#700 and advice on getting there

photo adapted from an idea by marathoner81 

thank you for the inspiration!

i love the suggestions you guys came up with and i will be using some of them (yes, including a helleristning stone giveaway, HRH TFM that was a good idea) in the coming days, but what i thought i'd do today actually isn't really in the comments (i said i was going to be dictatorial about this). but i do thank you all very much for giving me some great ideas and you will see them coming to a blog post near you very soon.

since BoN hit me a little over a month ago, i've had a number of quite a few people email me to ask for blogging advice. how i got started, what i do to stay motivated (P&P asked some of this in her suggestion below), how to go about it, how often to post--a whole range of questions. just this morning, gypsyfeet, a blogging newbie who is a canadian living in korea (cool!) emailed me and asked for some advice. then it hit me that THAT was what i should write about for my 700th post.

i know you regulars don't really need any advice and i'm not sure i really have anything worth saying on this topic, since i've really no clue what i'm doing, i just keep doing it. however, i won't let those doubts stand in my way, it's just that i wanted to give you the chance to skip to other posts or another blog at this time because this may not apply to you.

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background

i created this blog in 2004. i had just been wrongfully fired from microsoft (as my lawyer ended up proving, but which i knew from the moment it happened) by my total crap hack insecure middle-level fargo-based manager. my original intent was to expose the middle layer of management fat around microsoft's middle (i'm sure it's still there and likely still needs exposing) and it made me feel good to create the blog.

at first, the blog was closed to the world--i wasn't naming MS by name b/c my case was pending and i didn't want to jeopardize it. what i ended up writing about was how i felt about being fired and my subsequent search for a new job. then i got a new job and i was really busy and i didn't post at all during 2005 and 2006. towards the end of 2007, i was feeling really tired and burned out and wrote a few posts again. it was also at that point that i opened up the blog, thinking no one would find it anyway, so what did that hurt. then it hit me that my job was actually killing me and my relationships and my family life and so i left it at the end of 2007. i decided then that blogging would be a way to heal and find my way back to myself.

i've always written journals and used journaling as a way of thinking things through and helping me sort out the world around me. my need to do that after leaving the stressful job was great and this little blogger compose space just spoke to me, so i started channeling those musings through the keyboard rather than writing them out in journals. i found it was an easier way of being sure that i wrote every day--which had also been a longtime goal that i had never really been able to fulfill. i type fast and so i could get the thoughts down faster anyway. whatever it was, the blog as a medium clicked for me.

so i wrote happily along, trying to find my way back to myself and especially to my creativity and my family and well, my life. i also started reading a lot of blogs. i lurked, because i didn't really know how the whole commenting thing worked and it seemed like all those people commenting knew each other and i just felt like an outsider. i also was in a process of working out what i liked and what spoke to me, so i favorited a lot of blogs in different categories and visited them regularly, but quietly. i doubt any of them knew i was there. some of them i still occasionally check in on, but for the most part, i'm not really actively reading the same blogs today that i was then (that's mostly because i've moved on from the scrapbooking thing).

in mid-march 2008, around my birthday, i got my first comment. i was astounded that someone had found me as i seriously never imagined anyone finding me or reading what i was writing. i was writing instead of going to therapy and just enjoying it for the act of it and for myself. so i was totally surprised how cool it was that someone left a comment. that someone was the elementary. she writes lovely, thoughtful posts and can turn absolutely any tiny detail into a totally delightful story with a life lesson attached. she's wonderful.

getting a comment on my blog gave me the courage to comment on some of those blogs i was reading. and it turned out that then those people came to visit me and suddenly a few more were commenting and it started to feel like a community with friends. to this day, i still don't feel worthy of commenting on a blog like hula seventy, so it can be that you'll feel that way too. but maybe it's just me. and it can cut you off from wonderful people--for example, for the longest time i felt unworthy to comment on paris parfait, but tara is one of the most generous, wonderful bloggers i know. all it took was that i finally had the courage to leave her a comment.

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the medium

i love the blog as a medium. i think it affords the opportunity to be all over the place and explore different genres. one of the early comments after BoN hit me was, "i love your blog, but i don't know what it's about." i felt like, "yes, success!" you see, that's precisely what's cool about the genre of blog (if it indeed is a genre, i'm on the fence about that--i think it's becoming one)--it's anything and everything you want it to be. but, from my point of view, it's above all personal. so my advice (and it is advice, not rules, i don't think there are really rules to blogging) will reflect this--i'm not advising you how to sell your etsy stuff (as if i know anything about that) or find customers for your interior design business or photography studio or create a blog where you post tutorials of crafty stuff. all of my advice is about blogging as a personal expressive tool--gypsyfeet called it my "thinking out loud" style this morning and i think that's an apt description. so this is my advice for thinking out loud. :-)

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the advice

1. be real, if you're bummed out, say so. if you're elated, share it. people will see through it in a minute if you're not real. that annoying blog that made me hate the word "rad" is so thoroughly and completely fake sappy sweet that it makes me want to throw up. and i'm certain it's all an act because that shines clearly through in all of the vapid self-portraits that are used in every post. and i refuse to link to it here so that you are spared and to avoid sending any visitors her way.  instead, i'll give you a link to a new blog i found recently of someone who i think is blogging in a very real way and i love that! go read marinik's blog, her husband has cancer and is dying and she's writing about it so beautifully and so authentically, i'm amazed.
   
2. go out and read a lot of blogs, when you find one that speaks to you, click on their blog favorites because chances are it will lead you to more blogs that you'll like.
3. don't be afraid of leaving a comment--but leave an honest comment--if they moved you or made you laugh or even pissed you off--say so (politely, articulately), but don't just say, "nice blog." and leave a link to yours. i never ever click those links, but if someone leaves me a sincere comment, i always click on their profile and have a look at their blog. it's really about being real again, just like in #1.
4. by being real, i don't mean that you have to expose real names of your family members and such--i refer to husband as husband because that's what we all call him, but i know some people say spouse or hubby or kid #1 (please don't say kidlet, that's just wrong, but of course, it's a choice and you're welcome to make it) or whatever because they want to protect their privacy. that's totally cool and doesn't mean you're not being real.
5. it's up to you to decide how often you want to post. i post every day because that's part of what i want with blogging--i want to write on a daily basis. but one of the very best blogs i've ever read and which i read religiously is truth cycles and hele posts only once in awhile, as the spirit moves her. i'm sure i'm not the only one who wishes she would post every day, but that's not her way of blogging and every one of her posts is worth the wait, so whenever a new one pops into my reader, i rush to read her first. what's interesting is that i don't always comment the first time, her posts merit careful thought and i often go back to post a comment later.
6. use great photos. i have come to the point where i would almost call myself a photographer (don't worry bill, i won't actually do it ;-)) and i can tell you that if you look back at my early posts, that was not the case. i bought my nikon D60 in early may last year and my photos have steadily improved since then.
7. carry a little notebook with you to scribble blog ideas in. whenever i'm out, i see half a dozen things i want to blog about later. for this reason, i don't go anywhere without my camera or my little blog notebook. and i mean nowhere. they come to the grocery store with me, just in case.
8. if you see a blog post you love on someone else's blog--be it a list or writing in reaction to a particular question or quote--write your own version and link back to the person who inspired you. inspiration is viral in the blogosphere, but do give credit where credit is due. it's not nice to steal people's words and ideas.
9. try out other voices. write in the 3rd person once in awhile. write a fairy tale. i never do poetry, but lots of people do to good effect. the medium allows you the freedom to try out all kinds of things.
10. listen to what people say in the comments. i've been amazed, especially of late, at how reactions to various posts were very different than what i had imagined they would be. i thought i was being really funny with my snow white post and people found it to be a sad little tale. i hadn't seen it that way at all, but could totally see what they meant after i got that reaction. listening to the feedback you get in the comments can totally help you grow as a writer.
11. i love to change my blog header regularly. it makes me happy.
12. don't go too nuts with the gadgets in the sidebar. (i know, i don't follow this well enough myself. but i do try to avoid things that are flashing or have too much distracting motion.) the star of your blog is your blog posts. there are tons of awesome free blogger templates out there to help you be creative and display the things you want to display.
13. this is a personal preference, but i really don't like those music players that trigger music automatically when i visit a blog. you don't really know where people are when they're reading your blog. maybe it's late at night and their baby has just gotten to sleep and they click to your page and music blares out and wakes the baby. or they're at work and don't want to broadcast to the world that they're reading blogs. put the player on, fine, but don't have it trigger the music automatically. or share your playlist in another way--i've seen blogs with changing "listening to now" lists. that's cool and i've discovered a lot of great music that way, so i love people sharing their favorite music, i just want to be able to play it on my own terms.
14. answer your comments. i don't always have time these days, but i try to, especially on the "important" posts or on a post where i wanted a dialogue about the topic. if there's an email address on the comment, i often answer directly to the person. sometimes i indulge in these (perhaps annoying if one has subscribed to comments or if one feels left out) IM conversations, which are an occasional bit of fun. i love that whenever i comment on magpie's blog, she always answers directly to me. it makes me feel recognized and worthy and like a friend. mary and meri both do that too. and i think that's way cool.
15. if you don't feel like posting, don't post. everyone goes through periods where you just feel a lack of motivation. there's nothing that says you MUST post something--it's really totally and completely up to you. that's the beauty of blogging, it's totally subject to your whims.

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the conclusion

i write for a living in addition to all this blogging, as well as coming from a long line of journalists, so writing is in my blood. i might feel a lack of motivation some days, but i can't imagine having nothing to write about. i think about blogging all the time--everything i do, everyone i meet, everything i observe, every picture i take is all potential fodder for a blog posting. i scribble them down in my little notebook and if i'm having a blah day, i turn to that and find ten ideas that get my mojo back. in my view, the more you write, the more you will have to write about.

everyone always asks me how i have the time. it's because i prioritize it. it's important to me--more important than watching t.v. and getting enough sleep. i'm a night owl, so very often my posts are composed late at night and set to post at a particular time the next morning.

blogging has made me more present in my everyday world, despite the fact that i send it all out into cyberspace. i'm more grounded and more observant than i was. and it's what has brought me here, to my 700th post. and i think that's a good thing.

the arbness of book lists

book lists, i really don't get them. whether it's 32 books that will change your life or 50 incredibly difficult books for extreme readers or the guardian's top 100 books of all time or just the list that my goodreads literary adventures group wants to read in 2014, they're all so subjective. tho' the guardian isn't as far off as the others. i mean, that 50 difficult books list doesn't even include ulysses. not even i, who have had an entire semester-long course devoted only to ulysses and wrote a 25 page paper on it, have finished the damn thing. then there's my own list of the 88 books i read in 2013 (+ 7 harry potter, which aren't on the list). it's not so much subjective as eclectic. and i'm not recommending that anyone else follow it. i just like that goodreads helps me keep track of what i've read. i'd never have remembered reading all those books. hell, at my age, i hardly remember yesterday.

that said, i do love the book lists on brainpickings. they're often recommendations by theme, like this one of 9 books on reading and writing. especially because no. 9, mortimer j. adler's how to read a book, advocates writing in books as you read them (something which i love to do), saying that it's even essential to do so (with apologies to denmark's libraries). or this one, on the year's best books on writing and creativity. or the best children's, illustrated and picture books of 2013.  quality lists, thoughtfully composed, that i like.

my reading right now (and most of the time) is all over the place. i've spent far too long on this nick harkaway angelmaker book. it was recommended by the same bloggy friend who recommended edna farber's marvelous so big, so i had to read it, even if it wasn't the kind of book i'd normally read.  it is very imaginative and well-written, with lovely and unique turns of phrase, and even features some steampunk machinery, which i love, but for some reason, i'm reading it at a snail's pace. and it's not going to help that liz gilbert's signature of all things just arrived via amazon today, as i'm going to want to dive right into that. and i have to, because in ten days, i have a book club meeting where we're going to discuss it (plus it was my idea to read it for the book club, so i'd better have finished it).

how do you decide what to read? do you read more than one book at a time (that's part of my problem)? does the internet get in the way of your reading? or does knitting? i recently listened to an audio book of a danish thriller while knitting but i wonder if that counts as reading? when do you read? i tend to read before going to sleep, but if i'm enthralled by a book, i read whenever i can. i also often read while i'm eating lunch. i also like to read in front of the fire in the evening, that's probably my favorite reading time, but that can also be social, family time, so i don't always get to indulge in that.

what are you reading right now? and what will you read next? will you consult a list?

books bring comfort

as i write this, i feel a little like i'm coming down with a flu. there's something going around. and coupled with grey, rainy weather, it has me thinking about comforts. like curling up with a good book. bee wrote a couple of weeks ago about her comfort reads (and a lot of other favorite book categories) and so i've been thinking about this for awhile. when polly wrote about it too, that sealed it. i've got to make lists of favorite books--my categories are, for the most part, loosely adapted from bee's and polly's...

childhood favorites:

1. really rosie - maurice sendak (i had both book and record - we still play the music in the car when we travel as a family)
   
2. chronicles of narnia - c.s. lewis (i still reread these every once in awhile. and i truly didn't get the christian references as a kid. i just wanted to be lucy.)
3. little women - louisa may alcott (i read this dozens of times and fancied myself as jo)
4. little men - louisa may alcott (ditto this and i think i even liked it better--i wanted to live in that big old house with all those boys)
5. the little house books - laura ingalls wilder (i had dresses to dress up and played little house for hours on end. i even went to the LIW pageant in DeSmet, SD, tho' all i really remember were the mosquitos because it was outdoors.)
6. fox in socks - dr. seuss. (still love this one and read it with sabin regularly)

comfort reading (to which i return again and again)

1. no. 1 ladies detective series - alexander mccall smith (i love mma ramotswe. period.)
2. harry potter series - j.k. rowling (yup, i return to this one again and again - they're just such great characters and they do fit together wonderfully--she had to have really planned them out in advance)
3. master & margarita - mikael bulgakov (talking cats and people who materialize on street corners - ya gotta love it)
4. what i loved - siri hustvedt (although i siri-ed myself out last year, i'd be ready to go back to this one again now)
5. a widow for one year - john irving (i love the sweep of this one and although i fancy myself as ruth (there's a recurring thing here wherein i place myself in all of the novels), there is something sorrowful over eddie that i love as well)
6. the bean trees - barbara kingsolver (the quotes that stick best in my head are from this book)
7. one hundred years of solitude - gabriel garcia marquez
8. the unbearable lightness of being - milan kundera

favorite theorists

1. the indivisible remainder - slavoj žižek
2. problems of dostoevsky's poetics - mikael bakhtin
3. mythologies - roland barthes
4. after theory - terry eagleton
5. distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste - pierre bourdieu 

the russians 

1. the brothers karamazov - fyodor dostoevsky
2. pushkin house - andrei bitov
3. master & margarita - mikael bulgakov (yup, on this list too)
4. notes from underground - fyodor dostoevsky
5. pale fire - vladimir nabokov

best i've read in the past year

1. dance, dance, dance - haruki murakami
2. hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world - haruki murakami
3. the short wondrous life of oscar wao - junot diaz

non-fiction faves

1. black lamb and grey falcon - rebecca west
2. lucy: the beginnings of humankind - donald c. johanson and maitland edey
3. origins - richard leakey
4. devil in the white city - erik larson

ones which i've only pretended to read in their entirety (had to slip in a confession)

1. ulysses - james joyce (had a whole course devoted to this and STILL didn't make it through, tho' i wrote a great paper)
2. satanic verses - salman rushdie
3. the odyssey - homer (i've come closest to reading it all on this one)
4. faust - johann wolfgang von goethe

strangely have never picked up

1. lord of the rings - j.r.r. tolkien
2. proust
3. tess of the d'urbervilles - thomas hardy

play along if you'd like to make lists of your favorite books. and i'd love to see some confessions on what you've only pretended to have read. because you know there's something.

if i were...

kimberly from numinosity did a beautiful list on her blog and i just had to give it a whirl myself, since it's friday and i love lists...

if i were a month i’d be march

if i were a day i’d be thursday

if i were a time of day i’d be 11:30 p.m.

if i were a font i’d be bulky refuse

if i were a sea animal i’d be a stingray

if i were a direction i’d be southwest

if i were a piece of furniture i’d be full of drawers

if i were a liquid i’d be gin (high quality gin)

if i were a gemstone i’d be turquoise

if i were a tree i’d be an evergreen

if i were a tool i’d be a hammer

if i were a flower i’d be a lemon blossom

if i were an element of weather i’d be a hurricane

if i were a musical instument i’d be a saxophone

if i were a color i’d be red

if i were an emotion i’d be intense

if i were a fruit i’d be a blueberry

if i were a sound i’d be loud

if i were an element i’d be uranium

if i were a car i’d be a porsche 911

if i were a food i’d be sushi

if i were a place i’d be ephesus

if i were material i’d be linen

if i were a taste i’d be chili

if i were a scent i’d be clary sage

if i were a body part i’d be an eye

if i were a song i’d be diamonds on the soles of her shoes by paul simon

if i were a bird i’d be a nightengale

if i were a gift i’d be handmade

if i were a city i’d be moscow

if i were a door i’d be unlocked

if i were a pair of shoes i’d be converse all stars

if i were a poem i’d be ithaca by cavafy

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be sure to check out kimberly's list and if you were all these things, who would you be?
this was a really interesting exercise and i'm amazed how intuitively the answers sprang into my head.
come on, you know you want to try it. 

blog awards at the close of the year

this, for me, has been The Year of the Blog. although i created this blog back in 2004, i went all of 2005 and 2006 without writing a single word on it (thank you gods of google, for not closing it down and giving it away to someone else). blogging has, for me, this year, been a salvation. i know, i keep writing about recovering from a bad job--breaking up with a job can be a bit like a divorce, is what i found out--and like the newly divorced, i keep harping on about it.  but the fact remains that this blog has been an absolutely essential part of my recovery from that divorce with my bad job and my process of finding my way back to me.

but even more important to that process have been the real friends i've made here in the virtual world of the blogosphere....both your words here as comments on my blog and even more so on your blogs, which have made me laugh and think and have brought tears to my eyes and have inspired me. i've become more thoughtful, more creative, better read, and on the whole, been enriched by getting to know all of you.

so, a big thank you to tangobaby, who entirely too kindly bestowed upon me not one but two awards:

the superior scribbler

(i am definitely a scribbler, albeit through typing)

and a love your blog award

which is sparkly, which makes it automatically fabulous.

and i hereby pass both of these awards on to the following bloggers, all of whom i go to on a daily basis for the nourishment of intellect and soul:

1. woman on the verge, gwen is well-traveled, smart and funny. and she recently asked her readers to send her books to donate to public school teachers in the chicago area. i sent a whole box of only slightly subversive materials her way, but i think she's awesome and hope she doesn't get in trouble for any of those books i sent.
2. sucker for marketing, amanda invented the hilarious WTF? wednesday posting and she makes me laugh. plus, she recently had a cocktail party for charity, so she is not only hilarious, but generous of heart. amanda started me on the whole balderdash escapade and is one of my fellow contributors to balderdash, which also won these two awards from tangobaby.
3. oh for the love of blog, molly lives in cape town, which is one of my favorite places in the world. she's smart, she's funny and like me, she also loves lists. plus, she's a very clever member of the balderdash team. 
4. eyeblog, tara is a relatively new blog friend, but i go to her blog every day to see her pictures and to read the latest of her escapades with all of those girls in the house!
5. mammy's love, barb has a knack for shedding a positive light on any situation and whenever i need to be lifted up, i go to her blog and read about her latest home improvement projects, her beloved grandbabies or her latest acts of kindness to her family. she makes me want to face the world in a kinder and gentler manner than i have a tendency to do. 
6. tripping towards lucidity, andi is quite possibly one of the busiest people i know (i know this because i follow her on twitter). whenever i've run out of something to read, i go to her to find some inspiration. 
7. tiny happy, melissa's embroidery and her photos and sketches always make me take a deep breath and feel peaceful again in the midst of a hectic everyday. 
8. gotta live a crea8tive life, janni is my only blog friend who lives in the same country as me. she takes great photos and shares all kinds of creativity on her blog. and we are so going to start a creative group in 2009, so be watching out for that!

there are, of course, many, many other blogs i read and love on a daily basis, but i surely have other awards i should have passed on, so i will save those for another day. rules on this one...simple...link to the person who gave them to you, and pass them on to those blogs you love. tangobaby, you'd have been on the list if you hadn't already been the giver. :-)

2009: the year in review

looking back over the past year, much has happened. i feel like a different person here at the end of the year than i was at the beginning of it. it's quite fascinating how those changes occur incrementally and one day you suddenly realize that you're transformed. there have been some constants - photography, noticing the world around me, creativity, inspiration, lists, blog crushes, overthinking and general navel gazing. and it seems like evolution comes up kind of a lot, but i blame husband for that.

i've spent some time looking back on the year in a couple of ways. one, by reading skimming back over this blog and two, by browsing back through my iPhoto. shall we take a little stroll down memory lane?

january - moving in to the now-famous blue room was the highlight. i also did a lot of those interviews that were going around at the time. my sister visited and we went to møn's klint and the west coast of denmark. and we played an elaborate practical joke on her boyfriend, who was an extremely good sport about it, tho' he did drink an entire bottle of port afterwards. and our pooka turned 8. 42 blog posts.

february - what can i say, it was the month the eyeball obsession began. sabin started riding lessons. we celebrated our 10th anniversary. i learned about fika. i bought a new sewing machine. i went a little nuts about TtV photography. 39 blog posts.

march - i met and fell in love with a nikon D300. sadly, later in the year, i would have to give it back, because it was my work camera and i left that job, but happily, i found a very lightly used one in my favorite local camera shop a couple weeks before i had to give it back, so that didn't matter at all - and i learned that one cannot stay in a job for the sake of a camera (but that was in november, so i'm getting ahead of myself). i opened my etsy shop and sold my first items. i went a little crazy for stones. i had a gorgeous birthday dinner at my very favorite little castle to celebrate turning thirty-twelve. my kitchen became famous on apartment therapy.  the julie project started. 48 blog posts.

april - i practiced austerity april, a little exercise in buying less, it largely worked, tho' there was a moment of weakness towards the end of the month in the face of new music. a little trans-atlantic learning adventure began. i invented gin & tonic sorbet. moments of perfect clarity was named blog of note by the gods at google on april 21, which was a really good thing, because prior to that i'd been having a really crappy day. i continued to be obsessed with rocks. and the julie project fizzled out, which was definitely a learning experience. we went to a funeral. and a wedding. we visited a danish vineyard. 47 blog posts.

may - spring came in earnest. i visited the west coast of norway for the first time. the idea of blog camp was born and the first blog camps were scheduled. the blog camp blog was created. i got downright obsessive about rocks, particularly one i found on the west coast of norway. me and my gin & tonic sorbet appeared in disco underworld.  i wrote my 700th post and mused on what it meant to me to blog. i outlined my long-held theory that everyone needs their albanian. 49 blog posts.

june - i got flowered chucks. i attended nor-shipping. the first blog camp was held and it was even better than any and all expectations. i received the most lovely little stones from trinsch in isreal and from lynne in south africa (see, even others got caught up in my stone obsession). we celebrated the summer solstice and soaked in the light.  i had a realization (finally) about creativity and about accepting the release of your creativity into the world. michael jackson died and i found that i didn't care. 40 blog posts.

july - i learned how to make my pictures big. i embarked on an insane project provoked challenged inspired by spudballoo - to tell 30 secrets in 30 days. in the end, i told 29 secrets and one lie and no one ever guessed correctly which one was the lie. and i was exhausted by the effort. we spent time on the beach, soaking up the summer sun. kristina and i started across øresund, a photoblog showing the contrasts of denmark and sweden. i developed a sociology of mobile phones. we took a mini-vacation to dublin. and left for a real vacation in singapore via amsterdam. i added a new country to my list: malaysia. husband and me started the livet på landet (life on the land) blog to document our dream of moving to a farm. 52 blog posts.

august - i embarked on a new obsession: robots. i learned that our child is a budding photographer. i concluded that singapore is like disneyland (actually, i concluded that a long time ago, but finally documented it).  i reread the laura ingalls wilder books. i went to blog camp in england.  i visited stonehenge, which was something i had long desired to do. i developed a foot fetish. i had a truly brilliant experience at one of the last shipyards left in denmark. i started participating in postcrossing. and woven underneath it all, i developed a disliking for my job, which i'd really loved until then. maybe because they made me sit with more than $10,000 of their debt in travel expenses for an inordinately long time. 37 blog posts.

september - with the autumn beginning, i started to obsess about light. blog camp 2.0. i felt the significance of 09.09.09. the queen came to town. i found weaving at a museum in randbøldal. i thought about color. i started domestic sensualist together with beth. i discovered the wonderful henie-onstad art museum near oslo. my unease with my job deepened, and even made me ill, tho' i didn't see that at the time - interesting how that works. barbara kingsolver writes in one of her early books something along the lines of how people are so inside of themselves, it's sometimes hard to tell anything. i came to know what that meant in september. 39 blog posts.

october - i turned to embroidery in order to cope with my growing dissatisfaction with my job (phew, at least it manifested itself positively in some way). husband found a brilliant old sewing machine for me at the dump. we prepared for our house to be put up for sale i spent a couple of days in istanbul, one of my favorite cities. we had a glorious few days touring around denmark with an old cat love friend during the autumn holiday. i couchsurfed for the first time and it was fabulous. 34 blog posts.

november - the monocules© were born! i found a real treasure in a used bookstore. i pondered the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. i closed in in earnest on my 100 creative things in 2009. with only a minor nervous breakdown, i held a brilliant thanksgiving dinner for friends and family. my work appeared in public bookstore. the gold edition of disco underworld came out and i was included! i voted in the municipal elections in denmark. i thought about and tried to articulate who this girl was, at least for now. and i left the job which had become the job from hell, and even in this economic climate, i still breathed a heavy sigh of relief. 37 blog posts.

december - i did some serious pondering and reading about simplicity. i prepared for christmas and revealed that i'm a bit of a scrooge about christmas cards. i lost my photo mojo a bit and am still hoping it comes back. i've been pretty introspective as i have tried to decide what's next after leaving my job. COP15 took place in copenhagen. i sorted a whole lot of sabin's baby clothes to save and donate. and i have at least three new bloggy-related projects up my sleeve (so stay tuned in 2010). 34 blog posts (and counting).

conclusions: 

: : inspiration was a big theme for me in 2009. i wanted to seek it, understand it, pick it apart,  drink it in, swallow it and digest it. i was a little obsessed about it. but apparently i needed that.

: : i changed a lot over the course of the year. what i want from life became simpler (even if the amount of stuff in my house did not).

: : i became a photographer in 2009.

: : i also became an artist.  even if so far it's still mostly for myself.

: : i didn't fly enough to retain gold status on my two airlines where i've had it in recent years. and i'm ok with that.

: : i was directly (credited) responsible for the sale of no less than ten nikons in 2009. i think nikon should employ me.

: : i made a lot of connections and good friends in the blogosphere (and in real life) for which i'm very grateful. and i can't wait to see what 2010 brings.

chatterbox

addressing invitations, originally uploaded by julochka.

we spent a number of hours today making invitations for sabin's upcoming birthday party. we started last evening, drawing robots. because we're all about the robots at the moment. then, we made the screens and printed the little robots on some beautiful bright cards i bought at the fabulous norway designs last month. we made sweet robots with cupcakes on their tummies.

sabin was so excited and so happy and so bubbly. she was making lists of the names of her classmates so she could write them on the envelopes, where we had gocco printed a little stack o'robots. it was fun and i hope it's the kind of activity that sabin will remember when she grows up.

but, i have to admit that eventually, all of the chatter was driving me completely crazy. she counted and counted again, she named all 20 classmates and then named them again. she talked about which ones would give her what for a present. she never, ever stopped talking. or wiggling. jumping up and down from the chair, running around, fiddling and just wiggling and chattering and chattering.

i want to love every minute of her joy and her happiness and i love that we're doing something creative together that makes her happy, but i was eventually ready to scream. finally, around five, when she was calculating for the 66th time how many days it was 'til her birthday, i asked her to just keep some of her thoughts in her own head for awhile. i didn't yell, i didn't say "shut the hell up," i didn't scream, tho' i was screaming on the inside.

i feel a little bit bad about it because i dearly love her and i dearly love seeing her joyful and happy. i KNOW these are the moments i should treasure as well, because in a couple of weeks, she's turning 8 and it won't be long before she's a sulky teenager, sleeping 18 hours a day. and i DO appreciate her and love her dearly.

i just sometimes wish she could sit still and be quiet for just a little while.

p.s. this is the first time i've tried doing a blog post from flickr. not sure i'll do it again.

in which she uses lots of parentheses and confusingly long sentences

my new blog friend and first official blog crush, extranjera (we have to talk about that screenname (tho' frankly, since she's finnish, it could be her real name, they spell stuff kinda weird sometimes), by the way, as i have to pop over to your blog and look at it every single time to get it right and even still, i probably have it wrong) of the hilarious what will i ever do with my life? bestowed upon me the honest scrap blog award, i guess because of all the brutal honesty encountered here on MPC.

as with all of these blog award thingies, there are rules:

1. List 10 honest things about yourself, and
2. Pass it on to seven five cool people who embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap (tho' there is strangely no information about what that spirit might be...)

although i'm not big on rules, i am big on lists, and as husband says, i'm very often brutally honest, so this should be easy...

1. i'm not a fan of photoshop. there, i said it. so many times people's pictures were surely beautiful before they played with them. and while i understand the allure of pretty technology, i think people should trust themselves and their cameras more.
   
2. i can talk pretty mean, but when it comes down to it, i'm actually a pretty nice person (blatant attempt to lessen the blow of the photoshop comment).
3. i really, really hate making phone calls. loathe it. 
4. i am worried that there is an elderly greek woman inside me, trying to get out and she has sent out feelers to check the conditions. feelers in the form of three dark hairs that sprout out occasionally on my chin. i try to be vigilant, but what if that old greek woman really wants out and one day i accidentally indicate that conditions are ripe by forgetting to check. bam, i'll suddenly be wearing all black and those thick, sturdy woolen stockings...
5. we have a really old toyota carina that we don't treat very well, but which remains loyal to us anyway. we never wash it (husband was just wishing for rain yesterday so it would be rinsed off--there's a lot of pollen on it at the moment). we never change the oil (it uses it so fast anyway, it's surely not in there long enough to need changing). we can't remember if it's a '96 or a '94. it's grey. the carpet on the driver's side is a real mess--lots of holes from years of wear. but there's no rust and it starts every time, despite having 400,000 km on it, with taxes at 150% on cars in DK, we're just loathe to replace it, so we'll keep it going 'til it won't go anymore. however, i never, ever leave my cameras or computers in the car, because they're worth more than the car is. sometimes i do leave the key in, hoping someone might steal it, but they never do.
6. i would like to blog for a living. (as if y'all hadn't sussed out that one.)
7. sometimes i wonder if i exist if i'm not online. this makes me wonder if all of you exist when i can't see that you're online. and this in turn makes me wonder if we aren't already in the matrix. 
8. i sometimes wonder if carbon trading schemes really work. isn't it just robbing peter to pay paul and still no good for the environment in the end? (oh wait, this is one of the questions for my interview later...)
9. i'm uncomfortable with the whole susan boyle thing and wasn't really going to say so (what, a lack of honesty? (gasp!)) 'til i read what gwen said about it. i feel that while she is clearly an excellent singer, there's something in it that's somehow taking the piss with her anyway and that makes me feel squirmy. and i don't really believe that simon cowell didn't know what was coming. it was all so staged and although i enjoyed seeing his face, it might be that he's just a good actor.
10. i really love and admire what tangobaby is doing in reaching out to help a woman and her three children who have fled from an abusive home and are awaiting a spot in a shelter. she met them one day on the street and because she's such a caring, wonderful person, she's issued a plea from the platform of her most excellent blog and set up a paypal account and is spending a lot of her own time helping this family. what i have to be honest about tho', is that i have been unable to write one of the letters of support to kelaya, the mother, that was part of tangobaby's plea. i have stared at an open, new, fresh email several times and it just won't come and i don't really know why. i did, however, make a small donation via the paypal button (please go check out tangobaby's blog if you are intrigued by the little bit i've written here. and i hope that you're more able than i am to write a letter of support to this woman who has bravely left an abusive marriage and forged out on her own with three small kids.) the best we can do is well, the best we can do, isn't it?

and as for those honest bloggers, these come to mind:

1. amanda of sucker for marketing (who i hope triumphed in her half marathon on sunday!)
2. starlene of return to myself (i just love when she goes all deep thoughts...)
3. mal* of turning*turning (she makes me see things in a new way every time i visit her)
4. kristina of vigdis et al. (she speaks in honest pictures)
5. clare of this and that (you gotta love anyone who thinks grover is the best muppet)

and i think that, like extranjera before me, i will name only five to pass it along to (in fact, i even took the liberty of changing the rule above--mostly because i like using that strikeout thingie). 

i know you're all busy bloggers and might not have time or the inclination to come up with ten honest things (this took me much longer than i thought it would and i was much less funny that i meant to be).  but some days are like that.

making it mine

my head was feeling heavy, but then strangely, everything began to seem clear. all of the struggle i've been having with the "creativity issue." i speed-wrote 4 pages in my journal about it. about my frustrations. about my love of pretty paper. and yarn. but of my inability to actually really DO anything with either one. there is something appealing simply about the acquisition, but that's not really what's been blocking the creativity. i think i've been blocking it myself...(imagine that).

what i failed to recognize (or admit) is that there is some part of me that craves order. although i am currently living in a torn-apart house (building project) and many of my belongings are in boxes, i don't really like chaos. i make lists, for god's sake, of course i like order, why didn't i see this before? (husband said i wasn't ready.) i actually really like having a frame within which i work..and create, as it turns out. which i suppose is why knitting is appealing--that's VERY organized--i just need some help from an experienced knitter (or two) to get rolling on that and it will come.

but, my painting class has been a bit of a source of frustration to me, since i feel i can't adequately let go when i'm there. it was worst the first week. i've done a bit better since then. but last week, one of the other people in the course told me that i just needed to "slip hestene løs." basically, i just need to let go of whatever it is i'm clinging to...and that seems to be the frames. those blank canvases stretch before me in a WAY too wide-open, intimidating manner. the possibilities are limitless and some core part of me wants limits. i would like someone to say, today, we paint fish. and then i could contentedly paint fish like crazy. fantasy fish. colorful fish. fish that don't exist in nature. fish like you've never seen. but to stand there and say, "hey, self, what do you fancy painting today?" that's totally paralyzing.

same with the scrapping. i adore the supplies. the pretty paper makes my heart sing and my molecules align. but to imagine cutting it, or worse yet...ripping it! no, don't make me do that. it's because it's not mine--metaphorically speaking, it's mine, i've paid for it (tho' most of it was on massive sale or bought with the very low dollar--and i can show you the money i saved, husband, don't worry).

what i've been good at, creatively-speaking, is taking someone else's idea and making it mine. like when i painted the wooden stools for our little bitty apartment on elmelundevej. i took the shapes from the matisse paper cut-out poster hanging in the living room. i chose my own colors, i made custom stencils and i painted colorful, wonderful stools. it was a creative act, but not a wholly original act. and that was OK!!!

or when i painted 63 little viking ships around our dining room on baldersgade. they were lovely. and they were an adaptation of a little ship from my big world of art coffee table book. again, an original twist on something that i didn't originate. but totally creative. and wholly mine in the end.

so, what i need to do is find MY interpretation of scrapbooking. what attracts me are the supplies (have i mentioned that i love those pretty papers?), the notion of preserving memories (that whole nature of memory thing has been a preoccupation of mine for years...it's there in the choices of what i read and i would have written my dissertation on it had i gotten around to writing one), and actually, the camaraderie that seems to surround it (even if it's only in cyberspace). but why it's been so hard is that it hasn't felt like MINE. i'm trying to do someone else's thing. i need to stop that and do MY thing.

same with the painting. tho', i've made a modicum of progress there. i've at least been experimenting with color and brush strokes and not trying paint a picture per se. what i need to do there is take the prettiest of my pretty papers, glue them to the damn canvas (preferably after having the heart to rip them a bit) and then paint off of them. try to dig into what it is that makes my molecules align and hum in perfect pitch (which i swear happens with the best of those pretty papers--basic grey biology, i mean you) and try to create it MYSELF on the canvas. combine the things that have been preoccupying me and make them mine.

i can do this. all it took was recognizing what it was i needed to do and letting go of all the angst. excuse me while i go make a list now of the things i need to bring to painting class tomorrow...

she was born in a small town

since i feel a little bit like their fairyblogmother, i am going to take the liberty of doing a 5 things i love about growing up in a small town list ala VEG & extranjera over on Ocean (and to think i was calling it siamese. my bad.). plus, you know how i love lists. and need an assignment. i've written about growing up in a small town kind of a lot of times before, but i'm not sure i've ever really thought specifically about what was good about it.

1.  getting to try everything

in a small town school, you don't have to choose whether you're a band person or a cheerleader or a theatre person or smart girl or a sporty girl. you can be all of them. and in fact, the only way the school thrives is if everybody does everything. so you try it all and find out what you like and what you're good at. and you learn not to be afraid of trying new things. and that will get you a long way in life.

2.  getting a driver's license (learner's permit anyway-able to drive without an adult between sunup and sundown) at 14

there was nothing to run into. it was flat and the ditches were wide.

3.  having horses

i grew up with horses. we always had them. we showed them, and i've written about my horse trainer before. she was awesome. and having horses is just a wholesome thing to do. you learn responsibility. hard work. caring. getting up early to feed. mucking out stalls. and that standing in the barn at dusk on a summer night, listening to the snuffling and munching of a horse is just plain good for your soul. and your sanity.

4.  big old house with a front porch

the house "in town" that we lived in 'til i was 10 or so had a front porch with a porch swing, big columns and it was all covered in vines. i loved sitting in there in the cool shade, protected from prying eyes by the vines, watching people go by. that was great. there was a silver milk box there and i remember milk being delivered into that box (yup, i'm old). ice cream jim came up on that porch dressed as santa one christmas. lots of good memories and some not so good. it was on that front porch that our dog stella bit my friend tracey on the nose. tracey kinda deserved it, she had totally gotten in stella's face and stella was an old crotchety shetland sheep dog. and there that time i got a huge sliver in my foot and my dad had to sit on me to hold me down while mom got it out with a needle and a tweezers. ouch. but for the most part, it was awesome for dressing up and playing laura from little house and just swinging on the swing.

5. always feeling safe 

it was a totally safe place to grow up. i don't even think our house had locks on the doors and if it did, no one had seen the key in years. you knew everyone and they knew you. and you trusted each other. and looked out for each other. i think it has made me a person who, for the most part, feels at ease in the world and isn't afraid. it's grounding to grow up feeling safe like that. i'm glad i had that ground to grow up on.

so those are my five things. what are yours?

friday lists

very busy day ahead....here's my list (because we know i love lists):

1. lots of work to do (yes, i do work, believe it or not, i just don't sleep enough)--it's this work that's currently giving me nightmares about global warming and the environment in general. 
2. hair appointment (desperately needed, nearly unable to appear in public). 
3. thing at child's school where parents must buy middle ages inspired things made by twenty-first century danish children over the past week (i saw piles of cool leather in a classroom this week, so i'm looking forward to that). 
4. having visitors from north carolina for dinner (they are not the dinner, we intend to serve dinner to them). 
5. figuring out how to connect macbook pro to big-ass flatscreen t.v. for gala confirmation party on saturday. 
6. transporting said t.v. + Wii, wiimotes and basket o'Wii games to party location without breaking or losing any of it or having to strap self to roof of elderly toyota to serve as cushion for big-ass t.v.
   
7. creating playlist for party and putting it on one of our many iPods.
8. clean out horribly dirty ancient yet reliable toyota so husband can transport the north carolinians without being completely humiliated.
9. thank heavens for GEC* and the EU because they have brought me my beautiful, wonderful, fabulous sent-from-heaven cleaning girl from poland.
10. figure out what the hell this is:

edited: second picture added for full effect:

seriously, these are the only two extra large phallic protrubences (is that a word, it's the second time i've used it this week) on this tree. i know i said that the entire plant world is behaving in an overtly sexual manner, but this is simply carrying it a bit far.

* * *

and because it's a friday a mini grateful friday list, i always forget to do these, but i love that del remembers and she's the one who originally gave me the idea. it's good for the soul to stop and think about what you're grateful for right now at this very moment (in totally random order, if it was order of importance, 3 would be 1, followed by 5 and then 6 or perhaps 4 (if husband brings home asparagus, we get them both at once)).

1. someone from the middle of siberia visited my blog (or so site meter told me). for some reason, that just tickles me. maybe because i studied in kazan and although that's not siberia, i felt the pull of siberia from there, so it's always held some fascination. i'd like to go there and dig up a frozen wooly mammoth.
2. this whole zany week of the bestowing of BoN by the blogger illuminati (thanks suecae sounds for that apt word) and the influx of new friends--thank you all so much for stopping by! double thank you for following. and quadruple thank you for the comments. looking forward to getting to know you better.
3. all of my "old" blog friends, who've been here with me through all the rants and the laughter and that whole thing with sarah palin.  you guys totally rock.
4. that husband's coming home today after being away at a course all week. 
5. there's a lovely south african chenin blanc in the fridge (6 bottles of it, to be exact).
6. asparagus is in season.
7. the sun has shined all week.
8. the birch pollen counts are already on their way down (my eyes are grateful for this).
9. jon stewart and episodes of the daily show that are only a day old.
10. that i don't have to do anything special on sunday.

 i wish you all a most glorious weekend and i hope you have lots to be grateful for this friday. and if anyone knows why that tree produced two mutant pine-cone-agtig thingies when all the rest of its pinecones are totally normal and petite, please do let me know about that....botanists...anyone...bueller?

* GEC = global economic crisis (i get tired of typing it out)

the view from sunday night

did you know that until this week, i'd never been to brussels? since i've started my new job, i've added two countries i'd not visited before - poland and belgium. i do hope things continue along those lines.

it's very exciting and wonderful to travel, but i miss writing on a daily basis like in the old days (read: five years ago). i find i get a congested feeling, not processing all of these experiences through my fingers and onto the page. i definitely need to find my way back to that. it feels like time has accelerated and i just don't have the same time to sit down and write that i once did. and i miss it a great deal.

but today, with glorious sunshine at last, i didn't manage it either (until now), despite my head spilling over with words that want to find their way out my fingers, thoughts that need to be processed. instead, i used my fingers to plant tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouse, as well as starting broad beans, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes and kale. may 1 sounds late to start things, but it's been such a cold spring, they'd never have survived before this, not even in the greenhouse. but planting feels important as well and it's time i get with my precious molly, who is a garden kitty. she loves when i'm working in the garden, it's the one thing that visibly makes her happy.

i guess one of the reasons i've been writing less is that i'm working more on getting in touch with my body. my autumn back problems were a real wake-up call. i feel like it happened because i'd neglected the physical side of my being for years. i'm not sure i've ever actually been in touch with my body or really listened to how it's doing. when i'm in copenhagen, i go to yoga nearly every evening, so i'm working very diligently on getting in touch with my body. and trying to learn to listen to it. and it's not easy. while i'm holding a yoga position and i'm supposed to be concentrating on it, i find it hard to keep my mind from wandering off to lists of things to do, emails to write, photos to upload. but i love the feeling that my body is getting stronger and more reliable and i'm learning, slowly but surely, to listen to it and let it be the boss once in awhile, rather than living entirely in my head. it's about finding a balance. i'm not there yet, but i'm practicing.

the past week has been full of wonderful experiences and conversations. getting to know one of my new colleagues, who i really click with, and laughing a lot and buying plenty of belgian chocolate with her. getting together with an old friend and having a wonderful catch-up and deep philosophical discussion over good food. that evening made husband and i think about the way our relationship works and gave both of us a genuine (and thankfully positive) experience of seeing ourselves through someone else's eyes and coming to new appreciation for our relationship. then, a party full of music, dancing and good food in the heart of copenhagen. and today, seeing husband taking his first steps as a politician and candidate for the city council and then enjoying some hours of sunshine in the garden, preparing to grow food to nourish our bodies in the months ahead.

i just have a rich sense that it's all interconnected. i need both mind and body and awareness of both. i need travel to inspire me. i need deep conversations, wine and good food. and i need physical time with the soil and the cats and some sunshine and podcasts in my ears. put it all together, add a little time to write about it and i am filled up and ready for the week ahead. it holds a workshop and meeting a lot of new people. and they promise sunshine. what more can one ask? a couple of days off at the end of the week? go on then, i'll take those too.

enjoy the week ahead, one and all. you never know what's in store!

the isolation journals five lists

on this rainy, grey first day of january, i was catching up on my substack feed, waiting for it to clear up a bit so that i can go for a walk. i read suleika jouoad's isolation journals sunday prompt on the five lists and it seemed like a good activity to indulge in while i wait for a break in the rain. it's always nice to do a bit of reflecting on the first day of a fresh, new year. 

1. what in the last year are you proud of?

the first thing that springs to mind is the podcast i'm creating at work. it's something that i always wanted to do and while it's not perfect, i have learned so much along the way and i got to have a lot of great conversations with a lot of interesting people. i have really grown professionally making this work. and it wasn't the only great project i was part of at work. we also worked with a top agency to make some really great short videos that tell some emotional stories that all take place in a kitchen - it was a completely different and new kind of content for us as a company and i'm really proud to have been part of pushing us in that direction. 

i'm really proud of my brave, beautiful child and how hard she works at school and how she's managed to surround herself with good friends and how she bravely makes her way through the world, 9 time zones away from us. she's a wonderful young woman and i'm so proud of her. 

and lastly, i'm proud of my weight loss. yes, i have used the help that wegovy gives me, and i have zero shame for that. i am healthier, my cholesterol numbers are down and i just feel about a thousand times better. plus, i also look so much better and i realize that matters more to me than i imagined it would. i have definitely been hiding underneath over-sized, drab clothing choices for some years now and it feels so good to not need to do that anymore. i can actually find items on the sale rack in size medium and even small and they fit me! and damn, it makes me happy and proud.

2. what did this year leave you yearning for?

i have struggled this year to restart a social life after the corona years. it seems overwhelming to invite people over like we used to. we would have spontaneous game nights and do dinner together with friends, and now we almost never do that. it doesn't help that the main friends we did that with moved a bit further away. and after that and corona, we just drifted apart. but i find myself yearning for more time with friends and good conversations and evenings filled with good food and laughter. we had a few of those over the past year, but not nearly enough.

3. what's causing you anxiety?

i think money is always a source of anxiety. one could always do with more of it. it's not really that we lack, per se, but we could do things faster and complete more of the house projects if we had a bit more. i shouldn't complain, as we do have two good incomes in our household, i guess i wish that i had less anxiety about it.

naturally, the state of the world causes a lot of anxiety and in light of that, it feels a little meaningless to be worried about money. but world issues feel so huge and insurmountable, that maybe it's easier to look at one's own life and try to grab onto an anxiety that's closer to home. 

i'm pretty apprehensive about the election in november, but if i let myself fully stare that one in the face, i'll completely destroy what's left of my back teeth after the first trump administration, since that anxiety manifests as clenching my jaw in my sleep to the point where i wake up with a swollen cheek.

4. what resources, skills and practices can you rely on in the next year?

this one feels the most like setting new year's resolutions and i'm finding it a little difficult. i suppose the main resource that i rely on in general is my fearlessness in just jumping into things with both feet. i also, despite my advancing age, love to learn new things and stay up-to-date on trends and technology, and try out all the new things that are popping up all the time - ai, tiktok, blue sky, etc. i don't know really know whether these are resources or skills that i possess, but it's what comes to mind. staying curious is probably the best thing i can do to keep growing and developing.

as for the practice that i can rely on, it's my dogged determination to take a photo every day. i've been doing it since may 2008 and i don't intend to stop now. and if i can keep that commitment for such a long time, i can surely keep other commitments - like dry january, and taking a walk or jog every day, finding a regular yoga class to attend, inviting people over once a month, learning to knit, reading a book instead of endlessly scrolling on my phone...

5. what are your wildest, most harebrained ideas and dreams?

i would love to have a small podcast production company, making limited series podcasts for companies, to help them tell their stories. it would be a great way to keep getting to talk to interesting people and learn new things. 

one day, i want to have a little café right here in the countryside. this one has been in the back of my mind for some years. it would only have a few seats and maybe limited opening hours, but it would be a destination worth seeking out. everything in the café would also be for sale - it would be furnished with antiques and the serving dishes/cups/plates would be cool ceramics from local artists and you would be able to buy anything that struck your fancy.

i'd also like to make the old part of the house into a couple of rooms that we could put up on airbnb, so i could get back some of the feeling i used to have when we had couchsurfers on a regular basis. meeting interesting people and sharing our space, especially our outdoor spaces, with them. 

i want to do another art project/exhibition together with my friend christina. and just generally develop my creative practice. maybe something with pinhole photography?

i'm sure there are other things, but these are the ones that come to mind. it was nice to spend an hour or so pondering these questions. let me know if you do it too. 

and here's hoping 2024 will be a good year for all of us.