Closet Porn

Inspired by recent closet postings by Gina as well as several from my French Chic group, I decided to take a photo of my newly cleaned out closet. Much has gone the way of eBay, the thrift store, and the consignment store. Not exactly down to just ten pieces, but it's much better, and I can actually wear everything AND I actually like everything. All my workout clothes are in the bins on the left, which will make it much easier to pick something out at 4:30 in the morning!

I'm pretty happy with it, and plan to continue the weeding process. I have my eye on a couple of things for fall, including some new boots and a new purse, both in cognac leather. I'm really falling in love with that color lately. Anyway, it's the end of the weekend, so I'm going for a little bike ride.

Woohoo!

I think I understand that funny phenomenon where people lose a lot of weight when they start getting rid of stuff. You suddenly start feeling a million times freer and lighter just by the sheer acting of unloading. I know this probably sounds like I have truckloads of stuff, and I guess in some ways I do: I get gifts, I give myself gifts, I get stuff and for some reason, I have stacks of magazines from a year ago because I was always going to go through them to rip stuff out for my Style File.

So, then I realized--I have ripped out a few pages for my Style File--because they were actually my style. These are the ones that are actually in my Style File, by the way, the rest are in a box waiting to go IN the Style File. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think I may have actually found my style. Which is also making this process of getting rid of bunch of clothes and stuff a million times easier!

So far, I've made about $125 on eBay (although the final bids aren't in), I've sold six books on Amazon, I have a box of things for the consignment store (and I can take fall stuff starting in August) and about three boxes ready for the thrift store. My darling husband will be so excited!

I also still have a bunch of things sitting here waiting to get their pictures taken for eBay, so I'm going to stay up late tonight and finish....then tomorrow will be a couple of organizing projects (and cleaning all the huskey sheddings out of the car...ick).

And I'm finally getting over my horrid cold, too. Found a new doctor, who gave me another round of mega antibiotics (so now there shouldn't be one germ in my body, good or bad!) and a decongestant that's making me drier than a dustbowl, so I'm just chugging water and tea. But feeling good for the first time in three weeks! Now maybe I can start riding my bike and finally get this knee on some serious re-hab.

More later, and hopefully a soap lesson soon, too!

A Little Shopping to Round the Day Out...

The last part of my adventure in town was technically part of my de-cluttering fixation of late: I took a few more summer things to the consignment store (the rest are going on eBay starting tomorrow). Well, I guess it's okay that I took a boxful in and only came out with three things, right? I had a credit in there anyway, and even after my three purchases, I still have a credit. I was also directed to go home and get all my fall consignments ready for August....whooopee! I have a few gorgeous fall things that are too big now (yea!) and have to go, which makes even more room for my pre-fall purchases. First up, this great silver ring on a suede necklace. I love it---just so "me." Oh, and sorry for the rather ambiguous photo...I was in post-heat shopping and gardening mode, not quite ready for prime-time.

Next up are these fantastic pants, and I couldn't quite get a photo to do them justice. The fabric is an amazing kind of heathery-fawn color, with a subtle sheen to it almost--almost as if it were gold but it's not. They're awesome except for the high-waist (how do people wear stuff up to their belly-button anyway? Sheesh!), so I'm going to have my seamstress try to bring that down. If it doesn't work, I'm making a clutch out of them. Yeah, the fabric is that good.
Okay, and then last is my favorite. This mohair sweater in green (I love green) that'll tie so much of my wardrobe together. The bell sleeves are to die for, and while the button has to go, the shawl collar is one of my favorite things. It's long without being too long, too. Love it!

Farmers Market & Garden Day!

The garden is coming along pretty well, considering I got a really late start this year and have sort of been out of "gardening commission" for a couple of weeks. I rotated some things out last night and replanted, then got a little "four-legged help" on the corner there while we went out for a glass of wine. I keep trying to get the nasturtiums all the way around, and the little WooWoo keeps digging them up! We had probably the third talk this summer about how doggies aren't supposed to help in the garden!

The French Breakfast Radishes are ravishing!And the nasturtiums and mesclun will make a great spicy salad tomorrow night at my in-laws.
The plums are coming in, too, and we have two kinds and some apples. Can't wait! I broke down and got some more basil and another tomato plant after the heat killed mine, and also got a couple of French Lavender plants for the front porch to console myself since I didn't get to go to the Lavender Festival last weekend.

Yea! I also got to visit the Farmers Market today because my husband went kayaking and I'm not quite up for action and adventure just yet (still feeling kinda sick, still working on my knee). The day started out just blazing hot--even at 9 in the morning. I saw the guys off on their adventure and got my morning coffee, then headed downtown to the market. I was a little bummed because the lamb lady wasn't there with her lamb sausages and I was going to get a couple skeins of wool, too. But I did get some great Idaho potato sausages and some smoked buffalo sausages from Lost River Meats in Mackay, ID, a few of the first crop of fresh Idaho peaches and some Idaho bing cherries. I've been practically living on cherries for two weeks!

Also found some beets and potatoes, and got three baby baguettes (asiago, walnut, and something else that I can't remember) and a loaf of Cranberry Orange bread, too. The company that makes the bread brings it up from Utah and uses a grape starter. A friend gave me a grape starter recipe that I really need to experiment with, but not while the weather's so hot!

I also picked up a container of fat little blackberries and some hot garlic cheese curds. Mmm.... off to make myself some lunch! It looks like a rainstorm is heading in, too, thank goodness. Although it might ruin tonight's plans for going to the races, it will be so nice to have a little break from the heat.

Ooops du Jour

So I found some great Patons "Katrina" yarn, on sale. Like really, really on sale....I think it was a dollar a skein. Love it--chocolate brown (mmmmm), sorta shiny-ish, stretchy. And I needed a nice, plain little cardi, so I started whipping up the Chic Knits Scoop du Jour. The design was exactly what I was looking for, but the designing left quite a bit to be desired, and I kept making all kinds of changes to it. The more I consider designing myself, the more I appreciate patterns with forethought.

But anyway, yarn substitution is just evil, because no matter how good my remedial math skills are (and yea, by the way, I did pass my remedial summer math course and can now move up to just above remedial math!), I calculated wrong.

So, my Scoop du Jour just turned into a big Oops du Jour. But it's going to work out just fine, maybe even better as a great additition to my wardrobe! I ripped out the sleeve-and-a-half, and the two front pieces, then I started reworking the sleeve into an elbow sleeve and the front will now become a pull-over style instead of a button up. Voila!

Sick Day

So, I've had this wretched cold/flu/whatever thing for a week now, and I'm pretty well ready to be over it. I'm so not good at being sick. I hate being sick more than anything! Ugh. Everyone teased me after my knee surgery that I couldn't stay down---my husband couldn't believe that I was still busier than he was!

This cold is kicking my butt, though. I started getting sick last Saturday, which was the worst possible time: I had three tests, one 20-page paper, a presentation, a bunch of stuff for work and a full load of Pilates classes! Well, I've made it through everything, but my Fourth of July sucked royally: I just slept all day, then tried to study for my math test while everyone else went to watch fireworks. Yesterday was just the bare minimum: taught Pilates at 5:00 am, went to work for a couple of hours, took my math final, worked a little more, dropped of a FedEx, then helped my husband install my new (woohoo!) Cadillac Tower at the studio.

I slept for a while, but it was really too hot to sleep. That's the other problem with being sick in the summer: the normal remedies like hot baths, hot tea, and down comforters aren't exactly summer-friendly. Bleh. So we got up and went to Driggs to see the Clumbsy Lovers. They were doing an outdoor concert last night and it was super-fun. People up there breed like rabbits, though! I can't believe how many kids, babies and pregnant women we saw. Holy cow!

So today I taught a private lesson and then I'm taking the rest of the day off. My husband went kayaking with his friend, and I'm going to catch up on some knitting (almost have my Scoop du Jour finished!), some shopping, and finally getting my closet organized. I'm also going to try to not talk too much...afraid I might lose my voice!

Oh, and I'm getting stuff ready for the August Fire Sale, too. I'm thinking of making some batches of soap and lip balm for it---I used to have a little skin care company, and in the last six months I've had seven or eight people request stuff again. Wow!

Midnight Paddle on the Lake

What a fun night---I love it when the unexpected happens. I was home studying all day (have to do that today, too....ugh) and my husband and his friend climbed Dissapointment Peak in the Tetons. He got back and we hemmmed and hawed about going to a Bluegrass concert at the art museum because I also caught cold yesterday. I HATE being sick more than anything in world, in fact.

Anyway, after a few phone calls to see where our friends would be sitting, a peppermint and rosemary bath where I mostly sat pouting about my cold, and finally getting dressed and out the door, we made it just in time to see the last group, a fairly reknown fiddler from here. She was so cute and had tons of personality, too. Then my husband noticed a guy that we paddled with in the Tetons last October, and I went over say hi. He's pretty amazing to me, because despite being blind, he's an excellent paddler who thinks nothing of carrying his own boat over steep or rocky terrain, hiking around rocks and trees, etc. Okay, so there was the unfortunately incident where my husband walked him straight into a tree, but we won't discuss that any further (thank God it's at the "funny now" stage).

Anyway, I went and said hi to Todd and he asked if I wanted to paddle Gem Lake, about four miles away...tonight? Well, yeah! Of course I do---the news has been reporting a giant full moon for this weekend (not that it mattered either way to Todd, of course), and the chance to do something so fun and unexpected was too much temptation. I ran back to tell my husband and to invite the four friends we were with. Two weren't so sure, but the other two were ready to go load their kayaks. The not-so-sure's hadn't ever paddled before, but we convinced them and ran to get our kayaks: the sea kayaks for our friends and the whitewater boats for us (I hadn't been in that hated whitewater boat since I almost drowned).

After a mad rush to grab boats, floats, paddles, life jackets, and sweaters, we were at the launch ramp exactly at 10:30. Todd and his wife weren't there yet, but we got to meet their friends Jana and Bonnie. Jana's deaf and I got to practice my (really remedial) signing with her. She was a lot of fun and invited me to their ASL study group, which I just might take her up on. I feel like my sign is as bad as my French at this point...wow, use it or lose it, huh?.

Anyway, we jumped in the boats and launched. It was gorgeous, calm, warm, and so much fun for a bunch of people to just suddenly meet and instantly have so much to talk about. Until the cops showed up, of course....the park closes at 11. So, by midnight we were on our way home, somehow feeling like kids again....we almost tried to find an all-night diner for biscuits and gravy!

Valentine's Day Picnic

I love, love, love Valentine's Day! This year, we actually celebrated a day early because I had back-to-back Pilates clients on the "actual day." I ran by the store after work and picked up some favorites: three pounds of king crab legs, a par-baked baguette, a bottle of wine, and a couple of gorgeous chocolate covered strawberries. I mean, looking at these beauties in the display case, could you pass them up? Mmm....

While my husband was at the gym, I started a huge pot of water to boil and clicked the oven on. As soon as he got home, the crab went in the pot and the baguette in the oven. By the time he'd showered, we had a nice little picnic all set out on the floor (the better for just lying around and cuddling). Other may have fun going out in the cold, teetering in their heels in ankle-deep slush and snow, dealing with impatient waiters trying to hurry you out before the next table arrives? Pas du tout!

My darling husband sent me a bouquet of roses on Monday, since we will be leaving for a wonderful Yellowstone weekend on Thursday morning and he wanted me to enjoy them. I gave him a ski joring set so that he and our doggie can drag each other around in the snow. Seems to be the hardest part so far is getting the durn thing on the dog! We'll see how that progresses.

Tea and Toast

"With just a little extra effort, something as simple as bread and water becomes tea and toast."

Mmmm....simple pleasures, eh? And making a little seemingly heaven out of seemingly hell, as one of my marketing profs would say. Although there's hardly any hell in homemade bread and fresh springwater, but the point of this post is that with just a little bit of trying, we can make our lives exponentially better, nicer, more elegant.

This little nugget of wisdom isn't my own necessarily, but the thoughts came to me when a friend of mine (yes, even though we've only "met" over the Internet, I'd consider her wonderful enough to be someone with whom I love to be friends) said something recently on a chat group. It was a quotation, although I liked her version of it better than the original quote, which was attributed to "anonymous," I think, and so I'll attribute it to her instead. Check her other stuff out here:

http://ponderingsofapackrat.blogspot.com/

Gold Bug

One of my favorite things to do is relax in a hot bath. The warm water, the peace, the splashy sounds...and the fact that you usually get to be all alone (unless you get a dog--then for some reason your bath time turns into a hysterical event with lots of bath water-drinking, barking, freaking out, and frantically running from the bathroom to the kitchen to the den and back again).

Anyway, soaking in hot water is even better outdoors, of course. But not in a hot tub (unless it's the Boat Box, but I'll get to that another time), in a natural hot springs. Yeah, comercial hot springs are nice for the therapeutic effect of naturally hot mineral water, but they were only created so that tourists would have a place to pay for such a treat. I'm lucky to live in an area rich in sub-surface volcanic activity, the kind of place that just breeds hot springs.

One of our favorite places to go is called Gold Bug, and on a sub-zero, gorgeously sunny day like today, it's a little piece of heaven on earth. You hike about 45 minutes or so in--although starting at the trail head and looking up to the mountains you're about to climb, you'd probably never guess that heaven is less than an hour away. First of all, it's friggin' cold. Walking up the switchbacks that lead the trail, your nose starts to hurt--but just for a minute or so until it goes numb from cold. Then your lips go numb, so forget about trying to whistle for the dog. You start thinking that you don't care how warm the water looks when you get there, you're not taking your clothes off for one second in this frozen wilderness.

Then, just when you think you can't take the frigid cold anymore, you start the hill climb. This is where you earn your treat, but it's also where your body starts warming up enough that you begin thinking that yes, you could take your long undies-winter hiking pants-three pair of socks-two jackets-parka-heavy boots-hat-hood-and both pair of gloves off long enough to get in the water.

The steam starts rolling over the rocks and you know you're almost there. There's a strange juxatoposition that starts taking place along the stream you've been following: instead of cold looking rocks and frozen trees, you start seeing green plants with steamy water lapping over them, along with frosty-white branches where the steam rises over the water, coating the plants and trees above for just an instant before the frozen air kisses it. It's a gorgeous place, and today, it was almost all ours.

A couple of guys and their dogs got there first, and of course, got "the good pool," as it's known. Gold Bug is a system of several pools, all fed by hot water falls, each linking to the other. Some pools are hotter than others, some deeper, some bigger. There's usually enough room for everyone who makes the hike, but weekends are always busiest, because a lot of college students come to de-stress.

The guys left after a half hour or so of our sitting in a smaller, though much hotter (a bit too hot?) pool and we immediately packed up, heading for "the good pool" before anyone else could come up. We had it all to ourselves for a little while, until a local guy came up with his dog. Kodi was so excited to have a friend to run around with, and we continued soaking for another three or so hours until hunger started to get the best of me.

We made a little dinner, and between the three of us, had more than enough for everyone. Some hot sandwiches, smoked gouda and ham jerky, a little booze...and the doggies got to have special doggie power bars. After a bit more soaking, we finally got out and headed back down to civilization.

The drive home was beautiful. If the moon wasn't full, it sure looked it. Doggie and hubby fell fast asleep while I drove. The moonlit landscape looked almost sunny it was so bright, but everything was so calm and peaceful. I felt a little like Isabella Bird might have, cruising along and feeling like the only person on earth. I even got to see a small herd of deer, a couple of bunnies zooming across the road, and an owl. The perfect beginning of a perfect weekend.

Cooking for Cravings

It's definitely comfort food craving night at my house! I cooked up a big batch of rice the other night, making extra on-purpose for fried rice tonight, and the thought of it has been eating at me ever since. I can't wait! I bought some big, fat shrimp for the rice, plus a little chicken and vegetables for some honey-garlic chicken stir fry. Yum....and now I need my wok. I have no idea where it is--still haven't moved in quite yet, but I'm getting to it...sort of. It's okay, I'll make do without the wok, but I have a new wok--a real one--on my list along with a Thai sticky rice steaming basket and pot. I've never been able to hack the sticky rice thing, but I am determined.

I also had a terrific craving for Peanut Blossom cookies, under the supposed idea that we really need something with a lot of peanut protein in it for our Big Sky ski weekend...right. Hey, it's a pretty good excuse, really. And after I finally lost the six pounds I gained in Thailand (plus two for good measure), well...oh, hell. I'm going to have to be careful if I'm ever going to wear the bikini I'm knitting. I bought two bags of Hershey's kisses for the cookies, and while I am so very not a Hershey's kisses kind of girl (I like my chocolate dark, rich, and expensive), that didn't seem to stop me during the annual Christmas cookie bake-off and swearing until midnight ritual. Yeah, ate a whole bowl of those suckers. Okay, any extra kisses are going to work with me for the guys to eat.

And speaking of knitting, I got a bunch of new yarn today! Woohoo! It was a huge haul--18 balls of Cascade's Fixation and a couple balls of Peruvian wool for a felting project. Gorgeous colors...I'm in love! But I have to discipline myself too--there's a paper to write for my marketing class Tuesday and a math test on Wednesday. Bleh.

Big Sky Skiing

On Friday, I'll be here...hopefully skiing. If there's snow, that is, so please, make a little wish for snow for me! Then again, if it's really bad, there are three hot tubs and of course I'll take some knitting. I really wish it were possible to knit in the tub. That would be combining two of my very favorite things, but it's not (trust me).

Oh, and speaking of knitting (heh, heh)... the yarn for my first-ever really, truly design project is here! Well, it's at the yarn store. I'm so excited, but also nervous, and if the pattern doesn't work out...well, I don't want to jinx it by telling anyone what I'm trying to design (hopefully!). So it'll have to stay a secret for a while. But I'm so excited. It's stretchy yarn. Actually, I found some other stretchy yarn (Patons' Katrina) on sale the other day when I was looking for leather cord for my rock necklace. It was on a clearance sale, $1.49 a skein, so I decided to grab some. I didn't even know it was stretchy when I bought it, but suddenly all sorts of possibilities came to mind, and now I'm working on a little cardigan and bikini set. Very resort-chic. Will be perfect for a mid-winter trip to Hawaii next year!

Knitting

Knitting in Thailand

I took my knitting projects practically everywhere on our vacation. Trains, planes, boats, autos...I love to pass the time with knitting, and I had a few projects that I really wanted to complete during the trip. A pair of alpaca fingerless gloves for knitting when it's cold, a pair of cable socks designed by Cookie A. in gorgeous ivory merino (didn't get to start these, so they are tucked away for a future adventure), a felted bag to replace the disaster that I made for my mother (sigh), and my favorite pattern, the Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert. The girl is a genius, by the way, or she made some sort of pact with the devil in order to create such a brilliant design.

Anyway, as any travel knitter will tell you, knitting attracts a lot of attention. Especially for these women, who'd never seen anyone knit. We traded tips (knitting for weaving), and even though we didn't speak a common language, it was completely unneccessary. Nassah, the village leader's wife, seemed pretty dissapointed to learn that I was married. She was ready to wed me away to some guy in her village!

Here I am, knitting on the boat. It looks like I'm concentrating really, really hard, but I think I was just trying to keep that hair out of my eyes. It was pretty windy. So windy, in fact, that my Sunrise Circle Jacket pattern went flying into the sea!
But dear, sweet Been, God bless 'im, was on the case and got them back for me. Yes, we turned the boat around to save the knitting directions.

Travel

Adventures in Thailand

Our Thai honeymon was amazing--just amazing. I knew I would have fun, but I couldn't believe just how much fun I had. I fell in love with everything: the food, the people, the landscape, the warmth, the sea, the mountains...everything. Well, actually, I could do without the "squatch toilets" (as our guide called them) and the humidity. We took well over a thousand photos, and there are many stories to tell, but here are a few highlights:

An offering of lotus and roses


Riding an elephant to one of the villages


One of our island campsites (ours is the camo tent...you probably can't see it)


Buddha statues


A hilltribe girl


Village puppies

Travel

Adventures in Thailand
the funny pics

Okay, so we took this picture because it's obviously hilarious...little did I know what Thai massages were really like...and that's pretty much all I'm gonna say.

So, meet my new friend Mary Ellen. She's awesome, and we wanted a picture of us together next to this waterfall

And so my darling huband snaps this shot. Nice.

Here's me on the elephant again, arial view. But my butt looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Christmas Shopping

Oh my heavens...Christmas shopping. Next year, I'm getting it done in July. No, really. I swear, not only are people very un-jolly at this time of year, but there are just too many of them, the lines are way too long, and why does it take forever to find the right thing? At least I knew what I was looking for!

Now, all I have to get are things for my Pilates students. Thank heavens I'm just about finished. I've got packing and thinking about my honeymoon to do!

Paris and Brittney vs. Sophia and Jayne

I couldn't resist. As someone whose fascination with Paris Hilton astounds even me, I just loved this recent picture of her with Brittney Spears, and it's striking resemblence to another favorite of mine.

Thanksgiving: Beach Knitting!

Knitting at Lake Powell

This is me knitting on the beach at Lake Powell during our Thanksgiving kayak trip. Great day!