it's the little things

finding joy in the little things...like unexpected gifts from longtime bloggy friends. thank you so much! small acts of kindness, generosity and love like this are getting me through these mad political times. the kitties think those little fabric kitties and bunnies are for them! and now all of my pagemarkers will be kitties! 

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it seems i'm not the only one with post-election stress disorder.

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meanwhile, in an alternate universe:

the hillarybeattrump website

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i do hope gates & buffet are right about a return to a fact-based reality.

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best troll of the week:
the guys who handed out russian flags to the stupid crowd
listening to the cheeto's speech at the cpac meeting.

feeling blue about old my blue room

i've been in an intense adobe premiere pro course for the past two days. my head is full and i'm quite frankly exhausted. i was searching my flickr for a photo of pretty paper to use to encourage folks to participate in an art journaling workshop this weekend and i stumbled onto photos of my old blue room. and i got a bit, well...blue about it. i miss that beautiful space. somewhere i could leave projects out and where i could have multiple projects going on at once. somewhere to light a merry fire in the wood-burning stove, listen to music and hang out with friends and drink wine. and then cyndy sent me a blog post she did about my blue room long ago, which included a SONG that she wrote about it. i swear i don't think i knew about this song before now. i think that may have been during that period when i was feeling invisible. maybe it's just that the universe knew that today i would need to both laugh and cry at the same time. thank you so much, cyndy. it was precisely what i needed.

where was this when i was picking dark blue?

maybe i need new glasses.
in a variety of colors.
with thanks to bill.
a blog friend in the beginning, and a real life friend today.

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tarkovsky's atmospheric polaroids.

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midlife crisis? why bother?

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people who are late are more optimistic.
or is that just crap?

double exposure project: two cameras, two continents, two views of the world, one roll of film

i am ashamed to say that back in 2011, the wonderful marinik and i exchanged a roll of film. i'm ashamed to say it because although i put it in my camera almost upon receipt of it, i didn't develop it until a couple of weeks ago when i was in new york. life intervened, film developing places became scarce and untrustworthy and so i sat on that film for ages. ages developed into years. i think 4 of them, to be exact. but oh my, was it worth the wait. there is a special kind of serendipitous magic that happens in these double exposure projects. you load the film into your camera, having no idea what has already been done with that film. and while not every photo is magical, some of them are. and it makes you want to do it again.

so if any of you would like to exchange a roll of 35mm film that you've sent through your camera with me (be careful when you rewind, because i'll need that tail to be exposed so i can put it through my camera too), just let me know in the comments. we're going to do this again. this is the kind of magic we need in our lives. and by we i mean me. but i also mean you. let's co-create something, baby.

miles to go before we sleep

when i got home, husband had cleared our bedroom and had started to paint it. just a nice chalky white. and instead of moving our bed back in, we decided to make a small, makeshift dining room, since with the approach of winter, we will no longer be able to eat out in the terrace.

we scored some awesome green wool-covered chairs and a pretty cool round table, with leaves, at the recent flea market at our local kulturhus. and they are going to be our dining set, since our other table is far too large.

yes, those are breakfast crumbs on the table. but hey, there's also a cat on the table that apparently didn't get the memo about "no cats on the table." what was most fun about setting up the room (because i got home in time to help), was digging out all of our old photos, which used to line the stairs back on poppelvej and hanging them on the wall. i changed a few out, but mostly, i left them, for the sake of the memories. fresh, white walls and loads of meaningful pictures make for a lovely space, even tho' the ceiling is low and we're waiting for the electrician to come and deal with that light fixture (we thought it didn't work, but husband got zapped, so it apparently does).

do you ever visit someone and think that they've really got this life thing nailed in a way that you don't? well, i do, more often than i'd like to admit. but no more so than visiting the amazing and wonderful bb (of wobbly plates fame) at her beautiful home/atelier in brooklyn on my recent trip. she has this amazing table, which her husband made (so there is hope for us) and has created the most beautiful, livable, enviable space. but you can't even envy her (read: hate) her for it because she's so utterly and completely real and wonderful that all you can do is love her and feel privileged to be able to visit. and to hope that a little bit of that ability to live rubs off.

we have a ways to go before we're here. our house didn't have the beautiful skeleton that bb's brooklyn brownstone had, but we will figure out it. the house. but also this life thing.  of that, i'm certain.

in which the post ends up quite different than what she envisioned when she sat down to write it

i didn't begin blogging to find a community. i began blogging to find my way back to myself after leaving a job which was very hectic and busy and hardly left me time to pee, let alone be creative. i began blogging to get back in touch with writing, which i had always loved and tap back into my creative side. and frankly, to keep find regain my sanity. as i always say, blogging is cheaper than therapy.

little by little, i did find a community of like-minded (or perhaps like-humored) souls and after blogger named my little musings a blog of note in april 2009, a community found me. many of those who found me are still among my friends today, even tho' most have stopped blogging and we have our virtual social life over on facebook (that bothers me a bit, to turn so many of my social interactions over to them, but that's the stuff of another post). in a few weeks, i'm going to be getting together with some of them, several for the first time, tho' we feel like old friends.

blogging has given me so much...a place to work out what i think about both the deep and the trivial, an interest (and a practice) in photography, loads of laughter, regular catharsis and probably most of all, a place to store my memories. i wouldn't want to be without it, even tho' i feel like the secrets i'm surrounded by at work these days get in my way and hold me back from writing. i think it's because they cramp my sense of immediacy and that has been rather a hallmark of this blog, whether it was impassioned rants about encounters in the grocery store with solipsistic danes or the latest apple product to cross our doorstep or the progress on the quilt i'm making. the great majority of the photos i've used here were taken minutes before i posted them. i guess i'm just an immediate sort of person, which i think is different than living in the moment (but that's, again, the stuff of a different blog post).

because this blog post is about finding that virtual community (or at least it was when i started out).  i have the privilege of investigating various online communities these days. ones centered around a certain little plastic brick. and they are as fascinating and varied as the sets themselves. some are focused on the bitty small details of the bricks (when a certain grey color was discontinued is still lamented by a certain segment of fans even years later). some are focused on a particular theme - trains, space, star wars, pirates and yes, minifigs.

i've found several communities of people who pretty much appear to photograph nothing but minifigs, at least if you believe their instagram feeds (maybe they have entirely separate instagram accounts for food pictures and cat pictures, i don't know). my own instagram account is a mish-mash of, again, whatever is immediate to me. i take the "insta" part of instagram very seriously. i don't take photos with my big girl camera and spend hours editing them before posting them to instagram. i pretty much post whatever tickles my fancy at a given moment, in that moment, joking that we don't really know it happened unless we've instagrammed it. i'm not saying i don't appreciate the beautiful, atmospheric, well-curated feeds, i'm just saying it's not how i operate.

and this has made me think about my own minifig photos. for the most part, i take them in a single setting...in the nice light in the windowsill of our living room, on an old-fashioned scale. for me, my photos of them are less a small story staged in a small scene (unless i use them to tell a story here), than they are a catalog of which minifigs i have. after i photograph them there, i'm actually even able to give them away if they happen to suit someone who comes by (because everyone needs a yeti with a popsicle at some point). but aside from enabling causing some of my existing bloggy friends to also begin madly collecting the little guys, i haven't sought community through my minifigs. but via my research and flickr and instagram and even google+ (these minifig peeps are using g+, which makes them awesome in my book), i am slowly finding a community there as well. people say the internet is isolating, but i've not seen much evidence for that.

the first

they have arrived, just in time to greet tara, who is visiting for a few days from south africa. an afternoon at the beach, braai (i so want to adopt that word) in the garden and a bottle of nice south african red, lots of laughter and good conversation. all of it topped off with the first strawberries and cream. one couldn't really ask for more.

be back soon

it's the winter holiday and we've had visitors...but i'll be back soon, with much to tell...

gratitude and memories and friends, oh my!

i find the reverb10 prompts to be thought-provoking, but find them even more so when i let them accumulate for a few days (and that is not just an excuse for laziness, nuh, uh).

december 14 – appreciate: what’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? how do you express gratitude for it?

often, you only realize how grateful you were for something when you don't have it anymore. when i used to step into my blue room, i always whispered "i love you room," and so it knew i appreciated it. now, after a week of crafting and creating in little corners all over the house and leaving small piles of threads and sharp needles on the arm of a chair here and boxes of supplies there and covering most of our dining table with projects in various stages, i find that i am REALLY MISSING my old blue room. its entire purpose was to be a place where the projects could cover every surface and it didn't matter - no one complained that we couldn't sit down to eat dinner because there was fabric everywhere on the table. no one had to go digging through five different boxes to find the thread or the pretty paper, because it was all at hand, right there. so i have come to appreciate what a luxury it was to have a space devoted entirely to creativity and i am more determined than ever to have that again before 2011 is out. bigger and better than ever.

remembering 2010

december 15 – 5 minutes: imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

i think i'll actually let the mosaic above from my 2010 365 photo project speak for this one. each photo triggers a memory that i'd like to keep from 2010. memories of home and horses and walks on the beach and laughter and travel and moments of beauty and creativity. those stand out from 2010.

december 16 – friendship: how has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

i could tell a tale of a friend that wasn't really a friend at all when it came down to it, but a different, more positive and uplifting tale of a real friend comes to mind. the last blog camp in the aforementioned blue room last january was both a joyous and a bit sorrowful occasion. everyone who came had been to blog camp before, save elizabeth, who bravely made her way across denmark to join us. we were glad to gather in that magical room one last time, but we were all a bit sad it would be the last time there in that place.

being the only new person in a group of talkative women who all knew one another well could have been an intimidating situation, but elizabeth is the most calm and easy-going person that i know, so she took it all in stride. lucky for her, she's a listener and a thinker, because we scarcely let her get a word in edgewise. but she drank it all in and interjected with the most spot-on comments on whatever topic we were discussing (we did, after all, have to stop to take a breath sometimes). and she shared with us her beautiful soul food embroidery project - a symbolic journal of her innermost thoughts, hopes and dreams. and truly a thing of beauty.

her ability to see through the words and images i post on my blog to the true heart of the matter continues to astonish me. she'll email me and ask me how i'm doing because she can sense between the lines that i'm not ok. although we don't see one another that often, she is one of my best friends. she grounds me with her quiet wiseness. she makes me laugh. she inspires my creativity. and most of all, she makes me think. she's there for me, as a friend should be, offering advice and guidance and most of all, insight. she's my zen master.

and just to get back to answering the reverb10 question..i think she has gradually helped me change my perspective over this year...seeing what was going on even before i did, being all in the middle of it as i was and gently guiding me back to my creative path. thank you for that, E!

grateful tuesday: because it's been awhile

it's been far too long since i did any posts about gratefulness. a mild depression over huge change and upheaval (even if self-chosen) in our lives surely intervened - changing home, part of the country and work all at the same time is stressful, even if it's what you want. but i feel it lifting. and even tho' the kitchen i have to live with for the time being (flaky (if adorable) architects and building permits take time) continues to depress me (and cause my continuing absence from domestic sensualist), i am coming up for air. i can feel it. interestingly, what's triggered it today is sabin's morning fever, which caused me to stay at home with her today. waiting on her, running to the store for the cottage cheese she was craving, drinking tea together and watching an entire afternoon of BBC Lifestyle programming gave me a sense of well-being that i could scarcely remember. (note to self: remember this.) and all of that has filled me with a desire to express gratefulness...

i'm grateful to lisa of lil fish studios for our recent swap. i sent one of my painted feather stones and she sent me this gorgeous feather stone of her own. very different from mine, yet a sister of it somehow. and an immediate treasured possession. and i'm ever grateful to trinsch for getting me started on the feather stone thing in the first place.

i'm grateful for being published - in an art book by hong kong-based artpower publishers (and i'm grateful that it finally arrived today) and even more grateful for the amusing asian translated subtitle of the book (because who doesn't love different color shades that serve as prevalent colors on the sock). but on the inside is a whole beautiful 8-page spread of my photos of my beloved blue room (along with a whole lot of other inspiring artists that i will share soon). and that just makes me smile.

i'm grateful for the creativity of my child. she creatively wrapped up the blog camp berlin presents today. and yes, i'm also grateful for the upcoming blog camp berlin.  the kid learned how to make these pretty boxes at school (thus i'm also grateful for the danish school system) and taught me how to make some today as well. and even if i do say so myself, i'm pretty pleased with what's inside.

and thank odin for that vintage scale, which seems to be where i take all of my photos of late.

latte. i'm pretty grateful for latte. and when it's accompanied by a tall hyldeblomst (elderflower) beverage and enjoyed in the sunshine at a gorgeous marina, all the better.

but today, i'm most grateful for an encounter i had with the folks at the apple help line. back in february, through the apple.dk website, i ordered one of those big, giant 1TB My Book Studio external hard drives made by western digital. i was in terror of losing my 50-some thousand photos after spilling water in my MBP and having issues with my iMac (now solved, thankfully). i got it and hooked it up, but never really got it properly set up because it kept giving me a strange message that it was going to shut down because it was too hot after i had it on for about five minutes. i never did anything about it at the time because of the chaos of our move, but today, i finally called about it to see if there was anything that could be done. and would you believe that without argument or questions into whether i'd dropped it into the bathtub (for the record, i did not), they said they would send a new one out to me by courier immediately and collect the faulty one? so tomorrow, i will have a new 1TB WD My Book Studio external hard drive. now that's service. and a big part of why i love apple.

what are you grateful for today?

an interview with liz of the fragrant muse

Liz is my source of fragrant inspiration - i learned of clary sage from her and of the healing powers of tea tree and of how to be centered by lavender. i credit all of the times i got into creative flow in the past year or so to her fabulous clary sage, it's my one essential can't-live-without oil. here's what she had to say in response to my questions...

1. when i'm home all alone, i...

Bathe in decadent selfishness: I listen to audiobooks (always mysteries), work in my art journal, spend hours pouring over blogs and websites of creative women who inspire me, eat ice cream. Not necessarily in that order.

2. your top three ultimate must-have essential oils. if you could have no others, it would be these.

Only three? The very idea makes me dizzy.l But okay, I'll play. I surely couldn't live without Clary Sage for her deep emotional and creative support. Bergamot is a must have because I never ever, ever, ever, ever get tired of her aroma and she calms my anxiety. I couldn't live without Tea Tree for her sheer medicinal value. Then (when no one's looking) I'd slip in Vetiver for stablility and grounding.

3. anything you would go back and do over?

In 1991 my hair was reallllly long when I impulsively cut it pixie short. Imagine my tresses now if I'd left them alone!

4. where do you go when you need to unwind?

Anyplace near water, especially the beach. My Moon in Cancer demands water to soothe my high strung nature. And I love shrimp.

5. what do you miss most about italy?

The abundance of style, elegance and class, from furnishings to food to how people dress every day. Americans have taken "disposable", "practical" and "casual" to terrifying depths.

6. the best thing about being your own boss?

Being a control freak, I love that I get to do everything my own way.

7. the worst thing about being your own boss?

I have to do things the way I've decided with no one else to blame!

8. if people disappoint you, do you say something to them?

Depends on the person. If I really care about the relationship then yes, I will be candid. Otherwise, I let it go and move on, unfortunately, I usually move on from that person, too..

9. have you grown more patient over the years?

My family and I probably have differing opinions on this one. However, yes, I believe I have. Being patient is really about letting go of expectations of how things should be. This has been a huge lesson for me because I like to be in control. My worst impatience used to be waiting in a supermarket checkout line. Now, when the line is slow, I grab the most expensive magazine and calmly read it cover to cover with no intention of paying for it. I feel in control and get great fashion tips. Yeah, it's petty, but it works.

10. life is too short to...Leave your passions unexplored!

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thank you, liz, for playing along with my interview game! i'm off to douse myself in clary sage and paint some more feather stones. (i have to credit trinsch for the inspiration on those.)

i'm closing in on the end of this round of interviews.

if you didn't get questions from me, i'm really sorry.

i will do this again soon and those of you who asked this time will be first on the list.

i got a little overwhelmed by more than 50 requests, i admit!

an interview with miss malorie of consider me something of a miscreant...

when i read miss malorie's answers, i realized i must have been in a rather bad mood when i wrote her questions, as many of them are related to angry chicks and corporate hell. hmmm... but i loved her answers and i hope you will too:

1. when they make the movie about you, who will play you?

 Hmmmm... excellent question. If I was a tall white woman instead of a tall black woman, Julia Roberts would play me. Back in her Pretty Woman days when she had that amazing, long, curly red hair. Hmmm... Angela Bassett is fierce; I would love her to play me. If I was a man, it would have to be a mix of Scarface Al Pacino and The Godfather Pt. II Al Pacino. Sorry, that was approximately 3.75 answers to one question.

2. original star trek, next generation or deep space 9 or none of the above?

 Oh dear, none of the above. I was a Twilight Zone kid. Space never quite fascinated me the same way other dimensions did.

3. if you were a car, what car would you be?

 Just because it would be my dream, a pearly white BMW 330 Ci (convertible) with white leather and straw interior. I was just out last night, and I saw the perfect summer purse--made from straw with white leather. I think that looks so classy. I would be a BMW because every time I see one, I stop what I'm doing and watch it work. I would like to think that I'm a headturner... not just in the literal sense, either.

4. when you're in an incredibly pissy mood, who do you take it out on and how?

 Usually every inanimate object in my path (I lightly kicked my computer once. Maybe more than once.) and every stupid driver on the road. I curse them out in my car. They don't hear me. Sometimes, I take it out on people also. I try not to let it get to that, but if it does, it's reflected via my verbal and non-verbal communication. (My infamous facial expressions, very curt sentences, etc.)

I try not to get pissy often... I'm generally irritated quite often, but I don't like being pissy.

5. your go-to angry chick music when you're feeling like an angry chick?

 Hmmm... anything with strong (i.e. content wise/emotionally speaking, etc.) lyrics and/or artfully placed expletives. One album I can think of off the top of my head is Avril Lavigne's first album, actually. Super light on the expletives, but the heavy guitars and melodies (and screaming, at times) help. When I'm mad, it helps to know that someone out there in the world was as mad as I am.

6. would you allow yourself to be bogged down in corporate hell?

 No.

Period point blank, no. I can't work in an office without wanting to launch myself out of the window. I have worked in recreation forever (meaning: with kids) and the flexibility is something that really works for me. It's spoiled me, quite frankly. But I knew I was never going into the corporate landscape way before my time in recreation. When I was 15, out of horror, I made a promise to myself that I would never work in a cubicle. (I thought often about ending up in a recliner, realizing that life had passed me by. Hence, the horror.)

7. if you were going to run away, where would you go?

 To the state of delirious happiness.

8. random fact?

 I am not who you think I am.

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thank you, miss malorie, for playing along, even tho' all of my questions for you were about my bad day.

i would love to come along for the ride to delirious happiness, please! :-)

and you know what?

i'm not who you think i am either.

an interview with megan of running wild

megan runs marathons. and usually, something like that would mean that we have nothing in common and so our paths would never cross. but, being a runner, she's also got feet, which meant she was a shoe-in for being part of the shoe per diem project(pun intended). :-) actually, back when i first got acquainted with her, she was known as OP - the optimistic pessimist. and i always thought that was a very clever bloggy name. but anyway, on to her interview. being both horrified and fascinated by runners (especially after reading murakami's what i talk about when i talk about running), i had to ask her about that. and she scores extra points for actually mentioning him!

1. you are a running madwoman, what drives you to do it, even if no one is chasing you?

At first I was driven to run just to see if I could do it. I can’t really say that I liked it all that much and at some points I hated it. After my marathon, something just clicked; it was one of the most soul-searching times of my life.

Now I’m driven to run for two reasons:

#1 – Physically, I have to.
Not running isn’t an option. My body is used to running and when it doesn’t get taken out for a run it gets antsy. I often tell people I’m like a dog that needs to be walked. If I don’t get out for a few runs in the week I physically feel bad and pace around a lot.

#2 – Find my center, emotional stability, inspiration.
Running has allowed me to reach a level of peace and calmness that I never thought possible. All day long I’m a mother, a daughter, a friend, an employee, a student…I’m somebody’s something. Running is for me, it’s mine. It’s my time to purge and process all that’s happening in my life. I have the best ideas when I run. I’ve often thought about taking a piece of paper and pen with me as my thoughts aren’t always as clear after the run. At some point it became less about the exercise and more about feeling inspired. In a way, running is my art.

2. if you were going to run away, where would you go? and would you literally run?

Currently, if I were to run away I’d go to Hawaii. My running partner is going there tomorrow and I miss her already, AND that’s where Haruki Murakami wrote some of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – an inspirational book for anyone, even non-runners. There were times where I just kept chuckling to myself and nodding my head in agreement while reading this book. I’d love to channel Haruki while running on the beaches of Hawaii.

Would I run there? Of course not! I’m not exactly known for my light packing skills. That and the whole issue of the ocean.

3. the best thing about 9-year-old boys?

What isn’t great about 9-year-old boys? Their views on life, food, and bugs. Nine is by far my favorite age to date. He’s independent enough to do his own thing, but still loves spending time with me.

One of the things I love most about him is his innovativeness. His way of exploring and trying new things never ceases to amaze me. I often wonder if we put 9-year-olds in charge of world issues if they could do a better job than those currently in power. Sure this would result in entire towns made out of marshmallows, lego sculptures in every city, and mandatory weekly nerf gun exercises, but hey, we’d have world peace.

4. the worst thing about 9-year-old boys?

Laundry time. Ughhh. Yuck. I’m seriously contemplating starting to wearing gloves. It’s something new and unusual every week. Although, I must admit I do get a kick out of wondering what would inspire him to put what he puts in his pockets. What must be going through his head at that very moment. I have yet to find a living creature, but it’s only a matter of time.

5. iPhone or blackberry?

iPhone – a no brainer. Just yesterday my neighbor had a confused look on her face starring at her blackberry. She said she’s had it for a week and can’t figure the thing out. She was planning on watching the CD to help her figure out how to use it. As I struggled to understand her woes, I caressed my iPhone and thought about my first week with it. There was no figuring it out or watching of a CD. It was completely intuitive. I shudder to think of having anything other than an iPhone at this point in my life.

6. your wine of choice?

Inspiration Red from the Imagine Moore Winery in New York. Ménage a Trois

7. what's your starbucks drink of choice?

Carmel Frappucino

8. your guilty pleasures?

Starbucks, sea salt & vinegar potato chips, going to a movie in the middle of the day on a weekday, chinese food in bed on a rainy day, The Real World....the list just goes on and on.

9. your life philosophy in one sentence?

Keep moving, no matter what – mentally and physically.

Seriously – if you become stagnant why bother? No matter how tough stuff gets if you keep moving forward, things will get better.

10. what child-like traits do you retain despite ostensibly being an adult?

Lying in the grass, watching the clouds for hours.
Giggling at words that sound dirty, but aren’t....caulk anyone?

* * *

thank you, megan, for answering a few of my questions.

but damn you for making me think running might be a good idea...

go check out megan's blog and stop by to see what shoes she was wearing today.

an interview with lisa-marie of this girl is...

there was a time a couple of years ago when we considered moving to scotland and if we had, i can tell you that i'd be hanging out with lisa-marie. not only does she share the name of elvis' daughter, she can cook, she reads lots of books and she makes pretty things. and she asked me to interview her - i jumped at the chance because i wanted to finally get to the bottom of that thing with the kilts. here's what she had to say...

1. tell us a little-known fact about Scotland.

The kilt, considered by most people to be the traditional Scottish
dress, Is actually only the traditional dress of the Highlands. It's
common now for men all over Scotland to wear them for special
occasions, but in the time that the kilt was worn as everyday dress,
Lowland Scottish people considered Highlanders to be strange and
savage, owing to their strange dress and 'foreign' language, which was
Gaelic.

2. would you ever participate in one of those changing rooms programs
(if they're still making them - do you know what i mean?) and whose
house would you want to make over?

As someone who is relatively artistic, they way all of the interior
designers on them make 'art' that matches the colours they've chosen
for the room really annoys me, so I'd participate so that I could give
people proper art that doesn't blend in. It's would be cheating, but
I'd probably make over my little sister's house, and let her do mine,
as she wouldn't put in things I wouldn't like!

3. the best part about your job?

Being a nanny is quite different from most jobs I think. I am actually
part of a family, and happen to be paid for being so at the end of
each month. My very favourite part of the days is when I walk in the
door in the morning. Anna tends to run towards me for a hug, and Tom
starts telling me what he's been doing immediately. It's wonderful to
walk into a room and automatically feel welcome and like you arrival
has been anticipated with happiness.

4. coffee or tea?

Tea, Earl Grey with milk if I have a choice. Tea has a very relaxing,
restorative quality, which is probably why it's a cliche that people
in the UK see it as as solution to everything,

5. the worst book you've read in ages...

Conversations with the Fat Girl by Liza Palmer. It's badly written,
and paints both of the girls with weight problems as being quite
pathetic. I picked it up as a light read, but it's one of the few
books in my life I've stopped reading halfway through. Being somewhat
chubby myself, I am generally interested in how chubby girls are
portrayed in books, and this one is not painting us in a good light!

6. and of course, the best one...

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. It's the coming of age tale of
two 17 year old girls, living in poverty in a large, rundown castle in
England, with their eccentric family. Smith turns the picture-box
image of families living in large estates on it's head, and creates
characters who are individual, multidimensional and loveable. I read
this first when I was 13, and loved it then, but having re-read it,
I've taken even more from it!

7. don't go another year without...

Learning to crochet - I've been saying I'm going to for ages, and
haven't. Oh, and seeing some new places. I want to see as much of the
world as I can in my life!

8. your life philosophy in one sentence:

Be true to who you are.

9. so are the men wearing underwear underneath those kilts?

In my experience, nothing! :)

10. if you could invite four authors to dinner, who would they be and
what would you serve?

Jane Austen, Muriel Spark, John Steinbeck, and Margaret Atwood.
Imagine the conversations!

I'm assuming our dinner would be in winter, and I'd serve - Leek,
potato and bacon soup, Cider and mustard pork chops with roast veg(and
some German white),my chocolate truffle cake with ice cream(and a nice
bottle of Spanish red), and a cheese board with port and whisky.

* * *

thank you, lisa-marie! i hope i can come to that dinner too!

and i'm with you on the crochet, tho' it's not going THAT well for me.

an interview with amy of tilting windmills

i was so pleased that amy wanted to be interviewed, because she's been at the country lifestyle for a bit longer than i have. we have in common a house for sale (ours is thankfully now sold and hers rented) and a desire for a simpler life more filled with animals and gardening. so i jumped at the chance to ask her a few questions about how she's getting along with all of that. so read what she had to say and do check her blog and flickr photostream - she's also part of the blog camp 365 flickr group.

1. tell us what's going into your garden boxes at the moment? and how many people receive them per week?

This week we had loads of cucumbers (both English and mini ones), swiss chard, Italian squash, zucchini, baby bell peppers and tomatillos! We are doing the boxes for four families. There is another family that's been helping us with the garden and the two of us eat our fill and put up plenty for the off season too. This is the first year we have tried our mini CSA. It's been a great learning experience and a lot of fun. We actually have a waiting list of interested people for next year!

2. are the chickens really worth it, despite being utterly brainless?

Hmmm utterly brainless to take care of or they're utterly brainless (editorial note: chickens not that smart) ? Either way the answer is Yes! We've loved having them and Sidney is very attached. It is fascinating to watch them in their interactions with each other and us. We have two that are two years old and they'll come right up and hop on your lap. Then this year we got 15 babies. One of the hens grew up to be a rooster so we get to listen to him crow, which does seem to add further to the ambiance here :) One of the young ones laid her first egg yesterday! Come fall we'll be adding eggs to our weekly farm boxes for everyone!

3. what's the most essential utensil in your kitchen?

I love my Kitchenaid mixer. I use it all of the time!

4. which garden goodness that you've put up do you most enjoy in the dead of winter?

That's a tough one. I'd have to say the butternut squash, it's so sweet, warm and comforting and takes the whole season to grow. A close second would be the loads of fresh pesto I've made and frozen.

5. if you were going to run away and escape from it all, where would you go?

I grew up in Southern California, right near the ocean. I love the water. I think my best escape would be to a lake where I can just relax and listen to the water gently lapping on the shore.

6. can you give me some canning advice? or a good pickle recipe?

Something I've just learned, you don't need the bread and butter pickle spice mix. Do the whole shebang from scratch. It makes amazing pickles, I think I just might enter a jar of these in the fair next year :)

12 large cucumbers
12 large onions
1 Pt. white vinegar
1 C. brown sugar
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 tsp, celery seed
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper


Peel the onions. Wash and thinly slice onions and cucumbers. Place in a solution of 1 qt. water mixed with 1/4 C. canning salt. Cover with ice and allow to stand in brine for 3 hours.


Combine vinegar, brown sugar, mustard and celery seed and bring to boil. Add ginger, turmeric, salt and pepper.


Drain cucumber & onion mixture (do not rinse). Pack into clean hot jars and cover with hot liquid mixture. Place on 2 part lids to seal and process in a boiling water bath. 15 minutes for quarts or 10 minutes for pints.

7. how's your fabric stash coming along?

Ohhh it's growing quite nicely, thank you (Sid's is too)! Now I just need my own 'blue room.' I can see I'm quickly going to outgrow my dining room. In fact, I'm hosting a dinner party outside (in some crazy humidity) this weekend, just to keep my craft room intact ;)

8. what prompted your decision to move to the countryside to try to live a simpler life?

I've always been drawn to the country. B grew up on a farm in Kansas, and though he didn't want to farm per se, we wanted our own type of farming experience. It began to come together just before we had our daughter, Sidney. We had a business opportunity that would move us closer to the small town experience that we wanted for our kids. When we first moved to Wisconsin, there wasn't that perfect property available and we soon got sucked into the day to day of owning and running a business, and our son came along too. Just when we weren't looking, we came across the perfect property just over 3 years ago. Now our kids are growing up with plenty of space to run and an intimate understanding of our environment and how to take care of it. For us, we're beginning to realize our dreams of sustainability.

9. has it been as you expected it to be?

Everything and more. It's a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day, it's ours. We take ownership of it, nurture it and will pass it down.

10. how have your ideas of living a simpler life evolved since you began?

I think that once you immerse yourself in this lifestyle, you begin to find that the simpler life isn't always simple to attain. It's a series of trials and errors, dreams and visions, and time (sometimes frustrating when you're the type of person who sees the vision and wants to enact the whole thing right now)! It is an amazing experience and like B always says: It's a marathon, not a sprint. A good mantra for me, to calm my impatience as we continue on the journey.

* * *

thank you, amy, for sharing some your thoughts on the journey towards simplicity. every little bit helps! and for someone who wanted to simplify and spend this year not buying anything, i've not done so well: so far in 2010, we've bought a house, a car and a horse. and an iPad. and iPhones for everyone in the family. so you can see, i need all the help i can get!

an interview with inna karenina (not to be confused with anna)

inna joined our BC365 flickr group at the beginning of the year. i hadn't met her before that and it wasn't long before i learned that much to my surprise she was only 18! her photos were completely luminous and inventive and creative and i was blown away to find out she was so young. i had to realign completely my way of thinking and for that, i thank her very much. eventually, she revealed to us her beautiful blog and you must visit it along with her 365 project blog and her flickr photostream, right after you read this.  all of the pretty pictures are hers...



1. you have been extraordinarily dedicated to the 365 photo project, have there been moments when you wanted to give up and what did you do to get through them?

Yes, there has been. It's quite a regular feeling for me that my photos are not good at all, and those feelings may lead to the moments when all I want is to give up. But that's part of learning and improving, I have learned. The last, and the only really bad moment like that, was just a few weeks ago. Then I just whine, cry, feel bad for myself for taking such terrible photos, whine a bit more, and get over it. Maybe take a day off in between. Not very adultlike I suppose, but that's honestly what I do, and it helps. I'd love to say it's only the love for photography, and the love for learning that keeps me shooting, but even though that's all true - I am rather passionate about photography, and I love how the project makes me grow not only as a photographer but also as a person - I must admit the biggest reason why I keep on taking the photos day after day is that I am too proud to give up. I am too proud to admit that I couldn't do something that I have started and so publicly done.



2. when you reach what feels like a plateau with your photography, what do you do to take it to the next level (because i think you always do take it to the next level)?

I'm not sure if I understand the question right, but in case feeling like a plateau means the same as feeling like your photos are always the same, I just try to do something different. New location, new time of day, anything that's new for you. Once when I was feeling like in a rut, like my photos weren't getting any better at all, and looked the same always, I just woke up early in the morning, and went to photograph the sunrise around 5 a.m. Waking up early is so hard for me, so I had hardly ever photographed a sunrise before, and that day I was rather lucky and there was this fog which looked dashing in the dawn. After that I had a lot more courage to do something different again, and I think, I was able to start taking my photography to a new level again.



3. you do absolute magic with your nikon D40, but what would be your dream camera?

my dream camera? a camera with more focus points (is that how you call them in english?) than three ones. or maybe a film camera, as that's something I would really like to try and experiment with.

4. a little known quirky fact about finland...

They say Finland is the only country in the world where news are broadcasted in Latin..

5. what do you want to be when you grow up? (i still don't know, so don't feel bad about this one, i mean it more light-hearted than it may seem. :-) )

I might say a photographer, because that's what I want to do, but I guess it'd never happen as I am rather spontaneous when it comes to photographing. I'm not that into planning, so photographing weddings etc. wouldn't be the best option. After all, in the middle of wedding you must take photos of the wedding, instead of going out to capture the perfect light or the beautiful clouds. Anyway, my sister and I have been joking that we will probably be studying all our lives, and that's the only thing I could actually imagine happening. There are too many interesting things to learn and do, and I guess I won't be able to decide what I really want, not anytime soon at least.



6. you've been experimenting with self-portraits lately - what has it taught you?

Self-portraits are still rather new thing for me, and I am still in progress processing the feelings and thoughts that I have about it. For sure it has taught me a lot though. As I earlier mentioned, I am not much of a planner when taking photos, and self portraits are teaching me to plan: to think about the composition, the light, the location etc. before taking the photo. When taking selfies, you can't change them so easily, and I am lazy, so it forces me to focus and think. That's the part which I find the most challenging, but also which I think I need to learn in case I would like to be real, professional, photographer some day. Also, I often feel like the selfies I take have already been taken by so many other people, so it's teaching me to be more creative, and to learn what is the thing in a photo that makes it me, if that makes any sense.

7. how do you feel about photo processing? is it an essential part of the process or is it cheating?

Nowadays I do think it's an essential part of the process. There was time when I felt guilty for editing, but after writing about it in my blog and reading thoughts about it, I have realised it is essential for me. For me editing means finalizing the photo, making it look like I feel or like I see the world. And as I have noticed that photography is a way of expressing myself, it is essential to make the photo look like me, or like my feelings. I still do not edit a lot, I do not remove anything from the photo, or add there anything, so I haven't yet any opinion about that.. art it is for sure anyhow.

8. is using someone else's lightroom presets cheating?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and there is this voice in my head saying that it is. However, I really would like to think it's not, because it makes editing a lot more fun and easy. I have not much experience with presets in Lightroom, but when I used to use actions in PS Elements, I always made sure I read also a tutorial of how you do the stuff which the action makes for you. That way I was able to feel less quilty.



9. they say the northern lights have been visible in these parts in recent nights, have you seen them?

nope, unfortunately I haven't.

10. do you have or would you get a tattoo?

Tattoos are a little too permanent for me. I get tired easily, that's why. So no, no tattoos for me.

* * *

thank you, inna, with your name like a russian epic novel, for sharing your beautiful photography with us every day in the group and thank you for letting me interview you right here.  i know you'll be a photographer if you want to be and you won't be the kind who has to do weddings...of that i'm sure.