Boys & Bacon

I've been making and selling hats for YEARS now, I've probably made at least a thousand hats, most my own pattern, or a significantly altered variation on a pattern I've seen online. The most significant change is that I HATE brim up hat patterns. They're cute and all, but I lose interest before I get to the top..... So I'll alter a pattern to be top down. Which is great, but I get bored with that too. So I set out with the task of finding/creating a pattern that was consistent in size, easy to remember, and could be scaled to accommodate several different variances. And so I came up with my "slouch recipe". This is a great pattern/recipe for showing off those lovely wonderful cake yarns without an odd seam down the back, or for lovely yarns that are variegated, and get lost with fancy stitches. This hat was done with this pattern by a good friend of mine, Kirstin. She used I Love This Yarn in Dakota. What you'll need: Worsted (weight ...

Today, I woke up early to do Kitty makeup for my 5 yr old. When I woke him up, he complained that the sun wasn't up so neither was he. At the mention of doing his kitty makeup, he was suddenly bright eyed and bushy tailed. We got dressed and walked to the bus stop. It was early enough to still be dark. The leaves have fallen almost entirely off the trees, they've dried out and become crunchy underfoot, and the scent of them is strong in the nose. Even though my kiddos was excitedly pulling at my hand to go see his friends, I took a moment. I stood int he chill, but not cold air, and inhaled the aroma of fall. I shuffled my feet and heard the scritch-scratch and crunch. I listened to the neighborhood waking up. I was content. The only thing that could have made it better was a cup of hot coffee in my hand. I've not added photos to this post because I want to evoke the other senses with my experience, plus it was too dark to take photos...

I spent today waiting for classmates to join my group chat for work on a project, which never happened. I fought with my kids to get them dressed, and trudged through a total downpour to gather freshly baked bread, and veggies from the farmers market, rain dripping down my neck because my son has lost his hood and needed to use my scarf. Driving across town to pick up 25 lbs of apples I ordered to support a cousin's fundraiser, and make winter pies for our freezer, and went grocery shopping. I have hours of homework, and dozen's of individual crochet pieces to finish by Tues when I drive over the mountain to deliver them and restock a consignment contract. I remembered my medications today. I remembered to eat today. I am tired. I got Arby's for dinner because I have zero energy left to cook dinner. I have zero energy left to create engaging or thought to provoke content for writing clients. I am so tired. And it's not a lack of sleep. I am tired to my cor...

Have you ever been given a task, or attempted a class where the information you're given is vague and unhelpful, and when you ask for help you're treated like you're totally incompetent? I've had bad professors, I've had hard classes, and I've experienced topics that I straight out didn't understand, no matter how hard I tried (Geology anyone?). But I've never been made to feel as stupid as I'm feeling in this class for WordPress web development. I feel like I'm thrashing in the ocean, and I've been thrown a beach ball as a life preserver. And when I ask for help, I'm shot down and condescended. I'm slipping off my beach ball, it feels like it'll rocket out from under me. I'm tired of treading water. There is no lecture, and no direction, so there are no notes to take, and therefore, no notes to review. The worst part of it all, the professor has said I can turn in the incorrect or late work up to 7 days past the due ...

Growing up in the High Desert of the Pacific Northwest, there was a lot of brown in nature. Brown with sage, brown with yellow, brown with green, but mostly just brown. The ground was brown, the rivers were full of brown silt, the summer horizon was brown, in the winter it was white, but you knew there was all that brown underneath. About two years ago, I moved to Portland. Well, close to Portland. And I was inundated by a plethora of greens. Soft greens, deep greens, even in the middle of the city there are trees on every corner and grassy blocks of city parks. We learned about the leaves changing colors, and falling to the ground when they reached maturity. The Deciduous trees that created the beauty of fall, but it seemed like another world. We didn't have them in our small town, we had Juniper and Sage. Long lasting, hearty, weed-like plants that populated the dry ground, and filled the scenery for miles. Now in Portland, I'm struck by the magic of Autumn. ...

My husband is taking a writing class for college, and his professor gave him a prompt that triggered my fascination. It was about the idea of Eutopia. Not to be confused with Utopia (a space of perfection), a Eutopia is a place  in which you experienced a feeling of perfect euphoria. He was asked to write a piece that invoked all 5 senses to describe a moment of perfect Euphoria. *** The chill on my shoulders creates goosebumps along my arms, and I pull the soft wool wrap tighter to keep in the warmth. The salty wind tussles my hair, flinging the ponytail every which way. I close my eyes against the blowing sand, turning my back to the oncoming wind. I can feel the static in the air singing of the oncoming storm. It's about time to head indoors, but I stay a few minutes longer. The frigid surf washes up debris knocked loose from the rocks out to sea. Long tangled bull kelp, rafts of seagrass covered in itty bitty crawling things. The ocean air smell different th...

The reaction of a seven-year-old to being told there was a mass shooting shouldn't ever be "where was it this time?" Our world doesn't need to be sugar coated for our children. Our world depends on our children being actively involved in the betterment of it. Through compassion, crisis training, tolerance, and action, our children will be the force that makes our world stronger and more beautiful. These are things that must be taught . Last night, a lone gunman unloaded at least 10 rifles worth of ammo on a crowd of unsuspecting victims enjoying the performances at a country music festival in Las Vegas, NV. The gunman managed to kill at least 50 (including members of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, both on and off duty), and injured hundreds more before turning the gun on himself, and ending his own life in his hotel room across the strip from the music festival. It was the largest mass shooting to date in US history. It's not a thing that can...