Autumn is here!

Okay, so technically Autumn starts tomorrow, however, we've already had a successful test run of it here in Bodie! The low on Wednesday night was 14*, and the low on Thursday night was 21*. We've started running our faucets at night, and John (who is almost always hot) turned on the heater last night.

In preparation for my vacation, I have started a deep clean of the house as of yesterday - when I tidied and then moved all the furniture in the living room so I could vacuum everything (even the runner boards!) and also vacuumed the spare bedroom (since I've got a hypothetical house guest arriving after I get back from my vacation). On the list for the rest of the weekend are the bathroom, my bedroom, and the kitchen (where I will be trying my hand at mopping a greasy floor), as well as doing the laundry and my sheets and towels. Speaking of laundry, I recently finished my 66-load, 4x concentrated Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent and purchased, due to availability on vitacost.com and lower prices, Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Laundry Detergent, which does 68 loads, is also 4x concentrated, and takes up less space than the container of the Seventh Generation one I've been hauling around. In fact, it's about half the size! When you're nomadic and living out of your car, you really appreciate things like that. Not to mention that, so far (after having only washed my yoga mat with it), I seem to like the smell. There were lots to choose from, but I played it relatively safe and got the lavender, though I wonder what lemon verbena, bluebell, and sunflower all smell like. Perhaps in a year or two when I have cause to buy one again I'll try and locate a store that sells this stuff so I can pre-smell and pick a different scent.

Aside from cleaning, there's a regimen of packing and other small chores or activities that need to or I that I would like to get done before I go, like finishing the book I'm reading - Dead Pool - or clean up the things for the house that I offered to take after Eric found them all in the back of his storage shed here. I already cleaned up a beautiful glass gas-style lamp last night - the bottom, top, or both light up, and it's now the beautiful centerpiece of the living room, and easily brighter than any of the other lights we have in there. There's a GIANT lamp that showed up in the red barn that I think I'm going to snag today to put in the cave - since there's no nightstand in that room, a table lamp that's so big it doubles as a floor lamp seems rather fitting. We'll see if I can't get it in there today.

Sunday, Jenna and Ryan will be going to church with me, and afterwards we're having dinner at the pastor's house, which should be fun. Monday I'm thinking of going for a nice bike ride, and the rest of the weekend will largely be devoted to cleaning, packing, and checking things off my to-do list. I'm also busy trying to set back my internal clock by waking up 15 minutes earlier every few days. This work week I set my alarm back to 5:45, and during my weekend I'll be setting it back to 5:30, then 5:15 for next week. The goal being that on Friday, I will be up early enough to start my work day at 6am and, taking only a half-hour lunch break, be off work by 4:30pm and out of here by 5pm at the latest, so that I can make the seven hour drive to Sequoia in a slightly-more-reasonable time frame.

So that's a lot of business over all. Nothing too exciting, but hopefully when I get back I'll have some good pictures/stories from my epic little vacation starting the end of next week. I'm thinking I probably won't bother to bring my computer along, so once I leave I'll be out of the e-loop until I return (a real vacation, if you ask me), and phone calls will be the best way to attempt to reach me. For now, I'm going to leave you with a picture I managed to obtain of my Botswana quilt on display at the annual Bridgeport Founder's Day Quilt Show:

Until next time!!

Internetical Fritz

That is to say, the internet is going crazy here today. I had plans of ordering yarn, buying a pattern, doing some online banking, downloading an audio book, listening to a sermon, and all sorts of other wonderful things. But I can't do them. Because the internet will only load pages sponsored by google. What the heck!? Not to mention that I spent 2 hours of my day off trying to fix the state's internet and was entirely unsuccessful. I am not very pleased at the moment.

So I guess I have no choice but to make a blog post. I've been knitting up washcloths like a maniac in order to use up my scrap yarn from this tunic project (incidentally, I finally got the pattern written for that, and it will - hopefully soon - be up for sale on ravelry), as well as from my earlier tank top this summer. I decided that I ought not do the same design twice, so it's been a fun time.

As you can see, I've been hard at work. I finished another one yesterday, and I would have made another (hopefully my last) one today, but I wasn't ever able to get on and download another pattern. Poop.
Not sure if I ever posted pictures of my finished tunic - but here's a couple that I had my coworker take to be in the official pattern write-up.

That's her dog, Bella, in the photos with me. She's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. It's supposed to be an Eastern Sierra-inspired design, so I figured that Lundy Canyon was a good, iconic, Eastern Sierra locale to take the photos. In retrospect, they'd probably look better if I a) was sitting up straighter in the first photo and b) didn't have stuff in my pockets in the second photo. But oh well, it's life, it's not like I'm a real model or anything.

But the core question I'm trying to get at is this: why, if I could upload all these pictures and write up this blog post, do I not have a good enough internet connection to go onto any of the sites I need to in order to get my work done?

It's just a week and three days 'til my vacation, and good riddance.

Disconnect

It's funny how much we take modern technology for granted. Example? Our internet has been virtually non-functional for the majority of the day for the last three or four days. That means little to no email, no new knitting pattern downloads, and definitely no phone calls for me. Yuck. I'm just glad I downloaded all those yoga podcasts last week, at least I'm set on that front for awhile. When you prepare yourself for a disconnect like that, it's liberating. When it's forced upon you, it seems stifling.

But there's a much more positive disconnect coming up: the final pieces have finally fallen into place so that I can take an 11-day vacation at the end of this month (including several days of PAID vacation!)! Hooray! I'm not going to lie, it's been very difficult for me the first part of this month, and I think that the next month and a half will be as well. I'm just not accustomed to staying in one place this long, and some days the incessantly repetitive questions just about drive me up the roof! That's why this vacation is going to be so nice - a chance to disconnect, really remove myself from the place a bit, before I lock in for the long haul of my last three or four weeks in Bodie. I'll be returning to Sequoia to visit Alyssa, then going up to San Francisco to visit Betty, attend the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and visit Uncle Paul and Aunt Barbara (hopefully with a day of sailing, if the weather cooperates!).

When all is said and done, I'll have spent 11 days traveling around and visiting, and hopefully that'll whet my appetite enough for me to settle into my final weeks at Bodie. And if that's not enough, I've got someone interested in paying me an extended visit during those final weeks as well. But that's not 'til after I get back. For now, I've got roughly two weeks and a day before I leave on my vacation.

I can hardly wait! :)

Engage

Keeping busy, that's what engaging is. I've been keeping busy, alright.

This past week I've been doing yoga every morning, went on a 3 mile hike on two of my three days off, and with the exception of my opening shift I started each work day (after my morning yoga) with a 1.5 mile hike on the EPA trail with coworkers. I'm a bit sore, but I'm already starting to feel pretty darn great from the routine.

I've also been hard at work knitting - turning little bits of leftover yarn into washcloths! I've got two different cloths knit up now, and I'll be starting a third this weekend, and have plans to make at least two more after that. It all depends on how far the yarn goes.

The smoke came in again this afternoon. We'd been without it for several days, but I guess our luck ran out. I think I might be sleeping on the floor again tonight.

I whipped up a plum and white peach pie earlier this week, and had it for supper on two separate occasions. It turned out really well, for not having a recipe, and everyone who had a piece made sure to tell me that they liked it.

I finally found a cribbage partner! It turns out that Alex knows how to play, and we've gotten together twice this week, each of us winning one game on both occasions. He's a darn good pegger, though, and it's not easy to squeak out my wins by any means.

Another thing I've started doing this week is oil pulling. I talked about it awhile back, but now I've started doing it every morning, and I think I can actually see a difference in the color of my teeth already! Basically, I take a teaspoon of coconut oil and swish it around in my mouth for 5-10 minutes, then spit it out and brush my teeth. I am also about to finish my baking soda and fluoride toothpaste and swap it out for a fluoride free, baking soda toothpaste (Tom's brand) that I bought at Trader Joe's when I was in Fresno. So hopefully I'll continue to see improvements in my teeth over the weeks and months to come.

Other than that, not much is happening here. It's slowed down, and I don't have much to look forward to until the end of the month. Hence all the engaging in activities to fill my days right now. But it's working: so far this week went by pretty quickly. Now I just have to do that a few more times and I'll be on my next little vacation! :)

Until next time!

A Contented Tummy

"I no say dis cuz I need someting. I wen learn dat I get nuff stuff awready. I stay good inside no matta wat happen. I wen bottom out, an I wen get plenny. All dat stuff wen happen to me. I wen learn da secret, how fo handle anyting everytime. No matta I get plenny fo eat, o I hungry. No matta I get plenny odda kine stuffs, o I no moa. I strong nuff fo handle any kine, cuz I stay tight wit Christ, an he give me da power fo do um." - Philippians 4:11-13, Da Jesus Book (Hawaiian Pidgin Bible)

It's easier to understand if you try to read it out loud. But I like this translation from time to time, and I certainly like this verse. Here it is from the slightly-easier-to-comprehend Message translation:

"Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am."

I used to think that the full and empty party referred merely to food, but I've come to see it as having pretty multifaceted meaning. It can relate to your material status, but it can also relate to your relationships, your work load, your inner emotions, your spiritual life, just about anything. And lots of times those things are rather tied together, I find. Everything seems connected the more I think about it. 

For example: when I take the time to actually prepare a delicious meal, my emotions are generally lifted by the effort, and the combination of good food and good spirits puts me in a better mood overall to tackle my work load (or put up with the lack thereof, as the case may be), and when I'm okay with how my work is going along I'm more likely to relate better to those around me - to be less needy, or less defensive, to be more open.

I've known for a long time now how to live with little, but I am learning how to indulge in the abundance that I feel I've been blessed with this year. It could be something as simple as buying a cast iron skillet for my personal cookware and making an oven-puffed pancake in it, or buying grape juice at the store, or keeping large quantities of blueberries on hand in my freezer. In a culinary way I have stepped out of my box quite a bit this year, even making up some recipes! I've tried to take some pictures of some of my dishes to share with you guys, but I have to admit that I'm not very good at taking food pictures - I promise these things looked much more appetizing in real life, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Veggie tacos: corn tortillas fried in coconut oil; zucchini, yellow bell pepper, kidney beans, and peanuts sauteed in coconut oil; topped with Trader Joe's Southwest salsa (corn and chipotle) and shredded white cheddar cheese.

Duck Soup: homemade duck stock with shredded duck, zucchini, summer squash, carrots, celery, eggplant, great northern beans, and country herbs.

Roasted tomatoes: homegrown tomatoes from my cousin Amanda's in-laws, olive oil, country herbs, paprika, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Oven-Puffed Pancake: fresh out of the oven (they deflate later) in my new cast-iron skillet! Topped later with greek yogurt, defrosted blueberries, and Michigan pure maple syrup.

And in my freezer is shrimp, a cornish game hen, and plenty of other experimental ingredients. Not to mention the ratatouille I made (my first time cooking eggplant ever!), and the numerous recipes I've made from the Glorious One Pot Meal cookbook this year. I have certainly been well blessed when it comes to food this year, and I am glad that I am taking advantage of it. It feels so good to be eating food made with love and not just something out of a box with little to no thought or personality going into it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got the last quarter of a stuffed zucchini (what I've started calling zucchini steak because of its heartiness) to reheat for supper, along with some enhanced marinara sauce!