caracolina

I’m doing well, surprisingly well. No hunger pangs, no headaches. The salt water flush is annoying of course, but other than that, everything is fine. At this point we’re wondering if we shouldn’t hold out for a total of 7 days, which really would be 9 days before we’re back on solids because after 7 days of fasting you can’t just go back to regular foods, but have to slowly switch to orange juice, then veg broth, then veg soup.

We’re on the second day of our cleanse and are just taking things easy. This is going to be a fun year, my mom will arrive in 23 days, I’ll be done with my associates degree shortly thereafter, having fun with crafts, learning to spin, traveling, loving life.

Yesterday the Mister suggested we try out the master cleanse. We bought supplies (maple syrup, senna leaf tea) at night and here we are, managing the first day without any problems. Kind of exciting.

I don’t actually remember what kind of roving it was and whether I got it at yarn school or not. Bad, bad, job. I do believe everything else is labeled though, and stashed away neatly. Anyway, this is yarn I made after my tutoring. It is a lot more even but I am still struggling with underspinning. This was especially noticeable when plying. On another note, after I plied the two bobbins I ended up with a bit more on one. I looked for some pictures online and then learned how to roll the rest into a center-pulled ball on my fingers and then plied that. It worked well! Based on my niddy noddy I should have about 140 yards here.

Since our old pillow cases started to look less than threadbare I have been saying I would use my sewing machine to make some new ones. This means I’ve been talking about it for a few months now. Well, I finally did it. I had this colorful bug print cotton fabric (thanks, Ruby and Axel), sitting around for years, not sure what I was going to make with it, and it turned out there was just enough for two pillow cases.

Today John drove us out to Mesa where I attended a 2-hour one-on-one session with Barbara at the Fiber Factory. This is such a nice store, I wish it was closer so I could attend real classes sometimes. John of course had talked to the people there several times while shopping for birthday gifts and so they recognized him and wished me happy birthday. Yes, I know he’s a keeper! It is nice to know your heart still skips a beat when thinking of your spouse after so many years and no, it is not because of my birthday loot. Anyway, Barbara gave tips to improve my drafting and just watched me practice for a while, correcting my technique. Then she showed me how to spin from the fold, which is exciting and new for me. Now I just have to continue practicing which I hope to do lot in the next week. I don’t start work again until the 2nd of January!

After another early morning MacDonalds trip we left Santa Barbara to drive home to Phoenix by way of the “Danish town” Solvang, north of S.B. Some might say Solvang is a bit of tourist trap, but it is definitly nice to see a town that is NOT looking like any other town. The old town is full of little shops, pastry places, and restaurants. We have been there before but never for long. This time the main purpose was to stop at the Village Spinning & Weaving Store, where John had bought fiber and natural dye stuffs for my birthday extravaganza. This is a cool store, it seems small but it is literally crammed full of fibers, yarns, books, fiber art paraphernalia, etc. In spite of my repeated warnings not to let me go loose inside John patiently let me spend way too much money on books and yarn, yowza!

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After breakfast at Cajun Kitchen for the second time this trip we did the usual stuff, like one more Costco stop and the park, but there was also something different and special this time. On the way back to the house we noticed a nervous dog by the side of the road at a busy intersection. Thinking that this couldn’t be right we slowed down and the dog (a black lab) approached in a friendly manner. We figured he must have been lost since he was wearing a collar with phone numbers and a name (“Buddy”) as well as tags. Since we couldn’t risk loading Buddy into the van since Sophie was growling a bit, John jotted down the phone numbers and I jumped out of the van armed with a box of dog bones to keep Buddy company and out of the street while John drove back to the house to try the phone numbers. Buddy was really nervous and skittish at first but really loved the bones. I broke them up and gave him a little bit at a time to focus him away from traffic. Finally John and Uncle Woody came back with the van. They hadn’t been able to reach anyone, so it was decided to bring Buddy to the Humane Society in the knowledge that someone would pick him up shortly.

After that was done and we returned to the house we found out that Buddy’s owner had returned John’s call, so we directed him to the Humane Society where he probably picked up his dog right away. All of us were quite happy to be able to help out and prevent a dog from getting run over in a busy street.

We got up early to go to MacDonalds with Uncle Woody and Aunt Annie. Every workday they meet friends there when the place opens at 5 AM. Aunt Annie had taken off that day but we picked up their friend Boyd on the way because we were dropping him off at the Amtrak station later (he was taking the train to San Diego to stay with family over the holidays). A bunch of other seniors and some homeless guys came into McD’s soon after we arrived. It was fun to chat with people but after we got back to the house John and I went for a nap.

Later on we headed for Costco and the park, then back to the house for more relaxing and food. At some point we straightened out some of the bushes in the front yard and I got my first try with the power hedge trimmer.. wow! In the end John did not trust me to go fast and even enough (these little bushes are supposed to be cut in squares) so I was relegated to cleaning up the leaves and little branches. Oh well…

It seemed like we hadn’t done the drive in ages. We left in the morning, not quite as early as we’d originally planned, but oh well. We stopped for lunch at the North Woods Inn in Covina. John surprised me by not ordering the Lumberjack Steak as usual, but the neverending cheese toast and salads (what I always get). They have some really yummy red cabbage and white cabbage salads and we got stuffed next to a bunch of larger parties celebrating Christmas early. I love that place, the atmosphere is so out there, kind of cheesy but in a good way.

A few hours later we arrived in Goleta (ya, we always say Santa Barbara but our folks really live next door to it). Strange, it was still light out (we usually get there on Fridays between midnight and one in the morning) and we were not falling down tired. The usual servings of lasagna and cheese cake followed soon after. It is great to be here again.