This is what I was talking about – it’s here, and I am so proud and happy about all the magic that this amazing network has generated.
Take a look at Blogish! And do spread the word… :)
Blogging has given me something that I never anticipated.
I have a network of blogging women in Denmark. A network that I value ever so much. A network that always delivers a good answer to any question, a shoulder to someone who needs comfort, a caring push to someone in need of one, and a name to call for someone in need of the right contact. We share a naturalness around the internet that gives us a common feeling of endless possibilities.
And after all this is said, they’re also just really great friends!
We meet frequently, and our meetings always result in bursts of creative energy, ideas, jobs, dreams, and more still. Some of this energy is going into an e-magazine that is due to come out next week. I’m looking so much forward to seeing it – it will be in Danish (sorry you guys, who don’t understand Danish – it may still be a visual inspiration), and it will be our contribution to the Danish readers – giving something back to the internet that gave us a chest of lifelong treasures.
Can’t wait to see it!
(If you don’t know – hyben is the Danish word for Rosehip.)
Late this afternoon, I arrived home after a weekend of bloggers meetup and birthday celebration of our host – a welcome getaway with the wonderful group of women, that I am getting to know and treasure a little more for every time we get together. The meetups always leave me with some degree of sleep deprivation, yet a ton of creative energy and inspiration.
This particular weekend, I tried something awesome.
This is me, attempting to make a glass bead in Anne‘s lovely glass studio. She makes beautiful glass jewellery, and I loved getting the chance to try. I wear purple safety glasses, that block the bright yellow flare to help me see what I am doing, and to protect my eyes. I just tried to make the one bead, but I would definitely want to try this again some time.
The flame from the torch is really, really, really hot, so I wanted to keep my focus – I think this shows in the picture.
I chose a rose colour, but I think it changed a bit. Can’t wait to see what colour is is, when it has spend its time in the kiln (special oven).
I can see why this can turn into an obsession – finding the perfect colours and making them work together, seems to me rather like collecting fabric.
This is Anne working her magic – she describes it as her zen. Again, I see parallels to sewing…
It looks so easy when Anne is handling the torch, glass, and mandrel – it is NOT. 
Mads is away for a few days, which means that tonight I’m home alone with the girls and a sore throat. I put the girls to bed a while ago, and Ronja actually lost her first tooth, while we were brushing her teeth – that is quite an event for a 6-year old, and she proclaimed she will be expecting a visit from the tooth fairy. I don’t remember tooth fairies from when I was a child, but I guess I should probably find a coin or something.
Today has been spent on the couch under a blanket, sleeping and drinking lots of tea with honey, and yesterday was rather similar. The next few days I am attending a conference called New Media Days that takes place in Copenhagen once a year. I love going there to expand my knowledge on current development and the future of digital media, and I am so hoping to wake up tomorrow just a little bit better.
It’s been a busy week, this past week. I spent a couple of days in London – it was work related, but we had time off as well. I like London a lot, and I would love to go back there before long. We didn’t overdo sleep, so Friday back at work was a long day.
The origami crane mobile you see on the left, are some that I made Saturday (if you want to learn how, you can find instructions here), when I went to yet another blogger meetup with the inspiring group of crafty, blogging women that I am lucky enough to be part of. Those days are great, and it’s always hard to leave – we spend an entire day talking, laughing, sharing, doing different kinds of crafts, enjoying snacks and great food – and well – joining in conversations about all the things that we have in common, as well as the things we don’t. Thanks, girls! The glass bead at the bottom of the crane mobile was made by Anne, who has taken on glass crafting – she makes some gorgeous stuff.
The week before this one, we went to a check-up with Frida. As some of you recall, she was born with a cleft palate, and had surgery when she was 18 months. We have been visiting a speech therapist to make sure her language would come along as it should, and also to determine whether she would need further surgery or not (elaborated here). Getting all the sounds right has taken a while for Frida, but we are so getting there. This time, visiting the speech therapist was just so much fun for Frida as well as her proud parents. She went through an entire book, describing what she saw in a bunch of pictures, and her pronunciation as well as her attitude towards the task was just a pleasure to witness. The therapist told us she had no reason to believe Frida would need another round of surgery, and I so hope she is right. We can do without.
Warning: This will be a long post – but don’t worry, it will be pictures mostly.
When you look at my blog, it does indeed look like nothing much is happening. However, going through my recent calendar, and my recent pictures you would be getting an entirely different impression. I was just checking to see what should be included in a much needed update, and from that, I can totally see why I haven’t had time for blogging.
I miss my blog, my blog reading, and all of you guys out there (if anyone’s left), let me just say that first. However, these past few months work has been terribly busy and quite energy comsuming, which is good because I love what I’m doing – it just takes a few sacrifices. And as if business at work wasn’t enough, we also took on a project in our family – more about that further down.
I’ll give you a picture wrap up – so let’s see what we’ve been doing the last few months.
So – briefly:
Mallorca in July
Canoe trip to lake Immeln in Sweden in July
Ronja starting school in August
Ronja’s 6 years birthday in August
I made these adorable goodie bags from Minimega’s printable pdf for the occasion when the class was visiting – just had to show you!
And now in this look-back we’re approaching September, and of course, in our family we just always need 2-300 things keeping us busy, so we started looking for a sail boat (this is the project I mentioned at the beginning). Our new love will be a separate post (or several, of course), now that I hope I will keep up the posts just a little more than I have the past 3-4 months.
We spent all of our spare time for a month driving around the country (and southern Sweden as well), dragging the children onto all kinds of sail boats that were more or less fit for a family of 4 – in all kinds of weather. Which is a lie, actually, ’cause it was raining almost all the time. We finally found the boat model Shipman 28, which is a good Swedish design by Olle Enderlein from 1969. It seems to live up to the things we were looking for in a sail boat, that is meant to host future summer vacations, and numerous sails during the sailing season – within the price limit we were willing to spend. So check this out:
We named the boat ANNA after my amazing grandmother who died 4 years ago. She was a woman who radiated warmth, wit, interest, and just a presence that anyone around her felt and was struck by – she always had a strong ability to gather the family. So those are the qualities we humbly want our new love to possess – or perhaps rather the name stands for a lot of positive things that we want to carry with us when we are sailing and spending time on the boat.
We have spent quite a few weekends with her by now, and we all love it. The girls are getting used to saling step-by-step, and we cannot wait to spend a summer vacation with Anna.
On to the next thing:
Frida’s 3 years birthday in September
All these things have put quite a strain on the calendar, and remember, this is without the stuff that has been going on in our work lives, which at least in my case has been quite a bit. And did I mention we started renovating the bedroom?
This post reflects very much my need to do a wrap-up before I can move on to the next blogpost. It may seem like nothing, but this is just not really what you want to be doing when you have a blog – you want to write whatever enters your mind at the moment, right? Not much crafty stuff here, and the time-issue is in part an explanation for that, but I have been doing minor things. I’ll let you know more soon.
Pappersbruket is just a 5 minutes drive away from Denningarums Gård, and we arrived there after a brief afternoon detour into the woods for a geocache. It was somewhere around 4 in the afternoon, and we had plenty of time for a shower and some clean clothes before dinner. Jessica who runs the place together with her husband, greeted us and showed us to our room.
As soon as you set foot in the hallway of the hotel, you cannot help but know a lot of love went into the creation of the place – it’s just really beautiful and filled with atmosphere! After we freshened up, we went downstairs and had a look around before dinner.
Every detail in the pretty hotel has been tended to carefully – from the beautiful wallpaper panels to the furniture and the colours. After looking around on our own for a while and being shown around by Peter, Jessica’s husband, we sat down for dinner. Though the host couple were totally sweet with the children, it didn’t take Mads and I long to agree that this would probably be a place we would be more likely to go without children. The girls loved the acoustics and space of the hall and the restaurant – does that tell you anything at all? Calming them down was rather difficult – good thing we were the only ones in the restaurant that evening… Dinner was amazing, by the way!
The girls fell asleep late, and Mads and I stayed up talking, seated in the soft couches. Next morning we had breakfast before Peter took us on a tour of the rest of the site which is used for events of different kinds, and it just showed us once more that everything is so well accomplished it’s hard to believe. It would be a truly great place for a company event of some sort or a large party.
After the tour we borrowed a canoe, so that Mads and I could take the girls out for a little while. We both weren’t too optimistic about how that would work out, expecting the girls to not be able to sit still for more than a little while. We were soooo proved wrong. After a little while the rain started pouring, and we got out the raincoats for both girls.
At this point things could have been way more challenging than they were – the girls were singing most of the way, and in fact they just seemed to really enjoy our quiet trip down the stream – and so did their parents. Mads and I have been canoeing in Sweden quite a few times before we had kids – now I think we may just try a few days trip again soon.
When we got back, Peter was there to meet us with umbrellas and while we got into some dry clothes, Jessica made us a cup of tea. After that we said goodbye and went back to Denningarums Gård to have lunch.
Finally, we were all tired and ready to go home after a great weekend of Swedish impressions – this cool bus is what you see close to the town when you go there – but don’t believe what it’s saying (Helvetets Port = gateway to hell), because Östanå definitely has something to offer.
And now, we’re so off to Mallorca – see you when we get back! 