Oh my, but this year has moved by so quickly and now we are just two weekends away from Christmas. I am approaching the holiday with an attitude of gratitude. I don't mean to be flippant but I am ever so grateful for so very much.

First off, I have two incredible men in my life, Phil and the now adult age, Jake. They keep me grounded yet moving forward in what I do. They see my creativity as work and how it provides for our living. I am grateful that a beloved companion has come into our home. Our darling Clementine. Just when I had despaired of ever finding a dog, I saw her on a trading site and now she is sound asleep on the floor next to me. I feel happiest in my day when I rub my hands through her ever soft and fuzzy fur. A giant teddy bear on four padded feet.

I love what I do. I love working in my shop and talking with people. I love seeing a project through to completion with a customer. I love being the inspiration and assistant with a person's creativity. I get goosebumps when I think of someone taking their vision and turning it into reality. With a job like mine, it will never be boring, never ordinary.

Port Townsend. What can I say. I am home here, have a home here. It is my place in the world. Embracing, inspiring, comfortable, a little off center and mistress of the nicest extremes. Quiet, dark winter nights. Vibrant musical summer evenings. All this water and beach. Salt hanging heavy in the air, ready for the cleansing breath that reaches deep into the roots of my soul.

I can go on and on. I am blessed with friends, fellow shopkeepers, companions. I am never wanting for conversation or companionship. I am blessed. Just blessed.

As I wrap up this almost too sentimental post; I am especially happy and grateful for the bright Christmas lights that Jacob strung everywhere around the outside of the house. On the house, the fence, the studio. Blue lights in the salal. White dangling icicles on the porch edges. Handrails wrapped in lively colors, a visual feast for the eyes and a happy spot for the heart to come home to.

A season of delights awaits all of us. We just need to be open and grateful. A full heart is a happy heart.

Not a very productive day today although the weather outside was sunny and fifty degrees. I was using this afternoon as a catch up day for studio work. A few projects, a much needed cleanup and tidying and a few moments to collect my thoughts. I did busy work too. Counted pieces for the shop into little baggies and labeled them. Read the good parts of the Sunday paper. Strung some Christmas necklaces for my display window. Did a bit of Facebook, Pinterest and drew. I am finishing up two more sketches in my living room drawing journal. I did paint crows. Concrete locally cast crows that need to be a deep, solid and rich black. Tomorrow onto the varnishing.

So now I am older. The days have become precious in their passing and I am reflective. I think of my family and friends, now long gone from my life and miss them. I miss what was, the child I was, the adults they were, the family we were. I have gathered memories and hold them close within to the deepest parts of my soul. They can not be shared with people now. They are long dark and gone and I remain aching for the company I never thought I would miss. Birthdays are a time for pause. A time for waking in the small hours of the morning, and letting the heart wind like ribbons through the doors and windows of the soul, reaching for what was and what could be again - all new.

So Jacob is growing out of the house and at 18 years old, he is so ready to leave the nest. I am not ready for him to leave at all. I still picture him at 9, helping us at bead shows, talking about his cat and the cat novels he was reading, playing amongst a huge pile of legos and still wanting bed time stories. The whole world is right when they say that time flies and before you know it, decades have gone by.

This is one of the choices he had in choosing his senior picture for the yearbook of which he is editor. I love this picture. This boy-man looking out into the world, determined, strong, confident. I love the muscles in his arm and the strength in his jaw. My God, but he is a handsome boy!

This is the other photo choice. He likes this one. The smile, he says. This picture reminds him that he is happy, popular and self assured. He feels it is him; that the picture says it is him in the thick of his life. I like it too but I see a senior yearbook picture, old stuck in the mud mom me, as more of a head shot.

WHERE DOES TIME GO AS IT PASSES BY? IS THERE A COLLECTION OF HOURS IN A CLOSET, waiting to be discovered and used? Is time different for the young? Do they see it as a forever moment?

I want to shelter my son and guide him. I want him to have wings and leave the home nest with gratitude and wisdom. With lessons learned enough to share with others. I want so much for him. I want him to be brave and smart and strong and know that we, his parents, love him and only want the best for him. I want him to return over and over again into our arms and home. I want for him a future of endless possibilities. Of health. Of clear blue skies. Of non GMO foods. Everything. I want everything for him.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Thinking about politics and elections, children growing up and leaving home, aging and achy bones; just to mention a few things. I seem to spend many hours of the day in thought. Big thoughts, little thoughts, reminders, plans and inspiration seem to come at me from every corner. I feel like a receptor and transmitter all at once. Maybe because it is near Halloween or maybe just because it is fall and I am spending more time indoors, I am thinking about my family and how much I remember of my youth and how much I miss some of them and how if I ever return home nothing and no one will be the same. Thoughts as numerous as the raindrops outside my studio door. Capturing these moments is a bit like containing a sigh or a whisper, they are here for one brief moment and then gone; making room for the next thought and on it goes until the day is done.

This is what I have been doing in the evening then.....

Fall is here at long last. We have been lashed by winds and soaked with rains. Every little thing from the plants on the ground, to the tall majestic cedars, to the air we breathe feels refreshed and new. I find myself in the evenings now drawing or knitting while watching favored television shows. I plan on doing this for the next many months on end. This is really just a check in and I will return with more paintings soon.

I
Today is my youngest son's 18th birthday and I have a few words to offer him. I do not want to bore or compound him with life's lessons, lessons I have learned, lost and won again but lessons that he can maybe, just remember in his young adult brain.
1. Be good - It is as simple as that. Just be good. You know the laws. Follow and obey them. Stay out of trouble because I can not think of a more boring and useless way to spend your life than behind bars.Stand up to injustice. Support causes you believe in. Love your fellow man and woman. Do good. Be helpful. Support charity. Look for the reason behind someone's behavior. Love your family and help them out whenever called upon. Feel good about yourself and know that you are a divine creature created by a power much bigger than yourself and put here in this time and place to do good, be good, love good, live good.( p.s. Love your mother earth too, she is the only one we all have. )

 wanted to post this on my blog but in the month since I last posted, everything has changed ( thank you Google ) and I can not even open my blog let alone post. So here is what I am thinking early on this Sunday morning, September 14th with the neighbor's rooster beginning his day long crowing now:

2. Be kind - Kind to your friends. Kind to your family, small children, big children, pets, animals, your fellow citizens. Small acts of kindness, a kind word, a greeting a helping hand - go a long way. Being kind will make you feel good and that goodness is something you should crave.

3, Be truthful - You are only as good as your word. caught in a tangle of deceit and lies and your integrity and your very soul is gone. You have one life, one word, one truth. Know it. Speak it. Live it.

4. Be free - All of the above conspires to give you a good life. One free to be who you are, one free to become who you want to be. Life is about choices, Take this path or that path and know that you will be free if you just follow your heart.

And finally, a special word here - don't be in a hurry to grow up. Remember the wonder of your childhood when everything was new and astounding and keep that wonder so very close to your heart. Never lose it. Delight in a good sunrise, a beautiful flower, a fine meal, a friendship. Life is a wondrous and brief thing, don't miss a moment of it. I love you. Now, go make the world a better place simply because you are living, loving, sharing and caring.

Like

Ah yes, I think, she is lovely and thin. Would I be the same way? Lovely that is if I were thin? Once, a lifetime ago I was and seeing this aging process is both a revelation and a sadness. I am my mother's hands, my mother's chin, my mother's body. When did this happen? Would I be better if I were not gray? Should I add hair color? The rebel in me says no, to enjoy what is, what I have become and waste not one moment more thinking of what could be, what was. I am this now. I am older. Life and I have moved at the speed of light. We are still moving, rounding Saturn and heading into deep space darkness looking for the proverbial sunlight of youth.

This is the latest doodle in what I refer to as my " television sketchbook. " I like to watch television in the evening as a way to unwind from a day of people, activity and noise. Television is like  white noise to me. I hear nothing. It vacates my mind. But I can not just sit in front of the noise machine. I have to keep my hands busy. All winter long, on cold, drafty evenings, I knit and work with wool yarn and felt. Summer, especially now on these hot, hot days I draw. I can not bear to think of wool laying on my lap and sliding through my hands. I make myself work with a limited palette of colors and materials because as much as I would love to have all the studio materials in the house - it is not possible. Not trying to create artwork with a capital A, I can roam freely in my mind and on the paper. I make happy places, I want to go to. I envision places that are peaceful, colorful, happy and inviting.

If I were in charge of the world, there would be no wars or famine, over population or extinction, climate change or horrid storms, no sickness that can not be cured, no love not returned. We would live amongst each other in colorful worlds of peace and harmony. We would live in my drawings, all of us together.

So in the evenings when it is too hot to knit with wool yarns, I draw in a little sketchbook kept on the end table next to my chair in the living room. 

Sometimes a title or theme will come to me but mostly it is mindlessly drawing, an absent brain doodle. It is relaxing and centering for me. A qay to remind myself that I am a painter who happens to craft her days away. G'night.

Normal in Time

It is the night time, as I  first lay down in bed that it comes to me. It with a large capital I. I have a heart problem. I am learning how to deal with it, examine it, let go of the fear. I can not live being afraid. I must trust that either I can handle this or that all will be eventually well. This is not what I expected. I did not plan for this but in all it's great wisdom, the universe has assigned me this challenge to what? Awaken me. Remind me of the short sweetness of life. To teach me patience and acceptance. This journey has begun and the possibility exists that it will be at the very least interesting. I can now say it out loud, I have a heart problem and I am dealing with it. I am loving myself. Being kind to myself. Passing along to myself the words of comfort and love I would extend to anyone else in the same situation. Fear shall not rule me.

Well, after a few frustrating moments trying to yet again remember another password, I have finally signed on to post on my poor unattended blog.

Summer, my least favorite time of the year is in full swing and we have literally suffered through some very hot, un air conditioned days. Not that summer doesn't have a basket full of great things. Some small, some big. I love the wild flowers blooming along the roadside and the daisies enchant me. Seeing the deer munch their way through my back yard makes me gasp in reverence. I think back to the summer of my youth and wish that those days of endless swimming and walking in the Neshaminy creek, hanging out on grandpop's big front porch and stringing horse chestnuts into necklaces, would revisit me. I remember those things all the adults said back then about not being in a rush to grow older, to slow down and enjoy being a kid, ringing ever so true now as I am rushing closer to the big 60. Me. I am the senior that my parents used to be. How did that happen? Who said that one day they would be gone, all the adults of my youth and I would be in their place? Ah, time. If we are lucky, she does not spare us and we get to live and love and learn and play for many summers.

The crazy patterned condensation on my plastic water glass today made me think of a world under the ocean. All cool and liquid green. I dreamed of floating through the water with my mermaid fish tail and finding treasure I would place about in my little octopus garden.

Listening to the music of the Beatles on my IPod in the shop has made me nostalgic for my last year of junior college when the world was all easy going and I floated on a mellow cloud of being no longer a kid yet not really an adult. Still adulthood beckoned to me with an overwhelming calling and I moved forward never really knowing what I was doing but accepting things as they came along. I think I am living that way again. I have just been accepting things as they come to me. The heat of a summer day. The full moon gracing an evening sky. My husband wanting dinner. My teenager getting ready to be 18, no longer my baby. Health issues. Acceptance is key and once again finding the soft, mellow cloud that lets me drift a bit in life taking each day, each single moment - as it comes along.

I am still here and intently and intensely working on things for my shop, knitting samples, making lots of jewelry and getting back into writing short missives in my journal. I try to go by the beach once a week for spiritual deep breaths. I will post more here shortly.

This day began in beauty. A warm bright sun, birds singing, the air smelling as sweet and fresh as I have ever noticed. Tulips bloomed in my front flower bed along with the long dormant heather nestled beside the alder tree. We strolled the beach on Marrowstone Island after a wonderful family breakfast, all three of us at the dining room table, something very difficult to do with our busy schedules.

A driftwood collection, soldiers at attention.

The beach.

One person's route from bluff top to beach.

Otter having lunch and play.

Ravens varnished, drying in the sun.

The late afternoon was spent in the studio making a few things for the shop and alternatively speaking with the neighbor about lawns and trees and dogs and other neighborhood things. After 17 years of living in this place, we only know most of the neighbors enough to wave a quick hello but Larry is our neighborhood sage, a wealth of local knowledge and story. A trip into the shop tonight to tidy things and then on the drive home stopping to watch the neighborhood deer walk off into the tall grass where they sleep at night. A full moon beckons to me, making me awake to all the sounds the night brings. It is difficult to call the day an end, wanting to stay up and do and make and knit but my body says sleep. An end it must be called and off to perhaps dream a plan for tomorrow's studio day.

Earrings made today.

So with most things, paint and beads must be put away. Sunshine is due tomorrow and I have plans, pretty firm plans to sit somewhere in the sun and knit.

Once the sheets of rain and fierce winds stopped blowing, the day turned itself around and became a sunny one, full of balmy spring like air. Propping open the front door brought a smile to my face and a hum in my heart. Although I really consider myself a fall -winter kind of person, I am looking forward to the longer days of spring and summer when the light extends further into the evening and I can be outside. Taking a walk, drawing on the porch, knitting in a lawn chair as evening descends from the sky. I already feel myself relaxing as warm airs becomes my comforter and I am so looking towards those days and evenings.

I am sitting here tonight, tired after a long day at the shop, particularly tired after the stressful day, first day back at the shop yesterday and thinking of my eyebrows. That they are nearly non existent. So many things going on in the world and all I can think of are my eyebrows. I used to have nice thick brown ones. In my high school graduation picture, they adorned my face like friendly caterpillars and by the time I was done with college, they were smaller, lighter in color, I thought maybe sun bleached. Honestly, I have not plucked an errant hair from them since high school. So tonight I sit and realize that in certain light, in spite of a soft brown eyebrow pencil, I really have no eyebrows. I miss them. My face misses them. Oh well, this aging thing does take us to places we never thought we might go.....

Things have really jumped ahead here and I find myself getting ready for the big Tucson shows. This will be my 20th year as a vendor and my 21st, attending the shows. This is also a decision year as I make the great leap and decide whether I will continue to do the shows, take a break or sell my charm business. I am restless and older and after my brother Bob's death recently, I am looking at things differently. Maybe it is just because it is January, that I am in this period of reflection. I have put all these thoughts out to the universe and am listening, very carefully, for an answer. There is no hurry. I am just waiting...
In the meantime, here are a few bracelets I have made for the show. I am calling them " treasured charm bracelets " because they are a bit of everything. Everything I love. Everything I send out to the universe with my energy and faith.