Sunday, October 28, 2007

Blogfest. Feel the Luv.

How lovely to fine my wares featured on Rare Bird Finds, Indie Fixx and Weezi! Thanks, ladies.

And there's this lovely reply from Blue Gal's post about knitting and my own comment about my never-finished-boyfriend-scarf:

"BTW it's never about the boyfriend and always about the knitting/blogging/fulfilling your creative mission. The guardian angel of your creative blood is a jealous lesbian who will not harbor it being for the boyfriend. Knitting or whatever the frick you decide will be your art is for you and you alone, no matter who you give it to when the current project is finished. Just saying."

I hope she doesn't mind me posting about it here. The statement just hit a nerve that needed hitting. My creative muse has been absent of late, and it's time for her to come home. I'm feeling stuck!

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Smokin' pincushion & target practice

Yesterday my acupuncturist used some moxa on my shoulder. "Let me know if it gets too hot" she said. Seeing as I'm normally cold anyway, I never said a word, just felt like a kitten in a sunbeam. Some of the needling had interesting side effects, such as "feeling" needles in other acupuncture points where there weren't any. I'm told this is an indication that things are "moving" and it's good. Okie dokie.

Since that treatment yesterday, my trigger finger has developed a funny twitch, hopefully only temporary. I guess it's a good think I'm not armed. This does bring back the memory of being at a shooting range here in the desert, a .45 in hand, turning to respond to a question someone behind me was asking, and feeling my finger twitch. A .45 has a helluva kick and I almost dropped it from the shock. (cue nervous laugh)

Time to get off the computer and help my daughter's friend find a tiara. Much as I love costuming (see post below with the pretty pretty black dress) I don't care much for Halloween. It feels like costuming for candy. You know, kinda cheap, I guess.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Salavating

Last night I made a loaf of gluten-free French bread. Amazing stuff. Hot, fluffy, crusty and damn good. I had a thick slice for lunch, toasted and slathered with Lilly's Roasted Red Pepper Hummus and a cup of carrot-ginger soup. Hearty, seasonal goodness.

So today when I read Gluten Free Girl's blog and see that she'll be in Portland (just over the mountains from me), I think, yeah, I could drive out there, get a signed book and have a fabulous Peruvian meal and all that... yeah... if I didn't have bills to pay, that is.

Oh well. At least there's a bit of hummus left in the fridge. I can still eat.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Bring on the holidays


Woohoo! this is very nice publicity. It does have sound, consider yourself warned. The Artful Living Catalog from Trunkt.org.

I'm having a free shipping sale from now until Nov. 8. Scarves and bags are being uploaded to the site all day today... it's gonna be one of those "html on the brain" days where my eyes are all buggy after endless hours of coding. Let me know if you catch any errors by sending me an email to: carol at kimonomomo dot com. Thanks!

Monday, October 22, 2007

For those whom I have just met

I realize I kinda jumped into some of your blogs recently and you likely have no idea who I am. My blog is formulaic, I suppose, no fancy coding or personal photos, just links to my business and some friends' blogs. No political links, nothing that shouts "liberal hippie chick from Oregon" aside from the shade of green...

I'm a mother of two humans and three ferrets. We live with the Man Who Keeps My Toes Warm at Night, an amazing man who has chosen to help me raise the heathens I brought into this world (their bio-dad totally failed in this task). He and I grew up in the same small California town but didn't meet until a decade after we both left and headed 500 miles north. I can see the Cascade mountains from my doorstep, and right now they are covered in snow.

As for my politics, that will evolve slowly. I spent a lot of my early years in Berkeley and learned early to question everything. I've never taken recreational drugs. I don't really drink. I've never smoked anything. Many of my friends are Pagans, Atheists, Unitarians, Quakers, Baha'is and Buddhists. I spent 2 years living in an RV, technically homeless but at least mobile... for a while. Then I sold everything and bought one-way tickets to London Heathrow, had a baby, lost a grandparent and ended my marriage all within a year and a half.

Yes, I'm rambling. There are children in the room with me now, talking on the phone, making gun noises, waiting for a turn on the computer. I'll writing something intelligible when I can hear myself think.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

I love my mother

I forwarded her an article about the kimono fashion show I did at Sake' One in Forest Grove, Oregon last summer and then forgot about it. Apparently mom wrote the paper to notify them the reporter forgot to mention my business name in the article. Gotta love a mom who comes to your rescue like that.

Mom is proud of daughter’s business

I read the article “A Kimono’s Place in the Modern World (News-Times, July 18, 2007) because the artist is my daughter. I was quite impressed with how well it had been written, but you forgot to give the name of her company. KimonoMomo is growing and if anyone wishes to get in touch with her and the collection they would have to have this information.


Go Mom!

Breakable

Dcup posted this on her blog today, but I thought I'd add it here because it made me cry and hey, that makes it worth sharing in my book.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

pincushion

I had my first acupuncture treatment today, and it was quite interesting. I won't bore you with the details, but for the most part it was really positive and I'm looking forward to going back next week. The discomfort was minimal and everything was done in a pleasant and professional way.

My left hand hurts pretty badly though, so it's hard to type. The pain has to do with a pre-exiting condition that I hope will get worked through in the next session. In the meantime, ouch.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Blogging for the Environment

Yesterday the weather was so oddly pleasant (for October in the high desert) that I stepped away from the computer for a walk outside. I was motivated by the plethora of small boys in my house at the time (okay, it was only three, but three small boys equals an army as any parent knows). As I stepped onto the back porch I was aware that the air outside was the same temperature as inside, but much fresher and with that subtle autumnal tang to it, so I left the door open and fetched the compost bucket from the kitchen counter and a trowel from the table where my indoor plants live.

As I headed to the south wall of the house where my veggie beds are now mostly dormant (some weenie little leeks, lettuce gone to seed, Canadian strawberries that are taking over the yard and patches of thyme spreading like a virus), I found peas sprouting with more vigor than they showed in the spring and I had some fun crushing eggs shells and spreading them about. I dug a hole to bury the fresh kitchen waste and sifted dirt onto the reeking, slimy pile of apple peels, tea leaves, onion skins and other refuse. A lone paper wasp joined me, I think her sisters have mostly died off for the season and she was moving rather slowly herself. Perhaps she wanted company.

After the stinky part of the job was done I did a bit of watering. Our native soil is volcanic and fairly sterile, but after nearly 7 seasons of composting, the beds are quite delightful. Water retention is higher and the soil is quite fertile, as proven by the amount of seeds that sprout without any encouragement from me. Since I pit compost, I just plant over whichever pit is oldest and has space, or simply take advantage of whatever sprouts on its own from the rot of last year's harvest.

I Picked up my compost bucket and trowel, rolled up the hose and prepared to engage the boy-army again. As I turned to head up the porch steps I saw something flying toward me. It landed on the grass and I could see it was a beautiful, pale green praying mantis, about 2.5 inches long. The coloring was perfect to blend with the lawn, but more than that were the variations of red, green and yellow that had a wonderfully relaxing effect on my eyes. I mean, red? Why red? but it worked. They play of light on grass causes shadows and other effects we don't see because we rarely look at an individual blade of grass. We look at a lawn and expect it to be GREEN and nothing else, but it is quite colorful, actually.

We stared at each other for a minute or so, and it never flinched when I lay down on the grass near it. I was aware of the different smells of grass, soil, freshness and decay, and how they differed from the smells of summer. The mantis had enough of me and took off for the yard next door. Time for me to go back in.

Today it's overcast and dreary, but feels fine for October. Time to rest up a bit. Snow will come and if there's a decent freeze this year it might kill off some of the aphids this time. Last summer the bf and I fed aphids to our herds of ladybugs and must have looked like little kids playing with bugs, but the real kids in the house couldn't be bothered to join us. A few weeks later they did help hunt down ladybug larvae and find patches of surviving aphids to feed to them, so there is hope for them yet.

It's such a small yard, but everything in it tells a story. Maybe I'll share a few more another time.

Friday, October 12, 2007

In case you were wondering what I'd like to do in my spare time, this would be it. Wear stuff like this in public. Seriously. The woman in the photo studies costume design in Sydney and this was one of her projects. You can follow the thread over at craftster.org and see even more photos of her work.

Simply amazing. I wish I had the time and patience to make something that good. *drool*

Blog Action Day

I'm on board, are you?

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

Thursday, October 11, 2007

More birthday wishes

Here's to Dcup over at Politits and Melanie at View From the Tenth Level. Two sexy Libras!

Hot and cold

There's frost on the lawn today. I kept the bf in bed so as to get in as much snuggling as possible before he had to venture out into the icky outside. Here's a tip, boys: if you want your woman to look after you, make sure you look after her first. The man who keeps my toes warm at night does his level best to keep me in a fairly balanced mood most of the time, so I do the same for him. At least I think so. I can be a moody bitch but I think I'm doing pretty well.

I went to my friend's studio on Tuesday to pick up more fabrics to bag and sell. She has such yummy stuff. As I was walking out of the studio with two huge bags of silk, one of the artists was walking in. She was coming back from lunch with a friend and had a relaxed and happy vibe to her. She looked at the bags I was carrying, brushed one with her hand and said "you know I painted those? Those are my pieces." Oh? "They're lovely. You do good work," I replied as we passed. I had spent an hour with her cohorts, the head designer and other dyers, sewers and crew members of the studio. What an eclectic bunch, including the resident mascot, the designer's dog. I love this stuff.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Ebay headaches

Since the powers that be decided to "fix" the search feature on ebay in September, my sales and traffic have gone down hill, and I'm not alone. Plenty of other sellers--and even buyers--have been complaining loudly but to no avail. So, with that in mind, I'm going to spend my Sunday setting up fabrics on the Kimono Momo site so people can purchase items there instead of dealing with ebay's issues.

Does the term "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mean anything to these people?

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Knitting is good for the soul

I have a scarf that I work on from time to time, but it's easily been two years now and it's still not done. Wool and silk, very soft and fun to work on, but.... my fingers have ADHD or something. I just can't seem to knit and not mess with the design and then I need to cook dinner or do something else domestic.

But aha! Here in Oregon we have a lovely little yarn shop online at Freshwater Fibers for those with crafty hands. I'm getting twitchy just looking at the lovely colors and different fibers. I suppose if I actually finish that scarf, I could start another.

And look--organic cotton that is soooo pretty.