Tiny origami

Made from a square of paper (piece of post-it) less than one inch across:

In case you wonder, my garden still lives.

Bloons!

Have you ever played the flash game called Bloons? Here. There are a bunch of sequels too in case you get hooked - we played it at work one easter back in oh, must have been 2007, had a little tournament. 

Candle 2

This is from saturday a week ago, when I cut some flowers from the "garden", and lit a candle indoors.

I realised during the week that the one place I did not post a youtube link to a specific song was here on the blog. Both G+ and FB and IRC got the link saturday the 23rd mid-day. Here you are.

Glimpses from my kitchen

I finally gave up and ordered a dishwasher. It will arrive end of next week. 

Import food: Fish cakes and Hansa. 

Dinner the day after, trying to compensate for the Fried Food overdose.

A glimpse from my living room too. A cool lamp.
I might actually move it to the kitchen, haven't decided yet. It  feels a bit small in this big room. 

Candle

Yesterday a rightwing extremist in Norway killed more than 90 people (the number is expected to rise). A few were killed by a bomb in Oslo centrum, but the majority were youth gunned down at a summer camp.  You can read the news for more details, but it is all fairly horrid.

The island were the summer camp was held belongs to a political youth organisation, and when they don't use it they rent it out. Thus, while not associated with labour politics, I have spent many happy idyllic weeks there, and my memories are of sunshine, happiness, and a rare sense of comradeship, acceptance and belonging.

Not many summer weeks go past, every year, without some memory from there popping up.

Now those bright sunny memories have a shadow cast over them, as yesterday the island turned into a death trap and a massacre ground. The youth's stories are heart-breaking, and because I know the landscape so well, it plays out vividly in my mind. Hiding under that rocky ledge, hearing his foot steps above my head. Running. Swimming for land trying to get away.

If my dreams will be disturbed for a while, I think I know why...

Late garden post: Collection for july.

Poppies for socius. They are fairly stunted, but surprisingly beautiful and ethereal in their fragileness. 

There were spider mites on some of the 4o'clock, and they seemed immune to everything I sprayed them with.
Thus, there are no more 4o'clock on my balcony - I cut them all down :( ..Easy way out, to be honest.
This one was funny, all speckled in different colours. Normally they were either pink or yellow on any one plant.

I added a fabric wall hanging to cover the ugly grey wall at the end. I actually wanted brighter colour but hey, it was cheap.

Just won the Big Ben picture at an auction. YAY!

Sofa

I sorta fell in love with this a bit more than a year ago.

Here.

Colour!

xkcd analyses colour.

Wish list

Because people (including myself!) seem forever confused about whatever I would want when it becomes time to name wish lists, I decided to compile a wish list here, with the tag - wishlist.

Here are the first few items:
- Knitting needles. Specifically these.
- Flying! I love flying. Balloon trips, parachute jumps, flying lessons, etc!
- This picture is called "Big Ben" and is by an artist called Richard Ryan. Sometimes available at fineart.no . I want it - and framed in a nice frame so I won't have to pay for that (black would look good I think, or narrow silver maybe?). Although, if it is an option of getting it but without a frame or not at all, I prefer without a frame.  EDIT july 21st: I won it at an auction just now. No longer on my wish list. Whoo! 

Google+

Copied my first public G+ post to post it here as well:

So, now I am here on G+. Going to be interesting to see what it works out to be. In a way I hope it will be the end of FB, which I have never really liked but felt forced to join to not become a total reclusive. 

Maybe it will not become the new place for all social networking though; maybe it will be a place for information more than pure social chatter. At least the circles gives us the option to keep the social chatter to the relevant people and not spam more peripheral people with what you are having for dinner. 

Most importantly though, I think it is important to remember that nothing is set in stone or will ever be. A social network - and a social networking place - is continually shaped and reshaped by the users. Yep, that's right: Us. We decide what this will become. 

Any thoughts?

If you aren't yet a part of G+ but would dearly like to be and thus want an invite, send me a message.

Midway in holiday

In inverse order:

Ordered five new books to read that won't arrive until a week hence
Read 4 books in 3 days (fantasy books of the fluffier kind)
Rebuilt my bedroom (moved furniture, took apart the bed frame, added new lighting)
Spilled ice tea over my laptop which nearly killed it
Cat-sat for almost a week
Turned my day around somewhat; sleeping till 9-10am and being up till midnight

Garden report: Zinnia

Shall we tango?

They actually have become fairly ok friends now, getting into trouble together, generally hanging out in a friendly fashion and playing in non violent ways most of the time.

A few seconds before they were hanging on one side each of the tree, but I was too slow to catch that.

Sounds like there is a helicopter outside my window!

I was right. There was one, hovering right outside.

About work clothes..

Step cats visiting

Nestor and Nemesis are here. In the photos it looks as if Linus is always sitting on top of the tree looking angry, but this is not the case, most of the time he is snoring in the sofa or an arm chair :)

Granny's table cloth, with sugar and spice and everything nice

I have been thinking about lace knitting, and about doilies and table cloths of the kind that, well, my mother's generation and those older knit and crochet, mostly in pastel colours. And so I was pondering this, and I decided I wanted to knit myself a little table cloth (or actually, as large as I would have patience for), but I would spice it up with kitschy neon colours. And while suffering through some Harry Potter (1,5 book, I never managed more), a book about the Uncertainty Principle, and some Feynman lectures, I finished a table cloth in happy stripes. All knit on 2mm needles.

So here it is; about 80cmx80cm, with fringes knotted onto the crocheted edge - not being visible in the photo since it was too large and wound up being blocked around rather than on top of the poor pierced footstool. 

Modesty

How could I have missed this?