Winter Solstice/Yule Crochet Gifts

(I didn't make any of the hats shown, hopefully I can get some pics up of some of the ones I've made!)

This year, for Winter Solstice, I figured out from a Youtube video how to crochet winter beanies. I started collecting yarn from thrift stores and I've made quite a few hats and scarves. It's funny, I used the same pattern for all the hats but they all turned out differently. A few of them decided to be slouchy chunky berets, some are a little longer and have pompoms, and some are simple beanies. They have their own distinct personalities:) Actually, it's probably just because I keep losing my place and adding or forgetting rows... I had to be creative in my color mixes for the stripes because I kept running out of each color. That's the only problem with buying all your yarn from thrift stores, they may be only $0.25 but there's never quite enough. That's okay though, it adds a little more homemade-ness. I've heard that Michael's often has sales on yarn and I think I'll check it out. I other news: my sister and brother-in-law are visiting from NorCal and I love them! I made them hats, too:) With various shades of blue and gray and some black and white. Really, whatever cool colors I had left over. And by "cool colors" I mean blue, green, violet, teal...
My mom is learning guitar! She's always wanted to and I'm so very proud. I'm listening to her play Fleetwood Mac songs now:)
Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Hanuka! Happy Yule! Happy Winter Solstice! Happy secular winter gift-giving time! really, just have a nice winter. There's no snow here. In Idaho. The land of the never-ending, freeze-your-ass-off winters. I'm getting a bit concernicus. I hope there's snow for Christmas/Yule/Winter solstice... Why am I using all these fragments?
Love,
Belle
P.S.: look at this. It always helps me when I'm depressed. Which, thanks to my bi=polar-ness, is about exactly pretty much half the time. You should also check out ALL of the "best ofs". Especially "the Alot" and "dogs don't understand basic concepts, like moving".

Ophelia

It's probably a little weird, but I really love the character Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. I understand her. She's always trying so very hard to please everyone around her- but everyone seems to want something different! She's a crazy singing lunatic who has made some questionable decisions and been walked all over by idiots in her life. And her name is so pretty... This is a painting by J.W. Waterhouse, my favorite artist. She was picking flowers in a field. I like how this photograph is in a bathtub. It modernizes the story and seems darker somehow.

This one I found on Etsy and attached a link to the page so you can look at it and buy it and whatnot.
Ophelia was Hamlet's love interest in the play, but Hamlet was so distracted by his father's death that he didn't notice how she was affected by his ignoring her and his "pretended madness". I, personally, think hamlet really was crazy but that's a matter of opinion. Ophelia may have been completely nuts but the songs she sang during her madness were so appropriate to the situation. "He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone/ at his head a grass green turf/at his heels a stone" Her father had just died and Hamlet had forsaken her. Poor pretty Ophelia. I would love to be her in a play, I'd be really good at her crazy scenes. She starts singing to the king about inappropriate things (that tend to make me think that she and Hamlet had been a little more 'serious' than people thought) "tomorrow is St. Valentines Day and and all the morning betime/and I a maid at your window to be your Valentine/ and up he rose and donned his clothes and dupped the chamber door/ let in the maid that out a maid never departed more" I love that.
On the topic of madness, here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Gallus Vibius strained his mind so hard to understand the essence and impulses of insanity that he dragged his judgement off its seat and never could get it back again; and he could boast of having become mad through wisdom."- Montaigne
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher"- Ambrose Bierce
"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe"- Johann von Goethe
"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity"- Edgar Allen Poe
"A mite whimsical in the brainpan"- Firefly (I got this on a pin:)
So, this is probably the craziest post I've ever done. I hope it was enjoyable!
Love,
Belle

Blah, blah!!

I have a joke for y'all:

Two ferrets were in a bar. One ferret leans over to the other and whispers: "I slept with your mother."
The other ferret doesn't respond, so the first ferret repeats himself, louder this time: "I slept with your mother!"
The other ferret still doesn't respond, so finally the first ferret yells: "I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!!"
The other ferret finally turns to him and says:
"shut up dad"

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!
I REALLY love that joke. Seriously, I have the strangest sense of humor. Most of my favorites I heard from Sadicus. She's weird, too.
In other news: I'm getting those Minnetonka boots I wanted Thursday!! From a small family-owned business!! This will be my first ever brand new pair of Minnetonkas! My first pair belonged to my grandmother (I think) and my second were $4 at a thrift store. These are new! I'm only able to get them because the child support people finally pressured my dad into giving my mom some money. Yay for child support services! Of course, most of our money goes toward food, but this was my (belated) back-to-school thing for the year:)
In other other news: I recently found gluten/sugar-free cinnamon raisin bread that doesn't negatively affect my gag reflex. Woot woot! Speaking of back-to-school, I registered for my next semester classes! Starting January, I'll be taking Archeology, Sociology, Intermediate Algebra, Native Peoples of North America, American Indian Studies, and American Indian History. They're all great! Except Algebra. Bleck:( But I'm excited to have 3 American Indian classes! And my first Archeology class! I'm graduating from high school in December because I'll have all of my high school classes done after this semester is over! So woohoo! for early graduation! My sister still beat me by a semester, but eh. I still feel smart. How I wish I had more interesting things to talk about in my life.
I hope to eventually have some sort of coherent post, but for now, adieu.
Love,
Belle

Home Sweet Home

I think my life-long lack of a real home has made me into this person who obsesses over home furnishings. I really can't wait to have a home of my own to decorate and be comfortable in. I want to travel and I'm rather nomadic at heart but I also want to have a place to come back to. My life-dream involves traveling all over the world as an anthropologist and I have always been uncomfortable in the houses I've lived in. I suppose it was probably more the living situation in all of those places than the houses themselves, but it's not like the houses were all that comfy anyway. But I want to have a home for the times that I'm not dragging my family all over the globe with me. It's going to be in the Northwest, I can tell you that. I've never lived out of the Northwest mountains and I don't want to. No matter how far I go, it's definitely home for me. So the point of this post is to show y'all how much I love Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and The Trouble With Trolls by Jan Brett.

Wait. What?
Trust me, it has everything to do with my future home decor.

I love Jan Brett's illustrations. Her books are always set in these beautiful wintry Scandinavian places. This book specifically is set in Norway. And the little girl in the book reminds me of my cousin, Lily. Not that Lily's little anymore- she's in highschool now!! How crazy is that!? But she's pretty and blonde and I have every confidence that she could outsmart a bunch of trolls to save her dog.

I love the clothes in this book, too. I want to dress like that in the cold north Idaho winter. People seem to think that Canada has really cold winters. If you want to experience a Canada-like winter without the out-of-country hassle, head on up to North Idaho! But don't move here, we're trying to discourage too much growth. I guess we're all still rather into the old frontier feel of Idaho and we aren't quite willing to give it up. Of course, I'm from Northern California, so... Sandpoint has a winter festival every year, I actually haven't been yet.

There's an Elk ranch up here, too. They're so very pretty in the snow.

But be sure to pack your mittens! Oh... mittens... So toasty. Can you tell I was cold today? Actually, it's not very cold yet this year, but it was windy! And my friend got snow at her house in the mountains Friday night.

To be honest, I only like snow in December. I wish it would stay confined to that month. But lots of it for Yule! Anyhoo, I want some pretty carved wood like the seven dwarves had in their cottage.

Pretty, pretty.

Thankfully, there's a whole buncha lotta folksy stuff at thrift stores and flea markets 'round these parts. When was everyone so into this stuff??
Have a good winter, everybody! Enjoy the snow and sweaters, but be careful not to freeze your buns off!
Love,
Belle

Talented Folks I know from High School

Sadicus and her little sister
Some freerunning dudes
The Ongoing Concept
There are more, I'm sure. These are just the ones I could easily find and remember and whatnot.
When Shenanigan and I make our music video with birds and foxes, we will join the list:) It's gonna be kickass. I think I'll go play guitar now. The keyboard is all funky so... I'm annoyed. I had been avoiding facebook for awhile, not on purpose, but because I just don't think about it. So I guess "avoiding" isn't the right word. But I didn't get this wonderful message until quite awhile after the friend had written it, and now I don't know what. I wrote back but I hope he responds. Eh. I'm just being a goose and probably got WAY too excited over this simple little message. He just said he misses me. But I don't know I guess I can't help but want that to mean something after 4 years of ridiculous crushing. Ggrr. We'll see.

Halloween

My Halloween festivities were sadly lacking:( It seems that they always are! Halloween is absolutely, beyond all doubt my favorite holiday. Samhain, All Hallows Eve, what have you, I LOVE that day dedicated to the morbid, the absurd, the long-gone, the glowing flickering candles lighting the laughing Jack o' Lantern faces from within.
This year, the weekend before Halloween, I came down with the flu. I think it's from all those people at college getting their flu shots. They're being infected with a virus, how are they NOT going to be contagious? At least SOME of them? They got me sick. I know it. Stupid free vaccinations...
Thursday and Friday I wanted to go to Greenbluff (which is apparently like Apple Hill in Placerville where I used to go every fall) because I've never been and I heard they had a pumpkin patch and apple orchard. Sadly my friends were busy. Saturday I went to the Halloween/birthday party of a friend of a friend. She's a really nice girl from Portugal (originally from France) and I liked her a great deal. I was already coming down with the bug by that time, but I wanted to do something fun.
I was extra sick the next day.
So I sadly didn't do anything on Halloween day:( I had wanted to go to the haunted house and make silly home movies with friends. I ended up carving a pumpkin with my mom. But I actually really enjoy hanging out with my mom. We made harvest-y soup and served it in little pumpkins and it was delicious! So, even though I was sick and didn't get to do much, it wasn't a bad day.
Anyway, happy November!

Computer Switcheroo!/Wishlist

I am writing to you from a new computer. Well, not a new computer... our old computer actually. See, we'd been using my grandparents' computer but now we're using my mom's. It's a dinosaur. Actually, I wouldn't call it a dinosaur. It's old, but not that old. Maybe Australopithecus (proto-human ancestor). Ancient, but more modern than triceratops. Hehhem. Geek. Moral of the story: Guess who's blog has pictures again!!

I like anything with a Firefly, Psych, Princess Bride, or Young Frankenstein reference. So I found a shirt with a quote from Wash from Firefly! It says: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" Hhahahaha! Mine is an evil laugh! I also love buttons. I don't care how hipster it is. I just love them. These are Simon Tam quotes from Firefly, my favorite is: "I've been thinking of growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist." Funny, funny man. I love this wolf hat but sadly, SOLDOUT! I'm still looking for a good (cheap) one. This shirt is in the style of the PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) label, but says: "Hipsters Ruin Everything". Hipsters are known for their excessive consumption of PBR, my mom drinks it and I want her to have this shirt:) Another Firefly reference: "Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Today we were captured by hill people never to be seen again. It was the best day ever." These are so much better if your a Firefly fan. They're golden:) Deer+Bear=Beer. I know it's an ironic trucker hat and I'm so ashamed! I love River Tam. My nephew says she reminds him of me... I love you, Ethan! This is a t-shirt. And yes. It's another Firefly quote. I'm going to get a grey sweater from Goodwill and sew elbow patches on myself. It's cheaper. And homemade is always better! I already have the perfect buffalo plaid fabric scraps to make the patches! Appropriation is bad. But I love this dress and want it. Its pretty. Besides, at least it's not called Navajo Nights or Cherokee Sunset. I hate when they name things after tribes that have nothing to do with them. Calling it "tribal" print isn't as bad. All world peoples were at some point "tribal". These are lovely fair isle leggings. I want another color, but didn't show them because I don't want people buying them all up before I have a chance! I can't help but love this button. And these wonderfully 70s corduroy shorts. Tricky Mr. Foxy Fox is divine! I don't know why I said that. I want this shirt though.

I would feel so pretty and ballerina-esque. The nerd in me said: Holy Harry Potter Batman! Since When does Delias carry Hogwarts shirts?! Fair Isle and quite close to what I've been searching for. Close enough at least. This one's close, too. Disney Pocahontas taught me my life lessons and I will never stop being a follower of her wonderful cartoon Algonquin ways. I love these. And they're called "Tramper", how cool is that name?! They don't have my size, but I found them somewhere else. Aladdin is another meaningful Disney movie for me. I recently read Arabian Nights (1,001 Nights) and realized why the rest was never made into a children's cartoon. Can we say: sexual! Murderous! Sexist! But an enjoyable read overall.
I guess you may have figured out that this post is really just a time for me to celebrate the return of my picture posting ability by sharing my current wishlist with y'all. I basically just like nerdy hipster pretty things. Honestly, I wouldn't say I'm a hipster, but I do LOVE the same stuff hipsters love. But I don't judge and I don't care about trends. We just so happen to enjoy the same things. I told my friend once that we're the people hipsters are trying to be. Heehee. You could say I'm just a thoroughly 90s kind of gal who loves irony and folksy stuff. Kind of a hippie. But don't tell my grandfather.
What are you guys obsessing over lately?
Love,
Belle