Letting The Future In

(by letting the past go)

(a classic)

I am in that terrible state between lives where your new one is so wonderful and exciting and you want to dig yourself in up to the elbows, but in order to move on you have to deal with all the niggling clean up details of the chapter you recently closed. I still have to pack stuff up from the old house and then I have to clean it. The original plan was to pay someone to clean it to give myself a little break. Things didn't turn out as planned and the financial belt must be tightened somewhere, so I will do the cleaning myself. Well, but not BY MYSELF. My mom has volunteered to help me with the heinous task tomorrow. I sure am going to owe her big for that!!

The kittens went in for a check up yesterday and while everyone at the vet's office raved about how healthy they look and how much they've grown- they are not released from quarantine yet. ANOTHER TWO WEEKS. Most of the ring worm is gone, but some lingers on their faces. One of the ladies who met the babies the day we brought them in admitted that when she first looked at them she really didn't know if they were going to pull through. Most of the bare spots are filled in again. Penny has the prettiest white fur where it was pink and swollen and whiskerless before. Pippa's chest is also growing the fur back. Ah well, they are awesome little girls and are worth every pain in the ass.

I can't say I've stopped missing Ozark at odd moments. I don't miss his cranky aggression to the dog, but I miss his orange personality. We found his medical equipment and it totally smacked my heart around to see it and know that he has been buried for well over two months now. I don't tend to dwell on these sad events in life much but I suppose it can't be helped that sometimes you revisit your sorrow for your dead loved ones. It's so Victorian!!

I love all the ideas you all had for a magazine. Now if only someone would produce such a thing!!! Any takers out there? Ha ha. You all (who commented) seemed to be on the same page as me. Not one person suggested nude pictures of fat farm girls on tractors. Nor did anyone suggest how to articles on stock-piling weapons of mass destruction, for which I am very thankful.

I have wanted to produce my own magazine for a hundred years. I don't actually have the necessary skills but learning desktop publishing is something I've had on my mind for so long and I think it's time to start the process. This will take a while. And since I'm poor it also means using what I have (always a better idea anyway) which means using humble old Microsoft Publisher or Word. We do have Photoshop, so that helps. But we don't have anything like InDesign or Quark or any of the more sophisticated programs used to publish these days. My feeling is that I am so unskilled I may as well learn on a simpler program. My plan is to get some "Dummy" books from the library (so no buying books for this), and then begin designing a first, and possibly only issue of what my dream magazine would be like.

If it came to nothing else, if I can do this, I will have skills I have been wanting for a long time which will be incredibly handy for a lot of different applications and will be freeing because then I will be able to do projects on my own that I have previously depended on Philip for. I think this is all part of a fundamental exercise in freedom. The freedom of press is pretty powerful. It comes with responsibilities, of course, but how many rebellions have been empowered by the use of broadsides? How many ideas have spread by the clever printing of small presses?

I actually did produce a book of poetry once. I made fifty of them and did all the writing with a typewriter, then arranged the layout with glue and rulers and eyeballing spaces, and figured out the very confusing layout of pages so that I could copy the bunch and staple it and have all the pages line up the way I wanted them. I was quite proud of it, actually. Even though most of the poems were not very good. I'm not proud of being a mediocre poet but I am also not ashamed. I'm proud that not being particularly good has never stopped me from continuing to work on them and present them to others and in truth- my poetry has continued to improve over the years. Perhaps by the time I'm ninety I'll be quite praiseworthy!

I doubt very much that I will be able to make a living producing a magazine. There are a thousand tales of failed magazine ventures. So this is a project that I will approach with minimal output of money and a maximum input of quality writing, crafts, contributors willing to work in trade, and great photography. It will take time. Lots of time. But I think I'm going to try to do one super excellent issue of what would be my ideal magazine. I want it to be satisfying to open, to read, to look at. It must in every way be a pleasure to have in the same way that I opened my first Vogue magazine when I was thirteen years old and sat on the curb of the street next to the grocery store where I had bought it with my allowance money.

Vogue continues to have reputable writers contribute to it's content, but in many ways it has become a great disappointment to me over the years. It has become a fashion magazine for large labels only, for rich women who wear fur coats and get surgery as routine care, for society people who do charities, for people who know the Trumps personally. That's not a place where I feel comfortable. In fact, it's a world I have a great deal of contempt for. Harper's Bazaar is even worse because they haven't got a single lick of decent writing in it. Elle is the only good fashion magazine left. They feature a lot of indie designers, up and comers, cutting edge fashion, interesting writing without a whiff of the sycophant's piss in it.

I have also decided that I will definitely finish producing my first apron pattern for sale. Only because I can do it with a minimum of investment. I already have the master pattern trued and ready for layout and instructional writing. If I make one finished pattern and no one wants to buy it? No big deal. I will have lost five dollars and gained the pride of having produced my first professional commercial sewing pattern. Something I have been working on since I was born. (That's what my mother says. I only remember wanting to be a fashion designer since I was eight or so years old. Thirteen was when it became a determination.)

I have also decided to reopen my Etsy shop for a few select things like bolts of fabric I don't want. I have lots of bolts of fabric and I think I will sell them for slightly less than wholesale. If anyone buys them? Awesome! If no one does? I don't know. But at least I will not lose more than a few cents listing them. I won't list anything for a while. I have to pay my current bill of $1.20 before I do anything and honestly I will probably not work on any of these projects until I return from my trip in May. My first priority is to prepare our old house for sale and to unpack and settle into this one.

It's strange though, this refreshed feeling that I'm not done with Dustpan Alley the business yet. Or other dreams I've laid aside. I have felt so resentful of how much hard work I've put into for four years to yield next to nothing in return. Our earnings for the last two years have been below poverty level. The reason we have survived is on proceeds from the sale of our California property and equity credit. I put everything I had into what I believed was such a great company, so many great ideas, and so much encouragement, yet so few sales. I grew bitter because everything I tried that worked for other people didn't work for me though everything I tried cost money because I wanted to "do it right".

I threw the company to the floor. I screamed curses at it, I crushed it with the heel of my orthopedic shoes, and I sent it to hell for wasting so much of my life and energy and running me ragged for nothing. For sure, it will die now and I will be released. I thought. I will pay the piper now in debt and ruin. I will pay the piper in working a job I loathe which I might have avoided doing in the first place if I hadn't spent so much time chasing futile EXPENSIVE dreams. Yet I came to a place of peace about it. Let it rest. Let it all go. Let the expectations back into the place where dreams begin and end. Move on.

Yet it's still breathing. On it's own it keeps breathing. As though, like that annoying stupid Pinocchio, it has come to life.

What's different now is that I really am a turnip. Or a stone. I have no blood left to give it. there is no money to drain from us. We are earning below poverty wages. The upside of this is that the government has to give us a very large credit and this will sustain us (hopefully) long enough to sell our old house. If we can get a decent price on that house, we will be sustained for a little longer while I can try to write some articles for other people as well as for my own project. Be the writer I am. And give what freebies I can to my discarded abused company- throw Dustpan Alley the bone of a professional pattern to sell. I can tell you that I'm a very good pattern drafter and I'm a fair technical writer and so I'll feel good if anyone buys it, I can stand by such work of mine with pride, but I will not take it personally or fiscally in the gut if no one cares to purchase my work.

This is all good. To have let go of the bitterness. To have no expectations, yet to still have something to give. To go forward with no money but still have creativity and materials and ideas. I have a home that will nurture all that is good in me but is not more expensive than the one I'm selling. There is a lot of trade outs going on. A lot of possibilities. The dream would be that something will pan out into an income from home. But if not? I will do whatever I have to to support my family (except for prostitution, we all know that jock itch is not a known sexual fetish and dandruff is generally not sexy either)...but always with the view that I will do what I have to only for as long as I have to until I can return home to be a housewife, an urban homesteader, a writer, a mother. Not necessarily in that order.

Next month the A Is For Apron book is coming out and in many ways this is a huge dream of mine. It is the first time I will be appearing in a professional publication that I didn't make myself. No, it isn't some exciting piece of brilliant prose, but a pattern I designed, drafted, and wrote instructions for will be out there for others to enjoy. My first official time in print. That is huge for me and kind of perfect that it combines two dreams in one: writing and design. Being published in a book and having a design of mine commercially available.

I am reminded of a spiritual tenet that shows up in a lot of different forms, here are a few ways people express it: "If you really love something you must let it go, blah blah blah...", "Follow the path of least resistance", "To heal pain you must let it go.". ETC.

There is deep value in those axioms. Philip and I have a tendency to get very stressed out when looking for socks in the morning. Because we are not the most organized people in the world we have spent a lot of frustrated time looking for things accompanied by extreme cursing and pounding our temples against closet doors. I've noticed, in the years we've bloodied ourselves in frustration that getting angry and pent up doesn't locate socks. As surprising as that may be, it is true. I have never located a sock just because I screamed out "Where is that son-of-a-bitch sock!!!!???"

However, if I calmly pretend I don't have any need for matching socks, or any need for socks at all; if I turn my back on socks all together and take some deep breaths and pour a cup of coffee or pretend I have all the time in the world to sit around not looking for socks, I will suddenly see the very sock I was looking for right there on top of the dresser where it was the last three times I looked for it in exactly that same spot.

So ever since I threw Dustpan Alley into the dirty carpet and ground it down into dust and let out all my bloodcurdling heart cries into the atmosphere where they hung like sharp bright shards of desperation and then walked away from it, things have been falling into place. When I stopped caring so much. Stopped hurting so much. Stopped hanging on at all. When I let it all go sincerely and freed myself of all the tangled knots inside, life has stopped getting choked up in the complicated fretwork of emotions I'd created, it began to feel as though it was moving, flowing, working, and although nothing about what the future holds is clear, I am not worried anymore.

So here's my advice to anyone who's looking for socks and seeing no socks, or for anyone who is deeply unhappy with their life and allowing bitterness to settle in their spirits: let it all go. Scream out loud, raise your fists in frustration, express it for real for once and then let it all go completely. Bitterness serves nothing and no one. Resentments, trying to change others, expectations, and unhappiness do no one any good. We can only change what is in ourselves. It may not fix all your problems. It isn't magic, after all. But it will be better than hanging on to what isn't working. What isn't flowing. Let it go.

Easy Duvet Cover

We do not use top sheets at our house as they are tedious and instead we use duvet covers, most of which are made out of sheeting. So we wash our covers often, not only because of the fact that there is no sheet between us and the duvet, but because we have a dog who sheds black hairs all over them, and a kid who bleeds a lot. You can buy fitted sheets without the top sheets, of course, but more often than not I find sets of them and end up with unused top sheets.

So I devised a brilliant plan to use the top sheets as the underside of duvet covers and using my copious amounts of fabric to make tops for them. I used an old duvet cover as my template and laid it out over my top sheet on the floor. I used it as a guide to cut off the extra length and width. (I used tailors chalk and a ruler to mark evenly where to cut once I measured the difference in size between the two).

When I cut out the top fabric I used the same length as the (now) cut top sheet plus two inches for a hem at the top where I would be putting button holes. It took two lengths of fabric, one for the center, and one cut in half (lengthwise) for the sides, serged together to make up the width of my queen size comforter. I had to make sure I had the pattern going all in the same direction since it's directional.

After I made my hem at the top I serged the top and bottom together (right sides facing) and then turned it right sides out and pressed it. Next I put five button holes across the top and sewed on some buttons. It was very easy and now I have a bright cheerful duvet cover. The fabric is a Martha Negli fabric covered in a dahlia pattern that I got 40% off.

I didn't end up making bread but at least I got one duvet cover done. I may tackle a second one today. It sure feels good to get something done that's been on my mind for months now. I get tired of things hanging out in my head all the time.

Now that I have such a bright cheerful duvet cover on the bed in the guest bedroom I notice that the walls are a dreary white...

Life Makes Its Detours

Just when things seem slow enough at the Holiday Market that I can work on this week's tutorials, I sell just enough that I have to make more things for my booth instead. This week-end I sold more bath bombs so I had to make another batch last night; pot holders have suddenly become the rage, and I sold one men's apron. I don't have very many so I'll have to get busy making more. That's not a complaint. Only an observation that there is a lot to do in a very little amount of time.

I have two of the five spice blends completed. Today I will finish the other three and I will also make the liqueur, so hopefully I will be able to post both tutorials tomorrow. These two are: herb salt for roasting potatoes (or other roasty things) and an herbed dry mustard mix for making into a mustard vinaigrette.

Last night I: made a drafted pattern out of my new draped apron, made a batch of bergamot-rose bath bombs, cut out labels for them, made black bean chili with too many jalapenos, made cornbread my kid wouldn't eat, labeled some more bath salt kits, also labeled two more bottles of already scented salts, made three pot holders, and cut out a ton of new pot holders.

I had a dream that some of my freshly made bath bombs flattened out like pancakes while I was sleeping. I told my dream self that it was just a dream and that I would wake up to perfectly round bombs in the morning but my dream self still believed the dream. Frankly, I prefer dreaming about Mathew Perry. I suspect he doesn't particularly enjoy the thought of weird fat girls dreaming about him...but don't worry Mathew, it wasn't inappropriate. Much.

I got word from Monica of Happie Zombie that the coast where she lives is a mess from the storms and they've lost power. So think good thoughts for her! Here in McMinnville the storm wasn't really that bad. It rained torrentially yesterday and I did end up soaking wet after picking Max up at school and running a very short errand on the scooter. No trees seem to have fallen here though and the wind wasn't really all that ferocious.

Does anyone know if Michael Jackson is still alive?

Also- what do you suppose Barry Mannilow is doing right this minute? Does anyone know if he's gay? Because I've always kind of had a hard time imagining him with women. Whoa, I wonder if Neil Diamond is living a quiet happy life or if he's come to a bad place post fame and fortune. What do mega stars like that do when their gift is played out? What will I do when all my gifts are played out? My gifts are pretty non-stellar and not particularly the kind that would make me into a star so I wouldn't have to get used to being adored and pampered everywhere and have underwear thrown at me only to find myself forgotten fifteen years later. Do you think Neil Diamond grows vegetables? What if he is living some really cool low key life and loving the quietude?

Deep Dark Secret #337: I loved Barry and Neil when I was a kid. Oh yeah, and the Bee Gees. Can't forget that I also really liked to "rock" out to Lionel Ritchie. And I thought Taco was just about the coolest though I always felt slightly uneasy that anyone would willingly call themselves "Taco" and his nose was suspiciously small. One year for Christmas I got an olive colored velour shirt and a Kenny Rogers album and both those gifts got a lot of play.

You wouldn't think people like me would have any secrets, huh? You'd think that in the course of my constant chatter I would have already revealed every secret already. Always be wary of constant chatter. Sometimes the people who talk the most reveal surprisingly little.

I believe it's important for everyone to have a few things about themselves that they will never tell. That will remain private all the way into the cold cold ground. What eats at me are the things I don't want to keep secret that I can't tell because to say them out loud would alienate exactly every person I've ever met. The things most humans know but will never say. The things that lurk around the parameters of their consciousness, casing the brain joint for cracks and leaks and weakness.

You all have them in your head too. Whether you are aware of them or not is only for you to say.

I have just had lots of coffee and my stomach is screaming out for food. I had better get myself in the shower because today is another day of work at the Holiday Market and I'm not ready for the challenge.

Bath Bombs

(plus some philosophy on one's life calling and how dense humans are as a group)

These bath bombs look like confections. I'm very happy with them. So pretty and they smell wonderful too! I have finally listed them in my Etsy shop:

Dustpan Alley at Etsy

Thank you Pam and Kelly for making my day and buying all of my bath bombs in my Etsy shop!!! I have just relisted more of them and I'm off to make a second batch.

Here are Lisa and Lisa shaping the mixture into balls. You have to work quickly or the substance starts to get crusty and hard.

This is how they look when they are done well- meaning that you didn't get the baking soda compound too wet or too dry before forming the balls. On our first try we didn't get it wet enough and even though we could form balls with it, they spread out and the exterior cracked so that right now they look like cracked meringues. They will still fizz in the bath, they just don't look as nice.

This one is grapefruit-ginger. It smells really good and refreshing. It has more grapefruit oil in it than ginger so it is predominately citrusy but with a warm spicy finish.

It becomes obvious that we favor citrus around here. Bergamot is the main flavoring ingredient in Earl Grey tea and I never would have thought of it as being in the citrus family, yet it is. It smells sprightly and fresh and mixed with a small amount of rose it is heavenly! More romantic and sensual than the grapefruit-ginger, but not heavy and cloying at all.

The bergamot-rose is perfect for helping to alleviate depression (but don't stop taking your medications, OK?, because it isn't strong enough to do what your meds do) it is cheering and soothing and how can you go wrong combining it in a bath? Unless your bath sucks like mine. In which case we need to make a pact together to get better bath tubs. In all the years I didn't get therapy or take medication to help with my brain issues I managed to get through life with a heavy regimen of cognitive behavioral therapy (which I thought were pep talks to self, but I found out in therapy that I'd been self administering CBV all along...very cool) and a lot of bath taking.

I took baths at least every other night. Baths with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, a book, and (of course) some essential oils dropped in or some kind of bath salts or herbs. I'm not kidding when I say that taking baths, the kind where you read a book or magazine in, are really good for your mental health.

I was lucky enough to have had lots of wonderful bathtubs in San Francisco. Claw foots that were meant for soaking in. With the backs curved just right and deep enough to fill with hot water. Bathing has been an important ritual for people even when getting clean wasn't.

I've finished putting together the bath salt kits as well but have yet to photograph them or get them up on my Etsy shop. We stayed up very late working on them the night before last. I know that many of you who come here have done lots of work putting products together, and many of you have put together tutorials and patterns for crafts of various kinds, so you will appreciate how much work goes into them! I hope the salt kits sell because I really love them.

Did you hear that? That is not the talk of a good businesswoman. I've been thinking about this lately and even though I've mentioned it before I think it becomes ever clearer to me as I go along my mostly-merry way: I am a lousy businesswoman. It is fascinating to me to be finding out things about myself that I never expected. I mean, finding out I was crazy wasn't really like finding anything out-more like corroborating evidence. But finding out that I suck at spacial arrangements is a revelation. I really assumed all my life that I was pretty good at it because I have such a very distinct style (which I feel good about) and I have an eye for beautiful things. But that is not the same as being able to arrange things in a room in a way that is both functional and pretty.

I kind of knew all my life that I wasn't cut out for a life of business, but I see it now in a new and brighter light. I'm not trying to put myself down here, just looking at the facts and hearing my own words come endlessly tumbling back at me as though someone else said them and hearing how strongly I don't identify with sales and business.

whoa-random thought just in: I couldn't sell hotcakes for the Devil to save my life.

That just totally cracks me up. Where do these thoughts originate from? What weird vortex in my brain sits around formulating these thoughts?

It's funny how life will continually send you clear messages and how easy it is for us dense humans to continually ignore the writing on the wall, in the sky, on the counter tops, in the fire, and on our own foreheads. What would my life have been like if I had, early on, committed myself to a life of writing which I knew at ten years of age was what I was meant to do? What if I had stuck to the obvious screaming purpose? I'm not one to sit around all the time asking "what if" or "if I could only redo my life...". I mean, we make the choices we make and a lot of times going off the track means we enrich ourselves with adventure (or misadventure as the case often is) which can only help to deepen our wisdom.

(Or the gashes on our foreheads where we've been banging it against the brick wall of our own decisions.)

I wouldn't change anything I've done. Well, except for one thing. But we're not going to talk about that at the moment. I just can't help but see that I have continually gone off course and then asked the Universe "Why didn't that work out?!!!". I wonder how long I'll retain this little bit of clarity before I find myself off the track again? As I was making all these wonderful bath products in the last couple of weeks I started romancing the possibilities there...which is what I always do. "I could build a soapy empire!" or "I've always wanted to be an apothecary...it's like my true calling!"

How is it that a person can have a strongly entrepreneurial spirit but not the business acumen to carry out any of their brilliant ideas? It's like being born with the spirit of a ballerina but the body of Polish grandmother. I should be used to finding new contradictions in myself, lord knows it's one of those things I've always been well equipped with. What's one more?

I'm not sorry about it. Just like getting my psychological assessment didn't disturb me, it's comforting to acknowledge my own limitations. I've always been happiest when working within known boundaries. The trick is to always have this in mind as I go on my little adventures. I need to remember that I can do anything I want, so long as I remember that it's my job in this small life to report what I find, share what I see, and record the adventure. That is my calling.

I am very good at product development as I love to research things that interest me. I am creative enough to be good at visualizing how a product can look good. I am skilled enough to design things that are quality, that are purposeful, and that are stylish. But it isn't my calling to make a business out of that. Where's the company who wants to hire me for that? Has anyone ever come knocking for these skills of mine? No.

Besides, what I want most, is to stay home, continue to be an urban homesteader and to inspire others to do the same.

Ultimately, there's only ever been one calling for me and it's been written on the wall in my own blood for twenty seven years. I'm very excited about all these bath products, but mostly I can't wait to get you to make some of your own. I have the words. The words to tell you that you can do it. The words to tell you why you want to.



Note: it must be said that if my current endeavors can help keep me at home (writing and homesteading), then I hope that my previous life as T.H.M.R.* is on hold for a while. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows?

*The Human Money Repellent. (I suspect this is the affliction that has ailed most writers, with special preference for poets.)

The View From The Top

Me, headed to the top. Popular misconception: that hell is in the depths of the earth. I would argue that hell is much higher up than that.

The weirdness of enclosing the outside walls of old buildings with new walls.
aka: Bizarre-chitecture*

Some highlights of my adventures helping to set up the downtown holiday market:

• I was asked to paint some drywall and was given the following tools with which to accomplish the task: a scummy crusty roller that was grey with age and use; a paint tray with no liner that had some minor rust issues; a can of sour primer that had curdled and gone brown on the top 3" and whose smell made my stomach try to slink away from me. Tools notably missing: anything to open the paint can with, a suitable sink in which to clean up paint mess, a warning to not wear my best shoes. It was clear that fresh primer was not in the budget and deciding that there was no way I was going to get personal with paint that smelled like maggoty milk, I purchased fresh primer myself. I'll consider it a contribution to my community.

• After covering my hands with primer I next had to tackle the not insignificant task of trimming off the lower branches of the 15' Christmas tree that was delivered to the site in order to spruce up the dubious back room. Naturally no tools were provided for this so I jetted home to get my own. The job required that my hands be 100% smeared with pine resin. It must be noted, though, that the tree smelled really good.

• Once the tree was standing (and it took three of us to achieve this, did I mention that it is a 15' tree that weighs about 300 pounds?) I was asked to trim it with the lights. Me+heights=poison. I did not make anyone aware of this little equation, however, because everyone was working so hard and stressing so much it seemed surly to point out the inappropriateness of having a heights-phobic individual climb a 15' unsteady ladder to trim a very tall tree. I think the only thing that kept me from getting panicky was the attention I gave to two curious tree huggers- a late season lady bug and a very green bug whose name I don't know. Worrying about crushing the bugs gave me something other than the crazy shiftiness of the ladder to worry about.

• Watching the interesting religious ladies set up their charming tables was definitely a highlight. Having a fascination for anachronistic modes of dress, especially when it involves covering hair chignons with quaint starched caps or with black drapey coverings, may seem strange. Yet I love to see women dressed like this. I think it's ironic that while I admire them, (and I used to dress almost exactly the same as them -long skirts, work boots, bun in hair covered by scarf), they would not share that same admiration for me. I imagine they wouldn't appreciate me describing the way they dress as stylish, since they dress the way they do to honor their husbands and God and to be modest and eschew vanity, none of which are hallmarks of being "stylish". I can't help but wonder what kind of women they are when you get to know them.

I also think they wouldn't appreciate my tendency to swear and to take the Lord's name in vain. It wouldn't make it better knowing that I do so not seriously, as a sinner might, but with insouciance and frequently like a heathen might.


About bath bombs...THEY ARE SO MUCH FUN TO MAKE AND USE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Philip worked very hard last night on labels for my bath salt kits and for my little bath bombs. I was going to do some really fancy wrapping on them but in the end I prefer them to remain simple. This means I can charge less for them as well. I was going to charge $5.00 a piece with really wonderful packaging so that they would be little exquisite presents in themselves, but when I sat down to do something wonderful with them all my ideas fizzled away and nothing seemed quite right. So they are simple, attractive, and only $3.50 each. I will put some on my Etsy shop today.

I am definitely going to do a tutorial on making bath bombs. I am trying to figure out if I can put together a kit for making them as well. Now, I've been thinking about Pam's request for fruity smelling bombs and did a little research and if you want to use 100% natural scents, the only fruity essential oils to be had is citrus. Max would like an apple scented bath bomb but to have that means using synthetic scents. I don't think Max minds, but I do. Anyway, that's what I have to report on that front. Do you and Frankie like citrus, Pam?

I have to go work on the brochure for including in the salt kits so that I can list them in my shop and bring them down to my table at the holiday market. I hope you all are having a wonderful morning.



* A word Philip made up to describe the curious style of add-ons favored by many in McMinnville.

The Williamson Industries Laboratory

The serious work behind Dustpan Alley's glamorous products.

Here at the Dustpan Alley offices, we've been busy developing sophisticated scent blends for using as "smelling salts". Not the old ammoniated variety known well by all ladies of fainting dispositions, but a new heady kind of smelling salts that you can carry with you in your purse and sniff at whenever you feel like it. Whenever you need a legal pick-me-up, you can just whip these babies out of your pocket or your purse and be incredibly interesting by inhaling deeply of the salts, inducing immediate calm or a sensual mood*...

At our labs we insist on the most up to date scientific methods of conducting research. We label everything and meticulously record our results in official notebooks and spreadsheets. We believe that it's irresponsible to write our notes on scraps of paper stuck to the fridge...sooner or later the dog is bound to eat it.

We take pride in the fact that we hire only senior citizens and child labor and can't get in trouble for paying them fourteen cents an hour, because, in fact, we pay them nothing and get the same results! We absolutely guarantee that we never use unnecessary violence with our staff and even when we do, they know we only do it because we love them.

Here is our main non-paid, unskilled day laborer. He's a very promising nose and although he claims to hate nearly every scent we have, he manages to combine them like a pro. Most surprisingly successful scent blend: grapefruit and lavender.

Our senior citizen is taking a well deserved two minute lunch break to chat with the hard working child.

You would not believe how much fun we had making little vials of scent blends to try out on ourselves. Seriously, notes have been taken, vials have been labeled, and Max got drawn into the Laforest/Williamson witchy project until there were no more little jars to play with. We really are a bunch of apothecaries around here. I think this is our secret calling. My mom is talking about making me an athlete's foot powder for a Christmas gift, I'm begging negotiating for it to be a salve. Perhaps some people might think that is a strange and unexciting gift to receive, and I will admit that if I found a tube of commercially made anti-fungal cream in my stocking, I would be a little disappointed. But a home made one put together by my herbalist mom? Oh, totally different story!

It is wonderfully stormy outside. The wind is pushing the trees around and the rain accompanying it is slashing slantwise through the bluster.

Oh, back to herbs and other earthy pursuits...we wanted to make bath bombs last night but didn't have all the ingredients. I've never made them before, and as I've already admitted, my bathtub SUCKS, yet I have to say I'm beyond excited to do this project because I have already imagined how I am going to package them. I plan to make them to put on my Etsy shop and in my Holiday Market booth downtown. Unless they turn out poorly. Here's what excites me though: coming to realize that it isn't my life's ambition to sell merchandise to people but to help them learn to make things themselves and to make things for myself I am free to explore so many projects and work on making them more accessible to you and I.

For example: my mom has a great book of herbal medicine that has all the fundamental information necessary and yet lacks explicit directions on how to actually make the damn recipes. The recipe for foot powder lists ingredients and among them is black walnut hulls, but it fails to tell you what to do with them. Last time I checked, walnut hulls are super hard and when crushed can be sharp as glass. The author fails to indicate if you are supposed to crush them all the way to a powder (which is what we're assuming) so as to avoid making your feet bleed (though obviously, if you make your feet bleed then you will be a lot less worried about them itching) and if so-what kind of tool is required to crush this diamond hard substance into powder? Will a spice grinder suffice, or do you need an industrial grinder?

This is important information. One thing I love about modern tutorials is that they often include very good photographs to illustrate steps, and the instructions are much clearer and explicit, never assuming that you have a secret set of additional instructions that explain all the vague details in the first set of instructions. I want to write clear instructions for projects so that people can get satisfying results at whatever they're doing. I am ideal for this work because I'm the person in the class with a thousand detailed questions that everyone else wants to ask but is afraid to because the teacher will think they're stupid.

I am always asking stupid questions so no one else has to. I leave no dumb question unasked. Should I have that put on my gravestone? It's kind of catchy.

On a slightly unrelated note: would any of you please tell me, if you were looking for a cute apron pattern, would you more likely be looking for a practical full coverage one, or would you be just as likely to seek out a pattern for a cute cocktail apron? I would really like to work on producing a commercial pattern for one of my aprons but can't decide which one to start with. Obviously it is much easier to make a cocktail apron. My bib apron is not for beginners and the instructions will have to be rather lengthy- work that I'm intimidated by, unless I did a pattern for the Peace apron. How about you look at all three and tell me which one you are most likely to want to make for yourself: Flower detail Bib apron, cocktail apron, or the Peace apron.

What do you think? I can't do them all right away. Which one would you be most excited to be able to make for yourself?

Well, my kid has been pestering me since about 5:30am when he woke up way more alert and hyper than any kid should who also woke up at 12:30am and didn't even get to sleep until 9:30pm. He's dying to get me off the computer. He's dying to have his friend over. He is going to be a fly in my ear for the next ten years. I'm not sure I'm ever going to get used to it. One thing's for sure though, I will only survive the rest of this day if I immediately go take a shower.

Note: Sorry Blogher, I haven't posted about food for a whole four days...I promise to return to the regular obsession with cooking and food very soon. I promise.

*Be aware that essential oils may induce certain moods but they are not miracle workers and if you have the sex drive of a withered newt, like myself, no amount of sensual scent is going to make you want to tear your clothes off for a little tumble with your sweetie.

Who Buys 18 Pounds Of Celery?

Me, that's who. In my desperate bid to blanch and freeze enough locally grown celery to get me through to the next celery season (which is when, by the way?) I bought the only celery I could find at the Hillsdale farmer's market. It's not difficult to process but never the less, it takes time, and of all the food processing projects I've done this year, this one is the most tedious. I'll be happy I did it though when in two months there is nary a celery stalk to be found.

I got it done though. In fact, I got a lot done yesterday. That's what happens when you rip the computer cords out of your veins and turn the screen off.

Have I ever mentioned how much my boy looks forward to his birthday every year? The excitement begins the day after his birthday with conversations like "You know what I want for my next birthday?" Then he checks with us every three weeks to see how soon his birthday will be. He likes parties. Big parties with lots of presents and excitement. I don't have to tell anyone here how much I love throwing parties, right? How much I look forward to inviting hundreds of shrieking children into my domicile to ransack the place. I mean, it's great. Super. A total thrill. Sydney Bristow's got nothing on me when it comes to thrills.

Normally I refuse to conduct games in my house. Party games especially. But Max doesn't have a lot of friends here in Oregon like he did in California. All I had to do down there was invite tons of children, feed them a constant stream of sugar and shove them outside to explode their energy away from my head, then feed all the parents beer and wine so that they wouldn't notice I'd just ruined their children with sugar. It worked out well. With very few kids to invite and it being probable that they won't all come, I figured I better step it up a little and provide something fun for them to do. Something memorable for Max.

So I'm throwing a treasure hunt. I'm not going to buy party favors, I'm going to make them. Little muslin bags with cookies and little notebooks they can decorate afterwards. Doesn't that sound precious? Doesn't it sound like it came right out of Martha Stewart magazine? And yet, I thought it up all by myself.

I was going to have a spy party but realized that some of the children who are invited aren't encouraged to play with toy guns and to wreak destruction on villains. So I thought a treasure hunt couldn't possibly be objectionable to the younger set. What kid doesn't like a treasure hunt?

Well, I didn't when I was a kid, but you can't judge normal kid behavior by me.

So anyway, I made Max's invitations yesterday and actually sent them out. Now I only have to sit around and worry that no one will be able to come.

Which I don't have time for actually. I have to get going now because I'm submitting an article to an online craft blog and must do the writing today. The last time I submitted things to other publications it didn't go anywhere, but you can't stop trying to do what you were meant to do just because some people out there don't see it. I submitted something for that apron book and got accepted...so it's time to put myself out there again. If I don't get accepted, I will publish it here.

Wish me luck and I'll see you tomorrow!

Winter Comes Swiftly

We now have no where to eat. I guess it's time to clean out the new big pantry space in the garage.

I love the way a sea of jars looks.

These pears are one of the best things we made last year. I'm relieved to have made more of them this year.

Anyone recognize these babies? Bread and Butter Pickles, which so many of you love. Lisa E. wanted to make some to try so I decided it was high time I see what you are all squawkin' about. I admit they sure are pretty.

I produced 33 quarts of canned pears, 242 fruit flies, and two pillow fights with Max in the last two days. Today promises to be productive as well. I have an apron to make and send by Monday, two Etsy fabric orders to ship out, and applesauce to make. I keep telling myself to put away the canner and be done with preserving for the year. It really isn't that easy. The thing people mention most with regards to preserving food is the "work" that goes into it. All that "work" must be daunting...why do so much "work"? I am putting "work" into quotations because I think that word has a negative connotation and for me, doesn't apply.

My friend Lisa K. totally respects the fact that preserving food is hard work. She kept mentioning how much work I've done to stock my "pantry"* with jam. While I love that she gives my endeavors the respect I think they deserve, I had to question her about her idea of "work". I told her that while it certainly took a lot of time and effort to do what I've done, I so much enjoy doing it I'm having a hard time making myself stop. I asked her how much she enjoys doing her work, which is waiting tables, and although she doesn't hate her job, she admitted that she doesn't love it either. I don't actually think about canning as being so much work as I think about it being one of the most satisfying activities I do. The more you love the work you're doing the less you think of it as "work".

On a less food related topic, I thought I'd mention here that Max has now gotten two bloody noses in his other nostril. What's that about? He never gets them from that side. Does his body want to bleed so bad that it will find whatever outlet it can? They weren't bad ones though, I'm thankful to say.

Thursday his school had its fund-raising "jog-a-thon". I hate school functions. I especially hate school functions meant to raise funds. I just do. I'm a grumpy old man and I feel intensely out of place amongst a huge crowd of people all having tons of fun doing something that I hate doing. Plus, crowds of people inevitably make me choke up. It's a reflex I can't control and it embarrasses me.

Being at big school gatherings gives me plenty of opportunity to observe my short comings as a parent. I watch other moms and dads light up and just absolutely relish running around with huge herds of little people. They beam with pride and they all volunteer themselves to help out and there I am, wishing I was hiding away in my little haven of quietude, frowning because I'm obligated to "jog" under the still-hot canopy of fall sunshine. I don't jog, of course, because of my hip. I did my bit though, no way am I going to let Max down by not showing up. But someday he's going to notice just how uncomfortable I am at these events.

Maybe he won't care. When I asked him how come he doesn't want to join the soccer team he tells me it's because he doesn't really like being around a bunch of people he doesn't know well, and continues to tell me how he doesn't like crowds of people either. Like I've mentioned before, my little apple fell right at the trunk of our genetic tree. Poor kid.

More rambling... I thought some people might be interested to know that I haven't bought myself a gossip rag for over a month. I'm not on a campaign to clean up my sorry magazine loving gossip enjoying ass, it's because it's an expense that I feel could better be used for other things. Last night Philip surprised me with a new copy of In-Touch. Does my man know me well or what? I haven't read it yet, but it's so delicious to have a copy waiting for me.

The weather is turning. Colder and edging towards rain. I love this time of year. LOVE IT. I love wet weather. I love the cold. I love fog, mist, frost, snow, and giant storms that whip at your hair and takes your voice away, carrying it off through the bare trees to eerie corners of neighbor's yards. The trees are beginning to change color. I feel my blood coming alive. I feel the wild weather stirring my spirit. It makes me want to go and play.

I think it's time to bring in my winter squash. Before it gets too wet.

This weather also makes me realize that I have a quilt I need to make that I started. I want to have a full size quilt to wrap up in this winter. I'd really like to have a closet full of hand made quilts. To be a real homesteader you can't have other responsibilities such as a job a JoAnne's Fabrics. I have a ton of house projects I would like to work on. Especially now that fall is truly under way. It makes me want to dig my hands into fabrics. I can almost see putting the canning pot away if it's to be replaced by yards and yards of fabric projects. I've been looking at what many of my blog friends are working on and I feel a little envious. So much craft productivity and I have my head buried in eggplants and pears.

There are so many fun projects to do here at home, in the domestic sphere, I really don't see why so many people choose (I mean when they don't strictly have to) to work elsewhere. Modern women often think of staying home as a boredom inducing life. HUH?! I do understand that not everyone loves doing what I do, and I respect that. Some women have brilliant gifts to offer the world that would be wasted if they cooped themselves up in a life of domestic pursuits. But the idea that staying home could be boring is totally an alien concept to me. I'm never more satisfyingly busy than when I stay home. When I stay home and don't have to make a living at it.

My happiest life ever was being a housewife and stay-at-home-mom before I tried making a business of the things I love to do. A business seemed a natural way to share what I love with other women, but in the end, this blog has proved a much better way to share it. Maybe some day I will get to do it again, keep house without having to also worry about how I can contribute actual money to the coffers. For now I'll do what I can and be thankful for all the support that comes my way through my web-store and my Etsy shop.

I hope all of you out there are doing things you enjoy today. Engaging in activities that help you look forward to playing in the cooling air or that will help you keep cozy inside while the winds blow against your winter windows.




*Pantry is in quotations because right now my main pantry is my dining room since my actual pantry is already full. My big pantry is not ready yet. To be ready I will have to empty it of the rest of it's contents first and then clean it.

Back To School

My plan for this week was to go to the gym every single morning since I am now a free woman. I went yesterday and it felt great. I was all set to walk my dog with my friend Lisa B. this morning (she didn't know I was going to bring the dog) when I felt a searing pain in the foot. Upon investigation I found that the skin on my burn blister has somehow torn itself off. Now I have a wound of open flesh on my foot. The wound is not large, lest I sound overly dramatic and you are imagining an E.R. type scenario, but it hurts and is bloody. I've decided not to give myself second degree burns any more. The thing is, I can't put any shoes over that exposed flesh. So no exercise today. My hope is that if I keep it exposed to the air all day it will form a scab and tomorrow I can resume my exercise efforts.

I want to fall to my knees with fists in the air, a la Marlon Brando, and yell into the torrid air "Why...Why...Why do these things keep happening to me??!!!" Unfortunately this would require touching my burn to the floor which would be a stupid thing to do. I'll have to save my sweaty drama for later. I could go down to the tracks to enact my rage at life's Dickensian twists...I'll think about it while my burn scabs up.

Wouldn't this make great dinner conversation?

I had to fill out a survey on Max to give to his new teacher who I would totally have had a crush on if I was seven years old and was her student. She's about fifteen years old, stylish in the way that teachers are urged not to be, has raven hair, and seems pretty nice. The purpose of the survey is to help her get to know your child, his medical issues, his strengths, his challenges, etc. I find these surveys interesting. I find it interesting that I have difficulty describing my child to a stranger in a reserved and brief manner.

Under medical issues I had to mention the bloody noses because in all likelihood Miss Danielson will be sending Max to the nurse almost every day in a mess of bloody tissues. Maybe if he had little ones it wouldn't be disruptive, but he has gushers. It's very distracting to try and teach kids about conjunctions when someone is bleeding out of his nose like a gunshot victim.

It's ironic that the one thing I didn't manage to procure on his supplies list was tissue. Something he will use far more of than any other child in that classroom. Don't worry, I got some to bring today.

That's my boy! A total bleeder. So what else can I say about my child that is relevant to the teacher in the context in which she will get to know my interesting offspring? Should I tell her that he is not interested in joining groups because there aren't any groups in which he can share his love for collecting interesting trash like flattened dried out dead possums? Should she know that he has attitude problems? One of the questions asks what I hope my child will learn this year. How strange a question is that? I hope he will learn what a second grader is supposed to learn, obviously.

I also hope he will learn not to threaten suicide anymore when he's feeling bad about himself. All the things I hope he will learn don't have anything to do with school. He will learn in school whatever he is supposed to learn because even though he hates homework, he's super smart. All my hopes for my son are based around my desire for him to learn how to cope with the world that he lives in and the fact that he is always going to be a little different. Or a lot different, depending on who you're talking to.

Anything special about Max? Yes. His mother takes brain medication and has been known to alienate other parents through her not-so-secret life as a writer and she doesn't play games and refuses to join the PTA for very compelling reasons of her own. His father is a wacky artist who should take brain medication, but likes to live on the emotional edge. Max has a cat with FIV. He doesn't have a family clambering around him to shower him with attention as many kids do. They've all been kind of busy doing their own thing and they all live too far away to want to just hang with him anyway. He feels it and it bothers him. They're all crazy too, incidentally. So he lives in a very adult populated world. He wants to build a time portal, that's pretty special.

Other than that, he's just like any other kid.

It just got harder to feed the kid. Since the night before last he claims that everything tastes bad, that it, in fact, all tastes like coffee. He claims Philip let him taste coffee years ago (since he's only six and a half I have to laugh at this) and that's how he knows what coffee tastes like. He thinks there's something wrong with him and demanded that if everything still tastes like coffee today, we must take him to the doctor. Off the list of things to consume: ice water (pretty much the only beverage he drinks regularly), crackers, corn dogs, and...well, that's pretty much all he eats now anyway. Shit. Is there a disease for which the leading symptom is a coffee taste in the mouth?

He also made me comb his hair for lice before he would get in bed. I keep telling him he has a slightly dry scalp which is why his head is sometimes itchy. He appears to be a little freaked out by the whole idea of lice, not that I blame him. I fear the day there is an outbreak at his school.

The main computer is still broken. I really need it fixed. There's information I can't get to from my laptop. Information and pictures. It's at the shop, so hopefully we'll have it fixed soon.

So I guess it's time to bag my wound and take a shower. What should I do with my day? Should I ride out to my favorite farm and get a bunch of eggplants and tomatoes? Or should I make a couple of comforter covers using all my flat sheets as the back? We don't use flat sheets, I hear this is the European way of making the bed. We simply use the fitted sheet and duvet covers. So every time I buy a sheet set, I have unused flat sheets. It just so happens that duvet covers are really expensive and I can't afford to buy any. But my current ones are starting to get super shabby. (Hey, could that be the next permutation of "Shabby Chic"? Should I start a store and call it "Super Shabby"? Or maybe "Angelina's Super Shabby Emporium"?)

I made Max a duvet cover using two flat sheets. It worked great and was really easy. So my plan is to make a top out of great cotton prints and rick rack, and then sew it to a flat sheet. Perfect! I just can't decide if I should spend my day preserving food or doing a sewing project for my house. Maybe it will come to me over eggs and toast.

This is Super Shabby signing off...

Happy back to school everyone!!

How I Don't Love Remodeling Work

and other true facts

The priming is under way at last. Philip kindly volunteered to start it last night. I didn't TSP or sand the paneling so it was kind of slick. He couldn't use the roller for it so he used brush strokes to create a kind of slight texture to make the paint adhere better. I hope to get it completely primed today and then start painting this afternoon or tomorrow. There is a tremendous pressure to get it done. I had to turn down a project for a friend because she would need it much sooner than I will have my studio ready and I can't do a new project with all of my supplies scattered and packed around the garage. That was work I could have gotten paid to do. Money, which I need. Much too stressful.

Some executive decisions have been reached:

1) I am covering the floor with carpet tiles that Lisa E. has left over from her last house. It seems there will be plenty to do the job, they are free, and they come up as easily as they go down so that when I can afford a more permanent solution like wood floors I won't have to undo glue or tacking. It's a reddish orange which I actually quite like, though I don't think it would be to many other people's taste.

2) I am not going to change the hardware on my built in desk right away because I couldn't find anything I like at Lowe's that fits the screw holes that are already there and I'm not willing to fill in holes and make new ones just yet. The hardware is brass which I want to call vomit-metal in my more childish moments. I hate brass. I REALLY HATE BRASS. I'm a chrome girl. Or wrought iron. Or in my trendier moments I sometimes enjoy a brushed nickel finish.

3) I'm not going to fix the particle board sub-flooring where it has dry rot because it isn't soft, the damage is right by the sliding door, and the piece that is affected can be easily replaced by a professional when we are ready to replace the flooring. Every detail that can be shaved off the time it will take to move into that room is vital. Angela (from Cottage Magpie) will be very disappointed in me I know, she's an agent of precision and solid remodeling practices. Which I totally admire.

4) I've come to realize with absolute certainty that I derive no enjoyment what-so-ever from doing remodeling work myself. Even painting rooms I find completely tedious to the point of constantly fantasizing that I can afford to pay professionals to do it. I feel a lot of guilt around this realization. As a Do-It-Yourself advocate, I should relish doing it all myself. While I am proud that I can build a chicken coop from scratch*, use a circular saw, a power drill, and can rip up carpet like a pro...I don't like doing it. Is this a crime? It feels like a crime.


I still have no extra freezer or fridge. It is beginning to sound like a joke. Right now I have my one and only completely stuffed with beets because Bernard's farm had beets at the farmer's market for only .79 cents a pound. I only spent five or six dollars and have a fridge full of beets. Enough for one or two batches of pickles. I've been wanting to do this project for a couple of years now. It calls for sugar and I'm just hoping I'll like it. I think all the pickled beets I've previously enjoyed have been made with sugar. I'm going to go check right now....

Yes they do. Generally speaking I loathe sweet pickled items which is why I'm desperate to find a recipe for canning marinated three bean salad with either no sugar (and no green peppers) or just a token of sugar. I wish I had a mandolin for this project so I could slice my beets using the fancy ruffly cutter. Ah well.

It's exciting to watch the larder fill up. Not that I have a "larder". I should have said pantry. But doesn't larder sound kind of cool? I think that's kind of literal. The place where you keep your lard. Gross. As a non-meat eating individual (no, not fish or chicken either which I consider to be meat as they are the flesh of animals. I eat eggs and milk products, but I don't eat the flesh of any animals.) I think the idea of lard is really pretty awful. However, if I did eat meat it would make total sense to use the lard for cooking too. But when I think about lard I inevitably think about how I could just scoop some right out of my own belly to fry up some chitlins. Ha. Are you fully disgusted now?

*Actually, I really did enjoy building the coop from scratch. The one we have now is much nicer looking and came as a kit, but our first coop I did all by myself and I have to say it was funky. But FUNCTIONAL. Yes, I enjoyed doing that project.