back to basics

i remember a time when i rushed to my blog to share every stray thought that excited me. or to share all of the good links i came across in the course of my day. things like this - the whole voynich manuscript, online and available for your perusal - maybe you'll be the one who cracks it!

but my blogging is diluted these days by other venues - primarily facebook, but also pinterest (for the pretties i used to share), google+ (where i put links to articles and websites that i want to find again - does anyone bookmark in a browser anymore?), twitter (for the quickie shares that reach a different audience than those i put on facebook). not to mention instagram (i'm julochka there too, look for me) (tho' i mostly post all my instagram photos to FB, twitter and flickr as well). it's all very diluted. and i think i don't want it to be. i want this to be the space which serves as repository of the things which interest me at a particular moment - my memory, if you will. i'm not sure when it changed or how or why, but it did. and i'm going back (well, not entirely, as i do like pinterest as a format - it's what i always wished flickr could be - a place to categorize and save pretty and inspiring images and be able to find them again). and speaking of flickr, is it dead yet? i use it only for my 365 project and as a place to easily retrieve instagram photos for use in blog posts. but i want my blog to be where i store my memories and my thinking and well, my brain. somehow i got away from that.

thoughts like these:

~ what if the voynich manuscript was just someone's art journal and they wrote it in a language of their own, so no one could read it?

~ is handwriting inherited? in my own handwriting i see shades of my dad's and my aunt's. is how i write (scrawl, scribble, whatever you want to call it) mandated there in the very architecture of my hand?

~ this is very interesting - niels peter flint on micro living:



i'm clearly not thinking big enough.

* * *

and as for pinterest, i've decided to share some highlights here. i currently have 98 different boards on pinterest. here are the ones starting with a: art journal/collage and atmosphere. check them out, i guarantee you'll find pretty, inspiring things.

a thrifty swap

do you love combing antique stores, flea markets and second-hand shops for treasures? if so, the op shop swap just might be for you. check it out! jody from reinventing fashion is hosting. you'll swap some thrifted goodies with a like-minded thrifter, just in time for christmas!  you sign up on flickr, but you can read a bit more about it on jody's blog.

and a note for those of us not versed in down under english, op shop is a charity shop (i admit i had to look it up).

sign up and then get out there and start thrifting! now you have an excuse.

serenity now or totally jonesin' for blogging

pretty viking boat picture promotes calm thoughts
or maybe i'm just hoping the viking will throw me a lifeline

if i had a sneaking suspicion that i was addicted to blogging, it has been proven to me over the past week when time in front of the computer has simply not been there. don't get me wrong, i've been in front of a computer a bit, but it's definitely the wrong one. and i'm simply not blogging from that piece of crap, bit of waste, example of bad design, toxic waste that i can't lift, piece of trash behemoth. it's a PC for odin's sake. i have more pride than that. not to mention that one shouldn't really blog at work. mostly because it will be full of vitriol and utter bewilderment at the corporate world. but i digress.

i'm seriously jonesing for my time in front of the internet. but more accurately, for my daily writing. for more than two years i've written on a daily basis and i can tell you that it sucks not to be doing it right now. i can seriously feel my sanity slipping (which i'm sure has nothing to do with the great white collar/blue collar debate with which i will regale you on another occasion, tho' do feel free to leave me feedback on how those words make you feel) without my daily outlet. i tell you, blogging is cheaper than therapy.

let me give you a little summary of where we're at:

~ # of witty small trucks we have rented to take stuff that can't be properly enclosed in boxes (e.g. a loom, an alarming amount of rocks and about 800 pieces of driftwood) over to jylland: 2

clever truck #2 - we rent them from a company called "lej et lig" (rent a body) that started out renting out hearses
this one is an old postal truck and on the side it says:
"this will inspire jealousy on your car holiday. if your trip takes you to albania"
i'm still laughing maniacally chuckling to myself about that one.

~  time 'til big-ass truck arrives: approx. 12 hours (as of this writing)

~  amount of stuff not packed: 8%

~ amount of stuff that will just be thrown randomly into boxes labeled with vague things like "crap from back of upstairs closet" and "underneath the sink" and "bottom drawer of the refrigerator" (strike that, we'll just throw that penicillin experiment away): 8%

~ times husband has forgotten his own name: 1 (of which i have documented proof, there are probably others.)

~ times husband has completely made up new words, written them on boxes containing objects which already have perfectly good words assigned to them: 1 that i know of, probably countless others.

~ times husband has forgotten my name and sabin's name: 1 (again with the documented proof - which will no doubt come in handy during the inquest).

~ times when i have taken in The Enormity of Things in the past few days: 0

~ times when husband has taken in The Enormity of Things in the past few days: 3

~ husband's level of stress: high (for him, which means undetectable for normal mortals, but which completely freaks me out because hey, i'm the crazy one around here).

~ days i am behind on my calendar art journal: 22!!! (yowza! something had to give and that was apparently it - mostly because i had to pack all of my art supplies.)

~ sushi restaurants opening in our town as soon as we're moving: 1

~ times we sneaked out for sushi without the child: 1

~ times we went out for sushi with the child: 1

~ sushi we owe the child because she grilled me and i spilled the sneaky sushi trip: 1 (doubles as reason i should never submit myself to a lie detector test.)

~ days in a row we have eaten sushi: 2

~ days in a row we wanted to eat sushi: 4

~ people we had over for dinner at the last minute: 5

~ how much of the kitchen is packed: 8%

~ how much of the laundry is done: 98%  (it would be 100%, but people around here seem to keep wearing clothes for some inexplicable reason.)

~ how much stuff isn't going to fit into that big-ass truck: 10%

~ activities we have done to avoid the stress: playing cards with friends,  shopping for buying a horse, making dinner for 8, going out for lunch, going to the eye doctor and spending 30 minutes chatting away with her about inability to throw away baby clothes.

pretty water and ropes = lifeline to sanity

things for which i'm grateful:

~ it'll all be over soon.

~ my 365 photo project, which makes me take at least a little break/walk every day.

~ my neighbor can come and do the cleansing of the house.

~ the horse guy will deliver the horse next week, so we don't have to move her ourselves (now to find somewhere to keep her while we build a stable...)

~ the fact that all of you still keep reading. i promise i'll be back to reading and commenting on your blogs and flickr photostreams soon. i haven't forgotten you. and i miss you very much.

~ this too shall pass.

jewels in the blogosphere

lovely se'lah of the necessary room has once again sponsored a gift of jewels. random acts of giving and kindness, flowing from the blogosphere into the real world. you sign up, she matches you with another blogger somewhere in the world and you send that person a little gift and a nice card. meanwhile, someone else, somewhere, is sending you a little gift and a card. just because. and everyone's day is that much brighter.

my gift of jewels from planetmfiles arrived on saturday. it's the sweetest little crocheted bookmark and it came with the nicest, bright, cheery card. thank you gayle!!

yes, that's yann martel's life of pi, which i've owned for ages and tried to read several times, but never really got started. then, thanks to sara's photo and kristine's (i would link, but apparently her blog is now invitation only and i'm not invited. sniff.) encouragement in the BC365 flickr group, i picked it up again and this time around, i'm really liking it.

and what i sent? here's a peek, tho' i won't say to whom i sent it, in case it hasn't arrived yet:

a moment of clarity

i had a moment of clarity today. it hit me that despite much of the world i inhabit revolving around blogging and the community surrounding blogging, there are a whole lot of people out there who know nothing about it and have no access to this world that i can only characterize as fantastic, rich, lively and inspiring. they know nothing of the community that it can bring. a community in which someone who only knows you through your blog, can make something truly beautiful and meaningful for you. a symbol of clarity, just for you. and if you're lucky, you then actually meet that person in person, because she happens to live in the same country you do, which is really just a lucky coincidence, because she could live anywhere. but the fact is she lives within blog camping distance and for that, you are grateful. and you are also very grateful for the clarity symbol.

the clarity symbol that elizabeth made for me.

it's a little red heart-shaped pillow with more symbols on it (that i will use later)

and it resides on my side of the bed during the day.

hopefully, infusing my pillow with clarity for when i sleep.

...and a community in which someone who lives halfway around the world from you, sends you a little bag of stones. stones she collected for you as she scattered her mother's ashes on a canadian beach. stones that are worn smooth and shiny by the pacific ocean. and the fact that she actually thought of you and gathered stones for you (because she knows, from your blog, that you love them) on that day that was undoubtedly full of other thoughts and emotions for her, touches you deeply. and you feel really grateful for the blogosphere and the friendships you have found here. friendships and connections which are just are real (if not more so at times) than those you find in the everyday world which you inhabit. 

photo of the stones VEG sent on the sweet tapas plate BB gave me when we met in december.

and here VEG's stones join all of the other wonderful stones that people sent me from all corners of the world over the past year in my little stone bowl.

i so love that stone in trinsch of et lille øjeblik's handwriting. (and how cool is her handwriting?)

and the blue one is one i felted myself.

oh, and check out the little eyeball stone on the top left - that's from lynne.

have i mentioned that i love the blogosphere?

thank you all for connecting my world.

voice and other indefinable things*

anyone who blogs or reads blogs knows about voice. it's one of those indefinable things, but you know it when you see it. or read it. it's something that evolves as you find your feet in blogging and learn to define your space and your style. for me, it's the magic thing about the genre of blog. it is what you want it to be. it's chatting and friendly if you want that. it's confiding if you want that. it's informative. it's snarky. it's really whatever you want it to be. a space to experiment and find that elusive voice.  and some voices you relate to and some you don't.

some bloggy voices lose their resonance for you and like an old boyfriend, you wonder what you ever saw in them. and some you wonder what anyone sees in them in the first place what with all those netflix reviews and the truly awful hackneyed poetry or all that overblown cutesiness, pouty mouth posing and overuse of the word rad [shudders]. of course, the beauty of the blogosphere is that you can just avoid those places and go somewhere else where you feel inspired or challenged or where you laugh or cry or think or just gaze at the pretty pictures. because the blogosphere is pretty big. bigger than the pacific ocean, i think.

but even tho' it's huge, you find lots of people out there to connect with. and you learn something from them or you enjoy how they captured exactly what you'd been thinking, but said it so much more eloquently than you could have, right when you needed to hear it. and you wish you could hang out with them. and sometimes you do. but not as often as you'd like. so every morning or late at night, you open your reader and you go see what they had to say. and that's because you like their voice.

* anybody know what the picture has to do with this post? i'll send a handmade prize to the person who comes up with what i, based entirely on subjective, personal feelings, think is the best answer. (and yes, i admit that this is a draft post that i started ages ago and i no longer remember myself what it meant. there is a chance that i just liked it, but i'd like to assign it deeper meaning than that.)

monday bits & bobs

available now on etsy

#88 wool-backed scarf w/patchwork of anna maria horner fabrics and embroidered detail

available now on etsy

#89 - a little tree in the backyard that i've been artistically shaping.

i've tied it and twisted it to itself now for two years.

i think i'll make husband dig it up and bring it along when we move.

#90 - a creative closet door solution in our upstairs bathroom (ikea fabrics, of course)
collaboration with husband (he did the bits that needed building).

* * *

the part about customer service

last week, i complained about the new photo uploader here in blogger. rather loudly and petulantly (because i hate it) on twitter and on the blogger in draft blog. some people were quick to encourage me to switch to wordpress. (shhh, i might have even created MPC over on wordpress in a fit of pique.) but, i want to say that two very cool things happened. one, when i complained loudly on twitter, a member of the blogger team in krakow immediately responded, asked me to clarify my problem and gave me a fix, all in 140 characters or less and within minutes of my complaining tweet. then, on friday, one of the blogger team - you know, one of those people with an actual google.com email address - contacted me and asked me to clarify the comments i left on the blogger in draft post. i answered and she answered me again right away, letting me know that they'd try to incorporate my suggestions (more than 5 photos and not all popping in at once) as they fine-tune the photo uploader. now how's that for customer service? awesomeness. no wonder these people are controlling the weather. so i'm SO not switching to wordpress.

and speaking of customer service, i'm still waiting for those technical support clowns folks at etsy to give me a response to an issue i reported there clear back on THURSDAY. what's up with that? etsy totally sucks at customer service. boo.

last monday, i was at a grocery store far from home (over near ikea) and just as i paid, the register went down, but not before the card machine told me my purchase was approved. however, the machine couldn't generate a receipt, so i was forced to go through on another cash register and pay a second time. on friday, i went back with a printout of my bank account, showing the two identical amounts they had taken from me, right in a row, and they refunded one of them. i dared to say that i thought i deserved a little something for my time and for the fact that i had to drive all the way back to that store, because their customer service was so bad that i couldn't go to my local one to get the money back. and i threatened to spread the word about their bad customer service on twitter and facebook. and because i dared to ask, i got a really nice bottle of australian cabernet sauvignon reserve. if you don't dare to ask, you'll never get anything. never underestimate the power of social media.

* * *

i've done my first ever guest post over on A New Simple Something! today, be sure to stop by and do a little window shopping in copenhagen! i was so happy Shokoofeh asked me to be one of her guests while she takes a little breather to gather her inspiration once again. isn't the blogosphere wonderful that we can do these things for one another? do be sure to stay and look around a bit, Shokoofeh has a really beautiful blog and there are lots of awesome guest posts over the past week!

documentary photography

i learned something yesterday on my usual wednesday afternoon trip to the henie onstad art center (i'm going to miss that place). they had a new exhibition up of contemporary norwegian documentary photography. the photos were all recent ones by norwegian photographers. mentioned in the notes on several of the photos were that they harkened to the traditions of american documentary photographer walker evans (1903-1975) and german august sander (1876-1964) and i intend to look into their work a bit and learn more. i suppose another name for documentary photography is journalistic photography, but it's about depicting snapshots of life as it is. and i suppose it's where the notion that a picture is worth 1000 words came from.

most of the photographers in the exhibition had little interaction with their subjects, they just tried to capture moments without interference, but there were several where they had posed the subjects. one of those is above, where a russian woman is posed on a train (the trans-siberian railroad, to be exact), tho' she is, in a sense, posed in her natural habitat. i had to snap it with my iPhone and i love how my own reflection is visible in the photo, which for me, further underlines the documentary nature of the piece...me documenting myself seeing the documentary photograph. that strikes me as powerful on some level, tho' i'm not sure that at the moment i can explain it. it somehow shows how the things we see, especially something like an exhibition, which is intentional on every level, creep into our own topography and become part of us in what we take away.

i think blogging goes well with documentary photography and many of us are amateur documentary photographers, showing our daily lives and the topographies (there's that word again, but it's on my mind of late) of our lives. maybe contours would have been better, but i love the notion of mapping inherent in the word topography. i wonder if blogs will be future source material for sociologists or historians looking at historical moments? or are they so ephemeral, they will just fade away? interesting thoughts to ponder on a grey and dark northern day.

counting creativity

inspired, i'll admit, by my own post on mushrooms over on domestic sensualist, the new cooking blog that i share with the fabulous bee, i made a gorgeous chicken recipe last night and it was so good, that i'm going to count it as #73 in the year of creativity:

it involved five kinds of mixed fresh mushrooms (which i bought at the store, i didn't forage for them myself in the forest this time), an organic chicken, three shallots and a bottle of hard, dry cider. it was absolute heaven. and i'm using the leftovers in a risotto this evening, so it was even economical in that it will stretch to two meals. i'll be sharing these recipes soon over on domestic sensualist.

while it was simmering away in the oven, i preserved some pretty little pears in a gorgeous mixture of sugar, vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and star anise. i'm going to try to resist opening them for a few weeks, but it will be difficult. i give you #74.

and this afternoon, we finished sabin's little plushie man. i'm counting it as #75 because of the level of help which i was required to provide. isn't it adorable? i'm not sure about how i sewed the head to the body, but am chalking it up as a learning experience. and keeping my fingers crossed the head doesn't fall off.

when we got home from sabin's riding lesson this morning (thankfully she has moved to a morning lesson on saturdays), there was an exciting package waiting for me. it was from the lovely christina of soul aperture. and proved once again that bloggy friends are the very best kind of friends. thank you so much christina for the card and the fun cupcake supplies, plus real american popcorn boxes! sabin insisted on making popcorn immediately and using one of the boxes. is there anything more cheery than a traditional red & white popcorn box on a rainy, grey saturday? and i've already put one of the eat me tags to good use, but that's a surprise, so i won't say more. a big, heartfelt thank you to you, christina, you really made my day!!

hoping your saturday is going well too....

blog crush: urbaNiche

mmm, chocolate dessert in manila (clearly before i learned flash was the enemy)
forgive me, food pictures are HARD!
this cake is for you, urbaNiche!!

not so long ago, urbaNiche, a lovely blogger and fellow feature on apartment therapy found me (through a comment, lurkers, come out of the woodwork, will you?). she explained to me the other day in an email how she came to my blog (via the helleristninger stones on etsy), which is always a topic that fascinates me...how we make these connections in the blogosphere. she's a fellow nikon girl and her little sweet pea has the most precious chucks i've ever seen, tho' he can't wear them at the moment thanks to a cast (we hope he'll soon be fine). someday, i hope she comes to blog camp. but in the meantime, do go check her out, because she's totally my latest blog crush.

you can run but you can't hide

there's something about blogging. something real and true and when you're not being real and true, people can feel it. they might not be able to put a finger on what it is, but they can feel it. and so, because they're lovely and despite not knowing you in real life, they email you and ask if you're all right. and you answer that you are, that it was just because you lacked internet. you do this not because you were intentionally lying or concealing, but because even you yourself hadn't really seen what the problem was. and then you have a fantastic, very grounding visit to an art museum and find that that you were totally out of sync with yourself, but the visit has settled you back in so that you feel once again comfortable in your own skin.

and so you begin to wonder what it was that was different about you and your posts. you know yourself that you hadn't been feeling the vibe, but that it was never so bad that you didn't feel like blogging at all, you just had a vague awareness that you lacked inspiration, mostly because all of the things that were foremost in your mind were things you weren't really prepared to blog about at that moment. so you were holding back. not lying, just holding back. because some things just can't be blogged about. at least not at certain moments. things like health fears (easy there, not serious ones) and work issues and money issues (part of work issues in that they are rubbish at paying my travel settlements and in case you haven't noticed, i travel. a lot). but there all that was, lurking in the background and keeping me from being the real me here in my little corner of the blogosphere. (aside: they said blogosphere yesterday on BBC World and it made me smile.)

all of this personal, internal revelation makes me realize once again that the nature of blogging as a genre is such that we can't really hide ourselves out here. and to be honest, i wouldn't even want to.

and i really want to say thank you to all of you for noticing and emailing me and well, for caring. it means a lot. and it helped. a lot.

the textures of life

we live in a world where impulses come at us all day long. many more than we can ever hope to take in. we grab onto some of them, but we undoubtedly let most of them pass us by. and we don't give any thought at all to what we're missing, i guess because blissfuly, we don't really know. at bee's recommendation, i recently read amanda craig's hearts and minds. (amanda blogs, by the way.) her book perfectly captures the sense of the world today and those missed connections. but this isn't really about missed connections. it's about found ones.

like these:

: : finding out about couchsurfing through tevolving, an adventurer in montenegro (at the moment). our first couchsurfer is showing up tomorrow night (husband will receive him). i wish i was going to be home.

: : the ever-fabulous discounderworld. stacey has some really exciting things in the works, so run along and order your gold edition today. you will not be sorry.

: : lovely lynne, who thought of me when an interesting opportunity recently came up. my fingers are still crossed.

: : kristina, who i met because i was once inspired by sandra juto and with whom i now share a fantastic photography project of which we are very proud. we've got a giveaway running thru the weekend, so do stop by and leave a comment, telling us your favorite diptych.

: : marinik, whose courage, strength and honesty have been making me cry lately.

i could go on and on, perhaps by mentioning how much i'm inspired by the photos here and here and here and here, but instead, i think i'll just say that i'm very grateful for connections and the textures they add to life.

note: this beautiful thai tapestry was on the wall at bee's house, but i was trying to avoid going on and on about blog camp in this post.

odds and ends

so many things to catch up on (800+ posts in the reader--come on guys, i thought we agreed you'd take it easy while i was away!). i decided i needed one of those random lists for which i am mildly famous. and it is, after all, a monday and monday is the best day for a list. it helps clear the head for the rest of the week.

: : yesterday, i ordered MOO postcards so that i too can be a postcrossing girl. i've only requested one address so far (you can do 5 at a time), because i decided to wait for my own photo postcards, tho' that first person is going to get one of my precious collection of those cool postcards you can pick up for free in copenhagen cafés. but please hurry up MOO! and thank you to janet and spudballoo and B for inspiring me to do this too. i do love getting real mail. and i'm a sucker for peer pressure.

: : speaking of getting real mail, this latest addition to my little desktop bowl of rocks arrived today. there was also a really cool green and purple necklace with a sparkly swirl on it (sparkles to match my tiara, of course). the rocks were two smooth, polished stones and four lovely pieces of amber with a little hole drilled in them. one of them even most decidedly has an eyeball. thank you, rxbambi, for thinking of me while you were out and about. this is one of those beautiful things that happen when you put yourself out there and blog your madness, other people start enabling it! :-) thank you, dahling! i promise to get my act together and get your little reward for guessing that book (dang, was it really that long ago?!?) sent your way this week!

: : i keep forgetting to go to flickr, but when i remembered today, i had an email inviting me to contribute to a cool new project. it's called footearth and if you too like to photograph your feet or the feet of others, you can contribute too! i went and signed up and put up three foot pictures immediately. so much fun when other people recognize your obsessions and invite you to indulge them. i hope someone starts robot earth next. :-)

: : we got a new furnace last year in february and the results are in. we have cut our gas bill for the year IN HALF!! yes, they are giving us back more than $2000 because our new furnace, in combination with our wood-burning stove/fireplace, was so much more efficient we used HALF the natural gas! i am dumbfounded. and really happy we made that decision. if you're considering a new furnace and have any doubts, all i can say is GO FOR IT!

: : sabin and i are enjoying the junie b. jones books. thanks for getting us started on them, moneek.

: : after my post earlier today i learned that i really, truly have some brilliant, awesome friends in this here blogosphere.  and i am so grateful to you for your friendship. it makes me feel that i can breathe again.  and breathing is good.

blog crush: heliotrollop

kim of heliotrollop, this beer, which is very special because it's a blog camp beer, is for you!

i've been a bit absent from the blogosphere in recent weeks and have hardly been managing to read all my regular reads, let alone go in search of new ones. but thankfully my very underdeveloped theory on the sociology of mobile phones post brought a few lurkers very nice new people out of the woodwork and one of them is my new blog crush. i give you the lovely kim of heliotrollop. i'm not sure what that means, but she claims that everything else was taken (which is pretty much why i call myself julochka, so i can understand that).

here are some of the reasons why you should go check her out:

1. she's smart.
2. she's funny.
3. she tricks people into making dinner for her (this would be the kind of skill we could use at blog camp).
4. she hates wal-mart. this alone = instant follow in my book.
5. her mother buys her sweaters that indicate that they've never met (so does mine, tho' you might not have known that, but now you do).
6. she learns from her mistakes. (well, ok, time will tell on that one..)
7. she too is pondering whether she has too much stuff.

seriously people, i'm starting to think that she's me in new mexico. go read her now. and for the love of odin, follow her. you won't regret it.

links and connections

i love the blogosphere. i've said it before. i'll no doubt say it again. but today, the thing i'm loving about it is that whole connection thing. and how connections happen and you can actually see them--in the comments, in links, on people's blogrolls, in the form of blog crushes, in sidebars...connections are visible all around us.

back in late april, when my blog became Blog of Note, a hilarious blogger who calls herself extranjera found me. i was so taken with her blog, that i used the small window of opportunity blogger had open at that time to nominate blogs for blog of note to nominate hers. for a couple of months, nothing happened, but then a week ago, what will i ever do with my life? was named blog of note. a very deserved honor. and i have found myself just as delighted watching her followers numbers rise (and even surpass my own!) as i was watching my own rise in those heady early days of BoN. yay extranjera and yay blogger!! it's stuff like this that makes me feel like the fairyblogmother™. 

while we were waiting for it to happen, a whole lot of other connections happened. and other blogs were created - collaborations in cyberspace - trans-atlantic learning adventures, hermit book club, siamese sisters, the idea of blog camp was born (thank you husband!) and the first one happened and several others have been planned, members were added to the balderdash collaboration and this week the ARWP project was launched (for all of us who battle against Real World People and would like to join a sorority support group cult). because this is what it's really all about, this blogging thing (it took me awhile to get that - for along time i thought it was about my sanity)--it's about connections.

the very best connections for me are resulting in real-life, in-person friendships--of the kind that blog camp represents. meeting B, extranjera, kristina, polly and seaside girl in person was such a great experience that i find it difficult to adequately describe it. that we're all (minus extranjera, who will be galavanting off to the US) going to get together next month near london at Bee's house and also meet spudballoo at BC 1.5 is something i'm so excited about. and it's all made possible through the wonder of the interweb. and although all of these people seem to be just ephemeral links here on my blog, those links enable them to be connected to all of you who are reading this. they're just a click away. and when i think of the multiplicity of connections that represents, it boggles my mind.

and i started thinking about all of this because dutchbaby told me this morning that she and tangobaby, who both live in SF, are getting together with other blog friends, who i also know and love--relyn and robin--and having a blog camp of sorts in SF. blog camp 1.1, we're calling it, in case there ends up being others before 1.5 near london, then we save a few numbers for those. how marvelous is that? i really wish i was there to join in the fun (and the photo walks)! i hope you fabulous women have a great time!

these connections just make me so happy. thank odin for hyperlinks! you never know what new adventures they'll take you on.

and speaking of connections, be watching this space for an announcement of a new project--one joining denmark and sweden as they haven't been joined in several hundred years...coming soon, right here on blogger.

the simple things

beautiful christina at soul aperture is doing simple things wednesday once again....so here, i give you the simple things that are making me happy right here and now...

beautiful viking ships at sunset...

our pooka on the beach...

our pooka jumping on a rain-soaked trampoline...

the fearlessness of our pooka...

how friggin' strong the pooka is...

these two people:

my favorites in the world...
(not that they're simple)

i hope you'll play along too...

what are the simple things making you happy?

right.

this.

very.

minute.

when we create things and release them into the world

it was not even two months ago that the idea of blog camp was born. and already, we've held the first one, planned the second and organized an emergency we-simply-must-get-together-again blog camp 1.5 in the UK in between the first two and we have 50 followers (!!) on the blog camp blog. on top of it, sara is planning a spin-off blog camp (note: this link is just to sara's blog, not a specific post on blog camp 2.1) in the US, to be held over labor day weekend, at the same time as blog camp 2.0 in denmark. there really is a snowball effect happening.

i think it's pretty amazing to see these small bits and pieces of the thoughts and ideas which we throw out into the blogosphere being caught and made into beautiful things all around us. and the fact that there are real people behind it all, making things happen, makes me realize that we are quite far from husband's theory that the internet will take on a life of its own (he's still waiting for the internet to do that first post on his blog).

and what's interesting to me is how organic it is (hmm, maybe this proves that husband is right)...with things growing and changing in a dynamic process all the time. i had an idea about how blog camp 1.0 would be and while it was, in some ways, how i imagined it, it was also very different. because you have to factor in the people involved. and now, we're having blog camp 1.5 with five of the same people from BC1.0 plus two more and i'm really excited to see how that changes the dynamic and perhaps even the concept. because it's difficult to predict anything when there are people involved. i'm certain only that it will be fantastic, but i can't foresee in what ways.

i saw a list yesterday of potential things to do at BC 2.1 (as we've dubbed it) in reno. and it struck me that a list of activities--none of which involved pajamas or blogging--was a new incarnation of the concept. although we did see the mermaid, for those of us at BC 1.0, it was really about meeting the people behind the blogs and doing some of the things--e.g. taking pictures and drinking lots of coffee and wine--that we love to do in the blogosphere together in person.

and after my initial confusion and a bit of wondering whether i hadn't been clear on the concept (i reread and i, in fact, had been pretty clear), i took a deep breath and realized that it was all ok. because we can't really know what will happen with the things we create and we have to be prepared to release them and let them become whatever they become to others who embrace those ideas. and i realized that was actually a pretty powerful thing.

and speaking of blog camp 2.0 - there are still a couple of spots, so please do let me know if you'd like to come! it'll be a blast and well worth the trip, i promise.

in the aura of blog camp 1.0

i'm still basking in the afterglow of blog camp 1.0. it was a success beyond my wildest expectations (and my expectations were quite wild). i'm still processing all of the many thoughts and feelings that are tumbling through my brain but after two action-packed days, two very late nights and relatively early mornings in a row (and some lovely patron tequila), i am rather exhausted, so those will have to wait before tumbling out onto the page.

i came home from the airport just in time to grill sausages and halloumi and marshmallows with my family and then i retired to the upper garden with mma ramotswe (i've got the new one) and a glass of wine (yup, i could still drink wine). husband came up and sat with me for awhile, but soon, i was snoozing away. and my snooze turned into a two hour nap in the late-afternoon sunshine, lulled to sleep by the songs of the birds overhead. blog camp was pretty tiring. :-)

i'll be sharing some of the pictures/highlights/impressions/reflections all week, both here and on the blog camp blog.

but for now, thank you girls (and they were all girls, despite our little jokes trying to convince otherwise), for a beautiful weekend! be sure to visit B and extranjera and kristina and polly and seaside girl to see their impressions this week as well. and don't forget to check in on the blog camp blog, because we've got some post-blog camp 1.0 fun planned there. and if you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please ask them over there, so all can answer!

the god(desse)s of the blogosphere have been kind

some calm, restful images to help calm my mounting excitement over the impending arrival of blog camp.  tomorrow around noon, extranjera, B, polly, seaside girl and kristina will either arrive or meet me at the copenhagen airport. all of the last preparations are being made, the cleaning girl is here, and i'm feeling ready. but i definitely can't sit still. in some ways, it's quite extraordinary and remarkable that this is really happening. an idea thrown out one sunday on a whim, now coming to fruition.

i think it's really brave of five people who have never met me, except here on my blog, to buy plane tickets (for four of them) and come to stay at my house in another country for a whole weekend. it's like beyond belief cool. and i am in awe of their bravery. all kinds of crazy, "am i good enough thoughts" have crossed my mind, but those are mostly quiet now. i think we can't help but have a fantastic time. we hope you'll follow along with the madcap antics all weekend over on the blog camp blog. and hopefully, it will inspire you to want to be part of blog camp II in september.

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and speaking of amazing people in cyberspace...you must go check out the latest guerilla marketing from stacey childs of discounderworld. she's got to be the coolest kiwi out there. while you're there, be sure to order your copy of the Gold Edition of Discounderworld (it's so exciting i actually used capital letters)! 

don't you just love the idea of guerilla marketing? and the whole way that ideas happen here in this bloggy world and then people get involved and suddenly things happen in reality and not only in cyberspace. i love that about the blogosphere. 

don't forget! big petroglyph giveaway tomorrow!

remember--if you want to be in on the big thank-you-for-voting-for-me-for-the-gold-issue-of-discounderworld petroglyph/helleristning/stone giveaway (i need to work on these names) tomorrow, do leave a comment back on this post. i'll print them all tomorrow morning, snip them up and have one of my lovely assistants draw the lucky winner. because yes, it's constitution day tomorrow and therefore, a holiday. ya gotta love denmark

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and while we're on the subject of giveaways, mal* at turning*turning, the most thought-provoking art therapist out there, is giving away a lovely mini quilt in my most favoritest colors to celebrate her 100th post and you can enter to win that as well. so run over there--she actually gives you five ways to have a chance to win! but you've gotta be on twitter for one of them. ;-)