Anderson Homestead

Make Day: Arnica Bruise Balm

2012-02-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks I've had this lovely jar of herbs and oil sitting on my windowsill, gently warming in the sun as it infuses. The herbs: arnica montana flowers. The oil: olive. The purpose: Arnica Bruise Balm, which we made this weekend.

If you're unfamiliar with arnica (as I was), it's a daisy-like flower that has topical healing properties: it's used in oils, creams, balms, salves, etc., as a relief from bruises, sprains and strains. Last time I was at Frazier Farms I saw a couple creams/lotions in the natural pharmacy aisle, so it's available "commercially" as well as homemade. As with many/most herbal/natural remedies, SCIENCE has little to say in favor of such hocus-pocery, but I'm willing to give it a try! Arnica has been in use for centuries, so I'm inclined to believe that over the years enough people have been aided by its use to give at least some credit to its healing properties.

At this point I've made enough remedies so that I don't feel completely green when going into things—though I'm definitely still fine-tuning the process. But it's pretty simple, as you'll see. As I mentioned above, the process began by infusing the herbs in oil for a number of weeks. Then you need to strain the herbs. I tried the old pour-it-through-a-coffee-filter approach and it worked quite well.

(with many thanks to Dustin for being my hand model!)

At the end you squeeeeeze it all out really good, even though your hands get all oily and slick. It's messy and fun, and that's what life is about, right?

I used just about a cup of dried arnica flowers and ended up with just over a cup of herb-infused oil. Looks just like regular oil now, doesn't it? So that makes the rest of the process feel even more familiar.

Melting down the beeswax. I tried it in my Pyrex and decided about halfway through that it really would save me time and effort to just pull out the double boiler... which we did. And man oh man did that wax melt right down!

Once the wax is liquified, add the herb-infused oil - and for a few minutes you get this weird scrambled-egg-looking mess... that's because the room temperature oil cools the hot wax and solidifies it. Just let it melt back down and you're good to go.

I added some lavender essential oil to this balm since lavender also has healing properties and it smells nice. Then pour it into the containers and let it set! I found these round containers at Michael's - they were wedding favor "tins" which aren't really all that quality, but they worked well enough for this round. Maybe once I open my apothecary wagon (because it's got to be a wagon) I'll spring for some nice glass/metal containers. That's also when I become a gypsy and run around barefoot playing the tambourine while Brittany braids flowers into her hair...

And there you have it. Arnica bruise balm, just about ready to go. I gave it a try for the first time today - my feet were pretty sore from standing in rainboots all day (and it barely even rained) so I massaged some into my feet after a shower. At the very least, the smooth balm felt amazing as I rubbed my aching insoles! I'm not prone to clumsiness or bruising, but you can bet I won't go out of my way to "avoid" the coffee table this week - hey, all in the name of herbal remedy, right?!

xo, Make-maid

Foraging

2012-02-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Forage ('for-age)

1 : (noun) food for animals, especially when taken by browsing or grazing

2 : (verb) the act of foraging: a search for provisions

It sounds like something you do in the deep, dark forests, doesn't it? Maybe with a basket and a red hood and wolves lurking behind the trees? But what if foraging isn't at all strange or scary - what if it's something we could make a part of our daily (okay, monthly?) lives? Foraging is fun. It's like an adventure. It's free (although I genuinely hope this is not the only reason you'd do it) and it's a neat way to get involved in your own food. It's true - not everyone can be a farmer. Not everyone can grow an herb garden or even successfully grow container plants. But everyone can forage! ...you just need to know where to look.

Now, I am fortunate in that I live in a place where foraging is very easy because it's literally in my backyard. Others may have to become more creative and adventurous. Everyone's foraging experience will differ, since different plants are found in different areas. Find out what plants might grow locally, pull on some walking shoes and go explore!

(Let's get this part out of the way: please, please do not EVER eat a plant if you do not know or are not 100% certain what it is and that it is, in fact, edible! Common sense and caution here. And always, always wash your foraged finds thoroughly before eating.)

Let's get started!

Nasturtiums. Both the flower and the leaves are edible on this lovely little plant. The leaves taste like radishes, with a sharp, almost spicy finish. They're wonderful in salads for a little kick. The flowers are a little milder in flavor. You'll find them in restaurants and farmers' markets, too, though they grow wild by water sources and are pretty easy to grow yourself, too.

They like a bit of shade...

...and water...

...so I hope you brought your Wellingtons!

Prickly Pear Cactus.

The jewel-toned fruit is sometimes called the apple, or the plum, or even the tuna. I don't care what you call it, but please try some, because they're wonderful! BUT you've got to be really careful of the spines - both those big ones you can easily see and the small, hair-like ones that you can't. They're mostly irritating and not painful, but this fruit is best gathered with lots of protective equipment. You can even check out our "how-to" from when we made jelly a while back.

Here's a simpler version: syrup.

As you can see, it's easily done on a much smaller scale. We used only five or six pears.

(Scrub off spines // peel and chop // simmer on stove with sugar // strain out seeds and pulp // add a squirt of lime // enjoy your prickly pear syrup!)

We enjoyed ours on homemade crock-pot yogurt, which came together wonderfully upon the second attempt. Strained out the whey to get thick, creamy Greek-style yogurt - a perfect mix to the prickly-pear syrup.

Nettles. You know all about these now, don't you?! Even if you don't forage, you should know what a stinging nettle looks like so you can avoid getting stung. They've got leaf "pairs" on either side of the stalk, with sharply serrated edges. It's not a thorn that gets you, but an oil on the leaves that irritates the skin. Regular old rubber gloves work like a charm, and once they're dried or steamed the oil is neutralized.

Aloe vera. Great healing properties for cuts, scratches, itches, burns, sunburns... We've got some growing wild, and also some that have been transplanted into pots.

Okay, this one isn't a foraging picture but it came from my afternoon walk.

As did this one. See? No big bad wolves or wicked witches in this forest!

What about you? Do you know of any useful plants you have growing at/near your house or neighborhood? Are you brave enough to give them a try??

Make Day: Cleanse-Oil Balm

2012-02-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Time for another Make Day. If you've been following my blog you no doubt know that I'm a fan of the oil-cleansing method - and a fan of making potions and brews. When I found this post about making a balm/solid version of my beloved cleansing oil, you can imagine how stoked I was - new project!!

(If you are interested in more info, I urge you to follow the link - her instructions are easy and succinct. Mine are less instructions, and more photo-documentary-ing. Yes I made that word up, just now, deal.)

So let's jump in, shall we??

Step the First. prep materials. This means shaving off and measuring the correct amount of beeswax from my block. I'll say it again: this beewax smells amazing and makes me want to be a bee in my next life. However, since I don't believe in reincarnation (and even if I did my chances of getting what I want are pretty slim, it's either bee or killer whale) I'm just going to enjoy the smell while I make my potions.

Le done: 1/8 cups beeswax.

Step the First, Part the Second. Measuring out the oils. Since this "balm" is a solid-ish version of the oils one uses to cleanse one's face, one should be sure to use those same oils and in the same ratios one uses on a regular basis. For my skin I like a pretty even mix of castor oil (which is the brawny cleanser) and olive oil (the silky smooth moisturizer).

Assemble! Wax, check. Oil, check check.

Step the Second. Adding the fancies. I ordered this African Shea Butter online and was all excited about it until I realized I didn't really have any specific potions/recipes/projects that called for it. This recipe suggested cocoa butter, but since it's so easily customizable you can substitute shea with no problem. Basically it's for extra moisturizing power and also to add a creamy solid to the mix.

Step the Third. Meltin' it down. (I feel like I should have some sort of song or dance prepared for this part?) Anyways. It takes a while, so do something else. I took the time to strain the herbs from my vinegar, which was in the last post.

Step the Fourth. It's a jump to the left, and a step to the right... let's do the time warp again! (See? I knew there was a song and dance to be had!) Now the oil/shea butter/beeswax are all melted down and having fun at Tim Curry's creepy house while Susan Sarandon runs around in her under...never mind.

This is the part where you add your essential oils. I deviated a bit from the original suggestions - again, to fit with the oils that I normally use. I think I did about 7 drops tea tree, 6 drops lavender, 4 eucalyptus and 4 rosemary. And a little bit of baobab, which is this cool oil that my sis-in-law brought me from Africa.

Step the Fifth. Pour! It doesn't make a TON which is nice, because I didn't have to fill up all these jars and containers and such.

In the words of Mr. Freeze - CHILL! Or, more accurately, cool. It sets up like a soft salve or balm when it's done. I've used it twice so far and it works just like my regular liquid oils. I massage it onto my face, let the oils sit for a little bit, then steam with a very warm washcloth and wipe off. I like doing that part in the shower the best. Since the point of this salve is to use when I travel (it's more portable than the liquid, which has a tendency to get messy when you take it places, I know from experience) it's not something I'll use every day, but when I go on trips it will be so awesome to have handy!!

xo, Make-maid

Nettles: The Trifecta is Complete!

2012-01-29T16:29:00.000-08:00

So first there was nettle tea.

Then came nettle hair rinse.

And now...drumroll please... nettles to eat!

That's right. I ate them. From my backyard. Let's be über trendy and call it "foraging." Or maybe accidental farming? Or how about just plain old taking advantage of the good things that are right under our noses. :)

I'll be the first to admit that this sounds weird. I thought it was weird for a long time, too, but it also somewhat intrigued me and I wondered if I was adventurous enough to do it. Now I'm wondering why it's taken so freakin' long, because I've lived here in this nettle patch for almost five years, and it's as though suddenly I've opened my eyes and realized I'm actually living in the middle of a gold mine. Nettles are so good, for so many things! They are full of iron and even protein, which is unusual for a plant. It's packed with vitamins A and C, and calcium and potassium and other things. No, I'm not an expert. But I don't think you have to be, to enjoy the nutritious plants that grow so prolifically and locally!

So. Here's what I did.

Harvested the nettles (you know the drill: gloves, scissors, basket, knee-high rubber boots). Washed them, because that is important. (And preemptively: if you think that "dirt" from "outside" is any worse than what's already on the produce we buy at the store...well...maybe it is time you look into that!) Then I lightly cooked them - this takes away that "sting", which is an irritating oil on the plant's tiny hairs. You can steam them, boil them, blanch them... I sort of sauteed them in olive oil and vegetable broth the first time around, just to experiment and get a taste for them. That's the above picture. Looks like spinach, yeah? And tastes - as Casey said - like "greens."

After we both had a taste and decided that a) we weren't dying or suffering from mouth stings and b) that they were actually pretty good and we weren't insane, I cooked up some more into a fantastic lunch.

Onions, garlic, orzo - cooked up in vegetable broth and olive oil (the orzo was leftovers so it was already cooked and just needed to be warmed back up). Then I tossed in some capers, cherry tomatoes, and of course the nettles. They cook down very small - I'd say they cook down even more than spinach. I had an enormous bowl of it and used about half, and it looked like I had hardly put in any! The nettles were last - they just sort of wilted in with the heat and got stirred in. You can watch them shrink up right before your eyes. Topped it with shredded parmesan cheese - because who doesn't love some parm?! - and we feasted.

As for the rest... waste not! I brewed an infusion to use on my hair (which is doubly chlorined from swimming, yuck), blanched the rest and put them in the fridge to use later. I even saved the salted/nettled water that I used to blanch, because that will add some nutrients into the quinoa I'll make later on. Score.

Moral of the story: if the above picture is wrong, I don't ever want to be right!!

Vinegar of the Four Thieves, Part 2

2012-01-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

For Part 1, you can read through this blog post here, in which I prepped/made the herbal vinegar.

I sort of feel like I have opened up a time capsule... A couple of weeks ago (Six, I guess) I made a disinfectant by infusing herbs in white vinegar. It needed to sit for a good long while, and now it's time to finish it up so I can begin using it!

First strain out the herbs. I did this by pouring the contents of the jar through my most-favoritest-ever kitchen tool, my mesh strainer. Seriously, I use this thing all the time. I have no idea what I would do without it. The one tricky part was getting all the herbs out, since the mouth of the jar is narrow - I used tongs to pull them out and that seemed to do the trick. I even gave them a little squish in the strainer, but they don't hold a lot of vinegar so it didn't do much.

Then I poured the infused vinegar back into the jar - using that same strainer (there was a bit of sediment in the bowl) and a funnel which is another super-duper important kitchen tool, especially if you are prone to spilling things, like I am.

Isn't it beautiful!? Hard to believe it's a disinfectant spray! (Although it sort of reminds me of Method's pink grapefruit spray...)

Now, this is not a "counter-top spray", by which I mean you won't be spritzing everything down all the time with it - at least, I won't. It's pretty powerful. Doesn't have that sharp, "pure" vinegar smell (the herbs are really fragrant) but it's still quite, uh, aromatic. I poured some (full strength) into a small spray bottle to add to my arsenal of Things With Which To Clean My House. I'm thinking that "cute little kittycat messes" (ie, vomitous hairballs) might be a good candidate to test the efficiency and power of this spray!

Rosy Glow Hibiscus Body Butter

2012-01-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you here. I'm an absolute mess. I'm sloppy and I hate to vacuum. I do not cook every night, and sometimes when I "cook" it's more of a heating-up-stuff-from-Trader-Joe's. I have used sunless tanner. I have moved a pile of laundry from the floor to the bed and lied to myself that the room is clean.

I'm telling you this because I don't want this blog to be only about the cool/successful/impressive things. Sometimes you give something a try and it just doesn't work out. Sometimes it's salvageable and sometimes it isn't. (Spoiler alert: today's post was, in fact, somewhat salvageable. Most baked goods in my kitchen are not.)

BUT WAIT, you may be saying. I WAS SORT OF INTERESTED IN THAT HIBISCUS LA LA STUFF YOU MENTIONED IN THE TITLE. Don't worry, I'll get to that. And show you some of the steps, too. But I'm also going to be perfectly honest about the process and my frustrations along the way. So. Let's begin.

Step One. Gettin' my stuff prepped. "Today" (in quotations because this actually happened about a week ago) I am going to give homemade lotion my first go. I found the inspiration / recipe / instructions here, at www.readymade.com. The basic idea is that you are going to emulsify oil and water, using melted beeswax to bind the two together. In the original article the author mentioned using cold pressed tea or even hibiscus infusion in place of water. Of course I was intrigued, since I love hibiscus and always have some on hand. So my "backwork" was to make an infusion (basically brewing tea in the French press and then forgetting it, which I am really good at) and also to grate my beeswax. I feel very fortunate that our San Marcos Farmers' Market has a honey vendor. Casey had her bring me some natural beeswax - it smells amazing and even came in a cool handmade bag folded from newspaper! Oh, and it's this whole family venture, with the kids and everyone all getting into it, collecting the honey...super cool! Okay, I'll get back to the lotion now.

Step Two. Meltin' it down. You can use a double-boiler for this, which I do have, but then you've got an oily, waxy mess in your metal pot, and for some reason doing it in the glass (WITH SPOUT!) just seems easier to use and to clean. So this is how I do it. I didn't shave the wax super small, so this took a while. As in, maybe twenty minutes. That was a lot longer than I had anticipated. It's possible (it's totally possible) that the author said it would take this long and I just skipped over that... but it's also possible that no one on the whole internet will tell you how long beeswax takes to melt in oil.

Okay, so far, so good. Hibiscus infusion is ready, wax is melted in the olive oil. Looks like we are ready for Step Three. Emulsifyin'.

This is where I hit my first SNAFU. You're supposed to let the oil cool for 2 minutes, then blend to emulsify. I'm assuming this is to get the oil to the best temperature for emulsification(?). So in the two whole minutes I've got before blending, I very casually and confidently pour the tea in the blender... and flip it on... and my blender doesn't work. Folks, sometimes you read things like "prep everything beforehand" or "measure first" or whatever crap, and you are like, 'yeah, yeah, I got this.' Let me tell you that no one in the world is finicky enough to check their blender first, because COME ON, why would the blender SUDDENLY STOP BLENDING RIGHT WHEN YOU NEED IT? (I will not be checking all my appliances in advance because of this, though, not because I didn't learn my lesson, but because that is just crazy.)

Okay, let's troubleshoot. Blender out of order? Well, Food Processor, here we come!

...I mean, SNAFU #2.

(Notice that this is where the photos stop. Imagine a frantic Jessica in the kitchen, moments from tears and curses of frustration, and you will understand why there are no more photos until the end.)

I pour the tea into the FP and give it a whirl - yay, it's working. SLOWLY pour in the oil, and... WHOA. Some of it emulsifies and the rest just swishes around. I won't tell you what it looked like in there. Okay, I will. It looked like the inside of a dead animal, all pink and red and squishy. GROSS!!! I figured out pretty quick that the FP just doesn't go fast enough to emulsify.

Onto SNAFU #3... okay, not really a snafu but the third try: hand-mixer. This worked Okay, but at this point the temperatures are all wrong (if that was even important to begin with) and there's still some tea that won't go in. Lame.

Finally I managed to slop it into a jar or two and sort-of clean my kitchen in total and utter defeat. (Recall, if you will, that I've now soiled three appliances and even more bowls/pots/spatulas/etc.) That's about the time when Kelly came over and I told her my woes, and she said it would all be okay, and it was. The lotion isn't terrific - I had to re-emulsify it the next day, and it STILL separates a little when I put it on - but it's workable. I do like that the hibiscus gives your skin a bit of a pink tinge - hence the "rosy glow" in the name (thanks, Kells).

And there you have it. SO not perfect, but why should I expect every concoction to come out great the first time around?! It was a learning experience for sure... and I have a better idea of how to prepare for next time, and what to do if things go wrong. AND I've got a rosy glow in the middle of winter, so there, stupid broken blender!

(BONUS POINTS: I was about to throw away the blender when Casey said he'd take a look at it... to make everything even more humiliating, the stupid thing turned on and started working right away for him! Still have no idea why it crapped out on me. But I figured that hiding this little embarrassment would not be honest and so there it is!!)

xo, Make-maid

The San Diego

2012-01-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a quickie - no photos, just me and my laptop while my latest concoction does its magic... Casey's surfing, but it's a little too cold and gray for my tastes so I went to the pool instead. Mile swim, lots and LOTS of playing underwater (brought my dive fins today <3). I feel so lucky when the pool's empty, I can just lose myself in that turquoise blue...

But after an hour of work and play in heavily chlorinated water my skin and hair are really hurting. So on my way home I began thinking about what kind of treatment I could give myself to try and bring back some moisture. I'm so excited about my creation! I call it... The San Diego.

The Ingredients:
1 really ripe avocado
some mayonnaise
kelp powder
splash of olive oil

The Breakdown:
avocado oil is super amazing for hair, or so I've heard! Very moisturizing and nourishing - it penetrates into the hair and makes it shiny and glorious.
mayonnaise is a classic "weird homemade alternative" for hair care: the eggs and vinegar are also moisture-rich and condition your hair really well - as long as the smell doesn't bother you too much. (i hate the smell of mayo - but I can't smell it when my hair's wrapped up)
kelp powder is said to stimulate hair growth, and the iodine in kelp is also good for hair. (Kelp is often taken internally for this, but I've found a couple hair mask recipes that use kelp powder)
olive oil is another really great moisturizer for your hair, leaving it shiny and luxurious and taming flyaways and split ends.

The Steps:
cut and mash the avocado into a medium-sized bowl. Add a couple good glops of mayo. I seem to have an aversion to measuring - I like to just eyeball things. But for those of you who like a starting point, maybe two heaping tablespoons. You can add more if you want. I have really, really long hair so I used more, but people with normal-length hair will not need as much. I mashed those together with a fork for a little bit, then added about one teaspoon kelp powder, mixed again, and finished up with about a tablespoon of olive oil.

That happened in the kitchen - the next part happens in the bathroom. Use your hands to glop it on, starting at the hairline and massaging it into the scalp. There isn't any exact science or art to how I get it all into my crazy long hair - I imagine that I'm putting conditioner in and just try and make sure that it gets all over. Then pile it up on top, slap some more on, massage it all around, and pull on a plastic shower cap. Then run your bathwater really hot and soak a towel in it - wring out and wrap your head. Wrap again with a dry towel. (And/or use a blowdryer - the point is that now you want heat so that the hair mask can do its job.)

Then chill out for twenty minutes. Maybe make guacamole. :) Maybe eat guacamole on the beach while flinging seaweed at some seagulls. Maybe sit down and write a blog about the weird stuff on your head.

Then WASH! Since I haven't washed it out yet I'm not sure if it will require one or two washings - if it's really oily still, wash a second time. Oh - and my dry face? Oil. Lots of oil! :) I love my oil mix - olive and castor oil, tea tree, baobab... really moisturizing and cleansing and wonderful. Already I can feel the tightness of my chlorinated skin relaxing, the elasticity and natural moisture returning...

Okay, so now it's your turn! Give the San Diego a try or be creative and make up your own - just promise to tell me how it goes, okay??

xo

The Vinyl Series: AWB & The Doobie Brothers

2012-01-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

My good friend Kelly joined me last week for our next installment of the Vinyl Series. Well, she joined me to have a bit of a crochet party, but soon discovered she'd also been roped into my crazy musical experimentations. (When she first arrived I had some sort-of-awful instrumental stuff on, and then we both belted out what words we knew to De Colores, which it turns out is a real song and not just some weird thing Spanish teachers make up to force you to learn some more vocabulary words.)

Before I go any further about our music, though, I do want to take this moment to announce to the internet what a fantastic crochet pupil Kelly is. Girl picked up the hook like nobody's business. Whereas it took me, oh, a few years or so to graduate from scarfs and spiral beanies, Kelly's making amigurumi toys and pretty blankets and fancy cowl scarves and leg warmers. In our photo she's holding one of my recent projects - a little sea star friend - while her own star is coming along quite nicely in her lap. Kelly is also, of course, modeling our featured records: Average White Band and the Doobie Brothers.

Album: "AWB", Average White Band (1974)
Property of: the Disco Mama herself, Debbie Baumgartner
Need to know: Average White Band is a Scottish funk & RB band. That's sort of all you need to know about this one.
Favorite Song: Surprisingly, we knew "Pick Up The Pieces" on side A. Kelly says: "You know, when I think of funk, this is the song that comes to mind."

I think it's best if we leave AWB at that! After a thorough listen, both of us felt like we were somehow channeling my father-in-law Mark, who's famous for his love of disco/seventies music. And so, in honor of Funky Mark, we turned next to one of his all-time favorites...

Album: "The Captain and Me", the Doobie Brothers (1973)

Property of: Mark Anderson

Favorite Song: Kelly remembered "China Grove" from somewhere

Points for Style: to take a cue from Spinal Tap, I'm giving these guys an ELEVEN. I mean, top hats?! Tea party?! on a collapsed freeway bridge?! and a horse drawn carriage... This is just about as awesome as it gets. ALSO, we felt it was important to note that on the record sleeve (either on this album or "Minute by Minute", which we listened to afterwards) is a gigantic DOOBIE. Lest you wonder where their name comes from! Many a time we've heard mark defend the Brothers, saying that Doobie meant something altogether different... but I think it's time to face the seventies music and understand that there's really only one thing that would give a group of adult males the notion that an Alice-In-Wonderland tea party on an earthquake-shaken overpass in Los Angeles is somehow a terrific idea!

Perhaps the best part of this funky foray was when Casey came home, and, upon hearing the Doobie Brothers playing, immediately started dancing just like his dad! Yep, funkiness definitely runs in the family! :)

Behind Closed Doors...

2012-01-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, I haven't even started writing yet and already my title is making me giggle. Sounds so ominous...or creepy...or stalker-ish. Which perhaps it is, since I'm about to give the five-or-so people who read my blog an inside look at some of my darkest secrets... (okay, still being a little dramatic here!)

This post is something of a follow-up to my 2012 goals/resolutions post. Surprisingly, I seem to be making some progress this year. I'm taking advantage of as much gym time as I can, and even did a half-mile swim the other day (then I got bored and didn't want to wait any longer before strapping on the monofin and submerging for a while. Glad to know I can still do a length underwater with ease, and even a 50m after some careful prep.) I'm continuing onwards with more natural living/health/beauty choices. Took a week-long fast from Facebook and was able to really examine why I'm using it and what I want it to be for me. I think I'm going to take another week break and see where to go from there.

I'm going to get to those closed doors, I promise! But first I want to tell you about two Japanese philosophies that I've learned to embrace... wabi sabi and kaizen. Wabi sabi is about imperfection and transience, as seen so often in the natural world around us. I first learned of this in interior design: a wabi sabi aesthetic utilizes natural materials (wood, stone, cotton, linen) and accepts that these things change and even deteriorate over time. If your coffee table gets a nick, don't throw it out. Understand that the imperfection has become part of the object's character.

Kaizen is a continuous forward motion towards improvement. Kaizen understands that change does not happen overnight, but that an ocean can be filled drop by drop by drop. Can you see how both of these principles are so appealing to a messy, imperfect, earth-loving quasi-hippie like me? As I do simple, mundane things like clean out my kitchen and put on deodorant, I'm aiming to embrace wabi sabi and kaizen. Yeah, it sounds pretty out-there, but let me show you...

Exhibit A: my "pantry." Actually, I don't have a pantry, just random cupboards where we put our food. By using a natural material (glass) that's already been used and therefore is being recycled, I'm embracing wabi sabi in my own little way. Another aspect of this is my challenge to cook with whole grains, starting from "scratch" instead of heating up pre-cooked stuff. (This is something that seemed like it would take a ton of time, but it doesn't. Yes, you do have to think ahead, another challenge for me. But what's the trouble to have one pot of brown rice simmering on the stove?? Very little, I tell you.)

Exhibit B: the cereal cupboard. I can't believe how much space there is here now! Part of my crazy weekend was going through all our food. I will be perfectly open here and confess that there were four boxes of graham crackers that were past their expiration date. WE DON'T EVEN EAT GRAHAM CRACKERS. I put all the boxes together and shook my head at how much precious space in my pantry-less kitchen was being taken up by expired food that I do not eat.

Exhibit C: more dry food! black beans and quinoa are my favorite foods ever. I'm proud of myself for the brilliant idea of writing on the container the ratio for dry goods : water and how long to cook them. Tired of having to check my cheat sheet every time! (Okay, the beans are a no-brainer but some of the grains are tricky. And my poor brain can't hold in all that information by memory alone!)

And now for the bathroom. A comedian (completely forget who, sorry) once said that since we're all so curious about what's in other people's medicine cabinets, one day there will be an entire television channel that's solely footage of, well, other people's medicine cabinets. I'm pretty proud of mine right now, because it also recently underwent a drastic overhaul.

Top shelf: Casey's shaving stuff (my Christmas present to him!). Middle shelf: castor oil, which I use in my face cleansing oil mix; essential oils for all sorts of potions. Bottom shelf: beloved coconut oil, used for everything and everything; hair ties finally corralled in jars.

This side is my pride and joy. :) Top shelf: contacts cases; retainer (yep, still wear it at night); small Dr. Bronner's soaps (eucalyptus and rose, which I'm going to use to make shampoo with soon). Middle shelf: deodorant (Laura's goat's milk, and Tom's of Maine, neither of which I'm currently using); Burt's Bees carrot complexion soap; Vitamin E oil; olive oil cleansing mix; green contacts case holds eye cream, made of coconut oil and vitamin E oil. Bottom shelf: Laura's goat's milk face wash; Laura's goat's milk fruit enzyme moisturizer; tooth powder; contact solution.

(I like to switch things up so that my face and me don't get bored with the same thing, hence the 3 kinds of face wash. All are very gentle and natural! Laura's goats milk products are handmade by a lady in Valley Center, who buys the goat's milk from local 4-H kids. She makes fabulous lotions and all sorts of great things!)

Last but not least, my homemade, natural deodorant! Been using this for a few days now and I'm really loving it. I used tea tree and lavender essential oils to make it smell nice, and both are also antibacterial. Only thing is that I didn't put it into a deodorant stick because I didn't have an empty one handy, so it went into another glass jar instead. To use, I pull up a bit on the back of my fingernail, rub between fingers, and wipe. Not nearly as messy as it sounds.

So there you have it. My thankfully-no-longer-quite-as-dirty secrets. Some of it's interesting and different, some is really boring and mundane, but all of it, for me, is another little step in the right direction. Eliminating the unnecessary and the harmful, embracing the natural, the things that will last, the things that I already have. It's my hope that if I can get one little cabinet of my life in order at a time, someday most of the rest of it will fall into place!

Nettle Head

2012-01-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

Remember the nettles from last post? Well, today they're back - this time, in my hair. I'm really getting into this whole natural, herbal, healthy alternative beauty product thing. A lot of it is the novelty right now, because it's pretty darn cool to go outside, pick some plants, brew and drink a delicious tea from them, and then wash your hair in it. Can your Pantene do that? (Answer: No. No, it cannot. Drinking shampoo definitely does not fall under the 'healthy alternatives' category.)

Above is a photo of me and Bolt making some herbal hair rinse... that one, I believe, was a chamomile infusion for her (and Casey's) blonde hair. We mixed apple cider vinegar (the go-to choice for alternative conditioner and vinegar rinse) with honey (a natural humectant, which means it draws moisture into your hair) and a chamomile infusion. Chamomile is great for lighter hair and can even brighten/lighten it over time. Plus it leaves the hair soft and smooth, smelling nice, and your scalp clean. AND it's wonderful to drink.

Since I'm no longer a blonde but a red-head, my vinegar rinse contains a hibiscus infusion instead of chamomile. I bought the dried hibiscus flowers at the persian market. They were really cheap, and - surprise surprise - they, too, make a delicious tea for drinking.

I haven't ordered anything from them yet, but Mountain Rose Herbs has some really great resources, including this page about herbal hair care. Next on my list of concoctions and potions is to make an herbal shampoo with castile soap, herbal infusions, and essential oils. First I have to decide from the vast array of herbs and oils which to use for my hair! (At one point, when I decided to forego 'mainstream' shampoo, I was a little saddened that I wouldn't have much by way of options anymore - seemed like it was all about baking soda and vinegar. NOT SO!)

But to start things off, today I made an herbal infusion with nettles and chamomile, which I both drank and used in my hair as a rinse. Super easy rundown: picked some nettles from outside (gloves!), rinsed them, tossed them in the clean french press with a spoonful of chamomile flowers. Fill up the press with water, let it steep about ten minutes... at which point I poured a cup to drink. Note to self: nettle and chamomile tea is really, super good. Earthy and light and sweet at the same time. Incredible. Heavenly. There was much willpower involved as I told myself the rest needed to be used on my hair!

I found an old waterbottle in the pantry - the squirty kind that fits onto a bicycle - and filled it with the infusion. Made it really easy to pour, even though the bottle is ugly and most of the time I was wondering how I might come up with a prettier way to do my hair. Nevertheless, it smelled great and felt refreshing and afterwards it was quite easy to comb out, even though I'd skipped any type of conditioner. Guess I'll know by the morning how my hair liked it...but for now I keep sticking my nose into it and breathing in the soft chamomile scent. Yum!

Nettle Tea

2012-01-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

Mmmm...Nettles. I remember my first introduction to nettles - fortunately, it wasn't acutally me being introduced, but I watched as a friend in high school slipped while we were hiking up a ravine and landed directly in a bed of lush, green, stinging nettles. The rest of us laughed a lot that day. We probably shouldn't have.

Now I live in a forest of nettles. They are literally everywhere, and up until very recently I thought they were no more than a weed. How wrong I was! Turns out nettles are an incredibly wonderful plant - nutrient rich and so versatile and useful. Once I got over the weirdness of picking weeds from the front planter and trusted the internet enough to actually drink a stinging plant, I became a believer. There's still so much to do and try with nettles, but here's a glimpse into my first foraging foray: nettle tea.

(I found some really great information on nettles HERE, at Vintage Savoir Faire. She's even got a recipe for nettle pesto!)

First you have to harvest the nettles, which is the trickiest part. They're stinging nettles, remember? Lots of the articles I read only mentioned that later on, without giving much caution or direction on how to actually get them into your house without stinging yourself. So I employed a bit of common sense, put on some gloves (the first ones I could find, purple dishwashing gloves), snipped some tops of the stalks, and brought them in in a basket. I'm writing all that down because someone else some day might want to know how to harvest nettles without getting stung. (It's not terrible if you do, but it itches and burns for a while. You can rub dock leaves on it, which fortunately enough for us, grow nearby and among the nettles. Or make a baking soda paste. That helps, too.)

Rinse the leaves. Sometimes there are tiny buggies hiding underneath. :)

I am not in the habit of measuring things in general (which is part of the reason why I'm a terrible baker but an excellent cook) but I used about a half a cup of nettle leaves and then covered them in the french press with hot water. Allowed it to sit and steep (or infuse, if you want to get fancy) for 10 minutes.

Pour. Moment of truth. Smells earthy, and somewhat reminiscent of pipe tobacco. First taste ism ostly hot, and very little by way of flavor. I add some agave just in case, but it's very mild. Slightly bitter, but all in all it tastes like an herbal tea. Nettles are good for stimulating and aiding digestion, settling the stomach, and as a detoxifying tea. You can also use the infusion in your hair as a great clarifying rinse.

I had about two cups of this tea, and left the rest to sit in the press. This is what it looked like about an hour later - from pale yellow-green to vivid emerald! I thought that was pretty neat.

They sell dried nettle leaves at my natural grocery store in the bulk section. It's really quite inexpensive, but the nettles that grow by my house are free, fresh, and very readily available! Look around...you might have some useful plants growing around your home, too!

Here's some more interesting nettle resources, for those interested...

some more uses, plus harvesting and drying

nettle pesto

more info, and other useful recipes

one last one...with a long list of ailments that nettles can help alleviate

Happy foraging!

Looking ahead - 2012

2012-01-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

Resolutions scare me - what worse way to start a year than an entire list of Ways I Need To Improve staring me down, just waiting to topple over and crush me come February when I realize that much less than stick to my goals for the new year, I've actually gone and forgotten what they were to begin with.

Sad, I know.

Still. There's something so irresistible about the clean slate of a new year. Yesterday was just another Sunday, and I really didn't do anything at all to ring in the new year (aside from wake up at midnight when the fireworks were popping down the street, assure Casey the car alarms were in celebration, not alerting us to a break-in, and then roll over and go back to sleep) but it still gives me this feeling of hope, like I've got yet another chance to step into the year with a really great, perfectly straight line of little ducks following after me in a row.

So here are my resolutions, my reminders, my let's-try-this-one-again-shall-we's, my goals, my unrealistic expectations that I will most certainly forget about in three weeks.

1. Exercise more. Yep, everyone's favorite. This year's thrown a wrench in my workout routine and I'm starting to see the cumulative effects. Time to hit the pool and squeeze in a couple turbo kickboxing classes.

1B. as related to Resolution 1 (above), I plan to dive back into breathhold training so that this summer I'll be able to be underwater as much as humanly possible.

2. Make Less Trash. This is one that Case and I have been talking about here and there. It's a big commitment - not buying things (or, at least, trying not to buy as many things) that are packaged. For the trash we do generate, we've got a good system of recycling and composting, so in addition to that I'm going to try and repurpose and reuse more things.

3. Be Natural. The other day I went through my medicine cabinet and threw out anything that contains parabens, which can throw off hormones in your body and may be linked to cancer. It's really discouraging to see just how much stuff contains parabens. It was tough to toss it all away, too, until I reminded myself that I wasn't using it anyways and am much happier with my natural beauty methods. (Seriously, there is nothing more fun, silly, soothing, and rewarding than slathering mashed-up banana on your face, then following it up with silky coconut oil!)

3B. This extends into cleaning products and as much medicine as I can get away with. Found a cool recipe for a headache balm that uses beeswax, olive oil, and lavender essential oil - won't that be nice with a heated rice pillow and a cup of tea after a long day? And food. Real food, not fake stuff. Again, shouldn't be a big reach because all of last year was sort of leading up to this.

4. Learn How To Sew Without Having A Meltdown. (self-explanatory)

5. Learn How To Bake Without Having A Meltdown. (Need Brittany for this one)

6. Spend More Face Time With People and Less Time On People's Facebooks. Time for real life, not status updates. I'm already having a panic attack about this one. I haven't been on all day and I'm having a really hard time with that. And then an even harder time with how dependent/addicted I have become. Which means it's definitely time for a breather.

7. Stop Biting My Nails. Just because I put that one on the list every year, and it's always the first to go. Sorry, Mom, but a twenty-seven-year habit is pretty much unbreakable. :)

aaaannnndddd....some project goals: (let's see if any progress is made by my birthday in May??)
* keep on marching through the Vinyl Series
* sew a bread bag from a dishtowel
* make some sort of whole grain bread in the machine
* make yogurt
* make vegetable stock, often enough so that it's always on hand
* make some essential oil salves/balms
* sew a fabric liner for the crates where my records currently live
* crochet some more cool sea creatures
* keep experimenting with my new Holga camera and fisheye lens
* paint more. paint, paint, paint. and write. write, write, write.

So that's that. Maybe having some of this on the blog, and out in the open, might challenge me to actually stick to things, to be more deliberate and purposeful about them... or maybe not. :) Either way, best of luck to any of you who also think about new year's resolutions, and feel free to email or call me to let me know how you're doing, or check up on me. Just don't expect an answer too soon if you Facebook me ;)

The Vinyl Series: Auntie Jan's Picks

2011-12-28T16:22:00.000-08:00

I have an Auntie - not an aunt, an Auntie - who is pretty much the bomb. The other day I was taking care of some Important Internet Business when this happened:

Jan

Are you too busy to talk to your Auntie Jan??

4:40 PM

NEVER too busy for auntie jan!

Jan

Ha! I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog!

I am especially waiting to see what's up next in the Vinyl Series!

oh yes! i have been listening to some fun ones... will have to report!

Jan

I recognized those albums of your dad's.

Jan

i used to steal them from him

Jan

and listen when he was gone!

don't tell
!

Oh...uh... oops. No, I won't tell :) It's not like my Dad reads the blog or anything, right, Pops??

Jan

do you have The Beatles White Album??

YES!

Jan

i used to take that one from him ALL THE TIME

i will have to think about all those old albums.

Jan

Probably 4 Way Street - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

bobby Sherman, Monkees, Partridge Family. Yep, I was a teeny bopper!

for all the good music, I would just sneak down the hall to your dad's room!

And so... in honor of Auntie Jan and her impeccable taste in music, here is a double feature:

Album: The White Album (1968), The Beatles

Property of: This one, actually, belonged to my father-in-law. I'm not sure where my dad's copy is, 'cause I couldn't find it in the garage...(Auntie Jan??? Did you forget to put it back?!) As I've said before, JIM BAUMGARTNER was very meticulous about labeling his vinyls, and the absence of my father's capital letters across the records and sleeves means it wasn't his. :)

I remember hearing once, a long time ago, that a mint-condition copy of the White Album was worth a lot of money. This copy is....not in mint condition. It has certainly seen better days. "The BEATLES" is embossed, not printed, and it's got the serial number, which means this was among the earlier releases - not really anything rare but I think it's pretty cool.

Favorite Song: there is very nearly no such thing as a "favorite song" on the Beatles' white album. I listened to this one on CD when I was growing up, and I know pretty much every word to every song, even the really obscure ones (Wild Honey Pie? What??)... That being said, I think I can safely choose a favorite song for each side of each record...

Side A: oh, boo. Already have to break my promise, because there's a tie: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun". Thanks to Wikipedia I now know that Eric Clapton played lead guitar on "Gently Weeps". I love all the cross-overs that this era had. Eric Clapton is another household name for me - Cream was one of the first vinyls I put on when I got some of Pop's records. Apparently a weeping guitar wasn't the only thing Clapton and Harrison had in common... I'll have to do some more internet sleuthing to fully appreciate where/when this song falls in the love triangle saga of Pattie Boyd. (And now I've got "Layla" wafting through my mind.)

Side B: "Rocky Raccoon." Hands. Down. And yes, I realize that "Blackbird" is on this side, too. But Poppy used to sing Rocky Raccoon to me at night and it's our special silly song together. After "Good Day Sunshine" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children" this is the first song I remember hearing sung to me at night. No idea why my Dad chose this one as a lullaby for a little blonde-haired girl, but I love it. My littlest brother had this tiny raccoon stuffed animal named Baby Guy and when Dad sang this song I pictured Baby Guy wearing a cowboy hat and boots, swaggering into an old saloon through the swinging shuttered doors...

Side C: "Helter Skelter". I loooved this song, until one day my mom told me that it had something to do with the Charles Manson murders back in the late 60's. Oh. Still, the song came first and it's a great, gritty, rock-out song.

Side D: "Revolution No. 9". Alright - maybe it's not a song (rather, an audio collage) and it's not really my favorite, but it merits a closer listen, that's for sure. Britt and I let this one play all the way through, which I never used to do when I listened to the CD - it was (and still is) pretty weird. But we tried to listen for the hidden messages, backmasking, etc, and even looking up a reverse-audio online - which sounds pretty much identical to the forward track. "Turn me on, dead man"...? Nope. Call me crazy but I just don't hear it! I think Britter and I both agree that it's super creepy, though.

Album: Four Way Street (1971), Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

Property Of: JIM BAUMGARTNER - see the neat red label?

Favorite Song: this album also contains two records, which is nice since it's another fantastic collection of songs, many of which I grew up hearing my dad sing.

Side A:"Teach Your Children" - this must have been one of Dad's favorite songs because every time he hears it or thinks of it he gets this big smile and starts singing: "You...who are on the road... must have a code...that you can live byyyyyyyy!" I can only imagine that he's imagining those college days - days of long, wavy blonde hair and low-slung bell bottoms and an acoustic guitar. Pops was a little younger than that when this album came out, but whenever I picture my father in this context I see him the same: shirtless, wearing jeans, and leaning up against his frat house in the back alley with his guitar. I see him this way because this is how my mom described him to me - her first impression of the blue-eyed, suntanned boy from the Midwest. I also see him with a piece of dry grass hanging from his mouth, but that might be my own mental addition.
Someday, I'll have that same look on my face when my kids mention Jimmy Eat World or Sense Field. I'll tell them about my own college days - how I used to wear thick framed glasses and play my guitar and somehow managed to capture the attention of a suntanned, blue-eyed boy from San Diego, and we'd listen to our favorite cd's in our dorm rooms until late into the night...

Side B: "Love the One You're With" - it's just a classic!

Side C: "Southern Man" - ditto.

Side D: "Find the Cost of Freedom" - phew... this song literally grips my heart, because the guitar and vocals are just so breathtakingly beautiful. Plus, I have a unique history with this song...for years I only knew it indirectly as a CSN song - my father had written alternate lyrics which he and two other guys performed at Easter (before they got kicked out for being too progressive and playing - gasp - acoustic guitars in church). Back in those days my favorite thing to do was to sit in while he and his friends had band practice, singing along when I knew the words and listening contentedly when I did not. When Daddy started this song up on the guitar I could just close my eyes and let the song wash over me like a wave.

This doesn't do the song (or my dad's version!) justice, but I'll leave you with a listen...

MakeDay: vodka, salts, and persimmon bread

2011-12-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

sweet, earthy vanilla.

refreshing grapefruit.

spiced persimmon tea loaves with a hint of applesauce.

maybe even a splash of citronella and soap.

This is what my house smells like right now... and it's because of Brittany. That's right - the dynamic duo are at it again. Yesterday's projects were so many and so wonderful it seems almost ludicrous to put them down into a list. As though I'm going to look back and laugh at what a productive day we had, and then feel a little bit guilty that more of my days are not this productive.

Here are just a few of the things we did...

(Here's our attempt at setting up a more artistic photograph,

rather than showing all the clutter and mess of the kitchen!)

We made our own vanilla extract. This was something I was planning on doing already, so I was so wonderfully surprised when Britter gave me a jar for Christmas. Does my cousin know me or what? And it was super easy: just split the beans...

(In her spare time, Britter is a hand model)

And cover with vodka. Naturally we went with Absolut. And now....we wait. Six months.

Patience is a virtue...and will be rewarded with amazingly fragrant, real vanilla extract, instead of the cheapo imitation vanilla I've always used. What makes this really awesome, though, is the fact that once the bottle's used up, you can simply refill with vodka again and create more vanilla extract - for up to seven years! ...At least, that's what the bottle claims. Only time will tell!

Next: bath salts.

Ingredients... sea salt...epsom salt...baking soda...

We used Martha Stewart's recipe, which is a basic ratio of 6 parts sea salt, 3 parts epsom salt, and 1 part baking soda. We made two batches using 1/3 cup as our "parts" measurement. This gave us enough bath salt to fill my big square jar (a great Goodwill find!), a tall glass jar and about one and a half mason jars. We chose grapefruit essential oil for the scent, since it's fresh and invigorating, and added three tiny drops of color which gave our finished salt a hint of a pinkish tint.

NEXT! Spiced persimmon tea loaves, made from the persimmons on our tree outside. This recipe comes from an old recipe book that belongs to Nonnie, which Bolt copied for me a while back. The entire book is persimmon recipes - so far we've done cookies and tea loaves, which always come out wonderful. Our persimmon tree is done producing now, but when the fruits were ripe a few weeks ago I scooped out the pulp and froze it. This cut down on our prep time a bit, since the pulp was all ready to go. Just a little beating here, and sifting there, and in no time the kitchen was smelling like a bakery.

Britter takes charge whenever we bake, because I am a walking disaster when it comes to sugar, flour and eggs, so I just take orders and was the dishes at the end. :)

We also made a batch of homemade laundry soap for Lyss, took a walk around the property to harvest wild mint, and made two different hair tonics: one with hibiscus for my reddish hair, and one with chamomile for the blondies in the house. I'll save those for another post, though!

There was even a second wind involved, hours after Brit had left for home, but thinking about everything else I did just makes me exhausted all over again. I might just have to put my feet up and treat myself to another piece of persimmon bread..... :)

Vinegar of the Four Thieves

2011-12-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

There's this really great crispness in the air today. The sun is shining, sky is blue and clear, but the air is chilly enough to remind you that Christmas is only three days away. It's the kind of day that just begs you to go outside and breathe deeply...and what catches my little nose today is lavender and rosemary, the only surviving plants from our once-grand garden.

I've got a really sentimental attachment to these plants. The rosemary has been with me longer than my marriage, and has survived two moves! Today these fragrant, hearty plants are being put to use in a new capacity... as a disinfecting spray.

That book I mentioned previously (Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World) contains a recipe for something called the Vinegar of the Four Thieves. I was intrigued by the name alone! Seems there are as many versions of the legend as there are variations on the recipe, but the main gist is that during the Middle Ages some thieves were making bank by robbing the dead, plague-ridden bodies. They were able to do this without contracting the plague themselves because one of the thieves, an herbalist by trade, concocted an herb-infused vinegar that staved off disease. I'm choosing to accept this story as fact, because it makes the vinegar a lot more interesting to me. :)

SO! How do you make Vinegar of the Four Thieves? Fear not... I wouldn't be so cruel as to leave you in the lurch on this one. It's really easy to make and takes only minutes up-front, although you'll have to be patient to use it: the vinegar has to steep for 4-6 weeks.

You'll Need:
*lavender
*rosemary
*sage
*thyme
(here's where the variations come in... I like the idea of four herbs for four thieves - so fitting! - but I also used peppermint in mine, and other recipes I found called for garlic cloves, rue, wormwort...but almost all recipes do give you permission to change things up as you like.)
*vinegar

Combine equal parts of the herbs, fresh or dried. Stick 'em in a jar or container. I used a glass juice jar from Trader Joe's. Then cover with vinegar. Easy! (one recipe I found suggested using cider vinegar - I'm sticking with regular white vinegar because that's what I'm more used to using as a cleaner.)

Now just stick it on a shelf somewhere and wait. The photo shows mine in the sunlight, but I'm storing it in the cool, dark pantry/laundry room until it's ready to use. Remember, you'll have to wait 4-6 weeks before using it, so I recommend labeling it with the date you made it and the date after which you can use it.

When the herbs are steeped, strain them out and pour the infused vinegar into a spray bottle. I think I'm going to dilute mine down with a little water. Some sites I found claim this is safe to use on your body, though it should be diluted down first. I'm most likely only going to use it for cleaning the house... although if the plague comes back any time after the next 4-6 weeks, you can bet I'll be spritzing myself with some of this!

MakeDay: Tooth Fairy Dust

2011-12-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who brushed her teeth with candy. At least, that's what it started to feel like after years of using Aquafresh and Colgate twice a day!! So overly sweet and minty, and over time my teeth started feeling really sensitive when I brushed...like, cavity sensitive...and let me tell you, I can't afford a cavity right about now!

The first step in my journey was to try Tom's of Maine. Went terrific. Then one day we were out of toothpaste and shopping at Trader Joe's, and wouldn't you know it - their Joe's brand of toothpaste is a lot cheaper than Tom's. So we moved to Joe's.

And things were good.

Things are still good. But I found this awesome book that I've become obsessed with, and in the same vein of trying all these Pinterest ideas I've been collecting, I decided to give a few of the ideas in this book a go.

(Info on the book can be found here...not sure where you can find a copy. I found one at the lending library at the coffee shop I frequent. Lucky me!)

Thing To Try Number 4 or 5 on my list was Tooth Powder. AND I QUOTE:

"Powders of chalk, charcoal, salt, and various ground medicinal barks and herbs are the oldest dentrifrices. More recently, baking soda has become a sort of "people's toothpaste." Many of our grandparents used it in the Great Depression, and its simplicity and low cost make it a fantastic alternative to artificially sweet, chemical-loaded commercial toothpastes.

"Baking soda is primarily a deodorizer and a mild abrasive. It is less abrasive than salt and certainly less abrasive than the silica (sand) found in many whitening brands of toothpaste. Moreover, baking soda's abrasive qualities break down quickly when it comes in contact with water or saliva. The taste in undeniably salty, but it leaves your mouth clean and fresh, with no lingering aftertaste.

You'll Need:
a small jar with lid - baby food jar works well.
baking soda (sodium bicarbonate - about 1/4 cup
peppermint essential oil - or anise essential oil

Putting It Together:
Fill the jar with baking soda. Flavor it by adding a few drops of essential oil, then shake well to distribute the oil. Let your nose be your guide as to exactly how much to use, but start off by tring 10 drops per 1/4 cup of soda.
To use, wet your toothbrush and dip it in the jar. If you are especially concerned about your breath, add 1 single drop of peppermint essential oil to the bristles of your toothbrush before you begin. Brush as usual and rinse well.

Variation:
Instead of using essential oil for flavor, mix 1 part baking soda with 1 part dried and powdered sage leaves. Sage is especially good for troubled gums."

WHAT I DID...
I decided to mix up both peppermint oil AND sage leaves. Earlier in the book it said that an actual leaf of sage could be used as a toothbrush (err, toothscrub?) so I thought that it would be good to add some in. Also, I cut the recipe in half in case I didn't want to use it after all.

2T baking soda
5 drops peppermint oil
1T powdered sage leaves (from Frazier's, in the bulk section. literally cost a few cents.)

Shook it together in a teeny tiny mason jar. Smells good...tastes....salty. Well, they did warn me! But in the end my teeth feel super clean, my mouth feels fresh, and I don't have to wonder about what I'm putting into my mouth twice a day.

The Real test came just yesterday, though. I mentioned the powder to Casey and he scoffed a little and made some comment like "oh, like you're actually going to use that...?" Well! When I told him I'd been using it for the past two days thankyouverymuch, he was quite impressed. He hadn't noticed any difference - no funky breath or nasty chompers - which means that it must be doing its job!!

Verdict: tooth fairy gives it an A+

MakeDay: Sugar Scrub

2011-12-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hooray Sugar Scrub! This has got to be one of my favorite body treats ever - and it's really, really ridiculously easy to make. If you're scrambling for a last minute gift idea, then this is the project for you! You probably already have most of the necessary ingredients on hand! Two years ago I made a few different scents and gave them as Christmas gifts in the tiny quilted mason jars (which you can see in the above photo) and they always go over well. You can find lots of recipes and tutorials all over the internet, but you really don't need to follow instructions...just follow your nose...and your hands...and your nose again... :)

Sugar Scrubs are made from two things: something abrasive as an exfoliant, and an oil carrier. You can use any combination that you like. Here are my staples, which I switch up as the mood strikes me:

Exfoliants:

white sugar. looks nice and clean, especially with a lighter oil. feels smooth.

brown sugar. slightly coarser, and of course, darker.

epsom salt. very coarse. don't use on your face, please! epsom salts have long been used as muscle relaxants - pour some in a hot bath after a long day and your body will thank you! for that reason it's a great ingredient into a scrub, though I usually use at least half as much epsom salt as sugar so it doesn't feel too rough.

salt. any sort of salt will do, but it sounds special and exotic if you use sea salt or specialty salts.

Carrier oils:

You definitely want to use a natural oil that's good for your skin - the best are olive oil and almond oil, in my opinion. I am in love with coconut oil in general, but since it is solid at room temperature it's not a great oil for scrubs. Please don't use canola/vegetable/peanut oils...that's just gross.

And if you're worried that slathering oil on your body isn't a good idea, or will make you break out, please take a moment and read up on the benefits of natural oils on your body. (This is about the oil cleansing method, which I fully endorse! and here is another page about olive oil's benefits...do a google search and you'll come up with a ton of information.)

One question I found myself asking at the beginning of this oil-as-moisturizer-thing was if it was alright to use regular old olive/almond/grapeseed oil from the "grocery" side of the store as opposed to the more expensive "body care" side of the store. Short answer is that it's fine to use either. The health care versions are often pressed/expelled in a slightly-more-refined process, but at the end of the day you're still getting the benefits from the oil if you buy it in the food section. And it's cheaper. ;)

Extras:

Sometimes it's fun to add extra surprises...a few drops of essential oils (lavendar and rosemary are great) in a scent you like... or, if you're feeling super ambitious - which my friend Laura was! - you could even add real vanilla beans!

Here's what we did...

Roast the pod in the oven at 350 for about 30 seconds. So fragrant!

Then saute the pod in coconut oil over medium heat...

...scrape out the seeds... I can't begin to tell you how wonderful this made the kitchen smell!

Laura made a nice mix of brown and white sugars and epsom salt, with sweet almond oil and grapeseed oil, vanilla beans, and a drop or two of cinnamon cassia essential oil. The result: warm, sweet, earthy goodness!

One final note I'll include is the "how-to" on actually using the scrub. Again, if you're unfamiliar with using oils, this can seem sort of confusing - do I wash it off? what if I'm all oily? - but fear not! Use this when you're in the shower, but not standing directly under the water. Rub a handful of the scrub in circles across your body, moving from the extremities (arms, legs) inward towards your center. (I'm pretty sure it stimulates circulation, but at the very least it feels nice!). The sugar/salt will melt away as you scrub. You don't even have to wash the oil off, but if you're too oily or it makes you uncomfortable, you can use a light body wash. Remember, though, that part of the goal of the scrub is to put those good oils onto your skin, so try not to wash them all off!

If anyone else gives this a try I'd love to know how it goes...or if you come up with some great combinations of oils, etc!

MakeDay: Liquid Soap

2011-12-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

I love Pinterest. I'll bet you do, too... and if you don't, maybe it's because you haven't been on it yet? ;) What a cool resource for finding/storing wonderful, useful, creative ideas and inspiration! Also, like Facebook, it allows you to sort of lurk around and stalk your friends. You can tell who's redoing their house, who's interested in starting a garden, who's a craft queen and who's a frugal diva. And then you can steal their ideas! (Conveniently called "repinning" so that you don't feel like a copycat.)

So for the past few months or so I've been hoarding—I mean collecting neat recipes/ideas for all sorts of homemade, frugal, natural things. It's funny how just surrounding yourself with these things can almost make you feel as though they're already a part of your life. Almost. So many of the things I've found and liked/pinned are really great ideas that I knew I needed to put into practice...or at least give them a try.

Here's my first photo-tutorial (I can call it that, right?) of my Pinteresting Endeavors...

#1: Making Liquid hand soap from a bar of soap!

I found the original post / photo tutorial here, at The Farmer's Nest. I really haven't done anything different from what this blogger did, and I'm not meaning to step on any toes - simply sharing my own experience.

First, I had to gather ingredients. Vegetable glycerin was harder to find than I thought - Frazier Farms (my local natural grocery) was the only place that had it, even though I read that it can be found at any drugstore/grocery. It only cost a few bucks and I only used 2T, so I've got plenty for more projects.

Of course, you also need a bar of soap. Mine is pink buttercream frosting! And the ingredients are largely natural - as in, it's coconut-oil based and not chemical-based. Yay.

Step 1: grate the soap.

Step 2: pour soap flakes into gallon of water, and add 2T vegetable glycerin.

Step 3: Gently heat the water/soap and stir here and there so that all the soap flakes dissolve.

It shouldn't be boiling or anything - I had my heat at medium-high.

All dissolved!

Now....we wait. 10-12 hours, or overnight. This allows the soap to set. It was interesting to check on it every now and then because it seemed that one minute it was still very liquidy, and the next it was very thick and gelatin-like. You could stir it up and it would get more liquidy again, which I did because it was sort of fun.

The next morning it had reached the consistency of canned cranberry sauce - you know how it sort of plops out in one weird can-shaped log and jiggles around? The instructions at The Farmer's Nest said to beat with a mixer and add water as needed. In retrospect I realize I added a bit too much water, because the soap is a little thin and weird... but it still works fine.

Used a funnel to ladle it into my gallon, and put the extra in a mason jar. (I saved the soap wrapper and taped it to the jug with packing tape, because the packaging was just so pretty!)

Another Pinterest idea I found was to turn a mason jar into a soap pump by drilling/cutting a hole in the lid and epoxy-gluing a used soap pump into it. So I recruited my handy husband who tackled the task. Now we have a mason jar with pump filled with sweet-smelling hand soap... and a gallon more when that runs out! The Farmers Nest has a cost-breakdown so you can see how much you're saving if you make liquid soap this way instead of purchasing it at the store. Definitely a fun and easy way to save a few bucks AND get your hands dirty (uhh, clean?) and into the process.

december light

2011-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

this was just really pretty. clear, december sunshine, green grass from the recent rains, and light glinting through the glass... if i were a photographer i could have captured (or manipulated it into) a more artistic image, but as it is, this photo is a piece of why i love living where i do.

California Christmas

2011-12-06T12:35:00.001-08:00

December's here. Christmas is coming. It's a season I like to ease into - I'm the kind of person who doesn't like hearing Christmas songs before Thanksgiving, and who balks at how fast after Halloween all the holiday displays and merchandise go over in the stores, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. And maybe that's why I like stepping into it, savoring it, instead of jumping headlong and getting overwhelmed. This past week the Christmas elves have been tiptoeing into my house at night and getting things festive, little by little!

Above: my light-up tree, made from an old decorative tomato cage (wrapped with two strings of fairy lights, and with four mercury-glass ornaments hanging on the inside - which you probably can't see because of the glare). Also my mussel wreaths (from last post!), my advent candles Grammy passed along to me, and my hanging advent calendar. Case and I brainstormed activities - both meaningful and fun - that we wanted to do to make the season feel meaningful and festive. Each evening we'll open a tiny envelope which contains some sort of 'activity' and a Scripture reading for advent.

First advent candle!

Dignan was THRILLED when we stepped things up a notch and got out the box of Christmas stuff. I got a video of it, too, and depending on how silly I feel I might post it later.

Anyone else remember the American Girl dolls? I had two, and some 'stuff' for them, including this mini Christmas tree. When I was little I decided I wanted to make my own ornaments, so I hot-glued thread loops onto little seashells to hang. Still love those little things! Now we have a little bit of Christmas in our room - love those little fairy lights.

And my piéce de résistance - the winter tablescape! Last year I found these cute, vintage-looking trees at Target in the dollar bin. And I've always wanted to make cute snowglobes...but the water and the glitter and the gluing all seemed overwhelming (apparently I get overwhelmed easily). And then I thought, wait, why does there have to be water and glitter? Why not just tape the trees to the lid of a mason jar and stick it upside down?

I'm sure this has been done a thousand times before, but I felt pretty genius to have come up with it by myself. (Sidenote: a lot of people say I am creative, which is a compliment that I love, but in all honesty much of the time I'm just doing what I've seen someone else do already!)

It looks so cute all lit up at night. And without being over-the-top Christmas-kitsch, too. Simple and clean and cheery. :)

Case helped out with these...filled them with shells from our many beach walks and stones from Moonstone Beach, where we got engaged a long, long time ago.

BUT! Lest we start feeling TOO wintery down here in sunny Southern California...this weekend also gave us a nice little swell and some Santa Ana winds and bright, warm sunshine... Here's Casey off to play in the waves while I crocheted on the sand in the sun. ...Can't really think of any better way to spend a December afternoon!

Made It: Mussel-Shell Wreath

2011-12-06T12:09:00.001-08:00

A little while ago I ran into a cute idea for a seashell wreath that was a little different that the cutesy, beach-cottage/shabby-chic look you so often see with oceany things. I'm pretty sure it was from Martha Stewart... (ahh yes, there's one version here though it wasn't the one I originally saw.) Lucky for me, I found it during a productive time which means I suddenly jump headfirst into as many projects as I can, stewing paints and craft supplies around the house until I exhaust myself. There is a word for this behavior... it's called mania, but let's just stick with "productive," shall we? :)

Another fortunate turn of events was the extreme low tide down at the Carlsbad reef that weekend.

Case and I spent the afternoon poking around the seagrass-covered rocks, carefully uncovering crabs and octopi and lobsters and the like. The beach was strewn with mussels - really nice, 'young' ones that aren't all thick and knobby. Their insides are pearly-blue and they're pretty uniform in shape and size, so they worked out really well for the wreath.

The base is a wire wreath form which I found at Michael's for a few bucks. It took me a while to figure out how to arrange them - Martha's wreath is set up differently than mine, but there's another one here that is laid out similar to how I made mine. I decided to wrap it in hemp twine first to give the hot glue something to stick on to, and to add to a more natural look, rather than the green-coated metal of the wire form.

Then I laid out the shells how I wanted them - put slightly smaller ones on the inside ring and larger ones outside. A stick of hot glue later and, voila!

Shell wreaths, done and done, just in time for Advent!

So Fresh and So Clean, Clean

2011-12-01T11:18:00.001-08:00

I suppose I could rush into this post and just blurt it out (okay, I will: I MADE MY OWN LAUNDY SOAP! There.) but I feel like it does need a little bit more preface than that. Not an entire backstory, but a little context - because making my own laundry soap is one more little step in a whole marathon (okay, how about 5K instead?) of changes that Case and I have been making over the past few years.

There's so much more to this story... my decision to eliminate meat from my diet, to reduce refined and complex sugars, to try and eat organic and local and whole, my master composter's course, our efforts to use natural products whenever we can... It's all interconnected, and today I embraced that same spirit by making my own laundry soap.

The recipe / instructions I followed came from {this blog}. I found some others, including one that used Dr. Bronner's soap, but the reader comments indicated that it wasn't the best soap to use for clothes. Other recipes seemed more involved - actually cooking down the soap into a liquid detergent - and I didn't really feel up to that. I usually use liquid detergent in the laundry, but didn't really have an issue with switching to dry since I was making it myself.

So the article I followed said that it was really easy - and it was, mostly. The ingredients are simple: Borax, Fels-Naptha soap, and WASHING soda. I found almost all three at Stater Brothers... except for the washing soda. I bought baking soda instead, thinking that it might be the same thing.

It is, and it isn't.

But an internet search led me to a few {informative pages} on how to turn baking soda into washing soda, or soda ash. Seemed simple enough: just put it in the oven at 400 degrees "until it turns into soda ash." Okay, cool. No info on how long that takes, so I just took it out every three minutes, gave it a stir, and checked the "consistency". After 10-12 minutes I felt confident that it was done. Hope I didn't botch it. :)

So! While my baking soda-washing soda was in the oven, I busted out the box grater and grated the Fels-Naptha soap. It took a little longer than I expected, mostly because the soap looks just like a hunk of cheddar cheese. Guess what? It's a little tougher to grate than cheese. But while {Humble Pie} was rockin' on the record player, I muscled my way through that bar until it looked like finely grated cheddar cheese.

Note to self: not good for quesadillas.

Then Mix: grated soap, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda. Made my kitchen smell like fresh laundry. You know that "clean linen" scent you sometimes find in candles and things? I always wondered what exactly they were going for with that smell - I mean, clothes don't have a scent, right? Now I know - it's the laundry soap bar. Mystery solved.

As I'm typing this, my first load of homemade-soap-washed laundry is jumbling around in the dryer. I smelled them when I changed them over - scent was not too strong, and not floral or chemical-y, just fresh. They felt pretty normal, too, just like they usually do after a washing in Tide or anything else. We'll see how they come out of the dryer!

Brewer & Shipley and some new additions

2011-11-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Today Dignan and I are thankful for a lot of things... for a good workout at the gym (me) and a good morning nap (Dignan). For hot jasmine green tea (me) and a filtered, running water fountain (Dignan). For best friends (both of us) and family and quiet fall mornings when we can listen to some late-60's-early-70's socially aware folk tunes.

Today, Dignan and I present... Brewer and Shipley.

Exhibit A

Album(s): "Weeds" (1969) and "Shake Off the Demon" (1971)

Property of: who else? If it's groovy folk-rock, it's my Dad's.

Favorite Song: Rock me on the Water, from "Shake off the Demon"

First Impression: well, I guess I'm out of the realm of being surprised. By now I'm pretty much expecting folk rock, regardless of what the people or the album art look like. This one was really not a surprise (see Exhibit A, above, in which there is far too much glory to try and list) although I will say I did expect a bit more Eastern-religion influence in both lyric and music style, based solely on the record label. "Kama Sutra" and "The Buddha Group" bring to mind a certain sitar-and-flute flavor, but I found both records to have a warm, American-country feel. Then there's peace-y lyrics like "Shake off the demon, see how the angel run / Pull out the powder, shoot with the empty gun" and "There's a sea bird above you gliding in one place / Like Jesus in the sky / We all must do the best we can / and then hang on to that gospel plow" ...oh, and fiddles. There are some fiddles.

But back to my favorite song, "Rock me on the Water." Think I'm going to track down the chords to this one because it's just so pretty. A call to awareness of the lostness of ourselves and those around us, a promise of peace and progress to come - like a prayer and a lullaby woven together.

"Rock me on the water

Sister will you soothe my fevered brow

Oh rock me on the water

And I'll get down to the sea somehow"

B Side Notes: The guy wearing the aviator-frame glasses (well, it's either Brewer or Shipley, but I don't know which is which) also appears to be wearing stars-and-stripes suspenders AND a long-sleeve shirt with a raspberry applique embroidered on the chest. His outfit is so amazing it almost makes me forget that he's also got a killer mustache.

And now, for something completely different... The new additions.

From top left: Original soundtrack recording (with dialogue highlights!) of the Franco Zeffirelli film Romeo and Juliet, Van Cliburn: Beethoven Sonatas, Olivia Newton-John "If you love me, let me know", Peter, Paul, and Mary In Concert, and Hawaiian Enchantment For Dancing.

Yesterday I took a trip to Goodwill and browsed through their VAST record collection...many bins and shelves - too many to go through in one sitting - of other people's old music. Lots of weird stuff, boring stuff, big band and jazz stuff, some folk, some instrumental, some world music... It was really fun to flip through and wonder what sounds and words and secrets lie within the vinyl grooves of each record! For now I chose five, and after paying $4.95 I came home and previewed my purchases. (Not disappointed!) Still have yet to play the Hawaiian Enchantment one, but I'm going to save it for when I'm ready to dance, since that's what's proclaimed on the cover.

Flying Higher: a two-fer

2011-11-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

Although I mentioned the Byrds in yesterday's post, it wasn't an intentional choice to chose "Farther Along" for my next listen. Rather, I let fate decide and grabbed another record at random from the cabinet...and as fate would have it, it was an Elton John record that I've listened to many times. So I decided to give fate another go and we ended up with this little surprise:

Album: "Farther Along" by the Byrds, 1971
Property of: Jim Baumgartner (see the handwritten letters in the lower corner??)
First Impression: uhhh, much "twangier" than expected. As in, banjos, mandolins...did I put on a country record on accident?
Favorite Song: "Farther Along" for its bluegrassy, down-home charm, and "B.B. Class Road" for a heavier, bluesy sound

Since part of this project is meant to understand/connect with/see my parents in a new light, I called my dad on my way to Trader Joe's and asked him what was up:
"Pops, I thought the Byrds were more, like, rock-n-roll or something. This was almost country music. There were banjoes."
"There were banjoes?" he laughed. "I guess there might have been some banjoes later on. You know, so many bands and musicians came out of the Byrds..."
Pops went on to give me a nearly-exhaustive history of rock and roll, dropping names and bands like David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Buffalo Springfield... I drove with one elbow on the steering wheel, phone (on speaker!) in one hand, the other frantically scribbling down notes on the back of my grocery list. Part of me wished I had a recording of the conversation, mostly because every few minutes Pop would think of a song he liked and start singing it while he, too, sat in traffic on the cell phone.

"Untitled" 1970

Fast forward to after the grocery shopping. Now I'm apron-clad and chopping vegetables for a curry (see? cute little housewife) and going for extra credit in Pop's School of Rock. On the phone he mentioned "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn", both of which were songs/styles I'd expected from "Farther Along." So I deepened my study and put on "Untitled" by the Byrds, a two-disc album that includes a concert recording. Ahh, here we go. This is what I was thinking of: grittier guitar riffs, throaty vocals, followed by lighter, folk-rock notes (as opposed to twang). Wikipedia research tells me that "Farther Along" was their eleventh release, while "Untitled", their ninth, came out a year earlier. Pop mentioned some of this, too: how over the years, with all the changing musicians and influences, their sound really evolved and transformed over time, embracing folk rock, psychadelia, and good ol' country music... seems there really is a season for everything :)

B Side Thoughts: I like both albums, though I'm putting them in very different categories in my head. Even though it's the same band, I feel like they shouldn't even be next to each other in the lineup - two completely different genres.
Liner Notes: "When listening to these recordings, try (as a favor to yourself) to place them in some kind of temporal and perceptual perspective. The music of the Byrds has as one of its greatest strengths a sense of perspective, both social and musical.That's the impetus for awareness; the relentless feeling of enormous motion you can sense from the early records right through to the newest ones, and the subtly forceful way that it can be meaningful to you when you relate it to your own emotions and experiences..." (-Jim Bickhart)
Points for Style: well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so let me leave you with this:

The facial hair should have tipped me off...

The Vinyl Series: Taking off with the Airplane

2011-11-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to The Vinyl Series, or "This IS Your Parents' Rock'n'Roll"... To be honest, I really only have a vague idea of what I plan to do, so bear with me on this. Some brief background: I have a record player. And some records. Mostly from my parents, and some from my father-in-law, too. They pretty much run the gamut of 60's and 70's music: John Denver to the Doors to Crosby, Stills, and Nash to Joni Mitchell...you get the picture. Some of the artists have stood the test of time, while others...not so much. Some are prolific, some one-hit-wonders. Some I grew up listening to, some I look at and wonder how in the world my MOTHER was ever allowed to listen to (considering all the things she wouldn't let ME listen to as a teenager!)...

But unfortunately, of this great collection of music, very little actually gets played, mostly because I've got my little comfort zone of music that I know and like, and when I feel like putting on a record I always just grab one I know I'm going to enjoy. I just don't know if that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer album with the armadillo-tank-thing on the cover is going to be any good, so let's just curl up with some tried-and-true Fleetwood Mac, won't we?

Yesterday I was at my parents' house, looking through yet another crate of records that still lives in the garage, alone and sad and unplayed. I found a few familiar bands and was ready to call it a day when my mom came in and started looking through them with me. Her face lit up as she flipped through the records: "Oh, my goodness... I loved this one!" or, "I used to listen to this over and over...my parents probably wanted to kill me!" or, "I knew every lyric to every song!" (that was for Joni Mitchell)... and suddenly the idea struck.

I was going to listen to my parents' records. Every last one of them. Even the ones I'd never heard of before...even the ones that looked super-duper cheesy or boring.

Call it a tribute, call it research... this might be part music review, part nostalgia, part connecting with my parents and figuring out a little bit more about these two people who are more than just a Mom and a Dad... Call it what you will, but for now I am calling it The Vinyl Series.

We'll start things off (relatively) safe, with an album I've listened to a few times before...

Album: "Crown of Creation" by Jefferson Airplane, 1968

Property of: Jim Baumgartner, my dad. I know this because he affixed a red label to all of his album covers, and most of the records themselves have "BAUMGARTNER" written in grease pencil in my dad's boxy capital letters.

Favorite song: tie between "Crown of Creation" and "Ice Cream Phoenix"

As this is the first album in the series, I dedicated some actual time and effort into researching it, which, realistically, I probably won't do for all of the others. But I like Jefferson Airplane and thought it would be a good idea to have some background information on them so I could experience the music with a bit of context. Thanks to all my good friends at Wikipedia, I'm up to my ears in "context." Suffice it to say that pretty much everything about the Airplane is what you'd expect for a 60's band from San Francisco: lots of drug use, involvement in demonstrations and "happenings", affairs within the band as well as with other big name musicians of the time, internal drama culminating in the firing of managers, etc, etc, etc.

"Crown of Creation" was an album that I had already listened to, so it wasn't completely new. And there's a reason why I've listened to it multiple times and why I chose it to start things off: it's a great album. Psychadelic rock at its finest, in my completely-unqualified and inexperienced opinion. Weird lyrics, wonky instruments, funky cover art... pretty epic. In listening more carefully to the songs and the lyrics, though, a few things caught my attention:

The song "Triad", on side 1... In my scholarly research I learned that David Crosby actually wrote this song and that the Byrds refused to record it because it was too risque. If you haven't guessed, it's about a menage a trois ("I don't really see why we can't go on as three..."). Despite its scandalous subject matter, though, it's a great-sounding song. And obviously the topic is still a spicy one to sing about - think Britney Spears' "Three"

"Crown of Creation" - this ties for my favorite song on the album, and I found myself fascinated as I dove down the internet rabbit hole on this one. The lyrics were taken directly from a book called The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, written in 1955. I totally want to read this book: science fiction in a post-apocalyptic setting, with characters who can read minds and a society that will send you to "The Fringe" for having any mutation or deviation from the norm.

The lyrics are printed on the album insert for this one, so when a funny word caught my ear I had to check and see if I'd heard right... "The House at Pooneil Corners"wins for weirdest lyrics ever:

The cows are almost cooing

turtle doves are mooing

which is why a poo is pooing

in the sun

sun.

And that's not where the strangeness ends, either. Jack Casady is listed as playing the Yggdrasil Bass, which, as far as I can tell, does not exist as an instrument but rather has something to do with Norse mythology, the tree of life, and the planet's energy. Nice. Jorma Kaukonen plays the electric chicken, Gary Blackman has a "nose solo", and also included in the credits are two under "Athletic Support" and one "Coach", which leaves me wondering, well, a whole lot of things.

Overall, I'm giving this one four stars. I'm sure it was meant for mind-opening spiritual enlightenment, but even though I don't take LSD, it's fun background music when I'm cleaning the kitchen.

Fan club:

Jefferson Airplane

P.O. Box 1077

Beverly Hills, Calif. 90210

catalina

2011-10-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

here's the story. five years ago, on october 7, somewhere around 11 am, i got hitched. to my best friend. every day has been some sort of adventure since then... be it a romance, a disaster, a comedy, a drama... last weekend we took our adventure to a place i have known and loved for many years... catalina island.

okay, so it's not exotic. it's not a secret. but for a weekend away, it's perfect. especially if you bring adventure things, like a weight belt and fins or a holga camera. luckily for us, we brought those very things.

i'm no photographer. really. but the holga is fun because it makes your pictures turn out terrible. i remember once, in high school, i dropped my disposable camera in this very harbor, right as i was getting out of the dingy. i kept taking pictures. and they turned out something like the photos below. i didn't care that my photos were all color-shifted and wonky, mostly i was stoked that they came out at all. and now i find out that color-shifted and wonky photos are all the rage. thanks to a REAL photographer friend who let me borrow her plastic camera, i have these silly pictures to remember our adventure by.

avalon harbor. nothing has changed in ten years, which is wonderful.

same ice cream. same ocean.

same worn stone steps leading into the ocean. this was my attempt at getting all artsy-fartsy.

i wound the film just a little bit and took three photos or so, and this is what came out.

more harbor.

i think i could take pictures of boats all day long and never get tired of it.

ocean feet.

ocean feet, after.

ocean feet, much later.

we also brought our underwater camera and borrowed a waterproof GoPro Hero from another friend... took some pretty bitchin' vids of our deep dives. they're on youtube.

oh, here are some more weird holga photos. i volunteered at this year's farm tour at mountain meadow mushroom farm. if i knew more about photography, or plastic cameras, these probably would be in slightly better focus, but as it is they're kind of interesting to look at.

(somehow i managed to rewind the film and take a second exposure...i realize some people do this on purpose for effect, but mine was completely on accident.)

oyster mushrooms.

crimini mushrooms.

underwater weekend

2011-07-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

i guess we're gearing up for the island or something, cause this weekend case and i spent a whole lot of time in and under the water. our friend kelly hit us up on friday afternoon to join him for an ocean swim from la jolla cove to the shores and back, and of course we were there. a cove swim is something we've wanted to do for a while, but it seems that every time we decide to drive down to la jolla we just end up diving and playing instead. :)

the swim was so worth it, though. besides the exercise, we were able to explore parts of the cove further out than we usually go - and we saw some new critters, too. definitely the ones that stood out the most were the leopard sharks. i absolutely adore these guys. when i was in high school i worked as an intern for the ocean institute, and part of my job was feeding nero and brutus, our resident leopard sharks. ever since then i've been smitten. there's something so amazing, so thrilling, about swimming with them. they're not dangerous. they're not even that big. maybe five feet, tops. but it's a little exhilarating to realize that these dudes are, in fact, sharks, and they're just so graceful and elegant in the water. i wanted to take them all home with me. casey said no.

and then, on our way back to the cove, the coolest discovery yet: a sea turtle. yep, a SEA TURTLE. now, case and i are both resident californians and experienced "water people" and neither of us really realized that we even have sea turtles here. we thought they were more of a tropical-climate creature, but lo and behold, there he was, a sea turtle... just munching sea grass, not really caring about too much. naturally i abandoned the swim for a few minutes while i trailed him and pointed him out to some nearby kayakers. hey, gotta share the fun, right?

after our swim we finned-up and did some fun dives just outside of the cove in the kelp. this was my first time swimming with the monofin in the ocean (you know, that big, awkward single fin that makes you look like a manatee?). i've practiced a bunch in the pool at the gym, training my dolphin kick and doing 25 and 50 meter lengths for breathholds, but always felt a little silly about bringing it to the beach. well, that's over and done with. i'm not sure i'll ever go back to regular fins now. the monofin is just so much fun!

sunday turned into another ocean day...took the kayaks and the family down to la jolla shores and played around. didn't see as much as we wanted to, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. case and i piled onto the single and managed to only capsize twice. like i said, we're SUPER experienced ;)

and now back to reality. work, art camps, groceries, laundry... and home videos of our adventures to tide us over until the next time we can be underwater...

more underwater fun...

2011-07-22T23:12:00.000-07:00

...and facing a fear

2011-06-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

i CAN sing, sort of. not terrifically, but (hopefully) not terribly. but i am terribly terrified to sing in front of anyone.

i think i'm going to face a fear today, indirectly and in a cowardly fashion. here is a video of me singing. you can watch it if you like, just please do not laugh. :) i think i'm more okay with posting this since i am completely out of focus the entire time.

it's a cute old song, even though the theme is a little unethical... but steve martin and bernadette peters sing it in the jerk so hey...

it's the little things

2011-06-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

lately a few of these 'little things' have been floating into my mind and i thought it might be nice to set them down and look at them, one by one. maybe some are littler, and some are not so little, but they are the things i so often overlook. and today i do not want to overlook them. i want to look directly at them, carefully, and appreciate each for all the joys they bring me.

* the smell of sunscreen on hot shoulders. any sunscreen, but especially hawaiian tropic

* the particular blue of the ocean against golden kelp blades

* building fingertip callouses. playing guitar. and ukulele, my new love. feeling like my tiny hands and nimble fingers were made for this adorable, summery instrument

* being an extraordinary friend to extraordinary friends. having creative friends.

* living in a body that i love - most of the time. opening up communication between mind and body - treating my body well and being rewarded for it. for years i refused to sweat. and now, as i run along the pacific ocean, and smell the salt and feel the wind and the sweat beading on my face and my muscles working, contracting, stretching, pulling, feeling myself move as a beautiful machine, and breathing with it, and connecting with it...and even though i still have those 'if only...' moments, i know deep down i don't want any other body than the one i'm in

* guerilla art

* waking up with a purring cat on your chest

* coffee

* this

* learning all over again how to lean on Him. realizing i am a bruised reed, begging not to be broken, begging for another chance to grow up strong and healthy. and the unfathomable grace that He gives us every time he says Yes

what i do

2011-05-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

This is my job.

It is the best job in the entire world.

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, here's a few thou' word essay on why my job is the coolest...

Las Vegas Cows

Cows In Space

More Cows In Space, With Capes

Dancing Cows

DISCO Dancing Cows

Again With The Cows In Space

Cows Skateboarding And Doing Tricks

Cow In Space, With Suit And Beer

Space Cow

Dance Dance Dance

Three SuperHero Cows With Capes And Skyscrapers

and my personal favorite, The Rapunzel From Tangled Cow

That Swiss Chard-Quinoa Thing

2011-05-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

There's a Persian Market by my parents' house in Orange County. I think officially it's called the Crown Valley Market but really it's a Jordanian market/bakery/restaurant/bazaar. It's super awesome. There's stuff like reaaallly cheap, fresh produce, and spices, and ethnic foods (oh, also there are Mexican foods...as in, there's an aisle of canned and dry beans and other food stuffs, and then another aisle RIGHT NEXT TO IT with the same-but-different beans and foods, and as far as I can tell, the only difference is that in THIS aisle, the bags of dried beans and spices says "MEXICAN BEANS" instead of just regular old "BEANS". Umm, okay?)

My mom shops there pretty often now and is always sharing cool new foods and ideas with me. Yesterday I went up to hang with my brother and Mom sent me an email that morning, which I will copy-paste for you now.

"Hi Zay,

Called you this evening but you must have been out and about.
Miss you my Jaybird. Hope you are doing fine.
I hear that you and Matt will be hanging out together here on Wednesday! Super!!
I won't be home, but am so glad you guys can spend the day together. Danny
even said he is coming home at lunch time so he can see you guys. :)

I have a little something sitting out on the kitchen counter if you and Matt want
to make something that you both can eat. You may have other plans, or want to
go get some lunch out, but if not here's what it is:

Pasta shells: boil of course.
Dice a couple of zucchini (in fridge) (like little cubes) and boil them along
with the pasta. Drain when done.
Add the Turkish salsa from the Persian Market. Stir in one or two packages,
whatever you need.
Garbanzo beans, mix in.
Drizzle w/ EVOO.
Add salt or spices or whatever else you like.

This does not yet have a name. You may name it.
It is vegetarian and lactose free, good for both of you."

(In case you were wondering, I am vegetarian, and my brother is lactose-intolerant. What a thoughtful mom!)

So we made it. (footnote: I made it) While we watched House Bunny. It still doesn't have a name, though.

Then Matt and I went to the Persian market and got some stuff, and I went home, and tonight for dinner I made my own version. It looked like this.

And I made it like this:

1. Prepare the quinoa: 1 cup rinsed quinoa into 1 1/2 cups boiling water. simmer 20ish minutes.
2. chop 1/2 onion, press 5 cloves garlic, chop a half bunch swiss chard, drain and rinse 1 can chick peas.
3. heat some olive oil in a large pan. Shake in some curry, because you should put curry into everything. saute the onion and garlic for a little bit (if you are like me, you will be rinsing and chopping the chard at this point). add in the chard and the chickpeas and stir it all together. sniff and add more curry.
4. cover the pan and let it all get hot and awesome for a little bit. just a little bit.
5. is the quinoa done yet? i hope so, because this is the part where you put it in the big pan with the chard, etc.
6. then dump in the turkish salsa from the persian market. no, i don't know what's in it, besides tomatoes and spices. that's probably all.
7. yay. it's done. eat it.

It got the Casey Stamp Of Approval and when I asked what I should call it he said, "that swiss chard-quinoa thing". so there you go.

My favorite place to sleep

2011-05-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

So Case and I went out with some friends for Thai food last night (author's note: Thai food is always a good idea) and somehow we got onto the subject of how we do and do not like to sleep - I think it came about through a discussion about noisy kitchen appliances. Personally, I like a little white noise when I'm falling asleep - dishwasher, dryer, space heater... something about that electric hum and whir just makes my transition into sleep so much smoother and sweeter. I realize that I'm, well, if not unusual then at least not in the majority on this - most people prefer a silent, sensation-free environment to fall asleep to. I had a friend or two in college who even went so far as to sleep with earplugs. And I can sort of get behind that, at least in theory. In practice, though, if everything is silent and then there's one tiny noise - a truck driving by the house, a cat pouncing on the bed, a coyote yipping in the field - well then it's all over for me.

Anyways. I had a point to this, I promise. Last night's conversation got me thinking about my ideal sleeping situation, and it brought to mind a very, very fond memory/location/experience. My ideal sleeping situation is this: in a tiny bunk suspended against the main mast in the foc'sle cabin, up against the engine on the other side of the wall, with the ship gently rocking so that you can also hear the lapping of the water at your head.

It freaked me out at first, but after about twenty minutes I realized it was heaven.

In high school I was involved in a sailing team called Mariners, and it was pretty epic. It's where I learned to tie knots and chart a course and sail a boat and properly throw a line... and say bad words and kiss boys (Sorry, Mom). We took a couple of sailing trips on the "regular sailboats" - over to Catalina and up to San Pedro, etc - as well as a few sails on various tallships - The Argus and Spirit of Dana Point in particular.

It was aboard the Argus that I found my sleeping Mecca. Since I had no rank at the time I didn't get first choice of the berths and had to sleep in the stacked bunks instead of the private, cozy berths tucked into the walls. You literally had to slide headfirst into the bunk because there wasn't enough room even to sit up without hitting your head on the other bed. I feared claustrophobia. Wondered how I would even manage to wriggle my way out once I got in. And what was with this horrible mechanical sound next to me? And the darkness, and the musty boat smell, and the rocking... I thought I'd never fall asleep.

And then I shimmied into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes. And everything fit.

Nowadays Case and I sleep on this enormous Cal King bed, with a down comforter and flannel sheets (and sometimes two cats) and I joke that I could never go back to a full or even a Queen because I like my space too much. But give me a ship at sea and I'll cram myself into the tiniest corner imaginable and be as happy as a clam. (Just...not a clam on someone's plate!)

Conveniently enough, my mom and dad went for a walk at the harbor just the other night and Pop snapped a photo of the moon over one of the tallships, the Brig Pilgrim, and emailed it to me. I didn't have the pleasure of sailing this ship during my sailing days but the Spirit is currently docked alongside and it's always nice to walk by and remember my days at sea. :)

another photo from Pop... the moon over the youth docks

The Strangest of Gifts

2011-04-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

A few months back I trucked myself and my art cart way down to San Diego to run a seminar-thing with the site facilitators of the SD afterschool programs. Basically I taught "adults" how to do art with their kids, while also marketing the company I work for - hire us to come to your school, this is what we can do, etc...

Yes, it was a fun time for the participants, and for myself, and yada yada, but that day ended up giving me the strangest of gifts: a classroom fit for a king. This place almost defied description, but I accepted the challenge and wrote down every last object and item of importance so that I could share it with my brother, who loves this kind of stuff.

The other day I ran across the page and thought perhaps this gift could be extended to the rest of you, as well.

Without further ado, I give you... the contents of Room 154.

Items found within secret science lab:
Star Wars Episode IV poster (original)
Star Wars "Duel of the Sith" poster
Star Wars In Concert (this one was 3D/holographic)
Front page of San Diego Union Tribune, front page full spread highlighting Star Wars Episode I
Star Wars Episode I poster
Jedi vs. Sith poster
Star Wars Saga calendar
Synthesizer keyboard

Items found within main classroom of 154:
2 snapping turtles in a tank
Poster: Penguins jumping into water from ice ("Take Turns")
Puzzle: White tiger cub relaxing on planet earth
Menagerie of tigers, cheetahs, etc
Shaped Puzzles: (all have various scenes within the animal shape)
3 Dragsonscapes
leaping lion
panda
polar bear
running fox
white tiger
peacock (looks like a seal)
runing wolf
elephant
dolphin
eagle
More puzzles: 2 wolves on a ridge
various African animals
cheetah & cub
penguins & babies
Triptych: "Liberty's Flight", "On Freedom's Wing", "Reflections of Freedom"
Poster: "Shoot for the moon even if you miss you will land among the stars"
Puzzle: Wizard pointing at Dragon
Indian girl with dream catcher and wolves
dragon spewing fire
more "African" animals (but also a panda)
pyramids
tiger "face" made of smaller tigers
dragon on a castle
sea turtles (Note: I have this same mug from Hawaii)
waterall overtaking a city
unicorn and shooting stars
fairy
majestic wolf / bear / eagle / moon
Mt. Everest
white tiger cub (flames in background?)
whale jumping
waterfall / unicorns
dolphins / sunset
animals all over a planet
toucans
three cartoony scenes: diner / soccer field / city

Other Items Of Interest:
Bookshelf of Forensics books, including 2 CSI novels (I began reading "Cold Burn" on my lunch break)
other bookshelf of animal books
periodic table of the elements (in case you forgot we are in a science room)
collage ("Clique" style) of "alumni"
tribute art to Mr. C——
2 "Teacher of the Year" awards
Book rack of paperbacks, prominently featuring "Renegades of Pern" and other Sci-Fi/Fantasy paperbacks.

Happy Friday, friends.

Up For Air

2011-04-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

So it's Monday night, and my last blog post was...ahhh, yep, there it is, looks like good old January. Casey's reading on the couch next to me with a cat on his lap, the crickets are chirping in the dark, there's a basket of laundry waiting to be folded... Yep. Sounds to me like the perfect time to write up a new blog post. :)

I told (or, asked?) Casey to write the post for the videos we made this weekend, so I'll hold off on describing too much about our Saturday swimming/diving at La Jolla cove. Instead I'll tell you about Sunday's sort-of-fail trip to Salt Creek for some beach diving.

First of all, let me explain why we call it diving, and not snorkeling. (Yeah, I get a little bit miffed when someone says, "oh, you mean you just went snorkeling" because to me, it's totally different!) Snorkeling's pretty fun for most folks - kicking around at the surface looking down at the fish and rocks and shells below. But Case and I aren't "most folks". I like to say we're Water People. Meaning, we aren't content to splash around at the surface. We want to really get down there, be a part of things, investigate, explore, visit... But we also like to push ourselves, which is why we dive without scuba tanks. Okay, that and the fact that neither of us are certified, and it's expensive, and yada yada.

It might be nice sometime to spend more time down with the fish friends. But to me, for now at least, scuba seems too tame. (That sounds silly, right?) From what I can tell, instead of kicking around at the surface, you're kicking around in the deep. Yes, you get to see things up close, and for a long period of time. But I like the idea and the feel of being unencumbered by a bulky tank and vest. I like the idea of challenging my body - the breathhold, the descent, the visit to the bottom...then listening to your body, knowing when it's reached its limit, and carefully returning to the surface. It's tough, and scary at first. And it took me a long time to figure out how to pressurize my ears properly (I can't do the nose-pinch-and-blow thing, I have to swallow to equalize). And I haven't gone down too far, like professional free divers. About thirty feet is the farthest I've done to date.

But we dive. Without the aid of oxygen tanks. Solely on the breath we're able to draw into our lungs and bloodstream. And we train, too. We swim a mile at the pool and then practice swimming lengths on a single breath. I train with diving fins, and a monofin, as well as just with my little leggies. Pilates helps a lot to strengthen the transverse abdominus. That lets me expand my lungs with more oxygen, as well as giving me more muscle power in my dolphin kick. So, you see, for us it's more than just sight-seeing in the ocean. It's a sport. A challenge.

Now that THAT's out of the way, let me tell you about Sunday. We initially planned to give Diver's Cove in Laguna Beach a try, but the weather didn't seem stellar, and we didn't feel like driving the extra miles, so I suggested trying the beach just north of the sea cave and marine preserve in Dana Point. We swam out from the sand, which felt a little weird, being suited up with masks, fins, weight belts, while everyone else was either surfing or splashing, but oh well. :) Swam out to the kelp bed and realized that visibility was just about, oh, three feet. As in, you can barely see the tips of your fins beneath you.

Let me tell you, when you can't see anything beyond three or four feet, and the water is just dim green everywhere, with dark shadowy blobs of seaweed tangling up out of nowhere, it's really freaking scary to just duck down and swim blind into the green. I almost didn't want to do it. But then I said, Jessica, stop being a wimp. And I dove. It wasn't too deep - 12 feet tops. Sandy bottom with a few low rocks, algae-softened, and strangled with rubbery kelp roots. No fish. At least, if there were fish, they were more than three feet away, and therefore invisible. Just green and sand, and surges.

Sigh.

To make matters worse, Casey lost his snorkel coming up from the bottom. It wasn't in his mouth (no breathing underwater, of course, and we don't use them all the time even at the surface) and so he didn't notice that the water resistance on his ascent ripped it from the clip on his mask. We dove down a few times to look for it, but man, it was gone.

But this isn't a downer story, really. Just the reality of quasi-free-diving in southern california. For all the amazing marine life we have just offshore, it can be really tough to access. For one, most of our beaches are West-facing, meaning they bear the brunt of the swells pounding in from the Pacific. And lots of sandy beaches, meaning the grains get churned up and cut down on visibility. And currents, and waves, and winds, and water temps. If you've got a wetsuit you'll be mostly okay, but after an hour or so, 60 degree water starts to nip at ya.

And yet... we dive. I don't think we can help it - either one of us. It's what we love to do. And it's what we love to do together. Not my hobby that Casey pretends to be interested in; not his passion that I tag along with. It's ours together! I feel so blessed that we have this in common. It's like our secret underwater adventure.

So with that, I'll leave you a short clip from Saturday's dive at La Jolla. What you'll see is Casey's view on a dive through some kelp. And then, towards the end, my sentiments about being free in the ocean. :)

a thanksgiving present from me to you!

2010-11-22T20:25:00.000-08:00

My Very Own Soup Recipe That I Made Up But It Was Really Good So Yes You Can Have The Recipe And Make It Too.

Start with…
One onion, chopped
Heat a little olive oil in a big pot and sauté the onion for a few minutes

Then add…
One leek, halved lengthwise and chopped.
Toss it in with the onion and keep sautéing, until everything is translucent and smells awesome. Add some salt and pepper if you want.

Time for…
Two or three carrots, chopped
One small butternut squash, peeled, scooped, chopped (or cheat and use a bag of pre-cut squash from Trader Joe’s. I did. Get over it.)
A handful of tiny fingerling potatoes, cut up a bit
A medium sweet potato, chopped up. I didn’t peel it. I’m edgy like that.

Spice it up…
Eyeball it, please. Really. Don’t dirty a measuring spoon for this soup. Just toss in a small palmful of thyme, a big ol’ pinch of tarragon, a small crushed palmful of sage. And a scoopish of cumin.
Three bay leaves, too. Pretend you’re making a witches’ brew!

I let these guys kind of hang out in the pot for a minute or two, kinda heating things up, before I add a carton and a half of vegetable stock. Why? Cause it’s how much I had. And then I added about a half carton of water.

Okay, make sure it’s hot and let it cook for like a half hour. Yes, that smell is the soup, and it’s wonderful. Do a little dance in the kitchen.

Add a can of black beans, drained. For protein and happiness. Let them heat through for a minute or two, then grab your immersion blender (you have one, right? RIGHT?) and away you go, blending right in the pot, like magic! You get to decide how chunky vs. how pureed you want it. Creativity at its finest!

Okay, how about if we add more protein? I say a handful of uncooked quinoa. Poof! Just toss it in, and let it cook for another fifteen, twenty minutes… if you can wait longer, better… but if you must eat it now, so be it. After a while the quinoa will plump up even more. Plus all the flavors meld together and it’s super yummy. I had it for lunch and dinner. I’m edgy like that, too.

Have fun! And next time, make it different.

June Projects Completed!

2010-07-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Get your hands off me booty, you salty dog!

It isn't often that I, a chronic and self-proclaimed procrastinator, finishes a project on time, let alone three or four! But June was time to Finish Stuff, and so I did!

First up is Petunia. I think you all might remember her mermaid friend from a while back, who's been getting a little lonely on the couch while a half-finished Petunia looks on with her one eye from the Work In Progress basket. I finished the embroidery, cut the inner lining and back panel pieces and sewed the envelope pillow together. Now the two scurvy wenches are free to chit chat all the day long.

Next up is Roasted Red Peppers. It's pepper season, and they're big and tasty, and I wanted to have some roasted peppers on hand for sandwiches, and pastas, and for adding to hummus. Mateo came over and we went to work. Roasted these puppies in the oven, peeled off the skins, sliced them up...
...and packed them into some olive oil and crushed garlic. I've since had these on sandwiches, and pasta, AND hummus, and I can say with 100% authority that they are delicious. (Hummus was Thing #3 for the month, so that got checked off the list, too. I'm in love with my food processor.)
Okay, technically my peach pie happened in July, for a party on the fourth, but those canned peaches had been calling out to me from my pantry for a while. I had to resist their siren song and wait for a proper time to use them, and lo and behold, Fourth of July Peach Pie. I realize I may sound like an old woman, but there really is nothing like a pie with home canned peaches. It truly tastes like Summer.

Now it's time to brainstorm what July's activities will be. And what about you? What goals have you set for the summer? What goals have you reached? Which ones will simmer on the back burner until much, much later? ;) (I've got a bunch of those, too!)

in a pickle

2010-06-14T11:17:00.001-07:00

Why did the cucumber need a LAWYER?

Because it was in a pickle!!

Yeah, that was bad... I looked up "pickle jokes" because I'm a) that corny and b) too lame to know any pickle jokes off the top of my head, and when I ran across that one I just had to groan... But hey! It works really great for this post, because on Saturday I made pickles with two bugs and a LAWYER - brittany lawyer, to be exact! Or, as we like to call her, Princess Brittany. Above, Princess Brittany gives us a sneak peek at our culinary adventure.

But first! You need to read the recipe.

Britters brought her old and dearly loved gardening book, which teaches whipper-snappers how to sow seeds, transfer seedlings, make compost, brew sun tea, and many other garden-to-kitchen delights like... you guessed it... making pickles! Growing up, these were the only pickles Britt would eat, so we know they've passed The Kid Test. They also, apparently, have passed The Skunk Test seeing as our little friend here is sneaking some pickles for late night Secret Eating. Good habits, kids!!

So after we read the recipe, we set out some of our ingredients: sliced onions, garlic cloves (hiding under the onion), fresh dill, salt, and pickling spice. I've learned that when cooking with kids especially, it's ALWAYS better to have everything you need on hand, pre-measured, and ready to go. Might take a few more minutes up front, but it makes for a much smoother experience.

Now, since our bugs are so grown up, we let them do the cutting themselves - with Big Knives! Britt and I coached them on how to hold the knives and the cucumbers and carefully cut them into quarters lengthwise. Keeps has got it down!

And Caden's making things PERSONAL. Those cukes aren't going to get away with anything!

So once they're all sliced, we let them sit in a bowl. They're covered with salt and dill, and they just hang out for a half hour...

Which is a little boring, apparently. But also a good time to break for lunch! Mmmm...

PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME! PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!

(Can I just say that it touches my heart to know that the boys love Aunt Jessica Bug's homemade apricot jam? Because it does!)

After the pickles have stewed in their awesomeness for a while, we pack them into my gigantic Ball mason jar (Big Lots $6, yes please!) with the onions, garlic, spices, etc. Pour over the brine - a mixture of one part vinegar to two parts water - and give it a good stir.

Hooray pickles! You're almost there!

And voila! Pickles. Almost. These are refrigerator pickles, so they have to chill out overnight before you can eat them. I've sampled a few already and they're delicious! I'm thinking that over the next few days they'll just pickle even more, so they might taste even more pickley as we go. These pickles will last about two weeks in the fridge, and there are plenty of them, but something tells me they'll be all gone by that time!

Thanks and hugs to Bolt and Bugs! you three are terrific kitchen companions. What a DILLightful day!

(Ahh! gotcha!)

dead men tell no tales

2010-06-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

It's true! Petunia Pirate says so (or she will, once I finish her!) But I'm not dead yet, so let me tell you a little about what we've been up to lately.

This is Petunia. She's still not done yet, since I've been a little sidetracked in the past few weeks. Kelly got married and we all went to Palm Desert, I finished up my art classes for the school year, and am trying to get things all under control before summer camps start up. Busy bee, of course.

In the photo above, though, you can see a little bit of what goes into making my embroidery pieces. I started with a cool image of a tattoo that I found online, traced it up (adding and modifying where it started wrapping around the person's leg) and created a blueprint for what colors and stitches will go where. Then I use carbon paper to transfer the image onto the fabric. The transfer paper isn't terrific, so I go over it again with a sharp B pencil so the design doesn't get lost. Then it's stitch, stitch, stitch! I try to use a few different types so it doesn't look quite so uniform, but a lot of the time I end up with a basic backstitch... (if it ain't broke...) Hopefully I'll have a finished product to post soon.

This weekend we had the bugs over, and Uncle Casey took them geocaching. They LOVED it! I plugged in three caches nearby in Vista and sent the adventurers out the door. Once they'd driven close enough to the location, they hopped out of the car and hoofed it to find their treasures. If you haven't looked into it, geocaching is a super fun way to get outdoors and do some exploring, and it's perfect for adults and kids!

Britters came over this weekend, too, to play with me and the bugs. We played Pig Mania (always a crowd pleaser) and had some fun in the kitchen, which I'll share about in more detail in the next post. Afterwards we drove up to Julian for a little wine tasting, then to Mom & Dad Anderson's for dinner. As usual, we had a delectable feast, featuring our very own AndHerSon Heirlooms lettuce in a fantastic salad. Me and Britt have mascara lettuce, and I am not sure exactly what kind Casey's showing off, but they're all delicious. :)

She's crafty! and she's just my type...

2010-05-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Let's pretend for a minute that this is a craft blog, and that I'm the sort of person who has the time, energy, and inspiration to make things all day long. Ready? Go!

So hey there, craftosphere! It's me, the queen of creativity herself! So I was thinking this morning that maybe I'd like to do a lil project, and then I accidentally tripped over my sewing basket and pouf!

This happened. Tres cute, no?

Okay, back to reality! I've had this idea for - literally - years, when I saw something similar done in a boutique window in Montecito. The store's resident artist had painted the backs of white upholstered chairs each with a different vintage tattoo design. I was absolutely in love! ...and wrote it down in my "someday" journal:

"Someday, Journal, I'll have a set of dining room chairs that are each painted in different vintage tattoo designs. It will be tres cute, no?"

Well, over the years I've decided that... a) I will never be the kind of person to have white upholstered chairs and b) I'm really not the kind of person to commit to such a large-scale project, because, well, I'm a scatterbrained proctastinator. (Just being honest here.)

Not sure why it took so long to mentally modify the idea, but suddenly it all made sense: do it small! Make pillows! You already know how to sew envelope pillow cases. And then it made even MORE sense: don't paint! That's too intimidating! And you will surely mess it all up! Why not do it in thread instead? You already know how to embroider and it's something you like to do but haven't had time for lately! SO DO IT!

So, over the past week or so I've been working little by little on my awesome mermaid tattoo embroidery. Found a picture online that I liked, traced it up, made a plan for which colors and stitches would go where, and dove right in. Today I finished the embroidery and sewed up the pillowcase - what you can't see in the photo is that the fabric on the back is off-white with blue ticking stripes - shout out to Laura for that idea! I was going to do navy piping, and even bought it and pinned it on in the right place, but when I found out I don't have a zipper foot for my sewing machine (and don't know how to use one yet) I figured I'd start off easy and leave the contrast piping for pillow #2.

And there you have it! Can't wait to get to work on the next one. June project #1 - completed AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! For a scatterbrained procrastinator, this is really amazing. Hopefully I can update y'all on the next one soon!

Kickin' that Encinitas Tri!

2010-05-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

Alright everybody, are you ready for a SING ALONG? That's right... turn your iPods up and get ready for a rousing (and thematically modified!) rendition of "I'M AWESOME!" by Spose...

The Cast of Characters:

Callie Carson, Chris Downen, and Jessica Anderson,

Triathletes TO THE STARS!

We're AWESOME!

Kickin' that Encinitas Tri...

We're AWESOME!

Have a swim, sharks won't mind...

We're AWESOME!

Think we might go for a ride...

...Then have a little run, it's just three miles!

We're AWESOME!

Training at the beach - Moonlight!

We're AWESOME!

Knowin' that we're lookin' so fly!

We're AWESOME!

All the ladies and the fellas gonna cry

When we cross that finish line,

heads held high...

Cause WE'RE AWESOME!!!

Yep... we've got swagger to spare! This Sunday, May 16 (a mere six days after my 26th birthday!) we competed in our very first sprint triathlon. Sprint means it's shorter distances all around: 750 m swim (1/2 miles) / 20K bike (13 miles) / 5K run (3 miles). The perfect amount to give us a taste for the sport. And we loved it! We've been training for six weeks or so, both in the gym and down at the beach, and it's been really neat to push myself and exceed my own expectations. I never thought I was "athletic" at all. Hated running. Hated sweating. Loved swimming, though, so at least I had that much down!

And then Callie comes along with this crazy idea - she and Chris are doing a sprint triathlon, and maybe if I wanted to, I could train with them at the beach, just for fun, of course... right? I mean, no pressure, right? :)

Needless to say, about a week afterwards I realized that I could train with them "for fun" and then cheer them on as they crossed the finish line... or I could train with them, and cross the finish line WITH them! I knew if I didn't do it I'd regret it forever. I'd been running for a few months by that time and discovered that I actually have a really nice, long stride and can keep a pretty fast pace. I'd also decided that this summer would be Summer of the Ocean Swims, so I would be in the water anyways... and suddenly, it just all made sense. Callie and the Anderson fam signed me up as a birthday present, and I was ready to go!

The most amazing part of this whole process has been learning what I can push myself through - physically and mentally. I've developed discipline I didn't know I had, and am so proud of the endurance I've built up.

And of course, I can't omit how incredible it's been to bond with my fantastic sister-in-law through this all! What a neat blessing to have a sister (since I've never had one before!) - someone that I feel I'm pretty well matched with, someone that can push me, and encourage me, and yet there's no girly competition getting in the way! I feel so blessed to have such a beautiful, strong, fierce and loving sister in my life. It's a dream come true!

And to come back to my triathlon recap... Sadly, Casey wasn't able to be there to celebrate with us, as he's in D.C. for work, but my mom and pop went out of their way to rearrange their Sunday duties to come down and watch me! (Photos are courtesy of Poppy himself!) Afterwards, we had a breakfast of champions with the Anderson fam, then went into mini comas in the sunshine and bathing suits. :)

And THEN! To top off an already amazing day, tonight was the Survivor Finale... AND I WON!!! If you recall from last year, each season we pay into a pool and draw names, and at the end of the season, someone wins all the cash in the pot. And this year, on my birthday week and triathlon day, my homegirl Sandra took home a million dollars and the title of Sole Survivor!

Phew! That sounds like enough excitement for one day, don't you think?

Tomato Update

2010-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks very much to all of you who expressed concern for the health of our venture. I really had no idea that so many of our friends were still stalking the blog. :) Honestly, it makes me feel pretty good to know that even if we don't get the chance to see each other or speak to each other very often anymore that there are still friends out there wishing you well and sending happy thoughts.

Well, turns out our little tomatoes are hardier than we thought. We seem to have dodged a bullet because we lost not a single plant in that last frost I was so worried about. Some leaf tips did get a little brown and a couple plants got a tad splotchy but in all we really came out of it very little the worse for wear. See below.

Theories: It's possible that because the seedlings had to weather a frost early after they'd been planted they'd become fully "hardened off" and able to withstand the cold temp. We'd also gotten a bit of rain just before this last frost and it's possible that the water soaked ground actually helped to keep the ground temperature relatively warm. Just some thoughts.

To give you a sense of where the plants are at in size:

I've had conversations with friends asking about pruning our plants and why and how we do it. Mom and I did a lot of reading while gearing up for our first planting last season and we came across a lot of literature that recommended pruning your tomato plants. By keeping the plant from becoming too bushy and having a lot of excess and useless foliage you can take those nutrients and sugars that go into producing all that extra green and re-direct it into your fruit. So while you may end up with a little less fruit overall your result will be remaining tomatoes that are higher quality and that taste a lot better.

At this stage, by pruning we're encouraging quicker upward growth while also just staying on top of the game. Once the plants get about knee high you start seeing some serious growth of side branches and mom and I want to stay ahead of that so in a month or two our pruning work load will be more manageable. Right now we're taking off pretty much all the side branches except for the top three that form the crown of the plant. We just pinch them off with our fingers. If you cut with pruning shears you increase the risk of disease because a clean cut is harder for the plant to heal up.

This is a variety I'm looking forward to seeing fruit from. "Bloody Butcher". It's strange, when we planted these as seedlings they were the smallest and saddest looking of the bunch. Now, these are some of strongest plants we've got in the ground. Go figure.

One of the perils/benefits of using home compost to mulch around the plants: volunteers. These are some squash plants that we've decided to let live. Why not? Tomatoes and squash with no extra effort!

My brother-in-law likes to tease Jess about being a hippie. Here she is doing very little to fight that image.

Wow. Frost.

2010-04-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

So, we planted all of the tomatoes on a warm Saturday in March and the following Wednesday we had a frost.

The general rule of thumb is that once we're out of February in San Diego we're pretty much out of the frost danger zone. Not this year.

We had 511 plants in the ground and 93 died as a result of the frost. We were left with 418 which is still a considerable about of plants to tend and harvest.

Well, a second frost came in with the winter storm on Thursday night, April 22. At this point I do not know the damage to the plants. I walked through on Saturday the 24th and I saw very little visible damage but a lot of times it takes a few days for the real effects to show.

Fingers crossed for the healthy remaining tomatoes.

This is just a little lesson in how unpredictable weather can be and the effect it has on the availability of our food supply. Thanks to all the career farmers out there who are smarter and more prepared than I am, who get out of bed at 3 am when the temperature gauge tells them it's too cold and they go out to run their frost protections.

AndHerSon Heirlooms 2010

2010-03-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Last year we put 160 plants in the ground. This year: 400.
Last year we planted 13 varieties. This year: 20.

Everyone knows one learns from experience. It appears mom and I are selective learners. We seeded earlier so that we could plant earlier to get a jump on the season, we were more prepared for each stage of the process - from seeding to amending to final planting and we'll know exactly what to expect come market time. We learned all that. What we chose not to learn was how much work it was to maintain, prune and harvest 160 tomato plants. Seriously, it was a LOT of work doing that all by hand. Now we've got to do the same thing with 400 plants.

This season's seedlings snug in their trays.

Before I go any farther I want to stress that all the work that has been done and needs to be done in the future has in no way been done entirely by just me and mom. My awesome wife has been hands on throughout much of this journey, and on Saturday morning March 27, the Anderson (Sr.) property was abuzz with activity as 10 of our closest friends and family members showed up to help get all the plants in the ground in one morning! We are so thankful for all the help and encouragement we're constantly receiving.

There's a lot more that I'd like to say but it'll have to come in future posts. For now, I think it's time to let the pictures do the talking.

Right to left: Tiana Romero, Jess, Luis Romero, Kirk Carson, Lisa and Debbie get started putting plants in the ground in the new planting area.

You start at the start - with good soil. Our native soil is less than ideal with a pH of 8+ and trace levels of nitrogen. We amend it using organic materials: compost for organic matter, granular sulphur to bring the pH down a bit, bonemeal for calcium and phosphorous, cottonseed meal to also help bring down the pH but also to add nitrogen, phosphorous, potash and trace minerals and Azomite to add over 70 active minerals and trace elements.

Jessica, our resident hand model, demonstrates the tamping of the soil around the base of the plant that is required to make sure there are no big air pockets around the plant.

The happy seedling ready for water and ready to start growing.

The crew adding the amendments to each hole before planting started. Each person got an ingredient. You can also see here two of the three planting areas; behind the palm tree you can see straw on the ground and that is all planted too.

So, that's where we're at! The plants are in the ground and now it's time to wait. In about 2 months we'll be close to our first harvest. In the meantime we'll be trellising the growing plants to give them the support they'll need as they grow taller and taller. Last year we were picking fruits off plants that were over our heads!
Wish us luck and come visit if you want to see!

Valentine's Day

2010-02-22T13:10:00.001-08:00

A Happy Valentine's Day Picnic... out in the field. Such a beautiful day! We made a picnic lunch after church and took it out into the tall, soft grass down by the oak grove.

Sun slanted in through the branches, dappling the grasses in light. The sound of the creek bubbling over rocks and around the reeds was cheerful and soothing. Hawks and blackbirds danced overhead.

And Casey and I very much enjoyed our afternoon!

Then it was up to The Farm to do some more work... Casey and Cath set up guidelines for the new tomato crop. There's a lot more work to do this time around: last season we used the existing trellis and irrigation systems, so all we had to do was add some nice compost amendment and plop the seedlings in the ground.

This time, Casey had to drive field stakes, dig irrigation trenches, and pretty much start from scratch. Yesterday I helped with spreading compost and straw mulch along the lines - and just in time! The rains will help the nutrients leach into the ground and make it a hospitable growing place for our seedlings...

Which have ALL already sprouted! The tomato seeds were sown in seed trays, and have been hanging out in a friend's hothouse. One week later, every last one has sprouted! These guys are ready to go, and it looks like we'll have a good jump on the season.

These are not tomatoes, but lettuces. They live on the planting table and are doing so great!

We're excited for Spring to come! :)

Since Halloween

2010-01-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

Ahrgh! It's been so long since our last post.

Here's a recap:

Since Halloween...

We've gone here

With Mom and Dad Baumgartner

Where Jess made a new friend

And we spent a little time looking spectacular/awesome/great/ridiculously good looking.

Jess took Dignan and Frances shopping

While Casey went to Joshua Tree with Chris.

And then, after all that...

We settled down for our long winters nap.

Halloween 09

2009-11-03T08:55:00.001-08:00

I'll give you one guess what we went as.

*Hint: it's a well known children's story.

Jess is a huge halloween fan. I'm pretty certain her fondness for the holiday is driven by nothing more than her excitement at dressing up. Jess is imaginative. She uses her imagination more than the majority of people I know. This trait tends to make her excitable over things that I'm more "ho-hum" towards. But that's what is great about having her around; she helps bring me to a point where I don't mind being silly.

Examples:

Halloween 2008

Halloween in college (Junior year I think)

Jess inisists that her kitties get in on the fun.

I have another picture of Jess and I dressed up as Calvin and Hobbes but I can't find it right now.

I realize that one could simply say, "Case, eveyone dresses up on Halloween. That's just what you do. Jessica making you dress up isn't anything special." And I could see your point. But what I'm trying to say is that more than just getting me dressed up in a silly costume, Jess does everything she can to get me to enjoy it. She wants me to have fun, to laugh at myself, to pull up to a gas station the day before Halloween and rejoice in the sight of a forty-something year old woman gassing up her station wagon while dressed as a cat. "Casey, isn't this great!?" She'd say. And I would have to agree.

PS- Please note that all the costumes are hand made. The only purchased thing was the red cape jess bought this year to complete her outfit. Her dress is an authentic Austrian hand-me-down from her grandmother.

Andherson Heirlooms gettin' media props

2009-10-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Ed Joyce came to the San Marcos Farmers' Market to interview me regarding my and mom's tomatoes. That interview will be part of a segment on tomatoes that is part of a series KPBS is doing on San Diego food.

Additionally...

Here's is part of the transcript of These Days, a KPBS radio show:

CAVANAUGH: I’m speaking with Ed Joyce, environmental reporter here at KPBS and we’re talking about the truth about tomatoes: organic, conventional, what they taste like. It’s part of a station wide project at KPBS Radio, TV and the web is doing about food. We’re taking your phone calls at 1-888-895-5727, and let’s hear from Phyllis in Normal Heights. Good morning, Phyllis. Welcome to These Days.

CAVANAUGH: Thank you for that, Phyllis. And Phyllis agrees with most people about that taste thing.

JOYCE: There’s no question. And we went to one of the farmers markets in San Marcos there that’s at Cal State San Marcos on Wednesdays from two to six, and we met with Casey Anderson, who works for the San Diego County Farm Bureau also. He and his mother raise a small crop of organic tomatoes. They’re not certified organic because they don’t produce a huge volume but he – they raise 13 varieties, and these are heirloom tomatoes. That means the seeds have been handed down through generations. So – And I had a – the first time I’ve ever tasted something called a Green Zebra. It’s a little – it looks like a green apple but it’s a little tiny, smaller, like a large cherry tomato. Incredibly sweet. This is one of the heirlooms. And it’s got a tangy – How did Casey describe it? It’s like almost as if it has a little lime drizzle on top of it. It’s got a sweetness but it’s got a little tanginess, and it was delicious. It was sweet and juicy and just squished with, you know, the tender walls of the fruit. It was delicious.

CAVANAUGH: Well, I tell you, not only can you find different varieties of tomatoes if you go looking, especially in farmers markets, but a lot of people buy organic tomatoes not so much for what’s in them but for what is not in them.

You can listen to the rest of that radio show here: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/oct/22/seeking-out-tastiest-tomato-garden-plate/

Also, tomorrow, Friday Oct. 22, KPBS is airing a segment on tomatoes that will feature portions of the interview I did with Ed Joyce at the San Marcos Farmers' Market. Check it out.

CAVANAUGH: And San Diego Week is on tomorrow, tomorrow night at 8:00 on KPBS. A team of KPBS reporters is, as we speak, tracing the food from your dinner plate back to the farm, field and ocean. Listen for reports on KPBS Radio, learn more at KPBS.org, and Envision San Diego Food airs November 16th at 9:00 p.m. on KPBS Television. Stay with us for hour two of These Days coming up in just a few minutes.

3 Year Anniversary

2009-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

To Start: A List.

What am I drinking right now? Diet Mountain Dew. Yeah, it's about as good as it sounds.
What am I listening to? Nothing right now. When I get home Jess and I will put on Owl City while we cook dinner.
What did I have for lunch? Nothing yet. I'll get some hot Indian food at the San Marcos Farmers' Market around 2:00. I'll be there today selling the last of the tomatoes for the season.
What event am I looking forward to? Hmm. In the immediate future, Survivor. After that, probably Thanksgiving.
So what's new? I got a call from Ed Joyce of KPBS and he wants to send a camera crew up to mom and dad's place to film the tomatoes as part of a half hour documentary on San Diego County food.
Why would you start a post titled 3 Year Anniversary with this random list? I needed to get the writing juices flowing.

What did you do for your 3 Year Anniversary? Glad you asked...

We went to Catalina.

I had never been to Catalina Island and I knew that Jess would enjoy going back. She hadn't been since high school. We stayed in a great bed and breakfast on the waterfront that I highly recommend, the Snug Harbor Inn.

Complimentary wine and cheese in the evening, jacuzzi tub in the room, continental breakfast delivered to your room in the morning, and luggage storage so if you have to check out but take a later boat back to the mainland you can store your stuff. All that topped off with genuine friendly staff.

What'd we do while we were there?

We went snorkeling.

This picture was taken from the semi-submersible underwater tour that was also included compliments of the Snug Harbor Inn. See how they took care of us? So while this picture wasn't actually taken while we were snorkeling, it's indicative of what we saw; lots of bass. The diving was actually some of the best Jess and I have experienced. While we can't say we're experts and have traveled extensively, we have both snorkeled in Hawaii, mainland Southern California, and other Channel Islands and the diving we did at Catalina so far tops our charts. While we agreed there was a bit more biological diversity at Santa Cruz Island, diving at Catalina allowed us to get deeper quicker and to really get a better sense of the underwater landscape as a whole. We could stay close to shore in the shallow water and peer into cracks and crevices in the rocks, or we could move offshore just a few yards and dive to forty feet to get a look from below at the towering stalks of kelp. While doing that I saw my first octopus hiding under the ledge of a rock and that was pretty neat.

In a nutshell, Jess and I had a great anniversary weekend. It was full of all the things we like to do: walk, snorkel, eat good food, relax completely, and set aside time to just be with each other to talk and laugh. I love my wife and I'm pretty sure she likes me too. :)

Millions of Peaches...

2009-10-05T11:39:00.001-07:00

...okay, not really at all. More like eighteen. But that was enough to make about 6 pints of canned peaches yesterday!

So, on Saturday Casey had to manage the City Heights Market, and I came along to set up and run the Andherson Heirlooms booth. We did alright, considering that the City Heights demographic really isn't into specialty, boutiquey organics. Case in point: the asian produce vendor (selling thigns that I have NEVER seen or smelled before!) was about four or five people deep around the entire perimiter, while we had maybe two dozen sales the entire day. On the upside, it was a nice, sunny, day, we had yummy Ghanian food for lunch, and we did make money, even if it wasn't a ton. AND we came home with a bag of peaches.

So Sunday morning we set up the kitchen, and did our thang. Tried a cold-pack method, sweetening the peaches with local organic avocado honey and covering the fruit in boiling water. Can't wait to open a jar later in the winter and enjoy a taste of summer!

In Other News... I've started a Master Composter's Course through the Solana Center in Encinitas (that is a lot of capitalizing for me!) Had my first session last Wednesday, with four more weeks to go. This week we're going to start a pile and get our hands dirty. Hmm, I'm gonna need a new pair of gloves, I think.

I have homework, too. Reading a bunch of chapters in my textbook and collecting compostable materials for the pile. All the reading and thinking about it has inspired me to work more in my own piles. We currently have a three-bin system: the first is pretty much just a stick pile, then a leaf pile, and finally the kitchen scraps. The first two I'm just going to let decompose on their own, with minimal involvement. So I'll turn them from time to time and keep them moist to facilitate the decomp. One of the piles is covered with old pegboard sheets, which I think will help things move along, retain heat, etc.

The scraps pile is going to take more effort, as I'll try to keep the ratios of "green" and "brown" such that it will heat up nicely and break down fast. I even brought up a wheelbarrow load of horse manure today, and piled it on top. I'm still in the learning phase, and by no means have things perfected. I'm so excited, though! I've decided that once I'm more proficient with techniques, methods, troubleshooting, etc, I'm going to "hire" myself out to my friends and fam to inspect and assist with their home piles (free of charge, of c ourse!!) So if you've got a compost pile going, or are interested, let me know! OR...if you have no idea what a compost pile is, or what awesome benefits it provides, just ask! I would love to open your eyes to the wonderful world of composting. (Psstt: you don't even have to have a backyard to do it, so don't let that stop you!!)

On a final note - this Wednesday, along with being my second composter's course, will mark Casey and my three-year anniversary! Which, in actuality, brings us to a full seven years together. Wow! Time flies with you're having fun. I don't know what we're doing yet, but Casey has something amazing planned for Thursday and Friday. I can't wait!

Making Prickly Pear Jelly

2009-09-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

Or, "Three Cousins Pulling Cactus Needles From Their Palms In The Kitchen"

We made prickly pear jelly. Yes, like the cactus. That pokey stuff. It's all edible (who knew? well, a lot of Mexicans do, since nopales are a favorite snack!!) and the pears are really, really good!

I'd been intrigued by this idea since reading Diary of a Sea Captain's Wife, the real-life account of a woman, Margaret Eaton, who lived on Santa Cruz island with her baby girl and fisherman husband in the early 1900's. She camped out a lot. Hiked up canyons to pull down firewood for her fires, hauled water from a spring a quarter mile away, learned how to make bread in a dutch oven in the ground..you get the idea. This chick is pretty hardcore. And a fabulous role model!

Anyways! She mentioned that she wanted to made prickly pear jelly, so she sets about doing it, but since it doesn't end up setting right she makes it as syrup instead, and they eat it on hotcakes all the time. I thought to myself... If Margaret Eaton can make prickly pear jelly on Santa Crus island, then Jessica Anderson can make it at her dusty homestead!

And so I did, with the help of Brittany and Cari, my partners-in-crime in the kitchen. I sort of want to spell out the recipe here on the blog, for fun / posterity / in case anyone else is interested. I found some recipes on the internet and worked from there. There was some trial and error. To write out every step would look something like this:

step 1: harvest pears.
step 2: remove needles from palms and fingers
step 3: wash in sink.
step 4: remove needles from hands, feet, and face

You get the idea.

So here's the "edited" version, from our kitchen to yours.

Step 1: Harvest pears. We recommend wearing long pants, socks and shoes, gloves, and using long metal tongs. Take our word for it on this one. Sandals and sundresses are not good cactus clothes!

Step 2: Wash fruits with a stiff brush under warm water. This cleans them up (ours are really dusty since they grow over by the horses, who kick up a lot of dust) and knocks off most of the tiny spines.

Step 3: Cut them in half, and scoop out the insides with a spoon. (Note use of gloves!! The spines are for reals, guys! They are small but soo irritating!) I did read that you can just boil them whole, mash em up and strain out the needles and skins later, but we decided to do it this way.

We also found it helpful to chop things up a bit. This made it easier to strain later on.

Step 5: Dump them in a pot. Bring to a boil. That way this...

...will turn to this...

...which leads me to Step 6: mash with a potato masher. Quite fun, but hot. Watch the steam!

Step 7: Strain. We boiled our prickly pear pulp about ten minutes (you can probably do it much longer, but it was a ridiculously hot day, so give us a break, okay?!) and then let it strain through a wire mesh colander. Everyone else wants you to do it through cheesecloth or a jelly bag, but we couldn't find any at our friendly neighborhood walmart. We're pretty good at making-do. We gently pressed and mashed it with a spoon.

Okay, all of that was just PREP! NOW comes the real recipe.

2 1/2 C prickly pear juice
3 1/2 C sugar
2 T lime juice (fresh squeezed would have rocked!)
1 box powdered pectin

1. Put juice in a pot, and add the pectin. Bring to a rolling boil - which means it doesn't stop boiling when you stir it.

2. Add sugar and lime juice, and return to a rolling boil. Let it boil hard for 3 minutes. (Like making jam, it's important to keep the timing precise so it sets right)

3. Remove from heat, and carefully pour into sterilized jars (this is another important prep step, which I didn't talk about...basically we simmer the jars and lids in the canning pot that we process the jelly in afterwards). Having a wide-mouthed funnel works well here! Put on the lids, screw on the bands.

4. Place in the canning pot (recipes I found called for simple water-bath canning method, which is boiling water in a huge stock pot) and process for 10 minutes. Carefully remove with jar lifter tongs and let cool. It might take a while to set, because it gets so hot!

5. YUM. That's about it. If you've ever wondered what prickly pear tastes like, then get cooking! :) It's really delightful and different. Adding the lime gives it an almost-tropical taste, too. We had some leftover juice which we diluted with water. Add a splash of lime, a packet or two of splenda, and you're good to go with a zippy, refreshing juice.

Amazing! I've told Casey that now I'm going to be that crazy lady who pulls off the side of the road to pick cactus. It's just that good, guys!!

Santa Cruz Island Diaries

2009-08-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Case and I just spent an amazing four days on Santa Cruz Island, which is probably one of our most favoritest places on earth. And we were lucky enough to share that time with our dear friends Paul and Ashley Olsen! We hiked, kayaked, snorkeled, swam, stargazed, and generally delighted in God's great creation.

You can see more pictures here, on my facebook page, if you're interested. This blog is going to read a bit more like a journal entry rather than a photo album like some of our others tend to!

Tuesday: we leave Ventura harbor at 9:00 am on the Islander and arrive on Santa Cruz at 10:30. On the way we spotted a pod of dolphins which jumped and leaped and bow-surfed and gave us a warm welcome into the Marine Protected Area around Scorpion Anchorage. We hiked our gear to the campsite, about a half-mile from the beach. Set up camp and trekked back over to the beach for some kayaking.

We kayaked to Scorpion Rock, which you can see in the photo above. There's a cool sea cave in the farther rock that you can paddle all the way though. We went through it and back a handful of times, and it was exhilarating every time! The water was so clear and there were thousands of purple urchins and sea stars, and I couldn't resist diving off the kayak into the icy water. Oops. I was pretty cold the rest of the afternoon, since I was only wearing my two-piece and a rashguard.

We took a nap, had lunch, and hiked Cavern Point and Potato Cove overlook. Really neat memories of being on the island six years ago when we were dating in college and hiking the same trails. We'd been back once since then, but only for a day trip, so it didn't feel the same magic. Along the hike we stopped to read a few chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins, a beloved favorite from childhood. The book takes place on San Nicolas, another island in the Channel, but it's easy to imagine you're experiencing it all on Santa Cruz.

Dinner Tuesday night was grilled cheese sandwiches and turkey chili from Trader Joe's. Yum, and warm. We made some hot chocolate and walked to the pier where we read some more and listened to the water lapping at the pier. Below us, in the black water, tiny fish sparkled and glowed with bioluminescence.

Wednesday: simple breakfast of bagel and banana, then to the beach to wait for the boat to arrive with Paul and Ashley aboard. We helped them offload and get settled into camp, and set out for some more kayaking. Ashley and I paddled around Scorpion rock and the small coves around the cliffs. We followed a small group of sea lions which were herding a school of fish to eat. It was really neat to watch them diving again and again, like they were turning cartwheels, until they corned the fish against the back of Scorpion Rock. They dove and dove and dove in circles while we gently paddled about. We also spotted a really neat jelly, one neither of us could identify. It was large, over a foot across the bell, and a translucent milky white with purple streaks. Underneath, tiny fish darted around the tentacles. The tentacles were also milky, and sort of fat and short. Not long and stringy like you'd imagine a jelly to be.

(I did an image search and found this, which I'm pretty sure is the species we saw. After reading the article, I believe that our jelly was fairly old; it was quite large and didn't have the long stringy tentacles, but they were thick and pale. It looked like a cross between the last two photographs. It is called, not surprisingly, the purple striped jelly!)

After kayaing we suited up in wetsuits (I learned my lesson on Tuesday) and snorkeled around the cove in the kelp forests. Tons of urchins and stars, some sheep crab and a sting ray were among our sightings that day.

We all hiked Cavern Point to get our blood flowing again, then returned to camp to make pasta for dinner. In the evening we sat on the pier, read from the book, and the guys enjoyed a pipe and cigar. Ashley and I oohed and ahhed at the bioluminescent fish which were still dancing in the water. We watched satellites glide across the sky and identified constellations. It was a new moon so the sky was very dark and the milky way could be seen like a strip of fog high up in space.

Thursday: Breakfast burritos. Need I say more?
We started out early to hike to Smugglers Cove. 3.5 miles later we arrived. The marine layer had lifted, so it was sunny and warm. We ate our sandwiches and rested. Casey and I meandered down the beach and made stone vortexes - you know, where you balance rocks on top of each other? Paul walked a few extra miles to check out Yellowbanks while us three swam in the ocean and laid out. We explored around the adobe house and the neat area around it. There are walnut trees, citrus trees, fig trees, olive trees...it would be so awesome to live there!

When we got back to Scorpion we were all pretty tired, with sore feet that wanted to be cooled in the water. Of course we read some more Island of the Blue Dolphins as the sun sank behind us in the hills.

Dinner was fajita-style burritos and afterwards we went out stargazing again. The four of us all layed down on the wooden platform above an underground well and again watched satellites and shooting stars in the black night sky.

Friday: Last day on the island. Casey and I kayaked to Cavern Point which turned out to be a lot more treacherous than we'd thought. Since the marine layer had burned off the temperatures were much nicer, but that also means that the wind is stronger. You have to paddle into the wind to get to Cavern Point, and the water was really choppy with whitecaps and big rolling waves.

The sea in the picture below is nice and smooth because it was a protected cove. Once we paddled around the first point, it was pretty rough seas! Luckily we handled it pretty well and didn't tip over or anything. We paddled through a new sea cave, had some visiting sea lions say hi, and made it safely back to Scorpion.

Since it was so sunny and warm, and it being our last day, everyone wanted to get a bit more snorkeling in. I was feeling brave and went in with just my rashguard, and was okay for about an hour before I had to get out. Casey and the Olsens put on their wetsuits and we all snorkeled around pointing out neat things to each other.

By far the best thing we found was a Spanish Shawl nudibranch. It was extra-neat because o Wednesday Ashley was saying that she really wanted to see one, but we weren't sure if it lived in shallow water or out deeper. The Spanish Shawl is gorgeous, and I'm going to put a picture in here because there's just no use trying to describe it without one!

We got out with time to dry off and warm up, then loaded everything onto the boat and set out back across the channel. It's always a little sad to watch the island shrink away on the horizon, but we have tons of great memories and experiences! And, naturally, plans to go back again as soon as we can! :)

Until next time, Channel Islands!!

Fishing Trip

2009-08-17T09:15:00.001-07:00

This is what I did last weekend. It was pretty great.

Early start.

Setting up the troll lines.

We fished about 10 miles offshore of San Onofre and Dana Point.

Looking for the bait fish that balls up under floating kelp patties. Of course, the bait attracts the big fish which we're looking for.

Got two nice Dorados (mahi mahi).

This is what we did with those fish. Quite delicious.

Funny thing was, I didn't get sick at all on the boat and we were on it for two full days and a night. I got home, got back on land, and puked my guts out. I got land sick. Weird how the body works sometimes.

This was my first offshore, overnight fishing trip. I had a great time sitting up on the tower trying to spot kelp patties and jumping fish. Looking for "life" that would tell us where something worth catching might be hanging out.

I'll try to leave you with a short video.

On this trip with me were my dad, our friend Bill, and Captain Greg. The boat was the Knockdown out of Newport Harbor.

Market Debut!

2009-08-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 5, 2009 is a day that will take a special place in the Anderson Family: our very first farmer's market! And what a family affair: Casey and Cathey (AndherSon, you know!) diligently, painstakingly, lovingly and tirelessly tended the tomatoes; I created the logos and designed the display; and we set up shop at one of the very markets that Casey established this year. (Add to that the fact that I also designed the Valley Center Market logo, and have been doing artwork for the San Marcos market/advertising; AND that Cathey was integral in starting the VC market; and we truly are a Farmers' Market Family!!)

I'm pretty much going to let the photos speak for themselves. Above is Cathey setting up shop when we got there at 2.

Cutting up delicious samples for our customers...

My current fave: Paul Robesons

Delicious Copias

Turkish Monasterys: Brand-new to the United States this year;
discovered outside a monastery near Istanbul. Neato!

Perhaps our best-seller of the day: Dagma's Perfection. Sweet and wonderful.

Cute Green Zebras. Tangy and Zippy.

Cathey's favorite: Black Krim. Dark and sweet.

Another favorite (alright, are they all favorites or what?), the Cherokee Chocolate.
Big and juicy and sweet.

Brandywine; one of the more common / well known heirlooms in the US

The Sales Girls!

Cath, Case, Jess: Andherson Heirlooms team

Showing off my wares...

Gigantic Copia, a 2-lb tomato. Check out our awesome vintage scale, too! :)

And our mascot. What in the world would make a tomato grow like this? Keeper said it looked like a nose (what a pure, innocent mind!) so we put sunglasses on him to keep him from looking obscene. He got a lot of laughs!

See y'all next week at the market!!
Every Wednesday, 3 - 7 pm
Cal State San Marcos Parking Lot B (first lot at the corner)
133 S. Twin Oaks Valley Road
San Marcos

Sunday Afternoon

2009-07-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

On Sunday there was a going away party for Callie and Kirk at my parent's house. Callie and Kirk are headed to Swaziland, Africa for four months to live and work at a dairy farm/orphanage. They felt called to go and serve for a time so they're following God's lead. They flew out of LAX early this morning. We pray for safe passage and a fruitful four months. We'll see you in December.

At the party there were the usual suspects of family and friends all enjoying themselves but I'm not convinced anyone enjoyed themselves quite as much as my three nephews.

Honestly, I've been waiting to do this since they were born.

Once Uncle Cale got in the pool, it was over. That pool was blowin' up with kids flying everywhere. Three basic throws on the menu: front flip, back flip and the Monster Throw. We all have experienced a Monster Throw at some point in our lives; stand on the shoulders, grab the hands and jump off the shoulders of the person launching you up out of the water. You'd have thought this was the first time Kieran, Caden and Taiten had experienced a "Monster Throw" and I guess in one way it was, since this was the first time they've called it that.

One more pic of Caden in mid-backflip. Look at that form; great tuck!

This is how we all felt about the party in general:

Coming Soon to a Farmer's Market near you...

2009-07-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

(if you live in North County, that is!)

Just waiting for them to ripen up enough for their debut. In the meantime Casey and Cathey have been busting their little buns in the field and I've been busting my eyes and neck at the computer and sewing machine!

Keep your eyes open for mouth-watering heirloom tomatoes and some tasty recipes, too!

Jammin...

2009-07-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

I've been so negligent of my little bloggie over here! Many apologies, little blog. I won't abandon you like that again, I promise!

Sigh... seems like nothing at all has been going on, but at the same time lots of things are happening and we're keeping busy. For example, over the 4th weekend the lovely Olsens came down to play and we had an absolute BLAST at the fair and hanging out together. Case and I saw Creedence Clearwater Revisited (some of the original band plus some newbies) at the fair with family and friends. I had a week of art camp at the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas with the buggies... Yeah, we've been scootin' our little boots around for sure!

This week, though, camp was cancelled... boo and hiss! Naturally THE ECONOMY has put a damper on everyone's fun. No one has the money, or is willing to part with it, for art camps it seems. Too bad. They are a lot of fun and I am an awesome teacher! :) But even though I've been at home this week I feel like I haven't had any real time to myself until today. I've been working on logo and art stuff for Andherson Heirlooms (scheduled to open soon, so keep an eye out for a post!) and keeping up with all the regular house-stuff, and getting ready for future weeks of camp, etc...

So today I breathed. A little, shallow, half-breath. It wasn't much, and it was rushed, but I used that little breath to do something I almost thought I wouldn't get to do this summer. I jammed.

See, we don't really have a garden to speak of, since we have no water. And that means that the fruit trees are suffering, too. No apricots this year. No plums. No persimmons. It's like the trees all just got really depressed and decided not to even bloom this year. Way sad.

So when I saw apricots on sale at Frasier Farms - 4 pounds for $5 - I was thrilled! I bought about three pounds, stocked up on sugar (I wish it didn't require so much, but every time I try a reduced-sugar recipe it turns out terrible!) and spent what little time I had this morning in the kitchen.

Slicing. Pitting. Chopping. Boiling. Stirring. Processsing in the canning bath. Waiting for the musical "ping" that tells you the jar is sealed and all is well with the world.

SO! I don't have a ton of jars (unlike years past when every corner of the pantry has been crowded with assorted jam jars) but if you're interested, I have a proposition for you:

You take the jam. Eat, enjoy.

Bring me back the jar next time.

And I'll refill you again!

Sound good??

Take me out to the Ballgame

2009-06-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

Padres: 3, Oakland Athletics: 6

It seems that our presence at the Padres game on Saturday night just wasn't enough to give the Padres the necessary oomph they needed to get a win, despite the fact that it was a very special occasion for me and Jess; we only get out to about one Padres home game per season. Plus, we were with the Mehaffie's and Baby Ruby at her first baseball excursion. Man, if that wasn't enough magic for the Pads I don't know what else they need to get a win.

And we were all wearing the free Padres hats too!

In this shot, from left to right, Casey; Daniel; Ruby Madeline; Alinna; Jess; Alinna's sister Valley; and the wonderful photog, Melissa, mother to Alinna and Valley and Grandmother to Ruby Madeline. The Mehaffies are awesome. Encompassed in that statement are Valley and Melissa, so maybe I need to say that the Mehaffie's and the Dedaj's are awesome. Jess and I just get a kick out of hanging out with them and immediately feeling welcome and part of the family.

Anyway, it was a great evening in downtown San Diego. Perfect mild summer evening weather and the dance clubs were hoppin' after the game; Jess and I almost stepped in for a little rug cutting but alas, cover charges being what they are and what with this whole down economy and I was wearing jeans and I think my feet were bothering me after the walk from the ballfields and...yeah, we didn't go dancing. I'm a bad husband. But she still loves me (see below).

Gosh, it looks like I'm carrying a baby in this shot. Hmm, must be an optical illusion...from the pleats...in my shirt. Jess looks so cute in braids.

Jess was super stoked to be able to get some baby holding time during the game. And it was her honor to rock Ruby Madeline for her first rousing seventh-inning-stretch rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".

A sum up: perfect weather, great friends, hot dogs, peanuts, beer, Petco Park, free hats and proof to Jess that I really am worth keeping around because, if nothing else, I can find a parking spot in the gaslamp on game night and get us back to the car and home safely in the same evening.

Whew, after all that, what's next you ask?

Well, today being a beautiful Monday, I think I'm going to go surfing after work.

On an Island in the Sun...

2009-06-03T17:10:00.001-07:00

Queen's Bath

Me and the cousins

Poppy and Jay on a morning walk down the road to our little beach!

The cousins lineup

Poppy and me at the wedding - yay for Dads!!!!

Daniel and Alinna and Baby Ruby

2009-06-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ruby Madeline is here! A very sincere congratulations to our friends Daniel and Alinna Mehaffie. Jess and I have grown very fond of the Mehaffies as we've gotten to know them through our church home group and we've been waiting rather impatiently for the arrival of their little one.

Honestly, Ruby is one of the cutest little infant girls I've yet seen. I was so blessed last night to be able to visit Daniel and Alinna at the hospital and spend no less than an hour holding 36 hour old Ruby Madeline as she slept the deep sleep of a newborn. She started making faces as she slept and would suck on her lower lip and make puckering kissy lips; I said so to Daniel and he said, "Hey, back off." Protective dad already.

Thank you Mehaffie family for letting us share in your joy.

(edit) Alright, I couldn't just leave it at the one photo. Here's a portrait.

Yay Ruby!

A Brand New

2009-05-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

We're going to need a name soon. Let us know if you have any ideas.

I've held off posting a blog about this project until all the tomatoes were in the ground, all 156 of them.

Mom and I, with the help of our very supportive spouses, have set out on a new venture; we're growing heirloom tomatoes to sell at the farmers' markets I've been working on. Instead of just looking, shopping and coordinating, we're now going to be selling.

You'll see that we've re appropriated the existing vineyard hardware and are using it to grow our tomatoes now. I think dad will be the first to say that planting the tomatoes has been much more affordable than replacing all the grape vines.

Over the course of three weekends Mom, Dad, Jess, some friends and I prepared the ground by applying gypsum to bring down the pH levels, digging 160 holes with a two-man auger (that was fun, thanks dad!), dumping in loads of compost and organic matter and adding a bit of nitrogen to feed the buggers once they were placed in the ground. We also mulched with about 13 bales of hay to keep the soil moist and the weeds down as much as we could. Along with all that, mom and I went through and patched up the irrigation system which turned out to be quite a project!

From the beginning...

Mom and I knew that specialty items generally do pretty well at farmers' markets. People get tired of the same varieties of produce at the grocery store and are wowed at what they can find at a farmers' market; loads of weird looking produce they've never seen before. Why have you never seen a Black Krim or Cherokee Chocolate or Green Zebra tomato in a grocery store? Only because they may have a shorter shelf life than another variety or they don't ship as well and are more easily bruised. Transportability and shelf life are two major determinants of what gets marketed and sold at your local grocery store, not quality or taste.

Before I go farther, let's try to define what an heirloom is. The following was pulled from Wikipedia so, "grain of salt" and all that.

The definition of the use of the word heirloom to describe plants is highly debated.

One school of thought places an age or date point on the cultivars. For instance, one school says that the seeds must be over 100 years old, others 50 years, and others prefer the date of 1945 which marks the end of World War II and roughly the beginning of widespread hybrid use by growers and seed companies or industrial agriculture. It was in the 1970s that hybrid seeds began to proliferate in the commercial seed trade.

Another way of defining heirloom cultivars is to use the definition of the word "heirloom" in its truest sense. Under this interpretation, a true heirloom is a cultivar that has been nurtured, selected, and handed down from one family member to another for many generations.

Additionally, there is another category of cultivars that could be classified as "commercial heirlooms," cultivars that were introduced many generations ago and were of such merit that they have been saved, maintained and handed down - even if the seed company has gone out of business or otherwise dropped the line. Additionally, many old commercial releases have actually been family heirlooms that a seed company obtained and introduced.

Regardless of a person's specific interpretation, most authorities agree that heirlooms, by definition, must be open-pollinated. They may also be open pollinated varieties that were bred and stabilized using classic breeding practices. While there are no genetically modified tomatoes available for commercial or home use, it is generally agreed that no genetically modified organisms can be considered heirloom cultivars. Another important point of discussion is that without the ongoing growing and storage of heirloom plants, the seed companies and the government will control all seed distribution. Most, if not all, hybrid plants, if regrown, will not be the same as the original hybrid plant, thus insuring the dependency on seed distributors for future crops.

So...

Mom and I went online, did a lot of reading and research, and picked out 13 varieties of heirloom tomatoes that we just really wanted to grow and to taste for ourselves. We ordered seeds and once they arrived, planted them in seed trays and placed them in a heated greenhouse owned by my high school ag teacher. Not very coincidentally he was also the teacher that got me started growing all the palm trees you see under the shade structure in the next few pictures.

Here are two of the ten or so seed trays before planting.

After we finished putting 12 plants of each variety into the ground we still had a lot of seedlings left over. Knowing that some of what we'd planted might not make it to maturity due to insects, disease, a digging dog and a curious two year old tromping through the planted rows, I took the remaining seedlings and planted them into individual pots to keep them growing.

Here is the shade structure I built in high school for my palms. Still sturdy! In the front left corner are the tomato planting materials.

Here's an overview shot of the planting area. All the straw marks where tomatoes are planted.

Wish us luck! Currently the plants are doing pretty well. They're well watered and have a great medium to grow in thanks to heady amounts of added compost. There is an insect that is doing his darndest to eat every last leaf off the plants and I've yet to clearly identify just what he is, but once I do...

I'm going to attempt here to write the full list of what varieties we planted but I'm doing it off the top of my head so I may miss a couple.

Aussie
Brandywine
Black Krim
Cherokee Chocolate
Paul Robeson
Green Zebra
Red Zebra
Turkish Monastery
HillBilly
Pineapple
Kellog's Breakfast

Oh well, 11 of 13. Not too bad.

My Little Sweatshop

2009-04-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

I finally feel like I have enough for "show and tell" so here are my latest home projects:

I've been getting pretty antsy to fix up the bathroom, since it's hopelessly out of date and really tiny. Previously I had two royal blue curtains hanging over this tiny window to match the blue of the ancient wallpaper, but those had to go. I had this one mismatched pillowcase floating around the house, so I turned it inside out, cut off the seams, hemmed the edges, and sewed a pocket to insert the curtain rod. The result is a delicate and airy window dressing which brings a lot more light into the bathroom and makes it feel pretty. I also took out all the old hardware and replaced it with a new set. Add some gray and white towels and the bathroom is feeling much more elegant without any renovation or anything! (big thanks to Ashley Olsen who originally gave me the idea of transforming a pillowcase into a curtain!)

And our new-to-us Ikea couch, finally ready for it's blog debut. It's even got a little facelift since moving in with us:

That's right, I made pillow cases! I am so proud of these little guys. I'd been "saving" this online guide to sewing envelope pillow cases (the ones with overlapping flaps in the back so you can easily take them off to wash, swap, etc). The problem was that I didn't have any good fabric handy, or any idea of what feel I wanted.

So I'm wandering around Goodwill (I don't get to do that too often anymore since they moved far far away from my house! But I like to browse for treasures from time to time) when I see this adorable print... on a king-size flat sheet! I ended up finding two that I loved and couldn't wait to make projects with. In the picture above, the retro flower print pillow is made from the Goodwill sheet. The green and aqua one is fabric from Walmart. I carefully trial-and-errored my way through the first one, but the rest came pretty easy. I made two from the retro sheet on Saturday, then three more from the Walmart fabric this afternoon.

These little napkins / handkerchiefs are from that other sheet I found at Goodwill. It just shouted "SUMMER!" to me.

And ya know what the great part is? I still have TONS of fabric leftover from the sheets. So many ideas, so little time. Hopefully I'll have another fun crafty post for you soon. I'm super excited about making things, but it's so darn hot that I'm literally working in my own personal sweatshop. Standing over my hot iron, pressing hems is NO FUN but the end result is exciting enough to make it all worthwhile. :)

Want to come over for a crafting day? Send me a holler!