Hygge time

The kids in Tivoli Garden, Copenhagen, 2004

G and I are both Danish by heritage (let's not look too closely to see if we're related, ok?). G's Danish ancestry is a little more (air quotes) important (air quotes) since his g-g-g grandfather wrote the Danish national anthem (I know, can you believe I live with such a celebrity on a daily basis?). We celebrate the whole St. Lucia thing and are firm believers in the power of a good batch of aebleskivers (& I've got a killer recipe if you'd like to try them--thanks Jen J).  Greg speaks Danish, thanks to a couple of years living there.  That came in handy when we returned with the kids a few years ago to see the motherland (which is another post for another day).  

Basically, we're Danish wannabees. 

The Danes have a word--hygge (HOO-ga + also the adjective hygglig HOOG-lee)--to capture that whole concept of a warm, cozy time with friends and family and the feelings you get being together. It seems to guide their decorating, their priorities, and, really, their approach to life. I love it...I like to think there's a bit of natural hygge in my blood.   I think it's what I mean by Basic Joy: the calm, cozy, relaxed, simple, homey comfort of finding the goodness in moments.  (And now I'm humming the celebrate the moments of your life coffee jingle.) 

This time of year makes me feel particularly hygglig.  I was on the way home from school today and had a sudden rush of it.  Oh, yeah...it's autumn all right. I don't need to wait for the autumnal equinox to tell me it's time to cozy up and get comfortable--I had to come right home and get hygglig.  For me, that meant making taco soup, baking chocolate chip cookies*, lighting some candles, and putting on some good cozy music. The Danes are seriously on to something.

What makes you feel hygglig?  How do you create it?

_____________

Link love:

~ Hygge House blog by Danish expat wonder girl Alex Beauchamp

~ *the BEST chocolate cookie recipe.  Just try it.  They're divine...the best tasting cc cookie (and dough) with a great chewy texture inside and nice thin shell of shiny crispiness. I didn't believe it either but decided to try it--via Annie's eats, no relation :).

~ Camilla at home is an inspiring scandinavian home decor blog.  I love to see the images she chooses.  Very hygge.  She gives little English translations for her posts and she's got lots of links to other great scandinavian blogs.

Wonder powers, activate

We're leaving tomorrow for a two-week vacation to visit family and friends.

{Secretly, I love the pre-trip bustle. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.}

Now, where's my golden lasso when I need it?

Oh, the campiness! Raise your hand if you practiced your Wonder Woman spin on the playground and, with your posse of girls, tried to capture unsuspecting classmates with your golden lasso/beaded jumprope {me! when I wasn't playing Charlie's Angels}.

Yes, what I would give for those wonder powers: a few spins, my hair gracefully cascading down my back. Truth-forcing golden lasso, invisible plane, bulletproof bracelets and a titanium bikini.  All a girl needs to take care of business.

Instead, I'm having to use my non-wonder, mortal abilities to wrestle these tasks to the ground:

launder every piece of clothing owned by every member of the household (seriously. Who knew we had so many? Suddenly everyone's interested in having clean clothes.)

download The Closer episodes on my new ipod Josephine (yes, I enjoy naming things)

write up instructions + information for the dog sitter/house sitter

print out boarding passes online

pack my suitcase

supervise the kids' packing (or risk a no toothbrush, no underpants, no jammies fiasco repeat)

go to the library for travel reads for all

change sheets and tidy the house for the housesitter

try to get kids to practice their music one last time

have some I-have-nothing-to-wear moments as I pack

oh, and spend way too much time writing this and perusing Wonder Woman video clips.  Priorities!

Here we come, Logan-Wildwood-Bear Lake-Salt Lake City-Park City! 

We'll have our party shoes on...

*I know wonder twin powers, activate wasn't from Wonder Woman.  But it was an irresistible title.  My apologies to Wonder Twins fans.

Poor little conehead

Turns out there is something worse than losing all your data on your computer*:

Getting neutered.  

(Just ask Louie.)

First they shave you in all sorts of undignified ways.

This particular look surprised us.

Then you have to wear a sad little collar

for 10 to 14 days

(They try to class it up by calling it an Elizabethan collar

but really it's just a plastic cone.

I'm pretty sure Queen Elizabeth I would be insulted.)

No running and playing.  For 10 to 14 days.

No bathing or getting wet. For 10 to 14 days.

Instead?

Bumping your cone against walls, stairs, the floor

as you adjust to your new width.

(Do we laugh? Yes we do.)

Very sad.

Ah, perspective.

When I went to pick up Louie, they gave me this kit: 

Spay/neuter kit?!

Whoa! I had no idea this was a self-serve neutering operation! 

I hope they give some pretty detailed instructions.  

Cause I don't know if I'm comfortable...

All day Louie looked at me like this.  

Finally I realized what he reminded me of. 

He's like the RCA dog and the victrola all in one, 

don't you think?

You're welcome, Bob Barker.

p.s. Thanks for your condolences and sympathies for my Clementine.  (As Allysha so perfectly put it: Clementine is dead.  Long live Clementine!) Things are looking up as I reinstall and reconfigure and upload.

Moment of Silence

Dearly beloved...

We are gathered here today to say farewell 

to the former contents of Clementine MacBook 

(from good Scottish stock, is my laptop computer).

Gone on July 26, 2008

Perhaps what I will miss most 

are the photos she so lovingly stored and displayed....

Or the hours and hours of music she played*...

{sniff}

No, I think what I will most miss 

are the many PhD documents 

that were safely (?) nestled within her bosom.  

Whenever I needed them, Clementine was there.

Until she wasn't.

* * *

The rest of the story?  I stupidly put my beloved laptop on a pile of magazines on the counter. As I walked away, I heard a sliding sound and turned to see the pile teeter and Clementine fall on the wood floor.

There was a slow motion "Nooooooooo!" moment where I dove with my arms outstretched. Louie the dog came running in from outside.  Children dashed from their rooms.  I don't know--you may have heard the wail from where you were on Saturday at 11:16 a.m. if you listened carefully. 

I held out hope until yesterday, when I had an appointment with the lovely men at the Apple Store Genius Bar (hi Court! hi James!).  But their deft magic wouldn't work on Clementine's innards.  She was too far gone.

But don't cry for me, Argentina (everywhere else, feel free). They replaced the hard drive for me.  I still have Clementine and she has been made clean as fresh snow. It's a new beginning, right?  Right?? 

* p.s. I lost my ipod in May and just hadn't replaced it yet so I really lost all my music.  If that ever happens to you, I have a helpful hint: iTunes can allow you to redownload all your purchased items!  Yay--a sparkle of good news in a bleak sea of  despair.  Where the waves of oh-no-I-lost-that-too just keep on coming.

p.p.s. Needless to say, I am new convert to the School of Backup. You know how you get a prompt saying "would you like to backup your files"?  DO IT. 

Peace + quiet

I spent a precious 33.5 hours alone at home this weekend. Not that I'm counting or anything.

I've been trying to finish up a big project for months, my first solo program evaluation of a nonprofit organization. It's been a long and interesting (but only to me...I'll spare you the details) process but with the kids home full time it's been difficult to do the final data analysis and write the report.

The shadow of this expectation started looming large but my hearty procrastination skills rose to the challenge and I kept thinking "I'll get to it tonight, after everyone's in bed"... "I'll get up early in the morning"... "once I read up on this statistical procedure I'll be ready"...and so on. Some projects are just too huge for the usual multi-tasking, chipping-away approach! {Or at least that's what I told myself. Also, I really think I might have late-onset ADD lately. I cannot manage to quiet my brain but flit from project to project, thought to thought without much productivity. Please advise.}

Enter G {husband + father extraordinaire...dadadaDA} who kissed me on the forehead, packed up the kids, and headed to Vermont to camp and cook over a fire and tube down a river. As soon as they left, I decided my fridge needed scrubbing {curse you, productive neglect!} but after that I sat down for seven hours, went to bed, woke up and sat down and worked for eight more. Take that, Procrastination Vader and ADDish bright-shiny-object chaser!

Last year sometime I wrote about my great Grandma's philosophy of occasionally packing up and "going to live with the bears" (or, in my case, sending everyone else to the bears). I think we all need that now and then, whether it's to finish something up or to get a new perspective or to recharge. Even if it's just an hour. Or fifteen minutes.

p.s. It must be in the air right now. Once I resurfaced I read about a couple of others who are taking peace+quiet project vacations, too. I love what Brene says about taking the time and fighting the "who-do-you-think-you-are" thoughts (and I just had an almost identical conversation about success with some of my friends in my PhD program...I'll have to post about that another time). Tara the magnificent also rocked the home quiet while her kids lived with the bears elsewhere for a while.