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.

It is almost Christmas. Rain is coming down in a steady pour and the back porch rainspout is making its usual racket of drop, drop, DRIP, drop. The tree is up and lit, the evergreen scent fills the living room air. Christmas icicle lights strung across the front porch roof shine into the room and I can see the bright colored lights that sweep the garage roof from where I sit in this leather chair. It is nearly time to call it a day. The house sits quietly in anticipation of Christmas morning and the afternoon dinner that follows. We are older now. Our children scattered to the different corners of the country. One child remains at home, much to his chagrin he is not yet the adult he has wanted to be since he was born. We are but a stop in his busy day, a place to eat and sleep.

Christmas makes me sad and wistful, happy and content all at once. I am blessed to have this life I lead, the family I have and the work I love. My days are full with creativity, my needs are met, I am surrounded by people I enjoy. Still the sadness creeps in. I miss my family, the family that was while I grew up. My Aunt Lou, my grandparents, parents and siblings. I remember the excitement of waiting for presents and company to arrive. The Christmas tree, always brightly lit and fully decorated in the corner of the living room; created a hiding spot where one child in a big family could hide and enjoy the quiet of being lost in holiday ornaments and lights. All those people that I so long ago loved - gone. Memories linger and if I sit long enough and quietly enough, closing my eyes tightly; I can see them again. Summoning the feelings of those long ago childhood memories, places and people.

Happy Christmas to all and sweet blessings, too.