husband is a (half) ironman

last weekend, husband did the half ironman in helsingør. a half ironman is 1.2 miles (1.9k) swimming, 56 miles (90.1k) cycling and 13.1 miles (21.1k) running. he did it in 5:42:57, which was more than 15 minutes faster than his goal. it would have been about 5 minutes faster, but his bike shoe broke during the first transition and he spent a bit too much time trying to fix it. he ended up biking with a broken shoe, but still averaged more than 33km/hour.

i didn't manage to catch him on the bike, so no picture of that part. we were super lucky with the weather - sunny, but not too hot, though husband did say that about halfway through the run, he did think he might get heat stroke. of course, it was a bit warmer for him out there than for me, sitting in the shade under my sun hat.

he ran it with daughter karoline, who did a full ironman in 2021. this was her fourth half! and she had a baby last september! they are truly heroic! husband is aiming at the full ironman next year and will do a half marathon in the autumn. he did say after the race that he might do another half next year and then wait to do the ironman in 2025.

officially living the right life for 23 years

23 years with this guy. we're older than we were back then (though not so much in this picture, it's from last november), but he's still completely and utterly the one for me. i would have totally lived the wrong life without him. but with him, even when things get weird, it's always the right life. so here's to the next 23 years. and hopefully even more. 

daily delight reprise : march 5

 

husband called out to me to hurry up as i was closing in the chickens for the night. he wanted me to see this cloud. it was much, much better than this photo indicates. husband is totally a keeper and that's today's delight. 

daily delight - february 12

today's delight is clearly husband - it's his birthday. he's 56 and honestly, he just looks finer with each passing year (if only that were true of me. sniff.). it's also our 22nd wedding anniversary. should you want to know more about that, you can find it here. we just had beautiful steaks and bernaise sauce made by husband's eldest daughter, who is studying to be a chef. what a lovely meal. and now we're going to play a board game. despite it all, it really is a good life. 

 

once upon a dark and stormy night

the rain just never stops, even hollister can't believe it, he's never seen anything like it in his little life. and the winds are back, so it really is a dark and stormy night out there. it seems like it's been raining for a month and the forecast for the week ahead looks bleak. it leaves me feeling dismal and i dream of escaping to somewhere that has sunshine. we are going to barcelona in a couple of weeks, but that seems like an eternity from now. i hope barcelona is practicing its sunshine, because i'm really going to need it. denmark has always been rainy - i remember my first november here, i don't think the sun shined once, the darkness and the rain were just as unrelenting as they are now. i remember that we went out to dinner one evening, riding our bikes, despite the rain. i foolishly wore a dress, it was a bit gauzy and romantic and had a better story than i did, because it was from the j. peterman catalog. it got caught in my bike chain and husband (who was just boyfriend at that point) had to kneel down in a puddle and get it unstuck because i was trapped. that made the rain a little more bearable - both his chivalry and a little bit his suffering. we've been doing all kinds of errands together this week, despite the rain - a trip to ikea, a visit to a fancy paint store where an old man hand-mixed two colors for us, followed by a dinner together at the burger shack (they have the best fries - with fluffy grated parmesan and fresh thyme on top). it's not the same as that long ago dark and rainy night, but it's pretty good. despite the rain.

just a little summer project

no summer is complete without husband engaging in a more or less major building project. we had long planned to build this building to shelter off the house a bit more from the road, which is quite close. it's also the first step towards being able to tear down the middle house, which is in quite bad shape.

husband did all this framing himself, building each of the sections over near his workshop and then we brought them over on the trailer and raised them (i helped with that bit).

there will be windows up high along the walls on both sides, but since we weren't sure we'd get them in before autumn winds and rain come along, he didn't cut the holes yet.

husband found a guy who rescues old doors from various places - these from a school somewhere. i even loved the color so much, i bought a can as close to it as i could get to paint the whole thing. i had talked about red or blue, but this green is perfect. we're going to have some vinyl stickers made for the windows, for a bit more privacy and with a groovy design of some sort - i'm thinking of incorporating our name, the house number and the nordic sun symbol.

road trip :: brobergs take the south 2018 :: part 2 :: school bus graveyard

alongside a georgia highway, we were looking for a stand to buy peaches when we came across an amazing sight - a line of graffiti-clad old school buses.

it was part of an auto mechanic shop and we went up and asked if we could have a look. a rather crotchety man with a heavy southern drawl directed us back out to the highway and a path you could take to walk up along the row. he very sternly warned that we shouldn't try to go beyond the row of buses or climb on them in any way. we assured him we wouldn't.

it would have been impossible to do so anyway, as they're very well blocked-off in between. there are multiple warnings to stay off, so it's not the most welcoming place.

there are some cool old cars up on top as well - i suppose to add discouragement for climbing them.

i don't know the story of it, as i think it's primarily a working mechanic & junk yard and only incidentally a bus graveyard, but it seems like proper graffiti artists were involved in painting the buses. at least some of them.

the starkest warning was one about snakes. i'll admit that worked on me and i didn't want to get too close to the buses.

it's quite a large area and it would have been cool if they'd had an observation tower you could climb up to get a better view.

i couldn't help but include this shot of this really cute guy i saw there. gotta love that scruffy beard.

happy 19th anniversary to us!

the difference sunshine makes

my winter-weary spirit got some much-needed sunshine this weekend. it was clear and cold, but the sun shined gloriously and continuously.  i feel renewed and uplifted by it. it's amazing how that works. husband and i went for a walk down around the lake. we planted a couple of oak trees in the oak alley to replace ones that hadn't made it. then we had some fun with another young tree, tying its branches into curved shapes and attaching some of the stones with holes in them that i collected last summer - turning a tree into an ongoing art project. it was nice to work on something together again - we can each get focused on our own projects and forget to have projects we work on together. it started with my back troubles two years ago - i wasn't able to help with projects for some months and spent a long time afterwards scared to injure my back again, but now that i'm back to normal, it was good to find my way back to working together on this huge project that is our home. it made husband happy too.

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this must be the coolest airbnb on the planet

you rent it and you get to run a bookstore!

and it's not even expensive.

august wanes and the season changes

what a month it's been! planes, trains, ships and cars. edinburgh, london, dover, hamburg and copenhagen. the culmination of a very big and very healing (for my wounded soul) project that resulted in a world record. a couple of days away with all of my co-workers. we sent the child off to the states for her year of high school. a bit of time in the garden here and there. as the garden produces its abundance, all of the other more metaphorical seeds that were sown over the past year have also come to fruition. i feel sated by the bounty of it all.

we've had the best weather of the whole summer in the past couple of days but right now, it's raining with biblical intensity. husband is helping the child with her algebra in the other room, via facetime. there are two teenage cats racing back and forth, playing a bit too rough. we had a roast chicken for dinner. i served it with a squash gratin (i'm using squash in everything, since the plants are going like gangbusters in the garden) and a broad bean mash (also from the garden). a simple salad of plum tomatoes and cucumbers from the greenhouse rounded it out. it's so satisfying that most of the meal came from our own garden.

i made it to yoga entirely too little during august. i saw friends too little. but on the whole, it's been a very exciting and happy month. it feels like i'm entering a new season of happiness, just as autumn, which is always my favorite season, comes around. a balance has come, an equilibrium. it's borne of spending my weeks doing work that makes me happy and being home on the weekends in this place in the countryside that makes me happy. it's the best of both worlds. long, deep conversations with husband make us both appreciate the time we do have together. meals eaten together, a glass of something cold in the garden in the late afternoon, musings about garden designs. life is full and good as august comes to a close.

100 happy days :: day 85

it's a long holiday weekend here in denmark, the last of the spring holidays. our child is off to copenhagen for the weekend with her friends. as one does when one is 14. tho' it's still a bit chilly and working outside requires a heavy sweatshirt and scarf, we've been working in the garden (husband didn't wear a scarf). husband has once again changed up the greenhouse. this time, we used waffley plastic roofing as a covering and he built a back wall with repurposed wood he brought home from the harbor. me, i planted beans and onions and leeks and a couple of squash. in the greenhouse, there are now tomatoes and cucumbers and chilis and a couple of aubergine.

the cool kitchen :: an update on the progress

great strides have been made in the kitchen since our last update. i've shown you this red door before, but now it's hung up and the chalkboard has been painted next to it. i just love it!!

husband carefully crafted this 4 meter long kitchen island and he's putting it in place before the final coat of paint goes onto the floor. it's magnificent. and it's made from scrap wood from the harbor, so it's also upcycled. he's incorporated some very fine details. he's getting pretty good at this working with wood thing.

the sink, the dishwasher and the stovetop will go into this and leave plenty of counter space for rolling out cookies and such.

fitting in the panels. husband actually chose to use MDF for a very smooth surface, as we're going to have them painted with whimsical chicken art by an artist friend.

and the painting of the chickens has begun. we had a lot of fun, laughing and talking and listening to music. people should really consider having custom art done in their homes more often. our friend loves the project and we love having something very special. and it might not be as expensive as you might think.

here's where it stood at the end of the first day of work. it will probably take a couple of weeks to be finalized, but this is an ongoing project and we're not in a hurry.

as for me, i'm writing quotes and drawing little doodles on the baseboards that line the room. husband wanted to have those in place before he does the final coat on the floor. he's also given the floor a treatment of filler, as there were many little bitty holes showing up in the floor, despite 5 coats of epoxy paint, so that's why it looks dusty all of a sudden.

* * *

rem koolhaas' cool thoughts on architecture

and more specifically the hermitage in st. petersburg.

* * *

jill lepore takes down disruptive innovation.

it's so good to see someone taking on trendy business theories 

(tho' whether it's still trendy after 20 years is debatable).

and clay christensen, originator of the innovator's dilemma, answers back

(with a bit of the wizard of oz's "don't look at the man behind the curtain" air about him).

* * *

and now on a lighter note...this cute little video is clever and spot-on.
(if websites started dating.)

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overheard at whole foods is my current favorite FB page.

* * *

have you seen the little post i wrote over at #stuckinplastic?

100 happy days :: day 24

slow but steady progress on the new kitchen. that ceiling looks just awesome. husband has done a great job. the windows are about to be ordered as well, so soon we will have a big leap forward in progress. hard to believe this was once a pig stall.

happy anniversary to us!

husband actually looked much happier than this minifig 16 years ago when we walked over to bronshøj kirke hand in hand and got married. then we had a bit of champagne with his fancy uniform-clad colleagues and headed off to london for a weekend mini honeymoon. i think the minifig husband is a bit sad because today he also turned 50 and that's a bit of a tough one. not that i would know. yet.

we gave husband a pair of waders for his birthday. it's what he wanted. he also wanted burgers for dinner. homemade ones. with plenty of guacamole and bacon. and port. that man loves port. we'll have a big party to celebrate this milestone in the summer when the weather is good. garden parties are always the best.

in need of gratitude

things have been a bit rocky of late...i feel i've once again fallen victim to caring too much. but at the same time, i wouldn't be authentically me if i didn't wholeheartedly drink the kool-aid and give myself over completely. holding back is a rocky road of a different kind, so i don't regret falling in love a little too hard. but perhaps the honeymoon is over and we're settling into a place where it just requires more work, like any relationship that's worth it. 

if this were facebook, that would be vaguebooking.

but so be it.

i have a need to make a little list of things for which i am grateful:

~ colleagues who support me, make me laugh, listen to me, confide in me, laugh at my jokes, include me, ask whether i have a kitten for them (and then proceed to fall head over heels in love with said kitten), eat cake with me, and did i mention make me laugh?

~ my openness and tendency to trust people. it can bite me in the ass sometimes, but overall, i'd much rather be open and trusting than not. even if it means i trust too much and tell too much sometimes. so be it. i wouldn't be myself without that tendency.

~ cats. i know we have a few too many, but every single one of them offers me comfort in their own unique way. and we have a lot of space, so there's room for everyone. and i feed them well and provide them with all the services they expect. and they give me so much in return. the comfort i'm seeking and yes, even laughter, with all of their adorable playfulness.

~ husband. he talks me down from the ledges. he makes me laugh. sometimes from the very first words out of his mouth in the morning. this morning, they were musings on the human foot and what it would be like if we didn't have them. he's not normal, but that's perfect for me. and i'm grateful for him every single day. he never stops planning the next project and striving for something new. he gets me.

~ having a pretty fornuftig teenager in the house. fornuftig means sensible, but somehow has an extra dimension in danish, so i'm mixing the two languages. i can do that after all these years in denmark. and you all should be accustomed to it by now. and that kid, despite all of the many things she wants, is pretty awesome. and that awesomeness was just in her when she arrived. i don't think i had much to do with it at all.

~ awesome projects to work on. i'm learning every day and there is at least one moment every day (even amidst the rocky times), where i am just super happy to have the privilege to do what i do, to meet the people i meet, to work with the projects and people i get to work with.

~ the all-too-fleeting zen feeling, where i know that this too shall pass and it will all be ok, even if it wasn't what i imagined. and whatever happens, it will be a learning experience that contains a lesson meant for me. whether that lesson is to trust or to roll with the punches doesn't much matter, as it is my lesson to learn, either way. life is a matter of practicing. and i need to practice letting go of expectations and being open to what's next. it's gotten me this far. so it will surely take me to the next level. 

~ impending travels to seattle and new york city (for the first time ever) and also connecticut, where i've also never been. it is good to have plane tickets and hotel reservations and all kinds of meetings with a whole bunch of awesome people planned.

* * *

the hipster disney princesses are way better than the real ones.

* * *

john malkovich as...everyone.

* * *

speaking of which...mr. bean makes an appearance in historical paintings.

rethinking things

husband has an uncanny ability to rethink things and decide to go in a completely different direction, not being stuck to an idea just because it's what he originally thought and just because steps were taken towards realizing it. he's very open to change and new ideas. and i feel like it's very good for me.  two summers ago, he built a rather significant building to house his sawmill. he now has outfitted a rather nice workshop for himself out there and we were even able to hold sabin's confirmation party in the building. it's a pretty great space.

we're getting ready to buy a barn and a little bit of property for a paddock for the horses from our neighbors. we first broached the subject four+ years ago when we moved in and now they're mentally ready to consider it. we already rent part of that barn from the neighbors, and have two stalls there, as well as our bunnies, hay, straw and a stash of building supplies in the building. it's not really much of a barn, more of a machine shed, really, but it has potential and with a new roof on it (paid for by the insurance after a storm last december), it would be good for us to have it.

and husband is already planning on moving his sawmill and workshop over there, which would leave the lovely sawmill building for another purpose. perhaps a party space to rent out? a bed & breakfast? a space where i could begin to have blog camps at my house again? or maybe we could move into it? the possibilities are endless. and it's so much fun talking all of the ideas over with husband. he just makes it seem like anything is possible. being so open to new ideas and rethinking old ones is really a gift. just another way in which that boy is a keeper.

little skrot man

how awesome is this little assemblage that husband put together? it's for the creagive art exhibition this weekend. i've got another piece with my photo of the ship being scrapped to go with it. we make a pretty good team - i collect the pieces and lay them out and husband puts them all together. i insisted that the eyes be two different sizes, as i love the expression it gives. the hands are all him. and the one is flipping off because it fits with the theme of skrot (op) (scrap, in danish, but more loaded with meaning when you add the "up" bit).

it's been a pretty great week. husband i made art together. i've met lots of new people. i survived a public speaking engagement today and was very inspired by the other talks as well. it was a sort of TED-like conference, only even better speaker/topic quality (better than TEDx Copenhagen, anyway). tho' i did have moments, while i was listening to the other talks, of feeling i have simply not been doing enough with my life. it struck me, once again, that i do best when i get out and see and experience new things. it gets my ideas flowing. maybe i'm not really made for the quiet country life. tho' i am grateful to have it to return to when i've been out and about.

i think i feel that confidence i feared was gone slowly returning. and that's a very good thing.

husband the builder (#tbt)

husband was already a master builder way back then. this is one of my favorite photos of him. ever. i do love these thursday strolls down memory lane. this is in the back garden of his childhood home in sweden. and doesn't it foreshadow the future?

happy birthday husband and happy anniversary to us

it's husband's birthday today. sabin made this fabulous cake for him while we were at work. that's a fondant tractor that looks a bit like husband's own little red tractor. not all of it was edible. the child has learned her share of tips and tricks from watching cake programs on TLC. very clever. it was six layers with nutella, cake creme (a rather pudding-like substance), bananas, pears, pineapple and raspberry jam, all covered in whipped cream and with sprinkles and fondant decoration. just perfect.

it's also our 15th anniversary. as husband remarked this morning, "15 years. i've never been married that long before." and neither have i. until today. i hope we make it 'til at least 3 times that. it's been a great ride so far. i always feel consciously grateful on this day for the path i chose to take with husband. the memories we've made and the plans and projects still ahead. i definitely made the right choice, so many years ago, turning everything upside down for love. it was all worth it.

perfect present

husband gave this present with trepidation, afraid that is a bit too much truth in it.

i personally think it's perfect.

but so is he.

so we'll keep him and the cat(s).

for now.

* * *

we had our quiet little family christmas today.

in my view, it was perfect.

family descends upon us tomorrow.

that will be perfect too,

just in another way.

* * *

this taking time out to celebrate and be together in the midst of the cold, dark winter is good, don't you think?