Falling into Fall Love

Fall is moving in for its' months long visit and I am loving the warn, sometimes clear days that slide into a cool night. In early evening, fog rises up from the fields near the county airport and I feel as if I have been transported to another time and place. The darker early evenings now allow me to plug in my blue and white Christmas lights outside that wrap my front porch. The steady glow and color of the lights makes me feel warm, happy, content.

This past weekend was one of surprise visits from friends and family. Mike and Julie were up from the Tacoma area in their RV and stayed at Point Hudson where the water provides days of rest, relaxation and entertainment. Julie made apple cake with cream cheese frosting for us that just filled our souls and bellies with the flavors of fall.

We went to a wedding reception tea party at the beautifully remodeled boy scout log cabin house. The venue was filled with music, food, joy, flowers and white tea candles. Lita had driven over from east of the mountains and we needled her into spending the night at our house so we could visit and chat and watch ghost stories on television. Jacob and his girlfriend stopped in to greet Lita and we all spoke of our weekend adventures into the mid Sunday evening.

Finally, today, after much nagging and barking, Clementine was able to convince me to head to the studio where she happily slept the day away while I made jewelry. Finishing up the evening was a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup and as a friend posted on Facebook about her grandmother wearing aprons; I realized I too had on an apron. That apron brought me around to my own grandmom and the aprons she wore as she cooked and baked and for the briefest of time; I was transported back to her  kitchen and the smells of her applesauce spice raisin cake. The circle was completed today and I go to bed tonight in the embrace of friendship, family and love.

Fall is here and I am reveling in the warm, sunny and shorter days. This area is desperate for more rain and lots of trees will continue dying, as the summer was just too hot and dry, but the colors on the leaves are stunning! Just stunning. Fall makes me feel alive, happy and makes this workaholic studio babe want to be outside. There are simply not enough hours in the day to do all that I want to do! I plan on a writing a longer blog post later but for now I am leaving you with some fall color!

My grandfather was right all those years ago when, after hearing me wish for the umpteenth time that I was 18, he said that after I turned 18, life would fly by. Well, it certainly has and he was ever so right! I could never tell you how much I miss him because there are just no words.

Now I find myself married with no children living in this house. Suddenly it seems big, empty although it really is not. Phil is here. Clementine is here. I am here. We are cat-less for the first time in my life and that feels very odd. Empty. No purring, furry kitty but it is just as well now. Phil is so allergic to them.

I worked a lot in the shop this summer, more than I thought I would. I love it there but hated the heat and all the dryness of this now past summer. I bought air conditioning for the house not being able to stand the heat. I could not handle colored pencils or yarn with all the heat trapped in these walls.

I made tons of jewelry this summer and was totally blessed and a bit dizzy with delight when I realized most of it sold. I did not get to my bench to do much metal smithing but oh, did I design and make earrings, string necklaces, bang out bracelets. I dipped into my years and years of stash and collecting and made fresh, wonderful things with some very old and delightful beads. What fun!

I read into the wee hours of the morning under the ceiling fan in the bedroom turned on high spin. Dizzying high spin. I read of Chicago in the late 1800's, Missoula's current headlines, bear attacks, mountain climbing, People

 magazine and Vanity Fair. I fell in love again with the writing in Vanity Fair and took mental vacations with People.

I lived on cherries for about two intense weeks mid summer. I love cherries! The color, the shape the feel of the little colored balls of firmness and sweetness in my hands could send me over the rainbow!

Dreaming, I didn't forget. Planning, I didn't forget. Wishing away the days longing for fall, I didn't forget and now, my absolute passion for all that is fall begins on Wednesday as the season officially changes. I'll have to write updates on fall for my blog. I'll make lists of all I like to do during the cooler, wet days of fall.

For the rest of this half moon night, now very early morning on the 22nd, I'll go to bed and read. Transport myself here and then into my dreams.

I am tired of summer. Feel free to remind me of this if I am caught complaining about the winter. We need rain. Even the rain forest is on fire and deep in my soul, I am on fire too and not a fire that I want. heat and I do not like each other. Weird things happen and I blame it all on summer. It is just too hot.

Phil dropped a piece of the Haitian art on his lower leg today and came into the studio bleeding. His sock was bloody and blood rain down his leg. He, like Jake and the boys in the neighborhood used to do, came to me for healing of his injuries. The only thing I had in the studio for his icky boo boo was hand sanitizer. I told him it was going to sting a bit but I was unprepared for his big yelp when I applied it. I told him between his cries of pain that if it burns, it is killing germs!

I've been taking this day off and working in the studio filling in the empty jewelry displays. I have been so lucky and made so happy by the amount of jewelry that has sold this summer. People are being properly accessorized every where if they have stepped into my shop!

Anyhow, I meant to go to bed at least an hour ago but I had a late night energy surge and worked out in the cooler studio and now my brain does not want to wind down. If it were not for Clementine and her sad brown eyes telling me it is time to go into bed, I might never get there!

I do love the colors of orange and yellow in things and find those colors often in my own artwork. These colors remind me of the good things about summer, like blooming flowers and corn on the cob. I'll leave you with the flower pictures from Chimicum's farm market and finally, finally end this day!

Even as I sit in my newly air conditioned home; I am longing for fall. For cooler days, bright, crisp, cloud filled skies and rain! I have so missed the rain. We are lingering in a heavy brown, dry drought. It is sad to see all the brown and I hope what I am seeing are dormant plants, grasses and trees; not things that will never spring back to life once we get rain. If, we get rain. I am feeling like the rain is a far away, nearly lost friend that I can't quite reach out to.

All these years of living here and this is the first time my home has ever been air conditioned. Never needed it here as we had our reliable breezes off the strait waters every day and the skies were filled with rain, cooling rain. Now, with this the hottest summer on record, I am feeling decadent and indulged with air conditioning. Two pregnant summers here and I never had the need for this a/c. Climate change is definitely rearing its ugly head. I am mad about climate change and I can make adjustments in my life to help diminish these changes but my impact is so minimal on the big picture. Must not let myself get into this spiral of anxiety and change coming to the world through climate change. Just breathe.

Anyhow, I am inside making treasure tubes for the lobby shop. After 23 plus years of having the shop, I have bits of this and that left around so I fill tubes for embellishing projects. I could just dump things into the big tubes but no, I have to make them just so! Color families, complimentary textures, some of the beads, a few buttons, bits of ribbon and yarn, leftover fabric; give me such pleasure. Pleasure I am now sharing and selling to my customers. Incidentally, I have a name for the lobby shop now after 13, 14 ? years..... Embellishments, The Lobby Shop. A name just to the point.

I am cool, content, feeling creative so it must be time for a knitting break. Happy Blue Moon on this sizzling

Today in the dining room.

night.

A close up. $ 4.95 a tube! 

So it is summer. Days of intense, surrounding heat have finally given way to some cooler temperatures and a bit of rain. I miss the rain and I can not stop staring at the clouds! Clouds vanish from the sky most summer days and I swear if I lived in New Mexico; I would never stop looking at the sky. Deja vu!

I work a lot in the shop these days and when I am not being all people centered there; I can be found in the studio making the jewelry to fill in the spaces that jewelry has sold from in the shop. I love all the excitement and stories in the air from the people visiting town. It's like a little party every day in a place I like to be - the bead shop!

Cherries are another good thing about summer! I can eat them for every snack and at every meal. I could turn into a cherry for how many I have eaten and lusted after. Tonight's dinner was loaded with fresh vegetables from the Sunday Chimicum farmer's market and the green beans were an absolute delight!

I am leaving you all now for a nice long sleep this night . In closing, here are a few pictures of what is transpiring here.

I am sure that many of my customers think that I have all my beads neatly organized in little divided boxes, all stacked comfortably on a shelf or shelves in my studio. Well, here is the big scoop - I do not keep them organized in the traditional beady ways. They are grouped like my brain thinks and designs in a loud song of color and pattern, texture, light and dark, large and small. All shapes and sizes, all colors and patterns. I design like my brain thinks. All at once, creating to the music in my head and the notes that run through my hands.