100 happy days :: day 45

i know i've already used the baby bunnies as my happy moment.
but seriously, who cannot be happy in the face of this?
every day, i think they're reached peak cuteness and yet every day, they get cuter.

also,
something has shifted. cosmically. in a good way.
i don't know what it is yet, but i'm choosing to roll with it.
happiness is in the air.
maybe it just takes 45 days of concentrated effort.

* * *

this is (pin)interesting and a bit surprising.
and tho' some of them are my own, not all of them are.

100 happy days :: day 5

today's happiness - pinterest. where else can you follow boards as diverse as fierce bitch shit and graph: soviet russian (hmm, maybe those aren't as far apart as i thought)? and there are my own 179 boards of collected inspiration and cleverness that i want to be able to find again. pinterest enables me to track what interests me, like rest (not getting enough sleep, eh?) and healthy eating (ditto that). not to mention the odd drinkie poo (evening) or caffeinated beverage (daytime). i have boards for husband: husband could make this, kitchen goodness and lysthus. and he even looks at them regularly on the iPad and recently asked me to make him a new board: wood details. you can make a board for any purpose, without all the mess and chaos of cutting up magazines and sticking them to an actual bulletin board. pinterest is awesome! it's where they're keeping all. the. pretty.

i remember way back when kristina first invited me to pinterest (she has often helped me be an early adopter of these things). i found it messy and confusing and i didn't think i'd stick with it. but then i realized that it was sort of like flickr favorites or even browser bookmarks (how old-fashioned they seem now!) that you could categorize and actually find again. it's an enormous, beautiful image repository that gives me an idea of what my style and aesthetic sensibilities are and how they change over time. and now, several years, 179 boards, 32,000 pins and 15,000 followers later, i'm still there, collecting inspiration and imagining the future. and that makes me happy.

pinterest for the win!

see my pinterest here.

i am a sucker for being part of a group. especially if they make it seem exclusive and cool and perhaps a little bit secret. oh, and if they flatter me when they send the invitation, hello, count me in! so when i got an email from pinterest this morning, complimenting my pinboards, and inviting me to apply to be a translator for the danish version of pinterest, i was like, sign me up, baby! so i dutifully clicked through and applied. a few hours later, i was approved and invited to my first secret facebook group. i think the difference with secret groups is that the rest of the folks in your timeline can't see what you're posting and commenting on. the whole thing makes me a little bit giddy.

but really, what it is is pinterest being very smart. they've flattered their users into doing the expensive translation job for them. for free! all by making it seem cool and exclusive. there is much to be learned from this (can you say co-creation?). they get a much better translation from native speakers (and folks like me who are picky about language and have lived here so long that i'm pretty good at it as well). they create loyalty among users. and they don't pay for it. i predict we'll be seeing a lot more of this from businesses in the not-so-distant future.

a little while later, someone in my facebook feed shared a status of someone from their feed who is pissed at pinterest. pinterest's terms forbid "pin to win" contests and they will go after users who are engaging in such things. and frankly, i think that's awesome. pins should be there because they are things people love, not things people are trying to win (tho' one might argue that you wouldn't be trying to win something if you didn't love it). and i like the purity of it. if those i followed suddenly started pinning shit from etsy (because etsy just opened their doors much wider to shit) instead of moodily-lit figs, just because they wanted to win it, i would be one unhappy camper. i do love me some moodily-lit figs, not to mention triangles, don't get me started on triangles (they're the new circle).

so, to recap. pinterest flattering their users (including me) into doing their enormous translation/localization task for them = score. and cracking down on "pin to win" greedy bastards = score. so it's pinterest for the win!

triangles are the new circle

my inspired-by-pinterest dreamcatcher totem homage to nature and the goddess is hanging on the door, warding off any evil spirits and bad karma that might want to enter our house this week. here's hoping it's a good one. (both the week and the magical yarn-wrapped stick.)

the view from sunday night or how i had antlers before they were cool

the air was heavy and it felt all weekend like it was waiting to storm. i(t) never stormed. denmark is very restrained that way. in south dakota, a good old fashioned thunderstorm would have blown through and cleared out that pesky, heavy waiting and left it cool and rinsed clean. no such luck here. the air is still heavy and too warm for sleeping. we can't even have the windows properly open as molly is in heat and desperate to get out to the papa kitty. we think she's had enough kittens for one year, so she's got to stay inside until it's over. i don't want to fix her yet as i want one more batch of kittens next spring - no sense bringing those good minnesota cat genes over here and not taking advantage of them properly. but she (and perhaps i) have been through enough for this year, so she has to wait until spring. she's lucky i love her or she'd have driven me completely crazy with her meowing and cajoling to go outside and rendezvous with the papa kitty.

i went on an uncharacteristic cleaning frenzy today, dusting, tidying, rearranging, organizing, vacuuming spider webs (they say spiders are a sign of a healthy inner climate in a house, so we're very healthy, let me tell you). i wonder how those spiders are all getting along inside the bag in our vacuum cleaner. do different kinds of spiders like each other? it feels good that things are tidy and clean. it gives me that essential sunday evening feeling that leaves me ready to face the week ahead. it's the last full week before school starts, so i want to spend some time together with sabin, who has been flitting off with one friend and another to summer houses and car races.

have you noticed that my photos and my words are quite disconnected? i took the photos after vacuuming up the spiders, otherwise, they would have been more connected. now i'll try to connect them a little bit more. i was out picking this bouquet of verbena by the road when i ran into our cat tiger (also known as pelle haleløse (pelle the tail-less) as he came home last summer without most of his tail) out there, relaxing in the grass and trying to stay cool. i was chatting away to him when some people came by, walking their dogs and thinking i was insane to be chatting animatedly with myself in english (they couldn't see the cat in the grass). oh well, they'll chalk it up to the crazy canadian, since it's rumored in the area that i'm canadian. i can live with that. oddly, i felt no compulsion whatsoever to explain and no embarrassment. i wonder if that is the first sign of madness?

i almost didn't have the heart to throw out these fetchingly dried daisies, but after photographing them, i replaced them with fresh ones. i almost think they're prettier when they're withered and dried. i suspect there's a lesson in that somewhere. or maybe i'm feeling philosophical after reading my fourth douglas kennedy book in as many weeks. tara suggested the first one (pursuit of happiness) to me on goodreads and that got me hooked. i devoured state of the union in about 24 hours. it's my favorite one yet. all of the ones i've read so far (i'm now on number 5 - the big picture) are about people whose choices led them feel they've lived the wrong life. they make me feel like writing, tho' i finish each one reluctantly, sad to leave behind characters who quickly come to seem like friends. i've got several more on order from the library. his style and characters suit my mood of the moment perfectly, tho' i feel far from having lived the wrong life.

antlers are everywhere on pinterest at the moment. i got this little skull last fall at the boy scout flea market for 20 kroner. i don't know what kind of deer it is, but i love it. all of the deer in this country are freakishly small and this one is no exception. i'd like to think that i was way ahead of that antler trend.

garlands make me happy

coming up for air after a week of being sick, i wanted to make something. i was inspired by jessica's ten days of garlands and a big stack of newspapers that were accumulating in the big round basket. we've always got paint around and plenty of thread, so sabin and i painted up some newspaper and punched out circles and i sewed and sewed. my garland is a little long (like about 20 meters) and a bit tangled, as molly "helped" me hang it up above my desk. but it's cheery and makes me happy.  with the blues and greens i used, some of the circles have a decidedly globe-like quality, which also makes me happy. this photo of sabin painting her newspaper in fiery orange and red, you guessed it...makes me happy.

what made you happy this weekend?

pondering pinterest

my favorite sunday morning activity is to sit in bed with a cup of tea and my laptop and peruse pinterest. i love the way it leads me off in new directions. one minute, i'm pinning web design tips and the next, drooling over garter stitch blankets and thinking, "i could do that." the brilliant newish feature that shows you another board something is pinned to after you pin it yourself has led me to discover all kinds of goodness i'd never have found otherwise.

the more i use it, the more i think that pinterest isn't just a way of wasting time procrastinating whiling the the hours.  i have boards that are related to work and community projects as well as the frivolous things (like cutie patootie). when designing our new website last week (it's still a work in the progress, but the visuals are there), we went to my color board to find the right colors. and it helped us to refine it down to the ones that were best for our design.

i'm planning an event next weekend and i've got three boards devoted to it. it's been a great way to let the others who are involved in on what i am thinking about with regard to activities and decorations. it has both saved time in explaining and given a visual to some of the more, shall we say...fun-challenged...members of the group. pictures really are worth a thousand words.

pinterest has helped me spot trends in my own thinking. looking through my own boards, i recently realized there are a lot of circles, so i gathered them on one board, to see if there's something there to pursue. i don't know yet, but can see that it has something to do with stitching.

you also learn from those things you find that you've pinned multiple times. they must really be something you like. and sometimes you get déja pin while you're pinning, thinking, "i've pinned this before." but you can't find it.

it's an invaluable tool when you're remodeling. husband just asked the other evening to have a look at the kitchen board, as he's beginning to think about the construction of the kitchen island. he's asked me to look for and pin specific ideas with regard to the placement of sink and stovetop in kitchen islands, to help him solve the issue for ours. so even tho' husband doesn't pin himself, he recognizes it's a great tool.

i've begun to see some interesting uses of pinterest as a business tool. as a photography portfolio, by an agency who represents the photographers. for a contest by a company that makes cake decorating supplies (and which i sadly cannot find again to link it). i think it's only the beginning of that type of use. i don't find anthropologie's pinning of all of their products themselves to be that clever a use, but it's a use nonetheless. i'm sure others will be much more clever.

if you're not already using it, get over there and sign up. you'll never need web browser bookmarks again.

husband's sawmill - the big project of 2012

december 21, 2012 

december 30, 3012

december 30, 2012 

husband built doors for his sawmill in recent days - he had two weeks off here at christmas (he starts a new job january 2) and thus lots of daylight hours. the door on the left isn't quite finished, but i imagine it won't be long. what a lot he's done...this was but a hole in the ground back in august and now it's a whole, nearly weather-proof building with a functioning band saw inside. husband is very proud of it and i'm also proud of him. i could really take a lesson from him in deciding what i want and going after it. that's the lesson i want to take into 2013.

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two new pinterest boards: caffeinated. vision walls (more about that soon). 

ideas can make you sleepy

have you ever had a really good day? one intensely filled with good energy and ideas starting to take shape? and did that day leave you feeling really, really tired? well, that's what happened to me today. i think my brain is telling me to shut down so it can process. more tomorrow, when it's 12/12/12 - one of those days that must be magical.

* * *

did you know columbus didn't think the world was flat?
i wonder what else the history books lied to us about.

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ideas for developing ideas. what would be more awesome than that?

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danish design? yes, please.

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fashion as craft? it's about time.

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the y board: yarn porn (of course).

w is for winter wonderland

winter came this weekend in earnest and we loved every minute of it. we baked cookies and husband helped decorate them. we made snow forts and had a snowball fight. we went for a walk in the winter sunshine. life was good. life is good.

this winter doesn't seem as desperately dark and depressing as other winters have. maybe we've had more days of sunshine or perhaps i'm just finally used to it. whatever it is, i'm holding onto it tightly. life is good.

the w boards on pinterest: want. web design. wire & sticks (this is a good one). wise words. wooden bits. words (this is word-related art, not books). work-related. workspaces. woven.

happy birthday, dad!

a big happy birthday to my dad!
he's a bit older today than he was in this photo (circa 1977).

this was back in the era when he proposed that the fence post should be the state tree of south dakota.
sadly, it didn't pass.

i also recall a bet paid in pennies on that very desk on the floor of the house.
it was some mound of pennies.

happy birthday, dad.

* * *

is food a narrative medium?
here's another opinion on the subject.

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wine talk - it's so pretentious, but there's also something to it - thinking deeply about pleasure.

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i have long wished that i was alive and in my prime in 1913.

(who knows, maybe i was?)

here's just another confirmation that it was The Year.

at least where art and culture were concerned.

i wonder if 2013 has the same potential?

somehow i doubt it.

* * *

so many people in the world with such amazing stories.

like bryan saunders, who has drawn 8700 self-portraits - some while on various drugs.

i wasn't sure whether to be in awe or horrified.

* * *

the v board on pinterest: of course it's vikings.

boot sparkle bokeh

sorry for the long and convoluted (read: boring) entry earlier...this is where i work through stuff and try to understand it and sometimes it means you all have to suffer. but i do apologize. and i am aware it was heavy and boring (hence the links to the fun boring bits). i'll try to lay off that for awhile, tho' i can't guarantee, because there are a lot of things these days that i don't entirely understand. but i hope these bokeh-filled shots of sabin's fabulous uggs in the snow and sparkling sunshine from this afternoon might help you forget.

* * *

speaking of UGGS, there's an awful lot of ads for fakes on my facebook.
and i think that's pretty uncool of facebook.
but here's a hint: if the site wants you to pay to some random chinese guy via western union, you should interpret that as a BIG RED FLASHING LIGHT.
just don't do it.

* * *

i'm reading the second installment of ken follet's century trilogy.
and i'm hooked.
he's good at creating characters and the history feels right.

* * *

check out the first installment in lisa's fabulous stone project.
(hint: it's one of the stones i brought her last summer).

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you know i love maps, but a literary map? swoon.

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the u boards on pinterest: utterly fabulous. upcycling.

denmark you are a mystery to me: or when life turns kafkaesque

there is a deep and abiding faith in clubs and associations in denmark. they're called foreninger. it's something that i, as a non-dane, find really quite incomprehensible. and the ability to create a new association, which is focused on a very specific, narrow purpose (instead of expanding an existing one to include that little focus area) is simply breathtaking. sometimes it appears that they'll create a new association simply to get away from some other people they don't like in the old association (instead of relying on democracy and voting them out). heaven forbid that people made room for one another or adjusted their thinking a little bit to be more inclusive within existing groups. no, no, let's call a general assembly, create a convoluted set of bureaucratic by-laws (which we will debate down to the last comma) and by odin make a new group - one that preferably will really show that other group that we maybe could have been part of, had we had even an ounce of open-mindedness.

deep breath.

it's a fascinating study in group behavior and if i still wanted to be an anthropologist, i'm sure i could easily write an entire dissertation about it. it has everything - social darwinism, cultural capital (ahh, bordieu), biology, psychology, even a bit of pop business theory between the lines. there's jockeying for position, there's the constantly determining who is with the in crowd and who's not. there's the determining who is the albanian (remember my theory that everyone needs their albanian - someone who they feel superior to?) in any configuration (and oddly, it seems to be an ever-shifting thing). and there's the scheming beforehand because of an inherent lack of trust in the democratic process. and don't even get me started on conflicts of interest...

but among the things that strike me most (there are 2), is how utterly meaningless it all is. it's a small town that's part of a larger municipality (more like a county in american terms) and the mayor and politicians on the city council are those ultimately allocating funds and deciding things - so these local councils and committees and associations and clubs are actually full of powerless little wanna-be kings (who to the cool anthropological observer are actually a whole lot more like a flock of banty roosters). ones who apparently couldn't even make it on the pathetic plane that is the municipality level. so the supposed power of the little clubs is utterly impotent.

the second thing that strikes me is how proud the little banty roosters are of their bylaws and their long history of being involved in this whole culture around the little associations. one stood up at a recent meeting and proudly declared that he was a foreningsmenneske (a person of the association - it's one of those things that just has a better ring in danish, mostly because i can't imagine that it truly exists outside of denmark) and went on to pontificate on how bylaws were the glue holding the society together. it was a critique of another association which had mistakenly (and rather publicly) not followed their bylaws to the letter and managed, as happens if you accidentally dissolve the very glue holding the society together, to embarrass themselves - having to call a new general assembly according to the letter of their bylaws. they were even ridiculed in the local press for not announcing the first general assembly two weeks in advance, as required. yes, the behavior, especially between generations, is that petty and small-minded.

and for all of the group mentality, they really don't want to work together across groups - not even if those groups share an interest. it's all very petty and quite exhausting. and even as i try to maintain an anthropologic distance, i couldn't help but feel i had stepped into the bureaucratic hell of a kafka novel as i observed the natives in their natural habitat last evening.

* * *

speaking of boring things, i keep reading really interesting stuff about the boring conference.

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the t boards on pinterest: tattoo in the near future. that's funny. the eyes have it. the hats (and possibly the crowns). tiny houses (this is one of my best boards). to dye for. topographies (another winner). treehouse.

what future for libraries?

i've spent some of my happiest, most productive hours in libraries over the years. the reg at the u of c, my friend's study carrel in the law library at the university of iowa. harper library at the u of c (an oasis between classes). the hayden library at arizona state. libraries are where i've read and written some of the best things i've read and written.

the hush. the hum of enormous heating (or air conditioning) systems. soft voices of librarians helping library patrons. the smell of books. wandering through the dark, slight mustiness of the stacks, looking for one thing and finding something else and something else and something else. sneaking in a cup of coffee. chuckling over arguments in the marginalia. i just love libraries, also my own collection of books, which is still mostly boxed up here in our home, awaiting remodeling (these photos are from the old house). but you know all that about me if you've been reading mpc for any length of time.

there's a lot of talk about the role of the library in denmark these days. our own little town is going to get a new combination library/culture house - where all kinds of activities will take place. increasingly, libraries are moving more digital - with islands of devices and digital lending of books, music and movies onto your own device. stacks of musty books will, probably within my lifetime, become a thing of the past.

i spend a lot of time at my local library (which is alive and well, even as we await decisions about location and arrangement of the new one). going there helps me concentrate and focus on my often solitary work. just as it always has. just being there, with my laptop, working, i have occasion to see the enormous variety of people who use the library. elderly people who come in everyday to read a selection of newspapers. young people asking help from the librarian for their research project (and here i thought people just googled everything these days - it's refreshing to know they don't). people looking for a bit of inspiration for something to crochet or cook. folks who come in to use the computers. and something called "citizen service" - which is a screen connection to municipal services (i don't know if they use skype or something else - but it's video conferencing with a real person (during certain hours) who answers questions) from a special screen at the library. but the librarians get a lot of questions of well - things i wouldn't have imagined were within their realm to have to know - tax questions, questions related to welfare benefits, etc. i guess what i'm trying to say is that the library is much more than just books these days. and that's only going to continue.

i'm going to teach a blogging course (i think two of them actually) at the library, starting in january - when i went in to ask yesterday about the possibility of doing that, they said yes immediately. they said that was precisely the kind of thing they wanted to support. there will also be more exhibitions and events in the new year. a whole fierce tribe of local, awesome, creative women are going to make art that tells each of our (because obviously i'm one of them) stories and it's going to be on display - so we will both create together and exhibit our creations together - all facilitated by the library. there are music events for and featuring children. an antiques expert comes one saturday per month and values people's treasures. there's a knitting club. and i've held some photo events for both children and adults. the library is so much more than books. it's a place for the community to come together - to share interests and to expand horizons. it's probably the place most responsible, at least where i live, for creating a sense of community.

but i can't help but think that i will still always love the hush. and the smell. and the feel of a physical book in my hands. even as libraries are changing, i hope there will always be at least a corner of actual books. i'm not really ready to let that go quite yet.

do you use your local library? what do you love about it?

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the s boards on pinterest: sawing logs b&b. shoe fetish. sinking. soup's on. soviet. sparkle. stashable. stitching (by far my most populated board, now if i'd just stitch something already). stones rock. styling. surreal.

practice run writing a small stone

i'm planning on participating in a january mindful writing project. i was alerted to it by a facebook friend. the way it's described sounds like an extension of the already daily mindful effort i make in taking a daily photograph. only instead of a photograph, it's a daily snippet of writing and the project initiators call these little bits of mindful writing small stones, and we know how i feel about stones. so anyway, i'm going to give it a whirl (despite being a little put off by the new ageyness of the site). but just because they're new agey doesn't mean i have to be, right? besides, i want to be more open in 2013 - open to other ways of thinking and looking at the world and open to new people, experiences and opportunities. (dang, that's sounding an awful lot like a new year's resolution.)

i thought i'd give it a little practice run here, based on a photo i took because i noticed the golden light and the shadows it cast.

small stone ~ golden light, the sweet scent of hyacinth, short winter days mean the light must be embraced when it comes. but the light also embraces - a bobbaloo, a special mushroom, a unicorn and a papier mache head - products of creativity from people i love, bathed in golden light.

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some spectacular photography.

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the r boards on pinterest: rainbows. raw. rest.

when rivers of ideas begin to flow

here's what happened with my green felted stone - in fact, in this shot, it's not even dry yet.  if you recall, i used lisa's stone felting tutorial. and i fussed about worried about over-thought pondered how to make it my own. with a little viking helleristning (petroglyph), i think i managed it. i'm not done with this idea yet.

* * *

i have spent a couple of very energizing days with a friend with whom i feel very much in synch. so many ideas surfaced and best of all, it feels like there is action and impetus behind the ideas, so some of them may even materialize. i had the strangest feeling after we met last friday (what i thought would be a 2-hour meeting turned into 5 because we were so crazy in flow)...it felt like a dam had been released inside me and all of the pent-up ideas and thoughts i had had in recent months just began to surface and tho' they were coming quickly, it feels like it's at a pace where i can grab and examine them. some of them had been there for awhile, but some were entirely new. it was positively elating. it's odd how you can get all blocked and not even realize it until you're not blocked anymore.

* * *

things i'm pondering:

what it might mean to be a social artist

community gardens.

art walls.

* * *

i think my keyboard may be menopausal - the period is getting pretty unpredictable.

sorry. bad joke. couldn't help myself.

* * *

what's your type?

find out here.

apparently i'm architype van doesburg (a brutally fair typeface).

play the game, if only to hear the narrator's awesome accent.

* * *

the p boards on pinterest: patchwork. peacocks. personal style. photos that make me think.

our little molly is growing up

molly apparently missed the "no cats on the table" memo.

* * *

the n boards on pinterest: no boring chairs. no boring lamps.

let the christmas countdown begin

the m boards on pinterest: mushrooms. must learn to crochet (or knit or whatever). must travel.