Thursday thoughts

in which our plucky heroine practices resilience...

I've been doing what I can to build structure into my solitary days, and one new thing is "teatime"... I know it is traditional, but I'm finding that taking an afternoon break, and purposefully not going online, but paying attention to my cup of hibiscus tea and the little toasted piece of banana bread, is like a tiny meditation. I notice the tart taste of the tea, the sweet scent of the cake, and the different textures as I eat and drink. I listen to either the music playing on the tune machine (or right now the hum of the food dehydrator in the kitchen). I look out the window at the wind in the front yard trees, and the still-there forsythia blossoms. The world is still here, and I am still in the bright world.

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Concerned that I had heard nothing in over a week, I phoned today about the seeds to grow microgreens I'd ordered over a week ago. The seed house is swamped, and has prioritised their orders to wholesale farmers/growers. My order has been transfered to the warehouse at this point, and will likely be filled soon. Once I get an email with a tracking number, it will take another week to get here. The clerk on the phone was terribly grateful that I was calm and appreciative instead of annoyed/angry. So, I'm going to peruse last years seeds and see what I have that can start now in the salad table.
(edited: I then just found an new email telling me that my order has shipped, and should arrive on Monday or Tuesday!?! We shall see. In the meantime, I will have a looksee around the house for suitable objects to use as growing trays in the future)

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This is what the gift of five pounds of oyster mushrooms that arrived on my front porch night-before-last looks like! Some will be part of the meals for the next few days, some will be chopped, cooked in butter and frozen, and some will be sliced and dehydrated for long term pantry storage

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look at that gorgeous cluster of mushrooms! They are then sliced 1/4" thick and ready to be dried... it took a while, a bit more than a half day, (but much less time than persimmons)

Look at that treasure! There will be soups and stir fries and all kinds of flavorful delights in the future! Thank you again to those kindly and generous folks that made this possible!!

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How to make a mask without sewing: using an 18" square of fabric, and two hair ties... it should be also possible to substitute cut pieces of stretchy fabric, such as from tee shirts, tied into suitable circles, for the hair ties, since not everyone has them. I am sewing a somewhat different mask that was requested by a local clinic. It is sort of fussy to get everything lined up, but is pretty nicely shaped when done. Once I run out of my supply of pipe cleaners and twist ties, I will have to think of something else

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beauty in the time of isolation:
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around the neighborhood, there are also a few of what I call "poetry dispensers"... most are fairly simple boxes mounted on a post, but this one is particularly sculptural, and also gives the option of taking a copy of the poem along with you to keep. In better times, I would have availed myself of that option...

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April SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	dried mushrooms	x	-
2	frozen mushrooms	x	-
3	x	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - Last year my friends Sam and Bob gave me their old food dehydrator. It has proved it's worth repeatedly, and I am very grateful to have it. The dried mushrooms will add savor to a number of future meals, and none of my mushroom windfall will go to waste

warm soup on a chilly night

in which our plucky heroine watches the numbers change...

The recent changes in my eating patterns as a result of the combination of periodontal surgery and pandemic seclusion are interesting. I am being Very Careful to not waste any food out of boredom or carelessness.  In the past I might choose to eat a greater variety, and sometimes foods got lost in the fridge,  but now instead choosing to simply repeat meals of things that get opened, so that I am sure to get all the value. There will be no trips from Acorn Cottage out to the shops for weeks, maybe months. I am also eating very small amounts at one time (because eating is still really hard work) if more frequently. As a consequence, I have lost almost nine pounds this month, and my blood chemistry is extraordinarily good. If I can continue this trend, in a healthy way, I may be able to wean off of two of my three medications, which has been a long term goal of mine for years. It would be ironic if the pandemic conditions actually brought about a positive health result for our plucky heroine!

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beauty in the time of isolation...

Virginia creeper just starting to sprout. The anchors that hold it to the wall make a delicate tracery. While my own anchors feel just as delicate and fragile, I am remembering that they are strong even when hidden.

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food in the time of isolation...

today I tried a new soup off the pantry shelf "Tom Kha Broth". I had acquired a few jars for my earthquake pantry a while back, when they did a new product tasting at my local NS. While I am sure it is best used as intended with chunks of chicken, mushrooms, and assorted garnishes, I was just delighted to have something with an entirely different flavor profile that I can ingest while my mouth is still healing. I did add some of the mashed up spinach to the heated up soup, for additional nutrition.

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	candied pomelo peel	back corner fence	yard waste bin
2	blood orange marmalade	pantry reorganised	recycle bin
3	cara cara marmalade	corned beef in freezer	-
4	three drawings	repair dainty bag	-
5	x	fruit tree pruning	x
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - I just love Wikipedia! I like to think of the internet as the reference library that never sleeps, and use it often in just that fashion. But then even as a child I loved the reference and non-fiction parts of the library just as much if not more than the stories

Friday fragments

in which our plucky heroine notices a change...

In the interest of helping my chronically injured ankles and knees to heal, with careful movement, PT, ice, and topical medication; I have also been paying good attention to shifting what I eat. This morning the number on my bathroom scale was under 200#, which I've not see the like of in well more than eight years, and I met my year goal! Really surprised me...

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Went up to Seattle on the train, for Christmas and Boxing Day visit with old friends, and also made a new friend. Ate modest amounts of delightful holiday food including roast goose and eggnog cheesecake, saw the new Mary Poppins movie, and had sushi dinner with crispy calamari afterwards. My own home cooking feels rather mundane after that. M very kindly massaged my calves where the Cranky Tendon inserts into my leg, opposite the inflamed bit. The massage seemed to help, maybe particularly combined with the CBD salve that was my birthday gift. I love M dearly and wish he and I could see each other a little more often.

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Started cutting out clothing for SWAP 2019. Looking in the fabric resource shelves for additional options, as I would like to add in one or two of my loose cropped leggings, but those must needs be made from knit fabrics.

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So far, using the bullet journal has been helpful, as I have been writing down one or two tasks that need to happen, and then actually doing them that day. Hopeful this will continue and expand. Splurged and acquired a few colored pens to use, just for fun... don't intend to take it up as a new hobby (because goodness knows I already have plenty of hobbies) but rather to help increase my reliability and timeliness.

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December SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	brown linen blouse	GM enamel	extra tartlets**
2	jingle bell	brown blouse cuffs	bag of fabric scraps
3	indigo batik dress	enamel reset	low hanging branches
4	miyazaki stamps	x	yard waste bin
5	Laurel stamp	x	bag to Goodwill
6	much Awesome Sauce	x	-
7	5 jars mandarin oranges	x	-
8	scissors sheath	x	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	-

Change your language, change the world...

In which our plucky heroine remembers that all of us together are smarter than all of us one at a time...

My friend Sarah wrote this short essay, and said it so much more clearly than I could have.

They them their

Say it, do the mental sit ups, put in the time, join the future.

I’m 42, my brain is no spring chicken, it has been marinating in this toxic blue vs pink culture for FOUR DECADES. Do you know how many times I have heard / said blue and pink pronouns? Do you know how much I LOVE words and language? Yes - a million “out of bounds / that’s a plural” buzzers go off in my head when practicing this new (to me) form of sentence structure. It’s hard work, just like all of the learning/unlearning I have done my whole life and just as important.

Writing with they pronouns helps because my brain is working on it and when I mess up I can delete the sentence and try again. If nothing else this exercise helps reveal just how gendered and categorized our language is. I am building a new space in my head linguistically, and the reason this starts to work is because I am not translating “he” or “she” into “they” I am learning to talk about them and the blue and pink pronouns are not present. I am SEEING the person for who they are, I am seeing THEM.

So here’s the thing. This upcoming generation is very awake. THEY have been raised at the endgame of our house of cards culture. THEY are rejecting the cancers built into the system with bravery and under constant fire (both literal and figurative) THEY are trying to move us forward. How can we truly start to see outside of the patriarchal mess we have buried ourselves in if we don't start pointing at it's foundations? At it's language?

Meanwhile pink vs blue culture is NOT man and woman united, it is man vs woman. It is gender reveal parties and STRICT rules around guarded boundaries. It is the binary war. Democrats vs Republicans, cats vs dogs, good vs evil - we are one species, we are not at war. Gender fluid and non binary folks are not trying to fuck with you, they are trying to live outside of this ridiculous monstrosity. The knee jerk reactions are your own.

It is time to decide for all of us (regardless of how long things have been the way they have been) if we are really so afraid to look at ourselves. Is the effort that it takes to treat someone else as a human being really just too much?

No one is asking you to change your pronouns, they are asking you to respect theirs.

Language is fluid and it changes, it always has and it always will. The question is are you willing to evolve with it? Are you willing to tap into your empathy and humanity instead of into your programming and it's infinite defenses?

bits and pieces

in which our plucky heroine reflects on progress accomplished and needed...


The details of shading and whitework on the tiny heart shaped leaves, along the top edge of the fourth charter painting of the year.


The charter as a whole... This was a new style for me to paint, and I am rather charmed with the design, which feels very lighthearted somehow. My friend Marya created the master design, and did a good job of interpreting it for scroll painting, and unlike the last one, was fairly quick to complete.

Am rather pleased with the improvements in my shading and highlighting, and my first attempt to paint acanthus leaves. One of my future goals is to look at a number of manuscripts and figure out ways that they used to shade and color acanthus, and do some samples, so as to have several possible ways to use, for variety and depending on the particular historical style

It may be time to start a sort of Scribal Notebook, with a record of various things like diapering patterns for fillers, line end art possibilities, and ways of using gouache paint to create dimensional effects appropriate to the world of the Middle Ages....

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I've been working on finding kaizen changes I can make in what and how I eat, with the intention of shifting the ever gradually rising number on the scale, which is reflected in the ever increasing pain and difficulty in moving the meatsuit in time and space. Since I began this project, I have moved that number down fifteen pounds.

First by deciding to not drink milk as my beverage of choice on a constant basis. I realise that this sounds odd, but for me, milk has been, along with water, (and formerly but no longer fruit juice), the only beverage I like to drink. Changing from that to water has made a small but noticeable difference.

My next change was to have at least half my breakfasts consist of cottage cheese with cooked veg, instead of fruit and chopped nuts and a double spoonful of rolled oats, topped with milk. My ongoing goal is to find more ways to shift the balance of what I eat to have more vegetable content, since I am never going to stop being an omnivore. (I was vegetarian for a number of years back in my thirties, and I was sick All The Time... it works for some people but not for others) That breakfast change shifted the numbers a little more.

No one would ever think to look at me that I had lost even an ounce, I don't know how much it would take for me to look any different at all. But if my legs hurt just a little bit less, that will make it worth all the efforts. These sorts of changes will take months, maybe years, to make a difference, and I have no intention of turning this into a slimming blog, but I figure that if I remember to write down things from time to time, it will help me notice how I am doing.

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SWAP 2018 sewing progress report: I still have a LOT of sewing left to do in the next two months, if I intend to actually complete SWAP in the allotted time. While taking all the time to make the Alabama Chanin style cardigan may not have been the most sensible use of the first two months of the years sewing time, it makes me Very Happy. I do have two of the remaining seven items already cut out and ready to sew, which will help.

1. black randomwale corduroy pinafore
2. black DWR rain poncho
3. black top or leggings
4. indigo dark denim pinafore (already made, from SWAP 2017)
5. indigo pinstripe top
6. indigo rayon popover (cut out and ready to sew)
7. brown knit top (can use RTW Uniqlo turtleneck)
8. brown/indigo plaid pinafore (cut out and ready to sew)
9. floral print cotton blouse
10. brown/black flannel top
11. Alabama Chanin style cotton jersey cardigan

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February SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	Slavic scroll blank	deck broken down	cracked water barrel
2	another A/C sleeve	dwarf pine planted	bag to Goodwill
3	grapefruit marmalade	bathrobe patched	landscape cloth
4	Seville marmalade	croquis revamp	yard waste bin
5	new garden bed	7 jars applesauce	recycle glass
6	blood orange marmalade	x	x
7	17 dishcloths	x	x
8	finished A/C cardigan	x	x
9	red deer enamel	x	x
10	Romanesque charter	x	x
11	AoA charter	x	x
12	blue wool mitts	x	x
13	acanthus charter	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

Fewer loose ends...

in which our plucky heroine considers the future...

My thoughts this year are to first of all find ways to build in ongoing referral to my year goals. I seem to be able to make things, to fix things and even to let go of things, but those activities do not necessarily get me closer to my overall life goals. As I continue to use the SMART goal logging format, which has served me well for several years now, I am going to also check in at the end of each month as to what progress I have made towards improving my life and the world around me...

I have in the past examined how my life is going in an eightfold direction, in an attempt to create more balance.
Last year I chose what seemed to me to be fairly modest goals of improvement. Despite that, I accomplished only a very very few of them. I did make progress on my wardrobe sewing, and am closer to my goal of enough clothing to allow me to do laundry once a week, and that I only need to sew replacements as things wear out (which they do if you have a small wardrobe).

And I did make significant progress on my decluttering, now in the 4th year of effort. My house is finally becoming less visibly cluttered. I am now wanting to start digging into the "inner clutter", the things inside cupboards, and on shelves, what my coach calls Level 2, the things that are not visible, but also not needed or used or loved. I am going to continue my efforts, continue logging my progress and look forward to what a difference it will continue to make. Every time I can easily find what I need, the effort of the last several years seems worthwhile.

But rather than go over all that I didn't manage to do in 2017, I intend to focus on what I hope to do in 2018 -

• finish loose ends -there are an assortment of projects here, that I have promised others I would complete, and for various reasons the projects have languished unfinished. This is going to change, starting on January 1. I am going to finish all the outstanding commitments, working steadily every day. which will clear my head, make me feel more confident, and incidentally make friends and family a lot happier with me

• compliments instead of complaints -  I think that one of my worst habits is complaining. It is a useless and annoying behavior. I do this in stores, when I am annoyed by things. I always apologise to the cashier, but then I do it again the next time. Only about stupid things that the poor cashier can't do anything about. It isn't their fault that the gorram transit system changed over to a crazy paid card system instead of sensible monthly passes, which so annoys me each time I have to go "reload" my transit pass. And there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the situation. So, my plan is to employ several strategies to remember to not complain, and instead to use my interactions to increase the general good by positive comments instead.

• water instead of milk - I am not going to give up dairy; my breakfast museli will still be oats and fruit and nuts and milk, but at other times when I would normally drink milk as a beverage, I am going to drink water instead. My hope is that this change will help with my goal of a lighter and more nimble self by the end of 2018, with hopefully less pain and an increased ability to move about in the world.
  

• food log - my intention is to simply write down what I am going to eat, before I eat it. Hopefully this will encourage me to notice when I am eating, and notice what I am eating, and make good choices about said food inputs. My goal is to get my weight lower than it has been; I would like to be on the other side of 200, where I have not been since prior to my surgery almost six years ago. Now that I have a phone with a brain, I can use the note taking function to do this, and not also have to carry an additional notebook

• sewing goals -  I am going to complete SWAP 2018, and possibly some seasonal 6PAC sewing challenges. This will bring me up to almost all my desired garments. I need one or two more pinafores, four more popovers, four or five more cropped leggings, some rainwear, and possibly some slips/underdresses. I also will work out at least one or maybe two new TNT blouse patterns, and make a nice assortment of woven blouses, using the fabric on hand.

• teach more often - Ideally I can offer to teach something at least once a month, if I don't offer, students will not just magically appear on my doorstep.

• revamp website - I just need to begin this. Instead of talking about it. Figure out what the individual parts of the project are, and make time each month to move forward
  
• housey-improvements - improve the chook habitat, including a new chicken house. Add another raised bed to the yard. Clear out the carport so it can be used as an outdoor room for workshops etc. Paint at least one room inside the house.
  

• self-improvement - continue with exercise and acupuncture, to increase mobility and strength. Take time during the year to make artwork, both for personal enjoyment, and make at least three original charters in service to/for SCA. Attend the Creative Metal Arts Guild meetings every month.
  

that is probably more than enough to get underway...

read the small print...

in which our plucky heroine discovers that she had been doing it wrong all along...

For some reason, yesterday morning while taking my tiny thyroid pill, I looked at the bottle and saw that there was a new tiny warning label, along with the "take with plenty of water": it said "do not eat anything containing iron or calcium afterwards" along with the "wait an hour before eating". I checked with the pharmacy and yes, that means not just vitamins, but any dairy product at all! This is not good news... makes this dairy-based life form less than thrilled. My usual breakfasts run to things like fruit and yoghurt, or stir fried veggies with cottage cheese, or crustless quiche, so have apparently been sabotaging medicine all along...

On the suggestion of several folks and based on two different medical studies, am going to try taking the thyroid at bedtime instead of on awakening; this might solve a whole slew of issues, most particularly the not eating for an hour after getting up one, which I have HATED ever since starting on thyroid years ago. For most of my adult life, eating breakfast was how I started my morning, preparing food was part of the gradual wake up process and eating it woke me all the way up (girl is not a caffeine-based life form, for me coffee or tea are strong drugs used as needed when I am willing to deal with the side effects). Giving up a morning routine that worked well for one that has me wandering around in a daze for an hour has remained an ongoing challenge.

If, instead, I simply trade off having the occasional bedtime snack for getting my functional morning routine back again, that seems worth the trial... (after all, the gorram stuff can't work any less well than it does already - still have all the symptoms I had to begin with, despite "your numbers look normal") and supposedly the active ingredient is more thoroughly absorbed when ingested before sleeping, so there might be a Useful Improvement.

Eating the frog and other soggy delights

Decided yesterday evening that today would be time to eat the frog and do all the pages of arithmetic that my various federal and state and city tax forms require. (no idea why I put this off every year, it really isn't that horrible)  My 2013 taxes are all done; all that remains is another trip to the copy shop. I think I have a little froggish indigestion now, after hours with the calculator. But Yay! for completing a major procrastinatory item on my to do list, and double Yay!! for having managed enough money saved up to pay all the different taxes owed. I watched the rest of Bravest Warriors cartoons as a reward.

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Had what might be a very productive session with my counselor this morning. Managed to stay focused on the area I have the most difficulty with; not sure where we can go from here, but I am determined not to let myself sidetrack myself with other, albeit also needful issues.

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Managed to figure out that the reason my front porch and walkway were full of water was that the gutter was not draining. Clambered up on the stepladder (safely, on the porch) and reached around and up where I could and removed a lot of mucky debris. Also used a handy stick to dislodge more. Got the downspout cleared and voila, water going where it should instead of where it shouldn't. Then took apart the lower downspout to rescue stick, which fell from my cold mucky fingers down the tube, and couldn't be left there to create a new interior clog.

Now I am cold and wet and filthy. Time for a wash-up, dinner, and then making a fair copy of tax forms for tomorrow... Never a dull moment here at the Acorn Cottage house of fun

monday musings

June weather in September, a cool grey morning to offset the mid eighties this afternoon (and the mid nineties forecast for later this week) so going out for a bike ride before breakfast seemed a treat. It turns out that it only takes about fifteen minutes to ride over to the Columbia Pool, so my idle thought about trying water exercise might be possible... I shall have to go and try out a sample class sometime soon, and if it seems doable, apply for a scholarship and make it part of my ongoing health efforts. Truly, the way to change your life is to do things differently. So far, my bootstrapping has been focused on choosing something positive to do in the interval between my upon awakening medicine and my one hour later breakfast medicine. Instead of leaping online and getting distracted, my choices are to either go work on a project, or go do some physical activity. I need variety, so having one specific thing doesn't work for me, but if there is a menu of positive choices, girl is less likely to dig heels in and say no. (sometimes it seems like I spend an awful lot of time finding ways to work with my inner toddler)

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Am feeling the urge to try pickling all sorts of things, the limiting factor being the fact that my fridge is bitsy, and needs to hold other things in addition to jars of lacto-fermented goodness. But wouldn't pickled carrots be a treat, and what about the idea of cauliflower florets brining in a jar with a small red beet, to yield potentially magenta proto-pickles...

 
image from "No Place Like Kitchen"

Whilst out on my bikeride this morning, had a new idea about the future chicken options. Boy howdy do I miss having hens, not only the eggses, but the structure to my day, and the additional life in the homeplace... anyway, the idea was that rather than be all sadface about currently limited resources, I could create a portable modular chunnel, that it needn't actually surround the entire yard, but could be attached to the fencing and move around the edges in rotation. That would mean I could probably use what I have, instead of purchasing a lot of new (spendy) materials. Plus, it means a "design challenge", and is a new example of thinking outside my assumptions