wordless wednesday - nyhavn

blog camp fears: some founded and most unfounded

photo of me in flamingo stance (there was something wrong with my shoe) by kristina

who am i at blog camp? am i who i really am? am i somehow more or less? am i at ease in myself? do i behave differently? will we click? will everyone belong? are those stupid little hairs i burned off going to stick up so i look like i'm trying to contact my home planet? will they like me? will they like the house? will they feel comfortable here? am i like my blog? if i am, is that a good thing? has my blog somehow presented a picture of myself that doesn't match me? have i been misleading? these questions swirl in my mind in the lead-up to blog camp, that doesn't really change, even tho' we've now had three.

i think the worries are stronger when it's my house. the house is such a reflection of who i am, who WE are as a family, that if the blog campers don't like it or feel it's not as they thought it was from my going on and on about it here, it will feel like that much more a rejection of me. and nobody wants to feel rejected. not that i felt that way at all, but that's my worry, every time, before blog camp begins.

but it turns out that all of those worries are totally unfounded, because the blog campers are wonderful, warm, real, non-judgmental, open people who don't think like that at all. and that the whole weekend is filled with laughing and drinking wine and gin and tonic sorbets and eating and taking pictures and laughing (have i mentioned laughing) and telling stories and making things and talking and getting to know one another.

but there were a few things i should have worried about...like were those orange tights a bit much? should i really stand on one leg to adjust my shoe and risk looking like a flamingo when there are people with cameras in the vicinity? or how awful our ancient we-can't-actually-remember-how-old-it-is toyota looks and what a bad impression it makes to pile people into it to drive home. and how embarrassing it might be to leave scones in the oven 'til they are but a lump of charcoal. and serving enough water to go with the wine. and how junior-high level jealous i could be at how incredibly thin and gorgeous jelica is despite the fact that she refuses to eat vegetables and can put away chocolate and quite a few red velvet cupcakes (insert audible sigh here).  that i should have asked the cleaning girls to make sure the cobwebs were gone from the map ceiling. i could undoubtedly go on, but it's making me mildly depressed, so i'll stop.

interesting to read back over this and realize all of my fears about blog camp were really fears about myself and none of them were really about the gorgeous, fabulous women who came to blog camp. you guys obviously rocked.

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don't forget to stop by here this week for more photos of blog camp. 

i really do adore our across ö/øresund project.

blogging blog camp 2.0 - take 1

blog camp lived a little more up to its name this time around. at least the blogging part of it. because we (and by we, i mean spud) actually blogged at blog camp (tho' there was still no camping). it might have been the rain, which kept us indoors on saturday. it might have been that this time, i planned it that way - that we would have a relaxed day, where we could just hang out together and talk. we also actually did a little craft project, which was one of the original ideas behind blog camp - remember when we talked about everyone having a talent that they would share? that somehow got dropped along the way, but sabin remembered it and she insisted that we all make some small clay figures.

there's a great picture of the end result over on the blog camp blog. i somehow took an insufficient number of photos around the house on saturday, i was too busy flitting around, running to the grocery store, jumping on my bike to run to the station to meet kristina, trying to prevent husband from buying a chainsaw, making dinner, keeping the blog camp blend diffusing, burning up the biscuits, filling wine glasses (you get the picture). but i think somehow when it's your house, you just don't think about photographing stuff in the same way. because you're used to all of it. i'm really looking forward to seeing what pictures the others got and seeing my own surroundings anew. jelica and spud have already posted a few pictures that made me smile.

aside from sneaking out between showers to go to lunch at café le zinc, my favorite local cafe, we did spend most of saturday hanging out in the blue room (not to be confused with a bar in a little town in the upper midwest).  jelica's husband, ruslan, was a bit suspicious of us spending so much time in the blue room and suggested that we might be indulging in some odin cult ritual, but i actually suspect that he kinda wished he was here, sipping wine and discussing roland barthes as well. :-)

on sunday, as you can see above, we walked around copenhagen, snapping photos at every opportunity, eating a sausage from a sausage stand, drinking a coffee (what a surprise that was! not.) and perhaps even indulging in a beer at nyhavn (not a sailor in sight, unlike last time). spud had to depart first and we choked back our tears and let her go home to her megaboys, followed by anne a few hours later. jelica didn't leave until today (which was according to the original blog camp plan) and now she's on her way home as well, so i'm here in the quiet house, feeling a bit lonely and bereft and thinking about it all. because it's not easy to take it all in.

blog camp is really hard to explain and it really is true in some ways that you "had to be there." i exchanged some emails about that with an open heart this morning. she had gone to blog camp - reno and was finding it difficult to express how great her experience was. because sometimes words don't really express it. and that's a strange feeling for us bloggers, so stand by for more as the week progresses...

loving today...

look at these beautiful girls in my blue room! and am i loving spud's ultra wide angle tokina lens? yes i am. is it now nestled down in a box of fabric over here on "my" side of the desk? perhaps, but if you don't tell, maybe she'll never notice...