making your own sunshine

this picture was in my head the other day. i even had to break into a new box of cloud cuckoo palace in order to make that sunshine on a stick when i couldn't locate the original one we'd built, or even the bits of it. it was a cloudy grey day and the notion of creating your own sunshine just popped into my head. and who better to do it than batman? what's funny is that aside from some shots of the yeti skiing that i took last winter, it rarely happens that i envision a shot in my head and want to create it. 

that notion of making your own sunshine seems a powerful one, these grey, dark, dreary days of winter. we haven't even had proper winter yet, it's been mild and rainy, tho' they promise snow tomorrow and over the weekend. i'll believe it when i see it. and in the meantime, i'm looking for spots of sunshine in my days. a day with less coughing than the day before. fun new projects at work that enable me to work with old (and super creative) friends. getting to geek out about ships again. finding a box of beautiful mixed mushrooms at the green market right when i wanted to make a mushroom tart. a solitary glass of wine enjoyed in a vibrant atmosphere. the pulse of the city. a short bike ride in the cold, clear air. the weight of a cat on the quilt at my feet. husband making my favorite comfort meal (ham, creamy spinach and potatoes) for when i came home. little rays of metaphorical sunshine. just when i needed them most.

* * *

seattle art museum collects lego for ai weiwei.

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super interesting digitalization project at the ny public library.

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the nytimes' annual list of 52 places to go in 2016.

skåne is on the list.

(that's the bit of sweden just across the bridge from denmark.)

you might say we've been there, done that.

tho' at the moment, they're checking and double-checking passports on the way in.

* * *

what kind of asshole dreams of killing a mountain lion?

oh, apparently one from my hometown.

yes, more guns please.

not.

#definitelynotastud

#ithinkimayhatefacebook

100 happy days :: day 95

coffee. tea. and instagram filters that make even my crap old kitchen look inviting.

100 happy days :: day 94

mystery planes. from ukrainian airlines. three of them, parked in billund. the grass is growing around them, so it seems that they're rather permanently parked there. the happy in this is the story that must be behind this. surely a story of the crumbling of the ukraine, which admittedly doesn't seem that happy, but there are much better stories. intrigues. eastern european oligarchs. airline pilots on the lam. ukrainian school children who escaped to legoland? the possibilities are endless.

100 happy days :: day 89

dandelions.

noticing...

noticing...

...the birch pollen is bad right now. my allergies are much better than they once were, due to eating loads of honey made by our own bees, but the birch pollen gets me every year. this year, with a dull headache that i can't shake (in addition to the usual itching throat and watering eyes).

...that it requires a whole new language to even read about minecraft, let alone play it.

...sometimes, it just feels like you're herding cats. and even if you love cats, that's not an easy task.

...that saying how busy you are and how packed your calendar is as a marker of your importance does not impress me. nor does it actually make you important.

...that i have, without my knowing, suffered a loss of confidence. i'm more tentative and less sure than i used to be. i wonder if this is simply a consequence of being older and wiser or if i've actually truly lost something that i cannot regain. i used to go so boldly through the world and now i feel i tread more lightly. this is both good and bad. puzzling and a bit frustrating. but also fascinating somehow.

...that walking out into the yard and feeding the animals is my favorite part of my day. and honestly, my days are pretty filled with good things, so that must be awesome.

* * *

have a look at what my boss says about co-creation.

(have i mentioned that i love my job?)

and this review of the new lego brickumentary, which just debuted at tribeca, is funny.

a walk in the woods

i'm finally surfacing after a week-long battle with the flu. it was a mean one - i've not been knocked down by a flu like this in years. i didn't even turn on my computer tuesday, wednesday, thursday and most of friday, so you know it was bad. i mostly laid in bed reading harry potter. i was even too weak to sit upright and knit or watch t.v. i didn't even get out the iPad and the netflix, as that seemed like too much trouble. poor husband didn't get a nice anniversary dinner and i still owe him a birthday cake. but perhaps this coming week i'll remedy that.

our winter is quite mild and to clear my head of the last of the lingering germs, husband and i went for a walk on this very still, just above freezing day. the air was cold and crisp and fresh in my lungs and felt like just what i needed. our snow is gone, leaving the world a bit grey, but if you look closely, there are bits of magic here and there.

i hope to keep glimpsing them in the week ahead as i slowly surface from my flu.

fabulous ice formations or those mole hills are good for something

we've had really mild temperatures so far in january, but a couple of days ago, it turned cold. it must have frozen at precisely the right pace for these amazing ice crystals to form on top of a fresh mole hill. i happened to notice it when i went out for a vitamin d walk when the sun peeked out for a few minutes the other day. i've never seen anything like them - like the water was forced up out of the ground as it contracted and froze and flash froze the water as well (you can tell i am a literature person and didn't pay attention in science class, but you can see what i mean in the photos). very grateful for my photo every day habit - it's what made me notice this at all.

capturing moments in time

you may have noticed that i gave up on the small stones thing. it didn't feel like me. my noticing moments in my daily life are the photos i take. i've trained myself carefully and dutifully in that for four years, so i'm just going to go with it.

the other reason i'm abandoning the project is that i'm reading another david whyte book. the three marriages. it's essentially a book of deep philosophical self-help and to underline his ideas, he uses a lot of poetry. he quoted a long section of wordsworth. a poem in which wordsworth documents a walk and a spiritual awakening of sorts. and i'll admit it made the small stone thing seem a little hollow and empty. here's the wordsworth:

The Prelude

Two miles I had to walk along the fields
Before I reached my home. Magnificent
The morning was, a memorable pomp,
More glorious than I ever had beheld,
The sea was laughing at a distance; all
The solid mountains were as bright as clouds,
Grain tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn,
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And Labourers going forth into the fields.
Ah! need I say, dear Friend, but to the brim
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit. On I walk'd
In blessedness, which even yet remains.

tell me, what do you think?

somehow wordsworth manages to capture a moment in time and preserve it in poetry - far more powerfully than any small stone.

more about the whyte book soon. i'm only about 1/3 of the way through.

~~~

whoa, some seriously creative textile art going on here (scroll down for the hair nest).

kitty nurble comes home

last summer, we met the fabulous kit lane in person (it was at lisa's house - they both live in minnesota). you may know her as the inventor of bobbaloos. (she is wonderful, by the way.) and as a little joke, we presented her with a hairball extracted from the outside (not one of the thrown-up variety) of our norwegian forest cat, lila. we also gave her real gifts, so we're not totally mental. today, this little creature arrived - our very own kitty nurble - composed largely of lila-hair. a little piece of our beloved (and aging (she's 14) cat).  it was getting a bit dark when i took this, so more proper photos of it tomorrow in good light. and this is not at all a very blurry shot of frankie trying to mangle welcoming it:

~~~

small stone :: two

days shared.

laughter.

sumptuous plate of healthy salad.

laughter.

wine.

the unbearable lightness of being.

life.

small stone :: one

carpet of beech leaves. wet with rain. scattered bits of gold in a grey, soaked, winter world.

~~~

this small stone is part of the mindful writing challenge. 

a month-long exercise in noticing things properly. 

~~~

i can't tell you how hard it was NOT to take a photo of the glimmery gold beech leaves today.