The view from my table

Dad and Juniper watching the parade

My bee houses

St Johns Bizarre
Saturday May 12th, 2012
10:00 AM until 7:00 PM
stjohnsbizarre.com/

2012 will mark The St. Johns Bizarre’s sixth year of creating a forum for neighbors and friends to celebrate our community. We hope to display all that our community has to offer. The Bizarre is a showcase of the unique and eclectic character of North Portland. Included is local music, street performers, a vendor’s market, sausage, pizza, a Bier Garten, kids art activities, and a close proximity to all the wonderful business located in our town center.

The finished pork

The finished salad

I served it alongside a cold asparagus salad. Fresh asparagus, lightly steamed and shocked in ice water, tossed with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper, topped with parmigiano reggiano.

Also from the book, I made some fresh strawberry jellies

The cookies are from one of my favorite recipes on Epicurious. Fudgy Meringue Cookies

Truffle salt focaccia.

All was served with our homemade pinot noir and raspberry dessert wine.

But the most delicious dishes of the evening were these two:

And the best dinner guests are the ones who bring amazing flowers.

Still chugging away at stuff for the St Johns Bizarre on Saturday May 12th. I’m falling behind. It’s going to be a busy weekend.

I gardened this weekend. Planted Pak Choi, Collards, Green beans and Sugar Snap Peas. Lots of green things this summer for me.

There is a time to be fierce, to push and fight to get somewhere. And there is a time to take a breath and slow down. I’m smelling the flowers right now.

I have narrowed down all of my problems into two main categories:
1. I don’t have enough money
2. I’m too fat

When I boiled down my problems into such tiny sentences, they seemed less overwhelming. So yeah. What to do. I could talk in circles about how I started the necklaces because I hoped they’d bring in enough extra cash every month so that I could concentrate on my Art with a capital “A.” And I could talk about how when that didn’t work, I decided to start taking small website projects so I could get some money coming in and be more free to work on my Art with a capital “A.” But as we know, or maybe we don’t know… All the money I made from the last two projects was completely wiped out by Mississippi’s surgery, and then some.

Well that sucks. I feel like I’m trying to run up a landslide. And so, I’m going to sit down. I’m going to stop fighting my way up a hill I’m never going to get on top of. Breath…. breath…. Time to figure things out. The good news is, I have a whole lotta art supplies and a craft show in one month. I have enough for the show now. So, I’m going to focus on making stuff to bring to the show. No expectations on selling anything, because the last few months have proven to me, there’s no money in my necklaces. Nope, I’m just going to go, have a good time, and hang out with other crafty people, hopefully enjoy some sun, enjoy the Corin Tucker Band and Mo Phillips, and just enjoy the day. What a nice sounding goal. So here I go. Gonna make some stuff, at my leisure, with no pressure, and then I’m gonna put it on a table and hang out for the day.

And did you notice how all of my financial goals revolved around trying to find a way to make more time to make Art? Yeah I noticed that too. So maybe money isn’t as much the issue as the lack of time to make Art. Seriously, if I stopped worrying about getting out of debt, I would be sooooooo happy to do nothing all day but glue popsickle sticks together. And you know what? If I did that, I would make the MOST awesome popsickle stick sculpture. Well, except that I don’t have time. Juniper just needs to get old enough to help me with more with projects.

So… the fat part. Well, I’m going to just keep working on that one. I’m working on it. One day I feel desperate, the next day I am, well, not desperate. It would probably be easier to feel desperate all the time, and that would stop me from ordering pulled pork sandwiches, but that also sounds kinda sucky being desperate all the time. so anyway, I’m not going to make any statements or promises I can’t keep. I’m just going to keep trying. Baby steps, one day at a time, and all the other cliche things you can think of to say about this sort of thing.

Juniper just woke up from her nap and is in her crib singing the ABCs to herself. She’s so cool.

So, rewind back to Saturday 4am. Mississippi starts puking. She basically doesn’t stop puking until about 9 that night when we took her to the doggy ER. She would eat a bunch of grass, puke it up, eat more grass, puke it up, repeat. I picked up about 2 cups worth of eaten and regurgitated grass Saturday afternoon from our backyard. She was trying to get something out of her tummy. She didn’t eat or drink anything except for a bite of food in the evening which she immediately threw up. So we took her to Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital in NW Portland Saturday night and they x-rayed her and took blood samples. She was dehydrated but nothing showed up on the x-ray so we decided to play the waiting game and see if whatever it was that was making her sick would clear up on it’s own. They gave her subcutaneous fluids and anti-nausea meds. The fluids are basically pumped under her skin so her body can absorb them over time. Saturday night she got some decent rest but was still not eating and was panting, drooling, clearly still nauseous and not feeling well in general Sunday morning. She just wanted to hide in dark places in the backyard or basement. We took her back in Sunday about noon. They gave her more fluids and anti-nausea meds and we decided to continue to wait and see until Monday morning. Her mood was still about the same. Still a little bit of a waggy tail, still an occasional bark, but clearly not a happy pup.

Waiting at the Doctor

She got a few hour’s rest Sunday night but was feeling bad again by 2am, I nearly took her back in then, but she curled up on the couch and went to sleep so I joined her and waited til the morning. I brought her in at 6am Monday and admitted her for an ultrasound. Sure enough, she had something blocking her intestines so they did surgery about 11. They removed a very large chunk of what looks like thick rubber ball from her small intestines. We visited her last night. She looks terrible. They were hoping she’d be able to come home this morning (Tuesday) but she’s not eating. I went down there and tried to hand feed her but she wouldn’t take it. The Doctor still feels optimistic that she’s recovering well, but she’s giving her food through a tube now. Tom is going to pay a visit tonight after work and see if she’ll eat for him. We’re now hoping she can come home tomorrow.

We don’t know for sure where this rubber piece came from. We think she probably got ahold of it at her doggy daycare on Friday. I think they are generally pretty good at throwing away damaged dog toys there. Our dog is a moron for eating large, inedible objects. I don’t blame them, but at the same time, my heart is breaking. Not to mention what an incredible financial burden this is. I don’t know when I’ll ever be comfortable letting her out of my sights again. I just want my baby back. Please eat Mississippi. We love you and miss you. We want you home.

Post Surgery

This is gross, but this is what they took out of her:

“If it weren’t for my children, I would probably still be looking for my deep artistic expression. Having children helped me realize that sometimes scratching the surface is enough to find your creative flow.”

Now I’ve had a couple of cookies, I’m ready to kick ass again.

button
women’s and children’s consignment
6517 N Interstate
Portland OR
buttonpdx.com

You know what one of the best things about the gym is? I can take a shower and wash my hair without some lecherous toddler coming in to ogle my breasts or throw library books into the water. And I can sit in the steam room and just breath, just me. It feels like such a luxury.

They have daycare too! That was one of the big draws. I’m getting Juniper slowly used to it. She’s gone for 15 minutes (total melt down), then 30 (not melted down but close) and today for 15, I decided to scale back to 15 until she has a few successful experiences, then work my way up to 30 and 45 minutes.

As a newish mom, I can’t tell you how incredible it feels to be going to the gym. So anyway, yay gym.

We added a nice jquery slideshow widget: Skitter slideshow to showcase items on the homepage.

I’m eating *almost* vegan. I am still eating chicken stock. I had some brie. Oh, Saturday I had a hangover and had eggs and bacon . I’ve still been putting milk in my coffee. Other than that, I’ve been doing really good staying away from most animal products. And it’s paying off. I’ve lost a couple pounds.

I wanted to average 10,000 steps a day but last week I actually managed more. Here’s my fitbit progress report:

The stretching I’m not doing so good with. I’m stretching but there’s no rhyme or reason to when or how I do it. Gotta work on that one.

I’d like to fit into my wedding dress by summer. And I’d like to fit back into Tom’s jeans so I can start stealing them again.