Oops! We're almost halfway thru February!

January's trip was a quickie up to Crater Lake, then out to the coast, and back home.

 February's trip was a bit longer - 5 days in Chico while Jack helped a friend put siding up, then 3 days to the Bay Area to visit with family and do a little site-seeing (shopping). We got sushi in Japantown at a place where you grabbed whatever plate of sushi looked good off a revolving track and when you were done they counted up your empty plates and charged you for what you ate. It was pretty awesome.

Now that we're home for the rest of the month, we've both jumped headfirst into projects, and housecleaning. I am pleased to announce that after two months, I am still doing dishes regularly in the mornings. I don't do them every single day, but I probably average 5 out of 7, and it's really improved the kitchen cleanliness.

Today we spent some time tackling laundry together, Jack cleaned "his" bathroom, and we both tidied up the living room and kitchen a bit. Then it was project time. Jack beeswaxed the stitching on his new boots (supposed to help with longevity, we'll see if it bears out) and made a batch of 'stache wax (for keeping his whiskers in check). I baked granola and made soap. This was my second time making soap, but I think it turned out again, and I played around with scents some more, which I think will be nice. The bulk of the batch is ginger-lemon-orange, and then to one mold I also added peppermint, and to another mold I also added cassia cinnamon. I'm anticipating about 8 or 9 bars of soap when all is said and done. I've been wanting to make soap again ever since I gave it my first go last year. Although it's a bit time-consuming and mildly labor-intensive, it's a very satisfying experience, and this time all the soap is for us (before I split it with 6-ish people as part of a soap-making party at our house), so hopefully it'll last awhile. I think that one of things I like most about soap is that there's endless variations in the types of oils you use and the scents you add, so that you're really never making the same thing twice and you can always experiment. I've already got some ideas about what I might do for the next batch to change it up even more. We'll see!

This month my goal is to finish off as many projects on my list as possible. I've already gotten off to a pretty good start with the soap today, and finally doing the finishing work for my toilet stool just before our trip. I just got a belt blank that I'd like to tool and dye brown so that I can wear it for work this summer - still thinking up what designs I might want to do... I've got a quilt that needs to be bound (then it's done!), several projects on the knitting needles, and a handful of writing and painting ideas as well. I've been toying around with the idea of doing a podcast on California history for quite some time now, and I've taken a lot of steps to set up the framework for it, so now I just have to start researching, writing, and recording episodes. My goal for that is to release the episodes next winter and see if I can get any momentum going with them.

And next to all of these creative efforts? I'm knee-deep in homework for school! The African American Civil Rights Movement course is proving to be both a challenge and an eye-opener. There is so much more to this story than King and his "I have a dream" speech, and I'm loving learning about the people on the ground in the local communities struggling for change. It's at once inspiring and demoralizing to see how people have persevered both for and against racial equality. While I'm plugging away at my actual homework, I'm also taking tentative steps towards my thesis research. I've gotten over 30 responses to a survey I sent out for Bodie employees/volunteers of many capacities, trying to get information on what route I might want to go with my hardcore research, and who I might be able to contact for interviews. For now, I'm reading some general articles that others have written on Bodie, State Parks, and staff-visitor-park administration interactions. I am strongly considering buying a Kindle (tablet ebook reader) to help me keep all my research contained, especially with us moving and the fact that this research is going to go on for over a year. Ebooks are often cheaper than paperback editions of texts I need for my classes too (and can sometimes be borrowed from the library online), so the sooner I take the plunge, the more my investment is bound to pay off. It's just so hard to part with real paper. But I think that for our budget and the sanity of not losing books in transit, or having them be in the wrong place when I need them, it might be better to just go for it.

All of this is to say, that I'm procrastinating writing a discussion post for my class right now... and I suppose this means that I ought to go do my homework now!

Until next time!