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Core values
Oct. 12th, 2022 09:22 amYou gather together. You become a family, a close and ritual-sharing but not necessarily completely-agreeing group, and knock around a shared space for a bit. There is food, and food rituals, and spending time in the kitchen. The house is full of food and people go home with leftovers. You catch each other up on your lives. You feel abundance.
I only had a couple people up for thanksgiving. It was the right number of people, on for the upstairs bedroom, one for the downstairs bedroom, and I took the new couch down by the fireplace. The cats got snuggled well. The first day was a bit of a mess because I haven't hosted here in so long, I haven't hosted people with unknown food stuff in so long (one was celiac and no garlic/onions and also a couple other things I didn't know details of in advance, the other was lower carbs), and I haven't hosted on this food system (lots of home grown stuff and not much place to buy stuff) ever except for close, known friends.
It was nice. The unknown person was more talkative than I expected, and I think a little too forceful for the other person to be completely comfortable, though I could rise to match it. She had overlapping conversational style, which was very nice. We got to playing in the kitchen and made cauliflower fritters and a squash pie (which in turn required making clotted cream and a gluten free pie crust) and I seared a goose breast. There was a garlic-free caesar salad that was actually quite good and a frittata made with pork cracklins and maple smores and a chicken soup. We processed a bunch of lard and dried some peppers.
Before they came I had a big cleaning push and got the house in better shape than it's been in awhile, moving some things out to the storage and stuff like that. So now that they're gone the house is nice and clean and useable. I need to set up my sewing soon, really.
It was good to get up early and talk to Kelsey, who is a morning person, and then stay up late talking to Kris, who seemed to be more of an evening person, but I definitely have some sleep to recover.
It's amazing to have Kelsey close. She's one of the friends (maybe the friend) I've had the most conversations about meaningful topics with (usually interpersonal and social structures) and now she's two hours' drive away instead of two incredibly expensive flights away. She's in a masters thing right now so hopefully she can find more time to come visit sometimes.
It was also fun to do shampoo and conditioner bars with Kris. She's done a bunch of recipe formulating and has done lab work previously, so she brought a bunch of fancy chemicals up and we made the things together after Kelsey went home. Also lots of talking, since we've been in each other's orbits for twenty-odd years but have rarely been physically in the same space.
It felt like a housewarming. My house feels warmed, like a welcoming space for me to hang out in and do my projects. Whether that's catching up on the social stuff, catching up on my cleaning, or laying down some good memories and/or novel and not completely self-controlled experiences within these walls I am not sure. I'm happy for it though.
My whole life, a thing I've always wanted from where I lived was the ability to have a bunch of folks over and do (mostly food) things. I'd traded that for safety and self-building for a couple years here, now maybe time to relearn it?
I do seem to be planning to take summer solstice for the pagan community's get-together schedule.
I'm also entering week 3 of the birth control and I seem happy. No way of knowing if that's environmental (Josh was here, then people were here, so I'm not lonely) or some other random thing or related to the pills, but I expect to go a second month on them and see. It makes sense that if my cycle has made me so strongly unhappy so regularly, that there's some magic mix of hormones that would not have that effect. Is it possible I found it on the first try? That would be AMAZING. Next up would be addressing cognitive issues and shading into stuff around executive function vs demand avoidance.
I only had a couple people up for thanksgiving. It was the right number of people, on for the upstairs bedroom, one for the downstairs bedroom, and I took the new couch down by the fireplace. The cats got snuggled well. The first day was a bit of a mess because I haven't hosted here in so long, I haven't hosted people with unknown food stuff in so long (one was celiac and no garlic/onions and also a couple other things I didn't know details of in advance, the other was lower carbs), and I haven't hosted on this food system (lots of home grown stuff and not much place to buy stuff) ever except for close, known friends.
It was nice. The unknown person was more talkative than I expected, and I think a little too forceful for the other person to be completely comfortable, though I could rise to match it. She had overlapping conversational style, which was very nice. We got to playing in the kitchen and made cauliflower fritters and a squash pie (which in turn required making clotted cream and a gluten free pie crust) and I seared a goose breast. There was a garlic-free caesar salad that was actually quite good and a frittata made with pork cracklins and maple smores and a chicken soup. We processed a bunch of lard and dried some peppers.
Before they came I had a big cleaning push and got the house in better shape than it's been in awhile, moving some things out to the storage and stuff like that. So now that they're gone the house is nice and clean and useable. I need to set up my sewing soon, really.
It was good to get up early and talk to Kelsey, who is a morning person, and then stay up late talking to Kris, who seemed to be more of an evening person, but I definitely have some sleep to recover.
It's amazing to have Kelsey close. She's one of the friends (maybe the friend) I've had the most conversations about meaningful topics with (usually interpersonal and social structures) and now she's two hours' drive away instead of two incredibly expensive flights away. She's in a masters thing right now so hopefully she can find more time to come visit sometimes.
It was also fun to do shampoo and conditioner bars with Kris. She's done a bunch of recipe formulating and has done lab work previously, so she brought a bunch of fancy chemicals up and we made the things together after Kelsey went home. Also lots of talking, since we've been in each other's orbits for twenty-odd years but have rarely been physically in the same space.
It felt like a housewarming. My house feels warmed, like a welcoming space for me to hang out in and do my projects. Whether that's catching up on the social stuff, catching up on my cleaning, or laying down some good memories and/or novel and not completely self-controlled experiences within these walls I am not sure. I'm happy for it though.
My whole life, a thing I've always wanted from where I lived was the ability to have a bunch of folks over and do (mostly food) things. I'd traded that for safety and self-building for a couple years here, now maybe time to relearn it?
I do seem to be planning to take summer solstice for the pagan community's get-together schedule.
I'm also entering week 3 of the birth control and I seem happy. No way of knowing if that's environmental (Josh was here, then people were here, so I'm not lonely) or some other random thing or related to the pills, but I expect to go a second month on them and see. It makes sense that if my cycle has made me so strongly unhappy so regularly, that there's some magic mix of hormones that would not have that effect. Is it possible I found it on the first try? That would be AMAZING. Next up would be addressing cognitive issues and shading into stuff around executive function vs demand avoidance.
