Michael brought these home for me the other day, orange chrysanthemums! I love the scarecrow head with the crow perched on him.

I really love mums but I have never had the greatest luck keeping them alive through the Winter. I heard if you get them earliest enough in the Autumn you can transplant them, but we are already having our daily hard frosts here so I doubt it would survive transplant. I’ve also heard the reason they don’t survive the Winter well is because most are greenhouse grown and not the hardiest varieties.

So do I just have bad luck with mums or have others had this problem? Has anyone successfully kept them alive and healthy through the Winter? I’d love to hear your tricks and tips.

We planted lots of sugar pie pumpkins this Spring but one of the vines ended up under the Elm tree. It made just one itty bitty pumpkin. Mommy gave it to me since she said it is a bit too small to make a pie out of, I love it!

Maybe a pumpkin pie cupcake just for me Mommy?

It’s official, as of today I like Frank Sinatra even more then before.

“Orange is the happiest color.”
– - Frank Sinatra

I have had my digital camera for almost five years now, it was a PowerShot A410. My previous one had simply worn out and the upgrade a 3.2 megapixel one was awesome at the time. Time however is not kind to electronics and I have been fighting my camera lately and yesterday it started taking photos like the one above. It was not snowing, nor did the sun go supernova. Indoor and outdoor shots are now all white. Formating the card, resetting all the options and any other fidgeting and swearing could not resuscitate it.

Michael to the rescue! No, his tinkering did not bring my camera back from the dead, but his paycheck replaced it. Did you know that they make 10 megapixel digital camera now? Wow, that makes my old one seem prehistoric. On Friday I should receive my new PowerShot SD1200 IS. Not only did Michael somehow managed to find a camera that was reasonably priced and makes me happy in its specs, but it is also seriously, gloriously, boldly, wonderfully orange. How amazing is that? How amazing is he?

Now if Friday would just hurry up and get here, I’m suffering camera withdrawal.

If I was keeping up a pattern here I would have a very long relatively informative post about the Vernal Equinox and my beliefs in the place of this photo. Truth is, I haven’t even gotten beyond the outline form in the past few weeks with moving and all. And I don’t have one ounce of shame regarding that fact, it will just have to wait until things settle down (and be posted next year.)

I took this photo of Damian and me in our backyard today. I was taking photos of the yard I can plan gardening work (what better way to celebrate the coming of Spring?) I have started working on two raised beds recently too. I’ll post pictures and descriptions about that later, but right now I need to go weave two loaves of challah bread and finish a curried chicken salad.

These are the socks my friends Ileen and Caswallon gave me for my birthday. I really love thick comfy colorful socks. I have never seen a pair in my favorite colors, but Ileen found them! (She also gave me green nubbly socks for Solstice.) This past Friday my friends surprised me with a few birthday things. Andrea made me a chocolate cake with orange frosting, it was soooo good – and had star candles! Peter and her also gave me orange yarn (shot of it in my photoblog) and homemade orange soda and rootbeer. Do you know how you know you are always welcome at a friend’s home? When they have a basket in their living room stocked with toys for your child. Shannon is so awesome! All my friends are made of pure love.

So my birthday definitely lifted my spirits, now comes the fight to keep them up. Shannon gave me a vitamin D supplement I have been trying out. I can’t tell if it is making a difference yet, I think so though. It has been foggy for two days (with a quick hour of BEAUTIFUL sunshine yesterday – I grabbed a quick photo of it steaming across our altar.) The news says that the stagnant air (and therefore fog) will be here at least till the middle of next week, bleh! This happens every January and gets me really down, but I haven’t felt as moody since beginning the supplement. I haven’t slept as well though, not sure if that is related.

My Aunt Ruth talked about comfort foods on her blog today, an important topic for me. On one hand, if I eat cookies, my mood improves, but on the other hand, as soon as that sugar wears off, I feel even worse then before. So I try to avoid it right now. For the most part, I eat comfort foods when I am bored, so I am trying to avoid that too. When I am stressed I tend to skip meals because I feel queasy, but the moment I run out of things to do, out comes the cookie sheet. (I don’t keep junkfood around so I have to make my own.) Recognizing that trigger is important for me, I actually have a sticky note inside my recipe folder that says “Are you hungry or BORED?” I still make junkfood of course, I just won’t let myself binge on it when I am bored. Maybe that is why I have taken up knitting, it is a defense mechanism for the munchies! Eating a decent breakfast every morning helps too.

My one other change to fight the Winter blues is that I have also seriously started indoor exercise last week, which I read can help alleviate seasonal depression. I thought it would be so hard so I set a goal to do it three times a week. I start with tai chi and then do some simply exercises (crunches, push ups etc) and stretching, and some dancing. I found that my spirits are so lifted afterwards that I have not had a problem keeping it up. In fact I find myself doing tai chi every morning now.

Anyhow Damian is waking so it is potty time. He is in underwear about 80% of the time (not as night or later in the evening) for a couple days. We have had a couple accidents but it is going much better then I expected! If we need to go back to diapers that is okay, this is more of a trial then anything else. I’m so proud of him though.

I have a question for my bird savvy readers.

This is probably just a flash of my imagination adding my favorite color to a bird, but I had a dream last night starring the little guy, so I thought I would share a little. (My dream mind has been active lately! It seems to go in phases.) I’ll try to describe him using my limited knowledge of birds…

I say “he” because I have always been under the impression that male birds where the mostly boldly colors, and he definitely had that going for him. In size and shape, he looked like the typical little chubby pointy beaked bird I would see at my neighbor’s feeder. Small enough to sit in my palm. Beyond that he had the most vivid orange face and throat with some black marks around his face. He had a white tummy and the rest of him was some patterning of black and white. He sounded pretty, so maybe a songbird? Though someone told me recently a crow is a songbird too. I love them but I admit their croaking never struck me as overly melodious. So I am not sure what makes a bird a songbird…

I am thinking maybe I saw him in a book or magazine (or in nature!) at some point, so maybe this is a real bird, or some collage of several. I find all dreams have some grain of truth, so I always like trying to tease that truth out.
At first I thought orioles, the only orange bird I know, but when I looked them up, the patterning looked completely wrong (delightfully orange though) and too big.

It was a happy random dream, maybe just a birthday gift of orange goodness from my subconscious! Speaking of which, thank you all for the birthday wishes so far, I am feeling the fellow blogger love!

EDIT #1: I have been surfing “orange bird” on google images and found this, a little bit creepy but I totally love it.

EDIT #2: We have a winner! It looks exactly like it (my subconscious has a good memory!)

This is a Blackburnian Warbler. He is a yellower here then in my dream but hey, otherwise an exact match! Cute little guy isn’t he?

I am so proud of myself, laugh if you want, but this is my first attempting at knitting! (Okay, my grandma tried to teach me when I was 6, but I am not counting that…) This is just a knit stitch, I haven’t learned the purl stitch yet, but still! Behold! I knit!

I can totally see how this can become addicting. Next stop purl stitch and then, the WORLD!
Mwahahahaha.

(Orange yarn is love.)

I’ve been feeling a little bit of the winter blues lately, not as bad as other years, but I know it’s there. Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD if you prefer, one of the most fitting acronyms, if there ever was. Feelings this way is a really odd state to be in for me, I am normally an optomistic person, but this time of year the gray skies and barren trees seem to directly reflect my outlook. And yes, I have one of those special lights that imitate daylight (need to dig it out of the closet.) I do not think anything works as great as the real deal though.

In a sense, it is better this year then others. I credit Damian for that, I really do. I am so busy trying to keep up with him, I do not have much time for dwelling, besides your baby’s smile is an excruciatingly hard thing to resist. He is definitely growing, I am not even sure I can call what he is does crawling anymore, scampering is more accurate, whatever it is, it is FAST. He goes from zero to ack-not-that! in less then a second. Today Michael was clapping and Damian was trying to imitate it sporadically, very comical.

The sun made an appearance long enough the a couple weeks ago for me to snap that photo of him. I need some 2009 pictures of him… Last January I think I only took three of four photos for the whole month, I am trying not to repeat that trend this time around.

There must be some kind of cosmic irony to having a birthday in January and SAD. I can’t decide if fate did that to try to cheer me up in this dark month, or to mess with me. A little morbid thinking on my part, I know. My birthday is this Friday. I want a pasta machine (thank you Dad) and an Vietnamese Ao Dai pattern is that weird? Not worried about if I get them or not though, all I really need is my loved ones near, and maybe a few extra hugs. We are probably going over to Shannon’s house on Friday, we do that every few weeks, it is especially nice to be with friends this time of year. They are like little suns, bringing their own special kind of happiness to my heart.

I am fighting that urge to hibernate, with bellydancing to keep the blood flowing, and surrounding myself with all things orange to keep my spirits up until the sun starts poking around a little more. When my mood turns towards the darker tones, I just remember that if we can never truly feel happiness if sadness does not come. Just as the flowers cannot bloom without the rain. See, optimism does persist doesn’t it?

Oh yes, and I am beginning to learn to knit too, with orange yarn of course!

I received my new blender yesterday. My dad treated me to an early Christmas gift and upgrade on my now dead Oster blender. My counter now glows with its latest addition, and orange (tangerine technically) KitchenAid blender.

It is beauuuuutiful, but then my weak spot for all things orange is well documented. Someday I was white and orange kitchen (so it can look like I work inside a orange creamsickle… Yummy.)

The first thing I made? Pumpkin Pie Smoothies of course, an orange blender deserves to be christened with an orange drink (okay the smoothie is a little more reminiscent of baby poo, but the pumpkin was once orange!) I made orange juice after that, perhaps that would have been more suitable a photo…

My kitchen may now return to its regular blender dependent schedule!

He demands your allegiance.

I bought Damian a rubber duck in a pumpkin the other day, momentarily breaking my ban on foreign toys. I couldn’t resist, it was in an orange pumpkin, I love orange. They also had one with a purple witch hat, but I managed to restrain myself (for now.) I realized this morning that I might be developing an unnatural obsession with the thing, since I play with it more then my child and I took photos of it this morning for my photoblog. I have half a mind to start collecting them. Damian also has two green one from his baby shower.

And I can say that they are Damian’s, thus getting away with it (unless anyone who reads this comes to visit…)

Anyhow, beyond rubber ducks, all is going well in the Stewart household. Autumn is coming to a close. I saw snowflakes the other day and the nights are regularly dropping below 32F. Samhain is only a week away and I still need to finish Damian’s costume (we are going trick or treating with friends) as well as my first podcast. Michael is doing really awesome things with the podcast site. I recorded it already but he has to do computer stuff with it still. I love having my own geek.

Beyond these things I have been spending most of my spare time (haha) studying the Celtic tree language, Ogham. It’s history is really interesting. I have also been working on some pages for my Book of Shadows. I am thinking about scanning some of them so that I can make them available for download, or prints of the more artistic ones for sale. We’ll see.

Damian is teething. None of them have broken through yet and I have resorted to prayer at this point. I have tried everything short of amber beads (mostly for cost reasons) when it gets really bad. Getting in the warm bath with him works most of the time. I know this will pass and I try to tell myself that he can’t help himself since it hurts, but honestly it drives me a little nuts sometimes. Poor guy, I wonder if he knew his mommy was crazy! One of my aunts has twin girls, I can only imagine what it must have been like if they were teething at the same time.

Beyond teething pain, Damian is wonderful though. He loves laughing and smiling. He is a huge flirt too, he smiles at anyone and everyone. I think he is going to love trick or treating.

unknown subspecies

Michael brought this plant home from his work the other day, they were giving them away (they give away the ones too dejected to sell.) I know it is some kind of pepper/chili but I am not sure what kind, it had no tag.

Michael says there was a sign by them that said “Do Not Eat” but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is not edible, it just may have been treated with a bunch of chemicals. It might be some kind of ornamental though.

Peppers are an annual right? I might dry these peppers for decoration…

Does anyone know what variety this is?

Does anyone know what kind of tree this is? It is right outside our townhouse door.

I love the clusters of vivid orange berries that is has. The birds don’t seem to touch them though.

Tree Identified: European Rowan

Even more of a reason to love it, it is a sacred tree in Scandinavian myth (the first woman was made out of the rowan) and in Aegean lore the first rowan came from where the blood of an eagle fell on the ground.

You can make a jelly out of the berries too, but shouldn’t eat large quantities of them raw. According to Wikipedia various parts of the tree can be used for throat problems, bowel and vaginal irritations, eye problems, cramps and to remedy diarrhea.

I have a few clusters of berries that the tree let me harvest. I am drying them to add to my Autumn wreath.

Anyone who knows me even vaguely knows I adore the sun, I love it more then the moon even. (Is that considered Pagan sacrilege? Hehe!) I could care less about tanning though I do love my sun kisses (freckles.) For me it is more the mere presence of the sun that uplifts and empowers me. Every morning, especially when I am up to see the sun breaking the horizon, I say a little sun mantra to myself thanking it for being there for me.

I love drawing styled suns too, even my business logo has the sun in it. I love depictions of the sun, anything that catches the sun’s rays, and solar colors. Orange is my absolute favorite color. I have sun catchers in almost every window of my home, a couple of which are dragonflies, my personal sun totem. The snake, another one of my totems is definitely a sun worshiper like me. When I stand in the sun I feel like the snake, my batteries are charging up.

Whether the sun comes out or not during the day greatly affects my moods, which is evident in the past couple days. The night before last I barely got any sleep and the next day dawned gray and drizzly. I had a miserable day yesterday. Last night I didn’t get much sleep either but it was sunny today and I feel exponentially better even with my body hurting and I am a little wiped out.

What can I say? I must be solar powered!
If I loved the sun anymore I just might start photosynthesizing…

~~~

In news from the swelling baby belly front, Michael and I are pretty sure one of my ovarian cysts ruptured at about 2am last night. I thought my appendix has burst it was so excruciating – but I feel perfectly fine today though and the baby is as active as ever. Whatever twist of evolution caused cysts to exist should be kicked repeatedly in the head.