Слава Україні!

Well, it's been nearly a month since I've posted anything here.  I know I said I wouldn't be talking about work on this blog, but sometimes the rest of it just doesn't make any sense unless I do.  So lest you think I've abandoned this blog entirely, here's a little bit about what's been going on in our neck of the woods.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti

If you keep up with the news, you'll know that there's been a good deal of unrest and turmoil in Ukraine lately.  (And if you don't keep up with the news, please Google it - it's worth knowing about!)  The short version is that the people of Ukraine rose up in protest against a regime that had been robbing them blind for years.  The epicenter of these protests was Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Squre, in Kyiv not too far from our apartment.  The protests began peacefully, but escalated to violence before the end, with protesters being kidnapped from their hospital beds and tortured, protesters lobbing bricks and molotov cocktails at lines of riot police sent to clear the Maidan and snipers shooting at protesters from tall buildings not long after we last spoke.  Since then, Russia has invaded Crimea, a region of Ukraine with close historical, ethnic and linguistic ties to Russia.

A line of protesters faces down a line of Berkut riot police, before the worst of the violence

Needless to say, it's been a stressful few weeks (few months, if we're being honest).  We've been working extra shifts at the embassy on nights and weekends supporting our diplomatic efforts, supporting visits of high-level officials from Washington and making sure that American citizens in Ukraine have access to the support they need.  We spent a week living in a hotel room with our cats because our apartment was too close to the flash points.  We've been riding an emotional roller coaster as every time it seems like the situation is headed toward a peaceful resolution - Russia freaking invades the country or something!!!  

Secretary of State John Kerry lays flowers and lights a candle at the Shrine of the Fallen in Kyiv

We're physically and emotionally exhausted, and our apartment is barely functional.  But as rough as it's been for us, it has been an order of magnitude harder on our Ukrainian colleagues.  Our local colleagues are a great bunch.  They are trustworthy, reliable, fun to work with and great at their jobs.  And they held up, and continue to hold up, under tremendous pressure, putting in the extra hours right along side us while their city was literally burning.  When it's YOUR country that all this is happening to...that's something that those of us who were born and raised in the U.S. truly cannot fathom.

The Maidan barricade on Khreshatik

Anyway, all that to say that I haven't given up on the blog - I swear!  Things are back to a sort of normal in Kyiv, at least.  The violence is over, the streets are safe.  Really, although several government buildings were deserted when the Yanukovych administration left, there has been no looting whatsoever, which to me says a lot about the honor and character of the Ukrainian people!

A young boy at the protests with his parents, before the violence escalated

I have no idea what will happen in Crimea or in general in the coming weeks.  But I do know that it's time to get things back to normal.  Time to clean house, time to start cooking meals again, and time to start indulging in my creative outlets - like that knitting pattern I've been working on FOR EV ER, and this blog in general.

I've got a recipe I'll post tomorrow, some printables I'll put up for download, and plenty of other projects and fun things in the works, as the smoke continues to clear.  I hope you'll stick around and enjoy everything that's coming next!

I miss blogging!

I'm back!

I’ve been thinking lately about reviving the ‘ole blog.  I dunno, I miss it, it was fun.  And it gave me a neat impetus to keep doing creative things, whereas left to my own devices (and now that I like…have a job and stuff…), procrastination can really take over (remember that quilt I started 5 years ago?  Yeah, it’s still going).

So here’s what’s changed since last we met:

1)   I am no longer a poor, broke grad student.  I am now a comfortably middle-class diplomat.  Before I had a flexible schedule and my program, frankly, was not a good fit, so this blog was a much-needed distraction that I was able to make time for.  Now I have a 9-5 job and will need to be more disciplined if anything is to come of this.  Before I was crushingly poor – which frankly was part of the fun of the blog, trying to find ways to live the good life on a shoestring.  Now I have, like…disposable income and stuff.  It’s still somewhat disconcerting.

2)   I no longer live in Madison, WI – or the U.S. for that matter.  Soon after we last spoke, I spent a wonderful couple of years in Ottawa, Canada and I’m now living in the utterly fascinating, if somewhat more grim and gritty, Kyiv, Ukraine.  And let me tell you – as wonderful an experience as it is being here, there will be times when this blog will be a welcome distraction from all of that.

3)   I am pregnant.  Ayup!  Expect baby projects.  But I promise they won’t ALL be baby projects.

4)   I actually haven’t been knitting a lot lately.  Lots of people knit in Ukraine, but there’s not the sort of yarn culture like there was in Madison – no yarn stores cum coffee shops…in fact no yarn stores at all, that I’ve found.  Most folks buy their stuff online, which is just not as fun.  I’ve been dabbling in cross stitch, cooking up a storm and have some simple sewing projects that I’ll be blogging about soon, but I promise there will also be plenty of knitting (stay tuned for a new free pattern and giveaway coming really soon!).

5)  We went Paleo.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  And I’ve actually been super bad about it since getting knocked up (I’ve been having a hard time gaining weight, so my only real option here is cake, know’m’sayin’?).  I promise to keep this blog 100% Paleo-evangelism free.  But you will, from time to time, find some nifty gluten-free recipes and stuff.  I like to say my approach is “Laidback Paleo;” for instance coming soon will be a post about The (now not-so little) Blonde Lightening Bolt’s amazing grain-free birthday layer cake topped with SUGARY SUGARY BUTTERCREAM!!!  (And yes, that is an ice cream bowl made of dark chocolate in the background.  Don't worry, that tutorial will totally happen).

6)  I have given up my feminist ways and accepted my husband, who shall remain nameless, as my lord and master.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!  Kidding.

So what hasn’t changed, I hope, is the general ethos.  Better living through makin’ stuff.  Punchy, irreverent feminism.  Occasional references to swords.  I may not have a hilariously negligible budget to contend with, but living the ex-pat life offers its own hurdles to creatively overcome, so you’ll all be privy to that.  And I may not have blue carpet anymore, but I sorta like to think that I’ve traded that in for the more metaphorical blue carpet of embassy-issued furniture (about which more later).  Fundamentally, here at Sasha’s Blue Carpet, we’re still all about living the good life.  And as any good crafter/grad student/ex-pat will tell you, the only way to live the good life is to make it from scratch!

If Pies Were Jobs, I'd Be Saving The World Economy

Behold, the fruits of my unemployment! (Get it? Fruits? There's fruit in there. Strawberries, anyway, I'm not sure if rhubarb qualifies as fruit).

Funding for awesome Slavic-related summer activities did not come through for me this year, so I'm trying, with very little success so far, to find a job. As I'm sure many of you know, it is very easy to become a useless layabout when unemployed. After two days of sleeping until 1 in the afternoon, I decided this must not be. So I figured the least I could do is get up while it's still am. I've been setting my alarm for 8am, with the goal of being out of bed by 9am. I've been doing quite well, though it's really, really hard when there's nothing in particular that you're getting out of bed for. Today I've decided that I need to revise my personal edict to include being dressed before 10am. For some arbitrary reason.

It's not that I don't have things to do. I have knitting projects to finish and submit/put up for sale. I have swords and a big, flat backyard. I have a guitar I keep saying I'm going to learn how to play. I have rhubarb in the fridge that needs to become pie (check). I have dead and/or made-up languages that need learning! I have - gasp - pleasure reading I could do! Oh, and let's not forget, I have jobs that need applying for. Also blogging. You'd think I'd be updating my blog more frequently now that finals are over. Evidently, you'd be wrong.

The problem with all of this is that it's all stuff I can do on my own time. I can very easily do all of this at 3 in the morning. I can even do some of it in bed! But I'm less productive when I work like that, and even when I do get things done, I feel like I've wasted the day. I try to spend time in parks, I try to get errands done without using my car. But it's sooooooooo easy to spend 2 hours checking your email in your PJs.

This is why I must never be a housewife or stay-at-home-anything of any sort. Even the super-industrious home-business variety. I need a reason to leave the house every day and to interact with people. I need a reason to be out of bed by a certain time. I need structure, damnit. I can make the lack of structure work, I can be all self-starting and rah, but God, it's like pulling teeth!