While Tangerine Dreams

Potty Pants

I have to say I miss this part of my day when I get to organize my thoughts and share with you things I get excited about that only you can understand. Cuz, really, if you couldn't give two poo poos about things like recycled sweater overalls for toddlers you'd probably be reading something other than this right now.

Problem is Edie's not sleeping in in the mornings like she use to. That was (wuzzzz) my Mommy time to play with my blog. Note the past tense. This topic of why to blog has popped at my daily read, who in turn was pondering the musings of one woman's internal search of why she subjects herself to this amazing phenomena of voluntary public exposure to scrutiny. In the middle of typing, the Tangerine awoke from her nap so I had to go lay with her for a bit and while lying there, talking in my head I can go on, and on, and on on why I love keeping a blog (though you can hardly call it that these days with my scant postings). I guess community is here, which I love, and those who read understand the reasons "why on earth".

I try explaining to my knitting group a couple of time. I think because a lot of the women in my group don't have access to internet, let alone highspeed internet not being available here yet, the description of the blog culture must sound pretty self-indulgent and nerdy. Though those aren't the last two words I would use to describe myself I have to say this blogging business is helping me in a period of my life when, perhaps, I feel a bit more lonely (not in a bad way mind you) and in need of some visual structure to the chaos that feels like my life sometimes.

Oh, man, I could go on some more but I'm speed typing cuz I gots to cook supper, I hear Edie crying and I want to get ready to leave early for my knit circle.

But before I go... Aren't these too cute?  Check out the iceberg hanging over the window. My friend Ellie makes such things - the pants, not the iceberg. She's amazing. She'll be at the knit circle tonight. I keep telling her to open up an Etsy shop. Only problem with these trousers is... Edie's scared of them. Maybe because they're a touch too big on her. I'll keep trying though. Therefore, pics are sans Tangerine.

Ooo, ooo, oooo (ala Horseshack), before I go. Potty Pants because Edie's been going pee pee all by herself in the potty the last two days. Little big girl!

Fart Farm

I have been busy. This time of year is typically my busiest season with Do Be Clean plus I'm back into teaching yoga which has been such a saviour in keeping some element of balance in my life. Not to mention it gets me out of the house once in a while.

Above is the building I'm teaching out of. It's nestled in a patch of property known as the Art Farm. Because my class is running through the supper hour I called the yoga cd Craigy made me "Fart Farm". You know, you're digesting, you're twisting, you have yourself the makings of a Fart Farm.

I've been crafty too. While crafting and whipping up lots of soap I've been listening to lots of podcasts including Cast-On, Lime n Violet and Sticks n String. I'm still exploring the plethora of podcasts out there. I don't know if it's because of early onset of cabin fever but loving the sound of a human voice while I create. Of course this has got me thinking I would love to have a podcast to call my own. Craig thinks that's not the greatest idea cuz Mommy's time is stretched pretty thin these days but don't you think the world needs a podcast talking about knitting and crafting while taking breaks to do yoga once in a while? Or does that sound too tiring? I guess I'm still trying to incorporate my yoga and crafting life together somehow.

When I have a moment I'll be taking pictures of some finished objects and will be sharing them soon. Until then, might I direct you to my updated website? I have displayed my full soap collection available plus links to my new Do Be Clean blog to keep customers in the loop on specials, promotions contests and such as well as to this blog here. Just for fun.

I Felt That

Been felting a little these days. Our itty bitty tiny house has a stair well right in the middle of all the action that has been an energy sucking vortex so I decided to curb the effect a little with a felt dreaded curtain.

I think it serves its purpose and at the same time feels so dramatically swishy to walk through. Craig may beg to differ.

Edie digs it so that's the important part. As mentioned before, my other felted project was the birthday crown she adorned on her big day.

That was super quick and gratifying. I've found the most heavenly shop here in town that has been inspiring me to roll naked in roving until everything in my life has been felted. It's a Waldorf-inspired shop that sells everything from yarns to doll making supplies, from wooden toys to organic woolen tights for munchkins. They're offering a doll making class I'm taking part in so hopefully I'll have a sneak peak for you of Edie's Christmas present in the not to distant future. I love this class. Seeing this little being taking form is like watching an egg incubate behind an x-ray screen. What gets me excited is knowing that Edie's going to be going through alot with this little pre-sibling of hers I'm stitching together. Lots of love put into her including a rose quartz heart in her wooly little chest. Chances are good if you're ever in town you'd find me drooling in this store.

Belated Birthday Sweater

Oh, mon dieu. Hopefully Edie's second birthday sweater will be done before she reaches the recommended sizing of 2-4 years. Here I am finally winding up the second skein of this gorgeous, heart-centred coloured Blue Face Leicester Aran by Fleece Artist (whoa. that was a mouthful). Since I'm 'almost' done I should only be putting a small dent into the second ball so I'm thinking I'd have tonnes leftover for either a Parisian Beret or fetching me some Fetching with the leftovers (perhaps both? wouldn't that be smartass).

The baby sweater pattern's from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. And I'm sure I tongue and cheeked this book here before (cuz I do so every week at our stitch n bitch here) as Last Minute My Ass Knitted Gifts. I love the book and made many projects from it but the title of the book is misleading and the chapter headings are super bogus. The projects are divided into time chunks; three to four hour, five to six, seven to eight. The Child Placket sweater I'm making her is in the four to six hour chapter. I've been working on this since late October. Craig suggests I'm a slow knitter. I know I'm not the fastest knitter around but, come on... the book lies.

Happy Birthday Fairy

My baby's two years old today. Two years-zahh. We're into years-zahh now. She's killing me softly with her song. She had a cozy little birthday party this afternoon. Because we thought we would be "in town" this week - we hadn't expected to be able to throw her a little soiree. It was very last minute but a few of her little buddies were able to make it.

So funny, last year I was all about her eating super clean, premium unleaded food. In leiu of cake I made my precious sacred vessel of a daughter a sweetener-free coconut milk/banana icecream. But this year... well check out for yourself the ingredient list of this caffienated monstrocity!

A whole bar of El Rey chocolate, almost two cups of Oso Negro coffee (the best coffee on the planet in my humble-coffee snobby opinion) whilst the ganache icing alone contains more than a pound of chocolate. If you have never visited with Orangette, where this recipe comes from, oooo boy. Nice blog. Thanks Leya for directing me to this so long ago. This blog is all about this Seattle woman's yummy foody life. Sometimes I fanatasize about her and her fiance adopting me just so they can feed me all day long and I can mumble "yeah.that" between bites while they read her posts out loud to me.

So, for this last minute celebration, I made the cake and Didi (what she refers to herself as) a little felted crown to wear for the day's events. Very quick and easy. If you'd like I can even one day post a tutorial.

After the cake carnage, needless to say, the Tangerine Dreamed for a while and I prepared for the yoga class I taught tonight. Will you hold my hand right now as I take a moment to reflect on the last couple of years? Don't mind if I cry. Tears of joy.

Year two...

Year one... bless you Miss Kitty!

The original one. Love you! Sniff.

Flannel-lanch

Man, I'm loving flannel these days. The snow's starting to fall, the roads are scaring me and I just want to stay in and wear my pj's all day long. I guess for this reason I knew to make this shirt out of plain ol' white flannel. The girl at the little sewing/knitting store I go to in "town" (I just love getting to say to the neighbours at the coffee shop - "just going into town today") says about this selection - "that's kind of boring" and I'm like, "oh, no, Sister Girlfriend, I'll be sure not to make it boring". I think I said this is because I was planning on always sporting it with my obi and scoring some pinup girl buttons to go with it.

I do wear my obi lots but this shirt is just so comfy I usually just need to let the gut hang out completely unhindered and, after a little family budgetary-type meeting, decided against purchasing anything online for a while, went with some simple vintage blue buttons I found at the local collectables shop. Still not boring, though. Too comfy to be boring.

So, I'm basically living in flannel these days. My mom sent out her annual winter care package that consisted of flannel pajamas for everyone; one pair for me, two for Craig and, hmmm, about twenty for Edie. Since no one works out of the house anymore, we pretty much don't leave and just spend the day changing in and out of all our plushy ensembles.

A mushroom found on the ranch. A Horniman mushroom. Visiting the land we plan on building on next spring has us giddy. At least as close to giddy as Craig can get. The little house we are living in now is sufficing but so many design errors are driving us nuts but we're just trying to remember to just take notes and that this is a temporary situation.

Until then, let's make a snow angel, since we're sporting our new snowsuit.

Here's first snowman.

No, let's make that a snowlady. Complete with tatas.

Happy dreams of spring!

Boo!

This post was suppose to have gone up the day after Halloween but I've been having problems with Typepad. On that particular post (that I have saved as a draft but now it's flung itself into the mighty waters of the cybersea) I was getting kinda sappy about how nice it was to take a break from blogging to get all productive in my real life and everything but the act of writing a post once again made me realize how much I missed this luxurious exercise. And of course, Typepad crashes for three days.

Also, on this now legendary post, I told the story on how Craig and I first encountered each other at this Halloween party and how that explains...

THIS! Craig's 2006 sweater. It's still drying and Craig's still trying -to decide what he thinks of it I think.  The meet-up story was pretty much I was drunk, and he was on...

THIS planet. Needless to say, one of us passed out after five minutes of yada yada and the other one had to listen to one of us snore until six in the morning. But, true love persevered and he had me cough up rent money two months later cuz I was in his face (and tiny apartment) ever since.

The story was more eloquently written up in the original post but life has it so reflection is never experienced the same way twice.

My good friend and her whole family (that includes three little kids) were in a rollover accident last night (Noah's, Edie's boyfriend, family) off this embankment close to where they live that I'm very familiar with. When she called me last night right after this happened I knew instantly the spot she was talking about because it has freaked me out over the years every time I drove by. Everyone's okay, thank God, but their new car is a total write off.

We had long talk this morning going over every detail of that ride and aftermath that I almost feel in a way I was in the car  with them. She kept repeating  in her recount how it was the luckiest day of her life. The moment that made me suck my breath in though was when she opened her eyes after the rolling finally stopped and was able to look back to see all the windows smashed in but her three babies, safely protected by their guardian angels, scratch free. Considering she could be in a hospital today instead of snuggling with the whole family in their cozy little basement suite has changed her reflection on her day to day nuisances. I thanked her for sharing her luck with me. Stay safe everybody, drive slow in this crazy weather and be grateful.