Sewing Not Sewing

I got to sewing and found I needed to spend some sewing-time not sewing. I cleaned out a drawer.

Decided which projects I wanted to finish. I decided not this one. I like the deconstructed knot--it makes me finish the pattern in my mind. Who am I kidding? This pattern is hard and my eyesight is going. Finishing would blind me for sure.

And figured out a layout for blocks that Cyler's mom had done before she passed away. There's a baby coming on his side of the family. Maybe these amish inspired blocks would work for a baby.

Bad News

A Tennessee Walker stallion passed away this past weekend. The Feltners at Starland, his breeders, have operated their facilities here in Texas for almost 20years. Thirty acres. Coin Bad News was 28. He made good babies. 7 World Grand Champions--I am riding one of his grandbabies.

Here he is at 24. Dub called him "the old stud." Look at that slope in his shoulder. His blaze is one I have seen on other horses and I immediately know where they came from. I am learning the differences between being a rider, being an owner, being a trainer, and being a breeder. I am a rider. All are labors of love and require a certain amount of blood, sweat, tears, and money. Are horse people a dying breed? It takes so much labor and land to support an obsolete mode of transportation. But as a rider, I am so grateful for breeders and trainers. Twice a week they make it so I can feel excitement and freedom.

What happened to hippie gyspsy

She looks how I feel. Or how I felt this summer. Or how I want to feel: "There's a chair, I know. But I'd rather sit on the ground, splayed legs, hair in the eyes and drawing in the dirt with a stick.

We hit the school schedule and I'm going through withdrawals. Sleeping, eating--everything has been rearranged to look nothing like my hobo life this summer and it's been tough getting back into the zipped up-girdle-tightbun-necktie rat race.

I miss my kids when they are at school. There, I said it like a sappy mom with no life outside of her spawn. I know they are not on earth for my entertainment but I'm just saying.

But I haven't heard once this week that they are bored, they haven't fought over the TV--they're too tired to put up a fuss about curry lentil soup. They're pretty docile. I do like that. And I do like my new 9:15pm bedtime. After my first insomnia attack this past Monday, I think about my bed more during the day then I think about food-which says a lot.

Someday after I play this rat-race character all out, I will live in a place that looks like "Hip Pocket Theater."

And sit with this guy under a patio umbrella and listen to Joe Satriani, Janis Joplin, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Flannel feels good in 100 degrees

I paper pieced this quilt top many moons ago and finally had a reason to finish it. My visiting teacher (LDS lingo for a female assigned to you so that you don't go hungry, stark-raving mad, or without help for any reason) is having her first baby. Sadly her baby bump is not showing--she looks smashing.

I broke a sweat having a pile of flannel on my lap when it's 100+ degrees outside. I wonder if putting "I have finished quilt projects" on a resume is like saying you're an EagleScout--I may not have tons of experience but I know how to finish something. And it's true that I may not act like a quilter much but I have a tea-cozy, cat on the lap, geometry lovin' side- and 100% cotton prints are eye-candy and finger-candy! To know that a baby is going to use it is all the better.

At the babyshower tonight I thought of my own uterus (wherever she may be). I am no longer biologically productive. I love babies. I'm 41. I think about adoption all the time. For now, I will make quilts for others. I better start piecing another one together so it can be ready by 2020 considering how long this one took.

Aarti the friend I don't have but pretend to

I wish I had an indian friend like Aarti Paarti. She seems like she would teach me how to really cook indian food. She seems fun and nice and wouldn't look at me weird if I had this type of art in my kitchen.

I made one of her Food Network Desserts. Cococut-Lime Granita.

1/2C sugar

1 (13.5oz) can coconut milk (not low fat) <--another reason I like her

zest 1 lime

Juice 1/2 lime (I added more and I liked it limey)

2 TBSP shredded coconut (she says fresh or unsweetened--I used sweetened and I thought it was fine)

coarse sea salt

Put 8" square bake dish in freezer to chill.

Combine sugar, 1/2C water in small saucepan low heat till sugar dissolves and syrup is at gentle boil. Remove it from heat, and cool.

Pull chilled dish out of freezer and pour coconut milk in. Whisk smooth. Whisk in simple syrup, lime zest, lime juive and coconut till combined. Place dish in freezer, chill 1 hour.

Pull it out and fork to break up crystals around the edge of dish by dragging them into the more molten center. Return to freezer and repeat process every hour 2 more times. Takes 3 hours.

When ready to serve, allow to sit room temp 5 min. to soften a bit. Spoon in small bowl and top with a little coarse sea salt.

Thanks Aarti for leaving your expensive journalist education to teach me this dish. Call ya later.

Summer Brain

Ellery did a power point on the way home from vacation. I think she might need some refreshers before going back to school. Keep in mind each line is its own frame that creatively appears and disappears in a million graphic patterns and directions.

Random things you find in the world:

Gummi Bears

They come in all different colors

Parents say that they are not good for you. They are half wrong.

You can add healthy things to Gummi Bears and make them good for you.

Grass

Used in birds' nests

Of course it can be used differently like on roofs but I don't know how it survives the rain.

Toilets

You find them in the bathroom. This is how they work.

The handle to the left flushes the white bowl.

If you look inside there is this suction thingy that this chain pulls up to let the water in.

It does this to fertilize (I think) the water.

How do I know all this?

Iphone app "Escape the Bathroom 4"

Tevia, Woodland Park and Half-Baked Monks

The Garden of the Gods. I thought it was named because those sandstone formations look so out of place, the gods must have put them there. No. The name stuck when an enterprising young capitalist remarked that the area would be great for a biergarten fit for the gods. I love history-it makes way more sense.

We are back from Silverthorne, Colorado Springs, Woodland Park CO. Cyler tried to hide and stay in Woodland Park but I made him come home with me. Now he wants to move there. Doesn't he know that 80% of the residents are seasonal and that the rest are either ice-pick toting climbers with shark teeth on their boots, or neo-pagans who must live by a geyser to preserve their ritual powers?

Our neighbors were gracious hosts. We ate and slept well. I was kind of nervous about us all being there in a condo built for one family. I stressed about Soren not being patient with the 11yr old boy, about two families with different cultures, and both with Germanic matriarchs with control issues living under one roof. For 2 days I took the pill I use for performance anxiety--my doc and I discovered it helps me calm down and focus so I don't get so nervous eventhough I have never been diagnosed with ADD. (suprised? me too). But that with the thin air, I was yawning ALL THE TIME. I couldn't get a lung full up there at 8700ft above sea level. Not a pleasant signal to my hosts and not symoblic of what I was really feeling--joy. So one day I scrapped the med and tried a cup of coffee. NO YAWNING. I played Dungeons and Dragons with the kids and they had fun--my character is a female 6' redheaded human orphan named Bamki who grew up in a monastery (the kids call her Bam Ki-Ki referring to Bon QuiQui that that latina comedian does). She left before her training was over to have a "walk about." In the first hour of play my character lost half her hit points jumping off a roof and landing on her face. Reading over this, I am convinced I have ADD.

So here we are back home-both thinking we should maybe move somewhere else. Old news to our friends--I think of all the good things about living in St George. Then I am reminded of how confused my mom was that after 3 days I only had a red bra and a pink one with purple birds to wash in terms of underwear. I just kept quiet, not wanting to tell her that her 40-something, well-travelled daughter with a master's degree prefers to go commando. Overfamiliarity is probably the worst thing about living in UTAH. That and the dry air, no trees, state income tax and the little-bitty airport.

Woodland Park is a beautiful town. Half hour from a great airport, trees and mountains everywhere, clean air, property available close to schools/everything a SAHM needs, good horse culture. No one will question the lack of underwear in my laundry basket. The worst thing about it is again the dry air-and oh, the winters that last from November to April. A minor (MAJOR) issue for me. I can see Cyler there. He was born for a place like this. He apparently married a tropical amphibian who prefers to have moist warm skin all the time. What are we going to do? "A bird may love a fish, but where will they make a home together?" --Tevia from Fiddler on the Roof-- Since I am the one that needs moist skin, I guess I am the fish.

And so began our last-hours-of-the-drive-home arguement:

Husband: "We need to save $"

Wife (appalled): "Here is THE LIST (aka sad ways I justify my cushy SAHM existence) you can refer to in case you ever have the slightest inclination to suggest that I waste $":

• I use baking soda for shampoo sometimes
• I get GreatClips haircuts most of the time
• I cook at home most of the time
• I make my own home cleaning/spa products
• I groom my own dogs (a feat I tell you, a feat)
• I weed my own yard (a feat I tell you, a feat)
• I give Ellery piano and horseback riding lessons myself
• I don't get botox or cellulite treatments although I am in hellaciously desparate need of both
• I don't have a housekeeper (this one is truly sad, not faux-heroic like the others)

I went on to ask what more I could possibly do so that he can buy dirt in Woodland Park and make me live where I may develop a drinking problem or become a hermit against my will. Poor Cyler-I see that now I may have been defensive.