Snow Day. For Real.

We finally got our snow day.  We were predicted to get at least 8", and on Wednesday school was canceled preemptively.  And then. . . nothing really happened.  It flurried.  It was cold.  That was it.  Sam and I walked to Pilates, had fun, flittered about.  But no real snow.  I got cranky.  I walked around declaring "This storm is a DUD!"  And then. . . natured payed me back.  It *really* started to snow.  (Well, for Asheville, which doesn't generally get much.)  By Thursday morning we had at least 8".  I was supposed to be working, but instead I tried to just enjoy it.  It's beginning to occur to me that, at age 11, my time is getting shorter rather than longer for Sam to want to play with his parents, and I better soak it all in and have fun.  And that's what we did.

Christmas Recap

We've had the loveliest of Christmas holidays.  Thanksgiving can be kind of nuts around here - I always feel like we're driving around to a zillion different gatherings, and in the meantime I'm usually having one of my busiest work weeks of the year.  Christmas, on the other hand, is different.  I've usually hit a lull at work and am taking a deep breath and relaxing, and we don't travel around nearly as much.  We do Christmas Eve with my family, and then we host a Christmas morning brunch for any family and friends that want to come over, and then usually we don't much of anything else.  It's the best, and here's how it all went down:

Christmas Eve we started what should be a new family tradition.  We headed out to Richmond Hill Park and played in the woods together.  Clark ran, and Sam went with me and ran while I rode my uni.  It turned out to be FREEZING, and I was feeling kind of bad for dragging Sam out in it.  The kid has no body fat, and he looked like he was turning blue even after I added a bunch of layers of bike clothes to him from my stash in the car.  But then it started snowing and all was forgiven.  Snow on Christmas Eve = fabulous, no matter the temperature.

Somewhere out there Sam and I ran into Clark, and we took some pictures.

This is one my favorites.  If you look closely you'll see Sam peeping out from behind the tree. 

Once we got ourselves out of the woods we started prepping the brunch we were going to serve on Christmas morning.  We procured sausage at the new Katuah Market  - it just opened, and is owned and largely staffed by the same folks that ran Greenlife before it sold to Whole Foods.  It was like old home week seeing all of the familiar faces, and is beautiful.  Of course since we live within a 2 block walk of Greenlife/Whole Foods, Trader Joes and Harris Teeter, our grocery cup overfloweth and we don't usually need to get in a car and go looking for yet another grocery store.  But I did like Katuah and will no doubt be back.

Lots, and lots, and lots of sausage balls.  And a few other things.  French toast figured prominently.  And some hash brown/egg cup things that seemed to take about 400 times longer than promised, but were actually pretty good.

Christmas Eve with my family - woohoo!  

Our tree on Christmas Eve night.  It looked basically the same on Christmas morning, except it wasn't dark outside and the pictures therefore looked kind of weird with all of the lights.

Let the present opening begin!  Moose was really fascinated by the poodle ornament.  Strangely perceptive, or strangely delicious smelling?  I'm going with the latter.

 Yes, that's my cat in a military portrait.  I cannot stop laughing.  Thanks to Clark and Sam and Skymall, this now has a place of honor in my studio.

Christmas brunch with the family and friends - all of that sausage-ball making pays off.

Bumper pool tourney after the brunch.  Family competitiveness never takes a break.

And after brunch. . .  more uni in Richmond Park.  Like Groundhog Day.

And then Christmas dinner with Leslie and Ed - for which I made my very first ever cake.  Seriously.  I had so little idea of what I was doing that I had to watch a youtube video to figure out how to properly prep the pans.  But the cake itself was (and I'm loathe to toot my own horn here, but…) AMAZING.  I attribute this entirely to (1)  Ina Garten and (2) my ability to follow directions, because as I've mentioned. . . I have no idea how to bake a cake.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.  (and a good beer.)

In Which My Empire Expands

My candles are soon to be found in - drumroll please. . . B.B. Barnes! Very excited about this, since it seems to be the perfect fit for botanical beeswax candles. (Don't you like that phrase?? "botanical beeswax candles" - it finally came to me after months of saying "I make beeswax candles that have pressed flowers in them". I mean, both get the message across, but the former is a bit more elegant than the latter. Elegant is not exactly my long suit, but still, a girl's gotta try.)

So I went in to B.B. Barnes today with the candles, and even though I'm veeeeeery late for stores to bringing in merchandise for the holidays, the very nice people there gave me a great reception, and next week I'm delivering candles. yay!

Also, I stopped by Woolworth Walk to check things out, and met a very nice couple from Gainesville who were wandering about Asheville on vacation, and seemed to have an interest in botanical beeswax candles (there it is again.) I love getting to explain the whole process to people - that's sort of half the fun, which I miss when I'm selling through a store. But sometimes when I'm selling at market it's pouring down rain and 40 degrees and no one in their right mind would show up to buy anything. That's the part of market that I don't miss at all when I'm selling through a store.

So it's been a good day for the candle empire. That's what I'm going to start calling it from now on.

Before my empire building started this morning, I headed over to the Y to meet with one of the trainers to set me up on the weight machines. I figured I might as well get that figured for the winter, and preferably pre-new year, so I don't have to fight my way through all of the New-Years-Resolutioners for an appointment. And he was great and I have a basic routine, but of course what I *really* want is a customized free weight routine and a bunch of cool core exercises using the stability ball, all of which require a personal training session. In other words, where I shell out money. But still, I'm thinking it's probably worth the money for some dedicated advice on that subject. Now the candle empire just needs to take off to pay for my necessary expenses. Like personalized core routines. I know, don't say it. I'm a strange bird.

Today's been a good one - and only getting better since I'm off to pick up Sam D at school. Love that kid - they don't get much sweeter, cuter or funnier than him.

Last month - first swim meet - excitement tinged with terror.

Picture Day

This post was going to be entitled "The Year in Pictures (Or, My Mom Finally Downloads her Camera)." But then I was over at Leslie's perusing her pictures and added a few more. So now it's "The Year in Pictures, Plus a Few Older Ones that Entertain Me." Here goes, in no particular order except that which blogger establishes in its very arbitrary way.


This picture is from a couple of years ago, and is noteworthy not only for the fact that I hiked a skirt up over my chest and called it a dress, but also because pictures of me in this skirt/dress can now be found popping up in weird places in architectural renderings. Seriously. A friend of ours owns a company that produces architectural renderings, and he needed pictures of random people to drop into them and hired Leslie to take these random pictures. And I've seen a few samples that feature me in this dress. Weird, eh?


A few years ago Leslie and I helped a friend who was taking photographs for an art exhibit/fashion show (seriously). This endeavor culminated with me submerged in Beaver Lake wearing a lycra dress and a series of braids on my head that made me look like a teletubby. Not kidding. (Also note, the ranger at Beaver Lake was Not Amused.) To thank everyone who helped with the show, the women in charge had a cocktail party at their house - Leslie and I attended, and were apparently Very Amused by something going on at said party. This picture actually showed up in one of the Citizen Time galleries. It's one of my favorite pictures of Leslie.


One of my favorite knitting creations ever. Our friends, who are huge Johnny Cash fans, had a baby. Leslie really wanted to give them something unique and Cash-like, so I took the album cover from one of Johnny Cash's Greatest Hits albums and turned it into this sweater. Cool, no?


How Sam and his first cousins spent their summer at Camp Nana. They're having a whale of a good time, but I must confess that water doesn't look like much compared to all of the crystal clear pictures on the hawaii blogs I've been reading. Still, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Proof that Sam is probably the most spoiled boy in Asheville. For his birthday his grandmother got him a. . . real knight's helmet. He LOVES it. It weighs about 10 pounds and is big enough for an offensive linemen to fit over his head. It sits in a place of honor beside his bed, but so far hasn't been pressed into actual duty.


How first graders at Isaac Dickson celebrate the last day of school. I can tell you we never got to go to Lake Powhatan and run around like maniacs when i was in elementary school.

The only picture I have from my first triathlon. Seriously. It was just me and Mum (Clark was running market that day), and the battery on her camera died right after taking this picture. Apparently I was just staring at my transition area hoping it would all suddenly make sense.

One of my favorite family portraits. This was right after the Asheville Tri in July.

This Week in Pictures

Here are a few random pics from the last week or so:

Art in the Park - weather was GREAT, booth location was GREAT, other vendors were GREAT, customers were GREAT - and we're getting ready to do it all over again this Saturday. Weather forecast currently not so fortuitous.


Sam's fall baseball picture - see, I told you Little League is the cutest sport ever. And you haven't even seen the 5 year olds who are really too young to play but their dad insists anyway. (I'm not being sexist - it's always the dads. Trust me.)


My hair if I blow it dry. Very Diana Ross, no? It's a look I generally avoid, but the other day I left swim practice and needed to go work outside and it was cold so. . . Diana Ross. I picked Sam up at school and he took one look and said "Mom you need a haircut. You're hair's all fuzzy, and kind of sticking straight out on the sides." Perceptive fellow.



New maple leaf candles. I think the red's a pretty good contrast with the beeswax, and even Clark (v.p. of marketing and CEO of the disdainful sniff) thought they came out pretty well. I'm not being overly harsh on Clark here - an artisan crafter pretty much needs a person who makes no bones about what deserves a disdainful sniff. Otherwise you can find yourself going crazy and gluing rick-rack to god only knows what, and pretty soon you're a Cracker Barrel crafter. Seriously, it could happen.

Return of the Crafters

This week we're taking a departure from our regularly scheduled program. We usually (as in every Saturday for months and months on end) are vendors at City Market. And I love City Market - it's big and fun and interesting, with a ton of cool vendors. But for the next few weeks we're trying something new - Art & Craft Shows. It's what you might call an experiment, and one we're really excited about. So, here's where we'll be for the next little while:

October 3 (tomorrow!) & October 17: Art in the Park. Asheville's first Art in the Park, to be held at Pack Square from 10-5. Couldn't be a better location in Asheville, and we couldn't have a better location at the show - come find us in the red tent right in front of the Art Museum. The list of vendors looks amaaaaazing. Beautiful stuff. (check out the website if you don't believe me.)

October 10 - Church Street Art & Craft Show in downtown Waynesville from 10-5. We haven't been to this one before, but it purports to have a bazillion visitors and be way fun. They even have two stages for bands, and downtown Waynesville is like something off of a post card, so come join us for the fun. Again, look for the. . . red tent. Are you sensing a theme here?

And in the midst of all this roaming about, if you 'd like something we make but don't want to roam about yourself, I've finally managed to get the etsy site up and operational. It isn't fully stocked yet, but I'm making some progress.


So how does one prepare for all of this
art & craftiness?? By making wreaths, as evidenced here (also this serves as photographic proof that I should really listen to my mother and consider wearing makeup on a more regular basis.) In addition to my lack of makeup, please note the treehouse-like setting of my flower building. Love it.

And preparation has also included making candles like a maniac. Our sideboard is barely visible under all of the beeswax.

And lastly, prep has included a fair bit of Little League baseball, which is still hands down the cutest sport on the planet. Sam had some good plays last night, but my favorite part of the game was his teammate skipping back to the dugout after being tagged out at first. Skipping. Priceless.

Finally!

Finally, here's the post I started some time back - on August 25, to be exact. Because that was the first day of school, and here's a picture of what it looks like to head off to second grade:


I was a little concerned about the first day of school. Sam had the same teacher for kindergarten and first grade, and she was WONNNDERFUL, so I wasn't sure how the transition to a new teacher was going to go. But when he hopped off the bus he announced it was "the best first day of school ever!!!!" I love that kid and his enthusiasm. I'm looking to approach things that way myself. How was your swim today? "Best ever!!!!!"

Here's another thing that's been best ever lately. I've remembered that when I go to yoga, I'm bulletproof.


For the record, that is *Not* me doing downward facing dog. My version of that pose is way less long and lithe looking. I'm the person that the instructor watches for a little while and then says, you're a runner, right? Um, yes. Because I've done yoga off and on for years, and I kind of look like someone who has done some yoga - but then you see me actually doing it and the reality is that running and biking do not actually lead to the effortless flexibility exhibited by this woman. Fortunately I've never had a picture taken of me while doing yoga, and I was forced to resort to the internet for a stand-in. At any rate, even my tight, creaky bastardized version of yoga is enough to make everything stop hurting, and the plantar fasciitis is feeling better. Score!

I do have some actual farm/market related news, but that's going to have to wait until the next post. For some reason blogger was not my friend for a while, and then I got tired of fighting with it and pretended like it didn't exist. So now that we're back together it's going to take me a few posts to remember everything.