age is just a number

sometimes i forget my age. in a physical sense, i feel it's what it is and yes, i'm 56. on a mental level, i feel nowhere near that. and which one counts? one, the other, both? i have no idea. i want to wear sparkly things and pretty shoes and plenty of highlighter. and at the same time, comfy sneaks and sweatpants and a hoodie are fine. what is age anymore anyway? we're expected to work into our 70s, but workplaces already write us off in our 50s, especially if you happen to be a woman. i'm more digital and plugged into what's happening in the world (chatGPT) and especially on tiktok (i'm looking at you, wes andersen trend) than many of my colleagues who are young enough to be my children. where does it leave me? age is both a reality and to some extent a social construct. 

i'm thinking about this because it occurred to me that it was around the age i am now that my mother was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. and one of the consequences of growing older is that it's hard to keep weight off. a long, dark, rainy winter didn't help that. so i went to the doctor for a check-up and i've asked for ozempic. i have to jump a few more hoops (blood tests, etc.), which are fair enough, but i expect to get it. 

i went to a running shop this week and bought new running shoes. i'll probably mostly walk in them, at least at first, but i'm also going to work on that. the guy in the shop was super kind to me. i even got on a treadmill and he assessed my running style (i told him i wasn't currently a runner), and made sure i got the right shoes. this is now known as no excuse. i'm even listening to born to run by christopher mcdougall, not because i expect to be an ultrarunner, but because it's inspiring. and it makes running sound like such a natural thing that we humans are supposed to do.

speaking of natural things humans are supposed to do, i'm so eager to get all the plants into the ground in the garden. we will still have frost some nights, so i'm going to try to restrain myself, but i am so eager to get everything planted. trying to be content with preparing the beds this weekend and then planting everything next weekend. we'll see how that goes...

ten glorious days off stretch ahead

...and man do i need them. and i also really need an old-fashioned blog post, where i just sit down to write and see what comes out my fingers. because that's the best way to make sense of it all. and much of it doesn't make sense. weird decisions, or lack thereof. good people being fired for crappy/nonexistent/unbelievable reasons. colleagues behaving badly. or strangely, or out of character, no doubt because they see their bonuses slipping away in a changed economy. people being asked to take on more work. way more work. like a whole additional job within a job. and no additional pay. and no appreciation or understanding for how much work it is. people going down with stress. because no wonder. 

sometimes i wonder if we're all still behaving like we're in kindergarten because that's where we all learned how to behave? i have more thoughts, but they're not coming out my fingers. hopefully they will over the next few days. maybe a g&t the size of my head will help. 

playing around with midjourney

we need a poster for our upcoming spring exhibition. the theme is totem and so i decided to check out the midjourney ai to help me make some totems for the poster. i ran out of my free trial way too early. what an amazing tool. 

satisfying my inner ship geek

i've been in copenhagen for a few wonderful days. i was working with some of the most creative people in denmark and i get to keep doing so! what more could a girl ask? a little walk along the quayside at nordhavn. i encountered this rather rusty barge and remembered all the beauty of rusty metal. in all, a very wonderful few days. 

i can't stop growing avocado plants

 

please ignore all the dirt at the base of these, the kitten has been busy.

like many people during corona, i became a little bit obsessed with one thing in particular. growing avocado plants. i was ordering gorgeous boxes of buttery avocados from freshland and after seeing a tiktok (naturally), i started saving the seeds and trying to get them to sprout. i remember trying as a child, with three toothpicks stuck into the seed, suspending the pit over a glass of water. i don't think it ever worked, but tiktok had a better way. 

you soak the pit for a couple of days in water, then peel off the brown outer skin. then you wrap it up in a damp paper towel, stick it in a ziploc bag and ignore it for a month or so. after about a month, it should have sprouted a little root like this one. and then it's time to suspend it over water.

i collected old milk bottles in thrift stores, as they work perfectly for this and you don't have to do the pit any violence with toothpicks. you just fill it as full as you can and make sure the tiny little root can touch the water. 

i had five pits that had sprouted (and yes, i might have an equal number that are still nestled in their damp paper towel), so i set them on the window sill in the kitchen to sprout. the root will grow a bit more and then a little nub of the tree will sprout out and its leaves will begin to unfold. 

once they're well-established and have really good roots (i neglected to photograph that part), they're ready to be potted. i had five from late last summer that we were ready to pot last weekend and it was warm enough out in the sunny greenhouse to spend a bit of time getting them potted up. 

i have quite a few bigger plants from the ones i did that first year of corona. they're thriving and all have lovely new leaves forming at the top, as they sense the light returning. they're on various window sills all over the house. they make a nice gift when you're invited to a birthday or just as a hostess gift. they're quite easygoing. i give mine a good watering once a week and they all seem to be thriving. in our climate, i don't ever expect to be able to plant them out (though who knows, with climate change), nor do i really expect that they'll ever produce avocados. someone told me on instagram that they wouldn't, but i'm not so sure. all i know is that it's a little obsession that i quite enjoy.

i even drew some and made avocado plant prints last weekend during our printmaking course. it just feels somehow magical, getting a whole live plant from the pit of an avocado that i ate on toast. 

scenes from a weekend

what a weekend. one of my work besties was let go on friday. it was such a shock and i felt so badly for her that i didn't sleep that well on friday night. but it got better on saturday - i went with a friend to moesgaard museum, a sort of extension of the danish national museum, near aarhus. only it's much better. their exhibits present bog people and pottery shards and bits of gold and bronze dug up from the ground in a new light. literally - the exhibits are lit so well. it's actually quite dark in the museum and then well-placed light shines directly on the objects, highlighting them perfectly. we had lunch there as well, then went for a walk on a nearby beach.

this iron age bog man - grauballemanden - looks more well-lit than he actually is thanks to my phone's light compensation. he's really wonderfully displayed - in a circular room, with very subtle light, which feels quite like a sanctuary. you can sit on the bench and contemplate him. instead of feeling like some kind of exploitation of someone who has no choice in the matter, it feels like a reverent and respectful space. 

husband managed to find someone who was giving away a greenhouse if you were willing to take it down yourself, so we spent sunday morning dismantling our new greenhouse. it's one that had plastic panels, rather than glass, and they were extremely fragile and sun-damaged. but we're going to cover it in netting and use it for growing brassicas and hopefully keeping away those pesky caterpillars that eat up all the leaves in the late summer. 

the wind is rising outside and in the coming week, it will already be february. interesting to see what it brings. 

she's feeling 22!

the child is 22! she spent the day painting this painting for herself. she sent pictures of dinner with a big group of friends.  happy, beautiful, creative, smart, working and studying hard, thriving and surrounded by friends. we really couldn't ask for more. i miss her, but she's exactly where she needs to be. i'm so happy that she's living her best life.