update on my art journal calendar

as you know, i embarked on a daily art journal calendar on january 1. i started off very enthusiastically and really enjoyed the process. i wasn't sure where it was taking me, but i liked the ride. february went well and i began to get into a groove. march, with our impending move, got a little more rocky, but still i persevered. and now i'm here to admit that it kinda fell apart for me in april. although i made a little mini-stash in an old suitcase, and had all sorts of good intentions, my daily art journal was what had to give.

the portable stash in a modified (by me) vintage suitcase

april 1 - 2, 2010
april 1 - was when i photographed paul's beautiful rug for british home & garden
april 2 - i was on a weaving kick, so i wove fabulous washi tape (bought here). i love that stuff.

april 3 - 4, 2010
april 3 - still on the washi tape thing. i'll admit sabin inspired this.
april 4 - washi tape tree (also copied from inspired by sabin).

that's pretty much as far as i got in april - wrote this note of assessment may 1.

may 1 - 2
may 1 - new house, new resolve. so i started with a little sketch of the new plants in the garden.
may 2 - had discovered loads of rhubarb in the garden and was holding out hope there would be asparagus (there isn't).

may 3 - watching one of those fabulous BBC nature shows with sabin.

may 19 - was the day i discovered that gorgeous little nest in a bush in the yard.

and that's as far as i got in may. restarting my daily practice proved difficult in the new surroundings. and it's rather ironic, because i think that with the stress of moving, i have more need than ever for a daily creative act. there are so many adjustments at once - house, job, routine, kitchen, garden, sabin's school, caring for a horse - and so many new demands on my time. but i haven't given up on myself and have decided that looking back on these couple of months (let's hope it doesn't stretch into june as well) of empty pages will also be a record of the time and place i was in. they say when you fall off the horse, you have to get back on, so i'm trying to persevere with june's little moleskine. i'll be back with more on that when the month is over.

houses have feelings too or how about some taste, people?

EDITED to add a few pictures....

thank you shannon for the little camera keychain!!
lego "zapper" by sabin - she made it one day when she couldn't find the t.v. remote
my monthly art journal calendars on the left (with april woefully not completed)
and that naff bumpy wallpaper that's on the wall behind has got to go.

dear previous owners of this house (all of them),

i've spent some time organizing around the house. things are started to be settled in and it begins to feel more like our house. we haven't painted or put up new wallpaper or anything like that since it will all be torn apart again in a few months anyway, but i was feeling a strong need for it to feel more like our  home.

but as i'm working around the house, i am consistently amazed at the choices you made...everything from mis-matched ceilings (no less than 7 different ceiling materials) to rope used as a "finish" between wall and ceiling to naff bumpy wallpaper. while i can understand that sometimes money is tight, these choices are not only cheap, but just tasteless and even more than that, careless. had you really never visited anyone who had a proper house and taken note of how doorframes and ceilings are constructed? and did you really have to use that crappy rope in the "old living room?" who told you that looked good?

so many things wrong with this that i don't even know where to begin
there was even woodchip wallpaper on that BEAM at one point for the love of odin!

what surprises me is that there are times when i find that the conversation i'm having in my head about it all is really quite angry about the whole thing. i'll admit i'm missing my beautiful oak floors and red smeg refrigerator (much to my dismay it's normal to sell the appliances with the house here, not take them with you and believe you me, the subject has been extensively cried about discussed in this household), but to be honest, it's not just that. the anger is coming from elsewhere and at the risk of sounding like i've gone stark raving mad,  i think that elsewhere is the house itself. i think the house feels you neglected and mistreated it all these years. that you totally didn't see and utilize its potential.

this ceiling is made of up rough wood that you'd normally build a fence with - not for ceiling use, people!
and look at how they joined the two lists at top? even i know you should cut it at an angle!

but it's also possible that i've reached a point in both my old age and my aesthetic sense where i have a distinct lack of patience for people who lack a sense of quality and doing things properly. i just don't understand why you wouldn't put in a proper ceiling and pay attention to which way you lay the boards in comparison to the hallway just outside the door. i don't get why you wouldn't just buy enough tiles to finish the job or at least find a less obvious solution than using whatever you could scrounge out of a skip at the dump to finish the job. and i really don't just blame a lack of money, it's also a lack of pride in a way. why would you want to live this way? and especially in this extremely design-conscious country, how on earth did you ever have anyone over to dinner?

and it has me thinking about what a home is...it's more than just a building, it's a refuge, a safe place, the place where you can really be yourself and express yourself. it's an expression of who you are and what i'm getting at doesn't really have to do with how much money you have, it's more to do with the amount of care you exercise in making it yours.  i am looking forward to all of the changes we're going to be making here (and the house tells me it is too). in the meantime, it does help a little bit to get out the sewing machine and jazz up the curtains a little bit (even just making them all the right length helps), spread out our rugs and baskets of stones and hang some art on the walls. it makes both the house and me much happier. but seriously, you people really did a number on this place...

sincerely,
/julie and the house that's not a windmill

first things first

poring over decorating books is a nightly activity.

when you move into a new house, especially one where you know you're going to do a whole lot of work on it before you truly settle in, you are selective about what you unpack. you have to have enough things out for your everyday life, but you don't necessarily need that special checkerboard cake pan at the ready. i found that i immediately went to work unpacking the kitchen. because if the kitchen feels relatively normal, you feel like you can more or less function on an everyday basis. this kitchen, with its horrible pepto bismol pink cupboards (going to remedy that this weekend), has loads of cupboards, so i've managed to put things away and then forget which of the many cupboards i put them in...now where were those measuring cups again? but the teacups are in place, as are plates and pots and pans and a selection of the most essential cookbooks. oh, and the liquor cabinet - at least with the essentials (read: hendrick's gin stash) at hand. a girl does have her priorities.

the second most unpacked room is the bathroom, because that also needs to feel more or less normal for you to function on a daily basis. makeup, contact lenses, hairbrushes, flat iron, husband's razor and towels are all at the ready. as far as our bedroom, work clothes are hung in the closet, but there are still loads of boxes along the sides of the room. luckily, we have a whole large room just to stash boxes in, so we've done that. the only problem is that in frantic searches for various essential items, those boxes keep shifting around and it's becoming impossible to find anything. i'll have to try to get some order in that area this weekend.

for the child, the first priority was the satellite t.v. package we had promised her (a horse, a saddle, an iPhone, a season pass to Legoland, an iPad, satellite t.v. - the kid made out like a bandit on this move). her father dutifully went down and acquired the box for that on saturday and got it up and running. to her relief, she now once again has her fill of hannah montana on a daily basis.

for me, it was essential to get the iMac out and set up my desk area, tho' i'll admit that the computer feels rather useless without an internet connection (just got confirmation that it comes on tuesday - YAY!). but i have had time to process loads of pictures, so that's a good thing. i do, however, out of habit, find myself rather frequently hitting that little firefox icon down at the bottom and feeling a twinge of sadness when it tells me that i'm offline. oh well, it's probably good for me.

several boxes of "essential" books have been unpacked - the decorating books above are being used on a nightly basis as we readjust our thinking about what we're going to do with the house - e.g. tear down at least part of it. surprisingly, since deciding to do that we've felt much more free about the whole thing and less constricted. it really opens up the thinking and lets husband's inner architect run free.

it somehow felt important to cook in the house right away. i brought the first meal along from the old house--i had made extra veal parmesan so we had a pan of that to begin with the night we moved in. it seemed right to bring something from the old kitchen to the new one. the next day, i made our favorite focaccia. there were leftovers of it that got a bit dry, so i cubed the bread, tossed it with some spicy sausage and garlic in a pan and we gobbled that as an appetizer the next night. eating good food you make yourself in a new place sets the tone.

this weekend will bring lots more settling in, a bit of painting and definitely some riding. happy weekend one and all!

greetings from the danish countryside or contrary to popular belief, i survived the move

hello everybody! as you may have gathered, our home is still an internet-free zone. despite having ordered the connection more than two weeks ago, the provider - let's just name names here - TDC - hasn't even contacted me!!! arrgh!! so i'm left sneaking in a bit of time at the beginning or end of my work day for a bit of blogging therapy.

we got most of our stuff moved late last week. there are a few things left in the old house (christmas decorations in the attic for one), but since we haven't sold the house yet and it's nowhere near christmas, there's no rush on that stuff. we are going over to do a thorough cleaning on saturday since we left dust bunnies everywhere in our haste to get the truck loaded then unloaded and given back to the rental company. and we'll definitely be getting sushi for dinner at the new sushi place in our old town, as it'll no doubt be another decade before one comes to our new town. the things we give up for the sake of adventure.

the new house is proving interesting. i have, on three occasions, felt that it was actually speaking to me. first, when i hung our pretty, bright new cycling helmets on a peg in the entryway, i felt a palpable sense of happiness surge through me. the second time, i had put on a mix of jack johnson (that man's got to be the happiest man on the planet, doesn't he?) songs and had a strong sense of the house awakening, as if it had been asleep like something out of sleeping beauty or rumplestiltskin, and was awakening to find itself filled with happy music and people. the last time was when the old owner stopped by to show husband how to do some things with the temperamental furnace (it's one of those that uses little wooden pills as fuel). the house made it clear to me, by putting me in a very black mood, that it wasn't fond of him. it may sound strange but i was completely aware that of the source of the mood was coming from the house.

speaking of the house - it's probably not going to be that happy with us when it finds out that we're going to be tearing it down - at least part of it anyway. much to the relief of our architect, who was recommending that from the beginning. it will give us an opportunity to get rid of the worst problems (bricks that were painted in horrible plastic paint at some point and which have turned to powder underneath that paint) and it will also give us the opportunity to do some kind of amazing modern addition onto the bits of the old house that we leave intact. i'll have to find a way to break it to the house gently.

tho' the days have been strangely cold, it has often been sunny and most evenings the sunset light has been golden and amazing. its wonderful to walk down around our own little lake and listen to the birds singing and talk about our plans for the property. from that standpoint, the move feels like it was most definitely the right thing.

sabin's new horse, matilde, arrived yesterday. we are all madly in love with her. if you'd like to see more, there are pictures here. we're so fortunate that we can keep her at our neighbors' house, where they have a lovely outdoor riding arena and 8 stalls in their barn. happily, they have only six horses themselves, so there was room for matilde. and the fence above is around one of the paddocks where she will get to eat grass during the day.

i am scribbling loads of notes in my little red notebook (thanks spud for that - turns out it's not just for grudges, tho' they are also plentiful), so i assure you there will be much more when i'm back online at home and can indulge in my nightowl blogging once again.

tears coming and going

2002

we came a long way in the nearly a decade that we lived here (we moved in in 2001, but i couldn't locate any of those pix this morning). i cried my eyes out the first time we looked at the house. it was a 70s nightmare through and through, green countertops that on top of it were for freakishly short people and came up to about my knees (only a slight exaggeration). but we built on and we built a whole flock of little buildings in the garden. and we shared many a laugh and dinners and countless bottles of wine with friends. and now it's time to move on to the next chapter and i find myself crying as we leave too.

2010
the house (and my photography) have come a long way!

but, i have to dry my tears, pack the iMac in the car and locate the cat. see you sometime next week on the other side. :-)

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.

in the same boat

there are these moments, not moments of perfect clarity exactly, because those are something else, but moments where you suddenly, out of nowhere are able to take in, just for a second, The Enormity of Things. i had one the other day when we took a load of books and things to the house. i had unpacked them onto a shelf so we could take the boxes back home to load again and it suddenly hit me, in all of its fullness, exactly how much work we had to do on the house before it would be as we want it. luckily, it only lasted a second, because otherwise i would have just gone mad from the enormity of it.

i had a similar flash of The Enormity of Things today on the train, when i looked up and saw a strange, goofy, awkward man looking at me. you know how you can feel someone looking at you sometimes? and i tweeted something uncharitable about how i had forgotten about weirdos on the public transport. and then i was suddenly hit by the feeling of how everyone is really just trying to get on with their life in their own way. and our paths cross or they don't, but we're all just living along, inside of ourselves, trying to make our way. and the enormity of all of us going along, living, was just THERE for a second. and then it passed. thankfully most of the time our minds protect us from that knowledge of The Enormity of Things. i think if it didn't, we'd just be paralyzed, unable to move. just sitting here frozen, but in the same boat.

i wonder what it is about right now that's making me susceptible to these gateways of my mind...

piecing things together

artwork by sabin + awesome washi tape

we've spent the past five days of the easter holiday packing and packing and packing some more. and only last evening did it finally start to look and feel like we'd made some headway. 2/3 of the books are packed, all of the pretty paper and most of the fabric. i have sorted a zillion things that were hanging out in the attic and husband made countless trips to the dump and the donation containers yesterday. why were we keeping all that crap i asked myself again and again yesterday. and as the day wore on, i became more and more ruthless about getting rid of things, which was undoubtedly healthy.

once the things were taken off the walls in the blue room and boxed and bagged, it felt less painful, the less it looked like itself. i still have some way to go, but husband will take the first load over to the new house on friday. and the current owners have been kind enough to let us begin to fill up what they call "the old living room" with our boxes and things. husband is taking everything that won't fit properly into boxes for the movers to handle - things like my loom and rolls of leather.

all of this packing gives us a sort of spring cleaning that we should have done ages ago and it feels good to purge a lot of stuff, especially clothes that we haven't worn in ages. i saved a bag of hopelessly out of date sweaters for felting, but i did a fairly good job of really culling our old clothes. what is it in us that causes us to hoard and save? i always joke that i was in the siege of leningrad in my last life and that's where the impulse comes from, but i think it's something deeper than that, more of a biological drive to hold onto things you might need if conditions change. because if it's that, then i can't help it, right?

aside from sorting and getting rid of things, packing gives you lots of time to think. i found myself thinking a lot about how i wanted to arrange things in the new house and daydreaming of color schemes and of what to plant in the garden.  but i also got all sorts of ideas for bloggy topics, which was reassuring, because i haven't been exactly brimming with those of late.

it's interesting how taking all of these pieces of a life apart and packing them up and imagining them in another place actually feels cathartic and like a relief of some sort. we'll surely piece them all back together in a new, but familiar, configuration, in the coming months.

* * *

i'm going to be traveling back and forth in the coming weeks, since i start my new job on the other side of the country tomorrow and husband and sabin won't join me 'til the last week of may. it means i'll be a bit absent from all of your blogs (which you probably already noticed) and probably using lots of pictures and few words here. :-) but i won't forget you and i will be stopping by again just as soon as i can, so please be patient with me!

there's no place like...

as i was packing up the bookshelves in the blue room, i took a moment to arrange these blocks against the beloved blue background. they're letterpress blocks from my dad's letterpress (why didn't i learn how to operate that when i had the chance?). i think they once assembled to spell the name of some or other horse that i had, and i've carried them around the world with me more than once. they're precious and i wouldn't want to be without them, even if they are occasionally jumbled into a box and not used.

moving brings on such mixed feelings. i'm excited and looking forward to the new house and all that we're going to do it to transform it into the house we'd like it to be. i'm going to love having our own lake and a lawn big enough to play football on (not that i want to do that, but knowing that i could is a good thing). space for a horse and chickens and maybe a truffling pig or two, oh and lambs. i'm so looking forward to all of that.

but i've loved this house too and we did so much to it to make it our own and give it our character and leave our mark on it. when we moved in, it was like stepping into a 70s time warp, even the garden looked like some evergreen-covered churchyard, full of low bushes that even looked totally seventies. we leave it transformed and we will miss it.

but as i said when i posted this picture on flickr the other day, we are not our house and we are able to make a home wherever we go. because the things that make a home are all of the things, packed with memory and meaning, that we take with us. even if it is a royal pain packing them all up.

can you feel sad and happy at the same time?

how on earth am i going to leave this?

this weekend i spent some time sitting by the fire out in the blue room, as it's come to be known - not to be confused with a bar by the same name in a little middle-of-nowhere town in the upper midwest. i tried to soak it all in. of course, the house has been for sale for awhile and i've known that i will have to part with this room, and in many ways, that's ok. there are things we learned from it and will do differently the next time (more square meters and better lighting). but oh, how i have loved this space - i have literally whispered "i love you room," upon entering on more than one occasion. there's just something so right about it. something that it's hard for me to define. it is at once light and roomy and yet cavelike. that must be the combination of lots of windows on both sides and the dark, rich, turquoise paint i chose. but it also has to do with the creative corner, where i sit, completely surrounded by art supplies - stamps, tape, paint, paper, fabrics, you name it, it's there.

these essential ingredients all come with us. when we go, all that will stay behind are the little wood burning stove and the blue walls. i haven't even decided if i'll leave the linen shades. i was always going to make them longer by adding some fabric to them, but i never got around to it. i've got to check to see if i need them on the windows in the new place (we still haven't heard whether our offer is accepted - there are some challenges (which may or may not involve morse code, telexes and possibly a dog sled team) reaching both parties to the sale).

although i'm sorrowful to leave this space, i am already scheming and planning the new space. i want that end wall that needs to be torn off anyway to incorporate various reclaimed windows, i want a balcony with a little office/computer space that overlooks the big room below, i want more space for books and better shelves for the fabric stash. i want a bigger table that's better for cutting out fabric and patterns and a big wall for laying out quilts. and the colors, just imagining the colors is exciting.  it might not be turquoise this time around. maybe it will be white with purple accents. or green. or a completely different blue. or a hot-blooded magenta. i don't really know. yet. but i think having all of these exciting possibilities is what will get me through the sorrow of leaving this beautiful space behind.

* * *

i've just drastically marked down everything in my etsy shop. i really don't want to have to pack these things up and move them, so do check it out. i'd much rather package them up all pretty and send them to you! there are a few helleristning stones, a couple of pillows, a baby quilt and a scarf. i know winter's almost over, but then you're ready for next fall!  there are a few of the spice line of clarity birds left as well in the big cartel shop, so if you'd like one to fly your way, go there. there will be a new line of clarity birds for summer (after the move). i'm also putting off the art journal course that i mentioned that i was planning until after we're settled into the new place - i had never announced dates anyway so we should be cool there. i just know my time will definitely be limited in the coming couple of months. we've got a LOT of stuff to pack!