Happy Halloween!

The day my little one has been eagerly awaiting for weeks....National Candy Day. No wait...Halloween, that's right ;).

Here she is dressed as an Enderman:


Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

It's Been A While

It sure has been a while since I've posted. Things got very busy! I got a new job, spending more time with my family, and the farm is growing bit by bit. Now we have four chickens out in the coop and a flock (pardon the pun) in the garage under a heat lamp awaiting their turn to go out into the big world. There were five adult chickens originally but, ahem, one of them committed suicide by dog. In a previous post, I mentioned how I hot-wired the dog yard; that thing is like Fort Knox. That chicken had to fling itself over the fence for the dogs to eat it. I wonder if it brought a bottle of Tobasco with it? Darn bird. Oh well; apparently it didn't taste very good, and dead was the only thing on the menu, chicken-wise.

Halloween is this week, so we are gearing up for that of course. My little one wants to be this creature:

This thing is called an "Enderman" and it's from a video game called "Minecraft". Ever heard of it? I hadn't either until her older sister taught her how to play (Emily, you are SO grounded). Now she wants to play all the time and this very pixelated critter is all I've heard about for days and days. Fortunately, I am diabolical; therefore, my older daughter (as I call her, Emily the Corrupter) has to make this costume. She's such a cheater too; cardboard box my foot!

In other news, I have seen a few great movies lately and a not so great one that I was holding out high hopes for. First, "Rock of Ages" was magnificent especially if you are a child of the 90s who loved the big hair bands (guilty). Tom Cruise was a-maze-ing, totally nailed it. Say what you will about his religious beliefs and crazy antics but he certainly CAN act. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" was not all the book said it should be. The movie was just barely in the "ok" category; the book was fantastic. I urge anyone who watched the movie and disliked it to please pick up the book. It is cleverly written and entertaining to say the least. And lastly, my beloved "Dark Shadows" is out now on DVD and soon to be within my clutches so I can watch it for the third, or is it fourth, time. Johnny Depp, how DO you do it?

I have been busy reading a lot lately as well; I read a new Jodi Picoult book (well new to me) called "Vanishing Act" which I enjoyed. I read a zombie/apocalypse trilogy which begins with "Rot and Ruin", quite well done, but more for younger generations like teens. I am reading "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman right now, and Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury". Not my favorite Faulkner ever but....hey, it's Faulkner. What can I say.

School wise, I am wrapping up a linguistics class and will again immerse myself in the world of Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare soon. Which comes in handy at my new job, where I am responsible for tutoring high school kids on, you guessed it: medieval literature. HA!

I'm also knitting my fingers off in preparation for the holidays; I have several projects going that I'd better get back to. I'll post some of my completed creations as I get some of them done. See ya!

Crazy Days in Mid-September

Things have been pretty crazy around here lately! There was the back-to-school melee, followed by a new job for me (I start in one week! yay!) to fixing up things around the little farmstead. We added two new family members, Frodo and Sam, the two Nubian goat kids we adopted a few months ago. They are finally ready to be away from their mama, but don't tell them that! They disagree completely. Here are some pics of the little tykes:

Sam's little goaty face


The one with the black stripe is Frodo. The other one is Sam


Frodo is camera shy



In other news...I have had to competely hotwire an entirely new dog pen because Sadie Mae won't keep her rear where she should be keeping it. Rotten dog!

 

Haven't had much time for crafts, but I did make one of the Pioneer Woman's recipes for dinner last night. It was botwie pasta with leeks and pancetta; you simply must try it, because I will be making it again! Totally delicious.

 

Have had a lot of homework lately so that's consumed a lot of my time. Hopefully I will get crafty soon and talk about dying wool with ingredients found in nature. I plan to make myself some Stargazer socks this winter and I found a blog about giant knitting. It looks like it takes a lot of material though. Guess I had better find a drum carder and start picking some wool!

 

See ya soon :)

 

 

 

 

The view from my front door, at 6 am

 

 



How I Miss the Sea

There's nothing that feeds my soul quite like the ocean, other than my family of course.

But I have a deep connection with the sea. It inspires me, calms me, and soothes my inner demons.

Particularly, I love the Oregon coast. The contrast of the gentle waves and craggy cliffs, the jagged broken edges of the rocks in the water and the time smoothed stones thrown upon the sandy shore, those things feed me in a way food cannot.

If you ever have the chance to visit the Oregon coast, I highly recommend Whaleshead Beach Resort! I stayed there with my daughter, a mommy/daughter mini vacation, and we loved it. The ocean view from our cabin porch was magnificent.

Tomorrow is Another Day!

So tomorrow I'm going to yard sales with my mom. What on earth do I need at a yard sale? The only thing I can think of is maybe some scrapbooking stuff. But you never know, and spending time with Mom is always good no matter what. We have lots of fun!

My awesome husband is going to do the grocery shopping. Here are the flowers he bought and had delivered to my office from a "Secret Admirer" (I know it's him):

I'm so clever to have figured it out!

Ok I'm done now. Aren't they lovely though? As part of my many hobbies, I enjoy photography. Actually I'm shopping for a great dSLR camera but haven't found my one true lens-y love yet. I have outgrown the point and shoot, and while my iPhone does take interesting pictures for a cell phone...I need a digital wonder to help me with my creativity so I can capture that picture worth a thousand words. I do have a 35mm with fun filters but sometimes a girl needs her technology. Here are a couple I took with my phone though:

And ok just one more of something not flowery:

This is my view every morning on my way to work. Isn't it perfect!?

In other news, creative writing class started up and as mentioned, I'm thrilled. I already finished my first paper which you can read if you want. It's posted in my pages section at the top of the site. I met cool new people, some interested in the same hobbies as me! And though I haven't been knitting, spinning, or dyeing lately, it wil be nice to have someone to talk to about the merits of each when winter comes and I turn to sedentary pasttimes. Right now...it's time to go water my pumpkins!! 

Creative Writing

So excited! Started creative writing class today and will finally be encouraged to write, creatively!

Here's what I write for my class bio:

"Hi everyone,

My name is Inigo Montoya...ok no not really. But that's a great line isn't it? My name is actually Vaughan. Christina Vaughan. But please, call me Chrystal. According to family legend, my name was given to me by my grandmother who wanted my mother to name me after Crystal Gayle, that country singer lady but my mother wanted a traditional Sicilian/Italian name. Thus I was dubbed "Christina Leanna Canepa" for a good many years. Anyway. I'm a grown up now, so I go by whatever I want, and no one can stop me.

I am working toward a Master's degree in English, possibly even a Ph.D. Though I always pictured myself becoming a writer and have written quite a lot of poetry, short stories, and children's stories, the plan never came to fruition and I suppose I have just sort of given up on the idea. Now, I plan to teach college, maybe online or traditional or a combination of the two. I would also be interested in becoming an editor when I grow up, I have always loved reading and fixing; when I was a kid in high school, my best friend and I would write notes to each other during class and I always had to correct hers.....I just knew that the things I wanted to do with my life required higher education.

A bit of personal info about me is that I am 36, have been married to Mr. Vaughan for 7 years (I call him Mr. Vaughan but other people call him Caleb. Ok not really. They call him Mr. Vaughan too). Before fate brought us together, he had a son named Austin who is now 16 and driving and has a girlfriend and shaves. I too had offspring before our cosmic meeting, a lovely daughter named Emily who is 17 and may become a quantum physics engineer and take over the world. She has little time for outside interruptions in her days of calculations and planning. I sleep with my doors locked at night in case you are wondering. And at last, when the fickle hand of fate saw fit to bring us finally to our destiny, we had a small miracle named Madyson, who is now 7 and whose visage will likely rival Helen of Troy in her power to launch seagoing vessels.

We live on a small farm, with a couple chickens/goats/rabbits/dogs/and cats. We go by two's here. So literally a couple of each of the named species of animals. For FUN, I enjoy reading, writing (no, not arithmetic), pottery, painting, drawing, paper crafting, beading, loom weaving, and best of all...spinning wool into yarn, dyeing the wool spun into yarn with hand-created dyes found in nature, knitting the spun and dyed wool into garments which I then force my family to wear, and cooking. I love cooking. I am a legendary cook, within my family anyway. I have a blog where I post all my delectable recipes when I have time. I also have a pesky full time job thing, which gets in the way of my creating quite often.

I love writing. I am so excited for this class and to learn with all of you and read your creations and share mine. So. Excited.!!!"

I'm very excited. Did I mention that part yet?

Book Review: Little Bee by Chris Cleave

This book is pretty good once you get going. It's a little disjointed at first but picks up speed quickly. While the alternating narrators are a clever way to tell the story from the two main character's points of view, I didn't feel that Little Bee's character went as far as she could have. But, the whole story when viewed as an entire picture is very moving, often funny, but tragic with its dark humor and darker message. This is not a story for the faint of heart; I won't ruin it but to summarize, a Nigerian refugee girl finds her way to a British woman's home after spending two years in an asylum. Having met the woman and her husband in Nigeria while the couple were on vacation, tragic events that took place there brought Little Bee the refugee to their doorstep after they spent years trying to forget that day, with varying degrees of failure. And let's don't forget about Batman! You'll have to read to find out why. Definitely worth reading, so four little buzzing bees out of five from me.