Ah, Fall Harvest

It's officially fall here in Arizona. The leaves don't change colors. The smell of burning leaves does not fill the air. You do not need a jacket yet. What does happen, however, is that the temperature drops to below 100. You can still run around in shorts and sandals, but it's much more comfortable. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to venture down to Apple Annie's Orchard. A lot of Phoenicians have never been there. Primarily because it is about 3 hours away form Phoenix in Wilcox, which is past Tucson. A few years ago, Ben and I ventured down there and he continually asked me if we were there yet. Fortunately, Sam was interested in taking a little road trip and Sterling joined us too.

We left town around 11amish and we were in the car for over 3 hours. We did get a little loopy at one point singing at the top of our lungs to the Violent Femmes, that is Sam and I sang out of the top of our lungs and Sterling was armed with a loudly blaring ipod to drown out our singing.
Pictures of us in the car:



On our way to Wilcox, we continued to see these billboards for "The Thing?" There must have been about 20 of them are so. Our curiosity got the better of us later and we stopped at "The Thing?" on our way back. We made up several stories in our head what "The Thing?" could be.



Finally, we arrived! There was much rejoicing! First things first, we needed to grab some lunch. It was almost 2:30, afterall. We enjoyed our lunches of applewood smoked burgers and relaxed at some picnic tables shaded by asian pear trees. Unfortunately, there were no more asian pears. The season had come and gone without us enjoying a single one from Annie's. We picked apples. Sterling was quite good at picking apples, he has that height that's helpful. I think he quite enjoyed it, wanting to pick more apples than any of us could eat.


We had our fill of apples after consuming some apple crumb pie (that was delicious!) and headed over to the produce and pumpkin area that "Annie" owns. So many sunflowers! When we pulled up, we immediately noticed the sunflowers. They were so beautiful!


We boarded a hayride and drove out to the pumpkin patch to pick our own pumpkins.
Sam & Sterling on the hayride:



We went out to the pumpkin patch and marveled at how many pumpkins there were. So many! Erick, Sam's DH, requested that we find the odd-shaped ones for him. We couldn't find many, they were all nearly perfect. They were huge! There were also several green ones, which was cool. They vines are prickly and we weren't prepared for the "workout" that ensued. Sterling picked his perfect pumpkin, Sam picked one for Erick and I grabbed one. Then, we headed over to the produce market. We opted to not pick our own and just grab what was already picked. I got some peppers, sweet corn, acorn squash and green beans for Ben.

We had a full day of picking and were ready to head home. Not before we stopped at "The Thing?". I had conjured up more ideas, since we saw signs saying "don't park within 100 feet of this area". Sam went up to the counter and told the man, "Three for The Thing?, please." It was so funny.



We went up to the door and followed the golden footsteps. Here is some of what we saw:




As you can tell, we saw lots of "things". This guy that put the 3 buildings together had a "thing" for antiques. Lots of interesting things. Now that our curiosity was satisfied, it was time to get back on the road.

About an hour later, we saw the most beautiful sunset. It started out yellowish, then moved on to hues of orange and pink. We contemplated yarn that would incorporate the beauty of the colors that we played witness to.





We had a good time, but I don't know that we will make that drive again. Maybe if we do something in Tucson the day before and spend the night. We were all exhausted when we got home.

One Week Countdown

One week out until my WLS (weight loss surgery).

There are times when I regret my decision to let people "in" and share this experience with people. I wanted to share the information with only a few individuals and I've since become pretty open and honest about it. I don't think it's anyone's business and I don't think that sharing something that is such a personal decision is the best idea, BUT I think back to the shameful feelings that I used to carry around and know that I have to be open and honest about it. It is a source of strength for me and I hope it will be for other individuals going through similar experiences.

People have strong thoughts about my choice and they should. Surgery is a major event that could occur in a person's life. It is not something to be taken lightly. It is not a magic pill that one takes to suddenly become thin. It is a weight loss tool and one that is not for everyone. Mostly, people have been extremely supportive. Close friends that were initially concerned about my decision have become my biggest cheerleaders. Of course, there is the flip side. Complete strangers who overhear a conversation and feel that it is up to them to "educate" you and "save" your life. Friends, who you no longer feel safe enough with to share the most intimate details of your life and coming to the conclusion that they aren't really friends at all.

Beyond the emotional process of sharing, contemplating, reflecting, etc., there is the physical process of it all. Having to lose weight prior to the surgery and being consumed with it. Going to the gym regularly; which, I enjoy, but now it's more important than ever. Doing the 30-20-30 thing: stopping liquids 30 minutes prior to meal time, eating for 20 minutes without liquid and beginning liquids again after 30 minutes. Submitting to labs and blood tests, which have been the most difficult for me since I am/was terrified of needles. Figuring out what I am actually going to be able to eat after surgery.

I'm scared, excited, hesitant, determined, nervous, driven - I am all of these things. Most of all, I feel like I'm ready. Ready to let go of the past and embrace the future - this is the hardest obstacle.

Fun in the Sun!

This past weekend (Labor Day Weekend), Ben (DH) and I went to San Diego with our friends Danielle, Nick, Jill and Blaine. I hadn't been to San Diego in quite a while and it was good to get out of the raging heat.

We drove out to San Diego on Saturday with Danielle and Nick. We arrived at about 1:30pm to find our rooms weren't ready at the hotel. We met up with Jill and Blaine and wasted time at a Denny's until the rooms were ready.

Jill and I headed out to a yarn store in La Jolla appropriately named "Knitting in La Jolla". It was a very overwhelming experience. Lots and lots of yarn (really nice ones), but it looked like a yarn monster threw up inside the store. It was really hard to find anything. I wanted to get something that none of the LYS (local yarn stores) at home carry. I managed to find some handpainted Jitterbug sock yarn to make Sammy a pair of socks. I am really into making socks right now, since I finally get it... I also got some Berroco Yarn "lustra". I am hoping to make a sweater for myself out of this yarn... I bought about 1400 yards. The Berroco is awesome - it's made out of 50% wool and 50% tencel. Click here for more about tencel. It's very, very shiny and pretty. I got a silvery color. Blaine and Ben drank beer and hoped that we would hurry up. Jill got some really pretty lace-weight yarn that she is going to make socks with.

We met up with Danielle & Nick on Pacific Beach, but we weren't really dressed for it.

Jill & Blaine-

Nick & Danielle-

Danielle grabbing Ben's "boobies"

We headed over to some pub that had lousy service were I discovered (much to my dismay) that they use clam juice for their bloody mary's - yuck! We got to see the sunset from the beach, which is always nice.

Sunday - Nick and Danielle went to Tijuana, Jill and Blaine went to the Wild Animal Park and Jodie & Ben stayed in bed. Seriously, we stayed in bed until 12pm and then went to a taco shop up the street for juevos rancheros. Ben and I hung by the pool afterwards and I resumed by sock knitting, which I am totally into.

When everyone got back, we headed out to Pacific Beach again and did some boogie boarding. Jill, Blaine, Ben and I had never been on a boogie board before. Jill and Blaine were totally into it. It was fun, but it would have been much easier without so much kelp. The kelp totally took Danielle down at one point.

After the beach, we headed out to a sushi restaurant, which I thought was very good and cheap. I ordered a ton of "veggie" sushi and it was super delicious. Danielle is not really a sushi fan (if I had to eat fish, I would be right there with her) and ordered a plate of chicken, which came on this strange cow dish. She kept saying it looked like "cow guts" and was super unappealing.

We drove out with Nick & Danielle Monday morning and Danielle read this mermaid book to me out loud while I knit in the car and finished the sock I had started Thursday night for my boss. Before going home. We stopped at our friends' home for a Labor Day BBQ. We were grateful to spend so much time with friends.

My Belief in Transparency

I have been thinking about composing a blog by this title for sometime. Prior to my addition of my blog on Ravelry and my drawing attention to my blog on FB, nobody really paid attention (other than my Mom, thanks Mom! and my friend Angela, love you Ang!) to the fact that I even had a blog.

When I first set this blog up, I questioned whether or not I should "protect" myself by adjusting my settings to only allow "approved" followers to view my words. To be honest, I made the decision to allow my blog to be public because of one reason alone - I have had the good fortune of learning from other people's blogs and would want someone to reap the same rewards. If you're my friend and you read my blog, you are probably not going to learn anything new about me. However, if you don't know me - you may be interested in learning about things that I am interested in and you may end up using it as a resource. My blogs are sometimes purely (read mostly) self-indulgent and a record of what I'm up to.

I titled this blog "My Belief in Transparency" because I want to say that I don't think there is anything wrong with letting people (even strangers) "in" within reason. I'm not gonna give you my address, telephone number or where I work. It's not necessary and that's not the purpose of this blog. Transparency can be, by definition, readily understood. That's pretty broad, isn't it? Obama spoke a lot about transparency when he was running for office and we all, obviously, understand that there are certain things our government cannot share with billions of people. Just like I'm not gonna share certain things on my blog. I think what we have become overly sensitive to, though, is sharing anything with people on the web.

This article was published today about a girl who lost her job from a non-profit organization because she was verbally critical (in her blog) of that community's politician(s)/organization(s). What's so interesting to me is that at the blog's height - she had 90,000 visitors. Now, thanks to this article (that was also featured on MSN or CNN where I initially heard about it) she's going to have way more visitors. Mmmmm... so now who looks kinda stupid? I haven't read her blog and I'm not going to - it's just food for thought.

Listen, if I write a negative blog about the company I work for then I shouldn't be working there, but - where do we draw the line? If I write a negative review on Yelp of an air conditioning company that I experienced bad service with and then they perform maintenance, at a reduced cost, on a unit at my work - should I be fired? Is that any different? How is that different? What if a manager of mine was married to the owner of that air conditioning company, is it ok for that manager to retaliate because of my yelp review?

I am planning on having weight loss surgery. There, I said it. I haven't told many people and, frankly, I don't want to. The reason being is because I don't want to get the lectures, the glances or experience the judgment (either to my face or behind my back). I've been overweight all of my life and I went through my first "medically supervised weight loss program" when I was 9 years old. Why, then, would I want to share something like this in a blog? Well, for good reason. There are a whole lot of obese Americans, 72.9% of the country's population is overweight, obese, or extremely obese. That is just crazy! That means that almost 3 out of 4 of us have some issue. I am not alone. Secondly, the subject is just taboo. People don't want to talk about surgery as an option, they want to talk about diet and exercise. I don't disagree that diet and exercise are huge components of weight loss, but when a person has over 100 pounds to lose - diet and exercise alone are an extremely challenging way to go.

I want to be able to talk about this experience first hand. I want to be able to be "transparent" about it so that people who are considering this option for themselves can ask me about what I went through. Or if people are vehemently opposed, I hope they will become more informed and perhaps they will find themselves changing their minds. Perhaps, my mind will be changed about it and I will think it was not the right fit for me after all was said and done. Either way, it's about LEARNING. If we can't learn about the human condition and everything our world has to offer, what do we want to learn about? Do we want to learn? Do we want to evolve and have a broader consciousness about those living in these "life and times"? I believe that the internet and blogs enable us to obtain this information more readily.

Finally, my thoughts about social networks are a little bit trickier. If you are not my FB friend, I really don't want you to see the 5 status updates I post daily. You don't need to know and you probably don't care. A blog should/could be a different type of vessel.

Hey, the first two words in the title of this blog are "My Belief"... that's all, this is solely my belief. You can have your own and blog all about it - that's what makes freedom of speech cool.

A Tremendous Simple Day at its Finest

Today was such a fun day.

Sam came over and we started our day at SAS Fabric, which is a super affordable fabric store in Phoenix. I bought sequins, thread, fabric, etc. to spin into my yarn. Next, we headed off to Michael's in search of a purse handle for a cable bag that I knit. Instead of finding a purse handle, we discovered that ott lites were 50% off! Such a wonderful thing for my knitting and spinning! We stopped at Ulta and grabbed some hair dye for Sam to color and cut my hair.

Next, we had lunch at Cheese N' Stuff. Who doesn't love this place? After all, they have lots of cheese. That's when the fun really began. My friend let me foster one of her Blythe dolls, Clever. Clever and I did a little clothes shopping last night and Sam and I took the opportunity for a photo shoot. She even asked the owner of Cheese N' Stuff to put Clever in the deli case so she could pick out her own chips.

Clever at SAS:

Clever picking out her chips at Cheese N' Stuff:

More Cheese N' Stuff photos:

Outside Cheese N' Stuff:

Then, we stopped at Sally's for some styrofoam heads for Sam's husband to paint. Next stop - Bead World. I gotta say they have a great selection of beads, but the customer service sucks. They were so uninterested in us. Totally oblivious to the fact that they had customers. I may have spent money here, but didn't because the girls working there could have cared less about making a sale.

We had to swing over to Mesa for a few moments and got a chance to stop in at "Inside the Bungalow" for the best iced tea ever. It was a red rooibos tea with cinnamon, so yummy. We stopped in at Bookman's to see if there were any used knitting/spinning books and we didn't find anything.

Went back to my house and Sam cut/color my hair. It is so fabulous. I actually look my age now. I hadn't gotten my hair done since April and I have been used to getting my hair done every 5 weeks for the last nine years. It's amazing what a box of dye can do.

We ended our evening at TYF spinning and knitting. I bought some electric blue mohair to spin and ply with the sequins. I also navajo plied my first full skein of yarn.

Such a lovely day. Just tremendous... really.

What a difference a few months make!

I have accomplished so much in 2009 and there are a few months left!

1) I haven't really been paying close attention to my nutrition for some time. I'm disappointed that I was so into what I was consuming and then lost interest altogether. Today, I'm prepping to go back on the Master Cleanse and I'm hoping that by Sunday, I will begin. No processed foods today. Juices tomorrow. Orange juice on Saturday. Begin Master Cleanse on Sunday. I'm not shooting for 10 days, I'm shooting for one day at a time. Then, I will probably ease into the raw food/vegan lifestyle. There was an article in Purely Delicious about easing into the lifestyle and I think I need to focus more on easing in, rather than jumping head first.

2) I've been playing harp for several months. It is coming really naturally. I love it, but I've recently not made more time to practice. I am going to work on this.

3) Um, so I have a small fiber problem. It started out innocent enough, just a few knitted projects here and there and it's evolved into a full blown addiction. I spend all of my free time making pretty knots with sticks that create fabric. When I'm not knittin' away, I am spinning.

Here are some of the things I've created in the last couple of months:

My first thwacked targhee yarn-

Here's some more targhee that I plied and this was the first time I used my niddy noddy-

I'm currently working on this fiber, which is hand-painted BFL from Pagewood Farms-

''

I'm not just spinning, though, I am also knitting. Here is my first fair isle project-

Here are a couple of hats that I knitted up using my own handspun yarn-

I am having a really good time knitting and Tempe Yarn and Fiber is one of my favorite places to hang. I am also totally obsessed with Ravelry, which is my resource for all things (friends and otherwise) fiber-related.

4) Ben's been out of work for almost four months, but it's ok. I'm glad that he is playing golf and focusing in on hobbies. He's been making great meals and making a huge effort to clean up around the house. I know that he wants to get back to work, but there are some pros to having him home so often. The cats are especially happy about it.

5) Finally, I'm happy to say that I'm very grateful for a friend that I've become closer to. I love having someone in my life who is extremely supportive and giving.

SO, it's August and there are 4 more months left of 2009. Just a few days ago, I was saying that "I am so over 2009" and now... well, I'm not sure. There has been a lot of good that's come out of 2009.

Consuming Fiber

It's been sometime since I've written a blog and other things have consumed my time.  I have now been playing the harp for a couple of months.  I really enjoy it; it comes naturally to me.  I took up knitting again.  

I taught myself how to knit in 2002 after hurting my back and being forced to lie around on the couch for a week.  The only thing I ever really knit was scarves.  I was inspired to start knitting again recently.  I decided that I needed to expand my horizons and first knit a baby hat on double pointed needles (DPNs).

Feeling confident, I then moved onto a baby surprise sweater.  I was also encouraged by a Knitting Instructor at Tempe Yarn & Fiber to try my hands at this pattern.  I am so pleased at how this turned out.  

It's a pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  Shay took this great picture of my finished sweater. The glass buttons that I used for the sweater made me so happy.  The buttons were made by a local artist in town, Greenbean Glass and Stone.

I've had a lot of fun knitting.  Got to have a knitting circle at my house with a few of the girls.  Got to hang out with some regulars at Tempe Yarn & Fiber.  Trying some new things out.  Went to a "Knit In" at Scottsdale's Knit Happens.

I also joined an online social knitting networking group called Ravelry.  I've found ravelry to be a great resource for patterns, yarns & people. 

This summer, I am taking a spinning class, a sock class, more harp lessons and started college after a more than decade-long hiatus.  It's going to be a busy summer.  Plenty to keep me occupied.  

Maybe I'll fit in a few blogs.