Spring is in the air and I can't help but buy flowers every time I leave the house.
The air is warm,
the bees are out,
the apple trees are budding
and I love leaving the doors and windows open during lunch.
We had such a mild winter I almost can't believe its really over.
The locals tell me to expect a lot more rain this Spring.
I hope its warm and gentle.
Hello, my name is Melissa and I am a recovering perfectionist. Being a perfectionist may not seem like such a bad thing at first. I mean, its helped me get good grades all through school and I excelled in the hobbies I had talent in. But, being a perfectionist has stolen lots of happy moments from my life.
As early as kindergarten I remember trying to make perfect letters and numbers on every page of homework. Erasing over and over until the paper was full of eraser holes and I was on the floor in a pile of tears and frustration. It takes me forever to pick the best dish to eat at a restaurant. Seriously, I cant just pick something that's going to be good, I HAVE compare each dish to the other, slowly going through a process of elimination to pick the perfect dish that I will absolutely love. This means I often give up and order the same things over and over and I always order last. Perfectionism kills my hobbies, because if I can't do it perfectly every time I get really disappointed and all my inspiration goes right out the window, often times I quit.
The thing is, perfectionism even takes the fun out of success because nothing is ever good enough. Everything has room for improvement. Worst of all the fear of doing badly will make me quit before I have even started.
Recently I have realized that my obsessive perfectionism was taking all the fun out of blogging. It takes me literally hours, sometimes days to get a post to the point where I think its good enough to publish. I edit and re-edit every post far more times then necessary. I over think every sentence. Its exhausting and seriously not fun anymore.
I hate this perfectionism. I want to get rid of it and find my love for blogging again, so over next few weeks I am going to try to post at least 2-3 times a week on this blog (and I am not going to worry if I miss one, because that would be perfectionistic, right!). I am not going to freak out if things aren't perfect. My pictures may not be portfolio worthy and I'm not going to win any awards with my writing, but hopefully I will find that inner joy that springs forth when I am documenting life around me.
I've been:
:Prepping the new garden
:Taking walks through the orchard
:Eating lots of frozen tomatoes from last summer
:Enjoying early spring asparagus
:Finishing little corners of my new home
:Finding all kinds of cool treasures outside
:Sewing new curtains for my little girl
:Writing a book list for the year
:Finished The Help and started Reading Lolita in Tehran
:Trying to finish this pair of socks so I can start a new hat. The pattern is my own cuff down version of the Diagonal Lace Socks from Socks From the Toe Up
:Getting excited about some big changes
I fought back tears as we drove away. It was so much fun. Tom is exhausted at night, but thanks his lucky stars every morning when he wakes up to this.
I think I could live in his working trailer for a long time if I got to live somewhere as beautiful as this. My days were spent cleaning his work/living place, medicating a sick hawk, cooking for several hungry workers, and blaring my car horn at invading starlings while scaring the crap out of the occasional car full of half drunk wine tasters (not intentionally of course!). We flew falcons, saved and released a wild Shrike from a sparrow trap, munched on table grapes fresh from the vine, chatted with another falconer about growing up in Ireland, learned to strum on an Irish Banjo, flew kites... need I go on. One more month and Tom will be home. All these pictures were taken with my iphone 4. I didn't even take my dslr out of the bag.
This Vons has the largest canning section I have ever seen! My local store only has two types of jars and they are nearly impossible to find.
This was our favorite stop on the way home. Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo, California. Brae insisted, apparently Judy Moody has been here. Yes that is all chewed up gum, 2-4 inches thick down the entire length of both walls. Yes, it is nasty, but smells a lot better then you think.
*Due to naughty job poachers (yes, seriously) I cannot tell you exactly what vineyard that we are on or where, only that we are somewhere off the 101 freeway from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles. In August it's Paradise here.
It is the third week of August and I have felt the first signs of Fall. While walking Brae to her first day of school I noticed the early morning fog has a deeper wetness to it. The clouds threaten rain even though we shouldn't have a drop until Halloween. By mid morning the fog is burned off by the sun, who seems to have realized the coming of the dark half of the year, and is burning hotter then ever to make up for the cool summer we have had. By nightfall the wind picks up, cardigans are slipped over bare shoulders and flipflops are traded for socks.
A couple nights later while I was figuring out dinner I had a sudden craving for a warm and hearty potato leek soup. Not something I would normally make in the summer. It's a soup firmly anchored in my fall and winter menu.
Then last night, while sitting in bed, a craving for apples hit me so hard I had to go downstairs and eat one immediately. My first apple in at least 6 months. It just so happened that I saw beautiful apples at the market earlier that day and was drawn to their beauty like a moth to a flame. I bought a few for my daughter's lunch, but never intended to eat one myself. Apples are my fall & winter thing, they taste the best in season. Fresh from the fridge it was cold, crispy and sweet.
If I were still living in the high desert I would be looking for the first sign of fall in the scent of the north wind. It has a wet earth, deep forest smell. One of woodsmoke, falling leaves and the faintest hint of arctic ice. It appears in September right when my Mom's apple trees are ready to harvest. We could guesstimate the start of Fall by the ripening of those apples.
I imagine it takes at least a decade to get to know a place that well and I have yet to learn the first sign of Fall here in the SF Bay Area, but I am guessing it also begins with a craving for apples.
Photos - All taken by me on my new and amazing iphone using the Instagram App. Links and descriptions for each photo are below.
1. Summer Flowers 2. Banana Almond Butter Shake. 1 c milk, 2 tbsp nut butter, 1 banana, ice. Blend until thick & creamy.
3. My friend's cat was over for a visit. He really liked the chickens. 4. Swing Socks, recently finished.
5. Deep Chocolate Brownies 6. Everyday Lunch - Avocado, turkey, tomato, lettuce, and cucumber on whole wheat bread.
7. What natural dye should I use for the Kalajoki socks? 8. The garden. Over 40 lbs harvested so far.
9. We have 2 new quail, a boy and a girl. Thinking baby quail and eggs. They need names. Any suggestions? 10. Darwin, my favorite chicken but probably a rooster. Bummer. Check out the adventure.
11. My first ever home raised organic free range chicken egg laid by Ladyhawke. 12. I am freezing loads of tomato sauce this year. Recipe from Heart of the Artichoke by David Tanis.
This past week I...
Said goodbye to Tom for 2 months.
Made doughnuts.
Found chickens eating tomatoes.
Hung herbs to dry.
Bought some yarn from Knitpicks and Soulemama's new book.
Dragged a resentful daughter to the Renaissance faire, which she loved.
Took the light rail downtown for the first time.
Tested a new cookbook.
Savored an old favorite for lunch all week.
This Summer has completely screwed my blogging. But I think I am getting back in the groove. Brae starts 1st grade in about 3 weeks (OMG!) and I have lots of plans for getting back to it.
I've been thinking about this blog all summer. Where it is going? What is the point of this blog? Since I moved all my food and gardening news over to Shoots and Roots I have been at a loss of what to write about here. But I realized that there is so much I want to document in my life that doesn't belong on Shoots and Roots. This blog is first and foremost about documenting our days, what we accomplish and how we live our lives. Hopefully in the next few months I can explore this more.
The above photo is one I took a week or so ago. I am joining in with Small Things and her yarn along group.
BTW, that book 15 Minutes Outside is awesome. Lots of creative ideas I haven't come across before.
Happy August!
A year ago I didn't really understand the hullabaloo about knitting socks. I would read Yarn Harlot's hilarious and passionate posts about her sock addiction puzzled as to why socks were so great. They are socks people. No one even looks at your feet anyway.
Then I made the Sea Clover Socks and the Blackrose Socks. Now I understand. Its not the utilitarian construction of socks that is addicting. It's creating a work of art. It's the small portable size, the teenie tiny stitches, the intricate designs that are just enough to exercise my brain, but not enough to overwhelm.
Blackrose (my ravelry) is a beautiful and simple pattern. A panel of 17 lace stitches cascades down the side of each sock with everything else in stockinette. It's is the perfect compromise between "mindless knitting" and "you better fricken pay attention knitting".
With a few pairs of socks under my belt I only have one question.
How do you all keep your gauge consistent when working on a long project?
My socks are always slightly off with one larger then the other. I know my mood makes a difference in my gauge. Stress knitting = tight stitches. Bedtime knitting or relaxed knitting = loose stitches. Is it because I don't block my socks? I don't have a sock blocker so I haven't bothered to do it. I've read that knitting two at a time solves this problem, but I haven't learned how to do that yet. Is it hard to learn 2 at a time on your own or should I find some kind soul to show me?
