Carleen and Mike » 2007 » August » 01 http://www.huggin.net/blog Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:05:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 en Running Hurdles http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/#comments Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:44:03 +0000 Mike Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/ You know…it’s incredible how quickly your dreams and aspirations can take a back seat to the every-day routine. You spend so much time thinking about the future - a future that always seems to far away, the horizon seemingly never in view. Not only do your dreams and goals take a back seat - you almost forget you ever had them in first place. And then something happens; you take a giant leap forward and the horizon comes into glaring view and despite all the talk about the future, despite all your planning, you are literally knocked breathless with realization that the future you planned for is actually coming to fruition. It’s frightening and exciting and nerve-wracking all at once.

We just took out a $10,000 loan (using Carl’s money as collateral) for home improvements. We’re getting new windows, a new floor throughout the house, remodeling the bathrooms and replacing the countertop in the kitchen (among other things). We’ve talked about this for so long as the single thing holding us back from moving away from here, and now that this time is here, I’m a bit frightened. Mostly because I’ve never been in this much debt before, and I’m really going to have to bust ass to get everything done that I want done. Once this house is finished Carleen can finally start seriously looking for jobs elsewhere and I can finally start looking into Massage Therapy schools.

I had sort of lost track of Massage Therapy as a future career - it just felt so far away. We’ve been talking about moving away for so long it was starting to feel like a pipe dream. Now that the last few hurdles are in view, I’m a bit apprehensive about making the decision to start classes again. After all, I was so sure that photography was the career for me. Am I choosing Massage Therapy because of the money? Am I choosing just because it happens to be the Career of the Week for me? Once bitten, twice shy, you know? I like the sound of it, I like the idea of having a flexible schedule and Biology was always a strong suit for me, I just can’t help but feel just a small amount of worry.

The end is near, and although the next few months are going to be severely trying - the end result will be worth it. I’m feeling unusually optimistic about the future, so I’m just going to ride that feeling while I can.

]]> http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/477/feed/ am I still norwegian? http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/ http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:48:15 +0000 Carleen Huxley http://www.huggin.net/blog/2007/08/01/am-i-still-norwegian/ My brother just sent me a rather disconcerting article from a Norwegian newspaper. My Norwegian is extremely sketchy and I’ve probably got most of the details mixed up here but if I’m understanding this right, a teenager wanting to renew her Norwegian passport was denied because she’s now a resident of Sweden (statsborger..right, mom?). She was born in Norway and raised there as a child but moved to Sweden later. This actually sounds like something the Norwegian Embassy in Tulsa was telling me the last time I renewed my passport just before we left for our honeymoon. Apparently another girl a few weeks before me tried to renew her passport but was denied by the embassy because she hadn’t lived or visited Norway since she was a baby. I think there was some kind of ten year limit that you could be away before they decide that “well, you haven’t lived here, bothered to pay our outrageous taxes, or even attempted to visit so you can’t be Norwegian anymore”. My Norwegian citizenship has always been very important to me, it’s part of my identity despite the fact that I can’t speak the language fluently or feel a little foreign each time I’m here. That’s just part of being cross cultural. Multi-culturalism was something I always thought Norway embraced. But this idea of stripping people of their citizenship simply because they haven’t been or lived in their Norway for awhile stinks of some sort of weird nationalism.

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