No Really. I am.
My husband and I were meant for one another. I find ice cream in the cup board or phones flying into the street as I drive the car off. I do things like leave the teapot on the stove on high and go out back to work forgetting about that little teapot on high only to come back to a BLACK teapot and a melted coffee cup (sitting next to the burner) and an awfully noxious gas filling the house and a fire alarm going off. Or, I break the plate I made when I was five and Kristin (because she is simply wonderful this way) goes downstairs and finds me some crazy glue. The next day I pick up my plate to show how well that crazy glue worked and find the tube stuck to the plate. yup. Spaz.
I really wish that I had my own screen print shop. Hopefully by this time next year. That would kick ass.
Joseph ordered more sweet toast shirts. These are catching on. You just watch. Watch the Today Show on January 2nd. You just watch. :) People are getting it!
So psyched.

I just found out that they named a peak in Antarctica after my father. http://aadc-maps.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=130699
It makes me so sad. He died of cancer about 10 years ago. He was only 54. My mother just sent me this note.

I went back to Dr. Wiley (the doctor who operated on me) last Wednesday to get a CA-125 (blood test for ovarian cancer) and a liver function test.  He called yesterday to give me the results.  He said my CA-125 was 6.9.  That is absolutely fantastic!!  Normal is anything below 30.3 andthe lower the better.  Before my surgery it was 736.7 and one month after my surgery, it was 40.7.  But now it is not just in the normal range, but very, very safely in the normal range!!  In fact, it's so good, my doctor told me I could wait 6 months to get it checked again.  Usually, they want to check it every 2 to 4 months.  Also he said all my liver enzymes are in the normal range.  When you have cancer, it means that your liver is no longer functioning normally and is no longer able to fight off the cancer cells.  It looks like I'm on the right track for defeating this cancer.  So now you don't have to worry about your mom anymore!!


This was after finding out she had one of the most destructive ovarian cancers. She decided not to undergo chemo and simply change her diet. This is after reading The China Study. I believe it to be the most important book on diet and nutrition written this century.

Customers who don't get their order because of our screw up and who demand we ship them sale tees at sale prices and ship it express and get it to them right away because we are absolute screwups and she is a manager and would never talk to a customer the way I am and she spends tons of money on my site and all her friends do and on and on and I am just like "I HATE YOU" and want to just refund you your damn money because you suck and the entire time I KNOW that I am acting badly and should be calming and reassuring under such demands but threats and demands are something I don't deal well with, especially with tons of wonderful people calling with pleasantries, well wishes and more all waiting for their shirts.
As a manager she should know that the best way to get something you want is to ask nicely. I would have bent over backwards if she hadn't been telling Kristin that she should get this and that because of our screw up. I was listening to their conversation and just getting more and more pissed and I KNOW this isn't the proper way to behave but I can't help it. I got on the phone and told her I wanted to refund her her $ and she could go out and get some other gifts from a nicer more responsible company. She demanded her order be shipped out TODAY. I finally turned the phone back over to Kristin informing the lady in Orlando FL that Kristin was a much nicer person than I (after the lady told me she would NEVER treat a customer the way I am.) I want to just refund her her damn money but Kristin won't let me. Hopefully she writes for the Orlando Sentinal and will spread the word about what a damn bitch I am.

OK I finally calmed down enough to write her a nice apology letter. I really am sorry. I can't believe I am so horrible as to not want to sell her my shirts.

So lots of wonderful stuff. Went over to Klutch's new pad this morning to check out the artwork and he spent an hour rocking my world by showing me some of the most amazing artists I have ever seen. I think my favorite artist by far is Swoon. He also showed me art by Twist and it blows my mind that I don't remember seeing his stuff when I lived in SF. Must have been drunk the entire time. haha Didn't see. Couldn't see. He also told me about this bathroom in Valentines (a deli near Voo Doo Donuts) that has a tower built out over the toilet and is seriously the best installation piece in Portland. I plan to head over there tomorrow.
Klutch's work space had this amazing venting system on it. Has to be powerful with all the fumes he produces. He plugged it in and the air whipped through the room...but I could barely hear him with it on. It was installed in front of a board that had a pulley on it to open the board when fresh air was needed. I think I need one of these. Our venting system is so quiet you can't tell it's on but it doesn't seem to be sucking the air out at the rate we need it to be pulled out of the room. His studio walls are already being covered in his art. What I like best about him beyond his art is his passion for it. I keep meeting up with him expecting to spend less than an hour with him and can't pull myself away from the visuals.
I made some vegetable fritters that weren't too bad tonight.
Bad news...fed ex doesn't guarantee on time delivery of their ground packages! I am like, why the hell would I use you unless you can guarantee me an on time delivery? Jeez. So I had to upgrade everyone who had selected fed ex ground to express. Deadline is now the 18th using fed ex.
Also, joy of joys, I found that the labels seem to have decided that they can't stick to our packages when it gets too cold for them so now we have packages floating around without addresses on them. Hmmm. I hope we make it through the holidays.

Jim is reading the China Study (a gift from my mom who is successfully fighting her ovarian cancer) after I mentioned the amazing correlations in this book. They are nearly perfect ones and I haven't seen anything like them at any time during school (except for the ones that were manipulated to show what a perfect correlation should look like) and I studies stats heavily. Let's just say that you dream of finding correlations like this when doing studies. They are irrefutable. The study in this book basically tells us that heart disease and cancer and diabetes are all diseases of affluence (the eating of flesh and dairy products.) We were at dinner last night and both ordered the only Vegan dish on the menu at Lovely Hula Hands and it was good. I hope that the movement to stop consuming animal products will happen more quickly now that this book is out. Not only could it possibly save our planet, stop the rampage of cancers in its tracks (my father and aunt both died of cancer and my mom just got diagnosed with cancer) but maybe there will be some decent tasting vegan restaurants that will come into being.
Klutch just got mentioned in the NY Times Weekly and Time Magazine. I have never personally known an artist who was just coming into being so it is really exciting. He starts on our mural later this month and we are psyched.
The windows in our warehouse are finished and we now have light, lots of light.

http://www.babybushtoys.com/products.html
Thanks Wei!

Ava has just entered the Why phase and until you actually live with someone who goes through the Why stage you can't really understand what is so horrible about it. Much worse than the NO stage as you feel compelled to answer each and every single Why simply because it is a question.
Today Ava pointed to a pimple on my face and asked why I had a nipple there. I asked her if she wanted to suck on it.
DAVe sent us some designs and they are excellent. Hopefully get these out by next year. We RAN OUT OF Poopyhead designs. I can't believe it. I am an idiot. Please call me and tell me how much of an idiot I am.
Jim came back and is deep into his novel. He set up an xmas tree, rearranged the living room and hung up xmas lights. I was out in the garage making t-shirts all weekend. I loved every minute of it. Heh

Thank God Jennifer is my friend. I went over to hang at her house last night and over a glass of wine we fleshed out our vision for diyportland. Then we began talking about being married. I never fought with Jim until we had a child. I never went through weeks of feeling resentful and angry. I was not a nag by nature. (I absolutely despise this role.) I haven't checked out a guy's ass since I got married.

I find myself feeling angry and resentful a majority of the time. I fight with my husband at least once a day. We are turning into our parents. I have found myself feeling slightly flushed around this one guy and feel particularity gross, a bit like some desperate old housewife hanging out in her nasty old robe waiting for some delivery guy to stop by...ok not that bad but seriously, not feeling good about myself.

I love my husband. I can't imagine being with anyone else. Plus, I know that living together and raising a child is just plain stressful and that it wouldn't be any better with anyone else and most likely far worse. Good God. We live and work in the same place.

I am revealing to Jennifer what a horror I am turning into and she tells me that she too felt angry and resentful when she was working full time. A lot of it had to do with carrying the load of three really intense roles and none of the roles give leeway to any of the others. They are all equally demanding. Bread winner, mother and wife. Sadly, the first one I let fall to the wayside is the wife role. Jennifer told me that as soon as she stopped working full time she instantly felt less angry.

Then she told me that her mailman was damn hot and that her husband had never ever cleaned the bathroom either!

I left feeling as though I had been allowed to return to humanity. I woke up feeling fantastic! I can't wait to see my husband and I am still going to check this guy's ass out one more time. :)

Probably more than you wanted to ever hear but I had this image that everyone else I knew was a million more times well adjusted than I. (Living in harmony with their beloveds, taking their children to music lessons, playdates, feeding them wholegrains and organic freshly cooked veggies and no JUICE.) Pierce that veil.

I realize that in my mind I have become a vegan. I used to eat at McDonalds (I loved their fries, chicken mcnuggets, sundaes) but after seeing Super Size Me I was utterly revolted. The same thing has happened to me after reading John Robbins book. My stomach has turned against me. I don't really have control over this. It is weird because I still mentally desire ruebens, BBQ etc but when it comes to actually eating it I can't do it. Feeding it to my daughter is even more of an issue for me. I know this will be a huge bone of contention in my relationship with Jim and I don't even know how to approach it.

I am finding more and more vegan recipes that don't taste like cardboard.

An issue I have with becoming a serious Vegan... it seems to me that there is always one thing better you could be doing for yourself. From not eating meat to Vegan to not cooking your food. Where do you draw the line? Why do ice cream and coffee exist? I love cooking my food but am worried that if I pick up some book I may become some freak who will only ingest uncooked veggies.

I am reading John Robbins old book A diet for a new america and feel so odd.
I know countless vegetarians who talk of a healthier diet and of the horror inflicted upon the animals we devour but man, when it comes to looking at a pulled pork sandwich their concerns seemed silly. A friend in our birthing group was a vegetarian and I imagined their poor child wilting away from lack of protein. I know about the four food groups. I know about protein being the building blocks of our bodies. I was taught these things in school. Little did I know how even back then corporations were infiltrating our very beings. It is bizarre when you suddenly realize that everything you believe in is a fabrication originating from corporations needing to push pigs, cows and chicks.

A veil being pierced is right on. How indoctrinated I have been with the viewpoint that protein, especially the protein of flesh is necessary to maintaining good health. Milk does a body good. Beef gives you strength. When I realized my daughter had a dairy allergy I added more meat and eggs to her diet not realizing I was doing her a disservice. Whenever I showed low on iron I would go out and eat a big steak. I took calcium pills because I was lactose intolerant. I thought eating all those yogurts would get me my calcium. I suppose that it really makes a great deal of sense. We live in a country fueled by profit and there is nothing more important than lowering costs and driving up profit leaving things that cannot be counted in monetary terms (bought and sold) left out completely.

If ever there was a book to alter my meat eating habits, this one would be it. I just received the food revolution, his newer book.

My husband and I have been at conflict over switching to a vegetarian diet. I have been pushing for it for a long while simply because I hate having meat in the house with a child. I no longer want to feed her eggs (the perfect protein according to the egg board) but this one will be a hard one to convince my husband of. I felt so odd when he asked me to purchase him some chicken breasts for his chicken marsala. There were three in the package with the skin still on. The package was sitting in a giant meat case surrounded by many other packages all containing chicken parts. Some of the chicks had been raised in the south. I live in Portland, OR. This is such a weird place. It really is.

Our windows are being put in today. I think it will all be worth it in the end but today when I was trying to pull shirts from the seconds I nearly started crying in all the chaos. I put on some music and felt a bit better.

Here's to a new view...

We had a screening party last month and invited our kids coop over for a buffet of white trash food. Boxed wine, coors light, chili with chips, velveeta cheese in the crock pot. Yum. The movie was amazingly well done. It gave a complete picture of how much Wal-mart is actually costing us in welfare for their employees, lost jobs that actually do pay, the pillaging of small towns, how it is simply a thoroughfare for goods from China (see this month's Harper for an excellent article on the industrialization of China) and the thing that stuck out in my mind...the Wal Mart heirs had built this gigantic underground fort with crazy barbed wire fencing for the end of the world scenario. Also, the fund to help out employees who endured a tragedy...contributions by employees a few million and by Wal Mart six thousand bucks.

We are suddenly swamped. What happened? People decided to do some holiday shopping, that's what. Crazy stuff. Happy about it but slightly overwhelmed. And I was just starting to catch up on my accounting. We finally got a ventilation system into our garage. We needed it so badly and Joseph, green builder man, came over today and installed it. He started talking about this can of hot pink spray paint used to paint flowers with and we somehow ended up painting it hot pink. Looks good, eh? We also gave Joseph and his girlfriend matching Sweet Toast shirts. We know these are going to become hot sellers. Just check it out.

Jim is off to the coast for his retreat and to find his way back into his second novel. He plans on biking back from the coast. What a man. Yum.

I ran in the rain today. I pressed a lot of shirts. Jim wrote some code so we could remove out of stock items from the pull down menus. He also managed to remove the band aid from Ava's forehead that was stuck in her hair. Gwen came in and started doing the bookkeeping. I think she is going to save my life. Seriously.