gatherings and random thoughts

i shared before that i did a little ritual to celebrate the solstice. this was the intention that was left at the end of 12 days of burning intentions. "have people over at least once a month." i'll admit, i was a little disappointed at first. but interestingly, since this became my intention, the notion of gathering people together keeps popping up everywhere. like in this really wonderful episode of ezra klein's podcast. 

so, what have i done to fulfill this intention so far? in january, i hosted a board meeting of our little creative group, creagive, at my house. i made ramen for everyone and we ate together and had our meeting. most of the members had to google what ramen was, but they left with full bellies and their horizons expanded. and i had some nice company in the middle of husband's trip to ukraine, which i really needed to distract me from worrying about him. a couple of days later, i had some old colleagues who have become friends over for the same meal. so i hosted twice in january. make that three times - we also invited a neighbor who is moving over for fastelavnsboller and to see my weaving studio one sunday afternoon. 

tomorrow, i'm hosting three good friends for a little galentine's celebration in the afternoon. just really good coffee and small chocolate lava cakes, which i will make for the first time. i was so happy to be planning this, that i decided to make a small handmade valentine for each of them - a little stitched heart-shaped brooch for each. it was lovely to spend a couple of evenings crafting these, one for each of my friends, thinking about what they might like and seeing where my supply stash and creativity would take me. a little burst of creativity that was a surprising side-effect of my resolution to have people over. 

i'm pondering the party we're going to have in the summer to celebrate my citizenship, husband's 61st birthday, my 59th and our 27th wedding anniversary. it bugs me that people only do a big celebration on the "big" numbers - we "should" have done one for our 60th or for our 25th anniversary, but i resist the tyranny of convention and so why not celebrate 61 and 59 or 27 years? 

my friend said she had been thinking of themes for the party - something i hadn't considered. and now i can't stop thinking about it. what if everyone had to come in a blow-up costume like my beloved t-rex? my friend suggested taylor swift albums, but husband wasn't so keen on that. husband and i discussed maybe a james bond theme last evening, that would fit us both. 

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an insane amount of questions regarding the new citizenship law from one (racist?) member of the committee who happens to be a member of dansk folkeparti? 

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funny how he got parked in strange corners all over the company and never made VP, despite being there for 39 years...just seems a little weird, don't you think? 

and yes, i'm still a little bit bitter.

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ugh, the knitting community on social media is a pretty toxic place. i wouldn't even know about this, since it's happening on instagram, but knittok is talking about it as well. why are women so nasty to one another? and why do people think knitting designers owe them something?

my brain is buzzing

full credit to my sister for this photo. it's early morning purple aurora skies over the old barn from the back steps of our childhood home, which is now her home. purple has always been one of my favorite colors and though i go away from it, i always come back. i recently bought a purple sweater and some very cool purple and gold brocade pants, so it's back in my life. it often figures in the mild synesthesia i have in certain situations - i see swirls of purple and pink, quite like this photo, actually. though sometimes it's purple and peach or purple and green. i think purple comforts me.

my brain is buzzing. i haven't slept well since sometime last week. i might have mentioned that husband is currently driving around in ukraine, delivering all kinds of humanitarian aid. he visited an animal shelter today and delivered a lot of pet food and other supplies. a kind woman has taken in cats and dogs that people had to leave behind as they fled. he said they had 23 dogs and 48 cats and it was immaculate. i'm certain the food he delivered was much appreciated. i get tears in my eyes just writing this. but dang, it's keeping me from getting a good nights' sleep. 

i feel like i'm absorbing all of the anxiety of the world. or channeling it. or something that's hard to describe. it's rather unpleasant. and it isn't conducive to proper sleep or firing on all cylinders at work. maybe i'll feel normal again when husband is home. but maybe i won't. maybe trump will have invaded greenland. maybe that bill to do away with dual citizenship in the US will pass. if it does, i know which i will choose, if only i would get the letter to say it's official. 

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. 

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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.