ok, seriously....

....could THIS blog be any more perfect for where i seem to be at at the moment? it's called "everyone needs a rock," and although there are more layers to that phrase (which is awesome), this is a blog featuring...yes, you guessed it....PICTURES OF ROCKS!! people with their favorite rocks. i'm in heaven. i feel validated. i feel it's proof i've not gone mad. i feel i must share more of my own pictures of rocks...

i wonder if there are meds for this?

a day at the beach or bundle up folks, there's a reason they call it the north sea!

so that summer thing just lasted the one day. today dawned cloudy and got windier as the day progressed. determined to defy it, we packed up our wellies and headed for the west coast of denmark, which is now only about an hour away. it was cloudy when we first got there, but we (being me and sabin) were dressed for it (husband wore shorts, trying to prove his viking-ness, i guess). but the sun did eventually come out.

i love the beach.
todays haul: 24 heart-shaped rocks, 7 rocks with eyes, 9 pieces of beach glass

a bit cloudy, but the north sea is fantastic nonetheless.
it can literally blow all your cares away.

bonding time. he was probably making up some story or other. 

there was a big group of kite surfers on the ringkøbing fjord

have i mentioned that i love the beach?

since summer is so unreliable in these parts, you learn to take what sunshine you can get and do stuff anyway, even if the sunshine isn't there. we were so glad we went to the beach today. the sound of the surf and the wind whipping your hair is just good for the soul.

more tomorrow of all the stones we gathered....

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.

the song of the rocks

jason captured this short video of the song of the rocks on the shore at møn's klint. that sound is magic.

as i snapped photos yesterday, i longed for a video camera. so glad jason managed to capture it. 

by the way, weird that i couldn't post this from blogger in draft, but had to post without it and go in and edit (thereby entering "old blogger"  and being able to publish it). hope they're gonna fix that.

"mobning" in the blogosphere

this may look a little scary

but really it's a totally cool place.

danish has a great word--mobning. i've seen it translated as bullying, but to me, it's a bit more nuanced than that word is in english. it's a word that conveys the whole notion of holding someone outside of your group. intentionally. if you're the parent of a school-age child, you hear the word a lot. because danish schools (or at least the one our daughter attends) are very focused on it and on keeping it from happening, at least to a harmful, overt extent, since you can never really fully prevent it. because everyone needs their albanian. but even an albanian would like to belong.

small aside to explain the last statement: this is one of the earliest theories that husband and i came up with (way back when he was still someone else's husband). we were in the balkans and noticed that everyone there (well, everyone everywhere, really, if i think about it) had someone they looked down on to feel better about their group--the croats and the serbs had each other. and tho' it was never clear to me where the bosnians stood, they had some complex system of someone they looked down on. the bulgarians looked down on the macedonians. the macedonians looked down on the albanians. the albanians looked down on the...hmm. there wasn't really anyone--except maybe the roma and let's face it, everyone looks down on them, so sadly they don't really count. if you were a regular albanian, you looked down on those poor suckers in kosovo and vice versa. so we decided that albanian was the end of the line. and that everyone needs their albanian--someone to feel superior to.

now, back to the regularly scheduled post. i've been thinking about this because things have gotten a little nuts in the comments on some of the other blogs of late (most recently the blog camp blog last evening--and i can't even blame wine b/c i was drinking tea in my hotel room in oslo since the little tiny bottle of wine in my hotel minibar costs 185NOK ($28) and the two glasses i'd had six hours earlier in the lounge at the airport were no longer having any effect).

you see, we're all stark raving mad. and we found each other here in the blogosphere. and finding other mad people has clearly fed that madness. and i fear that some people (like whoever stopped following blog camp in the middle of the madness last night) found all this talk of corn and rocks and herman and to rad or not to rad (definitely the latter) (and which shall hereafter be referred to (on this blog at least) as the r-word which shall not be named) and pink and all that stuff to be a bit much.

but i'm here to say that we most definitely didn't mean it that way. and so you should ALL feel that you can jump into the fray at any time. like monique (hey, she's new!) did last night on the blog camp blog.  all of this madness might have looked like mobning, but it really sincerely wasn't meant that way. we want everyone to feel welcome in this particular vortex of madness. so please play along if you want to--jump right in and ask what all that silly talk is about if you don't understand. we're really quite harmless. we just like the calming effect of rocks and watching corn grow (not watching corn pop, that's totally not relaxing, or so i've heard) and IM conversations in the comment section. maybe it just makes our comment numbers look good, or maybe we're just a bit crazy. but either way, we're harmless and would love it if you joined in the fun. we're all albanians here. :-)

p.s. none of this comment madness really happened here on MPC, but i feel a bit responsible for it because i'm definitely one of the IM-convo commenters, so that's why i'm posting here. click the links above if you want to see firsthand what i'm talking about. :-)

odds and ends

so many things to catch up on (800+ posts in the reader--come on guys, i thought we agreed you'd take it easy while i was away!). i decided i needed one of those random lists for which i am mildly famous. and it is, after all, a monday and monday is the best day for a list. it helps clear the head for the rest of the week.

: : yesterday, i ordered MOO postcards so that i too can be a postcrossing girl. i've only requested one address so far (you can do 5 at a time), because i decided to wait for my own photo postcards, tho' that first person is going to get one of my precious collection of those cool postcards you can pick up for free in copenhagen cafés. but please hurry up MOO! and thank you to janet and spudballoo and B for inspiring me to do this too. i do love getting real mail. and i'm a sucker for peer pressure.

: : speaking of getting real mail, this latest addition to my little desktop bowl of rocks arrived today. there was also a really cool green and purple necklace with a sparkly swirl on it (sparkles to match my tiara, of course). the rocks were two smooth, polished stones and four lovely pieces of amber with a little hole drilled in them. one of them even most decidedly has an eyeball. thank you, rxbambi, for thinking of me while you were out and about. this is one of those beautiful things that happen when you put yourself out there and blog your madness, other people start enabling it! :-) thank you, dahling! i promise to get my act together and get your little reward for guessing that book (dang, was it really that long ago?!?) sent your way this week!

: : i keep forgetting to go to flickr, but when i remembered today, i had an email inviting me to contribute to a cool new project. it's called footearth and if you too like to photograph your feet or the feet of others, you can contribute too! i went and signed up and put up three foot pictures immediately. so much fun when other people recognize your obsessions and invite you to indulge them. i hope someone starts robot earth next. :-)

: : we got a new furnace last year in february and the results are in. we have cut our gas bill for the year IN HALF!! yes, they are giving us back more than $2000 because our new furnace, in combination with our wood-burning stove/fireplace, was so much more efficient we used HALF the natural gas! i am dumbfounded. and really happy we made that decision. if you're considering a new furnace and have any doubts, all i can say is GO FOR IT!

: : sabin and i are enjoying the junie b. jones books. thanks for getting us started on them, moneek.

: : after my post earlier today i learned that i really, truly have some brilliant, awesome friends in this here blogosphere.  and i am so grateful to you for your friendship. it makes me feel that i can breathe again.  and breathing is good.

fabulosity all around (and a giveaway)

i'm all for looking at the world differently, with fresh eyes, from a new perspective. wearing orange tights with red shoes and taking photos of my feet against the green grass in front of a snotty spa hotel in skodsborg while i wait for husband. but seriously, i have to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere is here.  apparently nancy reagan gets regular visits from ronnie during which he talks to her. i always knew the woman was nuts. tho' admittedly running the US by astrology does seem better in retrospect than the 8 years of the bush administration.

* * *

A VERY BIG THANK YOU!! so big, i had to use actual capital letters, so that's big. thanks to all of you and your votes, my story will make the print issue of disco underworld. i quite literally couldn't have done it without you, so to celebrate, i'm going to give away one of my helleristning stones.  if you want to be entered to win, please leave a comment on this post. i think i will make an entirely new helleristning on one of my stones from my recent trip to norway, so this picture is just a sample. you will get a totally new, unique to you, very own helleristning. :-)

so, to review: leave a comment to win a helleristning stone on a stone from norway. it's my thanks to you for helping me make the print issue of discounderworld! and speaking of discounderworld, there's a new issue out now, full of cool people and things! you can go read it right after you finish reading here. :-)

my lovely assistant (i haven't decided yet whether it's sabin or husband) will draw the winner on friday.

* * *

did you know that you're limited to 200 characters in labels? it's practically a tweet. i'm feeling restricted!

* * *

and while i was sitting here, killing time waiting for magazine proofs and in between last-minute edits and trying to shoo a bumble bee out of the addition (they get totally confused by the big windows), the mailman knocked on my door. he brought me this:

a package from the fabulous (i know, i'm overusing that word, i can't help it, there's just so much fabulousity) lynne of wheatlands news. and look what was inside!

rocks and toys and cards, oh my!

and lynne's 82-year-old mom made the cards.

i love that!!

these are seriously cool toys!

husband is gonna love these.

and so is sabin.

i might have to hide them and play with them all by myself.

and each of these rocks is cooler than the next!

lynne calls us stone freaks rotsifarians--b/c rots is rock in afrikaans--i LOVE that too!

the flat one is from namibia

the others are from diamond diggings at alexander bay

the red one is a "red luck stone" because it indicates the presence of diamonds (cool!)

and the little one is covered in eyes!!!

i love the little beaded doll too. 

it appeals to my superstitious side.

THANK YOU LYNNE!!!

i love having these little pieces of africa right here in denmark.

* * *

blog camp note:  don't forget about blog camp II scheduled for september 4-7 here in denmark. i have room for 4 and one spot is tentatively booked. all of you north americans should be checking ticket prices right now (i hear air france is having a sale (ha, bad joke, but i couldn't resist)). but seriously, there are some good prices out there, so do book ahead! and if you're coming all that way, we can arrange for spending a bit more time than just a long weekend.  there may be one more blog camp during 2009 in the US--we're in the tentative stage of planning a trip and just might make time for a few days of blog camp fun sometime in the autumn. stay tuned for updates on that one.

* * *

don't forget to check out the latest issue of disco underworld now.

there are lots of cool and creative people featured this month!

this girl: an update

thanks to some hints from bambi and her sister barb and their recent this girl posts and because i'm finally feeling like myself again, it seemed like it was time for an update of the this girl post (which, to give credit where credit is due, was started by the fabulous gillian ever so long ago).

~ hates righteousness, but can be pretty righteous at times.

~ needs more courage.

~ needs more discipline.

~ needs more practice.

~ needs less stuff.

~ needs to focus.

~ loves rocks and cameras and feathers and books and art supplies.

~ takes photos every day.

~ hates to capitalize. especially i.

~ talks too loud.

~ gets what she wants.

~ has a sneaking suspicion that it will all work out.

~ likes robots and eyeballs and embroidery floss and brand new pens.

~ wears blue nail polish.

~ watches too much LA Ink, Miami Ink and What Not to Wear on Discovery Travel & Living.

~ has a list of names to submit to What Not to Wear (with Clinton & Stacey).

~ should probably herself be on that list.

~ is superior and humble. haughty and kind. snobby and forgiving. messy and obsessive compulsive. thoughtful and oblivious. one big mass of contradictions. and likes it that way.

~ loves cats and horses and bunnies.

~ wants pigs and a few chickens.

~ goes to bed too late every single night.

~ loves her iPhone. and iMac. and iPad. and her nikon(s).

~ wishes stuff didn't matter so much.

~ wishes sometimes she didn't care so much.

~ is glad she cares so much. because it's what makes her who she is.

let austerity april begin

i know that if you know me, which you no doubt feel you do if you come here regularly, you think i'm pulling a little april fool's joke. it cannot be that our little julochka is embarking on any kind of project that has the word "austerity" in it. but this is no joke. inspired by my friend B, for the month of april (and hopefully beyond), there will be no shoes, no crocheted stones, no fabulous fabric (sorry heather i'll have to wait 'til may), no pretty paper, no items of crap from the spotvarer at the grocery store, no books (i have enough to get me through the next month), no pretty notebooks or binders from bookbinders design, no new clothes (not that i'm that bad about clothes (thankfully i live far from a Gap), it's really only when i've let that moron pack my suitcase), no new perfume.

just groceries and train tickets and plane tickets and the organic box. oh, and the cleaning girl. i refuse to give her up.

amazing the things we consider the necessities of life.

i wonder if i can hide under some of the rocks i found last weekend for an entire month...

scenes from frilandsmuseet: take 1

every year, during the autumn holiday, we feel compelled to expose the child to some kind of cultural enrichment - small, obscure museums and historical rocks of interest. this year, we took her to the frilandsmuseet in copenhagen - in lyngby, actually, it's a collection of farmhouses from around denmark and sweden - moved from their original place, carefully labeled and reconstructed to the smallest detail. there was much inspiration to be had for people who now live in an old farmhouse themselves. we practically had to drag husband away from the woodworking and machine shops...

more photos to come (i took 298 digital and a whole roll of film)....

hope your weekend is going well!

happiness 101

erin from dropped stitches gave me one of those blog award thingies - it's called happy 101 -  in which you list ten things that make you happy (thank you, erin!). after a really lovely weekend where lots of details of our move began to fall into place in earnest, a list of ten things i love was just exactly what i needed.

1) i love that within these nascent buds, while beautiful in their own right, there are future apples. nature rocks. (and yes, i probably should have cropped this, but i wasn't in an editing mood, so what you see (or what i saw) is what you get.)

2) beginnings. whether it's the beginnings of the peonies, just poking up out of the ground, or the beginning of a new job, or the beginning of life in a new home. i love the excitement of the beginning.

3) looking at things differently. from another vantage point. outside the norm. or just plain upside down.

4) blue skies. and magnolia buds.

5) the way the late afternoon light falls in spring in scandinavia. it's really quite amazing. especially when it falls on sabin, so golden and warm. it almost makes it worth the winter darkness.

6) lego. and their attention to detail. especially when they make a little horse trailer with range rover to pull it and a little horse. and you can transport your jump up on top.

7) renewable energy.

8) walks in the woods.

9) bright, colorful clothes.

10) things which are appealingly and inspiringly displayed.

what is making you happy right here and right now?