While Tangerine Dreams

Lurking Lurkey

The pain has finally eased enough after Miss Kitty!'s passing that we have been able to move on to accept another furry/feathery friend into the family. Meat  Meet the newest member of our clan, Lurkey. He comes up our driveway everyday around noon looking for snacks. I missed a prime photo op went Lurkey started getting all cocky and jumped up onto the back deck railing, right in front of the window I look out of while doing dishes. I yelled and clapped him down but he took his sweet time doing so. He's a super domesticated, wild Turkey. He's so complex.

OK, I confess. I'm the snack giver. I can't help it. His sad little red turkey jowels hanging so droopy and pathetic. I give him leftover bread stubs. Craigy tells me not to because of his cockiness and he might pounce on Edie to pounce out a piece of stub out of her. Until then, they're the best of friends (see  them above playing tag/peck together?) and he's the superstar of all her bedtime stories.

Non Violent Contentment

Had a family trip out to town last week for last minute conspiring with the architect. We are bracing ourselves for the massive endeavor ahead. Building a house? Oh my gawd! That's like being really, really pregnant (I'm not by the way). So many friends of ours living out here are going through the same trip; small kids, house building, family planning, property managing. The house building bit can be incredibly stressful I have been both observing and warned.

The outcome of the stress, obviously, is its toll on a marriage and home life. I guess one advantage we have in our favour is that we're fortunate enough to be living close to the site in a pretty comfy, albeit really teensy, house we "own" as oppose to house sitting from place to place or living in a trailer or auxilary building on our land. But still, we are going to need all the help and awareness we can muster to ensure that we go through this together as a family holding hands and come out of it hugging as a dynamic trio (or quatro perhaps? No, I'm not pregnant, but you never now what the journey will hold).

So it's good timing that Craig and I were able to get into this ten week workshop to learn Non Violent Communication. Oh my gawd. Even after the first session our relationship has vastly improved and our verbal encounters have been so much more efficient (Craigy doesn't say much so you have to be all ears when he utters - utter wise, you missed out) and pleasant. Yay! So, having this skill, at least awareness, in our tool box, we're sure to come out of this journey solid, skipping around the Horniman holding hands, singing la, la, la, making observers wanna puke from the sugary sweetness of it all and beholding our dream home. Oh yeah, and I'll have a haircut finally.

Un Petite Coat

Now that "Ace" is in my life (my new laptop), I am able to squeeze in some regular posting time. But, of course there are some tweaks to tweak. My email's still not working and I want my photo editor I'm use to back!

So, now that that's off my chest, here is a little something I tried making for Edie. A felted petitcoat that probably would have fit her a year ago. I'm so learning from my mistakes each time I try to wet felt something here (I attempted your slipper this weekend Sulu, and, yeah, I asked Craig to try them on, and they almost fit him!). So, what I might do is set up a second Etsy shop up with things like this and some cool finds from around this mystical place. I'll keep you posted.

Un Petit Coat. A little coat. I'm on this French kick these days. I watched Marie Antoinette when Craig was out of town last week. Mon Dieu, I loved the movie. Very girly girly (fille, fille?) I'm talking of course of the recent flick directed by Sofia Coppolla. The movie was filmed on location in and around Versaille and the eye candy, the eighties soundtrack, the history lesson. I liked it so much I actually spent some precious online time reading up on whatever happened to Miss Antoinette. Poor thing lost her pretty little head, let's just leave it at that.

Speaking of this mystical place that's one of my favorite hang out spots on the ranch across the forest you can see our building site if you squint your eyes like this. Speaking of mystical yet again; So I'm on this french kick and I'm driving down this rural road just off of the main drag and I see this white tent, like the kind you see at weddings, with a sign that read "Creperier" (excuse my French if I mispelled that). You know, I'm going to have to devote a whole post to this guy (pronounced gee) with pictures and all. The whole experience was just too trippy. Let's just say I walked into gay Paris for about half hour then zapped back into the Valley like nothing ever happened. The guy running it was from Paris and had the wicked attitude and kept saying he's going to be opened 24/7 starting in May (right now he's only open from seven am to nine pm but he's going to start sleeping in a pup tent behind the wedding tent). And the crepes were to DIE for! Apparently its a four hundred year old family recipe. I love this place. I'll get some pics today if I can, it's too funny. C'est tres ha ha!

Fully Mobile

The hearts came down and the birdies went up in time for spring! I am hooked on making mobiles! I felt the birdies up while watching the newest Christopher Guest movie and Edie got to fondle her pixie dust into each one as I went along. So many crazy-looking birds around here! It's our first early spring living here and I feel like we've been transported to the middle of a tropical rainforest sometimes.  I had to move this mobile away from the window though because a friendly feathered fellow tried to come over and play with one of them and bonk; into the window. Poor little guy.

And this glass mobile was a creation of a local artist who has a strawbale sanctuary/bed and breakfast close to us. Her yard is her gallery. She has her art weaving in and out of numerous gardens and natural buildings. She's like "I won't be home. Just drop by and help yourself and leave the money under the rock by my door". Okay. She's so lovely. I love how the mirrors dapple light all over the trees and bushes. It's like catching glimpses of tiny pixies dropping by to say a brief hello. The piece is hanging out on our backdeck which hasn't been visited much since the super dump. In the summer we have almost all our meals out there. Listening to the toisty, moisty sounds of rainforest.

Booties Fit for a Fairy

Made some more booties. These ones are intended for a little fairy girl I know who just turned one. Kind of like how my friend Brenda use to describe her manicure jobs; good from far but far from good. Let's just say I took the photo from a flattering angle. One slipper's different from the other but I have  figured out now a technique to keep the pairs consistent.

I had an amazing St Patrick's Day weekend. Saturday morning, Craig and Edie went swimming again town while I hung out with my Threads Guild crew for a dye day. I'll have photos of that adventure to share tomorrow. I went with the intention of spring hues to make Edie her Spring 2007 knitwear collection (I want to make her the short-sleeve Duo anyway) but, again, it's like reggae creeps into my inner ear and I go home with Rasta inspired colours instead. Still very happy and cheery, mahn.

Today we visted where the fairies live; Faerie Meadow. Edie's favourite part of the Horniman Ranch. The photo was taken in November (damn camera batteries dying!) so imagine with 75% of the white stuff gone. I'd photoshop but time on this stoopid computer and napping upstairs is ticking.

We're set to start building May 1st so every minute we get to hang out on our property is like living in a dream sequence. So much fun was had today. Edie's boot got sucked up muck, she got to roll down a hill like a log (in a good way - she loved it) and Mama got to lay down on the spot of her future bedroom for a long time (which also happens to be under the crows interstate freeway in the sky). Batteries - recharged!

Build

First of all, thank you so much for all the comments last post. I hear ya. Edie is pretty darn tootin' cute if I do say so myself. Funny enough, she has the personality to match the cuteness factor. She melts hearts wherever she goes as you can imagine. At this moment she's being really funny trying to steal my attention away from the computer by playing me a ditty with a chopstick, breadpan and lyrics that go something like this; "Come what goes. Come what goes. Come what GOSES!"

So that image up there is of January on my calender. All last month I've been meaning to touch upon that page because it's pretty much the theme of the upcoming year for us. We have intention to start building in the spring. The beauty is our builder also happens to be our next door neighbour and he and his wife (and another knitting buddy of mine) are due baby number three in the spring  so he'll have a nice short commute to work and be close to home. This is also not to mention he is an incredibly gifted and kind person. Super nice guy.

So here is a model based on the priliminary plans we've come up with. What you see in front of you is our bedroom on the lower right of the picture, the living room to the left, in the front of both the living room and bedroom will be an outdoor terrace with grapevines growing overhead in the summer offering relief from the sun while I enjoy my morning sheep latte with grapes.

In the upper right of the photo will be Edie's room and next to that her play area and next to that (this is all upstairs) a temporary yoga room till we build possible a separate building for that business. What's not illustrated here is the walk-in basement where you, uh, walk-in, which will also house my space and Craig's office, laundry and storage. Ah! I'm so excited! Here too is the clay model. There have been many tweaks since these have been made but just to give you an idea.

Imagine this:

...here:

Ohhhh, yeahhhhh.

X-treme Weaners

It's still snowing. This is our first winter here and we are loving it! The beauty is that there's tonnes of snow but it's lacking that biting cold that is usually part of the winter wonderland deal back where we came from.

So Craig went snowboarding with two friends of ours this weekend. Hmmmm... how to tie this into knitting or crafting somehow... Harmony, with the red  board, is part of my knitting circle that hooks up Wednesday nights. Yes!

Had to share this picture Craig captured. Two birds were hanging out at the shrine devoted to a local who perished on the hill. People go there to collect and expand their thoughts throughout the day.

So, that's the X-treme section of my post, as for the weaner, this weekend was the beginning of our grand experiment. For those of you without children, you may want to catch up instead on some celebrity gossip. Baby talk is kind of like knitting talk. Unless you have it in your life, it's kind of boring to the point of painful.

So, we've been practicing an attachment parenting approach with Edie with much success. She really is the most secure, easy going, happy kid around. Nature versus nurture debates aside, I think the AP has contributed at least partially to this. The AP principles basically encompass co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, etc.

Don't mind the baby baby Edie pics. This experiment has made me a nostalgic pile of goo all weekend. Generally, attachment parenting advocates having your babe with you alot kinda like a baby kangaroo Joey in the pouch (still kind of embryo like until she is fully ready to leave "the womb"). So, until this weekend, the only way I've tried getting her asleep was by going to bed with her, nursing her down. It's never been an issue until lately with me missing my Mommy time (when I would usually post here) in the morning and figured we would like to have Craig try the honours of getting her to sleep for a change.

He did awesome, although Friday night she cried till 2:00 am, while I compressed into a fetal postition myself in the basement trying not to go upstairs, but Saturday night she was more cooperative - plus, I found out watching chickflix with the headphones on helps. Anyways, my point is I'll hopefully have more time to tend to my creative pursuits now that I have a couple of hours free in the evening. She's still her happy, silly self in the day so that's the barametor I'm using for analyizing the experiements success. All is good. Phew! Thanks for listening!

Horsies and Dollies

Look at this little guy. He's Iclandic. I think his name is Bjork.

These two sweet other-worldly beings are the newest additions to the family that Edie hangs with on Wednesday. These little horses are almost too cute to be for real. Like they just popped out of a Tolkien tale.

And look at this little gingerbread house they live in! The woman who watches Edie on Wednesday lives here with her two young daughters who she homeschools with a Waldorf approach. Her house is so peaceful and magical. I'm so blessed that Edie can hang here for a couple hours each week while I trek into town like a crazy woman rushing to get errands done. So oxymoronic.

This house is a strawbale and that's what we're going to build starting in the spring. The strawbale insulation adds such an etheral, Bjork-y cosiness to the dwelling. And look at the sweet little doll house peeping out of the oldest girl's bedroom window!

Knock, knock! It's been a running theme this week - dollhouses.  It was our special friend Ricardo's birthday on Monday (happy birthday, Your Majesty Mayor) and with full on production of clearing the room theatrics and sorcerer's hat, he pulled out his doll house for Edie.

Somebody was super blissed out but then hating Mama when she informed her it was time to go home.

It was nice to know that she's digging the minature digs because my mom actually kept mine from when I was a kid (thank you for not letting me hawk it for back to school clothes in grade nine!).

Face Plant

Because it's been like this...

...and this around here, I went snowboarding yesterday. This was my first time out since Craigy knocked me up almost three years ago and what an amazing day to dive back into it. The powder was deep but exhausting for this still living in La La land Mama.

Also, I had a nagging feeling I on the way out I forgot something crucial and on the third run I remembered what it was. Normally I like to wear a cut off sock to protect my left shin bone. This is especially needed on powdery days because of leaning back so much more on my back leg  and if I don't wear some fabric there the boot cuts into my shin bone and it kills, giving me a bruise and I just hurt myself falling in no time.

So, I remembered this just as I was approaching the chairlift again and as soon as the sentence was completed with that sultry "inside Kathy's head voice" - ah, shit, I forgot my sock - I did a wicked faceplant. Fortunately, as was the beauty of the day, tonnes of powder made it mildly funny, but I got an instant headache and called it a day.

So, you know, loving Apres Ski, I told my girlfriend Eden go have fun but I'm calling it a day, I tromped to the bar and ordered a pint of the local brew "Faceplant", and got busy knitting up my first pair of socks.

I got tipsy in about two sips and kept noticing I was drenching this beautiful, handpainted Socks that Rock yarn (called Terra Firma by the way. Not making that part up.) with the puddles of beer on the table (I'm a cheap date by the way). All the while, I kept bumping into people I haven't seen in years and there I am, knitting. Drunk. On two sips. Saying, "I"m so blissed out right now!". These will be my Faceplant socks.

What a Dump!

This is our backdeck last night after two days of non-stop snow. Craig spent the day snowboarding in heaven while Edie and I almost got stuck in the backyard building a new snowman.

Craig took these shots last night when he got home. He got to go snowboarding and today I get to sew - after this blogging of course which is just as much fun in my opinion.

Such a winter wonderland out here. What I love about it is the snow without the bitter cold that always seemed to accompany the fluffy stuff in Cowtown. I'm always okay as long as I don't get too cold. With all this dumpage looks like we have more tobagganing on the agenda. Edie's so cute. Everyday we see aspects of ourselves in her that we volley back and forth to each other. "She has your dance moves" . "She has your pout". "She has your twitchy bit before she falls asleep". One thing that she scored from me in a genetic sense is the coveted "apres ski" gene. As oppose to being in this position (which is alright - you just sit there for the most part):

THIS, is what we're talking about! Apres Ski, sounds like I Pray the Skiing bit is almost over so I can sit in the hatch back of the car and drink hot toddies and watch you guys attempt to kill yourselves by flying face first down the hill towards a parked car.

Yes, this is my daughter. No mix up in the living room happened there.