Weather-Inspired Finds

It's been overcast and muggy around here lately--sort of reminiscent of winter weather, but minus the chill factor and comforting urge to pile on a cozy sweater.  Peering out the window, it appears to be a foggy day: slight tendrils of fog can be seen, moderate gusts of wind heard, and periodic bursts of sunlight felt, but the cloying warmth and mugginess that has permeated our living space over this odd period of a few days reminds me that it's really 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  Instead of the 55 degrees I'd much rather prefer.

This strange weather (not quite summer, not quite winter...or fall or spring) has provided the impetus and inspiration to post the unique finds below, which were curated from my Etsy favorites.  Besides displaying a wonderful product, each composition has such fantastic mood, evocatively soft lighting, and a fog-lover's choice of colors--lots of varied grays and off-whites abound, naturally highlighting rather than visually overwhelming the products shown.  (No blinding-white shadow boxes here.)  Together though, is where the complex visual delight lays, for me at least, as this collection of images visually articulate my deep visceral longing for steadiness and consistency (an example of which is the hope of steady weather), in addition to the creative spark that I yearn for at all times--that often proves inconsistent!

Danna G. art 

tin tabernacle 

Minicyn 

The Fiber Florist

HADITHI

Out of Line

Inspiration: Fog

Treasury by ewalompe seen here.

Inspiration: Post-Storm Fog

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the drought that had plagued our area since last fall.  I guess my ranting of sorts (plus the rain dances and the religious prayers that I saw on the local news) worked because we received a steady downpour of rain for four days straight last week.  It was beautiful in a moody kind of way--so beautiful in fact, that I felt like I was living in a drizzly Seattle-like dream.  Rain became the white noise in the background; the music to my drought-heavy ears.

The images in this post were taken in the evening of the day immediately after this rainstorm, when the fog quietly slipped in between land and sky in the pre-twilight hours...

With the ground squishy and the air crisp, clean, and damp with the musty scent of earth, I took these images.  The air chilled around me, twirled me to and fro in its heavy mist of fog, whispered to me age-old secrets from a world away...

* * *

Changing subjects, I came across this great "made in America" article about Mohnton Knitting Mills in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, which manufactures for the label RP Miller (the same label as Curator's Stripe Tee).  Mohnton Knitting Mills is currently in its sixth generation of family ownership!

I blogged about Curator here.

January

It's been a thoughtful break, but now I am back into things full swing.  January saw the first of our much belated autumn-winter (our fall season consisted of a cold spell that lasted for about two weeks in early-to-mid November); it was a January autumn-winter that lasted all of a handful of days, for the temperature here has ranged anywhere from the low-to-high 60s for the last few weeks now.  While much of the Midwest has experienced (near) record-high snowfall and blustery, below-freezing temperatures this month, such as Detroit with Chicago close behind, we have experienced a milder form of the tropics here.  I was actually looking forward to wearing my scarves and long-sleeved shirts this winter, but with this dubious weather, my much coveted scarves and long-sleeved shirts will likely see little wear...  

That being said, the fog rolled in early last evening, and with it came a slight cool down in temperature.  Thank goodness!  Rain is even expected in the forecast.  Let's first see if Mother Nature throws us a curve ball.

Leaves collected in January 2014

Not that I'm complaining too much about the unseasonably warm weather because the above leaves collected earlier this month were beyond stunning, even if they were two months behind schedule in terms of coloration.  The poor daisies are even budding; my Thumbelina Leigh Lavender is throwing off tiny new shoots.  Our hummingbirds stayed, but now we are down to only one, and on occasion, two.

* * *

With Valentine's Day coming up, I've gone heart-crazy mad.  Coming from a person who isn't big on celebrating, this is quite a strange turn of events.  Perhaps there is a link between the blurring and skipping over of seasons and festive holiday giddiness--a similar event to, perhaps, seasonal affective disorder.  The "evidence" is shown below:

All for sale in my shop.  Call me a "crazy-heart lady" if you must, but have you been on Etsy lately?  It's like red heart central on there since December 24th.  It's pretty, it's festive, and it's all about love--so I will not critique nor dwell upon this subject any further.

Speaking of love, I found the below Etsy listing and found it appropriate (as well as witty):

MaryKralDesigns

Hope you are having a great year so far.  I look forward to blogging more in the coming months and years because January 2014 was an anomaly of sorts.

Winter Hummingbirds

Looks who's still here.  The little bugger.  Two of our three resident hummers are still here, that I've seen, which compared to this time last year, is considerably late.  In 2012, they left in mid-to-late November, only to return in early spring when the weather dipped regularly into the high 50s and low 60s.  Perhaps they will stay all winter this time...

One can surely hope.

* * *

If not, dear hummingbird,
would a hummingbird-sized heat lamp
be enticing enough for you to stay?

When It Rained

A few short weeks ago, it finally rained.  The heavens let out a long-awaited sigh and heaved its contents onto the ground below.  Prior to this rainstorm, which lasted two entire days, our area had received a measly 2-inches of rain in all of 2013.  A paltry sum, for sure.  Now we are hovering around 5 inches, give or take.  It was not a torrential downpour like it was in neighboring towns and cities, but the rain of a few weeks ago was a sight for sore eyes: a grand, watery display of awesome proportions.

There's something about the crisp, transient quality of clean air after a good autumn rain, especially after a rainstorm that lasted for more than a few hours.  It's soothing and revelatory--the smell of soaked asphalt and rotting leaves and all, revealing the inseparable layers of life underneath, the living within the cracks and the nooks and crannies of street life that peek out only during the rainy season in the form of vibrant green growth.  The best part however, post-rainstorm, are the photos to be taken.

I am a sucker for photographing in natural light the color green and drops of water.  I cannot help it, for it is a nice, temporary departure from the indoor photography of items for sale, a necessary break from the hectic back and forth of the holiday season; it is a measure of sanity.

For me, true vulnerability, human emotion, and spontaneous creativity can only be fully accessed away from the technological advances of humankind, even if only for a little while.  This is why I pay homage to when it rained those few weeks ago.

* * *

This post is for my husband,
who showed me many things
beyond the horizon.

Fall, Onward

I sure hope you got my humor in the last post.  Moving on, gracefully of course, the weather around here has been varying within 15+ degrees for the last few weeks.  One day is skin-burning weather while the next urges you to wear a sweater over a t-shirt.  Much to my surprise, today is one of those sweater weather days, as is/will be the rest of the week, which so drastically differs from a short week ago.  It's finally feeling like fall around here.  So it's not quite my fault that I recently began to crave drinking coffee and eating dark chocolate all day long--a questionable coping mechanism in anticipation of more crisp, late autumn weather to come.  All I need for accompaniment is a good read, and the afternoon is set.  Fall, onward, I say!

On the EmeraldCut shop front, I've many new designs swirling around in my head for late autumn/winter.  One of these new pieces, which is shown above, is now for sale in my shop.  It's a vintage book-page words poem on birch, which gives the work a festive, rustic, wintery aesthetic.  Will share more items once I put my ideas into motion.  Thanks for all the support.

Plant Study

A few weeks ago--or was it last week?--I happened upon my indoor sill plants in glorified light.  Not a glowing, halo-esque type of lighting, but the bright-yet-moody, ambient light that characterizes the time in-between late afternoon and dusk.  It's perhaps an hour at most that the light stays within this range, for it's not the soft drape of morning light, nor is it the harsh tint of the afternoon's.  Clouds were rolling in haphazardly, staggered in their movement, much like a child's first time on the ice: I had but a half hour's time before the clouds overtook the sun completely.

I usually edit my photographs on standard PicMonkey for clarity, color, and brightness.  But today, in this blog post, I wanted to capture the stillness and depth of my original shots--so here they are in their unedited forms.  Not too scary a sight to behold.  However, these images are the first that I've posted on this blog that have not been edited in some way, shape, or form, even if slightly.  Maybe you can tell the difference?

Oregano

Shiso

Arugula Roquette

* * *

Welcome, dear September!

P.S. All Internet connection issues--our outdoor connection wire was cracked, plus our modem was overheated--have been solved.  A new modem and some new holes in the wall later, everything is as good as new.  Thank goodness, I say!

The Gale Winds

A few nights ago, the heavens forcefully spilled forth, opened its mouth and bellowed.  Winds hit up to 50mph, so my husband says, and I heard their fury.  I heard whams and booms and slams; car alarms sounded in a haphazard succession.  The double-paned windows shook with an exasperated rattle, as if they were made of paper and not glass.  I watched slender-bodied trees bend for minutes on end, etching elongated, darkened shadows in the night sky.  When the lights flickered well after midnight, I began to worry--just ever so slightly--for the mad howl of wind coupled with strange, foreign sounds and complete darkness conjured up spooky thoughts; my imagination ran wild.  Under different circumstances, I would have considered the winds a magnificent natural occurrence.  Isn't it funny how loud things that go bump in the night can frighten one so?

As night made way for dusk, as day perilously broke, the winds mellowed into a consistent, strong breeze that lasted the entire day and rushed into the evening.  That morning, I took a quick peek outside, and all seemed normal--not a leaf, branch, or petal was visibly out of place.  Perhaps the newly planted seeds have blown asunder, but even that could not have been fully prevented anyways.

Reflecting back on this experience...I genuinely believe that humans have something to learn from nature, which is that the natural world moves forward.  Broken branch?  It'll be fine.  Gale force winds?  Bring it on.

The Reminder

 It's finally rained.

The continuous drip drop

Makes up for my lack of verboseness;

Fills in the silent in-between spaces.

Spring:
Flowers bloom,

Birds tweet and flutter.
Sunrise and sunset rise and fall like clockwork-- 

Not today nor tomorrow

Will life stand still.

Blue-Gray Tones

The wind blowing through a translucent gray sky is a common scene around here, but it's still one of my favorites.  As an introverted Scorpio, I am deeply moved by my outdoor surroundings; it's a coveted past-time to be able to sit outdoors and quietly observe slight tilts in light and wind with a camera in hand and a full heart.  Perhaps I was a Transcendentalist in a prior life--that or a hippie, but I (humbly) prefer the former rather than the latter.  

86Vintage86's Etsy Treasury, "March," (as seen below) visually puts into motion all that I hold dear about this time of year, balancing tentatively between winter and spring...

Stay good, stay warm, stay kind...

* * *

This post is dedicated to G.J.

Anticipation

 Hello, handful of people who read my blog.  I've missed blogging, and it has only been five days since my last post.  Goodness!  I don't know about you, but I've bit big by the autumn bug far too early this year--my autumn cravings (can one crave a season?) began in mid-August.

Today is only September 1st, but I'm already daydreaming of a cocoon-like existence: daydreaming of cozy sweaters/cardigans and a continuous supply of hot drinks, autumn-colored leaves and a chill in the air--boot weather.  And oh, must I forget the chai?  Scratch that, I am already drinking the spiced teas to no end.

Today is also the first full day of my month-long Etsy shop 30% off coupon code and giveaway (see my previous blog entry for details).  I am probably not supposed to admit this, but I am slightly nervous about having two simultaneously-occurring promotions (well three, if you count my donation items). Yet, I know that the only thing I can do is see how it all goes.  So I will just go with the flow...sipping my chai tea and grabbing a well-worn cozy cardigan to drape across my shoulders in the process, as anticipatory gestures of autumn.

The Narrative

This office space, via linen & lavender is an absolute dream, from the earthy, muted colors, to the disorderly collection of books, down to the eclectic desk arrangement, itself.  I originally came across this image in my Pinterest searches.  From these searches, I have come to a realization that I have a penchant for images of light-filled rooms, which comprise a common theme/aesthetic in my pins.  So, the above space definitely takes the dream space cake for me; it's the stuff that great novels are made of, the true narrator disguised as simply the setting.

***

I've been posting more lately in high anticipation of the changing of seasons: an ode to an abundance of colorful leaves, hot, spiced coffee-based drinks, and crisp sweater-and-boots weather.  An autumn-themed coupon code (and a surprise) for my shop will be posted soon; please check back in the next few days. 

Have a relaxing weekend!

Gloomy Day Music

Today, the sunlight that characterized the past few weeks has disappeared, and has been replaced by dove gray-colored skies.  Coupled with a continuous wind, the current weather has skillfully woven its way across, over, and under rocks, trees, and cars.  Took a peek outdoors earlier to test Mother Nature's gentle wrath, and was left physically chilled to the bone; so in I came.  Here's the irony: usually, I have a skewed preference for cooler weather, preferring a cloudy day over a sunny one--but today I miss the garden in all its lush, rainbow hues.

However, there is a delightful plus to this weather: moody, ambient music plays a natural narrative.  New Zealander Bic Runga's Beautiful Collision is my ambient music of choice, especially the song below.

Short Story: There's a Wandering Chill in the Air

 I wrote this short story today, prompted and inspired by the change of weather:

 There's a wandering chill in the air, and I am loving it.  With the chill arrives the fog-laden partition between land and immediate sky, obscuring the ugly from the tolerable, and valorous from the mundane.  The fog quickly lulls and rolls slowly in, in heaves and waves and fits and starts, noticeably obscuring the verdant hills that are usually quite visible on a clear, sun-worshiping day.  As the earthy ground scent accumulates (both of damp road and tree), fills the senses, I am at home as the wind takes her path.

Hallowed wind--the apple of the naysayer's eye--slants cock-eyed, indifferent to what it abruptly pushes away.  It's a primordial urge, this act of pushing away; says the naysayer with a solemn glint of eye and a protruding scowl of face.  Here, there, in all directions blow the leaves on the robust bamboo tree; the heightened cherry tree.  The tiny, immaculate feathers on the reluctant sparrow, who has just perched on the telephone wire to get a one's up from the cold, hard ground below.

He loves me.  He loves me.  He loves me.  She clumsily scrawls, pencil to paper, mumbles aloud.  Finding her voice; carried onward, forward, by the roaming wind.

Spring

I took these photos during our spring heat wave last week; the lighting was just my cup of tea.

Inspiration: April Flowers

I couldn't not post these photos: the lighting was just perfect, and the lilac hues, gloriously aglow.  All that is missing in this indoor landscape is the great outdoors.  Now, only if I knew what type of flower these were, my day would be made complete.  Welcome, spring.

A random thought:
I didn't like ("like" is an understatement) The Beatles when I was a child.  However, as an adult, their music makes me feel happy as a clam.  It's funny how musical tastes can change over time--or better yet, become more varied and arguably "old" with age.  As in like a good wine. 

My Favorite Way to Spend a Rainy Day

It's not quite the spectacle that I had wished for or anticipated, nor were the weather reports ominously downtrodden, as they usually are in their description of rainy weather.  Throws them all in a tizzy, but I understand: change is hard; its form is not so much an issue as the actual change, itself.  So, I will have to settle for less spectacle and more misty mess for this day, much like yesterday.  But really, I have nothing to complain about because some rain--even if it is like rolling fog--is better than no rain at all.  Especially since we've not had a downpour of any sort in two months.

My favorite way to spend a day like this is with a good book, a large cup of hot tea or coffee, and (the best part) gluing my shop name onto Kraft boxes.  Two itty bitty pieces of rectangular-shaped paper: one with my shop name handwritten in jet black-colored ink, the other, cut out from an old catalog.  My shop name's piece fits neatly in the middle of the other.

The rectangular-shaped Kraft box itself is under 2" wide, so in this case--itty bitty--although a not-so-pretty description, warrants no better adjective.  Give me a glue stick, and I will go to town on this project: I finished twenty-two boxes last night, and the other half awaits me today.  Truthfully, my husband probably thinks I'm a bit crazy when I do this because he purchased my shop name stamp for me at Christmastime to make my Kraft box and business card endeavors easier to carry out, time-wise.  But the critic in me thinks that the old way of branding my Kraft boxes looks better, and I listen to the critic in me (probably) more often that I should.  So my rainy days will be spent carefully gluing bits of paper onto little boxes, sipping a hot drink, and taking breaks to dive into a good book.  Strangely soothing, but some may say that it's just plain strange.

Late afternoon UPDATE:
The rain has crescendo-d into a variegated roar amid a pale-gray sky.  It's not a charcoal-black sky muddled by a consistently-torrential downpour, characterized by a constant hum of white noise: but it's rain.

It's that Time of Year, Folks

After taking a ten-day or so hiatus from blogging during the first part of January, I am back.  My mind is clear, my energy up, and I am itching to create new jewelry designs for my shop.   Speaking of shop, my 50% off clearance ends tomorrow.  So if you're looking for a Valentine's Day gift for a friend, significant other, sister, mom, etc., stop on by my Etsy shop to peruse to your heart's fancy.  The fine print--and coupon code--are in my Shop Announcement.  It's that time of year...

I was not sure if I wanted to post Valentine's Day items on my blog, with my hesitation to partake in all things holiday, but I figured that I could try it out this year and see.  Test the waters, so to speak.  So without further ado, here are some Valentine's Day-type gifts for sale in my shop...

Wishing you all a very relaxing, wintry Sunday.  In my neck of the woods, you wouldn't know it was winter around here--feels like how a winter might feel...in Hawaii.  It also hasn't rained here in two months, so I'm crossing my fingers for a little downpour to both awaken the senses and nourish the earth.  Nothing beats the feeling of solace that can be found in the calm before and after an especially sonorous rainstorm.

Susie Suh | Winter

I couldn't wait for the seasons to change from autumn to winter because I (have for so long) wanted to post the lyrics to this song by Susie Suh, which is from her new album, The Bakman Tapes.  The song is earthy magical--even grounding and whimsical--in mood.  But I couldn't find a live performance of this song on YouTube.  Otherwise, there may have been a video accompaniment to the lyrical content in this post.

Disclaimer: I've typed out the lyrics myself while listening to the song, so all lyrical errors are of my own doing.

Winter by Susie Suh 

Oh, winter

We are falling...

We are hiding...

We are hibernating.

In the depths of the wake

And the depths of the dark

In the depths of the wake

In the depths of our dreams

And so it seems that winter

Comforts me.

With the calm inside the eye of the storm

As we sit by the fire and watch the embers burn.

Ooh, can you feel the warmth inside our cave

As we drink our wine and forget about our days?

Winter on my knees...

Winter begging please...

Winter, I will say,

Snow again today?

So that we can hibernate.

Oh, winter

While the bears sleep...

And the owls hoot...

And the wolves cry.

And the dogs bark out

And the birds sing loud

I will say,
What a glorious day

For us to hideaway.

It’s the silence inside the colors of the room

As we sit by the fire and watch the embers burn.

Ooh, can you feel the peace inside our cave

As we drink our chamomile and reminisce about those days.

Winter on my...knees...

Winter begging please...

Winter I will say,

Snow again today?

So that we can hibernate.

Oh, winter comforts me.

Winter on my knees...

Winter, begging please...

Winter I will say,

Snow again today?

So that we can hibernate.