Sprouts

It's later in the spring than I'm used to, but I'm finding my enthusiasm again!  It's poking through the ground, a little late thanks to the cool and wet spring, but little green shoots of it are unfurling.  Two leaves, then four, then those leaves that really look like leaves...

THINGS I AM EXCITED ABOUT:

MAKE IT POP!  This is going to be pretty damn cool.  I've been working with PDX Pop Now!, the organization that puts this on, and I'm pretty bowled over by how great it's going to be.  Laura Veirs, Eric Earley of Blitzen Trapper, Laura Gibson, and Israel Nebeker of Blind Pilot is a pretty remarkable lineup for a show.  The way this annual fundraiser show works is that the organization works to get some pretty significant local talent, then puts on this show in a tiny, intimate venue (the Ace Hotel's event space called The Cleaners), so you get to get all up-close and personal.  I've been twice before, and it's always a memorable experience.  And now I'm a part of the process, so I'm pretty much just buzzing about now, waiting for April 28.

Sherry Vanilla Bean Jelly.  The Lovely Partner's mother, out of the blue, bought us a night at a downtown hotel and dinner out.  We went to Clyde Common, and while we were waiting for our table, we got a cheese plate that came with this amazing sherry vanilla bean jelly.  Turns out it was remarkably easy to replicate.  I googled "sherry jelly" and added vanilla instead of the spices in the recipe.  I also tossed in a cinnamon stick, which turned out to be utterly superfluous, and if I could take it back I would.  But it's still amazing.  I wish I had the money to try it with a good sherry, instead of the cheap Christian Brothers stuff, but damn.  I'm thinking about all the other possibilities.  Tawny Port?  Madeira?  And then there's the whole realm of wine jellies...I want to make one out of a nice floral, fruity, aromatic viognier or a muscat.

Renewal and growth.  At work, I've been working with a too-high number of kids, since one of my coworkers (there aren't many of us) was on maternity leave and is back but only part time.  After a while, it seems like all the kids that only need to be in a residential treatment setting for a little bit and then can move on, have moved on.  Eventually, I have seven-eight-nine kids who seem like they'll never leave.  But as spring buds and flowers burst forth, so have my clients.  I sent a kid home on Friday, and another goes out tomorrow (the most hopeful of the bunch, I think she'll do great).  I've got two or three more who look somewhere between sorta and really ready to move on, and now it's just about making the plans for where.  And at the same time, I see the first shoots of lettuce and radishes emerging in the garden.  Stagnation is turning into growth all over the place.

The Farmer's Market.  I've missed it the last couple of saturdays, but the two saturdays before that, I made it down to the first two weeks of the Portland Farmer's Market.  I've gotten root veggies and greens and vegetable starts for the garden, and pork and salmon, and dried cherries (damn, the Lovely Boyfriend is soaking those cherries in bourbon and Maraska, and they are pretty unbelievably tasty), and always an amazing lunch and some great coffee.

The Utility of Hibernation

I've started asking myself (is this a good idea or a bad idea?), what am I doing these days?  I have undertaken a few cooking projects.  I've been busy with work, the nonprofit project, moving, home stuff.  Mostly nesting, it seems.  I haven't completed a new piece of jewelry in a few weeks.  I built an Ikea bookshelf today, but I wouldn't call that a creative project, not when it comes with picture instructions.  Moving into the Lovely Boyfriend's place has taken a lot of my creative energy.  How do I fit things into this box in an efficient way, yet one that makes sense?  (Yep, that kitchen utensil would fill that last little bit of space perfectly, but the rest of the box is filled with bookshelf stuff...there's gotta be something else more rational to go there?)  Where can we create storage space where there was none before?  How do I make this shitty closet work for my stuff?  How do I organize all my things in my mind, now that I get the opportunity to sort and organize and categorize everything?  What can I throw away (well, recycle or donate)?  (Yes, this last question is one that's calling on a high degree of creativity and imagination on my part, in ways I couldn't have imagined until I started). 

I've planted a few things recently.  Radishes, a new raspberry cane (this one fall-bearing, so I now have two summer-bearing black raspberries, a summer-bearing red, and a fall-bearing red), an evergreen huckleberry (yum!), and three blueberry bushes.  I'm thinking about where my garden will be this year, since it will be at the Lovely Boyfriend's place and not mine.  Where does the sun shine?  What will be easiest to dig up that isn't grassless because nothing will grow there?

Hibernation is all about asking the questions and developing the answers.  Action comes as the shoots poke out of the soil in the spring.