Food Inc.

We watched the documentary Food Inc. the other day and whew... what a well-done movie. If you are interested in eating healthy (or want even more encouragement to do so), check it out. It is all about how the food industry is run by demand... more ground beef is purchased by McDonalds than any other consumer. Since McDonalds wants its burgers to taste the same no matter where you buy it, it leads the producers to feed all of their cows the same. Since we can't grow the same grass everywhere, they become corn-fed beef.... which despite all of the propaganda is terrible for you.  If cows were still allowed to graze and eat the way they were supposed to, there would be a significant drop in the amount of e-coli and mad cow problems. And that is just one of the many things that are covered in the movie.

Another thing that I never thought about is how you should only try to eat foods that are in season... so if you couldn't grow a tomato outside, you probably shouldn't be eating one. Foods that are not in season are picked green and then when they want them to be ripe they do something with formaldehyde... gross.

So in addition to my Full Circle Farms veggie box, we have decided to cut back on the amount of meat we eat. It's going to be harder for W than me, as he is kind of a meat freak... so it should be fun. :) The meat we do eat is going to come from Natural Pantry where I can buy free-range grass-eating beef. It's not only better for the animals, it is better for me. I will also be buying as much organic food as I can... probably mostly at Natural Pantry. Every little bit counts, and I am trying to do my part.

Yet Another Reason...

To shop local...

About a month ago I bought a new pair of tennis shoes. I had a pair, but they were a bit too small and my danskos are not appropriate for winter (or basically anytime for me... they are dangerous for me to wear...) so I needed some shoes to wear outside!! I went to Fred Meyer and bought a pair. I wore them for a bit, and then realized that my hip was hurting. I mean HURTING. It was bad. I realized the only thing that had changed was my shoes. I hadn't been walking more or less, but the footwear had been changed. So I tried to take them back. Apparently, the policy is if the shoes have been worn outside they can not be returned. These shoes are perfectly fine... I just can't wear them. I bought my next pair of shoes at REI (which I realize isn't local, but it is still a store with great customer service, and I'm a member of the co-op, so I kind of own it... :) ) where I can return them for ANY reason in ANY condition at ANY time. (I think I have three or four YEARS to decide if I like these shoes.) Luckily, my hip has not been bothering me, and my new shoes are even cuter than the old ones.

Today I went to AK Mill and Feed and bought presents for the holiday parties at both my work and W's.  They already had all of their Christmas stuff marked down 40% and their pet holiday stuff marked down 50%! So I got a lot of stuff for not too much money. At a local store!! I was very pleased. And they had awesome customer service... I had asked one of the employees if they had any more penguin items and she found three things for me that I had overlooked! She was awesome.

I also treated myself to a holiday gift... since I have been trying not to buy yarn and fiber I decided to invest in a pair of Hiya-Hiya interchangeable needles. For $70 I now have a bunch of different circular needles! I'm super excited about them. I will be knitting my cabled hat from Knitty on them soon... I just have to finish the sample hat for my class so I can take it to work. I am very excited about the new issue of Knitty... I think I queued like four things, which is a high number for me.  And the shawl is amazing. We just got a new shipment of quiviet at the shop and there is a pair of skeins that are bright green and AMAZING. They were calling to me and I think they may be destined to become that shawl... we will see.

Alright, I have to get my gifts wrapped and then head off to a holiday party!

Indie Dyers and Skijoring

First off, I am constantly amazed by people and their creativity. Being a member of the PhatFiber community is amazing, and I love seeing what people do.  I boxed up my samples today, but forgot to take pictures of them... but they are amazing.  Weston said it was his favorite thing I have ever dyed. But, I did part with the fiber (a merino/bamboo blend) and it will be in the sampler boxes. ANYWAY, back to my point, people are amazing! Another PhatFiber contributor, H.A.Y. came up with mini batts of each planet. Amazing! I was so tempted by them, that I snagged a set from her Etsy shop as soon as I could.  They are even more stunning in person, and I am kicking myself for not getting two sets. So not only was I blown away by creativity, but also by customer service. I received my order today (after ordering on Monday!) and it came with a cute Christmas card and a candy cane. Very nice personal touch. All of this has cinched that I will be buying from this shop again! Any ideas for what these batts should become??

Also, today we went skijoring with the dogs, and it was a BLAST! For those who don't know, skijoring is basically cross-country skiing with your dog tied to you. I was very nervous to go with Snickers, because he is CRAZY, and I was convinced that I was going to break a bone. Surprisingly, both dogs did amazing. Frito was more motivated to keep running with Snickers there, and because Frito wanted to prove his "alpha dog" status, he didn't want Snickers to get ahead of him.  It was quite fun. We are planning on going about three times a week to keep the whole family in shape.  We live really close to the park where we go, so we can get there and back pretty quickly, which is nice.  And the trails are all really well lit, so we can even go after dinner if we need to.

Also, a picture of my owl bag, as promised. I love it.

And, because I am an enabler, this Etsy shop (a new PhatFiber contributor) has an unbelievable deal on a fiber club right now... 3 months for $36+shipping! ACK! 4 oz of fiber a month!! I have had a hard time resisting this all day....

Small Town AK

Lately, I have been quite obsessed with moving to a small town. Not that Anchorage isn't nice, but I feel like I am missing out on some things. I feel like the hustle and bustle of the "big city" is getting to me. Plus, I feel like if I lived in a small town more people would share some of my core values... mainly about how they shop.

I'm not a fan of chain stores (with the exception on Costco... I love Costco. And I shop at Target more than I should, but I digress). I feel like they undermine local stores and they encourage people to fill their lives with things they may not need. Obviously, it is hard to shop exclusively at small, local shops. I would love to buy all of my clothes at boutiques, but my budget doesn't allow me to. And we don't really have a local grocery store. But with those two exceptions, I have been trying my best to shop local. There is a book that I have been interested in buying that Barnes and Noble has in stock... but I have decided to wait until I can get my hands on it at work, or at Title Wave so that I can support a local business. I try very hard to make my money speak for me.

I feel like if I move to a small town, more people will share this value (even if it is out of necessity). Plus, I think it would be nice to live somewhere that my kids could walk from one end to the other and I wouldn't have to worry about them. There are obviously down sides to living in small towns, but to me it sounds amazing. I think something that makes it more appealing is the fact that everyone thinks I am crazy for wanting to do it.

But alas, since we refinanced our house this year, it will be a while before we get to live our small town dream... in the mean time I am going to live in my little house, shop locally, and tell anyone who will listen to do the same....

Oh, and a quick note. If you didn't know, you can hook up your Carr's card with your AK air account and earn miles for shopping! Amazing. I just did that today... I'm probably the last person to find out about it, but in case you are like me, you can go here and sign up. :)

Craft Fair

I went to the UAA craft fair today, which was quite exciting! I bought myself a very cute bag with owls on it (pics later... too lazy at the moment) and bought a pretty exciting birthday present for a party I am going to tomorrow! I was going to make the little guy something, but since I subbed all week my free time was pretty much non-existent and I found this and it was PERFECT! Let's hope he loves it as much as I do!

Another thing that was a bit interesting at the craft fair was running into my bosses. They are fun ladies. They joked about how I should buy them a stained glass piece for Christmas and teased me for buying a bag I could have easily made myself. I explained to them that I COULD make the bag, but I never would. So it was worth it to me to buy something hand made and enjoy every bit of it! Plus, since I didn't make it, I won't be overly critical of it, as I often am of my own work.

There was also a booth of hand knit and crocheted items run by people that I recognized from the shop... we tend to have to follow them around so they don't put things in their bags... if you catch my drift.  Now I realize why they are so motivated... if you can cut your investment down to zero, your profits sure do skyrocket! People are always surprised when I talk about shoplifting at the quilt shop.  Everyone is always stunned that it happens. And, until I worked there, I probably wouldn't have believed it either... but it is AMAZING how much stuff walks away. Sometimes we will find empty bolts in the stacks, which means someone just took all of the fabric off of it and walked out. We have even had whole quilts stolen.

But, we just got a phone call that the in-laws are on the way over, so I need to frantically pick up!! AHH!!

I'm Dan Sullivan...

Our city is having a hard time financially. So what did they decide to do?? Hire a special lawyer and investigate if our former mayor knew this was going to happen.  This lead to a 60+ page report being put together and the assembly spending time reviewing this report.

WHAT?!?!

We are POOR, we shouldn't spend money on things that DON'T MATTER. It doesn't matter if Mark Begich knew we were going to be in a budget crisis... are we going to drag him out of DC and convict him of something? No, because he didn't commit a crime. So all this money, time, and energy is a waste....

And we wonder why we are in a budget crisis....

Seriously... sometimes I just want to move to the middle of nowhere and live in the woods....

November Wrap Up!

I looked out the window into the backyard the other day and found this:

Oh, my crazy Frito. He misses the summer hammock and has decided that the wheelbarrow is a good substitute.

In other dog news, today is my LAST day puppy sitting and I could not be happier!!! While he sure is cute, he is a pain in the butt. His refusal to sleep has really disrupted my schedule, and I don't deal well with having my sleep interrupted.

As far as knitting goes, I have started and finished a hat out of the book Hat Heads.

It turned out a bit smaller than I like my hats, so I will be knitting myself another hat with larger needles. This hat is a sample for a class I'm going to be teaching at the shop, so it wasn't a huge deal that it didn't fit. The class is going to be for beginning knitters who want to learn how to knit in the round and do simple color work. Considering this hat took me three days to finish, I think it is a very do-able beginning project.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! We got a fair amount of snow, so I am hoping to get Snickers his skijoring gear this week so we can go out this weekend... here's to hoping I don't break anything! :)