blog crush: concerning pancakes

latte and a fabulous norwegian cinnamon bun for stephanie of concerning: pancakes.

i'm back again already with another blog crush. i told you i had more of them brewing. this time, i'm utterly charmed by stephanie's blog, concerning: pancakes. you may remember her from my tagging her recently for 7 random things. and while i'm hoping she doesn't actually drink bud light with her peanut m&m's, i very much enjoyed her list.

stephanie first came to my attention because she has also decided to spend less in 2010 (tho' i do believe she's taking a bit of a break at the moment, kinda like i did with the infamous orange coat incident). but thanks to the LinkWithin widget (love it now that they improved the code and hence the speed), i also found out that she's got a TLR camera and likes to play with TtV photography. her cat, chairman meow, has a clever name and is cute as can be. she often blogs about cooking, which is always a plus in my book.

i'm off to make her german pancakes now, since the pooka is home and feeling poorly. please do go check her out.

jewels in the blogosphere

lovely se'lah of the necessary room has once again sponsored a gift of jewels. random acts of giving and kindness, flowing from the blogosphere into the real world. you sign up, she matches you with another blogger somewhere in the world and you send that person a little gift and a nice card. meanwhile, someone else, somewhere, is sending you a little gift and a card. just because. and everyone's day is that much brighter.

my gift of jewels from planetmfiles arrived on saturday. it's the sweetest little crocheted bookmark and it came with the nicest, bright, cheery card. thank you gayle!!

yes, that's yann martel's life of pi, which i've owned for ages and tried to read several times, but never really got started. then, thanks to sara's photo and kristine's (i would link, but apparently her blog is now invitation only and i'm not invited. sniff.) encouragement in the BC365 flickr group, i picked it up again and this time around, i'm really liking it.

and what i sent? here's a peek, tho' i won't say to whom i sent it, in case it hasn't arrived yet:

a moment of clarity

i had a moment of clarity today. it hit me that despite much of the world i inhabit revolving around blogging and the community surrounding blogging, there are a whole lot of people out there who know nothing about it and have no access to this world that i can only characterize as fantastic, rich, lively and inspiring. they know nothing of the community that it can bring. a community in which someone who only knows you through your blog, can make something truly beautiful and meaningful for you. a symbol of clarity, just for you. and if you're lucky, you then actually meet that person in person, because she happens to live in the same country you do, which is really just a lucky coincidence, because she could live anywhere. but the fact is she lives within blog camping distance and for that, you are grateful. and you are also very grateful for the clarity symbol.

the clarity symbol that elizabeth made for me.

it's a little red heart-shaped pillow with more symbols on it (that i will use later)

and it resides on my side of the bed during the day.

hopefully, infusing my pillow with clarity for when i sleep.

...and a community in which someone who lives halfway around the world from you, sends you a little bag of stones. stones she collected for you as she scattered her mother's ashes on a canadian beach. stones that are worn smooth and shiny by the pacific ocean. and the fact that she actually thought of you and gathered stones for you (because she knows, from your blog, that you love them) on that day that was undoubtedly full of other thoughts and emotions for her, touches you deeply. and you feel really grateful for the blogosphere and the friendships you have found here. friendships and connections which are just are real (if not more so at times) than those you find in the everyday world which you inhabit. 

photo of the stones VEG sent on the sweet tapas plate BB gave me when we met in december.

and here VEG's stones join all of the other wonderful stones that people sent me from all corners of the world over the past year in my little stone bowl.

i so love that stone in trinsch of et lille øjeblik's handwriting. (and how cool is her handwriting?)

and the blue one is one i felted myself.

oh, and check out the little eyeball stone on the top left - that's from lynne.

have i mentioned that i love the blogosphere?

thank you all for connecting my world.

blog crush: holli's ramblings

normally when i blog crush, i offer my blog crush a tasty beverage, however, this world art that i snapped last week in the airport in copenhagen just seemed so appropriate for my latest blog crush. especially as it features africa right there in the middle of the picture. serendipity? i think so.

because my latest blog crush is holli's ramblings, a blog by a canadian in ghana (which, as we know, is in AFRICA) who calls herself a pale observer. she's been by here at MPC several times lately and i've been so busy, i didn't get a chance to check out her blog until today.  ASIDE: bloggy tip - if you leave me a comment, i will always click your profile and check our your blog and if you have an email address attached to your profile, i'll probably even answer you directly! so leave a comment, ok?  anyway, back to my blog crush....

a pale observer is funny, smart, thoughtful, living outside the country of her birth and like me has some magnetic force which interferes with electronic devices (damn, that shoulda been one of my secrets). she keeps stuff in boxes in her parents' basement (also like me), only her stuff is all deep and erudite and mine is pretty much a lot of clothing from the 90s that i'm never going to fit into wear again. she writes about deep stuff like the environment but also about hair-related accidents. she's one of us!

in short, holli's ramblings is my latest blog crush and she should be yours too.

you can run but you can't hide

there's something about blogging. something real and true and when you're not being real and true, people can feel it. they might not be able to put a finger on what it is, but they can feel it. and so, because they're lovely and despite not knowing you in real life, they email you and ask if you're all right. and you answer that you are, that it was just because you lacked internet. you do this not because you were intentionally lying or concealing, but because even you yourself hadn't really seen what the problem was. and then you have a fantastic, very grounding visit to an art museum and find that that you were totally out of sync with yourself, but the visit has settled you back in so that you feel once again comfortable in your own skin.

and so you begin to wonder what it was that was different about you and your posts. you know yourself that you hadn't been feeling the vibe, but that it was never so bad that you didn't feel like blogging at all, you just had a vague awareness that you lacked inspiration, mostly because all of the things that were foremost in your mind were things you weren't really prepared to blog about at that moment. so you were holding back. not lying, just holding back. because some things just can't be blogged about. at least not at certain moments. things like health fears (easy there, not serious ones) and work issues and money issues (part of work issues in that they are rubbish at paying my travel settlements and in case you haven't noticed, i travel. a lot). but there all that was, lurking in the background and keeping me from being the real me here in my little corner of the blogosphere. (aside: they said blogosphere yesterday on BBC World and it made me smile.)

all of this personal, internal revelation makes me realize once again that the nature of blogging as a genre is such that we can't really hide ourselves out here. and to be honest, i wouldn't even want to.

and i really want to say thank you to all of you for noticing and emailing me and well, for caring. it means a lot. and it helped. a lot.

language and connections

i'll admit it, since i took this photo of pretty purple chain onboard the ship last friday, i've been wracking my brain for a use for it. and then, this morning, a use for it fell into my lap. my blog friend Ju tweeted about an interesting post on raising a bilingual child on mummy do that! cartside, who i didn't know until the tweet, has assembled a wonderful collection of links to people who are blogging about raising bilingual children. you know, people like me. only strangely, it had never occurred to me to seek out blogs where people were writing about that. i've just sort of been fumbling along on my own. and i've only written about it once, over here on sabin and addie's blog. but what does any of that have to do with big-ass piece of purple chain, you ask? well, it's all about the connections, isn't it? and nothing says connection better than chains.

but this is actually about raising a bilingual child, so i'll get back to that now...

sabin is 8 and has lived her entire life in denmark. i have always spoken english to her and with her and so did her father until she started school. we discovered that she had some trouble cracking the code of reading in danish and we decided it would help her if her dad spoke danish to her a bit more often. and in all honesty, it did help.

sabin was slower to begin speaking than other children in her kindergarten, but i'm not sure we can blame that entirely on the two languages, it could very well be part of her personality, which is one in which she hangs back and observes before she jumps in. she also is a real perfectionist and doesn't want to make mistakes, so that may have been a factor as well. she wanted to be sure of herself in both languages before venturing out.

danish is difficult, in that the spelling has little or nothing discernible to do with the pronunciation, so cracking the reading code is difficult. that was surely compounded somewhat by my speaking and reading to her in english at home. and all of the english she hears on a daily basis on television and in music - because denmark doesn't dub extensively (the market's simply not large enough). we were fortunate that her school, which is a public one (not in the english sense of private), was very on top of the situation and she has had several rounds of extra reading help to help her crack the code. one of these was the fantastic reading recovery program, which completely did the trick last year. she's now reading very well in danish and using her reading strategies to quickly pick up reading in english.

and she's started to have english now at school, now that she's in the 3rd grade. it undoubtedly handicaps her a bit to be way ahead of the other kids because sometimes restrictions are placed on how much she's allowed to come forward with. for example, on the first day, the kids were asked to name the words they already knew in english. and sabin was only allowed to say two, which in my view, was fair enough. her teacher is great and super aware of sabin's needs, since she raised bilingual children herself. she's giving sabin as much extra work to keep her challenged as she seems to want, so she's not really being held back too much by the others being total beginners.

i actually don't worry that much about her ending up fluent in english, she already is from a speaking and understanding standpoint. and it's been our belief all along that she needs a native language. since she's growing up in denmark, danish is her native language.

some of the things i worry most about are cultural aspects. we do our best to give her a taste of the other half of her - american culture. and because so much of our television here is american and so much of the music and films american, she gets some taste of that. she's been the US lots of times and spent five weeks there a year ago in the summer, hanging out with her aunt and cousins, so she has also had the chance to partake of swimming lessons and T-ball and a fishing derby at the lake up close. but the fact is, she's a little danish girl and her main cultural grounding will be in denmark, regardless of what passports she carries (she has both).

i think raising a child to be bilingual is such a gift. i'm hopeful that she will inherit her father's ability to code switch flawlessly between languages and she seems to have that to an extent, tho' she sometimes does some really cute direct translation of danish words into english. and there are certain mistakes she makes consistently - like not saying "without," she only says "out" because that's how it is in danish. she doesn't understand that she also needs the "with" part of it, since that feels like the opposite to her. so she'll ask for a toast with nutella out butter.

we've been reading the junie b. jones books and junie b. makes a lot of grammar mistakes, so i keep talking to her about them, since i'm not sure she gets the nuances of that well enough and i don't want her to think that junie b. speaks correctly. so far, she seems to understand it and she just finds junie b.'s view on the world amusing, so the language doesn't matter that much.

it's interesting raising a bilingual child and my hope is that it makes her more able to understand and get along across cultures. and i think that it's really wonderful, through the miracle of the blogosphere, to have suddenly found a whole lot of other people who are thinking and writing about their challenges with raising bilingual children, too. see, you can learn things on twitter.

that's a lotta palaver

i have spent my entire day getting to oslo. you'd think that would be quite difficult, in light of it being under an hour's flight away. sadly, it wasn't. everything that could go wrong did. metro issues, rebooking of original flight due to missing first one (see aforementioned metro issues), my bag (containing absolutely everything, since i didn't feel like carrying anything but my purse) took the flight after mine and i had to wait for it at the airport (during which time i almost collapsed from lack of food and latte), delays due to tracks under repair near the station i was going to once i got to norway....i could go on, but it's still too depressing and there's no sense all of us being depressed. at least it gave me plenty of time to do lots of processing (aka scribbling of thoughts in my little notebook) of the wonderful blog camp weekend. so i hereby totally change the subject to that.

on twitter, TFM dubbed BC 1.5 British Blog Camp or BBC, and we loved it, so it will hereafter be referred to as BBC, at least by me.  i was reading gail collins' column in the IHT this morning and she said something that resonated with me as i bask in the afterglow of BBC, "whenever anybody asks you to do something off the wall, you should try to do it - unless it involves being unethical or a two-plane connection." from all that i learned at BBC, i would have to wholeheartedly endorse this as a kind of general life philosophy (especially the two-plane connection part).

because if you think about it, going to a stranger's house in another country for the weekend is a bit off the wall. although we don't feel like strangers here in the blogosphere thanks to the very personal nature of blogs, there is still  chance that someone might present themselves as other than they are. however, i felt certain that i knew bee and that we had a lot in common and that she would be as i thought she was. and indeed it was true, only of course, even better.

from the moment i arrived and we greeted one another like old friends with a big hug, we didn't stop talking. i told her that the only thing on my agenda was to spend a bit of time in a bookstore. so we did that, after we had a lovely lunch and a long walk along the river in a town not far from her house. the whole time, we talked and talked. we told our stories. it was a bit like opening a floodgate for both of us. the words tumbled out. we hardly paid attention to our food, which was excellent or even our coffee, which was lovely.

when i think about it now, it was quite astonishing how much we both had to say. and how urgently we seemed to need to tell one another our stories. in person. i'm not sure why it was. in one sense, it was like a rush to catch up. even in the bookstore, i hardly wandered around, we spent a bit of time by the cookbooks (oops, bought four), but even then, we didn't stop talking and laughing and talking some more. it was quite extraordinary. a real palaver.

we'd had a late lunch and when we got back to bee's beautiful home, i settled my things into the cheerful orange room (which oddly enough, i failed to photograph, tho' that's for the best since it belongs to her very private daughter, tho' i will say it had a gorgeous orla keily duvet cover that practically leapt into my suitcase) and we had a cup of tea. as we chatted away about being mothers, the mysterious behavior of teenagers, the delightful behavior of tweens, schools, books, laura ingalls wilder, cookbooks (i bow to bee's collection, she beats mine by a long shot, tho' those four i bought helped a little bit). of course, we also talked about blogs and the ones which inspire us. funnily, enough, the blogs the two of us tend to read don't overlap that much, so i can tell you, i have a whole new list of wonderful places to discover.

while we chatted, in the back of my mind, i was thinking about the ways in which bee had both retained a lot of her americanness and also had absorbed a lot of englishness--the tea, the public (which are private) school talk, the driving on the "wrong" side, vocabulary. i found myself wondering in the back of my mind how much americanness i retain (i suspect it probably came out a bit in bee's presence) and how scandinavian i have become. because i think it's hard to tell about ourselves. we're so inside of ourselves, aren't we? how do we know? i was a little disturbed by the thought of exactly how far i now am from americanness (and how far i feel inside of me from danishness), because it leaves me with that strong, melancholic sense of what i always call that mid-atlantic feeling - adrift in the middle of the atlantic, not belonging (by choice) either place.

but that makes it sound like BBC made me sad, which is far from the truth. being together in person with these amazing women gave me so much energy (that was lucky in light of today) and so much inspiration and much to write about in the coming days. so stay tuned for more.

reflections on the blogosphere and real life

it's back to school time. back to work (tho' technically i was working in singapore last week). back to daily routines. and back to the airport - tho' today it's husband who is going (to north carolina, via chicago, oddly enough). me, i don't fly 'til friday, when i head for blog camp 1.5 in london.

looking back on the past month, i realize how busy it's been. i didn't really have time off, since i haven't officially earned any yet, so our small holidays were sneaked in here and there along with work. but we did manage to add three new starbucks mugs to our collection, so three new places were visited - KL, amsterdam and dublin. i didn't get a new singapore mug, tho' they had some that match this new series, because i already got singapore years ago. it's rather fun to have the style of the mug reflect the period in which you first visited the place. and i won't at all devote any reflection to the implications of the cultural imperialism of starbucks in places as different from one another as KL and dublin. me, i'm just grateful for a grande latte, loungey, comfortable seating below the herstal lamps and free wifi, wherever it's found.

* * *

over the past couple of weeks, where i have been largely away from the blogosphere (at least from the reading blogs side of it), i realized a few things. the blogosphere isn't as different from real life as i thought it was. there is lots of drama, catfighting, petty annoyances, pettier obsessions and women being hard on women (why do we do that to ourselves?). happily, that negativity is easier to avoid than in real life, since you can just stay away from the places where it's going on and there's no danger of actually running into someone you'd rather not run into. and there's so much goodness going on in the blogosphere--things to inspire, make you laugh, things to learn, things that make you think there is hope for the world--that it more than makes up for the negatives. maybe it's just normal that in cyberspace, as in real life, we make friends, keep some of them, grow apart from others, move on and make new friends. i'm not sure why i thought it was any different online than offline, but somehow i did.

* * *

and speaking of new friends, in singapore, i got together rather spontaneously for a quick drink with a blogger who i haven't known for that long...kim of measure of all things. kim is a south african who lives and works in singapore. she very good-naturedly allowed herself to be subjected to our questions about how on earth she can take living in the plastic world that is singapore. and she did confirm my suspicions that singapore is a great place to be an ex-pat. it's safe, clean, it functions very well and there are cheap flights to more exotic, real destinations in the region. i still have half a mind to spend some time there working at some point. it is difficult for me to imagine being from cape town tho' and wanting to be anywhere but there, but on the other hand, i do love a good adventure, so it was great fun to meet kim. and for that opportunity, i am very grateful to the blogosphere. and if you really want to both crochet and be really inspired in a really brainy, deep way, you must read kim's latest blog post. and take the time to watch the video. it's blow-you-away amazing.

* * *

this time of year, as summer transitions to fall, i always feel reflective. and i think that transition is an apt word. also here in the blogosphere. when i look back a year, things have changed a great deal. that's partially due to BoN, but i think it's more natural and organic than that. i think that here in cyberspace as in life, we make transitions. new interests that we write about bring new readers and we make new friends. some of the old friends drift away because at the same time, they have moved to different interests and have new readers and new friends on their own blogs. some blog friends endure and sadly, some do not. some go to a place that you simply can't follow. but the beauty and wonder of it to me is that there are always new blogs to discover, new connections to make. and i've noticed that i have a lot of new people leaving comments and i'm really happy for the discoveries of new blogs and new perspectives that gives me. this is not to say that i don't love comments from the old crowd too--i'm just trying to say that i love the expanding sense of community. so thank you ALL for your comments, they're wonderful.

i have found some really good friends here in this bloggy world. and i've drifted away from others. but there are a few, that although we've drifted apart, i know our relationship would prove to be cat love and at some point, something will again strike a chord and we'll be back to our wonderful, deep level of friendship that we had developed. because in some sense we do get to know one another quite well here, don't we? the medium of the blog is very personal and diaristic at times (sometimes nauseatingly so, admittedly). we simply reveal so much of ourselves through our words and pictures, even if those pictures don't necessarily show us. the things we choose to share (or not share) speak volumes and in many ways, we are laid bare for all to see.

maybe that's why failed friendships in the blogosphere hurt as much as they do. we've revealed ourselves, left ourselves vulnerable and open. and when we're rejected or worse, ignored, it hurts that much more. or maybe i'm being too deep and philosophical - forgive me, it's a rainy monday - maybe real life simply intervenes and it's so much more compelling than online life that people just drift away. or maybe it's just that sometimes you feel all vibrant and sometimes you feel like earth tones, so as i said, more natural and organic than anything else.

* * *

at the end of the week, i'll go to blog camp 1.5 at Bee's house in england. Bee is one of several soul sisters i've found in this bloggy world. she and i are the same age, we both married a european man and uprooted ourselves from the land of our birth. we both abandoned Ph.D. studies before the dissertation stage. she has daughters and so do i. strangely enough, we even have an LNG thing in common. i feel i already know her so well and i know that from the minute i see her this weekend, we'll be completely at ease together and we won't even come close to running out of things to talk about. i have that wonderful feeling of anticipation of meeting her. the one where you want to capture that first time moment because you only have a first time once and you want to treasure it so you can mull it over later.

so i'm really looking forward to the bloggy world and the real world converging once again this coming weekend when B, polly, seaside girl, kristina, spudballoo and me get together at bee's house. and i'm certain that i will not be disappointed.

blog crush: heliotrollop

kim of heliotrollop, this beer, which is very special because it's a blog camp beer, is for you!

i've been a bit absent from the blogosphere in recent weeks and have hardly been managing to read all my regular reads, let alone go in search of new ones. but thankfully my very underdeveloped theory on the sociology of mobile phones post brought a few lurkers very nice new people out of the woodwork and one of them is my new blog crush. i give you the lovely kim of heliotrollop. i'm not sure what that means, but she claims that everything else was taken (which is pretty much why i call myself julochka, so i can understand that).

here are some of the reasons why you should go check her out:

1. she's smart.
2. she's funny.
3. she tricks people into making dinner for her (this would be the kind of skill we could use at blog camp).
4. she hates wal-mart. this alone = instant follow in my book.
5. her mother buys her sweaters that indicate that they've never met (so does mine, tho' you might not have known that, but now you do).
6. she learns from her mistakes. (well, ok, time will tell on that one..)
7. she too is pondering whether she has too much stuff.

seriously people, i'm starting to think that she's me in new mexico. go read her now. and for the love of odin, follow her. you won't regret it.

observations while waiting for the rain to begin

ahh. a lazy saturday afternoon. a cup of steaming finnish coffee from the french press. the cleaning girls busily working away, making the house sparkling clean and fresh. and because it's grey and heavy and threatening rain outside, there's nothing better to do than sit down to blog and read all of the blogs i've been woefully neglecting this summer. plus, i've been so focused on my 30 secrets that i haven't been getting my usual observations out of my system. and i can feel that they're starting to back up.

observation 1: don't you find that things come along to exactly at the moment you need them? i needed to laugh and found this blog.

observation 2: when you're thinking of something/post about something, you find out that other people were thinking about it and posting about it too. just as an example, if you want to read more about doors opening, go here. or if you're worried about your kids growing up too fast and not catching all the good stuff, check this and this.

observation 3: you never know what mood someone will be in when they receive your comment/email/tweet. and what you may have been lighthearted and buoyant about just might hit them like a ton of bricks. when that happens, it's best to just apologize and move out of the way of the bricks.  it's also best to know that it happens and it will undoubtedly happen again. mostly because you don't get any smarter.

observation 4: once you start looking, you find that street art is everywhere. and lots of it is funny. look for more here in the next week.

dublin street

observation 5: when you finally remember to go to flickr, you find out that some very cool people have featured your pictures on their very cool blog. thanks daisy loves! also for the nice note, letting me know. it's cool when people give credit (as i've been reading lately, sometimes people don't). 

observation 6: a guinness and a jauntily literary hat in a pub in dublin will leave you feeling a bit joycean...even if you didn't bother to finish ulysses.

observation 7: a day when the skies are grey and heavy and the air is still and just seems like it's waiting to unleash a deluge worthy of building an ark will give you a dull headache that you just can't shake.

observation 8: i am astonished at how quickly the lemon cucumber seeds have become seedlings. they must like it in the greenhouse.

observation 9: you can feel genuine sorrow for the passing of a person you never met. and you find that you can't stop thinking about all of the feelings your friend, who you've also never met in person but only through her very real and honest blog, must be going through and your heart genuinely aches for her. thinking of you and your family, mari. 

observation 10: sometimes you will not be able to get to all of the geocaches you'd like because there are too many muggles around. sadly that was true here and here.

well, it seems the rain has begun. and i think i'll go out in my beautiful blue room, open all of the doors, settle into a comfy chair with a book and enjoy it. 

links and connections

i love the blogosphere. i've said it before. i'll no doubt say it again. but today, the thing i'm loving about it is that whole connection thing. and how connections happen and you can actually see them--in the comments, in links, on people's blogrolls, in the form of blog crushes, in sidebars...connections are visible all around us.

back in late april, when my blog became Blog of Note, a hilarious blogger who calls herself extranjera found me. i was so taken with her blog, that i used the small window of opportunity blogger had open at that time to nominate blogs for blog of note to nominate hers. for a couple of months, nothing happened, but then a week ago, what will i ever do with my life? was named blog of note. a very deserved honor. and i have found myself just as delighted watching her followers numbers rise (and even surpass my own!) as i was watching my own rise in those heady early days of BoN. yay extranjera and yay blogger!! it's stuff like this that makes me feel like the fairyblogmother™. 

while we were waiting for it to happen, a whole lot of other connections happened. and other blogs were created - collaborations in cyberspace - trans-atlantic learning adventures, hermit book club, siamese sisters, the idea of blog camp was born (thank you husband!) and the first one happened and several others have been planned, members were added to the balderdash collaboration and this week the ARWP project was launched (for all of us who battle against Real World People and would like to join a sorority support group cult). because this is what it's really all about, this blogging thing (it took me awhile to get that - for along time i thought it was about my sanity)--it's about connections.

the very best connections for me are resulting in real-life, in-person friendships--of the kind that blog camp represents. meeting B, extranjera, kristina, polly and seaside girl in person was such a great experience that i find it difficult to adequately describe it. that we're all (minus extranjera, who will be galavanting off to the US) going to get together next month near london at Bee's house and also meet spudballoo at BC 1.5 is something i'm so excited about. and it's all made possible through the wonder of the interweb. and although all of these people seem to be just ephemeral links here on my blog, those links enable them to be connected to all of you who are reading this. they're just a click away. and when i think of the multiplicity of connections that represents, it boggles my mind.

and i started thinking about all of this because dutchbaby told me this morning that she and tangobaby, who both live in SF, are getting together with other blog friends, who i also know and love--relyn and robin--and having a blog camp of sorts in SF. blog camp 1.1, we're calling it, in case there ends up being others before 1.5 near london, then we save a few numbers for those. how marvelous is that? i really wish i was there to join in the fun (and the photo walks)! i hope you fabulous women have a great time!

these connections just make me so happy. thank odin for hyperlinks! you never know what new adventures they'll take you on.

and speaking of connections, be watching this space for an announcement of a new project--one joining denmark and sweden as they haven't been joined in several hundred years...coming soon, right here on blogger.

when we create things and release them into the world

it was not even two months ago that the idea of blog camp was born. and already, we've held the first one, planned the second and organized an emergency we-simply-must-get-together-again blog camp 1.5 in the UK in between the first two and we have 50 followers (!!) on the blog camp blog. on top of it, sara is planning a spin-off blog camp (note: this link is just to sara's blog, not a specific post on blog camp 2.1) in the US, to be held over labor day weekend, at the same time as blog camp 2.0 in denmark. there really is a snowball effect happening.

i think it's pretty amazing to see these small bits and pieces of the thoughts and ideas which we throw out into the blogosphere being caught and made into beautiful things all around us. and the fact that there are real people behind it all, making things happen, makes me realize that we are quite far from husband's theory that the internet will take on a life of its own (he's still waiting for the internet to do that first post on his blog).

and what's interesting to me is how organic it is (hmm, maybe this proves that husband is right)...with things growing and changing in a dynamic process all the time. i had an idea about how blog camp 1.0 would be and while it was, in some ways, how i imagined it, it was also very different. because you have to factor in the people involved. and now, we're having blog camp 1.5 with five of the same people from BC1.0 plus two more and i'm really excited to see how that changes the dynamic and perhaps even the concept. because it's difficult to predict anything when there are people involved. i'm certain only that it will be fantastic, but i can't foresee in what ways.

i saw a list yesterday of potential things to do at BC 2.1 (as we've dubbed it) in reno. and it struck me that a list of activities--none of which involved pajamas or blogging--was a new incarnation of the concept. although we did see the mermaid, for those of us at BC 1.0, it was really about meeting the people behind the blogs and doing some of the things--e.g. taking pictures and drinking lots of coffee and wine--that we love to do in the blogosphere together in person.

and after my initial confusion and a bit of wondering whether i hadn't been clear on the concept (i reread and i, in fact, had been pretty clear), i took a deep breath and realized that it was all ok. because we can't really know what will happen with the things we create and we have to be prepared to release them and let them become whatever they become to others who embrace those ideas. and i realized that was actually a pretty powerful thing.

and speaking of blog camp 2.0 - there are still a couple of spots, so please do let me know if you'd like to come! it'll be a blast and well worth the trip, i promise.

the god(desse)s of the blogosphere have been kind

some calm, restful images to help calm my mounting excitement over the impending arrival of blog camp.  tomorrow around noon, extranjera, B, polly, seaside girl and kristina will either arrive or meet me at the copenhagen airport. all of the last preparations are being made, the cleaning girl is here, and i'm feeling ready. but i definitely can't sit still. in some ways, it's quite extraordinary and remarkable that this is really happening. an idea thrown out one sunday on a whim, now coming to fruition.

i think it's really brave of five people who have never met me, except here on my blog, to buy plane tickets (for four of them) and come to stay at my house in another country for a whole weekend. it's like beyond belief cool. and i am in awe of their bravery. all kinds of crazy, "am i good enough thoughts" have crossed my mind, but those are mostly quiet now. i think we can't help but have a fantastic time. we hope you'll follow along with the madcap antics all weekend over on the blog camp blog. and hopefully, it will inspire you to want to be part of blog camp II in september.

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and speaking of amazing people in cyberspace...you must go check out the latest guerilla marketing from stacey childs of discounderworld. she's got to be the coolest kiwi out there. while you're there, be sure to order your copy of the Gold Edition of Discounderworld (it's so exciting i actually used capital letters)! 

don't you just love the idea of guerilla marketing? and the whole way that ideas happen here in this bloggy world and then people get involved and suddenly things happen in reality and not only in cyberspace. i love that about the blogosphere. 

stoned. in a good way.

a few weeks ago, trinsch of the lovely, carefree hairstyle fame (which i am too uncoordinated to duplicate, by the way, tho' i tried), had a corner view: the beach post which had some really beautiful stones in it. there was a picture of them lying in their natural state in the sand and then in a beautiful little stack. i asked her to upload that little stack to flickr so i could favorite it, because you know i have a totally minor and not at all requiring meds or excess baggage fees thing about stones. happily, she obliged and i was content.

and then, today, a little envelope arrived in my mailbox.

fabulous handwriting! cool stone with a hole in it! could it get any better? why yes, it could!

inside the pretty little bag were those very stones trinsch gathered on the beach in israel! how awesome is that? but wait, it gets even better.

that little white stone at the bottom (at 5:30) is a little piece of marble. trinsch says that it's from the historical site of caesarea--the ruins of a roman city--2000 years old. italian marble, washed and rounded and smoothed in the sea for hundreds of years, washes up on the beaches in israel, near the historical site. but my very favorite one is the little round grey one right beside it (at 7:30)--it's smooth and perfect.

trinsch's beautiful picture of them in their natural habitat

from trinsch's picture, i imagined that the stones were larger (tho' husband made fun of me for that, asking how large i imagined the bits of sand were), but i am madly in love with them and not the least bit disappointed that they are small--they're absolutely perfect! than you so much, trinsch, for making my monday! in fact, i'm sure it will actually make my whole week! 

today, trinsch has a lovely post featuring a typecase from her childhood where she displays stones and shells found on beaches around the world. you should go have a look at it, it will make your monday less weird, i promise.

don't forget! big petroglyph giveaway tomorrow!

remember--if you want to be in on the big thank-you-for-voting-for-me-for-the-gold-issue-of-discounderworld petroglyph/helleristning/stone giveaway (i need to work on these names) tomorrow, do leave a comment back on this post. i'll print them all tomorrow morning, snip them up and have one of my lovely assistants draw the lucky winner. because yes, it's constitution day tomorrow and therefore, a holiday. ya gotta love denmark

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and while we're on the subject of giveaways, mal* at turning*turning, the most thought-provoking art therapist out there, is giving away a lovely mini quilt in my most favoritest colors to celebrate her 100th post and you can enter to win that as well. so run over there--she actually gives you five ways to have a chance to win! but you've gotta be on twitter for one of them. ;-)

fabulosity all around (and a giveaway)

i'm all for looking at the world differently, with fresh eyes, from a new perspective. wearing orange tights with red shoes and taking photos of my feet against the green grass in front of a snotty spa hotel in skodsborg while i wait for husband. but seriously, i have to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere is here.  apparently nancy reagan gets regular visits from ronnie during which he talks to her. i always knew the woman was nuts. tho' admittedly running the US by astrology does seem better in retrospect than the 8 years of the bush administration.

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A VERY BIG THANK YOU!! so big, i had to use actual capital letters, so that's big. thanks to all of you and your votes, my story will make the print issue of disco underworld. i quite literally couldn't have done it without you, so to celebrate, i'm going to give away one of my helleristning stones.  if you want to be entered to win, please leave a comment on this post. i think i will make an entirely new helleristning on one of my stones from my recent trip to norway, so this picture is just a sample. you will get a totally new, unique to you, very own helleristning. :-)

so, to review: leave a comment to win a helleristning stone on a stone from norway. it's my thanks to you for helping me make the print issue of discounderworld! and speaking of discounderworld, there's a new issue out now, full of cool people and things! you can go read it right after you finish reading here. :-)

my lovely assistant (i haven't decided yet whether it's sabin or husband) will draw the winner on friday.

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did you know that you're limited to 200 characters in labels? it's practically a tweet. i'm feeling restricted!

* * *

and while i was sitting here, killing time waiting for magazine proofs and in between last-minute edits and trying to shoo a bumble bee out of the addition (they get totally confused by the big windows), the mailman knocked on my door. he brought me this:

a package from the fabulous (i know, i'm overusing that word, i can't help it, there's just so much fabulousity) lynne of wheatlands news. and look what was inside!

rocks and toys and cards, oh my!

and lynne's 82-year-old mom made the cards.

i love that!!

these are seriously cool toys!

husband is gonna love these.

and so is sabin.

i might have to hide them and play with them all by myself.

and each of these rocks is cooler than the next!

lynne calls us stone freaks rotsifarians--b/c rots is rock in afrikaans--i LOVE that too!

the flat one is from namibia

the others are from diamond diggings at alexander bay

the red one is a "red luck stone" because it indicates the presence of diamonds (cool!)

and the little one is covered in eyes!!!

i love the little beaded doll too. 

it appeals to my superstitious side.

THANK YOU LYNNE!!!

i love having these little pieces of africa right here in denmark.

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blog camp note:  don't forget about blog camp II scheduled for september 4-7 here in denmark. i have room for 4 and one spot is tentatively booked. all of you north americans should be checking ticket prices right now (i hear air france is having a sale (ha, bad joke, but i couldn't resist)). but seriously, there are some good prices out there, so do book ahead! and if you're coming all that way, we can arrange for spending a bit more time than just a long weekend.  there may be one more blog camp during 2009 in the US--we're in the tentative stage of planning a trip and just might make time for a few days of blog camp fun sometime in the autumn. stay tuned for updates on that one.

* * *

don't forget to check out the latest issue of disco underworld now.

there are lots of cool and creative people featured this month!

#700 and advice on getting there

photo adapted from an idea by marathoner81 

thank you for the inspiration!

i love the suggestions you guys came up with and i will be using some of them (yes, including a helleristning stone giveaway, HRH TFM that was a good idea) in the coming days, but what i thought i'd do today actually isn't really in the comments (i said i was going to be dictatorial about this). but i do thank you all very much for giving me some great ideas and you will see them coming to a blog post near you very soon.

since BoN hit me a little over a month ago, i've had a number of quite a few people email me to ask for blogging advice. how i got started, what i do to stay motivated (P&P asked some of this in her suggestion below), how to go about it, how often to post--a whole range of questions. just this morning, gypsyfeet, a blogging newbie who is a canadian living in korea (cool!) emailed me and asked for some advice. then it hit me that THAT was what i should write about for my 700th post.

i know you regulars don't really need any advice and i'm not sure i really have anything worth saying on this topic, since i've really no clue what i'm doing, i just keep doing it. however, i won't let those doubts stand in my way, it's just that i wanted to give you the chance to skip to other posts or another blog at this time because this may not apply to you.

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background

i created this blog in 2004. i had just been wrongfully fired from microsoft (as my lawyer ended up proving, but which i knew from the moment it happened) by my total crap hack insecure middle-level fargo-based manager. my original intent was to expose the middle layer of management fat around microsoft's middle (i'm sure it's still there and likely still needs exposing) and it made me feel good to create the blog.

at first, the blog was closed to the world--i wasn't naming MS by name b/c my case was pending and i didn't want to jeopardize it. what i ended up writing about was how i felt about being fired and my subsequent search for a new job. then i got a new job and i was really busy and i didn't post at all during 2005 and 2006. towards the end of 2007, i was feeling really tired and burned out and wrote a few posts again. it was also at that point that i opened up the blog, thinking no one would find it anyway, so what did that hurt. then it hit me that my job was actually killing me and my relationships and my family life and so i left it at the end of 2007. i decided then that blogging would be a way to heal and find my way back to myself.

i've always written journals and used journaling as a way of thinking things through and helping me sort out the world around me. my need to do that after leaving the stressful job was great and this little blogger compose space just spoke to me, so i started channeling those musings through the keyboard rather than writing them out in journals. i found it was an easier way of being sure that i wrote every day--which had also been a longtime goal that i had never really been able to fulfill. i type fast and so i could get the thoughts down faster anyway. whatever it was, the blog as a medium clicked for me.

so i wrote happily along, trying to find my way back to myself and especially to my creativity and my family and well, my life. i also started reading a lot of blogs. i lurked, because i didn't really know how the whole commenting thing worked and it seemed like all those people commenting knew each other and i just felt like an outsider. i also was in a process of working out what i liked and what spoke to me, so i favorited a lot of blogs in different categories and visited them regularly, but quietly. i doubt any of them knew i was there. some of them i still occasionally check in on, but for the most part, i'm not really actively reading the same blogs today that i was then (that's mostly because i've moved on from the scrapbooking thing).

in mid-march 2008, around my birthday, i got my first comment. i was astounded that someone had found me as i seriously never imagined anyone finding me or reading what i was writing. i was writing instead of going to therapy and just enjoying it for the act of it and for myself. so i was totally surprised how cool it was that someone left a comment. that someone was the elementary. she writes lovely, thoughtful posts and can turn absolutely any tiny detail into a totally delightful story with a life lesson attached. she's wonderful.

getting a comment on my blog gave me the courage to comment on some of those blogs i was reading. and it turned out that then those people came to visit me and suddenly a few more were commenting and it started to feel like a community with friends. to this day, i still don't feel worthy of commenting on a blog like hula seventy, so it can be that you'll feel that way too. but maybe it's just me. and it can cut you off from wonderful people--for example, for the longest time i felt unworthy to comment on paris parfait, but tara is one of the most generous, wonderful bloggers i know. all it took was that i finally had the courage to leave her a comment.

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the medium

i love the blog as a medium. i think it affords the opportunity to be all over the place and explore different genres. one of the early comments after BoN hit me was, "i love your blog, but i don't know what it's about." i felt like, "yes, success!" you see, that's precisely what's cool about the genre of blog (if it indeed is a genre, i'm on the fence about that--i think it's becoming one)--it's anything and everything you want it to be. but, from my point of view, it's above all personal. so my advice (and it is advice, not rules, i don't think there are really rules to blogging) will reflect this--i'm not advising you how to sell your etsy stuff (as if i know anything about that) or find customers for your interior design business or photography studio or create a blog where you post tutorials of crafty stuff. all of my advice is about blogging as a personal expressive tool--gypsyfeet called it my "thinking out loud" style this morning and i think that's an apt description. so this is my advice for thinking out loud. :-)

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the advice

1. be real, if you're bummed out, say so. if you're elated, share it. people will see through it in a minute if you're not real. that annoying blog that made me hate the word "rad" is so thoroughly and completely fake sappy sweet that it makes me want to throw up. and i'm certain it's all an act because that shines clearly through in all of the vapid self-portraits that are used in every post. and i refuse to link to it here so that you are spared and to avoid sending any visitors her way.  instead, i'll give you a link to a new blog i found recently of someone who i think is blogging in a very real way and i love that! go read marinik's blog, her husband has cancer and is dying and she's writing about it so beautifully and so authentically, i'm amazed.
   
2. go out and read a lot of blogs, when you find one that speaks to you, click on their blog favorites because chances are it will lead you to more blogs that you'll like.
3. don't be afraid of leaving a comment--but leave an honest comment--if they moved you or made you laugh or even pissed you off--say so (politely, articulately), but don't just say, "nice blog." and leave a link to yours. i never ever click those links, but if someone leaves me a sincere comment, i always click on their profile and have a look at their blog. it's really about being real again, just like in #1.
4. by being real, i don't mean that you have to expose real names of your family members and such--i refer to husband as husband because that's what we all call him, but i know some people say spouse or hubby or kid #1 (please don't say kidlet, that's just wrong, but of course, it's a choice and you're welcome to make it) or whatever because they want to protect their privacy. that's totally cool and doesn't mean you're not being real.
5. it's up to you to decide how often you want to post. i post every day because that's part of what i want with blogging--i want to write on a daily basis. but one of the very best blogs i've ever read and which i read religiously is truth cycles and hele posts only once in awhile, as the spirit moves her. i'm sure i'm not the only one who wishes she would post every day, but that's not her way of blogging and every one of her posts is worth the wait, so whenever a new one pops into my reader, i rush to read her first. what's interesting is that i don't always comment the first time, her posts merit careful thought and i often go back to post a comment later.
6. use great photos. i have come to the point where i would almost call myself a photographer (don't worry bill, i won't actually do it ;-)) and i can tell you that if you look back at my early posts, that was not the case. i bought my nikon D60 in early may last year and my photos have steadily improved since then.
7. carry a little notebook with you to scribble blog ideas in. whenever i'm out, i see half a dozen things i want to blog about later. for this reason, i don't go anywhere without my camera or my little blog notebook. and i mean nowhere. they come to the grocery store with me, just in case.
8. if you see a blog post you love on someone else's blog--be it a list or writing in reaction to a particular question or quote--write your own version and link back to the person who inspired you. inspiration is viral in the blogosphere, but do give credit where credit is due. it's not nice to steal people's words and ideas.
9. try out other voices. write in the 3rd person once in awhile. write a fairy tale. i never do poetry, but lots of people do to good effect. the medium allows you the freedom to try out all kinds of things.
10. listen to what people say in the comments. i've been amazed, especially of late, at how reactions to various posts were very different than what i had imagined they would be. i thought i was being really funny with my snow white post and people found it to be a sad little tale. i hadn't seen it that way at all, but could totally see what they meant after i got that reaction. listening to the feedback you get in the comments can totally help you grow as a writer.
11. i love to change my blog header regularly. it makes me happy.
12. don't go too nuts with the gadgets in the sidebar. (i know, i don't follow this well enough myself. but i do try to avoid things that are flashing or have too much distracting motion.) the star of your blog is your blog posts. there are tons of awesome free blogger templates out there to help you be creative and display the things you want to display.
13. this is a personal preference, but i really don't like those music players that trigger music automatically when i visit a blog. you don't really know where people are when they're reading your blog. maybe it's late at night and their baby has just gotten to sleep and they click to your page and music blares out and wakes the baby. or they're at work and don't want to broadcast to the world that they're reading blogs. put the player on, fine, but don't have it trigger the music automatically. or share your playlist in another way--i've seen blogs with changing "listening to now" lists. that's cool and i've discovered a lot of great music that way, so i love people sharing their favorite music, i just want to be able to play it on my own terms.
14. answer your comments. i don't always have time these days, but i try to, especially on the "important" posts or on a post where i wanted a dialogue about the topic. if there's an email address on the comment, i often answer directly to the person. sometimes i indulge in these (perhaps annoying if one has subscribed to comments or if one feels left out) IM conversations, which are an occasional bit of fun. i love that whenever i comment on magpie's blog, she always answers directly to me. it makes me feel recognized and worthy and like a friend. mary and meri both do that too. and i think that's way cool.
15. if you don't feel like posting, don't post. everyone goes through periods where you just feel a lack of motivation. there's nothing that says you MUST post something--it's really totally and completely up to you. that's the beauty of blogging, it's totally subject to your whims.

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the conclusion

i write for a living in addition to all this blogging, as well as coming from a long line of journalists, so writing is in my blood. i might feel a lack of motivation some days, but i can't imagine having nothing to write about. i think about blogging all the time--everything i do, everyone i meet, everything i observe, every picture i take is all potential fodder for a blog posting. i scribble them down in my little notebook and if i'm having a blah day, i turn to that and find ten ideas that get my mojo back. in my view, the more you write, the more you will have to write about.

everyone always asks me how i have the time. it's because i prioritize it. it's important to me--more important than watching t.v. and getting enough sleep. i'm a night owl, so very often my posts are composed late at night and set to post at a particular time the next morning.

blogging has made me more present in my everyday world, despite the fact that i send it all out into cyberspace. i'm more grounded and more observant than i was. and it's what has brought me here, to my 700th post. and i think that's a good thing.

a virtual adventure

a few weeks ago bloggy friend and fellow julie jules and i started a little project with our 8-year-old daughters. we call it trans-atlantic adventures in learning (cumbersome, i know--we're open to suggestions for a better name). the idea is for our two curious 8-year-olds to learn a bit about what it's like in another country.

sabin being half american but not growing up in the US makes me think she's missing out on certain things that i had growing up (and probably, let's face it, being protected from a whole lotta crap like overly-sweetened peanut butter), but for me, it's a chance for her to experience a bit of what it would be like to grow up in the US and to share her experience growing up in denmark. she loves it. she looks forward to checking her blog every evening and is very active in deciding what stories we tell on the blog.

the girls exchanged a soft little animal and are using the animals as a medium for telling some of the stories. when early, addie's robin, first got to denmark, he flew up in a tree and he played a little nintendo.  next, sabin wants to take early with her to riding lessons next saturday. early has also drawn himself a little nest which we need to photograph and post for addie to see. on addie's side, buller, the little lizard sabin sent has helped make dinner and gotten up to some mischief with the big giant statue of paul bunyan.

other than that, the girls have shared walks and favorite places, a typical school day and the outfits that they wear. we had a busy week last week and i was away (since i work in a different country), so we didn't keep taking a daily picture of what we're wearing, but we'll get back to it. we have a new feature this week--where the girls are photographed with a sign bearing a question and we'll answer the question with another photo of a sign with the answer. that will be fun.

it's really a kind of modern way of being penpals. all the more fun because it can be a daily thing with lots of interactivity. i remember waiting weeks for the next letter from my penpal when i was a kid. and best of all, it's already inspired another pair of girls to do something similar. and i think that's totally cool. come on over and check out what addie and sabin are doing this week. and if you feel similarly inspired and you have kids around the same age, leave a comment and we'll see if we can hook you up with someone who'd be interested in a similar project, just like jules did for mikaela and ashlyn.

blog camp: SA

slight misrepresentation since this is cape town

but this was the picture i had

taken from victoria & alfred hotel where i stayed

the fabulous lynne of wheatlands news has suggested she would host an MPC blog camp: south africa simultaneously with MPC blog camp: denmark on june 19-20-21. she has room for five in moorreesburg. of course, this makes me want to drop in there, but since i'll be here with four (maybe five) fabulous blog friends and sadly transporting star trek style is but a hollywood dream at this point, we'll have to make do with a virtual hook-up. (the logistics of which we i are am frantically working on.)

 although this is at spiers' moyo

this is how chilled out i imagine blog camp: SA will be

i wanna go to blog camp: SA!! if you do too, please send an email to me with "blog camp: SA" in the subject line and i'll hook you up with lynne. we'll be coming up with more blog camp details and announcements here in the coming days. tho' you can already check on the blog camp blog (of course we have a blog!) to see who's coming in june and why they decided to come.

and remember if you're really serious about attending either of the blog camp dates--june 19-21 or september 4-7 in denmark, please send me an email (my email address is in my profile) so i can put you on the list (if you only comment, i can't get in touch with you if you're using a no-reply blogger address, so please do send an email). 

just a note: people are finding some seriously good ticket prices from the US for the september dates, so have a look at kayak.com (that's where the best price i've heard is coming from). even if you're flying from somewhere obscure like fargo, it might cost less than you think! and if you're coming all that way, we can surely find a way for you to stay a few extra days and see the sights, so don't worry about jetlag and making such a trip for only a few days! :-)