Health Food

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Usually, I have oatmeal for breakfast.  But, since I have blackberries growing at one end of the garden and raspberries at the other, Cheerios seemed like a better blank canvas for that.  The blueberries are from the store, our blueberries over the years got smaller and smaller until they disappeared entirely.  Strange.  Anyway, I topped it off with almond milk;  finally got around to trying it, and it's pretty tasty.  I tried rice milk, I just couldn't do it.  Yuck.

So yeah, I'm trying to eat healthy.  I am NOT on a diet.  That sounds too restrictive, and besides people just seem so gleeful the first time you decide to cheat and have an ice cream cone;  "oh, is THAT on your diet?"  It's like everyone who's not on a diet is just waiting for you to fail.  Which of course you will.  But I had to do something, my cholesterol is higher than it should be and my blood pressure is borderline.  Time to fix it now, it's only going to get worse as I get older.  I cut WAY down on salt last year, all but eliminating it, and to tell you the truth I didn't miss it.  Honestly, I'm not a person who HAS to have this or can't live without that.  If it weren't for my husband, who doesn't like his diet messed with, I could go vegan tomorrow and never look back.  But I'm not going to cook two meals, it's just not going to happen.

The first thing I learned when I decided to eat healthy is, it's not possible.  Really. Get something that's low fat?  It's got more sugar.  Low carb?  Higher sodium.  What the hell!!!  The Boy, who is something of an expert in this stuff since that's his day job, agreed.  You have to pick what you want to be healthy about, he said.  So, this is going to be like work. Ok.

The first thing I'm doing is figuring out what things are an issue with my food.  Here's a list of possibilities;

• Fat, carbs, sodium, sugar.  The big 4.
• Hormones and god-knows-what in my meat.  Not to mention the horrors of the meat industry.  Watch "Food, Inc." on Netflix.
• Pesticides.  Ick.
• High fructose corn syrup.
• Trans fats, whatever those are.  I just know they're bad.
• The lining inside of cans, for heaven's sake.  Who knew? \
• Gluten.  I don't think I have a problem with gluten, ate it all my life.  But I'm hearing that if you get OFF gluten, you start to realize all the problems you never knew you were having.  Maybe I don't need to deal with that just yet.
• Processed flour and non-whole-grain products.
• Lactose.  Again, never had a problem.  But I'm hearing that sooner or later everyone becomes lactose-intolerant, it's just a matter of time.  I don't know if that's true, Sparky is in her 80s and still drinks milk with no problem.  The Boy says that those of us who can drink milk are actually the anomalies; the lactose intolerant are the normal ones.

Fortunately for me, I've decided to improve my food intake at a time when fresh veggies are in season.  The first thing I did was add more fresh veggies to our diet.  We both like vegetables, so that was easy.  Plus the Richmond Farmer's Market is right down the road.

Tomorrow I'll tell you the small changes I've made so far; and surprisingly enough, they seem to be working; I've lost 8 pounds in the last month.

Bugging Out

Something really tragic happened to the bottom half of this pic. I fail as a photographer.

 I've never seen a week go by so fast as when The Boy comes to visit.  Granted, we all don't DO much of anything when he's here, he spends a lot of time running around touching base with all the friends he never gets to see and then roosts here at night.  But that's ok, everybody wants a piece of him and we make him stay up late when he gets home so we get our piece too.  We didn't get to see The Wife either, she stays with her family and spends her time touching base with all HER friends.  Maybe next time.  Anyway, Boy and Wife are on their way back to California today.

Also bugging out to California today is Sparky.  As I type she and Auntie Pat are in Newark, awaiting their flight to meet my sister in San Fran, from there to proceed up to Redwood country to spend two carefree weeks on the mountain with the grandkids and the great-grandkids.  I'm so glad she got to go, and I'm glad Pat went with her.  Wish I was part of this mass migration to the west coast, but no.  Ah well.

Speaking of bugging out, I have been trying to find a non-toxic way to discourage these really pretty beetles from consuming my squash plants.  I don't want to use pesticide.  If I wanted poison in my food I would just buy it at Stop and Shop.  So I tried this recipe I found online using vegetable-based dish soap, garlic, and hot peppers.  It did not work at all, in fact I think the beetles were very happy I seasoned their greens for them.  I ended up picking the little bastards off one by one.  Boy, can they eat a lot.  AND they laid eggs on the undersides of the leaves, but those are gone now also.

So it's the 4th and since there's no plan for the day, I think I'll go on bug and weed patrol, then work on some projects that are half-completed.  One of my regular favorite customers showed up the other day with an armload of fabric for me and bribed me to make her some curtains in exchange.  So now I have some new fabric for inspiration.

Oddities

Mary, my landlady, tells me all the time that I attract wackjobs.  She sees them come and go, as her business is right next door to mine, and after having been open for business where I am now for over 4 years, I have to say she's right.  I mean, most of my customers are "normal" (If there is such a thing) but there are quite a few who are...well, quirkier than most.  I like them the best.  Well, most of them (some of you are familiar with the Jock Strap Incident).  Mine is an alterations shop; not really the sort of place where one would think to find a high concentration of odd people congregating, which makes me suspect that maybe it's not the business, it's me.  Let's not delve into THAT theory too deeply.

But I have found a place that makes my weirdest people look boring.  The Science Channel has a series called "Oddities" and I am completely fascinated and grossed out.  It is a reality series sort of like "Pawn Stars", only the shop deals in antiquated medical equipment and quackery, taxidermy, skeletons, jewelry made from kidney stones....but still, I'm not sure if the title refers to the items in the store, or the customers. Nothing I could say here would do justice to their clientele;  you really have to watch the show.  The day we discovered it was a day there was an Oddities marathon, and we sat glued to the TV for over four hours and blew the better part of a nice afternoon because we just couldn't tear ourselves away.

The proprietors of Obscura in NYC, and hosts of "Oddities".  They LOOK normal, don't they?  Oddities airs on Saturday nights at 8:00 and 8:30 on The Science Channel (NOT the SyFy Channel), followed by the all new "Oddities: San Francisco".  Bicoastal lunacy.

This has been the view out my door for the last week.  Pretty much.  We did have a couple of non-raining, even briefly sunny days, but today it's raining AGAIN so I don't remember when they were or if I just dreamed them.  It's actually not a bad view now that I look at it, I just wish it was drier.  Where my sister lives, way up north in California, it rains all winter.  She once said she sure hoped spring would come before she had mildew growing up her legs.  I know how she feels. One day last week, in the space of 10 minutes, it was cloudy, then pouring, then sunny and thundering.  When they say if you don't like the weather in New England, wait a minute, they mean that literally.

So I've been just laying low and getting a lot of work done, and fun stuff too; got inspired a few weeks ago to make some patriotic kids clothes, and I actually have them almost finished in time for the 4th!  

Watched Dropkick Murphys live from Fenway Park last night on Palladia (I love the Palladia network.  You can only get it if you have HDTV, and I don't know how I lived without it!)  I had never seen them perform, and since Boston is their stomping ground it was no surprise that the audience was totally into it.  They look, for all intent and purpose, like a bunch of random guys who were hanging out in a bar and said "hey...we should start a band".  And then they called on stage members of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones for THE song, "Shipping up to Boston", which I tried in vain to find for you on YouTube.  All I could find were videos posted by people in the audience, and this was the best one I could come up with.  If you have Palladia (and if you have HDTV you do, it's a free channel) I highly recommend checking this out.

Nosy neighbors

 I was so looking forward to the holiday weekend!  two days off in a row!!  And the weather was beautiful, and for the first time in at least 5 years, we got our garden planted on time!  I found a guy on Craigslist to come rototill and I can't say enough about him.  He was friendly and respectful and showed up when he said he was going to, his price was more than fair, and he did a great job. He does all sorts of other yard and garden stuff too, I highly recommend him to anybody in the RI area. Thomas Reilly, 401-749-5296.  And he's a military man, so that seemed appropriate too!
So here's the view from my garden bench!  The garden is about twice this length.  Tomatoes and peppers and beans, oh my.  And my nosy neighbors.  Some people say cows don't have much personality, but these two couldn't be more different; the one on the left enjoys being sprayed in the face with the hose--in fact she'll come closer and open her mouth for a drink--the other one doesn't like it at all.  On the other hand, the one on the right will let you pet him on the nose, the other one won't come close enough to be touched.  But they BOTH come running when they see someone in the garden, they're always looking for a handout. 



Yeah, so we got our garden planted, and Preston welded his trailer.  He offered to let me do it, but I have to admit I'm leery of the welder.  I'd probably zap myself and that would be the end of me.  But he requested that I model the helmet, very sexy.

And my muses won't shut up; the more stuff I make, the more loudly they clamor.  The other quilt top is sewn together, but I was compelled to begin this one.  This, too, was triggered by something else.  I made a little purple gingham dress, which sold in my shop before I could even get it finished.  Inspired by that and by the fact that gingham makes me happy anyway, I cut out four more dresses in the shades you see here.  And of course, there were scraps so you know what transpired.  I should have tried to hunt down a couple more colors, but I'm still on a mission to see how much stuff I can make out of materials I already have, so that's what I did.  As I said before, I'm not really a quilter.  I have a Judy Martin book with lots of great quilt block designs, and I've used them on small one-block projects, but to make a whole quilt--even a baby quilt--with anything more complicated than squares takes too long because they really should be hand-quilted instead of tied, and I get bored.

The Voices in my Head Said, "Make Another Quilt"

 And we must always obey the voices.  Actually
what happened was that I was making this little flannel baby jacket, and as I was looking at the colors in the print I thought, those would make a really colorful baby quilt!  So of course I had to go get my tote o' scraps immediately, because you know if I wait I would never get around to it.  I'm not really a "quilter" in the true sense of the word, but that's ok.  If I had the time and patience to make real quilts nobody would be able to afford them anyway. 
Quilts are not something I do all the time, but I guess my brain was still in quilt mode from having just recently finished this purple and turquoise one.  Sparky doubted, she said those two colors fight...and to be honest, I think I've lost all perception of what colors go with what.  I can not think of a color combination I've never used in the making of powwow regalia.  After a while everything I learned in art class in elementary school just lost meaning (and believe it or not, I DID learn that in art class;  they showed us a color wheel and informed us that these colors go together, and those do not.  As you can see, I didn't pay a lot of attention in school).

 Anyway, my response to Sparky was, "if I put them together, they're going to have to learn to get along".  And they do.  Apparently it's not just me, because the quilt I made was inspired by this little afghan I made out of a skein of yarn I found at the local consignment shop;  purple and turquoise all variegated together.  It also inspired several purple-and-turquoise baby outfits, which brings us back to the voices in my head.
People talk about their "muse" all the time, what inspires them to do what they do.  I would picture myself as having two muses, sitting on each shoulder like in the cartoons, and egging each other on;  "hey, look at that yarn!  Why don't you make an afghan?  I bet you remember how to make the broomstick stitch".  "You know what would be fun?  Some little clothes that match those colors, cause you don't see THOSE colors every day in the baby department".  "While you're at it, why don't you take the scraps left over from the clothes and make a quilt?  You weren't really going to throw them away, now were you?" (I wasn't.  And to be fair, I think that last one might have been my Dad.  God forbid I should throw anything away!!!).

Oysters

Prom season is almost over!  While I always welcome the extra work, it just so happens that at the same time the prom gowns start coming in for alterations, everyone else also decides they need stuff done so my shop fills up with piles of work to be done!  But I made it through another year, and people have been really patient with me so I'm thankful for that. 

In between the prom stuff and all the other stuff, I've still been working on new things for the store.  It makes me happy, and at the end of the day (literally) you need things that make you happy to balance out your work day stress.  This is the collar to a little dress I'm making...indeed, it's almost done now that I found out how to make little buds using this Oyster Stitch.  Thanks to Carol, who posted this really cool link on Facebook at exactly the time when I was thinking about trying to find some stitch that would replicate the buds in the fabric.  Embroidery is not something I do a lot, so I learn stuff as I go when I need to.

Another thing I don't know a lot about is crochet. There are a few stitches I know, and I DO know how to make granny squares, so I make the most of that.  I always seem to have at least one crochet project going, and I work on them at night while we watch such enriching shows as America's Got Wackos. ("Hey, you could do that!!"  "Yeah, but WHY???")  The current project is going to be some sort of afghan;  maybe for a baby, maybe larger.  Someone gave me this yarn, and I don't know what she had planned to make from it but I looked at it and saw granny squares.  So we'll see how many squares three big skeins of Red Heart will make. 
And then there's THIS bunch of really bright colors:

I have them left over from my first-ever Grass Dance regalia (more on that later), and I thought a baby afghan made from them would be a good idea.  People come in to the shop all the time looking for baby stuff and I just can't keep up!  So I worked up this one square to see how big it would be if I used all the colors, and how many squares I'll have to make.  As it happens, I had picked up some extremely cute polka-dotted fabric last week that has these same colors in it.  So we'll see what comes of that.

And now, it's time to get back to my REAL job!  Those prom gowns aren't going to hem themselves, and in spite of every fairy tale I've ever read, the mice do NOT come out at night and finish all my work.