dawn

dawn, Canon Digital Rebel

I just returned from the holiday in Florida and I'm kicking into high gear for holiday jewelry production. I may be posting more images than words in the coming weeks. For now I will let you do the talking. A little game below...

My favorite questions:
What is the most alive choice? {inspired by the wonderful writer SARK}
How can this be easy?

Apply these questions to anything troubling you and see what emerges...

giving thanks

crystal, Canon Digital Rebel

I am off to Florida to spend the holidays but wanted to let you know that you can find me in the current issue of Sunset magazine! I was so delighted by this, and honestly had no idea that Sunset was a cool magazine until I got the issue. Sunset rules. Did you know that?

I am running at half capacity here, getting over the flu, but I hope to send transmissions from the road over the holiday when I am well fed and sunning myself by the pool.

And a tiny game for all of us to play during the holidays... Ask a family member one question about their life that you have never thought to ask. {ie. What do you remember most about the holidays as a kid? Who did you admire most growing up? What are you grateful for?}

Or, better yet, let a family member know one thing you are grateful for about them. {ie. I love your playfulness & humor, I am grateful for your incredible cooking, I appreciate your wisdom, I love how you take such care in putting the table together...}

"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated." -William James

owlie

These little guys were at a flea market near Mendocino. Apparently an old woman's estate consisted of an enormous and colorful owl collection from the 60's. There were owl piggy banks (above), owl spoon rests (we purchased) owl statues, owl trivets, owl stuffed animals and more. We call our spoon rest "owlie."
....

I am loving this web site that excerpts police logs from small towns all over the country. They are totally hilarious and weird.

These pieces by Jessica Pezalla are making me very happy...

This site by Frida called Muse to Muse is rocking my world. Go visit now.

This hot cocoa called Xocolatl by Dagoba is INSANE and delicious. It is Aztec cocoa flavored with chilies and cinnamon.

cassidy & dylan

Cassidy, Canon Digital Rebel

This sweet photo of my friend's daughter Cassidy reminds me of being a young girl and chatting with my friends on the telephone all day. I love the dreaminess of her expression in this shot and the way in some of the others that she looked at the camera in this wonderfully engaged, yet slightly bored pre-teen kind of way. She is at that great moment in life before things get really weird and self-conscious. What a treat she and her brother were to photograph...

Cassidy, Canon Digital Rebel

Dylan, Canon Digital Rebel

bird butts Part 2

bird butts, Canon Digital Rebel

Another round of bird butts.
......

And some lyrics that have been resonating for me a lot lately:

"Don't push so hard against the world
You can't do it all alone
and if you could
would you really want to?
Even though you're a big strong girl
come on, come on
lay it down
the best made plans
come on, come on
lay it down
are your open hands..."

-Deb Talan, Big Strong Girl

the storm

kelp after the storm, Canon Digital Rebel

The theme of the storm keeps coming into my life this week. I did my funny little divination game with the dictionary yesterday morning and asked, "What do I need to know about my life right now?" I closed my eyes, opened up the dictionary and got the word "storm." This felt like an apt description, and comforting somehow, knowing that storms actually have an end point and that sunshine eventually finds its way through grey clouds.

Later in the day I went to an amazing celebration at Glide church. My favorite song of the day was sung by Vernon Bush. The lyrics said, "Well my brothers/sisters, the storm ain't gonna last always..." Later, during the sermon, the storm theme returned when Douglass Fitch preached about making it to shore on the broken pieces of your life. He reminded us that when the storm comes, we can still make it on our brokenness. We don't have to be whole, or perfect, or together to make it through.

And to complete the set, my first show of the holiday season is this Saturday night. It is called, you guessed it, Storm. It is a fashion show and party featuring 100 emerging SF designers.

If you are in the bay area, I hope to see you there!

cable car scene

cable car scene, Canon Digital Rebel

The above photo is of some friends who were recently married here in San Francisco. I love this shot because it looks like it could be from any era.

Some funny bits today:
This site about Panexa is hilarious. Don't forget to read the fine print.

Demotivators somehow make me feel better. My current favorite is the underachiever series.

P.S. Thank you for all of your birthday wishes!

just a number

flea market typewriter, Canon Digital Rebel

I've been struggling with what to write here all morning.

I turn 34 tomorrow, and well, have some mixed feelings about it. I know that those of you who are older than me will say, "You're so young! What are you talking about?" and I too will probably look back and wonder why 34 loomed at all largely in my mind.

But I think that the only reason any age feels not very celebrate-able is because we attach some kind of meaning to it that disempowers us... And I have attached some pretty unsavory thoughts to what 34 means. (My doctor didn't help when she said to me in a conversation about fertility, "Well, you are one year older than you were last year.")

Shouldn't things be different than they are now? Shouldn't I have certain things in place? Even as I write this, I know it isn't really true and yet the feeling is still there. We all have our version of this. We all thought that by now (whatever age that is) life would look a certain way. Our shite would be "together", we'd be stable or with partner or family or house or with record deal or whatever...

...

I'm going on a hike in the woods tomorrow with my sweet, amazing mother-in-law. She is someone that started doing marathons in her mid-forties and still kicks my ass at pretty much every sport in her sixties.

It will be hard to keep up with her. But as I watch her tromp through the woods ahead of me I will try to remember that our age is only a number...

wedding curls

erica's wedding curls, Canon Digital Rebel

Macchiato's technicolor cousin by the talented Melissa Ecker

The new men's bathroom at the Sofitel in Queenstown, NZ has life size photos of models above the urinals monitoring the manhood of the guests.

Another beauty of a poem by my friend Maya Stein:

Tulips

How much, some days, you just want to bury your head
under the duvet, that great billowy cloud
of total, beautiful anonymity. Imagining
you could take breakfast there, and the pile of mail to go through,
your backlog of magazines.

Inches away, on their last morning, the tulips
are waking up to the very edge of themselves,
unwrapping their petals shamelessly against the sun,
bending toward the light in great, voluptuous bursts
of orange.