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Our plum tree is filled with fruit this year. A lot of them fell off after a recent rain storm so Ann-Louise got in gear and did some picking today.

While we plan on eating them fresh I have looked online for a few recipes that I may try out if we have too many.

Links to recipes at Serious Eats:

• Puff Pastry Plum Tarts
• Chocolate Cardamom Plums Clafoutis
• Plum Sorbet
• Pluma Moos (Fresh Fruit Mousse)
• Plum Meringue Pie
• Vanilla Plum Crumble Pie
• Simple Jam Tart
• Roasted Plum, Ginger, and Honey Ice Cream
• Plum-Cornmeal Cake with Plum Sorbet
• Peach and Plum Pie
• Summer Fruit Panzanella
• 30-Minute Skillet Plum Cake

We have fiberoptic internet with Viken Fiber and are supposed to have 75mps both for download and upload. The past year I have felt that we are not getting the speed that we pay for. So, I have decided to start testing from my pc with a wired connection (not wireless/wi-fi).

Sunday, July 19

Altibox (internet provider, speedometer.altibox.no)

Speedtest.net (www.speedtest.net)

Bredbandskollen (www.bredbandskollen.se)

I have decided to have a monthly newsletter that summarizes additions to my website and what happened in my life for the previous month. So, the February newsletter is a review of January.

I guess I'll start off by saying a little about what's been going on in my non-digital life. Work is going fine. January was a busy month: planning for and registration of both student and candidate exams ("Norwegian: privatisteksamener"). At the start of this school year I starting working longer days Monday - Wednesday so that I don't have to work on Fridays. I do not, however, do this during the times when the exams are conducted or when there is a need to work overtime. This has worked out pretty good so far. I have an extra day to play around in my digital world and it seems that overtime has been reduced a little. Bjørn has also been busy at work - as usual. He enjoys his work so he doesn't seem to get stressed out like I sometimes do. 

The kids are doing great. I am very fortunate to have such wonderful children - well, they are no longer children (Bjørn-Eirik is 18 and Ann-Louise is 23). They are both doing well in school. Ann-Louise is more relaxed than she has ever been, probably because she has already gotten a job that she starts in June and only has her Master's thesis left. Bjørn-Eirik , however, is a little more stressed out than usual. He is in his last year at high school and there are a lot of major projects that he has to turn in as part of his IB curriculum. It is important that he gets good grades so that he can get in to the schools and studies that is planning on applying to. He is getting the hang of the loop station he got for Christmas (see LiveLooping to find out what livelooping is and watch this video of the Norwegian artist Bernhoft performing on TedX) and had his first live performance at the IB talent show last Friday (Yeah, I see that I am mentioning something that happened in February. Oh well.). He is quite the entertainer (in my perhaps biased opinion).

As far as my digital world is concerned, I worked mostly in Photoshop - both text/typography compositions and photo manipulations based on tutorials. I hope to get back to doing more in DAZ 3d and trying to branch out a little and try to create some photo manipulations based on my own ideas.

I would perhaps (and that is a very questionable "perhaps") enjoy winter more if it could in fact be winter. That is, winter as seen in idealistic photos: deep new snow with the sun shining brightly. Instead, we are plagued with a weekend of snow followed by drizzling rain and melting snow, which turns to ice when the temperature drops at night. As a result, I look like an idiot trying to skate around and find spots that are covered with sand and gravel so that I can safely reach my destination. This photo from an article published Friday the 16th of January in our local newspaper, Laagendalsposten, shows that I am not exaggerating.

And so begins my patient wait for summer...

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The above image is based on this PSD DUDE tutorial. Links to resources used are given in the tutorial. I really love the tutorials by PSD DUDE.