Alaska, Long Beach

New. Yellow. Love.

So I swore I would continue using my sentimental beat up ol' wallet until it was down to paper clips and scraps, but last night T convinced [coerced] me into purchasing a brand new wallet from the vegan store we often frequent but never buy.  She wanted me to buy it because she felt bad that we were always browsers and I didn't feel like I had much of a choice.  Though I love the wallet.  I mean yellow buttons.  LOVE.

The wallet is Matt & Nat who are Canadian vegan designers and who make the most amazing purses and bags of only the vegan variety.  The new linen line [beige linen with dark green or burnt orange "leather" trim] is incredible.

So I have retired my old wallet.  It feels like a huge change and I am extremely stubborn when it comes to change.  I can just imagine searching through my bag desperately trying to find my [old] wallet ignoring the big yellow thing taking up the bottom of the bag.  When I eventually realize I am looking for the old wallet it will be like a big yellow smile in my bag; who can deny the cheery nature of those yellow buttons.  Plus look how amazing the yellow looks with my grey tote. 

Cheers all!

Lavender Jars

I picked up these two jars at Ikea the other day.  For the store I purchase all my displays from Ikea so I am there weekly.  But when I saw these jars I realized instantly that these were the perfect solution to house my growing [drying] lavender problem. 

In the first jar is lavender I bought fresh, forgot about, and it became wonderfully dried and scented.  I had no place to store it so it stayed drying for possibly just less than a year.  The second jar is dried organic lavender I purchased from here that I use to stuff the lavender bags I make.  I love how these jars look and smell... now where to put them?

Cheers!

p.s. Read some glorious historical information on lavender here.

Short Films

I am screening films for the Newport Beach Film Festival as I have done for the passed three years [last year I screened 70 shorts!].  While this is a small film festival it does have international recognition and receives some amazing submissions.  And some really crappy ones.  Screening is the front line of the festival; each film received is coded and bagged and sent home with the screeners who rate to weed out the really terrible ones [anyone can submit a film on anything- say a 10 minutes home video of a friend playing drums, or the more common "artsy" films which always include at least one b&w "Reservoir Dogs" style film] and to recommend the utterly amazing ones. 

I prefer to screen the short films since there is less commitment to each submission.  The one I am watching now is 28 minutes and done with still photographs.  It has potential but it is too intense [in the "fueled by coffee and cigarette" maniac way].  Still from the film is almost captured in the picture above.

Three amazing films I have seen so far: Thomas in Bloom: About the sounds of life which can't always be heard as told through a boy and his beloved Grandmother, Mirage: A Poetic animated film that was so poignant, & Footprints on Sand: A relationship between a coyote and the person he is smuggling across the border.

Also I played basketball yesterday with some ladies [trainers and PE teachers mostly].  It was the most exercise I have had in years possibly and I feel it today.  I was by far the worst player; if I actually somehow got my hands on the ball I would freeze and pass it on as quickly as possible.  Though I had some good defense skills that included blocking people by dancing around in front of them waving my hands wildly.  I am severely lacking in the athletic skills and grace qualities.  But everyone was forgiving of my playing and I had a lot of fun.

Cheers all!

Makin' Stuff

So regardless of all my chicken and fruit posts I still have been busy making stuff.  First up are these gorgeous knitted little birds from the holiday edition of Knit Simple [great magazine title!].  The birds are simple diamonds folded over and stuffed with beaks, eyes, and legs added in.  If someone wants the pattern I scanned it: Page 1: View this photo , Page 2: View this photo .

The detail shot:

Next up is the apron I finished in my sewing class in November.  She has been patiently awaiting her blog debut.  I believe we used a Simplicity Pattern in the class and the total time it took for this was, oh, somewhere in the range of 6-7 hours. 

And finally, though not a completed project, I bought a cheap little sewing machine from Target [against the collective will of sewing class instructors everywhere].  I didn't intend to buy this, but there was another one on sale and I almost bought it, then the simple design and lack of knobs drew me to this one.  I like electronics with as few switches and dials as possible.  T's toaster oven has around 40 different little buttons and it drives me crazy since all the thing does is get hot.  Mine has one knob that is the on/off timer.  Simple and easy.

So, uh, back to sewing.  I have the Amy Butler book but everything is way beyond my skill set so I am searching for some simpler "learning" projects.  Any suggestions?

Cheers all!

Mutant Fruit

On Christmas Eve I went to feed T's brother's cat at his apartment complex.  I had the dog with me and when I was leaving the dog made friends with the family unloading their truck in the parking space next to us.  The family was unloading bags of fruit from their truck and started giving it to me, first the largest grapefruit I have ever seen in my life [I kept asking them "what is this again?" because I didn't, and still don't, believe it is a grapefruit], then they gave me a bag of oranges in a Tropicana bag, and then these packets of carrots and ranch dip.  I left the carrots and dip in the car for too long to try and pass along so I had to toss them.  The oranges I brought in and have been sitting in the bag on the kitchen floor and the grapefruit I left in my trunk. 

So today i think that I will break out the orange and make some juice but when I opened the bag I realized that these were the biggest and most unnatural oranges I have ever seen.  I washed them thinking I could juice them anyway, but the idea of drinking mutant orange juice freaked me out a bit.  Plus I would have had to cut them in fourths to even fit them in the juice press.

I guess I am so used to organic produce that coming face to face with "brandname" fruit in all its genetically modified, pesticided, and dyed glory was shocking.  Even though I always buy organic I haven't shopped at a supermarket [ralphs, vons, pavilions, albertsons, etc.] since the strike and I guess it has been a long time since I have encountered mutant fruit.

 

So here is the mutant head-sized "grapefruit" with the mutant "orange" compared to a medium sized organic green apple.

Freaky, huh?  Is there anything I can do with the oranges that doesn't waste them, but doesn't involve consuming them?  I sure they will last months before going bad.

Cheers all and happy new year!