2025 :: the year in pictures

that old daily photo project continues. i've been doing it more or less since i got that first dslr in singapore in may 2008. i'm clearly not actively trying to improve my photography these days, but more to document my life and help myself remember everything that happens throughout the year. the vast majority of my photos come from my iPhone these days, but i don't mind. i spent a bit of this lazy first day of 2026 looking back at 2025. 

january - the year started off pretty focused on textiles. knitting sophie scarves and weaving tea towels for husand's oldest. there was the weird incident with the swan on the road. i actually tried to scooch him off the road, since he was just sitting there and i feared a car would hit him. we called animal control and they came and instead of taking him away, they humanely put him down, since he apparently had the bird flu! the first swan i ever touch and it had the bird flu. luckily, i didn't get it. 

february - it was a pretty creative month, weaving, knitting, attending a talk with astrid skibsted, expanding my grove of avocado trees to include some lychee trees. we ate too many fastelavnsboller, as usual, but they're so yummy and their time is so fleeting. 

march - i went to arizona for possibly the last time. it was honestly a very nice trip - i celebrated my birthday while i was there and i also visited with family in minneapolis on the way. i did a radio appearance when i got home. and i started planning my first eras tea towels. mazi had her kittens while i was gone. 

april - the first rhubarb, weaving, a loom for the museum, a one day course with  weaving legend winnie poulsen, doing some podcast interviews for work, and a party in the heart of copenhagen. it's funny how you can fill your days with work and creative projects and almost forget that the country of your birth is being dismantled in the most brutal manner. 

may - husband did a heroic humanitarian aid trip to ukraine. the lilacs and the rapeseed were in full bloom. i got two sweet ducks and finished the first batch of taylor swift-inspired tea towels for the lover album. i helped a friend paint her dying sister's casket. it was a most intense day that spanned every emotion - we laughed and cried and laughed again. i got started on the next era - reputation. 

june - was all about 3daysofdesign. the festival itself is only 3 days, but a lot of planning and work went into it. i still found time to make elderflower and rhubarb cordial and finish the reputation tea towels. i got started on my summer weaving project - rainbow sherbet. 

july - the child moved home from arizona and it was so good to have her home. i admit it was a big relief. we had a gathering with friends in the garden, enjoyed the summer produce, and i wove a lot of tea towels.

august - weaving, volunteering at the museum, playing tourist in copenhagen and my first week at a højskole weaving course. it was a good summer and all too short. i did a warp for the next era - speak now - mostly because i had the right colors for it and a plan for what to learn this time (something called color effect)

september - it was time for the child to start her next chapter (a master's program) in lisbon. i joined the noma coffee club and had the best coffee i've ever tasted. the harvests continued and it started to be knitting weather again. and we started up the bracelet production again to prepare for the release of the life of a showgirl. 

october - life of a showgirl came out and the binge listening began. i went to masker i marsken, a knitting festival in højer, and realized i had become an astrid skibsted groupie. i so enjoy her workshops, i get new ideas every time. i started to develop an idea for a weaving project, involving weaving a message into the work in sound waves. i met weaving legend hanne vedel. i created a work for our annual exhibition, using my great grandmother's quilts. we got the coolest floor in our bathroom. 

november - our annual trip to højer with our creative group was a much needed creative break. my sister took amazing photos of the northern lights. i inherited a bunch of art and weaving supplies from the same source as my newest loom. i visited the lærke bagger pop-up at arken and was, as usual, inspired by textiles. i finished a new runner for the kitchen just before hosting our best thanksgiving ever. 

december - felt like a whirlwind. several weekends volunteering at our local museum. then lots of visitors over christmas. i requested that for christmas i wanted to be able to take a bath in our new bathroom upstairs, so husband worked his butt off tiling to make that happen. it makes me very happy. my sister came for christmas (she knitted that awesome sparkly pink scarf i'm wearing in the middle photo!) and some old friends also stopped by for a visit. we continued our tradition of a christmas eve charcuterie board. 

the year felt like a good one from my little corner of it. with everything going on  - war in ukraine, trump and all of his destruction of, well, everything, plus his designs on greenland - it feels a bit strange to say that. but my little corner really was filled with creativity, laughter, good times and people that i love. i'll have some more of that in 2026, please.  

2023 :: a year in pictures

 

january

it seems like january wasn't all that memorable. working from home, a visit to mosegaard museum, frost and snow, lego flowers, the light slowly returning. 

february

lots of work stuff - spent a bit of time in copenhagen. enjoyed signs of spring. still couldn't stop making more avocado plants, which was my corona obsession. ate some good food. did some creative stuff. started planning the garden. 

march

sabin and her friends came for spring break, which was so much fun. went to a coiled basket class, made some yummy cupcakes for my birthday and a fancy charcuterie board for our little creative group's annual meeting. 

april

started spending time in the garden and even harvested the first herbs for a salad, as well as the first ruby stalks for rhubarb that i forced under some black buckets. bought some hoka running shoes, hoping it might make me run. spoiler alert: it didn't. billy the cat came by for his annual visit. he stayed around for several months. 

may

recorded the first episodes of my podcast for work (look for it where you listen - it's called the sociable kitchen). may is always when the canola fields are at their peak and i am here for it. it was also lilac time, which is my favorite time of year. may is also when i started taking wegovy. alas, i didn't do a may selfie, so we'll have to compare the ones that follow with the previous months.

june

june was eventful - a trip to berlin with a friend to visit some old friends of hers, husband ran a half ironman, i spent time in the studio in aarhus and fell in love - it's such a great atmosphere! we started to enjoy the garden. and i got new ducks. we also got a pig, though it was over at our friends' place. 

july

summer was here and that meant berries - strawberry ice cream, black currant jam. my grove of avocado trees thriving in the kitchen window. a visit to an old friend to record a podcast episode. turning my woven rug that weirdly disintegrated from useful object into art. and a new fully electric car for me. 

august

sabin came home and we painted a cactus mural in our bedroom. we went on adventures and ate blts. husband also made the most amazing covered terrace and i did my part by making big cushions for the lounge area. husband helped build a shelter. and milkshake, my white running duck, laid her first egg! mazzie had kittens, despite being a kitten herself. 

september

i started to really feel and see the effects of the wegovy and shedding those extra pounds started to make me feel better. had a pretty traumatic encounter with someone from my creative group, and was much more able to handle it - maybe due to feeling healthier. made loads of cordial and jam with all the yummy things from the garden. dyed some dresses in the indigo dye pot. and visited the danish design museum in copenhagen as research for my work podcast. 

october

spoke at a conference in amsterdam, went to the taylor swift film with work friends, moved into our new bedroom, enjoyed the kittens, went to a book release party and spent a bit of time at trapholt in connection with a new project. i also learned a new thing - pinhole photography. harvested the squash from the garden and went mushroom hunting. 

november

the child was a bit stressed and came home spontaneously for thanksgiving. it was great to see her and help her relax a bit. we painted ceramics together, ate sushi and celebrated thanksgiving with good friends. and we laughed and laughed that evening, which was great for everyone. husband and i went to copenhagen twice because we got the date of our family get-together wrong, but made the best of it by exploring the new park beside the opera. made plans to weave rugs for the bedroom on my friend's loom.

december

down 15 kilos (33 pounds) since starting wegovy and starting to need some new wardrobe items. it makes me so happy. decided to up my gift-wrapping game and made a zillion ornaments with hama beads. it was so relaxing! wore something sparkly every work day of december. it has been a year of ups and downs, but despite the questionable expectations of christmas, it is ending on a good note and overall, while not that eventful, it lands in the positive column. 

2021 :: a second plague year, in pictures

january

it started off ok. a quiet new year's with friends, some baking - homemade sausage rolls, cardamon buns, quite a lot of working from home. we were able to hold a couple of croquis sundays before everything shut down in earnest. we bought a greenhouse on the blå avis and spent a saturday dismantling it and carting it home. and our child turned 20 halfway across the world! so we gave her valentino sneakers in neon pink. as one does.

february

working from home meant my coworkers were mostly lounging around on the bed or staring out the windows. i was jealous of them. we had actual snow and enough cold temperatures so that the lake actually froze and though we oddly didn't skate, we spent a whole weekend down there, enjoying being on the ice, grilling sausages and loving that there was some actual winter. a week later, temperatures were mild, so we dug the foundation for the new greenhouse. i started a 100 days of payne's grey project, but quickly fell behind and abandoned it in a kind of malaise brought on by the monotony of working from home with shitty internet.

march

i bought a bright pink sweater and some ceramics from a local artist to cheer myself up. there were signs of spring. working from home continued and it was nice to live in the countryside to alleviate feeling so confined. making good food and baking were definitely things i chose to do to cope. we finally put the windows in upstairs on the front of the house. i bought an unusual color palette in linen for making a quilt. and check out how badly husband needed a haircut - we fervently hoped for the hairdressers to open again soon!

april

a white papa kitty, who was surprisingly friendly, showed up, signaling the advent of spring in earnest. we found a second greenhouse for only 500kr and moved it home on a trailer via the back roads, rather than totally taking it apart. a lot of april went to working on the greenhouses. i'm not sure i ever got dressed in proper clothes - i may have spent the entire month in sweatpants and a hoodie.

may

things tentatively began to open up and we were able to go back to the office a couple of days a week. i realized that i preferred working at home because the coffee here is much better than the swill that passes for coffee at work. the greenhouses were completed and we planted a few things. weaving at the museum started up again as well, which was very welcome. i attended an embroidery course at the museum in kolding. we hung our spring exhibition, but didn't hold an opening, as larger gatherings still weren't allowed. billy, the prodigal cat, made his annual return (he definitely has another family somewhere) for the summer. the swans built a nest at our end of the lake, but alas, i don't think they ever hatched out any babies. 

june

summer days came - we had a department outing on a colleague's boat, which was on the most perfect sunny day. flowers bloomed, the garden took off and we had our annual sankt hans bonfire. husband ran a 4:18:4 mini triathlon and seems to have been bit by the triathlon bug. i prepared the warp for my crazy striped tea towels and husband worked on the siding on the west side of the house. 

july

i finished the rainbow quilt i had made in early 2020, just in time to give it as a gift to friend's daughter who was graduating. we enjoyed the garden bounty that was the reward of all that hard work on the greenhouses in the spring. i made a second quilt, using the funky linen color palette - planning it as a picnic quilt for my work in the exhibition. we spent all the time we could enjoying the garden. i only took a week off, saving my holiday for a hoped-for november trip to the us.

august

life was essentially back to normal. we were in the office again full time, though we all took days working from home here and there because we had grown accustomed to it. the garden continued to give generously, both veggies and flowers. husband decided to extend the house a couple more meters since he had a new plan for where the stairs should be. an old bloggy friend came to town and explored copenhagen in the rain. husband's eldest ran the copenhagen ironman, which was an absolutely amazing feat of which i am still in awe. i finished the quilt and at our exhibition opening (which was really the closing), i set up a picnic, complete with snacks and cocktails that everyone attending could sample. it was a good month and didn't at all seem like it was in the midst of a plague year.

september

i resolved to grab all the chances i could for creativity, starting with a lovely weekend down in højer with my creative group. it was absolute bliss and i even got a pair of green sandgren sandals in a little shop run by a lovely woman who i believe made up prices for each customer individually. i made an artwork of a focaccia with all kinds of goodness from the garden to take along for sharing and we made quite a lot of linoleum prints while we were there. then, a few days later, i went to fanø for a very enjoyable day with my weaving group. then, our team had a much-needed trip to copenhagen together and went a long ways towards repairing the damage wrought by too many months of working from home and a boss who had gone down with stress. the coffee continued to be much better at home and the garden generously provided flowers for all the vases in the house.

october

i attended a gourmet knitting day where i met some lovely and talented knitters and thoroughly enjoyed the company of women. we saw the latest james bond in a posh theatre with reclining seats - the first film we'd seen in the theatre in several years. a hard frost came and stopped my dahlias in their tracks. i brought the mango plant inside, along with all the avocados that i'd been growing as well. my first sweet potato crop was a bit tiny, but it was fun to try growing them. i'm not sure our climate is warm enough for them. i finished four tea of my crazy striped linen tea towels, in time to take them as gifts to the us. just before we left, i found two kittens i didn't know about in the greenhouse. they were absolutely adorable and we quickly found a new home for them.

november

finally, that longed-for vacation came and we headed for arizona and some sunshine and warmer temperatures. it was a great trip! we went to a sorority gala, the asu-usc football game, we climbed south mountain and we saw the grand canyon and visited sedona. it was so much fun seeing husband see the grand canyon for the first time. back at home, we went to husband's aunt's 90th birthday and i played with shibori in the dye pot twice! once with real indigo. i decided to take a new job in the new year and we put in the windows on the other end of the house. it was yuzu time and i got all that i could and made loads of delicious things with their fragrant goodness.

december

december started with the discovery of a charming little gin bar at halmtorvet and two visits to jah izakaya with colleagues. i find the food there so inspiring and delicious! we did a small belated thanksgiving gathering. husband made me a christmas calendar, giving me a new holey stone every day - he had collected them last summer as he spread stones from a big bag we had ordered in front of the house. when he was doing it, i asked him if he had found any with holes and he laughed at me. but he was secretly saving them to do the christmas calendar. he's a keeper. mid-month, the child came home and that was wonderful. we've been making her favorite foods and taking care of all the things she needed to do - like going to the doctor and getting a pfizer booster to go with her johnson & johnson vaccination. we had a wonderful white christmas with snow on the ground and the most sparkling, beautiful frosty walk. we should have celebrated husband's eldest's 30th birthday on new year's eve, but she got covid and we all had to isolate until we could test negative (we have all tested negative multiple times now). it wasn't the end to the year we expected, but maybe it was fitting anyway. 

* * *

i wasn't going to do a full month-by-month mosaic post, but i found myself perusing the ones from previous years and decided that it's nice to have them to look back upon. so, as always, this one's for me. and what's nice is that as i looked back over the photos and wrote the words here, i realized it may have been a second plague year, but it wasn't really all that bad. 

2021 :: we won't be sad to see you go

a blue-toned photo from each month of 2021 and a selfie that seems to fit the messy hair and the hoodie and sweatpants that were so prevalent this year. 

a selection of 2021's creative output. it came in fits and starts. weaving, cooking, stitching, quilting, lino prints, baking, gardening and dyeing. need more creativity in 2022.

and no year would be complete without the cats and the kittens. we said goodbye to our sweet freya (bottom right) when she got hit by a car. but everyone else is just fine. 

omicron is raging, and betty white died on the last day of 2021, sealing its spot on the worst year ever lists, but let's still hope that 2022 will be better. happy new year, one and all. 

2017 - just the highlights (and a few lowlights)

january - the first weeks were a blur, as i recovered from my trump-induced jaw infection. but i was better just in time to go back to the states and participate in the women's march in washington, d.c. the day after the spray-tanned satan's inauguration. sharing that experience with old friends, husband and the child was unforgettable.

february - coming down from the high of the women's march. it's such a dark month in these northern latitudes, but there was a trip to the uk to do a bit of reconnaissance for later film shoots. i also gathered the girls for a much-needed drink & draw evening. since for me, it's really about the food, i made homemade ramen. yum.

march - brussels for a few days, showing off our lego ship in front of the european parliament during european shipping week. a bit of quality molly time in the greenhouse. i popped down to the shipyard in germany where we were building two new ferries. i had a bit of time for creativity - making soft guns for our spring exhibition with the theme of paradox. oh, and i might have turned fifty.

april - the child went to prom, the garden went in, we had rhubarb coming out of our ears, and we did a grueling three-country shoot for a video. while we were waiting, we managed some fish & chips in cleethorpe, a rather traditional little seaside english village that tasted slightly of faded glory and sadness.

may - probably the most action-packed month, as you can see from the mosaic. two weeks in the us, doing major cleaning in our mother's house - there were tears and laughter (that was just spreading dad's ashes in some of his favorite places), a reunion with old greenie, dad's boat, that my sister bought back for $100, kayaking with mom and a hurried trip to a doctor to have a throat abscess drained (no photo of that, thank goodness) just in time to fly home to denmark. back home, the first kittens awaited us, along with the garden and glorious yellow canola fields. there was even time for a weekend project - painting an old chest with the wonderful annie sloan chalk paints. and i tried the fabulous gasoline grill burger for the very first time. simply the best burgers in the world, hands down.

june - a yoga retreat, mark-marking, a reunion with old friends, gardening, seeing lea thau, my favorite podcaster speak at the royal library, wildflowers in the ditches, gorgeous kittens and the first meals from the garden - potatoes, strawberries, swiss chard and kale. yum! spotting some perler-bombing in copenhagen and lifting the world's largest lego ship down into the dry dock at the maritime museum of denmark. in all, pretty eventful and good.

july - a holiday in lithuania - it's a hidden gem in europe, i tell you. highly recommend! then home to berries - blackcurrants and red - and kittens growing up and more kittens being born. and a blissful three-day ceramics course with the fabulous nina lund. my hole-y rock collection grew and i found a creative way of displaying it on a rusty old piece of wire i found and there was yet another trip to film in the uk.

august - filming the lifting of some seriously big objects and working with an awesome team. then back home to the garden in full swing. a kickoff trip for a new team sailing back and forth to oslo - pretty cool when you get to use your ship as a meeting room. then MORE kittens - this time, charlie had six - that was too many and so we resolved it would be her last batch. a wonderful weekend getaway with my creative friends down in højer, a new-to-me corner of denmark - it rejuvenated my soul after a rainy, cold summer. and lastly, a wonderful visit from an old friend who we met when we were in macedonia.

september - bob is growing up so fast. i prepared for an exhibition of my photos at the local library. we visited hjerl hede, a museum with examples of houses through time on a rare nice late summer day. a return to the yoga mat after too long an absence. quality cat time. a trip to the beach with another lego friend. some pretty regular work in my art journal, which i took up again after the retreat at the end of august. and some autumn flowers from the garden. and rounding out the month winning a european digital award in berlin for our lego ship project. awesome, except for the 12 hours it took to drive back from berlin.

october - the leaves started to fall. but there was time for some sunny days in the garden in the company of my garden kitties, molly and her granddaughter bella. the first of the amanitas. an apple tart. time spent reconnecting with old friends (and bunnies), some additions to the wardrobe, enjoying the comfort of kittens after slicing my finger on a french press that exploded in my hands and sent me to the emergency room for six stitches. more quality time with cats. and another reunion with an old friend who gave a wonderful lecture on creativity. it occurs to me that this may have been the year of reuniting with old friends! that's a rather magical realization of putting together this end-of-year look back.

november - husband ran for the city council, as a member of a new party. alas, he didn't get in, but he learned a lot from the campaign and he showed that he's not just going to complain about the politics, but do something about it. there was much time spent with the best batch of kittens we've ever had - frannie outdid herself with these lovelies. but now they've all gone to their new homes and are being loved there. a tiny little project was worked on, but more about that in the new year. gemma and gretchen - it was hard parting with them, but i can't keep all the kitties.

december - the darkest, rainiest, coldest month. but still there was joy - in the form of a whimsical monkey from skinny laminx, a hilarious "welcome" mat, handmade gifts to myself (earrings, a candle holder inspired by some primitive church paintings, sweet little wonky blue pots), an irresistible seasonal highlighter from chanel, learning how to make flødeboller and a lot of time spent in the center of copenhagen, working on a passion project that's also part of my job. for my christmas present, husband made great progress in the kitchen and we actually cooked out there on new year's eve! love the orla kiely wallpaper we chose for the backsplash! and just before christmas, we went out and chose a tree - bickering all the way, as per tradition.

when i think about it, 2017 seemed hard - i think because of the relentless awfulness of the madman at the helm. it wasn't a year in which i slept all that well. but when i look back at it like this, in pictures (and yes, i'm still taking a daily photo, tho' most were with my iPhone this year), it was also filled with joy and laughter and pleasure - much more than i realized. i bid it farewell with more affection than i thought i would. and greet 2018 with open arms. happy new year!