It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

And just like that, the turkey is cooked and the lights have been brought up from the basement. It’s been a whirlwind of activity lately with painting parties, get togethers, and assorted work and fun times. Here are some pictures from the last few days:

 My view from work. Not too bad, huh?

 A genuinely perfect evening. There’s clearly a (crochet) hooker joke here somewhere.

  
  
  Thanksgiving was perfect. My husband helped me cook my full menu wish list from my paleo Thanksgiving post and everything turned out delicious, except for  the apple skillet. I did not like that at all but he did so it will still get eaten. Then we went to a friend’s house for after-dinner drinks. It was laid back and a lot of fun all around. In between cooking we watched Jessica Jones and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, two shows I’m totally obsessed with. I also gave my son an early holiday gift and we played Exploding Kittens which is a fun and fast card game.  This was the first Thanksgiving since we moved from the east coast that I haven’t been really bummed out. Progress!

 I will be wearing this hat all month. This is my disgruntled decorator face.

 We started to set up for Christmas and our tree was broken and small and missing the stand. I went to the local hardware store and asked if they had anything priced between the $50 Charlie Brown one and $150 big beauty and I got a last year floor model!  Sweet!

 Hello, beautiful.

 Festive as… you know. 😉

 See the framed flower picture?  I painted that at a paint and sip with a bunch of my girlfriends!  The frame is from Value Village and fits perfectly.

   Today, I dragged my boys to Seattle for Magic in the Market. We walked around Capitol Hill first and picked up some art supplies at Blick and the newest Archie for me at Phoenix Comics. I’m excited to read it later tonight. It was my favorite comic as a kid and the new revamping of it is perfection. It’s modernized but not in a tacky way. I love it and definitely recommend it if you have even a cursory interest in comics.  That mocha looks so good, right?  It’s not mine. I don’t eat dairy but black Americanas don’t photograph as lovely. My husband side eyed me hard when I took a picture of his drink.

  
 It was a bit of a madhouse, but it was so much fun to see the lights turn on at Pike Place Market.
 And in case you still weren’t sure that it’s Christmastime, the tree is on top of the Space Needle!  I love the lights so much. How has your week been?  What holiday traditions do you enjoy?

You Are Welcome Here

Today, I made a wooden board welcome sign at a huge annual craft party that a woman in my town hosts.  It’s a fun and relatively easy craft.  To make a sign, you’ll need a board and acrylic paint.  At that point, the sky is the limit.  Since my walls are absurdly filled, I decided to make something that could go outside the house instead:

This was the board I started with. The woman’s husband cuts them, but I’ve seen similar ones for sale at craft and hardware stores.

I traced the letters on from stencils.  I knew immediately that my husband, a comic artist, would have something to say about the kerning. I was correct.  That’s ok- crafts are to be made with love, not perfection.

I was attempting a Rifle Paper Co.-inspired design. I mixed different paints to make mint green since there wasn’t one available.

I drew the flowers freehand on computer paper (tracing the top of the board as a guide) and then used tracing paper to transfer the design onto the wood. Then I painted them.

Finally, I outlined the lettering with a sharpie. Here you can see the tracing paper and my original drawing, cut to the curvature of the board.

 
All done!!

I jokingly said to my husband that it clashes with the door so we should repaint it.  I painted that door red and we are definitely not repainting it (that was the joke), but I do think maybe it does clash but in a totally cute way.

Here are other boards I have made in the past:

Have you ever painted a wooden board?  What have or would you make?

Life, Lately

November is really shaping up to be something amazing. At times, I feel like I live a double life. When I’m in New York, I’m a poet. I go to readings and I feature alongside inspiring writers and I talk to artists who draw and write about politics, love, and trauma. When I’m in Washington, where I’ve lived for over two years, I’m not that person. I have a happy life and I’ve made a home here with great friends but it seems like I have only mentioned in passing that I love to write and to hear what others write and share in that experience.  But lately, I’ve been realizing that poetry and creative writing are things I need in my life.  I’ve begun to seek out places where words leave paper and hit the air.  Recently, I applied for a writing fellowship which snowballed into an insatiable need for more words still.

I found a venue in Olympia that has an open mic scene that is so welcoming and lovely and allows all ages to attend. Even though it’s a weekday, it’s early enough that my son can attend too. He’s able to get an education on words and the world and I get to not only be a poet, but to be someone my son sees in a new way. It’s been indescribable to have this new engagement with him.  I feel like this is exactly what I need to be doing with my time and energy.

And this renewed remembrance about something that used to be so integral to who I am has reignited other passions and creative output. Besides poetry, I’ve been reinvigorating my life in other ways such as sprucing up the house, crafting and, of course, starting this blog. It’s all been trickling in, this want for something electric, and I’ve been slowly working in ways to be more creative and productive in my life by making things in whatever form they can be made. I cook, I craft, I conjugate verbs.

So, all in all it’s been quite a week in an already exciting month.  My life feels like it’s opened up to a new chapter, and like with all my favorite books, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

A Partly Paleo Thanksgiving

I’ve been busy planning out my Thanksgiving menu, which is sort of ridiculous because it’s just me, my husband, our son who eats nothing, and the cats. I don’t have any family in Washington to spend the holiday with, but I do like cooking and living off the leftovers, so this is pretty much the plan at this point. I’ll spend the day watching the Macy’s parade, missing my friends and family who are almost all in New York, and making an absurd amount of food while drinking spiked cider with mulling spices. After we eat, we’ll walk to the little movie theater in town and watch Mockingjay Part 2.

Interestingly, this is our 3rd time celebrating Thanksgiving since we moved here and the third time Thanksgiving dinner will be followed by a Hunger Games film!  The first year we moved here, my husband had to work until early evening, so I cooked alone all day (play those sad horns). Last year, because it seemed silly to cook, we went to Seattle for dinner at Local 360 and though the food was good, it bummed me out to be at a restaurant on Thanksgiving and there were no leftovers, which is clearly the best part!  So, take 3. I’m aware that I’m planning too much food, but I need to account for classics my husband would miss too much and more paleo-minded fare for me.

This is the meal plan:

Main Dishes:

• Turkey and Paleo Gravy (made from turkey drippings, coconut milk, salt, pepper, onion powder, arrowroot)
• Shepherd’s Pie with Yams (I’m planning on using ground beef. This will make a fantastic breakfast Friday for when we pull out our Christmas decorations and turn our house into the North Pole.)

Sides:

• Bacon and Bourbon Stuffing (This is clearly not paleo, but consider this my 20 for the day in my 80/20 lifestyle. Did you hear the words bacon  and bourbon???)
• Classic Green Bean Casserole for the husband
• Cranberry sauce
• This sweet potato dish but made with ghee and coconut cream and pecans
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Bacon

Dessert:

• Paleo Pumpkin Pie (pictured above)
• Rustic Buckwheat Apple Cake

I’m still hoping a refugee will join us, but either way I’m looking forward to all this good food with my family. ❤️

Super Easy (Really!) Stitched State Craft

This craft, from idea to completion, took under an hour. In my mind, that’s an excellent craft to throw in your repertoire for holiday gifts!  Also, it’s almost entirely upcycled!  If you’re not a scary scrap hoarder like me, you should still have thrift stores around for supplies, or old clothes that can be used.

I wish I took pictures of the stages, but I was crafting at a friend’s house with her very rad 10 year old and I didn’t snap away as I might have normally because  I was so caught up in talk of American dolls who share my name. I will have to describe the steps with my words. You know, like a writer!

What you need:

-embroidery hoop. These can often be found at the thrift, but honestly they’re pretty cheap even new. Michael’s has the basics priced under $4, regardless of the size.  I used a basic hoop like this, but you can also find colored ones. There are so many varieties of how you can customize the outside of this. You could even paint stripes or polka dots or use washi tape to really make it your own.

-fabric. You’ll want one piece big enough to fit into your embroidery hoop, and then scraps big enough for whatever you are making. I was making Washington state and a heart so I used a tiny scrap of red from an Ikea fabric bundle I had purchased months ago to make a fabric banner and the sleeve of a sweatshirt I had altered. I never throw away scraps. My son’s Halloween costume utilized scraps from curtains I hemmed. Waste not, want not!

-embroidery thread and/or regular thread and correlating needles. Again, I have so much of this just lying around from years of summer camp and friendship bracelets. If you don’t, it’s usually around 30 cents a color for the embroidery floss. This is not a break-the-bank craft.

-scissors or if you have it a rotary cutter and a self-healing cutting mat. I have linked to the ones I own. If you’re an avid crafter who works with fabric, I definitely recommend this $20 investment.  A rotary cutter is life changing. It makes cutting fabric downright pleasurable.

How to make the craft:

Here’s the finished copy!!

First, I fit my fabric into my hoop and trimmed the excess. I had actually purchased this fabric last year at a little craft supply store on Vashon Island & I used it in a similar craft for my friend. That time, I put fabric in the hoop and embroidered “uteruses before duderuses” on it because we love Parks and Rec and girlgangs.  It turned out pretty cute, but this state craft is even easier because there’s so little actual stitching.

We realized we didn’t have a state outline pre-printed or to trace and I decided to see if I could use an iPad as a light table. The answer is yes!  We pulled up a simple WA outline and adjusted it to the size that would look best in the hoop and then I lightly traced it on a piece of notebook paper. If you don’t have an iPad, an alternate idea would be to resize an image and print it off a computer. Many libraries allow a certain number of free prints. You could probably also trace from a regular monitor, but you’d probably want to tape the paper on.

With my state outlined, I cut out the stencil from the paper and retraced it onto my fabric with sharpie. Again, this fabric came from my scrap box and was originally attached to a Disneyland sweatshirt that I turned into an oversized muscle  beach coverup by cutting off the sleeves with my trusty rotary cutter. I cut the state out of the fabric with the rotary cutter, and the heart freehand with scissors (fold the fabric in half and do half a heart for perfect symmetry like this).

Next, I sewed the heart into the state. I went with matching thread, although I considered contrasting. This probably took the most time, holding up different color thread to the fabric to decide what look I liked best. Once the heart was on, I placed the state on my fabric hoop and stitched around using basic basting stitches.
And that’s it!  We finished chatting about lists to Santa and other delightful minutia and I have an awesome new craft on my wall that cost me very little money or time.

Put down your weapons; Christmas is safe.

When I was little, I wanted so badly to celebrate Christmas. I loved all the trappings of the season. Garland, lights, shiny things!  I love shiny things!  I wanted to know more about Santa and his sweet red outfit and sing carols and drink eggnog and have elves make me toys. But I’m Jewish. Now, I don’t claim to speak for my whole tribe, but in my house, it was menorah or bust, and we’re not even particularly religious.  Though I show up for the occasional Bat and Bar Mitzvah, I haven’t attended temple regularly since I was 10 years old.  Still, I identify as Jewish and I feel Jewish in an intangible, hard to explain way. It’s a part of who I am.

The first time I ever felt like a minority was in the 6th grade. A clique of girls decided they were all going to get Santa hats at the mall, write their names in glitter on the white fur, and wear them to school the day before winter break. I asked if I could join them. “No,” they said, “you’re Jewish.”  I was devastated. No one had ever made me feel inferior up til then, which is pretty amazing if you think about it because I was chubby and bookish, awkward, and a girl to boot. So, I actually had a lot working against me as far as being out of the majority, but maybe my obtuseness protected me. But what could I say, I’m not that Jewish? I like a jaunty hat too?  I want to be part of the fun with all of you? Kids aren’t known for their ability to stand up for themselves and rationalize with the unjust. It was just another reminder that this holiday wasn’t for me, no matter if all the TV shows had Christmas specials and everywhere I looked I could hear the music and see the glittering and magical finery. Instead, I could have 8 gifts, a candle to light every night, a gambling top with rules that I’m still unclear about, chocolate coins, and latkes and applesauce (which are delicious, by the way) but there would be no gingerbread house, no cookies to decorate or leave out, no stockings hung by the chimney with care, no hat squad for me. Sides had been chosen, and just like in PE, I was out.
Maybe I’m misremembering. Memory is a funny thing. Whenever I tell my Christmas story, meaning my feelings about Christmas and how they came to be, I mention that my dad wouldn’t let us have a tree. My sister and I would beg every year. We said it could be white with blue balls and it would really be a Hanukah bush but it was a non-starter. I tell this as a prelude to what came later.  College, and making “Julie’s first Christmas” ornaments to hang on a tree in the dorm. Marrying a baptist as non-practicing as I am, who doesn’t attend church but allows me to turn our house into Santa’s little workshop every year because I love to decorate and I love festivity and I love to feel included in something I was excluded from for so many years. My son has grown up celebrating the fun parts of both holidays without any religious implications. We light a menorah and a Christmas tree in my home. Once, my son asked me what the best gift Santa ever brought me was and when I said he didn’t bring me gifts, his little face crumbled as he exclaimed, “Mom, you must have been BAD!” I replied, “No, baby, just Jewish.”  These stories are squares on my quilted memories.  But recently, an old friend mentioned that I did have a Hanukah bush. “Don’t you remember,” she asked, “your dad was so mad about it.”  Did we wear him down then?  I don’t remember having it. In my mind, it’s all wrapped up together, remembrances intertwined.  No tree, no hat, no joining in any reindeer games. Does it matter if I am wrong on this point?  Does it change my insatiable hunger to join in on the holiday season?  Or is it just an irrelevant detail, an interesting aside. Sort of like how I love the look of a simple wreath and a candle in every window, but I can’t be contained when it’s time to decorate. Every year, it’s like I explode with tinsel (metaphorically, of course; tinsel is too messy. It’s the glitter of Christmas decorations; you’ll still be pulling it out of your hair in April).  Oftentimes, the reality of a situation is different from the imagined scenario. Which brings us to today.

According to my Facebook, there’s a war on Christmas.  Proof of this war can be seen in the fact that 7 Simon malls put up an interactive display straight out of Futurama instead of the usual tree and trimmings.  Starbucks, they of the seasonal drinks and burnt coffee (yeah, I said it. I’m speaking truth here!) has a red cup instead of the annual Christmas one which has a different holiday decoration year to year.  There has been a series of  festive designs in the past, but this year’s simple red cup means war. It’s worth a mention that they did change up the cup as it’s not the standard white with green logo, and you may also notice it’s not white and blue with dreidels either. Still, get out your armor, folks. Rally the troops. “They” are coming for your holiday.

Except they’re really not. This is a fallacy; an imagined situation not matching up with reality. And here’s the crazy thing: I have seen people come together in outrage the likes of which I haven’t seen since… Ever.  Not for women’s right to equal pay. Not for the black lives matter movement. Not for climate control. Not for healthcare. Not for planned parenthood. Not for gun control. Not for harsher punishments for rapists and domestic abusers. Not to reform the system in any truly broken way. I thought that nobody gets together collectively to make a meaningful change or difference and I had simply accepted that about society. I told the little idealist inside me who wonders why I don’t do more to make this world better that even activists get 9 to 5s eventually and settle down with 401s and mortgages. I remember personally being so earnest after 9/11. We were going to change the world. We were marching and protesting and getting loud. But then we got lazy. Lax. People seem to default to apathetic, until you don’t put a sled on a coffee cup or a giant tree all bedazzled smack in the middle of the mall. Then they come out in droves and make some changes, damn it.  Reform must be called for!  And y’all, I have tried to make it clear that I love Christmas.  I love it like someone who was denied it for half her life.  I made my dog take pictures with Santa when my son got too old. I count down  until the day after Thanksgiving, and then I hang mistletoe in the hall and and use balsam tree air diffusers and bake cookies while wearing an apron with a reindeer emblazoned on it and an elf hat on my head. So remember that I get it: I too love all the accoutrement and bells and whistles of the holiday season (a rum de dum) and I truly do understand the feeling that these things bring. Remember that, and try to hear this with an open mind because I gotta tell you the truth: nobody is oppressing your religion or your Christmas. Promise.

The fact is that symbols are different than the things they represent. My wedding band may represent my marriage but if I were to take it off, I’d still be married. That’s how come I can have a tree even though I’m not a Christian. It’s a glamour, something beautiful and fun but really lacking in religious meaning and import. In fact, the tree is originally Pagan, which makes much greater symbolic sense, and has true roots to the earth and universe, quite literally. While a tree or a festive decoration may factor into Christmas, it’s not the reason for the season, as they say. And let’s just talk about that for a minute, because that’s actually a fairly oppressive statement if you think about it. The season is winter. One religion doesn’t own the season.  But people say that like a fact, while still other people get mad when they have to say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, and while I don’t personally offend over that, you have to admit that smacks of some pretty righteous eurocentrism.  It’s oppressive to you to include all?  Come on now. Think about that for a minute. Like really think about it. This war on Christmas feels a lot like #notallmen and men’s rights activism. It sounds a lot like countering “black lives matter” with “all people matter”. It’s putting a dog in a fight that’s meant for cats. That’s not a great metaphor. I’ll speak plainly.

Here’s the truth: go to any Target, Rite Aid, Macy’s, Sephora- truly any store- and compare the Christmas offerings to the Hanukah ones.  We get half an aisle compared to your 5. And let’s not even talk about how little is available to anyone outside these two denominations. I’m a minority, but I’m not invisible. Sinead O’Connor has a line in a song that I love: “If you’ve never seen a good time, how would you recognize one?”   That has always really resonated with me.  So to those who think that the mall and Starbucks are out to get you and oppress your beliefs and make you feel unwelcome, I have to steal her thought and just sincerely ask, “if you’ve never been persecuted, how would you recognize it?”  Because I gotta tell you, this isn’t it. If you’re interested in jumping in a war this holiday season, how about the war on education?  Maybe try the war on poverty and the middle and lower classes on for size. Imagine what could be accomplished with all that collective power!  I hear Simon malls took less than 24 hours to bring in Christmas trees once the issue went viral. Mazel tov on this joyous occasion.

Seattle Showers

 

Here’s my weekend: photo journaled.  It was a pretty awesome one, even with all the rain.  I spent the whole weekend in Seattle having adventures and buying treasures.

 

We went to Pike Place.

 

From where I’m standing here, the original Starbucks is to the left but I don’t really like Starbucks.  Stumptown is where it’s at.

 

I have been here so many times and still haven’t seen everything there is to see.  So many shops and restaurants and kiosks.

 

I bought produce, but not this.

 

Crowds.

 

The flowers are always so beautiful.

 

Spectacular.

 

Seattle is really one of the dopest cities.   There’s so much street art.  I never get tired of what I see and I always see new stuff too.

 

We went to a reading at the Seattle Public Library.  It was really inspiring.  I have now added to my bucket list reading my own work at SPL.

 

 My husband was a real sport and let me go to all 3 spice stores downtown: Marketspice (in Pike), World Spice Merchant (behind the market, on Western), and Penzey’s Spices.  I cook really simply on Whole 30, and I don’t like to follow a huge recipe.  These spices allow me to make easy recipes really flavorful.  I used to just use old spices that I had moved with me from apartment to apartment and replacing them made such a difference to my cooking.  I also got some tea: Licorice, Orange Cinnamon, and Gingerbread.

We also went to Moorea Seal, my absolute favorite store in Seattle.  The curation there is impeccable.  I want everything for my dream house/ wardrobe.

 

Today, I went to see Idina Menzel in If/Then.  It was amazing.  I really loved it.  Obviously, she was unbelievably good.  Her voice is crazy.  The whole cast was so good and I loved the story.  What if you made a different choice?  How would it change everything?  It’s not the first time I’ve seen this idea of the butterfly effect, but this wasn’t all chaotic happenings, it was following through with choices and then where that could take you.  Would you choose differently to save yourself from future hurts?  What is the point of worrying about the future if anything can cause anything?  I’ve been feeling like I’m on a precipice lately in some regards and I found it really moving and all around really well done.  But, seriously- I sat in the same room as Idina Menzel!  Her voice was unparalleled.  We don’t often get such big names here and it was a total treat.  I’m a Broadway Baby; I love a fantastic show and this was one of the best ones I’ve seen lately.

 

And then I bought my spirit animal in the form of this jacket.  I have wanted a leather jacket forever and now I have this beautiful thing.  It’s like buttah.  I couldn’t resist it.  I want to pet it; it’s so soft.

So, all in all, a pretty fantastic weekend in what I think is going to be an amazing month and holiday season.

Where are your favorite places to go to in Seattle?

Livejournal for the New Generation (alternate title: Away We Go)

I used to have a Myspace and a Livejournal, even though I never had scene hair.  I remember liking a place to put down my thoughts and be able to access them.  Livejournal went the way of Myspace though, which is to say both became obsolete, and even if I could access them, I would probably be so embarrassed by what I wrote.  Lately though, I have been toying around with starting a blog to discuss fashion, DIY crafts, Whole 30 recipes and just general life and musings.  I think maybe this is it.  I don’t really know how to use this site perfectly, seeing as I can’t even figure out how to change the header name, but I think that eventually I will get the hold of it. Here’s to trying new things and seeing what will become of them.