I got back into my garden today, after something like two weeks straight of rain. It was muddy, and I probably should have left well enough alone. But I was out there mostly to dig shit up, so I wasn't as worried about it as I usually am. 30 dandelions and a bunch of bluebell-like bulbs later, my garden didn't look much different than it did before I started. I felt like superman, though, getting out there again. And I planted a parsley start and an artichoke start. We'll see what I get. I'm still dreaming of tomatoes and peppers, though it feels good to see a few radish sprouts poking up.
P.S. Anyone want a gazillion bluebell-like bulbs and a handful of daffodils? They're packed in the backyard like a house show, packed so tight they barely even bloom. I've been slowly digging them up, and once I'm done I hope to redistribute them in the yard and trade the rest for some nice fall veggie starts, beets or kale or something.
We also took some salvaged plywood from The Rebuilding Center, and made two new shelves. One for the pantry, the same as the shelves that are in there, and one for the unused overhead space in the stairwell to the basement. Two bucks for all the plywood and 1x2 lumber for the supports. I also spent another two bucks on a bunch of small, pretty hardware I think might make nice jewelry additions. Lots of pretty cupboard handles, some chain from a backyard swing, some random bits of metal that looked interesting. This is a truly amazing place that is 100% devoted to reusing salvaged scrap, old fixtures, and all sorts of household building materials that could easily get tossed in a dumpster. If you've ever wanted a beautiful vintage sink, this is the place to look.
I'm not sure whether I feel accomplished, or just feel sad, that my other major task this weekend that I've done a great job with has been laundry. It feels so goddamned ordinary to crow about having gotten five loads of laundry done in 2 1/2 days. I wish someone else did my laundry so my superman accomplishments could be all about the creativity. Though once the laundry was done we did head out to see a great, cheap show with a whole bunch of bands for super-cheap at an odd and unexpected venue. Screw you, laundry! I've got better shit to brag about!
I did make a lovely dinner for St. Patrick's Day earlier this week. I made beef guinness stew, which went beautifully with the homemade whole wheat bread from last weekend. I think my crockpot runs too hot, so the beef was drier than I hoped, though. Then today was the first day of the 2011 Portland Farmer's Market (at PSU), and we picked up a pound-plus of last-minute-super-discount salmon, which made a gorgeous dinner with some tzatziki (thanks, Cooking Light!), roasted new potatoes with oregano and lemon, and a salad. This was truly a joint effort, The Lovely Partner took care of the fish. Tomorrow's dinner looks to be pulled pork and some beet greens (Lovely Partner is all about the smoker! I'll deal with the greens...). We also picked up another bag of the most amazing whole wheat flour (I used the very last of it in the whole wheat bread described above), so flavorful and grainy and I feel like a homesteader every time I grab that bag to do some baking. And I'm hoping that I can turn a bunch of end-of-winter stored asian pears into asian-pear butter. I have no idea what that will be like. I'll keep you updated.
Tomorrow I'll be up early to draft my fantasy baseball league team. There's no way in hell I'll manage to get Felix Hernandez for a fifth straight year, not after he was the AL Cy Young Award winner. Damn, I love my regulars, and they're all hard to get this year. Delmon Young and Francisco Liriano are another couple I've managed to swing the last couple years, despite playing in a Twins-fan-heavy league, because everyone knows they've got weaknesses...but not this year. They're heavy favorites. Gotta find some super-secret rookie phenoms this year again. Damn. I'm betting on a few National League guys with the kind of boring, ordinary names that might hide their true potential.
Sunday's plan, after the baseball draft, is all about building these shelves we cut, and putting together some Ikea storage in the basement spare room, once we figure out what fits where and have moved some pieces from upstairs. Moving into someone else's place is hard. I've never done it before, and this is the first moment that I've realized that it's a new experience for me, which partly explains why it's so hard. Even just moving a few things from here to there in his kitchen cupboards is a huge deal; I'm anxious when I do it, and the reaction is often not totally positive. I'll stop referring to it as "his place" and start referring to it as "home" when I no longer have my own apartment somewhere else, but when will it start feeling that way?
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Three Themes
As my blog progresses, I'm discovering three themes I keep focusing on. This is where blogs and journals have a lot in common...I turn my lens on myself, and it helps me give words to the themes I'm developing in my own life.
It appears that my current focal points in my blog (and my life) are creativity, conservation, and DIY. There's a lot of overlap, but I think I focus on each independently enough that they really are three things.
Why these things? I have some ideas. For many years, I was focused primarily on my professional development. Graduate school, dissertation, career. I've been working in the same place now for three years (as of last week), and I just realized, right now today, that professional development is no longer the bright shining star in my growth as a person. It's become a much more subtle influence, shifting from who I am in the field of psychology to how I do my work every day ethically, efficiently, and effectively without getting bogged down or overwhelmed. My growth in this area has slowed down, and without realizing it, I've been looking for the next step.
I've been looking for this next step while steeped in the culture of Portland, a hotbed of DIY creativity and day-to-day environmental practice. I've been in Portland now for 7 1/2 years, and I love it here. Even as I stare out the window at another grey, wet, drizzly day and wonder if I'm going to drown before the rainy season is over, I'm happy to be here. Things make sense to me here. And you can't help but be more attuned to what you make, how you make it, and how you impact the world.
I've always been the person who wants to learn to make and do everything, even if I only do it once. And I've always been inspired to do so by whatever's around me, whether baking cookies or building a fort as a kid. So now I guess it makes sense that these things have become my next step(s) forward in who I am as a person.
It appears that my current focal points in my blog (and my life) are creativity, conservation, and DIY. There's a lot of overlap, but I think I focus on each independently enough that they really are three things.
Why these things? I have some ideas. For many years, I was focused primarily on my professional development. Graduate school, dissertation, career. I've been working in the same place now for three years (as of last week), and I just realized, right now today, that professional development is no longer the bright shining star in my growth as a person. It's become a much more subtle influence, shifting from who I am in the field of psychology to how I do my work every day ethically, efficiently, and effectively without getting bogged down or overwhelmed. My growth in this area has slowed down, and without realizing it, I've been looking for the next step.
I've been looking for this next step while steeped in the culture of Portland, a hotbed of DIY creativity and day-to-day environmental practice. I've been in Portland now for 7 1/2 years, and I love it here. Even as I stare out the window at another grey, wet, drizzly day and wonder if I'm going to drown before the rainy season is over, I'm happy to be here. Things make sense to me here. And you can't help but be more attuned to what you make, how you make it, and how you impact the world.
I've always been the person who wants to learn to make and do everything, even if I only do it once. And I've always been inspired to do so by whatever's around me, whether baking cookies or building a fort as a kid. So now I guess it makes sense that these things have become my next step(s) forward in who I am as a person.
Sprout Dreams
Every creative thought I have these days is about my garden. I'm dying for the rain to stop (about this time every year I manage to have some sort of Portland amnesia and believe that any day now the rain will stop) so I can stick a shovel in some nice, fertile, soft dirt instead of a sloppy puddle of muck.
This year, I aspire to grow artichokes, arugula, baby bell peppers, basil, beets, blueberries, carrots, cauliflower, chard, cilantro, cucumbers, ferns (okay, it's not all edible), garlic, huckleberries, jalapenos, jasmine, kale, lettuce, mache, moss, new mexico peppers, oregano, parsnips, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries, rosemary, summer squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, thyme, zucchini...
(I was tempted to add eggplant and quince just to fill out the alphabet a bit more, but I restrained myself. See? I'm capable of restraint!)
It's not all going to happen. We bought and planted the blueberries and huckleberries, and added another raspberry cane to the raspberry patch. We've got radish seeds in the ground, and the garlic is already a few inches tall. I transplanted the rosemary a year ago, and it seems to love being out of a pot and in the really-truly earth. The thyme dies back every winter, but then grows tiny new leaves again, so I hope it's going to survive. I'm discovering that I can grow some perennials, which makes me happy and eases the pressure in the spring.
Given my discovery of canning last summer, I should really focus on things I can jam and pickle. And salads for the Lovely Boyfriend, who wants one with every meal. Crap, that doesn't narrow the list down much, does it? What have I grown with some success? Basil, carrots, cukes, garlic, radishes (these two are in the ground now), lettuce, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries (in the ground!), rosemary (ditto!), summer squash (sorta), tomatoes, thyme. Narrows it down a little more.
Wow...I don't think I realized I'd grown that many things successfully! I think of myself as having a brown thumb, but chance has got to work in my favor sometimes. That and Steve Solomon's book Growing Vegetables West Of The Cascades. That man can make anyone a gardener.
The other thing I did just today was bake bread. Two loaves of whole wheat, with this amazing coarse organic wheat flour from the farmer's market. I can smell it now, cooling in the kitchen. I'm a huge fan of the book Kneadlessly Simple, which has a zillion or so recipes for breads you don't have to knead (but require planning ahead about 24 hours, and having a cool place to put bread to rise for 12 hours or more...). They end up delicious, complex and chewy, just really fascinating.
I'm still moving. I expect this process to go for another month and a half, minimum. Pack some boxes, bring them to L. Boyfriend's place, trip to Ikea for more storage space, build shelves, unpack boxes, bring boxes back to my house, rinse, repeat.
A couple of weeks ago, I got together with a friend of the LB's who does some photography, and she took pictures of all of my jewelry. I'm so excited to get these photos back! Etsy shop makeover, here I come.
Sadly, I haven't made a piece of jewelry in over a month. I feel bad, but then I remember that I've got a decent stock right now, and I've got other life projects in the works. I have this terrible, lifelong habit of starting something, but only keeping it up for a little while then letting it lapse forever and ever. Here is my new, very important lens on this problem: There is always an ebb and flow. This means nothing. I am not moving on, I am not giving up. I am ebbing, and flow will come soon.
This year, I aspire to grow artichokes, arugula, baby bell peppers, basil, beets, blueberries, carrots, cauliflower, chard, cilantro, cucumbers, ferns (okay, it's not all edible), garlic, huckleberries, jalapenos, jasmine, kale, lettuce, mache, moss, new mexico peppers, oregano, parsnips, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries, rosemary, summer squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, thyme, zucchini...
(I was tempted to add eggplant and quince just to fill out the alphabet a bit more, but I restrained myself. See? I'm capable of restraint!)
It's not all going to happen. We bought and planted the blueberries and huckleberries, and added another raspberry cane to the raspberry patch. We've got radish seeds in the ground, and the garlic is already a few inches tall. I transplanted the rosemary a year ago, and it seems to love being out of a pot and in the really-truly earth. The thyme dies back every winter, but then grows tiny new leaves again, so I hope it's going to survive. I'm discovering that I can grow some perennials, which makes me happy and eases the pressure in the spring.
Given my discovery of canning last summer, I should really focus on things I can jam and pickle. And salads for the Lovely Boyfriend, who wants one with every meal. Crap, that doesn't narrow the list down much, does it? What have I grown with some success? Basil, carrots, cukes, garlic, radishes (these two are in the ground now), lettuce, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries (in the ground!), rosemary (ditto!), summer squash (sorta), tomatoes, thyme. Narrows it down a little more.
Wow...I don't think I realized I'd grown that many things successfully! I think of myself as having a brown thumb, but chance has got to work in my favor sometimes. That and Steve Solomon's book Growing Vegetables West Of The Cascades. That man can make anyone a gardener.
The other thing I did just today was bake bread. Two loaves of whole wheat, with this amazing coarse organic wheat flour from the farmer's market. I can smell it now, cooling in the kitchen. I'm a huge fan of the book Kneadlessly Simple, which has a zillion or so recipes for breads you don't have to knead (but require planning ahead about 24 hours, and having a cool place to put bread to rise for 12 hours or more...). They end up delicious, complex and chewy, just really fascinating.
I'm still moving. I expect this process to go for another month and a half, minimum. Pack some boxes, bring them to L. Boyfriend's place, trip to Ikea for more storage space, build shelves, unpack boxes, bring boxes back to my house, rinse, repeat.
A couple of weeks ago, I got together with a friend of the LB's who does some photography, and she took pictures of all of my jewelry. I'm so excited to get these photos back! Etsy shop makeover, here I come.
Sadly, I haven't made a piece of jewelry in over a month. I feel bad, but then I remember that I've got a decent stock right now, and I've got other life projects in the works. I have this terrible, lifelong habit of starting something, but only keeping it up for a little while then letting it lapse forever and ever. Here is my new, very important lens on this problem: There is always an ebb and flow. This means nothing. I am not moving on, I am not giving up. I am ebbing, and flow will come soon.
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