Make!Do!

Summer Spark

2011-06-17T22:45:00.011-04:00

School let out last Friday - the most anticipated day of my year. I had an automatic countdown on my iGoogle page that slowly ticked off the weeks, the days, each draining hour. And finally, my sweet reward, a huge component in why I took this job in the first place- 14 weeks off in the summer, 5 weeks off in the rest of the year. I should be completely stoked, electrified, ready to go - but it felt a bit anti-climatic in the end. Part of it was knowing I still had weeks of work to do, that I could not in good conscience leave right away. Some of the teachers were flying off to France the next day or parents were headed out on long, luxurious vacations - and I suddenly realized that I didn't have much lined up for the summer. A few camping trips, but we're saving for the big trip next summer. No airplane trips, no sand and sun, nothing glamorous. No daycare either, and despite wanting to spend more time with my kid - again a big, big reason to take this job! - weeks of full-time parenting doesn't sound exactly relaxing. Part of my mind realizes it is utterly insane to have any quibbles about time off and time with my kid when every working mother across the nation is likely about to throw their commuter mug at the computer screen hearing that- or uh, you know, the 1.2 of them who read this blog. But there you are - I had a little sadness and disappointment when school let out, not what I was expecting to feel.

So I started making a list - doodling a list, busting out my pretty ink pens and Moleskine notebook, all things, small and huge, made it on the list. From the dentist to cleaning my computer screen to writing/finishing my gdmned YA book. Small things like this -

- a knitted banana I started approximately 3 months ago, for a baby I know. It has a jingle bell inside. It looks lumpy and insane because there was no pattern, I was trying to make it up as I went along. And it looks like it. But it is done! Checked off my list.

The list morphed into some little/big projects that I am excited about and by extension include grain elevators. prairies, film reels, audio equipment and two-lane highways. Anything to make this close to home summer feel more purposeful and important and bigger.

I'm also coming to terms with my thrift problem this summer. It has always been extreme, but now I can easily wander into a couple thrift stores way too often. When I'm thrifting for Simone's clothes and shoes, I always find something else I cannot live without. A Czech magnetic toy theatre . A dual Super 8/regular 8 projector that works perfectly.

Spanish baby shoes

Danish pottery with the original Danish price sticker on it.

It turns out this island called Bornholm was the ceramics mecca of Europe at one point. The BOFA factory only existed for ten years but those 10 years happen to be some of my favourite in design - 1953-1963. They still have the original price tag on it, how could I say no? Even though I have no use for them.

And I can never say no to Holt Howard, let alone his tomatoes.

I have myself slightly convinced that I need my own Etsy vintage shop so that I can shop without guilt. Please disabuse me of this notion, as it would likely be more trouble than it could possibly be worth, right? Especially as I only ever remember to take pictures at night, in terrible lighting and apparently only on my kitchen table. Still...it's on the list.

Except Almond Joy. That one is pretty good.

2011-06-07T01:24:00.010-04:00

On the subject of people who apologize for not blogging lately (I swear to the earth and back I won't ever do that), I was ecstatic to find Corey Arcangel's project "Sorry I haven't posted lately", in which he aggregates apologetic entries. This is when the internet gets good. Unfortunately I cannot link to the original New Yorker article where I first read about Mr. Arcangel (oh how I would like to see his show!) but I recommend you seek out a Doctor's waiting room or the library to read it yourself. Or subscribe! I did when the lure of $25 a year was too ridiculous to ignore. People sometimes ask why I continue to live in the United States and here is a statistical breakdown:

I'm not really kidding. I'm certainly not here for the chocolate bars or the great hockey commentary. But Americans - you can have such amazing magazines sent to you for a pittance! Why don't you? Here is our current subscription roster:

New York Times (just Saturday and Sunday during the school year but the magazine takes me all week to read and my god, the Acrostic! The Acrostic!)
The New Yorker
Harpers
Sun magazine
Newsweek (this one is Sergio's)
Tape Op (ditto)
Bust
Edited to add: And Canadian Living!!! How could I forget the magazine which my beloved beloved and very sick Grandma has been subscribing to for me for over 10 years now? I love Canadian Living!

I would/might add a few more, just to try and keep some of my favourites alive, and yeah, my kitchen table doth overflow with reading goodness. So much so that it is admittedly hard to keep up with it all. But I am never, ever without good reading material when running for the bus, catching a flight or heading on vacation. The kind you can leave behind all salt-stained and water-logged. Or put their cover on your wall. (Like this one, which is on my daughter's wall.)
PS- In case, like me, you want to make a mildly humorous pie chart, I simply Googled "instant pie chart" and voila! the first link "Instant Pie Charts" did exactly what I wanted it to do, for free. You can just drag the resulting pie chart to your desktop where it saves as a .png file. Don't say I'm no information professional!)

Bad start

2011-06-01T23:47:00.002-04:00

This is supposed to be the Month! of Creativity! and I feel about as creative as a wet sock full of moldy oatmeal. I may be having a genuine mid-life crisis. Or a full-body reaction to endless grey skies and work. Check back with me on that.
In the meantime, I cannot stop listening to this song loud in the car. Not only is it catchy but it feels fucking fantastic to shout the opening lines over and over. Like I've been wronged, when I don't think I have. Check back with me on that too:

Illustrati

2011-04-12T23:35:00.004-04:00

I look at children's books all day, every day, both French and English (very different sensibility, the French, silly and dark and frank) One of my favourites has always always been Ezra Jack Keats with his torn paper collages and colors:

Photo of Whistle for Willie by EJK by Letslookupandsmile

So when I saw the images from the new book by Phillip C. Stead, you might imagine why I went off the deep end. I mean look at this:
The image is from the interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and if you want to be inspired and rip up paper and paint things or you just care about process and beautiful results no matter the medium, you have to read the post. And if you want to be doubly inspired, read the post by his wife, Erin about her beautiful picture book A Sick Day for Amos McGee. Sigh.

And then I'm reading kids book reviews in the NYT and I see this Ralph Lauren project "the worlds first shoppable storybook adventure" and I kinda want to shoot myself. Because guess which kind of book I'll be seeing more of in the future...

Sometimes it feels like all the things I love are on the edge of extinction.

Old

2011-04-11T23:54:00.004-04:00

This weekend I was at an (amazing) little concert of Congolese music for parents and kids and it struck me as I shimmied shamelessly - not for the first time - that I have entered my World Music Years. You know, when Folk Festivals and African music showcases seem like a slightly better idea than indie rock late night boozy concerts. This means you are likely a) a parent and/or b) old. Guilty on both counts! Whatever, it was exactly what I needed.

Other recreational sign of being old: gardening. I have tried here and there to plant living things and have them remain living - without much success. But our new (rental) house has raised beds! And already living things like rosemary and daffodils and chives and hyacinths. And lovely soil. So now I am officially Gardening. With the help of a judicious garden tool purchase on Craigslist, I am pruning, digging, weeding, and plotting. I sent off my seed order to Territorial seeds today and am crazy excited for them to arrive. My favourite purchase of the week is gardening gloves. To date I have not actually grown anything, but my god, I'm trying.
Things that were already here but are growing, so at least I haven't killed them.

Windowsill with tulips, pussywillows and hyacinth.

I'm also trying to knit a banana but that's another story.

One of the Best

2010-12-31T22:36:00.003-05:00

I'm not a year end in review type - though I do love reading others - but today was such a perfect capper to this year that I had to share via a variety of social media. We all had the day off. My two weeks of vacation are almost up. It was sunny and so clear and cold. We drove up to Anacortes where we haven't been since 6.5 years when we were married there, on a similarly sunny and clear day, though of course much warmer. Department of Safety closed in 2010 (RIP) and through their windows there was no trace of the burgandy velvet curtains, hanging Polaroid cameras or wall of 7"'s that surrounded us on that day. No matter, we showed our (indifferent) kid and headed to the tip, Washington Park, which features one of the most stunning hikes and views and bluffs and tide pools and stone beaches and pines and moss and our kid was so happy and we were too:
We went to lunch at Adrift who catered our wedding, in a fashion (we gave them $300 and asked for as many snacks as possible) and the waitress was warm and hugged our kid more than once, the tabletops are copper, books line the shelves and the food was fantastic and we ate long, lazy and indulgently (dessert! coffee!). At home now, cozy with husband on the search for the ideal chow mein and the best beer, I know I am LUCKY. (For sense of luck, please see 127 Hours with James Franco which I enjoyed immeasurably and intensely). 2010 involved finishing school, trips with family, the best internship a girl could ever have, a summer in DC, moving back to Seattle and starting a whole new life. I hope this year is calmer but considerably MORE. Enriched, enriching, less skin of the teeth and more purposeful and planned and creative and involved. Cheers to the journey!

Things I Like

2010-12-07T23:13:00.002-05:00

In the spirit of this consumptive season (not the TB sanitarium kind, the buy-a-lot-of-stuff kind - and as a tangent, there is a packaged food maker in NZ called Sanitarium and every time I would pick up some Skippy Cornflakes all I could think of was bloody handkerchiefs when I'm pretty sure they were hoping I would be reminded of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, maker of the most insipid addictive theme song ever) but anyway 'tis indeed the season of liking stuff. Isn't that what the Baby Jesus done got born for? So I like:

Podcasts for Running
You know, I've tried the Couch Potato to 5K regime before, fooling with printouts and digital watches and even buying a stopwatch - when duh, the perfect solution was in my iTunes for free all along. He tells you when to run. He tells you when to slow down. He plays annoying but somehow motivating techno music that you would never own. This is only my second week but at this point I look forward to the dark and the cold and my Nike hoody which somehow makes me feel like some kind of runner and the views of the lake and the Christmas light but I would honestly not get out of bed at 5:30 without the promise of this podcast. We'll see if it lasts.

I went to the Urban Craft Uprising which was full of other people of my demographic, which always wigs me out. If the building had blown up, where would all the knit armwarmers come from? But I did see a few things I completely coveted and that are somewhat poorly represented online. Reminder: real life sometimes trumps Etsy.

I don't wear a lot of jewelry because on me it looks wrong wrong wrong but I was mesmerized by the necklaces and earrings of Material and Movement. She makes them from old porcelain teacups and in person I could NOT stop staring. And coming back. And cursing the fact that I look awful in necklaces. And that she doesn't have an Etsy shop full of them that I can show you and buy.

Similarily, I thought and thought and thought about the Hasenpfeffer Dolls for Simone. But could not bring myself to pony up $100 and then live in fear that she would "wreck" a toy. Hands down these are the most solid, sweetest, loveliest dolls I've ever seen in person. Individually knit sweaters by a Finnish grandmother! So amazing.

There are plenty of silk-screeners out there but the Slide-Sideways booth made me pause and stay for a good long while and appreciate their gentle, interesting aesthetic. I would like the ice cream print please.

Although they are not reinventing the wheel or anything I very much wanted the kelly green bag by Snap design - just so simple and practical which is so goddamned hard to find.

I also spent a long time going through the bags of mugwhump, particularly the line she made from a Betty Crocker kids cookbook of the 60's - squee! They aren't on her site, but I assure you, people were snapping em up.

Lest you think I just like buying stuff, I also went to see the documentary Kings of Pastry and enjoyed the hell out of it. It gave me a little more of a insight into the French brains I work with and why they are so detail-oriented and pretty goddamned serious., Plus, there was lots of food. And drama. And this really lovely male respect and showing of emotions that American males would do well to study. Recommend! Also, I love the NW Film Forum for being in my neighborhood and playing excellent films.

In other news, I am failing Christmas. We only bothered with our silver tree, I'm not sure we have a stocking for Simone, and our advent is woeful. Woeful. Tied to this is how I can ONLY think and talk about work these days. It is so annoying. I swore I would never be the type of person who thinks about work all the time, but here I am, through necessity, doing just that. Even running my mind is on lesson plans. If I stay at this job, I may just morph from faintly dull to outright boring. Or have I already done that?

Back in the Thrift Saddle Again

2010-10-13T23:52:00.003-04:00

There are many many reasons that I'm pleased to be back in the PNW, but one I am surprised to discover is the thrift shopping. I thought my corner of the south would be full of un-emptied closets and mid-century attics and petticoat dresses - but I never really found that North Carolina Nirvana. In contrast, I offer you the busy branch of a chain of second-hand stores in my hipster neighborhood in Seattle - which you would think would spell Thrift Disaster. Instead I keep trying to find excuses to swing by. Finds so far include bright orange rain boots, a ton of amazing kid shoes and clothes, kitchen chairs, blankets, pillows and this awesome knitting book, Wild Knitting:

This is the Forget Me Not knitted bikini. Indeed, memorable.

This is the Winged Traveler - dreamy.

Knitted lingerie.

A vegan armadillo wrap.

I wish I had my scanner unpacked so I could show you pictures of the knit cigarette case, the striped clown jumpers, ties shaped like cacti and pen nibs, and pill box hats.

Glow in the Dark Placeholder

2010-05-20T14:12:00.005-04:00

Oh lord, there was graduation and vacations and new projects and the winding down of others and I'm really excited to show/blab/work on all of these here in these pages. But in the meantime, here is a picture of one of my latest purchases. I was at Ross when these Converse marked down to $14.99 called my name. What's that you say? They don't look that interesting? Sure, they're clear vinyl but how exciting is that?

Ah, but turn out the lights and behold. That's right, they Glow in the Dark. And it's not weak either - these babies GLOW. I am thinking of making this my city cycling shoe so nighttime biking is a more visible affair.For the record, I could tell the sales assistant thought I was crazy for buying these.
More soon!

Birth

2010-04-27T21:42:00.002-04:00

Do you want to hear the worst birth story I think I can imagine? No, it could definitely be worse, but how about most inconvenient? Our Lord and Lady of the Land, the takers of rent, are moving from Durham to New Orleans, as his job requires him to be there for the forseeable future. They have a 2.5 year old and she was 7.5 months pregnant when they hit the road. Pulling out of a gas station in tiny town, Georgia - her water broke. And the baby started coming really quickly. So with all their things in the car and a cranky toddler, they tried to find the nearest hospital. It was a little country hospital who freaked when they showed up, for this baby was 6 weeks early, and they did not have the facilities for a preemie. But it was too late, for the preemie was born. All are fairly healthy (thus is cannot be the worst birth story ever) and stuck in Small Town, GA without family and friends until the preemie can move. Which is a few weeks. And he has to go to work in NO, so she is there with toddler and preemie and a car full of stuff. Which she will drive down alone when said preemie is cleared for take-off. She mentioned all this casually when calling to tell us to hang on to our rent cheque for a few days as she doesn't know where she will be to receive it. if it was me, I'd be calling the media and feeling dang sorry for myself, or possibly blogging about it.

Babies are in the air! Or out of the womb. In the past 2 weeks, lovely people have had an Arlo, 2 have had girls named Lola (get ready for the Kinks song (not even one of their best) to be your personal life theme song, girls, the way "Brown Eyed Girl" is mine simply because I possess the most common eye color in the world) and even a Soren made an appearance. Thank god school is winding down or packages would be later still, as they waited for my knitting needles to get busy. I am genuinely joyful for these new parents. But tonight, as I dragged - literally dragged - my kicking, screaming toddler down the street as her father grimly toted her baby doll stroller beside her, after which she had a 30 minute melt-down where she screamed so much she almost threw up, all because we had the audacity to ask that toddler to turn around and head towards home - I was slightly gleeful that some more people are joining us on this side of the island. Welcome! The first 18 months are pretty fun!

In other birthing news, today my new MacBook made it's way into my world, all little and wee and silver and doing exactly what I ask of it, unlike my flesh and blood child, and as a result we are very happy together. I would like to add some festive pictures here but due to my now soul-deep hatred for the picture adding function of Blogger and resulting ALWAYS wonky layout - I just can't bring myself to do it. I see a brand-new WordPress baby on the horizon...

Reference Librarian

2010-04-20T15:16:00.008-04:00

So I started typing the question "Is it true that when you're over 35 you start to like "world music more" in Google this morning. I was seeking qualitative evidence that my sudden interest in Panamanian and Latin American music in general is a function of my age and that soon I would be a Folk Fest regular in tunics and clogs and that it was Okay, it didn't have to mean I was on the slow slide to Gypsy Kings-ville.

When I typed in "is it..." an interesting list of possibilities popped up (see Fig. 1) and it struck me I was seeing a little snapshot of the collective mind of America. Note the recurrence of incest questions (x2) and some basic worries about reproductive functioning in general. America, don't let Google answer these questions. Let's pay for some high quality sex ed in this country! (Actually that would be a pretty great ad campaign for Planned Parenthood - some poor kid typing in sex advice on Google),

As a Canadian, I'm slightly concerned about "why can't I own a Canadian" (see Fig. 2) being such a prominent entry. Are you coveting my mosaic-like, Socialist outlook? Move on, American, move on. We never legalized slavery and we're not starting now.

Interestingly, pregnancy tops the list in the How category as well (see Fig. 5, sigh) but technical concerns are also well addressed here, garnering 6 out of the 10 results. I'm personally most intrigued by "how do you make snow cream" and plan to Google it myself one day. Mmm, snow cream.

What (see Fig. 3) covers some deeper territory, with Googlers pondering relationships in "What it love", and identity in"What does my name mean" but I'm still pondering "Is it"'s question about whether it is bad to sleep with your bra on. Every time I've had to do it, I have felt slightly naughty - hmm, some preliminary Googling of my own reveals there is a large contingent of women out there who actually sleep in their bra. Wow, um, I seriously cannot think of something I would rather do less. But perhaps they own more than one saggy old number from Victorias Secret, where the bra strap keeps detaching and humiliatingly snaking out of my shirt sleeve.
As a soon-to-be-Real-live Librarian, I hope to never have to answer why your poop is green, so thank you Google, you have made the world safe for the secret inquiry. Except when people like me post pictures on their blog. Whoops.

Just in case you think I only use the screen snapshot function (Apple_Shift_4, you Mac users, I STILL have to Google that every time) for mockery purposes, allow me to share the original screen snapshot I was taking that started this whole train of thought. If you can't see this image without adjusting your glasses, it is the playlist from this mornings WXYC's show which was chock full of awesome Latin music and made me want to buy all this crazy stuff and then I realized how much I like "World Music" (see: Western definition of all non-Western music as one big pot o' music called World Music) and wondered if it meant I was getting old or I just like calypso beats and thus began the Googling and here we are. Any questions?

Oscar The Grouch

2010-03-07T18:51:00.008-05:00

*I wrote this during the Red Carpet (and didn't publish it because I was going to add pictures and then my rational brain said "Big giant stupid paper due any day now, no time for Googling Flickr Commons, fool!") - play along and see how I did with predicting!*

Sneaking a moment from my Masters Paper (first draft due next week, final draft due in 3...) to weigh in (to myself) on movies as the Oscars play soundlessly in the background because I cannot STAND the questions people are asked but I still want to see the pretty, pretty dresses. The Oscar-sanctioned year in movies:

1. I never want to see Avatar. I mean that, never. Not out of some churlish snobbish disdain, I just don't have one atom in my body that is even mildly curious to see it. Once I saw the Cat-Elf Creatures, learned of Unobtanium and heard the soaring overly ripe score of the movie - no. Just no.

Ben Stiller's make-up made me laugh

2. I really do wish Bigelow would trump Cameron (he's such blowhardy tool, right? I mean, can't you just tell. Or maybe it's just his 5 ex-wives that gives me a clue) but not because I thought The Hurt Locker was so great. Jeremy Renner seems like a good egg but the movies was eh for me. What especially amuses me is the way people keep hoping Bigelow will "finally be recognized for her work". Ah yes, that lost classic "Point Break" about surf-board riding criminals! She was sorely overlooked for that one. Kermode (of BBC movie podcast of fame) made this rage-inducing comment about how he would like Bigelow to win the first female director Oscar because her movie is so "muscular and tough", rather than that whiny Jane Campion who could have won for The Piano. Dear Sir: I agree with your opinions often, but Bright Star kicked Hurt Lockers buttocks very very hard. And looked smashing doing it. And is it so wrong to care about feelings, anyway? No.

Well hey, she won! Did they have to seat them right next to each other? Was that for good television?

3. Speaking of Bright Star, if it doesn't win Best Costumes, I shall be sore disappointed. They were fantastic. Watch and see if you don't want to wear a hat immediately.

I was sore disappointed. Those damn royal historical pictures always win...

4. I see The White Ribbon is up for Best Foreign Film and I do have a strong love for Haneke but when I think of this movie, all I can remember is the ultra-quiet theatre and the man who shushed me - shushed me! - for my crinkly Smartfood bag. In retrospect, perhaps cheese popcorn was the wrong choice for a silent, black and white film about the gathering storm in Europe but sir, if you want a soundproof room, wait for the DVD and your home entertainment unit.

5. Is it just me or does the premise for the movie The Blind Side seem impossibly, hopelessly racist and demeaning? Oh those po' black folks, just waiting to be rescued by a good Christian woman. I wonder if Sandra Bullock, a nice lefty if there ever was one, is kind of in despair that she has been universally loved for playing the kind of person she would hate in real life?

You know, Bullock looked good and her speech was the best of the night - but STILL - that movie! Grrr.

6. Barbara Walters seriously just this minute asked Mo'nique about her hairy legs and then asked if her husband minds them. Babs, go ask James Camerons wife #5 if she minds being one in a long line or any man with a hairy back if his wife minds, okay? I haven't seen Precious but go on Monique with your bad self and win, because you are awesome for not giving a flying leap for what the (impossible) standards are.

Did you see the clip of Precious they used for Best Adapted Screenplay? I was practically standing up and screaming at the TV - seriously, the BEST clip you could chose for the Oscars was a large black woman STEALING A BUCKET OF FRIED CHICKEN? That was the defining scene of the movie??? It felt like a bad joke. A Hitler joke or something.

7. Only seen 2/5 of the Doc nominees, shame. The others are in my Netflix queue and I look forward to Which Way Home. The Cove was so over the top, it was ridiculous. I myself would have added The September Issue and Every Little Step. Perhaps they're more frivilous but I really enjoyed them.

Shocker, the maker of The Cove was inappropriately "crazy activist style" while accepting the award. I guess I don't like their premise that somehow the killing of whales and dolphins is sad and must be stopped by bullshit covert operations but fish, eh, who cares so much? Much the same way people weep tears over dogs being eaten in China while munching on a burger or Teabaggers protest "socialized medicine" while their parents subsist on Medicare - it's the hypocrisy that bothers me.

7. Movies on the list that I haven't seen yet but would like to: An Education, A Single Man and Up in the Air. And one that isn't on the list but I'm desperate to see it: Fish Tank.
And if Jeff Bridges doesn't win for Crazy Heart, I will break a little because he was perfect, perfect, pickled liver and all. Do you know who else was perfect in that movie? Colin Farrel. I hate CF but his character added such a note of sweetness and unexpected grace in the movie that it elevated the whole thing.

Hey, his speech was a hot mess, but I do think he deserved it. Hurrah for Hollywood....sort of.

Bookmark

2010-02-24T20:57:00.004-05:00

Holding my place, as I battle the End of Library School demons and make up for my fantastic Vancouver vacation where I did everything on my Dream Vancouver Visit list and more...except homework. Which I am now paying for. Hold me.

In the interim, every time I walk through the library, I have to stop myself from scooping up a Kik Step and running for the hills. They have so many! I want a souvenir! I am seriously, seriously thinking about purchasing myself one for a Graduation gift.

The only question is: Do I choose Celery?

Or Tangerine?

Cringe-tastic

2010-01-27T21:28:00.003-05:00

Does this ever happen to you? You're sailing along in your day and suddenly - CRINGE - you remember something you should have done/did/never got around to and it's embarrassing and horrible and the more time goes on, the harder it is to make it up? I do, seemingly daily. It's this huge mantle of shame and guilt and I'm getting pretty tired of lugging it around. I'm ready for some atonement, without the Intervention and rehab. So part of my 2010 plan is The Cringe List. I made one, squirming all the while. I'm not feeling free and easy enough to add the actual items to the Interwebs but I will keep a running tally of Cringe Items Completed.

Today, my CIC is 2.

I feel better already.

Dream Projects

2010-01-25T18:12:00.009-05:00

I'm on the threshold of graduating and the fear is rising - fear of losing access to great libraries, resources, databases, a purpose in life....fear of never finding a job or becoming a failure. But at the same time, something else is rising...project ideas. I'm allowing myself to think about a time when I won't be doing homework every night, when in fact I may be crying in my coffee over being unemployed, but when I'll be less busy too. I'm making this fantasy list to remind myself and to prod myself and to make a record of where my imaginative life is at right now:

1. YA Book of Interminable Foreverness

It has a title even, but I don't want to jinx it. You guys, I feel 1000x closer to actually finishing this than I ever have before. A million false starts and I finally hit my groove and it's moving along and I had a dreamy little session at a coffeeshop on Saturday while AH took Simone to a birthday party and I felt so good, but also so bad - because it's about heartbreak and throwing myself back into that mindset where you can't sleep and life is worthless and it will never be good again and listening to Smog songs non-stop....but I really, really feel like it will be done before the end of the year, which sounds modest and small-goal but I mean it.

2. Duham: The Movie

The possibility that we may leave this little town and the South for good is rearing up and while I'm excited, I've got that feeling too that I will never live somewhere near as complex and unique either. Or we'll end up living here forever and I'll bitterly resent it. One or the other. I have inherited 10 400 ft. rolls of 16 mm film and I have decided how I want to make movies now is to "crowdsource" the shooting - I am no cinematographer, and I want others to shoot for me, hand out the film and say "Go!" - and then collect and develop he results and edit it together with a collage soundtrack taken from the Southern Oral History Project and my own experiences (and others) walking around with binaural mics in their ears. Editing is where it is at. I could edit my whole life away.

3. Playground: The Movie

I have to spend a lot of time at playgrounds and actually - I hate them. As a parent that is, because in NA it feels like playgrounds are tucked away and ghetto-ized and god, dull. There is never a coffee stall or anything interesting around - just lots of nervous parents who dare not let their child play alone. I loved them when I was kid but strangely, I rarely remember my parents being present. It was about being alone and wild and falling through eagles perches and sitting up in rocket ship climbing structure - and the rocket ship got me thinking about design of playgrounds and then I saw a few amazing photos of 70's era playgrounds and guess what, no one has really made a definitive work tracing the design of playgrounds and wouldn't it be cool to see what 1950's era playgrounds vs. todays are like or NYC vs Rio? This is another I would crowd-source for filming. I couldn't hope to go all the cool places but I would like to try....this is such a pipedream project but it fills my head with happy little images and sounds.

4. Teen Court: the audio doc

So every Tuesday here in town, teens who are up for misdemeanors face a jury - and a judge, and a lawyer - of their peers. Teens are trained to argue and judge cases and help their peers escape conventional sentencing. I think the possibilities for good audio and stories are strong strong strong - but I have to get over my fear of recording other people and being noticed. And asking permission. And being snoopy.

5. Fundraising video for the school I volunteer at:

I was listening to a live performance of K'Naan's "Waving Flag" today and I am such a sucker for this song for some reason and suddenly I could see all the shots of my kids and the library and the classrooms and the awesome teachers and the good food and everything that makes the school so special and I knew I could make the best video of all time to wring tears and dollars out of peoples eyes. To be clear, I would use the chorus only, the verses are good but my kids don't live in a warzone, exactly.

I have a million more (pipe)dreams, but these are the ones haunting me right now - would that I got 1/10th of what I dream of done. Secretly, I'm hoping this librarian business is my day job and I get to do a whole lot more than worry about cataloging schemes. Now that I got all of that out of my system, I guess I better do my homework...

Peevish

2010-01-11T18:26:00.003-05:00

Before I return to my regular undisturbed much more anonymous and non-media rich blogging corner of the world (so as not to dilute this site from being what I intended, projects and food and nice looking things and such) I'll submit 5 things that bothered me or made me nervous in the last 5 minutes:

1. The Hardee's ad where (I have commercials on mute always so I'm gathering there is audio but I don't know it) a dude eats a big old burger and smirks while they clean "Cheater" off his car. Wha?

2. The movie trailer for "Leap Year" which although I like Amy Adams, also makes me go wha? Because in 2010 it's so flipping radical for a woman to PROPOSE? Or make a life decision together, you know, like you'll be doing for the rest of your life? As one who did the proposing, you know AFTER we had discussed the idea, this premise is completely insulting. Please don't get me started about hating the whole proposal deal in the first place, most especially the Bended Knee or when women pick the ring out and the just wait for the man to choose the moment to "surprise" them. You may not feel the same way and if so, I salute you, because then you won't be as infuriated quite as often.

3. My landlord just stopped by. To pick up the rent. On the 11th. After we had to e-mail her last week to ask when she would be by and she said Saturday. She never came all weekend and then dropped by without notice tonight as I was on the phone with my sister and I said "oh the rents on the mailbox, excuse me, I'm on the phone" and she kept talking and acting annoyed. She will not provide us with a mailbox to mail the damn thing to her, I think because she doesn't want us to know where she live. As HUD is my witness, I shall never rent from an individual again, ever. It is all property management companies from here on in. You'd have to be crazy to be a landlord - and 90% of them are.

4. I have to go bowl tonight in the league which I usually miss because of homework and babytime but tonight the pressure is on me to win one for the team and I'm petrified. I love to bowl but just realised I totally don't want to bowl in active competition where you let people other than yourself down. Yipes.

5. I also have to drive to the airport tonight - on a highway in the dark, which is something I truly did not think I would be doing. But it's for all the right reasons - AH and Simone come home tonight! I can't wait to squeeze that kid - but about 5 minutes after that touching reunion, I'm sure there will be some serious parenting to do and I will think longingly about the last 4 days. I'm not going to lie, it was awesome.

Okay back to my regular anono-corner of the internet.

All the Single Ladies

2010-01-08T20:41:00.002-05:00

There will be no pictures in this post, because the camera is with AH and Simone in Albuquerque. Where I am not. That's right, I'm alone. Footloose and fancy free. It's Friday night. And I'm knitting, watching Supernanny (secret love, although why is every house that SN visits seems to be eerily off in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors and the same decorator who likes taupe walls and black leather couches?) and contemplating a bowl of popcorn and gingerale. Party! Actually, it's just the way I want it.

I really had to force myself to make plans this weekend - beers and thrift stores with friend mostly and it's been great heading out after work these last few nights. But secretly, there is nothing - NOTHING - like the feeling I had last night with the freshly made bed all to myself and the sweet, sure comfort of knowing that I could get up whenever I wanted to get up. Which was 8 am, and then I went back to bed and read some more. And worked out. I will tell you right now that working out and infrequent meals are totally easier on the Single Lady Plan.

I've also been driving a lot which sounds bad - but I never do the driving. I take the bus to school and work so it was sneakily luxurious in this cold snap to do the activity I fear most - driving. I actually drove them to the airport, which I have never done for anyone. I felt like a real grown-up. Little things I cede to AH all the time - driving, getting gas, dealing with our landlady, errands at night - doing them it made me feel a little more competent. I sobbed all the way out of the airport, which I didn't expect, though I knew I'd miss her. And I do, terribly. But I am SO enjoying these moments of quiet and selfishness before my last semester starts next week and the whole machine starts up again.

God, I hope there's some good True Crime sensationalized story on TV next.

Resolved

2010-01-03T20:31:00.002-05:00

Every day is a guilt trip and a resolve to be a better person, so I hardly need a new year to usher in the same old feelings. Nonetheless, on NYE, on the porch at 5 to midnight, I burned a slip of paper with what I wanted to be rid of from the old year and what I wished for the new one. I'm not divulging secrets if I tell you my A#1 problem/challenge/struggle in life is FOLLOW THROUGH and COMMUNICATION. So yeah, duly noted, I'm working on it - again. Though I also note the irony of trying to Follow Through on my lack of Follow Through. Good luck!

Actually, my #1 Goal for 2010 is to get my first real professional job. In a threadbare industry during a recession. Tune in and see if we make it...I did just apply for a job I think I could actually do, as well as a summer internship. So, wheels are turning.

Some Summary, Some Looking Forward

I moved house, again. I will likely do that again this year. Sigh.

I went to Edmonton, Canada, Spain, Austin, Boston, Maine, and Western NC - which is not enough. I want more travel! I will for sure go to Vancouver, BC in February which I am very excited about.

My child learned to walk. She likes to run away from me in parking lots.

My child learned to talk. Her favourite phrase is "Stop, Mommy" whenever I try to talk, wash her face, eat, drink, kiss her, discipline her or cuddle.

My Ten Favourite Books of the Year, according to my GoodReads rating system:

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

Beginners Greek by James Collin

Important Artifacts... by Leanne Shapton

Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

The Moomin Collected comics by Tove Jansson

February by Lisa Moore

Also according to GR, I read 127 books last year. Not bad, but if I included horribly painful library articles, it would be a metric ton more.

5 movies I liked most watching according to Netflix:

Thirtysomething, the First Season (It was everything and more I was hoping for when I heard it was being re-released - unfairly panned as "smug and Yuppie angst" I think the writing is Right On and the issues being raised - by the same people who did My So Called Life I might add - are exactly right for, duh, my 30-something years. The only mystery is why I loved it in my Teens...)

Dear Zachary (heart-searing documentary)

Wendy and Lucy (love her style and Michelle Williams in this movie)

A Lion in the House (more heart-searing docs, in a children's cancer ward)

The Farmer's Wife (guess what - a documentary series! from a million years ago, but I enjoyed the re-watch)

Can I add the Patti Smith doc that was on POV the other other night? Really lovely.

Things I'm proud of, off the top of my head:

Trying to create wonder and ritual in my kids life, but not the image of Perfection

A clean kitchen, most days

Keeping my jobs

Volunteering at the school library, even when it feels like I have no free time

Things I struggle with and mostly win:

The ethical dilemma of animal products in my diet, but when out to dinner, I occasionally indulge in a meat-based dish. I am the Poster Child of Flexitarian-ism.

Things I struggle with and mostly lose:

Thinking about getting up an hour early to exercise but though I am an early-riser, 5 am is still too hard.

Indulgences:

Coffee. Beer. Cheese. Chocolate. I'm actually pretty good about most things vice-like.

Pet Peeves:

That talk women do at work potlucks when they justify out loud, such as "I couldn't have anymore, I'm just too full" (after eating a sliver) or "I'll have to work out for an extra hour this week" or ANY kind of talk where they justify/excuse/mention how fat they are and how terrible they are for eating. HATE THIS.

Driving and how nobody obeys any laws or posted speed limits.

If you've read this far, I'm going to add another Resolution and a story that makes me look terrible but is 100% true.

Let it be resolved: that I not say anything horrible/nasty/mean or cutting about people out loud. Just let that negativity stay inside. Here's the story:

One of my uber-bosses at work lives near me and we've struck up a fair friendship on the bus and walks to work. She's hard to get to know so I felt good about this. Then one day we were walking Simone on the bike/walk path near our house and I have a complete complex about Right of Way on the sidewalk in general. In the distance I could see a jogger with a stroller, coming on the wrong side of the path. I muttered loudly and darkly about who was this asshole who though they owned the whole path, blah blah blah and as she passed - OH HI BOSS-WOMAN! I didn't know it was you. I wasn't sure she heard - but her subsequent complete and total iciness GUARANTEES it. She shuts me down totally, months later. Yipes.

So yeah: Keep My Big Fat Mouth Shut.

Starting now.

Happy New (Y)Ear

2009-12-31T11:10:00.004-05:00

I'll save resolutions for tomorrow, but the charity for today. You probably know this, but many non-profits have a push for donations at the end of the year, trying to make it to another fiscal year and dole out tax receipts to you and me (though I've never been able to give enough to really feel comfortable about claiming my tax write-off, perhaps this year). My TRA job involves spending many, many hours with my iPod, alone, processing and archiving films and listening to my podcasts, so public radio means a lot to me. (Don't tell my boss, but I would probably do this job for free...it really is a dream sometimes). So I've decided to submit to the pleas from the podcasts and do some last minute giving, with the theme of making it a Happy New Ear. Let me round up some worthy candidates that will get a few of my tightly-held dollars today:

Third Coast International Audio Festival
Check out their podcast, it's low on the radar, but what I really appreciate about 3rdCoast is their compilation of audio works from around the world that I would never find myself. I listened to a riveting set of docs from Australia yesterday that had me gasping, crying, laughing out loud - good stuff. They used to be based out of WBEZ Chicago but just became their own little non-profit this year and the Richard Driehaus foundation is offering a matching grant for every dollar from individuals - people like me! - but only until Dec. 31 aka TODAY. So without lifting a finger, my dollars are doubled. Done.

WNYC
Sure this isn't my local public radio station, but they do produce Radio Lab which I LOVE and Studio 360 and both are great podcasts. If you pledge $10 a month, which is pretty painless, you also can choose to get a subscription to the New Yorker or the Atlantic - Win- Win. Done.

This American Life
Look, I know, they seem like they're floundering just a little bit. Lots of repeats, kind of a distracted air? but they're not making the TV show anymore (I actually liked the show) and I have high hopes for the coming year. And let's face it, they're the Grandaddy of American Public Radio for people under 60 so it's time to honor the legacy. Though I rarely text (I am old and set in my ways) I do like their new way to donate via Text. Simply Text LIFE to 25383 and it will add a $5 to your mobile phone bill. I like this because there is something off-putting about dragging out my Visa, entering all the info on the secure page, blah blah blah. This way, I won't even notice when I pay my bill but they will. Again, Win-Win.

The Moth
I'm completely addicted to this first-person account podcast, where people get up there and tell their stories without notes and as best they can. It's perfect little hits of humanity and laughter and sorrow. Lately their podcast emcee has been sounding kind of down and out and I'm worried it's a money thing. I better get in there and support it.

Long Haul Productions
Husband and wife team who make independent radio productions and saw a lot of their funding slashed this year, like many people. I can only give a small gift, but this one feels personal, like it might even matter more. I particularly like their focus on stories that develop over time - how else can we get to the heart of a story or a life - and that takes time, dedication and money.

And of course, I'm a regular repeat donating member of my really excellent local NPR station, WUNC, broadcasting from just down the road.

Why radio, when there is rampant unemployment, hungry people, reproductive rights under fire, unaffordable housing, theatres, symphonies etc. etc. ? I know, there is so much need, and I do donate to these causes throughout the year. But it is frustrating to go from a National Broadcasting System such as my ever-lovin' CBC and watch Americans making great work have to scrimp and scratch and beg over and over in a completely fractured system that is barely functional. Yet, it's a system that I rely on every single day. Every single day! And increasingly I want it to do more for me - more podcasts, more online and hey, I want it to be free. There's some kind of stat out there which I will proceed to butcher that only about 10% of listeners are actual members or donators. We can do better than that. My iPod depends on it.

Advent Day 24 - and Christmas

2009-12-29T20:33:00.004-05:00

It was rather sweet that the last Advent was "Drive Around and find the best Christmas Lights in Town", it capped the whole Advent experience off perfectly.

Christmas Eve was blue skies, brisk wind, long walk, a clean house, making cheese and green chile enchiladas, lighting luminarias, leaving out cookies for Santa, Scrabble and filling my daughters stocking for the first time.

Christmas it rained and rained and poured, like I'd never seen it before. For the first time ever, we didn't get out of our pyjamas all day long. We drank coffee and ate cheese and watched Return of the King (the Extended version) which was just perfect and played more Scrabble and I got just what I wanted for Christmas (a full pass to the documentary film festival and a 6-pack of Blenheim ginger ale) and did crosswords and I truly didn't mind that we had missed out on the cabin or anything. I didn't feel bone-deep lonely as I feared - I had my family. We are a family.

We did drive out to Asheville the next day and I loved having a horizon for once and some snow and mountains and a cute little downtown. The best moment was breakfast at the Early Girl Eatery and admiring the art on the walls - and when AH paid the bill, he secretly bought one of the paintings for me. We agonize over every purchase so this spontaneity shocked and pleased me so much. I love it! But I was disappointed that you can't walk around Black Mountain College as it is now a Christian Boy's Camp. Drag.

The after-effects of Christmas include a bajillion cookies in my house, general contentment and a toddler who repeatedly picks up the phone, says "Hello? Santa?" and then drops it, shrieking in terror. Thanks for hanging with me as I recounted every last detail of my advent.

Advent Day 23

2009-12-23T22:32:00.002-05:00

Day 23: "Make wrapping paper"

Like the whole card deal, I expected this to come up earlier and cause me to work harder, earlier. The idea was to use the many miles of scribbbled upon paper that Simone has crayoned upon and I can't bear to throw out, sponge paint some gold tempera stars and bells upon it and wrap away. But I only have one gift left to wrap. There aren't actually all that many under the tree and I made a huge, serious effort to buy anything for family et al at local stores or Etsy. Sometimes it was painful - like when the Melissa and Dough Slice and Bake Cookie Set was a full $4 cheaper at Whole Foods, $8 cheaper at Amazon than at my toy store. But it had to be done.
Then my Mom sent me an Amazon gift card, which has thrown me into a giddy spin of indecision and hypocrisy. But mostly giddiness, about owning
Settlers of Catan and a Moka Stovetop Espresso maker after 1o long years of thinking about it. Sheesh.

And then I had to get gifts for my daycare workers - all three of them - and finally settled on Target Gift cards, which they seemed to like but I agonized over. This is a whole New World of Argggh when it comes to rewarding those who care for my children.

Overall though, my kid didn't get anything plastic or Girly, which sounds lame but means plenty to me. And I ended up wrapping things in last years paper anyway.

Advent Day 22

2009-12-23T21:37:00.003-05:00

Day 22: "Donate canned food"

Was there irony in the fact that the donated goods came from Trader Joe's where just hours earlier this humiliating scenario unfolded?:

1. Background issue #1: Lost my wallet last week wrangling groceries, a toddler and an open-tote style bag to the car - but kind person found the wallet and called my credit union so they could contact me. Went and picked up wallet. Yay! Next day, tried to pay for mailing package and DECLINE. Turns out when they called the CU, no matter that they were not actually reporting the card lost or stolen technically it still canceled the card. Got replacement debit card that only worked sporadically over the weekend.

2.Background issue #2: Two nights before, I left my phone on the bus (See above description of my open tote style bag - it's new, clearly ) which was then taken to a terminal about 30 minute drive away. Consequently I did not have phone with me.

3. Drove the 1/2 hour to TJ's and spent a leisurely solitary hour loading my cart with Cheese and Winter Spice coffee. So - much - cheese to block out the pain of spending my Christmas cleaning my house. Checked out. Card DECLINED. What, I harumphed, try it again. They've been having problems. DECLINED again. Line forming. Cashier not impressed. Nice bagger walks me over to the customer phone and says I can call my bank. I do. They tell me it's not a card problem, it's not enough money problem. Oh.

4. Background Issue #4: We both get paid once a month and occasionally this makes budgeting tricky, when large charges come through weeks later or checks for cabins you won't be able to spend Christmas in are cashed unexpectedly and it is the day before your dual paydays. And the transfer you talked about with your spouse hasn't been posted.

5. If I had my phone with me, I could call my bank or spouse and take care of it in 3 seconds. Instead, I have to drive 30 minutes home and call Spouse's work number for he is not picking up his cell phone. The work number says it has been Disconnected, which turns out to be a little quirk when he is on the line. Half an hour later, he is out of the meeting and we drive down to TJ's and rescue the groceries. Humiliation!

So giving my stupid cans of cannelli beans and cheese filled ravioli to the foodbank felt kind of funny - as in funny, queasy. Except I paid for and kept wedges of Humboldt Fog. Which made me even more queasy. Not exactly the Feel Good moment I was hoping for.

Advent Day 21

2009-12-21T20:10:00.003-05:00

"Address and send all Christmas Cards"

I included this in the advent, thinking if it was drawn earlier in the month it would be a real kick in the pants to get the cards done. Every year I make some terrible card (I don't know why I don't buy them friends, I really can't say, except for the principles of re-using and creativity I guess) and send them out late - but I am happy to report that all the glitter-fied cards are in the mail, if not at their destination. So today was a Pass, I Did It Already, Thanks Advent.

Except I had one last package to send to a friend in Vancouver - took it down to the post office and for one of those small Amazon boxes which had two childrens clothing items, a book and a small jar of jam in it - $26 was the cheapest Slow Boat to China rate I could get out of UPS. Like, 3 times the price of any item in the package. Is it just me or do package rates seem a billion dollars higher than they used to be?All told, it was almost $200 to send packages of homemade goodies to friends and family this year - dang, no wonder people send gift cards, which is just depressing.

Speaking of depressing, perhaps it is the shortest day of the year or the womanly hormones talking, but I've been less than jolly this week as the 3rd consecutive Christmas without family or friends looms. We had plans for a cabin and that was pulling me through - a mountain-top cabin owned by an acquaintance, lots of snowy walks and a fireplace - but it looks like it won't happen. The big old snowstorm really hammered Western North Carolina and they lost power and the roads are still all snowed in. This is somewhat crushing, as we have 5 days off together and doing the same old routine in the same old place ALONE - well. I'm trying to pull myself out of the doldrums.

Do you see that stamp up there? Canada Post put it out, it's a reproduction of a Mary Pratt painting that I covet so completely it's hardly bearable. The light! The canning jars! I'm having a minor obsession at the moment.

Day 19 and 20

2009-12-20T20:13:00.005-05:00

Day 19
"Surprise Day"
I threw this one in the mix because I was worried that being told what to do every day would get old. I was wrong - instead I kind of fretted all day about creating the Surprise. Such as Surprise! - I made gingerbread pancakes in the shape of snowmen for breakfast- but managed to bicker with my husband throughout said activity, about his ongoing and infuriating inability to guess what needs doing by simply looking around him and assessing the situation. Such as: daughter falls of chair, cries hysterically, will only go to wife, wife is currently flipping said Snowmen Gingerbread Pancakes which is impossible to do with weeping toddler in arms- What Would You Do? Continue unloading the dishwasher? I thought not. Point for me. The day just went downhill from there with much cleaning of the house, much wrangling of a child who was going off her rocker and not having the energy to make planned dinner, and thus dining on popcorn. Well, they can't all be Red Letter Days I guess.

Day 20
"Buy this year's ornament"
I don't need more ornaments - my brother and my Mom have kept me steadily supplied with Lauscha glass ornaments (beautiful German numbers) and thrift stores always charge bottom dollar for old glass ornaments which I never understand.

But each year of our marriage, we have bought an ornament from a place we had visited or an experience or just because we like it..
.
Witness Christmas 2007's ornament, when we were still convinced the baby we'd be having in 19 days was a boy. Whoops.

I hope Simone will be excited to put these ornaments up in future years and ask for the stories. But the story behind this years ornament?

Simone, your parents just really, really like beer.

Advent Day 16, 17 and 18

2009-12-18T21:13:00.010-05:00

Day 16: "Buy tickets to a hockey game or make plans to ice skate"

I was hoping for a hockey game, though the Hurricanes have been doing terribly. But looking over the schedule, the only remaining games were post-7 pm. And really, all I wanted to do was inject a little Canadian-ness in Simone's life so doing it without her wasn't an option. Which leaves us with ice skate - in North Carolina. Hmm. I grew up skating outside, on backyard ponds, community rinks with a little wooden shack to change into your skates, the floorboards criss-crossed with blade marks, and best of all, rivers - there is really nothing like skating on a frozen river, going for miles amongst the trees. Skating in circles indoor on artificial ice pales a little in comparison. So I was very happy to find out that downtown Raleigh has put in an outdoor rink until the end of January, right in the middle of the tall buildings. We'll see how it goes...

Day 17: "Make a garland from materials we find outside"

It happened to be snowing tonight - Snowing! So we set out with some shears and a basket and within 30 feet, I had clipped some beautiful holly, juniper and magnolia leaves.

It's hard to see in this second picture (I'm always taking my pictures at night, trying to fight off a crazy toddler so I apologize, they aren't Design Blog worthy...) but we strung up some green Velvette ribbon (I bought a reel of it from the Scrap Exchange simply because I loved the word "Velvette" - do you ever buy things because of their old school brand name? Guilty!) along the bannister and hung it with the holly and greens. Free! Beautiful! (Note the toddler running to sack me at my knees in the background...)

And then because I had some greenery left over, I piled some lights in the same basket we used to collect them and lit it up.

I think it came out rather nice, especially after lighting the Frasier Fir candle you see in the foreground. Jeannette sent it to me last year, which is the kind of thing I could never buy myself - but am so happy to have.

Day 18: "Watch 'Shop Around the Corner'"

My love for this movie never wanes - so smart and funny. It's as near perfect as a movie can be, or at the very least, movie dialogue. I do love "It's A Wonderful Life" but this is my Must-See every Christmas, one of the few I actually own. Love.

Advent Day 14 and 15

2009-12-15T19:55:00.003-05:00

"Make Nanaimo Bars"

As you can see, I used this advent deal to advance my Christmas baking agenda - but it does make it a lot more pleasant to bake when the calendar tells you so and not just a big cloud of guilt. I have made Nanaimo Bars every Christmas of my life - um, forever. My Mom even wrote "One of Kyla's favourites" in the notes for this recipe and I clearly remember holding a sweating, melting batch of these in my lap as I was driven to my first Christmas without family in New Zealand. They don't go as well with summer sun, I'm here to testify. But the point being, I always have a tin of Birds Custard Powder handy, just for this recipe.

Today's Advent was "Find a Volunteer Opportunity for the Holidays".
Obviously I wrote the list so I'm not exactly surprised but I was hoping that something would have occurred to me by the time I drew the slip of paper, something we could do together. I have always volunteered somewhere, which has been curtailed to one monthly board meeting and once a week at the school library while I'm in school - which I LOVE but I'm kinda racking my brains over what to do with this one. It's pretty hugely important to me to have Simone get the whole "give to your community" vibe from us and we could definitely step that up. Doing it in non-church setting is a plus. A one-off for the season would be a double plus plus, as I have enough guilt over undone work in my life right now - seriously, I bolted awake at 2 am last night consumed with guilt and could not sleep anymore.

As a token gesture towards this goal, I packed up some holiday baking for our CSA delivery guy today. He is very cute, sweet, grows our vegetables, wears Vans caked in red dirt and waits for hours in a cold van to give us our turnips. How could I not give him Hello Dolly squares?

Advent Day 13

2009-12-13T20:26:00.004-05:00

" Take a wintery walk, then make homemade hot cocoa"

Wintery walk - check, it's been downpouring rain and streaming cold for days. And we essentially live on a big college campus so we have our choice of paths and botanical gardens and such.
Homemade hot cocoa, yes please. In lieu of my beloved Cadbury instant hot chocolate (Please Kraft, cease and desist your hostile takeover bid for Cadbury, the future of good chocolate on a mass scale depends on it!) or my only a little less loved Abuelita Mexican hot chocolate, I relied on this recipe, pinched directly from this book:

Chai Hot Cocoa with Whipped Cream

3 C Milk
1 C water
3 T cocoa powder
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cardamom pods
1/2 t ground ginger
3 cloves
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 t vanilla extract or vanilla bean
4 oz bittersweet chocolate

Combine everything except bittersweet chocolate in a medium saucepan and heat until scalding. Remove from heat and let steep for 10 minutes, then strain.

In same saucepan, melt chocolate and add steeped, spiced milk. Sitr for five minutes until chocolate is melted.

Pour into 4 mugs and serve, as I did, with Cinnamon whipped cream.

The toddler member of the family thought it very fine, even after suffering the indignity of being stripped to her bare torso, donning a bib and the eventual transference of said cocoa to a sippy cup.

Advent Day 12

2009-12-12T19:49:00.002-05:00

"Buy a new Christmas album"

Last week I won choosing rights for this album via a hardscrabble card game over beers, so I was excited to march down to the record store today. (More small town gratefulness: it's small, but I can walk 3 blocks in either direction to a really good independent bookstore and a really good independent record store.)

Seeing as I already have a pretty stellar Christmas album collection (have I mentioned Emmylou Harris's "Light of the Stable" lately? It's the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned - I mean, EH, Neil Young, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstand all sing together on the title track - what more could you need?) and I wasn't blown away by any of the latest offerings, I quickly picked up a cheapie "Rat Pack and Friends Christmas", mostly for the Doris Day songs, and justified to myself that because it was SO cheap, I could buy another record. It felt so odd to be buying a stupid old CD and checking out records at the Listening Post but I'm grateful to have been old school because it introduced me to Panama 3: Calypso Panameno, Guajira Jazz, and Cumbia Tipica on the Isthmus, 1960-1975 from Soundways. Perfect perfect perfect for post-bathtime, pre-bedtime dance parties in footy pyjamas with our maracas and shaker eggs, as proven this evening. Now that's Christmas music.

Advent Day 11

2009-12-11T19:17:00.002-05:00

"Make paper snowflakes for the windows"

This was a lot of fun, actually. I have a huge stash of decorative papers and Thai tissues and glassine that I've been lugging around so we busted it out and got busy with our scissors. And turned out rectangle snowflakes, utterly wrong. Believe it or not we had to look it up on the internet - how to fold a paper snowflake. The key is triangles, let me just clear that one up right now, so you don't have to turn to Youtube for a refresher:

I also used hole punches to great effect. Simone sat on our laps the whole time and didn't cut off her fingers with the scissors so double hurrah! And they look very pretty in the kitchen window, though I'd truly rather have some real snow for Christmas.

Advent Catch-Up (Day 8,9,10)

2009-12-10T20:06:00.004-05:00

AKA pulling it out of my ass.
I'm pretty proud of the fact that despite my final papers and huge old statistics exam, we kinda sorta kept up with the Advent activities. Kinda.

Day 8: "Make a batch of Ginger Krinkles". It may sound like I'm obsessed with ginger, but it's just luck of the Advent draw. There is an equally big part of my heart dedicated to chocolate. I handed this one over to Sergio, as I had to finish my g-dawed paper. I thought all was well. There are maybe 8 ingredients total and some very minimal instruction. Nonetheless, there is a pile of flat, crumbled, utterly useless cookies in my kitchen right now. I couldn't even take pictures of them to mock, it just seemed a little mean. A teeny tiny voice in my head was shrilling "Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself?" but I got over it.

Day 9: "Find and do a Christmas tradition from another country".
I had 4 hours sleep, an 11 hour work and school day, a crazy windstorm, a slightly-warm toddler, and a husband departing for band practice in less than an hour. Emergency world Christmas situation! I remembered something about pudding and a nut and voila - Thank you Denmark for your easy-to-rip-off Christmas tradition. They make rice pudding and put an almond in one of the ramekins. Whoever finds the almond gets a prize, often a marzipan pig.
My harried working Mom version: uh, I used TJ's Instant Choc. Pudding which I bought because I love the box), buried a walnut in one of the bowls (no almonds in the pantry), shuffled them like a 3 card Monte and handed them out after dinner. Sergio found the walnut, I handed him a Kinder Happy Hippo and bam - kinda done.

Day 10: "Surprise your co-workers with baking".
Um, see Day 8 and the resulting cookie debacle. Thus tonight I made Hello Dolly bars and plan to distribute them tomorrow. Which is not exactly cheating.

In other news, I have no more homework for 3 weeks. It's truly the most wonderful time of the year.

Advent Day 7

2009-12-07T19:26:00.004-05:00

Working on four hours sleep, with three assignments due and one exam before Wednesday, I was truly grateful to pull today's Advent out of the sack:

"Have A Charlie Brown Christmas viewing party"

This particular "party" involved an almost 2-year old on my lap watching it for the first time, a Chocolate Covered Candy Cane Jo-Jo, hot tea and blankets. It was fantastic.

Advent Day 6

2009-12-06T23:57:00.002-05:00

"Make Gingerbread Men"

There are pictures of this glorious event (hold your breath!) but somewhat ironically I am too busy cobbling together a research proposal about digital literacy that is due tomorrow to practice my own digital literacy.

When I pulled this one out of the Advent Sack, I thought we would go out and buy a "man" cutter. But then I rummaged through my larger than I thought collection of cookie cutters and came up with a Christmas Tree, Santa, Star, circles, lion, giraffe and elephant. The Gingerbread Elephant is arisen in my house. I have to work on my rigid little boundaries because Simone kept trying to press her little fingers in the dough and instead of, you know, making it a fun, relaxed family activity, I scolded her and told her how to do it "right" using the cutters only. Nice one, Mom. Reminder: not every Gingerbread Giraffe needs a tail.

I used a recipe from my Mom's cookbook which she in turn noted she clipped from a 1971 Woman's World. It holds up. Just wait and see...

Advent Day 5

2009-12-05T21:46:00.005-05:00

"Attend the Santa Parade @ 4 pm"

Here's where I put the fix in on the ol' Advent Calendar - Santa Parade was scheduled for December 5th so I deliberately put this item in Day 5's bag. Sue me, gods of chance, I wanted to see a parade.
It doesn't get cold too often here in North Carolina but today was rainy, sleety and 40 degrees with truly shivery Northern winds. But we bundled up and headed out:

Perfect for standing outside with a small child for an hour. Scratch that - a small child who turned out to be TERRIFIED of sirens and honking garbage trucks and clung to me like a monkey-baby the entire time.

I often find it really hard to live in a small town - 2.5 years later and I'm still not acclimatised. But there is something about rolling up to Main Street, standing next to your neighbor and cheering wildly for the high school marching band:

or watching with tears in my eyes - yes, the Atheist! - as a group of African-American men walk proudly together in dark suits and red ties chanting about their love of the Lord

because this town is old and it has a history, the kind of history I could never have touched in Canada or even the PNW, and for a moment, on the curb, I'm part of it too

Advent Day 4

2009-12-04T20:49:00.005-05:00

"Be a Secret Santa to a neighbor"

Frankly, the holidays are one big excuse for me to bake and we can't eat it all. Hence, Secret Santa. We recently moved to this neighborhood and it is friendly and quirky and very community oriented, with regular newsletters and a community garden. Being a renter, I can't put down too deep of roots but I dig it here. On the corner is a halfway house I'm guessing - older dudes sit out on the porch all hours, waving as you go by. They always call out to Simone and watch out for speeders and keep an eye on your car. So I made this:

It's a gingerbread loaf with lemon glaze. (The sprig of holly is from the bush across the way, and I plan to pillage it again soon.) I love this dark, spicy bread. Now we just have to sneak it over to the halfway house, hope they pay heed to the little note and don't just throw it away.

Updated to add: The Recipe!
Which comes from my most beloved cook book, "A Cookbook for Girls and Boys" by Irma Rombauer, author of Joy of Cooking. It has a pink gingham cover and the best silhouette illustrations, including a lobster and a crab having a duel with a fork and spoon.

Gingerbread
Place in a large bowl
1 egg
Beat it and add
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C dark molasses
Place in a cup or small bowl:
1/4 C butter/shortening
Pour over it and stir until melted
1/2 C very hot water
Add these ingredients to the sugar mixture.
Add, sifted:
2 C flour
1 t cinnamon (I usually make it 2)
1 t ground ginger
1 t baking soda
And beat until blended. Pour into greased loaf pan or square 9x9 pan.
Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.
Sometimes I just serve it with whipped cream and sometimes I glaze it:
Glaze:
3 T milk and enough icing sugar to make a thin-ish glaze. Add in lemon zest and juice of half a lemon.

Advent Day 3

2009-12-03T22:06:00.003-05:00

" Prepare the Luminaries."

This is a New Mexico thing - Sergio has fond memories of his whole neighborhood going out on Christmas Eve and lighting their candles. What I love about Luminaries is the simplicity - brown paper bags, votive candles and sand - voila. I am currently painting our brown bags with red and green chiles, which is kind of heretical but yet, completely New Mexico. In fact, a sauce of red and green chile is called "Christmas style". So today I rounded up sand (free), some old paper bags and some obnoxiously-scented "Cinnamon Bun" votive candles. Our neighborhood is having a St. Bernadette's parade on December 12th to the local Catholic church and we may add our lights to the community blaze - or wait until Christmas Eve and guide Santa in through our New Mexico runway.

Advent Day 2

2009-12-02T22:49:00.005-05:00

After the good intentions and shattered hopes (well, not really - I have no hopes when it comes to taking my kid out post-bedtime to a place where she must behave) of last night's choir outing, today's Advent surprise was Nice n' Easy:

"Drink some eggnog, the kind in a glass bottle, with some cookies".

The eggnog was delicious (I know some are haters but this is the Good Stuff), and the cookies were TJ's Peppermint Jo-Jo's. Yum.

Advent

2009-12-01T10:08:00.009-05:00

Welcome to my version of PeBloPoDe (Personal Blogging Post December) which coincides nicely with what I intend to post about - the Advent. I happen to be an Atheist, and I don't mind telling you, because it seems about as valid as any other sets of beliefs to me. Despite this obvious roadblock, I love Christmas. I lustily sing along with the songs with only a twinge of hypocrisy and put up all the decorations and the colored lights. And I have always had an Advent calendar. But this year I have TWO Advent calendars:

First, a traditional chocolate style type, but the important thing to note is the word Kinder - I have a slavish devotion to the Kinder brand of chocolate and Kinder Surprise eggs specifically, which have little toys and puzzles inside to put together. They're from Germany and you can get them in Canada - but never, ever in the USA. I do not know why, but when I saw this Advent calendar on my trip home I snatched it up. Kinder every day! I am sort of glad my kid is too young to fight me for it.

But I'm REALLY excited about the second one - also via Germany, as my brother gave it to me when we met up in Canada. The empty bags seemed to have a lot of possibility and when I read this post from Cup of Jo, I knew what to do. We made a list of 24 Christmassy things to do - mixed them up and put them in the bags. It's crazy how excited I am to open the bags, like I'm a kid. Today was a gimme, because we already had plans to see a Christmas choir at the Duke chapel tonight, but I love the idea of making all my tasks and traditions into a daily surprise. And the plan is to share them with this blog.

In honor of the music we're going to hear tonight, here's a cut from one of my favourite Christmas records, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles's "The Season for Miracles" (1970):

(Advent Day One update: We made it to the third song before someone's small child started wailing and wanted the lights back on instead of those pesky candles and beautiful singing...sigh, maybe next year.)

Homemade Halloween

2009-11-01T20:16:00.015-05:00

There are many reasons having a kid rules (and a few why it, uh, doesn't) but the reinvigorating of holidays and traditions is a huge plus. This was the first year that Simone could even vaguely grasp the concept of Halloween and I had not one, but two, costumes to make. Double the fun! Somewhere along the way, it became really important to me to make the costumes. My Mom always did. We never had those store bought creepy masks and vinyl capes - I always felt sorry for those kids. But at a further point along the Costume Trail, it also became important that it encompass a few of my other favourite values - cheapness and reusing material. Here's how it shook down:

For her daycare party, I knew she would have to schlep around in it all day and that it would get covered in pizza and melted chocolate. The wings were the genesis of the costume, a gift from her cousin's wedding. The dress was an almost outgrown gift from Auntie Elena, on its last legs with zippers parting etc. So based on the wings and the colors, she became the hitherto unknown variety of fairy called The Autumn Fairy:

I found some dowling around the house and made her wand by winding it in ribbon and attaching jingle bells and fake mums. The same fake mums went on her shoes. Down at the Scrap Exchange, I got a grab bag of snippets of upholstery trim, piping and tassels and the like in autumnal colors for $3.00. I used these to make her crown (never worn, I might add) and to trim her dress. She was cute and jingly and most important, comfortable.

Watch the Autumn Fairy take on Spiderman here:

Fairy vs. Spiderman from Kyla Sweet on Vimeo.

But the Fairy was just an easy-peasy costume warm up-event. For weeks I had been working feverishly on her Real Costume - sock monkey! This is where the idea of cheap and reusing materials really came to the fore, because I had found a sock monkey costume tutorial online, and it involved cutting up a pack of 6 pairs of Rockford Red Heel socks. I looked for them everywhere in town, finally gave up, and my finger was literally hovering over an internet order form for the socks and the $30 charge plus shipping - when my head cleared. I was not going to pay good money for perfectly good socks just to cut them up for a one night costume. No way.

So here's what I did instead:

I cut up some old grey sweatpants that were destined for the thrift store in a vaguely overall-ish pattern. I am no accomplished sewer and did it all by hand (as you can see!). I traced a pair of her overalls on paper and used that to make my rough pattern. I left a gap at the crotch so we could change her diaper easily - very important! Odd socks were the other backbone of this costume. I can't bear to dispose of odd socks, somehow thinking they'll reappear I guess, but in this case my stash came in handy. I cut the ribbed tops off to make the white wristlets and then knitted little red bands to sew on. The same red bands were attached to the foot socks (these I bought, for $1, as I needed extra long socks). The hat was sewn over an old baby cap and I used another odd sock for the face. The red lips came from an actual pair of red heel socks I found at Kohl's for $1.99 and the buttons from an old overcoat and I knit the cap. The tail was more sweatpant material stuffed with the sewing and knitting scraps, capped with a tiny solo baby sock sewn around with another knitted red band. I attached the tail by cutting up an old stained onesie for the snaps and sewing one side of the snaps to the inside of the overalls and the other to the tail. Voila - snap-on tail!

After all this work, I was worried that Simone wouldn't wear it. She hates wearing things on her head (see Fairy Crown above) and the hat was so important for the costume, that I was sure no one would get it if she didn't wear it. But on the day itself, Simone was a total trooper. Here she is on our front stoop:

And to see that tail in action, check out this little snippet of Simone motoring her way down to the costume parade. Man, it's cute.

Sock Monkey Halloween I from Kyla Sweet on Vimeo.

So her costumes were crooked and harried and safety-pinned - but it was so much fun making them, sneaking time away from homework to make something for my kid. Even when people called her a kitten or a mouse or a sock puppet - sigh - I still felt mighty proud.

Total cost: For socks and trimmings for both costumes - $5.99

Clearly Canadian

2009-10-17T19:29:00.006-04:00

A snap in the air makes me productive. And then my winter CSA started. And then we picked 30 pounds of apples.

So on Thursday, I made:

Maple Apple Butter

Fresh pesto (from the fistfuls of Basil in our CSA) which I put on some sweet potato gnocchi that was very very easy to make - sweet potato puree, salt, pepper, and enough flour to make a dough. Boil in salted water, the end. . So - amazingly - good - even our kid was eating ecstatically. I may have even splashed some brown butter over the whole thing, because mmmm - brown butter.

Other recent highlights: gingerbread cake, apple crisp, warm lentil salads with sauteed greens and poached eggs , sweet potato and curried cauliflower soup, pumpkin spice granola and cups of milky Stash Chai Spice tea. I was born in the Northern-Most capital city in North America and I don't feel right until the wind is making my blood move, I'm layering my woolens and curling up under a blanket after a nice meal. And possibly knitting when I really should be doing homework.

Gratuitously, here is a picture of my kid, picking pumpkins. I of course was not present, as a woman has to work to pay for that Winter CSA and the 30 pounds of apples. But it looked like fun.

Family Story

2009-06-04T21:47:00.006-04:00

Maybe you know this already, but I love audio. Love LOVE stories on the radio. Part of the reason I also love my film archive job so very much are the many hours it allows me to spend with my iPod each week - and there's not one single song on that iPod (there would be if I had more than 4g memory) because it is crammed with radio podcasts.

The best part of audio is how easy it is to make yourself - but conversely, how hard it is to do well. I was reminded of this when we were slaving over our latest project - a tribute movie for Sergio's Grandma who turns 90 this month. The backbone of this movie was a 2 hour interview that his family recorded. This is a fantastic idea. Go out right now and record your family. Seriously. Sit down and ask some questions. Those family stories that you're always kicking around or wondering about or the names you can't remember - get them down! I really wish I had done this with my Dad, to hear his voice again or hear him call me Chowder Chunk...this would be something I would save in a fire.

But can I make a few suggestions? About how to do it? If say, someone decides to make a movie from said audio interview one day and you don't want to make them ABSOLUTELY INSANE? Okay then.

1. The first thing is the hardest: put aside your agenda. Definitely go in with some prompts and some questions but let - the - person - tell - the - story. Let them talk about what they want and go off on tangents. Remember things along the way, meander down memory lane. Pause. I can't count the number of times that Grandma Caroline was just getting started on an interesting topic and someone interrupted with a question that nobody in the world but them would care about - we were going to make a gag reel just featuring the question and comments of Sergio's brother. He is a financial analyst, assessing risk and debt for giant bank-type dealios and all his questions related to statistics and numbers and monetary values. Every single one.

2. Something I tell every interviewee I've ever had - "Listen, I can't make this like a conversation, where you say something and then I respond "Mm hmm" or "yeah" because those turn up on the audio track and are really hard to edit out and ruin great things you have to say. So instead, I'll waggle my eyes and nod a lot and look crazy, but I promise, it's worth it." Sergio's sister said "um-hmm, oh yeah" about one hundred bajillion times during the interview and while you'd be surprised how hard it is to NOT say it - it's so hard to edit it out, so try, really try.

3. Find a quiet spot. Do not bring your children or pets if you can help it. Turn off your cell phone. Make your Mother-in-Law go in the other room when watching TV. The story of Caroline's husbands death is a story that is rarely told in the family and in the middle of all the emotion and sadness, it was impossible to edit out my nephew whispering over and over "But I have something I need to tell you!" Sigh.

4. Equipment-wise, I used a mini-disc for many years, pre-HD digital recorders. Now, I just use my laptop. If you have a Mac, Garage Band is perfectly serviceable and comes free. I use Audition and it is great, but I know there are some good open source options out there. We have a really good condenser mic that is XLR and the problem with recording straight into the laptop with a condenser mic is it needs a preamp/phantom power source. We got this Lightsnake tool from the Guitar Center that does it and has a USB plug, so it's straight into the computer. It works really well and has made the whole thing so much easier, as long as you're sitting down. For field recording, the size is problematic.

5. After recording and before editing, type up a transcription of the interview. This will take forever. FOREVER. But it is so worth it - one, you have an easy to refer to and printed out version of what your relative said. And two, if you're planning to edit, it's easy to go through and highlight the parts you want. See that picture up the top? That's my editing system. I highlight from the transcript. Cut out the highlighted parts. Sort them into themes. Past them on a giant sheet of paper.(If it's a movie, I'll add a Post-It note above the audio portion with ideas for the images.) And then go through and methodically cut and past these together. But it all starts with the transcript. The new version of Premiere uses ASR to create a (kinda messed up) transcript of your footage which fills me with (reserved) glee.

6. If you want sound effects, you have to check out this most excellent site: freesound.org People from all over the world add their field recordings to this Creative Common database of sound and you are free to download and use them, then add your own. Want the jungles of Brazil at 5 am? It's there! Need the sound of Nikon SLR shutter clicking? A rotary phone ringing? It's there! Even little loops of music, free to use. You can tell from the sample .wav file how loud it is, how long...there are even Geotagged samples, where you click on a map and voila - you see what was uploaded from that part of the world. It's fantastic.

7. What you're really making is an oral history. UNC-CH, where I go to school, is the home of the Southern Oral History Program and they have a collaboration with Documenting the American South. You can check out some pretty fantastic oral histories they have digitzed HERE for inspiration.

8.The granddaddy of Oral History projects here in the States is Storycorps. If you've listened to NPR, you've probably heard Storycorps - and right now, like everyone else, they need money. So check them out. And donate if you can. There aren't many slogans I believe in in this world but theirs - "listening is an act of love" - is one of them.

Now go! Record!

Scrambled Eggs

2009-05-18T20:14:00.002-04:00

Sometimes nature sucks.
I haven't been able to post here lately because - and I know this sounds silly - it's been a wee bit too painful. One night I was up finishing my absolute last paper for school and it was midnight and I heard robins chirping loudly and mightily. It finally sunk in - birds, chirping madly, at midnight - something wasn't right. I rushed to the backyard, flipped on the back light and caught the gleam of a racoon's eyes on the gate ledge. Next to the nest. I screamed, chased it away and then it was just me and the loudly chirping robins. I dragged Sergio out of bed to go see if there was any chance I had scared the raccoon away in time - I couldn't look myself. Nope, nothing. No eggs and just a few feathers. I was surprised by being honestly, truly heartbroken. The morning and evening times when I peeked in to the nest with my daughter and watched a bird grow, a bird that was maybe 4 days away from flying for the first time - it felt terrible. I still haven't been in that corner of the yard yet. I know there's a cycle of life and preys and hunters and all that good stuff, but I was honestly really really mad at nature. I can't even look back on the last bit of footage I took of the robin baby. Or my last post, hence the absence.

moving along, sadly....

Here is something I wish someone else would make. (I sketched this idea out during a meeting last week). Okay, it would be a web app that had elements of so-called social media, eg a way to gather up all your contacts in one nice easy to search place. But besides who these people are, it would give me a way to organize their little quirks and likes and dislikes and how many kids they have and where they went on their last vacation and what kind of tea she always drinks and what his favourite flower is - all the things I observe and learn about people each day that could help me work with and relate to them better and be a more thoughtful person in the world - and I just plain forget. Or don't recall until after the awkward chit-chat. My brain just doesn't have the room but I'm pretty sure my hard drive does. How it would differ from social media is there is no way in hell that the observations or tidbits would be public. This would be secret information, some of it good, some of it bad - which is why I want this app to be called "Harriet". After Harriet the Spy and her notebooks. Internets, please build this for me.

Hatched!

2009-04-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

An update on the Robin Nest situation...

Robin's Nest from Kyla Sweet on Vimeo.

Pay attention to the new life, not the seriously overgrown backyard.

Eggs!

2009-04-10T07:26:00.005-04:00

Despite it being absolute crunch time at school, I managed to squeeze in a few Easter crafts this year, under the guise of "Simone and I will do a craft together". What really happens is that I try to do said craft while she whirls and dervishes around my feet and together we create a sort of chaos. Sadly - or maybe not so sadly - I don't have a picture of the result of our egg dying session. First of all, we do not go the hardboiled route in my family. We are hardcore and blow out the egg. Which involves poking a tiny hole in each end with a stitch ripper and literally blowing into said tiny hole until all the contents come out the other end, leaving you passed out and red-faced on the floor. I managed two of these before deciding, "Hey, two is enough!" I decided to dye them using "natural dyes", in this case a mess of red onion skins I had been saving and boiled up. But blown eggs do not sink - they float. Thus the faintly magenta dye mottled all over unevenly and all in all - it was rather unimpressive. But natural! Still, those ubiquitous PAAS tablets are looking more attractive..(PAAS seems to be a one holiday company doesn't it? Writing out their name made me curious about whence it all came and lo - here is the history of PAAS!)

A slightly - and only slightly - more successful craft was the egg mosaic card. I've been saving the shells of all the beautiful eggs I get from the farmers market because who can bear to just throw away a perfect pale blue eggshell? If you can, then you really, really don't want to see my art supply room. But what to do with these shells? I finally settled on crushing a few and making a mosaic with the shells and acrylic medium as the mosaic goop. See - not all that impressive. But once I mounted these on nice heavy paper and stamped Happy Easter in pale green - it looked a little bit better. I still have about a dozen eggshells left and I guess I better find another way to use 'em.

It is disappointing to have sucked at Easter this year. I love the colors, the eggs, the pale pastels, the chocolate, the blossoms in the world right now, daffodils, tulips , fuzzy bunnies, chicks- everything that ties into Easter with blooming and rebirth of the natural world. But Simone isn't quite old enough to appreciate it all so for her, I just settled on an old school pastel wicker basket from the thift store (50 cents!) and some Eric Carle number flashcards to tuck into it. Anyway, how can I compete with the real deal - found in our backyard on the fence gate:

Real Easter Eggs from Kyla Sweet on Vimeo.

Art.

2009-03-06T10:51:00.003-05:00

I won't give one of those "Hey I've been really busy" excuses (ahem, I apparently just did) but for the past few months I've been wondering if the Make/Do-er in me was ever going to come out from under a pile of academic journals and Library related nonsense and Baby Stuff. Every craft I worked on was like a deadline for a paper, pressing and not so fun. But lately I've been thinking longingly of my paints. And paper. And yarn. And I got handed a stash of 16mm film stock yesterday for free that I am making plans for. I think I'm back. Or, more accurately, it comes in waves.

This morning I wept a little happy tear when I watched this video so I wanted to share it. I'm not usually in favour of songs with "on the nose" lyrics but the combination of the questions I've always pondered with the awesome stop-motion hand-drawn animation...made me want to ditch work and go Play! Which I just might.

(The music is by Tanya Davis and the animation, I'm excited to find out, is by Andrea Dorfman, who did a really sweet film called Parsley Days that I loved.)

(PPS - this post is dedicated to Ara Jane, because she asked.)

Pumpkiny

2008-10-31T22:27:00.002-04:00

Delighted child in skeleton onesie

Blatantly ripping off "Yes, We Carve", we made one normal pumpkin and one Pumpkin for Hope. Even freehand, I rather liked how it turned out. This year's pumpkins were easy carving and the seeds have been duly roasted and salted and devoured. Unfortunately, we only got one trick-or-treater this year - one!- so the candy is next in line to be devoured.

I made this pumpkin hat for Simone because I knew she would shuck her chile pepper costume in about 2 seconds, and I wanted some vestige of Halloween for her. I use this hat pattern over and over for all the babies who have come into my life because 1) I hate circular needles and this doesn't need circular needles and 2) it's so damn easy and 3) it's cute.
Here's how easy it is:

Cast 72 stitches on to size 5 needles.
Knit in ss (knit one row, purl the next) until your piece measures 4-5"from the bottom.
Start the decreases: k4, k 2 together - repeat to end of row
knit the next 3 rows even
k 3, k 2 together - repeat to end of row
knit the next 3 rows even
knit 2, k 2 together - repeat to end of row
knit 2 together all across the next two rows
Cut 18" tail and sew through

For a pumpkin, use orange, obv, and do the final 8 rows in green. Then I knit a thick, green i-cord and sewed it in too. Voila! Next I'm trying red and green for an apple.

Belated Birthday Gift

2008-08-28T06:42:00.005-04:00

(In the midst of readying my new Science Fair style post, I discoverd I had never in fact posted this entry, about my birthday drive to Greensboro, NC to vist the Elsewhere Art Cooperative. What an amazing place. I've been more than remiss -it's practically criminal that it's been languishing in the Drafts. )

When it's my birthday, I like to indulge myself, and one of my favourite ways is to take a daytrip. Preferably without doing the driving. I was pondering what to do this year - or what I could do for little money with a baby in tow - when I serendipitously stumbled across a posting at the Scrap Exchange - already one of my favourite places in the world - about the Elsewhere Artist Collaborative in Greeensboro, NC. Short version of the Elsewhere story via their site:

In 1939, Joe and Sylvia Gray began selling furniture imports at 606 and 608 South Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, NC. Following WWII, the furniture business transformed into a Surplus Store catalog company, mending used army goods and selling them to Boy Scout troops across the country. After Joe’s unexpected death in 1955, Sylvia began to stock surplus fabric, clothing, and eventually general thrift items such as toys, books, housewares, and knick-knacks. Shopping daily, Sylvia’s collection increasingly became an unmanageable mass stored in boxes and piles throughout the three-story building. The astounding accumulation amassed over her lifetime remained in a seemingly chaotic heap after Sylvia’s death in 1997.

Inspired by the potential for these “found objects” as artistic resource, George Scheer (Sylvia’s grandson) recruited fellow artists and friends to begin excavating Sylvia’s old store in May 2003. As the reorganization of Sylvia’s collection took form, local support increased, and the artist-residency program expanded, a living museum created by a collaborating community of artists flourished.

Check out their website:

What I loved most about this place was how the Grandson could have sold it off piece by piece on Ebay but is committed to a place where money isn't the point - where donations are nice, but there's no entry fee. Where the glass cases of a museum are removed and the public can touch and when invited, rearrange and recreate the collection. The day we were there, they were "archiving" all their vintage clothes by invinting people to don whatever they fancied and have their portraits taken. We dressed Simone up in old velvet kiddie dresses and feather hats and posed and posed. There was a communal kitchen in back for the artists-in-residence and a garden planted in the alleyway. Events and posters and plans and lots and lots of creative juice just flowing all over the place. Please apply for a residency there and I will come visit you.

Made/Bought

2008-08-14T20:16:00.003-04:00

It's amazing how much work three minutes of audio can take. The interviewing (each time we pulled up to someone's house I really, truly did not want to get out and had to force myself with every fiber of my body), the transcribing, the rough cut, the music selection, the kinda rough cut, the finer cut, the final cut....we finally got our Radio Ephemera entry in at about one hour before deadline. The hardest part was reducing all the amazing stories down to the time alloted, especially when people had taken us into their homes - strangers! - and told us the most intimate, joyous, and heart-breaking moments in their life and I had to eye all this raw footage coldly and decide what "worked". Ouch. But I'm happy with the final result, and secretly, in my heart of hearts, I hope hope hope the judges are too. Should you care to listen, we're Item 72, "Family Tree", right here:

Besides making radio, I recently started a new job at a library and as luck would have it, a department that had been in the library forever moved to a new building and had a surplus sale of all their old goods. $5 a piece, cash and carry. It broke my heart that my husband was out of town because with an extra pair of hands and another driver I would have carted away much more. 50's and 60's era office furniture, the kind made in America with shiny chrome and bearing names like "Steel-All" are my vice. Look at the three chairs I scored (among other items). The sienna coloured steno chair and the orange shell chair are both swivel and rolling, to boot. I was dragging the red chair out on the elevator and an elderly and kind librarian gently informed me that it had been his first chair as a librarian, in 1969. Good librarian karma + sweet mid-century design - all for $15 bucks.

Pac-Man Fever

2008-07-23T21:58:00.004-04:00

They have just put the TV series "Square Pegs" out on DVD, did you know that? Patty and Lauren, my pre-teen heroines 4EVA. Anyway, we were watching Disc One and along comes the episode "Pac-Man Fever". My husband, a bona fide Ms.Pac-Man savant, was completely smitten. A whole episode about his favourite game? Heaven. With his birthday around the corner, I decided to keep the Pac-Love flowing.

Easy-peasy - bake two layers of cake. Sandwich together - in this case, with homemade blackberry jam and lemon cream cheese frosting. Cover all in said frosting - food colouring makes me kind of squirmy so I left the frosting as nature intended and instead, sifted some yellow sanding sugar on the top. Cut a big wedge out for the mouth - for once, the baker gets to try the cake before debuting it. Insert a chocolate malted ball for the eye and -Voila. Pac-Cake. I dooddled with the idea of Ghost and power pellet cupcakes but for god's sake, I'm only human and I had a million other things to do that particular day. Perhaps you are more Super Human than I.

But the decoration isn't the real story. The star of this cake is the dense, moist, delicious chocolate cake. My absolute stand-by chocolate cake recipe, I've made it maybe a hundred times and it never disappoints. Plus, it's mix and bake in one pan and you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry right now. Don't let the name put you off:

Chocolate Vinegar Cake

1.5 C flour
1 C Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
3 tbsp Cocoa
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all the dry ingredients together in an ungreased pan - a 8x8 square pan or 9" round pan works. Make three holes in the the dry, blended ingredients.

In one hole add - 1 tsp Vanilla
In the next - 6 Tbsp oil
In the last - 1 Tbsp white vinegar
Beat one egg and add 1 C water to the egg. Pour over the top.
Mix everything until completely blended.

Put in a 375 degree oven for about half an hour or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

What is so great about this cake is that it isn't too sweet so it stands up well to buttercream and cream cheese frosting, not like some overly-cloying bakery cakes. And it couldn't be simpler, with less clean-up.

Just to class up our celebration, I added the winning touch - the candle:

Summer Mix-Up

2008-07-16T16:03:00.004-04:00

I've always sworn I won't be one of those bloggers who start their post with "sorry I haven't posted in awhile but life is crazy man" - but it's summer, I've been on vacation in Canada and I just started my internship for the year. So, sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've got lots of ideas and projects percolating so things are sure to be cooking soon.

In the meantime, though I love a good analog mixed tape, I'm convinced Mixwit is pretty much the perfect digital version. Remember handwriting those labels, laboriously collaging a cover, choosing songs that would fit perfectly in a 45 minute side? I do. I still hoard a few special mixes made for me over the years. This isn't quite the same - you can't give it to someone for instance, just share it- but I find the site rather elegant and easy to use. And I love the old school cassette tape skins you can choose from, which you can tweak any old way you want. Also a bonus, sign-up is not required to browse mixes and if you do sign-up, it's quick and easy and doesn't want to know a whole bunch of personal information. I use this site for a quick music fix when working on the computer - I just search for a band/singer I like and it retrieves a whole slew of mixes people have shared that include that band. A nice way to discover new music.

Just to give you an idea how it works, I made this wee summery mix in about five minutes. Obviously you can spend hours working on the perfect mix, skin etc. but I'm not that web 2.0. I mean, I remember real mixed tapes, right?

I'd love to have you share any mixes you've made with me.

Ephemera!

2008-06-12T10:01:00.007-04:00

I pride myself on a decent grasp of the English language - but terrible punctuation, I just have no patience for grammar or punctuation so forgive me in advance for flagrant use of commas and an over-fondness of dashes - and a relatively healthy vocabulary thanks to being a Reader. Studying for the GRE's last year disabused me of this notion. So many words I let float by with just a fuzzy idea of what they really mean, letting context fill in the meaning of the sentence.
Take "Ephemera". I think I had it confused with ethereal, and my guess is it meant a sort of gossamer detritus. Close, but uh, not quite.

Ephemera:

1: something of no lasting significance —usually used in plural
2: ephemera plural : paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

In other words, I was already in love with ephemera and just didn't have the right word for it. I collect old instructional books, manuals on life and hygiene, textbooks, advertisements, instructional films - my house is full of it. (See above picture for a small sampling, on a library truck, natch.)

Why do I love ephemera? Look at the preface to the Compton's Encyclopedia. It earnestly declares a mission, wears its hearts on its sleeve:

To inspire ambition, to stimulate imagination, to provide the inquiring mind with accurate information told in an interesting style, and thus lead into broader fields of knowledge, such is the purpose of this work.

ANYWAY. I was listening to ReSound, a podcast from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, compiling radio and sound from around the world, well worth a listen. And they announced their audio contest for this year, based on the theme Ephemera. And to make it even more exciting, this year they have partnered with the Prelinger Library in San Francisco aka the library I would give my right arm to work at for a living wage. Have you seen Rick Prelinger's film archives of instructional and commercial films? No? Good lord, go now! Now!

So here's the challenge: Create a 2:30-3:00 minute audio piece that tangentially or completely references TWO of the five books the Prelinger Library has submitted for your consideration. Also include the voice of a stranger. Submit by midnight, August 3rd. Complete rules and guidelines can be found here. You can browse the complete books via the Internet Archive - I am NOT a huge fan of digitizing everything in sight, which is the current modus operandi of libraries and vastly over-discussed in Library School, trust me - but the Internet Archive does it right. They capture some elements of the tangibility of the book and the browsability too. Check it out.

Audio is low-cost, low-stress and one of the most creative mediums you can experiment in. In a situation where you may feel weird to whip out a video camera, a voice recorder goes unnoticed. People open up on tape the way they would feel too embarrassed to do on film. Audio editing programs are easily found and have a much lower learning curve than video editing programs. I'm going to make Ephemeral Audio. Won't you?

Perpertual Pickle

2008-06-06T13:58:00.007-04:00

Friends, it is HOT here in the NC. 97 degrees today - for the rest of the world, that's about 36 degrees Celsius. Yowza. But unlike the complaining weatherpeople and newspersons on the TV, I don't mind a bit. I come from the Pacific Northwest where June is truly the cruelest month. June - it sounds so summery doesn't it? But instead, June usually found me wearing sweaters and knee socks and wishing for blue skies, bitterly resenting those across the country who complained of being hot. So I'm not complaining - I'm coping. Here's how: ceiling fans in every room, a gentle boost of AC at night for a good sleep, shady porches, tank tops, and of course, food.

Meals have been as simple as a juicy tomato, sliced, sprinkled with basil and salt. A bowl of cold zucchini soup swirled with yogurt. A leftover slice of Spanish potato tortilla. And two mainstays: the Perpetual Pickle and Sun Tea.

The CSA delivery the last several weeks have included fistfuls of chubby little pickling cucumbers. I've been known to can my own bread and butter pickles, dills and chow chow but it's too hot to think about dragging the canner down from the attic. So enter the Perpetual Pickle. The dressing is based off of The Gourmet Cookbook's Quick Dilled Cucumber Pickles, just messing around with it a little:

2 tsp good salt
1/2 C cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/4 C sugar
2 tsp horseradish, the jarred kind - trust me, it provides the little kick this needs.
Mustard seeds - tbsp or so
Fresh dill, liberally snipped. If your dill is still in seedling state, like mine, dried works well too.

I mix it all in a medium Pyrex bowl and as my little cucumbers arrive, wash and slice them into the bowl with the dressing and pop them in the fridge. As we nibble away at them - they're better the longer they soak - I just slice more cucumbers in. When the dressing gets a little low, I refresh it. Fresh, cold pickles always on hand. I received some turnips in this weeks delivery and I'm going to try pickling them and adding them to a cold noodle salad. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I've also been drinking gallons of sweet tea, that Southern mainstay. Here's me on the porch brewing a pot of sun tea - 4 Luziane tea bags to the quart and a few hours in the sun and heat - with some simple syrup to add in.

Now excuse me, I'm going to go fan myself.

Hot Hot Hot Super 8

2008-06-02T08:49:00.011-04:00

This Saturday we both Made and Did at the same time. It was the summer edition of Flickers "Attack of the 50' Reel" - a bi-monthly non-competitive Super 8 film challenge. I am old enough to remember Norwood Cheek visiting Vancouver with his Flicker Super 8 film festival back when the name Chapel Hill seemed to conjure up a mysterious and glamorous location - how could I know I would actually end up living here one day? Here are the rules:

You pay $15 and pick up a roll of film at 11 am.
You make a film on a prescribed theme - all edits in-camera of course.
You return the completed film at 7 pm. and enjoy a backyard cook out.
They send the film off to be processed and when it comes back, screen it at the Cats Cradle - where everyone, including you, see it for the first time.

It has been a long while since I busted out my Super 8 camera. When it comes to difficult-to-acquire media like Super 8 film and now Polaroid film, I get a little hoardy and afraid to use it unless the project is Absolutely Perfect. The structure of this event meant I had to throw out perfectionism and hoarding - they provide the film after all - and Just Do It. I love that.

The theme was Hot Hot Hot, fitting because it was in the 90's and hazy and golden that day. And we needed to be able to shoot this film while toting around our baby girl. A roll of Super 8 film is about 3 minutes and 20 seconds and of course, there is no sound, so you have to stay simple. Thus the theme Making Strawberry Ice Cream was born. We filmed ourselves driving out to a farm and picking 11 pounds of strawberries. We filmed picking up the rest of the ingredients: milk, cream, ice and rock salt. I washed sliced and pureed quarts of strawberries. And as a thunderstorm growled closer, we frantically churned and churned and churned. At 6:45 pm, we tried our first scoop - cold and sweet and pink - on camera, of course. And then hustled over with our film and about a gallon of homemade ice cream to share. If you have to attend a party where you don't know anyone, may I suggest arriving with homemade ice cream? It helps.

I wish I had some pictures of us cranking the ice cream in the baby blue ice cream maker - but we were too busy trying to get it on film. The thing about Super 8 - no instant feedback and no do-overs if you screw up. I have my fingers crossed it's in focus and there was enough light. I'll be out of town when it screens but Sergio will be there, representing and reporting back if we made fools of ourselves.

I can't wait to do it again.

Dryers and Diapers

2008-05-27T09:46:00.006-04:00

Oh how I long for a clothesline. Growing up in half-the-year frozen tundra of Alberta, the only clothesline I'd seen was in the backyard of my Grandma's apartment. As kids we would hang on the wire while a sibling tried to reel us in, an urban flying fox, until the Super told on us and we turned our attention to the stray grocery carts in the alley. But when we moved to Windy Wellington in New Zealand, we found that lemons grown on trees in your backyards and no one had clothes dryers - only clotheslines. Our newest chore was pegging out the wash, sheets and towels turning crunchy in the sun, our underwear embarrassingly on display. It was just part of the landscape. One of my favourite NZ painters - Colin McCahon - immortalized the spinning clotheslines in his painting "Clothesline in the Nor-Wester" (didn't know you could buy a print 'til I did this search - I'm going to have to get one!)
Anyway, back in North America, not only are clotheslines scarce but they're actually banned in many places. Ontario just dropped their ban on clotheslines - apparently it was a cosmetic issue, neighbors afraid of seeing their neighbors dirty laundry, literally. I've been trolling the clothesline sites lustfully, knowing I can't buy my dream umbrella clothesline yet. As I've mentioned before. we're renters. Worse, renters in a house that eventually the landlord wants to sell and we're not sure we'll be the people buying it. So permanently planting a clothesline in a yard that is not ours is not an option, sadly.

Enter the drying rack.
I bought it from Ikea (hey look at all those drying racks!) on sale for $3.99 and it folds up and lives next to the dryer. It's not heavy duty and would have a hard time standing up to heavy items like towels and jeans. But for my diapers (well, not MY diapers, my daughter's) it's the perfect device. I set it up on the back lawn and let the sun do the bleaching and disinfecting for me. It helps that we have a front loading washer, our big purchase of the last year, and possibly my favourite purchase too. The diapers come out spun almost dry and it only takes an hour or two for them to be completely dry. Actually, it's great for any of her itty-bitty clothes and considering we're doing laundry every other day, it's a good thing.
I was going to write about cloth diapers here too but I think I'll save it for a separate post. Yes, there's that much to be said about cloth diapers - trust me.

Makeshift Cook

2008-05-20T09:11:00.005-04:00

I totally stole the title of this post from MavenHaven's food blog, The Makeshift Cook. Apparently we share a very similar food and cooking philosophy - if you can find an ingenious way to use up leftovers or plot a meal without having to go to the store, so much the better. Because I like to be backed in to a corner with my ingredients, fighting to find a way to make a delicious meal of out seemingly disparate ingredients (kind of like a nightly version of "Stump the Cook" that you hear on NPR's The Splendid Table), Tuesdays are my new favourite day of the week. Tuesday is my CSA day.

I've been wanting to do a CSA for a long time but my lack of driving ability and regular access to a car has stymied me. I just couldn't get out to the farms to pick up the goods. But sometimes working for (or your spouse working for) a very wealthy private university has its perks. The hardest working HR Department in the business set up what they called a "Mobile Farmers Market" for their employees this year. They contracted with a variety of local farmers, sent out a link to all their sites and let us choose which farmer we wanted to support. We paid the farmer directly (it works out to be about $12 a week for the summer season) and on Tuesdays our farmer and all the other farms, show up on campus and we pick up our box of produce.
Last week I got strawberries, asparagus, baby red potatos, onions, zucchini, and cabbage. I picked up some pea shoots and bacon at the Saturday Famers market to round it out. Here are some of the meals I made this week:

Stuffed Cabbage - using the tougher outer leaves of the cabbage, stuffed with a mix of leftover rice and sauteed veggies.

Grilled Zucchini and Onion sandwiches - on a baguette from the baker down the street, broiled with mozzarella and topped with pea shoots. On the side, the worlds easiest and best potato salad:
Boil a couple of fistfuls of really fresh, wee little red potatoes, skins on.
Toss them with white wine vinegar, a splash of olive oil and some fancy salt.
Add a couple tablespoons of capers, and if you're in the mood, any fresh herbs you have hanging around.
Eat immediately, and over and over as I do in the summer.

With the rest of the potatoes I constructed a kind of Pizza Bianco, with a whole wheat crust, paper thin slices of potato, more capers (I love them, I just do), fresh thyme (because I didn't have rosemary), carmelized onions, bacon and Manchego cheese.

The Lemon Asparagus pasta from the Gourmet Cookbook.

A curried chickpea hash with the rest of my zucchini and onion, from the aforementioned Makeshift Cook.

A variation on the Peashoot Salad with Bacon and Lime from Sass and Veracity's. I respect and fully support all vegans and vegetarians out there but for those of you who are not, bathing your bacon in maple syrup, honey and soy and then broiling is highly recommended.

And a little dish of strawberries for dessert almost every night.

I can't wait to see what I pick up this week.

Make Done

2008-05-12T21:23:00.004-04:00

To break from the home and garden theme (seedling update: basil, cilantro and dill are sprouted and accounted for - chives, sage and cayenne peppers are still MIA) I had planned a post about my laptop. By laptop standards it is ancient - ten years old. It is so goddmned heavy my schoolbag wore a groove into my shoulder. The whole right side of the screen fuzzed out into something resembling a UPC barcode, annoying but not impossible to see around. If you look closely you can see the Print Screen button is cracked in half and the colon button is askew. It would run for 1.8 seconds without being plugged in and sounded like a jet airplane taking off when the fan kicked in. I was kinda embarrassed to plug it in in public. But also, conversely, I was strangely proud of making it through my first year of Grad School with this ancient relic. I always swore I would run it into the ground. And then, as I prepared to post this ode to the Heaviest Laptop in the World, the ground hit. RIP old friend.

Since this is a blog about Making Do, I will spare you the details about buying a new laptop. There are just some things you can't make from felt and pipe cleaners.

Green green grass of home

2008-05-05T06:59:00.009-04:00

I've been in New Mexico, eating green chile (that is not a typo, that's how they spell it) and admiring the xerescaping. My friends live in a little adobe house and proudly showed me around their new drought-tolerant plantings. But I noticed some homeowners still clung to the ideal of a smooth green front lawn, jarring next to their sunbaked houses. Back here in North Carolina, despite the drought, we have The Lawn That Can't Be Stopped, roughly 700 sq. feet of rampant, untamed vegetation, complete with scrubby bushes and a pecan tree that scatters nuts far and wide. Witness it here:
If you look closely, you can see that the grass variety spurts up in little clumps, leaving bare patches of dirt in between. You will also notice that the grass is rather - robust? - for grass that was mowed as recently as last week. It is the unstoppable lawn. And the question became, how should we stop it? And why?

I'll start with the "Why" first. We are renters (and this informs a lot of the How later too...) and several Very Concerned and Houseproud Neighbors can see into our yard and likely care how we are keeping it up. We have a nice landlord who has a habit of just dropping by, which drives me crazy, and he inevitably sees the back lawn too. And also, I don't like bugs much and they seem to lurk in the longer grass.

But again, we are renters. The many things I would like to do to this yard - ripping it up into a raised bed veggie garden with fruit bearing trees surrounding it being my chief choice - isn't really worth it. I just don't want to put a bunch of sweat equity and real equity into making this a better property for my landlord to sell or rent. And partially because we are renters, I also really really didn't want to do the obvious thing - buy a lawnmower.

We looked at lawnmowers but my spirit resisted them. Little shiny motor machines, needing electricity or gas, noisy as all get-out, and pretty damn expensive. We don't have a shed or even a very deep overhang so any lawnmower we bought would be out in the open, rusting and caking and feeling mostly unloved. Also, I wasn't convinced that a mower could deal with the scrubby shrub or the layer of pecan shells that litters the lawn. Even a push-mower, if I could find one in decent shape for a good price (I couldn't, by the way) seemed like it would be stymied by those shells and saplings.

So we waited and thought and the lawn got positively jungle-like. Then I had a brainflash - a scythe. A scythe! Those curved blades that you usually see the Grim Reaper sporting.
I started doing some internet research and got progressively excited. Look at this company The Marugg Company out of Tennessee, a family based business that has been making scythes for over 100 years. I was extremely tempted by one of these beautiful sounding scythes but even though they are cheap, especially compared to mowers, I thought I would check my local garden store. Stone Brothers and Byrd is one of my favourite places in Durham. They've been in business since 1914 and amongst the gardening goods they also have homemade preserves, smoked pork products, seed bins behind the counter and the nicest workers ever. So I went on a scythe mission.

When I said I was looking for a scythe, I got a blank look. Maybe it's my Northern accent. I described it and the clerks face cleared. "Oh you mean a slingblade!" Right, a slingblade, I'd forgotten about the Billy Bob Thornton movie murder device. He found one for me and when the clerk rang it up, she asked me "What's the price on that sickle?" Right, a sickle. There are so many alternate names. The price, incidentally, was $24.95. I knew it wouldn't be as good as one of the Maarugg scythes but it was worth trying. Here's the scythe/slingblade/sickle in question:

The next morning I got up at 6 in the morning and in the early light, the birds chirping, scythed the lawn. (Can you imagine what your neighbors would think of starting your lawn mower at 6 am?) It was a workout, which I wanted, and gloves were necessary to avoid blisters. And it worked! Kind of. I t worked amazingly well on the scrubby brush and tall vines and weeds. It didn't cut as closely on the weird cluster grass we have but enough to remain
semi-respectable. I took pictures, of course. The Before and the After. This was maybe 5 minutes of scything. You could collect up the cuttings but I'm using them as an informal version of permaculture, discouraging the weeds from coming back.
I realize this isn't making something from scratch, but it was my low-cost, low-energy solution to my lawn issue, at least until my neighbors learn to love the unkempt look.

Can-Can Container Planting

2008-04-24T08:06:00.007-04:00

This type of container - a circular cardboard/steel affair - must be native to the US as I don't remember seeing them in Canada. But suddenly my cupboards are overflowing with these empty coffee and oatmeal containers (don't worry, I finally found a decent bulk foods store). Then, for a variety of health reasons, I had to start buying formula for my baby daughter and the rapidly piling up empty cans added to the guilt I already felt about not being able to continue breastfeeding. It was time to make these cans into something useful and beautiful and declutter my psyche along with my cupboards.

Here's what I did:

I had some leftover ice blue paint from a backyard furniture project (Baby Bonnet by Glidden) so I spent an hour or so gathering up the containers and painting their exteriors. Be careful, try not to slather too much paint on or the paper shell will buckle a little.

Once painted, I drove a nail 4 or 5 times in the bottom of the can to make drainage holes.

I wanted to use white paint for the lettering but a quick root through my paint box only brought up a zinc oxide white - too transparent for this
project. Instead I chose Naples Yellow and used my set of rubber letter stamps to label the cans. I'm transplanting a bunch of seedlings later this month and want to be sure to remember what I planted. Suddenly container gardening is inexpensive and rather pretty.

In the background of the first photo, you can see my makeshift starter greenhouse for my seedlings - essentially Jiffy Pellets left to soak in a spare muffin tin. I put them in an East facing window and after planting the seeds, I covered the pellets with clear plastic containers (ex-salsa containers) and wrote the name of the plant-to-be in dry erase marker on the top.

I confess I have, if not a black thumb, than a scarily mordant grey thumb. I'll let you know in a few weeks if they actually grow...

I'm using some other cans as pantry cannisters. What do you use yours for?

Join the Make Do Revolution

2008-04-21T13:59:00.000-04:00

Make Do is:

A Movement.
A Manifesto.
A Way of Life.
A Revolution.

Get by with what you have.
Resist the urge to upgrade.
A "Depression" mentality that isn't depressing.
But also -
Make!
Do!

Limit options and expand your creativity.

I scribbled these words down on the back of a mail-in rebate card while sitting in a library some months ago and have kept them close ever since, knowing they somehow encapsulate some very specific truths and important values that I have. My greatest feelings of accomplishment and bursts of creativity stem from the times when I had to make it work, found a new use for an old object or create a delicious dinner from the tired leftovers in the fridge. My husband jokingly accuses me of growing up in the Depression (I also have a serious saving issue that unfortunately doesn't extend to money) but I take a small pride in my '30's ways. Not to say that I throw out less than one cubic inch of garbage a week or have completely stopped shopping at Target, much as I try. Or don't covet new shoes. Or say screw it when I look in my seemingly empty fridge and eat at the Cookout for dinner. You will not , I hope, find a sanctimonious attitude here. But maybe a few ideas from myself and hopefully some like-minded friends.

Enough blather. A blank canvas frightens me. Repurposing invigorates me. It's a win-win-win equation: creativity + thriftiness + environmental responsibility = Make!Do!
Won't you join me?