Soap!

We decided to make soap for some holiday gifts. I have The Soapmaker's Companion but we needed to change it to work with the 196g of sodium hydroxide E had and the oils we had on hand -- olive oil, coconut oil, and palm and sunflower oils that we bought for the occasion. It took some math, so here's how it turned out.

196g sodium hydroxide
1 lb 3 oz water
22.4 oz sunflower oil
8.7 oz olive oil
5.1 oz. coconut oil
14.8 oz. palm oil

This recipe kept the something-or-other level at 218, which was the same as the original recipe and still called for the same amount of lye. This included a 12.5% discount.

After the whole process, we added rosemary and lemon essential oil to one batch and cardamom and vanilla to the other.

Slippers for mom

I decided to make some slippers for my mom for xmas this year, along with some homemade soap. I found a pattern I liked (http://kaitysfreepatterns.wordpress.com/2006/01/02/homespun-slippers/), but it came out too low on the sides and back, and I used different yarn than recommended. I edited the pattern like so:

CO28
Knit in stockinette for 31 rows
Transfer to equal size double-points
Knit 12 rows, and decrease roughly as recommended in the original pattern
I'm about to do the crocheted edge, and I think I'll do an extra row or two of it.

How do you know they aren't "illegals"?

One of the things I do is run an ESL program with my partner here in Athens. The program is part of a larger group, the Economic Justice Coalition, and several months ago they applied for a grant to help fund the program. Tomorrow is a meeting with the granting organization, and the head of EJC told me to expect to be asked how we know we aren't teaching undocumented immigrants. The answer to give is "We don't ask to see proof of citizenship, and we are all better off if they and their families speak English." Thing is, that's just way to kind. If someone asks me such an asinine question, I want to ask how their families got here, which part of this land-we-stole-from-Native-Americans they now live on...anything to make them stop drawing some phantom line between "illegal" and "worthy." But we want their money, so I will say "We don't ask to see proof of citizenship, and we are all better off if they and their families speak English." But I will be thinking:

We don't ask for proof of citizenship for any of EJC's programs, including this one.
I've never been asked for proof of citizenship, and I'm not going to ask people for "proof" just because they speak Spanish.
We do not consider ethnicity to be an indication of illegal activity.
I'll answer your question if you please show your papers first.
I work for an organization that gets more than $1 million from public agencies, and we don't ask for proof of citizenship in any context.

City of Atlanta cuts 100% of senior citizen funding

One week ago, I got news that no grant writer wants to hear: Funding will be cut for two life-sustaining programs for senior citizens. The City of Atlanta has long focused their granting efforts on fighting homelessness, and our senior programs were grandfathered in. This year, which is the last granting year of the mayor's last term (and thus the funding year doesn't begin until after her term ends), they have decided to put every penny into direct homelessness services. While I support campaigns to end homeless and I appreciate the need for following priorities, it doesn't do much to fight homelessness if you then push more families into homelessness.


My first job out of college was managing Meals On Wheels Atlanta, one of the programs to lose the $30,000 it was granted last year. (We requested $54,000 this year.) Our Adult Day Care Center lost just as much.
I have walked up pathways to two-room homes housing eight people, wondering how the rundown shack was still considered safe to live in. I have delivered to apartment buildings where half of the roof had fallen in, resulting in an official condemnation. A few seniors were still living in the apartments that had most of their ceilings, because they had nowhere else to go. "You probably just passed it by," said the woman whose meal I was delivering. "It doesn't look like anyone lives here, but we do." Nearly 45 years ago, Mrs. S helped to found Senior Citizen Services. She has been coming to Adult Day Care every day for many years.


Our seniors have been good stewards of our communities, from raising families to building skyscrapers, and now is not the time to let them go. If the requested funding cut is approved

54 seniors will not receive Meals On Wheels Atlanta services next year

More than 9,300 meals will have to be cut from the program next year

28 seniors who receive critical Alzheimer’s support will be affected by the cuts

Seniors will lose more than 3,100 individual hours of support

20 memory-challenged seniors will lose financial assistance for their daily care

The cost burden will force many families to leave the program and deal with Alzheimer’s alone; families will be unable to maintain steady employment due to the added time required for elder care

Both programs serve seniors who are very low income and without adequate support systems to remain in their living situations without services. This will force these senior clients and their families into homelessness and/or institutionalization.

DIY

My life is filled with invention and reinvention. I often feel like I come from nowhere, but I am strongly connected to my family and our traditions. I find myself cobbling together from old pieces of my life and my family with new treasures, making it up as I go. I spend much of my time doing community work, advocacy, and activism, but I've yet to find a model that I like. So, I make it up as I go, hopefully listening and learning more than I speak and teach. In my emotional life, I've found it best to tear everything apart, and build back up as I find things that work for me. Sometimes that means seeking pieces of what I threw away. I've also rediscovered my love of crafting, a throwback to the craft store shopping spree I had for my 8th birthday. My crafts are rarely cute, but they are usually useful, and I love watching things come together. I prefer creating or fixing with my own two hands, resisting the consumer culture, if only when the mood strikes me. I grew up in a working-class home with a mother who likes things to look classy. You would never know that she used pink nail polish to change the main color on an old painting, or that her window valances are made from pillow cases. I am loathe to throw things away, because who knows when I could use them again?

And so, here it is. Pastmatopoeia, a blog of crafting, cooking, activism, and emotional health, which I make up as I go.

Pastamatopoeia

The names in my family sound like pastas. Because we're wonderfully Italian, but really from New Jersey.