Ends + beginnings

Dr. Dorninger is saving my life. Before becoming his patient, I’d been getting progressively sicker for years. I’d been to all kinds of doctors. I’d been hospitalized. I’d had procedures done. I’d been medicated. I developed a daily routine of incredible illness, pain, anxiety and depression that was only spiraling downward. I even became super familiar with what digested blood looked like leaving the body and for some reason everyone was still telling me there was nothing wrong with me. Take a pill, go home, you’re fine. I was completely lost. I was not fine. My mental functions started slipping. I was living in panicked confusion and massive brain fog. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and became a skeleton. I started to believe I was dying and maybe that was ok. The entire world was making me feel like the only chronic illness I was suffering from was in my head. I felt completely, truly, rock-bottom hopeless.

Then I remembered hearing about the “Last Resort Doctor,” Dr. Dorninger. I sent an email requesting a consultation, expecting there might be a wait, or that he’d say he couldn’t help me like everyone else. Instead, I got a call from him right away. I’ll never forget what he said to me, it was the first time I’d felt hope in years –

“You’re not just in my wheelhouse, you ARE my wheelhouse.”

He spent far more time talking with me that evening than the expected 10 minute consultation. He really listened. He asked me about things that I hadn’t told a soul about – he knew what was happening, he expressed compassion – and acknowledged my suffering – I could already tell he had ideas, and that he was going to stop at nothing to help me get well. It was the first time I felt validation, empathy, understanding, and true intention to HELP ME from a medical professional, throughout my decline.

So I began my health journey with Dr. Dorninger. If it comes out of my body, we tested it. And oh my goodness did we get answers. Dr. D began my “findings" appointment by sitting me down and letting me know that I have truly been suffering from chronic illness, and this is serious, and this is real. I swear – this validation in itself began my healing process. The things we found through this series of tests have explained not just the last few years of rapid decline, but a lifetime of mysterious sporadic health issues. My lab results told an insane story of what’s been going on in my body. And it’s insane. Finally someone was acknowledging that I’ve been really, really sick…and it was way worse than even I expected. To say it wasn’t overwhelming would be a lie, but that’s where Dr. D’s compassion, knowledge and understanding, and the Roots & Branches team kicks in.

Dr. D gave me an action plan to kill what’s been killing me. It’s going to be a long + involved journey back to health, but I’ve got the most incredible support from the entire staff. Each of them is equipped to help me navigate through these confusing waters back to living life. There’s no way I could do this alone, and there’s not even a hint that I might have to. No matter what’s going on, they are responsive, knowledgeable, compassionate, and always make me feel like my health and wellbeing are their top priority. I truly feel like I have their total support on this journey.

Now that we have answers and a plan, a year from now I’m expecting to have found health, and know how to maintain it for the rest of my life. I believe I’ll be looking back on the last few years in disbelief that I ever went through this. And I can say this with confidence because I’m only two weeks in to starting this journey, and I’m already looking back on my recent existence in disbelief. The treatments are already showing me improvements, slowly but surely. It’s incredible. And we’ve only just begun.

I highly recommend Dr. Dorninger to anyone who’s been told they are fighting a ghost. He truly was my last resort, and that’s my only regret. He should be the first doctor anyone goes to for this type of suffering, not the last.

A Spider in the Artichokes

Gramma took the little girl’s hand, with a basket in her other, and led her towards the gate. Sun-speckled shadows danced around them, and time slowed down for a moment. The little girl was giddy, wide-eyed with excitement. Finally, the gate to the untouchable was opening, for her. She’d graduated from picking beans and raspberries from the garden’s perimeter, to helping Gramma with the real bounty behind them, in the most magical garden. 

They walked over to the little girl’s favorite – the artichokes. Kneeling down together, Gramma began to show the little girl how artichokes grow, and how they were going to harvest them. Suddenly, the little girl jumped up, shrieking. She’d seen a garden spider.

“Oh, stop being silly,” Gramma said.

“But I HATE spiders!” the little girl said.

“Spiders are so good for my garden! Why on earth would you say you hate them?” Gramma asked.

“Because they’re SCARY!” the little girl pleaded.

Gramma looked at the little girl, put her hands on her hips and said, "Now, honey. Hate is a strong word. 

You should not hate something just because it scares you.

We need these spiders, they help us. Leave her be.”

Artwork by the incredible Ben Merrell: a memorial to my grandparents and the greatest lessons they taught me. 

The little girl cautiously knelt back down beside Gramma, keeping her eyes on that spider, with those words resonating in her heart.

Gramma showed the girl which artichokes they’d bring in for dinner, and how to cut their stems. The little girl proudly filled and carried the basket, and together, they walked back to the house and prepared the artichokes.

They sat down to eat them together with Papa. Knowing the heart was her favorite part, the little girl started pulling off outer petals and discarding them without eating their meat.

“Why are you wasting those?” Papa asked her.

“I want to get to the best part!” the little girl said.

Papa placed his giant hand on the little girl’s and said, “That’s very wasteful. Those ones are good, too, you should enjoy them." He flashed her his famous smile and added,

"And you know – you'll always have to do a little work to get to the best part.”

Gramma smiled at Papa as he winked warmly at her, and they each took another petal. 

what are we doing?!

It's come to my understanding lately that there are people in my life who fundamentally do not understand some of the things I do. This is totally fair – I have no expectations of such. But as I'm in the midst of a wild art project that will only succeed with the support of our friends and family, I'm finding there may be more of a need to explain why we're begging people for money to create a mobile satirical art piece with a 16 ft. wheel base for an art festival in the desert. So here goes.

If you aren't familiar with Burning Man, you don't need to be! You're reading this, so you're familiar with me. You'll understand why spending a week in a dried up lake bed in Nevada has become such an inspirational part of my life, and why projects and ideals from the week have seeped into my everyday life. In the simplest way I can put it, Burning Man is an indescribable and ephemeral experience that is conceptualized, built, and destroyed by creatives from every possible field and background who share a passion for expression, creation and interaction, and chose to execute it for a fleeting moment in the most extravagant celebration in the most impossible environment (simple, right?). Every year, Black Rock City exists for only a week, and contains artwork on a scale that will blow your mind, over and over – artistically, architecturally, technologically, emotionally, impossibly. The feeling of walking through the desert and being able to interact with the most incredible art you've ever even imagined is indescribable... and it's nonstop. Burning Man is created by people who want nothing more that to blow your mind, and the real magic is that nothing is expected in return. No one pays the artists, no one profits from the artwork. This city in the desert is created simply to exist for one week, and to give people an experience that can only be equated to "explaining a color to a blind person." And I'm a part of creating it. 

This year, beyond running our camp that will provide infrastructure and a home to about 50 camp mates, we're creating an art car for the greater community at Burning Man. In order to drive any type of vehicle on the playa, it must be completely indistinguishable as a regular vehicle, and needs to instead be an interactive art piece that is used as public transportation in the best possible way. Burning Man is HUGE - probably bigger than the city you live in. So art cars are a MUST. We were gifted a PT Cruiser (so long as we promised to use it for this purpose) and are turning it into an outrageous form of transport for the Burning Man community: we're creating a gaudy-as-hell, over-the-top satirical tribute to the wildly extravagant nature of Burning Man, utilizing a 1990's radio rap theme that exactly contrasts the decommodification of the city. If you've been to the playa, you probably get exactly what we're doing here, and hope you'll appreciate it out there! And if you haven't been, what you need to know is that we're intentionally appealing to a community who loves snark, encourages absurdity, and pushes originality. We are celebrating a major theme of Burning Man - extravagance – as absurdly as we could think of – utilizing the grotesque gaudiness of 1990s radio rap. How absurd will this bijoux buggy's excessive bling look rolling through a dust storm in a completely uninhabitable environment? How random will the 90's rap blaring out of an oversized boombox be when accompanied by a full-light-up dance floor and pyrotechnics? What better way to push the boundaries of absurdity than to cruise through a completely decommodified society as a live performance of excessive wealth and material obsession? The burning man community is going to love it for these reasons, and that's exactly what we're going for. We want to give this community a ride around the city to remember, not only embracing but flaunting the overtly excessive nature of the burn while poking the "decommodified bear" with a stick... as ridiculously as we can. We're being funny, you guys! 

So this is why we're asking for help funding the remainder of this project. For me personally, this is my latest weird art project, and you know I get into some weird ones. But it's what I love. We are not trying to profit, we're not even trying to break even. We're just looking for a little support from the people who love us and what we're about. We are what makes Burning Man happen, even if you dont go or don't want to go, you can understand why we're so passionate about contributing to this community! And we are so close to our goal. Please donate to our kickstarter if you're picking up what I'm putting down on any level. And if you're just playing absolutely not at all... come to Burning Man ;)

At the very least, enjoy how bad we are at making a kickstarter video. 

2014: a year of gratitude

Prior to 2014, I was certain I’d come to understand gratitude. I got my first taste of heart-wrenching understanding while floating somberly through the Mekong Delta, watching families methodically pick garbage out of the river to patch the floating shambles they called their homes. A few years later, those same heart strings were tugged even harder by the filthy, barefoot children I met in a small village somewhere in rural Maharashtra, whose tongue-twisting name and exact location I’ve now forgotten. But what I will never forget is how very eye-opening and life-changing both experiences were for me. In both instances, I experienced a gratitude that I was never able to fully articulate. In hindsight, it’s because I did not fully understand it yet. These people were living lives that were more difficult than anything I could’ve ever imagined, but they were doing it gracefully, peacefully, and happily. In the simplest way I can put it, they made me realize just how good I’ve had it and just how grateful I should be. And I’ll never forget it.

In my middle-class western upbringing, I was always taught to have gratitude for the things I have, to be grateful for my privileges and opportunities, and to find empathy and compassion for those who have less than I do. If your upbringing was anything like mine, you were told to finish your dinner because “there are starving children in Africa.” Now as adults we try to volunteer at soup kitchens and write checks to charities and donate toys to children who otherwise wouldn’t have anything to open on Christmas. It seems that more and more, there is a growing movement to give what we can and to be grateful for what we have. And it’s WONDERFUL. I’m so thankful for an evolving culture that has set me on this path, and even more thankful for my unique experiences that have permanently engrained these sentiments in my heart. But in the past year, I believe I’ve developed a much deeper understanding of gratitude.

Last January, Austin experienced what could’ve been a tragically life-altering accident. But it wasn’t. Three fingers were ripped from his dominant hand, more gruesomely than I’d care to describe. The magnitude of this injury is still incomprehensible to me, but his response to it has been nothing short of enlightening. He kept his head up and powered through an excruciating recovery, never once adopting the victim mentality that is so common in our culture. Not one time did he mutter, “Why me?” There were no pity parties. I never even saw him shed a tear. He was not beat down. He did not give up on his goals, intentions or dreams. He didn’t give up on a career that required the full use of both hands, or an intention to build a home by hand. Instead, he adjusted. I stood by in awe as my 30-year old man painstakingly retrained his non-dominant hand, and simply (determinately) carried on. 

For the third time in my life, I recognized that indescribable gratitude, but this time it was even more difficult to nail down. It was extremely reminiscent of what I thought I’d learned already. But it was not a gratitude rooted in what someone had or didn’t have as I’d thought I’d found in my eastern travels. This time, it was different. But I knew it was connected to what I’d previously found, and perhaps even explained it. Slowly, as my man’s hand healed, I realized just exactly how connected these experiences were. They were actually exactly the same – what was different was simply my own understanding. It’s not just about the privileges or opportunities that we are given in our lives, or the things we’re able to buy or that are provided to us. It stems from something much deeper: how we respond to challenges, adversity, and even tragedy. Austin demonstrated resilience like I’ve never seen first-hand, and I realized that this, in itself, is an incredible expression of gratitude. His optimism and determination made me realize how often we culturally do just the opposite in much less trying circumstances. We complain, find excuses, play the victim, or give up. It’s so easy. But to be able to look inside yourself and find the type of strength he displayed HAS to be founded in pure gratitude for the life you have. Now, looking back at the families in the Mekong, I realize that this explains how they greeted a somber foreigner with beaming smiles and offered to share with me cool drinks and spots of shade. I understand the women in rural Maharashtra who proudly invited me into their homes to share a sparse meal seated on a cow-dung floor. I finally get why I got it! These people taught me gratitude not because of the things they were lacking, but because of the incredible strength and compassion they demonstrated in their every day lives. They were not victims. They did not complain. They were not envious nor did they view life as unfair. Instead, they overcame extreme adversity all day, every day. I was simply blind to how this works because I hadn’t had to overcome such extreme challenges in my own life. I mistook my feelings of pity for what I believed was gratitude. I was blinded by my own misunderstanding that experiencing gratitude was simply acknowledging that I have more than others. 

So, 2014. Gratitude. Where was I going with this? I’m RAMBLING. 2014 has truly been a year of learning a whole new depth of gratitude. Since January, Austin and I have moved into a tiny cabin we’re building in the mountains, with the end-goal of establishing a self-sufficient off-grid homestead together. In the days since my “gratitude epiphany,” if you will, I’ve gradually identified this concept as a major driving force behind my decision to take on this life-project with my soulmate. It’s funny how sometimes you find yourself so completely motivated to do something before you fully understand why. But it’s like this concept had been seeping into every aspect of my life, secretly and silently without me knowing it, and slowly making itself known. We’re living a kind of hard life right now. Everything is difficult. Nothing goes as planned. We’re coming up on 5 months without running water. We’ve got to bundle up and brave subzero temperatures to go outside and use our composting toilet. If the wood stove goes out while we’re sleeping, we wake up freezing. The weather dictates our construction progress. And we still have to show up, in a respectable manner, at our corporate jobs for at least 40 hours a week while we attempt to blend in with civilization. This is where that new understanding of gratitude comes into play. 

It’s in no way comparable to an accident that rips your body apart, or to laying your children to sleep on the floor of a leaky trash barge, but we’re constantly facing challenges. Some of them self-made, some of them beyond our control. Nothing is easy, but it’s all so good. They say adversity builds character, but I’m finding it goes beyond that. Way beyond that. Adversity inspires gratitude. A really, really deep gratitude. I’m so grateful to be not only be living a wildly weird, intentional and inspirational life with the man of my dreams, but to also have been able to identify this shift in my thinking. Perhaps I’ve found my “big WHY.” Or perhaps this is just the tip of the iceberg. To be honest, no matter what trials and tribulations may lay ahead, I’m hoping it’s the latter. If this is just the beginning of fully understanding gratitude, I say… bring it. 

To all my loves, thank you. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for everything. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your support and thank your for your understanding. Happy New Year. Be well, be wild, be grateful, and be free. Stay your course. Amazing things lie ahead. <3

2000 intergalactic gangster miles

I've wanted to road trip in a school bus for about as long as I can remember. It just seems so right. But I never wanted to go the blissed-out-pseudo-hippie route, following some noodle-dancing band around the country, feigning peace and free spiritedness and free love and whatever else is typically associated with the school bus road tripping scene. That is not my scene. But sharing a ghetto-fabulous graffitied-up intergalactic-themed double-decker school bus with three of the greatest humans I've ever met in my life on our way build the most spectacular city in the world is SO MY SCENE. And here's why.

I've done a fair amount of traveling around the world in order to experience things that are vastly different from my every day life. I've left my comfort zone to be exposed to things that would teach me, inspire me, scare me, shock me, challenge me, discomfort me, make me question my so-called "norms," and straight up blow my mind. But what if instead of having to go halfway around the world to get my foundation shook, something showed up on a regular old "day in the life of Margot" that could do exactly that? I believe we were able to give this gift to the residents of various small towns between Boulder, CO and Black Rock City, NV. And I'm stoked on it.

Picture this: a giant gangster school bus rolling up to a quaint little breakfast joint on a quiet weekday morning in small-town America, housing a dusty fearsome foursome with leopard print hair dye jobs, tiger-striped mohawk hair detailing, and multicolored dreadlocks. It's pretty safe to assume that the majority of the patrons sipping their usual morning coffee are small-town born and raised, and have not had the privilege or perhaps the desire to venture out into the unknown. They don't live in a city that prides itself on being weird. They are not exposed to eccentric art and artists on a daily basis as we find in other cities. They don't have the cultural variety that we take for granted. They may not have ever even wondered what they're missing outside of their simpler city limits. They have not heard of Burning Man nor do they have any concept of why a group of people would come together and voluntarily do what we're doing. So why not rock their world for just a brief moment and bring the unknown to them? 

Here we are, a crew that paired with its vehicle is an assault on the eyes, venturing to build an indescribable city that exists only for one week in an uninhabitable environment - with tales of unrivaled art and music and dance and sacredness and celebration and destruction - with a contagious fire in our eyes and our hearts that is driving it all. We are disrupting this small town in the best of ways. We roll in full of love and life, we turn heads, we spark conversation, we make people ask... WHY. We are travelers bringing the fruits of travel to the non-travelers. In all of my prior road tripping experience, there has not been one single time that a stranger was so taken aback by my presence that he stopped what he was doing to ask me where I'm going, where I'm coming from, who I am, or what I'm doing. But this scenario is inescapable when you step out of our beautiful bus as a self-expressed being. People want to know. We inspire curiosity. We disturb the peace. We bring wonder. We provide an experience which they may otherwise never have had. We nudge them out of their comfort zone. We open their minds, even if only for a fleeting moment. And for this I am so grateful.

For me personally, this experience has solidified the concept that life is truly about the journeys, but not in the sense that I've always thought. My journey isn't just about my experiences and how they affect me. My journey affects everyone and everything that I pass as I continue along my way to whatever destination I'm headed for. For those of us blessed enough to incorporate such wildly inspirational journeys into our lives, it's our responsibility to pass this on. I cant take everyone I meet with me on my journey, but I can bring my experiences to everyone around me as I build my own experiential repertoire. And this is the name of the game.

It doesn't matter if you're traveling around the world, across the country, or down the street. You don't need to be on your way to a wild celebration of life in the desert. We need to constantly open the minds of those who haven't yet discovered that they need their minds opened. We may not be the night markets of Bangkok or slums of Mumbai, but we carry the same sentiment: we are here to give you things you've never seen, tell you things you've never heard, and make you think in ways you haven't even thought of yet. We're here to inspire the wildest dreams you haven't dreamt yet, and to encourage you to make them your reality. We're all here to share our experiences, to journey on and on, and most of all, to blow each other's minds. 

Making our home: a rant.

My man and I are currently undertaking the biggest and most creatively complex project of my life thus far: we're conceptualizing and realizing an off-grid, self-reliant homestead, built primarily from repurposed materials. The reactions we get when we explain this to people are all over the map. We hear everything from how crazy we are to how cool we are; we get grouped in with the masses of 30-somethings gravitating toward the tiny house movement; we get called hippies; we get asked if we've joined a cult. But I've yet to have someone inherently understand our motivations and goals without having to justify, dissect, and defend our plan and our actions (excepting, of course, our like-minded nearest and dearest). Over the weekend, as we mixed and poured a concrete footer, I had the proverbial lightbulb moment: this cultural inability to understand our motivations IS the motivation driving this epic project for me. Now how on earth do I explain that one? The fact that no one is understanding this is precisely why I'm into it. 

I love the tiny-house movement, but that's not what we're doing. I love urban gardening. I love seeing people reduce, reuse, and recycle. I love that we have the option of purchasing energy-efficient light bulbs and low-flow shower heads. I love seeing locally sourced foods noted on fine dining menus. I love seeing electric car charging stations in retail parking lots. I love it, all of it. But we're going for something bigger. We're after something that encompasses the ideals that drive all of these movements, and then some. And this is where I believe the disconnect lies. 

Culturally, we're moving in the right direction – let's try to stop devastating our environment and let's try to start developing a consciousness about what we require to live a comfortable life. But Austin and I are taking it a step further. Or perhaps a giant leap further. This isn't just about reducing our carbon footprint and growing our own spinach. This is about trying to understand the impact of our lifestyle, and what it truly takes to live the safe, comfortable lives we culturally take for granted. 

Sure, I can plant a vertical garden in the tiny backyard of the apartment I rent in Boulder. I can supplement my Whole Foods grocery list with the variety of seeds and beans I'm sprouting in my kitchen. I can clean with vinegar instead of the harsh chemicals that have become standard. I can separate my recyclables and make my weird art out of trash. But I'm still living in a building that shelters me, heats me, cools me, hydrates me and cleans me without any concept of what it takes to keep me so effing comfortable. I just showed up one day, signed a lease, and had this all handed to me. And I don't even have to worry about maintenance! What the shit am I doing?! Something's not right. Why am I so concerned with social responsibility when I'm not even responsible for my own home?

I finally found the words to verbalize what's been my driving force behind this project as we spent the weekend painstakingly pouring a 12x12' concrete footer by hand, working from dawn to dark for three days straight, only stopping to check our leveling and reapply sunscreen. The more we worked, the clearer it became why no one does this themselves. It just plain sucks. But it also became increasingly more apparent that this is precisely what I want to change in my own life. If you're reading this, chances are you are sitting comfortably in a building that rests on a foundation. You are protected from the elements, shielded from the noise of the hustle and bustle all around you, you're safe and comfortable, and the thought "oh my god, is it possible that this building might collapse?!" is not circulating around your brain constantly. Because you've (most likely) spent all day every day for your entire life moving between structurally sound buildings, never having to question how this has all been made possible for you. But OH MY GOD the work that has been put in for your comfort and convenience!! How do we not acknowledge this?!

Perhaps it all boils down to gratitude. I'm not saying we're an ungrateful breed (I mean, yes I am, but I typically aim for altruism), but I think we've just culturally overlooked some really important stuff while we focus very good energy onto the tippy-top of the iceberg. Our intentions are great, but we're missing a major piece of the puzzle. We can spend all the time in the world making sure the eggs in our omelets came from happy chickens, but why does our awareness stop there? We take the eggs home and turn on an automatic gas stove in our apartment that's automatically pumped full of AC, while we cook on dishes that we're going to toss in the dishwasher with a built-in garbage disposal, all without giving it a second thought. Why aren't we concerned with what it takes to make all of THAT happen? The happy chickens are small beans, people. 

So this is where we're starting: literally working our way up from the ground. I don't want to live in a home that some faceless, nameless strangers and their machines made perfect for me. I don't want my home to rest on a foundation that was mechanically dug with a trench digger and filled with a cement pourer like it ain't no thang. In the same way that our culture is suddenly striving for connection to our food and environment, I want connection to my home. I want not only to know EXACTLY what it takes for me to exist comfortably, happily and healthily, but to have achieved this myself. I want to step into our new structure, stand on a solid floor, and know that we built it, ourselves, with our brains and our hands. I want to see the light coming in through our beautiful bottle wall, and know that we managed to inspire our friends and families to participate in our vision and to help us collect materials that are better than anything we could buy at Home Depot. At the end of the day, I wan't to return to the home we built ourselves. Our home. I want to always remember exactly how terribly it sucked, how painful and taxing and tiring and frustrating and overwhelming it was to make ourselves a home. Our home-made home. I want to appreciate the hell out of it. And I hope that somehow along the way, we might possibly inspire this ideal to take root in a few other brains. Life is the greatest do-it-yourself project you can ever possibly imagine, so DO IT YOURSELF. This is your life. Make it happen. <3

Mediterranean Magic Salad

I cant even write a proper description of this salad because I'm salivating too hard. This is literally the best thing I've ever made in my life. EVER. Let me just tell you, it took me multiple tries to get this recipe right, but sweet baby jesus, I got it right. 

If you like mediterranean-style food, you will die about this salad, because I have an inherent inability to use mediterranean flavors in moderation (I mean, why WOULD you? Let's get weird). This baby has approximately 1 million ingredients, but you need to eat all of them. Don't question me. 

Just make this salad. Make it right now. Then come find me so we can hug about it. 

What you need:

• 1 bunch kale, separated from bone & chopped
• 1 cup quinoa (uncooked)
• 1 small broccoli crown, chopped into small pieces, no stalks
• 1 cup golden cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 cucumber, peeled & chopped
• 1 can garbanzo beans
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup kalamatta olives, pitted & halved
• 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, sliced
• 1/2 cup artichoke hearts, chopped
• 1/4 cup pinenuts
• 1 1/2 cups raw cashews, soaked for at least 45 minutes, longer if you have time
• 2-3 large garlic cloves, pressed
• 3 fat tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 large lemon, juiced
• 1 cup(ish) water
• 1/2 small red onion, diced
• 1 cup chopped parsley
• 2 arms for hugging

What you do:

Cook the quinoa, steam the kale and steam the broccoli (both lightly - I like this salad with a little crunch! So steam them separately till they're just past raw.) Combine the three in a massive bowl. Add the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, garbanzo beans, and red wine vinegar. Mix everything extremely well, stick it in the fridge, and tell it to CHILL OUT.

In a separate small bowl, combine the olives, 1/4 cup of the sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and pine nuts. Stir 'em up and stick 'em in the fridge as well. 

While all that's getting its chill on, you're going to make some sauce that you might think is made out of pure magic, but it's actually made out of real ingredients with no witchcraft! Place the cashews, garlic, nutritional yeast, onion powder, lemon juice, and the remaining 1/4 cup of the sun dried tomatoes in a food processor or blender. Start mixing and add water in 1/2 cup increments while you chop/grind/pulse/blend/whatever all of this, and just keep adding water until you reach your desired consistency. Then blend till smooth. I like it totally smooth and a little saucier (I'm so saucy), so I recommend about 1.5 cups water in a blender. But do your thang!

Take the chilly stuff out of the fridge, and plate the contents of the big bowl. Spoon some of the contents from the little bowl on top of that, then pour that witchcraft sauce all over it. Sprinkle some red onion and parsley on top of that to your taste, and gorge yourself and at least one other person. Then wait with open arms for the unsolicited hugs that are thrown at you uncontrollably from the recent recipients of your best salad ever. (Go ahead and hug yourself, too.)

All of this nonsense makes about 4 humungous salads. I would tell you it makes maybe 6 small salads, but let's get real. You're going to eat a huge salad. Get after it.

The good news is, you will have a ton of leftover sauce that keeps beautifully in a jar, and your salad leftovers will keep for a couple of days! You can combine all the salad fixings, and I had a minor stroke of genius about the sauce – ladle some into a ziplock bag. This way you have the perfect portion of magic, and it fits nicely on top of your salad inside of the tupperware! When you're ready to douse your salad in it, just cut off one of the bottom corners and squeeze it out like some kind of wild pastry chef with weird soupy icing. BOOM. Leftovers4Life.

We need bottles. And perhaps psychological evaluations.

HELP. We need help. 

Austin and I are about to get involved in probably the most tedious possible wall construction we can think of: a bottle wall. But the outcome is totally worth it. Our plan is to build a 9x12' bottle wall, which will be the main art feature of the bathroom we're constructing on our off-grid compound this summer. 

If you aren't familiar with bottle walls, you SHOULD be. The idea is to create "bricks" out of bottles by slicing the necks off of two matching bottles, and creating a capsule with the pair's lower halves to capture dead air space for thermal retention. Then you build a wall with these glass-bottle-bricks and some mortar and BOOM: wildly beautiful energy-efficient badass art-wall made out of trash. Here's a sampling I borrowed from the internet to get your noodle cooking:

We did the cursory math and it turns out we need about 7,000 bottles. This is slightly more than we can commit to drinking in time for construction. Just slightly. So that's where you fine people come in! Do you love drinking? Do you fill your recycling bin like a champ? HELP US OUT. 

We're looking for glass bottles of any shape or size, we just need two of each. We're really into green, clear, and blue, but if you want to donate, we wont discriminate! Contact me if you want to be part of our project, and we will turn your trash into some incredible meticulous functional beauty. Danke!