my life

It's 2010. Woah.

Well, once again it's been ages since my last update. And once again, a lot has happened. 2009 was good to us. We had some amazing adventures and we're really enjoying life on the coast.

Our biggest project this year has been our big organic garden. We put up a hoop house in our garden which allowed us to get seedlings started early. We grew SO much yummy food! We had several kinds of tomatoes, lettuces, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, potatoes, green beans, peas, asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, eggplant, herbs, cabbage, kale, chard, radishes, carrots, beets, garbanzo beans, zucchini, spaghetti squash, butternut squash... and plenty of flowers and companion plants as well. It was a lot of work, and we're always behind on weeding, but we continually harvested lots of great organic stuff and fed lots of our friends. Pictured on the left is Juneau and Niko being lazy while we work in the garden.

I went to Moscow for Moscow Hempfest in April. I design the t-shirts and posters for the event every year, and am rewarded with a vending booth spot at the event, so it's a great opportunity to sell the jewelry, herbal bath products, and artistic t-shirts that we sell at various festivals and barter faires. In May I went up to Portland to see my little sister graduate from the University of Portland. She was the valedictorian of her class and got degrees in Spanish and Life Sciences. Wow. I'm awfully proud of my little sis! Also in May, we adopted a new pooch, Niko, a 2-year-old rottweiller. He's a big sweetie, and Juneau is very excited to have a buddy to play with.

In June, we went on a camping trip with 6 close friends at Usal Beach on the Lost Coast. Boy was it beautiful! Usal is a very magical place, and we had an amazing time with our local friends who feel more like family. The photo on the right shows us sitting in one of the most unique trees we've ever seen. There is a grove of redwoods at Usal aptly named the Enchanted Forest, where the redwoods grow all gnarly with swirling, tentacle-like branches growing haphazardly from enormous trunks. We went on hikes, watched the sunset on the beach, and cooked over a campfire with friends. What a beautiful way to start off our awesome summer!

In August I went up to McCall, Idaho, for the Prusynski family reunion and got to spend time with my parents, sister, grandparents, cousins, aunts & uncles. It was a fun but short trip. At the end of August, we caravanned with our friends over to Nevada for our first ever Burning Man! There is just no way to describe this amazing event. It's 50,000 or so people living in a temporary community called Black Rock City that rises out of a desolate dry lake bed in the Nevada desert. The playa, as the lake bed is called, is a blank canvas for some of the most amazing interactive art projects we've ever seen. From the teeter totter of death to the cube-a-tron to a huge stage for fire dancers to hundreds of art cars... it's a trip. Near the end, they burn the enormous man and surrounding structure in a giant bonfire, and then they burn the beautiful temple that serves as a memorial to all kinds of lost loved ones. It was a little over a week of extreme heat, crazy dust storms, not much sleep, overstimulation, and lots of fun workshops, activities, art to see, and people to meet. We already have tickets for this year's Burning Man. The temple, just after a beautiful sunrise, is pictured on the left.

After Burning Man, we went to Earthdance, a music festival that's only about an hour away. We got to see Sound Tribe Sector 9, Ganga Giri, and many more musicians, attended belly dancing and yoga workshops, did some shopping for eco-friendly handmade clothes, and enjoyed the heat and sunshine with friends. Seneca got a new didgeridoo and I hooped my butt off at Earthdance! Shortly after that, we headed up north for the Okanogan Family Faire that we go to every year. This year was colder than any one we've ever been to - we spent a lot of time huddled around the camp fire! We got a great vending spot and saved spaces for all our friends, so we had one huge camp. My friend Kelsie got a fire hula hoop, which I got to try! It was so great seeing all our friends from Moscow, familiar faces from the barter faire, and of course, our Mendo family, too. The barter faire really brings us all together! The photo on the right shows Kelsie, Ottie, Seneca, and Pal in front of our camp. We really went to a lot of festivals in a couple months' time this summer & fall. By the time we got back from barter faire, we were pooped and ready to be home for a while!

I went up to Portland for Thanksgiving and got to stay in my aunt & uncle's beautiful new home there. It was the first time in quite a while that almost the entire Pru Crew was together in one place. For Christmas, Seneca, Juneau, Niko, and I made a long trek up to Boise to spend time with family and see old friends. We were spoiled rotten by our families, caught up with friends, and even got in a day of snowboarding. For New Year's we went to stay with friends in the Bay Area, who had a costume party.

So far 2010 has been a very busy but stressful year. On January 9, there was an earthquake about 150 miles from us that shook the whole house. It was the first one we've felt since moving to California. Then, just 3 days later, a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, where my sister Rachel was visiting her friend Molly and volunteering in the orphanage she worked at. Rachel and Molly were in a 7-story dorm & office building that completely collapsed. Rachel miraculously was pulled out of the rubble and taken to the embassy by three Haitian angels within a few hours. After receiving medical care for a gash on her face and a broken arm in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she met my mom in Miami and flew to Boise for a couple days before heading back to Tacoma to go back to school. A few days after she was rescued, her friend Molly's body was found in the rubble. Even though I never met Molly, I knew from Rachel and from Molly's blog that she was an amazing and kind person who had really given her life to help Haiti's most vulnerable little orphans. The earthquake in Haiti is a huge tragedy that leaves me with a heavy heart. I encourage anyone reading this to donate to Friends of the Orphans, the orphanage Rachel & Molly were working at, in honor of Molly. The people of Haiti (who are the poorest country in the western hemisphere) really need our help and prayers right now.

We're hoping this year starts getting much better. I am working on turning my freelance design practice into an official business - Ahimsa Creative Studio. We're also starting the process of looking for some land. We'd like to have our own little piece of earth to build a susainable home on, start a big organic garden and orchard to feed us (and have enough to sell at farmer's markets), and grow our dreams! This will most likely be a long process, but it is a good time to buy right now, so we're hoping to manifest our little piece of heaven as soon as we can. We'd like to stay in the area, but we're most likely going to be further inland, where land is a little cheaper and the weather is a little better for gardening. We're dreaming big! 2010 will be a great year after its rocky start, I'm sure.

Seneca's 29th birthday is on Sunday. Tomorrow we are throwing a party for him at our place. It's pretty hard to believe that our 20s are almost over. I'll be 27 in April. It's time to make the most of our youthful energy and start manifesting our dreams! Here's to a beautiful 2010 and beyond! :)

Labels: barter faire, family, life, update

posted by Megan @ 11:21 PM 0 comments