Goodnight my Sweet

Jeff passed Sunday night, Jan. 20th,  peacefully enveloped in my arms. He was surrounded by love and like the rock that he was he fought with everything he had to stay. He loved life and breathed deep every minute he had. The world has a lot less laughter, beauty and heart in it today with him not here.

Thank you for all your kind words, gifts of peace and healing, and compliments of what a wonderful man he was. He will be missed something fierce.  

Jeff was known for his kind and gentle spirit, uncompromising work ethic, tall good looks, humor and always happy nature.  He was a man who touched the hearts and minds of all those who had the pleasure of knowing him personally and in business.  He was tirelessly selfless and compassionate to all.  He loved his wife like none other and many referred to them as Mr. & Mrs. America, and he was a loving and dedicated father.  He loved life, the great outdoors and was an avid hunter and collector.  Fearless and loving he made the most of every moment and challenged each of us to do the same in his quiet and non-judgmental way.  In his later years he took up making custom hunting knives and usually had more orders than he could fill.  His beautiful spirit will be missed by all that loved him.  This world will have a lot less laughter, beauty and heart in it today with him not here.  Our hearts and especially mine will ache until we meet him again.

HOPE

Sometimes all we need is a loving touch, a gentle word, a hand to help us up when we’re falling, or a friend to say “I’ll be there, just hold on”.  Sometimes those loving gestures come most unexpectedly from all the way across the sea and they save you that day and you can see through the clouds that there are still sunny days to share and smiles to be had and laughter to hear.  

Those loving gestures looked like this today

in these Five simple words placed in a healing bowl ~

Hope ~ Strength ~ Love ~ Peace ~ Balance

Barry and Fiona

your kindness and generosity for this beautiful gesture is beyond words.   

Jeff chose to carry HOPE in his pocket today.  STRENGTH will be in mine on Monday for a major procedure that will be happening.  We both thank you so very, very much!

Minutes ~ Hours ~ Days

Minutes turn into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, and before I've been able to take a deep breath a month has passed.  It's been a month since my husband ended up in the ER and spent 12 more days having more test done that you can possibly imagine.  They botched a simple biopsy procedure and killed him once, but he's a fighter and wouldn't go and I surely wouldn't stand for that ~ and he knows better than to leave without giving me a kiss.  And sooo our battle begins  ~ again!  We are fighting "Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Carcinoma".  Steve Job of Apple Computer lost his battle with this rare disease, but we WILL NOT!  We will seek all the treatments available to us and perhaps Germany is in our future since I've researched much good work being done there on this cancer.

We are moving forward and trying to get back to some sort of normal routine (even amongst the abnormal routine) and we look at each day as a blessing.  We both miss our lives as we knew them and carve normalcy, but we don't wonder too far from each other... although we've always been that way for the last 30 years.

Thank you all for your wonderful support, your loving thoughts, prayers, gifts of hope and just being there for both of us.  I hope soon to catch up with all of you and see what wonder and creativity you have been up to.

SIGNING OFF FOR NOW

I'm signing off for an undetermined amount of time from my blog and creating, sadly I have spent the last 9 days in the hospital with my husband who has had a re-occurrence of Cancer in the worst way.  It has been a trying and difficult time and I'm afraid the road ahead will be even more trying.  We are fighters and we are no strangers, either of us, to this terrible cancer epidemic - but we both beat it before and damned if we won't do it again.

We welcome and appreciate all your prayers, concerns and love.

Butterflies headed home

I've been working steadily on the commissioned order from the last show; 4 license plate butterflies, 1 baby license plate butterfly & 1 cat garden marker for her little departed kitty.  This was the first time a client brought their own plates in for me to create from.  I'll be honest it made me a little nervous, cuz if I mess it up I can't really replace it ~ makes me anxious!  No one is the wiser if I mess up my own and just don't sell them.   She had her plates from various state... New Hampshire to Texas to Arizona.

They flew away this morning to their new home.... never to be seen again ~ sweet sorrow.

A butterfly lights beside us

Like a sunbeam, and for a

Brief moment, it’s glory and

Beauty belong to our world.

But, then it flies on again

And although we wish it could

Have stayed, we feel blessed

To have seen it.

BOO

Happy Halloween 

It's looking a little creepy in my neighborhood

I hope you all have a fun filled evening - I'll be standing at my post with candies - they seem to bus them into our neighborhood and we have hundreds of kids!

Come To Mama

I've been steadily working on my commissions from the last show - but as you all know if you follow me regularly that I have a problem! A SERIOUS problem....Yes, I'm an addict...yes a junk store/thrift store full blown addict.....  So, this week in between welding, hammering & resurrecting metal I got a little fix at my local Goodwill.  I almost overdosed on Fabulous Finds.

The first find another rug (ok 4 rugs) Remember this one - Antique Russian Soumak

(did I tell you I paid $50 and it appraised for $4500!!!).   

I found this Heriz made in India for $12.00

appaised for $1500

Then at Goodwill I found these large tribal Kilims by Uzbek weavers in the central Afgan region around the city of Maimana.  These are easily recognizable by their simple patterns of diamonds & triangles, in bold reds, oranges, blues, & browns all using vegetable dies.

$18.00.. Yes for all THREE

Value between $300-$500 a piece!

Then I spotted this odd looking shelf thingy that I figured would look quite fetching with some of my old bottles that I collect.... yes something else I collect (don't judge me)!  It was painted an ugly red and black so I resurrected it turquoise green and burnt umber - then this weekend I saw another one and found out it's from the 1950's... who knew!

Paid $15.00 - value $50.00

And finally - this beautiful very aged sterling & turquoise ring from the 1950's.  Most all of my turquoise is a very dark green color because of it's age, so I couldn't pass this one up - even with all it's little cracks...  just like me!

It's been a very productive week - in more ways then one!

The Sun Sets on another One

Leaving Sunday evening I was presented with a beautiful sunset to finish off a productive weekend. It's behind me now all but a distant memory and it's only been a day.  It was a good weekend and I'm happy with the results.  I've got 5 commissioned Licence Plate Butterflies to complete and came home with a lighter load. Guess that's what we all strive for.

I didn't get out much to wonder around but my fellow creative soul next to me made ceramics and I had some beautiful cactus that I watched each day and admired the way the light played on each beautiful spine.  I especially loved this pink cactus above.

This very little cactus was 50 yrs old and sometimes takes that long to bloom.. Seriously!

I loved the creative containers he made to mimic the beautiful cactus that were in them.

Even my art looked wonderful in the setting golden sun

I couldn't leave empty handed so I purchased this beautiful "crassula campfire" succulent that was ablaze with color morning and evening.

I also had a fellow blogger drop in and it was so nice to meet Dawn of Bohemian Valhalla  and how fun it was to see ME featured in someone elses blog!!  She posted a crazy long post on my art.  It's so nice to connect with this blogging world face to face!  Thank you Dawn for all your kind words and taking the time to drop in and introduce yourself - it was a pleasure to meet you and you're beautiful G-Force kids :).

Quiet Reflections of Santa Fe

I've been missing sharing with you all, but I've been busy working on finalizing details for the upcoming show.    Although I'm not working at break neck speed and still have more to do ~ all those last minute details that you put off until the very end then I'm running around like a crazy woman. I'll be away a bit so just taking a few minutes to share some more pics of my Sept trip to my "homeland'.  I escaped visiting and working the festival to just roam the streets in quiet reflection and soak in the beauty that is Santa Fe.

THE ARCHITECTURE

THE ART

THE CHARACTERS

THE COLOR

 

 ~ there truly is no other place like it.

For those that have lived there they know it gets in your blood and never leaves you ~ that's why they call it

  THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT.