Year of the Ox

 Happy Chinese New Year from our corner of the world.

Officially it's not until tomorrow..but the world needs a little joy these days. So this post goes up earlier. CNY 2021 we are celebrating entering the year of the Ox and bidding the year of the Rat good-bye!

 Wishing you and all around you a year of good health and prosperity! 

恭喜發財

Gong Xi Fa Cai

This year we will be celebrating even more modest than usual due to the pandemic still going on. CasaR will be gathered together around our hot pot as tradition dictates <3 

- how are you planning on celebrating CNY?

Busy bee

First of all Happy Chinese New Year to all my readers in “Bloglandia”. Or Gong Xi Fa Chai for those whom understand Chinese. In the lack of massive amounts of energy, this year we opted for just cleaning house and not decorating for the Chinese New Year as we have done earlier years. Out new year dinner was as tradition entales, steamboat. Yummy!

The year of the Monkey ended with bumps and scratches for all the girls in CasaR. The last day of the year was a cold one and resulted in icy streets and super slippery. If you happened to be in our neighborhood Friday afternoon, you would have seen the three of us scattered over the sidewalk as we all slipped on the icy sidewalks. To this day, my” mummy heart” still hurts a little when seen SweetieLs face…Hopefully the year of the Rooster will be better…

poor little one

This weekend I did some repair work on SweetieS winter coveralls. Just before the weekend I saw that the seam had started to fall apart. Rather than wasting a perfectly usable coverall, I looked into how to patch it up.

So Saturday I took a trip to my local fabric store Stoff og Stil and looked for fabrics I could use. My requirements for the fabric were “simple”, it had to be durable and semi-waterproof. I found some waxed (I think it’s waxed) and a cool Paw Patrol fabric. SweetieS was superhappy with the result. Now to see how it holds up with the daily wear and tear SweetieS puts it to…

I also finally finished my second Skappelgenser. Well this one has a twist to the original pattern. I had knitted it one size too small. Rather than starting over I added cables on the sides. This sweater is knitted with Drops Big Delight in the color Rosehage (01) and Drops Brushed Alpaca Silke Lys beige (04) on 7mm needles. For this project I used about 7 skeins of each.

finally done…	close up of the cable along the sides

Now of to play with my latest toy, the Gyro-cutter. I bought this cutter iwth plans to kiss cut stickers for my planner. So far my first impression is that it works great. I bought mine of Ebay, from this seller.

Here I cut out the text “April” from a printed label sticker.

- How have you started your year of the Rooster?

Back to work

This week I went back to work after 9 months of maternity leave.

Time has flown by and BabyL is sliding/crawling around on the floor as DaddyO starts his round of paternity leave. This time around our maternity/paternity leave is divided like this:

MommyS – 6 months paid maternity leave (approx. 3 months mother quota and 3 months from the shared quota) , 3 months unpaid leave/vacation
DaddyO – 6 months paid paternity leave ( approx. 3 months from the shared quota and 3 months father quota)

And there you go, a year will have passed and BabyL starts kindergarten.

In case there is any doubt as to the paper mill that needed filling out.
Here is our process:
Mother applies for maternity leave, about two months before babys due date.
Mother quota and shared quota can ble applied in the same form
Using this form: Søknad om foreldrepenger, mødrekvote eller fedrekvote ved fødsel (Note it’s in Norwegian)
As I had a period of vacation and unpain leave, DaddyO had to apply for an extention.
Using this form: Utsettelse eller gradert uttak av foreldrepenger (fleksibelt uttak) (also in Norwegian)
Father applies for paternity leave, atleast 6 weeks before the first day of paternity leave.
Using the same form as mother used to apply for maternity leave (just another check box in the form): Søknad om foreldrepenger, mødrekvote eller fedrekvote ved fødsel (Note it’s in Norwegian)

New for this time around was the option to send some of the forms digitally – unfortunatly not all forms are have this option available yet. To use this option you will however need to have BankID, Buypass or Commfides available. Using this option allows you to follow the application process online. Though my experince with this online status left me with more questions than answers, and I wound up calling my local NAV to have my questions answered.

In two weeks time is Chinese New Year again, so in need of some cleaning and planning. So mark your calendars, Thursday, February 19. This time we enter the year of the Goat.

Gong Hay Fat Choy

This Sunday we enter the year of the snake.Yes, it is Chinese New Year! So time to brush up on some Chinese well-wishing phrases.

Found these online (with Mandarin):
(xīn nián kuài lè) Happy New Year!
(nián nián yǒu yú) Always get more than you wish for (a wish for surplus and bountiful harvests every year)
(shēn tǐ jiàn kāng) Enjoy good health
(gōng zuò shùn lì) Everything goes well with your work
(mǎ dào chéng gōng) Success immediately upon arrival (usually to express a wish to succeed in doing something, such as taking part in an examination, a presentation, a negotiation, or a competition)
Most important of all:

Gong Hay Fat Choy - Happy and prosperous

BabyS has picked up something with Chinese New Year and conveniently folds her hands as she lifts them up and down. Almost looks like she is wishing everybody “Gong Hay, Gong Hay”.

now if I could get BabyS to do it on command….then the lei sees will be pouring in

CasaR has been decorated for the event…

well-wishes and the colors red and gold…that’s CNY

With BabyS enriching our lives I now want to make CNY celebrating a tradition. Hopefully I will follow up next year…and we can call it a tradition. Last years celebration was done in Singapore…old school with lots of family visits.

This years CNY dinner will be held @CasaR with my family members that live in Norway. We have planned a simple steamboat dinner with an abundance of food…just as a CNY dinner should be. I’ll try and post some pictures after the event.

- what are your plans for Chinese New Year?
- have you prepared a bunch of lei sees for all the your ones?

Now off to clean up  BabyS toys from all over…