Blog-A-Pocalypse

The first thing I would like to do this evening is send PKM the hugest unlecherous hug from me for drawing my name for her fabric gift certificate! I could not have been more surprised or pleased! So many delicious treasures have made their way to me from Pam. Pam is like the best tree ripened sweet red summer cherries that come to you with the morning dew still on them and just when you think you can't stand so much sweetness she blurts out something tangy-fresh like "Fuck them all!!!".

I heard today that one of my favorite bloggers is going to take a little break from blogging for the rest of the summer. Then I read another blog I love and heard grumblings about blogging and how perhaps she'll drift away from it too. I have seen other blogs I love shut down and I am beginning to think that perhaps this is part of an occupational condition. Blog Fatigue. Do you feel it? Are you about to let your blog fade away? Some common complaints about the blogging world right now is how commercial it's gotten. Ads everywhere and everyone selling something. There's also the same dynamics present socially that plagued some of us in grade school: the popular girls club and how we'll never belong to it...who wants to relive that?

I admit that I feel a little betrayed every time a favorite blog rolls up and blows away. I invest something of myself into my favorite ones and so when they fade into obscurity it's like a part of me is gone with it. Was it me? Am I the reason blogs are disappearing? Did I look too long or ask too many personal questions? At the same time I understand. I really do.

I posted my 7ooth post today. I have been blogging just over two years. What have I gotten from the experience? Well, I certainly didn't make much money in spite of my ads. I haven't managed to keep myself at home. Nor have I become famous and beloved by all. I am not sought after, courted, included in the inner circles of the elite, and I still post way more often than is considered cool. Still, what I've gotten from blogging is something I can't get from my real life community alone. I love my friends in "real life" but they can't give me all that I need. Having this blog has allowed me to connect with people who share a lot of specific things in common with me. It makes it easy to find the people you share a spirit with.

I have, for twenty eight years (with very few breaks), written every day. In secret journals. In serious notebooks. On my old cranky typewriter. On soup labels and on stationary. And on my computer. I write. Beneath all else in life that I do (and I do a lot!) I am first of all a writer. Maybe I'm a shitty one, maybe I'm obscure, scary, funny, bland, erratic...you can describe me in any way you think fits but it won't change the fact that writing is what I do nearly every single day of my life. Keeping a public blog has forced my writing to improve. So if you think my writing here is shitty, you should see what it was like two years ago!!! Writing publicly has given me guidance and consistency.

Writing here allows me to say what I need to and know that there's a good chance that someone else out there who happens to read my blog needs to feel less alone with themselves too. Writing here has given me the gift of finding kindred spirits and also the chance to support others in their hour(s) of need. Some of us have secret selves that cause us pain and vast loneliness. We can't sit down with our family and friends casually and say (by way of dinner conversation) something like "I thought about how nice it would be to be dead today. Wow, it's been a long time since I had that thought. Would you pass the salt please?"

Support. Laughter. Inspiration. These are things I have gotten from this strange place called the "blogosphere".

I can see how it can get overwhelming. There are a lot of voices out there. When you're plugged into the computer you will hear a lot more of them than when you aren't. Perhaps we'll all get to a point where we need to disconnect and drift away with the growing hunger for silence. Take it. I am sad when a blogger I love drifts off but if I have learned anything it's that this is a place of support and so I support the drift. Besides, I've noticed that blogs often spring back to life like favorite dead characters on soap operas. It only took Luke and Laura, like, ten years to come back from the dead, right?

I have started to put my very very dark content into a private online journal because I really don't think any of you are prepared for that content. Believe it or not I have censored myself quite a bit and it has started to really leak into my work here. There's a time and a place for everything. This mental journey of mine is raw, frightening, pervasive, and in need of airing but not now. Not here. I cannot share it with people who don't understand that journey. I have to protect myself.

That doesn't mean there won't be any dark content here or philosophical crap, it just won't be the really tough stuff. I would like to focus now on more of the light. The food. The garden. And the crafts. The things so many people visited Dustpan Alley for in the first place. If I do well in my upcoming interview and find myself fully employed I will be entering a new chapter.

It's been three years since we've had any kind of financial stability. Three years of constant financial tension. If I am fully employed (particularly with jobs that I can look forward to every day) then I just might be able to put polka dots in the windows again. I just might be free enough to breath again.

Free enough to not give a shit if my blog makes a single penny. Free enough to not care if the popular girls spit on my locker or not. I cursed the coffee drinks I served them when I worked in cafes. I just might be free enough to play for playing's sake.

For the record I would like to say that I am not one of those people who is bothered by people making money from their blogs. Writers of newspaper columns make a living and that living is made by the ads and subscriptions their publication gets. What's the difference? If the writing is good I see no reason why the writer shouldn't get paid to write. Writing well is work. It takes skill, talent, and time.

This is my blog. Like a second home. A sanctuary. A sounding board.

I can't pretend I don't care if you're here. I do care. I prefer your company. I need to hear from other people. Your voices have comforted, supported, laughed with me, (uh, and at me, but I won't hold it against you), and made me laugh too. Your voices have been shining something beautiful and I feel more full when you speak up for yourselves and are heard. You've made me better than I was before.

So I will strive to improve still more. For whoever is left standing at the end of this Blog-A-pocalypse.

Shelling Peas
is the new karaoke

Cooking for a lot of people is exhilarating when you don't have to do it every day. If I had been a farm wife in the thirties with thirteen (or two?) children I would have constantly had a "headache" and made the family eat cold oatmeal for dinner with bacon lard. My husband would have beat me all the time because I would have been useless. The only time in my life that I have been a great housekeeper was when I was a childless housewife: when it was, in fact, my only job.

Cooking for a large group of people I like/love is like giving them a piece of myself. This is why I love Thanksgiving. No gifts but nourishment and time spent together preparing what keeps us hale and hearty, or in bad years-just plain alive. I like a lack of set traditions so that everyone can make it up as they go along. I like things to be informal.

Not informal in a Martha Stewart fake informal way that is really just what formal looks like when it's wearing jeans. I mean truly informal. The kind of gathering where everyone is comfortable lounging around with their shoes on or off, however they please. Where they can help themselves to whatever is in the fridge. The kind where you feel comfortable rooting around in cupboards for glasses. The kind of gathering that doesn't concern itself with doing dishes until the next morning.

So I made my friends wash potatoes* and lettuce and shell peas. The meal was about 95% locally grown and produced. Plus it tasted great.

Here are some highlights of the gathering:

• Lisa B's daughter Maddy's obsession with catching and releasing as many frogs as possible and the sideways discovery that Lisa isn't all that crazy for amphibians being up close and personal. Even baby ones the size of dimes.

• Riana's daughter Amaya using dog and frog water for festive beverages. The following speculation concerning how likely it was that Amaya was hoping to eat an actual frog was pretty great too: it was decided that frogs the size of dimes would only be good fried like "popcorn" style appetizers and Riana's French husband Benji did point out that while French people do eat frogs, they only eat the legs.

• Max stopping a bloody nose with an apple. It wasn't as effective as he hoped and resulted in a disgusting piece of fruit and blood all over his face. He was amused with the experiment and I went flying through the house to locate tissues. He's been getting more of them lately which I think is because of the heat.

• Pat from here in McMinnville (who is very old friends with Riana's mom, also named Pat) making mojitos and filling the kitchen with the scent of mint. It was quite a process and makes it a beverage to sip, I think, not gulp. Pat was lovely in her pretty summery skirt and shiny smile.

• Max blurring by with actual real cherries in his hands that he was actually EATING.** Yes, fresh local cherries. Did I dream that? Does that negate the awful blue Gatorade he was drinking earlier from the corner store? My kid ate cherries and I didn't have anything to do with it. It was a beautiful sight.

• Enjoying Benji's imitation of hormonal teens. He's a teacher and we were discussing the French school system and I was asking how hard the age group is that he teaches (from 11 years old to, I think, 15?) and he was demonstrating the fun attitudes and postures of the different ages. You'd never guess from pictures of him how funny he is.

• Finding out that French kids can be picky eaters too. It was also enjoyable finding out that a lot of French people don't even like cheese at all, or will only eat a couple of kinds of cheese. I always suspected these things but keep hearing people claim that picky eating is only an American phenomenon. Which I didn't believe.

How weird and modern is it that you can meet someone online and feel like you've known them a million years without having ever met them in person and then when you do meet them feel like they're family? As messed up as the world is right now, that's a pretty great experience. Thank you Riana (and family!) for taking the time to come and have dinner with us. Until next time we'll gather around pictures in Flickr and share each others' adventures through our blogs!



*My first potato harvest of the year!

**And then spitting the pits out at the girls. Boys!

What Have I done For You Lately?

What I love best about keeping a blog is that I can write whatever I want in it. I'm a one-woman festival of chatter in my life and it is great to have a place I can spill a lot of it to somewhat relieve the burden that would otherwise be placed on the weary shoulders of friends and family to whom I have subjected to the endless minute details of my enthusiasm for Papermate pens.

We live far away from a lot of family and friends and I have also liked to think that if anyone wants to know what's going on with Max or the house or our lives in general they can pop in and get up-to-date. Although my sister sometimes takes advantage of this feature of my blogging life, and my mom does occasionally, most of my non-blogging friends and family don't ever read my blog. Which I find curious since I think about them all the time and in some ways my blog is a love letter to them all.

It's mostly just you and me here. And I'm curious. I don't have a huge readership that would compare to the likes of blogging champions such as Alicia Paulson or my friend Alice at Future Girl, possibly because I don't show a lot of inspiring crafts? But I have had a very steady and loyal group of you return to my blog consistently for the last year and just in the past few weeks there have been surges of new readers. What makes you return to me? Is it my minty breath? Is it my Old Spice (original scent) deodorant that you want more of?

I cover all topics here that are of interest to me. Obviously some topics get much heavier coverage than others and my blog (I've realized) tends to be somewhat seasonal in nature. Right now I'm much more focused on garden talk than on cooking but come summer I tend to shift to cooking as I begin my canning season in earnest. I do jump on my soap box periodically to cover deeply important issues such as what asshole is currently ruining our country and how some people really suck. I also spoof myself and my idiocy for my own amusement occasionally. Then there's the parenting talk which is often pretty dark but cannot possibly top the darkness opened up when I put mental health on the chatter agenda.

But why do YOU come here? What brings you back? Do you wish I would talk fashion more often? Do you wish I did more craft show and tell? (There was a lot more of that when I had the store and I hope that there will be more of that in the near future). Do you come for the food? Do you come for the irreverent (and sometimes dangerous) talk about my local life in McMinnville Oregon? Do you like it when I hit you over the head with heavy issues and send you away to brood for several days over topics you kind of wish to remain ignorant about?

I feel very fortunate to have gathered around me a group of people who enjoy my blog. It gives me a sense of focus and because quite a few of you leave comments, I get to indulge in my favorite thing ever: talking with friends! But what do you wish there was more of here? Now is your chance to tell me. I'm not saying I'm going to indulge you, (necessarily), though I might. (Unless what you want is for me to talk dirty to you. Being racy is one thing, dirty talk is just so unsexy!*)

Now it's your turn. Don't be shy!


*My own opinion, obviously not shared the world over.

An Incomparable Gift

At last I unveil a gift I received in the mail. A totally unexpected gift from a friend whom I love dearly in a completely platonic fashion. Someone whom I would very much like to give a giant hug to even though I'm a prickly person and not prone to spontaneous or frequent hugs. You may be able to tell who it is just from the little teaser of a picture above.

She's sews for celebrities, she's mom to a fabulous and gorgeous daughter, she's a newly minted designer in her own right, she is a loyal friend, a swearing lady, she's a lady full of surprises...

Pam. That's who sent me this amazing gift of gorgeous orange and white fabrics. Pam of Pam Kitty Morning who I think everyone notable knows. The first person to blogroll me.

But she didn't just send me some fabric she thought I'd enjoy...she sent me a flipping QUILT TOP!!! No one has ever made me a quilt top before and it's like receiving a brand new heirloom. The stuff of legends. Because it falls to me to back it and quilt it, it is a real friendship quilt.

And it's not the small kind you hang on the wall either. It's big! It's big enough to wrap around someone who needs to snuggle down on a cold night. It's big enough to offer a guest staying the night. It's big enough to use as a picnic quilt, though I won't because there's nothing but mud around here and we all know how much I suck at laundry.

Pam, you are an amazing woman and I adore you. Thank you for such a wonderful gift!

Happy Zombie's Hens

Lisa E. and I had a very important mission yesterday: to adopt Monica's three hens for reasons we aren't allowed to reveal just in case it might get back to the girls whom Monica loves. This is the place we stopped at on our way back from collecting the precious cargo for a quick panini to go. You see why we had to stop here, right? Monica actually mentioned this place and we were happy to have found it right before we shriveled up with hunger. The paninis were pretty good, but kind of sat like lumps in our stomachs afterwards. The best part was watching them get made by a swarthy Italian-American beauty whose middle name is Angelina. Not quite as good as having it for a first name, obviously, but pretty good.

Here's Philip, Rex, and Lisa posing with the boxes in which the hens were transported.

There's Georgie peeking out at her new chicken yard.

Rex and Elena are very excited about the new additions to their coop!

Here's Omelet looking not particularly sure about anything. She was a little reluctant to get out of the comfy box.

And here's Snow-Ball who was right at home immediately, like most Americanas are. I have a soft spot for Americana's and am sad I don't have one myself anymore.

(This is for Monica's benefit) Here is the spacious chicken condominium in which your three girls will live. Very luxurious appointments!! It even has a skylight.

Here's my tired boy holding Georgie.

You are probably asking yourself how come there are no pictures of Monica and her house and her FABULOUS studio, huh? You're wondering what kind of moron doesn't take pictures of the first "real life" meeting of blog friends. Me. That's what kind of moron. I am not particularly shy as a rule, except with my camera. About fifty times while we hung out for two hours and drank delicious iced tea and gossiped about all of you out there in blog land, I thought "I should ask Monica if I can take some pictures". Then I didn't. Because it always feels so disrespectful and invasive to punctuate a friendly gathering with photo-snapping. Unless you know everyone super well.

So there are no pictures of Monica or her studio which I've never seen full pictures of on her blog (just partial pictures) and which I pretty much never wanted to leave. It's a wonderful cheery well organized CLEAN space. I've decided that she needs to coach me on fixing mine up. You know, in between all the packing and moving she's going to be doing in the next few weeks.

Seeing a person's quilts on the computer is nothing to seeing them in person. I have such a deeper respect for Monica's quilting skills and talent. She embroiders in tight clean stitches and all her work is really meticulously done. My aunt who is also a quilting perfectionist would absolutely love to see such fine work. It drives my aunt crazy that I don't care if some of my points don't quite match up, or if a few squares are wonky, or if perhaps I make it up as I go along. I have a deep respect for all people who pursue their passions with an eye to detail and I do the same in my apron and garment sewing, but when it comes to quilts I let myself go a little because I just enjoy the process and for me, if it's a little messy at the end it just adds a little mischievous charm.

I believe we should all do some things we enjoy that we don't feel we have to be perfect at. I would never make a shoddy garment, I would never leave a zipper buckled or seam unpressed. However, quilting is my playground and I don't impose the same strict rules of conduct on myself while doing it. This doesn't stop me from admiring the greater works of quilting art done by others.

Just as I expected, Monica is such a wonderfully lively warm person that it took only a couple of minutes before I felt I could sit around with her all day long chatting, looking at patterns, talking shop, and politics, and just everything. I would love to belong to a sewing circle with her.

Well, now her lovely birds have a good new home and I've met another blog friend. It was a good Friday! Canning cherries and picking up laying hens for Lisa's coop are great farm-girl adventures to begin the summer with. Now I must go attend to business so that I can start to work on my studio and complain about the heat.

Blogging; the friendship dividend

an unexpected benefit

I am marvelling right now about how many people whom I have never before met in person can become such an integral part of my daily life. I scoffed at the idea of meeting dates through the Internet. I scoffed at the idea of people making meaningful friendships out of time spent in chat rooms, or time spent playing computer games on-line with other people out there that you've never met. Like so many things I scoff at, it has become clear to me over the past ten months of blogging, that I was completely wrong. (I think that's one of my better qualities, though I am an opinionated individual, I have no problem admitting I'm wrong when I happen to clubbed over the head by my complete wrong-ness.)

As an example: yesterday while unpacking my box of pink Peeps, I couldn't help but think of Pam Kitty Morning and how much she loves Peeps. Pam is a person I have never met in person and yet I think of her as a good friend. I'm pretty sure that she was the first person to ad me to her blog roll. That is a fine moment in a blogger's life.

While I stuffed the Easter baskets full of chocolate eggs I thought about Capello over at No Appropriate Behavior because she and her children are very allergic to gluten. I found myself wondering if there was any trace of gluten in the eggs. I was wondering, if they were to walk into my store, would I be able to offer them handfuls of these eggs without making them very very sick?

Obviously I also think about Alicia at Posy Gets Cozy, like, every other minute of the day. Because of her uber-ness. (Good fake word, huh?) I say things to myself like "Oh, Alicia would think that's soooo funny. I must e-mail her at once!" or "It's so good that Alicia and I are friends because otherwise she might think I was some kind of creepy blog stalker." Which I'm not. No, but really folks, just as Alicia sometimes wonders what Ina would do, I sometimes ask myself what Alicia would do. Then I do the exact opposite. Not because I like my way better, but because I'm programmed to be a little on the contrary side and can't help it most of the time.******

I suddenly have a strong desire for a cupcake.

Just when I thought my vintage pattern passion couldn't be shared with anyone Bitter Betty comes along and wakes up the collection. (Not only that, Bitter Betty makes a lot of really great products which you can find either in her Etsy store or in my store.)

There are so many of you out there that have entered into my daily world, it's really cool. There are so many of you that I wish I could invite over for a beer(s) and a really superb dinner. There are lots of discussions about gardens and writing that need to be shared with Kelly at Her Able Hands (hers was the first blog I found and completely fell for and said to myself "This woman needs to be my friend."), and Future Girl and I could stay up until 3am debating about just about everything. (I would have said her name but I love saying "Future Girl" because it makes her sound like a super hero. Which she must be to be making so many amazing bags for my store!). I just found out that Future Girl has brass knuckles, I mean how much cooler can she possibly get? In fact, if I was a science fiction writer I would write a movie and make Alice my hero, because someone needs to bump Kate Bekinsale out of movies and put Future Girl in them.

Oh, see, this is what it's like when I say whatever I'm thinking and then everyone starts crossing the street when they see me coming. This is why it's good that I manage to keep at least fifty percent of what's in my head in my head most of the time.

What's even cooler is that most of the people who visit my blog visit each other's blogs. So most everyone who comments here are already blog friends. It's weird, but very wonderful. In fact, most of the people who visit my blog do so because they came here through each other's blogs.

One other friend related thing I want to say is that I love that my friend Lucille (of Forest Whimsy) and my friend Chelsea (who has no linkability yet, but who comments as Casa de Lulu and has started a small business of the same name) both comment on my blog. Why am I so glad about that? Because I miss them. When they comment here I feel like they are still just down the street. I also feel that they are a part of this new world I've jumped into and it makes me happy to have them share in it. Thanks you guys! You're the only two pre-blog friends who chat with me here. I really appreciate the efforts you both make to battle your way through the blogger/comments hellfire.

Jesus H. Bananahammock....this is beginning to sound like a weepy Oscar speech. This is where I clasp my Oscar to my heaving Alexander McQueen plaid covered bosom and declare "I am so honored, I don't even know what to say"******** and then leave the stage in gentle tears and mucho grace. (Hey, this is my blog and I can pretend to be graceful if I want to!)

Anyway, I have some stale little boy pee to clean off of the toilets now. I have a disgusting kitchen to clean. So I must be off. There are lots of other blog friends I haven't mentioned by name that I'm so happy to have, so don't feel slighted-I just can't fit you all in one post. So be off with you all and have a great Friday!




******Please tell me you all know by now that while I can't resist making fun of myself via Posy Gets Cozy, I really do admire her. The reason why I bring her blog and her creative world up all the time is because if I could be a different kind of person, I would probably choose to be more like her. Sweeter, more productive, have magical powers (seriously, you have to have magical powers to make such wonderful little paper mache birds like she does), and so successful. And considering what she's gone through with her accident, I'd also like to add that I would choose to be less whiny than I am, and more like her in her ability to make the best of a very unfortunate and painful situation. She doesn't complain about her foot even a quarter of the amount that I complain about my hip. Now that I have made sure we're all on the same page about my genuine admiration of her, I am going to go back to relentlessly comparing myself to her in my quest to alienate the whole world.


********Which is always a lie when it comes from my lips. It would have to be declared an actual miracle by the Pope if I ever really didn't know what to say.

Note: actually, I should mention that a few other non-blog friends have left comments (including my newer friend Lisa of McMinnville who often leaves comments.) but that what I meant was that it makes me super happy to hear from the friends I was sad to leave behind in Santa Rosa, and of those friends only Lucille and Chelsea visit and chat here regularly. It makes me happy. Am I digging a deep bog-hole for myself right now?