Category: Uncategorized

My HEARTFELT wish for all of us:

 

But if that’s not the case, then here are my hopes for the year:

(You can buy this from Old Made Good! I might have to.)

I fully intended to post some seasonal links on Christmas Eve but I started cooking and didn’t even remember the blog until the afternoon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Here, have some proof that I was cooking:

The traditional sugar cookies, a three-day affair (dough, baking, decorating).

 

Baby’s first coq au vin, a dish I’ve always wondered about.

 

Blanched green beans as a side dish (they died tragically in the oven upon reheating).

 

Cranberry orange rolls for Christmas breakfast because I thought eating cookies for breakfast would be anarchy.

 

And! We finally got snow on Saturday–last weekend was 60 degrees, yikes–so that was fun to hike in yesterday.

Now that I’m sewing for long periods of time without having to go sit with an old kitty (sob), I’ve finally started listening to podcasts. Well, a podcast–the history of fashion one, Articles of Interest, by Avery Trufelman. I’d heard about it a few years ago when she spent a whole season dissecting Ivy League style. When she launched the new season about the history of outdoor gear, I jumped in.

It is FASCINATING. So far I’ve learned about:

• How Brooks Brothers made Civil War uniforms out of a material called “shoddy” that were so bad, the adjective stays with us today
• How the US Army adopted olive drab instead of blue
• How soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division started gear companies and ski resorts
• How WWII surplus led to the popularization of khakis on college campuses
• And how the military look gradually became mainstream after the Vietnam War, leading to all those WWII surplus stocks getting scarcer, which led to people starting businesses selling European military surplus, which led to…

…BANANA REPUBLIC.

In the newsletter that accompanies each episode, Avery includes photos and links. I clicked on “what the pictures of Banana Republic used to look like” so fast I might have broken the sound barrier. Someone has collected old photos but also SCANNED THE CATALOGS:

 

That’s right, Banana Republic was doing J. Peterman BEFORE J. PETERMAN. And if I’d never listened to a podcast, I would never have known! I’ve been liking the “Gear” season so much that I went back and listened to the entire Ivy Style season between new episodes of Gear being released. Check it out–think of the things you could learn!

1. How about a heartwarming story about typewriter repair? How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life.

2. How about a Thanksgiving-appropriate poem?

Praise Song
by Barbara Crooker

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

 

3. I’ve got the rest of the week off so I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t forget to hold hands.

It was a normal Tuesday night when our friends pinged us that you could see the Northern Lights in Utah?! I wasn’t expecting much, because when this has happened before we weren’t able to see anything, but LOOK AT THIS in our front yard:

I’ve always wanted to see them before I died, and here they were coming to me. Sometimes the universe just gives you a gift and doesn’t even make it a secret.

We’re just…going on with our lives while we get used to living without our boy, I guess. I’m trying not to rush out and adopt a dog and to actually let myself grieve but it’s hard; the house is awfully empty.

The googly eyes on the sign in Millcreek made me actually laugh, though. And everyone has been so kind–people delivered dinner, sent flowers, wrote sweet notes, cried with us. It’s nice to know everyone loved Toby like we did.

A few weeks ago, I started getting Instagram ads for saunas/bath houses in Salt Lake City. I had no idea there were so many (with increasingly weird names): Hot House SLC, Glow, Perspire, Plunj, Sweathouz (ew), and Sauna Public. Sauna Public was the closest to us with a traditional heated sauna vs. infrared, so we checked it out yesterday.

Photo above is from Google, but you can get an idea of the layout: the door in the tile leads to the sauna with two heaters and three levels, and you can see the showers out in the open to rinse off between sauna and cold plunge.

 

And here’s my photo, looking the other way out into the entrance and reception–it’s not a big space. That cold plunge pool looming ominously in the foreground was SO INCREDIBLY COLD. I thought I was tough sitting in the stream in Millcreek in the height of summer, but this was even colder. (It didn’t help that the open showers and the private showers in the changing room didn’t get hot at all–I think the water heater was having a hard time keeping up.)

The vibe was definitely more public pool than luxury spa, but clean and chill. Every guest besides us was an athletic guy in his 30s and they seemed to be subtly trying to out-stay each other in the cold plunge. I guess I was expecting more of an “old European guy” vibe but it makes sense that the bros would be all over hot/cold therapy for recovery.

Will we go again? I might try it alone to really see how much I can cook myself in the sauna, but I might be more of a sento/hot springs person. Or a backyard sauna person, someday, where I can make my cold plunge an indulgent 60 degrees versus 45.

Look at me paying people to do the basement instead of just committing to DIY. I bought some sweatpants ready-made and then started shopping for fleeces at Old Navy?! I’m even considering eating chicken again after 25 years as a veg/pescetarian. (It’s SO hard to get enough protein for lifting and I’m just over the struggle.)

WHO AM I? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Hot Unsettled Summer shook up a lot more than our new house plans, I guess.

My sewjo is understandably non-existent right now–all my energy is going towards organizing, looking at flooring, etc. I also think part of the problem is I want to sew “outside” clothes but work from home and pretty much just go to the gym. I just don’t think I’d reach for a pair of corduroy flares or twill barrel-legs, but that doesn’t stop me thinking, “You have fabric already, just get them cut out.”

You know it’s going to be a wild weekend when you break out the cleaning chemicals:

Or spend your Friday night at the flooring store:

Or get really excited about finally fixing that one low spot in the garage: