miscellaneous.

I need to write something.

The problem is that it's been too long since I've had time. And now there are a hundred ideas running around in my head, crashing into one another and exploding into little pieces and branching off and combining with one another and going in a hundred more directions. And they're taking up so much space that I don't have room to remember the small things like eating the last half of my breakfast in the mornings or blowing out the candle before I walk to the grocery store.

Perhaps I'll make a list of them, in hopes that it's easier to catch an idea if I can remember what it looks like first.

Charlene

This is beautiful Charlene.



We met recently through a mutual friend, my roommate Lisa, who explained to me that Charlene dreams of working in the fashion industry some day. Charlene is well-spoken, bright, and enthusiastic, and with enough support I think she may one day reach that goal. For the last couple of Sunday mornings, Charlene and I have been talking jewelry design and sewing, two things I love to do. She recently made a four pieces of jewelry, and I'm helping her set up an Etsy store to get started selling things as she makes them. She has a daughter whom she hopes will one day follow her own dreams, and by taking this small step into the design world, Charlene hopes to give her an example of what that might look like.

She really is just like most other moms I know, except unlike most moms I know, Charlene lives on the street. She's been here in the San Diego area for about three years now, and is ready for the next phase of her life.

"I'm so tired of doing the same thing, everyday," she says. And to prove it, she keeps herself busy by reading newspapers and teaching herself new activities like Pilates and tennis. "Right now, it's just me and the wall," she laughs. "But I don't want to spend another winter out here." "I want to be done with this. I don't want to forget it, I've learned a lot, but I'm ready for the next phase of life." I really want to support her as she works toward whatever this next phase will be.

Lisa has been helping Charlene put together a resume so that she can start looking for a job, but in the meantime she's working to design a few pieces of jewelry each week. I'm hoping that having a creative outlet will encourage her to continue pursuing her goals and give her a little something to look forward to each week, especially now while the bigger issues are still unsettled.

I've set up an Etsy site for her under the name Soul Rebel, and I'm hoping that we can get her off to a good start by selling all four pieces of her jewelry this week. Please check it out, buy something, follow Soul Rebel on twitter @soulrebeldesign ... Sometimes we just need somebody to believe in us, let's be that somebody for her.

Thanks.

Fluff. Best dinner EVER.

Well, best dinner in a long time.

I promise to spend some time this weekend collecting my thoughts about the Idea Camp and the other 50 things I have going on right now. But I'll procrastinate with a recipe.

The other day, grapes were on sale at the store. It's been a really long time since I've had grapes, so I bought the most beautiful, crisp looking bag of grapes I could find. Unfortunately when I got home and started picking through them, I discovered that the lovely outer grapes were just hiding some pretty mushy ones in the middle of the bunch. More than half the grapes.

I hate throwing food away (I do love my job at preschool, but lunchtime there makes me ill, to throw that much leftover food in the trash). Usually, my solution for almost-but-not-quite-bad vegetables is to make soup. And almost-but-not-quite-bad fruit gets baked into some sort of dessert. But I'm at a loss when it comes to grapes. Fortunately, there is google. I stumbled across a recipe that was originally a sauce for chicken, but since I don't eat chicken and didn't have some of the proper ingredients, I got a bit creative. So I present to you:


Sauteed Eggplant and Mushrooms with a Red Grape and Balsamic Vinegar Reduction

Trust me. Serves 4.

5-7 large mushrooms, halved
1/2 medium sized eggplant, peeled and diced
1 cup chopped onion
olive oil
2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
1 T salt dissolved in 1 cup warm water
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T sugar
fresh ground pepper
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 T chopped tarragon

Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan on medium high heat, then add eggplant and mushrooms and cook until browned on all sides. Remove from pan.

Add a little more olive oil to the pan, then add the grapes and onions and cook for about 10 minutes. Add sugar and stir for a minute or so until it's caramelized. Add vinegar and salt water and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium and simmer until liquid reduces to about half. Add herbs, mushrooms and eggplant. Cover, reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 10 minutes.

I recommend serving this over rice.

I cannot for the life of me find the original recipe that this is modified from. If anyone stumbles across it, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due. Yum yum.

Sleepless in San Diego

I've been trying to get to sleep for two hours now as I need to be up by six tomorrow. But every ten minutes or so, I pop out of bed to add just one more item to my little yellow suitcase, or to write something down onto the a.m. to-do list.

Not sure if this restlessness is excitement or too much tea.

I'm headed to DC for the weekend, for the Idea Camp, http://theideacamp.com/ , a "collaborative movement of idea-makers." There will be many thoughts to follow, I'm sure, but for now I just wanted to tell the story of how I get to go.

I was blessed to attend the inaugural Idea Camp in Irvine, CA last spring, though at the time felt a bit overwhelmed to be surrounded by such amazing innovators and thinkers. But as my own ideas have been growing and taking shape over the past few months, I started looking forward to DC and the opportunity to have some incredible people help me sort through my long list of thoughts and questions.

Cue the financial distress of the young idealistic artist/perpetual volunteer that refuses to work more than part-time to leave space for the rest of life's grand adventures. If I were supposed to be there, money would just kind of fall from the sky. Or that was my reasoning, anyway. I decided not to go, because I didn't have the money for a plane ticket, and I refuse to borrow it or use credit. More on that later.

But my amazing roommate insisted that I needed to be there, and proceeded to buy half a plane tickets worth of jewelry from me. And a last minute babysitting job took care of the other half when the mom was two hours late getting home and paid me far more than I deserved for rocking and singing songs to a darling baby girl. In the same day that I had decided not to go, the money sort of... fell from the sky.

So tomorrow I fly.

I don't know what to expect from this weekend, but I know that once again, I'm blessed to be going, and perhaps only just now tired enough to sleep.

New Jewelry!

It's been awhile since I've updated this... Good excuse, though. I moved! Again. But I've also been busy finding new ways to use that fused/recycled plastic. Here are some of the results. These used to be your grocery bags! You can see more on my etsy site.

I've also entered these pieces in a competition through a company called House of Gems. http://www.flickr.com/groups/featuredartists/

It would be great to win, they have some wonderful things on their site!

Sesame Parmesan Bagels

Make these. You will not be sorry!

INGREDIENTS
2-2 1/2 cups flour
1 (.25) packet active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm (110 F) water
1 1/2 Tbl white sugar
1/2 Tbl salt
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (get the real stuff, not from a can!)
3 Tbl sesame seeds

DIRECTIONS
1. Dissolve the sugar and salt in warm water. In a separate bowl, mix together half of the flour and the packet of yeast. Add to the water mixture, then beat with a mixer at low speed to combine. Turn mixer to a higher speed and beat for three minutes.
2. Slowly add the remaining flour and half of the parmesan cheese until the mixture forms a fairly stiff dough. Knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes until the dough becomes elastic, then cover and let rise for 20 minutes.
3. Cut the dough into 8 pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Make a hole in the center of each piece of dough using your finger, then shape into a bagel. Set bagels aside, cover, and let rise 20-30 minutes.
4. While bagels are rising, fill a large cooking pot with water and a tablespoon of sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. After bagels have risen, drop a few at a time into the simmering water for three minutes, flip, then boil three minutes more. Drain bagels (but do not dry them) in a strainer or on a wire cooling rack. Preheat oven to 375 F.
5. Grease a baking pan and then arrange bagels in pan. Mix together remaining parmesan cheese and sesame seeds, then sprinkle each bagel liberally with the mixture. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Yum, yum.

Fireworks

Yesterday was a marvelously relaxing day involving a sandy afternoon at the beach, burritos, a backyard barbecue, wonderful people, watching fireworks as the waves crashed in at my feet and thousands of people throwing marshmallows at one another (thanks, Ocean Beach. That is why I love you).

And I'm glad to have had a good day, as I really have mixed feelings about Holidays at this point in my life, especially the American ones. I grew up in a very patriotic family and as a child harbored grand illusions of my country as a sort of white knight in a world of evil. The God-blessed America of my youth has been shattered by travels outside of our borders and pouring through books and experiences that take me deep into the history of our interactions with the world. And I found that we are a corrupt and self-serving nation just like anybody else, sometimes more so than anybody else.

This isn't to say that America has done no good in the world, or that there are no good, kind American people. These we have in abundance, and I've been blessed to meet and work alongside so many in my life. But I suppose I do not attribute these beautiful moments of goodness and truth with the star-spangled roots of this country, instead I see them as glimpses of God's kingdom. And this is something that knows no borders.

Perhaps I'm too cynical.

Right now, I live in a neighborhood that looks nothing like the America of my youth. There are Muslim women in colorful scarves and mariachi music blasting from our neighbor's window at 8 o'clock in the morning. It's easier to find a tamale than a hamburger. I don't always feel safe here, and I never feel completely comfortable. And I like that. I like that because it reminds me that there is a bigger picture than housecarcareer2.5kidspicketfence. I want to dream bigger than suburbia, and for me the easiest way to do that is to stay out of it.

I was standing at a bus stop the other day, and next to me were an Ethiopian woman, a Mexican woman, and an old Karen (a tribe from Burma) man. The old man pointed at the bus stop sign and asked "siete? seven?" in what are likely at least his fourth and fifth languages. Another woman walked past, lugging a pull-cart of groceries and chattering on her cell phone in Russian. And I was really struck by the beauty of it.

Let me tell you a story.

A student I work with at the AjA Project was asked to tell the story of her "old country." It begins in a small Karen village, with Burmese soldiers pouring in with guns and fire, burning homes and killing indescriminently. The people fled, running up into the mountains with nothing to find safety. "And then I was born," she writes.

Her story is not entirely unique.

When we move on to "new country," the stories shift. They speak of feeling overwhelmed and shy, to be sure, but they also speak of safety and of food to eat. Of education and future dreams. And this is the America I can get behind, a place of sanctuary and hope. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" If this country can be about anything, if we take pride in anything, I hope it can be stories like these.