Portraits of Wildflowers

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I Held A Hummingbird

The Psychedelic Jellybean

A few autumns ago, Mike did a favor for a guy; Mike didn’t need nor expect anything in return, but the guy was so grateful, he wanted to give Mike his camp trailer in trade.

Mike said, “no, really, it’s OK,” but the guy insisted and signed the title over to Mike. When Mike brought it home, he said, “what am I going to do with this?” and I said, “I have a thousand answers to that question,” and he said, “alright, then, it’s yours.”

Before:

I immediately ‘saw’ the psychedelic jellybean it was meant to be but had neither the time nor the reason to do anything about it, and so it sat in mediocrity, not old enough to be retro, not new enough to be nice. Until I decided to spend the summer on the mountain.

Stealing away an hour here and a few hours there, I transformed the camp trailer into the psychedelic jellybean, an exercise in how many colors and patterns I could cram in this space in the least amount of time at the lowest possible cost. In larger living spaces, I prefer a look that is sparse and natural, airy, light. But white + sparse in a small area just seems too much like a cell in a mental ward, so for small spaces, I firmly believe the more color the better.

Work in progress while streaming Pulp Fiction, the ideal background-movie, since the soundtrack and dialogue are the best parts:

Two quarts of paint ~ sky blue and raspberry: $22. The cantaloupe color {which erroneously looks like like ‘radioactive kewpie doll’ in the photo above} was left over from my checkerboard floor. All fabric came from the thrift store and set me back about $20. Oh, how I love vintage fabric:

I tore off the dingy vinyl cushion covers and made new ones, and, if I may brag, did it all without pins or a table:

The trailer ceiling was torn and ugly so I covered it with fabric. I originally thought I’d use adhesive velcro to attach the fabric to the ceiling but my god velcro is expensive! They sell it by the inch! So I stapled it up – just household office staples – and had only one incident of arterial bleeding when I accidentally sent a staple into my finger.

I loved working on this. Even though the majority of my time on the mountain is spent outside, after the challenges of last summer and fall and after giving 9000% of myself to EMT training through the winter, it was just fun to work on something a bit frivolous, something tangible rather than mental, and totally transform this space.

Best for Bites

Mosquitoes are here. They’re probably there, too ~ is there anywhere where
there aren’t mosquitoes? Or spiders or biting ants? I kind of doubt it. And so, I feel compelled to share what I have determined to be the best for bites. I’ve been using this for years and it’s pretty magical: you get a bite, it itches, you put some Apinol on it and the itching vanishes. Immediately and permanently. And then it doesn’t drive you crazy and you don’t scratch it till it bleeds and you don’t end up covered in scabs. I hardly mind getting bitten anymore because I know I have this to neutralize.

In my experience it works on spider bites as well as mosquitoes. And according to their website it works on everything from bee stings to herpes and prevents infection on cuts and burns. Magical, I’m telling you. It’s made from pine oil. And it lasts ages ~ I’ve had this bottle for five years, use it daily in the summer and fall, and it’s still half full (maybe it’s so magical it regenerates).

PS: This is not an ad. I’ve never done a sponsored post but just in case anyone is wondering if my enthusiasm is pure… it is. I was not paid to write about this stuff.

Chlorella Shots

~ the gorgeous forest green powder ~

When life is mellow, I can be a slacker when it comes to my bod ~
I know what corners I can cut with diet and sleep and exercise and still function at a very high level, simply because there aren’t many stressors depleting me.

I’ll drink coffee every morning, just because I like it.
I’ll eat things that aren’t terribly nutritious, just because they taste good.
I’ll blob around the house for a day or two, just because I feel lazy.

But when stressors appear, I snap out of my slackerdom.
I know enough now, from having paid close attention to my body over the years –
at its weakest and strongest –
to know what I need to do when life becomes stressful
so that the stress doesn’t take me down.

~ mix it with a little water ~

Most people know of the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors must take
but it wasn’t until my mid-twenties, when I nearly died
from undiagnosed gluten intolerance and then cured myself
completely, just by changing my diet,
that I really understood Hippocrates’ most famous words:
“Let thy food be thy medicine.”

Now, I live by this philosophy.
When life gets crazy ~ when I suddenly can’t get enough sleep each night,
or when I’m taxed externally or emotionally ~ I can keep the stress from damaging my physical and emotional wellbeing by bringing certain things into heavy rotation and leaving other things out.

I stop drinking coffee and switch to Yerba Mate.

I make kombucha and kefir
(kefir really helped me during the height of the stalker stuff when I had lost my appetite but needed to stay at my physical and mental peak)

I vigorously move my body everyday ~
not for aesthetics, but to keep my lymph system flowing.

And I start doing chlorella shots!

~ just enough to throw back in a gulp ~

Chlorella is algae.
Chlorella, for me, is what a can of spinach was for Popeye.
Chlorella makes me zing!

When I take a shot, I feel it in my brain, in my blood.
It’s like diving into water – that rush of purity and invigoration.

Chlorella is extremely nutrient dense, packed with amino acids and omegs-3’s.
It’s marvelous.
Google will tell you that in much greater detail.

~ lime at the ready for a palate-cleansing finish! ~

It tastes disgusting.
It tastes the way the ocean smells at low tide.
I’ve tried mixing it with juice or putting it in a smoothie but it just contaminates the whole thing. The only way I can take chlorella is to throw it back like a tequila shot, and then immediately bite into a lime wedge.
The lime erases the nasty taste and I am left with the full body ZING!

~ predicting the comment section ~
yes, you can buy chlorella in capsule form.
but pills are boring and more expensive than powder,
and they don’t give me the instant zing.
not all chlorella is created equal.
definitely find one that’s “broken wall.”
I like this one and this one.
and now I’m going to take a shot and go write Part V!