A Productive Sunday

A real winter storm finally arrived on Norway's west coast this weekend. Snow piled up in Oslo. I love our city, and I can never decide when the streets look prettiest: blanketed in white, or full of yellow-leafed trees, or under the violet-skies of perpetual twilight, or filled with lilacs. At every turn of a season, I think I have the answer. Then I change my mind again.

Since sledding and cross-country skiing (the way I do it is dangerous even on the flat-n-straights) are out of the question for me this year, it would be easy to let the snow keep us inside. Thankfully, a double date for brunch with friends on Saturday morning got our weekend off on the right, snow-booted foot. The four of us spent a couple of hours laughing and gabbing and sampling the tasty, eclectic menu at our local creperie, Les Crêpes D'Elen . Located just off the 12 line in Frogner, I highly recommend this little place. Delicious food and a fun, French atmosphere, as well as a friendly staff.

After brunch, Jonathan and I wandered all over the city. We were on a quest: a rug for The Hazelnut's room. We've been nesting, and finding a rug that is pretty, soft, on-theme, and affordable in Norway has been close to impossible. It was still a good excuse to walk the snowy city streets.

Without anything to show for our wintery outing on Saturday, you'd think I wouldn't be pointing to this weekend with such pride. But we still had all of Sunday to be productive, and I'm pleased to say... we were!

The Hazelnut is getting her own room in our Frogner flat. We're fortunate to have a second bedroom, and have long used it as my office, since I work from home. Naturally, I can't continue type-type-typing away while there's a newborn attempting to sleep in the room, so we needed to move my office into our own bedroom. We've done this a few times before, but it's always been a temporary set-up, so it didn't matter that my desk just barely fit in our extra space against the wall. As we anticipate The Hazelnut's presence in our lives being a bit more permanent, we needed to rethink the layout, and this required a smaller desk, preferably tucked away in the corner so as to minimize the encroachment. So, my handyman built us a desk that fits perfectly in that space!

Try to ignore my sad, cat-scratched chair. It used to be so pretty. A new chair--one that doesn't look like a scratching post--is definitely on the agenda. After the kid and all her stuff, of course, so check back with us in a few years.

Meanwhile, I opened a box of beautiful yarn ( Plymouth, Dreambaby DK ), a gift from my friend Eve, and selected a couple of colors for my own project: a crocheted baby sweater. I've been crocheting for years, but have stayed well within the safe scarf/hat/blanket range, requiring no patterns. In fact, I've never even tried to read a crochet pattern before. But it was Sunday afternoon, our windows were covered in snow, Top Gear was on the telly, and I was feeling ambitious. After some minor Googling, I selected this free pattern for the Abigail BabyGirl Sweater . It took me a few hours longer than the blogger who posted the pattern, but not too many. I dusted it off in one evening/night!

How darling is that? Because it's basically row upon row of double crochet--one of the easiest stitches to learn--progress could be seen immediately, which is something I like in a crochet project. And the pattern included a glossary of abbreviations, too. Very helpful.

So, we went to bed on Sunday night a whole desk-and-baby-sweater richer than we'd been the night before, and we did all of it ourselves. Proud!