I must sleep as a toddler sleeps these days. I am tired. I sleep. Deep and hard almost always filled with dreams of rich color and activity. Then just as suddenly as I dropped off this day to sleep, I am awake. Try as I might, sleep will not come again and my mind begins the dance of activity. As if on its' own winged flight, first here and then there, my mind lands amongst the leaves of a thousand different trees. It plays here, lingers there. Makes lists and daydreams. Begins a journey deep into the day when all things look possible in the earliest of morning light. It is 4am. Now 5. I am awake and hear the sounds a new day brings. Birds. A bee buzzes the open window. A dog woofs at the deer strolling through the yard. Out the window a young rabbit makes his fist hop from the blackberry vines ringing the side yard. Clouds hang heavy, full and brilliantly white against the bluest of skies. Everything pulses with energy as the sun bursts forth over the waters beyond Kala Point. A new day has begun and what an adventure it will be.

Three AM Awake in Milwaukee.

The morning feels safer, missing the darkening mysteries of the night. The sun softly rounds the concrete crystal corners of the city's tallest buildings; lighting every window. Every surface a caress of awakening. No hidden scariness here, no sorrow, no loss. Only light. Blue reflected from the skies, a clean start, a beginning that shouts I am new. Here I am. Awake with me.

This is a picture of Phil in the Milwaukee, WI airport this morning waiting for our flight. I took the picture quickly before he knew what I was doing and before he could move. He stood like this for a long time. Quietly. Watching out the big windows. I knew he wanted to be home. Knew he was glad to be leaving but the longing and stillness and looking forward just tugged at my heart.

The longing was there for both of us. His was just so visceral, so sweet, so near.

I have heard rumors of there being northern lights in the sky tonight. Absent light pollution, just maybe, I will see that incredible blue green band of shimmering curtains in the sky. I would so love to see them!

Things have shipped off the Bead & Button show in Milwaukee and soon, I will ship off, too. This is likely my last year at B&B. Sales are slower, there are changes in how the show is structured and I am getting older and just want to stay home. I love seeing everyone but the stress of putting it all together is getting to me. I think truthfully, my studio calls to me and I want to spend more time in there painting and making jewelry. My shop, a person all on its own, an at once demanding and loving child, also would like me to be home more often, too.

It is a thrill though to read about the show on line. To see all the people excited that they are attending the show, taking classes, meeting new friends, shopping, and listening to all the beads have to say to them. Inspiration is at every corner.

I am making this journey one more time. Once more to play at what I have always thought of as bead mecca then .... we will just have to see what the future will hold.

Yesterday was my shop's 21st birthday. For twenty one years, I have been a shop keeper. A keeper of my dreams. A keeper of my creative side. I have been blessed. I love what I do. All my life I wanted to own a store. I would play in my parent's garage with a small metal cash register and set things up to sell. I would make things. Lots of things. Often telling my mom that I wanted to make something but didn't know what. She kept me supplied with painting kits, craft supplies, yarn, sketchbooks and beads. I made things from empty laundry soap bottles. I taught myself to knit and crochet. I learned wood working with our neighbor, Al. I made a gorgeous wooden church model complete with electric lights for my grandfather one Christmas. My grandmother was the recipient of many of the things I made and never once did she have a discouraging word for me. My Aunt Ann treasured my first piece of crewel embroidery and we grieved together when it was lost in the floods of hurricane Agnes. My grandmother would sit with me and cut out pieces of fabric so I could make Barbie doll clothes and patchwork quilts. My neighbor, Rachel let me use her treadle sewing machine to stitch together quilts. Quilts that I have to this day. Every Easter became a time to decorate the house with all the eggs and trees I'd made. And Christmas? Christmas was making stuff on steroids! I thrived on it.

In high school, I was truly set free and learned to do silversmithing, pottery, painting, printmaking and more. I had told everyone since I was in the third grade and obsessed with drawing windmills, that I wanted to be an artist. I had no idea of how to become " one ". I only knew that I had to make things. I also knew that I wanted to sell those things and make a job.

College saw me frantically balancing work and boyfriends and creating the portfolio of work that would take me to the next level of schooling. I learned so many new things. I sold paintings to my dad's friends even if they were pet portraits painted on black velvet. I sold drawings to fund a weekend of fun with friends. I kept at it. Painting, drawing, crafting and soon added some teaching to my days. I was becoming what I wanted and  then ..... motherhood happened.

A time to slow things down and raise a child. Fitting in all my work became a challenge. My studio space became all of a table top. I learned and studied decorative and ethnic folk art. I took sign painting jobs. I sold work at craft shows. I knitted and crocheted and quilted and dabbled and entered competitions and sent paintings around the world.

At 36, I wanted a place to have all my work around me. A place of my own to sell the things I made. I found a space to rent with an amazing shop keeper who saw something in me that allowed me into his shop to create a working studio. I worked long days and nights. I stretched my skills to levels I did not know I possessed. I made adjustments in my life that allowed this part of my soul to grow.

I am still doing it. Now in a bigger space. I love it even more. I feel blessed on this journey. I am still the girl who just wanted to make stuff and sell stuff. I do it all the time now and I could not be happier.

So as the 22nd year begins in my shop and studios, I will find new things to make, new artistic avenues to explore, new experiences to put into my work. Watch me. Join me. Creativity is as necessary as breathing.

My head is a swirl of thoughts this morning as I still lay here in bed with my laptop, posting away, knowing I am late to begin the day.

Today would be my mom's 84th birthday if she were still with me. I think of her so much of the time and wonder if she still thinks of me wherever she spends her time now. I want to believe she is  happy, smiling, being with those that have gone before her and that she must have loved immensely. I hunger to hear her voice, and find myself saying my name as she would say to me when calling me.

" LoisAnn " All one word. In anger and impatience, in love and comfort. Always I hear her. I miss her.

My mom in her twenties.

My mother, my baba and me in the late 1970's. I miss all three of us.

I am one of those people who does not like to get up early in the morning and leap about getting the day begun. I need my slow- to- awake- mornings, lingering in bed over breakfast and a television show. I like to slowly come alive and begin thinking about what the day holds. I'll get up early and enjoy a day that has a quick, early start but it is definitely not my choice. Sundays are even lazier for me because the local paper is thrown into the mix and of course, it has to be read before I get up. Time is so sweet that I hate to rush a new day into reality. I always have a gazillion things to do but amazingly enough, all those things wait for me to get to them. Nothing starts on its own. Everything in my little Lois world waits for me. I keep wishing I had little elfin fairies around to do things for me but I don't. My life waits for me in the morning like a cat curled at my feet; she will  sleep until the creative adrenaline begins its coursing journey through my very soul.

In a turquoise mood yesterday. These will join all the new beads in the Turquoise case
in the lobby right below the lapis and around the corner from the amber.