Finding Zen

Hand Knit Baby Blankets

Are you pregnant?  Working on it?  Know someone pregnant?  Anyone you know just had a baby?  Great!  You'll need a blanket.  Babies need blankets.  Especially with winter coming. 

At some point, I will be posting a link to a website I have been working on that will feature some artists and their crafts.  Myself included.  But it's not ready yet. 

In the meantime...I have an idea, and I want you to tell me, what you think.

Once a month, I am going to knit a baby blanket.  You will vote on the color and I will knit furiously to produce something luxurious.  Most blankets I have done, average about $100 in yarn cost alone.  It will be made using either cotton, alpaca, or silk...or a combination of any of those.  It will be one of a kind.  I will post pictures when it is complete and then auction them off.  Like EBAY but not.

I'm not sure exactly how this will work, but the last 'bidder'-commenter, will win.  I will start all the auctions at 1 dollar.  There will be a time window, and I'm not sure what that will be yet.  They could go for $10 bucks...or $300.  I don't really care.  I am willing to take the chance I would have to absorb the costs (in yarn and time), just to get my blankets 'out there'. 

Take this for example.  My latest project, hijacked from Vern Of Blog Fame.  Inspired by the pattern I created when I made the Priveledged Baby Mama blanket...she had gotten about 15 rows into a new blanket she wanted to make for ummm...you know...little Stella's.   Whenever they happen to arrive.  I was so smitten by this wonderful idea especially since she had chosen to use the baby alpaca I brought back from Peru for her, with a YUMMY silk yarn....I selfishly stole the damn thing from her and haven't been able to put it down since.

Tell me this is not the most delicious baby blanket you have ever seen?

And in case you don't remember see: privileged Baby Mama.

So what do you think?  Yes, you would love a Stella Knit blanket...and would tell all your friends...or, very bad idea, sure to crush my ego?

Mountain Work

We are approaching the end of our second month here in Montana.  I have worked, physically harder, than I ever have before.  The sun and wind and cold (lately) take it's toll on the body when you are outside all day...and while I always knew Zack's job back at home (in construction) couldn't be easy...I never REALLY understood.  I still don't know why he would CHOOSE to do it all the time.  It's only slightly rewarding to actually complete something, I'm not sure I would say worth all the straining, lifting, and repetition it took to get there.  But he's into that sort of thing.  You know, climbing mountains.  Jumping out of planes.  Getting flipped over under water in rapids.  He loves testing his body and reveling in the fruits of his labor.

Not me so much.  I am happy to take the path of least resistance any day.  But I signed up for this.  It was a good opportunity for us to make some money - ironically the wages if you can build/fix/or renovate something out here, are much better than any work the two of us could score back in Atlanta - and we were struggling to pay our bills.  It's been 6 months now I've been on the job hunt with no success.  Making ends meet through contract and freelance work. 

I enjoy the flexibility to do things, such as what we are doing right now, that this has provided us, but I have to admit that at 29 and 31 respectively, a tiny part of me wishes that Zack and I had 'traditional' jobs.  You know...stable ones.  Ones that reflect how smart/capable/and hard working we both are.  Ones with health benefits and paid vacation.  Jobs that would allow us the financial stability to actually contemplate starting a family, and maybe even have a decent savings set aside.  (Admittedly we have a considerable amount of 'savings' invested, but we don't touch it - it's for our children and maybe our retirement - it might as well not exist).

For 7 weeks, I have sanded and stained more than I will ever want to for the rest of my life.  I looked up Carpel Tunnel last night because my hands are so sore, and they actually list 'hand sanding' as a potential cause.  Awesome.  Until just this last week, I finally paid off all my debt to the tune of almost 2k.  It is my hope that in these last few weeks I may actually walk away from all this with something in savings.  Interestingly, as I predicted before we got out here, I have spent next to nothing.  $40 bucks for a pair of shoes I ordered for my birthday, and about $20 bucks in Entertainment magazines (THEY look at me with such sadness everytime I buy these things) here and there.  In two months, can you believe it?  $60 dollars - on myself.  It's magic.  You see...there is no one around to give a shit what you look like or what new toy you have. 

So we are ALMOST done.  We have been working on a deck renovation project that has been a beast and I will be happy to see it completed.  I'll show you pictures when it's all said and done.  All in all, I'm surprised at how well I've done out here.  After the first month I got a little stir crazy...but it only lasted a few days.  I feel pretty content.  Not antsy to be anywhere in particular.  I could stay or go.  But it's time to go home.  I do miss my friends.  I'll leave you with this image.  In case anyone was feeling slightly envious of our little Montana getaway.

Now you just TRY and tell me barefoot in Birkenstock with gym shorts covered in dust isn't DEAD SEXY?

*Consider yourself lucky I didn't opt for the photo of my SENIOR FEET.  That would be the lovely bleeding cracks my heels have suddenly sprung as a result of 8 hour days in those shoes and windy dry Montana weather.  Cute eh?

 

Not So Itsy Bitsy

Humor My Inner Earth Child

The book I'm currently reading has me a little spooked.

These days, you don't have to look very far to find some program or movie depicting the next catastrophic event due to our planet.  Yellowstone could blow any minute.  Volcanic eruptions could create the next MEGA tsunami.  The Polar Caps are going to melt flooding and freezing NYC like The Day After Tomorrow.  A MEGA asteroid could snuff us out like the dinosaurs.  And of course we can't forget about The Aliens.

But even I - the consummate worrier - know I can do nothing about any of those things, but maybe wrap my head in tin foil and cross my fingers.

Recently I attempted to read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  It seemed a bit too much botany for me, but I got the gist.  I already understood from listening to NPR and my husband after he read The Omnivore's Dilemma, that:

• Almost everything we eat that has been canned, packaged, or processed has high fructose corn syrup in it.  And thats not good.  AND
• There is a tremendous environmental cost in the transport and distribution of food.

Kingsolver suggests if you can't eat primarily local food, at the least, eat WHOLE foods.  Save the planet.  Save your body from death by high fructose corn syrup.  Got it.

But the book I have moved on to now, Ancient Sunlight, really scares the crap out me.  Me thinks the hippies and their crazy off-grid ways....are on to something.  They may look like the social outcasts of modern society, but they are really like the pre-historic fish slowly growing legs so that when the water dries up they can morph into reptiles and carry about their way.  Or something.  They (the ones willing to be a little odd) will be the survival of the fittest.

The book is an in depth look at how we are depleting our earths resources.  It predicts that we are on borrowed time.  That because we have used and continue to deplete a LIMITED supply of oil to grow and industrialize, as the earths population grows and the well dries up (like 40 years from now), we be fuct.  No energy = majorly screwed.  Before industrialization the population was always a direct reflection of the natural resources readily available for the taking. 

Zack has talked about wanting farm animals.  I think, when pigs fly.  When pigs fly, maybe I'd be down with farm animals.  I think me on a farm, is like...oh, i don't know, Paris Hilton sporting a pair of Birkenstocks?  I've grown a lot in the last 4 years, but I'm not ready for milking the cow.

But this book.  This book has me thinking about Bessie.  I might have to milk the cow for my children.  And my childrens children.  Because let's just say, dude is right.  Let's just say in 40 years, we run out of oil.  What would you do with that information?  What if Obama becomes the next president and the first thing he tells us is "Listen ya'll.  It's time to back off the teet.  If we don't find an alternative energy source, your biggest chore for the day won't be picking up your dry cleaning, it will be hunting a deer to feed your family, in Atlanta.  Good luck with that!".

I'm kinda thinking...if the oil is going to run out in 40 years...I have some work to do.  I feel some sort of responsibility as a human being - to help assist future generations succeed.  This means, I have to teach my children...to teach their children...how to thrive on their own.   Because one thing is certain.  The more dependable our children, and their children are in 40 years, on the TEET, the less their chance of survival. 

So here is what I'm thinking now.  I need land.  As much of it as I can buy.  With a water supply and nice views.  I need guns for protection - you know those city folk will be after my Bessie.  I need Bessie.  And some chickens.  A pig or two.  Horses for transportation.  Some solar panels and a bomb shelter equip with a years worth of Fruit Cocktail and Beenie Weenies, and water.

Go read the book.  If your down, we can go halve'sies, share the land, and you and your family can have Bessie for milkin' on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays. 

 

Letter To NieNie

To my readers:  To understand this post, you must go spend AT LEAST 10 minutes at NieNie's.  it's good.  i promise.  like...DISNEY (without the villian)...you won't be disappointed.  unless of course you are feeling hateful today.  then maybe don't go there.

Dear NieNie,

We have to talk.  My name is Stella (but that's actually a lie, because it's really Shawna...I just like Stella better so we go with that here at Finding Zen).  I came across your blog a few months ago when I got tuned into SKIRT.  I haven't been the same ever since.

You see.  I can't wrap my head around it all.  And thats hard for me.  There are some things I need to know.  So I'm writing to ask, quite simply....WHATS YOUR SECRET? 

For starters.  You are beautiful.  You wear the color red like its nobody business.  The picture posted at the bottom of your recipe blog of you in the kitchen with that apron on?  Who looks like that??  Where did you come from??  Is this typical kitchen wear?  Do you set out hot apple pies in the window? 

I am mesmerized by your blog.  The colors, your stories, the photos, are all so rich and warm.  Yet you write of this sort of utopia you share with your husband and children that is a bit unfamiliar to me.  Now, with someone like say, Dooce - I'm right there.  Almost every post resonates - sounds off some piece of my life that leaves me yelling, crying, or laughing hysterically at my computer screen.  And most  blogs I read.  They are often times willing to divulge the most ridiculous and frightening moments of their lives - hoping to strike familiarity with someone else 'out there'.  And they do.  Therein lies the comfort and excitement in blogging that, I would venture to say, most seek.

But you.  Your story is different.  It's always good.  It's always fun, flirty, romantic, compassionate.  It's like Lassie.  Or My Three Sons.  It's Nick at Night, in color!  You all seem so grounded.  So in love with eachother.  So at peace.

Now don't get me wrong.  I understand a deep love.  I understand a 'path' carved uniquely of my own determination and will and intention.  I understand commitment and work, and appreciating what I have and not what I have 'not'.  I love my husband as I imagine you love yours....but he gets on my nervskis sometimes too.  And this is where I get confused.

Last night I visited your site, and spent some time in your archives, I believe it was this one! I about how wonderful your husband is.  How he makes you homemade bread, and granola, and works around your house and does the dishes...reads bedtime stories to the kids....sweeps you off your feet and carries you to bed.  It reminded me of just about the whole first 2 years of my relationship with Zack.  And I pride myself on our relationship.  I think we do it well.  We are best of friends and can negotiate just about anything with little to no injury to oneanother.  BUT... 

At some point the 'poots' just aren't cute anymore.  We don't always agree.  The panties got uglier, and the backs bigger.  Grooming a bit less important.  Most of the time we laugh.  But a lot of times we bellyache on some point or another to get through the day.  All in all its a love that feels sturdy and powerful....it feels honest and engaged.  But it doesn't ooze of passion.  And we don't even have kids yet!

So whats your secret?  My husband said last night as I bragged about your bragging of your perfect husband.  He said  "She must be some lady that he does all those things for her".  And I thought about it long and hard.  You've got to be a SuperWoman to have a SuperMan.  And I'd love to know how you do it.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit envious of the romance you seem to have managed to maintain through having and caring for four children.  Because lord knows...I am far from a SuperWoman. 

I am stubborn, and lazy sometimes...I hate cooking, I don't 'clean up' nearly as much as I should, I spend too much time on the computer, I have anxiety that makes me a royal pain in the ass to be in the car with if its raining, I don't give compliments often enough, I can be extremely selfish, I'm not that affectionate, I don't fix my husband's lunch (even though he would secretly love that I do this) and I can't keep my god damn mouth shut in times when I really should keep my thoughts to myself.

Surely I don't deserve homemade granola and to be carried off to bed? 

So tell me please, what would Mr. NieNie and those four children say about you?  I'd like to take some notes...

Sincerely,

Stella.

p.s.  Why don't you let your readers comment?