Castle Crags

Tyler and I had planned to go up to Weed, Ca. this last Saturday for about a week. On the way there however are the Castle Crags, so we decided to stop off and make the hike. It was a strenuous 2.7 miles up and then again back down, but well worth it. If anyone lives in this area, it's quite fun and a real cheap date at just $8 for the parking pass.

This was on the way up. Whenever I see a cut through the forest like this it reminds me of a big scar. Like the one everyone has on their knee.

You can see Mt. Shasta from the trail. We went up to the little town on Mt. Shasta later that day.

Another view from the trail, as we were coming up on it.

So there you have it folks, a view from the top..

...looking at the top. It is a huge crag. If you ever get the chance to hike this trail, you should.

On the way back we hiked over to Indian Springs and filled our water bottles. The water tastes delicious, especially after you've run out because you didn't plan on doing a spontaneous 5 mi. hike.

The power of will.

It only takes so long before I become tired of my own excuses and decide to do something about it. It isn't easy, and sometimes I break, but I find the harder I work the luckier I become. Abraham Lincoln said that once.

Sometimes, I get to this point of such extreme low self esteem it becomes paralyzing.

I've met these people that continue the way I have been. They are past my point. I don't want to be those people. They are so sad and so convicted in their self pity and excuses that they alienate those who love them. I find myself doing that too, but I saw a quote that made me rethink what I am doing now.

It said, "All it takes is 20 seconds of insane courage to change your life completely."

I thought about that and determined for myself that it does not matter if I think I can, or if I think I can't. I will. My convictions will be that I will, no matter what the circumstance. I believe self esteem is like any other human attribute - like a muscle. We must practice using it and train it every day in order for it to grow.

Tomorrow my wrist may not say anything, or it may say something different. It doesn't matter. As long as I have positive and strengthening reminders as to why I do what I do I can keep going.

Today, I will.

Coffee to start my day.

On the weekends this is what I do.

I had an inclination to take my camera with me to work this Saturday and take pictures while I was opening the coffee shop. While most people are hating their jobs, I tend to be enjoying mine. That's not to say it doesn't have it's downers as well, but for the most part it is pretty cool.

I mean, I get free coffee and tips.

That is what I stare at almost every day. It's either that or the blender depending on the time of year.

All of our drip coffee is Fair Trade Certified Organic. Sounds expensive, but if you bring your own cup the Joe is only a dollar. That includes cream and sugar too.

Life as a barista is not so bad. There is nothing like the smell of a coffee shop.

Free motion strife.

I have this tendency to waste my time away thinking about what I need to be doing or what I would like to do instead of actually doing something. But - sometimes I actually do something. And it results in tears.

This last Tuesday I had decided that my free motion quilting was good enough to want to try on an actual quilt. I knew I wasn't going to be awesome, so I chose a quilt top that didn't mean much to me.... Thank goodness.

You can see on the right hand side how many times I went over that one spot. I had to actually seam rip a portion of my quilting it was so bad.

The quilt I chose was as good as any, but either it didn't work for this motif or I didn't work for this motif. Either way, it didn't work. Every time I came across a seam, which was every 2 inches, the darning foot would get caught on the lump and drag. And since I am not experienced with this whole free motion quilting thing I had no idea how to control the stitches when they came flying after my foot made the jump over that lump.

I got so mad that I rushed the last loop and broke the needle. So I crumpled the quilt and threw it in the corner, went to my fiance to sulk, kicked the thrash can, and then proceeded to cry like a baby while he carried me into the house.

Like I said, mad.

After I calmed down I went to a local quilt shop to get an opinion, or advice, or anything. I asked her what I could do and she looked at me crookedly and said, "You just need to practice." Practice?!

Because I was sore already that comment pissed me right off, but after I cooled down I realized that it was kind of a compliment. She told me to get some relaxing or calming music and take my time with it. So I did.

And then I broke another needle. Since then I have not touched the sewing machine. I am giving myself time to cool off. No wonder I think about things rather than do them. I am so much better in my head.

Too much to make it count.

I am sitting here, 20 minutes into ballet and I am not in class. Again. I skipped Tuesday too.

I feel almost exactly the same as I did last Tuesday.


Well, I heard once that we are doomed to repeat lessons until we learn them. I am repeating emotions before the same event in my life, every time. An indicator that there is something to be learned from this? I think so.

I thought about what it could mean though, and it brought me down a rabbit hole that I continually side-step without thinking. Its like I know it's there, but it is something I ignored or put off for so long I either forgot it completely or let it become absorbed into the background of my life.

However, the problem I have been side-stepping has been my life. I go about it the wrong way. I need to change my method. I do what everyone else does but I approach it in a different way so that I don't recognize it, and it's a classic so I don't know how I could have missed it.

It is the classic, "I need to do something in my life to reach success. I'm going to quit smoking, starting eating right, start exercising, get a new sleep schedule, get a new hobby, and quit my job. Today." People do this all the time and never last more than a week. Why is that? They take on too much at once! A person cannot handle that much change and expect success to stick. It feels good for about a day and then reality kicks in and it all sucks.

Well, "Hello, Annie!" That's what I do too! Me! I do that!

This May I said, "Yes Tyler, I will marry you. Then I will:

1. start planning a wedding
2. move in with you
3. adjust to my new life
4. start quilting for the first time
5. start a Pilates certification course
6. work part-time
7. start blogging
8. learn about photography
9. learn old school cooking techniques
10. learn to can
11. start writing workout programs
12. start my own workout program/training my little brother
13. learn ballet and the french instructions
14. open an Etsy shop
15. decide to make a quilt to raffle at my wedding
16. make my niece a quilt
17. and contemplate a job change."

All the while I have also been planning for the future in strange other ways, like when we decide to build our house (hopefully next year). Well duh, of course I am getting these feelings about ballet. It's no wonder I have been getting these feelings of overwhelm in general!

I need to prioritize.

Free motion practice.

I know in order to become good at something one must practice, so that is what I set out to do with free motion. Who knew it would be such a chore though?

This is not my first attempt, I think this may be my third.

It is a little wonky and it did have some eyelashes, but overall I would say a good trial.

I did this quilting with my Brother. It wasn't until later that I realized the feed dogs actually didn't drop. The quilting looks pretty good, and that factor didn't bother me much at all. I decided to go ahead and try the quilting again on my new Singer, which I will be posting about shortly. It went smoothly at first, and then I attempted an actual pieced quilt.

What a mess. It all ended when I broke my second needle and threw the quilt in the corner of the room.

Apparently I need good, calm music to quilt to. Thus far that has been the advice of every seasoned quilter.

Pennee quilt back.

I finished the quilt backing to Penelope's quilt yesterday! My goal is complete the whole thing by Saturday. We'll see how that goes. I have never free motion quilted a quilt before so I need to get my practice in.

I didn't notice until I took this picture that my top right seam is crooked. I knew the entire back was, but that is pretty funny. I use a rotary cutter to slice all my fabrics but I work on a picnic table that has uneven wood slats on top. That's probably why everything is crooked. It makes me look forward to the cooler weather when I can go inside to sew.

When I was sewing this I had no idea what I wanted it to look like. I decided to use the small squares from the front where the brown border intersects on the back too. From there everything else came together. Like the grey strip that turns to white. I randomly sewed those two pieces together and it just so happens that they matched exactly at another seam.

The same thing happened with the top strips. I was not going to use the "Flea Market Friends" fabric but it was exactly the length I needed to finish the back. Coincidence?

I do not believe in coincidence. My sister told me something she had hear about coincidence once. To coincide means there are two factors to create the situation. One is explainable, the other is not. However, no one questions what is not explained in a coincidence. You know, the factor that makes it all come together. She asked me, "Have you ever considered it to be God?"

I have not, but ever since then I would like to. There is something about it that makes me feel quite contented.

Rise and shine!

I always thought that "rise and shine" was a saying about the sun. Today, I am thinking a little differently.

Maybe it means that when you rise you should shine. Maybe you should be that sparkly, wonderful person that everyone has got in them- when they awaken. I always wondered how the people I knew did it. How they managed to be in a great mood and complete all their tasks throughout the day. Maybe it was what time they woke.

I awoke at 4:50am to participate in a fitness boot camp of sorts that my brother-in-law teaches. (It starts at 5:30am so I like to get up a little early.) While driving on the highway there were few cars to be seen, the parking lot was empty when I got there, and everyone was so tired from just waking that I didn't have to talk.

I love talking. Just not when I first awake. I don't have the energy it takes to be patient and tolerant in conversation.

So, the boot camp went great and I had enough energy to practice some ballet afterwards. Rad.

It is now 8:10am and I feel like a million bucks. My coffee somehow seems more enjoyable. The before-school traffic somehow less annoying. The daunting tasks of my day somehow less daunting. I feel so inspired!

Throughout my life I could never understand why I couldn't achieve my goals or dreams. I had plenty of time,  
plenty of energy, and plenty of talent to make it all work. However, I could not get myself to do anything. So I did a whole lot of nothing. With this feeling I have right now, I may be able to just do all that I wanted to- and more!

I am not normally the type of person to get all hyped up about "life changing" routines, events, pills, etc. but I would like to take today to be one of those people. I know there are successful people out there. And I know they didn't get there by mistake. Whatever they did right, they rolled with. Maybe this will work out, maybe it won't. Regardless, I am going to roll with it.

A pointe to make.

I sit here with ballet looming nearer and nearer as time passes, thinking to myself, "Do I want to go?"

Usually I know that if I have doubt or fear about something it could be due to two main causes:

1. My fear is driven by a fierce desire to do well, which in turn sabotages me because it causes paralysis and/or severe self criticism, or
2. My doubt is genuine because there is something wrong with the scenario that makes it wrong for me.

Even if I detect something wrong in the slightest it causes the largest of doubts within me.( I seem to be an overly analytic and somewhat complex person when it comes to my thinking process, which drives me crazy, but please bear with me.)

So ballet...

Let me start with my background. I have a certification for personal training through the International Sports Sciences Association which consumed me well before I got it. I have a passion for all things fitness and health. It is something I don't ever stop thinking about, or talking about, or doing.

So ballet would seem like a good idea for me because of its nature of demanding the physical. However, I have found with time and experience it would be the opposite for me. The workout is great, don't get me wrong. I haven't ever used my body quite this way and I can feel muscles I may have never used before working as I move, but there is one HUGE drawback.

It is the foundation of the movement. Ballet has carried throughout the years the basis of the art without ever losing anything it would seem. Which is a score for ballet, but awful for me. I'm talking body positioning here. In ballet, the feet and hips must be turned out while still having straight legs and the lower abdomen pulled in. The feet positioning changes from there, but the hips do not.

That is a problem for me for a few reasons:

1. My glutes are the most developed muscle on my body, making it very difficult to literally work around them. My turnouts suffer because I can't seem to push past that.
2. When I am turned out it causes a torque on my knees which sometimes causes later pain. I am one of the few fortunate young women to play sports and not have a knee injury or any problems with my knees. (knock on wood!) I would like to keep it that way.
3. I have spent the last few years correcting my posture through exercise and mindfulness. I would hate to lose some of that because of a semester of dance. 
4. I had this belief that I would learn how to strengthen the arch of the foot through dance because dancers have such strong feet. I have learned from being in class however that dancers have some of the ugliest and most collapsed feet I've seen. In order to compensate for additional muscles on the hips some dancers use foot eversion. 

When I take a look at point No.1 I realize that my lack of good turnouts is only a problem because I am an overachiever. It consumes me, which drives me mad. Looking at No.4, I can see now I am just not as charmed overall with the experience thus far. I had great expectations for ballet and it shows no promise of fulfilling any of those. I wonder if it will fulfill anything inside of me.

Well, I am off to find out.

If I had a Pennee for every quilt I made,

I would have a few nieces.

My most adorable and only niece, Penelope, will be turning the big 1 in October. Seeing as how she is the first baby in my family I figuring a little spoiling will be called for. This will be her first quilt by me but certainly not her last.

Here is the top, hung from a random frame my father-in-law has in the yard.

The fabric is Alexander Henry's "Flea Market Friends", which is where all the inspiration came from. Everything from the random chandeliers to the cutesy hand drawn animals said, "Hi, I am the perfect mix between everything Curtis and Tracee." Curtis is my brother and Tracee my sister-in-law. They are the wonderful people who made the cutest darn kid I have seen up to this point.

This is actually the first quilt top that I designed. You can tell because that intersection there is supposed to have four brown strips coming from that brown and blue square in the middle. It does not because I forgot about that last piece. (Please excuse the Irish pennants. I am getting better at photography but sometimes I get so antsy that I forget to make everything look nice in the shot.)

That is what it looked like after I fixed it. I have a small crease on the bottom strip, which would normally gripe my ass but because I was so ready to get the quilt done I did not even care. I figure I can stitch over it with my soon-to-be amazing quilting skills.

Here is a close up of the tumbler. This is where the quilt started. From here it designed itself really.

The colors are not the best representation, however they get pretty close to what they look like when the quilt is being held. I am in the process of figuring out the best settings for my camera to take pictures of what I am doing while still taking into account the lighting. Photography has always been a hard one for me.

I am not so sure what I want to do for the back yet. I love the way Elizabeth Hartman uses elements from the front of her quilts to make the backs. They look like a piece of art themselves, which is what I aim for.

Curtains!

I am really a terrible liar. By mistake none the less. I know I said I would have pictures of my curtains up soon, and I have them to post. Hooray for that! However, I realize I just shouldn't tell anyone I will do anything. Not only is it a pleasant surprise when I actually do whatever it was I needed to, but if I don't tell them about it then they won't get upset when I don't do it. Good logic, eh?

Curtains, please! (tee hee hee...)

They are made of fabric my sister bought to re-cover her chair, which means it was free for me. Score!

They kind of have an old world feel to them, which I love. They also brighten up the loft area significantly.


Well, in color, not in a literal sense. Literally they do not brighten it at all seeing as how the don't let any light in. I lined them with this blackout fabric sold in the drapes section of Joann. I love that stuff. It makes sleeping so wonderful and uninterrupted.