my garden is happening!

My garden! The back row against what looks like the house (but is an empty room we aren't allowed to use) has artichoke, green beans, and cucumbers. I will put up some strings for them to climb later.

Against the white fence closest to the garage we have zucchini and yellow squash. In front of the beans/artichoke there are tomatoes.

In the box closest to the garage there are red onions, spinach, green leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, sweet banana peppers, hot banana peppers, serrano chiles, scallions, and carrots.

In the 2nd box there are strawberries, eggplants and cauliflower. Saving room for jalapenos and other things that strike my fancy later on.

Still want to do an herb spiral, which is why I didn't plant any of my herbs yet. I started sweet pea and delphinium seeds also!

Soooo much love for my garden. Woke up early so I could go outside and stare at it some more.

Yesterday was such a good day - I borrowed Adam's truck for the day, and my dad and I went to Home Depot. I bought the lumber to build the 2nd box, some soil and compost (it kills me to buy compost, but I don't want a compost pile in my backyard this summer because of the wedding), and the peppers/eggplants/strawberries. I built the box all by myself - and spent about 6 hours in the backyard drinking lemonade and listening to harry potter while I dug and planted and tilled and watered. Can't wait to get home and putter in the garden! I need to take Juno out and finish painting the fence - there are some spots that need touching up.

garden is getting there!

I wish I had taken "before" photos of the garden-area, because it looks so dramatically different now! It WAS a corner in the back that was a mess of grape vines, rose bushes, and weeds - and is now a beautiful, weeded, TILLED lot, all ready for planting. I got home last night and Adam had spent his whole day cleaning the yard - including prepping the garden for me. I couldn't believe it. He also finished the fence!!! Now we just have to put it up! I'm SO CLOSE to being able to plant!!!

I am still debating the square foot gardening thing, or using the soil how it is. I can't decide. I'd have to build more boxes since I only have one, and the instant gratification of being able to PLANT NOW is a pretty strong force, buttt... will I be happier in the long run with the boxes? Not sure.

I want to do some "landscaping" while I plant - I want to make it pretty, in addition to fruitful. Not sure how - but maybe making some mosaic stepping stones or something. We shall see!

In any case, I have the best fiance in the whole world.


I am also about 1/3 of the way done with a granny square bag that I am making for my friend Dani. She makes beautiful jewelry, and so we are exchanging the bag for a turquoise/silver ring. This is how the world SHOULD work my friends! Bartering! Yay! I'm having fun on her bag - she took a photo of a bag she liked, and I am re-creating it. I really, really, really enjoy doing that - I did it for my mom with a beanie she saw in a store window. Cell phone cameras are a huge bonus to my work. ;)

As soon as that is done, I will be working on a dog sweater for a coworker. She gave me the dog's current favorite sweater to use as a pattern, so this should be interesting. I've never done any pet stuff before.

Tomorrow my family's coming over to celebrate some birthdays, so tonight involves housework, grocery shopping, and Juno training. Tomorrow is family party, Sunday is exercise, Juno, gardening, knitting, and prepping for the week. YAY!

I'm so glad that summer is here. Yes I said summer. It feels like it. It's warm, sunny...in fact, not even warm - but HOT. It's fantastic. I didn't realize how much the cold and dark weather was getting to me until it turned to heat and sunshine. I feel like a totally different person. Things that bothered me a week ago no longer matter. People are fantastic, interesting, beautiful creatures. I have energy! I want to do things! It's still LIGHT OUTSIDE when I get home from work!!!! I love this time of year! I am DONE with the cold, the chilly, the frigid. Bring on the tank tops, the tanning, the flip flops!

garden fences

Yesterday I spent some time painting the garden fence that Adam (and I) built. Once that's painted, we can set it up, and then I can start work on the garden without fear of dogs destroying it. It was really nice yesterday - listened to Harry Potter on my ipod and the sun shone and the dogs scampered....



A lot of my seeds are doing really well - the only one that hasn't come up at ALL are the jalapenos, which I am sad about. However, if I have to buy plants I can do that...I have always had good luck with jalapeno plans from the store.


The green beans are doing awesome.



Chris' brother, David, comes over many weekends and the boys spend the whoooole time playing computer games. It's just like Southpark - "We ARE socializing, r-tard"

seeds started and some dog photos

sunday sunday sunday

Just cleaned up the garden - staked up the tomatoes better, got rid of dead cucumbers and marigolds, made a trellis and planted two rows of peas on either side of it...cut down all the seeded basil, hung the green ones to dry, and sorted out the seeds of the dried ones to save for the spring! Wondering what I want to plant next....

The weather really has been changing, and although I spent the whole time in a tank top, now that I am sitting still there is a breeze and I'm a little chilly. This morning I was downright cold. Yippee!

I am about 60% done with the back of my Slouchy Cardigan that I am making - it's a pattern from The Knit Cafe book. It /looks/ like pretty much the perfect sweater, and I really love the yarn I am using (a deep bergundy "raspberry" light alpaca). Tonight I am planning on fending off the Sunday night desperation with something yummy smelling in the oven, curling up in a blanket I've crocheted, and working on that sweater.

In the meantime, however, I am going to go finish up the laundry, then go for a walk/run in the neighborhood while listening to Harry Potter on tape.

Last night I hung out at Alex's with him and some friends - 3 of them I've known since I was leeeetle. We sat outside by the bonfire and laughed hysterically as we played the most intellectually snobby version of the alphabet game, and the most random and entertaining version of the Name Game. Three cheers for good old fashioned fun. ;)

Tonight's dinner I think will be: Hungry Girl chicken pot pie - and, maybe another kind of pie for dessert. Mmmm.

big deep breath

The last few days have been absolutely exhausting in an emotional sort of way, which feels like it's crossing over into physical. I got home from work today and just couldn't keep my head up, so I went to bed. I slept for a few hours, so now it's 9:30pm, and I'm strangely groggy. I am thinking I will find an old comforting movie and go to bed again soon. I was supposed to do a 2 mile run, but if I go to bed before 10, I could get up before 7am and do the run in the morning.

I've spent a lot of my evening tonight looking at the Good Vibrations conference website - where I will be speaking at in September. I'm suddenly aching for a good unschooling conference. My mom and sister went to the HSC Conference this last weekend, and it was so odd to hear them talk about it... my first boyfriend was Josh Engle, and his youngest brother (there are 4 of them) is just about my youngest sister's age - and he and his parents still go to the conference also. My mom/sister stopped at their house on the way home, just like we used to when I was going to the hsc conference, and it's just so funny to see that little echo in their experience. I could get ridiculously nostalgic for HSC conferences, but I just don't have the energy for that right now.

However, I do have the energy to say that I am who I am because of conferences like HSC, Live and Learn, Good Vibrations, etc. I am who I am because of groups of unschoolers getting together and taking over hotels so that even those drab pigeon wall colors and carpets end up looking like peacocks and birds of paradise flowers. I am who I am because I had pink hair for most of my teens, and so did most of my friends. Because we had people piles, hugged and cuddled a /lot/. Because we had talent shows, because we wrote poetry on our pants, because we spent so much time online waiting for that one weekend.

I miss being so tapped in to the unschooling world. I saw a new HSC magazine at my mom's house and missed knowing every person who was writing for it. I'm giving a talk about being a grown unschooler and I am suddenly feeling like I should be reversing the talk - asking the audience how I can stay as connected as possible when I am working full time every single day and I don't have kids of my own.

When I exhausted the Good Vibrations webpage, I moved on to Sandra's. I hit "randomize me" and found my mom's page of writing. Then I spent a fair amount of time reading my mommy's articles about unschooling and parenting. It's so funny - some of the articles she wrote many years ago, but they still apply. She's a smart cookie, my mama. She wrote articles on soothing frustrated children, and as recently as yesterday I had wandered into her house looking for soothing, and yup, she followed her own advice.

"my heart is a teacup with hairline cracks" says Witch Baby, and I feel not exactly that way, but more like I am very small, sitting on the edge of one. Either way I lean, I fall. I'm not good at this balancing act. I don't know which direction I want to go. So I am just going to sit here, for the time being. Hoping that it's just those two choices and that the third isn't that the cup is going to crumble under me.

I don't think I am as maudlin as that sound. I think that's part of growing up. I was very upset yesterday and made a list "what would a grown up do?" Yes, part of it involved crying to my mother, but other parts involved making appointments, trying to go to sleep early, and going to work and doing my job.

::::::
I have one zucchini that grows larger every day. I have 1 small pickling cucumber and one loooonng japanese cuke. I have a few small jalapenos, and probably upwards of 70 green tomatoes. The eggplant has blossoms, so do the honeydew. The basil has gone to seed. I am saving up money to buy wood for a new, and deeper, box. I'd like to have potatoes, garlic, onions. Maybe a whole box just for melons and squash.

The remainder of tonight and tomorrow will need to be rejuvenate-Roya day. I am in need of some gentle loving-thyself. Exercising in the morning will be a good start.

photos from the backyard

My puppy n me



My garden. It's getting huuuuge. Tomatoes, jalapanos, marigolds, white eggplant, chives, cucumbers, zucchini, basil, rosemary.



My puppy dog is getting so big...



I have a tank full of chylids, a bloodthirsty boyfriend and roommate - this is the two of them ridiculously and giddily excited about feeding small fish to slightly larger fish.



grapefruit, lemons and cucumber from my yard/garden

tired morning, yummy grapes

Made some progress with my goals yesterday! Daniel came over and set up my computer again, which is wonderful - now I have a place that is MINE that I can upload etsy photos, etc. I also started crocheting the bases for two coin purses - I crochet them with wool, then felt them, needle felt on top of them, then sew in a liner and zipper and voila! I also crocheted 1 bowl to felt, and made the front and back squares for 1 and a half new bags.

Yesterday I also made pesto from the basil in the garden - I blended basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper - then I realized I'd kind of over salted it, so my solution? cucumbers! I put about half a cucumber in the pesto and it not only mellows it out, but tastes good too. I also made some cornmeal chicken, noodles, and chicken with olive oil - the idea of that was I was going to put it into the pesto, but as it is frequently with me, once I smelled it cooking it grossed me out and I wanted nothing to do with it.

This morning was annoying with barking dogs, a car blocking me in, and missing my alarm - but I am trying to remember the good part: going out to the backyard and picking grapes for breakfast. Yum yum yum.

Anyhow, that's my current update. I have a weight watchers meeting this afternoon - and I think I am going to take a NAP when I get home!

etsy!

I have been wanting to revamp my etsy shop for some time - so today I've been poking around the shop a little bit, cleaning up some things. I'm not quite ready to make a whole new banner or anything - I do like the one I have, and it's going to have to wait until I decide which of my pieces I'd really like to focus on.

Today I put some of my older pieces into a SALE section - with the hopes that if those get sold, I will bring out the new items!!! So go check out my shop and look at the sales! (If I do say so myself, they are awesome sales. $15 for a crocheted handbag that usually goes for $25, for example...)

Today for the first time in weeks I don't have anywhere I HAVE to be tonight, and Adam will be working, so I can putter around on my own. I'd like to take Juno for a jog, tackle laundry and dishes, make pesto with the basil from my garden, water the garden and grass, straighten up the house, breath the smell of tomato plants, set up my computer, upload photos of marina's wedding, and get out my etsy sale pieces, organize and take new photos of them.

I've heard people say that something that makes an etsy shop successful is having it narrowed down to one item or type of item. That shops that focus on Aprons, for example, do better than shops that sell aprons and beanies and socks and necklaces. In my small amount of research, it does seem that the shops that do really well at least have a common theme or material in all of their pieces. I am debating what I want to focus on, then. I really do love my crocheted handbags, and I am thinking that between those, the felted bowls, and coin purses, that would make an excellent shop. Maybe somewhere down the line I can open another shop to sell ceramics and magnets, etc.

So anyhoo - I am excited about etsy again, and am looking forward to when my sister's boyfriend can come over and set my computer up in the office, with Adam and Chris' computers, where I can look out into the backyard and the lemon tree while I fool around on etsy.

4th of july photos

hello world!

Today I am in wedding mode! I have so much to do for Marina's wedding... it's time it's time! I wish I lived closer... this trying to figure out what to get now and what to get then is annoying.

Today my goal is to
1. Finish the shower favors, this involves
a. finish the ribboning
b. buying the c's and attaching the l's
c. printing the l's

2. Decide on a design for the bparty favors, start those

3. Get paper for the shower B, sketch design

Wednesday I will have very little time, and then Thursday, Ethan visits and I will do stuff like get my dress, get presents, work on TS, etc.

Sorry for the lack of details, but I'm not sure if Marina actually reads this thing. ;)

This is my garden as of the 4th of July! As of today, the zucchini's actually have blossoms!!! Yay! Very pleased.



this is my amazing jumping dog. Juno gets AIR. It's amazing. Also in the photo is roommate, Chris.



We borrowed the ping pong table from my folks, spent 2 hours setting it up, and here I am...getting whomped royally by my father. He's a ping pong master. I think he beat everyone that day.



Some of the potluck food, including an amazing homemade Apple pie. YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM.



Chris and Marco playing the bean bag game. This game is awesome. Marco brings it everywhere, and it never fails to be a hit. Also, I never fail to suck spectacularly at it. It's truly a remarkable phenomenon how bad I am at throwing a damn bean bag.




Boggle turned out to be a big hit for the night, also. Roxana, obviously, kicked some serious butt. My cousin Becky wins points for persistence. I think Alex and Glen get runners ups. I, of course, did not have the attention span to sit and play for any length of time. We also played blokus, which I won, every time, thank you very much.



We had a bonfire once it got dark, here we have my Cousin Zac and his wife, Abi, sitting around the fire.


We sat in the front yard and watched the fireworks. Rommel didn't like the noise, so he got up and went inside. We found him in the office where we had really loud music playing. Juno looked up once, then put her head down and closed her eyes. I thought she was sleeping, except every time there was a bang, her ears twitched in that direction.Behind us there was a kid that said "wowowowowWOW" every time a firework went off.




The 4th of July was awesome. Everything in my life is awesome, except for the headaches. Since I want everything to be awesome, I will finally make a doctor's appt. sheesh.

it feels like fall!

Oh my gosh, this morning it feels like fall. I need to knit myself some fingerless gloves so I can sit in my freezing office at work and actually type. I love mornings like this morning - I woke up so warm and in blanket-nest, and there was pastel sunshine like only fall can have, and I knew as soon as I got out of bed it'd be chilly, but I got to snooze for ten minutes and just scrunch down in the warm and sunshine.

Last night (this morning, technically) around 1:00am Adam and I went running again - this time in the park. We were visited by all three coyotes again - they are getting incredibly bold. Adam now runs with a large stick just in case. I tried for a while, but it's annoying, so I gave up any pretense of badassedness.

We did a 3 minute run then a 5 minute run, twice. Adam says he feels improvement, but I just feel tired. I guess mentally there is an improvement - five minutes does not seem like the end of the world the way it felt the first time we did this set. We made the mistake of looking ahead to next week - the first day are 3 5 minute runs, then there are two 8 minute runs, and then 1 TWENTY MINUTE RUN. Yikes. I am afraid, but also looking forward to the challenge. I am liking the idea of being able to just run and run, even if I am cursing under my breath while we do it.

My coworker just came in while I was writing this and put in an order for an African Kufi for black history month. I am excited. He's been such a huge supporter of my work - has bought 1 birthday present and 3 christmas presents so far from me.

I now need to make a to do list for all my orders:

1. Finish JW's bag - which means

going to the fabric store and buying nice black liner, sewing liner

2. Wrapping JW's bag, SC's scarf and KG's scarf in christmas wrapping

3. Wrapping EL's picture frame in christmas wrapping

4. Take a photo of JW's bag to put on alchemy

5. Take a picture of all of them wrapped for appreciation pictures

6. Make Alex's Andrea's scarf - finish by Nov. 12th!! (I am so proud of this scarf - I taught myself how to do intarsia on this one. I had a picture of a hat to go by, and it's WORKING. It's just going slower than I'd like.)

7. Make Noemi's sister's coin purse with a crown (since she's a "princess") in pink, black, and gold.

8. Finish the 5 bags and 4 makeup bags I have in progress (buy liner, sew liner, attach handles, put in zippers, etc.)

9. List them!

10. Voila.

Meanwhile, I have an abnormal psychology class I NEED to catch up on today, (quiz tomorrow), work, and dishes like you wouldn't believe. Also - my cabbage and lettuce is getting eaten by something and I want it to stop. My tomatoes and strawberries are doing good, but I am afraid for the rest of my garden.

Tomorrow evening Amber will be coming over to knit with me, so I hope to get a lot of Alex's scarf done then.

I have so many things I want to do that I can't decide so I am running around in circles it feels like! Guess it's time to quit dreaming about the things I will do when I get home and get to work.

cold fingers!

Oh my I need to make myself some fingerless gloves. It's about 85 degrees outside, but in my office, it's FREEEZING.

I finished attaching the handle to JW's custom bag - it's spiffy. Made me realize how much I really love the look of BIG bags. I'll do the lining this week and get some wrapping paper to package it and the scarves up for R.

Another coworker bought a frame from me yesterday - also need to wrap that up with Christmas paper for him. I know I keep saying this, but I really need to take better photos of the frames!

Also - if anyone out there has any old art history textbooks, I'd love them! I need the pictures.

Tonight I want to start on making my personal christmas cards. I was making the list of people-to-send-to and I realized I have many more than I thought, so I should start NOW.

My garden is sort of hit and miss. The tomatoes and strawberries look excellent, and some of the cabbage seems to be alright. One or two planters of the romaine lettuce are growing growing growing, but everything else seems a little frail. I am so bummed. I had really hoped to have a ton of squash and stuff. Maybe it needs time. Maybe it needs...fertilizer of some sort? Is that cheating? I should do some research.

However, not now! Now I leave from work, go home, make sure my house hasn't exploded (Adam exchanged dryers today), work on xmas cards, go to karate, go out to eat with karate, come home, read psychology textbook, run, sleep. sleep. sleep. lather. rinse. repeat.

My plan today -
sweep, first and foremost
laundry in washer
sprinkle cleanser in the shower
do dishes
eat an apple with some cheese cut up
scrub shower
take shower
put on running clothes, leave house
(by 11am)

leave house, head for farmer's market! buy fruit
go to beach, do week 3 of couch to 5k
go to Michael's
buy yarn for JW's bag
take car to charity car wash #1
take car to fundraising car wash #2

get home, eat things (like fruit!)
laundry in dryer
balance checkbook
make spaghetti
fold laundry
work on JW's bag or braided rug


etc. etc. I should get crackalackin if I am really going to do all of this.

The romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries are thriving. Some of the cabbage looks good too. There is one little sprout of something I forgot to label, the artichokes are dyyyying, and I don't remember what anything else is. Come on garden, you can make it!

Yesterday, Adam and I went to 2nd street and met up with pretty much every member of my extended family and then some at Rubios, walked around for a while, then went to see the movie W at the marketplace. I didn't laugh as much as the other people in the audience did. At one point, a man in the back yelled "This great American experience is almost over!!! Vote for Obama!" and everyone clapped. I think Bush's legacy will be having both a tv show and a movie come out DURING his presidency which mock him mercilessly. well that's free speech for ya.

In any case, time to get moving!

no time!!!

(This picture - taken on the June 2008 Cruise to Alaska with A2A)


Ack! I am so running out of time every day to do even the little updates on items I want to do. I haven't listed anything on etsy in a week, which is just driving me CRAZY.

Tonight won't be any better - I have karate, schoolwork, and some other work I need to do. Yarrgh. Tomorrow, though - I get off work early and will be heading to Joanne's to see if they have a bigger handle to use for Emily's large pink bag. Then I can finish that, and finish the lining on Amber's - plus do the lining on the cool orangish bag I did a while back, and voila, I'll have things to list again! I also need to finish the handles on two bags that are already crocheted - and then I can add lining to them and put them up. I just need one good weekend of sewing linings and I'll be ready to do some listing!

I want to do the granny squares I am doing, but make them little and put zippers in and make them into coin purses.

No time! No time!


My garden is faring all right - some of the cabbages seem like they are getting smaller and smaller, and the artichoke looks awfully wilted, but I am hoping that they will carry through. I still have about 16 plants that are sitting in the containers from the store because I ran out of soil. Tonight I'll go get more too.

I finally took some time to do some personal mending last night - I can finally wear my favorite pants again (fixed a seam) and fixed a button for my fella. I love doing that. It would really stink to feel like I couldn't sew on a button or fix a tear or something.

I remember having that thought process in Alaska - no one where we were would have called a plumber, or an electrician, if something went wrong. Nope - they figure it out, trial and error, put it together with random pieces and duct tape, and ask their friends. It's very liberating, realizing you can fix those things with your own two hands.

A friend of mine from work actually created their own etsy page!!! YAY Michael Thantrong! Everyone go to ISO100 and take a look at his amazing photos!

yay gardening

The reason my post about gardening is going on my etsy blog, is because it's something I am creating with my own two hands -and it gives me the same self-sufficient feeling that making something utilitarian into an art form does.

There's my justification. Here's my post!

So yesterday I went to Home Depot and purcashed a gajillion plants for "winter" gardening (although the temperature here was 98 degrees today..). I don't have anything in the way of a real garden space in my backyard, so instead what I do is plant everything in pots, and cluster them in one corner of the backyard, so it kind of *looks* like a garden. My wonderful, amazing, handy boyfriend actually made me a white picket fence to put around my garden area so the dog won't pee on them. ;oP

During the summer I had tomatoes, jalapenos, cucumbers, strawberries, thyme, basil, cilantro and chives. The jalapenos grew like crazy - I have never had success like I had with those peppers. My cucumbers didn't do as well - one plant died right off the bat, and the other produced about 4 or 5 fruits. My tomatoes produced so much that I could not eat them all. We were having some serious fly issues, though, and I think the flies were doing something funny to the tomatoes, so I was always a little iffy about them. I let the cilantro go to seed accidently, and then kind of...neglected.. my poor garden. Anyways, I uprooted the dead plants, revitalized the ones I could salvage, and then bought.......

more strawberries
3 artichoke plants
6 red cabbages
12 romaine lettuce
6 red lettuce
1 acorn squash
1 butternut squash
1 crookneck squash
1 zucchini
6 cauliflower
1 strawberry

also - seeds for snap peas, bok choy, and spinach

I want carrots, too. I would do potatoes but those big giant prehistoric bugs that go along with them freak me out!

Anyways, I am super excited about my garden. I can't wait to take my crocheting out and sit amongst my leafy greens. :) (there, full circle, back to etsy..)