Little Bits of Goodness

"What do you want for lunch?"

"Popcorn!"


My favourite version is a little canola oil with garlic powder, a little salt, and garam masala. Mmmmmmm. Safiya takes hers simple; oil, a little salt, by the handful :-)

Today was busy with a couple of projects on the go, but I just had to share this recent thrift find:


It's a real wool hockey sweater! The quality is superb, it felted up beautifully, and the tag on the inside says "Chateau Sweaters: Made in Kitchener". Cool. And do you see on the shoulder?


C for captain! This is destined to be something really awesome, but I can't figure out what....yet :-)

Scenes from Away and a Pleasant Surprise Which Leads to a Little Reading

Two incidents gladdened my heart while I was out of town, like blossoms brought forth from the branch above. The first occurred in my favourite bakery/cafe The Pie Plate. During lunch bits and pieces of the conversation next to us drifted over (it's a small place in a small town). I heard the words "off-grid" and "sustainable" and "yurt". When a book was pulled out on yurts, I couldn't resist interrupting (i.e. blurting across the table): "that is sooo cool!" Conversation ensued, and I found myself meeting others who were of a like mind with regards to sustainable living. This was highly surprising, given the conservative nature of my hometown environs.


The second was even more delightful. I had the chance to catch up with an old friend and her new husband over dinner. Now this friend is probably the sweetest person I've ever met, so I knew dinner would be enjoyable regardless (and my Mom was babysitting so yay! adult conversation!) I hadn't met her husband yet and it had been a couple of years since she and I spent time together, so at first we exchanged autobiographies and caught up as people do. And then over the course of the evening one thing led to another and someone said "peak oil" and there was a pause and an inward gasp and each of us realised that we weren't the only crazy ones in the room.

And then the conversation really got going. And it was good. The great thing about it is that, on the surface, you would never think it to look at this couple. Which sounds superficial, but I'm not going to apologize. They are lovely, professional, upper-middle class, church-going folk from a fairly conservative town. That is the limited description that a passer-by would get. If they were off-grid vegans, well.....

So, peak-everything is everyone's concern. Isn't that nice?

And they were kind enough to lend me Jane Jacobs' book Dark Age Ahead (here's an interview with her by Jim Kunstler). That to top off the ridiculous number of books I got from the library, after having gone through Sharon's list of books, the "best books about nearly everything".


The librarian left a message at our house asking if i could please come and pick up the box of books that were being held for me. When I picked them up, she merrily asked me to show her pictures of my garden when it's done.

What a nice idea! But the real question is, does she want pictures of the composting toilet as well? :-)

It Could be Worse

I have not been languishing on the couch for two weeks. Shortly after recovering, Safiya and I went out of town to hang out with Nana, who is Mr. S.'s grandmother, and who lives with my Father-in-law usually, but he went on a well-deserved vacation. So we Nana-sat for a week-and-a-half. Nana can take care of herself, but she's at that stage in her life where if she falls, there needs to be someone there to help her right away - someone to check in on her every day at least.

One of Mr. S.'s favourite utterances is "it could be worse!" Hence the book above, which is a charming re-telling of the folk tale where a small house is crowded with too many people getting on eachother's nerves and then the wise one in the village advises them to bring in all their farm animals and then eventually tells them to remove all the animals and hey presto! the house isn't quite as crowded as it was before and everyone is happy.

With the house closing in on me in the middle of January, fighting sickness, and tired, as I told a friend, of the perpetual twilight of the city, I was craving darkness and quiet and room to breathe. Nana-sitting? Perfect. They live on the outskirts of a major town, in a quiet condo/townhouse/subdivision arrangement, but close enough to the countryside.

Ahhhhhh, how useful a change of scenery can be. For realising how good you have it, that is. I forgot about the driving. There is no public transit where Nana lives, so the car it is - for everything. Not even a corner store. And everyone drives, so there's noone outside to acknowledge even if you did go for a walk to....nowhere. And the sameness of said subdivision could make you cry - the unmoving facades of identical houses staring back, unblinking, when you hopefully look out the window in search of scenery. The isolation is oppressive.

We did enjoy visiting, sharing everyday rhythms with Nana, watching game shows, watching her thoroughly enjoy harassing me about what are you going to eat? (she wouldn't touch anything I made - claimed that the only thing I eat is seeds :-) and listening to her mutter about how I don't understand any of her language (enough to understand the swearing, Nana! :-) I brought the dictionaries to translate, we even managed a shopping list together, and we laughed at my ineptness.

But I'm glad to be home. Home where a quick errand outdoors gives me the opportunity to chat for 5 minutes with my neighbour and say hi to another. Home where the kids walk to school, gaggles of them laughing and their parents haranguing them up the sidewalk. Home where I can use my legs to get around, for which I am rewarded a healthy glow instead of a car-induced headache.

Thank goodness for a little perspective. It could be worse!

The Antitode

Still recovering on the couch. And the antidote to "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?"

Clearly, "All About Eve"!

Be Afraid

Yesterday, sitting on the couch, sick, Mr. S. and Safiya out for a walk, I watched for the first time "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". I think it worsened my condition. The acting is brutally good, but what toxic characters. So now I'm recovering, trying to get George and Martha out of my mind.

Little Girls and Why I'm Off Dr. Suess

My mother doesn't know that the lovely anthology of Dr. Suess that she gave Safiya for her second Christmas has been "disappeared". A year ago, as we began to read more Dr. Suess to her, there dawned on me a growing realisation that there were no, but no, female characters in his books. It grew more and more infuriating and uncomfortable the more we read. The absence of "she" (even in the pictures) made even me as the narrator feel cast out from the world, and I wondered what how this misrepresentation is processed by children. Feeling slightly crazy and tired of having to change pronouns all the time, telling nobody, we disappeared what for many is quintessential children's literature.


Today I splurged and picked up "Fearless Girls, Wise Woman and Beloved Sisters", by Kathleen Ragan. It's not a picture book (no illustrations), but an anthology of folk tales from around the world. On the way home, I read one of the tales to Safiya, and she sat and listened as the subway train swayed. Anxious to read more, I was leafing through the book and happened upon this, in the introduction (and if you use the link above you can preview some of the book, including part of the introduction):

"The more I read, the more uncomfortable I became. I couldn't find any female characters in these books. I found myself changing the pronouns from male to female when I read the stories to her."

She goes on in detail how she researched the books by...Dr. Suess. So we're not crazy. However, that's not the real point. Her introduction does better justice to the point than I can (and it's hardly Suess-bashing for all you Suess-lovers out there), so I'm just going to point the way to this lovely book.

And then there's this:


Nothing more wholesome than an apple, a glass of orange juice, and reading "Little House in the Big Woods" aloud, right? We started reading these aloud to Safiya last summer (she plays quietly and any time I stop because I suspect her interest might be waning, her little head whips up and she says "But why did you stop Mama? Don't stop reading!" And so I don't...) But oh my the racism (although when a child, my brain only picked up the opposite from these stories, somehow), the strict gender roles, the authoritarian obedience. I loved these stories when I was a child, and they are someone's story, so we edit some of it out, sure that when she can read she'll find her way. Maybe the story will just change slowly.

But this? I think I'll just rip this page out :-)


Just a little editing....

Cozy

Yesterday the world was thick with beautiful, heavy snow. The kind that is good for snowballs and sledding, and makes trees look like strange sea anemones waving gently in the wind. Inside, however, it's toasty and warm:


The first window quilt is up, with others underway. Nothing fancy (nor ironed :-), just a piece of thick wool sandwiched between cottons, hung up with cup hooks. I used bias tape for the loops 'cause I'm lazy and I've yet to add the bottom loops so that you can actually do up the quilt to look out the window. This one is in the spare room, currently occupied by my law-student brother-in-law (I'm working from most drafty to least). It's reversible, and I put a not-quite-sure-it-matches-but-making-do-with-stash print on the other side in the event that this room gets transformed into a room for Safiya some day.


A newly thrifted bedspread was going to be cut up to make a window quilt for the main bedroom and to cover a small extra blanket, but when I brought it up, it was just too too pretty to cut up.



And so it will stay, spared the scissors, to warm our toes and cheer my heart.

Anew

Happy New Year! It is a beautiful snowy day outside, and I'm starting the new year celebrating. A blanket long overdue for dear friends is finally done! Hooray! The top is made from a combination of felted and non-felted wool sweaters, and the back is a soft brushed cotton.



It's their wedding gift, made to reflect their love of climbing....grey::bedrock, brown::soil, green::grass, more greys::mountains, blue::sky. The red thread at the bottom is the thread that binds two together. I once heard of a belief that when two future loves are born, they each are bound at the waist with a thread that connects them, no matter how far apart they are. As time goes on, the thread becomes shorter and shorter and finally draws them together.

I hope the New Year finds you drawing close to those you love.

Paper, Plastic, or Neither!

Warning: far too many pictures for only one project ahead :-) Canvas bags are great, but oh-so-bulky. So, needing something I could tuck into my purse for impromptu grocery shopping...

Two thrifted scarves from the stash and a pattern (which was evened out after this photo) made from a plastic grocery bag later....



The original had round holes for handles, but, as this project has taught me, my skills with flimsy silky material are sketchy at best, so I just made slits reinforced with lots of bar-tacks at the ends. I did do the fancy bottom thing at the bottom, after a sewing-table-plastic-bag-dissection (not pretty - how am I going to put it back together?)


Yay! I may make more of these (after adding a way to keep it folded up in my purse) and give bunches of them as belated holiday gifts :-)

Everything is...

Family walks at this time of year are joyous; swinging arms, crunching snow, and making up songs. However, once in a while I love solitary winter walks...


This makes me smile every time I walk by:


And tucked in the corner...


Full of promise, waiting, witnessing the winter...

Craft stuff soon, I promise :-)

Excitement and an Offering

There is nothing equal to the bursting-at-the-seams excitement of a child. Safiya had been out with Mr. S. while I went to get the tree, and when they came home, I could see immediately that she had been told of its imminent arrival. After she had meticulously vacuumed up all of the errant pine needles on the floor (this child loves vacuuming), out came the ornaments. For each and every one, she picked it up, held it aloft like the holy grail (but with more enthusiasm than reverence) and shouted: "What's in this one, Mama?!!" Every single one. No other comments, just an entire afternoon punctuated by "What's in this one, Mama?!" and some other childish murmerings.


And, from the appearance of the tree, you can tell that a three-year-old lives here:


Later, I was surprised to find this by the back patio doors:


What is that? Well, at our house, there's the myth of the party-hat. Once, Safiya left a paper party-hat outside. It was subsequently ruined in the rain, and, well, (shhhh) it got recycled. Except that she asked where it went, and being the sensible parents we are, we told her...that the raccoons that live around here must have taken it for their party. So now she believes that part of raccoon behaviour is to appropriate little girls' party hats.

So, when Mr. S. and Safiya were making hats that afternoon, she insisted he make one for the raccoons. And leave it outside for them. And thus is born a new Solstice tradition: an offering for the raccoons. :-)

Waiting for the Bus

Taken by Safiya:



Interesting to see what catches a three-year-old's eye...

Let's Start All Over Again (Part the Second)

This is what last weekend brought us, much to our glee. I love the muffled sounds, the crunching of snow under the feet, the assertiveness of a good blizzard; the kind that makes people grumble cheerfully about "the weather we're havin'!"


It's started to melt just a little today, but the huge drifts are still there, making the obtaining of the tree even more satisfying.


Yesterday was the first day of the return of the Solstice spirit around these parts (see the previous post). It was spent anticipating today. Today, with a clean house and a super-clean and re-organised craft room, I started to make a few things, and it felt good. We decorated the tree, I did some sewing, there were crafts, and I stayed up late to wrap the few gifts for our precious girl.


The above picture is the table at breakfast this morning. More Safiya craft than food....


And this is Safiya's table, which has been moved from the playroom into the kitchen so that she can play in the light that comes in through the patio doors. Her pinecones, collected in a bowl in the living room, are the only decorations we have in the house other than the tree, and it is enough; just perfect. We aren't "doing" much to celebrate this year, and it feels oddly more celebratory than previous years of fussing and worrying over gifts and decorations and such.

Tomorrow we'll have our Solstice morning, and then I'll indulge in some more sewing. And I have all night to dream...

Let's Start All Over Again (Part the First)

The Moon Through Our Window

People often say not to fix things that aren't broken. Well, that may be true, but sometimes you have to smash something; tear it asunder, in order to fix it. And this enables you to experience the meditative quality of picking up the pieces. And sometimes you don't even put it back together again. Sometimes you collect it only to throw the whole thing out, bury it, burn it, what have you, straighten your shoulders and start anew. (Fully aware that you've probably missed a few pieces and if you're not careful they'll end up sticking you in the foot, but still...)


You may have noticed that I haven't been around lately. My heart hasn't been in it. The craft room noticed as well, and so did Mr. S. and Safiya, I think. And so did the goddesses of house and home and hearth. As of two days ago, besides our little wreath I had neither baked nor cleaned nor wrapped nor prepared in any way for Solstice or Christmas. Not a thing. Until I found a voice of mine, an angry one, that had been shelved, and finally put it to good use.


This blog, this space of mine, is a little craft, a little political, a little mothering, a little figuring things out, a little this and a little that. As I get older I'm learning the difference between personal and private. That being said, I'm writing here to commemorate the day that my anger finally rose up to confront someone that I should have long, long ago. The day that I learned how purifying the expression of anger can be, how it can distill all the convolutions of a problem into its essence, simplifying it and sifting it like flour until you can look in the bowl and divine yourself by how the dust falls.


Tonight it the longest night of the year, and I am so glad to be able to welcome and enjoy it. And to welcome tomorrow, the beginning of the return of the sun.


Peace, strength, and health to you and yours on this longest of nights.

Festive Zen, Dragged Over a Day or Two

Amongst piles of scraps, mountain high, divided by colours, we claimed our territory: "Pink, it has to be pink!" And so, just sitting and talking, scissors in hand, in-between learning to tie and finding the perfect scraps, we sl-ow-ly assembled what was declared to be "The best wreath ever":


Our little gesture of festivity is inspired by this wreath, found via whip-up. And as I look at the original now, I realise why Safiya kept insisting that it have a blue bow...well, tomorrow that will have to be changed :-)

And there's that long-ish piece sticking out on the right-hand-side....arg!....I have to go and fix that....right now

A Confession

Dear Goddesses of Craft:

I lied today. I said "I hate handsewing" and "I hate knitting". This is not true, and for such transgressions I am truly sorry.

In truth, I said these things out of love. When you love to do something, picking it up in the knowledge that you soon must put it down again can be painful. And so I lashed out against something that I love.

Don't worry, I'll make it up to you.

Wearing Our Green On Our (Second-Hand) Sleeves

The video above is timely, considering the season about to fall upon us (THUD). It was first posted on Celsias a couple of days ago, and now No Impact Man has a post on it as well. I'm posting it here because the more (even if it's just a little) the merrier! Annie Leonard is a waste activist, and the video is engaging and clear. It seems that more "ordinary people" aren't waiting for politicians to set policy and well, just getting the word out or making their own. Including this guy's video on global warming: "How It All Ends" (this is the revised one, in response to feedback from the first, more succinct version).

And then there's the Riot for Austerity. It's an invitation to, over a year, reduce your consumption by 90% and keep it there. That's right, 90%. There are pressing reasons why this figure was chosen, and I'll let the link speak for itself, but I will say that it's an inspired idea. Our household hasn't officially joined, but we're being sucked in bit by bit :-)

There are sooooo many well-spoken people discussing the statistics, the checks and balances, the politics, of global warming, the coming fresh-water shortage, peak oil, greenwashing, and etc. These are important foods for thought, mostly because all those words are (hopefully) catalysts for growth of action. But we are an average family. So here's my average family rant on going green (wait, gotta find the soapbox - oh crap, Safiya's using it as a house for the Mama toy dog....)

(Deep breath...)

I am not part of this new religion, and a religion it does seem, sometimes. I am not better than you because my honey is wildcrafted and yours comes in the plastic bear. You are not going to heaven with your recycled totebag in, er, tow...

And that's the point, isn't it? First, we are in this together. Second, we cannot buy our way out of what is coming.

I do not believe the government will fix things for us (there, I've said it, but please don't stop protesting!) There is a long list of reasons why I think this, but maybe for another post. I do believe that people are very good at getting together to help each other out in a crisis (look at the Big Summer Blackout of 200? here in Toronto - no pandemonium, just people helping each other out - it was coool! I wish we could celebrate it every year!) I don't believe technology is going to save us (we don't have the time). Also, my limited understanding and observation has lead me to the idea that it's better not to hedge my bets on everyone getting on the ACTION bandwagon anytime soon. So here's my radical statement:

I do not make "environmental" changes to stop global warming.

When I took a health psychology class, one of the studies that struck me involved health in the elderly and the idea of anticipation. As far as I recall, there were three groups (randomly assigned): elderly who were not assigned regular visits by volunteers, elderly who were assigned random visits by volunteers, and elderly who were assigned regular (same time, same day) visits by volunteers. The surprising result was that the second group did worse, health-wise than the first group (the third group did the best, obviously). It seems that it was the expectation, the looking forward to the visits, that were of more benefit than the actual visiting!

And so, I make changes in order to practise what is likely to be coming down the road soon. To take care of my family. So that the visits of beans-and-grains, of low-water-levels, of less-of-everything are familiar friends who stop by regularly, not spectres to be feared. The major ones are done: we buy second-hand, have signed up for environmentally friendly electricity, make a lot of our own stuff, are vegetarians, don't have a car, and Mr. S. bikes to work or takes transit (and we picked our house to enable this). There's much more to do, to practise (the garden this year was a bust :-), but it really is a riot!

Funnily enough, I don't even notice much of a difference (and this from a formerly decent shop-a-holic).

Once you stop buying things, you can stop reading labels and trying to weigh products according to their enviro-moral worth. Once you start eating local and in season as much as you can, you can once again stop fretting over labels. Once there's no expectation of being entertained all the time, you start to actually have fun.

And just in case you think I'm all doom-and-gloom (Hi Mom :-), here's some links about why this really works, and what fun we can look forward to:

Sharon's post on Post-Peak Hedonism.
The benefits of living this way from Colin.

And by the way, we have the plastic bear. It just gets refilled, is all.

It's On the Jar!

I came across this recently as I was tidying the recipe box:


Seriously. The above recipe, scribed in my adolescent script, is a relic from the past; it is one of the two favourite casseroles that our family grew up with. That and "Potato Chip Casserole". I kid you not :-)

These days our cupboards look mostly like this:


Butter and cheese are lovely (I'll pass on the "cream of" soups!), but not to a lactose-intolerant vegetarian (how unfair is that?). Why all the writing on the jars? First, it must be noted that that kind of...ahem....meticulousness...is from the pre-Safiya era. But it has served us well. For example:

"How do you make amaranth again?" "It's on the jar!"
"Am I really getting enough calcium?" "It's on the jar!"
"Marnie, are you sure you're getting enough protein?" "It's on the jar!"

It's yummy eating, and although I can't find locally grown quinoa or amaranth yet, for the most part the whole grain, beans, veggies, and fruit thing (and vegan baked goods!) is 100-mile diet friendly. And, incidentally, wallet-friendly as well.

Of course, sometimes the jar is a little vague: ratio water to oats: 3 to 1 or 4 to 1, cook 10 to 40 minutes. You know, more or less...

Four Hour Round Up

The low-light setting of my camera is great except that you've either got to have a tripod or a really steady hand. Hmmmm, as the above picture proves, must cut back on....what? I don't drink coffee, so maybe chocolate? No, that can't possibly be it :-)

If this works it will be quite possibly the easiest way to clothe a child, ever. Felt sweater, cut off sleeves and neckline, cut out armholes. Ta-da! I added slits at the bottom sides for a little bit more ease of movement because it wasn't quite a-line, but since the shape is based on a little dress she already has, it'll probably fit. Yay for felt tunics!

Some other things finished in the four hours of lovely craft time this afternoon:

New legwarmers for Safiya! And, from Cynthia Treen's Last Minute Fabric Gifts:

A hat pour moi. "Why hello, Robin Hood" said Mr. S. upon my surfacing from the basement. Hmmmm, I thought so myself a little, but I was also trying to persuade myself that at a certain angle it could be jaunty-and-just-a-little-glam-in-a-30's-kind-of-way. That is, until Mr. S. burst my bubble. Well, it's off to rob the rich and give to the poor I go!

On Finding A Better Turn of a Phrase

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses


Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses...

Sometimes it's right there in front of you. I'd lost sight of the fact that the words you use will determine your path for the day. And so, a better use for the words from the title in my previous post...thanks to my favourite song. (which I wish I could find streaming somewhere for you, but the poetry is lovely anyway...)