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!

TODAY

its been a million years. i wouldn't even know where to start to do the catch-up since I wrote last in, hmm, yes, JANUARY. let's just start at today. today seems manageable and full of promise. here's the morning garden harvest and supplies for the tin can succulent garden demo the Spare Room Project is doing at the Commonwealth Club tonight in conjunction with their "What's "the economy" for anyway?" panel.



let's leave it at that, i'm out of practice and don't want to pull a muscle or anything. i wish you a lovely monday, and bid you adieu.

scrappy recycled shirt quilt

this past summer (as in may (as in about 9 months ago)), i started my first quilt that i intended to see all the way through all by myself. or mostly by myself at least, it's true that my mom (who is a top notch quilter that has been known for such feats as piecing (PIECING!) several species of multi colored birds, wings and all, and has been known to do such outrageous quilting endeavors as quilting the four seasons into a baby quilt which was pieced in the ever creative "squares" pattern by yours truly. yes, i have a lot to live up to) helped me start the cutting while we hung out with the fam at the jersey shore, but everything else i managed to scrape together, slowly but surely, on my own.

the whole thing is made up of 12 of my dad's and my men's dress shirts, buttons and all!, 3 thrift store pillow cases, 1 thrift store sheet, and some unbleached cotton batting. aside from the batting, which I bought new, but on sale at the discount fabric store because it was a closeout special, I think I spent about $5 on fabric. It might have taken a while, but it was dang cheap, and turned out not too shabby, if i do say so myself!

oh vacation, i miss you already.

i've been back from vacation for over a week now, but considering i spent the majority of that week with the blankets pulled up over my snotty, fevery, flu riddled head, i'm just now getting back into the swing of things. and while i'm quite happy to welcome a whole new year, i wouldn't be giving due diligence to the end of this past lovely year without a quick nod to my good friend, vacation. i know i checked in from South Carolina (you remember, the week before xmas that i spent in a t-shirt and shorts at the beach?), and on from there I hopped the train up to Virginia to visit my bro, sis-in-law, and most lovely little potato niece. We hung out a few days, cooked, ate, slept in, watched bad movies, blew bubbles, and danced with the robot frosty-the-snowman. Then we piled in the car and headed up to my folks place in Delaware, for some more rest, cookies, wine, crazy dog, naps on the couch, knitting, more bad movies, good china, and time with friends and family. oh, and what trip wouldn't be complete with a little local seed saving and plant dividing? all the last minute 2008 catch up follows... i got good feelings for this new year and am so happy to share 2009 with you all! yipee!

train sunset


mini tree hug!


suburban homesteading


don't sweat my stellar friendship bracelets (thanks kristy!)


such patience


yay!