happiness 101

erin from dropped stitches gave me one of those blog award thingies - it's called happy 101 -  in which you list ten things that make you happy (thank you, erin!). after a really lovely weekend where lots of details of our move began to fall into place in earnest, a list of ten things i love was just exactly what i needed.

1) i love that within these nascent buds, while beautiful in their own right, there are future apples. nature rocks. (and yes, i probably should have cropped this, but i wasn't in an editing mood, so what you see (or what i saw) is what you get.)

2) beginnings. whether it's the beginnings of the peonies, just poking up out of the ground, or the beginning of a new job, or the beginning of life in a new home. i love the excitement of the beginning.

3) looking at things differently. from another vantage point. outside the norm. or just plain upside down.

4) blue skies. and magnolia buds.

5) the way the late afternoon light falls in spring in scandinavia. it's really quite amazing. especially when it falls on sabin, so golden and warm. it almost makes it worth the winter darkness.

6) lego. and their attention to detail. especially when they make a little horse trailer with range rover to pull it and a little horse. and you can transport your jump up on top.

7) renewable energy.

8) walks in the woods.

9) bright, colorful clothes.

10) things which are appealingly and inspiringly displayed.

what is making you happy right here and right now?

in which she uses lots of parentheses and confusingly long sentences

my new blog friend and first official blog crush, extranjera (we have to talk about that screenname (tho' frankly, since she's finnish, it could be her real name, they spell stuff kinda weird sometimes), by the way, as i have to pop over to your blog and look at it every single time to get it right and even still, i probably have it wrong) of the hilarious what will i ever do with my life? bestowed upon me the honest scrap blog award, i guess because of all the brutal honesty encountered here on MPC.

as with all of these blog award thingies, there are rules:

1. List 10 honest things about yourself, and
2. Pass it on to seven five cool people who embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap (tho' there is strangely no information about what that spirit might be...)

although i'm not big on rules, i am big on lists, and as husband says, i'm very often brutally honest, so this should be easy...

1. i'm not a fan of photoshop. there, i said it. so many times people's pictures were surely beautiful before they played with them. and while i understand the allure of pretty technology, i think people should trust themselves and their cameras more.
   
2. i can talk pretty mean, but when it comes down to it, i'm actually a pretty nice person (blatant attempt to lessen the blow of the photoshop comment).
3. i really, really hate making phone calls. loathe it. 
4. i am worried that there is an elderly greek woman inside me, trying to get out and she has sent out feelers to check the conditions. feelers in the form of three dark hairs that sprout out occasionally on my chin. i try to be vigilant, but what if that old greek woman really wants out and one day i accidentally indicate that conditions are ripe by forgetting to check. bam, i'll suddenly be wearing all black and those thick, sturdy woolen stockings...
5. we have a really old toyota carina that we don't treat very well, but which remains loyal to us anyway. we never wash it (husband was just wishing for rain yesterday so it would be rinsed off--there's a lot of pollen on it at the moment). we never change the oil (it uses it so fast anyway, it's surely not in there long enough to need changing). we can't remember if it's a '96 or a '94. it's grey. the carpet on the driver's side is a real mess--lots of holes from years of wear. but there's no rust and it starts every time, despite having 400,000 km on it, with taxes at 150% on cars in DK, we're just loathe to replace it, so we'll keep it going 'til it won't go anymore. however, i never, ever leave my cameras or computers in the car, because they're worth more than the car is. sometimes i do leave the key in, hoping someone might steal it, but they never do.
6. i would like to blog for a living. (as if y'all hadn't sussed out that one.)
7. sometimes i wonder if i exist if i'm not online. this makes me wonder if all of you exist when i can't see that you're online. and this in turn makes me wonder if we aren't already in the matrix. 
8. i sometimes wonder if carbon trading schemes really work. isn't it just robbing peter to pay paul and still no good for the environment in the end? (oh wait, this is one of the questions for my interview later...)
9. i'm uncomfortable with the whole susan boyle thing and wasn't really going to say so (what, a lack of honesty? (gasp!)) 'til i read what gwen said about it. i feel that while she is clearly an excellent singer, there's something in it that's somehow taking the piss with her anyway and that makes me feel squirmy. and i don't really believe that simon cowell didn't know what was coming. it was all so staged and although i enjoyed seeing his face, it might be that he's just a good actor.
10. i really love and admire what tangobaby is doing in reaching out to help a woman and her three children who have fled from an abusive home and are awaiting a spot in a shelter. she met them one day on the street and because she's such a caring, wonderful person, she's issued a plea from the platform of her most excellent blog and set up a paypal account and is spending a lot of her own time helping this family. what i have to be honest about tho', is that i have been unable to write one of the letters of support to kelaya, the mother, that was part of tangobaby's plea. i have stared at an open, new, fresh email several times and it just won't come and i don't really know why. i did, however, make a small donation via the paypal button (please go check out tangobaby's blog if you are intrigued by the little bit i've written here. and i hope that you're more able than i am to write a letter of support to this woman who has bravely left an abusive marriage and forged out on her own with three small kids.) the best we can do is well, the best we can do, isn't it?

and as for those honest bloggers, these come to mind:

1. amanda of sucker for marketing (who i hope triumphed in her half marathon on sunday!)
2. starlene of return to myself (i just love when she goes all deep thoughts...)
3. mal* of turning*turning (she makes me see things in a new way every time i visit her)
4. kristina of vigdis et al. (she speaks in honest pictures)
5. clare of this and that (you gotta love anyone who thinks grover is the best muppet)

and i think that, like extranjera before me, i will name only five to pass it along to (in fact, i even took the liberty of changing the rule above--mostly because i like using that strikeout thingie). 

i know you're all busy bloggers and might not have time or the inclination to come up with ten honest things (this took me much longer than i thought it would and i was much less funny that i meant to be).  but some days are like that.

it feels like monday

because monday was a holiday, it has tuesday feeling like a monday. and with lots of work to do, i didn't really find time to write one of my usual scintillating, inspired posts (kidding!). but then, along came the lovely thaya from beatnik bazaar (she stocks fabulous skinny la minx goodness and other lovely things in her shop in kalk bay, south africa) with one of those kreativ blogger awards. i'm rubbish with properly acknowledging and passing on blog awards, but am much more appreciative than i let on. however, this one involves making a list of seven things you love, so i'll at least do that little assignment. and i should note that i'm going to do things and abstractions and leave aside the obvious loves of husband and daughter (just so you don't think i'm being harsh in leaving them out):

1.  my studio. i know, i'm very nearly at the point of being insufferable about this room, but i literally walk in here every day and whisper, "i love you, room." and yes, the picture above may look like a cluttered nightmare to some, but it looks so inviting to me...cameras, lenses, a big mug of tea, my sewing machine, some pussy willows in a vase, my macbook pro, a stack of articles beside the computer, lighted candles, bits and pieces of inspiration on the wall, a whole mess of letterpress letters from my dad's old linotype, sabin's little stuffed beanie baby (remember those?) cat, some stones (a whole tray of them), a daffodil i plucked on the grounds of the little castle on easter, inks, brushes. for me, it's all there. when i'm working at home, like i have been today, this is where i spend my time.

2. sabin's riding lessons. having grown up with horses and been sent into the show ring with merrylegs, my dapple grey pony, when i was just old enough to walk, i've so been longing for sabin to have horses in her life. i think they ground you in a way that nothing else can. horses are good for the soul. and she's totally a natural--she sits so well and she's so fearless, it really makes me proud.  we're using lesson horses at the riding school for now but i could imagine a horse of our own on the horizon.

3.  the carpet of anemones carpeting the forest floor right now. and spring sunshine that falls on them just so.

4.  renewed ways of seeing the world around me that i've learned through my camera lens and from all of the wealth of sources of inspiration to be found on blogs and flickr. there was a time not so long ago when i wouldn't have laid on the ground for 15 minutes and noticed these little acorn top cups that seem like magical little drinking vessels for fairies when you line them up and really look at them. i love that i notice things like that these days.

5. that my laundry room looks like a bomb went off in there. why do i love this, you ask? because it means that i'm spending my time doing other things...walking in the woods, making stuff, cooking, playing cards with friends, laughing. clearly we don't ask aelita to clean in here either. maybe one day i'll get it tidied up and we can add it to her list. but until then, i can still get to the washer and dryer, so i'm cool with it.

6.  helleristninger - or nordic petroglyphs. rock carvings done largely in the iron age and which are scattered around scandinavia (most are in norway). we went to an exhibition at a little bitty local history museum in our town last year and it piqued my interest. i want to seek some of these out this summer and see them in person. when sabin was a tiny baby, we tried to see some on bornholm, but the weather was so bad that day, i ended up having to stay in the car with her because she was too little to be out in the elements, so i missed out on seeing some on that occasion. i'm finding myself very inspired by these motifs at the moment.

7. a new blog project. like the julie project, this one also involves another julie, this time, the julie of just jules. actually, it involves her daughter, who is just about the same age as sabin. addie and sabin are both in the second grade and they have exchanged a beloved toy and are each going to show the other's toy around in their respective worlds. it's a bit like the famed flat stanley projects, just with a much cuter subject than those boring flat stanley paper dolls. the girls will learn a bit about the world outside of their hometowns, some geography and about one another. and we've created a new blog to document it (because i didn't have enough going already). it's like modern day penpals. and i really love that.  we sent the above today to addie--he's a little lizard named "buller" that sabin made at school. and actually, addie and her mom were much more on the ball and we received her bird, "early" today, along with some other goodies (thank you jules & addie!!). we've already taken him out to lunch at café le zinc, our favorite cafe here in town.

do stop by and check out what addie and sabin are up to with early and buller. and any suggestions you might have for small learning assignments for the girls are most welcome over on "trans-atlantic learning adventures." (i know, it needs a catchier name than that...i just created it when it came to me yesterday afternoon and that's what came out at the spur of the moment--so any suggestions on that front are most welcome as well.)

thank you, thaya, for the kreativ blogger award and for this little assignment. :-)  and because i'm usually bad about this and i'm trying to be better, i'll pass this little award and assignment along to jules.