V is vivacious.

“Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.” – Iris Murdoc

Vivacious means to be lively in temper or conduct. I often behave vivaciously in conduct. One of the off-the-wall things I made while behaving lively is a food shrine. I was inspired by a bizarre book I read about dieting, which, of course, for the life of me I cannot recall the title nor the author. So soon as I do, I’ll post them here.

The shrine is a mac and cheese carton, and the base is a tin of sardines. I left the sardines in the tin for weight. I made this 8 years ago, give or take a year. So far, no leaks! Or ka-booms!

On top of the box are small seashells. The tower of fish were fussy cut from fabric. Each was layered with batting and backing and the edges finished with satin stitches.

The labels between the fish read “eat more fish.” The front of the flap is decorated with macaroni from the package, and above the flap is “just say no” followed by “to junk food” under the flap. The quote finishes on the wrong side of the flap with “and yes to fresh from the farm.”

The flap opens to show the food goddess that I photocopied from the book. The sun shape on the flap is painted glued-on macaroni.

The back of the box has these foodie quotes:

There is no such thing as a little garlic.

A forbidden meal is quickly eaten.

An apple a day keeps the doc away.

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

Avoid fruits and nuts. You are what you eat.

On the sides are these quotes:

No label needled when you cook from scratch.

The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books—how not to eat what you have just learned how to cook. – Andy Rooney

Being vivacious is zany!

To keep with the good-food theme, here’s a healthy recipe inspired by a breakfast I had at the Café Burlington in Burlington, Washington. Now what’s funny about this is, when I looked at their website when developing this post, their menu has changed very little since I was there in October 2002!

Veggie del Sol

eggs

~ ~ ~

roasted red peppers

Kalamata olives

onions

capers

sun-dried tomatoes

~ ~ ~

fresh tomatoes

fresh basil

Cotiji cheese

Using your years of cooking experience, make an omelet, keeping the egg to the next five ingredients in what seems like good proportions. If you’re new to cooking, just wing it! Top the omelet with the last three ingredients.

U is for unconventional.

“April, the Angel of the Months”.– Vita Sackville-West

April is my birthday month. For a short time early in 2011, I didn’t know if I would have another birthday.

After having 3 years of sporadic abdominal pain, I had an ultrasound of my gall bladder. Gall bladder okay. Liver, not so much. Tumors. I didn’t know if they were cancerous. What I did know is that liver tumors usually occur because they have spread from another organ. Sure enough, a CT scan showed the tumors had started in my small intestine.

I assumed I was a goner. One of the mornings during the time I call “the twilight zone”—the period upon learning about the tumors and finding out exactly what they were—I walked to the top of my driveway to pick up the paper. On the way back to the house, I stopped. And I stomped my feet and shouted (I don’t think out loud, but to myself): I WON’T BE THE THIRD WOMAN IN THIS FAMILY TO DIE IN HER MID-50’s! You see, in 2007, one sister-in-law died at age 56 during an asthma “attack,” and in 2009, another of my sister-in-laws died at age 57 from cancer. My declaration was a refusal to travel that path.

More tests revealed the tumors to be carcinoid, which are generally not life-threatening. Yippee!!! Of 100,000 cancer patients, only one or two—yes, you read that right: only one or two—have this type of tumors. I’m unconventional!

On March 3, 2011, surgery removed about six inches of my small intestine that were home to the tumors. Called “resection,” this surgery usually results in a lot of pain and nausea. I had not so much pain and no “pukies.” The nurse who took care of me the first three days (of my five-day hospital stay) said I was a poster child for small intestine resection. Again I’m unconventional!

The liver tumors will always be with me. I’ve known that since the diagnosis was made. But it wasn’t until a CT scan in December 2011 showed more liver tumors had developed that I really got it. It took almost a year for it to sink in. That I will always have this cancer. Always. Like, forever. On January 3 and 5, 2012, I had a “selective internal radiation treatment” (SIRT) that zapped the tumors with millions of teeny tiny radioactive beads. SIRT does not “search and destroy” the tumors, it simply makes them less active. This is a new treatment that’s not often done, and only one doctor in Colorado is trained to do the procedure. Once more, I got to be unconventional!

When folks talk about cancer, I often hear the word “fight.” I never have, never will, use that word to describe me. I’m on a journey. Here’s one woman’s story about her carcinoid journey. Kari's thoughts mirror much of mine. The Carcinoid Cancer Foundation is a great source if you want to learn more about this rare disease. The one that makes me unconventional.

I hope that you are a little unusual not because of what happens inside of you but what goes on outside. Do you have an eccentric hobby like time traveling? An odd habit that grates on others nerves? A silly collection of troll dolls? A bizarre sense of humor? What makes you unconventional?

One last thing about my birthday this month. I made a birthday cake quilt for my 50^th. The cake is a rainbow fabric that I decorated with rainbow-colored rick rack. The 50 candles are a stripe fabric where each stripe is topped with a sequin and a bead to make a flame, of sorts! The cake stand is built from triangles cut from 10 different fabrics.

Now that I’m reaching the last year of my 6^th decade, it’s about time to add more candles to my quilt, isn’t it? Haven't decided exactly the best plan of attack for these...maybe free-floating embroidered candles, or maybe I'll just draw them on the quilt top.

Being unconventional is zany!

Ending this post with a comfort food! While I’m more careful now about what I put in my body—less meat, more organic—sometimes I just need some cheer-me-up food that’s delightfully indulgent and decadent.

chocolate to the extreme

chocolate brownies

chocolate pudding

chocolate mousse

chocolate ice cream

chocolate sauce

chocolate chips

chocolate-flavored whipped cream (to make this, just add cocoa powder to whipped cream)

cocoa powder

Prepare the brownies. Cool in the pan. Cover and refrigerate.

Prepare a box of pudding and a box of mousse. Carefully spread the pudding over the brownies. Cover and chill.

To serve, cut the brownies into squares. Place each square off-center on a medium-sized plate. Dollop some mousse over the top of each brownie. Drizzle on some sauce. Toss on some chips. Top with whipped cream. Dust with cocoa powder. Put a scoop or two of ice cream next to each brownie.

Oops. Broke my keep-it-to-500-words rule. This post has 761.

T is for traveler.

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Poor Tiger. Poor, poor Tiger. As it sat in our driveway all winter, it got buried many times in snow. But yippee for the wonders of 4 wheel drive! I zip it up the driveway and into the street, then I slip and slide around on my aluminum ladder and sweep the snow off the top. Then it gets parked in the sun, where it dries off in no time!

Now that it’s spring, it will be out and about soon.

When I travel, I move in all directions. The more, the better. I just pass through. I don’t stay.

But, I do travel to many places over and over. 

In my dirt-biking days, each spring a large group of biker friends went to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. In the early 1980’s, during one of our trips up Salt Creek, we found the 13 Faces rock art panel. 

In 1993, I painted part of the scene and made a quilt, which was Bob’s birthday gift from me during a trip to Moab in 1993. The fabric is hand-dyed. I made stencils from freezer paper that I ironed onto the fabric. Then I used thick fabric paint for the figures. In the bottom left corner are 3-D leaves representing the thick growth of bushes that made finding the faces difficult.

Another place I’ve often been to is Capitol Reef National Park, also in Utah. Many a springtime I have spent a night or two in their campground. Each time, I scarf down pies from the Historic Gifford Homestead. The homestead was part of the Mormon pioneer village of Fruita, settled way back in 1880. The orchards, planted and tended by the villagers, are now the largest orchards in our National Parks, and they are protected as part of our Rural Historical Landscape. I’d like to spend more time in their orchards, perhaps as a volunteer.

One of the orchards has black walnuts, trees that are close to my heart. My great-grandparents planted black walnut trees along the Yokum Ditch on their property in Arvada, Colorado. My dad grew up on the family homestead, as did my two sisters and I. The trees are still there. This is my great-grandmother Amelia Slayton’s recipe:

Black walnut icebox cookies

3 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup butter
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
some salt
1 cup black walnuts
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients into a long, narrow loaf (better if made into 2 loaves.) Let the loaf rise overnight in the icebox. Slice thin. Bake at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Being a traveler is awesome!

S is for seamstress.

“I base my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch.” – Gilda Radner

Last July, I learned the basics of knitting socks. Long story short, I went from knitting scarves to knitting socks. And I’m talking about knitting scarves, just plain-ole knitting. No fancy patterns, no fancy stitches. Not even purl stitches! And I’m hooked. I can’t stop knitting socks. 

And here is my latest pair: knee socks to wear with my hiking boots. I’m using the toe-up two-at-a-time technique on all my socks, which is great because it avoids the “sock syndrome” of getting one done and the other one getting forgotten about. (The bits of yarn on the left side of the photo is all that is left over!)

So, sewing has taken a back seat. But, I’ve lost a lot of weight because of carcinoid tumors, which I wrote about in my joy and unconventional posts. My clothes don’t fit. So what to do, what to do? Dig into my overflowing (oops!) stash of patterns and fabric and make some stuff!

Never one to work a single project at a time, here’s what is “up my sleeve” for a spring sewing frenzy.

The blouse will be color-blocked from leftover pieces of multicolored fabric leftovers from another outfit. The leggings will be the solid fabric. Both are cut out and ready to sew, but they are gonna be a “bugger” as three of the fabrics are lightweight and very slippery and the solid is crinkled. Yikes!

The pattern front says "the 3-hour tunic." Ha! It took me about that time to choose the fabrics!

Can I call batiks “chintzy”? Well, these are! I think they came from the dollar table at Cloth World about a hundred and ten years ago. They are finally making their way into this African-inspired outfit. Again, this blouse and pants are cut out and ready to sew.

This Marcy Tilton design is a fun blouse that I’ve made a couple of times before. Marcy is a fabulous think-outside-the-box designer who does workshops around the country with another FTOTB designer Diane Ericson. The pants will be the mottled batik and the top, the multicolored batik.

These three pinks will become this shirt and reversible pants. Another great design from Diane Ericson and her mom, Lois. Lois died in January 2012, and Threads magazine wrote a nice tribute about her. Reading the tribute, I was especially touched by this:

Marcy Tilton tells us:

If you want to honor Lois, follow her lead.

Go into your studio and create.

Make. Invent. Teach.

Make. Invent. Teach. I say hallelujah to that, sister!

Early on, my mom taught me to make things (I inherited her 1958 Singer 401A sewing machine, and I use it all the time), and junior and senior high home ec classes helped my budding skills. Now, Threads and Belle Armoire magazines are my go-to sources for discovery and inspiration.

Being (a skinny) seamstress is awesome!

Talking about wearables…I just have to throw this one in: Did you know that only 2% of the clothes sold in the U.S. are made here?

Having time to sew means taking shortcuts elsewhere. Here’s one of many “dump dishes” I’ve concocted so I don’t have to feel so guilty when I sequester myself in the studio. Just dump a bunch of stuff in the crock pot and let ‘em simmer!

Chicken and cheap vino

chicken parts, skinned

small red potatoes, left whole and with skins intact

dried tarragon (start with a small amount—it’s pungent!)

small, cheap bottle of sweet, fruity wine

1 large can of cling peaches (packed in water)

In a crock pot, place chicken in the bottom, spuds on top, sprinkle in some tarragon, and cover with the wine. Set the crock pot on low or medium heat, and let mixture cook all day. A half hour or so before serving, drain the peaches and add them to the crock pot.

Serve with one of those prepackaged salads and a good loaf of deli bread, and you’ll be back to sewing (or knitting, gardening, scrap-booking, whatever your passion—you fill in the blank) pronto!

Long post. Sorry. I try to keep them under 500 words, but this one has 680.