So, It's the Weekend

It's the weekend. I'll be working hard to help people realize their craft and decorating needs until 5:00 pm, and then I can join other workers who have days off for my evening and a Sunday off. Except....

I love helping my customers with color and design decisions. I am
a stickler for knowledge of process, and I have excellent color
sense. Now if I just cared as much about my wardrobe as I do about my
artwork and my crafts....

On Sunday a trade show is in town. We only attend the show once a year and we need to restock some items that we only buy there. So, at 11:00 am on Sunday morning, or around that time, we'll be putting name tags onto our coats and entering a room that will quickly be overheated, overcrowded, and generally uncomfortable. I have high hopes that we will be in and out within 90 minutes, but know that my partner will want to look at rough stone so I'll resign myself to a corner and a wall with my phone and a good e-book while he tries to decide on pieces of rock to buy.

I'm hoping that we are able to get out of the hotel exhibition rooms relatively quickly so that we can enjoy the first day of 50 degree F temperatures we've had since last October. Warm weather - even though we'll only have the one day right now, I'll quite happily take it!

When my egret returns to my local pond, that's when
I think Spring has finally arrived again. 

I hope all of you have fabulous weekends and that each of you have an opportunity to really do at least one thing you really want to do. I'll be enjoying the thought that the ice still covering my pond will eventually melt and that my egret will return to my deep green waters.

Birds - Because We Love Them

We got an offer on the house yesterday - too low - so we sent in a counteroffer last night and we'll see where it goes. I have my 'day off' today and will be spending it getting my tax information together for my tax appointment next week as well as doing some beta work and general usual tasks such as laundry, grocery shopping, etc. We had snow last night - looks like 3"-4" if I'm seeing it properly through the window. DH is already awake (it's not even 5:00 am) to snow blow me out. I'm rather amazed!

Cardinals are one of the few smaller birds that winter over with us. There is
nothing more spectacular than to see their red feathered bodies flying
through the snow-filled evergreen branches. I love their song in the spring
when they are seeing a mate. I often hear it as the sun rises in the morning sky. 

So many of you commented on my owl yesterday. It was a totally wonderful thing and I loved having the music of its hoots outside my window. I think I'll do some bird pictures today because I adore birds and it seems like a good thing to do on a snow-filled day.

Blue Jays also winter over with us. These brash thieves of the bird world
are cocky and pushy with a harsh call. But they look so beautiful. 

Burrowing Owls look like the quintessential Egyptian owl to me. These small
little owls burrow underground and live in groups. They blend in with
the desert sands and are quick to hide.  

When I saw my first Brown Pelican flying above me many years ago I
thought I had been transported back in time to the days of flying
Pterodactyls. The wingspan was so amazing and it had this primitive look
that totally astounded me. They are very kewl birds. 

Although our lakes and rivers are filled with a variety of water birds, I have
an egret who regularly hangs out at the pond closest to me. When I see him in the water,
I know that spring has arrived. He's still somewhere warmer for the next month or two,
but I'll be on the look-out when the snows have finally melted. The breathtaking
beauty of the stark white flying against the green trees gets me every time. 

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday. I'll try and post something with more conversational meat tomorrow.

Changing Times, Changing Seasons

My egrets left their pond almost a month ago, and my grey heron left a bit more than a week ago. Now the warm temperatures are following them and fall/winter is arriving. Today is the first day when our high temperature will be in the mid-50's Fahrenheit (12.5 Celsius, approx). A cold front will be coming across the northern part of the state, and we will see our first snow today. Not here in the Twin Cities (thank goodness) but across the northern part of the state.

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day, warm and slightly breezy with our bold scarlet, bright gold, deep brown and brilliant green leaves all vying with one another for a "best dressed tree" award. I took a break from sitting at the computer while having a wonderful, long conversation with Aearwen, and sat outside on my patio nursing a glass of wine while talking. Thank goodness I have a chance to talk with her weekly. I can bounce things off her and even though we rarely speak specifically about stories or WIPs, we still manage to focus on problem areas and clarify them. The story I was stuck on which was on Version 2 got a serious revision again when I returned to my desk and Version 3 seems like it will do what I needed. I'll read it over one more time to be sure before finalizing it for submission.

I did the official thing yesterday and signed up for NaNoWriMo. For those who may be unfamiliar with this, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and takes place in November. I've known I was going to make the attempt to do this for most of this year and didn't need to officially sign up, but I also know that there are various events, writers boards and get-togethers, and different motivational things that occur during November to help keep all of the authors on track to succeed in their goal of producing 50,000 words by the end of the month. I have a feeling I will need that support, so I did the official sign-up thing :-) I can't start writing until November 1st, but I'm looking forward to letting the words out and I just hope it turns into a true novel, not just a longer story.

Have a fabulous day!

Quiet Thoughts

Since I just wasted an hour of very precious early morning time searching for (and downloading) e-pub copies of "The Front Runner" and several other books that I'll transfer to my NookColor this weekend. I wanted to share my early mornings in spring/summer with all of you.

On my way to work in the mornings, and on my way back home in the afternoon, I pass two small lakes a short way from the busy highway that I drive daily. The waters last night were glazed, undisturbed by shimmers or waves. The trees and grasses reflected in deep olive greens, the sky, a light blue, deepened behind the green. Often the water is enjoyed by small families of ducks or my egrets. My white egrets who haunt the shorelines of these lakes and other nearby lakes, are splashes of intense brightness against the dark greens tinged with bronze highlights that the waters and grasses create. Every time I see my egrets, one or more of them, my breath stops for a short second because of their extreme beauty. They are the Isis of IsisRising, my muse on the wing.

And this year my beautiful white spirits have been joined by a grey heron who haunts the shaded areas in the early morning and, rarely, in the afternoon. It's an incredible bird and I'm so pleased to see it here. With luck, it will come back again year after year just as my egrets have. So, I am sharing my muses with all of you and hope that their beauty will brighten your weekend.

Progressing and Designing

I am trying to get my scheduling nailed for the year. I know that I will complete an item for Beading For A Cure, the charity against colon cancer that I have been involved with for many years. And if my friend Shruit gets our application in and accepted, I will be participating with her in a second competition piece. But I think those are the only two beading competitions that I will produce beadwork for this year.

In metal clay, I will be making charms for the charm swap at the PMC Conference in July, and I will be making some Art Clay Copper pieces to enamel and test out because it's a new product that I actually have owned for a while now and just haven't had the time to play with yet. I may or may not do more with metal clay this year - it's still very much in the air. I love the product, but I also need to work on my fabrication skills which have fallen by the wayside.
For fabrication, I will be setting enamel pieces. I need to finish my cloak pins. Then I would still like to do the center heron for my heron and chrysanthamums piece that I started more than a year ago. And I want to make more enamel. Lots more. I really love playing with enamel.

And I'll be drawing. Because my fingers are itching to pick up a piece of graphite and a sketchpad and draw. And many of those drawings may make their way into color and finally into glass because the projects that I have in the works are into sketch mode now.

And finally I'll be sewing - I'll be hand embroidering the borders of cloaks and machine sewing the cloaks themselves. I still want to do a new corset for Renaissance Faire, and I want a new skirt also. I have had the fabric for that for a couple of years, I just need to actually make the items.

Well - it looks like I'll have a busy year. Guess I'd better get going on my art front!

Isis Rising

People often agonize over the appropriate name for their company. Often they use their own personal name. Indeed, when selling jewelry or something similarly hands-on intensive, choosing your personal name for your company can be a very reasonable marketing tool. In spite of the common sense for me to use Sandra Graves or Sensations by Sandra or something else similar, I chose Isis Rising. I chose the name because it chose me. And that choosing was recalled to my mind earlier in the week when I knew that Spring had returned to my wintery home.

I have walked the path of the Creator for a long time. I celebrate both the male and the female aspects, but feel very close to the female - not unexpected in any woman. The female has been celebrated in this world in many incarnations, one of which has been Isis. She is instantly recognizable and, in my many years of Egyptian studies, she and Maat are the two female aspects that are most important to me on a personal level. There are many symbols of Isis, but one of the more obscure is the white egret which symbolizes water. I have a grey crane and a white egret who regularly visit one of the small ponds that I pass daily on my way to and from work. One of my major signs of spring are when my beloved birds return to my pond. And earlier in the week, my grey crane was back in the water looking for small munchies. I expect my Egret to return within the next month and then I can happily spend the summer looking for his beauty every time I pass his small realm. It always brightens my heart to see him in the pond, and to see him on the wing is simply breathtaking. I've been trying to capture him in enamels for a year, but I fear it will take longer since I don't have him nailed yet. But I took the name Isis Rising from the love of seeing him on the wing as a living prayer to She/He who looks after all of us. It is one more small aspect of how I view all items that I create as made as physical prayers to the Creator, and in thanks to Her/Him for the small talents that were placed into my mind and my hands. I am very grateful.