I’m tired. In the past month I’ve been on Atlantic and Pacific waters, I spent thirty hours volunteering for the film festival and every other weekend has been filled with house projects and even an emergency shopping trip to Chicago. As I head into summer, there is just so much to do, it has been hard to find the balance between work, travel, projects and the rest and relaxation I actually need. On top of all that I’ve been battling some frustrating stomach issues, which just make eating a chore and totally contributes to my overall tiredness. Finally, I’ve decided that I’m done taking allergy medicine. I’m just going to soldier through this summer without any help, but already, waking up with a nose like a faucet every morning is such a drag.

Whine, whine, whine. This is all very tiring. Here are a couple things I’ve been enjoying recently.

We’ve been working our way through the documentary series Craft in America. It has really made me think about how one medium can really speak to you and another just carries no interest and to wonder how you discover those mediums that most resonate with you. I think trying lots of different craft forms is key.

One of the artists featured is a couple here in southern Wisconsin. They make amazing natural fiber baskets and jewelry. I’ve been pining after their necklaces and leaving the page open for SB to see. Loeber + Look.

I’ve also been reading a lot about bike commuting and I’m sold. Bike commuting looks fantastic! The irony is that I don’t have any commute, so I guess the message is partially lost on me. Check out this short video on bike commuting in Portland. A very nice, low budget documentary.

When I’m planning a vacation, I spend the most time worrying about where we will stay. It has to be convenient, interesting, clean, safe and most importantly a good deal. For our trip to San Francisco last week, I also wanted to be nearby my sister, who lives in a real neighborhood, with very few hotel options. I finally found the right fit through an Air BnB rental.

This was my first time using Air BnB and I wasn’t sure if the strong social networking aspect of the site really fit with my style, but the room was too nice to pass up. The photo below shows the patio off of our studio apartment, just blocks from my sister and close to lots of restaurants and an amazing bakery. We stayed for a week and really felt at home. It was much like our VRBO rental in Paris. Having a small kitchen and an eating area makes travel so much easier and cheaper, as not all meals need to be eaten out and sometimes all you want is something simple. Hotels can be nice, for that pampered feeling, but vacation rentals feel more private and still offer an escape. Plus, it is fun to pretend you live in this exotic city.

The other big expense for travel is car rental, especially in the US, when renting a car can be the only way to see some of the best sights. Since we were staying in the city for this trip, we didn’t want to have to deal with a rental car all the time, figuring out parking and paying for time when we weren’t using the car. A car sharing program, Zip Car, fit our needs and it turned out that we could pick-up a mini-cooper, just a block from our studio. One of the nice things about the car sharing is that all gas is included in the rental price and the car is available hourly or daily. When we were done with the car for the day, we just returned it to its own parking spot, no need to worry about overnight parking rules in the city.

I’m looking forward to using both these services again, as they really made it easy to build just the vacation we wanted, without the constraints of the more traditional hotel and car rentals.

The traditional gift for the fifth wedding anniversary is something made of wood. All the gifts of the first five years relate to setting-up the home, from paper to linens to wood, they represent the basic materials of domestic life. According to the self-help books, the first five years are the cornerstone to a successful, life-long marriage. This may be true, but for us, it is more about the everyday and less about milestones and gifts.

On our anniversary day this year, we painted our garage and went to a roller-derby tournament, treating the day like any other Saturday. Granted, we had just returned from a week vacation in San Francisco, where we sailed in the bay, bought new hats and enjoyed some leisurely travel adventures. The idea of our anniversary was a background note to living our life together. It worked out well that we could travel, sail and spend time with friends, all activities mentioned in our wedding vows, but this was more coincidence than good planning.

If nothing else, our anniversary this year reminded me that life is good and that I’m looking forward to many more days turning into years.

Last fall my Mom gave me a bunch of peony tubers from her yard. In a big push to get everything planted, we stuffed them into their shallow holes and hoped for the best. I couldn’t be happier. They are already up, full of buds and ready for a great summer. So far there have been no casualties. This mild winter and spring have been ideal for establishing a new garden.

Our sickly, city planted, crab apple tree, has also had an amazing comeback, thanks to liberal amounts of milorganite and is covered with beautiful blooms. Thanks for all the poop Milwaukee! Here’s hoping the mild weather continues.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about ants and insulation, or more broadly, about how to make the right choices around home ownership.

When you buy an old home, chances are good that it is going to come with some nasty materials like lead paint or asbestos. The photo above is the lead varnish on our front door. These were materials that used to be considered top grade, the best choices for the safety and longevity of your home. Now they are a health hazard that can cause all sorts of problems, not to mention extra expense for removal and extra stress about having this stuff in your home.

As we make improvements to our house, I can’t help but wonder how safe these new materials will be in 10 or 50 years. For instance, we’ve been using this new low VOC interior paint. Who knows what’s in there and whether it is really “safe”. We’ve also been talking about adding a lot of insulation to our home. It seems difficult to make informed choices or to know exactly what is included in the materials we are adding to our house. Home building materials fits into the ideology of do it now, consider the consequences later.

Another area of the home that is seems ripe with delayed consequences is pest control. I’ve long avoided using any kind of chemical or pest control service on my home. It just doesn’t seem smart. However, we’ve been invaded with a steady stream of huge black ants. They are the classic ant model and scurry all over our first floor. After much research and hand-wringing, I hired a service to spray the outside of our foundation, to create a chemical barrier. Immediately afterwards I started feeling guilty about all the good critters that live right outside our home like birds, snakes and rabbits. Who am I to be spraying poison around?

I know that if I take these concerns too far I’m going to end up living in a yurt, damp, cold and covered in bugs. So before I go that far, I guess I will make the modern chemical choices and hope the consequences are small.

Nine years ago today, I started blogging. In those many years I’ve ebbed and flowed with my words and images, sometimes feeling more inspired than others. One thing that has remained constant is how blogging has given me a reason to write, goaded and stretched and reminded me of the art of composing words. When I started, blogging was so trendy, so cutting-edge, now it is seen by many as washed-up, too wordy and something undertaken by women with cats. Others have moved on to twitter or tumblr or even solely facebook.

The beauty of my personal blog is that it lives on my domain, on a site I created and designed. It isn’t hosted by a company that wants to sell ads to my friends. There is no hidden agenda of commerce here. I create and own the content, the site, the space and I keep it open for anyone who wants to stop in. I guess that is a little old-school.

After all these years, I continue to be surprised and flattered when various friends mention something from these pages. It is a true compliment to have readers. Thank you.

2012 Music Count
March: Caravan of Thieves and David Wax Museum at High Noon
March Bonus: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at Wisconsin Union Theater
February: Ghost Town Council at High Noon
January: Polica at High Noon, part of the FRZN Festival

Since meeting SB, I’ve moved six times, twice across the country and five of those times after we combined our household stuff. Through every move I’ve thought about the volume and weight of all this stuff. Every time we set up house in a new place, I’m faced once more with organizing, sorting and storing.

At every move we’ve left stuff on the curb, thrown things away and donated select items, but there continue to be those things that while no longer needed, seem to have some value. As I try to become more frugal, thrifty and organized, I decided that I needed to start selling some of this “valuable” stuff. After sitting on this idea for a year and researching the many options for liquidation, I started to sell late last fall.

My stuff to sell fell into two categories, books and objects. For the books I first sorted all my books into piles based on the average used book price on Amazon. The books that sold for $1 or less, I boxed up and took to a local used bookstore. There I made around $6 for most of the books. Those that the bookstore wouldn’t take I dropped off at a local library branch. Public libraries re-sell used books and also sell bulk paper for recycling, so even if the books are not worth anything, the library can still make a little money on the paper.

For the books that sold for more than $1, I created a sellers account on Amazon. So far I’ve only listed a few, see my storefront, and sold one for a profit of $10. The books in the photo above still need to be listed on Amazon. My plan is to let them sit on Amazon for a while and then downgrade them to the used bookstore and then the library.

The objects came in three categories, large tools, kitchen gadgets and light fixtures. The light fixtures came from our house in Atlanta and our house here in Madison, where we replaced these lights with ceiling-fans or more modern fixtures. Rather than try to sell the fixtures, I decided to donate them to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I was able to claim the donation on my taxes and also give back to group that has helped us out with some great home deals.

The kitchen gadgets came out of the final stages of combining households. We still had some multiples of certain things and they simply did not fit in our small kitchen. These things I donated to Goodwill for a small tax write-off.

Finally, for the large, more valuable items, tools and appliances, I created a re-seller blog, for photographs and longer descriptions. Then I created a sellers account on craigslist and posted the items there. This has generated the most income and also helped me set-up and organize my wood shop.

Selling the books has been the most difficult part of the liquidation. The books I want to get rid of still hold more personal value than monetary value, so off-loading them for little money is hard. However, having them sit around in boxes or on shelves, just taking up space doesn’t make sense either. I guess it is time to add more books to my Amazon store.

Since I started crocheting and then knitting, I’ve completed five sweaters. The first sweater was too big (no photos taken), the second sweater was too small. Then I learned how to create a swatch and test my gauge. The tricky thing with knitting clothes, that need to be a certain size, is that there are three factors that can greatly change the size of a stitch. The first is the size of the strand of yarn. Yarn comes in “standard” sizes the same way that women’s clothes do, which is to say, broad estimates of size, but a huge range within each estimate. The second factor is the size of the needle. Needle sizes are more standard than yarn sizes, but different needle lines will vary. Finally, and most varied, is the tension of the yarn. Tension is solely determined by the individual knitter. The more you knit, the more you learn what type of knitter you are from loose to tight. Also, depending on your mood, the time of day and where you are knitting, your own tension can change.

With these three factors, it is amazing that it is even possible to make something in a certain size. When someone designs a knitting pattern they are using a specific yarn, a specific needle and they themselves are holding the yarn at their own tension. Knitting a test swatch helps to determine if the instructions in the knitting pattern will match-up with the knitting size you are creating. I still don’t really like to swatch, but swatching is the reason I’ve had sweater success.

I finished my first, well fitting sweater about a year ago, just in time for our trip to Europe. Here I am wearing it in Paris. The yarn came from a local yarn producer and the sweater has a hood.

This fall I finished my second, well fitting sweater. This time I used more mass produced yarn. It has a large collar and fun textured knit work.

Finally, I recently completed the more modern sweater pictured at the top of the post. This pattern reminds me of something you could buy at H&M, only nicer. The buttons run at a diagonal and it has a massive collar. Again, I used a more mass produced yarn.

Now I feel like I’m on a sweater roll. Next up I’m working on a summer weight sweater to wear with summer dresses. Ah summer dresses. I can’t wait!

After last year’s epic blanket challenge, where I knit eight gift blankets, I decided it was time to focus my knitting and crafting on me. While I’ve been busy knitting away, I haven’t been keeping up with sharing my finished wares. This post is a bit of a recap of finished projects from this fall and winter.

My first two projects are pictured above. The chunky cowl is a mobius strip, which means it forms a complete circle, but with a twist, so if you follow the outer edge you circumvent both sides before returning to your starting spot. To knit, you work from the center outwards. The whole time I knit I was continually amazed by the geometry of the shape. The yarn came from a single sheep, Jeffery, who has started to go a little grey as he’s aged. I wasn’t sure how often I would use a cowl, but so far it has added extra warmth on cold winter days in my office.

The cable hat was also made from locally produced and dyed yarn. Both the cowl and hat yarn were purchased at the Jefferson Sheep and Wool festival in the fall. I love the color of this hat and it has been my go-to hat since finishing it. To complement the hat I needed a new scarf and found this olive green yarn on-line. The yarn is super soft and the scarf finished at a nice length.

In addition to the mobius chunky cowl, my work days are warmer now that I have my first pair of fingerless gloves. These gloves are made from left-over yarn and really do take out the chill. I also finished a couple larger projects, but I think they deserve their own post.

I’ve made many a pie and galette over the years but never a tart, until this week. The tart aversion has been two-fold, first I lacked the equipment and second, most tarts are unappealing to me. Tart recipes often have a heavy cream and egg filling, both savory and sweet. Like in quiche, this egg suspension is a huge turn-off to me. I don’t like the texture or the flavor and after eating I’m left feeling weighted down. Most of this comes from my tepid relationship to the egg.

There are non-egg tarts out there and this year I decided it was about time to extend my crusty baked goods to include the tart. After hearing numerous hints, SB gave me a set of tart pans for my birthday. I decided my first tart would be pear and I knew just the pear I wanted to use.

Last fall I made three variations of pear freezer jam; unsweetened, honey sweetened and low sugar. The unsweetened is bland, the honey sweetened is a bit strange because I used a dark wildflower honey, the color and flavor of molases, which over powers the pear and the low sugar was by far the winner with a robust pear flavor. I’ve been trying to think of things to do with the dark honey pear jam, since I don’t think it is good on its own.

Thus this tart was born. I used a tart shell recipe from Deborah Madison with some extra almond extract thrown in, filled the shell with a whole jar of pear jelly (about 2 cups) and added one sliced pear on top. Then I topped it all with an almond crumble topping from Deborah’s crisp recipe.

The tart came out beautifully. The honey pear jam turned into this almost carmely, soft center and the tart shell was delicate with just a hint of almond flavor. I will make this pear tart again, as I have more jars of honey pear jam in the freezer.

Meanwhile, I’m already on the hunt for more tart recipes. A couple contenders are the Black Bean Tart with Chili Crust and Zucchini and Ricotta Tart. Any other tart favorites?