Home is wherever I am with Mr. Sunshine!

View from just down the street from our new home

We finally moved in to our own place on Tuesday! We are renting it, so it's our own as much as a rented apartment can be, but it is definitely more permanent than our previous living arrangements in Stavanger. Also, now we can decorate the place and make it cosy :-) And we can unpack and not worry about packing everything up again - at least for the foreseeable future. 


We are still waiting on our shipment to arrive. Hopefully everything will come in one piece. Mr. Sunshine and some of his colleagues have been regaling me with stories about missing and lost shipments. I may or may not have had visions of our crate floating in the sea, and our box of books at on the seabed. I better not jinx it though - I need my books, and my dinner plates, and all of my bird prints, and everything else that I thought I couldn't live without, but now can't remember what they are.  

Winter is definitely here in Stavanger - or at least I think it is. The days are getting shorter and colder, and there is Christmas stuff everywhere - every home store is full of God Jul (or Happy Christmas) decorations. In the US, I had a rule: no decorating for Christmas (or buying any decorations for that matter) until after Thanksgiving. I was going to follow my rule here too, but then I broke down and bought a Christmas tea towel (because, every kitchen needs tea towels that change with the season) and an advent calendar candle. Advent calendars seem to be a big deal here. I had never seen one until I got here, and now I think they might be the greatest idea in the world ever, and I am only just slightly exaggerating. 

Noel Tea Towel from Kid

Advent calendar candle

Speaking of decorations, I came across these big red hearts hanging off a tree on the lake in Stavanger Sentrum. I am not sure if this is part of the city's Christmas decor or an art installation or someone balloon heart bombing the tree. Whatever it is, it made me smile.

Red hearts hanging from a tree in Stavanger Sentrum

Pretty red hearts brightened up a dreary day 

Birds and hearts

I also stopped by at the Salvation Army store a few blocks away from home and look what I found:

Thrift find. Bowl from Stavangerflint found at Fretex (the Salvation Army) store