last day

tomorrow, a brand-new year.

today, i slept in, and woke up with our stray foster kitty curled up beside me. i had cheesecake for breakfast, and am getting ready to watch a little of the Detroit Red Wings/Toronto Maple Leafs Alumni Game before work.

as a kid, ringing in the New Year gave me mixed feelings. i always felt like there was so much unfinished business, so many more things i ought to have done, so many things i could've done better. every January brought the same "clean slate" speech from my teachers, and by February, no matter how hard i resolved to do my homework, all the old behaviors had reasserted themselves. same story, year after year after year.

today, i am full of gratitude for the year we just had - it was wild, intense, and full of so much joy. i firmly established my massage practice, had a wonderful Fest, hugged Amma, enjoyed my city and family, and reveled in all the love and laughter E and i share. and i am full of excitement for what 2014 has in store!!!!!

not having the best track record with resolutions, i'm more interested in figuring out what i'd like to do more/less of, what i'd like to accomplish, and then taking small steps toward those things. in 2014, those include the following:

- Build two or more raised garden beds

- Grow more food that we'll eat

- Preserve more of our surplus produce

- Drink mostly water

-  Build my practice to at least 20 clients a week

- Toss or donate one bag of unnecessary stuff a week

- Move in with E

- Learn to use my sewing machine/actually use my sewing machine

- Travel with E - Boston? Portland? New Orleans?

- Get licensed in MI

- Learn five new massage techniques

- Pay off my credit card

- Make consistent student loan payments

- Get health insurance (or at least dental insurance)

- Read ten books on my Must-Read List

- Actually run the Warrior Dash, and run one additional 5k

- Create More.

what are you looking forward to in 2014?

Happy New Year!

my faithful little phone died quite unexpectedly last night.

i lost all my pictures, and almost all of my texts, most of which were of high sentimental value...and that, i think, is why Mom came home to me racing around the house in considerable distress. (i *can* go two weeks without phone contact, and do so every August, lol.)

one quick trip to AT&T later, i had a new phone.

Pros:

it's red.
it's not a smartphone.
i like the mp3 i picked for my alarm clock.
the camera appears to be better than my old phone.
it cost me $1.06 to upgrade.
it's not ginormously oversized.

Cons:

it's red.
i don't know how to answer it.
i don't know how to end calls.
it's probably much less durable than my old phone because it has a touchscreen.
it has a real slide-out keyboard that seriously slows me down, but the touchscreen texting is even slower.
if i'm taking a picture of myself, i can't see what i'm doing (my old phone had a tiny little mirror so you could frame things).
using the camera takes two hands and is awkward. in fact, doing anything with it takes two hands and is awkward.
it's not intuitive at all.
it's too big.
IT'S NOT MY PHONE AND I WANT MY PHONE BACK.

obviously, it has yet to win me over.

having a favorite picture as my wallpaper would probably help, but unless i take a picture of the Christmas tree or something, it could be months before that happens. it's just an impersonal gadget right now. its personality traits appear to be limited to being contrary and obstructive with occasional concessions (it let me switch text formats so i'm not stuck with those awful conversation bubbles) that still manage to be unsatisfactory (when i type, it's black-on-white like it should be; when i get a text, it's white on black, which makes me want to throw the phone).

we hates it.

it burns us.

i'm not very good at adapting to new tech devices. Newer! Better! Faster! holds no power over me. i like what i like, which is generally why i purchased it in the first place, and i don't understand why The Powers That Be insist that we all move in lockstep with whatever new thing/design comes along, whether it's whatever colors they think women ought to be wearing this year (a HUGE reason behind my preference for men's clothing) or phasing out perfectly good lower-tech phones for those of us that don't require the whole interwebs in our pocket but do like to text and take pictures.

they don't really care what we think, you see. they just want to make as much money as possible, which is why they try to make us believe that last seasons' clothes (phones, cars, etc) aren't trendy and should be tossed out. it's also why they don't really build things to last anymore, because there's no profit in quality merchandise that lasts for years and years.

stupid plastic society.

it's rough being a counter-culture dragon sometimes.

in between

 here's what's been going on between work and sleep:

last night, i took my older niece out for dinner. she's a sophomore at the University of Michigan, but had never been to The Fleetwood Diner - a one-room little restaurant plastered in stickers and home of Hippie Hash (hash browns with veggies and feta cheese). well, she's been now. :o) (and i got horribly, horribly lost in downtown Ann Arbor. so lost that i drove in circles for 30 minutes trying to find Washtenaw Ave, which i chronicled by making up my own lyrics to Greensleeves.)

Round Two of Christmas cookies are done, and will be mailed out before i go to work today (which means i should package them). 

i wrapped ALL THE THINGS:

and everyone is getting a specially wrapped present from Santa Claus, too:

it turns out that K, J, and Little V are coming a day early - TOMORROW - so tonight will be spent cleaning and toddler-proofing.

E's working tonight and Friday night, and we have to bottle the beer sometime this weekend. i'm doubling down on the antiviral lozenges. i still have to pick up a present for E's mom, and maybe a stocking stuffer or two.

and i'm being verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry patient, waiting for my little Christmas cactus to bloom! will it be white, red, or pink? the suspense is killing me!

off to shower, pack cookies, and run to the post office! hope you're having a wonderful day!

Decemberish II

it's STILL snowing.

 this is a main road, lol. having been all over God's white green earth today, i decided to make one more trip to the store so that tomorrow, i wouldn't have to go out at all.

i was a little distracted, because E was on her way to work (!!!!!!!!!!!!), and i was waiting for her to text me that she made it there safely, so my shopping was a bit...um...unfocused. when i got home, i decided to play Chopped!

Ingredients I Had to Use:

beef stew meat
cubed butternut squash
canned French onion soup
one tube of crescent roll dough (that one was already in the fridge)

hmmmm.

i browned the beef with some chopped onion and garlic powder, threw in the squash, added a can of soup and a can of beef broth, and let the squash sweat for a few minutes. then i added two soup cans of water, a whole lot of garam masala (i will work that sh*t into everything i can), some extra cinnamon, cumin, and ginger, a couple dashes of cayenne and, after tasting, a few spoonfuls of brown sugar. it simmered for a while, and then i broke the crescent roll dough into itty-bitty pieces and threw them in.

Result: the best freaking Spiced Beef and Squash Stew with Dumplings you've ever had EVER. and i'm not even eating it tonight! oh, no. it's going to mellow in the fridge overnight - tomorrow afternoon, all we have to do is heat it and eat it. cool, huh? i think i'll make biscuits, too...

bonus pic: i found this coffee mug at Starbucks today, and loved it so much that i bought two - one for my brother in law, J, and one (using tip money) for myself:

i didn't know we were so well known for our beer (it IS good), but it captured the city perfectly! tomorrow morning's coffee is going to be extra-enjoyable. :o)

Decemberish

we are getting snowed on!

it made driving to work and running errands  hellish exciting, and i still have to drive back to E's. so far, everyone has been using their common sense on the roads (in town, anyway) - i haven't seen any accidents, just fishtailing, and we're all allowing plenty of room for braking. (see, Oregon? that's all you have to do!)

snow sure is pretty if you don't have to be out and about, isn't it? i'm very much looking forward to a quiet, yarn-filled day tomorrow, with Christmas carols on the radio and something (what, i don't yet know) yummy for dinner.

this week, i made a test batch of molasses cut-out cookies:

 

i freaking love royal icing. i also freaking love that my mother baby-talks to the cookie deer ("Hello! Hello, little guy! Look how cute you are!"), and then bites off their heads.

E and i had a great date night on Thursday! we got burgers and fries at a local place called Moo Cluck Moo - they serve all-natural, humanely raised meats, Calder dairy products, and they pay their employees a living wage. E had the Moo with everything, and i got the Bigger Moo with cheese, mayo, and ketchup. she got the sea salt fries and i got the garlic fries, which were excellent  - pleasantly garlicky, but not strong. thus fed and watered, we proceeded to here:

every year, they close off a 4-mile stretch of Hines Drive for this light show. it's $5 per car, and so much fun!

we want to go back, dressed warm, so that E can bring her camera and tripod. there were SO MANY cool displays! i particularly want a good photo of the parachuting reindeer at Santa's Flight School.

it's T minus One Week until K, J and Little V get here, and there is so much to do! today i'm going to take advantage Mom being at work, and wrap me some presents before slooooooooowly heading back to E's. this coming week will be full of cleaning, Cookies - The Sequel, mailing said cookies, finishing crafts, more cleaning, and continuing to turn this:

into this:

yes, that's a giant fishbowl of yarn. decorative, but also extremely useful - i'll be able to actually see what i've got instead of blindly rooting around in a basket, and i will get to use my market basket for shopping again! also, winding the yarn into balls has been very interesting - it's forcing me to really look at each color, and i'm getting so many ideas for stash-busting projects!

gotta run! have a great weekend!

*we interrupt this blog for an important bulletin*

one of the most concrete memories i have is playing with/sorting through/hanging the boxful of Christmas ornaments that my parents began for me when i was born. with only one or two exceptions (the green salt dough/red glitter tree we made in kindergarten, that i still think of every time i fold a piece of paper in half to pour glitter back into the bottle, and the little gray ceramic rocking horse  - both of which slowly crumbled), they are all still in my possession, and taking them out every year is like reuniting with dearly loved old friends.

naturally, though i loved them all, i did have favorites. one of my favoritest-of-favorites was a Makit&Bakit suncatcher of Pluto the dog with a huge wreath around his neck. i remember him so clearly, and i always had to find just the right spot on the tree  - in front of a light, so it would shine through. my sister, K, had a Disney suncatcher, too - hers was Mickey in a Santa suit, holding the word "NOEL".

(in case the foreshadowing hasn't sunk in yet, let me just say that my sistership with K was a sibling rivalry minefield from ages 9 to 16, and that she had a habit of appropriating and losing my belongings. ahem.)

i don't remember whether it was 7th or 8th grade, but one Christmas, my Pluto was gone. i searched through all of the family ornaments - no Pluto. he wasn't in my ornament box, either...but Mickey was.

"Here", i said to K. "Mickey was in my box by mistake. Have you seen my Pluto?"

K looked at me like i was nuts. "Mickey's not mine, he's yours. And what Pluto? There isn't a Pluto."

She absolutely refused to admit to any knowledge of Pluto's whereabouts, and did her level best to try to convince me that Pluto had never existed. My parents shrugged off my dismay with "Oh, it's probably in a different box. It'll turn up somewhere."

but he never did.

i'm not accusing my sister of outright malicious behavior. i don't even know for certain that she was behind the vanishing. intuition says YES, but i suspect that whatever happened to Pluto was accidental and she was afraid of being punished. whatever the truth may be, though...it's been 20 years.

Twenty long years of hanging Santa Mickey on the tree with sadness in my heart. twenty years of his cheery little face mocking my pain.

until late last week, when it occurred to me to check ebay, haven of all lost things.

and today, a little package arrived in the mail.


***ripping noises***

 

Welcome home, Pluto. Welcome home.

i'm a little humbug today. short on sleep, long on uncooperative projects (i'm looking at you, shark), and grumpy that my day is broken into odd chunks of time that aren't long enough to make serious progress (or nap). be that as it may, i am determined to fight off the humbug, so let's talk about trees and casseroles and all things good:

 my new Muppet-skin coat and hat! a Christmas gift from boss #1. who knew that Muppets were so warm?! it's REALLY not a color i would ever have picked out for myself, but i'm pretty in love with it.

 i pin a ton of things on Pinterest, and love to actually attempt as many of them as possible. this garland was trickier than i thought, but i love how it turned out. :o)

 did i mention that E and i are brewing beer with the water we brought home from Fest? we're making Scottish ale, and saturday, we siphoned it from the brew pail into a glass carboy for a secondary ferment.

 i'm told that some people harvest and save that magnificent yeasty goodness and use it for their next batch of beer. i'll bet it would make a kick-ass sourdough bread starter, too! we need to learn how to do this.

on sunday, we decorated our little tree, and left it lit until we went to bed. again, i'm quite happy with how it turned out, and so is E. it's plenty of tree for us, and we've already enjoyed a tree-lit cup of tea.

 ahhhhh, i can feel the humbug receding already. time to get ready for work, and maybe do some yarning or the last bit of Christmas shopping if i have a break between clients. i'm hoping, too, to pick up some chicken shwarma and tabbouleh for dinner later, and maybe wrap some presents....

oh! the bean casserole! it was more of a bean gratin, i guess, but warm and homey and creamy and oniony and with a delightful cheese-and-bread-crumb topping. it came together in under 20 minutes, too, and was just the thing for a cold winter weekend. i will give you the recipe, but it will have to be later in the week because it's in an actual book and i left it at E's. sorry!

off day

today, dear reader(s), was an unprecedented day off. on a MONDAY, no less. it is also a new moon, so remember to write down what you need/want to happen and place your order with the Universe.

did you have a nice Thanksgiving? yes?

T-day here was lovely. E came over around 10am, just after the tart crust came out of the oven. the parade was going on, so we had coffee and snuggled for a bit before i got down to (more) business in the kitchen. once all food was completed, we had a nice lunch with my Mom, cleaned up, and spent the rest of the day hanging out and doing whatever.

on Friday, we went to E's parents' for their Thanksgiving dinner. E's baby niece was there (squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the cuteness!!!), and before leaving, we drew names for Christmas. i got E's mom, which is causing no small amount of panic! i have NO idea what to get her, and E is no help at all, lolololol. guess that means a nice browse through the mall, hoping that something jumps out at me...

Friday afternoon, we drove downtown to the Renaissance Center (aka GM building) to see Amma! if you're not familiar with her, i highly recommend clicking on the link. she is known by many as the "Hugging Saint" from India, and her mission is spreading the unconditional love of God/the Divine Mother. she hugs you. seriously. she's hugged more than 32 million people, and it's an experience you will never forget!  Amma also has many charities, and is one of the most important peace activists of our time. she comes to Detroit pretty much every year, usually in November, but this was the first time i got to attend. it was...wow. just, wow. there really aren't any words to describe it, but i'll try, lol!

 the peace ceremony was supposed to start at 7, so we arrived at 5:30 to make sure we got tokens for Amma's darshan (embrace). the volunteers seated us at 6, and we had a good hour to read through the program booklets, chat with our neighbors, and puzzle over the tiny plastic lids we'd been issued. at 7, Amma arrived, and the place pretty much exploded with love. She blessed a vat of water, and it was passed out to the attendees in small plastic cups (aha!). i took a sip, and found it slightly sandalwood-y and very...intense. i don't know how else to put it. E's lid didn't work, so we poured her water into my cup, and i had to take another sip so the lid would fit. right about then, Amma's translator told us not to drink all the water right away, but "if you have already consumed it, don't worry." *laughter from crowd* he told us that it was holy water with healing properties, and to take it home where we could share it with friends and family or add it to other water to make more of it. then Amma gave a spiritual talk (in her native tongue - she would speak at length, then her translator would read from a pre-printed transcript), mostly in parables, of which i don't remember very much because i was so enraptured. after the speech, we meditated and chanted for world peace, and then we waited our turn for darshan. there was plenty to see and to do - E and i had a very detailed astrology reading done, but didn't learn anything too profound (we think because we're both pretty happy, and so didn't have any burning questions), bought some snack food (the Indian version of falafel and a peanut butter cookie bar), browsed the different vendors (i got an Amma calendar, and E bought us each a single rudraksha prayer bead, previously worn/blessed by Amma, on a black cord), and of course there was music and singing and watching Amma live on the several large screens in the ballroom. finally, finally (after 1am), it was our turn to join the line for hugging!!!

we agreed afterward that the darshan process was very much like Ralphie's POV in the Santa Claus scene of A Christmas Story - bright lights, loud music, people physically placing you where you needed to be, plus being struck speechless. volunteers moved you through the line and up to chairs on the stage. there was a line on either side, and they alternated so that you were kneeling and ready when your turn came. my turn went like this: "Ok, now you kneel...no, don't sit on your heels, you have to stay up. Ok, take off your glasses. NO, don't sit, stay up!! (i was juggling flowers for Amma, my two little roos for her to bless, and trying to save my glasses) Ok, move forward!" i was gently guided to Amma, who took the flowers and the roos and pulled me into her embrace. Amma smells like roses. there was some confusion about where my head was supposed to be, but eventually someone got me straightened out, lol. then she held me for a few seconds, crooned a blessing into my ear, annointed my forehead with a rose-scented balm, and i was released - shaky and staggering a little - to take my turn sitting near her for a little while. I was shaking and grinning like an idiot, and i got to see E get embraced (she did better than me, i think). after i rotated through the chairs on stage, i went back to our belongings and waited for E, and then we drove home. three days later, i am still riding the wave of love and peace, and i think E feels it, too. she wants to go back next year, and we want to be hugged as a couple (yes, Amma does that), and also receive a mantra from her. Thank you, God, for putting Amma in this world to give us a tangible experience of your love!!!!!

the rest of the weekend was quiet - lots of crafting and resting. i slept in a little today, ate breakfast with E, and then ran errands before coming home to Mom's. i hit my target craft quota, brewed new tea for my scoby, ate some leftover maple tart, solved a serious cross-stitch dilemma, and am headed for leftover turkey and green beans very soon.

i also applied today for a job admitting patients at a local hospital. it's full-time with benefits, and day shift, which means i would probably be out in plenty of time to keep three massage appointments (per day) in the evenings. not ideal - i'm not one for corporate-ish jobs - but it's work i've done before, and as much as massage feeds my soul, i also need something that doesn't leave me wondering if i'll make enough that week to cover my bills. it wouldn't be permanent, but it would help me get out of debt and get things taken care of...so...yeah. if it's meant to happen, it will happen.

keep my high-school friend L in your prayers/thoughts - she had to take her mother off of life support this afternoon, less than two weeks after finding out she had extremely advanced brain/lung/breast cancer. her mom was able to get out of bed two days ago...what a rapid, shocking decline. losing a parent before the holidays is beyond horrible.

thankful

the turkey has been roasted (and basted with apple cider, mmmmmmm), the maple cream tart crust dough is in the fridge, the cornbread pecan dressing is prepped (with help/distractions from an extremely amorous girlfriend) and ready for baking. all the green bean casserole ingredients are on the counter, along with the future mashed potatoes. the Red Wings beat Boston 6-1. i didn't finish the pajama bottoms, but there is Calder Dairy chocolate milk for our morning parade-watching coffee, and that's exciting.

this past tuesday was the 17th anniversary of Dad's death. i was 17 at the time, and it is hard to wrap my head around being twice that age now...especially since this year, the days are arranged exactly as in 1996. he died quite suddenly on the 26th, two days before thanksgiving. we joked that he did it when the family would be getting together anyway, so as not to inconvenience anyone. i had a dream about him late last week...the details are hazy, but i knew that he was dead and "visiting", and we just hung out and talked. i miss him incredibly much. i am so fucking lucky to have had him as my dad.

i have a soft, warm bed, amazing family and friends, two meaningful jobs. Michfest exists, there are stars in the sky, my car is still running, i am in good health, and i will be marrying the woman of my dreams.

Blessed. I am it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

prioritizing

we've already established that i love Christmas. what i don't especially love is the stress - specifically, the stress that i bring upon myself because i want to bake/craft/do ALL THE HOLIDAY THINGS!!!!!!! call it what you want (i prefer Inspiration Overload), but the reality is that you just can't cram everything in and expect to retain your sanity. and so yesterday, i wrote a Holiday Priorities List:

- Finish my pajama bottoms by Thanksgiving so that I can wear them while watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade on tv

- Have all handmade presents ready for finishing (weaving in ends, mainly) by December 12th

- Decorate the tree with E

- Go ice skating at Campus Martius park with E

-  Read the Santa Claus book (that we got from our Finnish pen pals in 1987) to Little V

- Watch Love Actually, Home Alone, White Christmas, the Muppet Christmas Carol, and the Peanuts Christmas movie (probably while weaving in ends)

- Volunteer at a shelter or soup kitchen

- Bake and ice molasses cookies for gifting to extended family

- Wrap presents while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate

- Eat my weight in green bean casserole (and leftover turkey)

- Sit quietly, with all the lights off and a cup of tea in hand, and look at the lights on the tree

- Attend the Christmas Eve service at the local church (assuming i'm not barfing this year)

i expect that there will be a fair amount of unexpected and/or last-minute things going on - family get-togethers, parties, outings, trips to the store ("How did we run out of vanilla extract?!"), and lots of opportunities for quality time with loved ones - and whittling down my absolute "must-dos" leaves me free to be excited about them without the stress of worrying whether the "must-dos" will get done (or at least get done in time).

that's the plan, anyway.  *wink*
 

hallowed eve

it's raining. it's been raining off and on for the last hour, and we're supposed to get storms pretty much straight through tomorrow evening.

rain and storms on Halloween.

that just doesn't seem fair. especially after the gorgeous weather we had earlier today:

isn't that pretty?! and it was in the high 50's, too - a perfect fall day! Mom and i put it to good use, coiling hoses and putting the patio furniture in the shed. she mowed the lawn, and i dug trenches in the ground for my strawberry plants (and apologized to the nightcrawlers). i ate guacamole, worked on two clients, then packed up and drove to E's for the night. by some weird miracle, i do not have any clients scheduled tomorrow (but they could call me in if someone books), and i wanted to surprise E. Halloween is her favorite holiday, but she's been so exhausted that she hasn't had time to buy candy or decorate. so, in the morning, she'll come home to this:

and this:

suitably spooky and festive, yes? i love the pumpkin bucket - got it at Target, and it's exactly like the ones K and i used for trick-or-treating as little kids! and naturally, it's full of candy:

snack-sized Butterfingers, Crunch bars...i think there are Baby Ruth bars in there somewhere...and, most importantly, Hershey's miniatures, because that is what we ALWAYS gave out when i was little and you do not fuck with memories like that. (seriously. they had a large bag of miniatures in "fall-themed" wrappers on sale, and i bought the not-on-sale traditionally wrapped ones because i am a purist.) i remember that we always bought a few bags, and one was for family use only. Dad, K and i had a three-way battle for the Special Darks, K went for the Krackels, and i was all about the Mr Goodbars (Mom didn't discriminate).

ahhh, Halloween. the Devil's Night curfews (that's just in and around Detroit, folks), school parties, the months-long costume planning (making sure said costumes can be worn over winter coats if necessary, and it was almost always necessary), the cartoon specials on TV. the year you figured out that pillowcases held more candy than plastic buckets. memorizing which houses had really great treats (regular candy bars and full-sized cans of Coke!). dumping your candy on the living room floor and sorting it by type, then the inter-sibling bartering process that was more involved than some peace negotiations are today. the year the squirrels ate your pumpkin two days before Halloween, the pumpkin you had carefully chosen and picked from an actual pumpkin patch, the pumpkin that the nice man in the Great Pumpkin costume told you was named Lydia, who loved lasagna, which was your favorite food, too. but we don't speak about that year. ahem.

having already carved our jack-o-lanterns (while watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown), our night will consist of handing out candy to those trick-or-treaters hardy enough to brave the rainy weather; eating hot dog mummies (hot dogs wrapped in thin strips of biscuit dough) and macaroni and cheese; and watching Hocus Pocus while eating as much chocolate as we can hold.

Happy Halloween!

womanifest

What. A. Day.

late last night, i baked a Pumpkin Dump Cake. basically, you make pumpkin pie filling, put it in a greased 9x13 pan, sprinkle a box of yellow cake mix on top, sprinkle chopped pecans on top of that, pour two (!) melted sticks of butter over the whole shebang, and pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour or so. it took longer to put together than planned, mostly because i was also trying to watch A Nightmare On Elm Street for the first time (baby Johnny Depp!!! OMG!). by the time the cake was done, it was after 1am, and i had to be at work by 9:45!!!!

E crawled into bed with me around 8am, and i re-set my alarm for 8:45. i then had an extremely vivid dream in which we were at some sort of potluck, and someone had brought a litter of kittens that needed homes. they were tiny, almost too small to leave their mama. i had soothed the little gray-on-gray striped kitten to sleep...it was passed out, paws splayed, on my chest, and i wanted to text a picture of its smooshed-up kitten face to my friend, Maxine Dangerous, so i reached for my phone...

...and very abruptly woke up. not only were there no kittens, but it was 9:08! i had just enough time to make coffee, shower, and run out the door. fortunately, there was no traffic, and i got there in plenty of time. originally i had two clients scheduled, but my 11am cancelled due to illness and i got a head start on the other pressing business of the day:

buying our Halloween pumpkins at Eastern Market! and i got there all by myself for the first time, without getting lost! i also got quite a workout, lol - there were two generously sized pumpkins and only one of me, and i was parked about 1/4 of a mile away. so it took two trips for the pumpkins (which were two for $10!), and two more trips for...well...

i should not be allowed at Eastern Market without supervision.

 it started out innocently enough. i needed to buy a grow-your-own mushroom kit for E, as a belated anniversary present, and we also needed eggs and some sweet Italian sausage. i knew where to go for those, but walked through all three sheds first to see what else was for sale.

this is shed two, i think. pretty busy, but not so jammed that you couldn't get where you needed to go.

i was lucky enough to score the last of the concord grapes ($3) from this vendor. soooooo good! working at an estate winery totally ruined me for supermarket grapes. these little balls of heaven actually taste like GRAPES.

i picked up the eggs (Amish eggs! $3/dozen) and the fresh sausage ($8/2lbs, and put in its casings just yesterday!), the mushroom kit ($20), and also a half-gallon of 100% Honeycrisp apple cider ($4), and wended my way back to the car, admiring other wares along the way:

 

everything is very reasonably priced, but the problem is that there are just SO MANY lovely things that the purchases add up and before you know it, you're loaded down like a pack mule and your wallet is empty.  fruit, veggies, plants, baked goods, organic meats, and so much more, all of it locally grown/sourced/produced. in fact i showed quite a bit of restraint, actually - i didn't even stop at the maple syrup vendor, or the spice people. but after depositing my purchases at the car (and stuffing my mouth with grapes), i walked back along Russell Street in search of an interesting little shop we'd browsed in once before:

this place. Signal Return. they have a great selection of Detroit-themed cards, prints, and posters, plus letter-pressed items, hand-bound journals, and other amusing designs as well. and this is where i spent waaaaaaay more money than i had any business spending. my intent was just to pick up a couple of cards to mail to devout Detroiters now living out of state, and so i got these:

the Fist (of boxing legend Joe Louis) sculpture, and the abandoned Michigan Central Station, two beloved icons of the city, and beautifully rendered. but, see, then i saw this:

and immediately knew that it belonged, framed, in our kitchen. i also bought a new tee shirt (that was the straw that broke the monetary camel's back. i am a shameless tee shirt whore, unable to resist them), but we'll get to that later.

slightly sheepish about my little spending spree, i went back to the car and started to head home. the ramp for southbound I-75 was closed, though, so i took a little detour along the service drive. as long as i'm not pressed for time (and today i wasn't), i really enjoy detours in the city. this was by no means the longest, weirdest, or most around-your-arse-to-get-to-your-elbow, lol - the service drive parallels the freeway - but it was scenic, and included some unexpected off-roading when the service drive suddenly became a couple of hacked-up ditches (dug-up sidewalks?) and a curb (wtf?!) before picking back up in front of/curving around an abandoned, burned-out early-20th-century apartment building. thank Christ my car was made for things like that (and i'm pretty sure the drivers of the SUV's in front of and behind me were muttering the same thing, lolololol).

this is the city i love:

weeds and ruins (and abrupt re-routings) next to professional sports stadiums...

decay and abandonment mixed with revitalization...

 grit and art deco architecture (and stunning works of art - see the whale mural on the center building?)...

 reminders of the great, bustling Detroit of years past...

and good omens for a bright future (the sunbeams, not the truck, lol.)


after a quick stop at my mom's for Real Pants (i'd only packed work scrubs and pajama bottoms for the weekend), my favorite blue soup pot, and the potatoes i forgot to grab last night, i came back to E's. she was wide awake (poor thing!!! tonight's her fourth 12-hour shift in a row), and very excited about the mushroom kit, happy cow print, and pumpkins. i climbed into bed for some serious snuggle time, which turned into way more than snuggling (whee!), and then she tried to go back to sleep and i started making Sausage, Kale, and Potato soup. the full recipe is here, and wowwwwwww, is it good! i'm not a fan of spicy food, so i used sweet Italian sausage instead, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly (ok, and i added a little bit of sage), and we love it. even E loves it, and she is not the world's biggest fan of kale (she thinks it tastes like lawn clippings).

are you wondering what the heck any of this has to do with the post title?

remember that scene in The Karate Kid, where the Kid is trying to get the old man to train him, and the old man is working with his bonsai trees? he hands the Kid a pair of shears and tells him to get to work. the Kid protests, saying he doesn't know how to do it, and the old man tells him to close his eyes and picture how he wants the tree to look.

"Do you see the picture?", the old man asks.

"Yes."

"Good. Now, make it like the picture."

and that, guys, is what we call (wo)manifesting

most of us have at least a general picture in our minds of our ideal, authentic life. where we want to live, what we want to do, the kinds of people and activities and things we want around us. my life this last year has moved leaps and bounds closer to how i've dreamed it could be, and my picture comes into sharper focus every day. it's a work in progress, for sure, and it always will be; there will always be new things to learn, new people and places to love, new goals to strive for. but for me, the big first step was moving home. back to my family, back to the one whom my soul loves. back to the Motor City.

for me, the tee shirt says it all:

it's been a pleasantly busy few days Chez Dragon, full of work and Arabic food and snuggle time. i skyped with J and helped her build her baby registry, rolled out hot stone massage at work, and last night i saw my hockey hero - in the flesh - coaching a boys' team AT THE RINK NOT A MILE FROM MY HOUSE!!!!!!!

*fangirl moment*

*ahem*

*it's not stalking if you don't take pictures and post them for the world to see*

it turns out that he also runs a hockey academy, including skills clinics, and there are unconfirmed reports that he can be booked for private lessons. so, i have a whole new reason for hitting the gym (and juggling, and getting back on the ice ASAP) - i absolutely need instruction on being the best goalie i can be, but i am not going to book time with my hero until i am back in top shape. he'll know my form needs work, but he won't doubt my physical conditioning, lol! to this end, i have done sit-ups and t-squats today, and will be going running after work. (i've never had a "Bucket List", per se, but if I did, training with my only sports idol ever would definitely be Item Number One!)

i slept in a little today, but am being fairly productive! in addition to the exercise, i've also fished my rogue juggling ball out from under the dresser and started laundry. oh, and i started batch #2 of homemade laundry detergent:

 this is one large bar of fels-naptha soap, cut into chunks and added to two cups of water. it'll sit for a few days (i've still got plenty of batch #1), and then get blended with hot water, borax, and washing soda. the recipe is here, and i heartily recommend trying it! the detergent works great, leaves clothes scent-free when dried, and doesn't irritate E's skin at all. plus, i get to use my thrifted immersion blender to make it, and it's pretty much impossible to not have fun when you're using an immersion blender. (good thing it's for clothes-washing, though, because i did end up wearing some of it.)

and this is the shark-in-progress:

 

 specifically, this is the nose-and-mouth end of the shark. i'm working from a pattern for a shark pouch with a zipper mouth...it had the look i was hoping for, but the mouth will be modified so that the shark can chomp things. don't ask me how, lol - i haven't made it that far, but i'm confident it will turn out just fine. 

ok, time to play with yarn and have some lunch - baked potatoes (ermagherd, berked perderders!!) with broccoli and cheddar cheese, nomnomnomnomnom! 

 

i'm curled up, freshly showered, wearing fluffy socks and sipping home-brewed strawberry kombucha. tomorrow a new week begins, and Mercury goes retrograde again. i'm not a die-hard believer in astrology - in fact, i don't usually know about planetary shifts until after they happen - but my craptastic thursday and friday had me wondering WTF was going on, and it's nice to have something to blame, lol.

Aside from those two days (in which nothing life-detroying happened, just a bunch of small things that, when added up and combined with hormones, left me overwhelmed and in tears), life has been going quite swimmingly. my favorite garam masala was on sale, so i bought two; i hit my target number of clients for the week; E and i went downtown for barbecue at Slow's, had an amazing meal, and enjoyed our view of the abandoned Michigan Central Station (i'm not being sarcastic, the building is gorgeous and beloved by all); and i've made progress on both the crocheted shark that J requested for her impending kiddo and the cross-stitch project for Mom. Woohoo!

Saturday was cold and rainy, perfect for curling up to nap with my sleeping wife. i made her eggs and toast for "breakfast", then spent the evening pottering around...some cross-stitching, some cleaning, some daydreaming. we've been talking a lot the last few days about the bigger items i'll be bringing when we move in together, what big items she plans on keeping (the house is full of her grandparents' stuff, some of which is awesome, and some of which she really wants to toss), and how best to arrange things to our mutual comfort and liking. it's a little bit like playing Tetris, and there will be some negotiating, but in terms of style and preferences we're totally on the same page. (i confess to not being fond of the closets in the bedrooms or the cabinets/lack of storage in the kitchen, but those are problems that can be easily worked around once we have the rest of the house to spread out in.)

tomorrow, E is taking me out for breakfast, and then i have to go to the bank at 10am sharp to deposit my paycheck. other plans include at least 3 clients (as far as i know), going for a run, and working either on the shark or the crocheted ornaments for this year. it's way more exciting than it sounds. :o)

i'll leave you with a family history tidbit: my mom's first cousin was a model and was on a first-name basis with Elvis Presley. they used to hang out. crazy small world, huh?

ephemera

the weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week - cold nights, warm(ish) days. it's perfect for the trees, which are getting prettier and more multi-colored by the day!

i was really jonesing for chai tea the other night, and so i made a late-nite trip to the grocery store. E: "Bring back cake!"

chocolate cake is delicious with chai tea.

there is a baseball player named Coco Crisp. i am not making that up. he must've caught hell for that in school, lol - some people should not be allowed to name their own children.

after a weeks-long nom-a-thon (it must be the cooler weather - my body wants to add a winter layer), i'm getting back to eating more fruits and veggies, and also going back to the gym. i will still be eating cake and burgers (and so on), just maybe not EVERY. DAY. because as much fun as that is, and as much as i looooooooove food, i do not have extra money for new clothing in larger sizes. and that's the road i was heading down.

tonight, Mom and i (and Mom's friend and her grandkids) went to a local park to see the International Space Station fly by! there was some confusion about which direction it was coming from, and Mom's star-tracking app failed...and um, we're near a major airport, so there were lots of false alarms. in the end, only the eldest grandkid and i saw it. i had it in my binoculars for a minute (definitely NOT a plane), but then there was a shooting star and the kids were shrieking with excitement and when i looked back, it was gone. but - I SAW THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION!!!!!!!!!!!

last Friday, E and i celebrated our one-year anniversary! it was wonderful - we went to an Italian place for a delicious dinner, and then we saw Gravity in 3-D at a local theater. being a total space geek, i wore my NASA flight suit to the movie, and the high-schooler behind the concessions counter was very appreciative. He said the whole movie was "just breathtaking", and boy, was he right! It really did look like you were orbiting the Earth. just amazing.

I AM OUT OF GARAM MASALA AND THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. 

oh! progress has been made on the purging - i condensed four storage bins of stuff down to two, threw away two giant bags of trash, and took two more giant bags to a resale store. i've also managed to bring my credit card current, and am committed to paying it off entirely, after which i will begin to tackle the giant mess that is (are?) my student loans.

(this is where i visualize/trust God for 20 clients a week, minimum. 25 would be even better, but 20 will get the job done short-term.)

and now, the time has come for all good Dragons to finish their giant bottles of water and get ready for bed. E's night shift schedule is really messing with me, lol. i've always been nocturnal, and looooooooved working midnights (for 5 years)! anyway, it's like this: when E crawls into bed next to me at 8am on a Saturday or Sunday, we curl up and i go right back to sleep. on a good day, i'll get up at 11am-ish; on a bad day, well, 2pm isn't unusual. this makes it very hard to go to bed at a decent hour that night, and then it becomes a vicious cycle. so tonight, the goal is to be asleep by midnight, even if i have to pop a benadryl to get the job done, lol.

sweet dreams, blogland!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

This:

Was totally worth having to get dressed and buy lemons in this:

Chicken Lemon Rice Soup. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

ta-da!

Presenting...

Our Christmas Tree!

 

Do you like it? I put on some Christmas music this morning and had a very fun hour. :o) That's three 100-light strands (1 clear, 2 multi), and I'm really pleased with how it turned out - it's even better in person! And the tree topper? It's an ornament I found at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I KNOW. Perfect, right? I just wedged a couple branch tips inside it and put a twist-tie through the ornament loop. Is it Christmas yet? :o) :o) :o)

feminist housewife

I love being domestic. No, really - my June Cleaver streak is a mile wide! Not much makes me happier than puttering around the house, doing dishes, cooking...you know, generally nesting and being creative. I love making the house a welcoming place for E to come home to, or wake up to, depending on the day. It's not all deep-clean, all the time, though - we're both prone to clutter (two Chaos Muppets with Order Muppet tendencies), so mostly I just try to stay on top of things and straighten them out as needed.

Over the weekend, I did simple, not-noisy things. Dishes, sweeping, straightening, and cooking. Oh, the cooking! Back in 2008, my sister emailed me a quiche recipe. I tried it, and loved it, and then totally forgot about it until a few days ago. We already had eggs, milk, baby spinach, onion, and pie crust, so I picked up some shredded mozzarella and some smoked pork jowl bacon (just trust me, it's delicious, and was cheaper than the other bacon). Pre-baked the pie crust and the bacon (not together), chopped and sauteed the onion, wilted the spinach. Cheese in crust first, then onion and spinach, then chopped up bacon. Mix eggs and milk, pour into crust, bake for an hour or so...and then devour. It's delicious with salad, too, but we didn't make it that far, lol! And best of all, I must've had too much stuff in the crust, because only half the egg/milk mix fit - so I made another quiche the next day!

Quiche #1, Pre-eggs....

And ready to eat! Doesn't that look tasty?

And the fun didn't stop there. Oh, no. You see, back in August, the Fest workers woke up one morning to Dutch Apple Cake for breakfast, and it was so good that I started researching recipes as soon as I got home. A couple weekends ago, E took me to Erie Orchard, and I picked out a bag of Northern Spy apples. (We also got cider and doughnuts. And foam swords. And we fed the goats and chickens!) Yesterday, two of those apples (and one Honeycrisp) turned into a super-easy, super-yummy Dutch Apple Cake of my very own! No pictures, but never fear - I'll be making it again very soon!

I had to come home to mom's and do laundry last night, but I left the house in a mostly-welcoming state: the dishes were done, there was quiche in the fridge and cake on the table, and the bed was turned down, pillows fluffed. E works so hard...I love doing little things to make her life easier, make her feel appreciated.

Bonus Pic:

CHICKENS!!!  :o)

progress

The pickles are delicious! Crisp, sweet, tangy...everything a pickle ought to be. My favorite part is when the vinegar asserts itself and punches you in the mouth. :o) I chopped a few of them up and had them on my burger last night, sooooooooo good!

The purging is at a standstill for the moment, there's just been too much other stuff going on - work picked up a bit (yay!), I'm on the home stretch of a second hat that has to be mailed out early next week, and this past weekend we helped two tiny Italian grandmothers make 38 quart jars of tomato sauce (E went back on Monday and they made another 38 jars, 20 of which are ours. Double Yay!). I made a batch of liquid laundry soap (it works out to under $2 for 128 loads, instead of dropping $14 on a bottle of Tide that will only do half as much), and we love it. I have 4 clients today, plus a house call for a neighbor...a full afternoon of clients tomorrow (and possibly a full morning as well, won't know til later today)...one client on Saturday...furious knitting and cleaning to be done at E's...and then I have to help keep E awake on Saturday night. She has to sleep all day on Sunday, because that night she starts her new job!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!! It's not a huge pay increase, but she'll have more hours, more opportunity for overtime, and best of all, full benefits. We don't know yet if they offer same-sex partner benefits, and I'm not holding my breath, but it's within the realm of possibility. Most importantly, this means we are one giant leap closer to living together! It could even happen by Christmas! Which, uh, brings us to this:

 

After all that talk about stuff and de-cluttering, I bought a Christmas tree. In my defense, I've been looking for a long time, and this tree (with shipping) was only $35!!! Isn't it cute? It's 3.5ft tall, the branches are pose-able, and it's made to look more like a real tree - note the brown trunk. I love the little pine cones, and the openness. It's the perfect little tree for us, and I can't wait to decorate it! My plan is to wind a strand of white lights up the trunk for extra glow factor, and use the multicolored lights on the branches. Thanks to my parents, who planned for the future, I already had my own box of ornaments by the time I was ten, and every year, my collection grows...so, not all will fit on the new tree, but since most of them already get a home on Mom's tree, it's not a problem. 

CHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMAS!!!!! 

It's my favorite holiday. I love everything about it - the lights, the music, the food, the time with family. The sense of anticipation in the air, the way the cold and snowy nights feel hushed and sacred. The fun of making or picking out exactly the right presents for the ones I love. The decorating, oh, the decorating!!! We didn't do much at all last year, and I'm not planning to go overboard, but.... :o)

Happy Thursday! 

***edited to add:  Tree with white lights!! What do you think? ***