luggage

Luggage seems to be the theme of my life today. I have been trying to sell two pieces of luggage for my step dad on Craig's List. It has also been suggested to me recently that I should get a new very very large suitcase to use for my move to Israel. So today I bought myself a nice and used very large suitcase from a very nice lady who told me her life story i9n a series of phone calls and in person. I bought her suitcase for $5 although I was a little concerned with her Craig's List ad:

Giant suitcase with expansion zipper. Used to transport child to school and back. Outside pocket zipper is off track, but suitcase itself is solid.

She seemed nice so I don't think she actually put her child inside of the suitcase, but it is mine now, so either way her child will be safe!

I went and sold clothes today and along with these clothes I also sold this little girl's Strawberry Shortcake suitcase. I have had it for a long time and I just hope that it goes to a good home! I really love little suitcases I have a few other vintage ones that I am not sure if I will sell yet. Maybe I will put up pictures of them another time.

So this $5 suitcase I bought today has a small piece of crochet chain on it I am assuming as an identifier, which made me think that I should knit or crochet something to put on my suitcases. i have always loved luggage tags and thought about making my own before but as like many other craft projects, I just never got around to doing it. Then I started to think of what would be fun to put on my suitcase I thought maybe flowers but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked. I thought maybe an airplane, seemed to make sense putting an airplane on luggage. Then I thought RAIN CLOUD, that's it. I have always had a weird fascination for rain clouds, I am not really sure why, but that's it and then I found this pattern on a blog called Knits and Knots. So in a few minutes I think I will begin my little luggage rain clouds. I hope that these rain clouds will be the only rain clouds to join me on my travels!

zines

I have come across all my old Riot Grrrl and Anarchist zines from way back when. This is just a small sampling of the zines I found. It's been fun reminiscing and thumbing through these zines from across the country and a few are even from out of the country. Most rant and rave about modern pop culture and praise the underground whether it be music, clothing, people, or activism.
Here are a few of my favorites. One is a DIY (Do It Yourself) craft guide with sample on the inside. Another is a collection of poems and photographs that are made to look like they are in a composition book some copied onto lined paper. Another has cool screen prints and includes stories, poems and yet more art. An other is full of short stories, the cover is made out of a brown paper bag and includes "A Pirate's Guide To Vancouver".


And yet an other is a limited edition signed piece of art. Every edition of Hello Nothing. is different and is signed and is a limited edition series. This one is 29/99 and is made into a small little envelope that holds a canvas patch and small little strips of paper with different quotes. These zines are each unique and much blood and sweat went into physically cutting and pasting the pages together and then going to Kinkos to make photocopies or steal photocopies as so many zinesters did. Oh the days of Kinko's copy keys and cards.

So much effort went into making a zine as well as distributing it and advertising it. Many zines and distro catalogs included small little bits of paper sometimes copied onto the back of some other paper that was an ad. Each little ad contained so much information and was almost a mini zine itself. Sometimes a distro, record label, or zine would put all these little ads together and cut and paste them on a regualr size piece of paper.
Even I ran a short lived distro, here is my ad on one of those cut and paste ad sheets. Along with all of the paper waste that went on with making a zine there was so much thought that went into using the least amount of paper for ads and even reusing old paper to copy ads onto the back to cut down on paper waste.

Every time i recieved a zine it felt so personal. some would personalize the zine for you by hand writing your name onto it some where. All were always hand addressed. And sometimes zines would be accompanied by a hand written letter or note from the author, editor or distro. A zine was like a persons baby, holding so much of themselves inside of it.
Zines in the 90's were full of people speaking out and speaking their minds. As well as sharing ideas and propaganda and personal life experiences. Zines offered individuals with a forum to share what was on their mind and who they were.
Zines seemed to have become so popular that even clothing companies were making their own "zines". Amongst my zines was this FOXY "zine". I don' know if I would call it a real zine since zines were much more DIY and usually much more rough around the edges. But I guess Foxy wanted to jump on the underground bandwagon and make their own.

When I was looking through all of these zines I realised that blogs are really just the new zine, with a lot less paper waste. Blogs offer anyone and everyone to speak there mind, share pictures and stories and anecdotes, write short stories, share art or speak about whatever seems important to share with the world. Just like zines it is hard to know who actually reads them or if anyone really is. What is it that makes us feel that we need to have a forum to share our innermost thoughts with perfect strangers. Why do we even want to share? And does anyone actually read it anyways? Do we really need the validation? Is this a way to get validation? I don't think we will ever know the answers to any of these questions.
So I write on and read on...

moving...

Moving is a pain. I have moved many times since I started college. No matter how many times a person moves it doesn't necessarily get easier.

The hardest part is deciding what to get rid of. I get kind of attached to some of my things and get all nostalgic.

This move is totally different than any other move because I can't really take anything with me. I just discovered that the cost of shipping things is not worth it. So I will have to get rid of everything and start over. As stressful as this process may be it is very therapeutic to get rid of all of this stuff. Because that is what it is just STUFF! Who needs all this stuff anyways?

All this "stuff" is just clutter. The less clutter the more free one can be and open to all the surprises that life presents. Getting rid of all my belongings is freeing me, liberating! All of these things that I have been accumulating over the last 10 years going on 29 are now going to find new homes.

As my apartment gets more and more empty I am becoming more and more liberated. Now if I can just continue the process of getting rid of things instead of getting new things I am on the right track. Or at least getting rid of more and getting less, doesn't have to mean having zero.

Abby and Avram

Mazal tov! Abby and Avram got married on Sunday, Father's Day at House Of The Book (HOB) at the Brandies-Bardin campus of the American jewish University. I am so happy that I was in California and was able to be a part of Abby and Avram's exciting day. Abby looked absolutely stunning in her very elegant early 1960's inspired dress. Her flowers were white lilies and her brides maids had bouquets of white roses and lavender. I love the use of the lavender.
When the girls came in with Abby for the Kabbalat Panim, they came in singing and playing tambourines. This was very powerful, I just wish I had my tambourine that I got a few days before coming to California! I had been wanting a tambourine for a while and wanting to paint something on it. I'm not sure what I will paint on it yet.
Abby's dad made the chuppah base out of a peach tree that Avram's parents planted when he was born. A family friend of Avram's made the actual chuppah and it had one of their grandfather's tallit's sewn into it. Also a friend of their's gave them the yarmulkes as a gift and each one was different, they were handmade in Guatemala. It was very cool. Their wedding was very unique and very them!

Instead of those wasteful little table cards they had small blackboards that they wrote the table numbers on and then each person's name underneath the table number that they are at. And then on each table was a small little black board with the number written on it. There were various shaped and sized jars and vases on each table with white, purple, and green flowers and plants along with sprouting grass.

Their wedding was absolutely stunning and unique. Each detail was so personal and it was all worth it because it was great! A beautiful Spring wedding!

Peoria

Before my birthday we went on a family trip to Arizona. We stayed in this little town called Peoria which is pretty close to Phoenix. And I have to say I think it was the best family trip we have ever had, not that we have had that many, but it was really fun with all of us. We started out the trip at the Grand Canyon.

The rest of the trip we didn't do much of anything which was great. I don't usually like vacations like that where we just sit by the pool, but this time I enjoyed it. It was really relaxing and great bonding time. K and I shared a room so we got some good bonding time. And M and I went on a couple little adventures, which I hope to share some of, but am just waiting waiting waiting for him to send me the proof that our adventures really happened.

At the end of the trip we went to the Desert Botanical Garden.

In one of the last sections we explored we came across this amazing instillation by Patrick Dougherty. It was so beautiful on the inside and on the outside. It was amazing to see the views that were created by the windows in the sculpture. It was so humbling to be inside of this enormous wooden womb and see the sun setting over the absolutely stunning scenery of the Arizona desert.

I am learning that I LOVE the desert, and luckily Israel has plenty of it. I don't know what it is but the desert is beautiful and extremely peaceful and humbling. It is amazing to see the vegetation and animals that live on basically no water and in very hot hot heat. We are so fragile, us humans, and could barely survive in a desert, but if one looks carefully one an survive on many of the magnificent creations that God created to survive in deserts. There are so many types of cacti and various other plants that live in these harsh conditions. B"H for all of these creations!

Birthdays...

It was my birthday and I decided to make Green Tea Cupcakes. I have been wanting to bake with Green Tea for a while but hadn't been able to find Matcha Green Tea in Israel. I think that maybe I just didn't know what to look for but now I do so hopefully I can make yummy Green Tea baked goods. I found this recipe for Green Tea Almond Cookies that I really want to make. For my birthday I ended up making a Green Tea Cake recipe but made them into cupcakes, they are kind of a mix between a cupcake and a muffin though. I also used dried cranberries inside of them. But whatever they are they are vegan and yummy!

So besides the baking my birthday was pretty uneventful, I wasn't really in the mood to do anything too exciting so I didn't do much of anything. My mom and my step-dad and I went out to lunch to a raw restaurant in The Camp and it was pretty good.

My mom is now eating raw so I basically have been too since I have been home for the summer. We usually have a salad everyday but sometimes we get extra fancy and make fun raw food that we "cook" in the dehydrator, food can be heated to 118 degrees without being considered cooked. I have made "lasagna" and "pizza" and "cheese sticks" and it has all been amazing. It was all inspired by this cookbook RAWvolution. I have eaten at the restaurant by the same name on a date once and it was pretty good. The date didn't end up going anywhere but the food was definitely memorable! I don't know if I could eat a completely raw diet but almost raw is pretty ok. The food definitely has flavor and can be very fun to make. I might even continue to eat this way when I get home. I had tried a basically raw diet before after reading Eat To Live but it was hard to do since well as a Jew Shabbat roles around every week and one is required to eat bread (challah) during at least 2 meals, and when you eat with others it is rare to get whole wheat challah, which itself barely fits into the Eat To Live diet itself, but well I guess all any of us can do is teh best that we can to try and live a healthy life!
L'Briyut! (To Health!)