hello there, my neglected blog

it may seem that i've turned my back on this blog. the days go by and by and with each of them, i think that i will finally sit down this evening and catch up. and then life intervenes and there's dinner to make and stalls to clean and horses and cats to feed and lawns to mow (yes, we're still mowing, it's been that warm) and speeches to give and pumpkins to buy and books to read and netflix to watch and entryways to tidy and work to do. and somehow, i don't find myself in front of the computer to blog. and i miss it. my sanity misses it. my inner sense of well-being misses it. so i think i'll just have to pick up the threads and go on and not worry about catching up. eventually, one day when i'm hungry, i'll do another post of new york food, as there's much more of that to share and i'll write that post that's rattling in my head about the differences between seattle and new york. and through writing it all, i'll work out what i think and i'll find my way back to myself and this space. because this space plays a great role in keeping me in touch with myself. and that job is far from complete.

one of the reasons i've had a hard time sitting down to write is because a great tragedy befell the great majority of photos that i took on my recent trip. i had downloaded them along the way into iPhoto on my work computer because my memory card was nearly full and i had all of new york ahead of me. with the jetlag and everything else, i didn't get them moved over to my backup drive when i got home on the weekend. then, on my first monday back in the office, i had all kinds of computer problems and went over to IT for help. and their solution was to delete my profile and create a new one. and in doing so, they wiped out my entire computer. and all of those photos that aren't anywhere else. luckily, most of my nyc comiccon photos were uploaded to flickr, but i hadn't had a proper chance to go through any of the ones i took in seattle, so they are all lost. 

luckily, i took a lot of shots with my new iPhone 6, because it was easier and it has a great camera, so i'm not completely without photos of my trip, but i did suffer a devastating loss of the sculpture park in seattle and the good photos of chihuly, aside from the few i uploaded for my daily photo project, thinking i'd do the rest later, when i'd had a proper chance to go through them. i can tell you that the loss of those photos has awakened me in the night on more than one occasion over the past few weeks. we trust so much to bits and bytes these days and i trust so much of my memory to my camera, that i feel like there may be great gaps in my memories of my trip without those photos. technology is not entirely trustworthy and neither are those guys in IT. back up your photos, and/or send them into the cloud, it's the best advice i can give. and i intend to take it myself in the future.

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love these lamps.

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i forgot how much i love design for mankind.

erin is just so delightfully, unpretentiously real and authentic.

she even makes homeschooling sound ok.

some days are like that

it's been a weird monday. i was writing a whole other blog post and then a bunch of stuff wanted to come out and it kept clouding up what i wanted to write, so i just have to write this and get it out of the way. some days are like that.

~ moving horses will always take longer than you think.

~ australia is the worst movie i've ever seen. period. everyone involved in it should be taken out back and shot. especially nicole kidman. and whoever put together those backgrounds against the stuff shot in the studio, they should be tied up and made to watch the film repeatedly for the rest of their lives. even if their eyes have to be propped open with those metal thingies from a clockwork orange.

~ if you're a nurse and you have to take a swab halfway down someone's throat, perhaps just a teency weency little explanation or maybe even a "hello" before you come at them with the extra long q-tip would be in order. just sayin'.

~ if you need to get an x-ray of your lungs because you've been coughing for three weeks straight, go at lunchtime. there's no waiting.

~ people who write knitting books leave out a lot of stuff that beginners will have questions about. like how to remember whether that last row you did was knit or purl, or how to tell if you forget.

~ it seems that divorces come in bunches...another of sabin's classmates' parents are splitting up. she says it's the 6th in her class. apparently marriages fall like dominoes. i'm pleased to not know any of the whys and wherefores of any of them, but feel sad for the kids.

~ i have to make 600 (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration) cupcakes tomorrow. i'm thinking rainbows.

ok, i think that about does it. now i'll get back to the post i was really writing. some days are like that.

serenity now or totally jonesin' for blogging

pretty viking boat picture promotes calm thoughts
or maybe i'm just hoping the viking will throw me a lifeline

if i had a sneaking suspicion that i was addicted to blogging, it has been proven to me over the past week when time in front of the computer has simply not been there. don't get me wrong, i've been in front of a computer a bit, but it's definitely the wrong one. and i'm simply not blogging from that piece of crap, bit of waste, example of bad design, toxic waste that i can't lift, piece of trash behemoth. it's a PC for odin's sake. i have more pride than that. not to mention that one shouldn't really blog at work. mostly because it will be full of vitriol and utter bewilderment at the corporate world. but i digress.

i'm seriously jonesing for my time in front of the internet. but more accurately, for my daily writing. for more than two years i've written on a daily basis and i can tell you that it sucks not to be doing it right now. i can seriously feel my sanity slipping (which i'm sure has nothing to do with the great white collar/blue collar debate with which i will regale you on another occasion, tho' do feel free to leave me feedback on how those words make you feel) without my daily outlet. i tell you, blogging is cheaper than therapy.

let me give you a little summary of where we're at:

~ # of witty small trucks we have rented to take stuff that can't be properly enclosed in boxes (e.g. a loom, an alarming amount of rocks and about 800 pieces of driftwood) over to jylland: 2

clever truck #2 - we rent them from a company called "lej et lig" (rent a body) that started out renting out hearses
this one is an old postal truck and on the side it says:
"this will inspire jealousy on your car holiday. if your trip takes you to albania"
i'm still laughing maniacally chuckling to myself about that one.

~  time 'til big-ass truck arrives: approx. 12 hours (as of this writing)

~  amount of stuff not packed: 8%

~ amount of stuff that will just be thrown randomly into boxes labeled with vague things like "crap from back of upstairs closet" and "underneath the sink" and "bottom drawer of the refrigerator" (strike that, we'll just throw that penicillin experiment away): 8%

~ times husband has forgotten his own name: 1 (of which i have documented proof, there are probably others.)

~ times husband has completely made up new words, written them on boxes containing objects which already have perfectly good words assigned to them: 1 that i know of, probably countless others.

~ times husband has forgotten my name and sabin's name: 1 (again with the documented proof - which will no doubt come in handy during the inquest).

~ times when i have taken in The Enormity of Things in the past few days: 0

~ times when husband has taken in The Enormity of Things in the past few days: 3

~ husband's level of stress: high (for him, which means undetectable for normal mortals, but which completely freaks me out because hey, i'm the crazy one around here).

~ days i am behind on my calendar art journal: 22!!! (yowza! something had to give and that was apparently it - mostly because i had to pack all of my art supplies.)

~ sushi restaurants opening in our town as soon as we're moving: 1

~ times we sneaked out for sushi without the child: 1

~ times we went out for sushi with the child: 1

~ sushi we owe the child because she grilled me and i spilled the sneaky sushi trip: 1 (doubles as reason i should never submit myself to a lie detector test.)

~ days in a row we have eaten sushi: 2

~ days in a row we wanted to eat sushi: 4

~ people we had over for dinner at the last minute: 5

~ how much of the kitchen is packed: 8%

~ how much of the laundry is done: 98%  (it would be 100%, but people around here seem to keep wearing clothes for some inexplicable reason.)

~ how much stuff isn't going to fit into that big-ass truck: 10%

~ activities we have done to avoid the stress: playing cards with friends,  shopping for buying a horse, making dinner for 8, going out for lunch, going to the eye doctor and spending 30 minutes chatting away with her about inability to throw away baby clothes.

pretty water and ropes = lifeline to sanity

things for which i'm grateful:

~ it'll all be over soon.

~ my 365 photo project, which makes me take at least a little break/walk every day.

~ my neighbor can come and do the cleansing of the house.

~ the horse guy will deliver the horse next week, so we don't have to move her ourselves (now to find somewhere to keep her while we build a stable...)

~ the fact that all of you still keep reading. i promise i'll be back to reading and commenting on your blogs and flickr photostreams soon. i haven't forgotten you. and i miss you very much.

~ this too shall pass.