Flight Anxiety

I am taking flight Saturday. To Kentucky. For a wedding. I don't fly well. I use to fly all the time as a child but since my teens I have had sever anxiety when it comes to flying. I have not actually flown since my grandmothers funeral in 2008 so Saturday will be my first flight in 5 years. My anxiety starts about a week in advance. I become moody and have trouble sleeping and all that fun jazz. I have tried to find ways to relax and try to sniffle the stress before it becomes to much. Hence, my return to spinning. Yarn, that is. This past weekend I broke out the spinning wheel and some Romney and spun! Spinning is so relaxing and I do believe it helped a bit.

 So following this return to spinning, I also decided to purge a bit of my disgustingly obese fiber stash. My stash occupies three Container Store bins in my closet. Its obese in part because I both spin and felt so I have both spinning and felting fiber. I bagged up about 1/5 of my stash and brought it to The Spin City meetup for "Fiber Adoption" day. Of course, I couldn't come home empty handed but I held strong and only came home with two fiber batts and a copy of "Mason Dixon Knitting" which I have wanted FOREVER! I swear someday I'm going to be a real knitter.

 I'm not sure I can bring my knitting looms on the plane, not to mention the major drawback of looms is that they are so big and cumbersome AND I'm only going to three days. Do I need a knitting project for three days? Most would say yes but as I am a poor knitter I'm not sure if I can justify it. I did find an old in progress scarf during my fiber purge so maybe I'll tote that along. Either way, I started a cowel on my biggest loom last night in another attempt to destress. I'm using "Cascade Eco Wool" that I bought years ago and knitted my hat with two weeks ago. I love this yarn. It's soft and wonderful and I just want to roll around in it. I decided to hunt for more online and discovered it comes is a crazy amount of colors! I'm already planning new projects. 

 Wish my luck in my travels. I've never been to Kentucky so I'm looking forward to it. And I'm hoping for a smooth ride.








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I'll have a cocktail

Sometimes it really concerns me how many addictions I can have and how crazy said addictions are. Yesterday I was passing by Whole Foods on my lunch break and stopped dead in my tracks. They had citrus trees for $19! "That's a crazy great price." I said to myself and took the spare two minuets I had to inspect the display of baby city's trees. One of the tags said "Key Lime" so I decided to return and pick one up after work.

Now, logically I know I do not need another plant in my life. I know financially that May is a tight month. I've already decided to hold off on several purchases. But if you look anywhere else, citrus trees are expensive and my two year old citrus tree brought me so much joy during those shitty winter months. Citrus trees are evergreens which means they are lush and wonderful all year long AND they bloom and start to fruit in winter. I just needed one. My gardening side of my brain overrode they responsible side of my brain and won.

I returned to Whole Foods and picked a healthy looking tree. I then saw that it had both a "Key Lime" and "Meyer Lemon" tags on it. I asked a sales person but she didn't know. I kinda figured either way it'd be a win and then I looked at the container and saw the words, "Cocktail citrus tree". By the beard of Zeus, it was BOTH! A beautifully freakish, lab constructed citrus hybrid!!! It was the Frankenstein of the fruit family and I was about to freakin take it home. My love for my new tree grew ten fold. While I have no idea how Whole Foods condoned the growing of such a thing, I am nevertheless thankful for bringing it to me. I know I sound crazy, I don't care. I have a passion about plants like most normal woman of my age have about shoes. Shoes don't bloom or grow. I think those bitches are crazy.

So here sits my new addition to my windowsill. It's not actually on my windowsill yet.


It's in quarantine in another room. I heard you were suppose to do that with plants, it seemed legit. Ill name it, I'm thinking of calling it Conrad. Conrad the Cocktail citrus Tree. The bottom line: I'm excited.


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Just trudging along...

I'm working, I'm busy and I'm tired. I haven't had time or energy to craft. My big thing last was week was attending a potluck party in Brooklyn for which I made a crazy yummy cheese dip and cookies and cream popcorn. The host, my friend Kealyn, gifted me a beautiful glass trivet she made.


It's crazy awesome and it's inspiring me to work on my glass skills which have been sorely neglected as of late. One more thing to add to my crazy long list of things to do.


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Happy 2013!

Alright, so I had started to write a long winded post about my reflections of the year that was and my hopes for this new year. Then last night I came home to discover the most wonderful thing: a blossom.


A tiny, unassuming bud on my lemon tree. I squealed. Loudly. Then I discovered another and then a cluster of FIVE buds on the back branch. I screamed. I am taking this as a sign. A sign of wonderful things to come this year. Of growth and change and all I can say is, I am so excited. I hope you are too.


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I want an Elf on my Shelf!

For a while now I've been hearing about the Elf on the shelf. I had no clue what it was and really didn't care much. I assumed it was a children's thing and since I didn't have a kid, it didn't apply to me. Then I started seeing pictures on Pinterest. This funny little Elf was doing cute things and ending up in the oddest places. So finally I Wikipedia'd it to get the full story. For those of you who don't know, the Elf on the Shelf is an Elf from the North Pole who comes down a few weeks before Christmas to check on the children in the family and make sure they are being good. Each night he flys back to the Pole and reports to Santa and then quickly flys back. The trick is to find him each morning and see what he's up to. You can't touch him though. If you do, he looses his magic and won't be able to fly back to the North Pole.

Several of my students have one and I started asking them where they found him that morning.

And I want one. I'm holding out to see if someone will surprise me with one for Christmas but if that is not the case, I've got some gift cards and I will treat myself. I understand that it's a kid thing and that since I have no kids, this could be construed as "Creepy" but I think there is just too much fun going in with this Elf thing and I want in on that fun!

Anyway, here's wishing you a safe and happy holiday. I hope your elf only reported the good things you did this year.


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Handmade Holidays

I've decided to do handmade gifts again this year. Though I'm having a hard time finding time to craft, I'm trying to craft all but four of my gifts this year. So I've started "Beta testing" my handmade gifts. Here's a look at what I've been working on.


In other news, I attempted to make AppleButter in the crock pot. I'm a little intimidated by the crockpot. And by little, I mean a lot. That's a for now.

Loving Fall

I spent the Columbus weekend in the Berkshires and basically Od'd on New England fall. In short, I went pumpkin crazy. The pumpkin total is now up to 8. Here are some pictures from my exploits...














While on the Berks we hit up a craft fair at the Berkshire botanical gardens and I found this really great Wishing Tree. People from all over put wishing on it and it looks wonderful. There wasn't any paper left so no wishing for me.





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