the reasons behind

This here? This is an email from a sweet customer and this is why I do what I do. I'm forever humbled and grateful that I'm used to create pieces that mean so very much to people. My heart absolutely overflows.

mega glass sale

Oh man, let's all please pray that I can keep this little brain of mine wrapped around all of these fun and exciting changes that are happening here. I feel a little like I'm clinging to a floating device in an ocean and, looking ahead, I either see beautiful land or a big storm. Can't quite tell which one yet, but either way I know it will be good and right and I'll make it out alive. All important things, right? Right. This here is Phase One of Operation Out with the Old, folks. It feels good...it feels darn good. All glass jewelry is $25.00 online right now. Once it's gone, it's gone for good. That's all from me now. There's a baby girl that's about to wake up and some new pieces I need to go play with and adjust and wiggle and shake until they are juuuuuuust right. So, over and out. 10-4. Peace out. Those things.

tick tock

I've been thinking about time lately and how unexpected it is sometimes. How it can feel too quick and too slow all in the very same second. This month, month ten of Sarah June being here with us in our family, I think I have finally started to feel like a mom in a more natural way or, I guess, a more automatic way. It's who I am now rather than who I strive to be each day in between the dance of life stuff. I think I finally stopped yearning for my old shoes to fit, my old life. I think I finally realized how much better this one really is, instead of having to remind myself of that. Like every new thing that life hands me, I had to grow into it and be patient with myself. Take my time checking it out, navigating, trying it all on, making my comfy groove on my side of the mattress before I really felt like I fit in.

I guess that it took her forty weeks in my belly to feel ready to come meet the world as this new person, all smiles and giggles and confidence and joy, and I think maybe it took me forty weeks or so to feel ready to come into each day feeling comfortable...feeling like I belonged. Most days have been filled with laughter and out-of-control-it-almost-hurts love, but some days, even the happy ones, had me feeling like there was a giant clock in front of my face where I would watch the second hand go by slowly. I was completely obsessed with the moment and yet not living in it at all. Not present, but planning. And, man, I just didn't expect that, you know? I didn't expect that I'd have to learn this, grow into this. And I think part of my mind was consumed with being so disappointed in myself for that. Emotional ping pong all day long because I couldn't settle in. I was searching for my groove while sleeping on a wood board.

This month, I feel like I can rest a bit. Like I can take a deep breath and feel what it is that those moms are talking about when they say that you just know. For me, it happened through love and tears and sillies and smiles and maybe didn't happen in the hospital bed the moment she was handed to me. The knowing part. The comfortable part. The without a doubt in my mind this is where I belong part. But, I think maybe, it doesn't matter when or where it just matters that. And it helps if you can find sillies and giggles and chunky thigh and belly kisses while you search.

india inspired

Good gracious almighty, the new India inspired collection from Anthro has me dying right now. Dying. I shouldn't be looking at dresses, I shouldn't be blogging, I should be processing orders...but a gal knows when she needs to hit the pause button and just take a minute, you know? And this? This India embroidery-filled-way-out-of-my-budget goodness? It has me taking a minute or twelve. Seriously. That shirt? Gah. Get on my shoulders, you gorgeous shirt, you.

on creating

It's a funny thing, creating. It's a funnier thing creating when you have an adorable and very active six- toothed smile wiggling and crawling and climbing around at your feet. Apparently floating that smile above my head while I lay on my studio floor and listening to the giggles pour out does not a work hour make. Weird.

So, lately I have had to grab creating moments as they come. Which, as you probably know, isn't the most productive way to create. I'm more of a put my head down and maybe don't come up for air for twelve hours in a row type of creative gal. So learning to grab these moments has been a journey...one where I mostly feel like that American Express ad that Tina Fey did a few years ago. Anyone remember that one? She was hiding under her desk with papers and kids surrounding and covering her and the look on her face was, as usual, just priceless. Anyway, these moments...sometimes I grab them wildly and with much thrashing of the arms and pulling of the hair, sometimes happily with high fives and many check marks on that to do list, sometimes while bouncing baby girl on my knee or looking up every ten seconds or so to my girl exploring on the floor and saying with a big smile "hi, beautiful", and sometimes, just sometimes, it happens quietly when my creativity seems right and the fire of an idea is sparked. 

But, I guess I've figured out that it doesn't really matter how I do it. It just matters that I do it. It can't look like it used. And I don't really want it to...those were some lonely twelve hour chunks of time I spent there. All head down and grumbling and intense. So whether thrashing about or singing or bouncing or sighing, being creative again makes me feel like me. Like I'm doing one of the things that God put me here to do (because, really, He gives us more than one). And that creating? It just feels so great. I can't wait to show Bear what her mama made while she was learning to walk and explore and clap and wave.

How about you? How and when do you create best? Any pointers for a new mama?

[Wait...seriously...just like that after not blogging in, oh, ten months you're going to start in without even an explanation? Yeah. Yeah I guess I am? Sorry? Hi? Missed you, mean it?]

planner giveaway

Yay for 2013! Yay for organization! Yay for planning! But, really, super duper yay for giveaways! (I really do talk and think this way, friends. Truly.) Check out Oh So Beautiful Paper for information on a Laurel Denise Planner giveaway!

internet delights no. 102912

 

1. So... this exists. You're welcome.

2. Somehow these jumped into my cart at Old Navy. In two sizes. Weird.

3. Found these at Rock, Paper, Scissors in Charlottesville the other day and maybe squealed out loud and probably spent about ten minutes (with Sarah June in tow) deciding which happy design and color I should go with. It was time well spent. 

4. Would I wear this dress? I want so much to say yes, but I'm just not sure that I really would. Because, you know, it's a color and all.

5. Well, hey there, happy zig zag rug with your pop of yellow color on the edges, very nice to see you sitting there in the sale section.

6. More tiny gold shoes. I have a serious problem, you guys. 

ps: These are amazing (from Cup of Jo first) //