makin’ and doin’
I’ve felt so unproductive lately, like I can’t get anything done or even half started. I’m working close to 50 hours most weeks, it gets dark at 4-ish and it’s been bitterly cold the last week. work is so busy right now I come home exhausted and the only thing I seem to be really good for after that is drinking my half of a bottle of wine every night and dabbling at my knitting projects.
I get seriously depressed and home sick when I think about rock climbing- I was really getting good before we left Denver (climbing 5.11′s regularly) and now it’s all but lost from my life. there is a gym here but I just can’t get excited about it- it’s tiny and not nearly as dynamic as what we were used to. we do still go from time to time but I can’t help but get frustrated that my forearms have lost all their tone and endurance. nonetheless I think we’re going to buy a membership sometime soon. practice is always better than no practice, even if it’s not ideal.
anyway, I’m also still not bicycling even though we’re only 4.5 miles from my work. with as busy as I’ve been I just want to get there and get back as quickly as I can and not be freezing my butt off in the dark. I may change that this week though as this last cold spell caused my car to protest and now it won’t start. we think it needs new glow plugs. sigh.
I think about painting every day but can’t seem to get any sketches done or canvases prepped. I have half a dozen half started books that I can’t focus on and finish. my Spanish studies have disappeared into thin air. I’ve needed to call my father for weeks and keep putting it off. and don’t even get me started about the new things I have planned that I haven’t started (though I’ve invested in the ingredients to do so) and the knitting projects I can’t ever seem to quite finish. you get the picture.
so yeah, it’s tough to move somewhere just in time for the winter. it’s tough for me to work so much! perhaps that sounds lame, but I’m a much happier healthier person when I’m working 25-30 hours a week. I’m still trying to plug through my herb classes but I’m at a snails pace right now. I finished lesson 2 of 12 a couple months ago and in looking over my quiz questions that I had written in while listening to the lectures and trying to re-answer all the questions I just felt so… dumb I guess. trying to wrap my brain around all this physiology is really hard for me and I just feel like it’s not gelling at all and I’m not seeing the full picture. it took me a while to get over this feeling of self-defeat and move on to lesson 3. finally I have, but when I get home during the week with a fried brain the last thing I want to do is try to pack more in there and by the time the weekend rolls around I have so many other things to catch up on that studying still falls by the wayside a lot of the time.
okay, enough whining and self pity. that was not the point of this post. I actually wanted to talk about the things I have been accomplishing. as much as I feel like I’m stagnating and not being at all productive, when I looked around my house I realized that this is really not the case. I’m just too excited for my own good with all I want to be doing that I forget to look at what has been accomplished. for starters both Robert and myself have continued to make amazing friends and connections here. we had a delicious wonderful Thanksgiving with new friends, rock climbed with another, started a regular fun game night with another, and last night went to a kickass holiday cocktail party. I’ve met lots of people that knit and Robert and his friend Abe have already built a cob oven! but it’s really the little projects I have at home that make me feel good about myself. what I really need to do is make myself a tincture for OCD ADHD creative disorder. hah!
but anywoo, stuff made and done:
Robert brought home these gorgeous peppers from one of the farms he works at. I was about out of my last batch of hot sauce, so I promptly made more.
this project was actually not good for my blood pressure or ego though. first off, the peppers weren’t spicy at all!! bummer. then I royally screwed up the recipe, canned it all only to un-can it later, cook it down more and re-can. the details are boring, but this “hot” sauce is definitely sub-par to my last one. it’s savory and has a good flavor though, so what the hay.
I’ve been cooking again lots and lots and am so happy to have my own kitchen again, words can’t even say.
lovely Eugene produce that became yumminess in my tummy
last weekend I made a new batch of orange marmalade. I always throw some sweet potatoes in to thicken it up because I don’t like to put very much sugar in. I also threw in a couple hot chilies to spice it up. again, this did not work. I don’t know what my major malfunction is with peppers lately. so I don’t really know what the chilies did to the marmalade besides look pretty floating around in there.
same day I made lemon sage mustard. this one came out a bit weird too. also not as good as my last attempt at mustard. it’s too sweet and too lemony (which I never say- I love citrus in abundance). I think the reason for this is that the mustard seeds ALSO WERE NOT HOT!! what the hell is going on here?!? perhaps it will spice up with age, but the “hot” sauce didn’t. hmm.
and finito
my favorite chocolate cake recipe (which happens to be vegan)
today I got invited to an all girl cookie making party at Sharol’s house (she is who’s land we live on). there were 6 of us there and we spent the entire afternoon eating Sharol’s amazing cheese, drinking Sharol’s amazing wine (did I mention that Sharol is amazing?) and baking TONS of cookies! mine are the ones with jam in the middle. they are blackberry sage cornmeal thumbprints. yum! I actually liked them the best of all the cookies (is that narcissistic to say? it wasn’t my own recipe, so I say not) 
my second favorite are the little white ball. they’re bourbon balls and are supposed to be best around 4 days from now after the bourbon infuses. but as they are now you get the heat of the alcohol and I think that makes for an amazing cookie. (and yes, I’m a booze hound, what can I say)
in other non-food related projects, I have sucessfully mastered my spinning wheel. now I just have to find the time to actually finish a couple bobbins.
I continue to knit all the time of course. I’d like to show a couple new things I’m making, but they are gifts for people and if they look on here I don’t want to give anything away! I’ll have to post them later. but here’s a new pair of socks getting started for Robert and the Obey Giant scarf I’ve been dabbling at for over a year now. I can only do a few rows at a time before I go batty.
and what I see as my biggest accomplishment currently- I succesfully sewed something! if you know my history with sewing you realize that this is a milestone for me. I’m a terrible sewer, I’m scared of the sewing machine and always manage to screw up. I did pretty well when Tiffiny was my tutor, but without her I tend to be lost. but Robert helped me get the sewing machine up and running (actually he did it all, I’m still terrified of threading the damn thing) and I made my own pattern from an existing piece of clothing I have from these girls: http://tinctoriadesigns.com/store/
this clothing company is just 2 girls out of Portland and they hand dye all their fabric (that’s why everything is so expensive- but once you see and feel the fabric for yourself you understand and I think it’s worth it). so I made my own pattern from their layering skirt and after sewing the wrong side to the right side fall backward-like only once, ripping that out and redoing it and then altering it and redoing the waist band, I think I did a pretty good job! and I’m less scared of my ability and the sewing machine now. yay!
anyway, that’s it for now. projects in the works if I can get to them include: salve, lip balm, lots of tinctures, wine, cheese, mayo, soap, coconut milk and, of course, painting.
wish somebody would pay me just to make things all day…
