On Being Ruined.

I'm ok admitting this, future readers. I'm absolutely ruined.

From the very first time we attempted to make something ourselves, from scratch, we knew it was over. More than just your novelty from-scratch brownies for that one special occasion. We spent a few months taking typically pre-packaged food items (eggnog, pudding, frosting, popcorn, tortillas).

The illusion of microwave popcorn being easier shattered a worldview we'd held our whole short lives to that point.
Clearly, "the corporate machine" did not offer the easiest best tasting solutions. Any one with grandparents from the Old Country (whichever one you like) knows this. But in fact, very often, the inventions were not even time saving. And we didn't know this at the time, but they were often actually dangerous to our health. In spite of images of happy children and families marketing the products to us constantly for upwards of twenty years, that first day we tossed some kernels into a pan with some butter, we were ruined.

So it's not really a surprise that in the Crunchy Pair's apartment today you will find a myriad of home-made treasures.
If you've taken a turn of the beaten path of of least resistance, you know what I mean. Suddenly you can never approach an item in a big box store without thinking, I could make that! Mark is famous for this, because while he refuses to buy said item, he (very often) never quite gets around to the "ridiculously easy to make" construction end of the bargain.

Today, we are displaying various stages of this DIY disease.

I (Nikki) am at work in the kitchen, listening to early Motion City Soundtrack albums (because in fact, Everything IS Alright), and Mark is at Buffalo Blue Bike, constructing a comfortable ride for his sweet-ums (also, Nikki).

But that's not all we've got brewing.

Sourdough, beer, kombucha, kefir, all literally brewing here. Plum wine is doing something like it as well, though technically not a brew. And on the counter sits some bounty from our urban garden plots, conspicuously close to homemade candles and farm cheese we just managed the other day (photo op!!).

We can say that DIY, a step away from the urgency to buy and buy and keep buying, and a level of involved-ness in all that we handle or consume has really helped us feel grounded. We considered calling this blog "settling in". In a lot of ways doing it ourselves- or buying from artisans who can share their process and how it grew them- has caused us to settle into our own skin, to get our images of ourselves from our talents rather than what we can purchase, and has ultimately caused two wanderers to embrace a life in one city, in one house (and two abandoned lots we will farm).

And while it may sound a bit boring, it's been like a warm blanket after some hellish rain. Coming off the high of the constant debit card swiping has taken some work, but the high of creating together has been amazingly more fulfilling.