Elemental Stitches

A Step in the Right Direction

I am getting ready to leave but I had to write something about this..  Have you all heard about the September edition of Glamour Magazine?  There is a nude shot of a size 12 model with an article about appearing comfortable in one's own skin.  Here is the picture.

This is Lizzie Miller who is a "plus size" model and overnight sensation.  Look at that belly!  Looks normal!  I love it!  That could be my body!  Look at those thighs!  So NORMAL.  I think I even see stretch marks.  I am so happy to see a normal looking woman in a magazine.  I hate that most clothes are made for skinny people and that advertising is mostly for skinny people.  The average American is a size 14.  I have worked my ass off, literally, over the last 2 years to get from a 16 to a 12.  Most of the people I know wear a size 9/10 or larger.  It is so frustrating to buy a magazine and the only women depicted are a size 5.  They show me beautiful clothes on a tiny model.  How am I supposed to know if a dress will look good on my size 12 if I see it on a size 5? 

I have to get to bed!  I just wanted to pass on this little success of woman's self esteem.

Vacation To The Vineyard

We are leaving in the morning for the vineyard that Tom is working on.  I have missed him this last week and a half.  We are so excited to go play with the falcons and see the gorgeous valley that he is working in.  I promise to have lots of beautiful pictures when I return.  We wont be back until Sunday so see you next week!

Monsoon Season

The one thing I adore about the desert is the desert monsoons.  I LOVE them!  The sky is filled with electricity, the clouds rumble and crack with bolts of lightning, the smell of summer rain sweeps across the plains!  I sat outside in the middle of the yard soaking up each giant raindrop as they slowly started to splash around me in a steady sprinkle that lasted for about 30 minutes.  Then the sun peaked its head out and the clouds began to dissipate.  Before long it was as if nothing happened.

The Neverending Harry Potter Scarf

Remember yesterday when I said I like small simple projects?  Here is why. 

I have been working on this scarf very slowly for years.  I think I started it not long after the first Harry Potter movie came out.  Its only about 2 feet long right now.  I have given up on it ever being long enough for me to wear.  I have sworn to myself that it will be finished when the last Harry Potter movie comes out.  I am knitting with size 7 needles which was my first mistake.  I like small fast projects, I should have used larger yarn and larger needle.  Oh well, its the project I pull out when I need something mindless.  When I should be in bed but I still cant sleep.  Do you have projects like this?

Hanging Dishcloths

When I knit I like to knit small projects.  I am all over dishcloths, hats and scarves.  I really don't like projects that take a long time because I always forget where I am at in the pattern.  It would make sense for me to start writing more of this down, then I could refer back to it. 

We spent the night at grandma's house and I wanted something small and easy to keep my hands busy and my brain calm.  I looked for an easy pattern on Ravelry and found the classic dishcloth pattern. I love that this pattern is over a hundred years old.  Women have been making this pattern to clean their homes and bodies for generations.  I love that I am making some for my family.  The only color cotton yarn I could come across is this red and a pretty multicolored cotton.  My mom is a total rainbow child and loved it so she hung it up in her kitchen.  I want some blue and green cotton for my cloths.

I added the little hanger by knitting a tab with a hole.  Basically when you get the the last 4 stitches of the pattern do this:

K1, K2T, K1 (3 stitches)

Knit 2-3 rows

K1, YO, K2T

Knit 2 more rows and bind off

I am pretty sure that is correct.  I am a novice knitter so if you have any suggestions please add them in the comments!

Fall and Winter Garden Preparations

I spent the last two days at my moms house working on clearing brush and cutting firewood so the fire department doesn't write her a ticket.  It was nice to prepare for the winter season.  Even though it was 100 degrees F outside we were still thinking of when there will be freezing winds and rain.

I did get a chance to work on the garden for a short time.  I soaked the hard packed earth turned the soil with a shovel.  My mom had created small raised beds using black plastic and tires a couple years ago.  I am going to re-use some of the existing beds if they are still in good condition.  For the new beds I decided to use drawers from an old dresser that has been destroyed by the sun and we haven't thrown away yet.  The drawers are still in good condition.  I just kicked out the bottoms and put them down on the turned dirt.  Next week I am going to go get some compost from the garden center to fill them up.  I think I have time to grow more summer veggies but we are probably going to grow those up on our deck in pots.  That way they use much less water.  The water company recently tripled the price of water here and they plan on tripling it again next year.  My husband and I have been seriously considering settling permanently up north because of the price of water down here.  Water is our most important resource.  If we are already short on water and they are raising prices, its not going to get any better.  I never wanted to settle here anyway.  We are still looking seriously at Oregon.  Toms best friend just put an offer on a house there and my best friend just requested a job transfer to Oregon.  I love the woods and the rain.  I think we would be really happy there.  Anyway back to the garden.  Here is the front entrance.  Not much but it will get there.

This is the inside.  I cleared out a bunch of the bushes and trees before I took this photo.  Here is what I did today.

I am going to need to add some sand to this dirt before I use it.  It is 2 year old fallow compost that has baked in the sun.  It needs some water, some sand and maybe a little supplement compost from the garden center.  I am going to grow a bunch of leaf lettuces, different kinds of radishs and carrots, peas and chard!   Oh I cant wait!

10 Things You Didnt Know About Me plus a Rant About the Treatment of Soldiers by the US

1.  I have lived in Southern California my entire life.  The only time I lived outside my hometown was these past two years in Santa Cruz.

2.  My mom taught me to sew a button when I was about 13 and I took off with it.  I hand sewed a snake with embroidered eyes and patterning.  I didn't even know what embroidery was at that time.

3.  My grandfather was a photographer, my father was a photographer, two of my uncles are photographers and so is one of my cousins.  All on my dads side of the family.  I think it might be in my blood.

4.  I love to learn new things.  However this means that once I learn something I tend to move to the next new thing without mastering the previous skill.  If you have been following my blog you might have noticed this. 

5.  I hate horror movies.  HATE them.  Why would anyone want to have those horrible images running through their head all day? 

6.  Harry Potter rocks.  I wish I could live at Hogwarts.  Never boring there!

7.  When I was little I hated all seafood, olives, avocados, milk, cheese and I was allergic to strawberries.  Now I eat all of these things and love them.  Except milk, you will never find me drinking a tall glass of the stuff.  I still hate shrimp and lobster, go figure.  Thankfully I grew out of my strawberry allergy because they are one of my favorite treats.

8.  I have been to Los Angeles hundreds or a thousand times but I have never seen a celebrity on the street.  I met Jack Palance in Tehachapi, Ca where he lived until he died and Reggie Jackson at the Ontario airport.  My step father, Dave is a huge baseball fan and he practically kissed the guys feet.  I had never seen him so twitterpaited.  I was about 12 and had no idea who Reggie was until Dave explained later.

9.  I have always gotten along better with boys then girls.  I think in elementary school I decided that girls lie, back stab, cheat, and steal.  Boys were much more straightforward and didn't waste time gossiping about their friends.  This perception hasn't changed much.  I am still much more cautious around women then men.  My best friends in high school were two guys and two girls.  Years later the only friends from high school I still talk to on a regular basis are those guys. 

10.  I have to preface this one with this.  I am not arguing for or against the war in Iraq, just the treatment of the men and women who fight in it.

My best and oldest friend, John, yes one of those guys from high school, was killed in Baghdad, Iraq 2 years ago on St. Patrick's Day.  He had served in the Navy for 4 years and when he couldn't find a job after the military he re-enlisted in the Army as a medic.  He was killed by a roadside bomb less then a year into his term. 

My husband's best friend is in the Army currently.  He has been on 4 tours of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yes I said 4 and they wanted to send him back again.  He led part of the 82nd air born that took Saddam's palace in Baghdad and has pictures of the soldiers skinny dipping in Saddam's pool.  He has had dud mortar rounds crash land into his lunch tray, had his tank blown up, has had bombs explode right next to him and he was lucky enough not to be injured.  Thankfully he was finally brought back to the states when a tank rolled over his arm.  I am so glad he is back, but now he thinks he cant die.  He has done stupid and dangerous things because he is convinced that he is invincible.  Do you know that they "patched up" his arm, which has severe nerve damage and causes great pain, and tried to send him back to Iraq again.  He refused and after months of negotiations with the military and their crackhead psychiatric doctors they are going to give him a medical discharge... in 4 or 5 more months.

My other best friend from high school joined the Navy with John and served his 4 years.  He got one job which he kept for a few years.  After getting laid off and not finding another job he is seriously considering re enlisting again.  I am so afraid that he will re enlist!  I cant have another friend that's all messed up in the head or dead.

I guess my rant has a point.  Our soldiers are not being cared for.  They are being used as faceless killers and then they are brought back and let loose among normalcy without adequate phychiatric counseling or decontamination.  (The contaminant would be war in this case)  This makes them a danger to themselves and others. 

Another friend of mine is haunted by nightmares of killing the children, girls and boys, that terrorists were using as body shields and suicide bombers.  He tells me that it was he and his troop or them.  That same friend flipped out at a fourth of July party because the firecrackers someone shot off sounded like automatic machine gunfire.  These poor men and women have severe post traumatic stress disorder that is not being treated.

I could go on and on about what these soldiers have told me.  For example, you know how we were told that there were no "weapons of mass destruction".  Well one of my friends saw them himself and had to go through two weeks of decontamination after guarding them.  Did I mention that his son has severe birth defects and it is unlikely that he will live until adulthood.  He has spent more then half of his life in the hospital and has been on his deathbed twice.  One of those times the military refused to send his dad back to the states to say goodbye so his troop refused to follow any orders until he was sent home to his dying son.  A request that was eventually granted.  Can you guess where those birth defects came from?  So much for decontamination.  Or how about that almost all of my soldier friends who were married came back from war and were divorced within a year. 

Alright I will really stop now.  I do want to make one request.  Next time you see a soldier thank them for risking their lives to protect the US.  Even if you don't agree with the fighting, many of those men and women are there because they couldn't find a job anywhere else.  It is very likely that many of them will be homeless and on the streets like so many Vietnam veterans because they will not be able to reincorporate themselves into society.  The loss of their sanity is a sacrifice I am sure wasn't listed on their enlistment papers.  

Next time there is a guy with no legs wearing military fatigues sitting on the corner begging for change buy him a sandwitch or toss him a few bucks.  Who cares if he spends it on booze, you were just going to spend it at Starbucks anyway.  At least the booze takes away the pain he has every day.

Sale This Week!

Hi everyone! I am having a sale this week.

Spend $50 and get a free 5x7 print!

Sale ends Aug 21st, 2009

Shop Now!

A New Land, A New Garden

I told you the sunsets were beautiful!

This weekend was full of fall and winter garden preparations.  I took the camera out to get before and after photos but the battery was dead!  I will get pictures next time.  My mom had a successful garden for a couple of years but it became too much work for her and she abandoned it two years ago.  Now that I am back I am starting it back up again. 

This time I have plans for chickens and lots of other things that I wasn't able to grow in my little community garden plot at UCSC.  Hopefully next summer we will have rows of corn, giant pumpkins and lots of heirloom tomatoes and summer squash. Technically I could squeeze in a summer crop if I planted transplants sometime in the next week.  I might run out and get a tomato and zucchini.  I cant imaging going the whole summer without homegrown tomatoes.  I gave away my plants that I was growing in Santa Cruz.  My friends and neighbors gladly snatched them up. 

I have chopped down trees and raked brush all day, but we can at least walk through the garden now.  Our garden area is located in the lower half of the yard next to the half dead orchard.  My mom tells me that they almost tripled the price of water here over the summers and she cant afford to water all the trees.  We have decided to try and save what we can and replace the lost trees with drought resistant dwarf varieties. 

The garden area is fenced off to keep the dogs and other animals away from the veggies.  The tentative plan is to pop out the bottoms of old dresser drawers and use them as small raised beds.  The garden area is pretty big so I am only going to work on a quarter of it at a time.  The chickens are probably getting their own quarter and they will be able to wander among the veggie plants eating bugs and fertilizing the dirt. 

Here are a couple more sunset shots that I hope you like!

Have a beautiful week!

Desert Living

Honestly I never liked the desert.  It is dry, harsh, deadly.  But it also has its own beauty.  The sunsets are amazing, the landscape is awe inspiring, and there are so many old abandoned places to photograph.

I took some pictures of where we are staying for the next couple weeks.  It is so different from Santa Cruz.  In Santa Cruz the forest surrounds you on all sides, top and bottom.  Here in the Antelope Valley you can see 20 miles in any direction.  Its the difference between being claustrophobic and agoraphobic.  These little mountains are buttes.  They are an anomaly in our desert which is basically flat everywhere.  These beautiful rocks jut up out of the earth and were considered sacred by the Native Americans who lived here hundreds of years ago.

Brae loves to go feed the horses.  I used to love horses.  I dont know why I am not as obsessed about them now as I used to be.  Perhaps it is my allergies to hay and alfalfa, or maybe I lost some love when one threw me off his back and I couldn't walk for a week.  Most of our horses are retired except for one.  This stallion, Thunder, is four and will be trained by Tom once he gets his balls cut off.  That way he will be much calmer and more reliable.  While Tom was moving him into his new stall he kicked Tom in the jaw.  Luckily he was okay.  He thinks the horse knocked his jaw back where it is supposed to be.  Apparently he got punched when he was a teen and it messed up his jaw.  He is convinced it is fixed now.  Damn cowboys are always refusing to go to the doctor.  As aggressive as Thunder might have seemed that day he is really a sweet horse.  He just needs a little less testosterone, or a good romp in the hay with a pretty mare.

One of the coolest things about the Antelope Valley is the military aircraft.  Lockheed Martin Skunkworks and Boeing both build their planes here.

This is the Stealth Bomber which happened to fly overhead as I was taking pictures of the yard.  I haven't seen one of these flying around in a while.  I used to see them all the time.

Another of my favorite things about the desert is all of the old things lying around.  This was my favorite shot today.

Stay out of the heat everyone!