I'm gay

I didn't really know I was going to go that way, but a mutual friend introduced us at a bar. She taught me how to play pool. We ran into one another about a week later, and she asked for my number. Our first date was the Dyke March 2001, and I guess the rest is history. It gets pretty crazy in our neighborhood over Pride weekend, and although we don't take part in all the activities anymore, there's something about walking to Dolores Park and seeing a sea of women, thousands of them, all standing up for who they are. This here etsy finds list is pretty gay.

Together Button by beanforest $1


U-haul Midge by heysaylor $4.25


Anatomy Lesson Oven Mitt by squaresville $10


Gay for You card by maybeyoushoulddie $5


Wooden Family-two dads by PsandQs $18


Dcorating Queen Birthday Card by mindseyecards $3.25
Harvey MIlk Shirt by Baostudio $23

Love Card-Boy and Boy by wheelerstudio $3

24 hour vacation

Some friends of ours invited us to stay with them at their family's house on the Russian River. We could only manage one day because of all the Renegade prep that is going on, but we had a great time. Perfect weather, a delicious dinner, and ducklings! We plan to go back for a whole weekend later in the summer.

posters

renegade

Interested in wasting a few hours away on the computer? Renegade has been loading the vendor list, and it's quite a list. I noticed a few of my favorites from last year are back, plus many excellent additions.

another skill I'd like to have

I offered some design help in one of the forums on 1000 Markets. I thought maybe I'd give a little input about how it should look, but I ended up designing the whole thing. I'm pretty lame when it comes using Photoshop, but I'm pleased with the end product. It finally went live yesterday.

ollieberry

Another batch of jam. We went to Pescadero to pick our own ollieberries. The farm is an hour drive drive the coast, and they also have animals and picnic tables. The girls wouldn't pick for fear of a thorn or dirt in their shoes (what sissys!) but they really liked the livestock. In the end it was a great way to spend the day.

girlies

The girls were all sick last week, but by Friday I had to get them out of the house. Rather than go to a park and infect all the other kids, we went to Stern Grove. They had fun throwing eucalyptus pods off the stage, then everyone had a meltdown and we had to leave.

the factory

I know I've mentioned that Renegade Fair is coming soon, and Cristina will be selling her dishtowels this year. While I was off making jam, she turned the house into a printing factory, cleverly hanging lines down the hallway and across the kitchen. She hung about 30 without any trouble.

make jam

Here are some more images from last weekend's jam making session. If you haven't ever made it, really you should give it a try. You can make a small batch, enough for 2 or 3 jars in a very short time and without most of the tools. If you think a larger batch sounds fun, the gigantic canning pot and other tools are relatively inexpensive.

Step 1, put water on to boil. This is used for sterilizing the jars, and for processing the filled jars so they seal properly.

We have done several Internet searches for recipes, and regularly find ourselves back at the Ball book that came with the pot. They are mostly simple flavor combinations, but the quantities have been tested well.

Blueberries start out a very blah color, and when heated, they turn to gorgeous hot pink.

Ours came out a little thick, maybe less pectin next time.

Apricots that are slightly under-ripe have more of their own pectin, so we didn't add any. This jam contains only raw sugar, lemon juice and organic apricots.

Clean jars are filled with hot jam, and processed for 15 minutes.

Here they are after cooling overnight.

Which one is better?

eat with toast

My sister and I whipped up 40 jars of jam on Saturday afternoon. I have more images to share, but can't quite convince myself to stay up and edit them. More soon...

of course it's warm today

And only six months later, we have heat. I'll spare you the details of the process that we had to go through to get this heater, but let's just say, I used some pretty bad words last week. And today after the heater guy locked himself out of the house and I had to rush over with the 3 girls, who were in the middle of lunch, to let him in I could barely look at him. At least it's black.