watching the sunrise from a plane

i had the privilege of watching the sun rise over europe as i headed from copenhagen to paris (and on to valencia) last week. it went from purple to pink to purple again and pink again and finally, as we were coming in to land at CDG, i could even see the eiffel tower. and i felt consciously aware of the profound privilege of getting to travel again. the world is a wondrous place if we pay attention. and i'll admit it also helped my appreciation that i was in business class, even if it was a short flight.

everyday aesthetics

if you visit me over at domestic sensualists, you've heard me going on and on about bread of late. i've rather successfully made a sourdough starter and have even perfected a very good danish rye bread. husband says i've officially been assimilated. so as i wandered the flea market on saturday, i had my eye out for a new container for my sourdough starter - one that looks a bit more fetching on the countertop than the tupperware it was residing in. as you can see, i found a lovely bit of crockery from the 70s with a lid. it's perfect for my sourdough starter.

in looking for this, i got to thinking about everyday aesthetics. and how important they are. maybe they've become more important to me after living for more than a decade in denmark, where everything is over-designed down to its essentials, from chairs to lamps to vases and even those mobiles you hang over a baby. we've even got a bodum cheese cutter that is ergonomically designed. hmmm, perhaps i have been assimilated.

maybe it's more important to me these days because the house is otherwise such a pit of despair (that's visible in several details in the photo above - wallpaper, countertop, grey list around the edge of the counter top that's shoddily cut). i've felt much better in the horrible pink kitchen (why haven't i painted that again?) since husband built me a new gas stovetop (thank you, ikea), but it's at least partially because i always use the good bowls when i'm cooking. if the food going in is good and the bowls and utensils you use make you happy when you see them, it's overall a more satisfying experience. and where did we get the notion that we have to save certain things for "best" or at least for a special occasion? why not enjoy them everyday?

anyway, this is why i wanted to have a better container for my sourdough starter. i just didn't like looking at that plastic tupperware on the counter next to my kitchen-aid on a daily basis.

why don't you get out the good dishes and silverware tonight? it will lift your mood while you're cooking and i'll bet your family will thank you.

meditation on meditation

i tried to meditate today. i keep reading about that recent study that showed that your brain shows visible benefits (in the areas of memory, self-awareness, learning) when you meditate regularly.  so i read carefully how to go about it in the book i just finished - instructions to the cook by bernard glassman and rick fields. i arranged myself just as they suggested, took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind.

and i'll admit i gave up within about two minutes. i just couldn't do it. i couldn't calm my thoughts. i found it utterly impossible to think of nothing. all i could think about was what i wanted to do today. i tried to count as they suggested, but that reminded me too much of the obsessive counting i find myself doing when i'm stressed.  you know what i mean, suddenly finding yourself saying 78, 79, 80 in your head and wondering how you got all the way there without noticing? (i am not mental. i know you know what i mean.)

and then i proceeded to spend my morning making bread and vegetarian chili (to which i added some gorgeous chorizo at the last minute, thereby un-vegetarian-ing it) and spending the afternoon quilting two of the quilt tops i made during january.

the hum of the sewing machine, the concentration on even straight lines mesmerized me. i found that i thought of nothing else but the task at hand as i smoothed the cloth and fed it carefully through my trusty sewing machine. a meditative act if there ever was one.  mindfulness. being utterly in the moment there as i sewed.

and this evening i read this article and i felt a little better. i can always try again tomorrow. whether it's sitting quietly for a few minutes or sewing some more or chopping a few vegetables.

i can feel my brain growing already.

brugskunst

there's a really wonderful concept in danish - brugskunst - usable art. it includes all kinds of everyday items - bowls, glassware, vases, silverware and the like. largely kitchen items. ceramics, glass or wood - all well-designed, functional, but also beautiful. and i think it's a marvelous idea - why shouldn't our everyday be filled with beauty? because that's where life actually happens, in the little things you do every day. whether you're stirring up eggs for an omelet or putting sugar in your tea, it should be an aesthetic experience.

spotted at the blue market in haslev

spotted at the blue market in haslev

spotted at the blue market in haslev

the teapot and sugar bowl in our kitchen

i mentioned that i was going to back my new quilt top with fleece because it makes for a more cuddly blanket to cuddle up in while watching t.v. it makes it more usable - in the same spirit as the danish concept of brugskunst. functional beauty. but also in the spirit of using what i've got and what i had was fleece. i'll show you the result tomorrow when the light's better.

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enjoyed this (if you've read the stieg larsson millennium trilogy but don't really know why, you will too).

losing and then finding myself: lessons learned

december 17 - lesson learned: what was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? and how will you apply that lesson going forward?

i have an odd tendency to lose myself in my job...i wholeheartedly take on the identity that's desired of me...or rather the one that i perceive is desired of me in a particular company. i give my whole self and then some. or at least i used to do that. i got a bit burned out doing that a couple of years ago and so i've held myself back from doing it again. last year, there was the misogynist dinosaur which kept me from wholly giving myself over to a job i otherwise completely loved.

and then there's the past year that i spent in completely the wrong place. and although i knew from the beginning it was the wrong place, i did it for a friend and for the sake of a major lifestyle change. and i've learned that you can't do that. and that you shouldn't do that. if you know in your heart that something is wrong, it is wrong. and nothing will ever make it right. no friend (who probably isn't really a friend when it comes down to it) and no cool product that you believe in will make it right if it's not.

so the lesson i've learned is to listen to that voice in my head. and all of the voices of those who emailed me and asked me if i was ok, because i didn't seem to be myself right here on this blog (thank you!!). i feel a little bit like i lost 2010. i know that feeling will fade and it's because i'm still too close to it. i had to go through what i've been through so i could move to the next step. it's about building your karma, isn't it? or perhaps paying it off. and maybe i went for the wrong job because i had some karma to work off. or maybe i'm storing it up for the next time. or more probably both.

but what i learned is that i have to listen to my heart of hearts, to my intuition. she doesn't steer me wrong. but for all of that, i feel that voice is stronger and steadier than ever. and i'm ready to create what's next. myself.  together with real friends this time.

~ namaste

the best nest, or wherein i come out in favor of the interwebs

little bitty nest in a tree in our back yard. much smaller than it appears.
how does this bird know how to decorate it so well - acorn and all - without the interwebs?

it's a well-known fact that i love the internet - blogs, flickr, twitter, facebook, even linked-in. social media butterfly, that's me. well, sorta. within a small-ish circle.  when i began this bloggy adventure in earnest, i explored a lot of different blogs on a lot of different topics. i've pretty much weeded out all of the scrapbooking ones now, but those were kind of where i started. along the way, i found some people who seemed to have a really cool aesthetic that they were sharing - opening their homes and giving glimpses of their lives through their blogs. some, like me, just to share and reach out and make contact and some to sell their wares. i still read quite a few of those. but i think the blogs i am attracted to most these days share their process. they're pretty heavy on handmade (food, quilts, art) thematically, but i love the insight people are sharing into their creative processes.  but, i still love the blogs where people just show us glimpses of their beautifully-lived, well-lit everyday lives.

and i shudder think back to the time before blogs, where we had to figure out what we thought was cool home decor for ourselves. i guess we got our ideas from magazines then or, if we were me, by visiting the golden nugget in downtown las vegas and thinking that brass, glass and a lot of plants were really the way to go. (it was the late 80s, so sue me.)  now, i know better, because i can latch onto trends (mid-century modern, vintage in general, crocheted blankets) a whole lot faster, just by trolling the flickr groups i'm part of.

but in a way, i really envy people like anne, who despite being an ostensibly poor graduate student is a brilliant photographer and all around brainiac, and she cooks gorgeous food in a very deliberate and thoughtful way. i can tell you that i seldom did that as a grad student. i can recall a truly ugly broccoli cheese soup i once made, but which we ate anyway because it tasted great. but i wonder if i'd have done better if i'd had the internet then. i'd like to think i would have. i know i would have appreciated my hand-me-down furniture - i had a gorgeous danish modern desk and dining table & chairs that had belonged to my mom's aunt (where are they now, i wonder?) - a whole lot more.

even more, i envy inna karenina. at 18, she's already a completely stunning photographer and has that ability i've been working so hard on acquiring, that ability to really SEE and capture the world around her and to live in what seems to be a very deliberate way. i was so clueless at 18. if only we'd had the interwebs back then in the dark ages!

and digital photography, it's perhaps that that's done it more than anything else - i download pictures 3-4 times a day on a good day. in the old days, i would take a few pictures, leave the camera, which was some crap old canon snappy, lying in a corner for months, take a few more, leave it again, then finish the roll and eventually take it to be developed. if only i'd known then how cool expired film and light leaks are. but even now, i only know that because of, you guessed it, the internet.

so, moral of the story? if you want the best nest, you've gotta get online....

resisting...

it seems that during the christmas season there are many pressures. a whirlwind of gifts and relatives and friends and food and cookies. and you either succumb to the pressures and dash around like a madwoman, trying to get that perfect last-minute present, the last ingredients for the perfect christmas dinner, the most beautiful centerpiece for your christmas table, or you resist all of that.

this year, i'm resisting. for the most part, we have what we need, so we're not going mad with presents (if you don't count the small fortune i spent on new clothes for sabin in noa noa). we've just had our weekend of julefrokosts, so the family and friends bit is mostly behind us. we've been baking for the past week, so we've got a supply of christmas cookies laid in. those lovely people who bring my weekly organic box also brought an organic duck and a big, beautiful pork roast (both essential ingredients in the danish christmas dinner), so we're set as far as the food is concerned. i bought some hyacinths and i'm making my own table centerpiece. so the resisting is going well so far. and in fact, i've even managed to resist  some other stuff:

~  christmas cards - i really don't do christmas cards. this isn't a new resistance, i've basically never done christmas cards. i always find those letters, outlining all of the achievements of the family over the past year and with overly sentimental and possibly hollow wishes for you to have a successful new year (so that your christmas letter next year can too be filled with glowing reports of little johnny's early acceptance to harvard and the like), to be...well...a bit braggy and ultimately empty. there, i said it. maybe i'm scrooge, but i don't want to send out such a letter and honestly, nor do i want to receive them. which isn't to say that i don't appreciate the sentiment behind the cards i receive (which are fewer and fewer each year, as people realize we don't send them back and put us in their grudge books), but i'm not willing able to reciprocate. i just don't have it in me. maybe i'm just bad at polite gestures. (and spud, bambi and bee, i'm not talking about you here...i love that you sent cards, i just didn't send one back.)

~  teacher gifts - i've seen a lot of references of late to people frantically getting their teacher gifts ready to go. and i have to say that we are very fortunate that that's not the norm here in denmark. so no pressure to give an elaborate gift to the teacher to keep her well-disposed to the child. since we didn't HAVE to do it, we did give sabin's teacher (who we love) one of our sweet little birds. and the riding teacher that was leaving also got one. but it felt much better for the fact that we weren't obligated to do it.

crappy picture taken from great distance in dark church at high ISO and then cropped within an inch of its life.

~  nativity chic - spud wrote not long ago about the nativity chic craze sweeping the UK. it sounded like utter madness - people spending up to 150£ on costumes for their child's appearance in the yearly nativity play. sabin was in a nativity play too and all it meant was that we had to roll out of bed rather early on sunday morning. sabin was one of the lesser-known characters - the christmas heart (julehjertet) - and all costumes were provided by the church. on this one, i'll admit i would like to have made an elaborate and much more fabulous costume for her myself, but i am grateful that the setup itself made it easy for me to resist this.

~ keeping up with the joneses hansens - we met a group of new people yesterday at a little christmas afternoon gathering at some friends of ours. there were three other couples there, all chatting and open and really nice (rather pleasantly undanish of them, actually, tho' all were danes). they were talking about trips taken and trips on the horizon. skiing in france just after christmas. a tour around thailand. visits to shanghai for mad shopping sprees. and it surprised me that i didn't feel any need at all to compete. i don't feel the least bit bad that we're going to be home this christmas, with our own crackling fire and the smells of duck roasting in the oven. i like to ski, but honestly, traipsing to france when the snow is beautiful here at home just doesn't appeal. and so i realized that all of that thinking about simplicity is working. i'll admit that maybe i've also reached a place where i'm comfortable in the knowledge of all the places i've traveled and don't feel any pressure to prove anything. and i realize that makes it much easier.

husband's older daughters were here this weekend and they had a lengthy conversation with their mother over what some or other cousin wanted for christmas. they couldn't remember and couldn't really think of anything original to get for the cousin. so they settled upon a gift card to a shop that has perfume and makeup, so that the cousin could buy what she wanted. and it really underlined for me how out of control the gift thing has become. we're giving gifts because we feel obligated to do so. and far too many people don't put any thought into it - they just ask for a list from the person and get them exactly what's on the list. we far too often just go buy the things we like and think we need, leaving there to be nothing we really wish for when christmas comes. and i think that takes the fun out of it for both giver and receiver. how much fun is it to open your gifts when you know what's in them? and it becomes more drudgery than fun to shop for gifts when you're just going down a pre-determined list.

i want to return to a place where gifts are meaningful. where i give because i found or made something that i know is perfect for that person. i'd rather gives less gifts that have more meaning and i definitely don't want to give some lame gift certificate because i can't be bothered to think of something proper to give. if you don't know the person well enough to be able to know what they'd like, then maybe you have no business giving them a gift in the first place? i really think we've come to a bad place in our evolution when gifts have become an obligation. the whole idea of gifts is lost if that's the case.

dismounts from soap box....

i hope that your christmas season is filled with love and laughter and good food and crackling fireplaces and time spent with people you love.

o christmas tree, o christmas tree...

the world is covered in a blanket of fresh, white, fluffy snow. and while that brings joy to my heart and makes everything seem fresh and new, it also keeps me indoors because it's pretty friggin' cold out there to go with it (-7C). it'll also make it a bit problematic for getting our christmas tree this weekend, because how do you shake all that snow off before you bring it in the house?

last year's tree

and i've been thinking about the christmas tree. for years (and i mean like 20 years), i've been collecting shiny purple ornaments, adding a few new ones every year. and there are many that are meaningful and which i love getting out year after year, but suddenly, this year i'm not sure purple feels right. and most of what i've got for the tree definitely isn't handmade (except for that nordic sun symbol that's on top) and i'm in this handmade mode and wondering how to reconcile that with my glitzy purple tree. especially since i haven't made any ornaments this year and it's getting a bit late if i should embark on that now.

when you think about how nature can decorate the trees, it seems rather pathetic to even try to trim the tree with all that fake glitz and spangle, even as much as i love shiny things.  maybe next year i'll felt a bunch of old sweaters into homey new ornaments, like trinsch did. maybe i'll go out to the blue room and make up a few of the spool birdies and it'll make me feel a bit better.

but i sound a bit more depressed than i mean to and than i really feel...i'm looking forward to christmas. sabin loves it so much and i've gotten her some really nice clothes and some games and lego and some fun stocking stuffers (think robots) that she will love. we'll have wonderful food with friends and family, starting already tomorrow. we've been baking up a storm while it stormed outside. so really it's all good. i think i'm just trying to reconcile my new thoughts on consumption with the old me and with tradition. it's a journey, what can i say?

simplify

i've been going on and on about simplifying my life for nearly two years now. clearing out the junk, paring down, eating locally-produced food, spending less on gadgets [gasp!], making do with what we have. long ago (before i realized how much i hate flash), i even bought a bunch of books on the simple life. i was so not ready to actually do it, that i felt i had to acquire something in order to even ponder it. and strangely, i never really read those books at the time (except for barbara kingsolver's animal, vegetable, miracle). but over the past week or so, i've begun reading them. i think i was ready at last.

i found that i did a pretty good job of selecting a good range from the theoretical side to the WAY out there living in a hut in the woods side to the incredibly annoyingly, preachily written to the practical, down-to-earth view. and i've realized a few things:

~ we're quite a lot farther along than i thought. in thinking and in action.

~ thinking is at least half the battle.

~ things change quickly: judith levine's reason for her year of not buying (2004) was the mad rhetoric of the bush administration which suggested that the best way to defeat the terrorists was to get out there and buy something. i think my main reason for wanting to do this, other than living more personally mindfully, is a desire to be kinder to the environment.

~ simplifying doesn't have to mean suffering. it's more about mindfulness than self-denial. which may be why i feel i'm a lot closer now than i was when i bought the books last year.

~ i think i'd rather think of it as living more consciously, that seems more palatable and somehow less like a cult or  a religion to me. i have a feeling that the notion of voluntary simplicity or radical simplicity has been fetishized a bit too much for my taste.

~ i realize my own dad, who has never set foot in a wal-mart, has been "not buying it" for years (of course mom and us girls more than made up for it over the years). sometimes it takes years to learn the lessons your parents try to teach you, but i think i'm catching on at last.

~ the simplicity project is much easier outside of the insane consumer culture that is the united states.

~ while there is cultural pressure to keep up with the hansens next door here, it's on a much more even keel and keeping up doesn't mean a two hummer garage.  (granted, i'm not sure it means that in the US anymore after more than a year of economic crisis - but these books are all pre-crisis.)

~ our ancient toyota is a great example of how we resist the cultural pressure to have a nice shiny new car. and i've long found that rather charming about us. :-)

~ i think i'm ready to commit to my own year of not buying in 2010 and am already thinking of the ways in which we should execute that as a family.

i'd love to hear what you all think. have you simplified over the past year out of economic necessity or environmental concerns or because you saw one of those awful programs about how the chickens are treated? what do you think it would take for you to spend a year not buying anything more than essentials? what would those essentials include?

let austerity april begin

i know that if you know me, which you no doubt feel you do if you come here regularly, you think i'm pulling a little april fool's joke. it cannot be that our little julochka is embarking on any kind of project that has the word "austerity" in it. but this is no joke. inspired by my friend B, for the month of april (and hopefully beyond), there will be no shoes, no crocheted stones, no fabulous fabric (sorry heather i'll have to wait 'til may), no pretty paper, no items of crap from the spotvarer at the grocery store, no books (i have enough to get me through the next month), no pretty notebooks or binders from bookbinders design, no new clothes (not that i'm that bad about clothes (thankfully i live far from a Gap), it's really only when i've let that moron pack my suitcase), no new perfume.

just groceries and train tickets and plane tickets and the organic box. oh, and the cleaning girl. i refuse to give her up.

amazing the things we consider the necessities of life.

i wonder if i can hide under some of the rocks i found last weekend for an entire month...

taking stock

it's that time of year for stocktaking. last year at this time, i realized that i was answering to my fourth boss in three and a half years and that i didn't have the energy for the starting all over that that promised. each one came in and wanted to undo everything the previous one had thought was ok in order to leave his mark, so it was an endless cycle of defending the projects one was already doing. and i realized it was no longer worth it to my sanity. and so i'm no longer there. and it has taken me nearly this entire year to recover psychologically, but i do feel that i have at last recovered and found my way back to myself, strong and whole and probably better and stronger and more sure of what makes me tick than i was before.

so that makes stocktaking feel like a good and worthy activity, so although i'm not really a big advocate of new year's resolutions, it seems worthwhile to think about what one wants going forward into the new year.

yesterday, i had a two hour brainstorming session with two very brilliant and wacky minds. these two people get more ideas every minute than you can imagine and i am always in awe when i'm around them. i feel that i am also a person who gets a lot of ideas, but i could tell that spending a couple of hours brainstorming with them yesterday was the most productive and energizing time i've spent in ages. and i realize that although working mostly from home over the past year has been a true luxury, it has been a bit isolating at times and isolation can be stifling to ideas. you need other people around who stimulate you creatively. your own ideas become better when you bounce them off of the ideas of others. so one of the things i resolve to do in 2009 is to regularly spend time with creative minds who push my thinking in new and exciting directions.

this morning, i sat with my newspapers and a cup of tea and read headline upon headline about the financial crisis and how it's starting to impact businesses and individuals. when i walk around on the pedestrian shopping zone in my little town, i see little evidence of any christmas slowdown. people appear to be hurrying around, shopping their little brains out, with that slightly panicked glazed-over look in their eyes, grabbing another and another and another gift. and i realize that i really don't want to do that anymore. it doesn't make us feel good, so why is it that we are driven to consume?

last night, i downloaded and read from cover to cover the latest issue of mankind mag. it's a free download from design for mankind and i thought it was so awesome that i went back and donated to it. completely in tune with the zeitgeist, it's the consumption issue. erin talks to artists all over the world about consumption. even before i opened it, i thought of an artist i'd seen on etsy who made daily drawings of the things she bought. and i was delighted to find that she was there in this issue--kate bingaman burt. and because i'd lost track of her after stumbling onto her on etsy months ago, i have now bookmarked her blog.

so i hereby resolve to document my purchases, on a daily basis, for at least the whole month of january. perhaps it will be so much fun (or so shocking) that i will continue. but i've been talking about off and on during 2008 that i want to be more conscious about my consumption and now it's time to do something about it.  i actually tried keeping a food journal at the beginning of the year, in order to be more conscious about what i was eating, but somehow it didn't catch on with me and it's lying mostly empty by my bedside.  the cover above features a drawing of purchases by UK artist gemma correll that's amazing and inspiring as well, so i think i'll be able to stick with this resolution this time around.

one other thing i've been thinking about in addition to spending my money more wisely is spending my time more wisely as well. some of the first blogs i discovered at the beginning of the year, when i began spending time in the blogosphere in earnest just don't fit me anymore. and it took me awhile to realize it. there are a couple in particular which have been daily reads for me, which i have come to realize are really quite empty and false and pretty much annoy the hell out of me. so i resolve, actually already now, as of this minute, to un-favorite them and not spend any more time there. some people, "rad" as they fancy themselves to be (seriously, who says that?), really aren't worth it. and besides they never reciprocated by reading me, so who cares? my time is too precious. (EDITED:  please note that i do not mean any of you guys who visit me regularly...these were people whose blogs i visited, but who never visited me!!!)

and, i'll leave you with erin's challenge from her editor's note in mankind mag--"every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want." --anna lappe.  then erin asks, "have you checked your vote lately?" i for one will be checking my vote a lot more often.

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just stumbled onto an interesting blog entry and song demo by suzanne vega on the NYT website. check out her song, it's very timely (tho' completely unrelated to what i've written above, just had to share because it was cool).