molly's meme

molly (my very first follower) made up a meme. all by herself. and i mean, why not? someone's got to do it, right? well, she didn't actually tag me for it, but i'm going to do it anyway because i'm the fairy blogmother and i can do stuff like that. and plus, i'm going to pick up my blog campers today and so it makes for an easy scheduled post.

totally gratituous rock shot

here's what molly says about her brand spankin' new meme:

I've always had the problem of not being able to pick a favourite. I don't have one favourite movie or one favourite book, or one favourite food. Life's just a bit more complex than that for me. I'm 75% Gemini  - go figure.


So the idea here is that you list 5 items in each category, a favourite 5 - but not necessarily in order of favouriteness - to show the diversity/similarity/hilarity/polarity/ or extreme same-ness of your personal likes.


And then tag 5 peeps to do the same. And feel free to add or subtract categories as you like.
Down with meme imperialism!

and here are my favorite things....

5 favorite songs (this list would be different if you asked me in an hour or a day):
1. Hotel California - Eagles
2. I think I'm in Love - Beck
3. Citizen of the Planet - Alanis Morissette
4. Express Yourself - Madonna (this song saw me through a bad breakup)
5. My Sister - Juliana Hatfield 3

5 favorite films:
1. Fargo
2. The Princess Bride
3. Afgrunden (The Abyss) (1911 danish silent film--i loved it before i ever even came to denmark)
4. The Castle (it's a hilarious australian film)
5. Napoleon Dynamite
i had total deja vu writing this...but i think it's b/c of saturday's scheduled post (another meme).

5 favorite books:
1. Pushkin House (Pushkinskii Dom) - Andrei Bitov
2. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
3. Wind up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
4. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (just kept this one here from molly's list)
5. What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt

5 favorite crushes (there is a distinct old man theme going on here):
1. David Letterman
2. Hugh Laurie
3. Bill Clinton
4. Todd Benjamin (saw him moderate a panel last week at Nor-Shipping--i'm a sucker for a smart one)
5. Fox Mulder (yes, i realize he is a character played by David Duchovney, however, it's Fox, not David that I'm crushing on.)

5 favorite (random) things:
1. my pet rock
2. perfume
3. iPods
4. my Macbook Pro
5. iPhone

5 favorite things to eat (you knew i was going to have to add one of my own):
1. mango (especially in the philippines)
2. salty almonds
3. homemade pizza with wacky ingredients (pears & salad - potatoes & chicken)
4. watermelon
5. tapas - garlic shrimp, chorizo,...mmm, just thinking about it makes me hungry

and i thought that i would tag three new bloggers that have discovered me i've discovered recently and two old friends:

1.  just jules
2.  marinik
3.  delwyn 
4.  an open heart
5.  janet

and one more gratuitous rock shot, mostly because i put these on flickr the other day, but never blogged them:

inspirational spirits need love too

i already expressed this week how i'm complete rubbish at passing along blog awards, as deserving as i think all of you most decidedly are and as appreciative as i myself am of receiving them. however, in a fit of self-improvement, i'm passing along this particular award, which i was given by polly of sotto voce, because it seems a particularly worthy award of passing along. to use her words, "It's one of the most meaningful awards in the blogworld because it honours someone who is incredibly inspirational in her intelligent and witty writing. And by doing so this award celebrates women's smart, strong and inspirational spirit. These women are like Renee: the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns…" please check in on polly's blog for more of the links to the originators of this award (these things have a way of becoming diluted in the blogosphere and i feel i would be slightly disingenuous to link to them here when i don't really know them (i am aware this slightly defeats the purpose)).  (dang, that was a lot of parentheses and this paragraph is really getting long.)

when i look through my reader (google's, of course), there are several blogs that jump out at me as the right voices to pass this award along to. if you don't already read them, i hope you will go check them out. they are, in no particular order:

tara at eyeblog 

she has a house full of girls

she cooks

she's on flickr 

she owns an art gallery

she uses those fabulous double colons as bullets

she makes me think and want to be better at well...everything

molly at ohfortheloveofblog 

she's another of those people who feels like a long-lost sister to me

like a really cool one

who lives in cape town

reads murakami

and has a dog

and a daughter

and steals avocados from the neighbor's tree

and swears on her blog when it's warranted

b at cuttings on a blog 

like me, she lives outside her home country

she inspired me to embark on austerity april 

(which is working, by the way)

she reads lots of great books

and she's a belly dancer

just for fun

delwyn at a hazy moon 

because she takes the loveliest walks

and shares them so generously

and discovers interesting new characters 

and has some japanese-oz connection that i haven't yet worked out

but which keeps me coming back

i hope that all of you will check out these bloggers and i hope that you strong, fabulous women will pass this along to some deserving bloggers. and if you didn't get an award this time, just wait, i've got quite a few to catch up on...

thanks again, polly, for this one, it was a good one.

insecurities and haunted castles

i packaged up and sent off the very first order from my long-procrastinated etsy shop this morning. if i had realized exactly how motivating that act would be, i would have done it a long time ago (oh please, who am i kidding, i probably wouldn't have, i would have procrastinated it exactly as i did). it is a bit with trepidation that i did it, as all sorts of "am i good enough" thoughts swirl in my head. why do we do that to ourselves? is it the small town girl in me? is it a woman thing? is it because i went to grad school at the university of chicago where self-doubt comes complimentary with every degree? why is my head filled with the idea that i might not be worthy of having someone buy what i have created? do i have to go all stuart smalley here and repeat an "i'm good enough, i'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me" mantra? so i'm trying to fight those thoughts and focus on the feelings of inspiration and motivation i also feel from packing the things up and getting them ready to send. and new ideas are already popping into my head, some of which actually do not include eyeballs, believe it or not. :-)

* * *

a lazy weekend stretches ahead. sabin's downstairs finding carrots to give to silver star after her riding lesson. we made red velvet cupcakes last night and we'll take a couple of those for her instructor and the sweet little girl who helps out with the lessons. i'm wondering if the woman who looks like sarah palin  will be there today. i have a hard time not staring at her.  i sneaked this picture of her last time. isn't it uncanny? that's her daughter in the light pink sweater on the left. couldn't she probably pass for piper palin? poor family, i wonder if they know...

* * *

we're going to dinner this evening at my favorite little castle. it's called dragsholm slot. it's haunted and is totally one of my favorite places. it's been a couple of years since i was there and the last time, we kept the ghosts at bay by singing around a piano, or did we try to coax them out, i don't really remember anymore:

through the years, i've used it as a venue for workshops whenever i could. the food is great (the chef is french), the wine list top notch (which is why can't really recall if we were trying to attract or repel the ghosts above) and while it's a bit worn and slightly shabby, it's super charming and inviting, despite, or maybe because of, the ghosts. i hope we might run into them this evening. i'd love my last experience at 41 to be an other-worldly encounter.  i'll definitely be back with more stories and photos from there tomorrow.

møn's klint was fabulous

despite the fact that it was already 3 p.m. by the time we got there and that sunset feel was in the air,

we braved the 479 stairs down to the beach below at møn's klint.

there were natural wonders on the beach, 

things like fish eggs

photogenic flotsam and jetsam

fossil squid tentacles

and we had to take home some of the beautiful driftwood as souvenirs

(we made husband carry it)

there had been more winter landslides

so there were mounds of chalk changing the shoreline

and many new chalk rocks creating a gorgeous contrast with the dark stones.

the stones sang their music as the waves rolled in over them.

heavenly.

the cliffs are magnificent, even in the twilight

and then, because it was getting quite dark,

we made our way up the other staircase (574 stairs) and home

but not before we had a beautiful burger to tide us over for the trip...