Television

"It's just a deer. Don't freak out, it's just a dead deer." This is what I kept telling myself over a recent weekend as I crawled under our deck moving coaxial cables, while trying not to step on the hoof or head of a deer carcass. Poor little thing crawled under there and died back in 2011. It's just skin, bones and hooves now, but still not something I wanted to disturb. This was after a trip under the house, which resembled a mouse and rat graveyard. Bleh!

We've rejoined at least the 20th century at my house. I haven't had regular TV reception since about the year 2000. My roomies and I just didn't make it a priority. I often wanted to watch the Olympics or some of the good TV shows. Netflix and Hulu made this easier in the recent past, but Mike and I still kinda wanted to have the option to watch TV now that we live out of town. There isn't any cable available out here, so it's either satellite or do it yourself.

So we got an antenna for Christmas. A great big ol' giant antenna. We took down the busted one of my Grandpa's and over the course of a day, assembled and installed the new one. Mike spent some time up on our 2nd story roof, and thankfully ended up back on the ground in one piece. We are good with things like this; Ikea furniture, house projects, etc. We calmly and methodically assemble like a team of pros. Troubleshooting, trying, retrying and adjusting. Go team!

I watched the TV from the ground and let Mike know how to adjust the direction. Now, there is reception. Nothing is on, of course, but we like the feeling of hope that sometime there might be something on for us. It's the American dream, and we're living it.

my life at home

My dream of being a kept woman has come true, at least for right now. I do get a kick out of working sometimes. Completing tasks, making something cool, solving problems. Getting paid is also neat. But if I didn't work, that would be okay too. There are so many interesting things to do with ones time.

I've been pretty busy starting my design practice, but I'm also managing to take on a whole host of housewifely tasks. Blissful creativity, hard work and tasty payoffs. One of the most unusual new culinary things I tried was fried squash blossoms. We picked some zucchini and pumpkin flowers from the garden, stuffed them with goat cheese, brushed them with egg and rolled them around in some hot oil on the stove. So good. Hot cheese always is!

Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Another fun activity has been bread making. Mike bought me a Mother Earth News Magazine while I was still in Seattle that had a long article about bread making. The first loaf in Seattle was a little smokey tasting because at 500 degrees, the goop in the bottom of the oven smoldered at a slow burn the entire 35 minutes, setting the smoke alarms off. Since then, I've gotten it down and enjoy trying small adjustments to the process to see what affects it has. Its super easy. No work at all. And obviously I don't need to go on about the joys of slicing into a warm loaf of crusty bread and drowning it in fresh olive oil and salt...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/homemade-bread-zm0z10zsto.aspx

I've also made use of my grandmother's old mixer for cookies. As you can see the tiny mixing bowl doesn't quite have room for a full batch... I tried a bigger bowl, but it won't mix very well. Despite it's shortcomings, I have to give this mixer props for still chugging along since the 1950's or whenever it was made.

Another tasty delight in our household are eggs! Our lovely little girls (or not so little anymore) are producing an egg each per day. What a fun thing. And the eggs taste egg flavored. See in the photo some of the last eggs we bought on the left, next to some of our first chicken eggs on the right. Thanks Buffy and Dotty!

The real thing.

My latest foray into my agricultural roots has been apple cider. Grandpa had 7 apple trees, all of which are producing beautifully. There are plenty to eat and bake with, but it's hard to imagine tossing all the rest that fall off the tree or get nibbled by birds. So I watched some you tube videos and put together an idea for a cider press. The only thing we had to buy was a bottle jack, since I only had a scissor jack for my car, which doesn't fit into a bucket.

See the apples here

The first step is to wash the apples, and cut them into quarters. Then I whip them around for a couple seconds in the cuisinart. I take the pulp out to the garage, where my press is set up.

Apple bits - they turn brown right away.

Mike and I built this frame out of wood pieces in the carport. Mike runs the table saw, which I refuse to operate. We drilled a bunch of holes in a bucket that I had, created a round wood piece to fit the bottom inside of the bucket, and set up a garbage bag in a cardboard box to catch the juice, which runs into a pitcher. The first few runs didn't produce much, but once I wrapped the pulp in an old towel before I pressed it, the pulp didn't clog the holes, and we got a whole glassful from just 8 small apples. I have since decided that adding some water before drinking isn't a bad idea. The straight cider puts some hair on your chest. The next step is to see if we can't make some cider moonshine!

The Press, in all it's simple glory.

Yesterday, I applied for two part time jobs, to get some cash coming in to cover the costs of getting the business going. And so I can buy some fall boots :) So perhaps my free-est of free days are soon to be taken up by making photocopies for someone and coming up with a logo design for myself. But I'll still have weekends and living in this house in the woods, 5 miles from town, is very conducive to working on projects here at home.

dinner to die for

Caution: This post contains graphic images and descriptions of violence towards crustaceans.

Today, I almost died while preparing dinner. Well, maybe not almost, but I got a little panicked for sure. It is crabbing season, and I love crab. Mike and I got our first crab pot last year, and had a great time scoring some dinner offshore of Whidbey Island. This year, we are getting a late start. There is one month of the season left, and we've heard that the supply of male crabs, of a legal size, has really dropped off in the waters near Bellingham. Nevertheless, Mike and I rowed out to set the pot twice in Wildcat Cove near our house last week.

Today, I went to check the pot by myself. I'd brought some gloves along, so that I wouldn't be afraid of handling the crabs. But I still had this uneasy feeling as I set my inflatable raft in the water and shoved off with the oar. It was kinda windy, and our pot was kinda far out there. It didn't seem so far when we set it, and the tide was slack and there was no wind. But today there was wind, and the currents were strong.

I talked to myself on the way out. "You can do this. It's not that far. You've got some snacks in your belly and strong arms. There are people on the beach that can call for help. It's only windy past the point, so as long as you get back inside, you'll be fine. Mike knows I'm out here, and you've got a PFD on..." Turns out my intuition wasn't so far off. It was windy. I was alone. And the pot was far. The rowing was slow and difficult, I just kept pushing on, and breathing, concentrating on getting the oars in the water.

I finally reached the float, which was hard to see in the setting sun. I hauled up the pot, which had 8 or 10 crabs in it, and tucked the line under my foot to tow the pot in the water. I could see that the wind was already blowing me farther from the Cove. I got to rowing as hard as I could, but with the wind and the pot dragging, I quickly noticed that I wasn't making any progress. I stopped, arms burning and heart pounding, and pulled the pot in. I set it on the edge of the boat, hoping the crab claws weren't big enough to grab the boat material and tear a hole. I set off again, this time sitting up on the boat edge, and noticed slow but sure progress toward shore. I ducked behind Whiskey Rock to get out of the wind, and went around it to catch back up with the mouth of the cove. Once inside cove, the tide was pushing me in and I was safe. Time to figure out what to do with these flailing crustaceans.

I reached in with the gloves and grabbed the crabs, one at a time, from the back. I pulled them out, and checked their bellies. Female. Female. Female. Splash, splash, splash. The last one I checked was the largest. A male. Over a 7" wide shell. Legal to take. I felt like this one must have been a gift from God, to encourage me to be brave. Once I was back on shore, I popped him in the cooler with some water and tied the boat back onto the roof of Judy.

When I got home, I knew I needed to kill the crab that I had taken from the sea. I had heard that instead of boiling the crab alive, you could take a screwdriver, stick it in the back and pry up the top shell. The guts would come with it and then you could boil the crab just after it dies. That seemed better for some reason... I put a big pot of water on the stove and found the biggest screw driver I could in the garage. I approached the cooler, grabbed the crab, and pinned him, claws first, on the driveway. I said a quick prayer of thanks, and jammed that metal rod into the poor son of a gun. I popped him open like a soda. I wish I'd been able to be faster, but I'd never done this before. It suffered a bit, grabbing onto it's own innards before I could manage to break the thing in half, which finished it off. I rinsed it off, and took it inside.

It was strange to kill something with my own hands. I hadn't really done that before, as long as lettuce and dahlias don't count. It felt weird. I enjoyed the crab, but I had a strange feeling of adrenaline and something else that made dinner surreal. I shared my kill with the man I love, and we enjoyed some Fume Blanc and grilled zucchini along with it. I guess that's how it goes, being a omnivore.

changes

In the last two months my life has been shaken, stirred, simmered and sheared. I had a beautiful life before, and now it's been transformed into something else, beautiful and new. Walter Breuning was 114 years old when he died earlier this year in Montana. One of his tips for a long life was, "Every change is good, Embrace change." I've never been very good with change. It is something I crave and something I need to remain interested in life, but I always approach it reluctantly. When you are blessed with so much good, how can one be sure change won't bring something less good?


I started packing and moving my things in May. Mike got a job in Bellingham in April, and suddenly, things were changing in earnest. I knew change was a possibility when I accepted Mike's marriage proposal new years eve, but here came the change, gaining momentum and moving forward. I've lived in Seattle since I was 19. I've lived with Melissa since I was 19. From 1998 at UW to 2011 at Exteriorscapes, I've been following the path of landscape architecture in Seattle (minus the time I left and went to travel the globe, which was a long set of exciting and fun changes). But here I was, having committed to living in a new city and marrying a man I didn't want to be without. Change!


Melissa, Claire and I packed and packed, cleaned and patched our home of 4+ years. It was the longest I've lived anywhere since being home with my parents. Load after load, and finally we were done and we left. My single life! Working for me, weekends for me, wine or steak, whatever I wanted! It was fun, and I had great friends to share my life with. It was hard to go.

Our wedding was really great. All of the events and celebrations leading up to the big day, were very, very special to me. I've never felt so celebrated and supported. Mike and I met for some photos at the Ballard locks, and he looked so handsome. We boarded our wedding sailboat at 4pm with our families and a few friends. My sister made me the most beautiful bouquet and a charming boutonniere for Mike. We sailed, and I was nervous. I don't think I said much to anyone and my mind was traveling on the wind elsewhere. It wasn't until Mike was looking into my eyes and calmly saying that he would love me forever that I was able to really be present. We had a nice dinner afterwards and people said some great things about us. What an amazing day. We had a blast camping on Orcas the rest of the weekend and appreciated the time we had to spend with our friends and family.

Now, we are here! Bellingham. I am at home, playing housewife for the summer. I am cooking and baking, unpacking and hemming curtains. I slept 10 hours a night for 10 days. My neck seems to be working out the rest of the kinks that give me my headaches. Mike works all day, then we have dinner and say hi to the chickens together. It's a pretty simple life. Eventually I'll get a job, or start my own consulting business, but until then, I'm trying to rest and become re-inspired about what to do in this short life. What a blessing to have some space to embrace all these changes. I'll be 114 before I know it.

Coming out

It's time that I make things official. I'm moving to Bellingham. We're moving to Bellingham, Mike and I. It's our big adventure. It's been in the works for a long time, but it's pretty much a done deal at this point. It's terribly exciting! And also a big change.

My grandpa passed away about a year ago. I still miss him all the time. He left us with quite a legacy. People all around are still talking about him and his zen ways. His thrifty genius. His generous spirit. His deep faith. He also left us with his house - a very special place built with his own hands and he and my grandmother's dreams. It's up in the woods, it's near the salt water, it's a home for having guests. It's been there since before I was alive. I've always known it as a relaxing destination full of family and food and comfort - and unconditional love. I had fun there, playing in the trees.

Mike and I were up there about 6 months ago, just visiting. I adore the architecture, the wall paper, the garden. The cabinets. The furniture. We were sitting up late, enjoying a fire and chatting. We had been talking about maybe trying a new city together. A smaller place where things are cheaper, more simple and more quiet. Ilwaco. Waitsburg. Cle Elum. I said, "Hey do you think you might want to live here?" A process of pondering, asking, figuring and hoping took us from that to where we are now. Mike just moved up last week. He got a job. We painted a bedroom this last weekend. I put my name on the utility bills. I'll head up there after we're married.

We are terribly excited. We bought chickens. We bought posts for the garden deer fence. We planted seeds. Living in a place like this is something we both have always wanted to do. And now we get to! Together! We are also a little scared of moving out of the one city we've both ever lived in. I've been living with Melissa for over 10 years. I have things on hold at the library that I may not be here to pick up. I will have to leave my job (ssshhh). It's different. But it's going to be good. If we can soak up any good energy from Earl and Dorothy in their home, maybe we can hope to be half as cool as they were.

marry me?

I wonder if anyone reading this blog is awaiting my 2010 year in review. It's January 3 afterall! Well, 2010 was difficult, so I had been putting it off. It's easy to remember all the difficult things. I'll list them first, so that we can move on after we read them:

5. Changing jobs 3 times, and still being under-employed.
4. Having a potential business acquisition fall apart, which was very stressful, especially since it involved my boyfriend as a partner.
3. Being depressed for 11 months of the year.
2. Getting mononucleosis that dented my health for 7 months.
1. Grandpa dying, which feels so unfair and disappointing for all the rest of us.

The great things are indeed great. Life is beautiful and mine especially so. In spite of what feels at first glance like a tough year, it had it's share of joy and positivity.

8. I gave up daily coffee, except for recreational and social use.
7. So many babies born to so many friends. It's good to know that some of the kids to inherit the world will be raised by capable, intelligent, loving parents.
6. Several great hiking and camping trips, although no surfing on account of the illness.
5. I turned 30. This could be on the bad list, but I'm going to choose to put it over here.
4. Fantastic trips to Sayulita, Whidbey on the boat, to Waitsburg, to Italy.
3. I started going to counseling, which I sense has been a great and permanent shift in my ability to live as a happy, well adjusted adult.
2. My niece Bereket's arrival. She is magic to me and I can't imagine not having her little soul a part of my family. She is undescribably lovely and fascinating.
1. Mike asked me to marry him! And I said yes! From friends to life peeps. January 26, 2007 to today. I am humbled and grateful to have found someone that understands me so well, accepts me so completely and supports me with a generosity that doesn't make sense. He asked me on the road to Bellingham for a New Years family gathering. He didn't plan it ahead, it was just the right moment and I had told him that I was finally ready.

I feel excited and relieved, anxious and amazed. I knew it was going to happen, but then again never really thought it would happen to me. I know it's the right thing. Even though we are a challenge to each other sometimes, we come out closer at the end of every day. It's going to be wonderful to wake up with such a passionate, motivated, and faithful person next to me for the rest of my life.

Earl

Everybody liked my Grandpa Earl. I don't know anyone, who knows anyone, who didn't. There was something about him that I haven't been able to put exactly into words. He was calm, welcoming, wise, grateful and present. To me, he was faithfully a person I could go to for peace. Most of my relationships depend on catching up, sharing cares and joys, and processing where we are at. My relationship with Grandpa was a little different though. He never demanded anything from me. I could come in, sit down and say nothing. I could just ask my big questions when they came up, and he was happy to share what he knew. He didn't need to know how my day was. Somehow without going over all the trials and tribulations we were surely both experiencing, it was still possible to feel close.

I think my Grandpa had a different perspective on things than most people. He knew not to sweat the small stuff, and that it really is all small stuff. I think he could see that I would figure things out, or they would figure themselves out, so we didn't need to talk about everything all the time. In Grandpa's presence, it felt right to leave all the small stuff at the door and just exist. I could lay down on the carpet in the sun, stare out into the garden, take a walk, trade some jokes or just warm up by the always hot fire. I think I got the sense that Grandpa already knew that everything was going to be fine. God already took care of it all. He had peace that surpassed all understanding, and it was easy to share that peace when you were around him. His life was difficult and tumultuous and he was no stranger to feeling sad and frustrated. He never wavered in his faith and hope though. Grandpa's faith in God, and his very real connection to what God was actively doing made him an intensely warm person. A person that everyone wanted to be around.

Grandpa died last Sunday April 18th in the morning. The sadness I feel seems to be a black hole right now. No amount of love or cheer or time or ice cream seems to be shrinking the hole yet. I feel happy that Grandpa, who uncle Fred said recently sometimes patted Grandma's empty side of the bed at night and asked where she was, is with Grandma again now. His back doesn't hurt anymore and he can eat chocolate again, if that's how things work in heaven. Its just such a great loss to me, my family, and the apparent scores of other people that needed him around. His house in the woods and the patchy memories I have are all that's left for me to get to him. I think with him, a piece of my childhood bliss died too. I hope that as I move forward in life I can take Earl's peace with me. The knowledge that what's happening to me today or this week or this month can't touch what has already been taken care of through God.

 

weird, bad day

I was preparing to write today about this nice man named Mike, who as of today has been my only love interest for an entire year straight. It's been a really fun and exciting year, full of humble learning and immense freedom. He is so kind and interesting to me. I was just telling him that I feel strange that he seems more like daily bread to me than cake. All of my romance up until a year ago has been like cake. Are my feelings towards him supposed to feel like cake, above the ordinary and full of emotion and frosting? Or is feeling like he is my bread the real way that people exist together in life?

I had thought that we might go out to dinner or drink some wine at home and be happy, but then there was bad news this afternoon. My Grandpa Earl, who hasn't been feeling well, has cancer. Grandpa, who is the very hinge pin on which my mother's entire family depends, has cancer. He has always been, along with my grandma before she passed away, an immense source of peace and refuge for all of us. Grandpa is our safety net. Our home base. The person we turn to when life doesn't make sense. I'm just not sure what anyone is going to do without him. I've been going around crying for 5 hours, beside myself. It feels like someone pulled the rug out from under my brain.

So Mike is making dinner in the kitchen and I've been floundering around, putting a cold washcloth on my face. Life is so weird. We just don't realize it most of the time.

rainy day

What I am listening to: Radiohead and Fleetfoxes. Stuck in a rut for sure now.
What I am eating: Christmas cookies
New exercise plans: Joining a gym, preferably one with a Crossfit program
How I am feeling: Depressed. January strikes again! And a little break-up.
What my dreams are made of: Sails
What I am feeling good about: Planning Spring Break for Adults II
What I am bracing for: a couple weeks of overtime at work
What I celebrated yesterday: Christmas with the extended family at Grandpa's. A pleasant hive of active children.

BEV

It was a real pleasure to watch my old friend Brynn get married October 4th. It was maybe slightly more of a pleasure to watch her dance to 'Rockin in the USA' with her Dad. The ceremony, the reception, the places, the people were all fully Brynn. It's nice to know that even though we live in different cities now, and keep in touch more on a yearly basis, than a daily basis, she is still who she always was.

Who was she? Brynn has been my friend since freshman year of college. We were placed in the same bible study at church, and never looked back. After she let me sleep on her dorm room floor for a week, just to see what I was missing out by having to live at home, I knew she liked me.

We used to play catch out on the street after classes. We used to bike, run, swim and play all hours of the day and night. She told us stories of her youth back in Lynden and would have us holding our bellies. If there was an opportunity to do anything at all, she was in. Coffees, exercise, roaming campus, telling jokes - Brynn was in the middle of it. Or on top of it, like when she cut out a photo of her face and pasted it on the angel on top of our Christmas tree.

We traveled down to Costa Rica together in 2005. Slightly afraid, but mostly ecstatic, we surfed and made rice and beans. We met some British guys, surely through Brynn's magnetic personality, and hung out with them for the last few days of our trip. We rented bikes and went swimming under a little waterfall with some local kids outside of town. We just plain had fun. We enjoyed ourselves. Brynn was, and always will be, an expert enjoyer of life. I miss having her around everyday. She is irreplaceable. I love her dearly and wish her all the best with her new sidekick. I am glad to know that she is only a car trip away and that although she has many people to give her love to, she seems to always have a little piece for me.

coming around

The worst has past. Or so it seems from here. Last Wednesday the doctor clipped four wires in my mouth and told me to slowly open. Like the crusty lid of a honey jar, it creaked and then fell open. I was so surprised at the sensation, I gasped. The air rushed into my mouth uninhibited and has never tasted sweeter. I reached up and touched my cheek as my jaw actually opened and closed, in a very small way. I spent the next few hours feeling like my tongue was hanging out of my mouth and that I was shouting at everyone. Since then the free exchange of liquids, words, air and food has been intoxicatingly satisfying. Everything tastes 2x as good as it used to. I talk to everyone and just want to get out of breath to feel the way that I can breathe again.

I am not yet allowed to chew. My new jaw bone is still hardening up and if I chew too much I could actually re-break it and have to start over. Which is of course unacceptable and unfathomable. I think if I had to have my jaw wired shut again I would have to be put into a temporary coma because I couldn't possibly handle it. I almost started crying as I walked back to my office after the appointment. The feeling was something between a jail break, looking through my first pair of glasses, Forrest Gump breaking his leg braces off in slow motion and a gorilla jumping off my back. That whole thing was just terrible and I am pretty sure it's behind me now.

Next step: teeth. I need to go to the dentist once my jaw feels more comfortable and I am more comfortable with bad news. I will find out how much work I need and how much it will cost. My bite is feeling pretty good, so maybe I can escape adult braces and just get some new front teeth. I have heard that the whole process is quite simple these days. Who doesn't have a crown? I will join the broad ranks of hockey players, boxers, bar fighters, roller derby players and those who once tripped and get some fake teeth. Maybe they will look better than what I had before? I could go more square, more round, longer, shorter...there are options. Gold, silver, white. Maybe I could get them to inlay jewels or trinkets in the front. Maybe spell out my name across both of them?

For now, I am fine. I have spent the weekend slowly eating the world's smallest bites of food, going right past chewing, straight to swallowing. Everything tastes so incredible, it's like I can taste it with my very soul. I visited my Grandpa and ate fish and chips, made pancakes at home this morning and had fish tacos without the taco tonight with some of Claire's friends in Eastlake. I have sneezed, yawned, brushed and whistled without reserve.

Here is a photo of one of my poppies in my garden, which coincidentally seems to have arrived this week as well.

snow falling on subarus

This post-Thanksgiving weekend I traveled to Bellingham to attend a cousin's wedding and visit my Grandpa. It snowed a lot. Stephen and I went out into the woods to throw snowballs and clip cedar branches for a wreath and came back quite wet and cold.

Luckily the wedding reception was before the 1 foot dump of snow, so we made it. I think my well wishes for my cousin was maybe the third time I have spoken to him, ever. With 37 biological cousins, you can't be super close to all of them, regrettably.

Even though I hoped that we would get stuck in Bellingham, we didn't and I had to leave all of that lovely snow behind. Now it's snowing and raining, hailing and freezing in Seattle all at the same time. It's also totally dark at 5:12pm.

My spirits, however are very high. I have a new car! After a painfully long wait of 1.5 months, my little Subaru wagon is rebuilt and running strong. I picked her up today and we went to pass our emissions test and get some tabs. Then I took her right over to REI to hang out with the other wagons while I picked up a few gifts. I am pleased to have spent well less than half the money that I made from my Volkswagen, which means I can pay the bills a little longer in case this job hunt doesn't work out. I'm so excited to begin our new life together. 2006 Major Life Change #215, complete.