i quit – #119

I quit my job.

I gave notice in August. My last day is the 31st of December, which will make it five years. Nobody pushed me and there was no better offer.

I quit my nine to five to work 24/7, as the line goes.

In my case, the order is wrong: the 24/7 has been running for a while, evenings and weekends, on top of the nine to five. Until December I do both. From January, one job. What exactly that looks like, I'm still figuring out.

The bigger news needs a container: in two weeks one arrives outside our apartment.

At the beginning of October we leave Merano. Sina, the three kids, me. Portugal first. After that we do not know yet, and for once that is the plan.

The kids will be homeschooled for a year. In Italy that is a fairly simple process (at least the signing-off part, not the teaching part.) A first for us.

(So while typing this update, it dawns on me that I probably won’t be running out of content anytime soon for this intro.)

We carried the thought of leaving around for about a year. In February, in Taiwan, we gave ourselves eight weeks to decide. Then somebody™ booked a container.

The night before I handed in my notice I slept fine, which should have told me something earlier. It was still is a good job. Not the most action-packed one, and it does get dull sometimes, but that is not the reason.

The reason is that I want to find out what a Tuesday in January looks like when nobody else's calendar is in it.

Most of the useful changes in my life have been subtractions. This is the biggest one so far.

The longer version is on the blog.

For this newsletter, nothing changes. Same Sunday, same five things.

And I’ll share updates along the way, the good ones and the other ones.

Now, five things from Europe, below.

If you’re new around here: Every week, I share 5 of the nicest products from Europe I’ve discovered in the past 7 days.

I scout, you explore.

With love 🌞
Jakob

P.S.: Missed the last edition? Your favorite last week, by some distance: the Rex 120 lounge chair by Rex Kralj. Runner-up: the Lava Fields blanket by Varma. A footnote to third place: Prusa Research has since wrapped the same printer in century-old Czech oak, 250 of them, numbered.

P.P.S.: Thank you for all the tips on makers from underrepresented parts of Europe. Will feature them over the next weeks. And if you’ve got something to share, send it my way.

Gosia Tylec trained as a garden and interior designer, then ruined about fifteen prototypes before Nastawka made a ceramic bathroom sink that held water. The high-fired oval basin is glazed by hand and made to order in two sizes. Each one comes out differently, with a deep green-blue inside that runs to navy at the rim and an irregular mix of green and brown outside (a sink is probably the last object in the house you expect a person to have made). I found her through tinyfound.

Ioana Boros trained in fashion design in Cluj-Napoca, worked in the industry for several years, then left to illustrate quieter mornings. 12 Days of Coffee turns one of those mornings into hard colour contrasts and geometric forms, printed on cotton paper in an edition of ten. Twelve coffees, ten prints (Romania has appeared once in 546 finds, so this is overdue).

Tulya Madra of Santimetre makes the TOPOS dish in Ayvalık, an olive oil town on Turkey's Aegean coast. Its porcelain steps work like a contour map, letting 40 ml of oil pool at different depths and show different shades of green. Madra calls it "a topographic pool to swim your bread bits" (I want a tiny pool of olive oil on every table I dine at).

Designed by Dan Vakhrameyev, the BLOCK lamp by +kouple is made in the studio's Kyiv workshop and works lying down, standing, fixed to a wall or hanging from its textile belt. Its form comes from the concrete defensive barriers that have stood on Ukrainian roads since 2022. Proceeds support evacuation vehicles in the Donetsk region, and the lamp is Ukraine's first appearance in 546 finds.

Zona Urbana cut the outside of this cardholder from a 1920 map of Europe and lined it with an old Bulgarian newspaper. Closed, it measures 11 by 8 cm and holds eight cards, with separate places for cash and tickets. The Sofia workshop has been turning old printed matter into bags and wallets since 2004 (there are five of this one left).