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. :)
...

My Cup Overfloweth

'Green Girl' by delayne

It's Thanksgiving Day. And I've said this before but I'm saying it again. Today (and every day) I'm so thankful for:
 
Twenty-four whole hours. I must remember to spend them responsibly and not take them for granted.
 
Good health, strong limbs, decent mental faculties, and some experience under my belt. I like the age I am! And fifty-eight years are more than many are blessed with.

My imagination and my curiosity. It's always interesting in here! And I am never bored....

A house that shelters me, warms me, cocoons me, welcomes me, and is so full of character that it has its own name.

A guy in my life who defies description. I could write all day about why I'm so thankful for him and my list wouldn't be finished.

My girls all grown-up and uber-responsible, with good men in their lives and children that are dipped in GOLD. (SO thankful to be a gramma!)

Grandbugs that make my world go 'round and my socks go up and down. 

A family that is healthy, happy, and independent, one that can hold each other close and yet let go....

Friends who put up with the stupid stuff I do and still manage to like me. 

Pets past, present, and future. I can't live without creatures in my life. I just can't....

All the wonderful books I've read, music I've heard, and art I've seen that opened my mind and made me think, moved me, or just plain entertained me, and the gifted folks who created them.

Our veterans and active-duty servicemen/women, and others who risk their lives or sacrifice themselves for our health, well-being, safety, or freedom.

The living things that have to die so I can live.

A generous Earth. I give her a seed and she thanks me with a harvest.

A Higher Power that doesn't seem mind that the two of us commune together over a sunrise or under the stars instead of in a church. I even suspect S/He prefers it that way.

And you. Reading this. So dang thankful for YOU. :)
...

Happy Thoughts and Happy Thotz

My 2nd copy. I'm hard on this book....

For ages now I've sent out a daily email to a few friends and family members, an email inspired by a book I consider to be a lifesaver.

It all began a long time ago when someone gave me a page-a-day desk calendar for Christmas based on Barbara Ann Kipfer's 14,000 Things to be Happy About. Each page of the calendar featured a selection of five pleasant things meant to inspire my happiness.

And they did.

I kept the calendar on my desk at the office where I worked at the time, and some days most days every dang day those happy thoughts were my lifeline.

First thing every morning I shared the day's calendar page with three people -- my James, a mutual friend of ours, and a fellow co-worker -- by sending them the list of happy suggestions typed up in an email which I began referring to as the 'Happy Thotz.' (Yeah, I thought the misspelling was clever at the time....)

Some days the Calendar would inspire me to change up the list or add my own variations to it. Sometimes it would cause one or more of us to come up with our own things to be happy about and share them with the others. Sometimes it would spark a dialogue or take us on a tangent. And more than once it caused all hell to break loose.

But it always inspired something.

And because of that I looked forward to pushing the 'send' button and then anticipating a response. And I'm not lying when I say that the daily interaction with those particular people was monumental; it got me through one of the most stressful jobs I've ever had. And I owe it all to Ms. Kipfer and her inspirational book.
 
I no longer work at that office. I work at home for myself. But Barbara Kipfer's book is right next to my desk and I still send out the daily Thotz email. It's since evolved to include a bunch of other stuff in addition to the author's suggestions of things for which to be happy. I'm careful to give her credit, of course, and over the years I like to think I've helped add to her teeming list of fans. But her pleasant suggestions have since become just a small part of the email I send.

And the tradition continues because I'd be lost if it didn't. I write the Thotz to keep in touch with those I care about. I write them to hopefully entertain someone and brighten their day. I write them to learn stuff about myself (BOY, do I learn stuff about myself!). I write them because I just have to. They're like my blog posts, only on the fly. More me than I feel comfortable being here. In that respect, I guess they're still a lifeline....

Today that daily email goes out to a handful of friends and family. I'm told some even go on to share it with others. And -- the whole point of this post (I'm so wordy!) -- this afternoon it may even have gone out to YOU, here at the Not-So-Daily Maily.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

It did because I'm able to write blog posts in my email program and send them here from there, and this blog's address just so happens to be right next to the list of individuals I routinely message. And today I was careless and accidentally included the Maily as one of my recipients....

Oops.

But I think I caught it in time. Still, if you subscribe to my blog and received a Not-So-Daily Maily post from me in your email today that looks nothing like THIS post, I apologize for sending it to you in error.

If you received it, I kind of hope you read it. And if you read it, I really hope you found it worth your while. But, if nothing else, may my mistake be Ms. Kipfer's gain: Check out her creative and whimsical website HERE, follow her inspirational tweets on Twitter HERE.

May her suggestions make you smile and inspire your happiness.
...

Catching My Breath

Fest is one big thing I love about my year, but it overlaps everything else I love about it, too. It comes just as my favorite season begins. And by its final weekend, Autumn is close to being spent.

Harvesting the garden, canning tomatoes, planning for Halloween, celebrating my birthday, just appreciating the Fall colors at my leisure -- all the things I long to immerse myself in get shelved or rescheduled or just plain crossed off my list as I deal with post-Fest nonsense: shop flotsam, heaps of costumes, boxes of dusty prints, art order follow-ups, the clearing out and closing up and securing of Mayfaire....

This year was no exception. But it was an unusual post-Fest time for me that involved more on my agenda than ever before, and today feels like my first real day to assess where I am in the grand scheme of my season. I'm upright, which is a good thing; but I can feel the annual bout of respiratory 'fest chest' dancing along the edges of my lungs. It's been there since September and greets me every morning, and so far I've managed to hold it at bay somehow while I deal with more important things that have filled up my days and made time speed by. Ups and downs, highs and lows; a rollercoaster Fall. I've tried holding it together, and I think I've done OK at it, too.

But it's already late October. The trees have peaked and shed their leaves. Mayfaire still needs putting to bed! The gardens do, too. My birthday's back there somewhere, and Halloween is already under way. And I can scratch 'canning' off my list again. I'm so behind....

Every year I imagine my Autumn to be a time of cocooning. A time of retreating and re-assessing, moving slow, going within. I look forward to battening down the hatches while outside the seasons change and eventually snow me in with my thoughts and blank paper. That 'nothingness' is the only thing that fills my well, and right now my well is so done.

But one doesn't need a full well to rake leaves, right? Or strip milkweed pods. Or put gardens to bed. There's a 'nothingness' in those tasks that can be fulfilling.

Full-filling....

Best get to them then. This well is bone dry.
...

Be Sure to Bring Your Appetite -- :)

 

ALREADY it's the last weekend of Fest, and I've got so much to tell you that I'm not sure where to start. At the beginning, I guess. And it's in there somewhere, in the filled-to-the-brim kettle of tasty Fest fare that I'm eager to share with you....

But before I dish us both up, I should probably focus all my attention on this final huzzah, right?

So it's back to work for me! Sooooo much to do before this final 3-day weekend (which includes Festival Friday -- one of the best showdays to visit me if you've left Fest until the last minute). And if I see you, my friend, be prepared for a hug! PLEASE don't forget to introduce yourself (or re-introduce yourself; I'm old and forgetful now) because I don't want you to walk away without one, OK? I'm that grateful for you.

And I promise: Now that my thoughts and impressions of this Fest season have simmered, I'll serve them up to you soon so we can both sit down at our leisure and savor the story of Mayfaire's 29th year. I think it's lifechanging! But I think a good cup of coffee is lifechanging. :)

It's all in what you make it, right?
...

Magickal Moments

Life is overwhelming right now, and there's little time to write. But I can at least direct you to some magick that occurred earlier today, right here in my kitchen. I love these little pauses in my busy day. They give me hope. :)

This first little video is of one of my monarch caterpillars finishing up the process of molting. It includes a first-time event for me (even after all these decades of caterpillar raising):

And the second video shows a monarch caterpillar making its chrysalis. Such a wonder!

Enjoy.
...

Brainstorming with Butterflies

I've got some news.

The kind that came into my head just a second ago, it seems.

And it's still so fresh that I really shouldn't be saying anything about it, probably, until I've thought it through....

But when my head explodes with an idea, it helps me to write about it. And when I write, it helps me to write to YOU. Because you help me think straight....

This idea exploded in my head over the weekend, and since then all the dry tinder in my brain has caught fire. And after talking to you about it here I was originally going to ask for your opinion and support, but y'know what? Although you're welcome to weigh in (and I'll be monumentally appreciative if you do), in the end it's not going to matter one way or the other. Because I still want to explore this and see where I can take it....

That being said, here we go:

Generation 1 of this year's monarch herd here at Tumbledown has fledged, and we're already up to our necks in Generation 2.

Last year seemed to start late for us. If I remember correctly, Tumbledown saw nary an egg, caterpillar, or butterfly until late June or early July (don't know where my records are at the moment, so I could be wrong, although that seems accurate), and our final fledgling count was only in the 30-somethings....

A far cry from the nearly 300 that we'd raised just a short couple years prior!

But this season has so far exceeded my expectations. We've already surpassed last year's 30-something with Generation 1. And now there's twice that in my kitchen as Generation 2 gets underway.

Granted, I've gone above-and-beyond this year (in my opinion) to make sure we at least beat last year's numbers. I've haunted all dang sorts of swampy locales and lone milkweed patches in the search for eggs and larvae, and I've got the mosquito bites to prove it! I even frantically ran ahead of the City's municipal mowers recently as they prepared to coif the verges of my area's little walking path, the one that goes by Postage Stamp Pond at the end of my neighborhood. I've gotten GOOD at spotting caterpillar 'eatage' from three yards away, even without my specs!, and I returned home with another collection of eggs and hatchlings. Rescued from the blades of death! I felt proud of myself. :)

Individually feeding 60+ caterpillars takes time. For one person it's like a part-time job. I grumble about it, especially when I stumble out of bed in the morning and fumble for the kettle only to see an army of plastic beer cups full of caterpillars and caterpillar poop, and not a milkweed crumb in sight. In my head I imagine them raised up on their back halves, pointing to their gaping maws like Simon's Cat.... And then the kettle's forgotten as I step outside in my jammies to pick leaves and get to work.

I'm passionate about my monarchs. I always have been. And even more so now that their population is dwindling and they're in danger of future extinction.... I keep thinking I can do more!

And then over the weekend it hit me.

I can do LOTS more.

I can give them not only my time and my attention and the bulk of my kitchen. I can give them my ideas and my imagination and my art skills as well.

And I can start NOW.

Fest is just a few short weeks away, and I might not be prepared with everything that I've been brainstorming since the weekend's slap upside the head. But if you could only see what I'm imagining! -- products and artwork and seed packets, oh my; the sales of which will benefit the butterflies! The potential is EPIC.

And even if I eventually do a typical 'delayne' -- that thing of dipping my wings in the water before seeing the next big shiny Idea and moving on -- THIS is burning in my heart right now. And I need something burning in my heart again, dammit....

So that's it. My big idea. My news. It feels right. And I'm excited to explore it!

And I think I've got this guy's vote. :)

...