While Tangerine Dreams

Farm I See

 
I know, my puns are getting weaker and weaker; I'll blame it on the hormones like everything else. Our little not-so-underground-anymore (they asked me to take pictures for the local paper - you know, because they know about the blog now  - kidding! Because I was the only nerd with a camera) farmer's coalition meeting this weekend encompassed a tour of these two member's farm. It was really quite outstanding. The husband having been born on the homestead in a little cabin still standing there across the garden way and his parents have been farming there forever so everything is super established. The amount of food they produce is inspiring. They only spend about $100 a month on toilet paper I think they said (don't drink the water from the tap). We had our usual amazing potluck and our hosts brought to the table borscht made with only ingredients they grew or raised, fresh baked multi-grain bread and the most amazing canned peaches straight from their orchid. It was heaven. Among the eye candy we saw ducks, chickens, beehives, cows...

...cutes looking at cows...

... and cutes hiding under their mamas' new skirts they just made.

This is the under skirt I wore to the tour and I then finished the apron overlay on Sunday just in time for our dinner guests' arrival (can you tell my energy's creeping back?) but haven't had a chance/keep forgetting to get a picture of it. Chances are good it will happen soon since I've been wearing it everyday since (well, it's only been two days this morning I guess, but I want to wear it everyday). And that's my girl, Peggy! She's my sewing/knit buddy and I'm her cake tester. She makes amazing cake. AND, she's the farmer behind the famous Fabulous Farms. Her fabulousness has been captured here before. Oh yeah, she's a natural building specialist, too. She helped us finish some plastering in our house before we moved in here. There's nothing this woman can't do!

Garden Hoe

It's been a dreary week but it's promising to be a scorcher of a weekend. Perfect for gardening. Unless it's too hot. Man, I'm picky these days. I'm looking forward to sewing up another gardening outfit. Turns out we're going to take care of our next door neighbor's garden as they'll be away this summer. This works out just fine for we're just working on getting our soil establish, saving up for some serious deer fencing to keep our pet deer out and general need to get organized.

So this works out for all parties involved. This garden's a short, magical stroll/tricycle ride away and is nicely established and brimming with strawberries, raspberries and a cozy vine-covered gazebo that grows tasty grapes that will also nicely shade Edie's turtle sandbox.

And the progression of the Happy House garden. Craig rototilled a large circle (ooooo, circles!) around the pre-pubescent maple tree and (now) we're thinking of overlapping circles around and around, kind of like Olympic rings (not to get all controversial).

One of the many original plans that have been scrapped. But the fun is in the process and team-building exercises, right? Here's a fun website for other garden hoes. Happy gardening/gardening outfit making!

Sewing and other Kneads

It's been a fine, fine week. I had a cold last week, nothing too gnarly but  enough to be ugh-ing it and wondering when exactly does the first trimester end so I can feel like my normal self again!!!? I knew once the cold fades away i should be out of this hormonal hangover and sure enough these days I feel pretty darn tootin' good comparatively. Yay - because I have a whole whack of spring projects lined up and I'm raring to go. To celebrate, my friend Kimberly came over and gave the whole family a massage. Edie went first...

And then she promptly fell asleep about five minutes after this second picture was taken. Craig carried her to the couch where she woke up and was upset because she didn't get her 'face cheeks' massaged yet. Luckily she got her other cheeks massaged as she was so looking forward to. Kimberly had a pregnancy pillow so I could lay face down for 45 minutes without having the bun squished. I'm only thirteen weeks along (today, actually) but I'm totally showing and feeling something squishable already.

Still, the only crafting that's talking to me these days is sewing. And I have my (and Edie's) Spring 2008 collection to get started on. I have a few projects I'd like to crank out sooner than later and have some ideas that are a little more realistic (after spending a day in garden) and practical for what my my day to day routine and girth are bound to dictate.

The Barcelona Skirt has been in my collection plan pre-Drippy Head so I had to adjust the skirt pattern to make it a medium at the waist and small at the hips. As a Mother's Day gift Craig took us out for brunch then made himself and Edie scarce to help me get some sewing out of my system. I was able to get the A-line skirt done today. I'm washing some paisley cotton I found at this year's Yard and Yardage sale to use as the apron over-lay's trim. Skirt fits great. For now anyway.

And for Edie, I was inspired by the ever inspirational Soulemama, she made her sweet little girl this bubble dress. There is an Oliver + S a tea party dress that will be whipped up from some Strawberry Shortcake (Edie's alias) cotton we found at fabric land. She's big into tea parties these days too. Maybe her next birthday  will be a tea party at a massage parlour.

I have all the Built By Wendy patterns now too. Thanks to a $1.99 Simplicity pattern sale at Fabricland. This project has been inspired by America's Next Crafty Model, Leya. She made this cute version of it last month and just, ugh! So cute! Spring makes me want to sproing around in dresses all season long.

There's so much more. But I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, especially with my cravings being so shifty right now. Maybe next week I'll be into macrame.

Seven Days of Nourishment: Day 5

It was that time of year again. The day that marks the beginning of spring in this town. A day that celebrates the abundance and sacredness that is our water. The May Day parade starts the day off after a couple of hours of face-painting and dressing up and then we hit the road in procession to samba music to the river and back to downtown Winlove. Party afterwards that we were able to hear going on from our bedroom well past mid-night.

Things that nourish me: community. You won't believe how many pregnant mamas are here in this town right now. My friend says to me at the May Day festivities how it must feel so good to know that there is a baby growing in my tummy that will be raised in such a conscious community. This is totally the sentiment I felt with Edie in my tum.

I love, love, love this town. The list of why just keeps on growing. Edie's still a little bit part Cling-on of course, but this year she was cruising around the festivities on a tricycle, weaving in and out of various legs. Such a joy to know that everyone's watching out for everyone else's kids, familiar faces everywhere, such good hearts all around. Love this day, this day of gratitude. We're truly blessed.

Hmmm.... what doesn't nourish Mama these days? Excess noise. We had the final day of our Parenting as a Spiritual Practice yesterday. I loved that course. See what Nourishes Me No. 5 for main reason why. We had an excercise to make a commitment to our partner on what we want to change, in terms of modeling, for the benefit of our children. It was funny we had to make one but we were going on and on back and forth with each other and even when we were told to stop I kept thinking of things whispering them to him. But the main one was to make a more peaceful home in terms of noise pollution. I'm a radio junkie; always have CBC on for background noise. I suppose that might come from growing up in a house that always seemed to have to a tv on. But it feels good already to have some quiet around here and try to break that one pattern.

Seven Days of Nourishment: Day 4

Some seedlings. A week of color spearheaded by Curious Bird. Today's Yesterday  Monday was suppose to be green. Today's Yesterday's color was yellow and I was going to catch some skunk cabbage but can't find the camera. How frustrating. How about something that use to be green? Like these...

That were then milled down to these?

The morning after I found out I was pregnant I approached Craig in his office downstairs and informed him that his office will need to vacate the premises. He will have to build himself an out building sooner than later. Right now our bedroom's in the loft and we'll be needing to use our present office spaces as bedrooms. Baby  Drippy needs a room that can be made dark and quiet. Plus, it doesn't hurt that Mama could use a creative space that can be made big and bright.

So down falls a few fir trees and now we have ourselves a mini lumber yard that will build us an out building for Craig to work in (would be so much better for him to leave the house for work - like for his psyche; then he'll have his man den and get building his own shelter out of his system). I think he's still thinking of attaching a green house to it so it'll also be an atrium space he could do his reading and chilling in and then the office will have a loft for guests to crash in.

Speaking of sleep; things that nourish me: Sleep. Can I just gush right now as to how much sleep I'm getting these days? I borrowed some books from our Mother Goose get-togethers a while back on getting toddlers to sleep. I just browsed quickly through them but what they both mentioned was that it takes approximately a month of fussing to get your child to sleep gently and peacefully. Totally that's what happened. Craig gets to her sleep just as, if not more, easily as me now and her sleeps still are getting longer and longer without stirring. AND, my dreamboat of a husband has insisted that I stay in bed when she does stir and tends to her. I can't believe what a difference this has made in my overall sense of well being these days. Plus, I suppose that peace of mind knowing that I will be possible to manage parenting more than one child at night time and that co-sleeping with her has in fact instilled a healthy sleep attitude (which I was kind of worried about there for a while!).

Things that don't nourish me: keeping things bottled up. I don't have a tendency to that anyway but three episodes occurred in the last week that demonstrated how much better I feel getting my true feelings out about some awkward situations and they all turned out really positive. Amazing with being pregnant all these heightened senses; like the bionic smell, bionic irritability but also cool is the bionic relief from letting go of heavy baggage.

Seven Days of Nourishment: Day 3

Wow, that's been a long three days. I was so turned off of the computer the last couple of weeks but I'm starting to get back into it. This has been pretty much my favorite mode of travel these days. Horizontal.

Things that nourish me: sewing. I've been turned off of a lot of things including favorite all time obsessions like spinning and knitting but I've been living to find time to whip myself up a cozy jammies and bathrobe set just so I have an official slothing about uniform. That and setting myself in my sewing room (see? I'm even calling it my sewing room now!), feels akin to comfort food. Perhaps because I grew up with a distinct memory of being Edie's age playing along side my mom busy either cooking or sewing and listening to Simon and Garfunkel.

Geez, ask your life partner to take a picture of you wearing your freshly made jammies and he rips your head off (in the picture anyway). I can't touch the spinning wheel these days. My friend, Velma, suggested it's the whirling round and round that triggers the whooze. Totally that's part of it. Also, the sitting still part bugs me, ironically. If I'm going to still still I'm going to be sitting still horizontal. With my eyes closed.

And to match my sloth suit, I made a nib hat and entered it in a Pluckyfluff contest. The contest was I dream of Beanie. Spin a yarn, turned it into a beanie that represents you; your Power Beanie. What this one represented was my cocoa nib obsession which represents my cravings which represents my body's infinite wisdom and miracle making. You can read the whole blah blah at the contest site. Congrats to Eva of Atomheart for winning!

What doesn't nourish me: Hmmm, this one always a stumper. Right now it's over extending our commitments. Especially when it comes to Edie. It's getting more challenging, not easier as expected to get the little critter anywhere before 10:30/11:00. Most classes, going-ons begin at 10:00 around here so that makes it somewhat impossible and totally stressful to catch any of them. (PS when my Mom mocks me she says 'totally' every three words. Totally funny especially with her little big accent.) Thankfully, her beloved ballet classes don't start until 2:45. So, we've cut down on her daycare gig from two to once, sometimes to no times a week. Instead her Manny comes over and hangs with her here. Which is awesome because I'm already nostalgic about her not being my one and only loin fruit for long so it's nice to hear her giggles and imaginative play just in another room rather than a big kurfuful of getting her out of the house and mincing a backpack full of un-choke-able snacks to graze on for five hours at the ungodly hour of 10 am. Plus, she loooooooves her Manny. He's so good with her,  AND he's in our Parenting as a Spiritual Practice class with his partner. Problem is, again, me and my huge mouth blabbing how awesome he is. Now people are scooping him up. So, yes, staying low is nourishing me these days. And not talking so much.

Seven Days of Nourishment: Day 2

What nourishes me; succumbing to my cravings. I was feeling nauseous, nauseous and finally I remembered to dial into my deepest darkest current hankerings and make it my utmost priority to appease in the most orgainic, 100 mile diet-way possible. Here is a list of what's been tapped this week. (This list is fresh from a loooong conversation yesterday on the phone with a dear, pregnant like me girlfriend, Cheechum). Items with an asterix have not been conquered. Yet.

• lemonade. The sweet and sour thing with lots of ice hits the mama spot long enough to forget about the constant car sickness I'm experiencing.
• *corn on the cob. This one was huge with my Edie pregnancy too. Unfortunately I have to wait until late August to cross this one of my list unless...
• my mom's arroz con pollo. I downed this earlier in the week; it's a Peruvian rice and chicken dish with a whole bunch of cilantro and a bottle of beer. The leftovers didn't last nearly long enough. I'll share the recipe sometime if I ever have a plate of it in front of me that will last a photo shoot. Anything my mom makes, actually. My mom's the BEST cook. I'm so glad she's almost home from Arizona. I want her to make me everything I use to love, or even hate, from my childhood next time I see her.
• asian fusion. Unfortunately we're very limited in our ethnic food selection out here. Talking with Cheechum I was pretty jealous that her living in the big city she was able to maow down on Ethopian and Vietnamese whenever the fancy striked her. I didn't even let my psyche go back to Nam until she mentioned it. Thank god for Leya's Udon Soup recipe. (Happy Birthday by the way, Sweetie!) That really hit the spot.
• quality french baguette and Manchega cheese. I'm so happy this one doesn't have a little star beside it. There's a very Franch bakery in "town" that even has authentic Franch people working in it. Do you think organic liverwurst exists? Oh, I do hope so!
• cold sugary cereal. I bought some organic Mesa Sunrise cereal. Organic cane sugar. Lots of corn (Craig's really hyper-aware of corn in ingredients after reading The Omnivore's Delimma and kind of gave me grief for getting something so processed). But it's quick, hit my spot and Edie's not a cold cereal virgin anymore.
• oranges. And toast with peanut butter and apple sprinkled with sugar pictured above. See a trend here?
• noodles. Oodles and oodles of noodles (Edie loves it when I say that with googley eyes).
• popcorn with butter sauteed with garlic and then infused with chili, cayenne, honey and salt. That was good (from Rebar cookbook that my girl Josee lent me and that also had a recipe for Pad Thai that was able to squelch a little bit of my Asian Fusion jonesin').
• ***LOBSTER!!!
• *sno-cone. Though I could probably rush out right now and scoop some straight from the sky and just sprinkle more sugar into my system. Snowing fat flakes right now.

See? View from my window right now. I'm surprised the internet's still working, the flakes are so fat. So, this list could seriously go on an on. I'm having my morning latte so it's hard for me to come up with more items that have little stars right now but I'm sure in a couple of hours I can come up with twelve. Best not go there right now.

Things that do not nourish me; nursing Edie. The midwife gave me a good talking to about this one in that miracle making session (the accupuncture treatment alleviated so much stuff it was amazing). I think the magic words that were uttered to me were "how does an uninterrupted night of sleep sound to you?". About as good as an all you could eat corn on the cob buffet! So, I had a talk with Edie as soon as I got home and said, you know what the doctor said? No more booby. And then too during her first dentist visit the next day, in front of the dentist, you know what the dentist is saying? No more booby. And now Craig's been putting her to bed, sans neeples, and it's been pretty smooth for the most part and I've been feeling much better rested and nourished.

Seven Days of Nourishment: Day 1

I love midwives. I highly recommend working with them when the opportunity presents itself. My first experience with my Edie pregnancy was wonderful and now that I'm going through the visits again I remember why I was saying how we were gawking at the price tag at first (was $3000 at the time, my girlfriends in Calgary are telling me the price has gone up to $4000) in the end we were both saying how we would have been happy to pay twice the amount seeing how attentive and one on one the care was and how truly specialized their area of expertise is; like they're from another world floating down to be your assigned pregnancy and birthing angel.

Luckily in BC where we live now, midwives costs are covered. At first I thought that this could be too good to be true and there must be a catch to this somehow but already my visits with them have proved that, unbelievably, this is not the case.

I think I remember with Edie I went a bit coo-coo at first with wrapping my mind and body around the prospect of building a new human being from a couple of cells. I called my midwife freaking out one day (I'm much better now) she talked me down over the phone for an hour and then had me come in to talk with her partner midwife who's also an acupuncturist. Those who know me in IRL (in real life) know I love me some acupuncture and the session totally nailed the needle on the chi spot. Amazing how much more like my normal self I feel today (though I have been feeling much better than my initial freak out few weeks ago. I think it's just a Kathy way to purge out some crazy to make room for baby).

I got a  beautiful pep talk and advice from her too during the treatment on paying attention to what it is that nourishes me and what doesn't. I blabbed three things right away; my morning latte, comfort food from my childhood (I went in to our local organic grocery store here yesterday asking for the closest thing they have to Wonderbread and apparently that was the first time anyone's ever asked that question there) and, I admitted kind of sheepishly, posting on my blog. Midwife/acupuncture said good, for a week write on your blog about what nourishes you and what doesn't. So that's what I'm doing. It'll be good for me. Please indulge me here:

拉花 Latte Art
Originally uploaded by Eat-My-Heart-Out 你吃,我看.

I borrowed this picture from flickr because I don't quite have the knack for latte art yet plus I'm still suffering some serious lazies when it comes to picture taking for some reason. I won't leave home without the camera for this assignment from now on. So the latte factor is just starting from the beginning. I tried to cut it out for a few days after the pee stick came out positive and I felt like serious crap. I made that Easter dinner and cleaned the whole house on a latte day, then the next three days I was super stuck on the couch. On the fourth day, I ordered a latte from the restaurant, my famous friend Elly (taught that serger class, makes incredible recycled wool clothing) made it, and it was night and day. I don't recommend caffeine withdrawal in the first trimester. My morning latte nourishes me.

What totally doesn't nourish me:

Conspiracy/dooms day talks/movies. Not positive. Especially now. Keep it away, keep it away. Instead, we've been attending (when we can get a sitter) a local study group for Oprah and Eckhart Tolle's Online New Earth course. Much more positive; and you can't get any cuter than Eckhart or any more influential on a global level than Oprah (11 million people signed up!). These two are really funny and exciting together. Check it out.

Sign Up

The  universe has alternate plans for us and it is with sadness in our hearts that we must let go of our beloved Horniman Ranch.

The Details:
• 5.87 Acres about 2km north of Winlaw Bridge.
• Located on a quiet side road (off of the back road).
• Sunny pasture with great views of the valley.
• Magical and mature cedar/hemlock forest with three creeks (including the ‘famous’ Horniman Brook) passing through.
• Fenced on three sides.
• Sweet and savoury neighbours

What we’ve done so far:
• Built a road to access the pasture and a sunny building spot.
• Brought in power/phone line
• Secured water licence on the Horniman Brook.
• Built open walled pole barn/car port (22’x 11’)
• Travel Trailer with deck and snow shedding roof included.

If this sounds interesting to you call us...

Oi, these hormones got me so kerplemked! (Last line not on sign.)

Strawberry Monster-itta

Here it comes. The strawberry fiend. Luckily the local organic strawberry farmer is right next door. We use to barter soap for strawberries. I wonder if he'll take yarn?

Now she's had a taste, there's no hope. Want to hear something crazy? We had a friend come over last week and dowse our space for negative energy. The house is all impressively charged positive except for one spot; my computer area. Just as a disclaimer, whenever I start to whine about my Etsy shop being slow and wah, wah, I haven't sold anything all month, I'm not fishing for sales.This for me virtually going for calamari and beer with you and me with my beer buzz venting just to share. SO, I move the computer to the kitchen table (negative vibes really ick me out these days) and, this is the wacky part, I then made four sales this week after a whole month of nada. Weird!

And then she leans in for the kill. The yarn's a goner. Kidding! If you want it it's in my Etsy Shop! What a cheese ball I am. Speaking of Etsy Friday, my fiber/felting mentor just opened up her own shop Wooly Mammoth - she is so, so talented. My Calgary knit buds are having a Zombie sale and a new but dear cyber friend's shop just rocks. Have a great weekend. Let's do calamari again soon.