can we get a do-over on 2020?

for several years, i've bought arctic paper's lovely calendar. one year, i think it was 2018, i actually wrote a little snippet of my day in it every single day of that year, keeping a kind of diary, though it was mostly lists and trips and what i did that day, not anything deep or philosophical. still, it was the record of a busy life. i did write intentions for every week on the page for the week, which felt like a meaningful practice, even if i didn't always keep them. it featured beautiful paper that explored the changing light and colors throughout the year, so it had a kind of rainbow theme to it. the words at the beginning were a beautiful musing on time. "time is months, weeks, hours, minutes and seconds. time is seasons. seasons are light. light is a guide through time." it was so fitting for a calendar.

they work with different design schools around europe and have young people design the calendars and they're always printed on arctic paper's own beautiful papers. it's a pleasure to page through them and write in them. this year's was no different. it is a moon-themed agenda entitled "the day begins at midnight" and was designed by students from école estienne's graphic design and art direction students. i assume that's somewhere in france.

it's really gorgeous and i love the words at the beginning, especially since i always consider myself a night person, not a morning one...(capital letters removed by me):

the day begins at midnight, when creativity knows no boundaries.
more than an aesthetically attractive calendar,
we wanted to design something that makes us challenge
our traditional perception of time and creativity.
by visually highlighting night-time in imagery
through its content, this agenda wants us to reconsider 
our notion of the day.

because extraordinary things happen in our minds at night.
we know our subconscious is active when we sleep.
and we know that some people need to relax simply
to get their ideas flowing. some even find that they are
more creative at night, whether asleep or awake
creativity knows no boundaries, not in place, nor in time.

but here, as we embark on the second to last month of 2020, which has already been pretty eventful, i find i must admit that i never used this calendar at all. i didn't write a single thing in it. it's still pristine and beautiful - blank and awaiting words or drawings or doodles, the recording of a life. and i didn't record a single word of this crazy, mad year. it's almost like this clean, beautiful calendar represents a pristine do-over of 2020, just waiting to happen. 2020, between the covers of this journal, is unblemished, unmarred by oafish, spray-tanned, clownish, embarrassing presidents, and deadly viruses, and killer hornets. it's full of potential trips to exotic places, new experiences and even scratched-down notes of wonderful meals made and eaten, friends seen, laughs laughed. in its very blankness, it's full of potential. potential for a do-over of this mad, terrible year. maybe that's what we most need right here and now. or maybe we just need this damn year to be over already. 

i'll order a new calendar from arctic paper when they release it in a few weeks. and let's cross our fingers that things get better in 2021.

an agreement among girls

a

in a bubble

it seems that in the 4th grade, there is a lot of focus on the social competencies of the girls. any signs of mean girlness are being nipped in the bud. and it can only be a good thing.  i don't think our child is one of the mean girls, but it can be hard to tell.  today, the girls in her class all drafted and signed the following agreement. it's a bit of a 4th grade girl manifesto...

being a girl in grade 4

we know that we feel best and most comfortable and happiest among the girls in our classroom when...

  ~ everyone can play together, across all lines

~ everyone can play together and be good friends

~ nobody is teased or pushed out

~ nobody is ignored

~ an agreement is an agreement

~ we are careful about too many groups

~ we don't talk behind people's backs or gossip about one another, 

but speak properly and directly to one another.

~ we don't send dumb SMSes that can easily be misunderstood

agreement entered into by the girls of grade 4, february 22, 2011:

~ everyone can play together

~ nobody will sit alone when we play, without being asked if they want to join in

~ everyone must be active and try to participate in the play

~ we have to listen carefully to what is said when we make agreements and speak to one another

~ we have to say no with care

~ we will try not to say no during school hours

~ make proper playdates after school and be open to those who come and ask

~ be very careful about playdates (write them in a calendar)

~ take care not to double book playdates

~ teachers can and should talk to the girls about who we will play with and what we will play

* * *

although encouraging fourth graders to keep their appointments written in a calendar worries me slightly, after the tales i recently heard of bullying in the classrooms of the suburbs of chicago, i am very happy that the school takes such a strong stance on bullying. there's nothing worse than mean girls, unless it's mean girls with a packed calendar. 

assorted arbness and some links to good stuff

i bought a 2013 calendar today. i haven't actually had a paper, real calendar in several years, but i found i wanted one. the electronic version i carry in my phone just isn't the same. maybe i was just feeling old school, but whatever it is, it feels right to start penciling (and i am using pencil) onto the smooth paper. what about you - do you have a real, paper calendar or just an electronic one?

* * *

normally i think mindfulness is a load of fluffy crap, but some of the advice in this post spoke to me.

and i always make my bed.

in fact, i start making it even before i get out of it.

* * *

literature makes you weird. and amen to that.
anything that makes us think outside of our accustomed modes of thought is most welcome.

* * *

interesting piece on etsy on npr (and also on wired). i have my doubts as to how well they actually "investigate" those sellers selling chinese crap. and we know they don't do anything about copycats. and don't even get me started on what they allow as "vintage." and the former CEO's quote about "curating his entire life with handmade" made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. i basically have trouble reconciling the hipster idealism with the actual practice on the site - empty plastic child's paint sets sold as "vintage" and rustic furniture churned out in a factory in indonesia. i'm not convinced that etsy is the answer.

just another rainy sunday in june

raindrops on the terrace roof.
a special quality of light - summer light, even tho' it's cloudy.
it has a greenish cast to it, as the trees drink in the needed rain.
kittens racing around, tumbling.
a mug of steaming tea and a fresh, light bun slathered in butter.
a moment of quiet contentment. 
the day hasn't yet really begun.

i need this moment.

the days start to feel busy, rushing headlong into one another.

as my calendar fills up.

in a good way, as the projects are now of my own choosing.

a photo class for kids at the library.

helping shape a new school.

writing about travel.

editing a book.

sharing a bit of my culture.

being part of creating new surroundings for the culture where i live.

just being more solidly where i am.

and always time with a horse.

it's the healthiest time.

and the greatest gift you can give your child.

because you can't fool a horse.

it knows if you're scared.

or if you're trusting.

or if you're bluffing.

they can just see right through to you.

the real you.

you can't hide from a horse.

and as always, dreaming of what's next.

a refuge in the garden.

a long, narrow, rustic building,

where the light floods in from windows along both sides.

but a safe, dark cocoon in which to work at one end.

and room for a long table.

where we could have meetings,

and not be ashamed to invite people from outside.

reshaping what an office means.

i'm unused to a full calendar.

and that means i mess things up sometimes.

like yesterday, when we showed up for a wedding at 2 p.m.

and found out it had started at 1 p.m.

and all that was left at the church was the rice on the ground.

i was very surprised and a little embarrassed.

but i find myself laughing about it now.

if you throw a whole lot of balls up in the air,

you're bound to drop a couple of them.

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.

reflections on the february daily art journal

click on this mosaic to see the whole set on flickr.

here it is, my mosaic of all of the pages of my february art journal calendar. this is such an interesting process. here in february, i've been less religious about sitting down and doing a page every single day, so there are many which stretch across two pages, because i didn't do them until the second day, thereby giving myself more space. i'm finding that works a bit better for me.

here are the close-ups of the second half of february. the first half is here.

february 15 - doodlings on a heavily embroidered dress seen in jean-paul gaultier's haute couture show

february 16 - sketch of the inkle loom that we bought  for sabin to weave ribbon on at our beloved randbøldal museum.

 february 17 18 - experimenting with monoprinting

i scribbled a thick layer of pastels on an ordinary sheet of paper and then laid it against the page and drew on it. it was fun!

 february 19 - cutting up one of those free postcards

february 20 - more monoprinting, this time a spillover from the soujournal project

february 21 - 22 a doodle a bit inspired by these, seen on flickr,

but with my own motifs. 

this was the first time when i sat down with the calendar and didn't know what to do.

and i think that shows.

as you can see, the past few days, after elizabeth (aka my zen master) sent me a link to a wonderful artist named shannon rankin, i played with some maps and really found my groove. expect more map stuff in the near future. it was well-timed, because husband had just cut up a map to aid him in our property search and so i had some extra bits of map at my disposal. sometimes cutting into such things is hard for me, but since it had already been cut, i had no inhibitions.

february 23 - 24 thinking about redrawing maps

these are places that have been important to me.

but i shuffled them at will. that was liberating.

february 25 - 26  driving around, looking at 8 farm places had me spending a lot of time with maps over two days. i found myself wondering which road would lead to our new home.

february 27-28 - fragments of a topography

maps in general interest me - topographies and mapping and drawing and tracing the topography of a life. that's what we're going to do in moving, we're going to redraw our internal maps. i got a bit of a start on it here at the end of february.

i still don't have a clear idea where this project is taking me. but combined with the soujournal project, i'm doing a lot of art journaling this year and that seems like a good thing. in fact, it seems so good, i've been pondering ways of sharing it.

so i'm putting together an online art journaling course. at first it was only in my mind, but now it's spilled onto the page a bit and i've even begun to make up packets of pretty papers for it. i'm still at the planning stage, but i'd love to know if you'd be interested in taking an online art journaling course and coming to explore this medium with me? please email me with any ideas you have about this - what you'd like to do in such a course, how you'd like to interact with the other participants, thoughts on materials and the like.

and don't forget to check out my fabulous new orange coat below. it was totally worth breaking the year of not buying things. :-)

getting a slow start on christmas

i've been wrapping sabin's calendar presents one at a time, but today i finally pulled myself together and wrapped the rest of them and put them into a stocking for her. i hadn't been that good at wrapping every day and she actually got to open 3 this morning. i don't know what it is, but the christmas spirit has been slow to arrive this year.

the storm blew down a rather fetching stick and i brought it inside and hung a few ornaments on it and hung it up in the entryway. it's not the most inviting room in the house, despite being the one we all step into when we arrive. this surprisingly helps quite a lot.

we don't have our big tree up yet, but despite today's steady drizzle, husband and sabin went out and found a little one for her room and cut it down. it smells wonderful and it does make for a very warm, cozy atmosphere.

sabin and i decorated it together. her calendar presents are a daily ornament this year, so she'll keep decorating right up 'til christmas. the cats were pretty excited about it as well. i hope they're going to leave it alone. it was a good way to spend a rainy, dreary sunday - indoors, getting into the christmas spirit.

week 1: art journal calendar

the sunny side - 4th attempt at free-form embroidery on my sewing machine! i'm loving it!!

it's week one of daily working in my little moleskine art journal calendar and i made it through with motivation intact. in fact, most days, i had to restrain myself from doing more than one page and thus far, i have done that, because part of the exercise was to develop a daily practice of drawing or painting or other artsy endeavors in the same place. to work ahead would be to let myself off the hook another day and while i'm not saying that i may not eventually do that, i'm not ready to do so yet.

so i hereby give you what i've got so far:

january 1-2, 2010

january 3 - 4, 2010

january 5 - 6, 2010

the swedish stamp was from a package i got from kristina that day.

it's a ski jump (i think), so i painted it a little mountain.

january 7 - 8, 2010

the little viking ship stamp i carved myself from an eraser.

and the robot is one of my first attempts at free-form embroidery with my sewing machine.

close up of the robot.
i just glued him onto the page.

i've noticed a few things as i'm doing this:

: : the lines aren't bothering me like i was afraid they would.

: : i feel an obsessive need to date each one, despite the fact that it goes on a page with the date on it.

: : and i want to write where i was when i did the page. i guess that's something i've done in my written journals for years as well, even down to recording hotel room numbers in hotels around the world. i wonder why i feel a need to do that?

: : watercolors are my medium of choice at the moment.

: : i am LOVING the free-form embroidery, even if the little owl i did first looks like it was vomited up by a cat.

the vomit owl

thanks spud for that name. :-)

character sketches

i find the best way to get out my frustrations from meetings is through writing character sketches. i figure they'll come in handy if when i write a novel about this peyton place (isn't every small town a peyton place?) where i live. writing these gives me the anthropologic distance i lack when i'm in the midst of the situation and allows me to return to a place where i have a cool head. probably the worst feeling of all in the midst of the actual situation is feeling that because i speak with an accent, some (but not all) of the players involved talk down to me, as if i'm a small dull child and don't understand. as you can see from the sketches below, i understand very well.

the tender manager: officious, arrogant, condescending, pedagogical and more than a bit self-satisfied. yet underneath, there is that insecurity that often comes from being a woman in a man's world - it leaks through in the mannish haircut, the abrupt manner, the defensiveness when legitimate questions are asked. in order to be accepted in the man's world, chooses to use archaic, anti-feminist, degrading characterizations of women to describe things - along the lines of calling them a flock of hens and such. despite being tasked to listen to the group and speak for the group (in writing), simply writes what she wants herself, bullying it through under the guise of technical and legal jargon (that upon further examination is neither technical nor legal, just not what the group thinks is important). allows her personal preoccupations to shine through, tho' the project technically belongs to others and the end product will not be used by her. furthermore, she has a strange aversion to the word "sustainability."

the project manager: ruled by the gods of the calendar. both loves and thrives on being able to prove how busy (and therefore important) she is by how many meetings are packed in, especially if they extend after normal working hours and to the weekends. may actually secretly (and even visibly if you're observing carefully) have a small orgasm right there out of the pure delight of filling her calendar with meetings, preferably months out into the future.

the secretary: a little sheepish about being secretary of the whole thing, because he is, after all, a man. the women's world of the public sector has rendered him emasculated and a bit defensive when any questions are asked of him. he is quiet and well-behaved, tamed, like a obedient dog.

there will undoubtedly be more to come...

writing is the new praying: non-resolutions for 2010

i'm not super big on new year's resolutions, at least not the traditional kind--you know, exercise more, get more rest, eat healthy, lose weight, run a marathon, stop drinking wine - all that stuff. but during 2009, one of my resolutions was to carry a camera with me at all times and if i can count my iPhone, i did, in fact, achieve that. i also vowed to create at least 100 things and i have also achieved that (photographic evidence of the last few coming soon). in my private, written journal, i declared that i wanted to be a blogger blog of note and that happened in 2009 as well.  so in the interest of writing as the new praying, there are a few things i'm going to do during 2010.

1.) the main thing i intend to do involves these gorgeous moleskine calendar notebooks i scored last month at norli bookstore in oslo. inspired by these beautiful journals by cathy cullis that i saw on flickr, i decided that i want to do mini art journaling in these calendar journals. i also love these. and these beauties by geninne. i know that mine will land somewhere in between and somewhere more me, but it's something i feel motivated to stick with. the small size of these and the fact that there's a different color for each month makes me think i can stay interested. the only drawback is that they have faint lines, but i'm hoping that i can deal with that, tho' normally i feel constricted by lines.

2.) i'm going to embark on a 365 photo project. i haven't selected a flickr group and i'm not sure i'm going to (unless some of you are interested in starting one with me? - do let me know and i'll create it). i very nearly did this in 2009 as it was, but i'm thinking it would be good for me to push through my current lack of photo mojo if i gave it a whirl.

3.) the simplicity project - as you know, we are planning on being very selective about what we buy during 2010 here at our house.  thanks to a great suggestion by glenn, i'm going to keep myself posted/accountable/focused on this quest by sharing a weekly "what i didn't buy" blog with all of you.

4.) a book contract. i want a book contract in 2010.



so there you have them, my three main resolutions that i'm hesitant to call resolutions for 2010. what about you?

random thoughts in an airport

sitting in the airport, waiting to fly home and these are the things crossing my mind:

1. my flight is in 30 minutes and there's still no gate
2. why is SAS not obsessively texting me about this?
3. hearing danish spoken near me and feeling the comforting feeling of home(!) (?)
4. laughing to myself as i remember husband's struggle to think of the name of this airport (gardermoen)...something like "kæmpe lufthavn lavet ude af træ" or something to that effect
5. how strikingly different company cultures can be
6. what a pleasure it is to work with people who want to share what they're working on and talk about it and discuss it, because they assume that those around them have something to offer that's of value to their work
7. how many flights to stockholm does one need per hour?
8. what a pleasure it is to work for someone who is truly a visionary person as well as a good leader
9. how happy it makes me to see my travel calendar filling up
10. how much i adore bookbinder's design's beautiful binders and journals
11. it's time for a new blog header
12. i'm looking forward to being home

well, it seems there's suddenly a gate and i should proceed to it.

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.

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.