girlwomangoddess.com

I can’t help but feel proud…

When I see the photos and emails that Andrew Sullivan has posted on his blog today to document the protests and rallies against discrimination. It gives me hope that someday soon all of us will have the same rights and liberties, no matter what color our skin or who we love.

As I read the emails posted at Sullivan’s blog I can’t help but wonder how much of the success of today’s protests can be attributed to the movement started by Obama. His win may just have given people hope that as a group, when we work together, we can get things changed. No one thought he could or would win, but he built a movement from the bottom up that was too big to stop. Maybe the people really do have more power than the politicians and the elected if we make our voices heard. The internet certainly makes it more possible than ever before.

I have always been a skeptic, always been a cynic…. until this year. Its refreshing to be hopeful and happy about the future for a change.

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

My new love….

I admit, sometimes I am a total sheeple. I saw the Kindle on Oprah and fell in love. I begged Jim for it for my birthday/christmas this year. He eventually agreed and I ordered it (had to do it early to get the $50 off from Oprah). I think it helped that I had already agreed to sell a couple of sewing machines and most of my fabric

Anyway, the Kindle arrived on Tuesday and I am happy to say that I carry it just about everywhere with me. Yes, it was expensive but it is also very convenient and there are tons of ways to find free or inexpensive books to read on it. Additionally you can’t beat new releases and best sellers for only $9.99 for those rare times when the library has 1 copy and 20 holds.

Amazon charges a subscription fee for RSS/blog feeds, but you can create RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and newspapers for free from Feedbooks. You can also covert PDF files to kindle format with some simple easy to use software! This will be great for business/board meetings at the co-op - I plan to dump the agenda to the Kindle and read it from there. It has a nifty notation features so I can take notes and not lose them in the mess that is also known as my car.

The only thing I am not in love with is the cover it comes with, but I am brainstorming a replacement for that as we speak.

Speaking of reading….. if you do a lot of it you should make sure you head over to Goodreads. Its a lot of fun keeping track of books you have read and I get a lot of great ideas from looking at everyone else’s booklists.

Posted in Every Day Stuff | 1 Comment »

Change is coming….

I would like to post something profound, but I really have no words. I can’t remember a time when people were this excited and celebratory about an election. The photos of people celebrating in the streets outside the Whitehouse make me smile. I have to admit I even got a little choked up as Obama spoke. Yes we can

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Changes.

Its been a while since I posted. Things have been busy and I just haven’t really felt like I had much to type about. I fell behind on gardening and didn’t get anything planted for the fall. Oh well, it will give me time to plan things out and rearrange some stuff for spring.

Some may notice that my webstore is gone. I haven’t sewn in probably a year (other than some quick mending) and the thought of dragging myself to the cutting table was not a pleasant one. I have sewn and sold clothing/diapers/bags/etc for 8 years… so it has been odd thinking of giving that all up. Ultimately I realized that it just didn’t bring me joy anymore, instead I felt obligated and it was more of a burden. So, I closed up the webshop last night. I am about to start selling most of my fabric and a couple of my machines. I will keep my sewing machine and will probably even throw a few things for sale up on the WAHM blogs on occassion, but for now I think I am done sewing and selling.

The reality is that the more I think about re-enrolling in college, the more I realize that when both my girls are in school…. I want a real job that doesn’t include being chained to my sewing machine. I simply won’t have time to do it all. So I am saying goodbye to girlwomangoddess.com the webstore and saying hello to a degree in some currently undecided computer tech discipline.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased my pieces over the years, you have been greatly appreciated!

Posted in Every Day Stuff | 1 Comment »

Signs of Hope and Change

Know hope.

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Mark your calendars…I sewed last night.

I haven’t sewn anything in months. I just have not been feeling the sewing machine love and just had no interest in it. But I really needed to get a couple of things done. Mrs. Goldyn from Willow’s school (the Kids’ Co-op) asked me if I wouldn’t mind sewing a couple of child size baby slings for the 2 year old class. Its taken a while, but they are finally finished. Willow insists that the purple one should be for her so I guess I am going to have to make one more.

I also threw together a reuseable bread bag made of waterproof PUL. I was tired of buying plastic bread bags, it seemed like such a waste and sometimes they were too small anyway. The one I made is pretty simple and closes with some velcro. It should keep it moist, but its still slightly breathable. It worked well overnight but we will see how it does after a day or so! To see pictures, click the read more tag.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: bread, homemade bread, sling

Posted in Every Day Stuff, Kids, Kids, Kids! | 1 Comment »

First Melon Harvest

I harvested our first successful melon from the backyard this week. I probably let it get a bit too ripe, but the kids have declared it delicious! Surprisingly I have another one that looks like it will be bigger than this one! The melons have been really fun to grow and we will definitely be doing it again next year.

Jim also brought home a cantaloupe that a customer gave him as a tip. I guess they got to talking about melons and this customer had a backyard full of melon vines.

I am behind on fall planting - I was hoping to have stuff in the ground already but I still need to get soil for the new boxes and make a plan. Hopefully I will get that done this weekend!

Tags: Gardening, honey dew melon

Posted in Gardening | 2 Comments »

Its a play dough type of day

I have been working really hard to get the girls to bed at reasonable times and into a routine before school starts up again. So far its been going well, with both girls asleep before 10pm, but that also means that both of them are up at 7:30/8am every morning. That will work out great for school, but its hard for me to adjust since I am such a night owl.

Because of the early wake up times, by the time it gets to be noon, everyone is a bit crazy and bored. The “witching hour” used to be about 4 on our old schedule and we could survive til Jim got home, but now that its noon I am having to come up with lots of afternoon activities to distract them. One of our favorites…. playdough!

Now, playing with the dough makes them happy, but making the dough from scratch makes them even happier. They love to help measure out the stuff, pick out the coloring, and watch the mixer go around. We tried a lot of dough recipes before we found one that is 1. easy and 2. a great consistency. Here is ours, made in the stand mixer with the dough hook: Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: playdough

Posted in Every Day Stuff, Kids, Kids, Kids! | No Comments »

Barack ‘n Roll

I found this video on The Daily Dish and thought it was worth posting here. McCain’s campaign has generally left me scratching my head as of lately. I thought he was smarter than what he is showing himself to be. Its crazy how many people who can now say “at one point I respected him, possibly could have voted for him….but not any more.” I would count myself as one of those people, even tho I am a dirty liberal at heart. Back in 2000 I thought he was more of a middle man, but the last 8 years of pandering to Bush & Co. have destroyed that reputation, and his campaigning is just adding to the perception.

I giggled a bit at the satire of the celebrity ads on this blog.

I really appreciated the efforts John McCain made to inform my decision, and I wanted to believe him when he slipped on his $500 shoes and boarded his wife’s private jet to travel the country and remind me that Barack Obama is an elitist. But again, my sub-par education must be failing me, because it’s obvious that the meaning I had always assigned to “elitist” is completely wrong. Shucks. I wish I was smart enough to understand all of that stuff.

But then McCain did something that shook me out of my silly, overly-positive admiration for my candidate by doing what any great leader of a nation of simple folks would do to save me. He dumbed it down. I hadn’t even realized how close I was to casting a vote for my own destruction

I have thought about writing a long post about why I adore Barack Obama and why I will be volunteering in any way I can once school starts up, but then my friend Jennifer wrote one and saved me the work. Her Why I’m Voting for Barack Obama” post perfectly sums up my feelings and opinions on the subject. Thanks for saving me some typing Jen!

Tags: barack obama, Politics

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »

A bread baking deal.

I have to start this by admitting I have a thing for kitchen gadgets. Most people who know me find this interesting, or maybe odd, because I really don’t enjoy cooking or being in the kitchen. But for whatever reason, I love neat kitchen things! I do try to hold back a bit because I want to live simply, its just a struggle sometimes Anyway I was walking around Bed Bath & Beyond a few days looking for a pineapple slicer. We all love sliced pineapple and I have been buying it already sliced and cut at costco, but its about $7.99 and I was curious as to whether having a slicer of my own would be cheaper because then we could buy the whole pineapples when they are on sale for $2.50/$3 each.

However as I was walking around an open box bread machine caught my eye. I have a bread machine, I got it from goodwill for $10 a few months ago. I love it for making dough, but I don’t cook in it because it makes funny shaped, tough crusted loaves. It was perfect for mixing/kneading dough and then doing one rise. Then I would take the dough out, shape it and let it do the 2nd rise in the pan and then bake in the oven. Yet, staring back at me at Bed Bath & Beyond was a $200 Zojirushi X20 Bread Machine for only $49.99 on clearance because the box was opened. I stood in disbelief for a bit because this was the same machine I had almost bought months ago and then decided I couldn’t spend $200 on it no matter how good the reviews were. Luckily I also happened to have a 20% off one item coupon in my purse (I have a collection of these since BB&B excepts expired ones) so I walked out of the store with that $200 bread machine for $42 after taxes.

Now I can make horizontal, unfunny shaped, loaves without using my oven! Its been so hot lately that we were buying bread, but since purchasing the new machine we have made 3 loaves. Yeah the first 2 were “test” loaves and not really very good, but now I have a recipe that works and my house doesn’t heat up to bake it. On top of that I am totally trying to think of a good reason to use the cake function on it. It also makes jam, too bad we don’t have a pick your own berry place somewhere around here!

Tags: baking, bread machine, zojirushi

Posted in Every Day Stuff | 2 Comments »