The magic vitamin

I haven't been sick AT ALL this winter. Which is quite peculiar. I've spent the last month trying to figure out what lifestyle changes have saved me from the usual once-a-month colds, and I think I've finally cracked the code.

Vitamin D! I started taking it in the fall to see if it would ward off seasonal depression. Along with the St. John's Wort that I've been taking daily for the past year, I think it's done a pretty good job with keeping me out of the dumps while the sun is nonexistent. And now I'm starting to think that maybe it's convinced my skin that it's summer and so my skin has told the rest of my body that it's not the season for the cold and flu. Or something like that.

I was reading a column in People's Food Co-op's newsletter the other day about the role that nutrition, herbs, and homeopathics have played this year in preventing H1N1. Apparently clinics that promoted Vitamin D reported really low H1N1 rates. "Human skin cells produce Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Therefore, it would make sense that influenza (flu) takes hold in places when sunlight diminishes, and indeed, epidemiological review supports this correlation."

I was really excited to read this, so I did some more research, and it's true: there is indeed an inverse relationship between Vitamin D levels and not only H1N1, but all colds and flus.

It turns out half of people around this area are Vitamin D deficient. When you can't play in the sun, try Vitamin D supplements. Your body might just think that it is summer and start acting that way.

Hearts

I really like taking paper to the sewing machine. For Valentine's Day, I cut up all of my mom's Woman's Day magazines and made these heart strings for the nursing home she works at. (The kids I work with also made Valentine's for all of the residents, which was a-dorable.)



I also knit a bunch of dishcloths. Pattern found here.



I'm thinking about sticking with the heart theme and possibly partaking in some knit graffiti, inspired by this.

Source Code

"Knitting gives me a lot of respect for my ancestors as hackers. Knitting is source code - you look at a knitting pattern - that's the code for a sweater. As we industrialize, more and more of the world we experience comes in a black box. We know how to use things but we don't know how they work. I've been de-black boxing my wardrobe." -Lisa Williams

Turning ugly news into pretty stuff

I'm poor. I also have a lot of free time. So when I can craft things for free, I get pretty excited. The other thing about free crafts is that they almost always involve reusing materials that otherwise would have gone to waste. When I was working at a grocery store, I got really into crocheting and knitting with plastic bags. It was fun, but even more than that it was therapeutic. There were so many evenings where I would ride my bike home from work so frustrated with how many plastic bags I had seen leave the store that day. There was always some middle aged man barking "OF COURSE I NEED A BAG! ARE YOU CRAZY?" (usually he "needed" this bag for something like, oh, a single can of pop). Crafting with plastic bags became a kind of activism for me, as well as a release. My nerves were calmed. I could pick a bag up off the street on my way home and turn it into something pretty. I didn't feel as upset about over consumption when I could do a little something to offset waste.

Newspaper is my new thing. I remember reading in a zine once that mulching can be a really cool thing because you take really crappy news and do something really fabulous with it. Mulching becomes a therapeutic act in that you can take pictures of soldiers and the president and stalk brokers and turn them all into this thing that will prevent weeds from growing in your garden! (I for the life of me cannot remember what zine this one. If someone knows, please tell me.)

I was feeling pretty bummed out by every newspaper I saw back in December, so I decided to make newspaper baskets for Christmas. And it felt really nice; turning ugly news into pretty crafts.




A pretty good tutorial for magazine baskets can be found here.

Happiness will be my revenge

I am listening to this song for what is probably the 28th time this week. It's the perfect song to play while getting ready for the day.

"The Sweptaways are thirty women who sing choir-arranged versions of pop tunes. Thirty women in color-coordinated or thematic costumes." And Jens Lekman is still my favorite.

Banners are hip, right?

My banner phase started in November, while I was falling in love with Learning to Love You More. We all kept talking about assignment #63: Make an Encouraging Banner.

This first one is hard to see, but when Joel, Mel, and I all moved away from Bellingham, we made a banner for ourselves that said ADIOS. We also hosted a Talent Show which I think was enormously successful. It included hula hooping, a couple magic shows, ukulele playing, a burping of the ABC's, Brooke reading Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA as spoken word, and lots of songs. Joel, Ben, Mel, and I sang and danced to Hold on by Wilson Phillips. And I think this picture was taken while Josh stuffed two whole doughnuts in his mouth...


Ben gave this "Be Your Higher Self" banner to Joel and I when we moved. He'd been working on it for weeks, ever since we started talking about making encouraging banners. I feel honored to have it in my possession after knowing how carefully he cut out each of the letters. Also, it is a nice banner to wake up to every morning.


My mom made this one for my birthday! (I forgot to take a photo while it was still hanging up in the living room)


Miniature banners are cute, so I made this diorama for my sister for Christmas. I thought it turned out nicely. (Natz is her nickname)


Now I'm going to make one and hang it in a public space. Any ideas for what the banner should say?

A sunset so vivid and warm

Forrest recently developed photos from our early fall country road trip (the one we baked all the cupcakes to fund raise for). They're absolutely stunning.

My favorites are of The Arches, in Utah. They remind me that that day was one of the best days.


We arrived at the National Park in the early evening. We'd been driving for almost 24 hours and wanted to sleep, but we'd read enough about Delicate Arch to know that we needed to see it before it got dark.


We drove along the windy roads towards the arch, racing to catch up with the sun before it set. We grabbed the last parking spot near the arch and with cameras, water, and some snacks, we made our way a mile and a half up the rugged sandstone.


The weather was incredible that day. Sunny with spurts of intense rain, and a tremendous rainbow spread out across the sky. We made it to the top just in time for the sunset. We ate a mango while we sat in it. It was magical.


That really was the trip of a lifetime.