Merry and Bright

Sweater: Thrifted

Cowl: Gift from Anne (she made it :)

Painted driftwood necklace: Gift from Anne (also her handiwork!)

Levi's: From Angelina

Boots: Thrifted

Not the most exciting outfit ever, but here I am!

With all this RAIN we've been having, these duck boots I thrifted last year are getting lots of wear. You can't really tell in this lighting but the color combo of my cowl from Anne and this little sweater matches the color combo of the boots perfectly. Ha, that sort of thing probably makes me happier than it should.

This weekend brought rain as well as the first day of December. With a certain little person who is VERY enthusiastic about Christmas this year running the show, we kicked off the holiday stuff a bit earlier than usual.

Free "gingerbread house" making downtown at the public library on Saturday afternoon, resulted in...

One very sugary little structure

and one grumpy little girl complaining that her tummy wasn't feeling too good by the end of it.

Hmm, I wonder why?

Saturday night the rain wasn't too bad, so we put on our raincoats, grabbed some umbrellas, and ventured out to the tree lot down the street. I know, not as romantic or eco-friendly as the local tree farm, but we did possibly end up with the most perfectly shaped Christmas tree that ever was, so at least we have that. Oh, and the guilt, we have the guilt. Just kidding, sort of.

Sunday morning, with the Vince Guaraldi Pandora station (much to Lucas' dismay) setting the mood, we got to decorating our tree.

I realized pretty early on in the decorating process that someone shorter than me had some definite ideas about how things should go down with the ornament hanging. I was going to have to set aside my perfectionist tendencies along with any talk of distributing ornaments evenly throughout the tree. There really was no reasoning with her.

My one attempt at showing her the error of her ways was to make a wide sweeping arm motion across the lower mid-section of the tree and say:

“Look, there’s too much STUFF.”

Her matter of fact response:

“Mom, that’s how Christmas is.”

Well played Clover, well played...

She was also concerned about certain ornaments having buddies to hang out with. Like the gnomes...

... and the sleeping babies.

"2007 Baby's First Christmas" This Winnie ornament was a gift from my mom. Clover wasn't yet 3 months old that Christmas, now look at her, bossin' me around, man time sure does fly.

Zephyr checking out the tree. This time last year he was just a wee kitten, who almost climbed his way to the top of our Christmas tree on multiple occasions. I'm not sure how it never toppled. Now he's this big fluffy white wintery creature. His thick winter coat has come in and he's so bright white that when he's out roaming in the yard at dusk or on a foggy day he practically glows, like an Arctic spirit kitty.

Clover and Buttercup, whose red nose got her a gig as stand-in for Rudolph :)

Annoying ornament hanging tendencies aside, it's pretty fun watching Clover really experiencing the magic of Christmas as her own autonomous little person for the first time. When this kid gets excited about something, her enthusiasm will light up a room. It's one of the things I adore most about her, and something tells me we're in for a very bright holiday season!

Wearing and Growing

Beaded top: Indian tunic, thrifted and shortened by me

Silk skirt w/ brass buttons: Thrifted

Shoes: Thrifted

I followed Milla's lead last weekend and finally got down to business with a long overdue closet cull. It felt good to go through it all, get rid of things that I just wasn't wearing, store the ones I decided to hold on to, swap out the spring/summer items with the fall/winter ones (though this has felt a bit premature with temps reaching the 90's here lately!), and just take general stock of what was actually there on those overstuffed shelves and doubled up hangers.

Turns out it's so much easier to shop your own closet when things are organized and readily accessible. So for this outfit, shop my closet I did, and put together some items that had been lost in the sartorial shuffle. Pretty basic, simple lines with a bit of shine... silver beads, brass buttons, metallic woven leather.

I thrifted this top in the form of an Indian tunic with long slits up the sides. I fell for the beading and the diamond cutout. To make it feel a bit more wearable though, after months of not wearing it, I decided to try shortening it and got as far as cutting and pinning, before it went to the sewing bag where it had been sitting... indefinitely... as things do in the sewing bag.

It wasn't until my sister came over with a curtain she needed help hemming that I actually pulled it out. Heck, I'd already dusted off the sewing machine and read the manual to re-figure out how to wind the bobbin and all that jazz. It says something about the frequency of my sewing that I require the manual each time I start up a new project.

Anyhoo, it's much more wearable now, especially after rediscovering that I own it.

Now, for something completely different...

Have you ever heard of a tree collard? No? Well, you would not be alone. Maybe a year ago Lucas read about them somewhere and we thought, "Wow, greens from a tree? How cool would that be?" Haha, Dr. Suess moment... but really, these things will grow for many years and become tree size, they're evergreen, and apparently the leaves are even more palatable than actual collard greens and can be plucked from the tree to eat raw or cooked as you would kale or other such greens! Neat, eh?

Turns out they're not likely to be readily available at your local nursury though, so we were pretty excited when Lucas stumbled upon some for sale at the National Heirloom Exposition. They say to give it about a year to get established before beginning to harvest. Also, they don't seed often or grow true from seed, but are easily propagated from cuttings. They say to take cuttings between year one and year two, to make more plants for yourself or to share with others before the plant becomes woody which makes cuttings harder to get.

We're looking forward to being able to harvest and make new plants next Fall, I'll let you know how it goes, and if you're interested, you can learn more about this cool veggie tree here :)

Plum Goodness

Something I wore:

90's sheer floral maxi skirt: thrift gift from Brigit

vintage vestlet: thrift gift from my neighbor, Mary

Dansko clogs: vintage seller at a craft sale

old Target tank

shorter necklace: thrifted bits

longer necklace: earring from Herbal Symposium market turned necklace

bracelet: Herbal Symposium market

Something I accomplished...

By the time we finally got it together to try canning for the first time last Fall, we'd just missed plum season and I vowed that I wouldn't let it happen again this year. Now, with 15 deep purple jars of yummy plum jam under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good about my efforts!

I also managed to bake a tasty plum crisp AND roast a pork tenderloin with homade plum barbeque sauce. We're fortunate to be blessed with so much backyard bounty this time of year and have been making a more conscious effort to utilize it. So much goes to waste if we're not on top of it!

Tomato and summer squash are being heavily featured in meals these days including an amazing summer squash pizza that Lucas has been experimenting with. I'll have to share the recipe once we've got it perfected.

Next stop, the grape vine, and then there's the fig tree.

Happy Fall y'all!

Heirloom Afternoon

It ain't a bad week in suburbia when you can walk within 10 minutes of your front door to the top of a downtown parking garage for a mustache and bicycle-themed art and music event, then just days later go for another short afternoon stroll to find yourself at the "World's Fair of the pure food movement"!

"Um Lucas, I'm gonna need you to take my picture in front of this mountain of squash, K?"

"Oh boy, here we go..."

Can you believe it's already bio-regional swap time again? Yay! The dress that I wore was one of many magical treasures gifted to me by the lovely and amazing Anne who I was lucky enough to get as my swap partner last year. Whoever got her this year, I'll tell you right now, you're stoked.

Considering how this dress came to me, I can't imagine a better backdrop than a giant towering pyramid of beautiful homegrown heirloom squash :)

Giant pumpkins and a giant tree man helped Clover get over the grumpy mood she started off in.

Some fun kids activities helped too.

Oh yes, two peas in a pod we are :)

Making warm fuzzy friends with cool blue eyes.

Speaking of fuzzy friends, our girl goes bonkers for this sort of thing. She knows there's a person in there, but still she gets SO EXCITED. It's really fun to watch.

These kind folks did some pretty magical things with popcorn and a VAST array of natural flavorings. Clover munched on a pesto/garlic oil/parm combo while Lucas and I sampled some kind of jalapeno/honey/chocolate/mole concoction that was super yummy and had quite a kick.

Raised awareness around honeybees, their plight as it relates to chemicals and GMO crops, and holistic approaches to their stewardship in general were a big topic.

The "Sun Hive," an alternative bee nest made from rye straw.

Sunshine and the yodeling sounds of Sourdough Slim.

As I was taking a picture of this Clover Stornetta ad on the side of a truck, a woman passed by and said "You're not from Sonoma County are you?" "Well, as a matter of fact lady, I'm so Sonoma County, I named my kid after this cow."

Haha, I'm totally kidding, I didn't say that, nor is my child the namesake of a local dairy brand, though we do have fun with it and she really does adore that cow. Especially at parades and events where someone is walking around in the suit!

Oh, those honeybees, they do so love their Clover ;)

In addition to all the cool exhibits and things to wander around and look at, there were also films and speakers over the 3 day event that would have been really interesting to have checked out. Both Lucas and I wished we'd planned better, unfortunately, heading over there on a whim on the last day with our four year old didn't so much allow for it. Next year though.

As a "not-for-profit event centered around the pure food movement, heirloom vegetables, and anti-GMO activism," the National Heirloom Exposition felt especially timely with Prop 37 on the horizon here in California. I for one am looking forward to the opportunity in November to vote YES on this crucial ballot measure that would require genetically modified foods to be labeled as such.

Lots of good reasons to pass Prop 37 can be found here, but really the bottom line comes down to reason #27: Consumers have a right to know whether or not they are eating GMOs. I mean, don't we? Am I missing something? If, as Monsanto and the corporate food industry would have us believe, GM foods are A'Ok, then why the secrecy?

On that note I'll leave you with this 30 min documentary film that was screened at the expo. It follows the story of seed, and in doing so, does a nice job of shedding light on why all is NOT A'Ok with the proliferation of GM crops. I learned some things, maybe you will too.

Seeds of Freedom from The ABN and The Gaia Foundation on Vimeo.