smalls::scandihooligan

Foodie Friday...

2010-06-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well hullo there Mr. Blog! Haven't seen you in a while... We've been pretty busy with our beautiful Bug.

I've been inspired by the wonderful Nini to document some of my culinary experiments. Most people stare at me like I've grown a spare head when I tell them that I generally cook without a recipe. Once you have a general idea of what goes with what (and in what quantities - I can't wait to check out THIS cookbook) you are free to create whatever you want! I recently started making pasta from scratch (thanks for the birthday pasta roller & cutter, Mom!) and I can't even begin to describe how luscious homemade pasta is compared to the dried boxed crapola from the grocer. Oi. Amazing. But I digress...

I had fun creating a variation of a classic Italian Stromboli last night for dinner. A stromboli is a type of turnover made with dough and a variety of fillings, including meats, cheeses, veggies, spices... After consulting the contents of the fridge I settled on a pulled BBQ chicken, spinach, oregano, basil and quattro formaggio filling. 425*F for 30 minutes and helllooooo beauty! Quite tasty. This would work with most any meat leftovers and roughage combo, paired with a flavorful cheese like provolone or Swiss.

I am ecstatic to be harvesting over half of salad fixings straight from the garden already - with much more in the works. (C'mon tomatoes and pole beans!) Our Thursday night salad consisted of BlackSeededSimpson lettuce, FrenchBreakfast radishes, Nantes carrots, oregano, SugarSnap peas, mushrooms, radicchio, edamame, Fuji apple and slivered almonds in a miso dressing. I'm a bit of a salad-fiend.

The meal served up nicely and would even make a good first course for a dinner party. Be sure to adequately flour your dough so that your creation doesn't come apart while transferring from pastry board to baking sheet. Also be sure to oil up that baking sheet!

Dessert was homemade non-dairy strawberry chocolate chip ice cream. Now before you go thumbing your nose at non-dairy ice cream, let me tell you that even my mother (who generally HATES deviations from the meat/potatoes/butter/cream formula) loves this recipe. Those of us who are *painfully* done in by dairy (that would be me and the hubby) will be amazed at the creamy texture of this frozen delight. Doesn't that sound like a cookbook header? Hmmm, recipe should follow, eh?

Eat-It-And-Weep (for joy) Ice Cream

2C coconut milk (full fat - this is ice cream, people)

1C almond milk

1+ pint fresh, ripe strawberries (or more, as you see fit)

1/4C agave nectar (they have this at Trader Joe's)

pinch sea salt

1T vanilla (not imitation -c'mon and eat well, peeps!)

Blend ingredients well. Pour into ice cream maker and churn at LEAST 30 minutes. (I normally go longer - up to an hour.) Add chocolate chips (minis work best - about 1/3C) five minutes before your ice cream is finished. VOILA. Mmmm. And darned if I didn't get a picture of the final product (two nights in a row!) Just too excited to eat my ice cream, I guess.

Happy Cookin'!

Mobile Blogging?!?!

2010-02-26T10:16:00.001-08:00

Mobile blogging?!? Get out!

Testing, testing, is this thing on???

Life is Bug.

2009-12-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

There are some things in this world that are predictable. Democrats and Republicans unable to agree. Health care expenses annual increases. The general deliciousness of See's dark chocolate molasses chips. Hilarious strife over the holidays.

Other things take you by surprise, like the volume of love you are capable of when you become a parent. Perhaps we're lucky... While all babies are special and beautiful in their own way, not all babies are cute. (It's true, even if it is something you only talk about behind closed doors with your best friend. Feeling slightly guilty. Kinda...) We struck gold - talk about a cute kid. Geesh.

Blogosphere, meet our Bug. Dang do we love her!

Day Twenty Three: Moving in to Hell's Furnace...

2009-09-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

Dude. It was 110 degrees today in Felton. ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TEN-DEGREES-FAHRENHEIT-IN-FELTON. Hottest day on record since 1965.

And we decided to move today. Of course.

Our ridiculously wonderful friends showed up at 9:30, worked like crazed ants and were up at the house by 11:30 with almost 80% of our stuff!!! (SAY WHAT?) They hauled, they sweated, they smiled, they cursed, they laughed, they almost died from heat stroke... but they kept working. Box after box after sofa after bed after chair. We have some ridiculously fabulous friends.

Turns out the little AC unit that the previous owners massacred a window to install (with half-assed plywood and a little plastic accordion piece, no less) actually works! Not very well, but you don't knock ANY form of cooling when it is that dang hot. We cranked it all the way on for our lunch of pizza and beer - it was less than uncomfortable in the front room with all our friends perched on furniture and boxes, so obviously the AC thingy was doing something! I was petrified that someone would keel over and have a stroke on the front steps, so I tried to steer people to stand in front of the AC unit for at least five minutes with a bottle of ice water whenever possible. It gave me the excuse of standing near the cooler air, too, to try to bring down the swelling that turned my feet into blimps and my fingers in to bratwursts. Not fun.

The crew was all done by mid-afternoon and even volunteered to help us unpack and get settled in. (Did I mention that our friends are ridiculously fabulous? Geesh.) We shooed them out to their air conditioned cars and off to their hopefully cooler homes. And then the nesting bug hit. And I just had to unpack every box in the kitchen. The bug started to subside when my feet started throbbing, but not by much.

Thru all of this, our buddy Joel was tiling our bathroom floor. Inside, in 110 degree heat. What a guy. The floor looks GREAT (oh my gosh, look at those little curved pieces around the tub!) and he will be back tomorrow to grout the tub and floor. Wahoo!

We took our first outdoor shower at the new house tonight - can I just say that this is a PERK of moving into a house without a working bath? A full view of redwoods, stars up above, warm water run thru a hose out the back window... Fabulous. It was so nice to remove an inch-thick layer of sweat buildup at the end of the day.

Matisse did OK with the move, but was really worrying me with her panting and lethargy. Extreme even for a cat. Poor baby, she was so hot on top of the stress of moving to a new place - I can't imagine having a fur coat today. She'll be better off than us in the winter, but for now... no bueno. She plopped herself down on the cool-ish stone hearth (and then kept moving slightly when she over-warmed that spot...) and looked up at us with sad, sad "why are you doing this to me???" eyes. *sniff* I try to be a good cat mommy!

So... we're living in BOXLANDIA for now... in ridiculous heat... in an old house that creaks... without a shower... and it is *awesome.*

(And yes, Matt *is* wearing board shorts in this picture.)

Day Twenty: Meet Your Neighbors...

2009-09-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

TileWatch’09 continued today; Dad made great strides and finished the shower tile... AT 8:30 p.m.!!!! He then packed up and went home, much to my mother’s relief. Sometimes the cats just aren’t enough company...

When I stopped in to have lunch with Dad today we discovered a lovely congregation of GINORMOUS ANTS in the garage. Some even had wings! For some reason they absolutely love the quickset and were making a nuisance of themselves in the powder bag. We tried our best to smash them into oblivion (they made large crunching noises... and I was in flip flops.) Matt will do a *wonderful* job taking care of them later. You should see him attack ants – it’s more than a hobby for my husband. It’s a mission!

We’re winding down on the house in preparation for the move this weekend... While we are nowhere NEAR done, the time has come for us to make it happen. Oh Lord.

Day Nineteen: Do we name her Paulina?

2009-09-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

Following a crazy work-packed weekend, my dad, Paul, took three days of vacation time to… work on our house?!? Yesterday he started on the subway tile in the bathroom between coats of floor varithane. Can I just say that our floors are AMAZING!?!??!!??! It looks like we had them professionally refinished! Who says you need to spend $2K and stay out of your house for two weeks to have great looking floors? (You just need crazy talented parents who are really good at home repairs/remodels…) I can’t believe Dad is up here for three days.

The tile is coming along, slowly but surely. Dad is a *very* meticulous worker (read: borderline over-the-top-perfectionist… ;o) His mantra is measure three (or four) times, cut once. And his work is GORGEOUS. I’m more of a measure twice, cut once person. Matt is a “you measured?” type – but more often than not is dead on. Darn talented booger. *smooch*

It was extra special to come up to the house on a week day and have lunch with Dad – two days in a row now! I attacked the dead caulking behind the kitchen sink with a vengeance, but still only one third the energy I’m used to being able to expend on repair projects. This remodeling-while-preggo thing is getting old.

Matt came by after work and continued working on the bathroom walls, covering screws with another layer of mudd. There is much debate over how we will finish the walls – I want a smooth wall finish but have been informed that this is beyond the skill/patience level of the workers on hand (mainly Matt and dad.) Ugh. We’d better not have to do the orange peel finish. I hate that. Maybe I’ll grab a palate knife and see what kind of mischief I can get into… Or not.

Day Seventeen: Are we there yet?

2009-08-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

Another fun-filled Sunday! Just think.... this time next week we will be waking up for the FIRST TIME in our NEW(ish) HOUSE! Wahoo!

Matt and I rarely get to sleep in together... or have breakfast together... or even just spend time alone together these days! Being an electrician means that his hours lean more towards the first half of the day - as in he starts before most people are awake! So we stole a few minutes of luxurious together time this morning, joking around and mentally preparing to get back to work on our project, er, I mean house. Needless to say, it was quite lovely. Boy do I love that man!

I was treated to a lovely Peet's coffee on the way up and arrived oh-so-ready to keep painting. (Well, actually I was ready for a nap, but that didn't seem to be one of the options available, so painting won out.) It didn't take long for me to realize that I just do not have quite the reach I did, say, six months ago... There seems to be something in the way! It was great when mom and dad showed up after church; the cabinet interiors got taped along the backs and I was able to get two coats of paint applied.

Dad had the enviable task of sorting thru the kitchen window trim pieces and tacking them back up. There is still one piece that we cannot for the life of us figure out... In retrospect, I really should have painted the trim pieces red while they were off... but with half of the strips being good-condition-old-growth-redwood pieces, it was more of a commitment than I was ready to make when we started in on the kitchen painting process. Now that mom has done such a kick-butt job painting the room, the trim looks shabby in comparison. Ah well, an easily remedied situation... but not this week!

Matt and Dad continue to steam ahead in the bathroom, finishing the sheetrock and wonderboard today! Now all is ready for tile... and my too-good-to-be-true father is taking off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to tile our bathroom. Holy underpants, Batman!

Mom buzzed around like a cleaning lady on speed today, continuing the floor scrubbing and helping to clear the WayBack of extra tools and garbage. Dad plans on varithaning the floors tomorrow, so Mom had them in eat-off-me-order by nightfall.

I ended up running errands for three hours in the afternoon, searching for semi-gloss floor varithane (HD only had one gallon, OSH had none... what's a girl to do?!?), lighting fixtures, switch plates, wonderboard screws and more. Needless to say, my feet hurt. Quite a bit. Ugh.

We all sat down to our first full home cooked meal *inside* the house, using our scaffolding as a makeshift table and plopped into the four folding chairs that have been our only furniture for the past 16 days. Mom cooked, therefore it was delicious. I must say that I am REALLY looking forward to finally cooking in my own kitchen!

Home to bed, aching and exhausted but thrilled that we are still making good progress. We are behind schedule, of course, but at this point I'm not going to worry about it. I'm too tired to worry. Matt's too tired to worry. Dad's almost too tired to worry. And Mom is a VERY talented worrier, so she can be really tired AND worry enough for all of us. It's a Johnson women trait.

I still need to pack. A lot. Tomorrow. Everything tomorrow.

Day Sixteen: Are we having fun yet?

2009-08-25T23:10:00.001-07:00

Today was another ridiculously full Saturday. I don't know how my parents and Matt do it... they are working like crazy people! We will all need naps when this is done... or part done... But HEY! We didn't go to the Depot of Homes today! Woot!!!

Matt and Dad have reached the turning point on the bathroom - from here on out, everything is progress towards a completed, fully remodeled bathroom! (As opposed to demolition of the old one...) We were all blown away by Matt's drywall skills - he measures quick, cuts quick, installs quick... and is RIGHT ON with his calculations and cuts!

My dad is a *very* precise worker... measure ten times, cut once. The results are always impressive (Matt's brother Mike was trying to figure out last weekend if Dad is a contractor in addition to being a chemist, due to his staggering depth of knowledge in all things home repair. Go Dad!) Matt, however, approaches all these projects with the confidence of a tradesman - measure once, cut once, thank you have a nice day. It has been really fun to see the two styles working together - the perfectionist and the professional. They make a great team (and their hilarious banter provides much-needed entertainment for mom and I as the endless paint-o-rama continues...)

Mom painted the kitchen today while I painted the inside of the cabinets. After removing the layers of funky vintage contact paper, it was clear that the shelves needed some love and attention. The layers of paint have helped refresh the kitchen (and helped refinish surfaces that the OCD side of me did NOT want touching anything that might come in contact with our mouths.)

We have decided to varithane the floors to help protect the soft-ish wood against our less-than-gentle lifestyle. Mom bravely tackled the floor-cleaning process on hands and knees with a scrub brush, damp mop and enough pine sol to scald your nose hairs right off. The floors look exponentially better already - can't wait to see what the floor varithane does!

Once all the drywall was up, it was time for Matt's introduction to mudd and tape. Hooboy. He's doing a GREAT job... but the process is less than foolproof. Dad fully admits that this is NOT his area of expertise... but he and Matt are still trying their darnedest to get it right. At one point I peeked in to the bathroom and found dad with his hand on his forehead, bemoaning the fact that this is "the blind leading the blind." Perhaps a bit melodramatic, but it made for a great picture.

No rest for the wicked - we'll be back bright and early tomorrow! (Mainly because everything is going so slow that we're entering the frantic panic phase of pre-move/pre-baby home remodel... WHATEVER. If we need to, we hook a hose up to the utility sink, run it to the back patio and shower outside for a few days.

Longer than a few days? Time to panic.

Day Fifteen: Wait, we're moving? We need to pack up the old house?!?

2009-08-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

I was hit today by the sickening realization that we will be MOVING in to the new house next weekend... which means that we will be MOVING EVERY SINGLE LAST BELONGING WE HAVE next weekend.

And I have just started packing... while 34 weeks pregnant... or is it 35? Either way, it is *super* slow-going.

Today I took some time to organize much of the baby stuff that we have been accumulating over the past few months. I washed and folded a sickeningly-adorable pile of newborn clothes that we have been blessed to have handed down from friends ('cause they only wear this size for a minute!) Do you know how TINY newborn socks are?!?! Do you have any idea how bizarre it is to fold postage stamp-sized onesies? (And exciting... we're entering the home stretch!)

Our wonderful friend Jon came over to the new house tonight to help Matt with bathroom demo and framing. It was great to get him out to the house and use his enthusiastic manpower! I gave the boys plenty of room (as the bathroom is pretty darn tiny... particularly once you add in two working stud muffins [I can call your husband a stud muffin, right S?] and power tools.)

The greatest part of Jon's visit was dinner - hell froze over, and we got pizza. Wahoo! Due to Matt's dietary constraints we *almost* NEVER eat pizza... this was such a treat! Dinner was also fantastic because it involved conversation with Jon... He and his wife are two of the most beautifully social people we know. Getting together always means laughter, easy conversation and a reminder that we need to get out more often with awesome people like them!

So... not much of an update on the house, but we're still going strong. Dead on our feet, panicking that we won't be ready in time, dazed by the remodeling process... but still going....

Day Fourteen: (Does he know what he's doing in there?)

2009-08-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent three hours tangled with the shop vac, trying to suck up all the roof pucky that had rained down over the past week. It was not a pretty sight. I took all the drop cloths out for a good shake over the edge of our new patio and tried to hold my breath as they released clouds of sawdust, dirt, composite roof "sand," leaves and unknown other substances. It felt GREAT to clean up, even just a little bit, as the house was looking pretty wrecked and the sandy junk from the roof had to be no bueno for our soft-ish fir floors. Note to self: never have a roof replaced in an exposed ceiling house when you are living in said house. OK. Got it.

The roof is on and almost finished - they still need to complete a small section on the garage. Apparently there were four roofs on the garage as well - just removing the previous roofing material properly will supposedly help with the slight sag to the roof line over the workshop. Whatever. I'm shocked that the roofers didn't just reframe the whole garage roof without asking and then hand us a bill. (Sorry, still upset.) The final roof does look quite lovely on the house - I'm glad that we went with the hickory color the roofer suggested.

Matt met with the owner of the roofing company this evening; apparently they had a good talk about our concerns and their workmanship. There is no conversation that can fix the problem, but I defer to Matt's judgement and expertise on the house. (But I do have to say, I may be hormonal, but POLKA DOTS?!?! ON OUR CEILING?!?! ARGH.) OK. Moving on.

Danny and Megan came down tonight to see the new casa and lend a helping hand. I worked today and thus wasn't there to greet them graciously from the front porch (apron and pearls optional) but was able to show up with bueno Taqueria food in hand. We had a great time catching up over burritos, sitting in our fabulous flimsy folding chairs outside around a small work table. (I will miss these kinds of moments when we are fully moved in with furniture and other modern conveniences...) I do love how much we laugh when these two are around!

Danny was Matt's best man at our wedding - a total goofball and loveable party person. Those of you who where there might remember his fabulous toast ("Kadoosh!") and his date (my grandmother.) I don't know Danny's entire work history, so when I walked in to find Danny with a skill saw attacking our bathroom floor, I must admit I was slightly alarmed. I pulled Matt off his ladder where he was installing switches in the WayBack to ask, "Does Danny know what he's doing?!?" in my most positive, upbeat, neutral and quiet whisper. Turns out Daniel worked in construction for several years. Whew. My bad. Sorry to ever doubt you dude... I'm just slightly concerned when I see someone with a skil saw in one hand, a beer in the other, coming out of the bathroom to say, "I may have just hit a pipe. There were sparks."

Holy poop. ;o)

(Thanks Danny and Megan - was great to see you, and Danny did a great job removing the old bathroom floor in preparation for this weekend's big bathroom showdown!)

Day Thirteen: I am not a happy camper...

2009-08-20T22:21:00.001-07:00

I forgot to take a picture of my concrete art the day they poured (with a giant, awesome, totally rad concrete mixing truck! Still excited!) Do you like the line of trees I scratched in? I was under a whole heap of pressure - the concrete guys were standing over me to see what I wrote. Not bueno. I could have done a Starry Night or Guernica if they weren't watching... ;o)

We're having a bit of an issue with the roofer... namely an issue with the NAILS that are coming THRU our BEAUTIFUL EXPOSED PINE ROOF. Nails on their own would be one thing, but the roofers apparently tried to cover their mistake by REPEATEDLY POUNDING THE NAILS FROM THE INSIDE WITH A HAMMER ON THE SOFT, AGED WOOD. Thus, we have polka dots on our ceiling. Don't you think that, were you to do this once on a client's ceiling, producing said marks, you would stop and find an alternative method of removing the exposed nail ends? Yeah, me too. But apparently this crew didn't seem to mind that they were giving our lovely ceiling pox scars. I'm pretty miffed. There are still nails hanging down in the bathroom... hopefully they won't continue to bash our poor wood ceiling in after Matt's discussion with the owner.

And the gutters were supposed to be pre-primed. They are not. But at least the house now has gutters.

Argh.

I met Matt up at the house tonight and made us our standard sandwiches and chips for dinner. Today I baked an apple crisp with fruit from our very own tree for our dessert. These apples are delicious! Tart, crisp and with great flavor, perfect for baking, eating raw or applesauce. A co-worker let me know about a great local homebrew supplier that has the presses and crushers to make our own apple cider! Now if only I could actually REACH all those apples!

Matt continues to kick booty rewiring the *entire* house. Have I mentioned what a stud my husband is? Yeah, he rocks. There are beautiful new light fixtures and ceiling fans in the front room, master bedroom and nursery. We now have LIGHTS in the closets! The kitchen and the WayBack are coming along, and the bathroom will be rewired this weekend after we re-frame and insulate. Crazy.

Speaking of the WayBack........ it is a total mess...... hurricane-thrashed-status-disarray. I can't wait for this to all be over so that we can clean up and enjoy our house (even more than we are enjoying it thus far!) Have I explained the name of our enclosed porch room yet? Hmmm. Preggo-brain.

When Matt was little, their family had a big ol' 1970's station wagon (the indestructible all-metal kind) and four young kids. Three sat on the back bench seat, but one lucky kid got to sit in the "way back" of the station wagon - the fun area with room to relax away from the siblings. Thus, our "fun room" has been dubbed the WayBack. Here's to years of relaxation, games, storm-watching and sleepovers to come in our own WayBack.

Day Twelve: on which I am brought to my knees by tile...

2009-08-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

I just have to say that making decisions about remodeling a house that *we* own is far harder than anything I have ever done related to any housing situation, ever. Case in point: today, I had a panic attack while driving when I started to think about the floor tile in the bathroom. Over the past few days I have looked at every sample of tile offered by the Depot of Homes, a reputable local tile outlet, the design blogosphere... I have poured over years of Sunset bathroom pics online and in their design books, on cottage-decor-related websites, restoration DIY resources and This Old House magazines.

And what great insights have I found?

Always allow more than one week to redesign an entire bathroom.

My parents redid one of their downstairs bathrooms a few years ago in very tasteful, modern and neutral materials and colors. I've always loved the floor tile in that bathroom, so when Dad called up to say that the discount tile source still had that tile in stock, I was pretty stoked. Then he said that it would be a custom order and non-returnable. And that they did their ordering tomorrow morning at 10 am. Thus I needed to make a decision with Matt within 12 hours.

Bring on the panic attack. I'm such a wuss.

Matt gamely joined me in a mad dash about town and thru design books, searching for alternatives. I had a nasty experience with rude salespeople who seemed to not want to answer my basic questions about ordering tile from their warehouse. We arranged tile samples all around the HD floor, trying to visualize the different natural stone tiles next to the white subway tile that we've already decided on for the bath. I was trying to find something that we both really like, as the tile Dad could special order for us was not his first choice.

At ten at night, however, we decided that it is just tile. The special order tile goes with the subway tile better than the other options we had looked at. And of all the things we have to worry about these days, tile should not have to be high on the list.

Thanks, Dad, for ordering our tile. Now we need to learn how to set it... I feel another panic attack coming on...

Day Ten: A big one.

2009-08-17T23:56:00.001-07:00

Today was a BIG day.

We were first on the scene today at the house – yeehaw! (We even had time to stop for an extra-special treat: Peet’s mochas! Mmmmm… makes life better!)

Matt met a plumber through his work who lives in Santa Cruz… and was interested in trading electrical work for plumbing! Hot dog! Alex was a great sport, getting up to the house nice and early to get cracking (ha…) even after working up at the current job site until EIGHT PM the night before! (A solid 13 hour day… and then he put in at least nine at our place. What a trooper.) The bathroom continues to reek of rat pee… and now the WayBack (aka the enclosed rear porch) is starting to smell as the stench wafts out the back window… We’re going to try bleach tonight… Dad got the rest of the bathroom walls off while Alex went in search of supplies. Just when you thought the smell couldn’t get any worse… he uncovered an even bigger nest area. Ugh. Again, my hero! Dad and Matt put their heads together to finalize wall plans for the bathroom – I see another trip to Home Depot on the horizon! (BIG ugh.)

Matt’s brother Mike showed up early to help tackle the massive project of re-wiring half the house in one day… The house had wire mold run every which way to get power to ceiling fixtures, fans, etc. As of this afternoon, however, there were miles of romex run on the exposed plywood for the roof, covered with hard metal strips to ensure the roofers don’t nail thru our wire when they put the new roof on tomorrow. Mike and Matt working together are such a trip – they have a seemingly endless supply of goofy nicknames and inside jokes that they throw at one another all day whilst performing super-ninja-electrical-tricks. It was great to get Mike out to see the property (and even better that his lovely wife and awesome kids let us work him to the bone *all day.*) They had matching sunhats and sunglasses on while working on the roof – it was hilarious that their hats match the chapeau favored by their other brother, Mark. Someday I need to get a picture of the three boys in their matching fishing hats! I wonder if their dad has one, too?!?!

The carpet came up in the master bedroom, exposing the last major expanse of potentially questionable fir flooring – THREE FOR THREE! We rock! Yes, that’s right, all our flooring is kick-butt. Yeehaw. Wow. Dad did a great job pulling up ALL the tack strip and prying out all the carpet staples. We’re so stoked. I was worried about the bedroom – it had not been taking on the feel that I envisioned when we decided to go for this place… BUT I am happy to report that the finished product is absolutely lovely. The undertones of the ceiling and floor look beautiful against the white walls. (Now if only I had a few magic privacy hedges to hide the neighbor’s house/roof… Perhaps next week!)

Mom continued to kick butt applying a second layer of primer to the kitchen walls. I painted the inside shelves of one of the cabinet units and discovered that it wasn’t looking too great with just the shelves painted – we need to paint the entire inside. Joy. At least the ten layers of funky contact paper are gone!

I crashed big time in the afternoon – too much on-my-feet time combined with lack of sleep caught up with me. I threw a towel down on the floor in our bedroom and took a short nap. Methinks more sleep will be necessary in order for my continued involvement in the house projects. I can’t imagine how Matt is still standing – he’s basically working 12 hour days, seven days a week when you add up his job and home work schedule. Too much work and not enough sleep – when is CrankyMatt going to emerge? ;o)

Alex did a great job – the new copper is in and ready for our bathroom fixtures. Now if only the smell would disappear… (yes, it really IS that bad.)

We ended the day by ripping out the old hood and marking the skylight placement for the roofers. They start tomorrow – it will be interesting to see what their work is like. They started work a day early without asking us last week: we arrived up at the house on Thursday evening to find that we no longer had a roof! Then the owner stopped by at 10am instead of 2pm yesterday to discuss the work for next week (when Matt was at work.) Again, without calling first. We haven’t signed anything with them, so this is rather bizarre behavior from a contractor. But they seem to be highly regarded by our friends in the local residential construction business, so hopefully it will all work out!

Late dinner at the Taqueria, even later grocery shopping at SnobHill… then home to fall in to bed, exhausted. But hey! We made it a whole day without having to visit the Depot of Homes! And that is a good, GOOD thing.

Day Nine: This is all becoming a blur…

2009-08-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

The problem with working on many projects at once with a tight timeline and limited resources is that not everything will be properly documented for posterity… Ack!

Matt had to work again so Jon and I made our way up to the house (stopping for a delicious Peet’s along the way…) and found Mom and Dad already WAAAY too hard at work. (Their work ethic is legendary…) We had a brief meeting to discuss what we would be working on for the morning then got to it! They had already started taking up the carpet in the nursery, and… TADA! Another home run! We are really lucking out on these floors! One more to go… fingers crossed that the master bedroom’s floor isn’t covered in bloodstains or mold or scratched in hate symbols…

After much effort, deliberation, crying, frustration, screaming and mixing, I came to the conclusion yesterday that white milk paint on pine paneling is NOT GOING TO WORK. *sob* So we grabbed the zero-VOC primer and started in on yet another coat of paint in that dang room. Which smells. We left the primer to dry, hoping that the stain blockers would do their magic and eliminate the yellowing from the tannins in the untreated wood. When we came back today, it was clear that another coat of primer will be essential. I trotted down to the local hardware and paint store and was INCREDIBLY pleased to find that it is the quintessential small mountain town store – a bit of everything, and everything in bits. I love it! I had a camouflage key copy made for Matt, and a zebra print version for my own key ring. I picked up another gallon of VOC-free primer and a gallon of preggo-friendly white paint for the top coat: Pittsburgh Paints Delicate White, or something like that. The second coat of primer was applied and the timer set for the hour delay recommended between primer and paint.

We also assessed that the kitchen will need another layer of primer before we can put the final paint on the walls – even with a “killer” (and very toxic) primer, there was still tannin bleed. We had no idea that this would be such an involved painting undertaking!

Matt arrived (he worked a half day – yay!) and we all had lunch sitting around the kitchen in folding lawn chairs. That room gets pretty darn hot; we’re glad that we have skylights on order to help vent the back rooms and keep the kitchen as light and bright as possible.

After lunch, Jon played lumberjack with Matt’s sawzall – he cut down the half-fallen tree that was covered with vines and BLOCKING MY VIEW. How rude! It is amazing how much that dumb thing was blocking! The view is even more wonderful (if that is possible.)

Dad and Jon made a trailer run to the SC house to pick up the plants that were dug up yesterday. They also packed up our fire pit, patio table, bistro table and wood chairs, and the top half of my potting bench. I can’t wait to have the roof done and be able to start PLANTING! (‘tho I may need digging help… drat!)

Matt continues to rewire the house at breakneck speed, replacing and adding outlets in each room, mounting new light fixtures and generally being the world’s greatest stud muffin. I’m so lucky!

In the afternoon it was time to begin BATHROOM DEMOLITION DERBY! The original plan was to paint the pine paneling and add concrete board/wonderboard in front of the panels around the tub for tiling. This, apparently, will not work. ;o) Plan B is to remove all the paneling, insulate, sheetrock, paint, tile and grout. After seeing all that can go wrong when trying to paint those pine panels, Plan B is darn appealing. Plus… after seeing what was hiding *behind* the panels? Puke-a-rama… Mouse/rat nests, complete with fabulous animal piss odor. Bring on the bleach bombs, shop vac and new walls!

They guys are working hard to have the bathroom walls fully gutted for the plumber tomorrow – and working in a toxic waste site, I might add. By late afternoon the stench of rat piss was so heinous that I had every fan going in the bathroom and back areas to try to bring some relief to my poor dad, diligently removing each board by hand. He wins the smell-tolerance-of-the-year award!

We ended our wonderful day of work with a special dinner at the Boulder Creek Brewing Company. Nothing rewards a day of hard work like burgers and beer! The first day that Matt and I spent time together, we ran a trail race on Angel Island and came back for burgers and beer at the Seabright Brewery… starting a long tradition of many non-dates with turkey burgers, shared fries and a stout for Matt, water for me. The Boulder Creek Brewing Company was another site for our non-dates while Matt was living in Brookdale – it was great to share this delicious gem with my family! Judging from their reaction, methinks we will be using this local hot spot as a go-to for visiting friends and family. Wahoo!

As has become the norm, Matt and I ended our day at the Depot of Homes… again. “Stop taking our money, dangit!” ;o)

*sigh*

I’m really growing to hate that place…

Day Eight: Why is a visit from the cement truck as exciting as Christmas to me???

2009-08-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today was CONCRETE DAY!!!!!!! That’s right, folks, we (hired professionals who) poured nine yards of concrete on our property today… I had been looking forward to this as we saw the formboards take shape, but I was really giddy to see the actual truck, pumps and workers who transformed the broken slab blight at the back of the house into an amazing new patio that overlooks the river. They also shored up two new retaining walls, filled walkway cracks and reinforced the back corner of the house foundation (where the previous owners had oh-so-brilliantly dug out the supporting soil to make more room for storage. Good grief.)

This marked a big day for us, as these two problems (foundation and back concrete slab) were probably the biggest factors that allowed us to bid on and purchase this property. Others might have been scared off by the prospect of the house sliding down the steep slope, but not us!!! Problem solved… and we still have money to fix the roof!

The main worker bee pouring and spreading the concrete was a gentleman named Jon – with a giant rose tattoo on the back of his shaved head (to go with the giant old-English script of his last name across his back, and a myriad of other such tats.) This guy was *busting* his butt while others looked on… I felt guilty for not jumping in with a pair of boots to help spread the muck evenly. In between pours we had a lovely conversation about the property, the upcoming arrival of our daughter, the state of the health care system and the latest books we’ve read. He was unbelievably polite – a statement that has been true of the entire foundation team. We’ve really lucked out on this contractor! He even left a designated space for me to doodle in the drying concrete – and provided a really long nail for my etchings.

Mom and Dad tirelessly painted in the kitchen and both bedrooms. We all took occasional breaks to watch the concrete progress – can you tell how much I loved watching the concrete day?!? ;o) Jon came down from Humboldt to help out – we went back to the SC house to dig out some of my favorite plants for transplant. It was pretty hard work and I think I may have overdone it a bit… but the plants are ready to join their new bedmates in the mountains! I am anxious to see what does well in the new climate… Will the salvia collection thrive? How about the native grasses? The herbs? What will the gophers eat first? Only thyme will tell… (Oh wow, so bad…)

We all trotted off to Taco Bell for a gourmet dinner in our grungy clothes, covered in paint splatter and sawdust. I am thrilled beyond belief that we will soon welcome our daughter in to the world… but as we race to fix up our house and move in by the end of the month, I find myself wishing I could take her off for small stretches of time to get more done. Ah well, at least we always know where she is at this stage in the game!

Day Six: What's Behind Door Number Two?!?...

2009-08-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

...or in our case, what's behind the plastic "tile" sheeting? Hoo boy.

We did not work on the house yesterday - between work work schedules and our Birth Preparedness Class ('cause you can be soooooo prepared for birth...) we didn't get to play on our fantabulous project. The foundation contractors continue to plug along, adding in retaining walls and getting ready to pour our future back patio on Friday. It's looking good!

Today, however, we were back at it!

I made the mistake of thinking that I would get tons of work done this afternoon, following my morning prenatal yoga class. Ha. Yes. Didn't happen. First, it was OVER 90 DEGREES. AGAIN. This is *NOT* ok with me. At all. Second, I was already pooped by the time I got up to the house. And third, I was slightly creeped out by the locksmith replacing our knobs and deadbolts for three hours while I tried to focus on bathroom demolition. He did a fantastic job, and really was quite a nice guy, but there is something unsettling for me about being alone in the house with contractors of any type. I really appreciate the fact that our great foundation guys always ask me to join them outside if they need to discuss something. I'm sure that the whole pregnancy thing is playing a large part in my feelings of anxiousness and vulnerability. I've also found myself rather nervous when working at the house by myself... The extra 45 pounds and diminished ability to run like hell starts to seriously effect one's feelings of safety.

In any event, the guy did a great job reinforcing the overly-hollowed-out door knob openings, adding metal plates and refitting the non-knobed door so that it locks on the top and bottom. We said "buh bye" to the scary fire hazard lock thing on the back door (that needed the key in it at all times so that you could open it.) I love the antique bronze handles - even though they aren't true black - and think that they will look great with the eventual color scheme changes.

Thankfully I was able to soak and scrape off most of the wallpaper remnants in the bathroom - hopefully the walls will only need a light sanding before priming and painting. Matt continued to add outlets and switches and wires and boxes and all sorts of fun electrical stuff in the bedroom and kid room. Did I mention how much I love being married to such a handy stud?

I tried to get sandwiches for our dinner at New Leaf, but, of course, today was their employee appreciation night. The one night of the year that they close early. Figures. So instead I trotted down to the Taqueria (in 91 degree heat) and picked up a few burritos. I will definitely be back, as that place has GREAT AIR CONDITIONING! Ha. It's the simple things in life! Dinner out on the porch again, enjoying the slightly cooling evening and relative quiet of our property.

Which leads us to the main event of the evening: DEMO ROUNDUP!

We couldn't wait anymore - the bathroom "tile" had to go. After a bit of quibbling over demo technique, Matt decided to use his favorite method - *grab and yank*. It worked rather well when combined with my *carefully use the proper tools to loosen the edges* method. Unfortunately our original plan to remove and use the pine paneling behind the tile for future repair or patch jobs was dashed as soon as the sheeting came loose... Giant swaths of tar-like sealant mar almost the entire area of panelling. We may have to tile further out than previously planned... But in the general scheme of things, this is NOT a big deal. Thankfully we were too tired at this point to really care! Wahoo.

Packed up, locked up, shoved off and came down to the 20 degree cooler house by the ocean.

Poop. I'm in trouble if this heat keeps up...

Day Four: I Love Wallpaper...

2009-08-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

...but I love it even more when it comes off the wall in nice, easy, wide swaths. Our bathroom? Not so nice, easy or wide.

I spent Monday holed up in the tiny bathroom that will become grand central in a few weeks, starting the demolition process that I have dreamed of since I first laid eyes on its rather gross interior. Think plastic "tile" sheeting, mismatched vanity and mirror, random universal handgrips in every direction, 3/4 sized tub with tile border that overhangs the tub edge by a good half inch, wallpaper so horrid it is guaranteed to cure you of your hiccups at first glance... But other than that... Oh, and a window that opens out to the enclosed porch room. Lovely.

When I pulled the vanity off the wall, two condoms fell out of their high hiding place, making me wonder just who was getting some in our house lately... since the previous owner passed away in 2007... at the age of 98... Hmmm... The step-grandson, the almost-20 son of our neighbor, perhaps? Eeeewwwww....

Matt cut off and capped the shower pipes on Sunday (I married a total stud muffin...), so we will be ready to do even more intensive demo work on the bath when someone who can actually lift a crowbar is around. I'm trying not to overdo it, but it is so hard to look around the house and helplessly count the unending projects that I would *really* love to have finished or at least started by the time we move in... The bathroom is DEFINITELY near the top of that list!

The foundation crew continues to build retaining walls, pour concrete posts, reinforce the perimeter and prep for the BIG POUR coming up on Friday... That's right folks - a massive load of cement is coming our way at the end of this week! Stay tuned for pics... Maybe we will write our names in the slab!!! "Sara was here." So original.

We did not make it up to the house this evening, as it was the return of our small group after a lovely summer break. It was great to get caught up on what has been happening for each family (...and there is altogether-too-much going on...) and to have a little break from the stress of the house. But I found myself making lists in my head as I was munching on Cassy's delicious chocolate chip bundt cake (OMG...), contemplating kitchen skylights as I tried to focus on what each couple had been up to over the past month, even mentally running through painting technique pros and cons as we talked about how excited we are for our daughter to arrive in the next six or so weeks. Does this make me a bad person? Or just a really focused remodeler? In my current state of "preggo-brain" I seem to only be capable of contemplating one topic at any given time... Lately it seems that the old adage is true: The house always wins.

Day Three: Warning - Do Not Paint Inside an Oven...

2009-08-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, lazy Sundays. A day for church, for brunch out, for lounging about in the warm sun while cool breezes rustle the pages of your book...

But not for us!

We played hookie from church and set out to gather supplies at the Depot of Homes and the Space of the Green, meeting up at the new casa just in time to welcome back my parents for another fun-filled day of renovations and demolition. (And kleenex - Mom's sniffle had transformed into a full blown nasty cold. Ugh.)

It was 84 degrees at 10am, mercury steadily rising... I don't know about y'all, but I do *NOT* do heat gracefully. When Matt came back from an errand in the afternoon and cheerfully shared that it was 97 degrees, I just about had a heart attack.

Matt: "It's 97 degrees outside!"

Me: "Don't tell me that! Geesh! Ack! I'm melting!"

Matt: "What? I thought it would make you feel better to know that it actually is really hot and that it isn't just you suffering in the 80's or something..."

It can NOT be that hot up here on another work day, or we all just might melt and die.

I must admit that the milk paint is not going according to plan... Instead of gliding effortlessly over the pine paneling, creating an artistic whitewashed effect, it is glopping (perhaps the heat had something to do with this...) and not covering very well. Some of the wood panels are warped, making roller application rather difficult (and less than attractive.) The wood is causing the paint to yellow in some areas, creating a very sallow wall color.

(But it will be great! Yes! The power of positive thinking!)

Dad continued to plug away at the kitchen, sanding and priming most of the walls and ceiling despite the uncooperative nature of the paint in the extreme heat... (and that room gets HOT in the afternoon... HELP!) Mom gamely went back and forth between projects, taking her kleenex and iced tea wherever she landed.

Matt continued to kick ass in his quest to rewire the house. Methinks perhaps he had the best job location of us all on Sunday - under the house was actually cooler than outside or up inside. We did our standard two person electrical show: I bang on a stud to let him know where to drill, he puts holes in the house and shoves wire thru... I am pleased to report a 100% accuracy on Matt's drilling for Sunday. Don't ask about Saturday. Remember the pine paneling downsides in regards to hiding holes? Yeah...

After much sanding, prepping, taping, priming, painting, drilling, wiring and oh-so-much more, we were ready for BBQ time.

BUT FIRST: THE TREE REMOVAL!!!

Those of you who know me might think it a tad strange that I would willingly remove any live plant from my gardenspace... but this thing HAD to go. There was a rather hopeless fir tree in front of our house that looked as though someone had planted their live Christmas tree a while back... after little Timmy broke off the top of the tree while trying to put the angel on straight! It needed to be gone. Immediately. Dad brought their chainsaw over and HANDED IT TO MY HUSBAND. OMG. Heart attack number two of the day. But in all fairness, Matt did a great job taking the tree down (and even wore safety glasses while using the chainsaw! Shocker!)

The lot looks even better with the fir tree gone... but we'll have to figure out what to do with the stump remnant. Perhaps when Matt and his brother have their digging party to replace the plumbing main they can also turn their excavating efforts towards the root ball...

We enjoyed our first cooked meal at the house (thanks mom and dad) and ate our BBQ on the porch steps. I have a feeling that those steps will see quite a bit of sitting over the years - such an awesome place to perch and observe the property! We didn't die in the heat (although I feared we might at times...) and are only a few days behind schedule in my preconceived notion of how much work we would accomplish in the first weekend... Ah well. Onward!

Day Two: You Aren't a REAL Homeowner Until...

2009-08-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

...your plumbing has blown up in your face.

We, my friends, are *REAL* homeowners!

There I was, minding my own business, pulling and thrashing about to get the last of the wallpaper and backer board off the kitchen walls (next to the faucet) when, out of the blue, the faucet began to leak.

And drip. (Try pulling the faucet tighter.)

And pour. (Take off the faucet handle to see if we can replace the gasket or even just tighten the handle's internal valve a bit more.)

And, eventually, gush out faster than the still-needing-to-be-snaked drain could handle. (Oh poop.)

At this point, we discovered that *tada!* our pre-1950's faucet pipes do NOT have shut off valves. The hot water valve attached to the water heater is too corroded to shut. The bucket that I have placed under the heavy stream of increasingly hot water is almost overflowing. Mom and I take turns running buckets of water out to the side yard while my dad valiantly tries close the faucet valve with various pliers, wrenches and brute force. No such luck. We turn off the main, only to be visited by the oh-so-friendly foundation contractor who needs water to set the concrete posts in the back. Ah. And Matt has just showed up from a half day of work, filthy from the job and needing to shower. Yes. Well. We took turns monitoring the main valve and the buckets in the kitchen sink as the water was turned on and off, on and off. And then we left my poor dad on his own to attend my baby shower down in Santa Cruz... Matt ended up sneaking out of the shower with his BF Jim and heading back up to the house... where he installed a brand new BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL FABULOUS faucet as his first plumbing project, ever. I am SO damn proud.

Dad spent the day sanding away at our kitchen walls. Mom spent the day removing carpet staples and tackboard from our front room floor. (Did I mention it is gorgeous?!?) Matt spent the day working to rewire our lovely knob-and-tube riddled house. And I spent the day experimenting with milk paints. We accomplished less than half of what I had on the "to-do" list, but I am quickly coming to realize that lists and goals and expectations are *WAAAAAY* overrated when remodeling a house... And I need to be ok with that!

Day One... Searching for Bloodstains

2009-08-10T22:34:00.001-07:00

...is always the hardest.

We got the keys to our new home on Thursday and took possession on Friday. After all the crazy setbacks, problems, breaches of national security, wrong turns and disappointments, I fully expected the car carrying our title papers to be hit by a semi on the way to the county recorder office, burst in to flames and further delay our close of escrow. In fact, I was *very* surprised when our FABULOUS realtor, Caren, called early Friday morning to say that the house was ours.

Caren: "Congratulations!"

Me: (to self: "Good Lord, what have we done!?!?!?!")

Matt and I met up at the house after work on Friday with a picnic dinner in tow, anxious to see what lay under the carpets. For weeks I had the same dream: we pull up the carpet in the front room and expose a blood stain the size of a small car. Pregnancy hormones or too much CSI? I can't tell... Carpets were ripped, breath was held, and VOILA! They are gorgeous! No blood! Not even a single chalk body outline! Old fir floors, excellent condition, waiting for us to rediscover them... Come to mama! Matt began the fabulous process of rewiring the whole house while I started ripping out old wallpaper and backing board in the kitchen.

Did I mention that the whole house is (uninsulated) original knotty pine paneling?

Oh yes!

The upside: AMAZING wood walls, perfect for oh-so-many different styles of cottage or bungalow refinishing.

The downside: no insulation. No mistakes allowed when cutting a hole for electrical boxes or new faucets. No hiding the past mistakes (and holes) left by previous owners' attempts to add new light fixtures or faucets. Paralyzing fear when starting to paint over the previously plain wood surface, even when I am absolutely, completely, fully 100% positive that the house is too dark, dated and "cabin-y" with the pine paneling as-is...

We ate our first dinner out on the small porch, homemade sandwiches, salt and vinegar kettle chips and a bottle of sparkling apple cider. The good life. Our new life. Starting our new home.

So it begins...

2009-08-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't been on here much (at all) in months... there is too much going on in our lives, and a brief pause from cataloging it all online seemed appropriate. I just couldn't get in to the whole "blog your way through pregnancy" thing... particularly since ours has been a bit of a doozy.

Bottom line at this point: we're due September 23rd, and we just bought a house.

What?

Yes, a house. In California. With a baby on the way. In the worst recession in decades. With construction jobs still unstable. Because we like to live on the edge (of reason...)

In a few weeks we will move in to our new home - a 1940's cabin that is more of a project than a house at this point.... but it is ours, nonetheless. If I wasn't the size of a manatee (and just about as mobile) this wouldn't be a problem: Matt and I love to work on home renovations or upgrades and are incredibly excited to be able to transform this "charming" and "rustic" cabin into a home for our growing family. BUT I happen to be very large, very uncomfortable and very limited in the scope of projects I can tackle at this point. I'm trying to do all that I can, but combine my size with a difficult pregnancy and I really should be resting at home on a couch with a book, jug of water and a fan. (Sounds heavenly. Not realistic.) Did I mention I'm large? I'm sure all pregnant women feel this way at this point, but COME ON! My frame is not meant to be carrying an extra 45 pounds (with more to gain as the weeks continue.)

But I digress...

The house. Yes. Here we go. Onward. Home.

Let's start at the very beginning...

Orla @ Chez Target!!!

2009-03-02T08:39:00.001-08:00

I just about fell out of bed...

Oh Happy Day!

I'm online... Now what?

2009-01-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

Soooo.... my Etsy shop is up and running, so to speak, at http://www.threadandbranch.etsy.com/. This was a ridiculously draining experience - every little iota of self-doubt came roaring out at me each time I went to shoot, photoshop and post pictures, create branding, pick a name, write descriptions, even create a return policy! But there it is, in all its tiny glory. I only have three items posted, with many more to photograph or finish or whatever. I'm a whimpering pile of self-doubt. Time to back away from the computer and go on a walk. To the beach. In the sun. In a tee shirt. In January.

Life IS good.

So, you want to open an Etsy shop? Ack!!!

2009-01-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

The newest addition to my line of fun stuff... (I just LOVE this fabric! And you'll never guess who makes it!)

And, of course, what bag is complete without a custom matching piece of flair?!?! A whimsical flower pin with deconstructed edges and thread accents rounds this piece out quite nicely, if I may say so myself(!)...

I would love to open an Etsy shop and offer custom handbags, knits, jewelry and refinished furniture, but haven't the faintest idea where to start... A million questions come to mind:

Prices?

Item names?

Descriptions?

How to best do made-to-order items?

...and most importantly... what to call my shop/enterprise???

I have a few names that I'm kicking around, but please feel free to offer your two cents... or ten cents... or a dollar...

And, as always, keep in mind that this and any other item you see on this blog is available for purchase either in the colors shown or in any custom combination of fabrics/yarns/materials. Grazie!

A Matched Set

2009-01-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

I am an explorer.

For as long as I can remember, I have spent vacations, weekends, an hour here and there all in the pursuit of "treasure." Not gold or truffles or the perfect pair of designer jeans, but bits and bobs of junk that most people would simply pass over.

Ghost towns. Mill sites. Mining sites. Old dump piles. Beach trash. Books. Hardware. Pottery shards. Square nails. Tin cans. Rusted machinery.

For years I also did this exploring either with a very patient dad, very inpatient boyfriends, or alone. No one seemed to understand that lying on your belly at an old beach dump looking for minuscule shards of red glass is exciting. That climbing for three hours to stare at an abandoned steam donkey or other such boiler apparatus for mining is thrilling. Or that finding an old pressed-tin button under the fallen-in ruins of a cabin is unbelievable!

For the longest time I thought that there was something really, really wrong with me - perhaps I was sinking too far into my introversion. I was too independent and crazy and there was no single person out there who would ever understand this need to poke around ruins and spend hours on beaches in search of the perfect sea glass.

Enter Matt.

He's about as crazy as I am. Our idea of the perfect day out includes delicious coffee (normal), a long hike with lunch in a backpack and a camera in hand (pretty darn normal), several hours poking around abandoned piles of milled lumber and rusted out machinery parts (wait, WHAT?), and upon return home a nice long hot shower and good book time (wow, you two are like an old married couple...)

Yes, Matt loves to explore as much as I do. Whereas I used to test my luck with friends while slowly combing over entire beaches, Matt is now right beside me or even bounding ahead like a puppy to look at rather large pieces of driftwood. (Which he is starting to bring home with more frequency... We will soon have a burl garden beside our vegetable garden... Fantastic!) We spent an hour on our last hike on our knees around natural springs, trash piles and fallen-in cabins, just looking for what might be hidden under the years of redwood mulch. We found antique glass and pottery shards and nails (age guessed by bubbles and coloring in the glass and shape of the nails) and a portion of an old brick with a "P" pressed into it. Our treasures. And in the middle of the excitement, combing over the creek to see what might have washed down from the mill site, I looked over at Matt and realized (again) what a matched set we are.

Best friends. Married. Explorers. Two of us.

Go ahead, Mom. You can say "I told you so" again. ;o)

Christmas Shall Hereforth Be December 27th

2008-12-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else find it slightly INSANE that we shop, wrap, decorate, bake, sweat, bleed and swear for weeks and weeks and weeks at FULL price just to have everything be 90% off the next day?!?!?

I was at Chez Target today (we needed plastic baggies and cat litter: how glamorous...) All of their Christmas shwag is 50% off. The clearance racks are bursting with 30 - 75% off joy. Mervyn's is closing its doors for good tomorrow - everything in the store is 90% off. (I wasn't strong enough to brave that chaos after wandering aimlessly through Target for three hours, trying to figure out where they have moved everything to post-remodel...) Even our local crafting store, Beverly's, has a one day sale today with ALL Christmas goodies 90% off. OldNavy/Gap/JCrew/LLBean/KodakGallery - all have MAJOR sales going off like firecrackers in stores and online.

90% off. CAN YOU IMAGINE?!?! 9-0! OMG, dude!

Our economy is in the tank, I'm jobless, Matt's company has already laid off half its workforce... So why couldn't we all just wait until today to "deck the halls" with toys and candy? (Is See's having a sale? I'm so there...) Would it really kill us to wait a few extra days if it meant that we could be slightly more fiscally responsible? Or is their a deeper message to ponder here?

"What does this all mean???" That we don't really need that crap that we're scooping up "since it is 90% off, after all!" ...or that companies have over-stocked? ...or that our consumer-driven endless-supply-needed culture is, perhaps, in need of such a ginormous wake-up call as a "great" depression?

Too much to ponder with a Target-sucked-brain. At least the horrific Christmas muzack has stopped... replaced with love songs and Valentine's Day decor. Good grief.

..and the gifts are done...

2008-12-24T13:37:00.001-08:00

This Christmas is very different for me - so many changes this year...

- Our first Married Christmas (how exciting!)

- My first Unemployed Christmas (how... exciting?)

- My first MassiveNumbersOfIn-Laws Christmas (really exciting! Nieces and nephews, oh my!)

- An attempt at following the Advent Conspiracy as closely as possible (helps with item #2 on this list...)

- My brother has a new girlfriend, my best friend/PLP (platonic life partner...) and her husband have moved to Atlanta, I'm completely off dairy, our house is more focused on a baby in a manger 2000 years ago than a gift under the tree, my favoritest Sarah is expecting her first baby in March, only one more month of a Bush in the White House and I discovered this year that I love fava beans.

In an attempt to reign in the crazy gift-buying that I seem to get swept up in every year, Matt and I decided that I would make most of our gifts, as my days have been rather freed up as of late... (grimace/grin) It seemed like an innocent and easy way for us to be mindful of our finances and put more meaning into our gifts... It quickly transformed into an all-out obsession and time vacuum in which I made fleece "ugly dolls" for the seven kids in our lives, crocheted my way through my MIL, dad, brother and husband's gifts, developed bath tea bags with lavender and chamomile from our garden, baked a billion cookies, went cross-eyed sewing purses and sachets and skirts and aprons, became incredibly frustrated with watercolors and wasted an hour trying to get a sticker off a picture-frame-glass before finally finding the GooGone... Ha!

But in all that, there is such a sense of accomplishment and happiness as I look over the baskets of gifts that I'm loading into the car today. We didn't go overboard. We were mindful of special treats instead of toss-out crap. I was able to watch Pride & Prejudice and North & South a gazillion times while crafting...

There is nothing wrong with a store-bought gift. It has simply been a luxury this year to make many of our own gifts. And for that I am grateful.

Wishing a Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Sara

Dear Mr. Darcy...

2008-12-23T05:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Pride & Prejudice,

I can hide it no longer. I am having an affair with North & South.

It started as an innocent friendship, but quickly developed into a full blown four hour a day torrid obsession.

You had been my only companion while sewing, crocheting, painting and crafting my way through 20 Christmas gifts. But I strayed. Don't blame Netflix - they only introduced us. They had no idea what would blossom.

You gave me Sir Lawrence Olivier, David Rintoul, Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen. But she gave me Richard Armitage.

You will always be my first true love. I hope that you will take me back with open arms when the Other must leave through the post. Until then, I must admit, Mr. Thornton's cravat has me in a tizzy.

(sigh)

Yours,

(I have an unnatural obsession with men in 19th century period costume...)

Missing: Black Turtleneck. Reward!

2008-12-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

This morning I had an 8am interview at a fantastic local organization. I found out about the opportunity yesterday at 3pm, so there wasn't much time to prepare - or to freak out. Yip!

However, imagine my dismay this morning when I could not find my BLACK TURTLENECK SWEATER.

WHAT?!?!?

The most basic and holy of wardrobe essentials, gone!??!? What the heck am I supposed to wear now? It's FREEZING!

I ended up layering other black sweaters with black trousers, heels and a beautiful crimson wrap, but still... not as good as the turtleneck. (sigh) I need a black turtleneck sweater - stat!

Here is a glimpse into the closet carnage that went along with the horrifying realization that I did NOT have the right black turtleneck sweater... I didn't even have the wrong turtleneck sweater! Geesh.

If you've seen my sweater, please tell him that I miss him very much and want him to come home. There's no need to stay away - I promise to wear him more! It is winter, after all...

Bring the rain...

2008-12-14T22:05:00.000-08:00

It rained today.

Praise the Lord.

Rainy days are made for slowing down and remembering to breathe. For special together time, relieved of the pressing burdens of so many projects about the house by the spell of water that falls from the sky.

The old and tired sanctuary was frigid this morning, keeping us early birds awake (like we could sleep with Jon Talbert speaking... oh please...) We sang the gorgeous and magical Christmas carols that I've been missing this advent season (how can you NOT sing carols during advent? Sacrilege!!!)

We made our way home for our first married rainy afternoon, exhausted from four shows and a "acting-high" that finally wore off right after church. I watched my bird feeder slowly fill with water as ever-changing drops plodded down from the swirling blue-grey sky. The soil in my veggie patch became a landscape of mini craters from the larger droplets and small hail that decided to hurl itself downward in a brief flurry of angry water. Doused and dense, the garden shone in the perfect afternoon darkness that creates such magical color saturation.

Matisse and Matt curled up on the couch for a long nap while I baked cookies and prepared soup for dinner. The heater hummed most of the day, keeping the damp chill at bay. Sweats and fleeces were donned, with thick socks for the tootsies and mugs of spiced cider as hand warmers. We snuggled with a movie during supper and took turns dashing to the freezing garage to change laundry loads. (I bet laundry rooms are all inside the house in the Midwest...) I love a man who lets me warm my perma-cold feet on his warm legs...

Today, we did nothing... and in that nothing was everything. Ah, bliss... Thanks rain!

Dog

2008-12-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

Patience is a virtue... unless you are a parent or child care provider. Then it is a necessity if you value your sanity.

Feeding a ten month old is hilarious, frustrating, painstaking and deliberate, all at the same time. With a vocabulary of approximately two words and four other random syllables, getting a clear message across to me when it comes to "food time" involves face-puckering, slapping the spoon out of my hand, pushing any incoming utensils or bite-sized pieces as far away from the mouth as possible (including on to the floor for their 13 year old weimaraner,) covering her mouth with both hands (really cute) or HUGE entire-body-shaking-giggle-infested-wide-eyed-hand-clapping-joyfests when I actually get it right. (Again, REALLY cute.)

If she feels particularly generous, her favorite word will be pulled out in conjunction with these jumping bean joyfests:

"Dog!

Dogdogdogdogdogdogdog!"

This means, in infantspeak, "hooboy! she gets it! finally! geesh!" Riley's favorite thing on the planet, besides her wonderful and uber-rad-loving parents, is their dog Monte. Dang is he ever patient with that kid! They are pretty adorable together - but that's another story altogether...

Today I discovered the power of pomegranate seeds. OMG. "DOGDOGDOG!" I was afraid the highchair would crash over from her enthusiastic jumping bean moves! Thankfully all was safe in the land of Oz and we both had giant grins plastered over our faces - thanks to the fruit of the dead.

Oh, how I love red.

wordless wednesday (get yours now!)

2008-12-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

My latest fun - tapestry purse with wooden toggle closure and handmade "apple" button. (And linen curtains... and a refinished vintage table... joy!)

Purses available for sale in any custom color/fabric/trimming combination!

Cloth Diapers, Breastmilk & Sleepytime

2008-12-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the greatest work day of my life. Period.

My crazy lifelong dream of being a nanny has come to fruition in the form of part time childcare for the happiest, softest, brightest and most captivating ten month old on the planet. Miss Riley reached out with invisible fingers, tangled them in my heartstrings and gently turned up the corners of my mouth in the first moment of my employment.

Gone are the fluorescent lights, stale air, politics and depression of the cubical world. Even if this chapter of my life is but a moment, it is one of smiles, learning, sharing, wonder, dancing, jeans, preparation and joy. One of cloth diapers, patient feedings, not-so-easy "sleepytime" and a ten second attention span. Does this mean that this is an easy job? Not necessarily. I have never been on such high alert while at a job - one short day and I was ready for a VERY early bedtime. But is it a job that I can actually believe in? Darn tootin'.

Too often in this lightening-fast-paced-e-world, "work" entails clicking keys, reading nonsensical and repetitive paragraph after paragraph, drowning in the buzz of radiating fake lighting and learning to live with a constant HVAC-induced headache. We have ergonomic chairs, keyboards, calculators, mice, desks, pens, pencils... Does anyone else find this ridiculous? We are a workforce contorting our bodies and minds into such unnatural positions that we have spawned an entire industry dedicated to the treatment and prevention of stress- and repetitive-motion-related injuries and complaints. Good Lord. Talk about ironic.

So, off I trot to spend the day building block castles, reading cardboard books, delighting in the seedpod of dandelions... perhaps not a "realistic" list of work activities for today's reality, but then again, what is reality?

Unemployment is NOT for the faint of heart...

2008-12-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

For the past 13 years, I have worked almost every week in an office of some sort, with a semester off my first year of college to get settled in to the swing of "life out on my own..." (Yeah, that went well...) When I was 14, my mother arranged for me to work as an assistant at a local small business management firm. After work, three days a week, I would hitch a ride with the company owner's son and file, type, sort, label, water, dust, mail and post myself into oblivion - for three hours. THREE. At the time three hours was F-O-R-E-V-E-R, dragging on until, finally, my dad pulled up outside and I skipped over to the timecard area to write my "out" time for the day.

11 jobs, seven years of schooling and 13 years later, I have been unemployed for almost an entire month - the longest that I have been without something structured to do since summer break between junior high and high school. Time has no meaning - I have no idea what day it is, what time it is, where I am, if the Apocalypse has come and gone...

I am searching for a job - my daily ritual of combing thru craigslist, simplyhired, santacruzjobs, ucscjobs, santacruzsentinel - but y'all, there ain't much out there. I'm sure that others in this situation would relish the opportunity to do NOTHING all day while collecting unemployment, but unfortunately my body and mind have completely and fully rejected that scenario as unacceptable.

Sooooo... I find myself washing dishes and floors, rearranging cabinets, reading the entire Twilight series again - twice, cooking new dishes, baking cookies and breads, refinishing furniture, sorting thru old photos, cleaning out the closets, seriously considering posting every single last item of *crap* that we own on craigslist, planting a victory garden, pulling weeds, making ridiculously long and involved to-do lists, reading blogs, getting up-to-date on political news sites, paying bills, contemplating a million DIY Christmas gifts, dusting off the sewing machine and making personalized "ugly dolls" for our seven nieces and nephews from scratch, crocheting hats, memorizing lines for the Christmas play, preparing to sew a new skirt and handbag to see if I could possibly make more as gifts, designing our Christmas cards, setting up our church advent season decorations and stage set, working on new jewelery projects... sketching, sanding, sawing, seeding, scrubbing, stewing, scanning, stalling, singing, sorting, staining, stretching, snuggling, sensing, screaming, straining, searchingsearchingsearching...

Almost everyone that knows I am out of work has advised me in their most sage/condescending/jealous/all-knowing voice that I should see this time as a gift and use it wisely. Which is great advice... advice I would GLADLY take and follow and relish if it weren't for the tiny detail of insanity+debt=not so feasible. Does this make me wish that perhaps we had chosen slightly less expensive rings? You betcha. Not paid for everyone and their mother to have their hair done at the wedding? Oh hell yes. Saved more while I was making ridiculous loads of cash and completely stayed away from Kodak Gallery, Sierra Trading Post and Old Navy's websites? *BLEEP* yeah! Stuck to the cheap food and eaten out WAY less? DARN TOOTIN'! Can I change that now? Dammit, no. Have we changed our ways DRASTICALLY in the past few months? Again, you betcha. And this past month, with us both being without pay, we have SERIOUSLY been frugalgroovin'...

The surprise?

It's quite easy to spend WAY less. Quite. Well shoot. Now you tell me!

The projects that I've been tackling have all somehow skirted around the main thing that I would love to achieve in this season of time - my art. Painting, carving, creating, molding, DOING... Something is in the way, holding me back from my easel. Everyday I see a new image or color or vision that I need to capture on the canvases that are strewn about the house, closets and garage. But I am held back by unseen ties that bind my arms to my sides and whisper into my ears ...you can't do it... you aren't good enough ...it will never look like you want it too... So I am held captive by my self doubt and dance about the house, doing other projects to keep me from the paints. But they are there, yearning for my fingers to brush over them, screaming to me to USE them... if only their screams were louder than the whispers.

This has been a tough month for me, not knowing what to do or who I am without the identity of a job. Isn't it ironic that we so pointedly define ourselves through our work? "What'syournameandwhatdoyoudo?" The beginning of all new acquaintances. So who am I? And what do I do? Who have I become in the years since my first job? What do I do in the years ahead?

Suggestions welcome.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-29T12:28:00.001-07:00

(It's the little [furry] things in life that matter...)

Hardware

2008-10-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

My father always knew the secret

name of everything—

stove bolt and wing nut,

set screw and rasp, ratchet

wrench, band saw, and ball—

peen hammer. He was my

tour guide and translator

through that foreign country

with its short-tempered natives

in their crewcuts and tattoos,

who suffered my incompetence

with gruffness and disgust.

Pay attention, he would say,

and you'll learn a thing or two.

Now it's forty years later,

and I'm packing up his tools

(If you know the proper

names of things you're never

at a loss) tongue-tied, incompetent,

my hands and heart full

of doohickeys and widgets,

whatchamacallits, thingamabobs.

"Hardware" by Ronald Wallace from Time's Fancy.

...i was wrong...

2008-09-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

"I HATE my mother!"

How many times have we all thought this over the years; growing up, through the ebb and flow of school, reports, play dates, church plays, musical performances, church services, AP classes, getting a driver's license at 16, dating, graduation, college, moving out, dating, therapy, turning 21, getting a degree, finding a job, finding a better job, dating (ugh), going back to church (mom breathes a sigh of relief,) finding an even better job, (finally) finding a life mate, marriage, setting up our own household and now on to WombWatch'08... (don't hold your breath...)

A small but powerful thought, it weaves its way into everyday life - an easy escape from facing reality. But it is neither easy or an escape. It is wrong. It is hurtful. It is spiteful. And it scratches at the foundation of love -for others and for ourselves- as we so desperately grasp at it as a mantra to explain why there is hate and anger and hardship and rage in the volatile process of growing up.

A few years ago I came to the (obvious but true) realization that when I was born, a child-rearing manual written specifically for my unique temperament and gifts did NOT pop out with me. So starts the move from self-centered "why me" to world- (and mom-) reflective "breathe and grow." My life problems are not the fault of my mother. She gave me every opportunity, hug, encouragement, lesson and bit of love that she knew how while I was growing up. Child development is an incredibly complex process - one that I do not believe we can ever master. We will forever be hard at work to bring forth life into the world, to mold that child as best we can and ever after be one step behind, in the shadows of our child's life, should they fall and forget how to get up. (And that is NOT an endorsement of attachment parenting. Just FYI.)

Why daughters, in particular, allow our relationships with our mothers to become a tangled web of love and hate is beyond me. My mother has been the single most influential person in my life. Period. She has loved me even when she didn't know how, as have I with her. Every fight, every iota of energy pushing me forward/onward/higher/to do better/to be better/to live better - all from love and the knowledge that I had the capacity for better in me. My mother tells me that from birth she saw a spark in me - creativity, tenacity, independence - that she didn't want to douse. We may never fully understand one another, may have times when we aren't so enthusiastic about the other, but underneath it all is a tie that no fight can break, no words can sever, no mistake can push away.

Trust me, we've tried.

I think that a mother's love is God's third greatest gift to us (after Grace and marriage.) That we be not only beautiful daughters of Christ, but beautiful daughters of our mothers. Not everyone uses that gift, and not everyone is given that gift, but we all deserve that love. That link. That tie. That unbelievable power contained in a single hug. That overwhelming desire to make proud. That necessary safety to be able to develop into our true self.

So... if I could provide that to even just one child in my life, as my mother has to me, I will be complete. I will have fulfilled my life's journey. To be a beautiful daughter of God, and to shine/reflect that beautiful love to another. Because I was wrong... I LOVE my mother. A lot. (And she loves me, too. Imagine that.)

growing hope...

2008-09-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my garden...

This past weekend, I made it up to the UCSC Farm & Garden plant sale for the first time ever. Ridiculous, right? While they had a smaller stash than I expected, it was of great variety (particularly for a lover of salvias.) I planted my new mexican sages - black and chartreuse - and a beautiful dicolor salvia.

I had just pulled out mountains of sweet peas and sunflowers at the end of their bloom, along with past-prime pole beans that had been planted quite early in the season (but fear not, dear legume lovers, as there are several more waves of beans staggered for full summer-to-winter enjoyment!)

I also planted spinach, a wonderful blend of lettuce and broccoli for late fall harvest. When our CSA expires for the spring/summer growing season, we will have quite the barren table... A dearth of local, affordable produce, as it were. Dang I love Live Earth Farms.

I find myself most peaceful - most able to concentrate and file away the craze and business of the week - when puttering in the garden. I think I could putter 24/7 if I found a way to make it pay the bills...

Going off on that tangent, I would love to have this potting bench to make that whole venture "easier on the back..." ;o) I know that Smith & Hawken is an expensive habit to have, but dang does it feel great to open the trunk and *surprise!!!* A new garden shovel! *Wooohoo!!!* A fantastic trowel! *SheBAM!* Seedling markers! If this potting bench were to arrive? Combine all above excitement, multiply to the nth degree and that would be my reaction were this to appear on our doorstep... (And it is on SALE! Dang the budget!)

Someday we will have enough space and sun to grow all of our own edible plant matter (and flowers, too, because really, why bother with a garden that doesn't smell like heaven and glisten in the noon sun with a full million-color-spectrum of blooms.) Until then, this is my garden.

Grow, garden, grow...

The JOY of a good knife...

2008-08-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

Really, truly, I can think of nothing better in the kitchen for a passionate cook than a darn good knife. And thanks to one of the generous gifters at our wedding, we happen to own such a knife. I love it. A whole bunch. Heaps. Megatons. REALLY.

There is something so satisfying about effortlessly slicing through lettuce, tomatoes, apples, chard, bread (well, really anything, come to think of it...)

Just had to share.

Eating with the Season

2008-08-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Each Wednesday, Matt dutifully picks up our farm share from a designated CSA (community supported agriculture) site. Each week brings a bountiful new allotment of both familiar and completely unknown produce for our consumption. I will confess, we do not eat the eggplants... (and in the beginning, we were horrible about finishing our shares and sent almost half to the compost pile... Eeek!) BUT we are getting better each week, and as we consume more fresh, local, organic and super-yummy veggies and fruits, I feel a bit more grounded; connected to the local economy, to the harvest, to the seasons, to the earth... It is one of the richest feelings on earth, second to grace and third to love.

My current mantra comes courtesy of fabulous author and advocate Michael Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Sounds like a recipe for happy fields, happy planet and happy tummy...

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Sara

2008-08-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

My best friend and PLP (platonic life partner) is moving to Atlanta, Georgia, in 11 days. She and her husband are bravely selling all their furniture, kitchen doo-dads, boxes of books, clothes that haven't been worn lately [you know how you are always wanting to clean out the closets and get rid of the junk you are holding on to from HIGH SCHOOL but can never quite get around to it? They are DOING IT!] and all sorts of STUFF that we all find quite helpful and lovely and wonderful to have around... but is not special enough to take precious cargo space in their cars as they DRIVE to their new home. (Wow that was a long sentence.) While I am extremely excited for them as they shove off on this adventure, I am also... damn sad. And that is just what I wrote as there are no words to describe what I am feeling. I am zooming back and forth in my mind, remembering every fun (and not-so-fun) moment, class, brunch out, shopping trip, cabin weekend, snow experience, late night therapy-style ass-kicking conversations, weddings, new nieces and nephews, growing up, new cars, sibling moments, mom moments, road trips and hours of content silence in each other's company.

Jen is the kind of person who makes your day better simply by asking how you are feeling. She is the most naturally gifted counselor that I know - not just in profession, but in her countenance, presence, intuition, wisdom and conversation. It is a GREAT thing that she is moving to eventually go to grad school - the world will be exponentially better off for it - but still, Atlanta?!? The South? Where you put on pearls to go to the local football games??? ;o)

I know she and her wonderful husband will be only a Skype video call away, but really is that the same as being able to drop everything and drive down when a much loved pet dies or a heinous break-up happens (although that's not going to happen again for either of us...)??? There is something reassuring about knowing that, whatever happens, the person who understands you best is less than an hour away. I know this is a selfish way to look at it, but I am feeling slightly childish and petty and thus here we are. At least we had good cupcakes for their going-away party this weekend...

So, here's to:

- lina
- counseling psych
- mimosas to get us through each graduation...
- singing the Beatles in three part harmony
- shoe shopping until we both want to die
- bunny's discounts
- the halloween of gangster and "his" moll
- a billion break-ups (me) and two weddings (each of us...)
- hair color experimentation
- bringing your first snow to you in the back of a truck
- cafe brasil
- getting the carpool permit my junior year
- each finding the perfect wedding dresses together
- praying that flight deals will magically appear
- AND unconditional love.

On Gardening...

2008-07-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

Is there anything quite as satisfying as eating a meal full of food that you have grown yourself? Right now we have purple peacock bush beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, sugar snap peas, nantes carrots, ronde du nice zucchini, black simpson lettuce, zebra stripe and red roma tomatoes, nasturtiums, red bell peppers and a smattering of spinach rounding out the garden. I plan to get a few more starters in the next week or so to add to our future harvests.

These home-grown crops beautifully balance the CSA farm share that we get from Live Earth Farm every week. Most weeks we have so much food that an unfortunate portion ends up in the compost bin as an investment in super-rich amendments for future plantings... (or at least that's how I try to justify it...) I am working hard to research best storage techniques, new recipes that utilize our varied (and sometimes unheard of) weekly cornucopia of veggies and fruits. Apricots freeze surprisingly well, halved and pitted, and are DELISH in smoothies! Carrots do not appreciate being stored with their greens still on... (picky, picky!) Beets stain EVERYTHING. Purslane is fantastic in salads (ever eaten purslane? Even Matt has eaten purslane! Get on the bandwagon!) Strawberries are AMAZING in green salads! Fresh apricots? Not so much... Caterpillars are best when not eaten (I know, shocking, eh?) and slugs give me the heebee-geebees when lurking in radicchio (again, shocking, eh?)

There is something so grounding - so fulfilling - about knowing where my food comes from. Seeing it go from seed to seedling to shoot to vine or bush or even tree... amazing. Matt doesn't have much experience with gardening - to see his face when inspecting the growth progress of our Autumn Harvest sunflowers is wondrous in and of itself. He's like a curious child, amazed that the now-six-foot-tall flower stem started only a few months ago as a tiny seed smaller than his pinky fingernail. I find his curiosity contagious, and catch myself running late for work because I decided to set my bag down and stare at newly opened Black Magic bachelor buttons (a-m-a-z-i-n-g.) Our cat spends 90% of her day perched in her basket-bed, overlooking the richly varied palate of colors and, particularly, the happy birds that are flocking to our birdbath and multiple feeders. I find myself plopping down beside her every lunch, watching nature be "as natural" as is possible in a controlled in-town environment.

But in all this beauty, there is a longing that is stirred in me. A desire to run away from the paved streets and city lights - to the quiet and beauty of woods, fields, oceanscapes, bluffs, mountains, meadows, creeks... To take the moments of peace that we find while two days in to the back country on a pack and hold it close forever.

Does this make me anti-social? Weird? A tree-hugging-hippy? Anti-American? What if we re-thought the American dream... Mine certainly isn't the biggest house on the block with the newest cars and track lighting. I think that more and more people are awaking to realize that this suburban dream is a myth, one that we need to leave behind in our search for sustainability in our community and in ourselves. So where do we go from here? I'm still looking...

Yes, actually, we do have too much.

2008-07-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love my red toaster oven.

I am RIDICULOUSLY lucky. I mean DAMN lucky. I have food, clothing, shelter, personal transportation (aka Angelina, my bought-new-VW-Jetta), a pet, a washer/dryer, a kitchen-aid and Cuisinart, a Bose, laptop, furniture out the yin-yang, a memory foam bed, a warm jacket for every day of the week, comfort/orthopedic flip flops for every day of the week... The list goes on and on into minutia, making my head hurt and my eyes cross. While we am by no means the richest couple on the block, we're doing just fine and quite comfortable, thankyouverymuch.

The Salwen family of Atlanta, GA, recently sold their ginormous house and donated fully half to an international aid organization in Ghana. Read their story here. They downsized to a house half the size of their original palatial historical home (granted, still a HUGE 3,000 sq ft...) and restructured their lifestyle and belongings to fit with this new dwelling.

Dang.

In addition to the wonderful things I list above, I also have a closet bursting with clothes that I don't wear (but hold on to, thinking that someday I just might wake up and think "dang it, today I will ACTUALLY wear that skirt that I bought six years ago while they were in style. How retro of me!"), crates of shoes that I don't wear, a dozen handbags that go unused all but one or two days of the year (if ever), a garage of STUFF, an antique 7' x 9' barn door, shelves of books that are never read, stacks of canvases that I never find time to paint, a huge tub of crafting supplies that represents half of my 2005 paychecks and .0005% of my current attention span, art to fill a house four times the size of our cottage, luxury cooking tools that have not been used yet (but boy will I be quite the gourmet once I crack that box open...)

The list goes on.

What do we need? REALLY need? How many pairs of shoes? Pairs of jeans? Pieces of jewelry? Expensive and time-sucking hobby supplies? Collections of china patterns or thimbles or MAC eyeshadow?

Our church community did a series on "Frugalgroovin'" - ways to be better stewards of our finances. Excess stuff = excess money spent = excess resources wasted = what the hey?!?

I'm still processing all of this. Too much. We have too much. And yet how is it that we never feel fulfilled, reflecting on society as a whole? My husband and I are meeting with a financial advisor to figure out how to get out of debt, save money for a house and eventually (ha!) be completely debt-free.

How did we get into debt in the first place? See above.

The fall of community...

2008-06-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

First came phone calls. Then email. Then texting. MySpace. Facebook addiction. And now... a blog?!? One that will likely never be read by anyone outside my immediate family?

WHY?

Why do people blog? Why email? Why Twitter and Facebook and text and dagnabit why have all of these technological phenomenons become verbs? "I'm Facebooking Zoe about dinner tomorrow," or "I'll just text Jen to see when she'll be in town." Why not call? Because we're losing our ability to pick up phones. We spend our days in stifled box-buildings with fake light, fake air, fake plants, making fake-friendly calls to "clients" and "prospects." We are tired of talking - of communicating - at the end of the day. (Or, sometimes, by the end of the morning...)
Do you know your neighbors? I mean know your neighbors? Names - first and last? Birthdays? The names of their children, even if they are grown and moved away years ago? Grandkids?

When is the last time you wrote a letter, sealed the envelope, put a stamp on it and sent it on its merry way, courtesy of the USPS? (Wedding thank you notes do not count.)

I'm tired. I think perhaps many of us are tired. I want to sit down and connect with others in my community, even in my family. I want to host a neighborhood block party - and actually have people look forward to it and come join in the festivities. I want to be offered extra lemons from a neighbors tree, bring lemon bread back as a thank you, go on a walk and stop ten times to ask ten different locals about their ten different latest and greatest "memorable moment of the week." I want to have friends over for dinner that only have to walk down three houses to go home.

Selfish? Or a natural instinct that we are shying away from, even intentionally denying? This is not a call for a 1950's Stepford commune, but for common sense and connection while trying to get by in an electronically (impersonally) driven world.

To do today: take a walk and compliment a neighbor on one thing about their house or garden. Write a letter to the first person I open my address book to. Bake for my co-workers' meeting in the morning. And smell the sweet peas.