Tote taming and other debacles [Tutorial]

When I was, like, 8 and enrolled in gymnastics my mom would ritualistically torture me before class by taking me to the side of the gymnasium and tying my hair back into pigtails with those hair rubberbands with the marble thingees on them.

I think the marbles were supposed to make it easy for the mom to make a quick ponytail and less painful for the kid's head due to less alleged pulling and snatching baldheaded as a result.

Um, ponytail FAIL.

That shit always hurt.

I think it was because my hair wasn't thick enough for two pigtails to be made and tamed with the rubberbands so my mom had to be all twisting it around and around until it would hold and in the process ripped free a lot of what we used to call "baby hairs" which were actually just "regular hairs" attached firmly to my 8 year old scalp.

Anyway, that's my association with those marble-studded rubberband things: Pain, the sound of ripping hair, my mom breathing hot and angry on my neck, the subtle creeping of my unitard as it crept up my nubile ass crack.

So, in short - not a good association.

Which is why it's so weird that I've totally been obsessing about those very same hair rubberbands lately. And not in a "keep those fuckers away from me" way, either. More like a "maybe I'll just buy some at Target and wear them when I go running for fun", way.

What's wrong with me? I haven't even blocked out the bad memories and, yet still, I fawn over these representations of childhood torture as though they're my Strawberry Shortcake doll or Rainbow Brite.

Which, for the record, were too very happy associations from my childhood to the point where, when I saw that the woman behind me in line at Target was purchasing both a Strawberry Shortcake toy AND a Rainbow Brite doll, I felt no qualms about pointing out that she had, in her very possession, my entire childhood right there.

And so help me if she didn't burst out with the same gleeful kid-like smile of agreement when I said it. It was like I was back in 2nd grade with my friend Sierra and we were admiring each other's Strawberry Shortcakes to see whose still had the most of That Strawberry Shortcake Smell it its hair.

That was the most sought after thing, you know, The Smell. If you haven't smelled a Strawberry Shortcake doll's hair, I daresay you have not lived.

But that's not what this post is about. It's about the marble hairband torture devices and how, after all this time vividly remembering how much of my hair was left on the gymnasium floor as a result of their abuses, I went out a bought a package of them and it was the most wonderfully indulgent thing I've done in a long time.

And I think it cost all of $1.

But don't you think for one second I'm putting those fuckers in my hair.

Oh noooooooooooooo.

Instead, I hatched a craft with them.

A craft that had been festering in my mind for a long time. Or at least as long as I've been carrying cloth bags with me in my purse to avoid the hated plastic bags so popular on the freeways of California.

Show of hands - how many of you have mistaken a blowing plastic bag for a seagull or other bird and, as a result, have swerved wildly into oncoming traffic to avoid it only to realize that it's a fucking Safeway bag and wow did I almost just cream an old woman in a giant Mercedes?

No one? Well. You're fancy then.

Anyway, this craft.

This craft came as a result of having to contend with wadded up cloth bags messing up the interior of my purse so that when I went to pull them out and fill them with things like Sapphire or Brussels sprouts from TJ's all of my pursely belongings would go flinging everywhere and onto the ground. And then I'd have to hunt all over hither and yon to recollect the contents of my life.

Pathetic.

*I could do better than this*

Well, for a while I had a cloth bag with its own stuff sack, which worked fine until the stuff sack had been stuffed one too many times and expired right in front of me in line at TJ's, of all places.

I cried a sad tear of frustration because I knew then that it wouldn't be long before I was flinging tampons all over the cashier's stand again and, somehow, they hadn't turned over cashiers yet, so it would likely happen to the same guy as the first time and WOW did he seem horrified to have a tampon hit his arm.

Dude. It's a tampon, not a boa constrictor. Relax.

Anyway, in my depressed state, I ruminated on a solution to this problem and the solution managed to involve the painful yet adored marble headbands of my youthful years.

Let me stop blathering and just share it now so that y'all can at once; tame your cloth bags so they'll stow safely for shopping, indulge your desires for childhood nostalgia and, perhaps, avoid any faux-seagull induced collisions with expensive German automobiles.

Tote Tamer

By Finny

Materials:

1 cloth tote bag

1 marble hairband

Equipment:

Sewing machine

Thread

To make:

Sewing closely to the metal bracket of the hair band, straight stitch the band next to the inside edge of one of the tote's straps, on the outside of the bag. 

 

Fold the bag in half vertically, with the rubberband on the outside.

Flip it over.

Roll the bag from the bottom up.

With the rubberband on the outside of the bag, now, wrap it around and close it. 

It's a miracle.

And no flying tampons.

Enjoy.

Oh, and if you're into donating to excellent organizations who make it their mission to provide relief to people suffering from horrible disasters, Direct Relief is my org of choice and they can always use your help. 

Just saying. Haiti fell down and it will be a long time before it's upright and Direct Relief has been helping since the get go and they'll be there for a while.

Running update: Peg-legged

It's been a glorious running time since last November when I stopped carting along all my miscellaneous running accoutrement for the sakes of training, improving my times, hydrating to avoid raisin-liver, fueling to avoid raisin-stomach and so on.

I did not realize how nice and glorious it actually was until this morning when I went out to reacquaint myself with the concept of tempo or interval running.

You know, that Supah Technical thing I do which is probably not really Tempo or Interval running in the way that, say Runner's World or a legitimate runner would consider it to be since it doesn't involve a track or anything measured in 800s.

No, instead my idea of a Tempo run goes like this: run at pace for 5 minutes, sprint for 1 minute - repeat until you've covered your normal short route and found yourself back at home staring at the dog and hope to hell that the Garmin says something like less than 25 minutes and a pace below 10:00m/m.

It's disappointing when you can't even live up to your own ill-conceived training concepts, let's say.

Let's say that because that was me this morning, coming in at 25:30 and a pace of 10:01.

Barf.

I mean, I nearly barfed. As I huffed toward the driveway and tried to use my Jedi powers to force the Garmin to read 24:anything, I nearly barfed down the side of Bubba's truck.

And then again when I looked down at the mentally-superior Garmin and it said 25:30. Boo.

I got to wait until I was at work with my Garmin USB stick, watch and online graphing tools before I could experience the next blow. That being the 10:00m/m+ pace.

Good thing I really wanted that whole wheat bagel to stay on the inside and really didn't want to walk back downstairs for another one because I might have been apt to chuck on my laptop just then.

Sad.

I blame my peg-legs.

That's right. I'm a fucking pirate out there with my sore-to-the-point-of-full-rigidity hamstrings which are the result of some post-run weeding I did over the weekend.

And let's talk about that for one second because how is it that can I run six miles and experience no sore muscles whatsoever but throw in an hour of weeding and I'm hobbling around like I need an eye patch and a parrot on my shoulder.

Even with all the douchey post-weeding stretching that I do so that I don't get the post-weeding hamstring soreness that I always get regardless.

I can't win.

Also, I'm sure my slowness had nothing to do with the casual naked runs I've been enjoying since my last official race when I finally secured my sub-30 5K PR and became delusional as to my own speed.

Pfffft - I don't NEED this watch telling me my pace. I'm fast, bitch! I run 9 minute miles like, off the couch, man, and I don't need some new fangly wrist-mounted device to tell me that. Get out of my way! I might crush you with my speed blur!

Not to mention the fact that a 9 minute mile pace isn't exactly lighting the roads aflame or anything. A fact I'm continually faced with since I read a lot of runner blogs by human people who regularly run in the 6s and 7s and have sub-20 5K PRs.

How is it possible that legs can move so fast? I have legs. They can't move this fast. These people must have super human legs. Or, you know, at least a passing acquaintance with legitimate training programs.

Whatever.

The point here is that I'm back to my Supah Technical training with the intent of somehow securing a sub-60 10K PR in April. and WHOA do I have more work to do toward that end than I imagined.

I mean, I really thought that taking a break from slaving for the Garmin and just enjoying my runs would have a positive effect on my pace, if anything, because I wouldn't be, you know, hauling that huge beast around on my left arm and, like, discombobulating my pace every fifteen seconds by swinging my heavy eyeballs in its direction to check my pace, elevation, time, Virtual Partner Asshole status and so on.

Apparently my ability to measure the drag coefficient of this Garmin is in question. Which, obviously, since I had to look up "how to measure drag" and then didn't understand any of the results and just grabbed "drag coefficient" because it sounded brainy and like a form of math I could certainly never do.

Yay. I'm slow and a math retard.

Well, I guess we haven't learned anything new today BUT I'm back at the helm of my own running delusions and there is a race on the calendar so let's enjoy that, then.

OH. One last thing. I got the new 2010 model of Brooks Adrenaline GTS' and HO HO they have removable insoles, unlike the 2009s which were sewn down with a great intensity requiring me to either go without insoles (bad for knees. bad for shin splints. bad for Finny.) or use substandard insoles with too little cushioning (why bother) or stack green Superfeet insoles in there and loosen the laces to accommodate both the insoles stacked on insoles and my feet.

Which is what I've been doing. Because I needed the cushioning. Because my shin splints are firey hot beasts of fury and if I run six miles without insoles in these post 2006-model Brooks' they become enraged and try to kill me with shin pain. (The 2006 model of this shoe was the last one that had cushioning enough to my taste. Ever since, they've firmed up their insoles and my shins have been bearing the brunt.)

So I stacked insoles and my feet into the shoes and went on with my runs.

It was not ideal. There was some top-of-foot bone crushing and some side-of-baby-toe rubbing but there was not any shin splint fire or searing knee spiciness, so I dealt.

Until such time as I gave up with my fancy idea of switching 100% to trail running so I can't buy street running shoes and also trail running shoes because that would be kuh-razy! and just bought myself a new pair of street running shoes when I saw that Brooks released their 2010 model of the Adrenaline GTS and LO it had removable insoles.

That's a long way of saying a pair of running shoes has removable insoles, yes.

Sorry.

It was a big moment for me.

Thankfully, I was not judged harshly during this moment of absurd excitement since my Running Crazy coincided favorably with Bubba's Backpacking Crazy as he lost his shit over his new Big Agnes sleeping bag with integrated sleeping pad sleeve at that very same moment.

A sleeping bag with sleeve on the back for your sleeping pad. THAT IS GENIUS. So genius I'm pissed I didn't think of it first. Even after all those nights of waking up with my ass on the cold hard ground and my sleeping pad just WAY THE FUCK OVER THERE because I'd slipped off of it during a night of rustle-y twisting.

Anyway. We both get excited about being able to take things in and out of other things, I guess.

And I guess that also sounds a little porny.

So I'm going to end this post and act like it didn't happen.

OYW : Sew Along 2010 : February

Hey Donk,

I'm pretty impressed that other people made the hat, since I realized about a second into that published decision that I maybe didn't choose the easiest pattern to get the new year started.

Sorry, folks, I was distracted by the notion of a new hat. And I love hats. Let it be known.

Thankfully, some of you folks are brave souls and went ahead with the hat-making even though the pattern called for such mysterious items as fusible interfacing and impromptu math (which I bungled to the power of Pi. Sorry. See noricum's comment for proper calcs. Hey - you knew I didn't do math. Whaddya want? For the record, though, my fuzzy math actually produced a fine usable lid, even though it was mathematically erroneous. Story of my life.)

Also thankfully, you chose an easy and good recipe for the hat-fearful so that we could all experience some ~along success at the starting gates. Thank you for that. I enjoyed my spicy garlic dressed Brussels sprouts very much.

And, finally, big congrats love to  laeroport, this month's winner and the first One Yard Wonders : Sew Along 2010 project hero.

You won my heart over with the skirt-turned-awesome-hat, you total over-achiever, you. You're going to get a lovely surprise in the mail from moi if only you'd just send your full name and mailing address to me at finnyknits AT gmail DOT com, soonly. Though you can begin bragging about your wild success to just anyone who will listen right now. Go ahead. People will understand.

Moving on to February, though, when people get distracted by chalky candy hearts stamped with misspelled love notes (which are not welcome in our house because we both find poor grammar as unattractive as dudes in skinny jeans) and greeting cards clearly created for those who forget they love their sig other except for one day a year and therefore choose to express sad and trite cliches to the tune of "For my husband on this special day. I love you more than the moon and stars. Will you be my Valentine?", when we have projects that have nothing to do with any of those things.

Thank god. Because, blech.

Sorry. I'm a Valentine's scrooge. I won't go into the details. You understand. Bubba and I rekindle our love regularly over pizza night dinners and repeat viewings of Battlestar Galactica because we are just that sophisticated and glamorous and also our love is very mature and dynamic. I also find the asking of one to be one's Valentine to be about the most retarded request on the planet because what the hell does that even mean, but I'll stop now.

Because I said I wouldn't go into details and, whoopsy, there they were. Some of them anyway. Know that I spared you my "Long Valentine's Day Rant" and be grateful.

SO - instead of that rant, let's talk February projects.

Kelli's Fabric de-stasher from One Yard Wonders: Folklore bag by Lauren Booth

My Fridge de-stasher recipe:  Roasted spicy cauliflower with capers

Ingredients
1 head of any type of cauliflower (regular , Romanesco, purple), cut into florets
2 T capers
2 T olive oil
1 T red pepper flakes
1 T kosher salt
1/2 T fresh ground black pepper

To make
Preheat oven to 425.

Toss all ingredients in a 9x9 glass baking dish, making sure to coat the cauliflower evenly.

Roast in the oven for 15 minutes, remove to stir them up a bit and return for another 10 minutes until some of the cauliflower has gotten dark and roasty. Serve warm.

And now y'all can just go off into the sunset of February and return to post photos of your masterfully executed projects to the pool by February 28th knowing that this year is not a leap one. Sorry. HURRY.

Kidding. You needn't hurry. I didn't see any fucked up math in either of this month's projects so you probably won't have a total meltdown over your kitchen table as you're trying to cobble together the sum of your life's math skills even though you nearly flunked out of college algebra and just desperately want to finish your project or anything totally theoretical like that.

No, you should be fine. This project looks fairly straightforward and cute. And delicious, also. Eat your vegetables damn it! That's right - because I says so.

Cheers,
Finny

Yaktrax and skinny jeans.

A while back I tried to send myself to an early grave by going for a run on a particularly chilly and icy morning without anything between my feet and the slip-sliding ice crust but my good old Brooks'.

That was some scary shit, friends. Let me just confirm that for you now.

Thankfully, Lesley read my post and wasn't put off too much by my swears and whining to offer a keen word of advice. Specifically: Yaktrax.

Now, yes, this does on the surface, seem like a proprietary piece of running gear that I don't necessarily need since the weather rarely calls for it more than maybe twice a year BUT I am not just a NorCal suburban runner who has no call for ice-crushing foot devices otherwise.

HO HO no! I am an all-weather gal, people. An all-weather gal that finally put two and two together last weekend and remembered to pack the Yaktrax for a trip up to Tahoe where, dontchaknow, it was snowing like a god damned beast.

Yes it was. That is a way that it can snow - beast like.

The best part came when, in gathering myself and all my clothes to take the dogs out for a DOGS GONE WILD leash-free walk, I actually remembered to strap on the Yaktrax for an inaugural hike up the road.

Can I get a hell yeah? Come on - just this once.

Fine. It was still awesome though. Because I was able to descend the stairs in front of the house, then move down the sloping driveway and up and down the hilly roads which were thick with ice and snow without nary an awkward slip.

Seriously. None whatsoever.

The dogs, however, could have used some Dogtrax because their hysterical asses were slip sliding away, even though it didn't make a lick of difference to them or slow them down on their mission to sniff every muther effing snowball, footprint, tree trunk, other dog, pine needle or otherwise mundane item during our morning and evening hikes.

Dogs are funny like that.

Me, though? I didn't have ass-sniffing to distract my mind from the slick state of the roads, so instead relied on my Yaktrax to keep me upright and moving in a self-propelled direction rather than a direction dictated by the dimensions of the ice beneath my feet.

And, because I'm a fucking genius, I realized that when one returns to the house after a nice stable Yaktrax walk with the dogs, one needn't remove the Yaktrax from one's shoes. OH NO. Just leave those bad boys on the shoes and swap one's shoes for slippers. When one goes to take the dogs out again (which happens a lot more often when there's fun shit like snow and woods outside in which to cavort) one need only swap the slippers for the Yaktrax swaddled shoes.

HOLY CRAP YES.

The clicking that went on in my brain at this moment of realization was loud enough to be audible from outside my own noggin.

Impressive, I know.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I broke in my Yaktrax this weekend and I'm sold. 100% sold. Also, I got to snowshoe with the dog in the woods and, while I haven't made a big fucking deal about the snowshoes Bubba gave me for Christmas, you can all rest assured that I've now found a new hobby about which to obsess during the winter months because LO if that's not some awesome fun.

Though I could do without the buried Audi rescue mission interrupting our peaceful moonlit snowshoe. The poor dog - she could have gone on for another hour if it hadn't been for the jackasses who decided to drive their low-profile Audi wagon up an impassible and unplowed street.

Some people just have unreasonable expectations for their vehicles and their own driving ability. Especially when the driver in question is so obviously ill-prepared for a trip to the snow that he's out trying to free his car from the ditch by sweeping snow away with a housebroom while wearing an argyle sweater vest and skinny jeans.

By the way, I did say his. As in, this was a MAN wearing skinny jeans. And an argyle sweater vest. Over what appeared to be a Faconnable dress shirt. With penny loafers WITH socks.

I feel that perhaps the only reason I offered to help them by bringing a shovel and my keen un-fucking-the-car-from-the-snow skills was that they were bigger chicks than me and I feared their blood might be on my hands if I knowingly abandoned them to free themselves only to find them frozen to their broom and one another in the early morning hours.

Of course, you know that after we successfully freed the Audi, with all of its passengers from the set of 90210, got them backed down the impassable road toward the clear road and I began my snowshoe trek back up the hill with my shovel (you know I'm not leaving my shovel) for the third time in 30 minutes (HI, TIRED NOW), they then decided they would take another pass at the impassable road.

And you know they got stuck again.

And you know that I did not go back to help them once again because I can't be responsible for stupid people. And the concept of hiking back up and down that hill again rather than buring my face in a glass of champagne seemed idiotic.

It's champagne, people! Chilled right in the snow! It must be enjoyed right away - at its chilly-mostness.

Wow. There's a throwback term that I'm not even sure is a real throwback term from the old hip-hop days. Sorry for that.

So, to sum up - Yaktrax are broken in. Snowshoes are awesome. Dogs don't have built in foot treading. Metro dudes should carpool with capable snow people who drive cars with a clearance over 3". Always keep an eye on your shovel. I just made up and/or referenced an archaic and grammatically horrifying hip-hop term when referring to my evening's cocktails.

Thanks for playing.

Soup Person [RECIPE]

Hello world, I am a Soup Person.

Did you know there were Soup People and Non-Soup People?

Yeah, me neither. I just assumed all people ate soup since, you know, it's soup and not, like, foie gras or veal or something all controversial with its own blood-throwing advocacy group or whatever.

In addition to being labeled a Soup Person (which I'm fine with, by the way, this wasn't like being labeled a Snooty Bitch, which I might very well be but don't want to necessarily be labeled), I've come to further label myself as a Tomato-based Soup Person.

Why all the labels? Well. Why the hell not AND it's one of those little things Bubba and I learned about each other after we moved in together and the wintertime came and I started making things like minestrone and chicken soup (which, yes, does not include tomatoes, but go with me, here) and he would get all, "Yeah, OK. I'll eat it." rather than, "Fuck yeah I want chicken soup!" which is what I was expecting.

See, when we moved in together, there were shockingly few things we didn't see eye-to-eye on, so this was a big discovery. I realize people have bigger relationship/marital discoveries than soup preferences, but we haven't had many, so this counts. For us.

Friends, Bubba is a Cream Soup Person.

Weird.

So, when I was all, "Fuck yeah, it's raining and I'm making chicken soup and this is going to be perfect!", he was thinking, "Fine. I'll eat this woman's chicken soup and then I'll sneak into the kitchen and make broccoli cheese soup or some other creamy business that will illicit my current response from HER next time. Take that!"

Ok, so it probably wasn't that malicious, since Bubba's such a nice guy and barely ever sneaks into the kitchen to make creamy business (enjoy that last comment for a moment), but I definitely get more excitement from him when I produce a baked potato soup than when I emerge triumphantly from the kitchen with a perfectly recreated bowl of my mom's chicken soup.

Not that it matters to me at that point because I'm already head down in the bowl, but I register the lackluster response nonetheless.

Anyway, the point of all this Tomato-based Soup Person vs Creamy Soup Person (there are also, I've learned, Broth Soup People, Chunky Soup People, Seafood Soup People and Bisque People) is that I made a tomato-based soup that we both liked and which I've now eaten four nights in a row without starting to hate it.

Those are a lot of miracles for one soup, people, and I'll ask you to recognize the significance.

The original recipe came from a chef at my office who so kindly indulged my begging after I had the soup for lunch and decided immediately that I must make it and have it for four nights in a row.

I then adjusted the recipe, or so I thought, to accommodate the smaller crowds at my house (2) rather than the hoards of folks at the cafe for lunch (150+).

Plus, my adjustments also meant that the soup was thicker, rather than ahem, soupier, and sort of approached the creamy sensation Bubba's always looking for. This was because I omitted the 1/2 gallon of vegetable broth the original recipe called for. So you know. In case you want to serve this soup to your whole neighborhood OR want a soupier, um, soup.

What it comes down to is that I do most of the cooking, and I like tomato-type soups and Bubba will eat most anything anyway, so when I decide I'm going to make something that may not be his exact #1 choice of whatever, I have to find some way to make it seem like it's for both of us when really it's mostly for me and my desire to relive my lunch soup fantasies.

I know. I'm a sick person. With a small life. And boring fantasies.

OK, all Soup Person rambling aside, allow me to share with you my amended recipe so that you may serve it four nights in a row, or perhaps only one night in a row if you have a family of 10, and maybe most people will like it even if they're staunch Creamy Soup People like Bubba.

Freaks.

Chickpea and Tomato Soup

Original Recipe by Dennis Feray, Pure Ingredients Cafe
My changes in BOLD

Ingredients
2 cans of chickpeas (drained and rinsed well)
24 frozen whole homegrown tomatoes, thawed, skins removed, crushed (or 32 oz of canned, crushed tomatoes. Wendy says Muir Glen tomatoes are a good substitute for homecanned.)
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 T ground coriander
1 bunch of cilantro, washed & chopped
1 bunch of parsley, washed & chopped
3 oz butter
Juice from 1 lemon
1 jalapeno seeded and minced (FOR GODSAKE - WEAR GLOVES)

1/2 jar of sliced HOT jalapenos, drained
Kosher salt & black pepper to suit

To make
In a Large stock pot, on medium heat, sauté onions in all of the butter until translucent, add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 min.

If that's not the start of a fabulous meal, I don't know what is.

 Add coriander, cilantro, parsley, jalapeno (fresh and canned) and sauté for about 2 min.

This soup is also awesome if you're feeling choppy with your new knives.

Then add tomatoes and chick peas.

Bubba: "No tomatoes are as good as OUR tomatoes." but I still encourage you to make this soup.

Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer.

Don't you just want to put your face in there? I know. Me too.

Simmer for about an hour and then remove from heat.

Add lemon juice and puree soup with a immersion blender. Season to your taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with a parsley garnish and, if you're fancy and fabulous, a swirl of olive oil.
If you're EXTRA FABULOUS and/or serving this to me, for some reason, swap the olive oil for truffle oil and let the swooning begin.

Proceed to defend the Tomato-based Soup empire.

Oh - almost forgot - I had this last night with with a toasted pita filled with melted cheddar and goat cheese and it was pretty fucking good, so I recommend that, too. You know, if you're ever serving it to me and want me to get all swoony.

Also, there was gin, but I doubt that was related to the swooning. It was more to blame for my early 8pm bedtime.

That's all.

I am One with the raincoat.

I'm pretty glad now that I took all these pictures of the garden's progress before our part of the country became soaked to the bone.

My neighbors tell me that NorCal is weird because our bulbs start coming up in January.

Because now it's been raining for about five solid days and I'm trying really hard to understand how people can endure places like Seattle (Hi, Chelle!) and Portland and anywhere else I don't know specifically that also experiences long periods of Rain Only weather.

It's downright soggy around here, y'all, and my run Tuesday morning was as much like swimming as any of my summers growing up except it was about 30 degrees cooler and I was wearing long pants. Or, more specifically, tights.

Ugh, tights. Soggy wet running tights. Just let yourself imagine that for a minute. It's truly gross.

Anyway, it's still raining here, which is great because it means my millions of bulbs and plants are getting their thorough soaking and, you know, instead of forgetting about all the photos I took with my new camera I can share them with you while also remembering what it's like to be outside without a layer of GoreTex between myself and the world.

Yay, it was a glorious time.

This is a flower on the peas. Can you fucking believe that? Where do they find the time?

And I'm really pretty impressed with these winter-type vegetables as they're all growing and producing flowers and not dying even though I was sure that our frost and short days would mean certain death to little green things, which it evidently does not.

That is a small broccolini. Which is why I believe they're called broccolini. The -ini means they're small. In some language. I think.

What it may mean, however, is that little green things may not progress past the Little Green Things Phase because, while our last frost date may be nearly two months off, I have already accepted delivery of the summer's garden seeds and YOU KNOW that once March 1st rolls around it's going to be Tough Shit time for little green things that aren't producing food yet.

Garlic, peas and kohlrabi. All in a race against time and my shovel.

Sort of sad, yes, that some of these plants might not make it to fruition in my race to get priority items like tomatoes and melons into the garden, but that is the plight of the winter vegetable in my NorCal garden - you have to be fast-growing or high priority to stand a chance. If you don't fall into one of those categories, well, then you must make due with my limited patience.

 Nothing is more high-priority than the kumquats. I mean, obviously.

 Poor things.

And if you're fava beans, with the specific purpose of replenishing the soil after a summer of The Great Corn Destruction, then you can grow as fast as you want but once you get to bean-setting, I will get to bean-turning-under, which makes some people like my neighbors very sad. And, as of when I took these pictures last weekend, there are definitely beans are on the horizon.

Or so says the Money Chicken, that sly bastard.

I guess we can queue the neighborhood howls of misery and sadness now because the favas are not long for this world.

But you won't hear any bitching from me. I mean, yes, technically I do experience a single moment of "Oh, but what if I just let one of these plants put out some beans for me?" before I ruthlessly turn them under and let them put some juice back in the dirt, but it's nothing a reminder of crop failure due to poor soil can't remedy.

I can't have that again. I nearly had to run headfirst into traffic. Tomato Sadness - it's a real problem.

So, I have already got my eye on the shovel and have warned my fava-loving neighbors that, once again, I will ruin their lives by dispatching my fava plants before their prime, and no one has called CPS on me so I think we're good.

Not that CPS could do much since I've been told by some crazy people that plants are not children, but I am choosing to still see it as a good sign.

And now that I've told you all about the winter garden I'm planning to destroy in the name of summer vegetables, you can begin preparations for Adopt a Crop 2010 in which you will be contemplating melons.

Yes, doesn't that sound fun? Contemplating melons.

I'll leave you with that thought. Naughties.

Hick yards and gaping holes. This is a long one.

Remember how I did all those ridiculous things to my front yard?

Like plant 800 wildflower bulbs and landscape the sidewalk patch/pee hole with $.99 worth of random ass seeds?

Not to say anything about the 200+ xeric grass plugs...

Well, you remember. I'm sure you do.

And I'm sure at least some of you were thinking, um, Finny - aren't you afraid that it's going to look retarded even after it's done looking like the surface of the moon or some hick's front yard? And to that I say yes. Yes I'm always afraid of having a shitty looking yard or a yard that looks like it's totally out of place or was created by people with limited mental capacities.

Thanks for asking!

Thankfully, the yard is starting to show some promise even though it's only January, our contractor has been wandering all over it even though he *tries really hard* not to and the signs of life are coming up totally at random which sort of lends to the retardedness of it all.

I, however, am choosing to see these little sprouts as a good sign that all that shit I painstakingly planted while being made merciless fun of by my neighbors just might actually blossom into something aesthetically appealing.

Or at least it *might* not look like hicks live here in, say, four months. Meaning that I'm giving this yard until June to perk up and make at attempt at filling in with wildflower blossoms and livelier tufts of grass and, hey, a few poppies and iris would be good, too.

Secretly, though, I'm hoping that the off-hand comment one of my neighbors made, when faced with the confirmation that 800 flower bulbs were indeed planted in our small front yard, will somehow come true.

That comment being, "Shit! 800 bulbs? I bet it ends up in Sunset Magazine!"

Hey, a bitch can hope.

Meanwhile, our contractor is funny. Let me tell you more.

See, we're having our porch rebuilt because half of it was showing signs that it might go out for a pack of cigarettes and not come back. Like - it was starting to, on one side, sink into the soft it-used-to-be-all-orchards-around-here soil.

Sad.

So, we brought in a contractor to do away with the existing concrete pad and rebuild our porch columns since that is a job that Bubba and I need to stay reeeeeeeeeeeeeeaally far away from.

We did have to make up a new mantra to get us started though: Just because the rental yard has jackhammers and concrete mixers available, does not mean we should rent them and then abuse our house and selves with them.

It was tough to resist getting in the truck and going to the rental yard *just to look* at the jackhammers. That much is true.

Anyway, the very skilled contractor did away with the porch concrete and, in its place, we had about a week where there was a nice gaping hole in front of our house.

The hole changed as the week progressed - one day it had a pile of dirt in it, one day it had crushed rock in it, one day some rebar, the next day a lot of rebar and some apoxied holes in the foundation - all kinds of progress. But the point is that for a solid week or so, there was a big hole in front of our house and, consequently, directly in front of our front door.

Now, in normal neighborhoods, this might not pose a problem, but in our neighborhood, where our neighbors are traipsing in and out of our house at all hours of the day and night (thankfully they still knock) and we accept daily deliveries thanks to our online shopping habits and we are constantly swarmed by solicitors, not having a front porch from which one can access a front door becomes a pretty obvious problem.

Our brainier neighbors just came around back and knocked on our back door. This is fine. Excellent, perhaps, and what we were expecting.

Our less determined neighbors have stopped coming by until such time as we can offer them a more hospitable entrance. We now hold our conversations in the middle of the street so that the local traffic can get in on the action.

Our Dutch door sharing neighbor uses the Dutch door.

Our shitty neighbors yell from their front porch.

All of these things are acceptable and were, mostly, expected reactions to the sudden existence of a hole in front of our house after they all got past the fact that there was a hole where our porch used to be and HEY, that's a nice scaffolding and what's it going to look like and so on.

You know, neighborly kind of things.

What I did NOT expect was the absolute brainlessness of delivery people and solicitors.

Let me share an example.

I did NOT expect that a FedEx delivery person, when faced with a giant hole instead of a front porch, would try to approach the porch from a side angle, thinking - I guess - that approaching the house head-on was somehow altering their viewpoint and that, by some strange mystery of physics, if they went to the side of the gaping hole, the porch would somehow reappear and TEE DAH they'd be able to leave their package in the only place they thought a package could go.

No, I did not expect this, but that is indeed what happened. As recounted to us through hysterical laughter by our amused contractor.

The best part was that, when our contractor suggested that they might drop the package in the backyard and Delivery Man agreed, he then returned to the front of the house with full intentions of hanging his FedEx tag on our front door knob (with Delivery Area marked "back door") by way of wading through wet concrete to do so.

Thankfully our contractor is not only a rational being, but also patient and possessing the necessary physical strength to restrain a FedEx delivery man hell bent on hanging a door tag where it did not belong. We came home to find all packages and associated door tags stacked by the back door and no sneaker marks in our concrete.

And that our contractor had tied yellow Caution tape around our front porch.

Yay.

And, since I've decided we've got time for another, "And, this idiot..." story, I will tell you that I found myself really wishing I owned a shotgun/lived in a state where I could own a shotgun/wouldn't have a shotgun pried from my tiny girl fingers and used on myself if I dared to point it at someone, thanks to the stupidest solicitor on the planet.

See, you might have heard that we had a big hole in front of our house where our porch used to be. You've heard, right? Thought so.

Well, you can imagine that this situation offers up a unique challenge to solicitors because their whole goal in life is to get to your front door and then bother you endlessly about random bullshit you couldn't give a crap less about while you make up a hundred excuses for why talking to you is a waste of time.

My favorite is, "Oh, I'm sorry. My husband makes all the financial decisions in this house. I'm not allowed to handle money."

I laugh to myself every time, but only after the door is closed. I mean, really, if you've got one Jew in the house, who do you think is handling the money? Right. But they don't know that.

Anyway.

During our week of A Hole Where the Front Porch Should be, I found myself at the back of the house doing some random thing when I heard the dog start to lose her mind in the someone's coming to the door way that she does when, say, a neighbor approaches the front door.

But I thought to myself, no one can get to the front door, so they'll either go away or come around back, and I'll just go about my business here, hunting down some fabric for this hat, or whatever.

But then the dog didn't stop barking. And she's not an overly enthusiastic bark-for-no-fucking-good-reason kind of dog. So I was intrigued. I left my fabric bins and wandered out into the living room to find a solicitor limboing under the Caution tape and contemplating a precarious climb up the dirt and crushed rock heap to our front door with a Special Offer! door tag or some such nonsense.

I'll admit it to you here, I sorta lost it on him.

I mean, I'd had enough of people doing incomprehensibly stupid bullshit under such comprehensible circumstances. I couldn't, and still can't, understand how one would see Caution tape wrapped around a big hole and think, "Hey, that's fun! These homeowners have set up a little O-course for me. I shall enjoy it greatly before bothering them about a security system they've repeatedly informed me they do not want! Excellent!"

At first I just opened the door and told him to stop. Like, "Hey! Don't go under that tape! Just stop."

And when he kept coming, despite my raised voice and vigilant finger-wagging, I removed my censor.


"What the fuck are you doing? Don't walk in there!"

And when he stood there and tried to do the, "Hey, this will only take a few minutes." thing, I screamed at him to get off my property or I'd let the dog out. Thankfully, the dog was still barking because I had my hand on the doorknob as though I was going to open it and give her the opportunity to investigate the squirrels racing up the street tree.

But again, he didn't know that, so he finally retreated. While giving the dog the hairy eyeball. Whatever - it got him out of our porch hole.

Of course, I had to share this little interaction with our contractor who, after finishing pouring the new concrete yesterday, left us a little gift.

Well, if he's not the funniest contractor ever.

And, because I'd made all kinds of squealy noises about "Oh, Bubba, we should write our initials in the concrete wouldn't that be SO CUTE!" when we were talking about pouring the new pad, and even though Bubba looked at me like I'd just told him I was going to go vegan on him or something, Funny Contractor left us this gift as well, tastefully etched into an out-of-the-way corner of the porch:

To say that I screetched with delight would be wildly underestimating my reaction. Bubba just rolled his eyes in that way that tells me he loves me, but at this moment, he's trying really hard to remember why.

Alright, that's all I've got. You're free.

Running update: About that sub-60 10K PR, then...

With all my blathering about food lately (and, Hi - did you come here hoping NOT to see any more photos of Brussels sprouts because, I know) I feel obligated to tell you all that I'm still running.

Unlike previous years though, I'm not starting this year with any big mentally captured goals of setting a new half marathon PR or running multiple half marathons or, really, anything with the words half or marathon in it.

That is correct, friends, I *may* not run a half marathon this year. Like, maybe not even ONE.

Maybe. It's only January after all. And you know how I get when people start goading me about things and the Active sends me perfectly timed emails or I feel like a fatty or I haven't scratched the New PR itch in a while.

But, the moral of the story here is that I am, indeed, still running and doing so naked - without my Garmin or Camelbak or Luna Moons or other running sidekick accoutresmant.

Though, to come perfectly clean, I will say that I have signed up for my first 2010 race. And, truthfully, I've set my first 2010 running goal: to run an *official* sub-60 10K.

Now, yes, according to my own clock, I did run a sub-60 10K when I ran this race last year BUT the official race timers (who I'm not trusting because they were dressed in shiny mermaid costumes complete with seashell bras when it was 40 degrees outside so it's possible that their mental capacities were compromised) said I ran it in 1:01:37 which is bullshit because OH WAIT the course was .2 miles longer than it was supposed to be. And then there was some math involved that proved that if the course was its normal length (6.2M), I would have finished with a sub-60 time BUT WHATEVER.

Remember - I'm over it.

And, anyway, it gives me a nice goal to work on this year. Though, to be perfectly honest again (I'm all about honesty today - what WILL I say next?) I'm hoping to nail this one down at the 2010 Mermaid so that I can go on to lounge my way through the remainder of the year replete with self-satisfaction.

Or perhaps work on another PR. Or actually do that trail running thing I was all whimsical about as I was getting ready to drag my dehydrated carcass through last October's Rock N Roll San Jose.

Who really knows!

That's kinda fun, right? The whole Not Having a Very Specific Plan for Running thing. Right? Like, I'm not going to drive my whole 2010 into the ground without having a hard solid plan for it in January, right? RIGHT?


Sorry, I get afraid that I'm going to fall victim to my own lazy tendencies and find myself at the end of the year looking back over twelve months of What The Fuck Was That with nothing to show for myself.

But, if I, at least, manage to eek out a sub-60 PR I can feel like something was accomplished and I'm not just running the neighborhood to peep on my neighbors and scope out new front porch designs.

Not that that's what I do now. No, no. We're not being *that* honest today.

What the F I do with a ton of Brussels sprouts.

Dear Donk,

It would appear that my new blogging format is just me writing you an old-fashionedy letter via the internets. Weird, that.

Anyway, the reason why this is Day #2 where I write to you rather than just blog indiscriminately for anyone who wants to correct my fuzzy math or tell me how I called the Kitchenaid attachment the wrong thing is because I actually did both of our ~along projects this month.

I know! Total crazy.

So, as you may have seen already, I finished the hat, which was perfectly successful in that it fits, no one died in the making of it and it's Hotness. Perhaps I was drunk with the success of our first ~along project or perhaps I just wanted to do something new with the third serving of Brussels sprouts taken from the stalk I got at TJ's for $2.99, but after the success with project #1, I went ahead with project #2 - the making of the spicy garlic dressing and, in case you haven't guessed already, there wasn't a normal "salad" to toss with this dressing.

I went against the grain of society and tossed the dressing with Brussels sprouts and. YES. GOOD.

And let's briefly touch on that, shall we? The fact that one can buy a stalk, or rather adult leg-sized LOG, of Brussels sprouts for less than a Happy Meal. I mean, sure, little kids aren't going to be like, "Hey mom, buy me some Brussels sprouts instead of a cheeseburger", after which the mom goes, "Ok, child. And then we will drive home and I will roast them up for you all tasty-like and serve them on a real plate for lunch.", but for a moment, while standing in Trader Joe's swaddling my stalk of sprouts, I had a little bit of hope for the future of America's nutrition.

Not that I'm going to forego my clandestine trips to Wendy's or In-N-Out, but all I ever hear is how we're all a bunch of fat Americans because fresh food is too expensive and WOE we can only afford to feed ourselves garbage that's not even food. Because I bought a stalk of Brussels sprouts for less than $3 and that's six servings of delicious sprouts right there. Amazing - six servings of fresh food for about $.50 a serving.

What I'm trying to say, here, is that I made your salad dressing recipe from our first month of the One Yard Wonders : Sew Along 2010 and rather than toss it with salad greens, I tossed it with Brussels sprouts and it was delish.

And that delicious dish probably cost me about 50 cents, fought cancer, filled me with brooming fiber, protected me from all my coworkers' germs with vitamin C and it tasted like a million damn dollars.

And, oh by the way, where do I get off being all fucking preachy about nutrition and food, anyway? Oh she of the Bacon Sandwich Where The Bread Is Bacon? Yeah, I don't know either. I was just struck by this situation and felt the need, I guess, to let it out for everyone to witness.

Everyone, please meet my Inner Crazy. Inner Crazy, please meet everyone.

Now that you're formally introduced, I can think about sharing all the pictures of my new knives and how I've let the Cuisinart rest quietly in the cupboard so that I can cavort lewdly with my knives and all of our vegetables.

Ahem. Not now though. Now is for the Brussels sprouts.

Brussels Sprouts with Kelli's Spicy Garlic Dressing

Ingredients
1 cup of Brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved
1 T butter
1/4 c water
1 recipe of Kelli's Spicy Garlic Dressing

To make
Mix the dressing in a medium sized mixing bowl. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a quick boil. Toss in the butter and pour the sprouts on top. Cover and turn the heat to medium-low. Steam for a few short minutes or until the sprouts are bright green.

DON'T LET THEM TURN ARMY GREEN. Then they'll taste like ass.

Drain the sprouts and throw them into the mixing bowl with the dressing.

Toss. Serve. Go to town with your fork. You know how to eat. Just do that.

That's all.

xo
Finny

I guess it really was a good hat day even though it involved math.

Dear Donk,

I will say this, after I triumphantly decided that TEE DAH our first sewing project was going to be the Good Hat Day hat by Rebecca Malmström , I immediately regretted it.

Because I suddenly remembered that I'm lazy and this project had some seemingly complicated elements like heavyweight fusible interfacing and cutting of circles (fuck, math), two things that can confuse the simple-minded like myself.

But, not being one comfortable with flaking on my promises (or seeming like a big fat wuss), I forged ahead.

I did go to the One Yard Wonders Flickr pool seeking reinforcement from other crafters since SURELY someone had made this hat already and I'd be able to see just how great theirs came out so what was I so worried about, but, frighteningly, there was none to be had. No one had made this hat yet.

LAME.

Sure, there were a million of those keyhole creatures and, LOVE YOU some people had already made my Not Ugly Car Trash bag, but no hats yet. Boo.

I was forced to go forward with no references other than the pattern and the book and, you know, lots of finger crossing and good trusty swears and by some miracle there were precious few fuck-ups that resulted in seam-ripping.

It was a miracle and I am grateful for these miracles (and my momentary ability to do math) and so I will share some things with you that I discovered while watching the Patriots lose in a most hideous game where they forgot to play football and instead fell down a lot.

Not that I'm a Patriots fan or anything, I mean, obviously, but I expected some good football out of Hotness Brady and, sadly, there was none to be seen.

Moving on to helpful tips you can use while making your Good Hat Day hat if you're making it to showcase the reverse side of the fabric, which I was. Because I think it's cuter. But if you think it's cuter to do it the other way then, whatever. You can ignore me. Also, you should know to just take my tips as you would tips from any low-grade lunatic and not equate them with The All-Knowing Truth or anything because, hello, I'm just one person and could be wrong. So, like, proceed at your own risk or whatever.

1. Sewing the band seams.
Where it says, in what I believe is Step 1, to fold your hat bands in half WRONG SIDES together and sew the short ends together, instead, fold your hat bands in half RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER and sew the short ends together. Kay?

Otherwise you'll end up with the wrong side of the seam showing on the right side (outside) of your hat. Which you don't want. That's a little *too much* wrong side on the outside for me even though you know how I love me some wrong.

Anyway, it's not the kind of wrong that I had in mind, so I had to do some mid-stream ripping and re-sewing of seams. No hard feelings, though, it took my mind away from the bloodbath on the TV (see: Patriots shit the bed, paragraph 7).

2. Measuring the circles for the top.
To measure the circles for the top part of the hat, I used this math and this method for cutting.

Math:

First, get the Diameter of your circle. Which is the Circumference you already measured (that's the inches around your noggin + 1/2") divided by 2. In my case it was 22/2 = 11.

Then, get the radius for your circle. 
For those of you who are math retards (like moi) or have been out of junior high math for a while (also like moi), the formula for that is: R = D/2 (D = Diameter, R = Radius) or 11/2=5.5. Then she says to add an inch or something, so do that and you're radius is 6.5.

Cutting:

Then cut a piece of string about an inch or so longer than your radius, so, let's say 7.5", and tie a knot in one end of the string. Pin that string (through the knot) down to your fabric, holding a fabric marker or chalk at the other end of the string, and draw a circle holding the string taught.

Like so:

Then double your fabric over, pin it together in the center, and cut yourself out two circles of the same size. Dandy.

3. Sewing your lid on so seams face in.
When you go to pin these top of the hat circles to your topless hat, pin the circles right sides together, and then pin them to the right side of the exterior band (that's wrong sides of the top circles TO right sides of the exterior band) so that when you turn it right side out, the raw seams will be on the inside.

4. Fuck the slipstitching of the interior band.
Y'all know I hate to handsew things and that hatred has done nothing but grow and intensify with time. I do not enjoy it, is what I'm saying. And, thankfully, I already had a similar hat on hand (made by the geniuses at Fossil) to which I could refer when debating whether it was necessary to handsew in the interior band of this hat.

My example hat, which I love very much, simply had the interior band folded upward and left unattached, a feature I'd never fully appreciated but suddenly came to love very much because it meant that TA DAH I was done.

And, you know, I left it that way and tried it on and totally dug it. So, there you have it, I don't think it's necessary. And it still looks finished inside and causes no issues from what I can tell, so you can decide whether you're willing to waste those extra minutes of your life and soul handstitching this interior band into place.

Your call.

OK, so that's all I know about the hat. I sewed it and it didn't take all day and it was pretty fun to make and I made it using all stashed items, so the whole de-stashing theme is safe with me so far. Even the heavyweight fusible interfacing was found lurking at the bottom of one of my fabric bins and the fabric I'd been coveting since Philigry so kindly swapped it to me was just waiting to become this hat so I had to make a big ZERO trips to the fabric store for this project which is YAY.

So, go on people, make yourselves a hot new hat and don't be all skerred of the math because, lord knows, if me, The Math Retard, can do it - y'all can, too.

xo
Finny