BOOM! -- 2020

Today I feel a LOT like this little chickadee I witnessed on New Years Eve, so dazed and bewildered after accidentally crashing into my mother's patio door that it had all it could do to sit upright again without my assistance. And I blame it all on what I call the promise of my 'hibernation season' and the ultimate reality of it....

What was I thinking, anyway? On the heels of Fest came birthdays and my much-anticipated Halloween, followed by ramping up production again for my final art show of the year, then said art show occurring on the same weekend as Thanksgiving.... But I'd no sooner returned home again from the art show than I hopped a plane for Arkansas to spend as much time as possible with my Eldest and her family. It was a wonderful whirlwind! And during my absence James planned a Christmas vacation for the two of us to our favorite destination, hoping that by 'running away' for the holidays we could finally recuperate by avoiding all the usual Christmas stress.

So no sooner was I home again from Arkansas than James and I flew away. We'd purposely made zero plans for the holiday, hoping that our respective families would carry on without us. But if we thought we were making things easier for anyone, we were mistaken....

Christmas was just waiting for us when we got back. Family obligations were so immediate that I didn't even unpack (still haven't, really), just grabbed my suitcase and headed north until New Years Eve. Snow buried us. New Years Eve blew past us. And New Years Day found me finally home again and toasting the new year with the champagne James had bought for the night before. And suddenly I felt like I had been picked up and thrown into 2020. So much so that today I am that bird in the photo, blinking confusedly and wondering what the hell happened.

I slept until noon today, my first day alone at Tumbledown. And I'm tip-toeing and whispering in my shadowy house. There's no TV, no music, no lights. No sound save the click of my fingers on the computer keyboard. Even my Zoo is being especially gentle with me. It's like my normally exuberant Petz can sense that my nerve endings have been sanded raw and my brains are still addled. All around me Tumbledown looks like it did back in October after the end of Fest. As if I haven't had a moment since to deal with the after-season chaos....

When I think of my year, when I imagine it in my head -- all the months stretching out like a Year-at-a-Glance calendar -- October and November and December are empty. Blank. Like a hibernation period in my imagination. Full of rest and recuperation, and days when I can happily create, bake, decorate, dream, listen to carols and make handmade gifts while the snow falls outside, enveloping me in my cozy cocoon. I don't know why I still see it that way because it's never been that way, yet every year after Fest I still look forward to the fantasy of it with delightful anticipation.

All the additional unnecessary stress I caused for myself in the final weeks of 2019 did one thing positive, though: it shook every one of my cells by the hair until their eyes rattled. It spun me around until I had no idea which way I was facing. And I don’t think I’ve ever approached a New Year from this perspective before. 2019 ended seismically and chaotically and without any seasonal traditions to hang on to, and now 2020 feels like I'm still buried deep under the mess of it all even as the dust continues to fall and settle.

So here's to the dust settling already! And to the promise of a new year and a fresh sheet of paper. I am interested to see what transpires from here, both personally and artistically, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Happy new year, my friend! Thank you for being in my life.

...me.
...

Odd Narwhal is my Spirit Animal

Someone had just one job. And unless this is a special licensed cartoon character that I'm unfamiliar with, they failed.

But Odd Narwhal doesn't care!

This toy and I ran across each other recently while I was looking for deals in a calendar store at the mall that is busy selling off its stock before pulling up stakes and moving on.

Is this a character from a cartoon? Was it simply assembled haphazardly in the factory? Is it unaware of its freakydeaky-ness? Is it cheery BECAUSE of it? I wonder....

And I love that there are little heart sparkles in its eyes, as if it couldn't be more pleased with itself, and its oddness, and Life, and its discounted price tag, and the fact that it's still on the shelf after the Holidays....

I've decided it will be the metaphor for my New Year. And I've decided that I may just have to return to the calendar store and rescue it (should it still need rescuing).

Smile on, Odd Narwhal! I applaud you! And I dub thee my spirit animal for 2019.

And in the New Year may we all proudly display and celebrate our individuality, our unique qualities, our put-together-wrong-ness with big smiles and heart sparkles.
...

Happy New Year!

The new year already!? Wasn't I just wishing you a happy 2018?

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO? Wow....

And that picture? Where I'm smiling and celebrating my laughlines? That is misleading, because it was taken way before I crashed and burned during the holiday.

Because I know how much I hate to read downer posts, I won't subject you to one. But I will say that I'm resembling that photo more and more as the moments pass, and by tomorrow I hope to be making that face again. (...wings crossed!...)

So I'll just wind this up by saying that I hope the new year is great for us all. May it be everything we need it to be.

May those brutal goodbyes be few. And may there be many amazing new hellos!

And may we all get to be as creative as we desire without having to worry about money or healthcare or how clean our house is.

CHEERS.

I love you.
...

It's a Whole New Year!

Happy New Year, my friend! I hope great things for you in 2018.

How was your holiday season? It was a rollercoaster for me, as always, what with some traveling and last minute art sales. The seasonal flu hit my little circle hard (not me personally, thankfully), and this year's strain is the pits. My holiday gatherings were minus a number of dear faces as family members hunkered down to recover. I used to be rather ambivalent about getting a flu shot until the season I went down hard with it, thinking it was just a bad cold at the time. And in the midst of a serious fever I can recall being fearful for my life, and I never want to experience that kind of a 'cold' again. I know flu season hasn't peaked yet. If you experience it at all, I hope its visit is brief and gentle.

Tax Season has arrived here. (Ick...) But because I did some additional art shows in 2017 and vowed at each one to let customers Pay What They Wish, my annual sales were up for a change, and I never get an opportunity to show my Tax Guy that I can make more than 50-cents a year. (I hope he's proud of me. I'm proud of me.) Because my year-long experiment was interesting and fortunately worked out in my favor, I want to try it again for another year -- just to see if the surprising results I experienced were just a fluke. Fingers crossed! I would LOVE to make this Pay What You Wish platform a forever thing.

As I write this post, I'm busy gearing up for the North Artists Studio Crawl (Studio G on the map again!; last year's experience was wonder-filled) and the St. Paul Art Crawl (Carleton Lofts location). And I'm creating Leaflings as fast as I can. Sharing them this past year with the public has warmed my heart and given me hope for the future.

So there! A bit of news to begin this year's blogging. I look forward to keeping you updated! And I hope that 2018 is grand for us all.
...

Happy New Year

Yes, I know I haven't written.... I haven't written for a long, long time.

But I won't begin this powerful new year with an apology. Instead, I'll say, "Thank you for still being here to read this little message."  

Thank you.

Thank you with all my heart.

Thank YOU.

Love,
...me.

Moonday Thotz for The New Year

It’s a New Year. And can you believe it’s really 2016? 2016….! Wow….

I’m looking at it in my head -- the years spiraling backwards into the last century -- and it is a bit overwhelming. I love period dramas and books about the Victorian/Edwardian eras, and they make me wonder how it must’ve felt for someone then to see the end of one century and the beginning of another. And yet here I am – here we are – doing just that, and it doesn’t feel weird at all. Just feels like life plodding on….

Anyway.

Due to all sorts of computer-y mayhem in the OLD year, I’ve not written a single Thot since I-Don’t-Know-When-Exactly, but I feel like getting back to them now. And I’ve forgotten the format of these messages (I’m sure I could find it if I wasn’t so lazy), so I’ll wing it until things feel comfortable, OK? But I do know that we start with this:

FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from The HappyBook by Barbara Ann Kipfer):

(Me here: I will pick up where I think we left off….)

1. Bowls of vegetables being passed.
2. "Closed" signs.
3. A Sunday feast of pot roast or plump roasted chicken.
4. A tin lizzie.
5. Learning the harmonica.

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1. Love, laughter, and lutefisk with family at Christmastime.
2. Ringing in the New Year with champagne, cookies, and reruns of Downton Abbey.
3. Saying goodbye to all the holiday cocooning. (It was fun while it lasted, though.)
4. A breakfast that doesn't consist of peanut brittle and homemade butterbeer fudge....
5. Hope for this New Year.

Short and sweet! Best not to be too wordy so you get sick of me right from the get-go.

Enjoy your Monday, my friend.

…me.

P.S. Please visit www.thingstobehappyabout.com to learn more about Ms. Kipfer and her wonder-filled book.

The Party's Over (yay!)

I see you, 2015....

I look at the archive listings at the side of this blog and it bugs me to see that I posted next to nothing in November/December of 2014.

No posts about trying to gear up for Black Friday, Small Biz Saturday, Cyber Monday, the Christmas shopping season, or about the long hours spent taking photos of new products and then trashing them all and starting over again because they sucked.

No posts about how reluctant I always am to advertise my work at this time of year because it makes me feel like just another businessperson begging for your Christmas dollars.

No posts wondering what kind of businessperson wouldn't milk the opportunity for holiday sales??

No posts about how much I wish I could wrap up a Little Something for every one of you here and slip it in your Christmas stockings. Because you're important to me and I appreciate you.

No posts offering Christmas greetings. No holiday wishes. No 'tis the seasons. Nothing like that....

My apologies....

You were in my thoughts, however. Along with about a million other things. And I'm confident that your December was every bit as overwhelming as mine.

But now the big crazy holiday is behind us and the new year's begun. One with no mistakes in it yet. One that's still full of promise and possibility. One with a fancy capital 'A' in its adventure.

I plan to do the best I can with it.

And I hope you'll continue to join me, my friend. :)
...

Questions for YOU

Flying, flying! But to where, exactly?....

It happens every year around the Holidays.

I rethink this blog, where it's gone, and where it's (hopefully) going.

I think about how it's supposed to be about my business -- Mayfaire -- and about my art and my creative process and stuff, but how it ends up being pretty much just a letter from me to you about all sorts of things that aren't necessarily creativity-related.

And that just seems to be in conflict with what I'd intended this blog to be....

Then I think, maybe I should start another blog, and let that one be the personal one.

And then I think, who's gonna want to take the time to follow TWO of my blogs??

Yeesh.

Obviously I need some direction. So here's where you come in. Below is a small list of questions that I hope you'll take a moment to answer either here or on my Facebook page as doing so would be really really helpful to me. Ready? Here goes:

1. What past Mayfaire posts are your faves? What do you enjoy reading about here? Is it the personal stuff about my thoughts, my house, my pets/kids/grandbugs? Is it the stuff about my art and my creative process? Is it about bigger stuff -- what artists I like, why saving Monarch butterflies is my passion, things like that? What about this blog interests you? (I know which posts are most popular, but their subject matters seem to be all over the map, so that's just confusing me again....)
2. More photos or less photos? Longer posts or shorter? Every day or only when I've got something important to say? Is it important that you hear from me often? Or is it just annoying if I pop up in your in-box every day?
3. Should I limit myself here to just my art? Or does it somehow work to have everything -- business, personal, the works -- jumbled together? If I just wrote here about All Things Mayfaire, would you be interested in (or take the time to follow) a separate blog about all the other stuff? And if there were two blogs, which would you look forward to the most?

I like that it's just me and you here. Writing to you is one of my favorite things to do and it makes me happy. But I want you to be happy here, too. Your opinion matters! So thank you in advance for your reply, my friend. :)
...

A Mantra for the New Year

I went on an Adventure recently. I'm not one for Adventures. I'm a stay-at-home-body. I like to not be far from my books and my pencils, my pets and my slippers, my coffee....

But Adventure I did, and afterwards I found myself walking along in foreign territory, hyper-aware, paying attention....

And during this time I discovered some things in my path, one of which was a Snapple cap. (I'm like a magpie sometimes; you should see some of the stuff that comes out of my trouser pockets on laundry day....) And inside the cap was this 'fun fact': "Some dinosaurs were as small as chickens."

I love this message. I instantly took it personally. To me it was saying:

"Small can still be fierce."

"You are a force to be reckoned with."

"Never underestimate the power of little things."

 "You are not as insignificant as you think you are."

Since then I've adopted it as my mantra for the year.

What is your mantra for 2013? 
...
 

Good Question

Not long ago I signed up to receive a daily message in my In Box from my very own 'Inner Pilot Light' courtesy of Lissa Rankin.

What's an Inner Pilot Light, you ask? It's that feeling in your gut that tells you what's what. It's that little divine spark that makes you You. It's that authentic bit, that Inner Child that looks at everything with interest and wonder and complete honesty, that bit that asks the tough questions.

Most days its emails are spot on, telling me exactly what I need to hear at exactly when I need to hear it. Like today:

"My dear delayne,

Every day is a chance to start over. The past is behind you. The future has yet to happen. The only thing that truly exists is this moment. And in this moment, you can begin again.

So what do you want to create in this moment? Who are you in this moment? What old stories are you ready to let go of? What new ones are you ready to start?

Not sure?

Ask me.

With all the answers,
Your Inner Pilot Light"

When I read it, I almost glanced behind myself. I half-expected to see a little flicker there. With a face. Kind of like a Ghost of Christmas Past reading over my shoulder....