Knefla Man/Lefse Lady

This past Sunday was coincidentally "exploring cultures" day in Paynesville. While Dan slaved away, at home, making his famous knefla soup, I made lefse, for the first time ever, with a bunch of German ladies! While my lefse turned out well and is in the freezer waiting for Thanksgiving, the knefla soup had to be compromised and made with potato dumplings:( They didn't do it justice. So, for Christmas, please send some the real stuff that you can only get in North Dakota. We were disappointed when we introduced our soup to our dinner group and couldn't provide the "real" thing! We must redeem ourselves!

Like I said, I made lefse for the first time in my LIFE last Sunday. As a proud Norwegian I wore my sweater and didn't burn one piece. This was achieved through heavy supervision, but who cares? Grandma Selma would be proud! As we (all 30 0f us) talked about all of our heritages I realized I was only one of two Norwegian's in the room. Weird! My favorite lady was the Dutch/Finnish Jewish lady that flipped with the best of them!

Which leads me into a new practical problem I deal with often: The lefse flipper. Is that ALL it's used for? The practicality of my being made it hard for me to grasp that one flat stick can only be used for one traditional task once or twice a year. I've compiled a list below of ways you can get your money's worth from a $20 dollar lefse stick.

-an ankle scratcher

-a teacher's pointer

-a replacement for Howard's cane when trying to get pretty nurses' attention

-you could use it as a door stop for your sliding glass patio door from opening

-a backbrace for a cat

-kung fu panda practice for Dan since he's watched the movie three times in one week

-a mouth shut "her" upper for all of the ornery mean teachers at my new school

-and of course, if you use it 20 times, as a real lefse flipper, it really only costs one dollar!

irecycle

Too bad recycling isn't as easy as running some type of ipod, iphone, imac, or ishootmyselfinthefoot. I can't figure this dumb thing out! Every piece of garbage I come across has me wondering, and in some type of a panic as to whether or not it's recycleable. Aghghg....it's agonizing. I've resorted to just asking Dan about each and every item until he finally told me that even toilet paper should be recycled. End of conversation. I no longer ask.........him anyway. We called city garbage for a tutorial or an inservice, but they only sent us a lousy sticker! A sticker that yes, tells me glass/plastics, aluminum and tin, and paper products, BUT keep your junk mail and newspapers seperate. Where do those go then? I think I would have even appreciated some stereo type instructions to get us through this. Do we shred every single piece of paper? Do you recycle receipts? As you can see this is quite the paralyzing ordeal albeit I do feel good about the fact that we are recycling and doing something good. If anyone needs me though, I'll be sorting my new Minnesota garbage in our garage or digging out a spot in our backyard for our new compost site.

SOLD!

We are here and so very thankful to finally be in our new home. We both love it a ton as well as the kitties have given it their approval too. Lots of room to run around the basement + carpet. Makes for much better sleeping arranchments for our feline friends. Riker has yet to join us, but I'm sure he'll like it as well.......if his grandparents let him go:) We took a picture literally minutes after we closed and then later that evening when Dan, my mom, and I were all dressed up for a community fundraising event that Audrey and Don took us to.

Check out our barn...and house!

I took these Friday morning to show Dan where we live! I love it when the steam is rising off the land in the mornings and the sun is trying to shine through. I've never been a farm/country girl so this has been a new experience for me:)

Two weeks in!

Ok, so it's been awhile, but we're still alive. I wanted to share some picture of the views from our rental house in Paynesville. I need to get out and take some when the sun is going down...makes for amazing pictures. Dan is still in Bismarck and I'm here, but he's driving down on Sunday, finally. People keep asking me if my husband KNOWS where I'm living thinking he might not approve since it's so rural. I live about two miles outside of Paynesville and no, Dan has not seen it, but we have a barn, a shop, a shed, a house, a garage, and lots of land with corn, trees, horses, and marshes. It'll be fun for the short while we'll be there. I'm working my tail off, or at least it just feels that way since I sat around ALL summer as my husband would say:) Work is fun and challenging. We'll close on our house on October 10th. Last night our new congregation members helped unload our 28 foot trailer. I bought pizza for 15 people and about 35-40 showed up. Yeah, Minnesota nice/small congregation nice! Anyway, just wanted to give you all an update and let you know we are alive just in transition! We'll share some photos of our new house when we get there!

Fun New Things to Enjoy in Minnesota!

-The radio stations are like a kid in an old fashioned candy store...SO many options that I don't know what to pick! It's so great....to get the wide range of different choices. Would you like to listen to the Stones at 7...yes please! Breakfast with the Beatles...um, sure!
-Even though we are moving to a small little community we still have all of the amenities that we enjoy only 30 miles away. These include Barnes and Noble, Chipotle, Noodles and Company, Starbucks, Endless stoplights (how'd that get in here), and shopping.
-A job.....I'm not even missing a pay check and so far I'm liking my new job. There's some new aspects about it that are going to be a fun challenge.
-Amazing scenery on your drive to work. If I had 3 arms I would have taken a picture for you. Picture large pond with granite rocks shooting up out of the water, large green trees paint the backdrop, and then steam rising slowly from the cool and shallow depths of the warm water.....trying to be more descriptive here so you can see it!
-Eventually our whole family will be there all together......awwwwww...it may take some time, but I'm thinking around September 28th, ahem, (Dan's installation service) that our little family unit minus the children will be in one place.

Please pray for our children as they will all be separated from each other. We know they are going to good hands and we'll be sending lots of anti-anxiety drugs with them so that they make it back in one piece, well at least for Riker anyway. Poor in-laws will have the nervous dog, my mom will have Meeko, and a family in Paynesville will be taking little sweet Suki. Poor thing...she might freak out, but at least she'll live! Since she and I will be in the same town she will be receiving bi-weekly counseling/cuddle sessions from me though!