Beaver Mitts

Sewing circle wanted someone to make beaver mittens.  My mom volunteered me.  So here begins my beaver mitt making story.  Step one: Choose a pattern.  The pattern I used was so generously given to me and mom by Karen Coffey.  I believe it was her mom's pattern.  

Said beaver mitt pattern.

Step two: Acquire beaver, leather, needles, thread, fleece, etc. in order to make beaver mittens.  I'm lucky I have a very crafty mother because I can go and steal supplies from her.  I probably should start buying some of my own supplies because I'm an adult now, but she'll never possibly use up all of her supplies in our lifetime.  So I steal.  And she doesn't seem to mind.  Too much.

Step three: tracing and cutting.

Step three: Trace and cut out pieces for the mittens.  This pattern requires three pieces for each mitten.  Six total (In case you can't do math.)  For the leather I had to trace on the shiny side because my black pen wouldn't show up on the black leather, go figure.  You can use either scissors or an exacto blade for the leather.  For the beaver fur, you want to trace on the back (obviously) and you need to use an exacto blade or utility knife because you don't want to cut the fur.

Exacto blade

I cut out all of my piece before I start sewing.  With the leather you don't need to be nearly as careful as you do with the beaver hide.  There's no fur flowage to worry about, the only thing to really concern yourself with is that you get to opposite sides.  To help with this process I label my sides A and B.  And done.

Wallah!  A cut out palm piece.

5 things that make me laugh

These are all from my one of my favorite sites.  There is a theme with these...

It's always so easy to blame the other girl.

I relate to this way way way too much.  It's pathetic really.

This just cracks me up.  I spent two months singing this song.  Then I saw this.  And laughed for two months.

If someone hates you, they're not worth caring about.  Lesson learned.

*le sigh*

Apple and Sunflower Seed Kale Salad

I got home from work last night and all I could think about was this:

The glorious of igloo food.  No cooking.  Minimal wait time.  CURLY FRIES.

So naturally I looked in my fridge, realized I needed to eat the kale that was going bad and ultimately decided to made a kale salad.  Why didn't I just let the kale go bad?  Well, there are a few reasons which contributed to that.  #1: The stores don't stock kale out here.  So if I let it go bad there was no chance of getting more.  #2: It was free.  The Jacob's crew gave me all their food that they didn't eat from over the summer.  One simply cannot let free food go to waste.  #3: It's better for me than a big old fatty burger and fries (I'm making myself put this on the list.)

Tear up the kale.  You can see it was starting to yellow.

 I found the recipe for this salad in Cooking Light.  Naturally because I live in the middle of nowhere I didn't have the right ingredients.  Surprise surprise.  Not really.  So instead of celery, I grated carrots.

And instead of using a granny smith apple and walnuts, I used whatever kind of apple I had in my fridge and sunflower seeds.  Sunflower seeds have become my go to replacement for most other fancy nuts i.e. pine nuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, etc.  You get the idea.

Quartered and cored

Then sliced.  I ate one little sliver when I was slicing.  Sue me.

Oh yeah... And I didn't have a red onion, which look more like purple onions to me.  So I used some of my yellow onion.  I do like red onions better than yellow onions, but a village girl can't get too picky.  Unless it comes to men, then you need to be the pickiest gal on the planet.  No lie.

Slice, slice.  I didn't cry.

Instead of cider vinegar, I used cloudberry vinegar.  Instead of walnut oil, I used sesame oil.  I didn't have kosher salt, I had some kind of fancy sea salt that was a gift.  My house doesn't believe in fresh ground pepper, so I used regular pepper.  However, my fancy self had brown sugar and feta cheese.  What up.  That's how I roll.

I ate the whole bowl.  I have no self control.

Typical Work Day

Something witty.

Today the monkey Abu, from Aladdin, came up when I was visiting my mom and Tera.  Now for some reason when I was trying to say that Tera should dress up as Abu for Halloween, what came out of my mouth was, "Tera you should dress up as Abu for Christmas."  I caught this just as I finished saying it.  I looked at Tera.  Tera looked at me.  And we both burst out into hysterical laughter.  Then I took it one step further and through my laughter I said, "Santa Clause doesn't visit this house during Christmas, Abu does."  "Every house needs a magical Christmas monkey."  Which sparked even more laughter leading to snorts and tears and gasping for breath.  My mother just sat and worked looking at each of us like we were crazy.  Which of course made everything funnier.

Something cute and funny

Something clever

Something charming

Something new and exciting

Monday mourning

Okay, so the title is slightly melodramatic but that's just how I roll.  Saturday and Sunday were both fantastically amazing and fantastically depressing because I went grouse hunting but the grouse had little worms in them. So sad.  Grouse are so delicious.  Especially now that I've learned how to use a crock pot (i.e. dump shit into said crock pot and turn on).  Saturday hunting was much more epic than Sunday hunting.  Here's why:  my mom and Mister Blue came along.  This lead to there being a witness to my antics.


Spruce Grouse - photo credit

I had just helped mom put a new refrigerator in.  There was freeze and produce everywhere in the kitchen and porch.  Instead of being logical and sensical creatures, who finish the refrigerator job by putting everything from the old fridge into the new fridge, we opted to be spontaneous and fun creatures.  We went hunting.  Or rather, I went hunting and mom provided company.  Mister blue peeked his schnaz out the back window in the cutest way.  I sang along to the tunes.  Mom sipped coffee.


This is how Blue rolls.  Love it.

At VOR I decided to get out and walk the ridge down the four wheeler trail looking for birds with Mister Blue.  Mom left us there to meet us at the other end of the trail.  I started walking.  Blue followed for approximately 30 feet and then turn around and went back to where the car WAS and sat there looking for his mom.  I had to hike all the way back to Mister Blue and drag him along until he was finally convinced that we were walking along the trail together.  It took cajoling and good dogging and c'mere boying until I wanted to pick him up and carry him.  Such a momma's boy.  Needless to say, chasing and calling the dog caused me to scare away the only grouse I saw on that hike.  It was beautiful out and absolutely worth it.

Willow ptarmigan - photo credit

After piling back into the car, onward we drove.  Right after the bridge we finally came across a grouse in the road.  Down it went, on we went.  A little flock of white awaited us as we approached the hills after the clearing.  I shot.  Down went one ptarmigan.  I shot again.  I rung the neck of the first ptarmigan and headed towards the second ptarmigan, who promptly decided to run off into the brush.  I never leave a bird down.  So off into the brush I went.  I chased that bird around and around in circles in that brush.  His wing was down, his legs were not.  I got all tangled up in the willows, the ptarmigan hopped out onto the road and walked around a bit.  I crashed out of the willows and he meandered right back in.  What.  The.  Heck.  I followed suit yet again.  I had twigs in my hair, sweat building up under my hoody, and water in my shoe.  This was not working.  I stomped out of the willows and to my gun.  Up to my shoulder it went.  Down went the ptarmigan.  I walked right into the willows and picked up the bird.  Triumph.

Ptarmigan are achangin' color.  I think they look beautiful like this.

I walked back to the other bird and picked it up.  Then as I headed back to the car, I realized my mom was doubled over laughing.  It brought a huge smile to my face.  So much ridiculousness.  She was practically in tears with laughter.  Days like this day, when the weather was beautiful, and me and mom were just spending time together are my heaven.  She's my best friend.  Hunting was just the icing on the cake.  The hilarity was sprinkles on that cake.

The only bummer came when I went to clean my birds.  I ripped the first one open and was utterly disgusted.  A teensy little white worm was squirming around on top of the breast meat.  It surprised me completely.  I'd gotten a bunch earlier in the season and none had any defects or worms or anything wrong with them.  So I set the wormy bird aside and went for the second grouse.  I ripped it open and was super bummed.  Again there were worms on the breast meat.  I wanted to cry.  I love grouse. They're a lighter meat than ptarmigan and they're so freaking delicious.  I went for the third one.  It didn't have any worms!  Neither did the fourth, the fifth did and the sixth was fine.  Both ptarmigan were perfect and looked delicious.  It was a serious bummer and I went on a mission to figure out what these little depressing worms were.  So far, no one else has encountered them whilst hunting hereabouts.  I'll keep asking though.  And I'm gonna keep hunting.

Blondie

Dang.  It's been a grip since I've even thought about posting anything.  I worked all summer with Jacob's Engineering up on an old White Alice site.  I woke up at 6, went to work at 7 a.m. and usually got home around 7 p.m.  Six days a week, I might add.  Not having the internet at home and definitely not having the time kind of put a kibosh on posts.  Now that I have a plethora of time on my hands, I'm going to attempt to be more regular in my posting.  Fat chance of it actually happening.

Today, since I got a lot of compliments on my hair, I'll show ya what it looks like.  A couple of months back I decided to take a Saturday off and visit folks instead of work.  Naturally we have a few drinks and I ended up bleaching the back half of my hair.  Whoops.  Surprisingly, the dye job grew on me but it wasn't quite as blonde as I would have liked so the next time I popped into Anchorage I picked up some more hair bleach.  Just over a week ago I finally had the time to utilize the hair product that is impossible to get mailed to bush Alaska.  So I did.  And this dear friends is the result.

Front view.  Dang.  My face really does have a lot more color than normal.  Now I see why people have been commenting on it all month.

Whenever I wear my hair down I usually just let it go.  Occasionally I'll put some product in it to make it slightly less frizzy and shinier.  But in the end it always ends up fluffy.  Apparently you're supposed to have volume at the top of your head.  Clearly you can see in these pictures that I just let it go.  The top where my hair parts, is flat.  And I'm fairly certain it's going to stay that way.  I have yet to figure out a way to give it some more oomph, without giving the rest of my hair oomph.  As you can see it has enough oomph all on its own.

This is the back/side view of my cabeza.  And incidentally enough another view of my office, which personally I feel I spend too much time in.

What is this smile?  I swear it looks like I'm about to do evil things to something.  Or someone.

 I don't remember the last time my hair was this long.  I'm pretty sure it might have been in High School.  Or before third grade.  Regardless, it's been a long time.  It's been almost as long since it's been my natural hair color.  I'm not really sure what my natural color looks like anymore.  Dyeing and bleaching hair is just way too much fun for me to figure that out.

This. When my hair looks like this.  It makes me happy.  Then I love having long, curly hair and all the work that it entails.

Remixing

So in the fashion blogging world, wearing an article of clothing more than once is called remixing.  I suppose there is styling involved.  To me it's just a fact.  You wear an article of clothing more than once.  You don't always grab the same stuff to put on with it every time you use that article of clothing.  So it's worn a different way.  Aaaand remixed. 

Me and my big hair.  I like it.

I don't like that all of my pictures of in my office, but I'm usually too lazy or too busy or too lazy to take pictures anywhere else.  One of these days I'd like to be brave enough to take pictures by my house or car or four-wheeler.  Unless I'm out in the country by myself, I feel super silly taking pictures of myself and posing for a tripod.

I was moving in this picture, but I looked better in this picture than the posed picture.  Vanity.

My office has since been organized the slightest since I took these pictures.  However working as an environmental specialist and managing recycling out in these here parts causes clutter.  And piles of boxes of crap that needs to be stored before there's enough quantity to merit staging and freighting into Anchorage.  Thus my office is constantly stacked and piled.  And because there are stacks and piles of batteries and ballasts, it doesn't encourage me to keep my files in order.  Every once and a while it gets to the point where I can't focus on anything and then I start filing and tackling piles.  Or at least re-piling so it looks moderately organized.

I like my hair.  :)

My hair is getting long.