mr. lorenzo, if you please.

sometime in january, i was driving down the road with my boys and i saw a billboard for the yellow green farmers market. i convinced the mister that our life is not complete without a weekly visit to a farmers market, so the following saturday we checked out the place. i tried hard to see this place as the market of my dreams, but reality won...it is a flea market with a few farmers and a pretty name.

fresh herbs. would you like conventional or organic? exactly.

now i have always dreamed of living in a small town - you know, the kind with a main street actually named "main street", home to a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker, where everybody knows my name - so, no surprise that i was itching to include a farmer's market in my weekly grocery shop.

maybe it is the palm tree, but this picture disguises the dinginess of the building.

enter lorenzo's farmers market. a squalid peach-colored building next to the railroad tracks. not exactly the open-air stalls of beautifully laid out produce from my dreams, but i am willing to sacrifice decor for the amazingness that is lorenzo's. a time warp that takes you back thirty years to the days before computerized inventory. here the prices are hand-written on signs and the cashiers have them all memorized to type them into the register. want to change a price? walk to the front of the store and tell the cashiers the new price. wow.

baskets and baskets of deliciousness.

on one side of the parking lot is lorenzo's farmers market. a tiny market bursting with every fruit and vegetable you can imagine and some you cannot. i have found things in that place that i have never heard of and it seems that every trip, there is something new at which to look. golden beets? check. fresh bay leaves? check. fresh garbanzo beans? check. black radishes? check.

love.

and the prices. oh my god, the prices. 99¢ for a pint of grape tomatoes?!? what? 79¢ for an avocado? who are these people? $1.19 for a bag of basil? puh-lease. last saturday i walked out with my three reusable grocery bags bursting at the seams, for a mere $23. heaven.

such an unassuming little place.

across the parking lot is the big daddy market, lorenzo's italian market and restaurant. looks like a whole lot of nothing from the outside. inside it is dreamy. upon entering, the first thing to greet you are two cases of homemade pasta. yum.

fresh, hand-made pasta. oooh la la.

wander around the little store and you will find a restaurant/café alongside several aisles of groceries. wrapped around this is the bakery, deli, butcher, and seafood counter. that is right kids, i found the little market from main street, usa, plopped in the middle of bustling miami. amazeballs.

an aisle devoted to pasta. both sides. dreamy.

and like its little farmers market cousin, it is bursting at the seams with yummy goodness. lots of things i know and a whole lotta craziness of which i had heard, but had never seen and certainly would not know where to buy. 20 pound bags of couscous? check. grape leaves? which brand would you like? pasta? there is an entire aisle!!! tomatoes in every form you can imagine? got it. cardamom pods you could not find anywhere else? check. and while the prices at the italian market are not jaw-droppingly low, they are no higher than the regular grocery store.

grape leaves, if you please.

whoa, olive oil. no joke, somewhere in that collection is a $58 bottle.

it only took me five and a half years of yearning for a farmers market, to discover that all this time, the little shop of my dreams has been 0.8 miles from my house.

p.s. yes, i plan to blatantly ignore the fact that we missed the entire month of march. details.

wonky windows #20.

looking at the world through my eyes.

yesterday, i went a-hunting for some toys for pringle. i did find some goodies at target, but i have to admit, some of the prices seem ridiculous, especially for toys the kid will discard after a few months. so thinking i might be able to find something in good condition and easy to disinfect (hello BLEACH!), i wandered over to the local goodwill store, where i found a couple great toys. yay. and then i saw these shoes. and if this one isn't bad enough, just know that there is an entire display. it is a ten-foot-square, waist high stack of boxes filled with this ridiculous footwear. i am eagerly anticipating the day when i see someone trying to walk down the street in these. as i am typing this, i am terribly bummed to realize i did not look at the price. clearly i was too mesmerized. unfortunately that means i cannot finish the sentence..."these can be yours for the bargain price of __________ dollars."

sometimes i try to act like an adult. here and there i think i manage to fool a few people, but not in the grocery store. i am like a five year old. who needs lunch when you can have a box of animal cookies?

tales of lesotho. part three.

any place you go, there are always things unique to that place and lesotho is no exception. i am sure that many of these things also happen in other places, but no place that i have ever been. so as far as i am concerned, these are some of the things that make me say, "this could only happen in lesotho..."

accordions. in lesotho playing the accordion is cool.

this guy practices his accordion skills on top of the mini-mountain.

blankets. this is not just something for your bed or your couch, this is actually an accessory. suitable for wearing around the waist or shoulders. these can be worn morning, noon, or night, and during any season; but obviously are most prominent in the winter. women often wear two: one around their waist and a second around their shoulders. for reasons of modesty, i thought that married women had to wear one around their waist, but my mother-in-law informed me that is only if they feel like it. considering that i cannot remember seeing a woman in the village without a blanket around her waist, either everyone really loves blankets or my mother-in-law was giving her american daughter-in-law (who does not particularly like following rules) permission to break the cultural norm.

don't have a proper coat? just wear your blanket.

style. in lesotho the only rule for fashion is matching, which happens to be the same rule by which my father exists. if you are wearing a top and a bottom, you are matching. i am sure you can imagine this creates some interesting outfits. in the winter it is especially fascinating to see the many layers, colors, patterns, and fabrics worn simultaneously. my mother-in-law takes the basotho version of matching to a mesmerizing extreme, which made me love her even more. my american brain cannot grasp this concept fully enough to embody the basotho 'style,' but i like to think i do a decent impression.

the many incarnations of my mother-in-law's style.

teeth. if you have them, great. if you don't, smile proud. enough said.

is there a dentist in the house?

drive-thru (or sit-thru) shopping. the taxis in lesotho are kind of like VW buses and hold 15 passengers, along with their small children, bags, luggage, purchases, and even chickens. in town these taxis take some time to fill up. you might wait as long as 40 minutes before you depart for your destination, but do not worry, because during this time you can sit in your seat and shop. that's right. whether you want them to or not, vendors will bring their wares to your window. you can ignore them, or if you are like me, you can embrace this concept and happily shop to your heart's content. the best part? if you see something you like, but it is not close by, just give a shout and the people will come to you. and if the taxi starts leaving, fear not. they will wait for you to complete your transaction before pulling out of the taxi rank.

shopping from the comfort of your taxi.

housing. the houses are made of mud or tin, but there is something beautiful in their simplicity.

an assortment of the neighbor's houses.

cleaning. considering that people live in homes with clay walls, dirt floors, grass roofs, and no running water, it is easy to assume that things are dirty. actually, the basotho are obsessed with cleanliness. the standard rule of thumb is that kitchen and food is kept separate from bedroom and people. this means that the buckets used for washing bodies, clothes, and bedding, are never used with food or dishes and vice versa. in fact, kitchen towels are not washed with regular laundry, they are washed in the dishwater. in the beginning of my time in lesotho, i found this all rather confusing, but i eventually figured it out and actually decided it makes sense. i do not follow the same laundry rules here in the states, but i have to admit that every time i throw a kitchen towel in with our clothes, i feel like i am breaking a rule. there are a couple of things that i could never wrap my brain around. one is washing the outside of a water bucket and then placing the water bucket in the puddle of dirty water under the tap. the other is that you should sweep your yard every morning, but the rest of the day it is perfectly acceptable to throw garbage on the ground. if you are feeling productive, you can put it in the garbage pit and burn it.

washing water buckets, doing the dishes outside on the dirt stoop, laundry, and burning garbage.

visiting and food. probably my favorite part of lesotho is visiting with people. it is not like here where you make plans to meet people or stop by their house. nope nope. you just drop by whenever you feel like it. you can stay for five minutes or five hours, your choice. best of all...they will feed you! in fact, if you are hungry and just do not feel like cooking, stop by the neighbor's house and ask them what they cooked. if it sounds good, then ask them to feed you. they will. cool, huh?

yum yum.

carrying things. the basotho women carry everything on their head. everything. no matter the size or the weight, if it needs to be carried, up it goes. this is no small feat when you consider that some of the things are bigger than they are and some of these parcels weigh close to 50 pounds. but the part that really gets me is that the older women can do this with no hands.

who needs a mule when you can just throw things on your head?

announcements. when we need to broadcast information to the general public, we can pass our message via television, radio, newspapers, flyers, and of course the internet. since these are not options available to the village, the basotho use a village announcer. so when the chief needs to tell people that children will be vaccinated on friday or that there is a funeral on saturday, there is one dude whose job is to climb to the top of the mini-mountain and 'broadcast' whatever news the people need to know. i like to think i can understand sesotho, but i cannot understand a word this guy says. but do not fret, because everyone else understands him just fine.

the effectiveness of this 'broadcast' is astounding.

signs. i know there are lots of places in the world  that have weird signs and i am happy to report that lesotho perpetuates that tradition. my personal favorite is the shop called "dudu shop. no. 2 special."

want a beer? go to the tarven.

the jumpsuit. yes, those crazy suits, which the western world reserves for military personnel, are happily worn by the men of lesotho. in the states we have cowboys. in lesotho there are herdboys. for the most part they serve the same purpose, but the outfit is a little different.

the jumpsuit in its full glory.

toilets. well actually these are what we call outhouses and what the 'designers' call pit latrines. they come in all shapes and sizes and i find them rather fascinating. the basotho are mortified by the idea of someone taking a picture of their toilet, so these were all taken in secret. shhhh... don't tell.

a room with a view.

**UPDATED** next installment...smiling faces.

ikea mi amor.

i went to ikea today. i needed cheapo bleapo blankets, which as it happens are readily available in ikea, but secretly i wanted to visit with their minuscule, yet delectable, stash of fabric. i wandered around the place for at least an hour. what is it about this place? i often leave there with a whole lot of nothing and yet the prospect of a visit is enough to leave me giddy with excitement. in homage to this swedish treasure, i have made a list of the top ten reasons why i adore ikea...

10. they make simplicity cool and take the blah out of the ordinary.
 9. there are lots of bright colors, stripes, and polka dots.
 8. the prices are pleasant.
 7. they encourage excessive amounts of organization.
 6. everything has a swedish name, which makes it all seem more interesting, despite the fact that the names are incomprehensible (to me).
 5. there is a restaurant inside the store, just in case you are famished in the middle of your visit.
 4. there is a little nook where i can buy stupendous fabrics at spectacular prices.
 3. they banished disposable plastic shopping bags in favor of gargantuan and indestructible blue totes.
 2. environmentally friendly is not just a punchline.

and the number one reason that i love ikea...

1. i am certain that they give good hugs.

shopping bag tutorial.

my writing seems to wander through themes and apparently the current theme is "go green." it only makes sense that i decided to make some reusable grocery bags. the mister and i already have gads of reusable grocery bags, but i have been thinking about making these for other people. i thought that for gifts it would be best to create a set of bags with a little carrying pouch. since i am not only a fan of reusable commodities, but also a HUGE fan of free sewing tutorials, i decided to write a tutorial for sewing a shopping bag (the pouch is not included in this tutorial). now this is my first try at tutorial composition, so please be patient and definitely let me know if something does not make sense. ready or not, here we go.

materials: 1.5 yards medium-weight fabric, thread, and safety pin.

note: click on images to see them larger.

step 1. choose a medium-weight fabric. these instructions will create two tote bags that are approximately 19"x13.5". if you want to make your bag a different size, decide what size you want to make your bag and use the template to calculate the dimensions you need to cut. the example calculations shown in the template are the calculations for the bag i made.

step 2. cut out a 35.5"x20" rectangle for the bag. cut out two 3.5"x24.5" rectangles to make the straps.

[steps 3-7 will guide you through creating a french seam, which is delectable because it is a seam that leaves no raw edges of fabric. if you are struggling with my directions, then check out this lovely tutorial at colette patterns.]

step 3. fold the large rectangle in half with wrong sides together. sew down the sides using a 1/4" seam allowance.

step 4. cut off 1/8" of the seam allowance, so you are left with a 1/8" edge.

step 5. iron the seam to one side. DO NOT iron the seams open.

step 6. turn the bag inside out. wiggle the corners so they completely turn inside out. iron the side seams flat.

step 7. sew a 1/4" seam (french seam tutorials will tell you to do a 3/8" seam on this step, which i am sure is great. i just chose to do a smaller seam and you can also choose to do what you like. fancy.) the inside of your bag should now have a seam with a finished edge that will not fray.

step 8. turn the bag right-side out. now we need to square the bottom. we need to square each corner by pulling the front and back layers of the bag apart and flattening the side of the bag to the bottom of the bag. line up the side seam with the crease running down the center of the bottom.

step 9. measure 2.5" from the corner of the triangle (i use the diagonal on my square ruler to make sure this triangle is properly squared, but you can use a ruler and eyeball it.) draw a line with tailor's chalk. this line should be perpendicular to the side seam/bottom crease. pin along the line to make sure the fabric does not shift. repeat this process with the other corner.

step 10. sew along the chalk line. cut 1/8" from the sewing line. repeat with the other corner. turn the bag inside-out. wiggle the edge until the corners are completely turned inside-out. sew 1/4" seam. repeat with the other corner. (we are once again creating french seams.)

step 11. fold the straps the long ways, with right sides together. sew down the length with a 1/4" seam allowance. turn the straps inside out. the easiest way to do this is to attach a safety pin to one end and then feed it through the tube and pull until the tube turns right-side out. i am a high-falutin lass, so i use a bodkin to do my turning (that's the adorable doohickey in the picture).

step 12. press the straps flat. tuck the ends inside and sew down the edge, so the edges will stay tucked in.

step 13. turn the bag inside out. make a hem along the top of the bag by folding the top edge of the bag down and pressing. this should be about 1/4" to 1/2". in the picture, my hem is about 3/8".

step 14. turn the bag right-side out. flatten out the bag. find the center of the bag and mark it with a pin. measure 3.25" to either side of the center and mark with pins. do this on both sides of the bag. then to avoid confusion in the next step, take out the center pin (see picture with step 15).

step 15. line up the top edge of your strap with the top edge of the bag, and the inside edge of your strap with one of the pins. secure the strap with pins. then let the loop of the strap hang down towards the bottom of the bag (this seems strange, but the straps will be "flipped up" into their final position in the next step -- in the picture the bottom of the bag is at the top of the picture, sorry for the confusion), and pin the other end of the strap next to the other pin. if you have completed this step correctly, there will be about 6.5" between the two ends of your strap. repeat this process with the second strap on the other side of the bag.

step 16. carefully turn the bag inside-out again. fold the top edge down 1.25". MAKE SURE the 1/4" hem you turned down in step 13 is still tucked under. press and pin. the straps should now be "flipped up" so that they are they will be ready for hanging on your shoulder.

step 17. sew the large hem at the top of the bag by sewing twice around the bag. once 1/8" from the bottom edge of the hem and once 1/8" from the top edge of the hem. as you are sewing this hem, MAKE SURE the loops of the straps are out of the way. otherwise you will end up with the middle of your strap attached to the side of the bag.

step 18. reinforce the straps. mark an X where the strap meets the bag. sew a box and an X inside of it to reinforce the attached strap. [tip: when you need to turn sharp corners, such as sewing the box or the X, sew down one edge. when you reach the corner, leave the needle securely embedded in the fabric, raise the presser foot, spin the fabric, drop the presser foot, and sew the next edge.

congratulations!! you have made a lovely shopping bag. you can add a personal touch by sewing your own tags into the bag. i got my tags at namemaker.com. french seams. personalized tags. it does not get much more fancy than this! now that you know how to make the bag, you can use the remainder of your fabric to make a second bag.

 

gift idea: sew a set of bags and create a little pouch to hold the bags.

i created my pouch using this tutorial from mairuru. so cute. since i did not want the inner pocket, i used the same size rectangle for the lining as i did for the outside fabric. i also attached my button and tie closure before assembling the bag. i guess i just discovered that my next tutorial.

happy sewing!!!

death to shopping.

four and a half years ago i returned from my two year tour as a peace corps volunteer in lesotho. my experience in southern africa was life-changing and mind-altering, but somehow living in a tiny village, in a mud hut with no electricity or running water, was not enough to extinguish my yearning for STUFF. what stuff? any stuff. don't get me wrong..i joined the peace corps, not a nunnery, so while i lived a simple life, i did not see a need to completely eradicate consumption. whenever i went to town i invariably wandered through shops to peruse all the goodies and often ended up buying things that were far from necessary. on one hand i was supporting the local economy, on the other hand i was simply engaging in the consumerism that comes so natural to americans. you can take the girl out of america, but apparently you can't take the america out of the girl. at least not this girl.

before i left lesotho, i promised myself that i would do my best to continue living a simple life. nothing extreme...i was not about to turn down living in a house with electricity and indoor plumbing, but i wanted to try life with less possessions (not zero possessions, just less, less, less). upon reentry into the united states i felt that immediate tug to consume like a starving glutton. on my first day back i went to target. it was like sending a lamb to the slaughter - i wanted EVERYTHING. then within my first 12 months, i bought a car, acquired furniture, and bought a condo. and i have been wallowing in the murky waters of consumerism ever since. i might not yet be in need of a twelve-step program, but i am surely on my way to being addicted to shopping.

since i have no desire to be featured on the discovery channel as a hoarder, this past friday i drew the proverbial line in the sand. i have forbidden myself to go shopping. the only exceptions are food and any other items which the mister and i agree are needed. my goal is to save my time, my money, and my sanity. most importantly this will present me with a little more time and energy to enjoy the things that we already have. since my declaration i have cleaned up the clutter that was taking over our house and happily unearthed goodies about which i had forgotten. like a scandalous quantity of tea light candles -- thank you ikea. candles make me feel warm and fuzzy, so the past few days i have been merrily burning my way through our heap of candles. i have barely made a dent. i also rediscovered a stash of coasters. i dont know about you, but my mum ingrained in me that one must always use coasters. not surprisingly, i get excited about the wee little buggers. little did i realize how many we have acquired. so now my curiosity is overwhelming. i cannot wait for the myriad of possibilities that await me within the world of stuff that is our home. i am going shopping...in our closet.