Maybe it is because this current year is ending or the new one beginning but I am feeling a teensy bit lost. I have had a surge of creativity and I have been rocking it but now all I want to do is sit and watch mindless programs on television and knit. I am seeking the comfort of the familiar and knitting relaxes me, removes my stress and helps me cope with the things on my mind.

What else to say as the new year approaches? I am thinking of resolutions of course, changes to the current way things are. If I did everything one way in 2012, I want to do it another way in 2013. If I am in a rut, albeit a comfortable rut, I want to shake it up and do things differently. The universe will show me the way and the things I should be making changes to will come along.

First change this new year? I am not going to open the shop on New Year's day. It will be a studio day for me, to get things done for the shop before I launch myself at all the stuff that needs to be done for Tucson. After a day or so, it will be necessary to place my head to the proverbial grindstone and balance shop, home, Tucson and creative me time.

What will you do in 2013? I am open to your ideas so that maybe I can use them too. Perhaps there is something I should change but am not thinking of.

Here's to the best ever new year. A year of friendship, love, companionship and health. A year of life lived at a pace that makes all of us happy. Health, happiness, prosperity. I wish it all for you and me. Blessings abound. xo

" I will live in the past, the present and the future! " Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. " The spirits of all three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees! "

It was not until I was an adult that I read Charles Dickens', A Christmas Carol. I have heeded the advice of all three of Scrooge's ghosts and tried to live my life in accordance with their lessons of forgiveness, charity, kindness and love. As a business woman, I have kept those very same lessons close to my heart. I can see clearly in my mind, the awakening of Scrooge both physically and mentally on Christmas morning and how the spirit of renewal coursed through his veins. I will always think of that at this time of the year and indeed, every day of my life.

Our holiday will be very quiet. Just Phil, Jacob and me exchanging gifts and feasting all day. We will watch a movie or two, take a walk, relax and hug each other many times today. For this day shall be the best ever, the Christmas we have survived the end of the world, the Christmas we are yet all together, the Christmas that is the memory of Jacob's youth.

Merry Christmas to all and the happiest ever of days to you! xo

We have been so stormy these past few days with lots of high winds and water over the bulkheads and even snow. Big, fat, wet flakes piling up, making me dream of white Christmases only to have the snow vanish in a short, short time. It is also the time of the year that I truly enjoy being in my shop. I like the smooth comforting energy of people getting ready for the holiday, making gifts, visiting their families in town and just hanging out. I don't quite have to get into the swing of things and get ready for the really big Tucson show and most of my Christmas to do list is pretty small so I can relax and enjoy people.

Now as the wind is howling outside my door, the rain pelting the window panes and I can feel myself getting drowsy, I will let you know that I am continuing to draw almost nightly in my little living room sketchbook. I am transported to another world where colors are plentiful, people are happy, everything seems to have wings and light and love and people do not go about slaughtering each other.

I am dreaming of a peaceful place where safety and love belong to all of us and are given freely like rain to the earth. In this time of peace and goodwill to men, I am praying that we all have a life of love, comfort, safety, friendship and peace.

You know what I am thinking tonight? That Port Townsend does not have enough Christmas lights around town. Neighborhoods and streets seem dark and that makes me sad. I drove around after work tonight, took a different route home to see lights and really there were not many. I hope more people, businesses and homes add more in the coming days. It is so dark this time of the year that the lights bring so much cheer into the community. As for us, Jacob has draped the entire house, studio and fences with lights. LED lights so things are bright and I smile each night as I pull into the driveway. Bless that kid and his creative use of a staple gun!

Speaking of Jacob here are the photos of the finished Christmas tree. He decorated it by himself and only used the gold balls and lots of lights. It is a very handsome tree! Smells fine, too.

I am still drawing most evenings while in the living room. This is a small colored pencil drawing that I took at an unusual angle with my camera. ( Hint: Santa: I need a new camera..... just saying..... )

A poorly taken picture but I liked the way my hand shadow played
across the surface of this sketch.

A jaunty angle - very Star Wars tablet kind of look.

So anyhow, the wall heater is working overtime, my eyes are getting drowsy and my novel, Zorro, By Isabel Allende is calling me. Off to dreamland with me.

It is very early morning here in perpetually gray Port Townsend. I just turned off the outside Christmas lights, well, at least half of them; left on last evening in a show of pure decadence. All through my childhood and well into my adult years. Christmas lights were never, ever left on overnight.

The Christmas tree, a noble spruce, way more noble than just in name, stands like an early holiday sentinel in the living room waiting for the storm that is Jacob to decorate it. I love the smell of a fresh tree but this year, I am enjoying the scent with just a hint of melancholy. In just a couple of short years, Jacob, my youngest child, my sweet last baby boy, will be leaving home for his adult adventures of college, work, travel and girls. There will be no one championing for a live tree, no young long, long arms to drape it in lights and ornaments. Change is in the air. I know it is an old song to sing but, time moves so quickly.

Knitting projects fill my basket by my leather chair all waiting to be finished as holiday gifts and stocking stuffers. Will I make it to the finish line? I don't know but however close I may come, each stitch was knit with love and thought of the person it was meant for. No more am I going to beat myself up for not finishing a project and Christmas can happen any day I give one of these finished gifts to someone who holds a close, close spot in my heart.

Anyhow, my warm bed and sleeping husband are softly calling to me and I think I will head on down the hallway and see if I can drift off to sleep in a land where children never leave you and your knitting is always done.

It is raining again outside and I can hear the thump pit patter of the water coming down the rainspout by the dining room window. The sound is at once a comfort and annoying. It can interrupt my thought process and distract me when I am drawing here in my comfy chair adjoining the dining room. I love to sleep to the sound of the rain. Last night's sleep was especially wonderful as we had soft new flannel sheets on the bed and newly fluffed pillows. All princess like, I slept very well.

The slowly dying and collapsing old ferry dock.

The old cannery building and walkway to the wave viewing gallery.

Looking over Pope Marine park to the Maritime Center.

Yesterday during a very quick sun break I strolled around downtown and had a few moments to myself. I took pictures around the wave viewing gallery and once again found my mind heading off into the clouds as I try and figure out a way to draw the water in both my paintings and on my charms. I am close to interpreting the water and its movement. Soon. Eyes are wide open but slowly shutting and I am approaching a sleep dream state. Good night.

Baby crow who knows he is so totally cute!

If you know anything about me, it is that I have a deep, crazy love for crows. I think they are smart, humorous and a kinship seems to have formed with them on my part. I make crow sounds back to them when I hear them deep in conversation with each other. They will carry on and speak back to me as if we are sharing all the deepest, darkest secrets of our souls or at the very least, of our day. I can not totally explain it but I accept them as some kind of friendship and mutual admiration society. I have only begin to explore my crow lust.

So on this cold, wet and occasionally clear day,  here I sit  in bed humming the " I'm so miserable I can't do anything blues ". I need a Thing One or a Thing Two to come and inspire my stomach flu to leave, leave, leave.

Thank goodness I have this week's Port Townsend Leader to read and a couple episodes of my guilty pleasure, Dancing with the Stars to watch. Sigh.... maybe more to follow later but if I have along bout of blog silence, you'll know where I am.

In forty five short minutes I will have moved forward into another year. I am turning 56 on this birthday. This golden birthday of being born in 1956 and turning 56. I am so many things all at once at the beginning of this fifty sixth year. I am fat. My chin is double, my hair much more gray, my feet less achy and my skin a little more lived in. I am delighted as I see the changes in myself both physical and mental. I like being older. I see wisdom in my gray hair, vision in my wrinkles, growth in the way I move through this lifetime. I am blessed because even as my body marches forth into my older years, I am still doing exactly what I love, being with the people I love and creating something from parts. I still am blessed to be able to draw and paint, knit and sew, craft and bead, silversmith and write. I am all that creativity brings me. All the joy that creativity inspires in me. I am a strong, visionary, fifty six year old woman ( 41 minutes and counting ) moving with love into my age. The things I have done are now the blessings in my life. My children are the jewels in the crown of my days, my artwork the velvet robes I drape myself in. Happy birthday me. I wonder what the twenty year old Lois would think of this Lois on her birthday. If only I knew then, what I know now... I'd be exactly here.

Growth as in solid, fantasy inspired trees.

Not quite fifty six and not wearing glasses.

Oh my! I almost missed my blogoversary today! Happy blog anniversary! I used to write all the time in journals, filling page after page of life as it lived me. Now, with this on line blog-journal, I write here. Maybe it is not as blunt as the writing would be if only I was reading my story but it is written nonetheless. Once in awhile, I even think about what I am going to write before I sit at the computer. It is amazing to me, this journey we all take from birth to death and all the days in between. I am a blessed and grateful woman that does what she loves to do and loves to pieces her family and friends. Here's to another year of adventures in life, a journey to self. Damn girl, let's have fun1

Lovely picture

Yes! Obama is president for four more years! Amazing! This night has been just amazing and I can breathe again! Thank you! Now, let's get to work and make our elected officials, all of them, work together for the betterment of ALL of us. America is good!

Some days I have more mojo than other days. Today the mojo flowed freely! Although sleep and I are not the best of friends right now, I did get up early on this fall back day and launched into the studio. I had the whole house, office, studio and warehouse to myself. I could run from here to there and no one stopped me or put a curve in the tracks I was making. I beaded, painted, drew and made chicken soup. I watched a couple of recorded TV shows, went to the grocery and worked in the flower bed in front of the studio. ( Oh please tell me why it is only the weeds growing, still growing, at this time of the year. ) I napped briefly during the news and then drove to the shop to fuss around and place out the three concrete crows I recently finished painting.

I had a great day. Now, don't get me wrong universe. I do not want to be alone every day, without my family here but it certainly was luscious to indulge myself and move only at my pace.

Here are a few of my latest sketchbook entries. You know, the little book I draw in while watching the telly. I am learning to embrace the illustrative side of myself. The part of me that my art school teachers said to abandon. Well, now I am abandoning it - abandoning that part of me with joy!

No words have come to me the last little bit of time. Days have gone by. Then weeks. Still no words. Perhaps after all is said and done with my evening postings on all things internet I have reached a dry well of words.  Nothing but dust at the bottom of that wordless well. In place of writing tonight, I am just going to leave a drawing from my sketchbook, the one I keep by my wine colored leather chair in the living room and draw in as I watch television. My mind wanders, my brain is absorbed in conversations not of my own making and my hands are free to draw. Absentmindedly, I travel from this chair, this soft cushioned spot and begin a nightly journey to other places that exist solely in the interior of my mind.

What began as a sleepy and lazy Sunday, after a night of sleeping so lightly that every sound, movement and light woke me up; ended with a quick stroll on east beach on Marrowstone Island in the fading light of a chilly autumn afternoon. As a friend said, it was where so much of my courtship with Phil happened and it still holds such a special and deep spot in my soul. The wind kept me cold and bundled but the air was so fresh and crisp that I felt like I was breathing pure energy. Amazing how just even the tiniest bit of time at the beach revitalizes me and I actually was able to finish a job that had been on my to do list for more than a week.

FALLING

I am most amazed by the changes that come when fall hits the area. The trees begin their journey to colors that express all the heat of summer; lots of reds, oranges, yellows - as if the sun itself lived in each leaf. We have come upon fall here in Port Townsend in a big way now. Temperatures have dropped, moisture hangs in the air, wind has begun to blow and the sun is missing in the sky. Just before falling into autumn. on what turned out to be maybe the last sunny day for a while, I took these pictures of trees in my neighborhood. My favorite tree has only just been kissed at the very topmost leaves with a hint of color. Pictures will have to come later of that spectacularly beautiful tree.

When I come across someone's needlework project all finished or nearly finished in a thrift shop or junk store; I am a little bit heartbroken at seeing it there all alone, love poured into it, hours of time, skill and contemplation gone into it's work and I am thinking I need to rescue this piece. Finish this woman's work, make it complete and breathe into a life. Allowing the piece the appreciation that it so deserves giving it and the life lived that created it, completion.

The bandages are off my finger and I have managed to not only work the bead show, but spend a bit of time in the studio ( mostly making lists of what I want to do ) and an evening or two in the shop merchandising, displaying and making more to do lists.

I was moving along at a great pace tonight in the shop setting things up for Girls Night Out tomorrow which actually occurs all day, go figure, when I moved a display cube and whacked my wounded finger. I mean I whacked it but good. The kind of whack where you see stars and head into blackness. All I could think to do after shouting out the initial cuss word was revert to my old lamaze breathing. Now, how long is that memory and technique going to hang around in my life? I mean to say that my youngest child is sixteen after all, and you would think that those childbirth " techniques " which I huffed and puffed my way through all those years ago would be gone, faded away but no, in times of bad pain, the breathing comes right back around. After I returned to this world and full conscience-ness,   I laughed at the memory, glad that those years of childbearing are thankfully a long way behind me!

The moon is 85% full tonight and so bright and glorious in our night sky as to steal one's breath away. Without all our rain and clouds, which I miss by the way, we can see the moon! The sky looks like a movie scene and the tree's silhouettes a character actor in a story. What beauty and mystery hangs so deeply in the sky.

Live simply. Live well. I have been thinking of this notion a lot lately and mostly in response to aging. Not that I am old but I am on that part of the  journey in life that looks for a difference or a change. Do I stay the same? In the same place? Do I like this life that is mine?  I forget that in all the searching for solutions to problems and situations that I have created is to just SIMPLIFY. Breathe. Live simply. Live well. 

Be good, my friends. Be kind. 

This is the journey of my finger and its surgery. I was scared witless of course, all medical procedures scare me and make me imagine the worse. Anyhow, the surgeon, Dr. Olch, the anesthesiologist, Dr. Lamb and the nurses were amazing! Knowledgeable, friendly, kind even allowing Phil to stay with me right up to the operating room. I spent most of yesterday sleeping and today, I alternated between sleeping and being bored. I have never had time when I could not draw, bead, knit, silversmith. I am idle. I can barely type, which is not surprising since I could not type before but of the three fingers I could use, now I can only use two. Life's little lessons come quietly in small doses and I am lucky I feel better, there is a chipmunk in the tree outside my bedroom window, Daisy and Jesse were content to lay about with me and there is plenty of nonsense to watch on the idiot box. Here, then are a few pics of my journey.....

Outside the hand clinic are the leftover remains of the old growth forest
that used to be Silverdale.

Owie - IV in.

Dr. Olch and his artwork on my finger.

Dr. Lamb who sent me off to lala land. 

Afterwards. Animal crackers and loopy Lois.

On October 1st, we can remove the bandages. I wonder if I will have the finger of a 25 year old again. ...

Friday on the way to work, I stopped at our quaint and wonderful Jefferson County Fairgrounds to see the annual Cabin Fever Quilters show. I am so inspired by the colors and intricate piecing of the designs. Just being around all the cloth, colors and sewing techniques, encourages me to continue on in my latest fiber explorations using wool, felt, raw canvas, paint, and various embellishing stitches and objects. I left the fairgrounds with a smile in my heart and colors dancing in my head.

I have worked exceptionally hard this summer. Long days in the shop and when not there; working in the studio creating much of the inventory that I sell in the shop. I have enjoyed nearly every moment of this time. I love talking to people, greeting customers, displaying merchandise and creating an atmosphere that I would want to invite people into all day. Today, finally, almost a whole day off! I stayed out of the shop until after closing and then went to work making new displays with some of the most exciting beads and jewelry of the season! Wait, I am not writing here to talk of shop work! I am writing to be able to post the pictures I took today of our drive around Sequim. What a gorgeous day to be out and about. Heavy fog this morning giving way to wonderfully clear, warm afternoon skies. Here then are some pictures of my brief, ever so brief holiday!

A large weird flower growing in the lavender plant.

Sequim Bay.

The remains of an old dock.

The dock had lots of bird visitors.

Looking down the road from the Old Three Crabs restaurant.

Do you see the large Heron on the log in this wetlands shot?

Estuary.

A tributary feeding into the estuary.

A driftwood still life.