Lord I'm Grateful

First of all I found this beautiful Etsy shop by a woman called Flor Larios....here is a link and some photos from her Flickr and her shop.

Valentine's Cards!

Isn't her work so lovely?

For the past two days I have been yuckily sick......mainly a ton of horrific sneezing, stuffed up face, and some chest congestion. To top it off I've been sleeping terribly. I have been waking in the night (past two nights) like three times and staying up for an hour or so, trying to breathe through my nose (nearly impossible) and worrying my head off about ........ EVERYTHING.

One thing I inherited from BOTH sides of my family, no thank you, is the ability to worry EXCESSIVELY. About really minute but real things in my life. And that's what I did in the night last night, I awoke ...probably around 6 am....and lay there worrying about some of the most random or improbable stuff! I couldn't get back to sleep. My mind covered things like: school starting Tuesday (and books costing hundreds of dollars), whether my Photoshop teacher would let me use my own computer instead of the "required" Mac Lab (which is all the way in Sacramento) and if he didn't whether I should drop the class this semester or not, the fact that at any moment our landlord could tell us we have to move out (TOTALLY UNFOUNDED!!! SO STUPID and NOT gonna happen), never being able to start a web design career because I procrastinate too much, wondering if certain people hate me because I lost touch with them (totally random from years ago!), remembering DVDs I borrowed from someone that I still have and need to return, things I needed to tell Art to buy on his way home from Nevada City the next day (which I promptly forgot, dang!), becoming a scientist next month when it comes to actually nailing down my cycle and when I ovulate, wondering if my student grant/loan would make it in time for my trip next week.....and OH the list went on.

When I finally fell asleep again it was clearly without anything peaceful on my mind. And I ended up having a terrifying and horrendous nightmare! It included ALL of my worst recent fears and then some. It started with someone stealing my new Macbook Pro and replacing it with an old broken Ibook....and it got worse from there, complete with being attacked (and actually feeling pain) by a "Freddy" type character from Nightmare on Elm Street (I've never even seen it!) and Art and I realizing that we could no longer live in our house because he knew where we lived. It all sounds trite now, but it was a terrifying place to be. I awoke calmly, but with a very fearful heavy foreign feeling that was pushing me to go back to sleep. But I knew the dream would continue, as has happened in the past. Nightmares are extremely rare for me thank God, but when they do come that tends to be the case, and I DID NOT want this horrible dream to take over again.

So I decided to look up "reasons for nightmares" on Google on my iPhone, as I figured I could defeat the dream if I overanalyzed and picked it apart. I found some pretty common-sense answers that didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and I still felt heavy and strange, so I decided to bring a little spirituality into it. I did sort of feel a darkness in my head and I wanted to bring in some peace and light. Even after a half hour of lying there that heavy feeling would not go away.


(Tangent) Though the word doesn't quite sound right to me, due to the damage that has been done in the past, I am, I suppose, a mystical sort of Christian. I prefer to use terms that involve less prompting for problematic discussions with my friends, as many of them think of the Inquisition, their own unhappy parents, an unconscious super-consumerist, environmentally damaging way of life, pushiness, or even the promotion of hatred ("Jesus Hates Gays" signs) when they think of Christianity. So I lean toward addressing the issue by explaining my spirituality as "I like what Jesus taught.....alot", or "I believe in God- be it called also the Great Spirit or the Beloved or Heavenly Father/Mother " or "I am a follower of Jesus", because I tend to agree that many "Christians" represent a super-American very UN-Christlike version of living life. Massive air-conditioned homes, constant grouchy ungratefulness (um hello how can you say you believe in and love God if you HATE LIVING the life-legend that was the whole idea of God?), 2-5 SUVs in the driveway, greed and control-freakishness, a disregard for the needy, an unconsciousness of other peoples or countries, and even judgement and disdain for those other people and places. It's NOTHING like what I am (I hope) or what I aspire to be. In fact I hope to live quite the opposite..... But I did come to feel this way about the teachings of true love by Jesus through a certain progress in my life that transpired by what-seemed-like-magic and no conversation is going to make me feel any differently. It's just what I believe and I honestly can't even help it. It's just where my life has led me, and believe me, it was NOT an overnight process. Major events took place to lead me to it. I don't go to church, I participate in many things that lots of Christians would not approve of (mainly a bit of gambling, rambling around on road trips, and drinking) and I have almost zero friends who believe the same thing as me. Nevertheless the things I believe ring true in my heart of hearts. It can be difficult never being around fellow believers, but I just don't want to pretend to be something I am not in a church around people who I feel are judging me for being raggedy, poor, and having a variety of friends. So for now I'm just doing what I can to have spirituality and gratefulness to God in my soul daily and to share that with my Arthie, who thankfully believes like I do. I do have an idea that Catholicism is a bit more of my kind of thing than the uber-modern Christian pop culture churches around here, but I have yet to even have been to a Midnight Mass. I wish there were a true-love church with lots of singing for poor creative artist types who have old cars and love being alive! I always feel so small and weird in the midst of wealthy older people, maybe that's my own issue. But I also love all my friends so much, their beliefs spiritually matter so much less to me than their sweet golden hearts do. That's all that matters to me, careful love and the way one spreads it to others and makes a contagious goodness catch fire.

SOOOO- back to original topic- to rid myself of my nightmarish feeling I started to speak out loud in a little whisper, asking God, or the Great Spirit in Everything, for a little peace and started thinking of all the things I am grateful for. Once I got started on my thankfulness, the list went on and on. It was the exact opposite of my worrying spell. Instead of thinking that things would be taken away from me, I started thanking the universe for everything I have right now. Which is so much. I may not own my home or have a fancy couch or a new car but I have the most amazing friends that have blown my mind with their creativity and kindness, the nicest family and so does Art, both of us are healthy and strong and we have our beloved cats and goldfish and pond snails and this beautiful forest around us and this amazing cabin house that shelters us and we are so close to so much beautiful wilderness, the ocean and desert just a stone's throw.....after a few minutes of focusing on such goodness I realized that the heavy fearful feeling was gone and everything seemed good again. I believe our attitudes and state of minds attract similar energies to us and I have believed this for long enough that once my mind was focused on all the tremendous beauty of being alive I knew I had nothing to fear. Nothing at all but goodness was around me.

And I went back to sleep and had sweet dreams.

The Desiderata is so beautiful and wise, I love reading it.

I love the lamb art.

A real photo of a unicorn!

Hopular and Attractive! Our third homebrew.

Art and I made an evening out of future ale last night and brewed our third batch of beer ever. An IPA, of course, cause we are addicted to those green beauties called hops. For the past two years we have grown and dried our own hops and put them into our beer! It's the most satisfying feeling ever, taking a drink from a cold, hoppy, delicious bottle of your own homegrown and homebrewed India Pale Ale.

I saw it bubble tonight!

If you've ever brewed your own beer than you know how sweet it is to witness the first time the airlock and stopper lets a bubble through. That means the yeast is going to work at fermenting your precious and hard-earned wort (wort is what beer is called before it has any yeast added to make it alcoholic). If bubbling never happens it means something isn't going right, so I am very grateful this moment that the bubbles have begun! If you have any interest in creating your own beer perhaps you'd like to read my blog entry from last February where I document the brew-day process step by step. I am quite proud of that entry, as I used it to help my own self along the way this time. Sometimes those brewing books can be confusing....

We stuck our bucket by the woodstove this evening cause the wort needed to warm up a bit to get that yeast going. Here's a pic of it without a cover, but the light has to stay out - so right now it's blanketed in wool.

Art and I are so lucky that his grandmother's property has been blessed with 30-year-old hop vines. They told us that they had actually tried to remove the vines on repeated occasion...but when we found out the treasure we were sitting on (we used to live there) we made immediate use of the honor. We did nothing more but tie some lines of string to the top of an old antenna and water the ground....alot. They grew inches every day. Next thing you know we were cutting down masses of hops. That was 2009. This past year we got about twice as many! I still haven't even fertilized the ground ever (I shall this spring tho because those sweet vines deserve it!), but thar she grew. Beautiful, huge, fat hops that were filled with the yellow dusty gold they call lupelin. It's what gives the hops their flavor. It's what gives good BEER its flavor. We cut them down this past year in different sessions and then lay them to dry on screens. Then we smashed them tight into double freezer bags and put them into our freezer, to be stored until our first brew day. We waited a few months because we were so busy, but it was so fun pulling them out and putting them to use!

We got so many bags of hops this year, this is just a fraction! We still have so many of the green delights (in case you want to add a few to your own brew:)


There's our dirty, sticky brew. It's extremely sugary, because basically all it is is water, sugars from grains, and giant bags of hops added in. You boil that brew for a full hour and a half. This time we had the company of the lovely Jorden Mingle, as he's ready to start a batch of his own soon and wanted to watch the process. Here's a photo of him (kind of out of place but it's all I could find), taken from the Epic Dust blog, a western short film series that Cinema Caldera is creating here in El Dorado County.

And more of the brewing.



Sterilizing equipment is extremely important! That's the fermenting bucket, before the wort is in it, filled with a sterilizing solution. I have to soak anything that touches the future wort in that solution for a full minute.

Cooling the wort as quickly as possible. We did ours with ice and a bathtub (the po' man's way).



Kind of an idiotic pic, but it's the only one cause let's just say I'm the brewhand and Art is the photographer. I'm thankful he took any pics at all though, cause I didn't take a one.

So ladies and gentlemen, somewhere in the beginning of February, our Hopular Valentine's beer shall be ready for the tasting. In the meantime, I'm watching those bubbles rise up, and it's extremely fulfilling.

Age is just another word for how long rad things have been happening to you- Pt. 2

So here I sit..a Monday evening...wondering "how the heck DID I GET SO OLD?" Not in a bad way this time, just literally wondering how I got to be 35 years old and have so little to show for it. I have no degree. I have no children. I don't own a home and even my newest car was a gift. What the HECK have I been up to, I ask myself!

I guess I can fill in the blank with just a few simple words.

Friends.

Music.

Love.

Travels.

I guess tho I have nothing to "show" for it, the things that I do have are things you can't really show people in your home or on your property. I have a support group of amazing, wonderful, beautiful, creative women in my life. These are photos of my girls, the whole intelligent, gorgeous lot of them- over the past ten years. How I love my girlfriends. And I do believe life is nothing without the support of fellow sisters.

Age is just another word for how long rad things have been happening to you- Pt. 1

Outside my home in Portland 2003.

Hello lovelies in the world. Or wherever else you might be...living amongst your dreams and your visions.
I'm about to embark down memory lane, or what might seem like a bit of egocentric mania to anyone who happens upon it, but I just want to say ahead of time that I am posting it as a sort of therapeutic reminder to myself of the life I have lived. Recently, I hit a pretty lame moment on the life-road, just for a minute....in my attempts to start a family. And in my failure thus far I'm a bit of a baby and a drama queen, so 6-8 months of trying for something that I suddenly think I want terribly has seemed like an eternity. But the real hell that comes over me every time my period shows up isn't within the fact that I'm not pregnant, but more in the possibility and fear and worry that I might never be able to be. The reality of aging. Each time I find out I am not able to conceive yet is another time that my mind is filled with absolute worry that it might never happen because I am past the point of naturally easy attained fertility. I am 35, to be 35 and a half on March 10th. With the disappointment and anxiety that I might never be able to have a family, comes a self destructive meanness and anger at the loss of youth, and an anger at myself for waiting so long to be ready for children. I would have tried earlier if I had even known how severely your childbearing ability begins to decline, really it does!, around age 30-35. I just wasn't thinking of it, or when anyone brought it up I just thought it was fear-based hocus pocus. Now I realize it is real- scientifically biologically proven, and it's frustrating and scary. It's so NOT FAIR that men can take part of the reproduction of healthy children well into their 80s! Somehow remembering what my own life has already consisted of is comforting. It makes my age seem worth it, even yet without children. These are just a few bits of stories that are hidden from my view most of the time, in old photo albums and boxes and diaries. I wanted to pull them out and dust them off because sometimes, in this modern technology moment, I completely forget the sweetest adventures that happened in my life before Facebook, blogs, Iphones, and digital cameras.

Santa Barbara 1999.

And besides, without the passage of time and all of its odd landmarks (like the dirty looking age spots on my forehead uggh), all these things that I have done so far in my life would not exist. I like to think that I have extracted beauty from my experiences so far in the world and have written their lovelinesses into my soul permanently. And perhaps as the beauty of all that experience builds up, my outer skin fades and spots, my teeth jut out more (and or crumble), my hair greys, my ovaries lose their once industrious work-ethics, and years of emotions carve tiny canyons into my face. But alas, as says my favorite book The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery, "What is essential is invisible to the eye." Perhaps there it lies, all that essential beauty I've run into along the way, all the essential learning and experience, whirling around in my soul, and perhaps it matters for some reason beyond my reach! Perhaps that kind of soul stuff is ten times more important than pretty skin! ? I also like to think that the beauty collected and stored in your soul is visible to those who are also searching for and gathering their own experiences of wisdom and adventure. That those who seek true beauty can see it other seekers' eyes, and don't look for it on their skin. But growing old in this country and in the midst of all of its social constructs can do a number on a girl. New Year's Eve it did a number on me. But I'm not willing to let it continue ....so here's to the belief that beauty dwells much deeper than skin and that experience and courage are what makes a woman more powerful, not just older. And here's to scanning old photos! :)

All this life.

Heather at the Oregon Country Fair.

One of my favorite ways that I have spent my time gathering beauty in this life is one of the most magical, whimsical and holy ways imaginable. With my beautiful, smart, and wonderfully fun sister. Everyone who knows Heather knows that she is one of their favorite persons to be around. There is never a dull moment, and I mean ....NEVER. She is so fun and is in such high demand that it can be really hard to get ahold of her, even for me, as there are veritable Heather competitions to see who can get her for the evening, day, whatever. I'm serious, the girl gets like 20 phone calls every morning. I tell her I would kill for that much popularity! And its because she is kind, creative, beautiful, absolutely NOT BORING, talented, overly generous, and just a plain amazing soul. No one could ever get too much Heather time.
She makes you feel something that is almost indescribable. Perhaps it's just a sort of whirlwind of thought and kindness, activity and vividness that moves in the air around her, and contagiously you feel wanted, excited, rewarded for being alive.

2001 (mint green honda days)

Ever since about 1993, around the time we both got our drivers licenses, we have taken to the notion of absconding from the world and heading out together on road trips. Sometimes they lasted a day. Sometimes they lasted three days. Often we slept in the car in parking lots and brushed our teeth and got gussied up in coffee shops in the morning. Other times we stayed in cheap, cozy, (one time bullet-ridden) motel rooms. Sometimes we would start our driving at midnight and drive all night long, and sometimes we would get up at the break of dawn. We have patched passenger side car floor-holes with pillows to block the subfreezing air from whirring into our old jalopy. We have watched the moon rise and then fall and then the sun rise with the moon still looking on. We pulled off the side of the road to collect seashells, go on hikes, explore docks, old broken houses, forest paths. We have run to the edge of night ocean cliffsides screaming "Heathcliff!!" pretending and spinning in full-grown adulthood but with the childlike glory that can rarely be shared or let free. We have gone on so many road trips together we probably could not count them all. We would reconnoiter at gas stations, cafes, rest stops, ocean beaches, art monuments, ice machines.

1999, visiting our brother Matt in Santa Barbara.

We have combed the streets of New York together, freezing and without even 20 dollars, after my airline and her busline both lost our individual luggages and we found out that Heather's house burned down- (I picture one of those "while you were away" notepads with "luggage disappeared, house burned down" scribbled on it.) We have slept in December tents together and held hands in Pioneer Square (Portland) as John Lennon's words echoed over thousands and as Y2K failed to meet everyone's stupid doomsday expectations. We have discovered people that others thought were forever lost, we have met old souls and listened to their strange and distant stories over dark beers along the stretch of resined wooden bars littered with peanut shells and cigarettes. We have spent hours huddled in cozy seaside bookstores. We have sung at the top of our lungs while winding up Highway 1 or across the brown and barren Nevada endlessness- Bryan Adams, Ryan Adams, Grandaddy, Tori Amos, Cake, Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan. We have climbed ocean rocks to meet morning fisherman at Pacific Grove, we have held our breath whilst entering dark and ominous taverns in the middle of redwood forests (almost strictly to defeat our own dramatic fears!), we have ice skated together in romantic Ashland, we have met strangers in streets and cafes and park benches and on 5th Avenue, we have cuddled up over coffee and cleaned up in countless rest stops and talked for hours about our wildest and most bizarre dreams. One of them investigating various bathrooms and writing a book about the best road trip restrooms along different routes. One of them was living in a giant seaside Victorian together and eating whatever we wanted always and growing old together huge and fat and happy. One of them was creating a book called "Lighthouses and Palm Readers"- that documented both along highway paths (which we still may do!). We have buried lost treasure and found it again. We have lost our minds on the road together and we have found those again, too. We have witnessed actual magic. Actual, real, synchronistic and glorious chaotic magic. I can't even begin to tell you all the adventure and wonderful insanity and odd sorts of destiny that has happened with Heather at my side. And it is only by the grace and allowance of the passage of time, and with it our inevitable aging, that all this beauty could exist.

1998, visiting Matt in Utah.

Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, California- 2000?

Bird watching field trip to Elkhorn Slough- 2000.

Los Angeles- 2002.

Y2K Oregon New Year's road trip- December 1999.

New York City, November 2000.

One of the early trips! 1995?

Utah with Matty. 1998.

Near Hearst Castle, I forget when.


There's one more fear I have about starting a family. ..... That if I can have one I won't have sisters.

Elkhorn Slough trip

Ashland Oregon January 2000.

At my work in Portland, 2003.