New and New

Excuse this fragmented post, I have two unconnected but fun pieces of news to share, starting with the best one, I have recently had reason to celebrate...I got a job! Not just that, but I will be working online from home! This next season of life is very exciting, and much anticipated. I have been on a journey through this whole process. It's been about four months since I lost my old job, but it was even before then that I had begun to have a sense of longing to "be home" more while still being able to earn an income. I feel like I am on the right path now...as I begin the job and grow in my responsibilities I am sure there will be more positive things to come!

The other new bit to share is my hair cut...I went in knowing I was ready for a change. I have one of those fabulous relationships with my stylist, Michelle. I trust her skill and style. I actually met her just a few weeks before my wedding. I'd just moved up to WA from CA and desperately needed a hair intervention before I got married. I still remember getting lost on my way to the salon. I was so frustrated I ended up crying on the phone to the husband (fiance at the time). Michelle instantly understood me and made me feel comfortable. I've been going there since and wouldn't want to go anywhere else.

Today I specifically asked her what she thought of my hair - before she'd washed and cut it - I wanted to see if she had any feedback about my new baking soda/vinegar hair routine. Other than my hair being a tad on the dry side (pretty expected considering I get a partial foil a few times a year and used a dryer fairly regularly), she basically gave me her stamp of approval. My next appointment is in the last week of October (after we return from Egypt). I'll get low lights done along with a cut at that time, that way my dark roots that I get when I spend less time in the sunshine don't become my most obvious feature! Michelle advised that for a week prior to that foil and for 3 weeks afterwards I should use a color preserving shampoo/conditioner rather than my current routine. That advice actually works out perfectly for me because I won't have to try to transport baking soda and vinegar in my carry-on to Egypt. (I won't check my bags after a very negative lost-bag experience when we went to Europe last summer!) Instead, I can just bring TSA size-approved shampoo and conditioner with me. I will also in the meantime find a quality and hopefully natural conditioner to keep my hair from getting too dry again.

So there it is, in other news, I am working on a few custom sewing projects for two different gals. I've also re-discovered how much I enjoy grocery shopping solo...with my new flexible schedule I hope to continue to own that responsibility. I guess I had forgotton that I do get a sense of satisfaction from planning meals. I am even thinking of doing a special "30 days of meals" series of posts sometime this fall...we'll see!

Marinara Sauce

Last Saturday I spent many, many hours turning 25 pounds of locally grown tomatoes into 16 pints of marinara sauce (plus enough for Saturday night's dinner). I followed (loosely) the recipe for tomato sauce given in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The reason it took so many hours was that the stock pot I used to make the sauce only held about half of the tomatoes pureed...so two batches were necessary. Each batch has to boil down from a juice consistency to a sauce.

So was it worth it?? I had this discussion with the husband right before we fell asleep at 1 am, exhausted. It was a quick conversation, but essentially I shared with him that it had been worth it...purchased, a jar of sauce that was made from scratch of this quality would go for $3-6, easily. But it is about more than just money...we are trying to be more aware of what we are eating, for the past several years, the husband has suffered migraines when he eats food with preservatives and additives. Since I've known him I have been carefully reading labels. But by making it myself, I know exactly what went into it, sure of the fact that it is good for us. Even more, it feels good to know that I am able to do take whole foods and turn them into something that will nourish us in the months to come. Yes, it was worth it.

Pantry Organized - Check!

The door pictured above leads into the pantry in my kitchen. When ever I show friends my home for the first time, their reaction (usually from women) to this room usually is to it's impressive walk-in size...all the while my impulse is to hide this room because it is usually a cluttered mess.On my summer chore list was the task "clean, de-clutter and organize pantry"...I avoided this task for long enough, this past weekend I decided to tackle the task (along with several other little chores I've been avoiding).I purposely did not take any before pictures, I guess I'm a bit vain, I just didn't see the need to show off the "skeletons" in my closet.I will share that there was a large garbage bag and a half of throw-outs when I was done...very cleansing!To keep things organized, I decided to use my new tag punch to make labels...I am not normally a super organized person, but when I have a decent system for organization in place I can maintain it well even in the busiest of life seasons.

It's not perfect and I'm sure I'll tweak the arrangement a bit as I go, but that will be easier since the tags were attached with bow ties.
I still plan to do some more canning this summer, which will require more space for jars. I want to be able to adjust as I go, so I set aside extra tags to have ready at my fingertips when I need them.

August is a good month to get things like this done around the house...and I always love the way it feels to tackle that summer to-do list!

I Acted Boldly This Past Week...

I put myself completely out of my comfort zone this past week. I went to two different stores... ...to find out what they'd think about selling my handmade goods .One store was the coffee roaster where I've been getting my burlap sacks for the past few months...

The other store is owned by a gal that I met a few weeks ago at the fair, she stopped by my booth and loved what I was selling...

After dropping in at each place early in the week and being met with interest, I spent some time for the rest of the week making several more aprons and a few pillows...
I also spent time stamping the fabric bird labels and bird price tags you see in several of these photos...

I have some professional labels being made by an artist I found on etsy, but those are still in the works, so the fabric bird stamps are my current substitute......I actually like them well enough that even once I have my "real" labels, I'm thinking I'll still put a fabric bird stamped label on everything because it adds a nice handmade touch...

...As far as my price tags, those I made with a paper punch...it took a little practice to get the desired effect, but I like how they turned out...
...to attach the tags to items I am going the thrifty route and using strands of jute that come from the coffee sacks...the stuff literally litters my sewing room floor whenever I'm working with coffee sack bags...

...With a cute little safety pin, everything is ready to be priced. I can't tell you why I didn't do this sooner, it'll be much easier to have everything tagged ahead of time rather than using the sign/clothes pin method I have been - although the clothes pins are kind of cute...

...The tags just look a little more professional and finished...
Bungalow Bay Boutique, pictured above, is owner by Michelle, who blogs here. She is an incredibly friendly and energetic person...the type that gives off an amazing energy. I can tell that she and I are going to get along! I plan to go back down to the store in a day or so to check out the window...she said she was going to display my items there! There will definately be pictures!The other place is Camano Island Coffee Roasters...I love it that they focus on socially responsible business practices, all of their coffee is fair trade. The folks there are also friendly and helpful. I've received many compliments from the ladies that work there for my aprons and pillows. Even if I never sold a thing there, I still have benefitted from the ego boost!

So all of this has been a huge area of growth for me recently...putting my creativity out there and taking a risk.

As I type this (Saturday night) I have spent a big chunk of my day in the kitchen. My task today has been to turn 25 pounds of fresh tomatoes into marinara sauce...so far so good, I've already had one batch turn out nicely. The trouble is that my largest pot is only big enough for about half of the sauce, so it's taken twice as long as I figured. We had some of the sauce over spaghetti for dinner, so at least I didn't have to double up and make dinner on top of all of the canning work...and it was a delicious dinner! I'll post some canning pictures later this week.

This weekend hasn't been all work (thankfully!), the husband and I had a date night of sorts last night. We went out to Snow Goose Produce for an ice cream cone - their ice cream really is the best around here! We ate our cones outside and enjoyed the scenery. While we were there a convoy of harvesting combines drove past (it's very much farm land out there)...it's definately harvest season. The weather was a little cooler this past week which was a reminder that fall is around the corner...something I'm dreading and anticipating all at the same time. We took home a 1/2 flat of raspberries (still haven't done anything with them...jam tomorrow perhaps?) and the box of tomatoes that has been my companion today.

Then we went to my favorite kitchen gadgets store, Gretchen's, for a cherry pitter. I tried it out today and love it! It makes me want to get my hands on some more end-of-the-season cherries to freeze or can!

After Gretchen's we went to see Julie and Julia. The husband didn't realize it was such a "chick flick"...I think he's going to try to get me back with a Rambo marathon or something equally as gruelling...he did like the part (don't read if you haven't seen it) where the husband is treated horribly by his blog obsessed wife and she has to apologize and make it all right...I think it reminded him of us (hmmmm?), I think he was just being dramatic :-)

Anyways, Happy Sunday!

Tags!

I should have my tags in the mail soon...they are being made by JennifersJewels from etsy...she also has another shop, StateStreet, with some fabulous tops at very reasonable prices...I'm thinking about this one for myself...possibly!?

Can't wait until those tags show up so I can start using them! I promise there will be pictures of them sewn to my stuff!

Mmmmm Garlic!

Our garlic harvest was small but wonderful. The variety we grew is Italian Soft Neck. I decided to peel and store the cloves in a jar in the 'fridge. It's already been adding delicous flavor to our dinners this week! I only wish I had grown more - around here our view on garlic is there's [almost] no such thing as too much! The husband would tell you that I have been known to push the garlic levels in dishes to the brink. No worries about vampires here!

Guess the Date of Our First Omlette and Win!

It was raining pretty steadily yesterday morning, but I was able to lure my hens out of their coop for a photo shoot with a pile of cracked corn and a little "Heeeeeere chick chick chick chick". How nice of them to cooperate and make this post possible.This coming Saturday, August 15th will mark the 17th week that I have been the happy mother of 8 chickens. At this point I have cleaned out their coop 12 times in past 12 weeks, moved their coop after each cleaning so they'd have fresh grass under their little chicken feet, dealt with them pecking down beautiful rows of lettuce and cabbage in my garden when they were out free-ranging, purchased 50 pound bags of feed for them 3 times in addition to several bags of chick starter feed purchased when they were little, faithfully made sure that they had little piles of oyster shell available to them for their calcium needs, treated them to all sorts of leftovers and scraps from the kitchen, sprayed them and their coop to prevent mites, watched as they've been sorting out their pecking order (the gal in the picture below by the way is Berkeley - she started off in the lead for dominant chicken, lately not-so-much, another bird, Castro Valley, Castro for short, has been stepping out as the head chicken in charge)......I've run after them around the garden trying to herd them back into their coop too many times to count, defended them when they were babies from Figaro's natural instinct to kill and eat them (check out this post), laughed when as nearly grown up hens they surrounded Figaro, found friends to watch over them twice when we've gone out of town, worried about them when our neighbors chickens have been attacked by coyotes and weasles in the past few weeks, grabbed extra grocery bags at the market so I'd be able to line their poop trays with fresh bags, and generally I've tried to be the best chicken farmer I could figure out how to be.


All of this and still no reward in the form of even a single egg from my girls. From different chicken information sources I've learned that typically the first egg comes at 5 months or 20 weeks of age. I've also heard that it can happen anywhere between 17-22 weeks. As I've said before, I've had my girls for nearly 17 weeks now. I'm not exactly sure how old they were when I brought them home, a safe assumption is 2-3 days...all of this adds up to alot of anticipation and my egg count down. Playing the role of avian OB-Gyn, I'd set their egg "due date" right around Labor Day (kind of ironic right?), but there's no way to be completely sure.

In anticipation of the day that all of this hard work pays off and I have access to a healthy and [sort of] free source of protein each and everyday, I am hosting a contest, complete with a give-away prize. By the way, if you've never learned about the huge health benefits of backyard eggs over store-bought, check out this website.


The contest...to participate leave a comment on this post answering the following:

• your prediction of the day that my ladies hatch their first egg.
• whether you think it will be green or blue (the breed of chickens I have, Americaunas, are known for their pastel blue and green eggs)

The prize...the pillow slipcover shown below (actually the prize pillow cover may end up being a copy of one of the one below, on Tuesday I left this one and a few other handmade items with a local shop owner who I am arranging to have sell some of my items...I'll have to do a post about that later this week, I'm pretty excited!)Best of luck to all who chose to participate in this blessed event with me...and if chicken pillows really aren't your style, please still make a guess, I've also got those snazzy coffee sack pillows as a prize option!