circus strong man

such a busy day, which, if i clarify, only means a decent amount of running around today and not a whole lot of energy to do it with.  i feel like i'm still paying for last friday's adventure to town with henry.  as much as it felt (and was) do-able at the time, i feel like i've been worn out since.  still going and moving and doing what needs to be done, but feeling like an old lady doing it (no offense to any old ladies out there).  i enjoy taking advantage of the times when i feel good enough to expend a lot of energy, when i feel as strong as i think i should be, but it can be frustrating when i learn afterwards that what felt right at the time was actually overdoing it.  and that overdoing it can mean a week of a seriously worn out body.  

but no matter.  it was still a good day and it's been a good week.  greg was home today and we went into town, ran some errands, and then got caught in the rain biking back to william's parent-teacher conference.  and a cold rain it was.  but a nice conference.  and then to the grocery store, still wet and cold (which was uncharacteristically crazy busy, which, we quickly realized, was because tomorrow is a holiday and so the stores are, presumably, closed).  home to make a quiche for the potluck at henry's school (greg), hang laundry (me), and to take care of nana peter pan (the dog) for the last time (me).  then we picked up william and headed to the circus at the preschool.  

when we got there, i couldn't believe that they'd set up a real, outdoor stage. in my mind i'd imagined it inside the school in a little common room they have, but this was much more impressive.  

behind the stage... a sneak peak at the performers...  

 the stage...

waiting for the show to start...

the strong men coming up on stage.  henry is third from the left, in black...

while i'm pretty sure he spent two-thirds of his time on stage standing in back chewing on a piece of grass, eventually he lifted up a house...

here he is with us after his act was over...

next, the magician and the elephants...

 the acrobats...

the high-wire act...

and finally, the clowns...

and then a huge potluck dinner.

a good way to start the long weekend.

double-decker bus

greg gets the spotlight tonight as it is the only picture i've got.  william gets the photo credit.  

i got to see a couple old classmates from language school today and eat a delicious lunch and play with a couple really cute babies.

we found out at dinner tonight that william went to copenhagen this morning on a double-decker bus to watch a play with his class.  if you've been reading this blog for awhile you might know this is not the first time i've been surprised to learn my children went to copenhagen.  (to be fair, i could have found this out had i looked at the online weekly calendar before 30 seconds ago.) 

tomorrow's the circus.  henry's one of the strong men.  i hear he's going to lift a car.  

scenes from the bike path

i really think we'd be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful area to live in (that also offers easy biking (i.e. safe bike paths, conscientious drivers))... 

i didn't have to go "out into the country" to see this... (nor to see any of those cows i'm always taking pictures of)... (or perhaps we live "out in the country" and i just don't realize it.  denmark's so small, the distance between country and city must, too, be a lot smaller!) 

the bike path (and the road running parallel, as seen rising up the hill)...

everyone's tired tonight.  well, at least the parents are, though i think both boys may have succumbed to sleep by this point.  time for an earlier bedtime tonight.  goodnight!

pindsvin

i spent much of the day trying to read the book club book that i've sorely neglected.  my book club is meeting on friday and i've never not finished the book in time for the meeting.  after my effort today, i think i'll have it done.  that said, i didn't do much of anything to prepare for our upcoming trip.  i canceled the 'juice' box deliveries.  that's about it.  

when i picked william up from his after-school, he and a bunch of the other kids were all working on a project... 

any idea what i might become??? 

here's an example of the finished product...

cute, huh?

while there, i got a call from my doctor.  the test i had last week (an mri) was all good.  he laughed when i used the word "awesome" to describe the news he was giving me.  i don't know if that word is used very frequently in denmark.  i suppose it's probably a little outdated in the u.s. as well, but i stopped being up-to-date on the latest slang in 1993 apparently.

here's a picture taken at 8 o'clock tonight...

now, time to do some more reading!

sunday

as much as we probably need to do in these next (now less than) two weeks to get ready, we certainly took a 'take it easy' approach to the morning.  but certainly by 11 or so i was up sorting through clothes (the boys and my own)-- figuring out what still fit, what didn't, what did we have too much of, what needed to go into storage until next season, what needed to come out for the upcoming summertime trip-- and in the afternoon, our old neighbor came to take away a chest freezer in our shed that we've never ended up using, which made significant space for us to store our bikes and burley while we're gone.

so we at least did that much.

and then later we made up a salad (okay, greg made up a salad.  i was still working on the clothing thing) and took it over to the house of those old neighbors and had a great dinner with them and another family-- duck in a can (much better than it sounds), leek pie, roasted veggies, duck gravy, salad, homemade bread, wine, coffee, water, and a couple very small sips of scottish scotch... i think i'm not a scotch person. and of course, because we're at the home of our friend who is a serious cake maker-- a delicious dessert!

and here's henry right now, keeping a close and patient eye on it...

and for you to keep a closer eye on it.  a raspberry mousse.

five boys at the kids' table... only two spilled drinks and one broken decorative item...

and now it's bedtime.  goodnight! 

workday

today was a workday for our co-housing community.  it started with coffee, tea, juice, homemade rolls, cheese and meats in the common house and ended with cut carrots, cucumbers, apple slices and delivered pizzas, there too.  in between was mostly outdoor work.  in the morning henry and i collected all manner of little bits of trash around the common spaces and later i helped greg cut up the aforementioned fruit and veggies.  after the breakfast and before the veggies, greg did all sorts of shoveling and digging, helping to turn one large sandbox into a fire pit and creating two little sandboxes to replace it.  william was really motivated to help with the fire pit in the morning and helped shovel and move dirt and sand around.  

in the evening we had movie night.  here are a few of us getting ready for it to start...  

tomorrow we'll have a workday here at home.  getting ready for our big trip stateside.

apple trees, cherry trees, orange-flavored yogurt

friday-- a day with henry.  a really good day with henry.  playing with trains in the early morning, and then, around 9:30, taking him in the burley to town.  that in itself is a good thing.  the mere fact i considered doing it that way (and not by bus) meant i knew i could handle the physical challenge of it, which means things are improving for me, energy-wise.  (even though, by six o'clock tonight, i was more worn out than i've been in a long time.) after we got home we took care of the neighbor's dog, henry played on the trampoline, we ate popcorn on the porch and blew bubbles.  i weeded some around our house and henry decided to get out the plastic pool and fill it up one old ice-cream container's worth of water at a time from the bathroom sink.  when i dared to look, there was a huge mess of water and mud all over the floor and the bathroom rugs.  still, i dug out his swim trunks for all the effort he put in, even though it was definitely sweatshirt weather outside.  he spent about 1 minute out there before coming in shivering.  it didn't take much to convince him to get into a warm shower.

william is at a sleepover tonight so when greg got home we had a nice little dinner and then a walk around the neighborhood.  it's now 12 hours since henry and i went to town in the morning and he's still doing his staying awake trick.  we're convinced now that the recent evening wakefulness is due to the longer days.  at 9:30 there is still a gradient of blue in the sky, though it is mostly dark by now.

so now for some pictures!

 offering me some yogurt from the big brunch we shared...

back at home.  first you squeeze the orange juice into the yogurt, then you enjoy a nice orange-flavored yogurt dip with a carrot...

on the porch...

on the walk...

watching the sheep...

little lambs...

solitary duck...

community gardens, and the surrounding fields...

overwintered kale...

strawberry plants...

even wisconsin's seeing daffodils by now...

love how they train the apple trees this way along wire fences...

smelling the flowers of a cherry tree... "smells like candy," said henry.

goodnight!

torsdag

getting ready to shower... 

i'm not sure where the clip-on tie fits in with things however.  (w. took this photo of himself.)

the weather turned cooler today and the wind came back.  the sun was gone in the morning, and as predicted, i missed it.  but then it was back and the wind wasn't as fierce, and i even went without my hat, and while it was a questionable decision, my ears didn't end up hurting (which is the main reason i still wear a winter hat at the end of april).

i seem to be starting in on the tour of hospitals as i take care of some medical tests before going to the u.s. for nearly three months with only travel insurance.  one today.  a couple more next week.  then it's just a matter of hearing what i hope to be good news all around.

and i got to tutor today, which is always fun!  and have lunch with a couple friends from language school, which is wonderful!  and buy a few little things to bring to the u.s.  and have a great meal at the common house.  and of course, enjoy the silliness of our boys.  so all in all, it was a really nice day.

yellow sun

was feeling sick after dinner, but now i'm not.  even still, it's late, so i'll just put up a couple pictures of a couple people.

henry stopping the burley train to pick flowers.  now i realize where the yellow under his nose came from the other day when he had his play date.  i couldn't figure it out.  now i know.

and greg, after our dinner on the porch.  our last forecasted day of sun.  i will miss you these next five or more days, sun.

sparkly concrete

i typically open up a blank post... think, "what am i going to write?" (and i'm well aware that probably shows in my posts!) and then, intimidated by the empty space, go straight to uploading the pictures.

tonight i did all that, but then my computer was summoned for a 'little thinker' for a little thinking boy who cannot fall asleep (this time, the older brother), and though the pictures had all uploaded, i'd failed to hit save, and when i opened our other computer to continue the post, the pictures weren't there.

so now i actually have to think without any pictures to guide me.  at least until the little thinker falls asleep and i can get the other computer back.  (i was so efficient tonight i already deleted all the pictures off my phone.)

so, i will lay it all out, in chronological order... the good, the bad, and the ugly.

first was a meeting with one of henry's teachers.  not because things are going badly at school, but because of the disparity in how good things are going in school vs. how much we are pulling our hair out with him at home.

next was a wait outside in the beautiful, if slightly cool spring morning, before catching a train. there's a lake in trekroner, at the roskilde university campus.  you've probably seen it in a few of my pictures lately (and, when i get my computer back, you'll probably see it in this post as well.)  a few of the benches around it are on little docks that jut out into a swampy area at one end of the lake.  i sat on a bench there and my bike stood next to me.  except that my bike is awfully prone to falling over in the slightest wind, and it did so today, spilling my bag and its contents-- namely, my phone and wallet-- into the swampy area.  fortunately, it was onto a relatively solid bit of ground.  muddy, but not wet, and certainly not wet enough to result in a submersed anything.  phew.  but can you imagine this story if i had lost my wallet and phone to a swampy lake?  it would have been a much different day.

then the train to see my therapist.  funny that i hesitate before writing that.  if i don't just say it and normalize it, i'm giving in to a stigma that serves no good purpose.

after, to the grocery store to buy almonds that were not on the shelf, and whose space seems now to be replaced by some other nut or bean or grain.  thank goodness we're going to the u.s. in less than three weeks where nuts are always on our list of things to buy in bulk.

then home, and a late lunch.  william went to a play date after school.  henry and i went to the park, but almost immediately he found a very large dinosaur fossil imbedded in sparkly concrete and wanted nothing but to go home with it.  perhaps he wanted to avoid the otherwise inevitable media frenzy that would ensue when it was revealed that a four-year-old was able to make such a find with so little effort.  it's sitting abandoned at the bottom of our burley now.

later, a little dodge-ball-inspired game created by william, called 'goodie bag' (we think... it's hard for the tired parents to remember), outside, before and after dinner.

then a fairly smooth bedtime with a few of our new ideas inspired by today's professionals.

now it's just a wait on those pictures...

... and, other computer back, here they are...


where i sat...

where i nearly lost my very important documents and telephone...

a very fast train going by at the train station...

a number of towns over on this beautiful spring day...

mandag

it's just 9:30 but i'm so tired tonight i'm just going to share a small handful of pictures and crawl into bed.  

one of the better days today, weather-wise.  so good i went without a hat for the last half of my journeys today and did all right without it.

but these pictures are from my earlier journeys, on my way home from town and a stop at the grocery store... 

love these guys.  wish i could give them a good bath and then a big hug.

 okay, yawn.  goodnight.

common sunday

just a few porch photos from today...

sharing some cake from yesterday's play date... 

and a little tea, because it's still just mid-50s...

one of his more common faces...

the common house...

mostly a day to relax or play, depending your preferences.