Jim has been playing a ridiculous amount of shows  lately and this weekend has become the pinnacle of his rockstardom. He played two shows yesterday and two today, church tomorrow and another show in Salt Lake on Monday.  Yesterday they played for a conservative convention/rally of sorts about how to increase jobs in the morning and then at our favorite pub, Naggy McGees, in the evening. 

At the conservative rally, the band thought the signs were really funny and brought a few home with them. So during sound check at the pub, Jim thought it would be funny to march around the stage with one of the signs.  Little did he know, the (Democratic) governor of our state was at the pub watching (and appeared to be enjoying) them play. Little did the governor know Jim was waving that conservative sign in jest.  

Jim didn’t realize any of this was going on and found out from a server afterwards that as soon as he started waving that sign around, the governor left!

Ahh, he really is a rockstar, upsetting political figures unintentionally.    

When i was little, my mom read the Little House on the Prairie series to me. I immediately fell in love with the characters, begging my mom to read another chapter when she would close the book and say it was time for bed. I remember sobbing hysterically the night she read about Mary going blind. I refused to let her read more of the book, and it took days of convincing to get me to let her continue. 

I don’t really know what it is about me that gets so attached to characters in stories, that is so sensitive. I still a feel a little heartbroken about Mary. And even the thought of the end of Prison Break turns my stomach in knots. Or Lost. Or The last Harry Potter book where everyone dies, or that movie they made about Ernest Hemingway where he leaves Sandra Bullock at the end. Or even though I was happy with the ending of the Hunger Games, I couldn’t stand the pain written into the main character.  I thrive on happy endings and redemption. I just can’t do tragedies. 

I think this is because in life, at one point, we all live a tragedy. I don’t know why God chooses to write tragedy into our Stories, maybe because that’s the only way he can point us back to Himself. I don’t know. But maybe my aversion to reading about or watching them is that they hit a little too close to home. I think being super sensitive with a good imagination makes me feel way too much of what the author is portraying and I end up feeling like its all happening to me. Tragedy isn’t entertaining, it’s just so painful – in our own lives…watching other people live it.

In the end, I will always be a fan of stories of Redemption. I will always love seeing the underdog win or the unlikely hero rise from the ashes or the screw-ups find peace with themselves. Maybe this is because I refuse to let tragedy dictate my life, even though it may effect it from time to time. Because even in the face of tragedy, I ultimately believe in happy endings and forgiveness and change and redemption.

•My yard sale-ing buddy, Amy, and I had a yard sale. We did pretty well, but were mostly heartbroken about missing out on being to go out and yard sale.

•Tangle had our 4th birthday sale. It was a smashing success, and our biggest day ever. (PS there’s still yarn at 40% off.)

•We floated the river for the first time. It was one of the most fun and relaxing things I did all summer. (The two twelve packs of beer didn’t have anything to do with it.)

•GJ has been especially cool and rainy, so when Brooke, our kids and I went to pick green beans, we had to wait out the sheets of rain and then pick green beans in the mud. (Delicious, organic green beans that we blanched and froze.)

The boys found toads that kept them busy while we picked.

•A few days later Amy and I and our kids went and picked peaches, again in the rain. We picked close to 300lbs of peaches that we’ve been working on turning into pie, chutney, jam, syrup, baby food, dried peaches, frozen peaches and canned peaches.

There’s nothing like a fresh Palisade peach right off the tree.

•I participated in my first race, which was FIVE miles. I’ve been dabbling in running for the last several years, but haven’t really experienced much success in it. Imagine my surprise when I watched the miles go by without dying. Carrie and I ran pretty slow (Carrie has been really supportive of my running and has vowed to always stick it out with me) and we ran the first 3.2 miles, walked the 4th and ran the last, finishing in about 69 minutes. I was SO proud of myself for even being able to do it and it has really changed the way I look at physical activities. I feel like I really can do anything now.

•Which is good because I have this new trainer who is hell bent on getting me in shape. She has been great, but is really pushing me hard! My body really resists losing weight so I figure if Janae can’t get me to lose weight, I’ll just decide to be happy with where I am and deal with it.

•We went to some Pineapple Crackers shows. Friday found me in a rare moment with no children so I hung out at Naggy McGees and watched Jim play. Then Saturday, the kids and I were able to watch them play at a pizza place in Fr-Utah. Jim’s such a rock star these days.

•Eden started third grade and Honor started first (lost his second tooth the same day too). The kids were excited to go back to school, Jim and I were excited to send them. Everyone’s happy.

The End!

We took a little trip over the mountains last week – a trip full of cousins. We stayed with my sister and got to see all the twinzies’ new tricks. Elias was crawling and pulling himself up, Silas started crawling a few days after we left.

We also got to spend a lot of time with Jim’s sisters kids. We went to Casa Bonita and Elitches (six flags). Jim and I successfully scared both kids on the roller coasters and I didn’t puke, so we consider the trip a ‘win’.

I believe in being creative. It’s not just something that I want to do, but something that I insatiably crave. I make something almost daily. I believe that every person has the ability to be creative in some way. And that our creativity is what draws us out of ourselves. When I find myself in moments of personal crisis, I run to my projects and it’s creating that saves me, usually from myself. Life always flows out of being creative. And I think we all need life to flow through us, especially in crisis.

Sometimes creating is about the finished product, but its always about the process. Wrapping the yarn around the needle, methodically creating each stitch, sewing together tiny pieces of fabric to create a rich, colorful story, chopping vegetables and stirring together sauces, each stroke of the paint brush, each letter typed – its so easy to pour all of yourslef into each movement, to let your mind go blank and feel the rhythm, to have time to think but also be distracted, so profound and healing thoughts aren’t forced, but come to you as you stitch, chop, paint, type… create.

I’m reading the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. She is talking about creating and she says we create because we were made to create.

“We were made to be the things that [God] is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely made to be creators.”

That definitely explains this need I have. And the peace I find in Making. And the connection to God that I feel when I finish something and sit back and look at it and think, “wow, I made that.” And I think about how after he made us, even though he knew we were gonna mess it all up, and need him to come along and redeem us, he still sat back and said, “I made that. And it’s good.”

Pasta with arugula, sausage and fresh basil

Half pound of short pasta, such as penne
1 large, yellow summer squash, sliced into rounds
1/2 cup basil, sliced into thin ribbons
6 links Italian sausage, I prefer turkey
Olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
Red pepper flakes
Ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese
Arugula

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente. In the last two minutes of cooking, add the summer squash. Drain, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile grill the sausage until cooked thru and slice. Tent with foil to keep warm.
In a large skillet, heat 3-4 tbs olive oil. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to taste. Once the oil is heated thru, turn off heat and add the pasta/squash, sausage and basil and stir until pasta is coated, adding pasta water as needed to reach desired consistency.

Serve pasta mixture on individual plates over a bed of arugula. Top with a dollop of ricotta, sprinkle of parmesan and extra red pepper flakes.

My garden is doing really well. I finally tied up my green beans, which were threatening to take over. Now that I don’t have to water, Ive been terribly lazy about the whole thing. I noticed when i took this picture that I have one cherry tomato ripening. Mmmm. Can’t wait for the whole crop.

PS here are the previous photos from a little over a month ago.

Um, so, I love having sewing classes at my store.

Last week Eden took the kids sewing class and is now addicted. She completed her pillowcase and my machine made it out alive. (when i dropped her off for class, I tried really hard not to worry about turning my machine over to her, but I still did… a little.)

When it turned out that I needed to have the kids with me all day at Tangle Saturday (Jim always ends up having out of town shows on the weekends I work.), Eden asked if she could sew something. She whipped out these blankets for her and Honor. I cut and pinned and she did the rest, including most of the pressing.

Notice the pillowcase she made too.

These blankets are just super-simple, two layers (one flannel, one quilting cotton) sewn inside out and then turned. I was worried that they would be weird without batting, but ended up being great for this time of year. They both have drug them around everywhere.

Now she wants to sew blankets for everyone she knows. I’ve gotta teach this kid to quilt…

Monday: grilled chicken w/ two bean potato salad
Tuesday: spaghetti and green salad
Wednesday: grilled pizza w/ arugula salad
Thursday: fish tacos and cuke/jicama slaw
Friday: cold soba noodles w/ tofu
Saturday: ?
Sunday: chicken kebabs w/ arugula corn salad

My friend Brooke and I have always experimented on my hair together. When I was a sophomore in high school, we somehow talked my mom into letting me bleach my hair. I ended up with a delightful shade of orange hair just in time for my moms wedding. Oops. For the two years that I kept my hair bleach blonde, Brooke touched up the roots for me every time and endured the squirming and whining as my scalp burned. (She even dyed it black that week in the middle where i thought I’d like to look like Angelina Jolie in hackers.)

A couple months ago when Brooke and I were at the lake (as we are every Wednesday in the summer) we noticed a girl with a blue under layer in her black hair. As we admired it from afar, we talked about how it would be fun to do on ourselves. Once we were convinced we would indeed like to do it, we combed the whole lake to find the girl and ask her how it was done. She gave me explicit instructions and a few days later I found myself squirming once again as my scalp burned.

We first had to bleach out our hair. It turned kinda orangy but definitely lightened up a lot.

Then I applied blue and Brooke chose vampire red, which was supposed to be a really dark red that she was hoping would be more subtle than blue.

Turns out Vampire Red is actually fluorescent red and the dark blue was hardly noticeable unless in direct sunlight. We ended up wanting each others hair.

Brooke:

So after several weeks of taking blue showers, and dealing with my hair fading to green, I decided that I’d like to go ahead and go red. After using hair color stripper twice, we managed to remove enough of the blue and get it to take the red. (my worst case scenario in this is that my hair would turn purple and I would just dye dark brown over it. I hate purple.)

I have to say that I like it so much better now!