Snowy box because it's all snowy outside so I drew a simple snow scene and put it on a box to celebrate.
BeadTool4 review. I used pictures I took of mushrooms for my example, but if you ask nicely, I also did Sam Winchester for R.
Wild Rose bead pattern, also done in BeadTool4 using another photo I took this summer.

Other than that, working on a pincushion, and I knit myself a headband, but even using a suspended bind off, the bind off was too tight. *grumbles* It fits. It's just not as stretchy as I'd like.

The icky thing about snow is that of course, I hurt entirely too much right now. It's making me a little moody.

Oh! Sister Diane interviews Rachel Klein. Sister Diane does the great CraftyPod podcast, Rachel runs the incredible craft round up site One Pretty Thing. I've been really impressed with how regularly she updates and how she manages to find so many new projects. What really astounds me is the idea she keeps up with 4000 craft sites weekly to do it. 4000. Wow. Her organizational skills are astounding.

After a lot of thought about what we would do for a vacation, we decided to spend our money locally and get out to do a lot of Alaska type things we hadn't done before or in my case, hadn't done since LONG before my children were born, plus really enjoy some local events we do usually make it to, so far, the zoo, Bear Paw festival, and today..
( cut for images )

As I've mentioned before, this summer has been the summer of smoothies. With the heat, I haven't felt much like cooking, and it's hard to get E to eat nearly enough fruit and veggies. So a lot of our fruit intake has been smoothies.
But recipes for smoothies sort of amuse me. I never use a recipe. I keep a big bag of frozen berries, mangoes (when they are just edging on too ripe) and other fruit in the freezer, oj, homemade yogurt or store bought kefir in the fridge and just grab and go.
I need to get some kefir cultures and make it from scratch at some point soon. But Helios Organic Vanilla Kefir is a favorite of mine. Straight from the bottle it's thick, like a not quite set right yogurt, and satisfies my sweet tooth nicely. Blended with frozen milk cubes it's sort of milkshake-y. I've heard you can culture kefir from coconut milk, and I'm curious about that for virgin pina coladas.
So.. this is probably the only time this will happen. I'm going to write down a recipe for a kefir version of a childhood favorite. I think I've mentioned before my mother was anti-sweets for my brother and I. Really not fair with a dad who thinks chocolate is a food group, but we got all those old health food store snacks. Yogurt covered raisins, rock hard candies made with sesame seeds and honey, carob (which I STILL hate).
But when my face still had all the stitches in it, I couldn't eat, so mom made me smoothies until I got the stitches out of my mouth. My favorite was her creamsicle smoothies that she made with honey, orange juice concentrate, ice cubes, vanilla and plain yogurt. Now occasionally I make them for my family.

Orange Vanilla Smoothie-
1 tray of ice cubes
3/4 cup frozen oj concentrate- undiluted
1 cup water
2 cups vanilla yogurt or vanilla kefir, for the yogurt, just add vanilla and sweetener to plain yogurt to taste. In my case, it's enough vanilla to tint my yogurt tan. I LOVE vanilla. (and the homemade vanilla in homemade yogurt.. YUM!)

Blend until smooth. Makes 3 servings.
Soft set yogurt rocks for smoothies, so if it didn't set up quite as thick as you like for yogurt, use it for smoothies.
If you mix prepared oj and vanilla yogurt half and half and pour it into an ice pop mold, you have homemade orange vanilla pops that are low-fat (if you used low-fat milk for your yogurt) and full of vitamin c and happy beneficial bacteria goodness.

But I do let my kids have chocolate and have never tried to convince them that carob was the same thing but better.

Saturday, the first day of Mike's vacation, we went to the Bear Paw Festival. I bought a bunch of ride tickets for the kids, gave them the tickets, then Mike and I went and found a nice patch of grass to sit in under a tree while they used up the tickets. They had a blast. I got seriously too warm. The first time we walked by the fire truck spraying water for the kids to play in, I didn't follow E in, I just held her purse for her. On the way back though.. I needed it too much. So I limped in with my cane and all the kids and just stood under the downpour of water while Mike held my purse and E's so we could do that. Thank goodness he had his hands too full to take a picture!

By which I mean, the quite real physical pain I'm in after entirely too much walking over the last couple of days.
Yesterday, Mike spontaneously decided we should go to the valley. It's a pretty drive, but unfortunately, no turnout spots where I could stop and get a picture. Lots of mountains.
We go out to Sarah's hometown of Wasilla and it sort of broke my heart. What was a charming community I occasionally thought about moving out to quite honestly looks like a California suburb now. It's developed with big box stores. Heck.. it has a Walgreens. ANCHORAGE doesn't have Walgreens. But there it is. The charm of this tiny town has been obliterated by turning into just another 'burb. I know it's not Sarah's fault, but.. well.. it's just too easy to blame her for everything. Some of my favorite stores were still there though, so we went to a thrift store I love out there. It's one of those quintessential type thrift stores, the sort you never know what you'll find there. I found a kit for making a lamp using a plastic doll for the base. I resisted the urge, but it was so hard. I want a tacky little goffy doll lamp and didn't know it until I saw the kit there. They had a rack of 10¢ "slightly blemished" clothes. E and I went through the rack and found her a bunch of shirts and one pair of men's pants that fit her. She was thrilled. William won my heart again by finding a Arthur Conan Doyle book and a collected works of Shakespeare he wanted. Yay!
We had lunch and wandered a bit more, then came back into town.
Today of course, Mike grilled. I made a bbq sauce tomato based with molasses for him to use on the chicken and ribs he made. Usually he doesn't do hunk of meat type grilling but this turned out wonderful. He also grilled asparagus, peppers, mushrooms and zucchini. All of that was amazing of course, and the asparagus was just flat out sinful. Yum yum! Wm and I walked up to get some ice cream, and at midnight we walked up to see the fireworks.
See, ours are always at midnight, after a double header baseball game. Which usually winds up going into extra innings so figure about 0015-0030 usually. It's never really dark then, just twilighty, but today was cloudy enough it was a decent show.
Too much walking for me though. Really.

One of the nicest parts of today was talking to Lamar. He stopped by on his motorcycle (yes, he was able to order the parts I tracked down for him) and he gushed some more about the sugar free chocolate banana bread I made him. He offered one of his new neighbors a slice and the neighbor loved it and asked where he got it. Lamar said "My daughter made it, but she's kind of funny. If I ask her to make it, she won't, so I have to enjoy this and wait for the next time she feels like it."
Two things. First, yes. I am actually that contrary with family too. Everyone got a good laugh off that, because it's completely true. If you ask me to make banana bread, I might make you a vegetarian lasagna instead. I probably won't make banana bread. But flattery will get you something sweet.
Second.. more importantly. He called me his daughter. See, I've NEVER doubted I was one of Lamar's kids, even if I don't call him Poppy like a lot of them do. He's been an active part of my life since I can remember and was the ONLY person outside of our immediate family allowed to punish me and my brother. That said, he's never called me daughter before. I felt so loved and appreciated. Special.
Oh, and I got a picture of him in his motorcycle leathers. I'll pull it off my camera later to show you all. It was cute. I was worried about my batteries, and he saw me messing with my camera and asked if I needed to advance the film. You can imagine the look on my face. Of course, it was a very retro-tech day in some ways. Dad's next door neighbor was listening to The Boss on an old suitcase style turntable. My mind broke a bit. Her gf brought the turntable over, and with her gf standing right there, she explained she always liked him and showed me the cover of the album, remember that album cover? Or bum cover? Yeah. She pointed out what a nice butt he had back in the 80s. Funny thing is.. Mike and I were talking about bums earlier and I told him I could appreciate them in some ways, but mostly.. I preferred hands. What was a guy's butt going to do for me? Hands though...
Lovely day.
I have a pattern to write up for the headband I made.

Threadless reprinted that Red design I loved so much since it won the Bestee award for last month. Still love it so much. Coolest teeshirt ever!

I've been experimenting with non-shampoo methods of washing my hair, and yesterday I tried Chinese Bee and Flower soap in rose. You've seen the stuff I'm sure, it comes in a pretty flowered paper wrapping with wrapped cigar band label and a gold colored medallion sticker? It is NOT a vegan-safe soap. It contains tallow. I washed my hair twice with it, then did a vinegar/water 1:1 rinse. My hair came out shiny and clean. Not quite as easy to comb as using baking soda/vinegar, but not impossible either. I won't do it regularly, but occasionally when I want suds, it's a definite option. It worked a WHOLE lot better then trying Dr. Bronner's with a vinegar rinse. (but All-One is still great for almost everything else in the world)

Working on a new bun cover, and it's turning out well.
( pictures of trees )
Would it be awful to ask for people to look at my Amazon reviews to help boost my review ranking?

E got her hair cut to donate today. She's very happy with it. 9 and half inches short. I felt like crying, but she's thrilled.
After, we went hiking for a couple hours at McHugh Creek Park. I'm sure everyone wants to see pictures of a squirrel. Because I enjoyed taking them!
( SQUIRREL! )
More later. I'm pretty wiped, but it was fun.

Cliffjumping Supplies ad on Craigslist.

For people who are curious about what Redoubt is doing.
Alaska Volcano Observatory's Twitter
KTUU's Volcano Watch Page, KTUU is our local NBC affliate.

So far,it's erupted 6 times, but Anchorage is not in the ash fall area so far, and if it *does* erupt and drop ash in the Anchorage area, we've been ready for it, and so far, it's been light ash, nothing like what Spurr did 1992. But we do have masks and our windows are sealed just in case.

Fur Rendezvous, more commonly called just Fur Rondy is our big winter festival. It's both the name of a World Championship Sled Dog race, not quite as big as the Iditarod, and the name of the festival. It's a city wide thing that is so very Alaskan. There are craft shows and competitions (I didn't enter this year, but I've won ribbons in the beadwork section in the past), there is a fur bikini contest, in fact, there are a lot of things that make animal rights groups hate us in it. Like the fur and the dog sled races weren't enough, a brand new part of it is Bob and Mark's brain child Running with the Reindeer, William Oefelein and his partner Colleen Shipman both signed up to be in that. I guess they are moving here now that they've both retired from their military careers.
When I was a kid, I won second place in the booster button design contest. My mom was outrageously proud of me, and my kids, when they think of it, wear that button during Fur Rondy. I buy that one when I see it at thrift stores to give to friends.
I have a lot of happy memories of going to various Fur Rondy events around town as a kid, and even as a young woman, but the last few years, my health or my body have kept me from them. This weekend, we made a point of bring the kids (I know.. W=not a kid anymore, but he'll ALWAYS be a kid to me I think). It was about 20°F, and I gotta tell you.. not a CHANCE I'd sit on one of those cold plastic seats and get colder riding a carnival ride, but they had a blast.
Mike went with full intention of getting horrible for you carnival food, but decided his hands were better in his pockets. He won me a cute bear to go in my collection of bears he's won me, and W won me a purple gorilla. After, we went to one of our favorite local places to eat. It's a little diner with formica tables and cheerful waitresses and the BEST Monte Cristo sandwich in town.
It was a lot of fun.
( pic of the kids )
I'm glad we went Saturday, the temp has dropped again, and it's a lot colder now.

I was talking to jehanna about vanilla extract, and a little bit of research revealed that cinnamon extract has been proven to be helpful to people with type 2 diabetes. We talked about adding a bit of cinnamon to a vanilla extract, and then talked about making a rum for eggnogs. Sort of an adult version of flavored creamers that could be mixed with milk/cream/eggs/sugar for a strong rich flavor. Since vanilla extracts improve with age, it stands to reason if you started infusing flavor into a good rum now, by Christmas it would be amazing, and if you wanted to make it extract strong, you could make a low alcohol egg nog as well. Decanted into smaller bottles with a label printed up with an eggnog recipe on it, it would make a nice hostess gift. I'm thinking nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla to make the extract, after 6 months, strain and bottle, and when you gift it, bag and tie some pieces of vanilla beans and cinnamon around the neck.

Since the micro sd card and adapter worked so well with my phone, Mike checked his to see if he had a spot for a micro sd, and it did, so he did the same thing to finally get the photos off his phone. Hmm.. one warning/possible trigger. A plastic spider.
( he hadn't downloaded them off his phone since he got it )
What's on your menu today? For the first time, I let the kids pick. So we are having marshmallow crisped rice cereal treats, hotdogs, and veggies with dip. This is also probably the last time I let them pick.

So.. after several weeks of "No. I'm not going outside, you can't make me. I'm staying right here with my blanket and my space heater and my cup of tea." we had a sudden heatwave.

Which closed down schools yesterday and today. Which would ONLY happen here. Really. See, after a week of seriously sub-zero temps, -20°F, the ground was frozen. So yesterday when it hit 32-34°F which is about 0°C for everyone not from the US, it rained. A freezing rain which hit the frozen ground and froze into nice big sheets of black ice. People were driving 2-3 miles per hour in some areas if they had to drive at all, and school was canceled for Anchorage and the Mat-Su valley. Today, it got up to 46°F, which just fwiw, almost unheard of for January in Anchorage. All the rain and snow? Is huge puddles, some of them, a foot or more deep. Plus high winds, seriously like push with all your weight to get doors open type winds. A strong Chinook wind in January.

Baked the Fudge Cake from the Dining on Dime Cookbook to test the recipe before E makes it for Dad for his b-day Sunday. We tried it with peppermint ice cream. Best served hot and molten with ice cream, and served individually because it's messy, it's got a hot fudge-y center. This cookbook is great. Lots of simple easy to make recipes, which makes it a great cookbooks for beginners or kids, lots of tips for saving money which makes it great for *everyone*, and it's seriously non-intimidating. It's a friendly cookbook! It doesn't have big color pictures or anything like that. It's just a nice plain friendly cookbook, with craft recipes and beauty product recipes in it as well. Not affiliated, just love the cookbook.
( recipe )

Well.. I have an interest in fermented foods, and baking, and Mike wants to start carving me more spoons. At the zoo yesterday, we saw spoons coated in sourdough starter and dried. In a nice bit of symmetry with that site, Mike's inspiration for carving spoons isn't just the fact I prefer wooden spoons, but also Dick Proenneke's sourdough pancake spoon. Watching him carve it out wasn't the most amazing thing he did living in the wilderness, but it was the one Mike can replicate most easily with hand tools.
You see where this is going right? I can imagine giving friends who love to bake and who like wooden spoons handcarved birch spoons with sourdough starter on them.
Mike and I discussed wood conditioning for the spoons, and we finally settled on a conditioner. I'm not a big fan of food safe mineral oil which is what's most frequently used because it's a petroleum by product, so what we are going to use is a variation of my lipbalm. Food safe beeswax mixed with walnut oil. Walnut oil dries without going rancid, and beeswax will provide some water resistance. It won't need as much re-application as the walnut oil on it's own, and it's not petroleum. I'll pour the balm in my old prescription bottles with instructions for application, so it will be recycling too!
I'm going to make some of the finish up in the next few days and try it out on one of my spoons to see how it looks and performs.

( more than meets the eye )
Tonight our local PBS station replayed Alone in the Wilderness which is just one of Mike's and my favorite shows ever. It's the story of Dick Proenneke and how he came to leave to urban life, and build a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He originally planned on just staying for a couple of seasons, and wound up living here for 35 years until he was 82. It's inspiring, and beautiful. The film quality isn't great, but it's Alaska, and it's really hard to take a bad picture of the wilderness here. I don't plan to move to the middle of nowhere, but it's still really inspiring. This guy was a fantastic example of make it, make do, do without and manage with less. He made his washbasin with tins from supplies he brought in or had flown in, he built the cabin using all hand tools, and all the furniture in it. Even the hinges on the cabin door were handmade of wood, and the ones on his outhouse were handmade from aluminum packaging. He is really one of my heroes, one of those people who did something absolutely "crazy" and made it work, by his own hard work and imagination. He journaled extensively in the process as well as filming. You can order the DVD here if you're interested, it's a great story about a very interesting man.

E and I made simple record cuff bracelets today with some of the records I picked up last night, then she wanted to make a bowl.
She picked Jim Nabors Christmas Album, and we put a Pyrex bowl on a pizza sheet, then put the record on that, and popped it in the oven. The Pyrex bowl we could find was fairly large, so when the record slumped, it slumped naturally into 3 fluted edges and a vague triangle shape E was very happy with. So we exaggerated the shape after we pulled it out, and called it good.
( pictures )
Now, it seems to me, everyone should know how to make these,but if you don't, they are super fast and easy.
Heat your oven to 200°F or about 93°C and find an oven safe bowl of some sort. Stainless steel or Pyrex work well. Put the bowl on a cookie sheet or pizza pan open side down, then balance the record on top with the label centered on the bottom of the bowl. Put it in the oven for about 2 or 3 minutes. Seriously, that's all it takes. Pull it out when it slumps and working fast, crimp the pleats/flutes how you want them. The record will be hot, so oven mitts or potholders help.It cools pretty fast, then it's that shape. If you aren't happy with the shape, pop it back in the oven to re-soften and do it again. Better done with older kids only because the records get hot, but younger kids can decorate slumped records with rub ons, stickers, gel pens, or paint. I don't recommend eating something like chips or popcorn out of these bowls because I'm not sure if the vinyl will leech ickiness into food, but wrapped candy is fine. Which is why that one is full of kisses. It will be E's Christmas present for her Grandpa. She's pretty thrilled, it's a Christmas record, which will be full of Christmas kisses, on Christmas. And while I did most the work, she helped out enough to feel like it's something she made for him.

I updated Beadwork at BellaOnline with a bunch of links to recycled bead projects. I also posted a couple new links to pictures in my newsletter. (there's a subscription link on the side of the BellaOnline page). Here are the pictures if you're interested.
Polar Bears, taken at the zoo last Saturday.
Trees, taken in the same place this picture was taken before winter.

I don't have an icon for "I'm absolutely thrilled with something political at this moment in time" much less one for "Alaskans made a smart political decision"

But!!!!
BEGICH WINS!
And more importantly, Stevens loses and we DIDN'T elect a felon to the Senate. Although.. it's a whole lot closer then it should have been.
YAY!!!

Not having the right icon, I decided to use my Sanrio icon, because I don't get to often enough, and it's always a good time for Hello Kitty!

I realized, I never made myself an icon with any of the pictures I took of ravens, geese, or magpies.
There are different kinds of spatial relationship imaging people are good at. Mike for instance, can't visualize a 2 d form folded into a 3 d form, or how you would make a 2 d drawing that could fold into a 3 d form. I'm not bad at that. Mike however, can not get lost if he's seen a map, and consistently knows his compass points. In the town I grew up in, I'm blindly guessing most of the time.
Saturday, while we were out, we were playing my "road song" play list on my ipod, which is full of songs everyone likes to sing along with. On that play list, is the song "Should I Stay or Should I Go?". Because really, who 35 and up can't hear it without singing along?
We saw a flock of geese flying over, and I said "I guess they figure it's time to go." (it's winter here, and it's been in the 20s F, or below 0° C)
Mike looked up, and said "They are Republican geese" and looked at him. He said "They are flying north."

The ravens this year are huge, healthy, and full of glossy feathers, and arrogance in the way ravens can be. They've been bold, and flying and landing very close to people. I almost ducked one at the grocery store, and said "The ravens are huge this year!". Mike looked at me, and said "I thought that was an F16?"

*giggles*