Our Country's Birthday

For Cur Country's Birthday, I made and ate the most delicious blueberry slab pie with rye crust I have ever tasted.

We also hung out the flags

ate a pancake breakfast at church with kids bike parade, worked my shift at the food bank, BBQ picnic with friends (they made a delicious cherry pie), and then back home for fireworks.

 

This was our first 4th of July in our new house which is in unincorporated King County, where all kinds of fireworks are legal). I shouldn't have been surprised but was at the thousands of fireworks going off all night. Our wealthy neighbors had a beautiful display which we could see through the trees. Elliott enjoyed his first year of lighting fireworks.

rainbow chili

Yesterday, we drove to Covington in rush hour traffic plus holiday traffic (4th of July travelling) to pick up our argosy from having the roof repainted and bring it back to the Airstream Dealership so they could finish installing the new water tank. We also got rear-ended (no injuries!) and thus delayed an additional 40 min :) I haven't written much about these plans (yet) but along with our home remodel, we are also remodeling our 1977 Argosy. In our dreams, when everything is finished, we will have a sweet home and sweet home on wheels.

Skandia Midsommar 2014

Yesterday, we went to Skandia Midsommar Festival at Saint Edward State Park. First off, I love that park, it is beautiful, has lake front beach, trails, large grassy fields, huge playground. Second, I love folky stuff, especially Scandinavian and there were many authentic costumes to oogle over since Skandia is a folk dance group. I have been learning more about traditional Icelandic costumes (you must check out that link!),  and it was great to see the similarities and differences between the Swedish and Norwegian ones. However, there were no Icelandic costumes, so I will take the challenge to make something wearable by next Midsommar to show off. Most likely it will be the peysufot since that is the simplest and has elements I can use in all the other costumes. My goal is to eventually make the 18th Century Faldbuningur, 19th Century Upphlutur, and 19th Century Peysufot. It's very ambitious, and who knows where I will end up in the process, but we will see. I love folky stuff and felt a connection to the Icelandic Costumes.

Here are some photos from the event:

 I liked the Viking booth. Great costumes, props, interactive peg making and grain grinder.

 Viking stone grinder and sifting bowls.

 Kids Maypole: 

 Buckets of flowers to make flower crowns: 

 The maypole before decoration:

 The musical procession:

 Wreath bearers:

 Garland bearers:

 Beautiful (Estonian?) costume:

 Decorating the maypole:

 Audience participation to raise the maypole:

 Dancing

Costume presentation:

These Norwegian ones were my favorite. I liked the intricately embroidered yoke with full skirt attached above the bust line. Optional belt. The grandma in the center had a lot of silver jewelry somewhat similar to the Icelandic style.

 Showing how the felted skirt border (to make the skirt spin while dancing) can also be used as a rain hood.

Little (Norwegian) embroidered dress.

 Troll sightings

Various goods for sale. I liked the cross stitch panels.

 I was tempted to buy these wooden food tools ... and regret not doing so.

Various 'viking' dry goods.

Happy Midsommar!
Here's to a new year inspired by folk embroidery.

Recreating a meal

I found (online) the recipes my sister, Briana, and I used to make a delicious Friendsgiving (aka Thanksgiving) Feast in 2004.
I don't think I am surprised by how much this means to me...but you might be.

The more I think about this meal, the deeper I find myself lost in memory:
I think of my sister; she died a little over 3 years ago.
I try to remember what I thought of her at the time, (bossy older sister? emotional?)
how I saw her, (she was older than me, she struggled with things, kind of mothered me)
how I saw myself (cooler than others? shy, but self confident at same time)
What she was up to (starting midwifery school, worked in the herbs and supplements section of The Good Earth, dating Gian)
What I was up to (taking Swedish, Icelandic, plant, fungus, and lichen classes; riding my beautiful bike to school at night for yoga and Scandinavian Choir; planning 3 month trip to Iceland; sewing all my clothes; rooftop urban garden; etc., etc., need I continue? my life was awesome)
Our house (The most gorgeous, charming apartment above an antique store on Center street, the historic main street of Provo. This remains my favorite place I have ever lived. I will always adore my 2 years there and everything about that house/apt. and era of my life. The most self discovering / self defining 2 years of my independent life. After I got past the "first year away from home" antics (daily naps and eating soft serve ice cream at all 3 meals) and clinging to my high school boy obsession ... but before Briana moved to Salt Lake and I had other long term boyfriends. This era was truly me, independent, un-tethered, and sadly I have no one with whom to relive the glory years because Briana is gone and I never had close girl friends.
Our friends (while looking to rent, we saw a beautiful old house, but some boys turned in their deposit before we did. At the time, we were so bummed some stupid frat boys (we had never met them, but they were boys so they must be jocks) were going to live in our dream house and probably ruin it...but then we found our apt above the antique store and met a bunch of cool guys at church and found out they all lived in that house we had wanted! Gian Pierotti, Jared Clark, Ruel Brown, Alan Ludwig, Chris Coy and Mike Kelly (didn't live there, but were friends) I am probably forgetting someone, sadly...All those guys are amazing artists. They actually studied art in college and are still doing it as their profession. They are all so cool and I am sure have no idea how much I love them and how much I learned from them - they are all 5-10 years older than I am and hopefully don't judge me too much for being naive and immature when I was 19-21 years old :)

When Briana died, a part of me died, too. It actually had started to die when I moved to Seattle and then when I got married. It doesn't have to be bad that a part of me died, because you can't stay the same your whole life. I can't live my whole life like I'm in college with my sister as a room mate, doing whatever the hell we want (making food, collecting old stuff from DI, crafting). Eventually that would probably have gotten stale, we would fight, need to make our own money :) want our own privacy, and we would want to marry and have kids...but both Briana and I are slow to change, and I think we felt ripped out of our comfort zones too early when I moved away and was dating Adam (my now husband).  As you age, mature, live...parts die and you re-grow, but you are different. I would say I am a better person now (more confident, friendly, realistic, less emotional, less judgmental...in a word: older) but I still miss that era and I still miss Briana and I wish I could see how she aged and changed over time. What things did she do that earlier swore she would never do..? Who would she marry? (you learn a lot about someone by who they marry) What would her kids be like and how would she adapt to motherhood, etc.?

Sometimes I feel selfish missing Briana because a big part of what I miss is the way I was with her, our memories, our "other" life back when we were young and awesome.

Links to recipes coming soon, but here are some photos:

(Salt Lake City igloo Jan 2007)

 (Provo September 2004)

 (Anthropologie July 2005)

 (Antique store apartment March 2005)

 (Antique store apartment Feb 2006)

 (Southern California December 2005) 

 (December 2006)

 (When I came home from Iceland with my new Lopapeysa Nov 2005)

Birthday 2013 and 2014

Today is my 29th birthday! I went walking with my boys and planted seeds - giant sunflowers for Elliott, Cerinthe major 'purpurascens' for the bees, and a seed mix to improve soil and insect populations....should be good. Tonight, we planned to go to Yogurtland as a family, but a few hours before we went, I uncharacteristically mass messaged my local friends to see who might want to join us. I was very happy I did; it is great to celebrate with friends and this year I wasn't able to host my annual mushroom themed birthday party potluck due to tiny home/ongoing remodel/new baby.
A picture from tonight:

And some pictures from last year's mushroom party:
My dear Adam made something of his own volition for the potluck! (Pastrami and cheese on toast)

The famous mushroom log cakes. This year's flavor combos were hazelnut with orange marmalade filling and almond with cardamom filling.

An early shot of the mushroom potluck...

Thank you friends!

At 29, I am now older than my older sister ever was: Briana died almost 3 years ago, right before her 29th birthday.

Birthday Yardwork

For my 28th Birthday last week, Adam and I and some friends fixed up our yard!
Before (actually, during):

After:

I was tired of looking at the giant yard debris heap built up from last year (below),

and wanted more flat, usable space in our slightly sloping backyard...so, I decided to use the logs and sticks as walls for terraces, supported by re-bar. It worked quite well. We used every scrap in the debris heap to build and shape the terraces. Now I just need to finish the top with plant-able soil/compost and we are in business!

In just 2 hours, we made 2 "terraces" on the right side (above); and then Adam and I spent the rest of the day making  one on the left side (below); making a compost area using a pallet; and washed the Argosy. It was amazing.

Thank you, friends! We could not have done it without you!

We (Cydney) also found a secret egg nest of 16 eggs! we water tested them and they were all good :)

 Elliott had the time of his life running around with our friend's daughter, digging in the mud with shovels, and eating jelly beans.

I love how it turned out; you wouldn't guess how drastically it has improved my quality of life...and the chickens'.