many happy things

So much to be thankful for today ... so many things are making me smile ...

I'm closing in on 100 members to this site!  Can't wait to see 3 digits on that little widget!   

Wo ... update!  Hold your horses, it's official ... I've got 3 digits on the widget!  Suh-weet!  
Thank you thank you thank you!

I spent a lovely day yesterday at the gem show.  Road trip with Cara, chatting nonstop for the 70 minute drive ... Seeing so many jeweler friends, such an amazing community of creative women in our area ... Spending exactly my budget with a few dollars to spare.

I had a vague idea of what I was looking for.  Sometimes I have a detailed list, sometimes I just go and see what catches my eye.  Yesterday was a follow my intuition day.  Here's my modest haul ...

First, I was drawn to yellows.  From the right: citrine nuggets, some very yummy heliodor aquamarine (who knew that aquamarine came in yellow?), sunstone nuggets with loads of copper shiller, and sumptuous teeny chrome tourmaline nuggets.

Then there was the yellow/green/chartreuse strands ... a mixed strand of lemon quartz cubes, teeny watermelon tourmaline nuggets and another new-to-me gem, shah mak sud jade from Afghanistan.

Then on to the blues ... I felt in desperate need of lapis and love these little tubes (2-3mm).  These thin cubes were a new shape so I got a small assortment - in addition to the lemon quartz, amethyst, iolite, blue quartz and paraiba quartz (enhanced colors, but they were inexpensive and I couldn't resist).

And these are seriously yummy ... aquamarine and tanzanite sanded nuggets.  They're a bit bigger, 10-12mm wide by 3-5mm.

And sometimes I splurge on a decadent little something ... like raw diamonds.  I'm such an addict.  Cara spotted these and the price was really quite good and I didn't have any black or red diamonds and, golly, a girl really should have an assortment, dontcha think?  I got 2 strands of each.

Black raw diamonds ... 2-3mm.  Treated, but again, I couldn't resist.

And then there's the red ones ... oh my goodness they're amazing.  Two graduated strands of natural red diamonds, 3-5mm.

And being the obsessive compulsive type that I can be, before leaving for the show, I wanted something new to put on my wrists.  It seemed like a good time to measure out a nice long length from my new assortment of antique brown leather cord, pop on a button and loop clasp and call it done.

And I had this one mostly put together, I just needed to tie the loop onto the end.  Not sure if I could sell these or not ... there's a ton of silver in this one which would make it really expensive.  I do love the weight of it.

Other things on my happy radar ... I've been doing a lot of visualization work in combination with something else that's new to me ... meridian tapping or EFT.  Mostly I've been working on money/scarcity issues and business applications.  I really like the idea of it and feel pretty sure some old patterns are starting to shift.  Lots of work on being open to whatever comes my way.  And talk about sweet synchronicity ... on Thursday this showed up on my doorstep ...

Okay, so I'm always looking at different on-line business blogs and sites and you know I'm a big fan of a couple of them.  Well, on Wednesday I watched an interview with Chris Guillebeau about his new book launch and thought that looked pretty interesting and was going to add it to my wish list.  Thursday, the UPS truck pulls up and plops this on my front porch ... FREE from Amazon!  How crazy is that?  Alright, so I know the 'big brother' implications of this and I'm not real happy about that, but I am pretty psyched about getting the book, so I'm going to try and not think about the big brother part.  I just started it and it looks like it's going to have a lot of useful information.

And then we got a bit of an income tax refund and decided to invest in a super nice juicer.  I was thrilled with the Acme when I got it, but it's turned out to not fit my juicing needs.  I do lots of greens and like to make a lot of juice at one time.  The centrifugal juicers don't get a lot of juice from greens (you have to run the pulp again) and are not so great if you want to refrigerate juice for a day or more.  Anybody in the Asheville area want a deal on a juicer, I've got the Acme listed on Craigslist.  So, here's the newest member of the family.  My Omega 8006 - a slooooow, masticating juicer ... 

I'm itching to get to work with my new gems ... have some ideas about what to do with those diamonds and I'm back to working on my Talismans.  I'm thinking they're going to be my main focus for a bit.  Well, I've got this coming week to work on them before working on a couple of June 1st wholesale orders.  I can see that the Talismans have enormous potential for growth and what I do is fairly different from what's out there right now.  So, I'm going to do something of a re-launch, hence the Startup book and all the business stuff I've been working on.  Moving forward, gettin' things done, havin' a good time ... what more could a girl ask? 

Yes, yes ... many many happy things!

feeling enormously blessed and ever so grateful.

Onward!

l i g a - kvk

p.s.  Thanks so much for those of you who took me up on the My Peeps discount.  

p.p.s.  I found a strange little exercise video that Maia Helles did and wanted to share ...

biscuits and sourdough

Well, I'm caught up with my to-do list.  This is not to say I have nothing to do - lord mercy, far from that.  But the main thing that's on my plate and that I've been dying to get back to work on, is the expansion of my Talismans.

But here lies my conundrum and challenge ...
This body of work, Talismans for Fellow Travellers (TFFT), is going to be transformative for me and my business.  It must be developed over time, mindfully, from a heightened awareness, details evolving not thrown together.  Thing is, this is not how I've ever worked.  I'm kind of a design on the fly girl - which is one of the reasons I love metal clay so much ... it allows me to conceive a design and create it while still firmly in the grips of what could be a fleeting inspiration.  Sometimes ideas flow so fast I can't get them down in my sketchbook.  More often than not, I go straight to my worktable and let the ideas flow straight from my imagination through my hands and into the metal clay.

Where I am right now reminds me of something from an Abraham session I attended years ago, something to the effect of, when you've got ideas forming or a project in development, stay with it and follow it to it's full potential, don't release it to the world until it's really ready to go - like baking biscuits ... as excited as you may be to dive into those warm, crusty little delights and slather them with butter and honey, don't take them out of the oven until they're really done or you will be seriously disappointed, "you'll cook your biscuits into a squat."  You know I love visuals and this is a great one.

The biscuit analogy has gotten me to slow down my TFFT plans.  I'm thinking this project is more like the process of making good sourdough bread - it takes time for the starter to develop followed by the careful blending of all the ingredients/elements as they come together into a delicious, richly flavored final product ... and whatever you do, don't take it out of the oven until it's fully done.

For the last few days I've been going to Colette Baron-Reid's website and 'pulling' a card from her on-line oracle deck ... they're really good!  This is what I got this morning ...

So whether it's biscuits or sourdough, it seems best to take a lot of deep breaths, slow down and proceed with clear intention, fully engaged and awake, not planning every detail so I remain open for the arrival of the miracles that are sure to come.

I found out about Colette through a bit of synchronicity that's leading to more and more little bits.  I'm reading her new book, The Map, which has me so enthralled I can barely get to sleep at night.  I'm thinking I may have to stop reading it before bed 'cause I just get so excited about the coming chapters.  I have a very strong feeling that her work is going to be hugely influential in developing my Talismans and so I just ordered both sets of oracle cards and another book about the power of oracles called Messages From Spirit.

Basically, I'm just following my gaze and my intuition and enjoying the ride.
And regarding enjoying the ride ... I'm heading over to Nashville on Wednesday for a couple of days to help my brother do some space clearing.  More time to ponder and let my 'TFFT starter' develop.

A much more inspiring stewing than the annoying blogger stew from the last few days.

ta ta for now......
blessings - kvk

p.s.  not being able to let well enough alone, I went back to Colette's site and pulled another card - okay, I'll behave now ...

the pervasiveness of ochre and ruby

It's been a lovely day ... a chunk of time this morning on the computer and intermittent visits through the day, eating up all the comments and traffic - a novelty for this little blog.  Big plus, I actually got done what I was supposed to be doing and now have a bunch pmc pieces ready to fire tomorrow.  But before I head downstairs to fix our evening meal, I wanted to share the wonderful way my day actually started.

While waiting for my tea water to boil, I padded barefoot outside to do a bit of trimming and deadheading in the flower pots on the front steps.  Coming back in, I noticed all the beautiful seeds from the big red maple up the driveway.  Of course, they're everywhere and I started picking up the most vibrant ones - the color is really exceptional.  Then I noticed that the pansies in the flower pots had the same colors.  So I clipped a matching pansy and carried my treasures in to discover the seeds and the pansies matched my Provencal table runner.

Pouring up my tea water, my gaze traveled over to the fruit basket.  The very ripe mango in the basket was an exact color match to the maple seeds and the pansies and the table runner.  They were all so lovely, I had to take pictures.  While doing a quickie photo setup on my worktable, I realized my favorite mug had the same colors as well.  Oh and aren't the dried rose petals I use in my packaging the very same colors?  Sitting down to load the images and do some editing, I saw that the cushions on my meditation bench were also a perfect match.  Chuckling to myself at the pervasiveness of ochre and ruby in my home, I settled down to get some work done and noticed the little dish on my table holding the river pebbles from a recent trip to the Arboretum - wouldn't you know it ... ochre quartz resting next to garnet encrusted  pebbles with one little ruby colored Roman glass disc.

Funny how I consider myself so hyper observant and it took all this time to realize I'm completely surrounded by all things ochre and ruby.  So it's great fun to share this little path to awareness.

The images ........

 

   

  

Okay, time to heat up some dinner......
Thanks everyone for joining in the 'call to arms'.  We absolutely can make a difference!

ruby colored blessings - kvk

p.s.  the little sgrafitto "want - to" dish is by Lisa Gluckin; my favorite mug is by Julie Covington