hmm, it seems i did have seven more random things in me...

mariA-thérèse of afiori tagged me (last week, oops!) for one of those 7 random things posts. i'm not actually sure there are seven that i haven't previously shared, but i thought i'd give it a whirl. and with a photo for each. because that might distract from the lameness of the seven things.

i love yarn. can't stop buying it, despite being utterly unable to knit or crochet.

just bought this yesterday. 

i am going to try to make one of these 

to match my new orange coat (which i believe i've mentioned before).

that one yarn that looks quite red in this pic is actually much more orange.

i love weaving, despite what happened that one day. byegones, i say.

there is something so peaceful and soothing about pressing the pedals and swinging the thingie (dang, i'm missing terminology here) forward. 

must look up the terms in english b/c the danish ones clearly don't stay in my head.

tho' i'm not that fond of this pattern, mostly because i could never remember where i was.

you can see i messed it up a couple of times.

but these are learning pieces.

i grew up with horses and i think they're good for the soul.

i love pretty ribbon.
and sunshine on pretty ribbon...even better.
got the ribbon here.
the sunshine was sent by google.

i do not miss going back and forth to norway. not one little bit.

i love house-hunting. i think it's really, really fun.
and i can easily imagine myself in every single house, at least during my visit.

i think there's nothing quite like a cotton candy bigger than you on a summer day.

and on that note, i'd like to tag a bunch of new bloggy friends, whose 7 things i'd love to read:

a commonplace life
concerning pancakes
one girl circus
so NOT cool
a crack in the window
the philosophy of KLo
provins
what would julie say...

and i just want to say that i'm really grateful to all these new bloggy faces for commenting on my blog in recent weeks.
changing jobs and house-hunting has seriously cut into my blogging time/energy and i'm grateful you all commented so that i was in turn led to your blogs.
because i always check out the profile/blog of anyone who comments (that's a hint, lurkers).
and i've discovered some great new friends that way.

of course, i still love all of my old blog friends, but i figured you've been random thinged to death. :-)

thanks maria-thérèse for tagging me for this one.

and do check out my tumblr. i'm adding good stuff all the time! and it's so much fun!

tagging along

i got tagged by kristina. and even allowed myself to copy her snappy title. :-)  here are the rules:
1. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question you dislike with a question of your own invention; add a question of your own.
2. Tag eight other un-tagged people.
3.  it can be an idea to post the answers together with several completely unrelated pictures. :-)

What is your current obsession? i think we all know that it's eyeballs.
Good fika place? cafe le zinc right here in frederikssund, tho' kaffepikene in sandvika storsenter (oslo) is pretty good too.
Do you nap a lot? i don't nap nearly enough. and i'm generally in need of a nap because i stay up late.
Who was the last person you hugged? my daughter got a goodnight hug.
If you were a tree, what tree would you be? a birch tree, because i have a russian soul.
Have you ever had an altercation with the police? only once. in bulgaria. it didn't go well.
What was the last thing you bought? a fabulous dinner at dragsholm slot.
What are you listening to right now? tanya davis' "art" song.
What is your favourite weather? 70 degrees, sunshine, a light breeze. did i mention sunshine? but i also love really hot weather, as long as it's not humid.
What’s on your bedside table? a stack of books--mine and sabin's, a clay bowl made and painted by sabin and which contains a set of earplugs from SAS, 4 pony-tail holders, a pair of earrings, two sparkly bobby pins, a container of ricola cough drops, my iPhone, lip stuff, a 20-pack of staedler fineliners and a package of kleenex.
Say something to the person/s who tagged you. hi kristina, now that i know about fika we must get together sometime, since you're just across the sound, and you can show me the real thing! :-)
If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
cape town. hands down.
Favourite vacation spot? somewhere out-of-the way, not overrun with tourists. i'm pretty partial to turkey, especially the west coast.
Name the things you can’t live without. my camera, my iMac, my macbook pro, my iPhone,
What would you like to have in your hands right now? knitting needles and some really excellent yarn.
What is your favourite tea flavour? chai.
What would you like to get rid of? the junk in the attic.
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go? vanuatu for a bowl of kava.
What did you want to become as a child? an archaeologist. i wanted to discover a new type of dinosaur.
What do you like better, e-mail or telephone calls? email, hands down. i actually really dislike telephone calls.
What do you do when you get time alone?  read, write, blog, sing alanis at the top of my lungs.


8 people seems like a lot to tag, but tag i shall. however it’s perfectly voluntary - only do it if you want to! but i'd like to see what jules, amanda, molly, christina, char, starlene, beth and heidi have to say.  anyone else who might feel like doing this when you're otherwise uninspired, you are MOST welcome. :-)

4th picture meme

i was tagged a few days ago (before the whirlwind trip to the west coast) by lynne of wheatlands news for a picture meme and so i'm getting to it now. here's what it's all about...you take the 4th picture in the 4th folder on your computer and post it and explain it. no editing, no selecting another picture.

naturally, being me, i immediately broke the rule, but only because the 4th folder had only 2 pictures in it, so i'll admit i decided not to count it, so this is technically the 4th picture from the 5th folder, but i didn't edit it, that much i promise!

the folder is called "christmas 2002" and the picture is of a ruffle-butt feetie pajama-clad sabin and our black persian cat, fitch (we also had a himalayan called abercrombie) near the christmas tree. i believe that's a hair band around sabin's wrist and fitchie is trying to play with it.

what's fun for me about the picture, other than remembering sabin so little (she was closing in on 2 then and now she's going to be 8 in a few days), is seeing the rug we found in morocco, which is still on the floor in our big kitchen/living room. the low leather kaare klint safari chair in the background is out in the studio space these days. we've painted the stairs white and there is a new oak floor instead of the pine floor seen here. and where the tree is standing is today where our refrigerator, kitchen sink and dishwasher are. it makes me smile to think of how far we've come. on the other hand, some things don't change...we still have that same color of yellow on the walls.

i'd love to see the 4th picture in your 4th folder and hear your story, so if you'd like to share, consider yourself tagged.

tagged for a meme

barb tagged me (she actually did it yesterday, i'm a little slow on the uptake this week, sorry!) for a meme that's a bit different than the usual meme.  what you do it open whatever book is closest to you (not necessarily your favorite book, but really the one within reach) to page 56 and type out the 5th sentence, plus the next 2-5 sentences thereafter.

here's mine:

the next thing serif knew, he had a bride. more than a year later, he was still surprised how happy he was with this sweet young presence in his life. especially since she had just confided that she was pregnant.

(kinda fitting in light of my week, weird how that works!)

i'm reading people of the book by geraldine brooks. what i found out today is that although it's a novel, the sarajevo haggadah actually exists. fascinating. i'll share more as i go along, as i've just started it.

thanks for the fun, barb, have a lovely weekend!

i'll tag andi (because i'm sure she has lots of books nearby) and anyone else who would like to try it.

handwriting meme

in recent weeks i've seen a handwriting meme on a lot of the blogs that i read regularly...like mary's and gwen's and magpie's, so when i hooked up to my old PC to scan some other things this evening (since my beautiful iMac will not recognize the HP printer/scanner as a scanner (it will print and copy, but no scan)) i scanned a few of the little notebooks that i obsessively carry around with me for the purpose of this meme. 

my little black moleskine contains my brain. it's got "to do" lists, funny quotes, speech notes, addresses, phone numbers, the ever-changing array of passwords for my various computers, avis wizard codes, and the like. the one i've copied here is filled and now retired and i'm about a dozen pages into a new one. that feels good, but i have to haul them both around for awhile until i get the most essential bits of my brain transferred from the old to the new.

this was speech notes for a welcome speech to one of my eLearning workshops last year.

this is from my precious little waves of inspiration blog notes notebook.

it got it from field & sea on etsy.

i love jennifer's stuff!

she's closed during august, but will be back in september.

oh, and the green reference to "titan uranus" above isn't just for fun, there's really a ship named that out there in the world!!  i had quite a laugh about that over beers one evening with a bunch of sailors (but i won't get into that here, this is a family blog. sort of.)

and now back to the notebooks...

more blog notes

i've actually filled one little notebook already and am on my second one.

this is a to-do list from april of '07

it probably should have been done in one day, but stretched over 2-3.

this is why i was exhausted and had to change jobs at the end of last year.

part of my whole notebook thing is also a colored pen thing. although 2 of these that i scanned were black, there are LOTS of colors in my little books. i carry a set of staedtler triplus fineliners with me at all times and have a thing about not using the same color two pages in  a row.  

i'm not sure what my handwriting says about me but i understand that you can analyze handwriting and tell a lot about a person. i'd like to try that sometime, but of course, i know what i'm like, so i'm not sure what good it would do. i do write fairly consistently, tho' the degree of messiness and legibility can change based on how much of a hurry i'm in and how many glasses of wine i might have consumed. 

what's your handwriting like? and yours? and i'd love to see yours!

weekend meme

as per usual of late, i got my posting idea from the meme that tangobaby did for the weekend.

one word answers required. if you do it too, let me know so i can see what yours are! :-) hope you're all having a fabulous weekend. i'm cooking up a storm with all my new kitchen aid goodness.

1. Your cell phone? sexy

2. Your significant other? TheOne

3. Your hair? blonde

4. Your mother? busy

5. Your father? witty

6. Your favorite thing? change

7. Your dream last night? mall

8. The room you're in? unfinished

9. Your fear? ordinariness

10. What you're not? unambitious

11. The last thing you did before logging on?  baked

12. Where did you grow up? south dakota

13. Favourite drink? hendrick’s gin

14. What are you wearing? ralph lauren sweatpants

15. Your TV? philips

16. Your pet? lila

17. Your computer? iMac

18. Favourite place? Cape Town

19. Your mood right now? relaxed

20. Missing someone? no

21. Something you're not wearing? leather

22. Love someone? definitely

23. Your favorite color? teal

24. Kids? daughter

25. Your life? fabulous

flickr meme

i've been seeing this meme all over the place and so i finally decided to give it a whirl.

what you do is answer these questions, using the search function in flickr:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. What is your favorite drink?

7. What is your dream vacation?

8. What is your favorite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. What is one word that describes you?

12. What is your Flickr name?

Then you do as follows:

• Type your answer to each of the questions above into Flickr search.

• Using only the first page of results, pick one image (this didn't prove possible for me, I must admit, I went to page 2 a couple of times)

• Copy and paste URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab's Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

1. Nachtigal, 2. i'll take this end of the boat ok?, 3. Driving to Eastern South Dakota - 7, 4. purple colored black butterflies, 5. Bill Clinton 7, 6. Hendrick's Gin, 7. stellenbosch_delheim 240, 8. Delicious Cheese, 9. Underwood, 10. J-P and Sabin in Thessaloniki, 11. From above...12. Diana+ bookshelves

note: i cheated on the first one, as all of the "julie" ones were something i couldn't really identify with. also, it takes much longer than you think. at least for me, who spends little or no time on flickr. i like the mosaic tool tho', it's cool. have a go if you have the time!