Damn you Erika!

I just spent $25 thanks to you (not counting the other $40 in books that I had to get at the same time). I'd already given up cross stitching fifteen years ago, but no, I just had to pick up yet another hobby. The list of projects I currently have going:

- New cross stitch Black Eyed Susans
- Skew socks 50%
- Vampire BF socks 25%
- Wedding shawl (for wedding this saturday) 25%
- Sweater, 2" to be frogged
- purple spinning 75%
- new green spinning
- Swap #2 project, purchased
- Swap #3 project, purchased

not to mention the lotions I have to research.

[recipe] Bruschetta

This is what I'm having for breakfast today ^_^
Ok, nothing revolutionary, but damn is it good!

Previous day:
- four or five tomatoes on the vine
- a sprig of fresh basil
- balsamic vinegar
- olive oil
- salt, pepper and garlic to taste

Chop and mix, and let sit over night.

This morning:
- baguette, sliced on the diagonal
- Cabbots Seriously Sharp Vermont Cheddar, sliced

Place bread on tray and toast in oven at 400 for a few minutes. Meanwhile, slice the cheese, which is then placed on the toasted bread and stuck back in the oven to melt. When gooey, spoon tomato mixture on top. Nom. Try not to scrape your gumms on the toast, like the klutz I am.

Adventures in Smelly Hippie Land

Last night I managed to make deodorant! I started off with angry chicken's recipe, but omitted the cacao butter because the smell is too intense for me (and the vitamine E that I forgot to steal from Amalthea). So why did I have any desire to make my own deodorant?

• - I absolutelymotherfuckinghate scented deodorants. They nauseate me! For the past five years or so, I've been exclusively using Arm and Hammer Baking Soda's unscented antiperspirant, and it has worked for the most part. Except for
• - every once in a while, I will feel a sharp pain in my armpit, like a clogged pore or something.
• - Also, I will still smell after I exercise, no matter how often I reapply.

So what did I use?

• 1 TBS shea butter
• 2/5 TBS corn starch
• 3/5 TBS baking soda
• - melt in the microwave for 30 seconds, checking every 10 that it doesn't boil over.
• - mix well and place in fridge to set
• - a small pea size or less is enough per arm pit (I scrape it with the back of my fingernail and the shard is enough). It will melt very well with body heat.

So I think I put this through the ultimate test. I showered last night and cleaned off the spoon on my pits. I slept in a furnace, and ran many errands in a car that was hotter than deep fried ass. Afterwards, I played two hours of futbol in the damned sun.

Verdict?
At first, my pits felt a bit swampy. The shea butter was too greasy, so I will probably add more dry products next time. But the important thing is that I DON'T SMELL! Like, seriously! After all that, I feel awesome! Ok, now that it's been about three hours since my game, my armpits smell a bit, if I really, really sniff at them. Huzzah!

Things I want to make someday*

*but probably never will. Or it will take me several years to get around to them.

In Mexico, there is a gubernatorial agency in charge of consumer affairs (PROFECO) that analyzes products and grades them, and then offers recipes on how to make them for super cheap! (unfortunately, not all are from scratch, and go for an emphasis on cheap rather than hippie) I remember watching a show about ten years ago on how to make chapstick and lotion!

Here is a "short" list I just compiled of some of the cool things I want to make. Mind you, the links are in spanish. I plan on eventually adding notes, specifying if they can be made naturally.

- Cajeta (video)
- Dulce de Mango (video)
- Marmalade (video)
- Rompope (video)
- Soy Milk (podcast)

Personal product master list
- After Sun Cream (video)
- Antiperspirant (text)
- Bug Spray (video)
- Face Tonic (video)
- Hair Gel (video)
- Hair Wax (video)
- Liquid Hand Soap (video)
- Mascara (video)
- Shaving Cream (video)
- Shoe Deodorant (audio)
- Vick's Vapor Rub (video)

- Insecticide (video)
- Kitchen Cleaner (video)
- Play Dough (video)

Activism Powers Activate!

There are many causes I hold close to my heart: Queer rights, proper education, empowerment of children through music; pretty much anything that helps people be equal and responsible. I've gotten many comments from passersby that see me knitting that I should join Knitivism, but like I stated in an older post, I prefer to actually -do- something with my activism, not just lecture people on how they are wrong (or how people in some country they have no idea about are OMG suffering!!!!1!!one!).


Queue the tree-hugging. Having been born in 1980, I was a proud Planeteer (I know I have my membership card still in a box at my moms house). I wrote a paper for a competition in elementary school about how trash trucks should be divided so we can separate our trash (I wonder if it already existed back then, or if some high-up stole my idea... hmmm...) and I am militant when it comes to reduction of consumption and waste. If you come to my house, don't you dare ask for a paper towel, and you better have carpooled!

The reason I am so passionate about this is that this is something I am actually DOING. I am actively turning off all the lights in the buildings at school that I find not being used. I pick bottles out of the trash and put them in the recycling bin. I pick up trash (even a measly little rusted bottle cap) when I go hiking. I reuse dishes many times before washing them, much to the dismay of my friend Amalthea's mom, Judy.

Poor Judy. You do not want two treehuggers together, because Hippiness Increases Exponentially(TM)! Last weekend was Amalthea's brother's graduation, and we put Judy through hell buying the decorations. I love her dearly, but she is very much of the school of making a big show with tonnes of decorations. Did I tell you that Amalthea and I are a bit militant at times? We managed to convince her to buy very bland and boring compostable sugar cane plates and dissolvable corn starch flatware, and nothing else that was disposable.

So this last week helped me remember a slew of things "I've been meaning to do" for several years now, and since Amalthea started a hippie blog, I feel guilty and I kind of feel I need to step it up. So today I started no-pooing, and I should be making in a bit the deodorant that I found a recipe for several months ago through a slew of blogs. If I'm lucky, this weekend we'll start a compost ^_^ (Dan also planted an apple tree in the yard this weekend, which I'm sad because I was in NJ and couldn't help)

Wish me luck!

I love you alot!

We were having a discussion on LSG about someone not wanting to hire a birthing coach because the class announcement ended with something like "hope 2 see you there". I agree with another poster that mentioned it being unprofessional, like going to an interview in your bunny slippers. Her ravatar is also an alot. I made this for her ^_^

HOLYSHITSTATECOLLEGEDERBY!!!

A friend just gave me the heads up that she saw a Craigslist add two days ago trying to set up a local derby.

I AM SO FUCKING EXCITED!!!!

I just joined their FB group and sent them an email.

!!!!!!!

Now, I know it is still in its fetal stage, but HOLYSHIT!!!!

[recipe] Strawberry Pie

I compulsively bought two pounds of strawberries a couple of weeks ago, without any time to eat them or cook with them before leaving town for MDSW. So I stewed them!

I cut them in half and tossed in a pot at low flame for a few hours until they condensed. No sugar or anything (well, a tad of leftover Manischwietz). The next week, when I had more time, I bought another pound of strawberries and shoved it all in a Pie ^_^

Hot Water and Lard Pastry

Ingredients (makes 2-3 single crusts)

• 1 cup lard or shortening
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups flour

Directions

1 - Put lard in a medium bowl and boil the water.

2 - Pour water over shortening and blend until all the water is absorbed and the mixture is smooth.
3 - Add the flour, salt and baking soda.
4 - Once it is mixed and in one large ball, cut into 3 balls of dough, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. If you want a larger pie crust, just do 2 balls of dough. Uncooked dough can be kept in the fridge for about a week or frozen.

6 - Bake these pie crusts up as you would any others, at 350-400 for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
7 - Follow instructions for double crust fruit pies.

me me me meeeeee!

I am currently participating in three swaps over on Rav, and I figured I'd set up something to help them out.

I am a very odd person with a much odder sense of humor. I love "morbid" things, in the sense that the human body fascinates me! I didn't study it because I'm lazy, but I love it when my friends who did tell me all about it. One of the highlights of last year was going to the National Forensics Symposium with my best friend that plays with dead bodies for a living.

My About Me has the list of all the crafts I have done in the past. I am all across the board! The only thing I've never gotten into is painting. I'm great at technical drawings and anything that involves capturing what I see, but I am by no means an artist and I have no idea how to "interpret my feelings" and shit. (did I mention that I am very badmouthed?) My current fixation is spinning and knitting. Not that you could tell, since my knitting meter hasn't gone up in the last several months. (I have a swap project I haven't recorded, and I don't add what I've ripped or haven't finished yet, so there are three incomplete pairs of socks missing, too. Also, a partial sweater sleeve and a shawl I just started.) As far as difficulty, I love to make my life impossible! I always end up recalculating and mixing and matching and changing patterns. There is no such thing as a difficult pattern! You just have to concentrate a bit more at first, and then it flows. So yeah, I love knitting lace!

As far as food, bacon makes it better! Chocolate covered bacon is one of my specialties ^_^ I will try anything twice, and the only things I can't go anywhere near are coconut and artificial sweeteners.

Colors: I love blood red! Or any tone of red, for that matter. I love rich, saturated colors and have no patience for pastels or barely dyed fibers. When it comes to variegated yarns, I love how they look in skein form, but I hate knitting them up, since they pretty much only look good in stockinette, and stockinette bores the crap out of me. I love long color sections and transitional yarns, and am in the eternal search of the perfect rainbow ^_^

Fibers, the more natural the better. I can only take polymers in less than 20%, and that is only for socks. I also have no patience for novelty yarns, as I have no clue how to knit them up. Regular yarns, I prefer in the thinner weights, as they can be doubled up and are more versatile. I don't have any allergies, but I do live with this fucker:

He's a were-bear parading as a 20 lb cat. And he's a dick. His name is Herbert, because I am a major dork, and I has a Herb. Speaking of my nerdities, where should I start? I have a passion for anything Joss Whedon, especially Buffy. I've been a fan since the movie and cried like a little girl when it ended. I know all of my current friends through the local Harry Potter club, which two of them started, which lead me to the SCA, and then the local LARP. I also D&D every Saturday, while I knit (because SOMEBODY gets distracted by the noise of the wheel). I love reading fantasy and supernatural books, and have read most (or all, multiple times) of HP, Anne Rice, Terry Prachet, *cough*Twilight*cough*, and am currently on the sixth of the True Bloods and second of Dresden Files.

Next sunday will be my graduation for a MS in Materials Science and Engineering (holy shit my family is coming up!!!) and I got my undergrad in Mexico (where I'm from) in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, with a focus on Mechatronics (I wanted to work for Jim Henson's Creature Shop) after a two year stint in Architecture. Hopefully, in the somewhat near future, I will be getting a job in the renewable/clean/efficient energy research field. Meanwhile, I will still be a lab rat for my adviser, running the IR Spectroscoper, some GC-MS, SEM, and other assorted experiments and data collections. Did I tell you how much I love collecting data? I just suck at concluding anything from it :/

Baaaa, motherfucker, do you speak it?

This weekend was MDSW, and it was awesome! I am roasted, toasted and burnt to a crisp (not that anybody can tell the difference between pasty #1 and pasty #2) and exhausted. I think I spent a good $300 this weekend, that I really couldn't afford. But everything was so beautiful! My stash over on Rav is updated with pictures and everything.

I got two tops by Fiber Optic Yarns in Cayenne and Cranberry that I absolutely adore! I can't wait to spin them up. The colors are so rich (and red), immediately attracting my attention. There was another booth covered in rainbows called Bullen's Wullens, where I got three 4 oz bags of merino/silk/bamboo in red, purple and blue, and they plan on sending me orange, yellow and green in the next two weeks, so that I can spin rainbows to my heart's desire. The last set of fiber I got was from Spinners Hill: assorted wool #3 in a VIOLENT green which I intend to spin alternately with black, and then ply with a black single. This will hopefully be a present to my friend Erika, who turned 21 last week (and I'll get it to her before she turns 22...).

The last bulk of my purchases was yarn from Tess Designer Yarns. The colors were very nice and rich, but someone should really punch whoever wrote up their site in the crotch. There was one impulse buy that I saw knitted up into very pink socks, so I'm going to see if I can do some color correcting and make it more red. I bought three gradient "sets" for different shawls that I hope transition nicely. Everything was so picked over that I'm dubious of the purple set... And, of course, the website sucks, so I can't verify the colors and ask for whatever I'm missing. I'm kind of pissed off that I saw their gradient stand and thought it was the Unique Sheep gradients I'd fallen in love with on line, but it wasn't :/

The non-fiber highlight of my trip was running into Jennie Breeden of The Devil's Panties. It was very geeky and cool and odd. It felt so weird being almost 30 and squeeing at someone my own age. But she was cool, and so were her friends. I had to remind myself that I don't actually know them, I've only read about them in the comics! But they were still very nice, and they put up with me. Squee!!! Another cool thing was that sunday, the chick at Spinners Hill confused me with her (apparently because I was wearing boots, too) and I got to talking to her about Jennie's Men In Kilts, With Leafblower project (a third of the way down). She was more than grateful!