tidal waves

hey ya'll. so it turns out moving and starting over never gets easier. yesterday, i was chatting with my sister on the phone about how it's been pretty lonely up here, and she was all, "yeah whatevs. that's what you always say." colleen isn't usually one to pity me, as you may have guessed. andit's true! i do always say that. and it's not exactly fair either. i mean, do i go over to my friends' homes to knit and watch project runway and drink gin every night (aka what i did with all my closest pals in chicago)? no, i don't. have the folks at my job been pretty forgiving of my constant whining about having no friends and no life and no shame? yes, their level of tolerance is shockingly high. and! i have found that if you text them, they will come!

everything comes in waves up here. one minute i am hopeful about my social prospects, the next i find myself in bed with my cat and bruce willis and a ball of yarn. alone. again. one day, my job seems amazing! and i am going to raise a billion bucks with my charm and meeps! and everyone will wonder how they survived without me! and the next day i am a ball of nerves because i couldn't sleep all night because my thoughts were spinning around legacy giving and membership and grant reports and why in anyone's right mind would you hire me as your development manager?! ooooone minute i am dying to have my own place and the next i am praising god for the blessing of such a nurturing roommate who is full of light and joy and laughter. i CAN do this. i CANNOT do this. i AM going to make friends. no one will EVER like me! whew! i tell ya! you should NOT envy my brainheart.

but! but but but but! but but! oh my gosh i am living my dreeeeeams! here are just a handful of the reasons that i know this is right and good and yes yes yes.

first of all there's this...

and this...

and this guy too...

and then there's my job. see that amazing construction paper rendition of our schooner, hjordis? yeah, i made that. see that totally lame thermometer behind it? that's the best they could do in the past for fundrasing. yeah that's right. i am kickin' ass.

below, me eating chowder for the first time. it was basically amazing. every year in june, we have a wooden boat show where we display wooden boats but more importantly all the local businesses donate vats of chowder to raise $$$. with some wood-fire baked bread and a bowl of warmth, it's hard to complain *all the time* about the weather (instead, i just complain most of the time).

here's a giant snowman during the summer solstice puppet pageant. yes, you read that correctly. this year's pageant theme told the story of northern minnesota's never-ending winter this year, which apparently is "quite unusual". as if that comforts me somehow.

here is an absolutely delicious recipe for salad if you're looking for one. thanks, rachel!

is that a rainbow over lake superior? yeah, it's basically hawaii without the sea turtles, tropical fish, warmth, or sushi. or sandy beaches. or volcanoes. or a lot of other amazing things in hawaii.

some other lovely views of the harbor!

look! i made a handloom!

and then wove a utah landscape superimposed on lake superior with a sunset! aka dreamland. it's my first weaving! *so proud*

below is where wood-turning instructor jim took me to harvest birch bark, which can be used for canoes, baskets, boxes, ornaments, and beyond! can you imagine a more magical scene than the sun setting over a daisy field as you shave away at birch trees (that were going to be logged anyway)? no, you can't, but that's because you also can't see the eighty-thousand mosquitoes sucking on me limb from limb.

once you slice down the top layer of bark, if it's a good tree, the bark will just pop away in an incredibly satisfying way.

look at me! i can harvest too! guess how many cuts i got from the knife? hint: remember this entry? i think the total came to four slices, but only one serious gash requiring a band-aid. thanks, disney princesses!

one of the funny things about living here is that because my social life isn't flourishing, i'm not eating and drinking out even half as much as i did in chicago. you would think this means i'm saving up wads of cash. however, i am not because i am essentially incapable of resisting the urge to buy every craft i see. here are some of the amazing craft pieces i have purchased in just six weeks.

these wooden bowls are turned on an electric lathe by jim sannerud. i have really enjoyed learning to eat with wooden utensils. food just tastes happier this way. not to mention, these bowls are beautiful.

the very first instructor that i met on my very first day at north house was jason hovatter. he makes - among other incredible leather work - 10th century turned shoes. and for the price of two chisels, he made me these custom slip-ons. as you may or may not know, one of the biggest tragedies in my life is that my feet are two very different sizes, so when i found out that i could have shoes that fit me correctly and would last forever, it was more or less the greatest day of my life.

also, i may have purchased something woodsy for my sister - despite her lack of pity - because her big 3-0 is coming up in august! wee!

and of course, what blog post would be complete without some nacho cheese. my roommate has really fallen in love with nacho (i mean, how could you not?). she likes to prop up crates and stools for him so he can look out any door or window he pleases. she calls him the lion king.

one day, roommate wanted to put a puzzle together, but nacho thought it would be a better idea to pull the tablecloth and spill the pieces everywhere. great strategy, nacho.

nacho finally slipped through my fingers and ran away for a night. he came home promptly at 5am and then slept all the way through until the next day basically. it made for some easy knitting.

the picture above was taken five minutes before the picture below, in which i was laying out the pieces of a quilt i'm working on for my auntie. within seconds of having a project that needed to be smoothed out on the floor, nacho gave me some critical feedback.

we're happy.

booze, brussles sprouts, brides, and beyond

i am happy to report that it has been a successful week of creative activity! here are few projects i've been working on:

1. letter writing. don't we all have a list as long as santa's of the people to whom we'd like to write a nice, thoughtful letter? i spent a bit of time last sunday writing to one of my loveliest friends, my old college roommate, tina. tina wrote me a letter a couple months ago and expressed skepticism toward whether or not letter writing is a good form of communication because it is very one-sided and may seem quite vain to write all about one's life. i, however, LOVED receiving her letter because a) i feel so special receiving a letter b) especially from someone who i rarely see anymore and c) it's such an incredible experience to have gone so much time without seeing her face or hearing her voice but being able to immediately discern that she is still very much the friend who could eat a gallon of peanut butter and listen to the same twothirtyeight song on repeat for weeks on end. i thought it would be easy to crank out a letter in an hour, but it turns out writing by hand is a slow process and my little out-of-practice fingers started to cramp up. love is pain.

2. cooking! this year for lent i decided to [try to] give up eating out. this has had mixed but mostly successful results. i will say that poutine from barrlehouse flat has been my achilles heel, but overall it has been a great opportunity to try some cooking. on monday, i made pesto pasta from scratch as well as these bad boys and learned that i really truly do like brussles sprouts, which for anyone who knows me and my list of hated foods (i'm looking at you, anyone who ever entertained the idea of me coming over for dinner and ultimately abandoned it), let us all rejoice! also, i've been experiementing with omeletts, and have found that my current favorite quick recipe is as simple as an egg, blue cheese, and onions. YUM.

3. bridal shower decorations. my department at work only includes four people, so when one of us announced she was eloping to italy with her fiancee, it was decided that as the only person under 30 (and also the only person who had never been to a bridal shower), i would be in charge of decorations. for just six bucks at target, i put together this little soiree!

i know it probably doesn't look like much to you, but it honestly came out better than i think any of us expected! also, after hours of agonizing, i decided to make these little guys as a tasty finger food snack:

a little caprese kabob! many thanks and a thousand apologies to stuart for tolerating an inordinate (at least i hope it was inordinate and not average) amount of whining and anxiety about what to prepare. what a trooper.

4. boozing. i've been sick all weekend, so i thought i'd try to make a hot toddy for the first time from scratch. i sampled from this recipe, using way more honey and lemon for my throat and just ground up spices instead of fancy stick versions. go booze medicine!

5. knitting. still pumping a way at my puffs. my goal of 100 by april was obviously ridiculous, but i think 50 is definitely within reach! currently at 43!

6. quilting. i tried yesterday with limited success to continue working on my t-shirt quilt, but nacho is suffering from major cabin fever given the snowy weather lately, which mean he was all about attacking my little squares. i tried for maybe 45 minutes but ultimately the cat won.

7. weaving. got back to work on my little loom. still not sure i have it right, but time will tell.

look! i get a gold star for productivity!

February: Catching Up!

Wow...so it turns out when you go on vacation for a week, you shirk duties for a month! Don't worry, my darlings, I have only shirked the duty of posting on this blog. That does not mean I have been unfaithful to my goal of doing something creative each day.

So first off, prior to flying far away, I spent most of the week working on my happy afghan: 

I'm really happy with how quickly this is knitting up. I think I started with either 10 or 12 skeins, and now I'm down to just 4. This is the largest afghan I've ever knit, and I decided all the pattern repeats and edging myself, so that is a little baby step in the right direction toward making my own pattern...someday. Completing this project will be incredibly satisfying, not only for the final product but also because it makes a huge dent in my yarn stash. Of course, I'm pretending that there aren't eight pounds of yarn from Peru in my closet...

So you may have heard I went to Hawaii for a week. That was...fun? Let's just say three rounds of airport security with two women in wheelchairs, one walker, a ton (more or less) of carry on, and - oh yes - an oxygen tank is enough to make anyone tired, but when your luggage is lost for two days on top of it, any trip becomes a bit of a bummer. However! I did see some very cute sea turtles, a million humpback whales (including a cow calf escort pod which we kayaked next to for about half an hour...dreams DO come true!), and even an eagle ray! If you would like to help me achieve my singular bucket list goal, please send funds so that I might ride with the manta rays (don't worry, I would not actually touch the magical creature!). 

Turns out that Hawaii isn't really the ideal place to take a lot of photos...at least when all you're doing is water activities. But we did make it up to Haleakala one day. So here are just a few photos from my trip, representing about 90% of the total photos I took.

Haleakala! Volcano land.

Poke, the most delicious discovery of Hawaii. It's sushi meets salsa. Nom nom nom.

Mom was a real trooper and made it to the beach!

She also made it to the top of Haleakala, but was totally school by Grandma the speed demon.

I really liked the windows in the observation deck.

I took the girls out for dinner at Mama's. Probably the most expensive meal I will ever pay for, and this "Polynesian Black Pearl" of chocolate mousse in a pastry shell demonstrates why it was worth every penny. 

The view from our hotel balcony. I've seen worse sunsets.

Doesn't it look like Hawaii!?! Total score for a quintessential vacation experience! Also, while on vacation, I did my best to stay on top of crafting. I knit many, many puffs. Now I have a PILE of puffs.

If I could complete 100 puffs by the end of April, that would be a nice sub-challenge. I will probably be putting the knitting away once the spring starts melting into summer when I can focus on outside projects, so I'd like to think I'd achieved some notable puff status before moving in other directions.

Also! I read a book! "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller. I like Donald Miller. His books are always a good, quick read with a warm challenge inside. I don't think he's a particularly talented writer, but I always feel a heightened level of self-reflection after turning the final page. This book is a reflection on the Story of life and how we must find meaning and how God is the greatest story teller. Nothing particularly new, but it was a nice reminder that if I want life to be more satisfying and challenging, it is up to me to pursue a better path. So naturally I'm getting all restless again, and the folk art school I've been dreaming about for years is FINALLY hiring...

Life right now is good, though. Things at the planetarium are very interesting. I find myself doing a lot of evaluation and program development, which I love. It's nice to know that I can name something and say, "Yes, I know I enjoy doing this. This is what I'm looking for in a job." It has taken me more jobs than I expected to be able to nail something like that down. And apart from work, many friends are engaged, pregnant, and just wonderful to be near. Chicago is home and home is warm, supportive, rich, and deep. And gosh, there are some cute cats in this apartment! 

xo

Kaitlyn

P.S. Valentine's Day taught me a very valuable lesson: it is NOT a Good Day to Die Hard, unfortunately. Biggest disappointment of my adult life. 

Days 15-21 - The First Amendments

Crafting Clock: Okay, so I haven't been keeping the greatest track of the exact number of minutes, but I am almost certain it has been at least an hour each day, and I know it has sometimes been over 3 hours, so I think it all evens out and we are still on track!
Listening to: Swim by Caribou
Reading: Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko

Well, it has been an interesting week in the Land of Creativity. Not in that I've done something extra creative (in fact, most of that has been pretty un-imaginative), but because I have been thinking a lot about how I do want to define "creative" in order to meet my goal. As I mentioned in my first post about this New Year's resolution, I don't want to get too bogged down with what it means for the purpose of this endeavor. However, I was recently shamed by someone (oh, I won't name names) who said that reading isn't a creative activity, and so I was pushing myself to do things other than open a book. But then I realized that I wasn't reading anymore, and that made me very sad indeed. So reading is back in the game! I think it is creative in a way because it calls on use of your imagination to draw up scenes in your mind. I might not be creating the plot, but I am creating the theater in my mind, and that's enough for me. **What do you think? Is reading creative or a cop-out?**

I have also decided that cooking pretty much anything counts as something creative for me because it requires me to overcome the same combination of laziness and fear of failure that inhibits me from taking up my needles or sitting down at my sewing machine. And much in the same way that both crafting and cooking make me drag my feet at first, they also both bring me so so much joy and such a sense of accomplishment when I actually finish preparing something.

Tonight I made fried rice, which I know sounds about as complicated as chewing bubble gum to some of you out there, but believe it or not, not everyone is as competent and capable of using as a rice cooker as you. Bless her faith in my abilities, my roommate let me borrow her rice cooker tonight with the simple instructions of "Pour the rice in and add twice the amount of water. And turn it on." That made sense when she said it (I even got cocky and gently mocked her for reminding me turn it on! ho! ho!), but then I pulled out the rice cooker and about three million questions. Put the rice in first and then turn it on? Let it heat up and then put the rice in? Let the water boil and then add rice? What is the switch for? What is warm vs. cook? How do I know when it's done? How long does it take? What planet does rice come from anyway? Too bad she had already run to catch a bus by then. Luckily, there's this magical place called "the Internet" where they have all the answers to every secret about your specific rice cooker. THANK GOD. And look! Half a bottle of soy sauce later and we've got dinner!

Another amendment I'd like to push myself toward given that reading and cooking may seem a bit like steps backward is to try to do one creative activity each week that I'm not used to...in other words something that isn't knitting. This week, best buddy and I made shrinky-dink earrings! They didn't really work so great because they curled up into boils in the oven, but it was fun all the same.

leafy leaf shrinky dinks. she also tried making purple bunnies, but one slipped through the cracks of the oven and broiled in a fiery death. RIP purple bunny pal.

shapes!

i shouldn't have shrunk these cuties...

...because now they look like they're about to poop out something rather uncomfortable.

Besides the usual puffs (of which I now have made 21...so that's nice and slow), I also bit the bullet and returned to an afghan that I started a few years ago, but gave up on when I made some mistake in a row and was too irritated to try and figure it out. Turns out that was only a 20 minute puzzle which means I am back on track to knitting something quite snuggly.

So there's some give and take in this challenge, and I admit I feel the need to justify myself to you (whomever you are), but also...I'm really awesome, so you can eat my feet if you don't like how I'm playing. Just see if I make you something, critical readership, you! 

dayz 9-14: signing a record deal...no big deal

Crafting Clock: Pretty much an hour a day all week!
Listening to: Myself! (Read on!)
Watching: Downton Abbey Season 3

So first of all...Downton Abbey....whew! I don't know if I am relieved or mortified. It somehow is both less and more of a soap opera than last season. I've basically finished the season save one episode. It has complimented my creative times puff-tasticly! Look at all the puffs I've made!

 

17 COMPLETED puffs! I'm basically just around the corner from a king-sized quilt!

Also! I have been weaving...maybe? Stuart gave me a potentially really cool beginner's hand loom for Christmas, but unfortunately the instructions that came with it were drawn with someone's foot so it's kind of hard to know if I'm doing things correctly. We *think* I'm doing it correctly, but I guess we'll only truly know when I take the piece off the loom and it either crumbles like a little cookie or ENduREs tHE TeSTs of TiME!!!! But really, most likely, it will do the crumbly cookie thing.

I also made another workout t-shirt for my lovely friend Natalie. Modeled here:

She is so ready to run all her important crazy races now!

And finally, but certainly not least awkward of all...I recorded some banjo muzik! Yes, as the wise Zach Clark pointed out, there is an entire genre of awkward hipster white girls recording music, so I guess there is nothing new and exciting about this. But I thought you might enjoy both a preview version (be warned, it's a REALLY loud recording) and a real version (not as loud a recording for no explicable reason) of me playing as awkwardly as can be. If you only listen to one, I recommend the preview version, which is astronomically more thrilling. This is how Nacho felt about it: