husband is off to ukraine on a short trip

husband and a good friend left this morning to deliver these two vehicles to lviv. this trip will be quick and less nerve-wracking than the last one. they'll drop the cars off and then take a bus to warsaw and fly back home on monday. the cars have been donated by the danish geodatastyrelsen. they were used to drive around denmark, mapping everything and had been phased out of use. but they still have a lot of km in them. they're stuffed to the gills with all kinds of things - i saw heaters and pet food and more. i love and admire husband so much for doing this. 

i'm hanging out with my molly bestie (yes, that minnesota kitty we brought home back in 2012), indulging my new obsession with making beaded rings - i bought one in portugal and came home and bought beads and watched a youtube tutorial and learned to make them. 

he just called and they have stopped for the night in katowice, poland. he sounded tired. he said the hotel was really nice and they were about to go find some dinner. this trip definitely feels like it's lighter for both of us. no trip all the way east looming ahead. just popping to lviv and then heading home. 

since i was up early to see them off, i spent most of my day doing much-needed tidying up around here. i took everything off what we call the pirate shelf - our first piece of furniture that we bought together - and thoroughly dusted and washed everything, vacuumed up the spider webs and enjoyed putting it all back and thinking about each item. weird moment of enjoying cleaning. 

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i genuinely can't decide if this is terrifying or reassuring - the philosopher who is training claude. 

my brain is buzzing

full credit to my sister for this photo. it's early morning purple aurora skies over the old barn from the back steps of our childhood home, which is now her home. purple has always been one of my favorite colors and though i go away from it, i always come back. i recently bought a purple sweater and some very cool purple and gold brocade pants, so it's back in my life. it often figures in the mild synesthesia i have in certain situations - i see swirls of purple and pink, quite like this photo, actually. though sometimes it's purple and peach or purple and green. i think purple comforts me.

my brain is buzzing. i haven't slept well since sometime last week. i might have mentioned that husband is currently driving around in ukraine, delivering all kinds of humanitarian aid. he visited an animal shelter today and delivered a lot of pet food and other supplies. a kind woman has taken in cats and dogs that people had to leave behind as they fled. he said they had 23 dogs and 48 cats and it was immaculate. i'm certain the food he delivered was much appreciated. i get tears in my eyes just writing this. but dang, it's keeping me from getting a good nights' sleep. 

i feel like i'm absorbing all of the anxiety of the world. or channeling it. or something that's hard to describe. it's rather unpleasant. and it isn't conducive to proper sleep or firing on all cylinders at work. maybe i'll feel normal again when husband is home. but maybe i won't. maybe trump will have invaded greenland. maybe that bill to do away with dual citizenship in the US will pass. if it does, i know which i will choose, if only i would get the letter to say it's official. 

he's off again

i'm home alone for the next 9-10 days. i didn't really use my time all that wisely today. i got up at 4:30 to see husband off on his latest trip to ukraine. we had breakfast with the group who is driving while they printed off all the customs papers they will need and then i came back home after seeing him off. and then i kind of wandered around the house, wondering what to do with myself. it's not that there's nothing i could do, i just felt a bit unmotivated to do any of it. 

i have such mixed feelings about the trip. i so admire him for doing it and yet i'm so worried about him staying safe. i just want him to come home in one piece. i'm going to try to enjoy girl dinners and watching all the secret lives of mormon wives and real housewives that i want and just count the days until he comes home. 

there's so much craziness and uncertainty in the world today and i can feel pretty helpless against it. i think husband does too and this is his way of doing something about it. i can only admire and support that, even if it will give me some restless, sleepless nights for the next week or so. 

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i saw a truck from multiform kitchens, a high end, very expensive kitchen brand, delivering to the church planting neighbors today. i wonder if those donors at those churches in missouri and nebraska know they're funding a high end kitchen at a home they also helped pay for in denmark? 🧐

of bravery and other admirable things

i might have previously mentioned that husband is a keeper. that continues to be true. tomorrow morning, he's headed for ukraine with three others. they are delivering a truck and trailer load of humanitarian aid, as well as three cars that have been donated by the danish geo data authorities. i'm so proud of him and also pretty nervous. one of the vehicles needs to be delivered pretty far east. and husband will be driving that one. i love his bravery. and how he is willing to take action for a cause he believes in. i'm thinking it won't hurt to say a little prayer for his safety, even i'm not all that religious. might be worth a try. 

a bright spot in a time of darkness

on the day after the election last november, i filed my application for danish citizenship. it definitely felt like it was time. and yesterday, i received notice that they would grant it. the news took my breath away. i had actually received the letter a couple of weeks ago, but i don't look at my official inbox often enough. it seems appropriate that i opened it on the day of the state of the union address by the spray-tanned clown. what a complete and utter privilege. i sent screenshots to everyone i know. and my beautiful people were as excited for me as i was for myself. i am so very lucky. 

my name will be written into danish law in january next year. then i will participate in a ceremony in my local municipality and then, a few weeks later, i can get a danish passport. and i can vote in national elections. i don't have to give up my american citizenship, as denmark now allows dual citizenship. but who knows how much longer there will be a united states. these are crazy times. i might actually end up stateless for a time before this comes through. but what a safety net to have. i knew husband was the right person for me. i had no idea how right back then, but i know now. 

25 years together!

 25 years ago today - brønshøj kirke

and today - only a little bit older. 

he's still a keeper

here's to 25 more.

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.

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rem koolhaas' cool thoughts on architecture

and more specifically the hermitage in st. petersburg.

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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).

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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.

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