Happy Journeys Sweet Jess on Cupcake Day and Always XO

Sweet Jess herself, little minx XO!

Happy Celestial Birthday my beloved Starchild, Sweet Jess! Thank you so much for all the inspiration you gave me while you were here physically for 26 crazy wonderful years, and for all that you continue to share from your Heaven! What joy I had this past April as I had the chance to sponsor an exhibit of your stunning photos at State College Framing Company and Gallery for a couple of months. What an honor to be able to share your talents, and to be able to show people the world through your eyes. I've never had so much fun as I did working with John, Jeff, and Kevin, who helped in the various processes of mounting the show. I'm sure that at the party the first night you were there in spirit, enjoying it all with us. It is also a complete joy to have some of those beautifully framed photos hanging in our home. They shine color and nature and beauty, radiating your joy and peace and making our hearts sing. Thank you for capturing those gorgeous moments in time. I love to think of all the time you spent with your camera pursuing your passions.

The world through Jess's eyes...
(Click on the photos if you'd like to enlarge them.)

 

Jess's photo of Alder Lake, happy place!

Can you hear the song of the water?

My FAVORITE photo that Jess ever took!
We have it enlarged and it hangs in my bedroom.
Just makes my heart sing out loud every time I see it!

One of Jessie's road trips and the happy place of some
wonderful people she met along the way.
Look carefully, do you see the tipis?

In the beginning...
Jess and me when she was about 2 and 1/2 XO

Jess enjoyed teaching.
She used puppets and music and always had a captive audience.
She used her monkey puppet George in her studio later,
as a professional photographer and always got smiles from the kids.

She loved to write, and she loved beautiful nature,
and of course she loved talking on her phone with others ALL THE TIME!

She LOVED black olives
and we'd go through a whole can just between the two of us,
and just like that with our fingers! I still do it too, lol. XO

She loved poetry and liked to read it as well as write it.
Even had some published!

She loved humor and being silly. That's a pansy on her nose,
no hands, because she sniffed it and it stuck! XO lol

She loved candy and playing with her photos XO

She loved playing XO

And so many loved her. Auntie Min, my sis,
who is with her now XO

The family loved her XO

Joey Max loved her XO

Joey's with her in their Heavens now...

Tyler loved her; he's with her now....

Benjamin loved her, he's with her now too...
we've got lots of friends in Heaven indeed.

Rob loved her XO

And I love her XO!

Endlessly...

Always and always XOXO

Our embrace and release ceremony in the chiminea while she was home healing XO
Lots of orbs in this one, waiting to take her to True Home
sooner than we ever expected, only six months later.

My beauty. She says "You should see me now Momma!"
She loves her new light body.

We are with you XO

Thank you for being there this past September to greet my beloved sister, Melinda, as she went back to True Home. I'm sure you're both surrounded by so much love and so many of our loved ones as well. I love to think of all the sweet animals that have been part of our family over the years being there with you all, and of all our relatives and friends, adventuring with you as you please, in your beautiful Heavens. I sure do miss my two favorite girls down here, you both were such constants in my life and my heart feels all filled up remembering all that we shared together.

Happy Cupcake Day my beloved. I love you!

Thank you for your love, inspiration, and encouragement as we continue our adventures on Earth. I'll see you on the other side XO!

All my love always, forever and a day,

Momma XO!

Note: Yep, the lights flickered three times just now. She's blinking at me and sending her love so I know she's with me. Hope you feel your Lovies with you too XO

To read our story, check out Coming Alive After Death, and Letters from Celestial Jess. If you like them, please leave a review! My contact info is on the back cover of each, and I LOVE to hear from my readers. More lovely books in progress for children in the coming months XO! Stay tuned : )

Confession: I Can Get Reeeally Excited About a Sump Pump!!

 

Oh my Gosh! It's a SUMP PUMP!!!!!!!!

I was working real hard the past two days to shorten the straps on a cabochon necklace that a lovely lady purchased from Art a la Carte in Bellefonte, where I make my work available along with lots of other fantastic artists. Great place for gifts at any time of year. Today I had planned to deliver it to the shop so Elizabeth could ship it out. Thank goodness the lovely lady was quite understanding and flexible in the delivery because I discovered we were not able to go anywhere!

The lovely cabochon necklace!
That diagonal is smooth as silk and just part of the glass fusion of patterns.
I'll be doing a few more of these in different colors.

I was asleep in my bed, having spent about six hours redoing the necklace straps and adding a new backing and border to the piece (gosh it's gorgeous!), and my plan was to hop in the shower and pop over to Bellefonte after I'd had my tea. HOWEVER, as I cowered under my covers about four hours before I wanted to wake up I suddenly felt the whole house shake and heard noises louder than I'd EVER HEARD BEFORE. Yep, the crew from our local Basement Waterproofing Gurus had arrived! It felt like there were 50 of them but there were only two, and sometimes five. 

I laid there, not at all ready to leave sleep and start the day, and as I listened to the jackhammer doing its thing I also felt the vibrations, almost like those beds your parents would give you quarters to put in to make them vibrate (see the movie Bonneville for a great example; nice hotels have them too : ) AND that is one of my FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME for grief recovery and a bit of beauty, poignancy, and humor. So I'm lying in my bed thinking I really have to use the bathroom, but I'm sort of afraid that while I'm on the throne the whole thing will fall either straight down into the basement where some of the men are working, or maybe through the wall and right outside on the sidewalk for all the world to see! Welp, Nature was calling and there was nothing I could do but take a deep breath and risk the relocation of myself along with the throne with all that jackhammering.

Not only were they inside the house in the basement, hammering up the concrete to build a beeeeeeautiful trench that goes across two walls, they were also hammering up two recessed outdoor stairwells that had French drains installed back when the house was built in 1964. The French drains had never been totally cleaned out and redone, and it was high time since we had experienced many floods in the basement every time it rained heavily. Rob has spent many an hour shop vacuuming the water up, setting up fans, and I purchased a rather expensive dehumidifier to keep the water out of the air down there - it's a true basement, not exactly rec-room potential. Just needed a bit of TLC, which it's finally getting in spades. So these pros are here to completely dig up the French drains, rebuild them, and re-pour concrete, as well as trench for the sump pump in the basement AND take care of three gutter areas where they're trenching and putting in PVC to channel the water from certain gutters, under the sidewalks (to avoid ice flows in winter), and out into the yard, where the soil and grass can accommodate the overflow. BIG JOB!

The infamous basement doorway that lets in a river.
Yep, we're replacing the doors too.

We only had a few floods when we first moved in, and we could keep the basement pretty dry in-between storms. But as my Lovies who live in Central Pennsylvania know, our weather has warmed somewhat over the years, and we get rather a lot more water, plus we've had some reeeeally WET years, so the floods were becoming more frequent, hence the pros coming in to help us get a handle on it.

So I made it through the shortest of morning bathroom time, no long, hot shower, no lovely time putting on my makeup, just toss the hair into a clip, get dressed in the dark and get outta there quick as a bunny! Had my tea in the living room with my pup shivering and all atremble on my lap with yet more noise that he couldn't understand (cause we just got the roof done, and that's another story!). 

While we sat there, I read a sweet little book written by the grandfather of a friend of mine, called Warm Hearts for Cold Noses, by Edward R. Dionne, Jr., VMD, which is a true delight and also something I'd happily suggest for your reading pleasure or a gift for anyone who adores animals. Note that the author is the grandfather of my favorite spirit medium, Desiree Denis, and the father of my favorite past life regression expert, Terri Denis both of whom can be contacted at Spirit Guidance and Healing, where there's a host of WONDERFUL information on the classes they offer and the variety of their spiritual expertise you can tap, should you be so inclined.

So I sat with the pup rereading the same page several times (not due to the content of the story, rather due to the incredible decibels we were privy to) while my whole house shook and we did too. It was GLORIOUS! Because for all the noise and craziness, it's gonna be FIXED BIGTIME! And this really does excite me.

The trench along one of the basement walls.
Not done yet, more tomorrow.

So the pros will be back tomorrow to finish the trench and all the hookups in the basement and they'll pour concrete over it so it'll be all clean and will work for years, YAY!!

I said to my husband as we peeked out the windows every so often throughout the day, and stuck our heads out to say thank you to the men working so hard, "They must eat a LOT!" Because just like the roofers, I've never seen anyone work so hard with such heavy materials in all my life. It would kill me in a minute and they go all day six days a week. Wow. So we're getting them some donuts tomorrow because I want to FEED THEM! And they can eat ANYTHING THEY WANT because they work it off in five minutes flat! I might be a bit envious of that, but my little body was never made to do all that heavy muscle stuff. 

I have no idea what protocol is on house renovation but we feel like we should be here, especially when they're in the house, for the pup's comfort (he was so brave and SUCH a good dog all day) and also to answer any questions or whatever that might come up. 

I think they'll be two more days, but we might try to pop over to Bellefonte the third day once they're just working out on the back patio and no longer inside, and we'll be taking the pup with us XO He loves to ride in the car.

It's kind of amusing because all summer, for months and months, the city has been jammering up the roads in our neighborhood and installing new stormwater and sewage drains, and we've noticed a very fine layer of concrete dust that seeps into the house constantly even with the windows closed. They just finished up and moved along, about a day or two before OUR guys showed up and now I can actually say I think I know the almost metallic, dry flavor of concrete dust in my nose and throat, even though they of course installed plastic all around the indoor work areas. It's worth it. I'm using my saline spray and putting all kinds of respiratory healing herbs and spices in our stew and chicken pot pie of the past couple days, and it's working so far. Glory be! If it doesn't kill me I'll be thoroughly pleased, and I'm surrounding these hardworking guys in all the best ever blessings and thanks a heart can beam out!

It is wondrous to get really specialized people to help you take care of things that have been nagging at you with the home ownership thing. And sometimes I even pat the walls of the house and tell her, it's okay, we're just lovin' you back and you're gonna be just fine. Trust the process.

So that's this week with more to come. Will update as we go. But you know? I'm just so grateful for people who have this very specific knowledge and are willing to work that hard to help us and to feed their families. There is a place for everyone in this world. And that makes me just so happy. 

I invite you to share some of your renovation stories in appreciation of those who can do what we cannot XO

Namaste,

Jen
 

All the Everythings! WOOT!

 

OHAI!

Life is feeling SUPER full of ALL THE EVERYTHINGS right now so I thought I'd share a bit with you, especially as this year comes to a close and we get ready for a brand new one. 

She said she wanted color, so I'm ON IT!

One of my favorite people in all the world is Elizabeth Hay, who owns the gallery/shop, Art a la Carte, in Bellefonte, PA. Elizabeth represents a host of truly talented artists, whose beautiful creations she sells in her shop. Not only that, she is a wonderful mentor and representative, teacher, and one who encourages and inspires us to reach our highest potentials with our creativity. So when she says to me she envisions lots of bright color in my new creations I follow through and what a joy it is for me and also for those who become the new caretakers of what I am able to make for them! That's a win-win all the way around! Thanks Elizabeth!

In the photo above you see some of the newest arrivals in my studio and I'm now in the process of matching the necklaces with the gorgeous gemstone teardrops that have just arrived all the way from Jaipur, India. I work directly with this gemstone vendor, whom I've discovered recently, to have these handmade teardrops drilled vertically, customized to my specifications. What a glorious job they do, and what exquisite beads they create - definitely worth the wait and the cost! I'll be bringing these three-strand necklaces and teardrop earrings into the shop through the holidays and well into the New Year as there's plenty to keep me busy for some time to come. 

In the photo above we have tourmaline, amethyst, natural pink petrified rhodonite, moss agate, carnelian, and lapis lazuli in the heishi necklace beads. Each three strand is composed of about four 15-inch strands of heishi beads, along with either a silver or copper magnetic slider clasp. They look absolutely fabulous on everyone, are easy to wear with anything from jeans to dressy clothing, and the easy on/off clasp is one of my all-time favorites. I confess, I sometimes wear more than one of these necklaces at a time, such as a turquoise one with a red coral one since that is a combination of gemstone energies as old as time and well known throughout many cultures, enhancing the balance of masculine (active) and feminine (intuitive) energies in each of our physical/spiritual systems. 

Teardrops will become perfect complements
for the necklaces awaiting creation.

Though I love to suggest which earrings go really well with the gemstone necklaces, I generally don't confine sales to "sets," preferring to let the wearer choose their mood or expression, which may change according to their outfit, where they might be going, what they'll be doing, and even according to which kinds of gemstone energies they might want to have near them for specific purposes : ) If you'd like to learn more about gemstone energies and properties my favorite source of information is Judy Hall, who's written a number of wonderful books including The Crystal Bibles. No worries, I always write down the name of the gemstone(s) on the tag so in case you're not familiar with them you can look them up.

True turquoise comes in many natural shades, plus
who knew? - turquoise is a gemstone that doesn't mind being dyed!

The photo above shows the deep blues of lapis lazuli, bright greens of African green chrysoprase, soft greens, golds and purples of natural fluorite, and two different shades of beloved turquoise! WOOT! So that's partly what's happening in my studio in the next few weeks, along with mala making and beautiful cabochon necklace creation, book illustration, and writing. 

Above the studio....

So last week, I wasn't able to get a lot of work done inside my studio because of what's happening above the studio! And ALL OVER THE WHOLE ROOF! Yep! The WONDERFUL roofers came and descended upon our lovely home. At last! I understand that roofs generally need to be replaced about every ten years, and we were willing, but not able, due to four kids and blended family, university tuitions, student exchange programs, and elder care and travels for Rob's elders. So, though we LOVED our beautiful home from the minute we bought it 22 years ago, and she has loved us back, she went down on the priority list until now. WOOT! Now she's right back up there on top!

Oh my gosh, we felt in SUCH good hands when Stoltzfus came to take care of this huge job. You know why they won the bid? Not because they were the least expensive, not because of the schedule, not because they were the only ones working around our area. I'll tell you why. We got about six bids on the job, and heard all kinds of things and experienced all kinds of things, from people trying to sell us what we weren't looking for to people who never set foot upon the roof to check things out before bidding, and one day a Stoltzfus representative came and went on up there, walked all over, and when he popped down with the agility of a professional aerial performer he said to my husband, "You had an area that was leaking and I went ahead and patched it, no charge." WOW. Just WOW. 

So the bids all came in over a period of some weeks, and I said to my husband, who had given the wonderful Stoltzfus guy some cash even though he said no charge, they get my vote. Anyone with values like that who sees a leak and patches it even though they don't yet have the job, wow, THOSE are values I want to support! Those are the people I'll trust with the work we need done! And we've not been disappointed. Gosh, our roofing experience has been just the BEST EVER from start to finish. And they start EARLY! LOL! 

I don't know if I can dig up photos of the "before" up close, but we had peeling paint hanging from the soffit all the way around the house, and we had birds who tried to get into the fascia, and we even had baby tiny little trees growing in the gutters in some places because hubby was busy working and also getting a bit old to go up and clean out the gutters anymore, so okay. We were THAT house in the neighborhood. Didn't even have to decorate for Halloween, already done by Nature's helpers. 

So pretty much every day for a week we huddled in the house, comforting our pup while they banged on every square inch of roof, tearing off anything that needed it, replacing it, and going through a bunch of really impressive teamwork the likes of which I've never seen. They had all the big boy toys and equipment, and when we peeked out the windows to see what they were doing we saw them talking to each other with hand signs and things that only they understand and aerodynamics that made my tummy go willy. Not a lot of sleep was had since I work til about 3 a.m. many nights, and they showed up at around 7:30 a.m. most mornings. I huddled under the covers until the banging shook the house and I HAD to get up and make my tea, ready or not.

I've never seen such beautiful smiles as these guys flash, so full of some kind of special innocence and beauty. I've never seen such uncompromising eye contact between them and my husband as they discussed various milestones in the process. The eye contact sort of didn't come my way, until (I'm sure I overstepped some comfort zones of Amish behavior expected of women) I poked my head out and interrupted a conversation to declare my thanks and appreciation or ask a question. They were so polite! And they were so GREAT about cleanup every single day! And they laughed as they worked, just that lovely teamwork kind of laughter going on. And they stopped to eat lunch all together sitting on the lawn or in the driveway and I said to my hubby later on the porch, "I bet they EAT A LOT!" because I have never seen anyone work so hard for so many hours, just WOW! 

So now, we have a brand new roof and new soffit all the way around, new fascia, new gutters, and all of it is such that it makes our hearts SING! Thank you so much Stoltzfus team! You're highly recommended by us indeed! I will put up a finished photo of the great job but I have to remember to go out and take one tomorrow since it's dark out right now. Rob and I tease each other and say, "Wanna go ogle the soffit?!" And we do. We can see it all smooth and fresh and clean from every window and the porch and it makes us so darned happy. And that's just the start of the home renovations. 

I feel like putting up a sign for the neighbors: Painting coming in the spring, because the soffit wasn't the only thing that had peeling paint. Our home is made of redwood, and we learned during our research (Gosh I LOVE YouTube and the internet for GREAT help with research!) that redwood is one of the very best for siding, BUT it needs special treatment because it is a very oily wood and if you prime and paint it with latex it will bubble and peel (which it did three weeks after we first painted it when we moved in because we didn't know....) Welp, now we do, so we've collected bids for the priming and painting in spring when the weather is over 50 degrees (oil-based primer only, and two coats, back brushed, not sprayed, exterior latex okay but maybe two coats better). Not too many local painters know how to handle redwood properly. So the point is, much research being done on how to do our lovely home justice so it'll last and be as beautiful outside as inside. I just love a job well done!

Beloved dwarf maple, hm....

SO, this takes us to what needed to be done BEFORE we could have the roof replaced. We had two huge trees in the backyard which we've loved for all the 22 years we've been here. The first was a "dwarf" maple tree - does that photo look like a dwarf to you? Nope, me neither. My bad. When we first moved in it was just a twin trunk with five finger-like branches sticking out the top. I told my husband it had to go. But it was April with snow still on the ground (20 years ago we still got snow in April). Pretty soon it leafed out with the most delicate, beautiful little leaves that we decided to let it stay. And one day (here's my bad coming) I was gardening under that tree and discovered a bunch of black plastic, you know that icky stuff they put so the tree can't get any water and the weeds stay down. Welp, I hauled OUT all that black plastic so my tree could breathe and grow and flourish and wow, she became the biggest "dwarf" anything you've ever seen! She grew and she grew and she grew until she made a little throne upon which we could sit. 

Rob on the magical throne.

You could actually sit, cradled by this lovely maple and watch the sunset, great spot. Also I put birdseed in certain spots and all the critters would come, the chipmunks and the squirrels and a host of different kinds of birds. This tree also shaded our patio table for all those years. Everyone just loved to sit within her embrace. You could even sit under her in a light rain and you didn't get wet; her leaves were thick and plentiful. And then she started getting pretty old. She developed hollows that collected water and bumps and gnarls and scars. And she got WAY TOO BIG so that we only had a sunbeam for about half an hour on the WHOLE PATIO. And she grew up and over the roof. I knew it was only a matter of time until her twin trunks split (either in a great wind, or with the weight of rainwater or snow) and she would fall half on the roof and half in the pool, creating damages we would have a hard time recovering from. So with the new roof coming, we had to make some hard decisions and one of those was to send her back to the Garden in the Sky. It was time. My husband, a horticulturist, taught me that, "Trees have lifespans," and she was way past hers. I couldn't take the chance of having peeps over to eat on the patio and have the tree split and fall on them, it just wasn't safe anymore. ACK! So I sat on her beautiful fairy throne and said goodbye one sunset, and they came and took her away, though her memory will live forever in our hearts. Yes, I loved THAT tree.

AND there is one more tree story to tell, that of our beloved Metasequoia. It is a lovely story indeed. 

Our beloved Metasequoia, our "love fern."

So if you've ever seen the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, you'll be familiar with the concept of the "love fern." Welp, when my husband and I were dating, centuries ago it sometimes seems, we spent a lot of time walking all over the campus where we both worked at Penn State University. And it is a gorgeous campus, with notable plants, including trees, shrubs, urns, and groundcover. Truly beeeautiful. I fell in love with a tree which I asked him about, because it felt beautiful and familiar to me - come to find out it was a Metasequoia, and they grow happily in California, where I'd spent about 18 years of my life. And because he's a little bit sentimental, he procured one and gave it to me! It was our LOVE FERN! It was about 3-4 years old, and we kept it in a pot for a couple of years, until we decided to marry, bought a house, and popped it in the ground shortly thereafter. Well, it grew, and it grew and oh baby, it GREW. Its roots weren't too happy being confined to the folly of a space we had chosen for it, so they headed towards the pool and the house and under the patio foundation, and welp, it became a bit of a problem. So with the new roof going on and the other maple treework being done, we decided that our love fern was becoming a danger to everything out there and we had to send it to the Garden in the Sky too. I said to him, "This is not a sign from Heaven or anything, our love is still strong and fine." He said, "I know." And we collected some tiny pine cones so we could get the seeds and maybe plant a new one.

Too green? 

We tried last year with some old cones, but they'd already split and there were no seeds, so I put them in a basket in my studio. We tried this year before Meta went to the Garden in the Sky, but they were too young and I was pretty sure they'd not provide us with any seeds, but I put them on my drafting table for a while, just keeping them around. 

Oh my goodness! Seeds!

And what do you know, but those young, green cones are amazingly resilient, and the house is awfully dry, and they dried out and popped open and produced lots of beeeautiful little Meta seeds! (My son wants to grow one but I've warned him to plant it only in huge territory since it will get very, very big.)

AND, who knew? We were growing FURNITURE!

Yeah, this is gonna be beeeeautiful!

So maybe it's a Western thing, or maybe peeps here like it too, but when we were in California, we had a chance to visit a place called It's a Burl, where they make all kinds of glorious live edge tables, and furniture out of old growth wood from the forests. I always wanted to buy something from there and say, "Build me a house around this!" It was magical indeed. SO when the tree people came to take care of Meta, I suddenly had the idea that I wanted some of her trunk and asked my husband to ask them if they could save us some. I learned that this is not an uncommon practice (even here on the East Coast, yay!) and they very kindly cut us seven slices, which are called "cookie slabs." If you care to learn more about them, it's very entertaining to look up making cookie slab furniture on YouTube.com. I've watched several videos on how this is done (it does vary, as do results, but it's waaaaay coooool!). We've promised the kids they can have some of the cookie slabs so they're pretty much all spoken for, but let me put a plug in that if you have big trees coming out, this is a really fun, very special thing you can do with parts of them so they can keep on giving and you can keep on loving them!

So WHEN the roofers came, I noticed our favorite guy eyeing our back porch and couldn't figure out quite what he was looking at. I was afraid I'd insulted him with my Buddhas all over the place, and incense holders and stuff, but it turns out this was not the case. Because when I stuck my head out to interrupt the conversation between him and my husband so as to thank him for all the good work, he took a moment to ask about the cookie slabs which are lined up along the back porch wall, drying (might take 6 months to a year for that)! Turns out he has access to a huge woodshop and has been studying how to make cookie slab furniture for a year! WOOT! So I asked him if he would like to have one of ours (since he was so nice and they fixed our leak without even charging us and all), and he was delighted to say YES! And he was also able to refer us to a shop that can make our tables for us, should we decide to proceed that way, which we likely will. How's that for a GOOD TRADE?! All that time we thought we were growing a love fern and we didn't even know we were growing heirloom quality furniture too!

Thank you for your beauty! We loooove you!

So off these beautiful trees went to the Garden in the Sky, and on the way they got to high five my little granddaughter just coming down for her new adventures. I'm in LOVE.

My lovely!! XOXOXO

My little beauty XO!

Now I snuck this pic and I can't put any names to it because my son and his wife are a little private about the new baby - though I can probably let you know her name is Haia, which translates to "Life." And that she is so full of it and so lovely. I'm a grandmother! My kids are totally entrenched in adulting and the parenthood club! Wowzers! I'm over the moon! I loved the facebook post I put up asking you all what your grandchildren call you and totally appreciate every single one of your responses. Adorable, all! I asked my son what he might suggest, and he said, "How about something from your Welsh heritage Mom?" I had already been leaning towards Nana because it's so friendly, come to find out when I looked up the Welsh (cause I'm Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, and 1% Melanesian according to the DNA test thing), I found that Nain is a term frequently used, and it's close enough for me! Nana Jen it shall be! Couldn't be happier to watch her grow, and can't wait to meet her and hold her and read to her and learn kidstuff from her and do stuff with her that will be fun. Happy Nana Jen!

So THERE we are with the EVERYTHINGS. And if you've made it this far through this way too long but fun blog post, I hope you feel the joy of life, and trust in the process of it, even though it takes some rain to get the rainbows. 

Love to you and yours, and happy holidays too!

Namaste,

Jen

Little Bit of Something Special

 

Something special indeed XO

So tomorrow is my sister's memorial ceremony, and though my mind and spirit are doing well with it, my little body surely does protest. Thank goodness her wonderful, loving husband is recording it and zooming it live. I have been too sick physically to be there in person. It has hit hard after nearly three years of her sickness and so many hospital stays for her. My heart has been in my throat or down in my feet and I'm working on getting it back where it belongs....

But there is love, and there is beauty, and there are verrrry special things to hold me together while I recover and learn to carry her in my heart. When there is the death of a sibling who has a family we often don't have the opportunity to inherit something to hold dear, but I am blessed in that I have. 

Years ago I gave my Sis a rather large, beautiful pottery container which perhaps was originally meant to serve stews or soups in but we made it a planter. She always kept it in the window right over her desk in her home study and it flourished there when she was well. As she got sicker with the big C she moved it to an area next to all her other plants and she watered it as she was able, but after many months she became unable to care properly for her plants. And, as many people who are suffering from sickness do, she didn't ask for help. 

So the last time she was in hospital I asked if there was anything I could do, and her loving husband said, "I'm not good with plants, so if you want to stop by the house and water her plants that would be great." So we did, and this container had a bunch of ugh in it and one struggling stem of pothos plant. I watered it but was pretty sure it wasn't coming back.

Then, after her passing, I inherited the container that I'd given her. It sat in my kitchen for a couple of days and I determined to clean it out and replant it. My thought was that I knew she loved it as best she could, so I would too, to honor a little bit of what she loved. So I washed out the container and prepared it with what I know to do with plants. Oh my gosh I made such a mess in the kitchen, but hubby didn't know because I did a good job cleaning up, lol.

I washed it all out, cleaned the pot with vinegar to take off the calcium buildup, and layered it with clean tiny gravel, charcoal, a layer of screen, and what fresh soil I had, and there it sat on our kitchen counter, waiting for new baby plants. I wasn't sure what I could or would plant in there. 

I hadn't said anything to my husband, but he's very sensitive, and picks up on a lot, so when I woke up the next morning, I discovered he'd been to the store, and when I went into the kitchen, the counter looked like Christmas! He'd brought home some more potting soil, and four gorgeous baby plants! They were all sitting there along with a bunch of beautiful alstroemeria flowers for me to put in our vases (which we only do in cool seasons since the house is hot in summer and we spend our time outside in the pool).

So that night I spent about an hour and a half planting the baby plants and making a total mess in the kitchen (sure would love a true mud room, but hey, I can clean up my mess, lol). And it FELT SO GOOD to be giving life back to something she loved. Wow. Every time I look at it, it makes my heart sing right out loud. I LOVE that I can become the caretaker of something she loved. 

Rabbit's foot fern

So after I planted the babies in her planter I had one left over, and picked out a lovely vase we haven't used for years because it's kind of huge and when we had sun in our yard before the trees got too big we put peonies in it but with the shade the peony bushes have not produced as much (soon to change with yardbuzz happening) so I figured this fern would be perfectly happy in this vase. Got my inspiration from all those British movies where they show so many absolutely gorgeous flower/plant containers. They do that so well. 

Happy bunny in the kitchen!

And after I had done the planting I spent a bit of time arranging the flowers my hubby brought, so this is what the well-dressed bunny is wearing this week, WOOT. 

My favorite vase from Lynn Anne XO

And I had enough flowers to fill my favorite vase from one of my favorite friends, the artist Lynn Anne Verbeck. I just love her work. 

Just LOVE.

AND I had a friend come and she gave me some beautiful white roses and told me she's thinking about me tomorrow and wishing me love and peace. Aren't friends just wonderful?! Yep!!

A little light goes a long way.

And the last thing I did on that night was refill my little Moroccan lanterns with new electric tealights, to lend their magic to our evening ambiance.

And I felt all filled up. With love. 

It doesn't take much to feel all filled up with love and sometimes working with plants and caretaking a bit of something our Lovies loved goes a long way to filling our hearts right up with all the good stuff.

May you feel the good stuff too, in all your experiences of life and the passing of loved ones. May you have something to hold dear, and if you don't inherit anything, take the love and memories and create some little thing that makes your heart sing. I'm sure our Lovies can feel when our hearts sing with them and they're singing right with us XO

Namaste,

Jen