Vietnamazing: Crafting the Life Fantastic.

Calling it Quits

2010-07-04T10:35:00.002-04:00

I've had a realization. I don't want to blog anymore. The reasons are numerous, and mainly are these:

1. Not as many people are reading as I'd like. I know, it's not very mature of me. But it's important. I don't want to be blathering into the blogosphere for eleven readers. Especially since I've been blogging here for almost 4 years. That's pathetic. Blogging sort of feels egotistical to begin with, very self-analytically masturbatory, and if no one's reading, it's even worse.

2. It's just one more loose end that I feel like I'm ignoring. I'm doing so many great things, but even if I have a great time and whatever I'm doing is blog-worthy, I feel like a failure for not taking pictures, editing them, uploading, and blogging no more than 24 hours later. I'm having much more fun reading other people's blogs, anyway. I need less on my to-do list.

3. I'm losing touch with my real journal! Seriously, the last entry in it says... July 14th 2007. THREE YEARS AGO. Oh, help. Journaling consistently since the age of eleven is one of my proudest endeavors. I have all my journals. You can't "have" a blog on the shelf, unless you're lucky enough to get your blog published, and let's face it, my best writing is scattered here amongst the "oh, I haven't blogged in a month" hurried posts. Le sigh. (Just in case you were wondering, the real written entry from three years ago begins, "Well, its my day off and I had an awesome sleep-in-- it's now 10am and I've been reading for a little while.. Harry Potter 7 is coming out in 1 week and I want to be totally ready." Truly, words worth keeping for a lifetime, no?) But its true that a blog doesn't let you write about the real, real things you need to be writing about. The stuff at the back of your mind that really deserve reflection. Maybe one of the reasons I feel at odds with myself is the lack of proper journaling. We'll see.

So, I guess this is my good-bye post, for now. I can see myself starting another blog at some point in the future, maybe a little more focused. This one has run its course. Thank you for reading!

Home from the Honeymoon!

2010-06-25T10:53:00.003-04:00

And of course, thoroughly jetlagged. It wasn't hard at all to get used to LA time (see my extremely jazzed husband above, fresh off the plane with our rent-a-Cube), but for some reason as soon as we got on the plane to fly back to the East coast, all Kenny and I can do all day is sort of lamely lean our heads against the nearest wall and fall asleep. I'm babysitting this morning, so hopefully the natural exuberance that sheds from three girls will rub off on me.

A big post full of luscious pictures will be coming soon! For now, imagine you're high above the Valley, having hiked almost straight up the side of a dusty hill, and are now enjoying the cool breezes of Southern California that blow by "Ginger Rogers' Tree."

(again, crappy iPhone picture, but try to imagine how impressive this was in real life.)

We are so lucky to have this new restaurant!

2010-06-13T21:12:00.003-04:00

Today Kenny and I ran our big loop again (we estimate between 4.5 and 5 miles), and afterwards we swung by Friends Cafe in downtown Williamsburg, next to the library, for an iced coffee.

We walked in, though, and hey! The place has changed hands and is now called Koge. It's billed as Korean/Latin fusion and it. is. Amazing.

The space is clean and modern, with incredibly delicious sounding offerings, mainly Korean style but offered in a lot of choice ways. We weren't hungry yet, but couldn't walk away from all-of-a-sudden-here's-a-hip-new-eatery Korean fare, so we ordered a few different fresh veggie options, including the homemade kim chee (which was perfect, and we have high standards), the scallion green salad, and another crunchy, perfectly spiced dish simply called "pickled Asian slaw." We loved that it came in little black to-go boxes, which helps if you're trying to do some portion control and eat half your food later.

The guys who own and run the place, Sam and his cousin (Phil?), are frankly worried that without the college kids around, and being all of two blocks away from the tourist traffic, their yummy ship might sink. If you're planning on visiting Williamsburg or know anyone who is, or hey, if you live here, please go by on a lunch break and check them out. Sadly, what they have oodles of in menu planning, they seem to be lacking in PR. No web results, no signage, no Facebook page. What gives? Hopefully, the guys will pull things around and do a little more to get all those hoardes of hungry tourists out of the crowded coffee shops and into Koge.

Little tiny bits of honeymoons...

2010-06-09T22:48:00.003-04:00

A week after our wedding, Kenny and I went down to Portsmouth to see Michael Franti and Spearhead, whom I have loved since the 9th grade (that's 1996, people. 13 years of love). I befriended another hooper in the crowd and she whispered her intentions to me, "We are getting up on stage before the end of the night!" Some girls just manage to get up on stage. Or backstage. I've never been one of those girls, but there have been times that I've latched on to those girls at just the right moment. (See also: freshman year of college, in Philly at the Free Mumia rally, wherein I manage to hang out in Wavy Gravy's hotel room because I followed some friendly girl up there. Yeah, Wavy Gravy totally let us order room service for breakfast, and showed us his photo album. I remember his pajamas were a little bit on the see through side.) This lady was totally going to make it happen, I could see it in her eyes.

Well, despite the Spearhead show being sold out in Asheville, we arrived at the amphitheater in Portsmouth to see it literally half empty. Sad! But it made for fantastic hooping. I could be really close to the stage and still have enough room to show off and dance and have fun. After skipping after Michael as fast as I could on his several impromptu runs around the audience, rain sprinkling on all of our faces and the band playing their instruments scattered among us, I had the thought, this is enough. I don't need to get up on stage, because this is fun enough just as it is. Kenny and I had run 4 miles that morning for the first time (and still the only time, for me, pretty much) and I had on my big Vietnam boots and a strapless dress, and my arms were wet from the rain and the sweat. But then, only then, did the chance come to get up on stage (with the kiddies!) and hoop next to my brave new friend. I was using a hoop I'd never touched before that very second, as I had just sold the one I'd brought to some friendly drunk lady who kept lending it out and then asking me to help her find it again. Anyway, the chance came, I grabbed the nearest hoop I could find, and hauled my sweaty self up on stage. Here is how it all went down from there. (You can't really see me until about 2 minutes in.)

I have to say, again, that I was pretty slippery. That hoop wasn't getting much traction on my skin. And, hello, nervous! I forgot all my tricks. At one point I dropped the hoop and at another I accidentally launched it at the bouncers off stage. It was exciting to be up there, but all I could think about was not wanting to block the band. I thought we were maybe too far forward on the stage, and that we should really be behind the band. But the vainest part of me would like you to know that I'm really proud of the definition in my upper back! I had no idea you could see my shoulder blades until I watched this.

After the show, we scored backstage passes to go meet & greet with the band. Michael Franti said he remembered me from the last time I saw them, at the Orange Peel in Asheville several years ago, and I'll just believe him because that would be a dream come true. We did share a bottle of water, after all... And I had just finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land and i remember thinking, "oh, god, we're water brothers now! This is awesome!" Anyway... I'm glad Kenny was there this time, and that we got to chit chat with Michael Franti. An awesome mini-honeymoon. Next week we're going to LA for the first time, for a whole week. Hooray!

Sneak peek: ceremony shots!

2010-05-26T21:17:00.003-04:00

We don't have our "pro" shots yet, but there's a steady stream of awesome pictures rolling in from friends & family. Here are a few I couldn't help but share:

Beautiful bridesmaids, in my favorite colors.

My Mom's homemade jam: favors for our guests.

Seated guests wait patiently and watch the York River roll by.

I can't believe how gorgeous everything was when it all came together. I truly love our wedding. More pictures to come!

Oh, so priceless is this vacuum.

2010-05-26T20:44:00.002-04:00

(K & I "registered" for cash & gift cards, since our lives are so full of stuff already). One material thing we really did need for ourselves was a good vacuum cleaner, so last night we took our Target cards, pooled them together, and got:

Ohhh, yes. It does amazing things to our apparently nasty carpeting. Oh, the hairballs this thing picked up! And it's so tiny and light. I love it. It reattaches to itself in a number of clever ways, so no additional hoses/attachments/junk needed to clutter up the corners of the living room. It needs no bag, which is enough to sell me on it right there. The filters are HEPA certified (or something) and you just rinse them out every few months. Improves your air quality and whatnot. But the best thing about it...

...is that Kenny likes it so much, he was vacuuming as I walked in the door from work this evening. He continued pushing the thing around the apartment, commenting with a mixture of fascination and horror at all the crud it was so easily picking up. And then, then, he sat me down for a new vacuum orientation.

I love this vacuum.

Wedding prep: what our iPhones caught

2010-05-26T18:19:00.011-04:00

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. I am so excited for many reasons, the most of which being that I finally have caught up on enough sleep to make me feel like blogging! It was rough, y'all, but it was equally rough on all of our little worker bees [including, but not limited to, braidesmaids, significant others of bridesmaids, groomsmen, significant others of groomsmen, siblings, significant others of siblings, assorted parents and step parents], and we were all sleep deprived together. Our wedding prep-fest turned out to be a delightful, albeit stressful at times, five day extravaganza of prepping, shopping, assembling, partying, and sleep deprivation. Let's document from the beginning, shall we?

Wednesday: people begin arriving. We make a giant curry and stir-fry at night and play Hoopla. Sadly, no pictures exist from this night, as we were all too excited to be together after so much time apart. People roll in from Vermont, LA, Asheville, Brooklyn, Portland, JAPAN (!), and Charlotte.

Thursday: dress shopping and primping with the bridesmaids; creepy cookout with the worker bees in the dark (we rented a time share for all of our out-of-town guests to play in, which had a tiny grill way off in an adjoining field). The parents escape to the breathtaking North River Inn in Gloucester to bond. The kids show their stripes by hosting a midnight feast of grilled veggies and shrimp (mmm). We kick off the first of several nights in the giant hot tub that also came with the time share.

Friday: insane rush of activity. I have a few Bridezilla-type moments, but am comforted by the fact that everyone is working their arses off. Escape to The Ceremony Site with stage manager and officiant, to plot and plan. Bring parents along. They are much comforted by the site, which makes me feel like a responsible kid. Airport pickups ensue, completing the gang. Quick run to the gym to pick up sports equipment, and by a quirk of fate, also run into my flower girl & her mama, who just arrived in town. Afternoon finds us prepping the jams my Mom canned for wedding favors, and then all the girls are off to get pedicures. Rehearsal dinner starts at 8:00pm. I arrive with my entourage at 8:30. We all learn how to throw pizza dough and write words with our toppings. There are toasts, and a talk-through of the ceremony plans. The thirty-two of us don't leave Florimonte's deli until close to 11pm. Return to time share to roll 40 sushi rolls for guests to nibble. Kenny is kidnapped by groomsmen, given Jaeger Bombs, and is given a stranger's stylish fedora at a bar. The men return to our apartment around 1am, and spend the next hour declaring their heartfelt love for each other, until the girls break it up to finally get some sleep. Kenny and I remember that our vows are as yet unwritten, and take a few minutes to remedy the situation. Finally asleep by 3am or so.

Saturday: Run the Wedding Day 5k with 5 people total. Up at 7am, but great success! Faster than before, no stopping, lots of talking and cat-calling to people on the sidewalks. Homemade t-shirts and a cheap veil are worn by all. Hooting and hollering and congrats follow us down Duke of Gloucester street. Afterwards, we all depart to shower. My maids come over, we play dress up for an hour, then go to the show. And after all that, with sparkling eyes and clean clothes, we begin...

... actual wedding content to follow!

This made me laugh so hard today...

2010-05-15T01:00:00.003-04:00

This post on CakeWrecks made me laugh so hard today. (Click over to the link; the text is funnier than the pictures, but you need to see them together.)

Also, I loved Iron Man II. And more also, tomorrow morning Kenny & I are going to try to run a 5k around downtown Williamsburg-- that we also want to do on the morning of our wedding. Wedding Day 5k! Who's in?! Don't worry, we'll all be done in time to shower before sprucing up.

Oh, and also: INSPIRATION.

2010-05-13T23:40:00.001-04:00

Well, you can't win 'em all.

2010-05-13T22:22:00.002-04:00

Okay, so one day last week I ran a mile twice at the gym (one before my Zumba class, and one after), and yesterday morning I ran my fastest mile so far (9:34)-- which is not all that fast in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like hard work-- and I worked out with my trainer yesterday evening, but have gotten zero exercise besides those things. Also, there may or may not have been some very splurgy meals, calorie wise. (They may or may not be happening pretty much every time I open my mouth at this point.) But while I was busy making poor food choices and not going to the gym, I managed to:

- make a giant To Do list of wedding things with Kenny, which is going to rule our free time from now til next Saturday,
- use said To Do list to go get lots of little errands done
- babysit at least 3 hours every day (that's a sweet little one I sit for in the morning up there, graciously modeling for my 1st Hipstamatic app shot)
- clean both of our cars
- get almost all of the laundry done (it's tough when you have the smallest and also the loudest washing machine in the city)
-drive to Charlotte and take my Mom & brother out to a combo Mother's day/ 27th bday meal
- oh yeah, and go to LEAF.

Check out these boutonnieres, eh? And bridesmaids' bouquets! They may not look very professional (and the picture is quite crappy), but they're pretty close to what I had pictured in my mind, and the total cost of materials (with plenty left over) was $12.68. The Williamsburg Pottery is officially the weirdest place I have ever been, but they really come through for you with the cheap deals on incredibly random things. There will be plenty of more weird wedding-related Pottery purchases in future posts, I assure you. Oh, and you can camp there in your tent for $16/night. You know, just in case you're coming to the wedding...

90 minutes of cardio later...

2010-04-29T22:27:00.002-04:00

Okay. I sweated through Parks & Recreation, the Office, and 30 Rock. 60 minutes on the elliptical, 30 on the bike. Kept my heart rate in the green zone. Because I had a microderm appointment today, my face felt like it was sweating Sriratcha sauce. I drank a liter of water while I was at it.

Maybe tomorrow I can avoid the drama and just walk away from the treats. Seriously, why put myself (and any blog readers I have left) through that nonsense? It's a heck of a lot easier, I imagine, to type "great day today! had willpower. worked out. going to bed now."

At least that last part is true. And I have a session with my trainer in 11 hours. Good night!

The longer you run away, the longer it'll take you to get back to where you started.

2010-04-29T18:34:00.003-04:00

[warning: rant ahead. I need to figure some stuff out and be held accountable for my actions.]

Upset
I actually need to change that to a responsible pronoun: The longer I run away, the longer it'll take me to get right back here where I'm standing. Here's the difference between someone who loses weight and then gains it all back, and a person who does not gain it all back: stopping yourself. It's the hardest thing I can imagine right now. I have a huge hurdle that I'm dealing with right now, the hurdle that comes when I've "fallen off the wagon" or "had a cheat day" or whatever your other dieting friends call it. Gone "off program" is one of my faves from Weight Watchers, as if when I'm being good I'm following some sort of internal robotic program and it's as easy as following steps 1, 2, and 3. It is never easy, people. So I was all set to blithely continue on this numbing two-day binge that started with the nasty leftover pizza squares I was handing out to the after schoolers and that has included 3 brownies, a gigantic chocolate peanut butter muffin, more pizza, more cheddar cheese squares than i care to think about, pita with cream cheese, Cheez its, Dove dark chocolates, an entire tin of wasabi almonds, and countless string cheese sticks. I started running away. But I'm hungry, I said to myself when I had eaten the day's allotment of calories, and doesn't hunger justify my actions? Don't I deserve to eat anything I want? And then begins the slippery slope of crazy irrational rationalizing. I think of my naturally slim friends and think, "well, she wouldn't think twice. She'd just eat it. La la la, I can be carefree and skinny and just eat like she does!" This is the grown up equivalent of a first grader sticking her fingers in her ears and running away from whoever is talking to her. It doesn't work. I have to claw my way back again, because I do care. Like it or not, I am someone who has to watch what she eats and exercise all the time. I can't pretend not to be. Or rather, I can definitely pretend not to be, and then I can be back at 191 lbs and feel terrible and guilty and ugly again. And trust me, I know, I know-- it's not that fat = ugly, it's that my ignoring what i know I need to do = me feeling like a terribly irresponsible and weak person for not buckling down and doing it already. Continuing to eat like i was, long into the time when I had realized I needed to turn my habits around, now that felt weak.

Calming Down
Okay. So. This has been a 2+ year journey. It's been a lifelong journey. But I've been writing down my foods, counting calories, weighing in weekly (sometimes daily) for more than two years now, but with a few "la la la" fingers-in-my-ears blackout periods. Here is one thing I am learning from this: no matter how good it will taste, no matter how comforting and numbing it is to stuff myself silly, no matter how much fun it would be to just not have to think about it all the time, I just can't take the guilt. The weight on my shoulders, no pun intended, that I carry knowing the only thing that made me mess up was me. My brain. It's like I'm experimenting with responsible eating: let's see if the world notices if I sneak away and wolf this entire thing down. Did my pants immediately rip at the seams? No? Hmm... okay, let's have another one. Now let's see what happens when i write down my calories, think before I bite, and just say no to the junk food. Did my pants automatically grow too loose and fall away from my gorgeous flat stomach? No? Hmm... screw this. Why am I so enamored with the instantaneous results? They do not exist. I am the sum of all my small decisions. Right now I am stuffed full of mediocre sushi and stir fry, which I ate to try to make myself feel better after the gigantic muffin. At 1pm today I had already eaten the day's calories, and I told myself I would stop there and not eat anything else until after my evening gym session (at which point I could have just gone to sleep, I was sure, because it really does work for me sometimes to just stop eating after lunch and let myself digest all day. Seriously, and trust me, I'm not anorexic at all, I have a very slow metabolism). Of course I didn't stop there, even though I had my gum and my water and my White Strips and my knitting (all trusted fallbacks to keep my mouth & hands busy), but something happened. Hmm. What happened? I was feeling a little stressed during afterschool, but I started my "binge" (what i call thoughtless eating) before the kids even showed up. Hmm. I need to do some emotional sleuthing to figure out the why.

Assessing the next step
Because I know I often fall prey to the "all or nothing" school of thought, I knew what I would try to do: i sat myself down on the couch with the bowl of dark chocolates, got out a DVD, and settled down to continue the binge. Then i went onto my Google Reader, saw that shrinkinginthecity had posted, and sighed. Because I knew that whatever she had written would begin to bring me back to the land of the thinking, and sure enough, what she wrote inspired me to start this post and journal it through. Thanks, girl. You're such a valuable voice, even though I think you've reached your goal already and for the love of god you are 20 years old and a size four and you can run eight miles at a time so please just enjoy your dinners out in Manhattan!!! But it's not my journey, it's hers, and I know she'll settle in a happy place soon. And just because this post is not long enough already, sheesh, here is what I read just now that helped me make up my mind to-- wait for it-- GO TO THE GYM TONIGHT ANYWAY, EVEN WITH TWO DAYS WORTH OF CRUD IN MY BELLY:

Pauline Nordin | Wednesday, 28 April 2010

- If you dream about having a perfect body it’s time to stop dreaming and act on making the dream come true. Every
day. It means you will not be a member of the “I occasionally visit the gym” crowd anymore, you will team up with the
loyal league of gym rats who are the gym franchises worst customers because we USE their equipment HARD. When
you want to get lean so you can feel your abs under your shirt you will need to treat the cardio machine like your car:
it will TAKE you places.

- Getting a perfect body means you will go to the gym and workout because you planned it. If you don’t feel like it, it
does not matter. You know you cannot love every workout and it’s ok. It’s ok and mandatory to be a bit worn out from
time to time, it’s just a sign you are working hard.

- Getting lean means stepping out of the comfort zone where it’s ok to cheat during weekends and work your way up
again during the following week.

- To reach your goals you must accept you will need patience. You will need dedication. You will need discipline.
None of them you can find anywhere to buy. Can you imagine, the only things really stopping you from achieving all
those goals with your physique are inside your mind?

- Accept and acknowledge that YOU are the only one who can whip your butt in shape. No trainer can push you
through workout after workout, you must be the driving force, the trainer your helper. Not the other way around.

- You will need to create your own super human. Your super human YOU. There are no excuses, nothing is too hard,
it’s only a matter of how much you want it. Do you want it enough? Ask yourself daily. When you see that donut or
cookie on the shelf, before you just drool away, ask yourself if that taste of it for a minute is worth 3 more cardio
sessions on top of your daily routine of double sessions 5 to 6 days a week?

Feeling Better
(Is anyone still reading this?!) Okay. You know what? I had a bad two days. It happens. Here's what I can do: I can go get some exercise, because even if I can't burn off the calories I know that the endorphins and the sweat will help me think more rationally about it all and give me some perspective. I can congratulate myself on how far I've come (I mean, 158?! When I left for the Folk School I was 175! I remember writing in my journal and warning myself, "when you get down to 170, you'll start feeling that hunger every day, but do not succumb!" Now I can't imagine how I let myself get up to 170, let alone the miserable 190 I was at before). Also, i have fabulous motivation directly ahead of me, because LEAF is next weekend! I'll be twirling and whirling and sweating in the most luxuriously fun community that I know of, to the Duhks and Lift Ticket (yay yay yay) and on the very same dance floor where i first learned to contra in 1999. Oh my god, i am so ready to be there. Plus, Ozomotli, the Sim Redmond band, local pals Sol Driven Train and Rising Appalchia, plus Ken's favorite, the Blind Boys of Alabama-- all while camping there with friends and enjoying being back in western NC. This is going to be a great week! It's all leading up to LEAF! Now I want to go exercise and eat right! Thanks for taking this frighteningly bipolar journey with me tonight. I'm going to go change into my biker shorts. :)

Ahhh, Sunday.

2010-04-25T18:44:00.004-04:00

(This is my "I can't believe you haven't finished knitting yourself yet!" face. Apparently my shawl was uninterested in being proactive while I was busy knitting entrelac hats for no reason at all.)

After going on wedding-related errands like crazy most of the day Saturday, and most of today as well, Ken and I are finally plopped down on the couch to cuddle up with our Hulu queues (Dr. Who for him, Community & 30 Rock for me). And of course, this means knitting time. Hooray! But it's the wedding shawl that calls out-- only 4 weeks left, and the little guy is still pretty little. Bah humbug. Will it ever end?

Wedding Dress Wednesday: 4 weeks to go

2010-04-23T13:25:00.004-04:00

I guess I decided to do this WDW every other week, because seriously, how much change can you expect to see in 7 days? Since the last one was at T-6 weeks, here's how things are shaping up at T-4. (It's a Flickr set).

One special picture that I gave a whirl this week is the flexing shot:

Just because, hey! I see some definition! Yay! I haven't been as sore as I thought I'd be, working out w/ a personal trainer 3x a week, so I'm thinking about doing more basic pushups/pullups on my own on the days in between. Another update in 2 weeks or so, and then actual wedding posts!

(oh yeah, and the dress? It's actually sort of loose in the belly region. Holy bananas.)

Williamsburg... for the win!?

2010-04-17T21:50:00.002-04:00

Tonight was a bizarrely satisfying night out-- and we never went further than a mile from our new apartment. We moved from the grad student ghetto to Condo Land (well, Kenny moved us while I was still at the Folk School), and I returned to find all of our belongings in shiny, new(er) surroundings. We live on an extremely quiet, rarely active courtyard with beautiful flowering trees at pleasingly irregular intervals. We have wall to wall carpet (a sad thing, since I much prefer wood or cork floors) and assigned parking spaces. Condo Land is just between Cracker Barrel and Golden Coral. It is somewhere I never, ever pictured myself living but I'm trying not to be a conceded hipster and wishing my surroundings were more eclectic. Instead, I'm being grateful for it exactly the way it is, and tonight was a grand time in our new neighborhood.

We can walk to a gigantic, jungle-themed mini golf course called Pirate's Cove, located conveniently by Kmart. It was a shockingly chilly night, but it sort felt good to be that cold after our summer-esque hot week last week. I'd almost forgotten the horror of winter, of hugging yourself to keep warm and stamping your frozen, slow-moving feet, but tonight I had on flip flops and shorts and it was a little distracting to be shivering while putting, as you can imagine. Not that I blame the cold for my seriously piss poor golf game. I mean sheesh, I thought I sucked at bowling! Anyway, It was just so surreal to be standing on the side of a fake mountain, on a bridge made of rope and planks above dyed-blue water, where the most swollen, obese-looking carp loll by the banks of the astroturf. Plus, sucking at mini golf is okay, I've decided. Kenny is such a cheerful winner, it's hard to wish him any ill will or regret his triumph.

[5 minutes later] Okay, Hulu is back on in the background and I've lost my train of thought. I think the point was, Kenny and I were pleased to have been enjoying ourselves in Williamsburg on a Saturday night. Not that we've had bad times, it just seems like there's not much to do here at night if you're not into drinking at sports bars. Every once in awhile we go to something fun at the college (like a step show, or a movie on the green), but most of the time it's the standard dinner & a movie or staying in. It's great for saving money. I miss Asheville so much, but I realize every day how many things I appreciate about Williamsburg. The addition of Trader Joe's into my life, for example, has been quite fun. An amazing local yarn store, beautiful and plentiful biking/running trails, a train station I can actually walk to, and lots of fun-for-the-family type weekend events in Colonial downtown, which are free and at least provide interesting people-watching opportunities. Not to mention the Montessori school community that so enriches my life every day. Oh, and our tiny Farmer's market is mostly seafood and baked goods, and in the height of summer we get some nice looking organic produce (and the goat cheese guy is there every single time without fail). It's not a bad life at all, for now.

Also good are our few but fantastic friends here in Williamsburg (and Newport News- hi Daniel! We're planning something. Plans to be revealed at the Jefferson lab tour). My mission is to spend way more time with local friends this year, and now that I'm not in grad school anymore I think that I will. We started by running into Cal and Wendy at the farmer's market this morning. Wonder if I can turn that into a streak?

And thus ends my random but heartfelt babblings on Williamsburg. Thanks for reading. :)

Just a quick bit of inspiration...

2010-04-13T10:33:00.002-04:00

Today is my birthday! But we really celebrated this past weekend, what with driving to Charleston, eating as many scallops and shrimp-and-grits as we could find, and contra dancing to Notorious (and Anna's Bananas) all weekend. We took as much time away from the dance as we felt like, walking around the historic downtown area, eating (x 1,000), and walking on the beach.

I'm almost done "moving in" to our apartment. There are certainly some beautiful little spots that I want to show off. But for now, enjoy this great post about how to make gorgeous tie-dyed eggs (would have been better if I found this before Easter). But these are so pretty, it would be fun to do any time.

My birthday is sooon!

2010-04-09T12:38:00.002-04:00

When I was little, my favorite cake was "rainbow chip." This is a boxed cake mix that I believe you can still buy- just a vanilla cake mix with multicolored mini "chocolate" chips (99% artificially colored and flavored, I'm sure), with rainbow sprinkle frosting. I can still taste it, even now...

But all I want for my birthday this year are Trader Joe's gift cards. They're so useful, and helpful, and I can buy everything we need there, except for rainbow chip cakes, which let's face it, I no longer need.

Kenny and I are off to Charleston, SC for Bug Stomp (a huge contra dance weekend with reportedly one of the best bands ever, Notorious, who I have never seen before). Dancing, sunshine, seafood! Hooray!

The winds of change are blowing (pollen)

2010-04-07T16:12:00.004-04:00

Back in Williamsburg! There's a fine layer of green dust all over everything. So, because I am officially not living at the Folk School anymore, I need to change the title of this blog, and the description as well. I'll need to ruminate on that for a bit. Speaking of the description, it says, I write about knitting, teaching, weight loss, Montessori, crafts in general, dancing all over the place, and the process of planning a wedding when you're both "not wedding people." The weight-loss talk has been mysteriously absent, has it not?

So here's a yay for you: I managed to move to the Folk School, land of EAT ALL THE TIME, and HERE, HAVE SOME MARGARINE, and come away about 12 lbs. lighter than when I arrived. Now, don't get me wrong: the food is amazing, most of the time. I could think of way worse fates than to have to eat there for the rest of eternity. Also, don't get me wrong about the losing weight while being there thing, as it was probably just my muscles atrophying from only doing handwork for six months (but my fingers are lookin' good). Now that I'm back home and going to the gym again, it will be interesting to see if my weight goes up or down. I officially have 12.8 more pounds to lose before I'm at my goal weight, but to tell you the truth, at this point it's way more important to me that I am toned. I started this weight loss journey on January 1st, 2008 at 191 lbs. This morning I was 162.8. Most of the charts I've found have 150 as being the most a woman my height should weigh, so that's what I'm going for.

Once a week for the next 6 weeks, I'll be documenting the progress I'm trying to make on Ye Olde Batwing Problem. Ahoy, here is the first installment (yes, that is my wedding dress!).

It's my last night in the Keith House.

2010-04-03T01:40:00.003-04:00

This is the face of a woman at ease with her own small place in the world.

All is quiet, save for the distant whispering giggles of the workstudies getting ready for bed above me. I smell like woodsmoke and my mouth tastes like pomegranate wine from the Ingles in Murphy (Murphingles, in case you keep track of these things). I am in love with my life here. Usually, I'm ready for the next adventure by the time I end my current one. It's one of my strengths: always able to look forward, shunning endings, planning the what's-to-be. But this time... I don't know. Brasstown is different. I felt so full here. People listen. We are all singer/songwriters. We go from place to place to see the same faces, but so readily greet new ones. I walked miles in the dark here, on my own, and made an honest name for myself. I had good work to do, and I mostly did it. And like it or not, it's time for the next adventure.

I'm sort of mourning the end of my Folk School self. But I'm so, so glad I got to be her for awhile.

Hey! Hi!

2010-03-30T22:08:00.001-04:00

I've been blogging over at the official Folk School blog this week. Click on over to hear from me & Charley!

Almost a quilt...

2010-03-26T09:28:00.002-04:00

Remember this quilt-in-progress from the end of January? It has a pretty cool story to go along with it. Basically, I was working as fast as I could to get the front and back pieced together by the end of the class, but i had no idea what I was going to have to do to it next to turn it into an actual quilt. I was sort of timidly asking the ladies in class, "so how in the world does this whole thing come together?" and they were telling me that I'd pretty much need to either send it off to be quilted (which I had just learned was different from piecing) or that I'd need to purchase a fancy machine to do all the quilting myself. (Or do it by hand, at home, and have the quilt done about when I'd be expecting grandchildren. My own grandchildren.)

To my utter surprise, on the second to last day a woman who had been sitting on the opposite side of the classroom, far from my plight, came over and said that she was a professional quilter, and that as a wedding present she would like to take my front and back and quilt them for me. For free. And she would provide the batting. And it would be done before I left the Folk School. Hello, amazing!

She proved true to her word and a great quilter as well. I've had the quilt back for almost a month now, and have been working on it just here and there. I just finished hand stitching the binding last night. I'm going to gently wash it in the machine to soften it up a bit, and then I'll post the big reveal! Stay tuned!

Spinning and Dyeing

2010-03-25T09:06:00.004-04:00

I wanted to show you the amazing colors we were able to get out of various vegetable matter last week in Martha Owen's "Sheep to Shawl" class.

(results of our dyestuffs, from the top, going clockwise: lichens, onion skins, osage orange sawdust, copper pipe in ammonia, indigo over osage, indigo over onion skin, straight indigo, indigo over cochineal, plain old cochineal, madder, walnut shells. The center is what we started with.)

I've been to various Sheep to Shawl competitions, just as a bystander, and had a general idea of the order of things before I signed up for this class. What I really wanted to get out of it was spinning experience, and luckily for me, that was one of the main focuses. Because it's still 6 weeks too early to shear here, we used several fleeces that Martha had lying around. We learned how to wash raw fleece, and pick out all the bits of hay and poop and separate the curls into fluff, and wash it again, and pick it and dry it again, and then we learned how to card and/or comb and when its appropriate to do one method as opposed to the other. Finally, I understand worsted vs. woolen spun! (Click here to see the Folk School's Official Blog posting on last week's Sheep to Shawl class.)

Here's everything I spun last week:

I'm super proud!

One thing I thought was incredibly useful was the dyepots' flexibility as far as being used more than once. For example, check out this cochineal: the dark fuchsia was from the first bath, and then we put more wool into the spent pot and soaked up the weaker dye, and behold! Pale pink! (which I immediately threw into an indigo pot, because, you know, pink. Ugh.)

And here's lichen, first and second go 'round:

I think those two would be really pretty spun together.

Also fun is playing with different dyepots for overdying purposes:

Beth brought us two bags of osage shavings from her woodturning class, and they yielded this neon YELLOW! shade that was too bright for all of us (save Elizabeth, who totally dug it). When you toss it into the indigo pot, you get green. Cool!

All in all, I loved spinning. I love that you can turn a giant pile of fluff into useable yarn, and that (in theory) you have so much control over what kind of yarn you're making. However, I do not want to be a hobby harlot, and I will forego a spinning wheel until I've at least gotten the new off of my rigid heddle loom (which at this rate, will take another three Christmases). But it's nice to know that I know how to spin, and that perhaps when I'm hanging around someone else's wheel I could use it.

Fell in love with a book

2010-03-22T19:53:00.003-04:00

Martha brought a bunch of yarny books with her to spinning wheel class last week, and I feel in love at once and completely with this book, A Symphony for the Sheep.

With Mary Azarian illustrations (swoon!) and an Irish author, how can you go wrong? I ordered it at once from Amazon (there are more! Go now!), and soon it shall be mine. Look out, future children, for I shall be reading it to you for decades to come.

Time flies when you're making beads, spinning yarn, and contra dancing...

2010-03-22T19:27:00.005-04:00

... I am so satisfied with my life lately. Sure, I haven't yet made myself get fit or wealthy, but I'm loving the fact that Spring is inevitable and that I'm this close to having successfully completed one of the most intense (and magical) periods of my life so far. Oh, the whole truth of the hosting experience won't be evident until some time has past, but I already know that I feel so full from being here. Want to see what I've been up to?

Click on over to my Flickr page.

Last weekend Niki, Charlotte, Robin, Jackie and I drove to Charlotte for Gypsy Meltdown, an amazing contra dance weekend. It was sunny and warm (!) and we packed a picnic, hoops, and our dancing shoes. The whole weekend was spent dancing ourselves into sweaty, blissful grinning piles of tiredness. The people were fantastic, I made new friends, got to dance in my favorite ways, taught some hooping in the sun, and topped it all off with late night crashing at my Mom & Step-dad's house (including 2am soaks in the wee hot tub). Ahhh!

Kenny has agreed with me that a perfect birthday weekend could include another contra weekend, so we are officially going to Bug Stomp in Charleston! Not only will I get to relive the amazingness of this past weekend, but I'll have my sweetheart with me as well, and we get to stay with our lovely friend Lilla, whose home I have not yet seen. Oh, and it's Charleston. In April. How good can life get?!

So now I'm back, and it's cold and snowing, and I have a million things I'd like to do this week (my last week of hosting). Blogging my past few classes is one of them.

Let the Banjar-makin' begin!

2010-02-28T21:02:00.002-05:00

What have I gotten myself into?

Way back last summer, before I even arrived at the Folk School, I got to pick out my three "silver bullet" classes and send them in to Kate, our registrar, who at that point I didn't even know. What must she have thought of me, this mysterious soon-to-be-host who picked out glass beads, a sheep to shawl class, and make your own fretless mountain banjo from an honest to god freshly skinned groundhog hide?

I'm so lucky to be marrying a man who can play just about any instrument he chooses to pick up, and even luckier that one of his favorites to pick up is the banjo. My grandpa played banjo, loudly, crowing out "You Are My Sunshine" to the front porches of his upstate New York neighborhood. My step-Dad rocked the banjo all through college in a South Carolina bluegrass band, and now he drives long distances to meet back up with those same guys and have jam weekends. A banjo being played clawhammer style, especially on an old time tune in a minor key, has got to be one of my favorite sounds in the world. So of course I wanted to be in John Huron's banjo making class.

The class starts tonight, and so far we've picked out our wood blanks (I chose walnut with a cherry center ring) and learned how to skin a groundhog. The closeups are on Flickr here and here, but I wanted to keep the front page of the blog relatively guts-free, so click on over if you're fascinated (I am!).

The little bit of knitting I have managed to eke out...

2010-02-28T20:56:00.003-05:00

... amongst the quilting and the felting and the endless hand sewing going on around here, I managed to cast on for the long pined for mate of my sampler mitten, made way back in Martha Owen's Fair Isle class. (In my excitement to finish the first one in time for the student exhibit, I cast off the thumb at least a half inch too short, so technically the first one isn't done, either. But at least now there are (almost) two of them.

My week in Blacksmithing has come to an end.

2010-02-26T18:58:00.002-05:00

When I first arrived at the Folk School I was excited about trying my hand at the forge, but then I promptly came down with a sinus infection and it seemed like a bad idea to be in the middle of a soot and smoke cloud for a week. All of a sudden months had gone by, and I realized that if I wanted to try, I'd better get in a class quick. Luckily for me there were several spots open in Susan Hutchinson's class, and she is awesome! It turns out I really, really liked being sooty all week. (I also learned that I really like operating a drill press). On the pro side of blacksmithing: I made so many things that I've wanted for a long time, and also my grey work pants and I have bonded. On the con side: I see so much coal when I blow my nose that I wonder if I'll end up with black lung. Also, I burned my hand a few times, but that's no big deal.

Here's my end-of-the-week haul!

We all made a sweet pair of barbecue skewers as our 1st night intro project:

Then I moved on to racks of hooks. This was my main goal in taking the class. My FMIL (future mother-in-law) Patty has an awesome iron rack of hooks on which all her necklaces are hung. I'll fess up to having coveted it for years. Rather than continue to stroke it every Thanksgiving break, I made my own, with twelve hooks on it. (In the photo at the top of this entry, it's the curvy rack with, well, the twelve hooks). Then I made a mini version for our keys, to be hung near the front door. Here's the key rack, ready for assembly:

And here it is, all neatly put together and oiled.

(excuse the iPhone pic).

A detail that I really like from the jewelry rack:

Here's the next rack I made, with bigger hooks, intended for our coffee cups and to be hung near the kettle.

I really love that it curves out from the wall. I can't wait to see what our mugs look like on it!

I ended up making another rack late last night, because I had so many extra hooks left over. (I also really liked making hooks. Who doesn't?) The whole week I had been hammering my steel by hand, as well as building a coal-burning fire in my forge by hand. Susan and a few of the more experienced students in class had fired up a propane forge and were also using a gigantic, scary-looking hammering machine (I'm sorry I don't know what it actually is called), and they were getting their work done super fast. So I tried making this last rack in the propane forge and hammering it with the hydraulic machine. Here's the difference:

(hand hammered is on the left, machined is on the right).

One of the less obvious benefits to using the propane forge is that no matter how long you keep your steel in the fire, it will not burn. Somehow the forge only gets hot enough to make your piece glow, but it will never spark (bad) or burn (very very bad). Huh. So yeah, there are some burn marks on all my other pieces. But I also really like the hammer marks that a human makes. They're both good methods, and I'm glad I learned both.

The very last project I completed was a pair of brackets for a shelf. This was tough because a) it was the biggest steel I had used and b) I needed them to match almost perfectly. Here they are, in progress and then at the exhibit:

So, any blacksmith who is reading this has probably already said to themselves, "oh, she totally cheated. Those (small) hooks are horseshoe nails!" And it is true. For the small hooks that I used on three of the racks, I used horseshoe nails instead of cutting round or square stock (long bars of metal). This, I have heard, is blacksmith cheating. However, my racks are so pleasing that I do not mind at all having "cheated." I mean, I still had to heat them correctly and pound out the heads and curl the tails and shape the hooks! And drill the holes (squee!). It was a lot of work for a beginner.

(Horseshoe nail as god intended, and after being manipulated by a cheating cheater).

All in all I'm super glad I got to take blacksmithing, and am glad I took it from Susan. By the end of the week I was starting to see how addicting it could get. I do miss my nice soft yarns, though. And fabric. It's hard to burn yourself on yarn.

Boots in progress

2010-02-25T14:20:00.002-05:00

Remember these boots from last month? Here's a WIP shot of how they're coming along...

Eventually, the buttons are going to run all the way up the outside of each boot. It's an awful lot of hand sewing, and I have so many other things to work on that I'm rarely motivated to sit down with needle and thread and a lap full of wool. But I guess I'd better finish them soon, or it'll be way too warm to wear them!

Did I tell you about crochet class?

2010-02-25T13:49:00.003-05:00

In high school, I definitely thought crochet kicked knitting's butt. I made my brother Aaron a series of ill-fitting crocheted beanies (too thick, too short, rather like a puffy yarmulke) and my Aunt Glo and rather terrifying scarf that I'd rather not even describe here. Then college hit and my dorm buddies reminded me how to execute a few basic knitting skills, and my costume teacher Martha lent me a set of double points and I never looked back. My crochet skills were only the tiniest bit revived when I co-taught the Montessori crafts camp with Cindy, a famous crocheter (I just love those two words together).

So when I had the chance to take a crochet class aimed partly at knitters who wanted to branch out, I was very excited. Deb, our teacher, had a slew of project choices for us, each of which would help us get the hang of certain skills. Our first project that we all did together was a felted box. (Hey, all this time I've been swearing that Lamb's Pride is the best basic worsted weight yarn for felting, and it turns out, it's actually Cascade 220. Huh!)

After boxes, we branched out into washcloths (mine is a shell stitch):

and granny squares (I didn't spend much time on mine because I want to do one of those amazingly humongous granny square blankets made with some yarn that has long color repeats, like Noro or Mini Mochi or Tie-Dye).

Then I went stash diving and came up with the perfect half-skein of gorgeous Brooks' Farm Primero, 100% kid mohair, that Meg sold me at the yarn swap last year. This was the perfect project: done by the end of the class, used up almost exactly the amount of yarn that I had, required no counting or pre-planning. Done. I love it!

Darn!

2010-02-22T17:39:00.002-05:00

Double darn!

I guess this is the Universe's way of letting me know that while blacksmithing is nice and all, I should be working on learning how to darn socks. Sigh...

I'm off to check the Ravelry forums for helpful hints and/or video tutorials.

A very overdue post about my Felting Class: how to make a felt hat from roving

2010-02-21T17:02:00.003-05:00

Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to score a spot in Carla Owen's class on felt-making, using resists to felt things in the round. In the back of the room there were two tables covered in gigantic balls of wool (wound out of long strips of merino wool, the primary wool we'd be using that week). Under the table were boxes and boxes of domestic breeds, all in natural un-dyed colors. Heaven!

Our first project was a hat. We all started with the same exact size and shape. The size was determined by the resist, which is made out of that kind of thick yet flexible material you might cover chairs in a diner with. carla knew the shrinkage rate for merino (40%), so had made a resist that was 40% bigger than our actual hat was supposed to end up. Of course, since it's felt we're making, lots of different sized hats could come from the same size resist, because if you have a bigger head you could stop felting earlier, and if you needed it smaller you could just keep going. It was so interesting to see all the different types of hats that the class made, just from felting at different rates and on different areas of our hats! Several friends of mine have asked how I made the hat, so Ashley and Jenna, this one's for you!

So how exactly do you go about actually making a resist felted object? First of all, we worked on screens. Just a roll of nylon screen, the type you'd use for a window. We first placed a paper pattern that was a little bit wider than the resist on the table and put the screen over it, and then laid out three layers of roving, in loose tufts, with the first layer laid out horizontally, the next layer with the fibers running vertically, and the final layer horizontally again. Then we put the resist down on top of the wool, and did another three layers just like the first, but on top of the resist. Because the paper pattern we used was slightly wider than the resist, the layers of wool overlapped at the edges (except the bottom edge, of course, which is the opening), and we encouraged that overlapping by using our fingertips to splash a little water on the edges and sort of glue them in place so that they curved around each other.

Once all the layers are in place, we put another piece of screen on top and sort of basted them together with a running stitch of twine, stitching as close to the wool as possible. This proved to be very helpful, as the secureness of the screen sandwich helped all the wool stay in place while we rubbed it like crazy with soapy hands. (This class was very exfoliated by the end of the first day). Also, as you start to felt the hat, the edges will start to pull away from the stitched outline you made, which shows you just how far you've come.

Felting step one: sprinkle your project with water. Step two: rub the screen with a bar of natural, old fashioned soap. Steps three through three hunded and three: agitate. Rub up and down, side to side, ball that sucker up (once it's all started turning into felt, of course) and squoosh the hell out of it. Keep on agitating it until you feel like it's pretty solid, and then cut your stitching off the screens, toss the screens aside, and reach your hands into the hat and work just the seams. They are delicate! But they get nice and strong really fast once you start working them from inside and out at the same time. Here's a picture of my hat, with the resist still inside, before I started working the seams.

Once the seam is strong all the way around, you're done with the resist! Now it's time to put it on your head and take a silly "before" picture, so you can remember just how big and floppy it once was.

I'm so proud of my hat. It's exactly what I was after, in size, color, shape, and everything. I wore it in my Morris Dance class this weekend and it was just perfect. Total success!

Later in Carla's class I attempted to make an oversized "mountaineer" hat, like a moonshiner's hat, from a pattern left behind by legendary Canadian host and blacksmith Matt Jenkins. He even wrote on the pattern, "Matt's Big-ass Hat". I felted it too quickly in width and not fast enough in length, so it's crazy tall. Fortunately, Conway my co-host tried it on and it looks perfect on him! He wore it during our Morris presentation and it looked so nice, I said he could keep it. Happy trails, big-ass hat!

Our stomping gets featured on the Folk School Blog

2010-02-02T23:48:00.003-05:00

Here is a nifty little write-up from recent birthday girl Emolyn Liden who co-taught the weekend clogging class a few weekends ago.

Suh-weet!

Class re-cap: Quilting with Mary Lou Weidman

2010-01-29T14:01:00.003-05:00

The final week of our three Advanced Weeks culminated with a dilemma: my first two choices were full, and since my life's skill set has been cultivated to be spread as widely and diversely as possible, I really was not advanced enough to be in anything. I reckoned that Quilting was a safe bet, as I've had one weekend quilting class, and have been working on that hand-sewn English Paper Piecing project, and oh yes, I spent about 5 years of my life sewing garments in high school and university theatre costume departments.

What I didn't know about the quilting class was that it was being taught by a very famous quilter (Mary Lou Weidman) who has a very distinct style, and most of the other students in her class had been in other classes of hers and knew exactly what to expect. I was the complete opposite! I showed up thinking I was going to make a functional, washable quilt, and Mary Lou had planned the week to be sort of an art-quilt/ story-quilt wall hanging type of class. Oops. Luckily for me, Mary Lou and her assistant Kathy came prepared to help all of the students achieve their own goals, and when I said I'd rather make a useable quilt, they were totally fine with it. So the rest of the class was doing really intense applique stuff, and I was piecing an invention of Mary Lou's, called... wait for it... "Hoochy Mama" quilting. I have to admit, through the fault of my being in my late 20's, that this name is hideously embarrassing for me to be batting about in conversation, say, in the dining hall ("what'd you do today?" "Uh, I made some Hoochy Mama squares..."), but the name apparently came from a sweet old lady who would yell "HOOCHY MAMA!" everytime she finished something, rather than the "you ain't nothing but a hoochie mama/ hoodrat hoodrat hoochie mama" that we all had to hear over and over in the 90's (thanks, 2 Live Crew!). Although I have to admit it was pretty funny to me that every time Mary Lou said the word "hoochy mama" in class, my internal juke box bellowed "BIG BOOTY HOES! Up wid it!" It was all I could do to not yell it out loud. I mean, I didn't even know I remembered that song.

Anyway, in the quilting world, thanks to Mary Lou's book and workshops, to hoochy a block is to deliberately misalign the corners of the fabrics you're piecing, which renders measuring pretty much unnecessary and careful sewing a thing of the past. WHICH IS AWESOME. All those semesters in high school when I wanted to make up my own pattern and the teacher told me it just was not possible, that such a thing would be a veritable sewing sin? Totally vindicated now.

Enough words, let's take a look at what I made. Here's the front, which is a pattern called (I think) hoochy stars, using fabric I bought on Saturday in Asheville with Sarah. Here's the first step:

(What I did was cut all the purple 4" squares and put them up on a design board, then I'd take down four from each nine-block group and hoochy some green points onto them.)

Then I took the middle four out and added orange diamonds, hoochied of course.

(See how the corners are all catty-wampus? That's on purpose.)

Then I finally got to sew all those seams together! Now it starts to look like a real quilt top:

Here's the top without its border. Note how the orange really pops out at you, because it's the only bright color:

Now check it with the border:

Now that's a quilt! I love it. I also quilted the back, just because the top was done halfway through the week and I didn't know what else to do with my time.

(You guessed it: those are hoochy hearts.)

Mary Lou actually blogged about our class here, complete with pictures of everyone in our class and their projects. She even wrote a little paragraph about me!

300 Posts!

2010-01-24T21:37:00.003-05:00

I just realized that I reached 300 posts here about, oh, three posts ago. I didn't celebrate when I got to 200, but I did do a little capsule update on the 100th Postiversary (which was April 16, 2007-- and it's crazy that that is over two years ago. What the heck?)

To celebrate, I'm reposting what I wrote on that day in April, from the snowy spring in Vermont, with updaty-type comments in bold. This is completely narcissistic, but isn't that what blogging is, in its truest form? Read on if you're interested, all 9 of you.

***** ***** ***** whooshing you back to 2007***** ***** *******

(me, then-- pretty much exactly the same as me, now)

You are all invited to my 100 Posts celebration, in celebration of the fact that I've now posted 100 times to this blog.
When: Now
Where: Here
RSVP: you just did!
Wow, thanks for coming, everyone. Here's a quick update:

-I am being flown down to Williamsburg for a job interview at a most excellent Montessori school, which would be grand for several reasons, the top reasons being a) the job title includes lots of creative artistic work being done with younger children and b) it's full time with benefits and c) the director seems like someone I would very much like to work with and she understands a living-and-working synthesis that I would like very much for my life and d) it's in Williamsburg, close to the campus where Kenny will be squeezing out his brains every day. So, here's hoping I am suave and smooth and relaxed come the interview weekend. (Dude, I got that job and loved it, and am still loving it, albeit from afar, temporarily. So glad that one worked out as smoothly as it did. Here's to at least one more great year at WMS.)

-I'm in Princeton right now, hanging out with people that I like and care for very much, enjoying a respite from the snows of Vermont. (Ahh, Princeton! How sad that the Shimizu clan has moved on from your hallowed streets. It still hasn't really hit me that my future Father- and Step Mom-in-law have moved to the West Coast. I miss it and them very much.)

-I've been doing some hot glass work in the basement, which makes me feel good, since it was such a financial investment to set up my own studio. (See very recently posted entry for the extreme happiness it brings me to finally have come back to this.)

-let's see... oh yes, have successfully knit two pairs of socks (one for me, one baby-sized which will be mailed off to a Canadian-Vietnamese baby quite soon) (Alisa and Duy now have two daughters. Holy crap. There's nothing like someone else's baby to make you wonder what the heck you've been doing with your time...)

-I weathered a stomach-flu (not mine) last week, and am always proud of myself when I manage to manage someone else's vomiting without screaming and running away. I was actually quite maternal and caring. Sweet. (Ah, yes, that time when Kei threw up for 24 hours straight, just totally cementing the fact that I will not ever eat peas. Not that I was uncertain about that at any point, mind you.)

-I reckon that's it for now. Life is good. (And it still is.)

Thanks for reading! See you at 400?

Clicking (the mouse kind and the sticks kind) for good

2010-01-24T21:13:00.003-05:00

I just stopped by to blog about the amazing Haiti relief effort that Ravelry is conducting: all sorts of indy designers are donating part of the profits from their pattern sales and all you have to do (if you're on Ravelry) is click here to see which patterns are specially tagged as being part of the effort. Once you're there you can see which tagged patterns are already in your queue, and do some pattern shopping that not only supports the disaster relief efforts AND indy knitwear designers but that also helps you stay an organized knitter/crocheter. Triple win.

I found three Haiti-tagged patterns that I've been meaning to buy, and had put them in my queue at some point in the past few months, so I bought them using my PayPal account (which is staying in the black because of other people who buy handmade from this independent craftster. Are we using the internet in the best way possible or what?!) Here are the patterns I chose to buy:

End of May Mittens by Mandy Powers (Rav link)
(Loved these from the moment I saw them. Stranded colorwork in worsted weight? Only one ball of each color and you're done with the set plus enough left over to make a hat? Yes, please.)

Veyla by Ysolda Teague. Enough said. (Rav link) I told my bestest Vermonter bridesmaid that I would knit her a pair of these, like, forever ago. Sorry Jules! But look, maybe it'll happen now that I've finally bought the pattern!

Ahh, the marvelous squirrel. Always so cute, sometimes white (Brevard) or black (Princeton), usually misspelled (by me). These Squirrel Sampler Mittens from Hello Yarn caught my fancy because they're lined, and you can put a name or date on the front. Perfect. (Rav link).

Ahhh, retail therapy! Because of my New Years Resolution #2, of course, I won't be knitting up any of these mittens for awhile now (and oh my god, I just now realized I bought three mittens patterns. Seriously, it did not occur to me at all during the oggling/purchasing spree that they were ALL FREAKING MITTENS. Awesome. Must do more shopping at night.) So once I finish my wedding shawl, and the crazy Fair Isle cardigan, and the brown yoke pullover, I may indeed cast on for one--or all-- of these.

Now go, do some supporting of your own.

Class re-cap: Advanced Glass Beads with Kimberely Adams

2010-01-24T15:38:00.002-05:00

Advanced weeks are somewhat tricky for hosts: as we can only register the Tuesday before classes begin, we are limited to only those classes with space available. And during advanced week, this means we need to have a short list of several classes we're advanced enough to get into, most of which require specific previous experience. Fortunately, there were two open spaces in Kim Adams' lampwork class and both Conway and I managed to get in! It was a total dream. All day, from after breakfast to late at night, I did nothing (no, really, nothing) but work at regaining the skills that I let atrophy away in the past 2.5 years or so since I've been able to set up my torch. (Which was last used in the basement of Ken's Mom's Vermont home for two blissful and chilly months before being packed away in a box, where it currently still resides. Poor torch.)

So anyway, it was great to be able to stretch my glass muscles (not literally) and make my fingers remember how to gather, wind on, center, add stringer and dots, manipulate edges into the perfect dimple, etc. Kim's class was geared, of course, to the way more advanced bead maker, and she brought lots of far out expensive stuff for us to play with. I made a bead with fine silver wire melted around in in strings of tiny metal beads; beads with colored cubic zirconia shoved into their sizzling centers; and beads with silver tubing inserted into their 1/4" holes and then tamped down on the outside rims, making it seem as if the beads were made around a hollow silver mandrel and then magically detached. Other things I could have chosen to do was electroforming (involving painting my bead with some sort of copper and then lowering it into a container of blue fluid with a battery charger in it, which makes it look, er, different), or I could have fumigated my beads with either silver or gold something-or-other, adding a metallic sheen to the outsides. As you can tell, I mostly paid attention to the basic bead skills, enjoying greatly this new technique: scale beads. Ooh! Observe:

That last one is my absolute favorite. Conway's torch was stationed right next to mine, and I couldn't help but be influenced by his rapturous fascination with making hollow beads. I'd attempted a few of these in the past, with great beginner's luck, but because of my poor annealing set up in the Vermont basement, i hadn't done any since my first time at the Folk School which had to be at least 5 years ago. So my first few were failures, but one night towards the end of the week, I was talking to one of my best friends and fellow bead maker Lauren, who randomly said, "hey, make a hollow bead and stick one of those crystals on the fattest part," and so i did. And it worked!

Aw yeah. Here are some other beauties from the week:

I'm very happy with them, but most of all I'm pleased to have gotten such a great week of bead-making boot camp. I feel like I'm back in the game. Which is great, because one week from today, I'll be in Tony Prince's Free-Form Flamework class! I've been looking forward to taking Tony's class again for years. But before we get there, I've got a dreamy week of feltmaking to complete. I know, I know: my life is awesome.

This Blog is Overdue

2010-01-20T17:16:00.006-05:00

13 days since my last post? Seriously? What the heck am I doing with my time, anyway? You know, besides taking a class each week and hosting in the spare seconds and planning a wedding on top of that... oh, whatever, you know I'm not really that busy. It just feels that way sometimes. Also, I've been going to bed earlier these days and thusly my blogging has slowed.

I have dance practice in 15 minutes, so this is a quicky teaser:

Visiting a local alpaca farm;

Trying my hand at "hoochy mama" quilting-- don't ask, I'll explain soon;

And painting new apartments/sampling champagnes (can this be filed under wedding research?)

Ohboyohboyohboy!

2010-01-07T15:42:00.004-05:00

Today it snowed in Brasstown! Doesn't it look just like powdered sugar? Apparently this doesn't happen too often around here (despite the 13" accumulation, aka the Snowpocalypse, which happened a mere 2 hours NE of here in Asheville), so everyone is excited. I am excited because when it started falling, it was no ordinary snowfall: I guess the wetness + the coldness was just at that perfect point to create SNOW CRYSTALS THAT LOOKED LIKE MINIATURE STARS. I am not even kidding. At first I thought someone was throwing handfuls of die-cut confetti from the treetops because seriously, these little tiny perfect stars all over the ground? Simply unbelievable. LOOK!

(So sorry for the horrible iPod closeups.) Aren't they magical? Don't they look like stars? Well, stars and sea salt.

I took these photos as I walked back from the glass beads class, who very kindly let me come watch so I can start getting excited about next week. You know, I've been so patient... letting my bead frenzy lie dormant while the past 2 years have just ticked by, waiting for me to have an appropriate space to set up my torch... but as of today the desire for melting and turning clicked in and I WANT IT SO BAD. That heaviness, the feeling of molten glass and the colors and the sounds... I've really missed it. Glass glass glass. I cannot wait.

So, New Years came and went...

2010-01-06T22:26:00.004-05:00

And I got a new co-host! That there is Conway, and he is great.

And Kenny stayed here at the Folk School with me for almost 2 weeks.

(That's us on New Years Eve, looking very 2009, I might add.)

And I took a week off from classes to clean my new room, read (!), and finally get around to doing those little things that pile up and make you feel like you're not doing a good job being a grown up (this week I finally sewed new buttons onto my winter coat, which had been hanging askew for weeks, new buttons still in my pocket). Also, before Kenny left, we managed to book our wedding venue and hire a wedding consultant (a friend who has been the "personal assistant" to many local brides, and really knows her stuff). So I feel like I'm not totally ignoring the impending date. 137 days to go, people!

Next week: GLASS BEADS! Finally. I've got an itch that only some Moretti glass and a Hot Head torch can scratch.

Hope the first week of 2010 has been good to you so far!

2010 Begins

2010-01-01T09:54:00.003-05:00

I love planning ahead and I love lists, so I always feel a little secretly ashamed when people denounce New Years resolutions, because I LOVE THEM. I just looked through my blog archives to see what my Resolutions were for last year, or the year before, or possibly even the year before, and you know what's weird? I have never posted any. Seriously, look at my 1/1/07 entry from Cambodia: no lists, just descriptions of beautiful, beautiful Phu Quoc. Or my post on 1/2/08 (close enough), where I outline all the finished knits from the calendar year but there's not a single bullet point to be found. What's the deal? Surely I've blogged about New Years Resolutions before...? I guess not. Well here we go, then. I'll limit it to three, because that's the magic number, and easy to remember:

Things about which I am totally resolved:
(Or: 2010: These Things Will Happen)

1. I will reach my goal weight of 150 lbs before my wedding on 5/22/10. This means continuing to stay faithful to my calorie intake counting, moving my booty, and generally making choices that will feel good for hours, not just mouth moments. CAN Do! HALFWAY THERE! Enough already! 2010 is the Year of the 150 Pound Woman (or, you know, thereabouts.)

2. I will finish all the knit projects that I have currently in progress. I'm looking at you, Chevron Scarf, wedding shawl, purple Fair Isle cardigan, brown cabled cuffs sweater, and long pair of mittens (of which there is only actually one). Following through on projects that were once, at some point, so important and fun that I had to start them right away, and not being distracted by shiny new ones. Ravelry queue, you can just sit back and hold on for awhile. 2010 is the Year of the Finished Knits.

3. I will pay off at least half of my student debt. We know now that we'll be in Williamsburg for another school year, so I have that as my goal: by June 2011 I SHALL HAVE NO MORE DEBT. Boo yeah! I just decided that, right now! It shall be done. 2010 is the Year of Almost Being Finished with Paying Off Loans (that can be the working title for now.)

So there you have it. 2010: the Year of the 150 Pound Woman who Finishes Knits and Almost Pays off her Loans.

I like it. :)

And we're back!

2009-12-26T09:30:00.003-05:00

That was a fantastic winter break. Kenny and I escaped from everything. We were housesitting for friends in Asheville, followed by a very brief but restful stay at another friend's in Cashiers. Highlights from the first house included the Snowpocalypse, lots of hanging out with best friends and lots of drinking delicious winter drinks (hot toddies, hot "Irish tea"-- a new invention, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and homemade whipped cream), playing board games, going to the Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread house competition, and seeing Avatar very late at night. Highlights from the second house included having our official cake tasting (my favorite, no surprise: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Kenny's favorite: chocolate cake with raspberry filling and raspberry frosting), going on walks with two borrowed dogs, and watching TONS of How I Met Your Mother. (Hilarious).

So now it's time to go back to Brasstown and resume my position at the Folk School. It's officially the second half of my stint there, and I'm looking forward to a really focused three months of being a good host, working efficiently, and getting my projects done. Oh, and taking classes, of course. I'm hoping January will the be the month of torch work (hellooo, glass beads!) but we'll see how the registration gods are feeling. It may be a full couple of months, and maybe not.

The best part about this coming week is that it's WINTER DANCE WEEK!! And Kenny is here as a student and gets to do everything with me. Plus, I get to train a new Host, and settle into the big room. Bring on the second--and better, I'm sure-- half!r

In praise of an audiobook

2009-12-16T10:36:00.002-05:00

Every once in awhile I take advantage of a super sale over at Audible.com, and at some point in the summer I apparently downloaded, then proceeded to forget all about this book:

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel
This week Kisha, Jenna and I are working relatively short and easy days. Hello, 11am-4pm, could I ask for better sleeping in time? It's sooo nice. Anyway, when I'm not "working" I've been trotting around Brasstown listening to A Girl Named Zippy. It's great. Seriously. Excellent. I'm not going to pretend to be a literary critic, but here are some things I liked about it:

1. It's narrated by the author. She knows what she's talking about.
2. It's a kid's point of view, and somehow, maybe because it's somewhat autobiographical, it's just so well-written and poignant and hilariously kid-like. In the best kind of way.
3. It's long. What better than a long book/movie/drive/meal that you already like? Why not make it last as long as possible?
4. It's stand-alone entertaining. I never felt that familiar twinge of "I could be doing two things at once right now" that I usually feel while, I don't know, watching Hulu. This book sucked me in and made me content to just listen.
5. Did I mention hilarious? But also sad sometimes?
6. I hesitate to make comparisons when the one thing can completely be it's own, but she sort of reminds me of David Sedaris in that self-effacing matter of fact way of storytelling.

Anyway, it was way worth my $however-much-I-paid-for it, and if you have a long drive or just some free time coming up, I highly recommend A Girl Named Zippy. I'm sure the actual book is great, too. I'm off to see what else this author has narrated. Go, audio books!

Another project in the Done pile

2009-12-11T22:26:00.002-05:00

I finished my quilt from the weekend class!

It still has some stitching to go before it's done, plus it needs loops on the back so I can hang it, and not thumbtack it to the wall.

Whew!

Too sleepy for words. How 'bout some pictures?

2009-12-11T22:04:00.002-05:00

Here are some things I made this week. First, a series of small snowflakes, all under 3" across:

Then, some medium-sized snowflakes, about 6" across:

And then I made some complicated masterpieces. Which for some reason, I kept trying to rush through. This was such a stressful week and I was just coming out of the weekend class which is nothing but rushrushrush, so my soldering is sucky and my cutting is just off enough to make problems. Even so, I love them:

(actually, this one wasn't complicated.)

(This is my absolute favorite piece! I love it. Love it love it love it.)

And then, of course, some jewelry.

The little snowflakes plus the earrings and pendant will be for sale in my Etsy shop tomorrow!

Look what I learned today!

2009-12-07T19:05:00.002-05:00

This morning we learned how to score and break glass. Then we learned how to foil the pieces and solder them together. And folks, that's basically all there is to stained glass! It reminds me of the wooden shapes the kids at my Montessori school like to play with. You basically cut them out, do the edges, and then get all kaleidoscopy on 'em, arranging them every which way until you find something you like. The snowflake is a little harder, since you have open spaces in the middle and it's hard to make the piece stable without bulking it up too much.

Here is my finished snowflake, all washed and hung on the wall:

Unintentional menu hilarity

2009-12-06T13:04:00.002-05:00

It's the little things that make my day.

This is the best one yet. Lettus. Chadder cheese. Tortilli chips. And to top it off, cookies with Walmuts. MMMmm!

Only a weekend + a week...

2009-12-06T12:53:00.002-05:00

That's all we have left here at JCCFS until Xmas break. We were just gone for two weeks, though! Crazy. So I have a weekend plus a week, and for the weekend class I took a whirlwind tour through the land of quilting. There were only 5 ladies in my class including myself, and we each went in a totally different direction when given the class' topic: Winter Trees. One did classic Xmas tree quilt blocks, one did a very country-themed "Folk Art tree," and two did more like a forest silhouette, but in very different ways. I didn't arrive with any preconceived ideas, so I went straight for the book that I drool over every time I'm in that studio doing setup. I flipped through it until I found a tree-like idea that I thought I could riff on, and dove in. It turned out to be half hand-quilting, half machine quilting. The former, of course, takes way more time. Since I had limited access to the sewing machine, I went ahead and did all the machine sewing and quilting that I needed to and will finish the hand work... um, at some point. (The last thing I needed was another unfinished project, but it shouldn't take too long. A good move for the leaves, and a few episodes of something for the binding.)

Anyway, since it's not yet done, I won't reveal the entire piece. Here are some details, hints, and peeks:

(the image above is from the book. Not my work!)

(as usual, click to make 'em bigger.)

It's growing... it's groooowinnnng!

2009-12-04T10:14:00.003-05:00

Inch by freaking inch, it grows. Behold: my English Paper Piecing project.

Only scraps from the quilting classes used... well, until last week when I was in Brooklyn and it was raining and I stumbled into fibernotion and their charm packs got the best of me. So, only a little money has been spent on this project. The goal: adult-sized quilt. The laptop: included for scale.

[Speaking of scale, I'm really pleased that I only came away from Thanksgiving with about 2.5 pounds added to my frame, considering I ate almost that much bacon and chocolate. It seems to be solely in my midsection, unfortunately. Bring on the moderation! And the salads! And the dancing!]

Steek success! Oh boy!

2009-11-24T11:33:00.002-05:00

A few days ago I sat down in the Folk School library with my Fair Isle cardigan, which due to all it's funny soon-to-be-cut-open panels was resembling some sort of kangaroo cozy more than an actual human-shaped sweater, and got out the scissors. I took a few deep breaths, announced to the room that I was about to do my first steek, and sliced it open. I did the neck opening first, since it seemed the least intimidating, and just as I suspected, it went just fine. No stitches went running down or across my work, nothing unravelled in my hands... that sweet standby Shetland 2-ply just stayed right where it was supposed to. There was a dance going on and Charlotte was about to start calling but wanted to see me steek, so I went ahead and did the arm holes, too! And lo, miracle or miracles, my kangaroo bag was suddenly the perfect size and shape. I just steamed the folds and tacked down the cut edges, and look how fantastic the fit is! Now all I have to do is knit two identical arms and do the button band/collar, and I'll have myself a real Fair Isle cardigan, made by me. I feel unstoppable. :)

Whoa, time to play catch up.

2009-11-23T10:55:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting in the CLT airport, enjoying the free wifi ("Google's holiday gift to you!") and just realized I never reported back on how woodturning, well, turned out. Here's my bounty:

My bud vase from the last post has been oiled, but the little rice bowl and wonky plate have not. Apparently when you turn green wood your pieces can warp when they dry, and that certainly has been the case for my poor plate. I'm keeping them in my closet to dry and then when all warping has occurred, I'll take them back over to the woodturning studio and re-sand the bottom feet so that they'll sit down flat. Check out this tiny little rice bowl, from the side:

I love it so. And it will look much better once oiled, I'm sure.

This past weekend I spent hours and hours doing NW Morris dance, and my legs feel great: used and sore and in desperate need of a deep stretch. More soon from vacation; I'm off to Vermont to enjoy heaps of homemade food! (And in case you're wondering what project I chose for the flight.... observe my English Paper Piecing quilt below! It is small now, but inch by inch, it grows.)

(I'm only using scraps from the quilting classes that pass through the Folk School, so it's an entirely free project so far. Which is fine, since that's exactly how much money I make!)

Intro to Woodturning: or How I'm Learning to Love the Lathe

2009-11-16T23:28:00.003-05:00

See that? Please shed a tear for me, because that is the last photo I'm going to take with my beloved, long-term digital camera, the Sony Cybershot. Bought in Summer 2006 and carted around to South East Asia and Ukraine (not to mention my myriad adventures Stateside), this little camera has lived in a Gillette razor zipper bag that Kenny sort of tossed at me three and a half years ago when I said I needed a camera case. It was working fine on Friday when I took pictures of my papermaking loot, but today when I went to document my wood turning teacher at the lathe, it wouldn't focus. Which actually, sidenote, is totally appropriate given the subject matter, because today my understanding of woodturning was exactly as blurry as the photo above. At first I thought, hey, good job capturing my internal landscape, little Cybershot. But then it wouldn't focus at all, ever again, finis. Luckily I am often the recipient of my father's hand-me-down electronics. I am blessed with a rarity, for someone my age: my Dad actually not only digs but really goes after new technology. He can also be a little ADD about getting new stuff (I say it with love, Dad) so he is upgrading more than the average user, in general. This means I have his "old" camera waiting for a day just as this (it's better than the one I had until today), and I shall retrieve it when I'm in Williamsburg for a hot second on my way to Northern climes. Goodbye, little Cybershot. You will be sorely missed, especially when I'm trying to learn the ins and outs of my new one. P.S., what the hell do you do with broken electronics? I cannot throw Gillette Cybershot Globetrotter away. We've shared too much.

Anyway, this week I am obviously in wood turning. Photographs of the rest of this week shall be brought to you by my iPhone. Here we have what I managed, with lots and lots of help, to turn today:

It is a bud vase, meaning it has a hole on top but the bottom is solid (thank GOD.) This took me all day. It is very difficult.

Hmm, what to say at this point... it was Monday, also known here at the Folk School as International Frustration Day, celebrated by those of us who are in class as beginners. I am this week's only beginning woodturner (yipee!) which means I naturally demand lots of extra attention from my instructor, a hilarious Mormon from (where else?) Utah, who is both incredibly talented and a very good teacher. A brilliant combination, I must say. He is usually pretty good at coming over when I have made a terrible noise, either with my mouth or with the lathe, and patiently explains again about bevels and angles and uphills and downhills and sharpening tools and rotating the shaft. Heh. Also, I think it's important to say that what I know about Mormons I learned from reading Dooce, which is like someone saying they know about Ukrainians because they have seen Everything is Illuminated. By this I mean, I have a limited but probably somewhat accurate understanding of Mormons, and they are awesome. I ran an errand for my teacher tonight and bought two half gallons of ice cream ("anything with chocolate and nuts, but no marshmallows") and several 12-packs of soda. Ahh yes, the soda thing. I remember reading about that.

In other news, the Folk School and its grounds have been particularly beautiful lately... check it:

Cold misty morning while on a little jog

Ringing the dinner bell at twilight: my point of view

Make the paper and print it!

2009-11-15T15:23:00.003-05:00

This last week was spent immersed, literally, in the world of paper making. It was cold and cloudy here on Monday and Tuesday, which were also the days we spent pulling sheets from vats of freezing cold water! It was actually pretty fun, and our teacher, Frank Brannon from Asheville's BookWorks book arts center, was a big help in making it so much fun. And also we had hot tea and a warm room to go take a break in. All in all, not so bad. Even though our hands and arms were wet and cold (and occasionally our legs and feet, as well), it was peaceful out on the porch of Keith Lower, as we were in the old greenhouse and the sounds of water dripping onto the stone floor reminded me of some sort of zen garden. Drip drip, light conversation, and the flow of just pulling as much paper as we wanted to. My only experience with paper making before this class were the very shoddy attempts I made with the kids in my Montessori summer camp this past July, and I can now confidently say that were were going about it all wrong! Next summer will be much, much better (and so will our paper).

We made sheets from abaca; flax (both bleached and unbleached-- big difference in the texture and time it took to form); and cotton that had been dyed by adding a pair of someone's old purple jeans (it faded to a nice light mauve, fortunately!). All our paper was done by Wednesday, so we started my favorite part: the printing.

I was mainly focused on producing things I can use for the planning of our wedding. In paper making, this obviously points to invitations, thank you cards, and perhaps a few bigger prints used for signage or to put next to the cake or who knows, for the front of a guest book, maybe. With those things in mind, I managed to squeak out these:

(All the center block designs on the cards come from this book, my new favorite thing ever. Best $7.95 you'll spend, no matter what your craft medium is. Seriously, i can see them becoming amazing Fair Isle charts...)

I feel like this week I got to focus more on process and less on product, and yet I still ended up with a ton of things at the end of the class. Probably my favorite part was at the very end, when we learned how to put it all together with some very basic bookbinding. Check out these little sweeties:

They're each really small and thin, but it was the best use for the pure unbleached flax sheets that we pulled. They're so thin and smooth, they feel like skin. I was sort of grossed out by them until I cut off the wrinkly edges and covered these little books, and then aha! I suddenly liked the flax. They're finished with a silver bead:

And they have a print of a woodgrain stamp on the first page, just barely showing through the shadow of the cover:

I basically love them. I made more than I need; I'll put a few up on Etsy. :)

Thoughts on taking a week off...

2009-11-08T11:00:00.002-05:00

When I first arrived here and met my co-host, Jenna, she told me that she had taken two separate weeks "off," meaning she opted out of taking a class that week. And I nodded and smiled but was really thinking, "are you crazy?! The classes are why we're here! It is literally our payment. Why would you choose to not take a class?" But then I took three pretty intense classes in a row, and couldn't resist a weekend workshop taught by Phil Jamison (one of me & Kenny's heroes) on top of it all, and all of a sudden my closet was overflowing with the products of those weeks, projects half done, a million bars of soap that needed to be photographed and uploaded to my Etsy store, a new sweater to finish, and my room was a wreck. We all know that when your room is messy, your head is messy. And so... I took a week off.

AND IT WAS AWESOME. I caught up on my Hulu queue while working my way steadily up the body of the Fair Isle sampler sweater that I started in week 3 (see a picture of the work in progress here!). I posted the polymer clay stuff I made in week 4. I sold a really good portion of the soap I made in week 2 (thanks, Facebook friends, for the buys!) which means I walked back and forth to the P.O. more than 12 times. Good thing it's close by and the weather this week has been awesome. I helped Liz move out of her house; I talked to Kenny on the phone more than I had since I arrived here; I lost an additional 2 pounds (which I have since gained back, but hey, they'll come off again) putting my current total at 7 since I got here. See, I can fit into the jeans I bought at the end of the Master Cleanse I did in April! I made a pile of give-away clothes. I took long walks around the Rivercane trails while catching up on old podcasts. I started two new physical challenges, the 100 Pushups and the 200 Sit-Ups challenges (which have the most awesomest iPhone apps ever, making it possible to do my daily challenges absolutely anywhere and at any time). Join me; I just started!

Let's see, what else did I do? I went to dance practice; I sent a sweet 3rd grader back at home a care package; I cleaned my room. I worked a bit on my sort-of-a-quilt. Oh yeah, I ordered a new SIM card and made my replacement phone work! Ta da! And made some progress on selling the old one.

All in all, it was a really relaxing, and yet productive, week. I feel totally refreshed and ready to take another class. This evening I begin a week of papermaking and print making (called "Make the paper and print it!", fittingly enough.) I have been researching Bread & Puppet-style woodblock fonts and dreaming of wedding invitation graphics. I'm way more excited about the printmaking than the papermaking, but who couldn't use some of their own handmade paper? I can use it to wrap soaps... or to send nice cards to people... or maybe even to write out our vows on. Hmm. Feel free to chime in with more suggestions. Another great thing about the class is that there are only 4 of us in it, and it's in the basement of Keith House (where I live) which makes it super easy to get my work and my living done in a neatly efficient way.

Soaps are up at Etsy!

2009-10-31T20:12:00.003-04:00

My handmade soap bars have finished curing and are ready to pack up and send to YOU! My position as host is unpaid and I would love to support myself (read: pay off student loans) by selling what I make while I'm here. Oh, and they're CHEAP! If you order soon, I'm throwing in a free sample bar of another variety! Order a few bars and I may just include a handful of samples. Feel free to regift to your heart's content!

So, which ones float your boat?

Simple, unscented and hand-stamped

Sweet spearmint bars-- vegan!

Nag Champa and oatmeal

Calendula: round slices with organic calendula flowers

All-natural blueberry and lavender bar

(My personal favorites: lemony calendula bars that smell delicious!)

Peppermint morning soap with coffee grounds for scrubbing!

Where my foodies at? Salt and pepper soap may be rare but I think it's a perfectly respectable combination!

What's kept me busy for so long?

2009-10-29T23:38:00.006-04:00

My last entry reported on the end of my week in Fair Isle Knitting, and now I'm reporting on the last day (almost) of my polymer clay class! Where did the time go? Here's a sneak peak:

As you can see, I've been learning how to coax polymer clay, my old wham-bam standby, into looking like ivory, turquoise, lapis lazuli, jade, tiger's eye, lava, and malachite (in my order of favorites) plus banded agate, red jasper, antique coin, and faux concrete (the ones I didn't feel the urge to try-- although once I saw my classmates' pieces in agate I sort of wished I'd made some). Our teacher was the truly fabulous Irene Semanchuk Dean, who taught the class like an actual teacher who thinks in a linear fashion and has a plan in her head of what needs to happen and when. It was awesome, and I came out knowing so very, very much more about polymer clay than I had before. All the Sculpey III that has passed in such crude forms through my hands... if only I knew then what I know now... and I only had a 5 day class! If anyone is interested at all in intermediate polymer clay techniques, especially faux natural surfaces, take a class with this lady. She lives in Asheville and demonstrates at the Folk Art Center often. For those not near Asheville, just buy one of her many books (the class was based on this one) from your local book-gettin' place.

I want to keep this short because tomorrow (hopefully) I'll have a SLEW of amazing goodies to post on here and show off-- all on their way to my Etsy shop! The gift-giving season is moving quickly towards us, and I would love to sell you some of my beautifully crafted handmade soaps, or the freshly minted polymer beauties I've been churning out all week. Please mention my store in your own blogs, if you can and are willing, because I'd love to spread this Folk School bounty far and wide!

Fair Isle Heaven

2009-10-21T22:42:00.002-04:00

Both hands
Now use both hands
Oh don't close your eyes...
-Ani DiFranco

Who knew Ms. DiFranco was talking about knitting?

It feels like it's been awhile since I wrote, and for that I am sorry. It's been a great week here, but there is a bit of family woe going on, and I didn't feel like writing, and the internet has been weird, and this sentence has too many commas. And I'm also in the Best Class Ever! (So far.) For the last 3 days I have been fully immersed, and I mean glued to my chair, in the world of Shetland and Fair Isle knitting patterns. And history. And theory. And practice-- lots of practice (I may or may not have worn a hole into my left index finger. I'm not telling). I made this mitten as my sampler:

You like? It's actually finished now, with some cheeky blue triangles adorning the fingertip part. And now I have moved on to a stranded little purple something on which I shall perform my first steek (!!!). The knitting goodness abounds at the Folk School lately: Jenna has learned to cable, Lenee has gone from a non-knitter to a kntitting-in-the-round-and-mastering-ribbing knitter, and Barb is making steady progress on her first project: an alpaca vest. Nice, huh? We're a crafty bunch. I'm also very happy today because I showed up to dance practice for the NW Morris Team, the Dames Rockets, and totally got accepted. Sweet! It was my favorite kind of difficult: the kind you can pick up on just enough to offer a tantalizing glimpse of what it will feel like when you've got it down pat. It's complicated but SO FUN. And I get to clunk around in wooden shoes that look just like my ever-present Danskos-- but with wooden soles. Beat that. After that I had practice for the Garland team, which is also good fun.

It's been extremely cold here, but it stopped raining, so there's that. I'm doing good on my eating-well plan. This weekend I'm off again so I'm going to SAFF. And there's a teacher here from my Elementary School! Hello, familiar face!

And now, please enjoy some prize snaps from class. More to come.

Martha Owen discusses technique

Martha Owen discusses color selection

Some Shetland inspiration that was passed around our class. Many oohs and ahhs.

My teacher (right), her daughter and assistant (middle), and husband (left) sing some morning songs.

The Down and Dirty Details of Soapmaking

2009-10-18T14:20:00.003-04:00

[Glycerine soap bars, the easiest and fastest kind to make. They're shrink-wrapped so they don't sweat in the humidity]

Let me just say this: one person does not need forty pounds of soap. It's a really good thing that Jenna and I decided to join forces and take this class together, and an even better thing that the instructor agreed to let us split the cost (and the outcome) of one soap "kit." (Kit in this case just means a set amount of oils, fats, lye, and tools.) As it was, we still ended up hauling trays of finished soap back to the Keith House every day, and I feel certain we each ended up with at least 20 lbs of end product.

We cooked three "from scratch" batches of soap, one each on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus played with glycerine "melt & pour" style soaps. Jenna and I made lists of ideas, collected herbs--fresh and dried--and essential oils, and spent the week playing with lye, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, beef tallow, etc.

Above: pouring a big batch of homemade soap, still nice and hot from the lye
Middle: Re-milling (heating & softening) a batch of oatmeal Nag Champa soap
Bottom: Chopping up bars of peppermint-scented soap with coffee grounds for exfoliation

I wish you could smell what we made! Especially the lemon calendula batches. They are my absolute favorite. Every time we sliced up a new batch we laid all the pieces out and "chose teams," picking bars one by one until we had divided up the whole batch. We made minty soaps, hippie soaps, scrubbing soaps, moisturizing soaps, plain and unscented soaps, flowery soaps, and a few soaps with toys hidden inside, just for kicks. Here's what our work station looked like on an organized day:

Glycerine is sort of weird. It is basically already soap when you buy it; all you do is chop it up small enough to melt in a glass container in the microwave and then add whatever scents, colors, etc. that you want. We started the class with this soap and went a little crazy making super small batches (like, 3 or 4 bars) of each kind of combo that struck our fancies.

(don't these glycerine chunks look like ice cubes?)

Glycerine soap is safe and easy enough to play with in a classroom or camp, and with all the flu scare stuff going on, I think it'd be great to make soap with a group of kids to help encourage handwashing. Here's a few of my glycerine ideas:

From top: lavender, green tea, peppermint dinosaur, cinnamon loofah

Can you tell which mold I liked best? I made a slew more, as pictured in that very top picture in the bowl at the top of the page.

I liked the real, homemade style soaps better. Although to be honest, the beef tallow threw me off and I was a little grossed out by the smell, but I'm happy to report that as the days goes by and the soap cures (dries out and hardens into it's actualized state) you can hardly smell the tallow and it just smells like soap. We made sure to keep plenty of it unscented for those who prefer a plain, old fashioned bar:

(these have Jenna's homemade paper as wrappers: so pretty!)

Those are curing in my closet. I'm also utilizing the very odd, slanted closets in the hall on the 2nd floor, which I'm pretty sure haven't been used much since 1928, to cure the rest of the batches. That closet smells DAMN GOOD right now.

[From left: the peppermint bars with coffee grounds; Nag Champa oatmeal bars; my favorite lemony calendula bars which are practically dessert; a few lavender blueberry bars; lemony jasmine bars, almost as good as the calendula; and a soft pink cupcake batch that I honestly can't remember the scent of at the moment.]

I used a plastic egg container to make the kids back at WMS some peppermint glycerine soaps with real spearmint in them. Each kid in After School gets one little shrink wrapped beauty to take home and (hopefully) use. There they are in their little shiny glory: aren't they edible looking?

This coming week I'm in a Fair Isle Knitting class, and I couldn't be more excited; not only because I get to keep my hands out of sticky soap and leave the goggles and gloves alone, but because I finally get to take a class with Martha Owen, a legend in the fiber arts world. Lots of yarny pictures to come, I'm sure!

Self-sufficiency is a lovely thing

2009-10-12T19:19:00.002-04:00

Jeeeeeeeezus. Today was harder than the last 2 weeks put together (and those weeks included Fall Festival). One trip to the hospital, a kajillion errands, two overflowing toilets, two students switching classes (meaning 4 teachers to explain things to), one instructor social to set up and run and take down, my first day in soapmaking class, rain, mail to deliver, a 6-foot-tall screen to transport across campus, phones not working, phones not being answered, bosses going AWOL at crucial moments, not one but 4 students who somehow did not get the message that their towels are inside their bedrolls and therefore have come looking for towels when they do not actually need them, two teachers who wanted to switch rooms changing their minds and no one told me they had already contacted someone else who was going to give them her room and so she never got told and had totally moved out and then had no idea she didn't have anywhere to move into... and a partridge in a pear tree.

Over and out. I need to knit and watch some Hulu.

SIGH.

A few of my best Cloisonne pieces

2009-10-11T22:32:00.002-04:00

(Click to make them bigger)

Cloisonne: a Quick Report!

2009-10-11T22:04:00.002-04:00

It was my weekend off and between all the driving and the fun and the dancing and the crashing on Sarah's futon, I neglected to make a post about my very special first class, which I took last week, which was Cloisonne. Like from the root word of cloister, meaning to separate into little sections, this is a type of enameling where you bend silver wires into shapes and fill in and around them with wet glass powders in various shades and opacities.

I apologize for not having taken pictures of each of these steps. I like to work fast, and I only settle down and remember the camera when I've exhausted myself by getting three steps ahead of everyone else in the class. Which is when I realized I've made some horrible mistake and have to start over. Sigh. Anyway:

Step 1: pick your piece of metal (we used copper), clean it, stone down the rough edges, and pierce a hole into it if you desire.

Step 2: sift enamel (glass powder) onto both the front and the back (counter enameling) so that the piece doesn't warp, and fire it for a short while in the kiln. (If people won't see the back, you can use an ugly old mix of leftover enamels, but if it's a pendant or earrings you get to pick a pretty color to counter with.)

Step 3: If you're going to use translucent enamels, it looks better if you then attach a piece of real silver foil (like aluminum foil but much MUCH thinner and much MUCH more annoying to work with) and fire the piece so that the foil sticks down to the enamel on the front. No need to waste foil on the back of your piece, unless you truly want to work up something pretty on both sides.

Step 4: Bend up some wires into a shape approximating the outline of your design and then attempt to place them exactly where you want them on a slick-as-glass surface using a watery "glue" (ha!) that will only become sticky once you heat it up. But when you heat it the itty bitty silver wires can slip, or fall over on their sides, or just mysteriously migrate across the front of your piece. IT'S A FREAKING JOY. No, seriously, I think I may have ground my teeth into glass powder as a result of this process. If my piece looks sort of mottled, that's why. IT SUCKED. KlyrFire, I hate you.

(here's my wires, finally and firmly attached. Whew.)

Step 5: The fun begins! Now, having chosen colors of enamel that please you and having "washed" them (as much as you can wash powdered glass frit) you sort of push them into place with a wet paintbrush that is approximately the same diameter as three eyelashes held together. You have to keep the enamel really wet, lest you are accused of "working lumpy." It happened to me. Don't let it happen to you. Having anything about yourself called lumpy publicly, even if it is the glass frit you're pushing around and not actually one of your body parts, is a little horrifying.

(Ooh. Better already.)

Step 6: Apply a not-lumpy layer of enamel all over the piece. Wet it, do a strange little tappy thing on the side of the piece to smooth it all out, and wait for it to dry. (You can greatly speed things up here by looking around to see if anyone is paying attention and then quickly blotting with a paper towel.) Once it's dry,you can then fire it. Firing things is fun and easy. It takes less than two minutes, usually, and you get to hold an amazing tool that looks like a cattle prod crossed with a taser crossed again with a fencing foil. And you use it to take glowing red metal out of a kiln right at eye level. Closed-toe shoes are essential here. Once you fire it hot enough, your piece is smooth as glass (um, because it is glass) and so pretty. You can then choose to grind down the surface and re-fire it, so that the wires are all the same height as the glass, or to just leave it as is, in relief (the 3-D kind, not the emotional kind).

(There she is! No, this has nothing to do with NBC!)

I made tons of pretty things during the week, which are all posted on facebook and Flickr, with captions. Several Xmas presents were made but are not online, and most of the things I made i then sold at the student exhibit (gotta make some money for soapmaking, my next class!). There are even two pairs of earrings that I saved out to sell in my Etsy shop!

Planning time off

2009-10-04T21:20:00.002-04:00

Meeting to talk about weekends off didn't happen as fast as I thought it would, and I sort of stalled on remembering what Big World Events are happening when, and all this basically means is that I am skipping LEAF again this year but will finally get to go to SAFF.

It's almost the same, but with two effs and an ess, right?

But seriously folks, who needs round-the-clock contra dancing when there is beautiful roving to be fondled? And possibly eating more Festival food (not that I can even think about that after this weekend. Ugh.) And it's $3 to get in as opposed to a hundred-and-whatever LEAF is charging these days. And I don't have to freeze in a tent. Hey Sarah, I'm staying with you on the 24th, okay?

Bring on the sheep competitions,
Jessica

Fall Festival!

2009-10-04T11:43:00.002-04:00

(Pearl and Annie Fain singing old songs)

(Garland dancers silhouetted at the Festival Barn stage)

When I arrived here a week ago yesterday, people were already talking (okay, stressing out) about Fall Festival. I couldn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes, but over ten thousand people are currently milling around the Folk School, listening to little bluegrass and old time bands play on the two stages, and watching Morris dancers, Garland dancers, cloggers, and storytellers do their things in between. There are craftspeople demonstrating blacksmithing, timber framing, spinning and weaving, wood carving, and wood turning. There are 250 vendors, or thereabout, and more festival food than you can shake your ever-expanding booty at. (Yesterday I had an Italian sausage, some ribbon fries, a candy apple, some barbeque, and helped polish off a bag of kettle corn. Oh my GOD.) All the fields are full of cars, and all the paths are full of onlookers doing the slow-walk shuffle. We hosts and workstudies and maintenance workers are going full tilt (well, when we're not hiding) doing all kinds of random jobs.

Here are some highlights and things I thought were too beautiful to not pass without even a reminder.

I LOVE this ring.

I got yelled at for taking this picture!?

Poor cats.

The everpresent alpaca farm.

Hooray for friends who visit!

We're off to explore it all again before it's time to gear up for another week of classes!

Student Exhibit, Fri. 10/2

2009-10-04T11:31:00.002-04:00

At the end of each weeklong session, we Hosts set up tables and chairs and lamps and cloths just so, and the students gather their best work from the week to put on display before they go home. On weeks that have a cooking class, that class prepares little sample plates (like the Thai food, above) so that students can munch while they meander past the tables and see what everyone's been busy doing.

Here's a sampling of what this week's students produced:
(as usual, click to embiggen)

The quilters were so nice: they let me bring my little Rigid Heddle loom to their studio and work up my next projects in their spacious, sunny classroom. I made a table runner, in the perfectly rich rusty orange that I so love, with evenly spaced shots of recycled sari silk from India for added interest:

The colors are sadly lacking here, due to the darkness that was the corner of the community room where I had it all laid out. Trust me, it's a beauty.

This week's demo: Felting with Chad Alice Hagen

2009-09-30T21:02:00.003-04:00

Apparently I am a bit dense for not knowing who Chad Alice Hagen was before this week. I've seen her work before, I'm sure of it; I've browsed her books at the library. And yet it took me until tonight at the demo to put two and two together, and to realize that the fiery redhead whose class projects looked amazing every time I went into her studio was the author behind Fabulous Felted Hats, Fabulous Felted Scarves, and Feltmaking (in the Weekend Crafter series), and more recognizably:

I mean, don't you feel like you've seen one of those somewhere? Maybe I'm just hanging out in all the right yarn stores.

Anyway, tonight's demo was by Chad on the topic of this particular brand of thin, lightweight felted material at which she excels. Chad's class this week ("Felt, Resist, Bead") has been churning out stunning art pieces, which they have dyed and felted themselves. Today they started adding beads to their work, one at a time, like little drops of shininess on the matte wool background.

(Seeing those piles and piles of beads and thread and colors makes my palms feel itchy, in that ohmygod I want to make one NOW kind of way. Anyone know what I'm talking about?)

Anyway, tonight's demo focused on the "Airey Fairy Scarf," which Chad makes by first laying out the right size strips of merino roving:

Then, once it's all laid out the way she wants it (a grid-like rectangle with open cells), she wets it with a fancy German bonsai tool and beings the many steps required to coax the fibers from fluff to felt.
Wetting:

Throwing:

Scrunching:

And finally, when the fibers have fused together and are strong enough to hold their own, the scarf is spread out and tweaked and smoothed into just the right angles.

To view these pictures and more, see the Flickr set.

Chad is hilarious, so tonight's demo really was like learning about felt and going to a comedy club at the same time. Seriously. One of the highlights was Chad making her students do a live interpretation of wool fibers and what happens when they get wet and soapy and agitated:

By Doze is Duffed Up

2009-09-29T07:50:00.002-04:00

Man, so that headache I had for two whole weeks? Turns out it's an early warning sign of a sinus infection. Yesterday morning I used my fortunate free time to go sit in the trailer that is the Murphy Urgent Care. No, literally, it is in a trailer. But hey, it didn't take too long and they took my co-pay and I got a prescription for antibiotics and I already feel relief, even after only taking one dose. The headache travelled down into my nose and lungs, both of which are just full to the brim with snot. Lovely.

So! Yesterday I learned how to set up and host the Instructor Social; I got to go to town with Keisha and Jenna and learn about where everything is (apparently I'll be frequenting the hospital, gas station, craft stores, and a garage). I also got to see Liz, finally! My old college roommate whom I haven't seen in years is here, and it's so great to be in her company again. And then last night when I got home from the potluck at Robin's house (which was beautiful and homey and made me feel like I'm now officially here), I got a surprise voicemail from Nina, my other favorite college roommate. Oh, old friends cycling back through my life! I'm so glad!

Last night whie I was waiting in the living room until it was time to shut down the Keith House, a distressed student came in needing emergency help with a backed up toilet. We went all the way down to the Mill House and I brought fresh towels and lugged their wet, messy ones back up to wash. All was solved before 10pm, and I turned off all the light and went upstairs for a restless night of mouth breathing and hacking coughs. I can't wait til I feel better! I decided that maybe a Blacksmithing class would not be prudent next week, as I don't need any extra junk in my nose and lungs right now. Hopefully I'll be in jewelry. I'll find out today!

Off to serve breakfast. It was in the 40's this morning and I could see my breath!

First day

2009-09-27T21:03:00.002-04:00

Today was a whirlwind. I wisely decided not to take a class (well, okay, all the ones I wanted were full, but it's a good idea anyway to take it slow my first week) and my throat has just been hurting more and more, but it was the opening day of a new session so I got to trail Jenna and learn how to set up and help run an instructor orientation and a student orientation. Before that, I got to open the History Center for the 1st time, go on rounds for studio set-up for the 1st time, and I got my official name tag!

This blog needs pictures, I know. Soon. Today I was too busy during the daylight hours, and now they wouldn't look at good. Plus, i have a date with my new neti pot (also for the first time) and hopefully that will make my sinuses act like the oughta.

Oh! Dinner tonight was so good. I had some baked fish and a huge salad, and a piece of what I thought was a veggie burger but turned out to be very good falafel. Skipped the desert. So far so good. I brought my wedding dress with me, and I really want to fit into that sucker like I should at the end of my time here. One day down...

Oh! And Robin, a friend whom I met at the Folk School a long time ago, lives right down the road and invited me to a potluck tomorrow at her house, so depending on how tomorrow evening looks I might even get off campus for a bit! Hurrah. Here's to feeling better soon.

Pictures to come!

Arrival!

2009-09-26T20:01:00.004-04:00

Finally, after waiting and waiting (more than three years!), I woke up this morning and it was September 26th. That date has been sort of etched into my brain, at first as an abstract that couldn't possibly be further away, and then as a distant goal that had several hurdles in front of it. I worked the summer at camp, I made it back to Williamsburg to help train my replacement After School coordinator, I nannied just enough to make gas and grocery money, I packed up a Jetta's worth of clothes and craft supplies... and this morning I woke up and it was time!

This year has been pretty hedonistic, as far as things go-- I've had pretty much nothing but fun in the hard-working kind of way. Wrote a thesis and earned my Master's, had a nice end to the school year, made great pay doing extremely fun lessons at my school's day camp, great summer at camp with my nose to the Texture Crafts grindstone, nannying at the beach for a week and then at home for two weeks while I extricated myself from the arms of my little After Schoolers. And now, the cherry on top of the fun-hard-work sundae. I woke up at Lauren's felt a little twinge of nervousness.

The drive went really smoothly-- it's all downhill, and I did a healthy percentage of it in neutral, my weighted-down car achieving previously impossible speeds as we flew down the mountains. When I arrived (there's always the OH JOY! when you turn onto Folk School Rd. and see the signs and the buildings but this time I also got to add HOME! to the mix) there was a handwritten sign on the door from my co-host, Jenna, asking me to come on up to the 2nd floor where we both live. The Jr. Host, or the one who is in her first 3 months, gets the host "room" and then becomes the Sr. Host when she's in her 4th-6th months and gets the host "apartment." That means Jenna had to vacate the room and move into the apartment this morning, and the host who was in the apartment has now finished his tenure and I am here instead, as the new Jr. Jenna and the two workstudy boys, strapping 18-year olds, helped me move all my stuff upstairs and into my room in about 15 minutes. And I was dreading hauling all that stuff upstairs on my own! Thanks, guys. It took the rest of the afternoon but I am completely unpacked and moved in and my empty suitcases are back in the truck of my car and I even nailed up hooks and whatnot and figured out (with Jenna's help) how to unlock the kitchen and make myself dinner. Fresh zucchini and squash, possibly from the garden, were already cut up in the industrial size walk-in fridge, and since Hosts are allowed to enter the kitchen and make/eat anything they can find. I sauteed those suckers up with a little pat of butter and some fresh parsley. Heaven.

I have a set of keys, a schedule, and a LOT of details to start remembering. Fortunately, I think, all the classes I was interested in this coming week are full so I'm going to focus my energy of just letting Jenna train me. It's probably a good thing. I brought several unfinished knitting projects; I have a scarf to cut off the loom, and I have several books I want to read. Plus, I'm going to take a bunch of pictures of my room and edit them into a video, and probably post it here. Tomorrow a new batch of students arrive (119, I think?) and I have a long day of watching Jenna's every move and trying to memorize them for next week. Oh god!

Now I'm off to the third floor where the work-studies live, to teach Barb from Vermont how to knit.
(To read about the last time I was at the Folk School, click here (4/08 Basketry)

My weekend in Asheville

2009-09-26T19:17:00.003-04:00

It's way too far to drive from Williamsburg, VA all the way to Brasstown, NC without losing one's mind. So I didn't even try.

I drove down to Asheville on Thursday, to help break up the trip, and to see the amazingly talented Sweetback Sisters play at Jack of the Wood. It sure is something to see a bunch of cutie pie child prodigies all grown up and knocking the honky tonk out of the ballpark. They are just as sultry as they are sure-footed, and it was only my 400+ miles on the road (after being on 2-year old duty for 5 hours) that made me go home to sleep after the second set. Home, of course, being a friend's house: on Thursday night I was lucky enough to be able to crash a Laurie's parents house in Montford (hello, king sized bed all to myself!) and then I was on to Sarah's, and then Lauren's.

My life has been peppered with chance visits to cheap massage joints-- not the happy ending kind, of course, but the student type-- and I had long been meaning to try out the Cosmic Groove, home of the $29 massage. Sarah and I got hopelessly lost last time we tried to go and ended up driving from Brevard all the way into Asheville, missing our appointments, and having sushi instead. It was dang good sushi, but didn't leave my shoulders all nice and warm and loose (but the sake sure did! Ha!) so I waited patiently for my next opportunity. Which was yesterday. So I went. AND IT WAS SUPERLATIVE. The best, best massage I've had in a very long time, if not ever-- and my therapist's name was Jess, which made it somehow all the better. Go see her. She's the jam.

After my massage, though, the weird headache that I've had on and off for a couple weeks now came back intensely strong. It started, like I said, a few weeks ago, but I only felt it when I lowered my head under heart-level, like when bending down to pick something up or leaning forward. The worst clamping down sort of pressure floods into my temples and forehead, instantly, and it feels like it sort of rushes in like liquid. Blood? I can feel my pulse acutely in my temples, but I supposedly have low blood pressure so I don't know. Anyway, it comes and goes, and after the massage it was the worst it's been so far. (My neck and shoulders felt great, though). Fortunately, Sarah was also feeling under the weather and I went over to her new place in West-ish Asheviile to do a long overdue music swap and watch an inspiring documentary and read magazines (me) and nap (her). After that I shook myself off, steeled my head and went to Earth Fare to meet up with Lauren.

There is something so incredibly gratifying in being with your best friend. The conversations that build on all those that have come before; the knowing of someone; the excitement at rediscovering all the little connections and similarities and examining the differences... cheesy alert: it truly feeds my soul. We had a bite at the Earth fare cafe and I did some last minute shopping for vitamins and whatnot (important to do while in the company of someone who gets an employee discount) and then we went to Bookopolis. Oh, so many amazing works of the hand and mind. Seriously, it was both inspiring and humbling and made me all the more excited to get into a book arts class in the next few months. I want to make our wedding book, where people write nice things.. what is that thing called? Guestbook! Ah.

From Bookopolis, we went on to the home of some of Lauren & Evan's friends who have a handbuilt wood fired pizza oven in their backyard. Despite the constant drizzle, we made some weird but satisfying pizzas (tuna with a raw egg cracked on top and spread out, which then was cooked until both the crust and the egg were soft and supple; pear, bacon, and gruyere; and my creation, good old pesto with feta on top). After eating until, at midnight, we were almost uncomfortable, L & E dropped me off at their house to sleep and they went out dancing until the wee hours. I woke up on this auspicious day in my best friend's bed, stumbled out to her covered porch and read home improvement books while the morning rain cooled everything down. When she woke up we made smoothies (apple slices, spirulina, blackberry frozen yogurt, frozen grapes and banana, and a dash of almond butter) and I finally, finally turned my car southwestward.

To Be Continued...

My thoughts/name exactly

2009-09-21T19:53:00.002-04:00

The other Jessica Kaufman's wedding favors, from Fig and Plum blog

So, it recently came to my attention that the creator of one of the first crafty blogs I started reading, years ago, Fig and Plum, not only has my exact same first and last name, spelling and all, but is also a fantastic writer and doer of cool things. She recently got married, and if you're at all interested in DIY weddings, or craftiness in general, or weddings in general, go read this recent post of hers. I just found myself nodding and saying "uh huh!" out loud. Plus, HOW MUCH WOULD YOU LOVE ONE OF THOSE BAGS? Sorry, wedding-goers, I am not making those. I'll make... um... something else cool.

September, please slow the heck down!

2009-09-19T19:06:00.003-04:00

And again, it's been a month since posting. The other night I was lying wide awake in bed at a quarter past 1, and was almost motivated enough to sneak over to the laptop to post, but I didn't want to disturb my sweet sleeping companion. This week it's become way too clear that while leaving to live at the Folk School has many, many, positive points, one major negative is not seeing Kenny for two months. (I think that since there are no classes during Thanksgiving week, we hosts will be able to leave... I have no idea, though. If not, it'll have to be three months.)

We've gone that long before, not seeing each other, but it's tough. I keep looking over at him and noticing all the beautiful, sweet things about him all over again... but this post is not meant for mush! No! Be gone, sentiment, and let's have a packing list.

Things I need to remember to put in my car before the big drive (I'm reading this from the back of the Folk School catalog because lately I have been carrying it around with me EVERYWHERE):
-scale
-loom
-guitar
-fabric stash
-yarn stash and needles and notions and works in progress and oh my god, the ENTIRE KNITTING CABINET (it's not like there isn't an amazing yarn shop in the next town over, but I'm not trying to spend money twice, you know what I mean?)
-big blue exercise/stretching ball
-yoga mat
-box of clay materials
-box of glass materials (this is in Charlotte, I'm picking it up)
-hoops, hoop tape and tools
-bag of polymer clay tools
-a few favorite mugs
-my tea stash

This does not even include clothing. Toiletries. Shoes. Cold weather gear. Computer & accessories. MY accessories. Books. Last time I moved somewhere for 6 months it was to Saigon, and I was limited to what US Air would allow me to take (i.e. a suitcase and a carry-on). I am so glad we now have two cars and I can drive one to the Folk School. THANK YOU, MARY HIRSCH!!

I think I've just overwhelmed myself. More tomorrow, because it's Sunday and I don't have to babysit or go to school. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to the kiddies. We've got such an amazing group this year... why couldn't I have taken 6 months off last year?!

Oh, snap. Here comes a personal story.

2009-08-14T22:09:00.003-04:00

It's almost the last day of camp. Wahhh! But that's not what I want to get off my chest today-- this post is intended to vent about something that happened yesterday at the dance.

Now I'm not going to waste precious sleeping time (it's 10:10pm already!) explaining how much I love the Old Farmer's Ball (OFB). Why would you be reading this if you didn't know me, right, and if you know me then you certainly know more than enough about why I love to contra dance. But I needed to preface this story by illustrating how certain elements of the dance set the scene.

I'm a good dancer. I like it. The OFB can be a safe place to get down, to experiment with new moves, and most of all, to create instantaneous connections with the other dancers, from eight years old to eighty. And when you come across someone who dances well with you, it can be fun. FUN. But that's it. (I mean, obviously that's not just it, as plenty of people meet their significant others at the dances... myself included. But if you're not looking for that, it can still be super, super fun). For me, personally, I really love the chance to stop connecting with others by talkingtalkingtalking like I do all day long and to connect by moving together. Yep, it can get, well, close. I've heard plenty of callers explain to newbies that we're sort of a flirtatious community and if someone seems like they're taking it too far, you can just say stop. I have had to put out some "stay farther away from me" vibes in the past, but not for years now-- despite the younger set's insistence that there are way too many "creepers" dancing these days. Maybe it's cause I'm older now, that i don't think of the adult males as creepy, maybe it's because I have an engagement ring on my hand. Who knows.

So, I'd been enjoying a really fun dance partner for a few weeks, who I felt sure could not only feel but SEE the ring on my left hand. I guess you can guess where this is going... last night my fun dance partner looked just as glad to see me there as I'm sure I looked, given that his presence meant I could expect to learn a few new spins during the waltzes, enjoy some harmless batting of the eyelashes, and his warm smile. There are several friends I look forward to dancing with at the OFB, all because they're fun, plain and simple. I danced a few with the partner this story is about, a few dances with other familiar faces, one with the Australian friend I'd dragged there with me, and then asked the first partner to dance again.

So, during that dance, this fun dance partner of mine asked me to go for a walk with him. "I'd rather keep it on the dance floor," I said with what I thought was a meaningful tone. He didn't seem particularly put out, and we got in line to dance again. And then, after that dance, he asked boldly for quite more than a walk. I looked surprised and wiggled my ring finger up at him, stating the obvious. And then his entire face changed and he got MAD. Cold. Mean. Dropped me like a hot pocket right then and there and left me slack-jawed at his unspoken accusations. I gave him some space and danced with a few others and at the set break, went to go clear the air.

"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," I began.
"Yeah." He said, staring blamingly into my eyes.
"Um, well, I guess I thought that we'd get to a point where we needed to tell each other where we were at with our lives, and, so, I just told you."
"Yeah." Again, cold.
"Um... well, you know... this dance community..." I babbled about the okay-ness of flirtatious dancing, sounding silly, trying to defend my honor. It's been a really long time since someone accused me, silently or otherwise, of leading them on.
At that point I ran out of words, not believing the unchangeably harsh look in his eyes. And then he said something along the lines of, "When a girl opens herself up in that way..." and I totally stopped listening. I was all of a sudden grossed out. He clapped a hand roughly on my shoulder. "Good luck in all your future endeavors." Turned away and stalked off.

Huh. There goes my dance partner, I guess. Part of me feels defensive. I hid nothing. My ring was there. We hadn't talked about our lives, he hadn't asked me if I was available. The other part of me, though, feels guilty and unsure. At what point do you need to preface yourself, to say, "Man, that was a great dance, by the way, I'm engaged/married/uninterested/asexual/whatever"? Should I have limited my enjoyment of the dance? Is there something wrong with the way I dance? Is it his fault? Is it mine?

And then, another part of me, the part that is sitting here cozily surrounded by funny friends and the soothing sounds of the camp that I love, knows it's not really the biggest of deals. So, I misjudged a man's interest. I should have mentioned my unavailability earlier. He should have expressed his disappointment/embarrassment is a more mature fashion. Now we know.

Anyone else have any experiences charting these awkward waters?

What blog?

2009-07-16T14:45:00.003-04:00

Ohai! I has a blog?

It's full-on summer camp up in here, which it should be, since July in the South cannot get any better than it does at GV. Fresh corn on the cob from our farm at (every single) meal, friendly faces to gossip with, great kid-friendly but funny-to-grown-ups conversations taking place right over the kids' heads... and tie-dye. Lots. Of. Tie-dye. Day in, day out. You'll find me at the washing machines, removing multi-colored rubber bands and adding more detergent.

For a hilarious and grimmace-worthy account of what I narrowly missed by getting to camp just 3 weeks later than everyone else, please go read my friend Sarah's blog. Her writing is too, too funny, especially if you know her and can picture her reading it aloud in her sing-song Southern voice.

So yeah, I'm not too frequently on the computer these days, which is nice. Last night I slept on another staff member's floor with two big hits of Tylenol PM and two earplugs and two electric fans, hoping to catch up on the sleep I had been so dearly missing. And ca-ching, I got it! Nine solid hours, surprisingly comfy and right at home on my 2-inch thick plastic mattress. Today I feel great, and went swimming in the lake at 7:00 am and then hiking to go pick blackberries after morning cluster. They're sitting on a plate on my bed, ready to be attacked at dinner time. I have the most excellent table group this session, with chatterbox children and slyly sarcastic grown-ups with whom I have lots in common. This afternoon I teach two one-hour hula hoop making sessions, with an assistant who long ago was a child in my cabin when I was in my 2nd year working here. She is now a lovely young adult who is also freaking hilarious and a kind soul, and I'm so glad we get to work together. After dinner tonight, I'm teaching an extended "Twilight Play" session of basket-making, which will be peaceful to the max.

Feel the love,
J

A quick discovery!

2009-06-13T11:19:00.003-04:00

I made the Green Mountain Spinnery's Turkish Rose mittens on the plane a few weekends ago when we went to my Grandma's memorial service in Dolgeville, NY. (We also go to hang out in Syracuse. Odd place.) Loved the pattern, really love the yarn (Alpaca Elegance-- one skein of each color will make more than a set of size M), and then when it came time to block them, look what I discovered:

The top of Knit Picks' sock blockers are made perfectly for blocking mittens! Tapered at the cuff, gently pointed at the top, made with cut-outs for easy breeziness.

Maybe you all knew that already. It sort of blew my mind. Adios, blocking pins!

(it also felt really great to have a finished project that I bought the yarn & pattern for at MDSW this year. That's 1 month from impulse buy to FO!)

People, now our meeting is over

2009-06-13T10:28:00.005-04:00

"Maybe all jobs are like this in the sense that there are the good parts and the bad parts, with the bad parts occupying the majority of the space because it is a JOB after all. If you have a job where there are more good parts than bad parts then you've obviously made a deal with the Devil and you're going to spend the rest of eternity being tortured by fork-wielding elves to make up for the imbalance. I'm just saying." -Heather B. Armstrong, in her book It Sucked and then I Cried (2009, p. 139)

It's the end of the school year, and it's time for me to say something: I have an awesome job. It is 95% "good parts," and I know this because I have worked several jobs that ranged from 20% good to about 50% good if being forcibly optimistic about what constitutes "good" (this does not include seasonal work, like summer camp, because then we would need a different rating system since GV is batting over 100%). My current job, you guys, is seriously good. And I'm leaving it. Voluntarily.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. For three years, maybe more, I've been waiting to score a sacred 6-month time slot at the Folk School in Brasstown, NC. I've saved up my money and gone to week-long classes there three separate times, and each time I was there I expanded my fantasy of someday living there for longer than a week. The Folk School hires 2 people every six months to live in the Keith House (big, old creaky beautiful wooden main building where the main community gatherings are held) and take a free class every week (FREE! CLASS! EVERY WEEK!!!), while doing the duties that I have inadvertently spent my entire life polishing up on: basic camp counseling, setting up of spaces, having a bit of knowledge about a lot of different crafts, leading blessing in the dining hall, managing the put up and take down of folding chairs... oh yes, and leading morning walks, welcome speeches, handing out mail, and trotting off to find a maintenance person when someone's shower isn't working. I am made for this job. Did I mention the FREE CLASS every WEEK?!

Because the Host positions last 6 months, only 4 are available each year. Do you think they hear from 4 people every year who want to do this? I'm sure it's 10 times that number. In a way it's amazing that I only had to wait 3 years. On the other hand, it felt like forever. I remember trying to decide whether or not to begin my Masters because I wasn't sure when I'd get the go-ahead and receive a starting date to Host. Good thing I decided to just enroll already, because here we are and it's 2009 and I've finished my degree. And I've got those blessed Hosting dates: September 26, 2009 - March 26, 2010. Oh, glory of glories. Now, beggars cannot be choosers, or at least, they can be choosy if they don't mind waiting another few years. I jumped at the chance as soon as I got my dates, noticing (as I'm sure you did) that they fall right in the middle of the school year. Hmmm.

My awesome, lucky job. The Folk School. Awesome job; Folk School. Argh. I struggled for, well, at least an hour, talked to Kenny and my Mom, and said yes. I'll have a month of working just the After School part of my job (reducing myself to an hourly position, instead of full time) before I go, and when I come back hopefully I'll be able to just assimilate myself right back into After School (as a helper, of course, rather than the Director). And in the mornings, I'll be nannying for an amazing family here in Williamsburg who by some miracle don't mind that I have to be gone for 6 months. I'll work for them for a month (including paid time to go to the beach with them! And Kenny is invited, too! omg.) and then pick right back up when I come back at the end of March. It's all going to work out.

Of course, this means no pay for 6 months, so I'm saving up everything I can right now and babysitting my butt off every chance I can get. I am SO EXCITED about going to the Folk School. 6 months of being fed wonderful food, 6 months of living in Western NC again (close to Brevard, close to Asheville, an hour away from the ATL airport!), 6 months of free classes and living in a beautiful creaky wooden room and walking around the hills and having a weekly contra dance literally in my house. These things are barely the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, and I feel the need to say again:

I am very, very, lucky. For both my awesome job and what I get to leave it for.

Latest hooping video

2009-06-13T10:07:00.003-04:00

I shot this on Friday morning, before I had to get dressed up for the Upper Elementary graduation ceremony. Hooping is a good way to clear your mind, especially if you can blast some music. This is my current favorite song to hoop to ("Say Hey" by my secret lover, Michael Franti. For real, we shared a bottle of water one time at the Orange Peel. Le sigh!).

(click to embiggen)

Meh.

2009-06-04T13:45:00.002-04:00

I've been trying to psych myself up to blog lately, but it's just not coming. I've been taking pictures of various things, thinking, "I want to make a post about this," and even sort of writing it in my head, but... eh, I've got so much else to do. The blog can wait.

Some things:

1. I've been revising my thesis a lot, working off of a hard copy that my 3rd reader read meticulously. There are corrections on every single page, I kid you not. Typety typety type type type...

2. School (the kind where I work, not study) is almost over! One more week, which shall include many "last" lessons of various types, a closing ceremony wherein I lead a group of very smart children in singing "People Now Our Meeting is Over" (a shout-out to GV folks, indeed) and playing guitar for various small-group performances.

3. Starting with my Grandma's memorial service a few weekends ago and its legendary dessert buffet, I have been gaining weight like crazy. I'm talking seven pounds in a week and a half, dear god have mercy. This is very depressing, especially since I've been going to the gym and walking early in the morning and hooping and and and... I think it's an understatement to say that it's much easier for my body to gain weight than burn it off. I think I re-figure this out every month or so and renew my resolve to eat fewer calories, only to crack under the pressure of lime bars and pita chips and snacks with the kids in the afternoons. Blah. Bring on summer camp, where we all have perpetual quasi-nausea from the sheer insanity of the dining hall.

4. I found a very sweet family to nanny for part-time next year. I'll be doing After School in the afternoons as usual, and hanging out with Baby Joe in the mornings. Nice. :)

5. For the first time in awhile, my hair is free of all artificial colorants. I discovered a few natural streaks of very light brown around my temples, and I now check them out in the mirror several times a day. Hmm. I wonder if that's where I'll start going grey?

This is what I've got for y'all: 1 month

2009-05-18T20:36:00.003-04:00

It's getting easier and easier to move the hoop up and down my body. Knee hooping continues to evade me. I can take alternate arms in and out, but it's tentative at this point-- more practice is needed! I do the "revolving door" quite a bit in this video mainly because I haven't filmed myself doing it yet and wanted to see what it looks like. I'm also working on hooping to my opposite direction (or "current") but I plum forgot while trying to shoot this before my camera battery died. It also imported in a format incompatible with iMovie so what you see here is uncut-- try to enjoy the times I drop it/sling it almost into my neighbor's shrubs.

YAY!

A massive blog post, overdue

2009-05-17T08:43:00.003-04:00

I made a to-do list last night at way past midnight, because I just wasn't sleepy yet and Kenny was still up too, attempting to fix my incommunicado iPhone. It actually was quite a scene, complete with sharp kitchen knife and insufficient lighting. I avoided trouble by making to-do lists and casting a discriminatory eye over the trouble brewing on my desk. Now that the Master's Degree Shiznit is almost over, I can start thinking about a rehaul of the massive amounts of papers that currently clog my desktop(s), both real and computery.

So on that to-do list was "do a catch-up blog post" and of course that sounds like way more fun than completing old Brain Gym homework so that I can finally get my certificate. Here we go, then:

Last weekend I went to Prescott, AZ one last time to present my thesis work at Colloquium. See, don't we look happy to be almost done? I stayed in a cabin (again) with Gina & Maria (again) which proved to be an excellent idea (again). Love renting cabins in Prescott. Definitely the cheapest and most relaxing option, although couchsurfing that one time was pretty awesome, too. At the cabins, though, we can walk to school and all around town, which makes the weekend all the more special.

I finished TWO pairs of socks while listening to all the presentations and on the planes coming back:

My 1st picot edge; yarn from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm (bought at MDSW 2008)

Laurie's "Secret Power Socks," made by special request for taking the MCAT.

For some reason, I always get more knitting done faster at Colloquium than anywhere else. Sort of sad that I won't be going to them anymore! I'll also seriously miss getting to see all my new MAP buddies all in one place. Also, I really love the weather there and how light and fresh the air feels. Plus the deliciousness of The Raven cafe, one of my favorite eateries ever. Here are our celebratory orange-pomegranate mimosas, so cold and perfect:

********

When I got back, I had only 3 days of work before a luxurious 4-day weekend, which was spent hosting my soon-to-be brother-in-law (can't have enough brothers, eh?) and having an absolute blast doing every possible activity one can do in Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. Soccer, go-carts, Ghost Walk, aquarium, kite-flying, beach jogging, many meals out, many meals cooked in, picnicing all over the place... it was pretty awesome. For all the pictures, go to Kenny's comprehensive Flickr set.

(I also spent a happy evening out with Kenny, in which we decided to live it up in full VA Beach style and drink tequila and walk around on the beach in the dark. Ah, love.)

Aaaughh! Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-11T00:00:00.003-04:00

My phone has been crippled lately by intermittent periods of NO SIGNAL. It surprises me by suddenly having signal when I take it out of my bag to check, and then when I excitedly start dialing a number it all of a sudden says NO SIGNAL. Hmph. Perhaps it has developed a condition which allows it to communicate with a tower only when it is tucked safely away in the darkness of a bag? It works for my pocket, too, apparently.

So I tried, during one of these after-dark periods, to call my Mom. A few seconds into, "hello? Hello??" and it cut off, so I have to say this here:

This veggie sandwich, priced at a lofty $8 at the Phoenix airport, represents my love for you. Made of simple ingredients, yet somehow so perfect when put all together on some nine grain bread. May your decorative toothpick always stand tall, Mom! May you have extra pesto mayonnaise, enough to cover all of your cucumbers forever! And may the lemon cookie on the side* tide you over through all your overnight flights to come! I love you!

*some of you probably looked for the lemon cookie, but it is not pictured. This is because I am a grown-up and may eat my dessert before dinner, if I like.

Oh, and also: BAAAAA!

2009-05-03T17:42:00.001-04:00

Back from MDSW...

2009-05-03T17:01:00.003-04:00

...and boy is my wallet tired! Ha. Just kidding, I budgeted pretty well. I was ready for the onslaught of pretty and soft, after last year's maiden voyage. First up, the yarn purchases!

Lame-o colors in a really great yarn for an even better price: sock yarn mill ends from Cherry Tree Hill, soon to be overdyed. Muahahhh.

More of my favorite Acero, from Brooks Farm (soon to be a Woodland Shawl for my self.)

Finally found the perfect "midnight purple" blue to go with my goldenrod-colored Koigu. Mmm, the things they could be together...

Because I wanted to try something from Shelridge Farms last year, but didn't get a chance. Eh?

Loved the display mitten so bought the yarn! Lovely Green Mountain Spinnery. I want to work there someday.

These people (The Bransonas) were nice. It was close to the end of the day. Liked the colors. Probably shouldn't have bought more sock yarn, though....

Oh my god, splurrrrge! It was the very end of the day, and Holly was buying one... I love it I love it I love it. Isn't it pretty?! Here, you need a detail shot:

Oh yes, pumpkiny pumpkin deliciousness. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, roving for needle felting projects with the kids at school:

And I got a mug and a pair of earrings from Jennie the Potter, who was nice beyond belief and with whom I'm totally going to do a last minute interview for my thesis chapter on clay-- if she has a sec. And we can't forget the lamb kabob, kettle corn, maple sugar candies and (though I'll admit it, pretty gross) soft serve with a peanut-butter flavored dip top. It didn't digest so well, probably cause there wasn't much real food in it.

So when I laid out all this new yarn to be photographed and dutifully entered into Ravelry, I realized something...

Hmm...

Why yes, I am a Unitarian Universalist, how ever did you know?

Week 2's video, a few days earlier than expected

2009-05-01T19:13:00.003-04:00

Because today I leave for MDSW, and wanted to show you that I can ALMOST CORKSCREW!

On making hoops

2009-04-28T08:02:00.002-04:00

(You know, for the kids!)

Kenny finally got me to watch the Hudsucker Proxy a few nights ago, and I loved its early Cohen Bros. style. So many of the things I love about Raising Arizona were present in Hudsucker Proxy, too.

So, it seems that buying a hoop costs way more than making one does, if you are only factoring in the cost for making one. The materials that go into one single hoop are pretty inexpensive, but you can only buy the right kind of pvc tubing in a large bundle-- large enough, say, to make 8-10 hoops depending on size. Since the kids at school line up to use my hoop, I figured why not go into a wee business and make them custom ordered?

I got 12 orders on the first day (yesterday). Boy, was I ambitious. Doing just eight of them took me 5 hours. And I priced them whimsically, without much thought, at $10/hoop. Then Kenny helped me crunch the numbers, and... it turns out that with startup costs (I ordered some purple mirror tape online; I had to buy the pvc cutters, etc) I'm turning the tiniest of profits. And they are easy to piece together but a bit laborious to tape up. I think maybe $15 would be better, but you know, I needed the practice. Who in their right mind, before having made any hoops at all, would try to make bank?

So I got into a rhythm last night, with Kenny's help, of "cut the pipe, blowdry the ends, insert the connector, duct tape the seam. Repeat." Then watch 30 Rock, the Office, and Dollhouse while taping, taping, taping them up. I have to say, they feel great! So solid, so round, such a nice weight.

This morning I took them out to be documented and played with:

The biggest one...

And the smallest one.

Can I do both at once?

How about ALL of them at once?!

Nope. But three is fine.

I am officially almost out of mirror tape (and I will be by the time I finish one order this morning, thankfully the last one that wanted purple) and completely out of 100psi tubing, the lighter kind. I guess instead of thinking about the little profits, I can think, hey, I got my cutters for free. And I can now make myself any kind of hoop I want, which is fan-freaking-tastic.

I can't wait to bring all these hoops to school today-- it's Santa Hoop!!

2009-04-27T10:57:00.002-04:00

I'm getting so excited about MDSW... which is somehow this weekend! I'm going to be at Guido's After Party on Saturday night... anyone else whose going to the festival should come out and have a drink with me while we listen to see if we won any door prizes!

I am looking forward in anticipation to the yarn I don't need but will surely buy. And the lamb kabobs. And the sunshine. Should I bring my hoop? *off to check the Ravelhoopers Forums to see if anyone else will be going*

Hooping: Week 1 progress

2009-04-26T00:34:00.003-04:00

I made this little video (very roughly, by the way-- be warned about a possible abrupt ending) so that I have something to compare to in a month's or year's time.

Skillz breakdown thus far:

1. Waist hooping: got it, but having trouble maintaining an even thrust when walking around
2. Hip hooping: sporadic and speedy at best. Work in progress.
3. Hand work: got the hand offs, got the halo, but need H-E-L-P with floats. Argh.
4. Dancing in the hoop: um. You be the judges. But gently. If I move my arms too much, my torso forgets what it's doing.

To be continued in a week or two, depending...

[Many thanks to Kenny for leading a disgruntled me through the woods to the new W&M amphitheater, which instantly turned into my new favorite place ever.]

A bit of happy inspiration

2009-04-17T00:15:00.000-04:00

For summertime, for practicing, for amazing skillz:

Day 10, and thoughts on ending

2009-04-16T09:57:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I was hallucinating smells. Various food smells and the smells of cooking (the smell of a hot oven, for example) floated by me so strongly that I kept asking the kids around me if they smelled it, too. That convinced me that making it all the way through Day 10 and waking up to eating was no more noble than closing Day 10 with a steaming bowl of miso broth. So that's what I did. And it was SO GOOD.

Once I had the soup and let my stomach sort of get used to hot liquids, I then cautiously munched on a slice of avocado, and then a handful of pecans. Yum! This morning I had warm applesauce and a bit of a pancake that I made for a 6-year-old friend that Kenny and I babysat overnight. I was so full after that small amount of food. Today's business is letting all that fully digest--I'll be drinking fresh-squeezed orange/carrot juice (watered down) for the rest of the day. Easy does it... there's a feast coming this weekend. I feel a little heady with freedom now that food in general is back on the menu, but I want to be really, really careful that I don't let myself convince myself that those Dunkin Donuts over there are something I want in my body. No no no. Not with these freshly cleaned innards.

And now back to your regularly scheduled knitting/ grad school blog!

Day 9 is done!

2009-04-14T21:13:00.003-04:00

I can't believe I've made it this far, and at the same time it really flew by. In fact, as unbelievable as it may sound, I sort of feel like I'm just hitting my stride. Kenny decided halfway through Sunday that he wanted to join me in the cleanse, but didn't ease in, just started with the lemonade, and tonight he is happily munching whole wheat pasta with seafood marinara on the couch beside me. I don't even mind, because I know how hard it can be to start fasting right after eating loads of dairy/meaty/bready foods. It feels like death. So it's okay, honey. As long as you don't mind my nose hovering closer and closer to your dinner.

Day 9 was a very evenly-keeled day, although I had to work harder to distract myself from the constant food smells which envelop the office every day. Whatever our school is having for lunch, you'll know before you even walk in the main door. Sometimes it's even hot & muggy in there due to the steam from the kitchen. Somedays it smells delicious (pizza day, tater tots day) and somedays not (baked fish day). I don't even know what we had today, but it made my stomach do a long, slow growl every hour or so. I savored my lemonade.

In other news, we got a new roommate today! Well, apartment-mate. After a long search which resulted in lots of college kids who didn't need a room until June, we finally heard from Lauren, a Colby grad who has never lived in Williamsburg. She seems very easygoing and likable! It'll be so awesome to be able to save half our rent each month and put it towards the wedding/economy failure fund.

Tomorrow is my last day of cleansing, although I can totally understand why lots of people believe that 10 days is the minimum. I'm still, how shall we say, excreting. I'd love to just keep fasting until I'm totally in the clear, but with Yoshi's big celebration this coming weekend I need to start easing out on Thursday. Fresh squeezed OJ + carrot juice with ginger is on the menu, as well as miso soup (oh my god HOT FOOD!). On Friday I'll have a salad and maybe some roasted veggies w/ quinoa.

Days 7 & 8, before I forget

2009-04-13T22:56:00.002-04:00

Oh man, Day 7 was just driving and depression. No hunger, but I was on such an emotional rollercoaster. This is what happens when the Master Cleanse meets menstruation and 5 consecutive days of travel. It wasn't pretty, but I stayed on program. I'm thinking that for me, Day 7 was the deepest depth and the hardest day. I had lots of good insights and revelations, mostly things I have realized before but now, in a space where I'm proud of myself and having something physical to work through... I don't know, they just seem easier to swallow. [Like: I seem to have a major issue with food availability and excess being a trigger for eating when I'm not hungry. If I saw one square of macaroni & cheese on a plate on Day 6, I wouldn't have had any urge to eat it. It would have represented what I need it to be right now (something I am conscientiously abstaining from) and I would have remembered my reasons for abstaining. But at EarthFare there was a gigantic pile of macaroni & cheese squares, and that abundance made me want one so bad. This happened a lot as I contemplated the contents of the deli case. Something about stacks of food and giant platters signals my common sense to go on vacation.]

Today, Day 8, was the opposite of yesterday: mentally & emotionally balanced, happy, rational. But hungry? Oh my, yes. I took my babysitting charges to lunch at a pancake house and while the children ordered a stunningly sensible lunch for themselves (tomato juice, a salad, chicken noodle soup), I was reading the menu like it was, well, pornographic. Bounty, hedonism, escapism, all on one menu?! And with side orders of meat?? I couldn't believe everyone else just read these things so casually. I had to sort of chew on my straw a little bit and my stomach growled loudly. But I still only crave the sweet stuff, and this cleanse was supposed to cure me of that-- when do I get the cravings for steamed kale, garlicky and lightly salted? Actually, that sounds really good. Time for bed. 2 days left until I can supposedly make better choices. I better get ready to be mindful and not desperate.

on going to a party at night

2009-04-12T01:19:00.003-04:00

I had a lot of real ups and downs tonight, but not in the usual way. I felt like an empty vessel, which sometimes had energy coming out of it--seemingly from nowhere, or from everywhere-- and then had simply nothing. Zilch. No thoughts, nothing to say, just content to observe.

When I had energy, I all of a sudden was witty, interested/ing, and honestly felt like I was fully present in the moment, that I and whoever I was talking with were creating something. Like improv. No preconceived thoughts or plans. And then, zap, it would be gone, and I'd feel sort of tired but more just wide-eyed and spaced out, and I was really really watching other people, fully, like they were in a zoo or on TV. I was captivated by their conversations that were happening right next to me (but felt 10 feet away).

I experienced some depressing thoughts as well, which hasn't happened yet in this cleanse, but that I gather are a pretty normal side effect. I also completely fell out of agreement with actual time, and every fiber of my being felt like it was hours earlier than it actually was. I couldn't help but feel disappointed when the grocery stores were all closed (I accidentally ran out of lemons for tomorrow morning's prep) and my fiance was already in bed and too sleepy to discuss my big meaningful insights.

Now I'm waiting to crash. I'm really tired of living out of my car. I'm emotionally overwhelmed by returning to Boone after 4 years away and only staying for 30 minutes. I'm confused about the myriad of feelings that I had while watching my best friend perform at the party tonight: I always knew how kinetic and vivacious and talented she secretly was, but when did it stop being a secret? When did she turn into this gypsy siren? I feel strangely protective about her for some reason, and I hope I hope I hope it's not, well, maybe envy.

I should probably try to go to sleep now. Oh, one more thing that has me slightly worried: I tried busting out my new accordion tonight, and came to grips (literally) with how incredibly heavy it is. And huge. Will I get stronger and manage to wrangle it, or is this a big problem? Too tough to decide tonight. I have named him Klaus.

Days 5 & 6 together in one lump

2009-04-11T19:36:00.003-04:00

Cause that's sort of how it felt. Get up early Friday morning, drive to Brevard in a HUGE thunder and lightning storm, deposit check from Dad (thanks, dad!) meet friends for breakfast but don't eat, go to camp and look at new construction and laugh with Cate, Barbara and Andy, do a pitiful half-hike with Sarah and then get really tired, go to Poppies organic market and experience complete food lust. Go back to Sarah's and watch "Rachel Getting Married" while teaching Sarah how to knit. Felt very cold, it was hard to stay warm.

Saturday morning, get up early, drive with Sarah all the way up 19E past Penland (stopped in to say hello to my amazing aunt & uncle), went to a dance in Avery county (Lift Ticket! Yeah!), drove by Boone real quick to Sarah could see it and eat at Angelica's (I didn't eat, more food lust ensued), drove back to Swannanoa, now I'm crashed out on a couch enjoying the internet. Ahh.

So, the lax tea continues to um, inspire things. I'm can't believe there's still things to be laxed out of me. Hmm. I wasn't hungry for the 1st 3 days and now I'm realizing that the last 4 are going to feel very, very long. I'm off to read some inspiring thoughts by Marce, who must be almost done by now...

Rumble rumble.

Must remember why I'm doing this. And that all that delicious food will still be there when I'm done getting clean. And that I need to eat to live, not live to eat.

Off to a birthday party...

[this was written when I was really tired, and now an hour later, after drinking the last of my day's lemonade stuff, I feel much better. Clearer. I'm looking forward to coming home and doing the SWF again, so that I can re-focus on the "getting rid of" part and not the "I can't eat food" part. Being active really effects how I feel on this cleanse, as well as being around food. My major trigger for cravings (going grocery shopping) happened twice in the past two days, just because I was hanging out with friends, and I think that tomorrow, when I'm just driving and not wandering around in EarthFare, I'll feel much more sustained and less deprived.]

How Day 4 went down

2009-04-10T08:24:00.002-04:00

Day 4, Thursday, was just one of the best days I've had in a long time. This whole week has been awesome, come to think of it. This makes 2 years in a row where I've had a fabulous Spring Break, and both weeks have had a few essential things in common: time with my parents, time in Asheville, time with Sara and Lauren...

So yesterday I did my 2nd Salt Water Flush, which went even more smoothly (heh) than the 1st. Knowing I wasn't going to get sick was a big part of the mental ease, and then things progressed faster than they had the day before. I think I was all out of water by 2.5 hours in. So I packed up my things (many more things than I came with, thanks to IKEA!) and went to my Dad's house.

I am very lucky to have the parents that I have, all 3 of them. They are each incredibly talented in different ways and offer their skills to me when I need them. Having not found the right curtain for our cheap-ass kitchen door, my Mom let me pick out fabric and some trim and then she just whipped one up for me, even though she could have been doing other things. My step-dad routinely changes the oil on my car, hooks me up with great new music (most recently: Sometymes Why), and all three of them will probably help make the music merry at my wedding next year. Anyway, yesterday I went to my Dad's so he could help me with a musical project.

At the end of the year I'm responsible for picking a piece for the Upper Elementary class to sing at their graduation ceremony. Last year we did an a capella "Let There Be Peace on Earth (and Let it Begin With Me") which was so sweet. This year I want to utilize a genius piano-playing 6th grader so I wanted to bring a song with accompaniment. The song I want to teach them, however, I learned from a blind piano player at my summer camp who has just been playing it the same way for probably 50 years and I have no way of extracting from her the exact way that it should be played. So rather than just sing the song to the 6th grader and let him make something up, I went to my awesome Dad who, in the space of like 45 minutes, let me sing the song to him, came up with a basic chord structure that he let me offer input on, tinkered with filling out the arrangement, added an intro, and then put it all into Finale. In minutes it was printed out professionally and I even had a CD of the accompaniment so I could play it for the kids the first time I sing the song for them. ROCK!

Then my birthday present was, well, presented:

That's right, kids. I am now a 2nd generation accordian player!! This is made even more fabulous by the fact that my Dad has played since he was in elementary school, Kenny's Mom plays, one of my best friends is taking lessons, and accoridans seem to be making a general comeback in the cool crowd. I'm so excited (as you can see! Don't judge my "whee" face!).

Then I packed it all up, said thank you thank you I'm so excited thank you, took a walk to the grocery store to get Vitamufin mix (aw, yeah) and some Jarro-dophilous (gotta keep the good in while the bad goes out) and hit the highway, pointing myself due west.

Asheville. Coffee shop. Bear hugs with friends. Contra dancing myself into a state of rapture. Sharing sweat with hundreds. Laughing out loud at the genius and surprise of the music. Hanging at Waffle House with a cup of hot lax tea. Back to Warren Wilson (oh, home of countless memories) and into the shower, and into bed. I was lucky enough to score a newly vacated single room in my friends' suite and I awoke at dawn.

I slept not so great, but that's okay: today hold even more wonders (including seeing friends I usually only get to see in the summer months) and a trip to a yarn store. Hallelujah, and see you tomorrow!

P.S. I felt some real hunger yesterday, but it's not surprising as it was a very active day and I burned hundreds of calories at the dance. Bring me some lemonade!!!

Two FOs to show you!

2009-04-09T12:57:00.006-04:00

As I was wrapped up in thesisville, I couldn't get these photographed/edited/uploaded with a clear conscious. But now I have nothing but sunshine and time to fiddle around with the computer, so here we go:

1. Toe-up rainbow socks (Ravelry project page), as blogged about right here back when they were about 6" high. I was so determined to knit until I ran out of yarn but I just couldn't work on them any more one day a few weeks ago and had to stop. the. knitting.

This is how tall they got before I ran screaming from them, tiny little leftover red balls trailing behind me.

The heelflaps didn't work out for me on these, which I blame on the feet inexplicably growing by 2 inches when I blocked them. WTF?

Yeah, about that yarn growing: I feel like this happens with most of my blocking attempts. I'm not lifting the wet projects up and letting them stretch themselves out or anything; maybe it has to do with the way I walk on the towels to soak up the extra moisture? Maybe it's my yarn choices? Anyway, beware when blocking the KnitPicks sock blanks.

Anyway, number 2: my 2nd pair of baby booties! (Ravelry project page)

(god bless ComicLife and screenshots for making me look a lot better with a Mac than I am.)
I love making these! I can use leftover sock yarn, and it's a pattern that's been around for ages and ages, written down in different formats and whatnot (most of the women I show them to go, "oh, I knit those once" even if they haven't knit for 30 years), so I'm thinking it might be okay to make lots of them and sell them on Etsy or in local shops. Whattya think?

I started a cowl that's working out beautifully so far. It's the popular Good Luck Cowl (non-Rav link here) in my 1st ever Koigu yarn. It's springy and nice, of course, but it's also twisted a little firmly for me. Hmm. Maybe my tastes aren't as classy as I thought.

Also being worked on slowly and in fits and starts is the 2nd Phiaro Scarf (which I blogged about over a month ago, here).

(doesn't it look so funnily unlike a shawl in it's pre-dropped state? Imagine all those purled columns dropped down into long ladders. The large swath of stockinette is, of course, the fringe...)

[I'm also still working on the old silky brown pullover from last November (sigh), but since no new progress has happened, no new pictures need be taken.]

MC: Day 3

2009-04-08T22:40:00.002-04:00

After the slow but eventual success of my 1st salt water flush, I set out on a monumental day of IKEA shopping with my Mom, which normally would have left me tired and cranky and in need of a quick sugar fix. Don't get me wrong: standing in the checkout line inhaling the mouth-watering scent of those hot cinnamon buns was awesome. It made me really appreciate smell, and how satisfying it can be to just smell something delicious without needing to put it in my mouth and eat as much of it as I can get away with. A lot of taste is smell, and a lot of (my perceived) hunger is the desire for taste and texture, so a good deep appreciative inhalation might be a good thing for me to do when warily approaching my next "should I or shouldn't I" treat.

For my birthday present, my Mom helped me buy myself a two-hour massage at Massage Envy. My therapist was very, very strong, and I usually enjoy (no, need) deep pressure-- especially under my occipital ridge (top of the neck/base of the skull) to relieve headaches. Tonight, maybe because of the cleanse or maybe because I just did weight training 2 days ago, I felt flinchy and bruisable (and neither of those are real words, methinks). None of that is her fault, of course, and I'm sure my detoxification process is only benefited by the enthusiastic wringing out of my muscles. Now, though, at home with my hot tea and big bed, I just feel so tired. My eyes are so heavzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Day 4 brings a two hour drive to the mountains (!!!!) and a sweat-tastic contra dance at the OFB. I'm so excited.

Salt Water Flush, the 1st

2009-04-08T09:13:00.004-04:00

Okay, just writing up my own wimpishness last night motivated me to actually do the dang thing. This morning I got up around 7 and stirred up my 1st "internal scouring" solution. I was pleased and surprised to realize that I am apparently one of the few people who don't find the taste disgusting. It's not as salty tasting as I thought it would be, and I didn't gag at all (fear #1). I drank it very cold (which was the worst part, but the only filtered water here comes out of the fridge) and licked a lemon wedge in between gulps. I laid down on my right side (while reading this article on banh mi-- yum) and 90 minutes later I still haven't felt any, um, urge to go. This is fear #2: retaining all that salt. Come on, lower intestines!

ETA: Okay, 3 hours after the fact. I don't want to be too graphic here, but the SWF has worked it's way out. It's not nearly as dramatic as one might think, in fact the senna tea gives me way more cramping. The salt water is aptly named "flush."

Okay that's it for today! Thanks for reading probably way more details than you wanted!

MC: Days 1 & 2

2009-04-07T22:54:00.004-04:00

Wow, thanks for all the feedback I got from so many of you who have done this before! I've really enjoyed hearing all the gory details, believe it or not. It helps me feel less uncertain about some of the processes I'll be going through the next 8 days or so.

I spent my 1st full days of the Cleanse babysitting. This was challenging, because I had to focus my energy somewhat and also keep giving firm but polite reasons why I really did not want a hot dog, or popcorn, or some "roast." All of which sounded pretty delicious, of course, but my objectives for abstaining remain strong!

Truth be told, I haven't had much hunger to speak of yet. I think easing in with a pre-cleanse diet of raw fruits & veg did help a whole lot. Monday was Day 1 and I had so much energy that after babysitting and walking a friend's dog I went to my usual group weight training class at the gym... but about halfway through I suddenly ran out of oomph entirely. I lazed through the end of class doing really slow reps and then went to pick up Kenny from school, and by the time 9pm rolled around I felt like I was being pulled downward onto the nearest soft surface. I fell asleep observing an acute headache clamping down on my temples, which didn't worry me too much.

Day 2 dawned with slightly more mental clarity than usual, and I accomplished a lot of chores (including packing the car for my trip to see my parents) all before 9:00am. I spent the whole day babysitting again, which was way less thrilling than yesterday, and involved several fantasy games in which I was the customer at a restaurant and was being served by my ward. I discovered that even though I didn't technically feel hungry, I was really enjoying describing what I wanted to eat to the mini-hostess. Among the things I picked were eggs over easy with sourdough toast; creme brulee; blueberry pancakes. Think I've got some sugar issues to deal with here?!

I'm looking forward to the part of the cleanse when the detox really starts getting nasty. So far I have a fuzzy tongue and teeth but that's about it. Tomorrow I get to hang out with my Mom all day, and we're going to IKEA(!). Hooray!

p.s.- I'm sort of avoiding the Salt Water Flush. You who know, know what I mean. I think that next time I do the Cleanse, it will be a definite part of the experience, but seeing as the really profound results come in at around day 6-7 of consecutive SWFing, and I can only do it once or twice this time due to traveling, I'm going to stick with the lax tea instead. Surely, I will still reap some benefits anyway? I find it hard to believe that without the SWF, the Cleanse is no good. Feel free to weigh in if you've tried it either way.

Spring cleaning: my declaration of intent

2009-04-05T14:54:00.003-04:00

Over the past few months I've been writing my thesis and have been staying up very late writing, and getting up as early as I could drag myself into consciousness to write again. In order to keep myself going, I've been indulging OVER AND OVER again in incredibly junky foods. Processed foods; food high in saturated fat; salty snacks; and sweets made from a combination of very unnatural sugar-type stuffs. A Diet Coke every day just to buzz my system into an alert state. My energy decreased every day, my clothes started squeezing my body, and my general brain power felt, you know, sluggish. I was cranky with my usually delightful students and I felt really, really guilty that I wasn't treating myself the way I know I should.

Because you see, I'm not new to healthy food. I'm not usually a carb junkie and I truly enjoy vegetables. I know the value of eating until I'm almost full, of checking in with myself mentally and emotionally before I reach for the next treat to see why I really am craving it. I've been a successful Weight Watcher and therefore have learned the balance of calories in and out; I have an active gym membership and ride my bike to work on most sunny days (well, except during thesis-time). I went without eating red meat for years, I was a vegan one whole summer (and it was a really great summer, full of clarity and ease), I practice yoga, I have hobbies... I'm not the average American "junk food junkie" (my Mom's phrase from the '80s).

But life is stressful sometimes, and rather than let my big assignment slide, I let my health slide. Sugar became a major addiction and I needed more food with every meal to feel full. Well, I turned in my paper last week, and it is now beautiful Spring Break. Our apartment is tidied, I have savings in the bank, and the most important thing: I have free time again. It's time to own up and give my body the respect it deserves. I need something to help me steer myself back to good health, a way to silence the noise, to process what I've done and reset my goals and objectives for the new season.

One day last week I noticed that not one, or two, but THREE of my friends on Facebook had posted something in their status updates about the Master Cleanse. I'd heard the phrase before, and vaguely remembered hearing about Kenny's younger sister doing it after the holidays. Basically it's a fast from solid foods. All of the world's major religions advocate fasting as a way back to mental clarity, to set priorities, and to heal the body. I've fasted before, usually no more than 3 or 4 days, and I know firsthand that my particular metabolic level (read: reeeeally slow) and digestion speed (I could survive in the desert for days on my last meal and a couple gallons of water) make me a really good faster. I'm slow to feel hunger and I like to take a break from all that eating. When I've fasted in the past, I all of a sudden could remember things better, felt sugar was less of a need. When my body has a chance to work on output, when I give it a careful break from input, I can re-enter the world of food choices with a much clearer mind.

So I've started prepping for this 3-10 day cleanse. Since it's a really bad idea to go right from mountains of buffet-restaurant crap to nothing but lemon water, I gave myself an unlimited amount of time to transition with just raw fruits and veggies, but as much as I wanted of them. The first day, I had a huge salad, several bananas, more fruit in the evening, etc... and I felt great. The second day I also had a salad, but a smaller one, and carrots, and an apple... but my stomach felt crampy and I felt grumpy. I have no doubt that this was my body starting to come down from the dizzying level of trashy foods I had stuffed in it for months, regardless of my hunger level.

Yesterday was my third day on raw fruit/veg and I awoke feeling awesome. I had a great walk with Kenny, we went to the gym and I felt so strong on the rowing machine. All of a sudden I could feel my muscles working in tandem-- and they didn't have to avoid a huge belly full of food (just the residual flab). At home as I was putting clean dishes away I became aware that what had previously seemed like a monumental task--the organizing of our tupperware/pots & pans hutch-- was now clearly do-able, and I sat down cheerfully to the chore and had it finished in minutes. Why had I been avoiding that for so long? At night I went contra dancing and felt if not lithe then definitely more centered, more upright on my axis. Sleep was, again, deep and peaceful.

And today, day 4, I made it til almost noon before I even felt the slightest stir of hunger. As I was babysitting and the kids were having creamy tomato soup, I sliced up a ripe tomato for myself and had it with a handful of snow peas. When I got home I had a bunch of red grapes, and lots of water. I feel like I'm ready. Tomorrow I'm going to start the Cleanse.

My ONLY worry-- not the hunger (it's temporary), not the moodiness (it's a symptom of toxins leaving)-- is that my parents will disapprove. I'm 28, responsible, self-supporting, and all around a good adult, so please let me do this without a fight. I've fasted with you before, remember? Only good things came of it.

This means that Mom, Dad, friends in Brevard and Asheville, I need you to understand that this is what I want for myself this week. I'm coming down to see you, and I know we might be a little thrown off at not having food be the main treat in our time together, but please know that there will be so many other times that we can resume our delicious habits of grilling, going out to Vietnamese food, treating ourselves to Hobnob, etc. This Cleanse is not a diet or a lifestyle, it's just a tune up. The doctors and thousand of other people who have chimed in about their experiences online have all had the best effects when following it for 10 days. So we'll be eating together again, and how! Besides, it's my birthday coming up, and this is the best present I can give myself and it's the re-start I want most. I'm looking forward to doing all the other exciting things together that we have planned.

Here are some links with information to read that might help you feel better about me doing this:
http://therawfoodsite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2981
http://mastercleansesecrets.com/book2.php?hop=dusitn6946
http://www.mastercleanser.com/master-cleanser-1.htm

Or just ask around. Chances are good that someone you know has done it, or something like it. If you find yourself worrying about the adverse affects of my taking in very few calories/nutrients, think about what I was doing before, and ask yourself if it worries you just as much. I think as a culture we're better at helping each other indulge than abstain. I'm only abstaining for the time needed to get back on the conscious track of being aware of what and how I'm feeding myself.

Want to join me? ;) I'll be journaling here, I expect, about what it feels like and what I'm thinking. Maybe I'll even have some epiphanies!

Because I am a following follower, and also a fan of abdominal improvement

2009-04-01T20:18:00.002-04:00

Apparently, while I was out of the loop due to thesis writing, a bunch of knitters started hoola hooping for fun & fitness. I had been reading little mentions here and there on the Blogosphere, but I didn't realize it was, like, a full-blown thing. (And, um, also it seems to have been on Regis & Kathy Lee and also Beyonce does it. Where have I been??)

And wouldn't ya know, the moment I did realize how many people were/are currently jumping right on that bandwagon (Rav link), I wanted on. Badly. Last night I fell asleep soothing my post-talent-show-production nerves by window shopping at all the various online options for purchasing a fitness hoop (which is bigger and heavier than the kiddie hoops one might pick up at the local big box store).

Here's what I found out, just in case you're also feeling bandwagonny and in need of some resculpting around the middle:
Hoopnotica- looks pretty sexy. They definitely have the slickest website, and a very cool product lineup. I want their travelhoop, which breaks down into a bunch of pieces and has a carrying tote, but it is a little pricey, given that I haven't actually tried hooping for fitness yet. I mean it seems like something I'd like and be good at, but it's not worth my $40 plus shipping plus waiting for it to be back in stock to guess. That's one of their main people, Rayna, up there, photographed for the NY Times and found on Flickr.

RainbowFrogs77- has an Etsy shop where she sells the hoops that she makes, adult sized and everything, but for $10!! Wicked. Plus, they're not yet decorated which means I can also interstalk some cool decorative tape ideas (which, conveniently, can be found here. Have fun with the shiny things.)

SpiritHoops- These seem like a good halfway point between the two above. A little more of a handmade feel, not so slick with the sexy video girls (not that I'm dissing them-- I'd love to BE them), and they have a hoop that twists down to become half it's size.

A basic Google search brings up lots of options, actually-- Body Hoop, the Energy Hoop, the Sports Hoop-- but I like the three above best. After more stalkage today after work, I went with the 2nd option. Etsy love. I can't wait for my hoop to get here! I told myself I'd wait until I got a little practice in before shelling out for the pretty tape. But I do want a hoop workout DVD to go with it. Back to the forums...

Go read a bit at Hooping Magazine online. Or read about how to make your own for really cheap. And then tell me you honestly wouldn't have any fun doing this.

My thesis has been written and sent!!!

2009-03-30T12:29:00.006-04:00

Late last night I put the finishing touches on a very rough draft. That up there is sort of what it was looking like to me at 2:20am. Early this morning I was playing with sticking parts of .pdf files together to make them equal something of a manageable emailing size. And around 10am today... whoosh.

That's what you see when you scroll allllll the way down the .pdf in Preview. That's right-- 169 pages and a dang good looking picture section.

Now to get the Talent Show up and running (today is our full run-through, tomorrow is the show!) and three classes prepped for their Grandparents' Day performance this Friday (which is also Ken's and my 5 year anniversary!). Gotta plan something there, too...

And then Spring Break!

The best laid plans

2009-03-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

Things I Will Do Once I'm Done With Grad School: EDITED TO ADD STUFF; I AM IN HIGH-STRESS PAPER-DUE MODE:

1. Make a quilt out of all the old show shirts and camp shirts that I've been saving for over a decade.
2. Buy a sewing machine and a serger.
3. Start a project that involves using up all my sock yarn leftovers.
4. Knit a stranded sweater that involves a steek.
5. Go through my inherited tin of buttons and make magnets out of the singles.
6. Get my esthetician's license (this one's a maybe).
7. Get a small house with a dog and a porch and a sunroom and trails in the woods out back. (This one's far, far off in the future).
**8. Strip, sand, and refinish my dresser that my grandpa made
**9. take pictures of old pictures and post them on Facebook
**10. finally post my glass beads on Etsy

Enough of this dreaming.