The Oregon Chautauqua

Is it a vacation, a retreat, a camp, or a conference? Yes. Well, yes and no. A lot of it depends on you and what you're looking for in the experience. I can only tell you what it is to me: It's a week by the beach where I am joined by other families with similar life philosophies. We share cabins and sleep in bunks and cook and clean and eat meals together. We play and relax and converse and make things together.

In one day I can eat breakfast at a table with three people I know well, one person I just met, and two people who I haven't had a chance to connect with yet... then spend an hour alone on the beach with a good book... then take my sewing bag out on to the deck of the lodge and listen to Joe play Billy Joel songs on his guitar while I work... then fix some lunch for Silas and myself while he plays legos with a group of kids he's gotten to be pretty good friends with... then attend a nail painting workshop... then go for a walk in the woods... then report to the kitchen to help dice green peppers and mince garlic for dinner... then eat at a table full of completely different people than who I ate breakfast with (or the exact same people, 100% up to me)... then help Silas set up for the dance party he's hosting and take pictures of the kids boogying down... then share a bottle of wine and play a board game with friends... then hike up to the cabin to have a little bit of quiet time and put myself to bed while Silas parties on (he's chosen to come up with our cabin mates when they retire). It is what you make of it. The next day could be totally different or almost exactly the same.

For $200ish per person (and signing up for the required 4 total jobs for adults 15+/3 total jobs for kids 9-14), you get a 5 day vacation on the Oregon Coast. Your breakfast and dinner are prepared for you each day (you take care of your own lunches and snacks, but have full access to the commercial kitchen), you have a cozy cabin to sleep in, and the lodge is about 50 yards away from the beach. You've got clean bathrooms and hot showers and plenty of room on the private island to strike out and do your own thing. You can play disc golf (there is a full course at the camp), go tide-pooling by moonlight, perform a song you wrote in the talent show, drink a glass of wine out on the deck, learn how to hula-hoop or make rope bracelets or taste fermented foods or participate in a chess tournament. IT IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT.





So yes, it is a family vacation... also a retreat... most definitely a camp... but it kind of is a conference, though it's more laid-back, for sure. Maybe it's more of an "un-conference" in the way that you get to learn new things and be yourself and watch your children be themselves in a supportive and understanding community of like-minded people. Basically, it's amazing. I have made invaluable friendships there that have tapped me into some wonderful unschooling communities and the connections Silas has made there each year are something that will be with him his whole life.

Not all "fat girl clothes" from Walmart suck.

Shopping for clothes for a fat body can be hard. I'm technically an inbetweenie in most Fat Acceptance circles, since I wear approximately a size 18/20, yet my BMI puts me in the deathfat category. So basically, I'm very round. Lots of roundness happening up in here. Shopping to fit roundness can be tricky. I can buy clothes from the plus-size rack in many straight-size stores, sometimes even in the Juniors Plus, but it's really hit and miss most of the time. Old Navy is a good staple for basics and I occasionally find awesome things at Target (I recently found a plus-size maternity shirt there that is perfect for my body), but I tend to forget about Walmart... that is, until I walk past a rack that just happens to have something that I would totally wear.

Both the top and the vest are from Walmart, believe it or not. You're not going to find amazing shapes or statement pieces, but for basic blacks that can be mixed and matched, you may be surprised how many options there are!

This crochet-back vest was under $10. I wear it once or twice a week and it's held up perfectly fine after multiple washings (the bottom of the arm-hole comes up into my arm-pit, otherwise I'd only spot wash it).

The top was also under $10 and has a decent neckline (I have to alter most of the shirts I buy because I have a very short top-of-shoulder-to-armpit distance, which makes the majority of shirts WAY too low-cut on me), a banded bottom, and a pleasing weight (not tissue thin, but not heavy and bulky). Walmart clothes can be surprisingly awesome! You just have to know your style, know your body, and always have your eyes open for random pieces that jive with you!

Top & Vest - WALMART
Leggings - OLD NAVY
Boots - TORRID
Purse - FOREVER21
Necklace - TARGET

dirty dishes and ground beef and unfolded towels... oh my!

When I was little, I wasn't allowed to load the dishwasher. My mom had a really specific system of how she wanted it loaded and instead of teaching me that system, I was just forbidden to put things in the dishwasher. I would once in awhile, in an attempt to help out or because the sink was full or because I simply forgot (I was a really spacey kid), and when that would happen, I'd get a "talk" on why it needed to be done a certain way and how I was doing it wrong. I resented this for many years and felt like I'd never been taught how to do it her way and that maybe if she had taught me more of her systems for things that I might have had an easier time keeping house when I was a stay-at-home-mom the first time around. Thankfully she taught me the "proper" way to fold towels (a system I still use to this day and will gladly demonstrate for anyone who asks!), but knowing how to brown hamburger or cut an onion or load the dishwasher would have been pretty helpful.

Up until we moved into the house, I'd actually never had a dishwasher since living on my own. The first year that we were here, I avoided it like the plague. Because I felt like I didn't know how to properly use it, it made me anxious. So for an entire year I still did every dish by hand... slowly, but surely, Seth started coaxing me to use it and after a few times of having guests over and the sink piling up higher than usual, I acquiesced. At first I felt unsure, like I wasn't doing it right... then I felt lazy and guilty... then I started to like using the dishwasher. I figured it out on my own and it was pretty damn painless and easy. I never needed my mother to teach me how to load a dishwasher. I use it 3 or 4 times a week now and have for the past couple of months.

So, predictably, as I get older, I see that resentment over not being taught these things helps no one. Frankly, my son doesn't know how to do any of these things (yet), because it's never come up. If I want to be indignant about her failing me, then by the same standards, I'm failing Silas, which I really don't feel like I am in this regard. It's much like math or science or anything else we encounter in our unschooling life - when the time comes that Silas needs to learn how to do it, he will. I'll be there to help and facilitate and even teach, if that's what he needs of me and asks for. I mean, I now know how to brown hamburger and nobody died in the process of me learning. It all turned out.

This whole debacle came full circle last week when I went to put some dishes in the dishwasher and Seth had already put some in the night before and they were in there wrong... like, what does that even mean? But there she was, in the mirror... my mother. Fuck.

BANG!

new blood in the water

A few weeks ago I made a day-trip to North Seattle to say goodbye to Amber. She was one of the first people I met and befriended when I moved to Port Townsend in the Spring of 2006. She was working at a restaurant where I applied for job (we often went there for breakfast when Seth and I were first dating) and she noticed the pin on my lapel (The Smiths, natch) and we were destined to be friends.

There were periods when we weren't close (partially because of life and emotional stuff, partially because she moved to Seattle), but we've always found ways to get back in touch with each other and bond. And now... she is moving across the country to Boston. Heck, she's already there, settling into her new place and her new grad school and life on the east coast. It's surreal to not have her a ferry ride away, but her life is going amazingly and this move is a great thing for her (however sad it is for those of us who will miss having her around).

I got to spend a lovely day with her and her daughter - we ate some burgers at Dick's and gabbed and played at the park and gabbed some more and had some tea at a cozy little place in Ballard (where we gabbed). It was good times. She also let me rifle through her things (since she only took the barest of necessities to Boston with her) and I was able to take a few wonderful decor items off of her hands! Not only did it give her less to have to list on Craigslist, but it brought some much needed new prettiness into our home! Now I just need to paint more walls and my hunger for decor will be sated for a little while. So without further ado, I present Amber's stuff in my house!

One of these wonderful items was BUSINESS SHARK.

and an ornate chalkboard decal!

and a teeny turquoise Ikea table that matches all of our turquoise/teal stuff PERFECTLY.

and an awesome medical poster of the skeletal system.

and a framed Nicki McClure print.

and a string of giant chickens.

and bits of sick.

At the moment that this post publishes I will be driving with Silas to the coast in my beloved beast of a car, to attend our 3rd year at The Oregon Unschoolers Chautauqua! I'll be gone until Friday night, so I shall leave you with the awesomest reading list ever compiled in the history of blogs. Enjoy! Well, I say, enjoy.

• Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk Awkwardly About Race by Jen Graves - "Rather than thoughtfully discussing race," he writes, "Americans love to reduce racial politics to feelings and etiquette. It's the personal and dramatic aspects of race that obsess us, not the deeply rooted and currently active political inequalities. That's our predicament: Racial debate, in public and private, is trapped in the sinkhole of therapeutics."

• Erykah Badu is planning on becoming a midwife at Radical Doula - "Badu, who provides all of her services for free, has since become a spokeswoman for the International Center for Traditional Childbearing and she is now aiming to get her professional certification so she can open birthing centers in inner cities in the future."

• Giant logged long ago but not forgotten. - "I was eight years too late. Standing on the riverbank there atop another dead, hulking tree — a spruce also toppled by the river, Devine looks upstream and shakes his head, trying to imagine the immensity of the giant fir. The tallest trees on this section of the floor of the valley, where logging continues today on both walls, are well shy of 100 feet."

• Why Lady Gaga's " Jo Calderone" is a welcome and interesting departure from the tradition of pop alter egos by Alyssa Rosenberg - "When pop stars come up with alter egos, they’re usually about kicking things up a notch. Sasha Fierce is meant to be an even more badass version of Beyonce. Slim Shady is a way for Eminem to work out abhorrent ideas. But Jo Calderone is actually a step down from Gaga’s high-level performance of femininity, a presentation that’s often so extreme that it verges (I think intentionally) into the grotesque. And it seems like Gaga’s using Calderone as an way to critique her day-to-day performance of Lady Gaga-ness, in particular the part of her VMA monologue..."
  

• Back to (the wrong) school by Seth Godin -
  "As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?"

• How I Learned to Hate Transgender People by Cord Jefferson - "Repugnance is a common theme in the trans-people-as-jokes canon. But more prevalent is the element of deceit. Time and again in both comedic and dramatic films, transgender people are cast as deviant tricksters out to fool innocent victims into sleeping with them. This narrative plays upon two of America's deepest fears: sexual vulnerability and humiliation. Not only is your sex partner "lying" about their gender, victims who "fall for it" are then forced to grapple with the embarrassment of being had, of being seen as gay. Men "tricked" into sleeping with another man are embarrassed by the threat to their masculinity. So much culture has taught us that transgender people aren't just sexual aliens, they're also predatory liars."

• Cyndi Lauper Opens Shelter for Homeless LGBT Youth!!

• The Rough Magic of "Louie" at Salon.com - "Louis C.K., who shoots the show on location in New York with a tiny crew, is a stand-up comic, a writer and an actor, but he's also a skilled video editor and a photographer who has been known to spend long sections of his blog posts discussing the fine points of film stock and aperture settings. This is not a skill set that you find every day, and because the budgets are comparatively small -- about $150,000 per episode, or less than 10 percent of what Charlie Sheen used to earn for a single episode of "Two and a Half Men" -- the stakes are unusually low."

• On Fat Hatred and Eliminationism by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville - "It's always nice to see wealthy people with access to the best food, comprehensive healthcare, personal trainers, private chefs, and individual nutritional plans put their names to a petition admonishing the fatties that OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE."

100 years of East London style in 100 seconds. Sept 13th 1911 - Sept 13th 2011.

And as always, I'll have both of my Tumblrs set up to automatically post things from the queue, so keep an eye on those for more fun stuff.

Working, building, never stopping, never sleeping. Working, making, some for selling, some for keeping.

Chautauqua is a perfect time and place to get some sewing work done, so I've spent the past week or so getting some prep work taken care of! Lots of tracing and cutting and planning has been knocked out of the way.

I've got a big bag of sachet and garland supplies ready to be turned into etsy merchandise during our week relaxing by the beach on The Oregon Coast. My sewing room is getting over-run with piles of fabric (AGAIN! I have a problem) and turning more of that into sell-able items should help alleviate the chaos... a little.

In any event, WE HIT THE ROAD AT 4:30AM MONDAY MORNING!! Squee.

fuck you, mozzies.

I have spent so much of this summer out of doors, in the fresh air, among trees and dirt and bonfires... I may love "not camping", but apparently I DO enjoy the woods a great deal. This is as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else, trust me.

I mean, I did spend a lot of my childhood outdoors (at the go-kart track my family ran and lived at from 1983-1989, going to summer camp out on Lake Cresent every year from age 8 to 18, camping at Jesus Northwest for 4 days each summer from 1989 to 1997, etc), yet despite all that, I never considered myself an outdoorsy person. Once I was out on my own and not going to these events with my family, being outdoors kind of fell by the wayside. Between getting into yard work and going to Chautauqua for the past two years, I feel like I'm starting to embrace the dirt.

Recently some friends of ours acquired a bit of wooded land outside of town and we've been spending a lot of time there this summer. You get all the fun parts of camping without the sleeping-on-the-ground part, so it works out really nicely. Sure, the mosquitoes think I'm a tasty treat, but it's a small price to pay for spending time in such a beautiful place.

next stop: procrastination station

It may have taken me almost 3 years, but I finally set up a Facebook page for Soft & Cozy. I will be offering free giveaways and exclusive coupon codes through the page (in fact, I've got free US shipping going on right now), so go "like" it, if you feel so inclined.

As Martha would say, "It's a good thing."

Moving right along, bu-bu-dum, bu-bu-dum, footloose and fancy free!

A lot of my life these days has been focused on floating along and embracing everything. Making the decision to treat every moment of life as being in the right place at the right time and just rolling with it... and it has yielded some pretty awesome and surprising results.

Run on Sentence

Candace and I went to Sirens last weekend for dinner and drinks while our respective partners went hiking together. We happened to be there when there was a band playing, a band that turned out to be PHENOMENAL. Each song grabbed me in a way I wasn't expecting. The lead singer's voice would slide in and out of notes in an almost Neil Young-esque whine, but without the grating quality. Their music was a blend of folk, gypsy, story-telling, with hints of prog that was so good, I bought their cd. I haven't bought a cd since 2006, so that was kind of a big deal. They all happened to be really friendly, charismatic, and painfully handsome guys, so... bonus.

climbing from the bottom to the top of the pole

Artisans On Taylor re-opened in their shiny new location!! The space is truly an amazing improvement for the gallery - higher ceilings, less narrow, platforms and deep windows for displays, on the main drag instead of down a side-street... I could go on for ages. It was great to see the community coming together down there to support Anna and the gallery and our art community in general. I was so elated and inspired that I couldn't help but bomb a pole out in front!!

Young Professional like whoa.

And with the help of friends and Chardonnay, I broke out of my socially-anxious shell and attended a Chamber of Commerce mixer for "Young Professionals". I only handed out a couple of business cards (I'm still getting the hang of this, after all), but I'm so glad that I went. Next month I'll be starting a 3-part-series of hand-sewing workshops at the gallery and it's important that I start networking and am seen as somebody in the community who is doing stuff... I guess? I feel silly talking about it. When I think "young professional", I picture young writers and lawyers and real estate agents, not hand-sewists who gush about their feeeeeelings on the interwebs, but shit be changing, yo. My profession is sewing and I also represent myself online A LOT, so I may as well weave it all together into one big ball of JASIE. Right? Right.