striped plates by leah rosenberg!

my friend leah, who may be one of the sweetest and most modest people in the whole world, is a painter and a cake maker (she made an unbelievable lemon curd layer cake for my 30th), and now a plate maker.  i just saw this over on apartment therapy and wanted to repost it, because leah is the best.  you can pick up her plates at the shadow shop on the 5th floor of SFMOMA.  also here's a bonus photo of leah hanging cookies on our chandelier as part of her solo show last year at the spare room project.

homemade soup

one of the things on my epic resolution list that i want to focus on is more actively cultivating my personal relationships, making the time to prioritize friends, staying better in touch with the folks i love that don't live around here, and considering and caring for the folks i love that are around here.

my friend chantal has been working really hard lately, like really hard, and I know that whenever I work that hard, it's only a matter of time before my body lets me know that it's time for a break.  in the language of getting sick.  usually the bedridden, exhausted, take-care-of-me sort of sick.  apparently chantal's body responds in a similar way because she's been super sick for a couple days, and i would normally cook for her, but i've been dogsitting gino across town.  so today i took the time to make some simple veggie soup, packed it up with some good herb bread and homemade kimchi (another cure-all!) and headed over to chantal's.

it was a simple, small gesture, but those are the things i want to keep on my mind.  nothing big or fancy or extravagant, just the things that say, hey, i'm thinking of you.

some new drawings

i've gotten so into gardening that i've kind-of lost my footing as an artist.  i'm trying to get it back, starting with some small, low pressure, no pre-conceived idea, drawings.  hoping to make another quilt again soon also.

shaking cream

it's 2011.  or rather it's almost february 2011.  i am thinking about taxes, about how i never finished my resolution list, about simplifying.  i may always be thinking about simplifying.  doing it is another story.

i think a lot about demarcations of time, and i make a lot of lists, so new years resolutions are pretty much habitual for me.  i was over at my friend grant's house for delicious xmas tamales and we got to talking about our resolutions.  grant is a numbers man, and likes to set only a few resolutions, ones that are easy to quantify, where the success or failure is clear.  i was out to dinner with my friend Finn, complaining about work and picking her brain about how to set better boundaries and we also got to talking about resolutions. she likes to set one resolution, one thing to be more conscious of, where the success is not a yes or no, but a more or less.  i tend to make epic resolution lists.  messy, difficult to remember, and lengthy.  i accept pretty low success rates because the lists are so long and ambiguous.

i want to streamline.  this is easier for me to say than to do.  i am a packrat if not a borderline hoarder, a workaholic, a jack of all trades, and my attention span is brief at best.  i start a lot of things i don't finish.  A LOT.  i am nervous, scattered, and i cannot sit still.  i just left one of my three jobs at the end of 2010, with the sincere goal to devote more energy to one of the other two jobs, and to redevelop a personal life.  to embrace down time, reconnect with friends, be a better pen pal, make things outside the garden and the computer.

i want to slow down.  to move with intention, to complete tasks and walk away from them.  i have gotten to a place where i work all the time because rather than doing something, finishing it, and leaving it behind, i will sit at the computer all day and do nothing half the time.  not nothing, i will agonize over the  fact that i am not getting anything done, but even knowing that will not motivate me to accomplish anything.  i want to remember that i love my work, not just tell myself that i love my work.

this morning i made my second small batch of raw milk butter.  i make this butter by pouring a quart of non-homogenized whole raw milk into a wide mouth mason jar, letting it settle in the fridge until the cream floats to the top, skimming the cream off with a spoon into a smaller mason jar, letting that sit on the counter for about 12 hours to ripen, then shaking the jar of cream for almost half an hour until a ball of butter forms inside a moat of buttermilk.  This morning i shook cream while i drank coffee and looked at design blogs.  i shook cream until my arms were sore, trading hands every few minutes to give my shoulders a rest.  i shook cream because i believe in ritual and process, and i know that everything good takes time.

it's these little acts that remind me to slow down, to step away, to remember that lauryn hill was so right, everything IS everything.  i want to keep this in mind this year and i want to delight in the wonder of this bizarre and serendipitous life that i am so fortunate to walk through.  and maybe i'll write about it every now and again.  or maybe not.  i guess we'll see.

I spoke too soon...

I was prematurely prepared to batten down the hatches when we had that one hard rain. It passed right on through and we've had indian summer, part deux all this week so far. No joke, I've worn shorts and a tank top the last three days. Take that, November!

As much as I was excited for the rain, its been quite lovely to get a little more sunshine, mid-day hikes up the hill, and a few more tomatoes!

winter nesting

i know i'm predictable. every year around this time I check back in here and give my usual diatribe about how much I adore the rainy season.

oh, the rain. ah, yes. we had our first hard rain this past week and it has set me full force into nesting mode. i'm coming to realize that i may not be much for spring cleaning, that when the summer is about to break, my mind has already wandered outdoors and is climbing a plum tree or pitching a tent by the river. but the winter makes me want to purge all my stuff, to clean house, to make room to hunker down, flick on my desk lamp, and work and make and do and think.

And right this second, it makes me want to can all the last bits of summer deliciousness and squirrel them away so that when the winter chill sets in and my bones are damp and I'm putting on another wool sweater, I can crack open a jar of summer salsa or bartlett pears, and dig in to that sweet summer fruit, rejuvenated and ready to pull my fingerless gloves back on and set back to work.

Produce to the People

This seems an appropriate time to breach the subject of what I've been up to in my gaping absence from this little account of my day to day.  I started a very small, very rough around the edges, non-profit that harvests backyard produce, works on community gardening projects, and creates green summer jobs for high school students.  

Produce to the People.  That's it.  It's been (and continues to be) a wholly amazing and wholly exhausting experience.  It's pushed my boundaries in all sorts of directions, and made me really check in with myself about what's important and what to let go.  I have met, worked with, and shared food with some of the most beautiful folks, hung out with some of the most brilliant and caring teenagers, and eaten some of the most delicious produce, grown within a 3 or 4 mile radius of my home.  I feel really lucky to be in this place right now, right here, and see where the road leads.

So right now, I can hardly believe it, but the road is taking me full circle to Produce to the People being featured on Studio Choo's "We like it Wild" section of Design Sponge.  It is surreal because I've been reading DS for years, since I was a materials librarian and much more deeply involved in the art and design world, and since my library cohort was the lovely Lia Thomas, who now works with Jill and Alethea of Studio Choo.  So serendipitous!    

A million thanks to Lia and Studio Choo and Design Sponge, and to all the readers who had such nice and generous comments. I'll be here, picking fruit, sewing seeds, making things, and thinking about stuff, so stay in touch!