the healing energy of a cube

i'm not generally a worrier. i can take things as they come as a general rule, but this time, with husband in ukraine, i'm having some anxiety. it's probably the world in general. the country of my birth is about to attack and take a territory of my chosen country by force, starting ww3, so it's no wonder. there's a shit ton of anxiety in the air, so i guess it's not rocket science that i'm feeling it more acutely this time.

i stopped by my friend emmy's to drop off some weaving supplies last evening after work and she offered to make a simple dinner of creamy mushrooms on toast and a lovely winter salad. i gratefully accepted. while she cooked, i sat on the cube that she got when we visited weaver hanne vedel's studio last year. i closed my eyes and felt the energy from this beautifully woven work flow into me. it felt like a comforting, warm blanket settling over me. 

emmy put on p8 jazz and i sat there and felt the hum of positive, calming energy coming from the cube and the whole atmosphere. i felt in touch with the calm, warm, powerful energy that hanne must have had as she wove the cloth that became this cube.  breathing in the delicious fragrance of the creamy mushrooms simmering, i closed my eyes and listened to the music. colors began to dance in front of my eyes and i could feel the anxiety fade. it wasn't gone, but it became manageable. it was just what i needed. 

aurora borealis

like most things, the sun is going a little bit crazy at the moment. there's a major solar storm going on. it was clear and cold here and i couldn't sleep anyway. i was worried about whether husband had made it to poltava and whether he was safe and i hadn't heard from him. i'm not normally one to worry, but these are anxious times and his trip is something to concretely worry about, rather than the general sense of worry and embarrassment caused by the spray-tanned satan on the daily. so it means i'm not sleeping all that well while he's away. i found myself awake a little before 2 a.m. and a text rolled in from my sister. she follows the antics of the sun and she messaged that we were ripe for auroras. so, since i was awake anyway, i went outside. and these are what i saw. right here in my own back yard. i'm almost hoping for another restless night tonight. 

 

a good bubble bath can cure a lot of ills

the upstairs bathroom is shaping up. i told husband that what i most wanted for christmas was to be able to take a bath in that bathtub. he worked his tail off in every spare minute for about a month up to christmas and on christmas day, i did indeed get to have my first bubble bath. sabin brought me some lush bubble bombs from lisbon. i lit some candles and it was absolute bliss. 

there's still some painting to be done around the edges and husband wants to finish the window sills with some epoxy to protect from the water, but it's completely usable and wonderful. the floor looks amazing together with the shiny green tiles. 

the shower, which is separate and not in these photos, isn't finished yet, but i don't mind. i'd rather have a bath anyway. the little bench in the corner covers up some pipes, but we turned it into a cozy little corner with some cushions. i'm not sure it's actually logical to sit there and relax, but i love how cozy it looks. 

after husband left for ukraine yesterday, i wandered around the house, feeling at loose ends and like i couldn't settle down to anything. so i ran a hot bath with plenty of bubbles, lit some candles and tried to quiet my worries. there's a lot of madness in the world today, but a good bubblebath can at least give a moment or two of peace and comfort. 

he's off again

i'm home alone for the next 9-10 days. i didn't really use my time all that wisely today. i got up at 4:30 to see husband off on his latest trip to ukraine. we had breakfast with the group who is driving while they printed off all the customs papers they will need and then i came back home after seeing him off. and then i kind of wandered around the house, wondering what to do with myself. it's not that there's nothing i could do, i just felt a bit unmotivated to do any of it. 

i have such mixed feelings about the trip. i so admire him for doing it and yet i'm so worried about him staying safe. i just want him to come home in one piece. i'm going to try to enjoy girl dinners and watching all the secret lives of mormon wives and real housewives that i want and just count the days until he comes home. 

there's so much craziness and uncertainty in the world today and i can feel pretty helpless against it. i think husband does too and this is his way of doing something about it. i can only admire and support that, even if it will give me some restless, sleepless nights for the next week or so. 

* * *

i saw a truck from multiform kitchens, a high end, very expensive kitchen brand, delivering to the church planting neighbors today. i wonder if those donors at those churches in missouri and nebraska know they're funding a high end kitchen at a home they also helped pay for in denmark? 🧐

no idea what a christian is anymore 🧐

this is one of those, i have to write about this in order to figure out what i think about it posts. we've had, for us, quite a lot of snow this week. today, it was sunny, clear and cold and very windy. the wind caused quite a lot of drifting across various roads in our area. i didn't walk far enough to actually show you how bad it is, so this picture doesn't actually do it justice. i decided to take another way around to get into town to get groceries and i got thoroughly stuck in a snowdrift. i oddly neglected to take a photo of my predicament. i called husband, who wasn't anywhere near home, to tell him what happened. he laughed, told me to go home and get a shovel and come back and start digging. i was definitely NOT wearing the right clothes for that task, but i was about a kilometer from home, so i walked back home to change clothes and get a shovel. 

in the meantime, i asked husband if he could call the farmer who rents our field, to ask him if he could come with a tractor and pull me out. he could. i said i'd run home to change into proper winter clothing (thank goodness sabin got two pairs of moonboots on vinted for christmas) and i'd meet him back at the car. 

i bundled up, found a little shovel, just in case, and headed back. as i was walking back, i noticed that our new neighbors were standing out by the road by their driveway. they are actually fellow americans and they are here in denmark as missionaries (apparently the danes are godless heathens, despite the fact that we have a state religion here and virtually everyone is lutheran). 

when they first moved in back in october, husband and i took a couple of my many avocado plants over and welcomed them to the neighborhood. they didn't even really invite us in that day and we stood awkwardly in the entryway, talking to the wife and her mother who was here from nebraska, helping them move. while we talked, a couple of the sons (they have 3 and 1 daughter) also said hello. but we haven't met the husband or the daughter or the eldest son. it all seemed a little weird.

even weirder, when they looked up and saw me headed their direction, they went further into their property, seemingly to avoid talking to me. i'd think a bundled up woman in a blizzard, carrying a shovel, might warrant a, "hey, do you need help?" but i don't even think i would have gotten a hello without my saying hello first. it was weird, to say the least. 

i wouldn't have actually taken them up on help, as i knew help was on the way, but honestly, i think it would have just been neighborly politeness to offer. i find it absurd that they are in denmark to "church plant" (according to one website i found) and they don't even display the slightest hint of christian kindness. what kind of christianity are they here to spread? i am honestly perplexed and a little offended.

yes, we have painted viking symbols on our house. but they don't even know us and haven't talked to us. what kind of attitude is it to see me coming and move further in to avoid even greeting me, especially in weather conditions like today's? what kind of christianity is that? i don't know if they're trumpy, but this makes me suspect they are. but christianty aside, i honestly would have expected more polite kindness from our next-door neighbors. 

it feels like yet another symptom of a world that's just completely out of wack. luckily, the actual danes in the neighborhood were quick to help me. when i got to my car, the farmer was there with his tractor, along with another farmer with a big snow mover scoop. one pulled me out and the other cleared the road while we went to the other end, so that i could turn around and drive back home. dinner will just have to be what i already have in the fridge. and i'm thankful for the good people who do live in our area.

2025 :: the year in pictures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ringing in the new year 🥂

sent 2025 out with a bit of sparkle. ✨ let's hope that 2026 is better. we had a great evening with friends eating a lovely meal and playing a game called "ego," which i have to admit didn't really seem that egotistical, so i don't entirely understand the name. it was really thought-provoking and we laughed a lot. we got home very late (around 5 a.m.) and slept in. it was the perfect end to the year and the perfect start to the new one. still a few days of holiday left, so it's a soft start to 2026. happy new year, one and all. 🍾🥂

* * *

i'm doing wendy macnaughton's 30-day draw together challenge again this year. wanna join?