hello there!

Wanted to post a quick hello to those of you visiting as a result of the giveaways over on the fabulous Diane's blog. Thank you so much for hopping over to visit here! And if you aren't here as a result of the giveaways, then by all means go check them out! Free stuff for days and days--you don't want to miss that! And visit my Etsy shop to find a special offer for those of you who visit Diane's blog! Wishing all of you a blessed Thanksgiving and holiday season.
Namaste!

asking, believing, accepting

Sometimes it seems so simple, getting what we need. Sometimes only in retrospect do we realize that the terrible thing that happened or the major setback we experienced really wasn't that at all...it was simply a detour in our journey that made us stronger, wiser, more grateful for our blessings...that helped us arrive at the amazing place we are. That's what these last few months, this entire year really, have taught me. I've learned to ask for what I need and want, to believe I will get it, and to see it and savor it when it's realized.

There are many examples from my life that I could recite, but the request most recently granted to me by the Universe is my wish to be invited to a retreat, a gathering, a what-ever-you-want-to-call-it, much like this one. I read about it last year, and felt so jealous that I didn't have a community like that, that I couldn't just whisk myself away for days and be surrounded with loving supportive friends who "get" me. Poor poor me. Then again this year I read about their 2009 gathering, but the feelings I had were different this time. I could feel the joy they shared, the comaraderie, the healing they experienced , and was glad for them. And I wanted that for me too! So I said aloud to the Universe "I want to be invited to a love bombers retreat!! I want to be invited to a love bombers retreat!! I want to be invited to a love bombers retreat!!" I shouted it 3 times, because there's just something about the number 3. Thank goodness I was home alone! Then I didn't worry about it, I didn't obsess over it, I just turned it over to the Universe.



About 4 weeks later, I was celebrating my birthday with a couple of friends, when one of them asked if we would be interested in a girls getaway. Of couse we were, and this coming Friday a small group of us will be leaving for a cabin on the lake! It didn't even dawn on me that my request had been granted until a couple of days later, and realizing it brought tears to my eyes, filled me with joy, and made me feel so nurtured and loved by the Univese.

Many good things have happened in my life since my last post. To name a few: I have a new boss that I LOVE (hi Joe!), I started weekly yoga, two friends that had moved away are now back in town, my pendants are being sold in a third shop, I attended my third art retreat and have registered for the fourth and fifth, my circle of friends has grown, and I have been invited to do a show here in November, where I will be soldering in public for the first time ever! Life is very full and I am trying to savor it all while keeping stress in check, which, as you very well know, isn't always easy.




Thank you for checking in here, and for not forgetting about me. I wish I could say I will post more often but I can't make that commitment. Maybe I can learn how to post from my phone? I would love to hear about the good things that have happened to you recently, so leave a comment or drop me an email!

Namaste!

ps-the images are of my halloween tree I put together yesterday

wandering

i've been quiet, I know...it's hard to put into words but for a while now I've felt like I was putting too much thought, time, and focus outward and not enough inward, so i've become a bit of a recluse for the past few weeks, online especially. I've been making a few pendants, doing some traveling, preparing for art & soul, reading some good books, and feeling more than a little excited about a class I'm taking from this amazing ________ ...I can't think of a word good enough to describe her. Her class starts 4/10, and i am planning to take pics of my experiments and post here....assuming I am far enough out of my shell to do so. Happy Spring!

drum roll please.....

This random number generator thingy is quick! What a cool invention. Here's what it said:

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

182
231
Timestamp: 2009-02-12 23:18:42 UTC

#182 is Francine Cronos and #231 is Jona Panesa. I will be sending these ladies an email ASAP, and I can't wait to see which pendant they pick!

Again, thank you to all who visited and entered my drawing. Please come back to see me, don't be a stranger! Oh, and I was actually a winner in a giveaway too! I will be posting about it later when I get a spare 10 minutes....Maxwell the cat had surgery yesterday and then today there was a scare that his stitches came out. More on that later too, but he is fine, just having to deal with wearing a hard plastic cone around his precious neck, and that is requiring adjustments from the whole household let me tell ya! I am going to try to get a pic of him...when I picked him up at the vet's yesterday she warned me that he looked like a character out of a Tim Burton movie, and she was right...bless his heart!

Have a great Friday!

tomorrow is the day!

Yes, hard to believe but tomorrow is the big day for the OWOH drawings around the blogosphere. I wanted to post a last minute pic of the new girls that have been added to the series so those of you who have entered my drawing will have even more pendants to choose from. And if you haven't entered yet, go here before 10 PM Eastern tonight and leave a comment. I'll be posting the winners tomorrow, and it may be the evening before I get the winners chosen and a chance to post/contact them, but it will be before 8 PM Eastern. What fun this has been!

about to chill

It's been a rough week. I'm trying to dig deep and find the source of the emotional state I'm in, because nothing has actually happened to cause this funk, for lack of a better word. I have a few theories that I am exploring, one of which is I'm just TIRED. Those of you who work a full time job while trying to create the job you really want in the hours that are left over know what I'm talking about. It's hard. It's frustrating. About every two weeks I have a good cry and ask myself if it's worth it. And so far every cell of my body has cried out "YES IT IS! DON'T STOP NOW!" I've worked my ass off this week, so it's ok if I'm a little grumpy and look like hell...I'm giving myself a break. And speaking of breaks...bright and early Saturday morning me and hubby are flying off into the wild blue yonder for a few days. The change of scenery combined with spending time with my favorite person is sure to get me back on track, and probably couldn't be coming at at better time.

The pic below was taken at Metairie Cemetary in New Orleans about a year ago. It seemed to sum up pretty well how I've been feeling lately. And the pic above is a tree in a beautiful old cemetary right here in Greensboro, Greenhill. I love love love cemetaries.



And one other thing before I go to bed...yes, I am posting this at 9:30 and yes, I am headed to bed immediately after I hit "publish"...I guess I didn't realize how time consuming it would be to reply to everyone who enters my OWOH giveaway. I have replied to some, or visited your blogs and entered your giveaways, and would love nothing more than to reply to each and every one of you, but right now it just isn't possible. I am going to try to keep responding little by little, but if you have left me a comment and you don't hear from me, come back and visit in a few weeks when things have gotten back to normal and say hello again, wont you? I cherish your words and your kindness, and connecting with you does my soul good. Namaste.

yes yes YES

Thank you Universe for all the yes's, and even for the no’s, for they too teach me so very much.

In contemplating all the good things in my life I’m reminded of one of my all-time favorite poems and wanted to share it with you:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

-Kaylin Haught

what a Jem

Here it is Tuesday night, almost over the hump of the work week. In addition to a cup of mid-afternoon tea (Tazo Awake), the thing that gets me through my day at the office is music, and lately it has mostly been Jem...I attached this video just in case you aren't familiar with her...you can thank me later! Her latest album is "Down to Earth" and it is even better than "Finally Woken" imho.

So what gets you through your work day/week?

overflowing love

I am blown away not only from the number of comments on the last post, but also from the kindness you guys have shown me. THANK YOU so much! I am going to try to either visit your blogs or reply to your comments, but it will take me a while. So if you don't receive a reply soon, don't think I have neglected you because that is not the case. I appreciate each of you and each word you write so very very much!
This heart is for you:

One World, One Heart

I know I’m getting a late start, but I have decided to participate in the One World One Heart event. Please click here to get all the details and to see a list of all the bloggers who are participating. There is some serious loot out there to be had, but the reason I want to participate is to make new friends and to feel more a part of this amazing artistic community of bloggers. My first instinct when I initially read of the event was “YES! What a great idea! I am SO going to do this!” But then I heard that little voice…you know the one…it said “But who would want to win one of your pendants? And besides, you don’t have enough readers to host a giveaway.” So I listened, and kept visiting blogs and leaving comments to be entered in giveaways. Then sweet angels, like JoAnna and Ellen Lyn, left me comments, and those connections felt so good that I knew I had to do this, I had to try! I told that voice to go take a hike!

So what am I giving away? Well a pendant, of course, but I am going to let the winner choose which one. It can be anything in my Etsy shop at the time the winner is announced (or one you’ve seen here on the blog if it’s still available). But there’s a twist…if there are more than 15 people who enter the giveaway, I will choose two winners! Too fun!!

My giveaway is open to active bloggers who leave a comment on THIS post. Please leave only one comment, and make sure I have your contact information. The deadline to leave a comment is 10 PM Eastern on 2/11, and the winner will be announced here on Thursday, 2/12. Good luck, and thank you for visiting! It means more than you know...

2-14

Here are some adornments celebrating Valentine's Day.



Some will be in the shop soon.


I wasn't going to make anything for V day but I had a request, and once I got started it was fun so I kept on going.

Any excuse to use the red paint! Hope you're having a great week!

meet the girls

These are from my new pendant series, “The Girls”, celebrating being a woman. The series acknowledges the deep emotions we females are privileged to feel, along with our strength, courage, power and wisdom. My wish is that every woman will truly believe in her value, be filled with genuine self-love, and be empowered to live her dreams. I hope these pendants serve as a reminder of all we are and all we can be.

Click on these pics for a larger view (I apologize for the glare!):




These will be available in my Etsy shop by mid-week but as always, you can email me to order before they are available there -- $20 each, free shipping, customization available. Additional girls in the series will debut in about two weeks.

Have a great week!

shootin' the moon

This picture was taken in Asheville NC in December….isn’t it gorgeous? I just couldn’t stop gazing at it that night, and must have taken about 15 shots. We toured Biltmore house the next day and that evening at dinner I commented that the moon the night before beat anything I had seen at Biltmore.

I want to share something I have been inspired to do that I am really excited about! I was reading this blog the other day, and Cynthia mentioned that one of her goals for the year is to write to a friend or family member every week. Write--not email, or text, or any other electronic communication--on actual paper and send it via US mail. Then that same evening I received from a very dear friend—in the mail!—a couple of torn pages from a magazine, an article she had read that reminded her of me. She has scribbled that right on the outside of the envy, along with another sentence, but there were no other contents besides the torn-out article. That small act tickled me so much…I thought of it all through the evening, and it made me think of Cynthia’s blog entry. Receiving this simple piece of mail made me feel so very special and loved, and I wanted to make others feel that way. So I decided to send something to one friend every week this year. It may be a notecard, or a postcard, or something else, such as what Deb sent me, but I will send something each and every week! I am making a list of all those who I would like to surprise throughout the year, and am going to pre-print my labels so that I just have to scribble and send ( I am a Virgo, so list-making must be a part of everything ya know!). This weekend I am making some postcards to have on hand, and will officially start the mailings next week. I detest rules, so the only rule I have is I must mail one thing to one friend per week. I can mail more than one if I want to, and I can mail something to the same friend two weeks in a row if I am moved to do so. TOO FUN! What if lots of people started doing this and tons of sweet thoughts and wishes and hellos were delivered every week? Yea, why don't you do it too??!! Believe me, I do not have a lot of time to spare, but I've thought this through, and a little organization on the front end will keep it easy and fun, so if I have time, so do you. But if you decide it isn't your thing,(and are reading this and do not know me personally) but would like a little USPS surprise at some point during the year, tell me and I will add you to my list. My email link is right up top on the left.

I'll leave you with one more shot of that mesmerizing moon...