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!