currently.

unpacking from an amazing 10 day trip to Italy.

editing tons of photos taken during the trip.

staring at my "to do" list.

feeling like I must do everything in the next five minutes.

realizing that feeling is silly.

praying that God will calm my soul and take away my stress.

thankful for my soccer girls that made the past 10 days fantastic.

finishing the lovely book Jayber Crow.

planning some new products for the shop.

eager to finish up my summer minibook and begin making an Italy minibook.

excited beyond belief for my roommates to move into our apartment in 10 days.

so ready for Josh to come back in 4 days.

happy to be home with family, but missing the beautiful country of Italia.

simple summer lunch.

 Thursday's lunch was kind of my ode to gardens. After a long morning at soccer camp I walked outside to the garden and came back in with lunch.  My mom and I bought a bunch of heirloom tomatoes at a sale in St. Louis earlier this summer and so far the green zebras, isis candies and snow whites are ripe.  I'm loving it. I made a toasted bagel sandwich with homegrown tomatoes, homegrown basil, pesto and feta cheese.  My mom stemmed some homegrown broccoli and I sprinkled it with lime.  Delicious, simple and free!

Today I'm off to Italy. Ciao!

2 years later and she still hasn't blogged.

At least that's not really true, but it has been a while since I've blogged.  Here's why:
+I decided to take two summer classes.  So much work.  But that's okay because I will graduate on time this spring with two majors and a minor.
+I worked full time painting dorm rooms. A pretty good job because I worked with my friend Wes and we constantly listened to Harry Potter audio books while drank coffee (and painting, of course).
+I ran and/or practiced soccer everyday almost everyday in order to be ready for this upcoming season.
+Josh came to visit for a week.  This was my birthday present from my parents and was seriously the best thing ever.
+While Josh was in town a lot of our friends came down for the weekend to hang out. Most of my friends don't live in Greenville over the summer so we are never all together.  However, this summer everyone came down to see Josh (for the first time since December) and hang out all together.  We were missing a few people, but overall it was wonderful to be reunited.
+I went to Colorado for a week with my familia.  Great times.

 

 

 

 

Photo overview: Josh and I went for a bike ride to a local dairy farm for ice cream, yogurt and chesse.  Michael and Kelly bought Josh and me a kite for our b-days.  Annual summer tie-dye party with friends who came for the weekend.  I recently acquired a little kitten named Nala and Josh loves her.  Josh and I celebrated my birthday with a picnic in Forest Park (St. Louis, Mo), followed by a short zoo trip and an iced chai at Kayak's Coffee.  Favorite zoo animal, of course, because my last name is Zahniser.  Poppies in Crested Butte, Colorado.  The Butte.  Layla with her state flower, the columbines.  Jumping on a rock atop the Continental Divide.

So that was the last month or so of my life.  I leave for Italy on Saturday, but I plan to blog a couple more times before I leave, so stay tuned!

a sunny afternoon in the garden.

[beautiful backyard view// rapidly growing tomato plant that I transplanted from a pot to the raised beds//mesclun and buttercrunch lettuce planted from seed]

on quilting.

Well, I am an amateur quilter.  A few years ago I decided that at some point in my life I would make a quilt and the adventure began last summer.  I started making a super easy quilt with tons of different colors and fabrics and no apparent pattern and never finished.  So this summer I am determined to finish it.  The reason why it has taken me soooo loonnnnggg to finish this quilt is not because it is difficult, but because I spend about three hours every couple weeks quilting.  I wish I could spend more time on my quilt, but I just have tons of other time commitments.  Here I will attempt to guide you through the process of making a 4 square quilt. Actually, really this is just a step by step process for how to make each 4 square block, because I have not gotten beyond this point yet.

Step 1: Collect fabric.  My mom used to be a quilter before I was born and used up all her time and energy, so I found the majority of my fabric in our basement.  This is awesome because not only I am being environmentally friendly, but I didn't have to spend buckets full of money on new fabric.  I did stop by the local quilting store in my town (which is quite impressive for a town of 7,000) and spent 10 bucks on five different [small] pieces of fabric.  My mom also found some batting (the inside padding of the quilt) for me at a yard sale for $0.25.  Also awesome.  And most awesome of all- Joshua, my boyfriend, brought me some fabric from Africa.

Step 2: Cut three inch wide strips of two different fabrics.

You can choose any width, but I choose three inches because I liked the size.  Once I sew the squares together, though, each square will end up being a lot smaller than three inches.  Oh well.  I'm not striving for perfect in this quilt.  I'm really just doing it for the fun of the process and to have a handmade quilt to use.

Step 3: Pin the strips together.

Place the strips print side down on top of each other and put a nice row of pins in the fabric.  Simple.

Step 4: Sew.

 

 Sew in a straight line and remove the pins.  I made a 3/8 inch seam.

Step 5: Iron with the seam pressed to the dark side.

 

Step 6:  Cut smaller strips three inches wide.

Place the strips side by side with opposing patterns next to each other, as shown above and...

Step 7: Pin.

Step 8: Sew.

Step 9: Iron.

And there you have it, beautiful 4 square quilting blocks.  I made three blocks from the original two strips I cut.

Sidenote: please excuse the poor quality of the pictures.  They were taken in my basement sewing are where the lighting is terrible and I don't yet have an awesome camera that takes good pictures anywhere.  (It is on my wishlist, though.)

wendell berry love

I'm only two chapters into Bringing it to the Table by Wendell Berry and I'm already loving it. 

Here is a glimpse of the greatness:

"Of course, agriculture must be productive; that is a requirement as urgent as it is obvious.  But urgent as it is, it is not the first requirement; there are two more requirements equally important and equally urgent.  One is that if agriculture is to remain productive, it must preserve the land, and the fertility and ecological health of the land; the land, that is, must be used well.  A further requirement, therefore, is that if the land is to be used well, the people who use it must know it well, must be highly motivated to use it well, and must know how to use it well, must have time to use it well, and must be able to afford to use it well."

That is what I hope to do someday.  I aspire to be a small scale farmer, eating only what I grow and maybe being a regular seller at a farmers market.  That's the dream, anyway.

And, Berry sums up in a paragraph one of the main reasons I am a vegetarian:

"To concentrate food-producing animals in large numbers in one place inevitably separates them from the sources of their feed.  Pasture and barnyard animals are removed from their old places in the order of a diversified farm, where they roamed about in some freedom, foraging to a significant extent for their own food, grazing in open pastures, or recycling barnyard and household wastes.  Confined in the pens of animal factories, they are made dependent almost exclusively upon grains which are grown in large monocultures, at a now generally recognized ecological cost, and which must be transported to the animals sometimes over long distances.  Animal factories are energy-wasting enterprises flourishing in a time when we need to be thinking of energy conservation."

If you haven't read Wendell Berry, you should make a trip to your local library right now.  Seriously.

now in the shop.

The first of summer things are in the shop.  Take a look!