yesterday

Yesterday. Where to begin? It was all going so well. Like in that movie "City of Angels" where she's all happy she found love and is riding her bike all carefree, and then BAM! Semitruck.

Mine is slightly less dramatic I guess. Fine day at work. Evening massage from Sherri Smith of SmartMove massage, which was great. (I do really recommend her.) Pleasant grocery store outing for dinner goods.  Then my brain goes, "why not spice it up a bit and cut veggies carelessly and cut the shit out of your finger and bleed everywhere and almost pass out and have your poor husband rush you to the ER to get 10 stitches and a tetanus shot? How about that?" And so it was.

Needless to say, typing right now sucks. And my finger hurts!

My other obsession!

So other than my obvious love affair with fabric, I have another one:

BOOKS! Especially ones about sewing, crafting, detective-ing, holidays, food... so pretty much everything. I picked this one up used at local Old Firehouse Books. I wish they had a larger variety of used books, not so many new. I can get new books anywhere, but a good selection of gently loved pages? Harder to come by. But oh well. Books are books. I will take them! This book gave me some great ideas for making some holiday themed quilts, to use up and actually showcase my favorite Halloween and Christmas prints. The other book in this series is only holiday themed, but is equally adorable and accessible.

I also picked this one up off Amazon. That's like saying I shop at Walmart, huh? It's soo not hip or cool or local. But it was cheap and it was late and I wanted it. And now I have it. And one thing it does really, really well is make me feel better about my sometimes-not-perfect stitches. I thought I was the only one! So I really enjoyed this one. 

AND did you notice my single spacing? It's beautiful, isn't it?

Oops, I did it again!

NOW THAT SONG IS IN YOUR HEAD FOR DAYS! Ha. Also, I am trying to get used to the rule of putting only one space after a period. Remember in typing class how you were taught that everything had to have two spaces after it? I guess that's not a thing anymore. It's weird. Like how Pluto's not a planet. Change is hard.

And now for something completely (not) different, here's more fabric I bought this weekend :) I was even supervised. Top flower and square fabrics are going to be a new duffel bag, which I may or may not make and then keep for myself. The orange one is Halloween fabric! Very abstract though, might try making something fun with that. And I finally caved and bought some remainder Nancy Drew panels. Tote bag? Detective Kit? So many possibilities!

And the Xcel Energy person just scared the everloving single spaces out of me! I'm sitting right next to the glass door to the backyard and she just waltzes up to it, looks at the meter (RIGHT next to the door), out of nowhere! Stranger! In my yard! Announce yourself! Damnit, there go my double spaces again.

Veggie time!

My garden WAS doing pretty well.  One tomato plant was suffering from something that made the leaves brown and dry... too much water?  Too little?  Bugs?  Disease?  Any number of things.  But another ended up with weird ringspots, and according to the infallible internet's recommendation, we decided to pull it and the other one, just in case.  So now we're down to one tomato.  Sad face.  Husband had to pull them out b/c I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Can't wait for things to be ripe and ready to eat!  The fry peppers are looking good, cucumber vines have taken off, and the jalapeños have potential.  We bought some pickling cucumbers at the farmer's market last week, so we pickled some as dill spears and some as bread and butter slices.  I wish it didn't take 3 weeks for them to be ready to eat.  Hopefully we'll get some good lemon cucumbers from our own garden, and try more pickling recipes!

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FABRIC!!!

Sooo sometimes I forget about things I buy.  Here is a prime example:

I bought myself all this fabric from Mama Said Sew for an early birthday gift to myself.  Almost two months ago.  Still nicely folded, with tags.  Maybe I should make something?  I'm in love with the Nancy Drew fabric and am having a really hard time deciding what precious thing I should make with it.  Ideas?

30th birthday! A few weeks ago. And I get link happy.

I'm all late on stuff.  But I thought I'd share some cool things I did for my 30th.  My family came up for the weekend, so we spent the Saturday before my birthday walking the art district in Denver.  We went to some cool galleries:  SPARK Gallery had great pieces by Robert St. John and Tom Mazzullo, and Blake at Artwork Network was very welcoming and fun to chat with.  We went in a couple other places, but one of my favorites, of course, was Fabric Bliss.  And I bought stuff.  Duh.  I treated myself, like a 30 year old adult is allowed to.  A 30 year old with a serious fabric addiction.  I CAN QUIT IF I WANT TO!!  On Sunday, my birthday, we went to the Denver Art Museum.  Saw the Mark Rothko exhibit, which was very interesting.  It was strange to see a larger body of work than was shown in my art history classes in school.  His style changed so much over his lifetime.  Glad I saw it.

We also went to some amazing eateries:  Watercourse Foods and Root Down.  Watercourse is completely vegetarian, which my dad wasn't all about, but everyone else enjoyed.  Super cool art by Ravi Zupa on the walls, very hipster staff.  I had the Three Sisters Salad, all vegan, and it was delish.  We all split their vegan carrot cake for dessert, and it was very good as well.  Check it out if you can!

Root Down is not vegetarian or vegan exclusively, but it does rely on local and organic foods.  A very "foodie" place to go.  And one of the best experiences, our waiter truly made my birthday special.  I had the veggie sliders and the Pepper Bloom cocktail.  They have a mixologist on staff so you can custom order any drink.  Mine was heavenly: vodka, St. Germain, grapefruit, basil, jalapeño, and lemon.  You can be just like a Portlandia skit there!  Very unique menu, a little pricey, but absolutely worth it.  Some of the best food and customer service I've had in a long time.  We will be back!

I need to join FHA!

This is my fabric store haul.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!  I need to join a Fabric Hoarders Anonymous!  Seriously.  I cannot walk into a store that sells fabric and leave empty handed.  CANNOT.  Today I bought Halloween fabric and thread and a book. (I almost bought more, but had a tiny bit of self restraint.  The book is unintentionally ironic.  But super cool.)  Why?  BECAUSE I HAD TO.  It's a little laughable, but very honestly true.  I can't help myself.  I need a chaperone.  My fabric stash, which I had to buy storage especially for, is bursting at the seams.  And I haven't been making much lately.  I need to take some time off from work to just lock myself in the studio and make something, anything.  Before I can't get in there at all!

Still here! Sort of.

I can't believe how much I've neglected my little corner of the internets here.  On average, I probably think about blogging two, three times a week.  Obviously, without acting on it.  So here I am, actually doing something about it!  And what I'm mostly doing about it, is changing everything! *Applause*

In the last couple years, I've made a few personal changes.  My posts tend to be wordy anyway, so I won't go into too much detail, but I've gone back and forth, and now am permanently a VEGAN! *Confetti and sparkles and sunshine*  I'm also working out... more on that later.  And I'm trying my hand at gardening, again.  Still crafting, but less.  But for now the big change will be my focus here.  I'm going to join the ranks of vegan bloggers and try to focus on the Fort Collins and Denver areas, reporting (sounds so official) on places to eat, products to buy, things to do that are in the vegan spirit.  'Cause honestly folks, it's not hard, but it's not easy, either.  I want to help anybody in the area get a feel for their options.  I don't know if I'll be organized or motivated enough to have themed posts (aka Monday is vegan cookbooks, Tuesday is garden update, etc) but I feel like a schedule might keep me on track.  Might not.  I doubt anyone is still reading my blog anyway!  So really it's just for my own amusement until I make my big internet break.  Right.

I'm also up for any questions or suggestions for places to go and try.  Mostly what it boils down to is being open to new things, and not being swayed by your still-just-a-vegetarian husband ordering the cheesiest fried bread with ranch dipping sauce.  Sure, it smells good.  And looks good.  And I'm sure it tastes good.  But it won't feel good.  WILLPOWER.

For now, the garden:  3 tomato plants (2 of them lovely heirlooms!), a yellow bell pepper, a jalapeño, a sweet fry pepper, lemon cucumber (excited for this one especially), cilantro, and basil.  Last year the grasshoppers DECIMATED everything, so we'll see what happens this year.  So far I haven't seen a single hopper, so maybe that's good?

It's so cute!