fighting winter's blues, one kale chip at a time...

A drive by entry, for the most part, but I hate to write a year-end summary, then not write for months on end. It's been a good year, 2015, so far. Cold as hell, particularly in the past week, but it is winter. I am struck by the whining I hear at my job, about the weather, mostly from people who are NOT native Southerners. Huh...I thought if you were from Rhode Island, or Brooklyn, that you might have seen 30 degrees F before? The incessant bitchery has made me determined to pretend to enjoy winter all the more. I am sucking it up, and cheerfully marching through these gray, frosty days, with the resolve of a sled dog in the Iditarod.

Fake it til you make it, that's my motto this year...that said, I could use a serotonin drip about now. The light is returning, days are incrementally longer, but someone needs to inform my brain chemistry. I grit my teeth, inhale (that's figurative, btw, I'm eating it, not smoking it) the St. John's Wort, fish oil, and vitamin D, and try to get myself to bed earlier, but any minor disruption throws my sleep off, and starts the downward spiral again.

I know things will improve in a few weeks; they always do, and by February, I'll be a lot more even keel. Meanwhile, snow would cheer me! If we are to be in the throes of winter, let it snow!!

Yesterday, I went to my spinning guild's Distaff Day, our annual all-day spinarama, and we were given a challenge for the new year. Each member got a 4oz bag of fiber, mixed scraps donated by a well-known indie dyer in our area to spin and make something, by late March. The scraps were multi-fiber, with glittery stuff, silk, and every permutation in between, rustic wool, superwash, merino, locks, you name it. I took the opportunity to learn to use the guild's drum carder and make some batts out of my bag. There was waaay more fiber than I thought, and I got 5 pretty batts out of it:

Here they are going home in a Krispy Kreme donut bag, because they are so very sweet! I separated the colors somewhat, and will spin a gradient with them, and then I think I might chain-ply the whole thing to preserve the colors. I started spinning the green one this morning, and it was mesmerizing. 

I'm in the process, this evening, of making kale chips in the dehydrator that my sister and I are sharing. We share it seasonally, and pass it back and forth between Atlanta and Roanoke. P has made an excellent batch of jerky, and I'm using this recipe for the kale chips. I had bought 2 bunches of organic kale, but then I managed to fill the dehydrator with only one bunch, so the second bunch will probably turn into kale salad, or just cooked greens later this week, unless the chips are absolutely sensational, in which case I'll ramp up production.