#14: Finish my Birthday Sweater

Sorry for the Terrible PHOTOS! yuck. instagram + tonal sweater + dark house = awful pics. it's cozy and its perfectly only one thing pisses me off, but it was in the last 10 inches on the arm so no way I was ripping back. this one has been on the needles for like 8 months! thank heavens it's over (and i can cross it off my list). XO

#25: get red tomatoes this year

Still in progress!

peppers on the left, tomatoes on the right. i think that the paper cups are the best bet for my growing standards. the little toilet rolls need to be watered all the time, and they're molding. it's annoying.


not tomatoes, but gardening anyways! arugula and some lettuces. baby cilantros are sticking their little necks out too. must weed some more, pull all the arugula (it's already starting to bolt!! and i want to make LOTS of pesto..but i'll keep some arugula for seed). it's so good. in salad or whatever. yip!

busy bee!

yep!
that's it!
see HOME SWEET HOME for my busy-ness
and SHAMELESS for my other busy-ness
and DERBY for the rest of it
(and more!)

my kitchen counter on saturday

Making ricotta and foccaccia

Growing Tomatoes!

mmm, ricotta on foccaccia = SUCCESS!

my belly is full of $40 pasta

I'm plowing through the Rebar pasta section of the cookbook. We've had two this week and are having one next week. I'm pretty sure I'm at the half way mark and there's a few that I have to make in the summer (for best ingredients). There's two problems with this 28before29 goal, the first that there's "ASIAN"-style pastas that I wouldn't put under pasta, but either salad or entrees. I understand that there's noodles so it's like a pasta, but it doesn't say "pasta" to me. And, I don't really like their "ASIAN"-COMBO pastas, or the idea of them. Blah. The other is that the ingredients, like much of the Rebar cookbok's recipes, are on the expensive side. Today I made the santa fe salad and it cost me almost $40. Sure, it was incredibly delicious, but not an every day (or every month!) thing, that's for sure.

Seth was still a little sick this week so most of the day I've spent wiping green boogers from his face. I also got my lettuce planted and my little growing pots full of soil (just need to plant the seeds) and will soak my beans tonight and put them in the box tomorrow. And then I'm done for a few weeks. Just watering. Then the fence and weeding and getting bean poles up; then it'll be time to transplant and more weeding and hopefully harvesting my baby arugula, basil, and cilantro for pesto for the freezer.

Tonight is our inaugural Women's Liberation Book Club meeting. We read the birth house and I just finished it. Literally, like 20 minutes ago. It was OK and not hard to get through, which is relieving. What are you doing this weekend?

#15: be the letter of the day on Q

Go here. Listen to March 4th's episode around 27:10 and you'll hear my email read out (even though jian butchers my name a little). It wasn't the "letter of the day" but I count it b/c I didn't realize how hard it was to get my letter on the show at all! YIP!

This is excellent news and inspiring b/c i'm having a pooopy day.

#12: dye my hair like ramona flowers

GIVEAWAY WINNER (and hair update)

Congrats atomiquelle!! You are the giveaway winner! Thank you to everyone that entered and the numbers are skewed because of a double comment but I renumbered them before I did the generator. Anyway, if you didn't win but would still like to get your hands on Feminism FOR REAL you can order one from the CCPA.

In other news I've started the process of dying my hair like Ramona Flowers. When I ordered the dye I did so under recommendation from Kaylah's posts at Dainty Squid (here and here) and ordered some manic panic in two colours, cotton candy and fuschia. I also ordered a beyond the zone bleach kit and I left it on for 45 minutes and it came out super yellow, but i liked it. I just spent the last 1/2 hour covering it with the cotton candy and getting it under a plastic bag and secured on my head. Now I'm going to sleep with it on and rinse it out the AM. I'll probably go pale pink/yellow for a few days/this whole week, and then go to the fuschia. If it turns out I got this job my start date would be the 17th of March? So, I'd have to dye it back to brown the Sunday night before (b/c it's a real adult job). If i dont get it, i might go light pink for as long as i can and then go fuschia. We'll see. The pictures below are of me pinning my hair up and looking 90s, the yellow, the pink on yellow, and my hair cover. Now, to SLEEP i go! I offered to host sustain-a-table again tomorrow night and am going to make a feast similar to one found at the foundation: lower east side, nachos, and sugar pie. XO

"the world is full of good intentions, paradise is hard to find"

i've been kind of in a funk for the past few days. i feel so tired, like the months of sleep deprivation have hit me and that the pulling of the left side of my neck is really starting to take its toll. i'm tense. and it sucks. i really feel like i need a few days to myself. the last few days have been busy and perhaps life changing ( i had a job interview today that while isn't with the provincial government would effectively cross that goal off ). and i'm just tired. i kind of want a shopping spree. or even to go to this  ........

today is probably my last day as a person with brown hair for a few days or weeks. i got my hairdye to go all ramona flowers but then got in the process of applying for this job and maybe having an interview to having an interview so i left it as au natural. and then i was going to dye it tonight and realized i didnt have gloves bleck.

i guess i'm feeling defeated. by what i'm not sure.  so i'm going to take a tylenol for this neck pain drink lots of water and go to bed. tomorrow will be a better day. XO

Sweater 2/5

Yes baby sweaters count. And this one was a doozy for some reason. I felt like it should've been quick considering how big my gauge was and how easy and garter-stitchy the pattern was, but it was honestly the death of me. i hated it most of the time. hated. it. and i ran out of yarn! so surprised! anyway, it's a cutie, the babe that is. in his winter jacket. good thing i knit it in time for winter to be 1/2 over. the pattern is SNUG by hinke and i couldn't find a non-ravelry link for it. sorry!

there's a whole tonne of mods i did which included holding two strands of what i think was patons classic wool (i got it in a mill ends bag) so i have NO IDEA how much yardage i used, but i know i used a lot. (maybe 4-5 skeins if you were to buy it). i ended up having to use the white bernat alpaca stuff just to finish. i also went up a few needle sizes and added two inches to the back length. which meant i added that to the front, except i only knit the front until the edges were about touching b/c i was seriously running out of yarn at that point. i also knit the arms in garter stitch back and forth rather than in the round (b/c i kind of hate purling). the crochet chain i did the whole way around the front and did 5 button loops. i love the big buttons. anyway, the rest of it i followed the pattern exactly.

now i'm onto sweater #3, my CULTS sweater, made from the common ground pattern from the brown stitch (and in bernat softee chunky in RED). man, i need access to a yarn store in this town.

when you're hiding underground, the rain can't get you wet

i'm not going to say i'm too cool to listen to arcade fire on repeat. i love it. their re-nomination for a slew of grammy awards reminds me that they never were an indie band, or an indie band that "got big". in these parts they were always big. i kind of think of them as the U2 of our generation. anthemic, hip, to the point, copy-cat pop rock tracks. hip hair, good outfits, montreal postal codes, you name it. anyway, just obsessed with the suburbs. but, we recently go the new decemberists which was great.


the last ten days have been pretty crazy. in that we were all kind of sick, seth and stew the most, and i just fell really behind on work so have been playing catch up in every extra minute of every day since last week. it hasn't been fun. it's been kind of soul sucking actually.

on the weekend i got to go out for a little bit sans baby to hang out with some amazing girls and dudes at stewart's bday party and have a club soda and bombay. it was so refreshing to get out of the house! get away from my child! do something i haven't done (go to a bar/pub) since before i gave birth. going retail shopping on my own is also so gratifying without child; but i dont think i've done that many times.

i ordered the pink hairdye for my ramona flowers hair and it should be here in two to three weeks b/c the bleach has to be shipped via ground. i got two shades of pink: cotton candy and pink flamingo and will probably do a mix of the two..we'll see, very excited!

lately i've also been working on my knitted designs. the one i did that i've submitted to twist is wrapping up. there's a new mod that me and a small sampling of other test knitters are going to do, i just have to get it updated (soon!). and i've just sent out the pattern for the bandana seth's wearing to my test knitters. i've been chatting with laura about our fancy new project (which i'm going to work more on this weekend) and that i want my helvetica knits v.1 to be a publication of that. so i'll probably have a few free patterns and then have a few for purchase on ravelry and then do an e-book of all of them together for a discount rate. PRETTY EXCITING. helvetica knits v. 1 will probably launch in a few months, but the project l and i are working on will probably be live by the end of february! YAY!

stay tuned for WAY lots of squash recipes and themed posts!! i've got a bunch of them in-progress, can't wait to share! XO

"i am no student of ancient culture, before i talk i should read a book"

i finished my first sweater!!! the sweetgum duncan. i love it. except it's too big and now it's blocking (to flatten the lusciousness out a little bit and to lengthen the arms) and i'm terrified. i've been honestly dying of impatience this past three weeks working on the last little bit of it. and today i sat down and wove in the ends. oh i'm so anxious about it fitting! yikes!

in other news prep for squash month is upon us. i already have 2 squash recipes and have cooked up some pumpkin to be turned into a number of yummy things including pizza and scones !! yum!

i had more to say but i'm exhaustemated and still have work to do because the internet was so slow today i couldn't bring myself to waste and hour to do something that takes 10-15 minutes. it was brutal.xo

"oh you wouldn't say it but you wanted to"

last night, late last night i should say, i made a REbar pasta. having food/cooking goals is incredible. when i have absolutely NO MOTIVATION to cook and no energy to go pouring through my bookmarks or cookbooks i just go, "pick a pasta, grab the shit, and cook it". the thing about the REbar cookbook is trying to find recipes that don't use 800 million (expensive) ingredients, and even though it was pretty expensive to make dinner last night, it was one of the cheaper ones...and it was good. (the problem is that i've also been cooking the cheapest ones first so that means there's gonna only be expensive ones soon. bleck.) the one above is the spinach linguine which is basically the noodles with a sun dried tomato salsa (with artichokes, fresh herbs, kalmata olives, garlic, capers, etc) that you top with Parmesan and fresh cut tomatoes. we've been buying mainly winter veg this whole winter so it's been weird buying veg from chile and china once in a while (when i used to do it ALL THE TIME).

speaking of winter veg, the other night at the agricultural meeting, the farmer i bought all of our squash from gave me shit for not eating it yet. i'd been pacing myself and didn't realize that we're getting fresh veg at the farmer's market soon. so that means we're going to be in squash heaven around here for the next month. i think i just need to start pulling it out. i know i have at least 11 squash and 1 pumpkin and they're all in good shape (it's a good cold room). and while i love squash so much i want to get a squash tattoo, i'm a little lacking in the squash recipes department. let me preface that by saying i hate stuffed squash. it's boring. it's lame. and it's just not very exciting. i'll for sure make some squash burritos and some pumpkin millet muffins from the REbar book, but need suggestions! what are your favourite squash recipes? anything you want to try? anything you want me to experiment with?! i think i'm going to make February SQUASH MONTH around here, with a pretty banner and stuff. maybe i'll make some badges so you can play along too? what do you think?

In Progress #8: Smash patriarchy tattoo.

OMG! YIP! it's not done yet. about 1/2 hour to go... but i had to leave. i got it done by brian at kingpin here in port. the shop looks sketchy as hell from outside and is a little messy/dirty inside, but no cross contamination AND brian is a great nice conversational talented blah blah guy. he said not only did i teach him the word "patriarchy" (!!) but i was the first person to ever ask him how he was doing while he was tattooooooing. very interesting.

OK, so we're off to dinner out! having a job and money is so nice! it's like OLD TIMEZ.

sleepy eyes

yaya! super blurry yoghurt shot

i thought i'd do a quick post before i started my work for the day. seth starts daycare on the 4th and until then i'm working when stewart's home and in every little minute i have. last week i put in 20 hours. on top of everything else (not instead of). basically what it means is that 1. i'm exhausted, 2. we had take out when we can't afford it, and 3. i'm behind on a few projects (like a tutorial for another blog, my sweater, etc). and i'm really exhausted. i can't really keep track of my days and have to spend more time than necessary trying to remember what i did yesterday or a few days ago. i can't wait until he goes to daycare. i think the first day i'm going to use that time to sleep rather than work (it'll only be a partial day anyway) and then the next day start working full on.

i've been doing a lot of holiday knitting, too, which is kind of poopy, because i'd rather be knitting my sweater!!! AND another sweater's worth of yarn is on it's way to me and should be here today! but i can't very well cast on for another sweater when i'm still not done my sweetgum. and, after that i have some mini mini test pieces and schematics to finish for a submission i'm sending into twist for next fall's issue (finger's crossed i get accepted!). if it doesn't get accepted i'll be working on the pattern steadily and then probably self publish (as i already missed the deadline for knitty). and if knit.1 was still around that'd be perfect :( i had a dream the other night that i was walking around topless (!!) and at one point i had a moment of shame and remembered to put my shirt on. and it was this grey, malabrigo knit, leaf lace, pullover sweater (short sleeved). it felt so nice on my skin. but it's also nothing i've ever seen before. so that's another design i might put together!! haha. there's also a sweater i want to get the design on. but first things first. i also realized that "knit 5 sweaters" doesn't have to be just for me. stewart wants a freddy krueger sweater and i'll probably knit my sister a sweater for her birthday (surprise!haha). so that leaves only 3 for me.

i borrowed the new skinny bitch cookbook from the library the other day and finally got to sit down and read it while seth was in his bath last night. the skinny bitch books always trigger me because they're unapologetic with the bitchiness, but also VEGAN lifestyle books. of all the "get fit get healthy" books out there this series is probably my favourite. i have such a political struggle with weight (more so than a personal struggle i think, because when ever i think about it personally the political side takes over and i forget about my issues) and FAT. anyway, the book reinspired me to take on some food stuff (got to start somewhere!) and my sugar stuff (white flour will follow soon...i just LOVE it so much!). so, last night i've decided (how many times have you heard this? hahahaa) to restrict my refined/brown/cane sugar intake to one item/experience a day. for example, if i have brown sugar in my coffee, nothing else i eat during the day can have refined sugar in it. it's way better than cutting it all out and testament to how much sugar i'm actually inducing. it doesn't mean that if i go to have a cookie i can only have one, but it means i can't have two now and then two later. just the two that one time. does that make sense? but it also means that i can't have things with high fructose corn syrup (hurrah!) and will have to be an eagle eye on any canned goods i buy.

with the sugar restrictions i've decided to put a number to my meat eating/vegetarianness. i'm only going to have meat meals at dinner and only every second day. so that's 3.5 meat meals a week! we're probably eating less than that as it is, but stewart's excited to know he'll eat meat at home every few days. haahah. after i can nail that i'll focus on dairy and eggs (though i love them). my meat thing too is going to aim to only eat local meat. but we'll see how that goes.

OK, i should go do work. the child's fallen asleep on the couch next to me (his little snores are SO CUTE) and i should brush my teeth and login to my work.

Christmas is SOOON! so excited!!! XO

#23: Lotusland Linguine

It was hard to pick a pasta to start with. I chose this one b/c we're kinda poor right now and the ingredients were cheap (and we had most of them at home already). Many of the pastas I can just go right out and buy stuff for, but the ingredient lists are LONG and I know, just know, that most of the recipes would just be better with local or in season ingredients.

This one, the Lotusland Linguine, is pretty delicious. It was relatively easy and anything with peanut sauce kind of wins my heart. I'm not going to put the recipe here because the cookbook is so amazing you should buy a copy. Substitutions/Changes I made were no snow peas (couldn't find them at the grocery store), green pepper instead of red pepper, and the recipe is way too much food (leftovers and lunch for stew tomorrow), and there isn't enough peanut sauce. I like lots of sauce, so next time will double the recipe. Oh, and it's also vegan! yum!

#19: Go To Portland

Um, yes! Hotel is booked for June! @kalinhop and I (and baby seth) are going so K can go to blythecon and seth and i can sit in powell's books and wander around. i'll hopefully get a tattoo. and eat. a lot. of. food. OMG. we're staying at ace! wahoooooooo!!!

WIP: Sweater! + Giveaway Winner!

Well, I was going to wait for stewart to get home and then pull names out of a hat, but he's working late Blah Blah Blah! So, I used the random number generator and it gave me #3! Thank you so much ladies for entering, but Singlegal takes this one! Congrats! I'm going to try and do more giveaways, I like them :)


In other news, I'm working on my first sweater of my five and it's coming along nicely! i bought the yarn at knotty by nature (the black variegated is dyed by Ryan who owns KBN? and the blue is malabrigo). i bought it to make a different sweater but a few inches in and after doing a lot of math, i decided to frog that sweater because the cables weren't showing up with this yarn. i immediately found this second sweater, which is just awesome....it was meant to be! i'm just over 1/2 way there and it's using up way less yarn than the first pattern (which was short sleeved) called for, so when i go to make the original one i'll know to buy LESS yarn.

i'm going to go finishing watching eat pray love (poooooo) and get myself excited to put the groceries away and get ready to host a xmas party tomorrow! i'm making everyone dinner! i've already wrapped a wheel of comox brie and my green tomato jam in a piece of pastry. GUH. and roasted the squash and cooked the chick peas for the sneaky, sneaky salad. yum. have a great weekend!!! XO

#12: dye my hair like ramona flowers

My hair's in this stage I don't like right now (and usually don't like). I think also not having time just makes me have no energy to do anything to it so I think it sucks. So, I'm fantasizing more about this hair. Like most things in my life I need money to do this. But, I think I might just do it myself (WOOP) rather than go to a salon and get it done. I'll be using the Dainty Squid post about her multi-coloured hair as a starting point. And, will have to bleach it out too! SO EXCITED.

#10: knit 5 sweaters

I've been a knitter for a long time, but I haven't really been a sweater knitter. I've made myself 2 sweaters (and a shrug) in the past 6 knitting years. I look at handknit sweaters and swoon. I want that style, I want those sweaters. So, I've committed to start knitting myself sweaters and holy fuck, they are TIME CONSUMING. I guess if I was knitting a small or even a medium those sweaters would just fly off the needles, but because I'm often knitting a mix of a size L through to 2XL I have to knit a lot. And it just takes forever. But, the end product is so rewarding, especially since my six years of knitting have taught me how to alter patterns and truly understand my body. For example, I have a super short "yoke" (36 rows in worsted weight) and will have to adjust sweaters accordingly. Most patterns in "my size" suggest I knit the yoke to 8 or 9 inches, but I really need it around 6.5 or 7 inches. Quite a bit shorter. At least my math skills will get better.

These are the five sweaters I will be knitting. I already have one on the needles, and have yarn for the others either picked out or on the way. ETA: OMG SO EXCITED!

Sweetgum Duncan by Meghan McFarlane (Rav Link)
Rafik by the Berroco Design Team (Rav Link)

Common Ground by Elizabeth F. Smith (Rav Link)

Hooray Cardigan by Veera Välimäki (Rav Link)
Tephra Pullover by Laura Chau (Rav Link)

28 before i'm 29

Wholly inspired by ElsieCake of Red Velvet this is my list of 28 things I want to do before I turn 29 next September. I'll probably keep track on the side. And on the blog. I love goals. I always used to hate them and then the Succulent Wild Woman said to set smaller goals. And it all made sense. Wish me luck!

1. Go to half of the Provincial Parks on Vancouver Island
2. Pay back my tuition debts
3. Pay off my CitiFinancial Card
4. Pay off my HBC Card
5. Pay off my Mastercard
6. Pay off my Visa
7. Go to Toronto with Stewart and Seth
8. Get three tattoos: a crysanthemum, the smash patriarchy comic, and another one (so many to choose from)
9. Make my own mozzarella
10. Knit 5 sweaters
11. Send Melissa a postcard for every week from now until my 29th birthday
12. Dye my hair like Ramona Flowers
13. Get a full time permanent job with the Provincial Government (even if it means we have to move)
14. Write an essay for the book collecting contest (and win!)
15. Be “The Letter of the Day” on Q
16. Roller derby
17. Eat at every Chinese food restaurant in Port Alberni
18. Start a booth at the Farmer’s Market
19. Go to Portland
20. Finally officially change my last name to Jurkic-Walls
21. Embroider my first “My Favourite Misogynist”
22. Finish and print our Pizza Zine and get it published by Microcosm
23. Cook every pasta recipe in the Rebar Cookbook
24. Finish the Hanami Shawl
25. Get red tomatoes this year
26. Make crafting and stuff like that 20% of my monthly income
27. Learn how to do Sashinko
28. Try to eliminate sugar and white flour as much as possible