Ahh.

My heart feels very full right now.

I spent most of yesterday dealing with food. Fresh out of bed I made butter, followed by yogurt, then a dozen crescent rolls and a loaf of toast bread. I worried over the creme brulee but it turned out perfectly. I even got in a couple loads of laundry and picked up the apartment.

I must have been a cook in another life (oh, wait, I was ;) ). I love food. I love making it and seeing how things combine and go through these phenomenal chemical changes and become these flavorful, aromatic creations. Then, THEN, oh, my favorite part. You get to set the table! Beautiful plates, shining silverware, clear cups, delicate napkins (usually not, but they are cloth in my house so I can pretend). It's the perfect setting to place your master piece.

I mean seriously, the whole table is decked out and perfectly equipped to fully appreciate what is wrapped up in those beautiful serving dishes. What other artist has such a receptive audience? Stomachs rumble, noses inhale, mouths water. The plate asks to be filled, the knife to cut, the spoon waits in anticipation for dessert. A painter must suffer, a musician, too, but a cook! A cook is surrounded by people waiting deliriously for dinner. What mother hasn't had to chase her children (and her husband) out of the kitchen just so she can finish preparing in peace?

It's so amazing that God has provided us something that we must have to function, created it in such a way that we can make it beautiful and appeal to every sense, created us in such a way that we tend to gather together when we partake of it, created the sense of satisfaction and contentment that comes after a good meal and made that feeling extend to everyone present. It's so amazing.

To top it off, today I get to go to a yarn shop.

I'm so excited. My friend Kate discovered it and claims it has the softest, squishiest yarn. From what I've seen of her work, I suspect she's right. I cannot wait. I have a million projects running around my head (geez, I'll never have enough time) just waiting for the perfect yarn and eager hands.

Plus, I have a lined dress waiting in my sewing room for me to make it. I am making it for Emily and Karl's wedding in March. I am just a guest, but I want to honor them in what little ways I can. It calls out every time I pass the door. "I'm here! Still here! Waiting to be what I am intended for! Come and make me!"

Oh, that we would be so willing.

La Dee Da

I'm supposed to be writing right now.

But I am, you say? What is this blog entry if not writing?

Well, this isn't what I'm supposed to be writing. Two to three is technically my allotted 'story time'. To see what my 'story' may be, check out that link under 'me in other places' up there in the top right corner. I'm currently working on the fourth chapter of 'For Emily', which is a young adult fantasy novel/novella about a girl whose dreams affect an alternate reality. Sounds complicated and official, right? Ha.

WRITER'S BLOCK...........FGHGHOGHIGHSLSJ;DIJEGWBHGWWBGNLGVG.

Hm, I wonder if it's actually 'writers' block'. A sort of collective possession.

Anyway.

I've been trying to get some impartial/anonymous feed back about the first three completed chapters, but feedback is slow in coming. I'm pretty sure the plot moves too slowly, I may have a lot of unnecessary detail about secondary characters (although my last self edit hopefully removed most of that), and I'm not sure one of the main character's character is consistent between chapters. Maybe I just need to keep writing and trust that it'll even itself out instead of trying to fix everything immediately.

Writing is hard.

I should have taken those story writing classes in college like I wanted to.

Home Alone.

I am not internally motivated. This is a new but blatant discovery.

The boy is traveling for work and I am home alone. At first I thought I could use this time and totally blow off my 'work' schedule and focus on knitting or story writing for three days. I was kind of excited and reminissed about all those nights in high school when I would draw till the wee hours of the morning in my closet (it was a walk-in with a light inside and usually kept me from getting caught).

I don't want to do anything, and I mean anything. The kitchen is a disaster, I didn't eat super (it seems to much effort with no one else to feed so I snacked instead). I knitted, pulled it out, knitted again, put it down to work on in the morning when I'm functioning. I drew some, doodled some, sat and stared at the wall some. I'm in bed but settling in enough to actually fall asleep doesn't sound appealing, mostly because it means I'll wake up to an empty bed, but staying awake is taking too much effort.

I'm not unhappy, just off.

We'll see what the morning brings.

Dreams for the Future

Chickens.

And rabbits. Specifically a French Angora.

Herb plants in the kitchen.

Vegetables in the garden.

Little ones under foot.

Being country must be a genetic trait. It pops up in the strangest places.

Limbo

If Limbo does exist, it must touch the physical realm between Christmas and New Year's. Those six days of no man's land where all the loose ends of the current year get tied up but nothing for the next year can officially be started. It's either a time crammed full of high speed stress or a lazy daisy wandering... or a little of both.

It is in this time of instantaneous yet delayed change, that my house is a mess. It seems this happens every year after Christmas. The onslaught of presents causes the need to find new spaces for everything, which triggers the need to go through closets and chuck what we're not using. Our dinning area/entryway is currently storage for piles of recycling, donations, things that need to be returned to their proper owners, and stuff for an 'out with the old, in with the new' clothing exchange. I suppose you could say it's the blessing and the curse of a small space that we can't just cram everything in.

The good news is, all this craziness made my husband realize that we really do need to figure out a workable, defined, maintained use for our spare bedroom (instead of just letting it be the catch-all room that functions as guest room, crafting room, office, library, attic, and garage). It still does most of those things but we've shifted the primary purposes around. I claimed it.

I've been trying to let it be mostly Dustin's room. Since I stay home during the day I feel like the rest of the house belongs to me and I feel it's important for someone who has to face the working world everyday to have a space in their home that is a kind of personal haven. That led to a room covered in electrical wires that may or may not be connecting anything and, bless his heart the man can be organized when he wants to be, tools everywhere but mostly just inside the door. Why they always ended there, I don't know, maybe because that's close enough to his side of the closet that they were quasi-put away. It drove me nuts, but I tried to just shut the door most of the time.

When Dustin expressed a desire for the room to be reorganized so that it wouldn't be messy all the time, I was thrilled. We finally moved the computer into our living room entertainment stand (hey, it's entertainment) like we've been meaning to since we moved here, which moved the 'office' out and freed up the desk. I asked Dustin if I could have the desk. He said yes. I asked him if he could not put anything on the desk at all, or on any of the shelves. He gave me a funny look but said yes.

I spent most of yesterday going through all my crafting stuff (yarn, fabric, thread, patterns, tools) and chucking all those odds and ends I've been saving 'just in case' but know I'll never use and reorganizing everything into boxes. It freed up about a quarter of the space in the closet and I now have a very sweet and darling space. My sewing machine can sit out and with the love seat tucked into the corner and the new lace tablecloth from Belgium my mother-in-law gave to me for Christmas, it makes me giddy happy whenever I glance in the door.

It is pretty girly. Which is what I was trying not to do, but the boy seemed pleased when he saw it, so I guess it'll be alright. Now, if I can just get my dinning area back...

Contentment

I ask a lot out of life. I ask that it be simple. I ask that it be fun. I ask that it be full of love. I ask that it have a rhythm. I ask that it be fulfilling. I ask that it be full. I ask that it run in my time line. It does all those things at some point or another and it doesn't do any of them at some point or another.

What Life asks out of me is that I be content with what I am given when it's given. I am, at some point or another.

Right now I am knitting. I love it. It's not something I would have expected to ever love. I have always preferred crochet. The more I knit the more I find it hard to be content. I read several blogs of women who live on small farms or just run a small home that includes live stock and a garden, who have 3+ children running underfoot, who have yarn and lots of it, who show pictures of kitchens covered in flour and a pot of soup simmering on the stove, of art crafts strewn over tables and cats perched in windows. I wish these were my pictures. But they're not. Sometimes I look at what I have at this moment and think, 'yeah, this is pretty good' and sometimes I can't wait to have all those things that I think I really want.

Knitting does that, it calls me out of what I have into what could be, perhaps because it is one of the first few steps that get me there. Knitting allows me to create, it allows me to transform yarn into a garment, a blanket, a hat, slippers, a decoration, anything. It gets me more involved in providing for my family. I love that I can pour hours of time and love into an item and then just give it away. I can give my love away in an item that a person can have close when I am far away. I must learn to be content with that and wait patiently for the chicken.

Adventures...

.. are never convenient. That's what my mom always said. Although, when she said it, we were usually in a car on the side of the road with a flat tire. She would turn in the driver's seat and look at us all for a moment before declaring, "Who's ready for an adventure?" We would look at her in silence, slightly confused and slightly fearful (the tire had just gone flat). Someone might venture to say that we weren't having an adventure, there were no monsters, we had no swords. She would unbuckle us all and tell us we were allowed out on the side of the road but to stay off the road and remind us that an adventure was just a set of obstacles that the hero had to over come and that they were never, ever convenient.

All that to say my dishwasher is broken. I thought maybe the handyman would fix it quick enough that I wouldn't have to wash any dished by hand but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm finding that I reuse dishes, particularly cooking utensils much quicker than I thought and that, while I still have plenty of plates to use, my kitchen is entirely too small to permit much procrastination in the way of cleaning. Especially since I've been trying to get in some holiday baking and decorating. The baking requires counter top space and dishes and the decorating just looks better when it is displayed with a clean backdrop.

I don't mind too much, though. A little jolt out of the regular rhythm tends to inspire life.

Butter Again

I made butter again. This time I skimmed the cream off of our farm fresh milk and beat it. The butter is sooooooo yellow. Margarine yellow. Wow. The buttermilk was a beautiful white (especially when contrasted with the yellow butter). It tastes pretty delicious, too. I'm so glad we have a herd share.

December

Do you want the good news or the bad news first. Well, I'll just assume you're like me and always want the bad news first...

I've lost my camera. It's gone. Poof. Nowhere. I suppose it's somewhere but it's keeping that location to itself. Which means no more pictures until I scrounge up the money to buy a new one... which will be a few months. Which is very, very sad because it's December, which means presents, which means projects, which means lots of stuff I would really, really love to post pictures of.

The good news is, it's December, which means presents, which means projects, which means I am very, very busy.

I'm attempting a handmade Christmas this year. I started out thinking of making one or two things but once my hands started making they just couldn't stop, so the handmade Christmas was unintentional. I've really enjoyed it. I've been learning new skills like hand embroidery and pattern making. It's amazing all the things you can do at home.

I know lots of people talk about making things 'in house' as a cost saving measure, less money spent, more in your pocket. That's somewhat true. While it does cost less money, it takes way more time to make everything than to walk into a shop and buy it. I ran the numbers for the Christmas apron I made based off the pattern I drafted (see last post). If you paid me minimum wage for the time it took me to make the apron (not to mention create the pattern) it comes to $41.25. That's pretty much what Mary Jane's Farm was charging and I didn't include the cost of materials. I would argue that if I was really good at this sort of thing, it would take me less time. I would also argue that the value of learning that I could draft a pattern and learning how to work out all the kinks through the production process was more than the value I would have received if I had just paid $40 for the apron and had my five and half hours of time. But that's just me.

I've also been learning how to host people. We've invited several people to celebrate Advent with us in our home every Sunday this month. It's exciting and kind of intimidating. I'm a quiet person, I don't like being around a bunch of people. But I love Advent. I love the waiting and the daily reminder of what Christmas is about and why it's the best time of the year. I really want to share that but to do that I have to get over this whole 'I don't really like being around lots of people' thing. I'm trying to keep it simple: people come over, people share a pot of soup and talk, we all move to the living room where the Advent wreath is and read the official Advent scriptures, light the candles, talk about the subject of that particular week's Advent candle and why it's important, then do whatever fits the mood: sing, talk, sit in contemplation, leave in silence, whatever. I need it to not be stressful... Christmas shouldn't be stressful. It's God's work, all He asks is for us to come and see. If our houses aren't perfect, that's okay, if our cookies aren't perfect, that's okay, if our hearts aren't perfect, that's okay, if we refuse God, that's not okay. Hm... I'm vaguely reminded of something I thought of in the car on the way to Thanksgiving but I can't remember what I wanted to say, I can only remember the feeling and mood, something about how the verse says that Jesus stands at the door and knocks and we always think about this polite little man politely knocking at the door... but maybe He's standing at that door and pounding... perhaps it will come to me later.

In any case, I've been trying to put my heart into Christmas. To be gracious and open to others, to make my gifts personal and full of effort and love, to craft and create. To put Christmas in my heart where it belongs.

I'm alive, promise!

Hello.

Long time no see. Actually, that's not true. I do visit my own blog every other day or so to look at all my 'Blogs of Note'. I just don't always publish my own updates. Sneaky, I know. But, I find myself in need of some mental organization, which comes best when I am writing.

Right now I feel like I have a million projects going on so I should list them out:

Cat cross stitch (1/3 completed)
'For Emily' written book (70 pages completed)
'Gifted' comic (5 pages completed)
learning how to keep house beyond cooking and cleaning which includes:
learning about nutrition and applying it in tasty manners
learning to decorate
learning to be economical in my purchases (something I am not good at AT ALL)
baking bread for others
...

Hm, that's not a million. In fact, now that it's written out, it looks fairly manageable. Although, it does amuse me that I wrote them out in the exact opposite order that I would choose to pursue them. C'est la vie. I suppose that shows that I think the most about what I least want to do which probably added to the 'I have a million things to do' feeling. FYI, that doesn't mean I don't want to write and draw, it just means it's low on my wish list.

Alright then. Today is Monday, which means it's laundry and grocery day. I think I shall work on 'For Emily' today. See if I can't knock out five pages or so. Maybe the long break will have jolted my creativity. I think I'll work on the cats as well, I'm hoping to finish them in time for Christmas.

Bread and... butter!

So. Butter is possibly the easiest thing I have ever made. Pour cream in to bowl. Beat. Don't eat the whipped cream. Wait until the butter separates from the butter milk (you can't miss it, the butter sticks to the beaters and suddenly there's white liquid in the bottom of the bowl), about 20 minutes. Strain buttermilk. Kneed butter in bowl of cold water to get all the butter milk out. The buttermilk will make the butter go rancid and the cold water keeps it from melting all over your hands. Salt if desired. Eat. Yum. $4.50 for the quart of cream produces $3 worth of butter + however much 2 cups of buttermilk costs. I am so making my own from now on.

Baking Day

I love baking day. The apartment smells amazing and I, of course, have to taste test everything!

It seems we never have snack food in the house but both Dustin and I often just want something small. Today was the day to fix that. After my revelation that one didn't actually have to buy pre-made truffles, I began to wonder what I buy off the shelf because I assume I can't make it as well, or even at all, at home.

I decided on a cracker. Who doesn't love crackers? You can put tons of yummy things on top or just eat them plain. Originally, I wanted to make a saltine or club type cracker. In the end, I settled on a Graham cracker. Now, I hate Graham crackers. Maybe it's from all those years working in a nursery. It seems Graham crackers are the toddler snack of choice. But the blog where I found the recipe claimed these homemade Graham crackers were much better than the store-bought ones. That they would be more nutritional, flavorful and not crumble over every surface in sight. I have to say, it was right. These crackers are amazing. I had three and felt like I'd eaten a full meal. It was a strange sensation, but a good one. I will definitely be making them again.

I also made two loaves of Challah, which is usually what happens on a baking day, and a batch of very yummy and surprisingly healthy Apple Muffins. I have a lot of whole wheat flour sitting in the freezer and really wanted to use it up in something that wouldn't have that whole-wheaty texture/taste. You know the one. The one that tells you you're eating something healthy and that's really the only reason you're eating it. These turned out really well. They're definitely a breakfast food, not a dessert, but really good. The only change I made in the recipe was to cut the apple into chunks instead of shredding it. Chunks give the muffin more texture and keeps it moist longer.

I was going to make a batch of chewy granola bars but, alas, I didn't have nearly enough rolled oats for the recipe I wanted to use. Next week!

Budgie Birdie

My husband and I have started to train our bird, Spring. Spring came to us as a refugee this past fall. She was four years old at least. Her former owners kept her fed and watered but that was about it. She didn't have a whole lot of human interaction and, as budgies are flock animals, has some mental damage because of that.

Spring has finally become comfortable in her new home and we like to think that she's warming up to us, too. She acknowledges the fact that we're alive, which is more than she seemed aware of when we first got her. She also seems interested in what happens outside of her cage, which is an improvement. At first, you could almost drop a book right next to her cage and she wouldn't even notice. I think never being taken out of the cage for the first four years of her life caused the "world" to become a cubic foot.

She loves running water. She sings to the dishwasher, she sings to the sink, she sings to the shower. She has begun to sing to Dustin. He'll whistle a three note ditty and she attempts to whistle it back. She even 'practices' his whistles when he's at work during the day. It's really the cutest thing. She is mated to the small bell in her cage. She spends hours snuggled up with it and 'preening' it. Sometimes they get into lover's fights and that's always a hoot. Especially, when the bell wins. :P

She will sit on your finger and feel safe when she's there, it's convincing her she wants to get on that's the problem. I have brought her out of the cage on my finger twice out of I don't want to tell you how many attempts. She'll eat off your finger but not out of your palm.

Training will be a slow process. But for a four year-old, pretty-much-wild bird, that's kind of a given. How to cause a five inch creature it should care about the world and accept two towering giants as the flock it's never had? Patience, lots of patience.

Truffles!

Dustin and I had dinner with new friends last weekend and, after an amazingly delicious homemade ravioli dinner complete with winter vegetables, salad, and bread, we were served homemade truffles. Did you know you could make truffles at home? I most certainly did not. It was just one of those things that someone else made and you paid for.

But no more! A good friend and I decided to try our hand at the ancient and revered art of chocolate making (we used pre-made chocolate. Sorry, we're just not cool enough to roast and press our own chocolate... yet... Hey, Sarah...! ;) ).

These beauties are what we ended up with after several hours and ounces of chocolate. We now know what mud-pie making is really training children for.

Note: The tray was full when we were done, but Sarah was entitled to her half. :)

Dream Log

Okay, general outline of last nights dream (no weight).

• My husband, sister and I were adopted by the Cullens (the vampire 'parents' in Twilight).
• My sister and I found a magical cupboard that would duplicate any non-living thing you put in it over night. We used it to get more craft materials (mostly yarn).
• My sister adopted a two foot long baby alligator that tried to eat her arm. She wouldn't give it up, though.
• The Cullens adopted more kids until we totalled something like twenty all together.
• Divisions began to develop in the family, my husband and I decided it was time for people to split up and move into different houses. In our thinking, it was better to live separately but still be on good terms with everyone than try continuing to live together and have hate spring up between us.
  
• We proposed two additional houses to our siblings (for three total, including the original house) and our siblings seemed generally agreeable.
• When we brought it up with Mr. and Mrs. Cullen no one would decide who went where. I remember someone saying that there was no way my husband and I would leave the original house. I was kind of surprised, considering this had been our idea in the first place.
• We announced that we were leaving, much to the shock of the eighteen other people, and, in the end, two or three people ended up coming with us.
• We said goodbye to our 'parents' and left.

The End

Oh, also, somewhere in all that I ended up in a car wreck because someone switched the gas and brake pedal in my car. Instead of slowing down when I came upon the traffic jam I just plowed right threw. It killed one woman and wounded two disabled children. I then had a conversation with my actual mother about whether or not she had been awake when the wreck happened and had just appeared in the dream when she fell asleep. She seemed to think I'd actually killed the woman and should be expecting to receive a traffic ticket.

Morning!

A Christmas Present

This was one of my projects yesterday:

I hope its intended receiver will like it. :)

The Dress

My morning's work (and half the afternoon, too!):


I'm very pleased with how the dress turned out! Although, I'm pretty sure my hands are going to permanently smell of metal if I continue to crochet at this pace.

What I've been up to

Alright, then. Sorry about the long pause in posts, I really don't know why it happened.

I've been making some actual progress on my story this past week. Hm, let's start with Halloween, actually.

SO, the big Halloween party was a blast. Mom and I got everything decorated and the massive amounts of food made and on the table in time (as in, after I spent two full days doing nothing but cooking and baking, we were slicing up the chicken and setting it on the table as guests arrived). Everyone showed up in pretty impressive costumes, although Matt gets the prize for his Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas costume. Too bad he had to change after he got murdered. Two of my brothers successfully staged the over throw of the Egyptian Queen and the twins did a marvelous job with Dustin and me as the Fae Court. Even my dad had a good time (we were worried, acting's not generally his thing). He got to go around and intimidate everyone as the Phantom Inquisitor. I just wish we'd had more time :( But, all in all, a grand time.

Since then I have inherited a massive amount of yarn from my in-laws and have been busy making a blanket and a baby set (I'll post pictures when I have them). BTW, the baby set is not for me, no I am not pregnant, no we are not planning on children in the near future. I seem to be getting those types of questions often, lately. I prefer to make baby clothes and blankets because they use less yarn than adult sized things and because they take less time. Plus, they're really cute!

Finally, after the madness of Halloween, my story has been pulled off the back burner. I'm really pleased with the progress I've been making. Yesterday alone I did six pages of character profiles and four pages of actual story. I love how the story seems to develop itself. I do not mean that it writes its self, trust me, lots of effort here. But that if I want my characters to end up in one place, several other events must take place before they are emotionally or geographically able to be in that place. Every so often another piece to the puzzle just pops into my head. I am beginning to understand that old light bulb metaphor. I'm also surprised to find that my characters change, or that a stock character I want to use just won't fit any more. Sometimes that makes me sad, some of my characters have existed in my mind for years and I was really excited to use them, but mostly the change in character makes sense and I just have to deal with it. Besides, I'll always be able to use them in another story. :)

Woooohoooo!

6 months after graduation and a positive net worth. Not bad, not bad at all.

History As It Really Was

I finished! Between you and me this didn't actually take too terribly long but it's also not the greatest coloring quality. But, it's just a cover-up for normal pictures in my parents house that don't fit the fantasy theme of our Halloween party, so quality may be sacrificed.

We're doing a murder mystery that pulls well known fantasy characters and slightly changes their stories. According to the game, Merlin is King Arthur's father and King Arthur is kind of a bumbling idiot. So I though it would be fun to create a picture that depicted the famous King Arthur and sword... with his dad helping him out...

This was fun, huge, but fun.

Note: it's 16''x20''