lexidh

I'm a strange female living in a small town in Norway, close to the largest lake in our long and crazy country.

I do a lot of arts and crafts; make jewelry, scrapbooking, card making, photography, cross stitching, sewing, and I make 90% of all christmas presents myself =) I ADORE christmas, and I LOVE ADVENT CALENDARS, so I use a lot of time and effort on that during the year. A bit too much people might say, but I don't take notice. I can't help myself ;P

I have 5 huge, lazy, castrated male cats, lots of fish and a dwarf hamster (don't know what sex, so it has one male and one female name). Me and my boyfriend of 6 years are getting married in June 2010! I'm addicted to Facebook (and mafia wars...), and I'm writing an online diary only my 42 closest friends can read, at a diary site I've been running for me and everyone else since 2002 (In Norwegian). That's kinda my job, being a webmaster takes up a lot of your time. I also go geocaching when I can, witch is not often these days, but I usually find a cache or two when I'm in a new place/abroad. And I do a LOT of postcrossing. My mailbox is a friendly place, lots of stuff end up in there. I'm sure the mailman would like to ask me a lot of questions about that ;P

My favourite color is green, followed by purple, and then blue. I love shopping, both online and in Malls, and I usually buy stuff for other people before myself. So swap-bot is a great way for me to both give and receive, not just give give give. I'm also very much into Advent Calendars, I give out calendars with small gifts to some of my friends, and many I know are in a big swap I make every year, where they send packages to me, and then I send them packages from all the others in that swap. It's a great way to receive fun things from many. If you are in Norway or Sweden and want to join, send me a message!

I read a lot of crime and thriller novels. I've read all of Ian Rankin, and many of Grisham, Cussler and McDermid. I also adore the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.

I read about 10 books every month.

I love books about animals, mostly cats, and I have a quite large collection of cartoons. Combine the two and I'm in heaven =)

When I find a cheap book I usually buy it, and that way I get to read lots of strange stuff. I also make a lot of money to buy books with by writing short reviews on a norwegian online book store. That way I don't use a small fortune on books.

I don't mind used books at all, as long as all the pages are there =)

Scrapbooking! I make 12x12's of my cats, 8x8 of my vacations and a 8x8 recipe book. Anything related to those topics are super! I also like prima flowers, clear stamps, and brads. Since I'm getting married in June 2010 I'm also starting to gather some stuff to make a scrapbook of that. But please, don't send me stuff like stickers of white dresses and large white cakes, I'm not having a traditional wedding ;P But words and other fun stuff would be great =)

Since I make so much of the christmas presents myself I also love any kind of kit that comes out christmasy.

I am TOTALLY addicted to alphabets, my favourite is chipboard, but I also love stickers. If you have any alphabets where you have used what you wanted and don't know what to do with the rest: send them to me! I often combine letters from multiple sets in my scrapping and card making.

NO Rub-ons. I hate them. They hate me. It's not pretty ;P

When I make cards I like to use stamped images. I prefer white paper, and like images that can be cut out, good clean outer lines. I'm a sucker for cute, and usually make cards for christmas, birthdays and weddings.

I also make jewelry. Mostly glass beads, small and in all colors, just not multicolored. I like having at least 2 of each bead, if it's not large. Large hearts in real silver are my dream. They are hard to get here.

I LOVE Christmas cards! If you are to send me a card in a trade, try to find one in your stash from last year! I use them to decorate my home for christmas each year. It's quite a sight...

I also like something cute (animals), something really colorful or totally weird =) My favorite artist is Mauri Kunnas, any cards made by him is just great!

I like my postcards in an envelope (even when the send requirements are without envelopes, they are not treated good by the postman here where I live, and I would rather get them in good condition than unreadable and ugly), and unwritten (new), so that I can use them for postcrossing =)

I use all kinds of cards, trying to do my best to give people what they want for their collections. But I prefer getting unwritten postcards that are not -from- any place, since I do resend most of them. Just nice clean images are the best =)

I don't collect postcards, but I glue the nicest ones into a book, and all the christmas cards are used for decoration and then put in the attic.

I love spicy food and my life can not go on without sour cream... I would just flip over and die. In the candy apartment I like anything lemon, milk chocolate and Kinder stuff. I'm allergic to all kinds of nuts, so it has to be plain.

I like ice tea, and if you want to suck up to my fiance you send licorice ;P I also like hot chocolate, and good old fashion English breakfast tea (but I do have a lot of that...). With a LOT of sugar/sweetener. I don't drink coffee at all.

I love Disney Classics (have almost every single of those), other animated movies, sci-fi, thrillers, action and some old classics. I also like musicals (old and new), and long detective series (like Beck).

I don't have many funny DVD's without animated characters, so that would be a hit =) I do NOT need any subtitles/subtext, as long as the spoken language is English/Norwegian/Swedish, and my DVD player is zone free, so it can play DVD's from anywhere in the world without a problem. (if you google your own DVD player's make and model you will probably find a code to make it zone free too!)

I'm not very well actually... I've had pain in my arms since I was 12, back since 15 and the rest has just followed... I have the irritating diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, witch is like having the flue all the time, just not any snot. You feel terrible, need a lot of sleep, everything is painful and you can't do stuff you want to, and there is the trouble of not knowing what days are going to be good or bad. Planning is hard. In february 2009 I fell down some stone stairs in a shopping mall, and broke my spine. That is not helping with anything... I have to take two kinds of pain killers just to get out of bed every day. One of them is 3 times as strong as morphine. And this stuff is not going away either.

So... I can't work. And I can't do much of anything else really. But since I have a lot of hobbies and friends I don't get bored. I can chat with my friends online (my fingers work just fine), and make stuff when I feel good enough. I can't sit still on a chair for long, but I manage to get some things done anyway =) I'm trying to study journalism online, but It's hard when your brain is so full of drugs. Getting good grades is tough.

I have to concentrate on the little things in life, and getting nice mail is very much a great thing =) Postcrossing and swap-bot makes my days better! Not getting any mail on sundays sux ;P (Norway just stops on sundays... nothing is open, nothing can be done. I hate it.)

• Anything Eeyore!
• Books by Neil Gaiman (written ONLY by him, not together with others)
• Any of the Disney Little Mermaid DVDs
• Christmas craft items
• Money bank shaped like a cow
• Scrapbooking items (see favorite crafts)
• Glass and silver beads for jewelry making
• Cat toys (feathers, catnip and large mice are their favorites)
• Stuff for my dwarf hamster (if he/she can eat it, it's love at first bite ;P)
• Books about and with cats
• Lemon candy
• Milk chocolate
• Christmas decorations (mostly silver and red, that is what I have on my tree)
• Long, narrow earrings (silver, can be fake, I'm not allergic)
• Geocoins and Travelbugs (Geocaching)
• Fruit scented liquid soap
• Stickers
• Tatty teddy items
• Diddl items
• Lego cars
• Brads (any color)
• Clear stamps
• Ribbon
• Prima Flowers (any color)
• Chipboard letters
• 12x12 and 8x8 scrapbooking paper
• Postcard books
• Postcard calendars (does not have to be from this or next year as long as the postcards are there!)
• Cool t-shirts size XL/XXL (huge boobs giggle) I like cat and geek themed t-shirts
• Stuff from thinkgeek.com
• Cross stitch kits (christmas/cats/cute)
• Funny things to put in the aquarium
• Cat treats made from fish (they don't like anything else)
• Christmas fabric
• Snowglobes (any theme!)
• Advent calendars
• New/unused postcards (any theme, but preferably not from any place in the world/with text on the front of it)
• Oblong pillows
• Square drinking glass (seriously, if you even KNOW where to get any, contact me. I've been wanting them for almost 10 years now)
• Coke drinking glass (both large ones and those shaped like coke cans)
• Mini series on DVD
• Sumdoku mags/books(killer sudoku)
• Fluffy thick soft socks (any color but yellow and orange)
• That cross stitch project you never will be done with (the whole thing, no matter if you have started to sew or not)

When sending a package to Norway it's important to add a custom declaration sticker, and fill it out right. There you tell what is in the package, and it's value. If the value is to high (above 28 US dollars) I have to pay taxes if it's not marked properly as a gift. And if there is no custom declaration someone will open the package and sort trough it to see if I have to pay for it. As you can imagine; that takes a lot of time.

I also ALWAYS send out the packages, mostly as soon as I get my partner(s). So if you haven't received a swap from me; tell me! I will resend if it's a month since I sent it, no worries =) I'm not a flaker. Unless I'm dead (or in a coma) you will get your package, one way or the other.

I will host some swaps here on swap-bot. I think everyone should do that from time to time, but I totally understand why people don't do it. I get a lot of messages here that are just silly. The swap host can not solve any little issue the swappers in a trade may have. Contact the swapper you have issues with, not the host. The host can NOT give you a new partner just because you don't like the one you got. Read the requirements of the swap before you join. If there are none, don't complain about that either. Newbies must be able to join in on some swaps too. I've not been a member of swap-bot for long, but I've been very active, and I still feel very new here. Flakers are NOT the swap host's problem, and most active hosts can not angel everything. If you get flaked; rate accordingly. Swap hosts have no other tool to use when they accept or ban someone when they are giving out partners. Giving out partners is something a server does, we do not pick and choose anything other than who is allowed to be a part of it. The more you complain to swap hosts, the less swaps will be hosted by experienced hosts. Think and RATE before you consider nagging on the host of the swap.