100 happy days :: day 48

today's happy: batman-themed moleskines. one arrived at my door today. 

frieda, aka catwoman, approved.

100 happy days :: day 45

i know i've already used the baby bunnies as my happy moment.
but seriously, who cannot be happy in the face of this?
every day, i think they're reached peak cuteness and yet every day, they get cuter.

also,
something has shifted. cosmically. in a good way.
i don't know what it is yet, but i'm choosing to roll with it.
happiness is in the air.
maybe it just takes 45 days of concentrated effort.

* * *

this is (pin)interesting and a bit surprising.
and tho' some of them are my own, not all of them are.

bunnies and books

don't mess with the sugar nose

this bunny is from a litter of 6, he's the littlest one, but he looks tough anyway, doesn't he? maybe he has to be, being one of 6. i don't know why i'm calling him he, i have no idea whether he is a boy or girl. it's too hard to tell with baby bunnies what they are. often you first find it out when they have just made some more baby bunnies. do you suppose it will damage his self image if i keep calling him he and he's really a she? do bunnies care about stuff like that?

just a little of the light reading that's on my nightstand. the bottom one about technology and urban development and the environment was written by my father-in-law in 1974. you'd be amazed how well the ideas about what makes a city livable hold up. he was a brilliant man. according to goodreads, less than nothing is the most lucid zizek in years. i love the loops he takes my brain on. it's kind of like how i imagine cocaine would be, only without all of the expense and needing to have clear sinuses. it's kind of interesting to think that libraries dispense something with the capacity to make your brain high on thoughts.

lest you think i've gone completely mad, here's the lighter reading on my nightstand. i've never read raymond chandler, but murakami loves him, so how could i not give him a whirl? i'm going to try to read them in order, but i don't always have control of when the books i've ordered come in at the library, so i've ordered the first four to start with.

that celebrating the third place book is full of stories of amazing places - plant nurseries, bookshops, cafés - that people love and use. we're working on something along these lines, so i want to read all i can about great third spaces. i've ordered the book by ray oldenburg that started it all - the good great place - and am impatiently waiting for it to come so i can read the theory behind the concept. roughly, as i understand it, the first place is home, the second place is work and the third place is somewhere you want to be. it can be a café, a library, a bookshop, a bar - anywhere that people gather because they desire to be there. such places develop a life of their own and i want to find out how.

other than reading, the weekend holds a party over on the devil's island and, as it's yet another long weekend with a monday holiday, lots of time in the garden. we've got to get planting now that the night frosts seem to be gone.

what are you doing this weekend?

peachy perfection

feverish thoughts and a gratuitous bunny photo

i'm sick. but at least there are bunnies. i tried to fight it all day, but i'm aching all over, my head is incredibly stuffed up and my ears are ringing so loud i asked my family if they could hear it. i had a fitful, feverish nap this afternoon, where i dreamed that husband put our big old giant webster's dictionary outside on a trash pile. i found it flipping in the wind and a bit wet from rain and i was so mad, even after i woke up, that i had to call husband and yell at him. he felt that was a little unfair, pointing out that he couldn't help what was happening over in my dream life. i said, what if that's real life and this is all a dream.

some days are like that

"what happened to our summer?" asked samba (strangely, he didn't question the fact that we had placed a chive flower on his head.)

today was cold, windy and grey. we were spoiled last week, i tell you, lulled into thinking we'd have an actual summer this year. but alas, it was not to be. we might even have to turn the furnace back on.

the silver lining was that i didn't want to be outside, so i got loads of work done. none of it including doing dishes or putting away clothes or vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom, which is really starting to need it.  some days are like that.

then the horse got scared of some horse-eating invisible thing while i was brushing her (i blame the shift in the weather) and bonked me in the head with her head. i saw stars. and they weren't the twinkly kind in a clear, night sky. ouch.

i've still got a headache from that.

some days are like that too.

picture perfect bunny and other pretty things

after losing her gorgeous sister earlier in the week, i appreciate peaches even more.
tho' i don't actually know if she is a she or a he.

i might have accidentally let snowy and samba spend some time together today. but it was only because snowy keeps pretending to be pregnant. she pulls out all her tummy fur and makes a nest and then nothing happens.

it was 15 years ago today that i met husband for the first time. but i'll admit that due to my lack of acquaintance with the domestication and grooming standards of the danish male, i actually thought he was gay. turns out he was just pretty (and not at all gay, tho' that's likely too much information). and he actually gets prettier all the time (even if i do say so myself). kind of like this bunny, actually.

sunshine, bunnies and change

and the week of awesome continues...we've got sunshine and 20°C. we don't want to come into the house at night, it's so perfect outdoors. so many good things are happening this week that not even the disappearance for several hours yesterday of this little sweetie could really put a damper on things:

and after much frantic searching, peaches was eventually found, together with her naughty brother velvet. we didn't even ground them after their disappearance and they got to go outside for the first time today. they tasted stinging nettles and then vigorously washed their little faces with both paws. cute in a tragic sort of way. and maybe a sort of fitting punishment for the whole escaping and hiding thing.

it's a good thing i decided to have a great week, because there's a lot going on and i'm having one of those times where you actually can see yourself changing and adjusting and becoming someone new by leaps and bounds instead of so slowly that you don't notice. maybe it's just spring...the air is full of the song of birds having sex, the flowers are blooming everywhere, the animals are having babies. not that any of those things apply to me (easy there, folks, i'm old!), but yet i feel the speed of the growth and change - i guess we're all just hurrying up to soak up some light while it's here.

i know that was rather cryptic and doesn't make sense, but i'm still working on it. change is hard and sometimes it happens kicking and screaming and sometimes it happens in one giant leap. it's all a matter of how you choose to face it. i'm glad i decided to have a great week this week.

more soon.

is it just me?

are you looking at me?

i had a really weird moment yesterday. an unbidden, unwelcome and unusual moment (more like an hour) of an utter lack of confidence. accompanied by a strange feeling of guilt. it was especially unwelcome because i was on my way to an important meeting. and i needed my confidence and belief in my own abilities. i'm working on a project that's very important to me - it's precisely what i want to be doing - think writing, travel, writing about travel - and the meeting was about the next steps of the project. so i needed to be my real self. not some hesitant, shy, strangely guilty version of me. luckily, i had an awesome friend to call - one who happens also to be my business partner - and she talked me down. and the meeting went well and all is right with the world, project-wise.

but i'm still wondering why i felt that way. especially the odd sense of guilt, tho' i honestly hadn't done anything i should have felt guilty about. at least nothing i could think of on a conscious level. where do these feelings come from?

do you ever have that happen? you feel alone and vulnerable and lacking confidence, even when you usually face the world head-on and are pretty angst-free (tho' admittedly you do overanalyze a bit)? or is it just me?

grateful friday

it's friday and i'm grateful for that.

i'm also grateful for:

~ good books (just finished per petterson's out stealing horses).

~ sunshine.

~ good business partners with lots of ideas.

~ baby animals (we've got bunnies, a single chick and will soon have kittens).

~ allergy meds.

~ all that business travel i did, which is helping me so much right now with a job i'm doing.

~ børnepenge, which always feels like free money when you least expect it (tho' it comes on a predictable quarterly basis).

~  the stable where we keep our horse - knowing that they take great care of her, even if we're really busy and can't get there for a couple of days.

~  really clever writing.

~ exciting work on the horizon.

~ blueberry plants.

~ taking a photo every day.

~ families who want to adopt a bunny.

~ stædtler fineliners.

~ moleskine notebooks.

~ i found lamb chops at the grocery store.

~ fresh nettles.

~ it's the weekend.

happy weekend everyone!

follow that white rabbit

bunny metaphors

there comes a time when you have to leave the safety of the group...

and venture out on your own. of course, it helps if you have a bit of support.

it seems there really is something to the notion that in closing one door, another one opens. sometimes it just takes awhile to figure out which one to open next.

i think i've been afraid for so long to leave the support of a system provided by a company and just trust in my own abilities. but that's almost over now. and already i can tell that it's going to be a good thing.

i'm not sure if good things come to those who wait so much as good things come to those who make them happen.

loving right now

things i'm loving right now...

...the house is slowly beginning to look like christmas.

...5-6 eggs a day.

...that husband is sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, listening to a radio program about vikings.

...the big project that i'm playing a little part in at the moment.

...my new iPhone 4S (how did i live without this?).

...reading the cadfael books by ellis peters. nothing like a 12th century detective monk who knows everything about herbal remedies to put things into perspective.

...thinking about all of the exciting things in the year ahead.

...this little interview i did on kamana's blog. mostly because it made me realize that i'm really content with right now.

...that aside from a slight moment of mania on discovering the lego weaponry aftermarket for my nephews, i'm doing really good on not going crazy this christmas.

...a good night's sleep.

...bunny buns.

things i learned this week...

gratuitous bunny shot

~ zumba is HUGE among the over-forty set in the back of beyond. (don't worry, i haven't tried it, so the populace is uninjured.)

~ whatever lego wants, lego gets.

~  sometimes people are just assholes and there's not much you can do about it. it's best for your sanity to just get over that.

~ when the child gets sick, she goes down fast. and whines kind of a lot.

~ you can work for the mayor and not have a clue as to what's going on in your community.

~ there's nothing to stop the wind between us and the north sea. (and lemme tell ya, it's blowing.)

~ a lot of people have their own domain.

~ teachers apparently have lower divorce rates than the general population (informal and potentially sketchy evidence based on a sample of 21 - tho' the divorce rate was 0% among those polled).

~  the handmade movement has not come to denmark.

~ those jerkies at dk hostmaster (the people who insist on centrally managing the .dk domains) are ROTTEN at customer service.

~ sometimes when the bunny escapes, it's permanent.

*  *  *

i'm sure there's more, but that's what i've got right now.  happy weekend, one and all!!

are you talkin' to me?

wordless wednesday

11022011

somehow, those days with significant numbers (even if it's only a palindrome if you're american) seem like they should be especially significant, but today was just an ordinary day. the child wasn't feeling well, so we spent the morning making yarn pompons, drinking tea and playing with the baby bunnies. i did a bit of work, made some eggs and bacon (we suddenly have a lot of eggs) and then we went to see how the horse is doing. she's no longer lame, but sabin has two more weeks off from riding due to her broken finger. it got foggy on our way home. very foggy. and that was it. an ordinary day, despite the extra-ordinariness of the numbers of the date. but perhaps life is lived on the ordinary days.

*  *  *

it's been awhile since i had a blog crush, but yesterday, i spent a long time reading quite a lot of posts on spilling ink.  and i had that feeling of finding a real kindred soul.  check it out, i hope you'll enjoy it too.