to follow me all through life, as they probably do for a lot of Danes. So when I was entering the book swap I first had a hard time deciding on a book, but it all came down to what book I could get in English which also had some meaning as to why I had chosen it. Looking around in several bookstores, and the suddenly it was so obvious, and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought about it before. Usually I don't read books like that, I'm more into biographies, John Grisham books, or well just books about things that actually could happen in real life, not stories about witches, dragons or talking dogs. I'm probably one of the last people in the world that haven't read Harry Potter or seen the movies, somehow that just ain't me, but one day I might try it...

The best thing with the book swap is that Marchelle thought that it was a perfectly chosen book, and she loves fairy tales, so how lucky can you be...

Hans Christian Andersen via 02varvara

We're keeping warm...

It's winter and its cold, just hoping spring will come soon... but the outlook is not too good, it will keep freezing for the next week, and maybe more snow over the weekend... but we are keeping warm. We = the cats and me, my husband aren't home tonight he's gone bowling with his colleagues.

So Gustav, Gilbert and I are enjoying ourselves, they are keeping warm with their fur and some treats, and me with my home knitted (by myself) socks and warm coffee:)

Gustav and Gilbert with their treats

How are you keeping warm during this cold cold winter?

What a great start...

This week is gonna be a good one, I can just feel it. And that is despite the fact I'm working all day Friday (my husbands birthday) and all day Saturday.

Starting a new job in a new department is the best I have done in a long time, going to work in the morning, without any hope of seeing the sun, and hearing on the radio that the snow is continuing for a while. But how can you not be happy seeing all the flowers at work? Especially this week we have a lot of hydrangeas (I don't know if that is the right name, it should be the Latin name), its the most beautiful colours. So I had to buy one. I think the hydrangea has been one of my favourite flowers since we went to the USA 3 years ago. While walking down Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world) in San Francisco, there were tons of Hydrangeas, which just made my happy to look at. Especially after having been in bed for 24 hours due to food poisoning.

Well just to top the day off, when I got home we had received a wedding invitation from a friend off mine from my time as an Au pair in the DC area. She is from Finland, but moved to Vancouver where she met her soul mate. They are getting married in November in Punta Cana, The Dominican Republic, and I'm super excited, so guess what I have been doing since I got home... I've been surfing the web looking for cheap flights to Punta Cana...

My new hydrangea and our wedding invitation

A picture from Lombard Street, San Francisco

And the winner is...

Well the show last night was quite good, but only 4 good songs in my opinion. The final 4 had 2 of my favourites in it, and they ended up in final 2 as well. But I still think Bryan Rice should have won, he came in number 2, his song "breathing" was really good, but I guess I can't always have it my way.

The winner was Chanée & N'evergreen with the song "In a moment like this". That song was good as well and more the style of the usual songs from the contests, and I think its a big plus that the guy is supposedly a big star in Russia, so hopefully that will give us some more votes in Oslo in May. Usually all the Eastern European countries vote for each other, and Alexander Rybak who won for Norway last year was born in Belarus, and they got a lot of votes from Eastern Europe. I didn't like that song too much, but it pays to have your connections:)

In my opinion all countries should have their viewers vote for the winner, some countries still select a jury to choose the best songs, and that way I don't believe you will find the song that most people like, so hopefully more countries will get the viewers to vote instead... then again maybe that should wait till next year, because now Denmark has a Russian superstar singing.

Chanée & N'evergreen via www.dr.dk

Danish Song Contest

Okay I'm a sucker for the Eurovision song contest, and even more for the Danish Song Contest, and its on right now:) So the next 2-3 hours will be spent in front of the TV watching the show. I'm super excited to hear the 10 songs, and filling out my ballot. I hate to admit that I pretty much forgot it was on tonight, otherwise I would have loved to make an event of it, especially with one of my very good friends who shares my interest for especially the old songs from the eighties. But I will be watching it by myself this year, well my husband is here as well, but trust me he won't be in the living room by the end of the show, by then he will have vanished to another room with his computer.

So far the first song is okay, but if its able to win the Eurovision in Oslo in May, I don't know, I don't even know if its able to win the Danish contest, have to wait a few hours and see... I will keep you posted.

the contestants of the Danish Song Contest via www.dr.dk

A new start

Well I have started my new job today, I'm really excited about it, it has been lots of fun, and somehow it just makes me a bit happier being around flowers... didn't think I was the type that would enjoy that, yeah I like flowers, but I have never been able to get super excited about it. But I must admit its for sure more fun working with the flowers than all different small boxes off perfume or office applies. You don't need much for something to look nice so its quite fulfilling. At the same time I'm pretty much lost when someone asks me questions, thank God for phones, I have called a friend several times today, but every time I'm able to answer a question I get high:)
So I'm super excited for a new day tomorrow, where I hopefully will learn a bit more about paint and mixing different colours, I haven't dared to go near the machine today, too many new impressions will not do any good, at least not if I'm suppose to remember anything.