Little Corner of Ania

Time to share yesterdays (Friday) pictures :)
Started the day with paying my adorable niece a visit. She just turned six. My Amalie will soon turn five. They're inseparable when together :)

Here we all are - me, my sister and our youngest daughters :)
Isn't weird when you grow up and see your mini-me's together and realize you're turning nostalgic and old because they sort of act like us and they look approx like us and you're taken back to your own childhood through them (well, the pink-cloud-version of, anyways)? Sort of? I know I'm babbling, but allow me, I'm old ;p

Just thought this was a cool picture. My niece shared her scrapbook-stuff with Amalie.

And showed her her album :)

Here's my sister and her "male friend" as our grandma would have put it when you have a boyfriend but's not engaged or married :p.

My sister in front of her new house, estimated to be finished this summer.

Then....we went to do something I haven'd done in ten years I think. Probably more. We went skiing. Me, mom, sis, my niece and Amalie. Who had only tried this once or twice in the Kindergarten when borrowing someone elses skies. She was so good. When we asked if we were gonna turn to return to where we came from she was adamant that no, she wanted to go a little bit further! And she wanted to go first! (Both girls did, so they were a bit grumpy about each others whenever the other one was in the lead). Fun times :)

Just had to add - mom making snow angels....haha..
All in all, a nice day which was aburptly interrupted by a stupid man allowing his puppy to run wild. I'm just saying - dogs so needs to be in leash when outside. I believe they're actually prohibited from running wild/without leash where there are people. And we were actually next to a schoolyard when this dog came running and barking towards Amalie. First she poined at it shouting excited to us "look, look, a dog!" in a happy voice. Which soon turned into a shriek and loud cries because this dog just kept running straight towards her and around her, jumping around and she was terrified and tried to run away which surely didn't help the situation at all. And the owner was like 30-45 meters away from us, trying to call his dog back...to no avail. Anyways. I ran to Amalie and scooped her up while she was crying wildly and tried to calm her, all the time with the puppy barking and trying to jump up my legs to get to her. When the owner finally came to us he explained the dog was just a baby and just wanted to play. It's fine, but seriously, if he can't control it because it's a baby and playful then he surely needed to have it in a leash?? Anyways, he picked up the puppy and Amalie got to pat it after seeing me patting it and then it was all fine, she was just scared in the moment when this dog just came running to her just like that... and while she likes dogs she thinks they're best at a distance. I hope the dog didn't scare her that much, but please, if you own a dog and you know you can't control it when it gets excited then do not let it walk around wo leash where you know you might meet children or other people who might be afraid of dogs. Sheesh. What's so hard about respecting other people..?? (dogowners - I'm sorry but I just don't like dogs "attacking" my children (or anyones) regardless wheter it's just playful, harmless and just "wanted to say hi". It's scary for a child and might damage how the child might percieve dogs in the future sort of!)

Anyways. Then it was time for more Dok:10 so I left mom and the children (our niece slept over so she could be around Amalie more) to attend Callie Shell's seminar. I have to say. When I saw they were having her and gonna show her pictures I was like, yeah sure, nice but prob just all the hype. But - she really was interesting, and I loved that she talked almost all the time during the slideshow, sharing information about each picture and I really felt like getting behind-the-scenes access to the pictures and the man that today's one of the most powerful men in the world (or maybe he is the most). I also found the fact that, if I understood it right according to her, it was her own wish to cover this man back when he was just a senator and pretty much an unknown, back before he even ran for the candidacy, just because she saw - this man is special, there's something intriguing about him, I want to tell his story nevertheless. In short. It gave me a lot more than expected and I really felt happy being able to be there learning from her.

Then there was time for Brenda Ann Kenneally who shared a different perspective of America and the American Dream sort of. Her work was so much more personal, so raw and intriguing. And from what I understood, all from the neighbourhood of hers. I got a bit of "The Wire" feeling with the first vid she showed, about this kid she's been following since he was like eight (he's now 23) and who's very close to her and her son (who's in the picture above too tryin to help his mom with the technology :p). I mean - it felt all so deterministic. It's a side of society that you just see on American series about criminality and gangs and it's so distanced, it doesn't really concern you because it's so far away both in distance and from your own reality..I dunno... I'm going to explore her projects here and here closer when I get home for sure. Oh, she even uses some scrapbooking in her projects.

Then it was time to go home. Well, there was a debate, but hm, maybe not one of the better debates that's been until now. I think it might have gotten off the wrong foot because of the lack of pauses and the introducer didn't really fit in, or I dunno, I didn't catch much of what it had to do with the whole thing. Prob just me but at least I didn't leave the room like lots of others did during the introduction and debate cause I think that's sorta rude. Ahwell. Picture above is the road I take from the place Dok:10 is at towards the subway.

This is a picture of Karl Johan, the "main" street in Oslo leading towards the Castle (behind me). I really do like taking pictures in the night, it's not as scary as taking out the camera in broad daylight with no real "reason" to do so sorta.

When I got home mom and my steph-father waited for me with red wine and various cheese. Yay :)

Right, much longer post than I thought - sorry. Need to run off now - day four is starting soon and I wanna see if I can get a signed book by Nan Goldin before the seminars starts!
(yeah yeah sorry - scrappy stuff will resume tomorrow or the day after tomorrow :p)

Ps. Re comments about the indoor piccies..? Uh I dunno, look for the light and crank up the ISO if needed?