I need a favor

It'll take less than a minute of your time, and won't cost a penny!

There's a wonderful place in Taos, called the DreamTree Project. It's a transitional living program for youth, which provides a wonderful service for our community, and ultimately reaches far beyond Taos, to wherever these kids find themselves as they follow their lives and their dreams. The reasons for their being at DreamTree are as varied as the young people themselves. But more important than why they're there, is the fact that DreamTree gives them a safe, supportive home where they have responsibility to themselves as well as to the community. They learn skills in all areas of life, and eventually leave DreamTree as competent, caring young people, ready to start their lives and to give something back.

Now for the favor. I'm not asking you to send money! Only to click on your computer and help DreamTree win the Volvo For Life Award. The prize is $50,000 and a shiny new Volvo!

Kim Treiber, co-director and co-founder of DreamTree is nominated for the award. All you have to do is click on her name to vote for her! So here's the link to the voting page. Just check the box next to Kim's name, and click "submit". You can also go to the Volvo Awards main page, then go to New Mexico, and Kim Treiber.

Thank you so much! Hooray for Kim Treiber, DreamTree, Volvo, and YOU!!!

Beans and tortillas and silver earrings...

It's a good thing I'm not trying to make a living doing silver... I don't like beans and tortillas that much... Back in August, I learned a little bit about silversmithing from my good pal Eleanore MacNish. She's so cool. Gave me two days of her time and even took me shopping to help me filter through all the tools and stuff required to make silver jewelry. Last night I finally got the courage to go out and try something on my own. After two hours of measuring, sawing, filing, shaping, soldering, re-soldering, more shaping and hammering... I have these semi-cool, but rather unwearable earrings. I don't know how to make a hinge, so there isn't enough room to put them on without hurting my ears. I know because I did put them on. Taking them off was even worse! But it's a start. And don't get all excited about my success with the hearts. I didn't make those... Kate McKinnon did, and you can buy them too. They're wonderful!

I'm not going to bag the whole idea of silver. Like knitting, I might never be great at it, but I enjoy the doing. Like I say to friends who tell me they're "stuck" and don't know what to do... You have to do something before you can do something else...

For now, I think I'll go back to bangle bracelets for a while. I'm pretty good at those, and hey - you can never have too many bracelets! Lauren told me she used to secretly call me Jangle Mommy because she could always tell where I was by the sound of my bracelets. Here's a picture of one I made back in August for my friend, Karena's, birthday. The five rings represent the five decades of her life, all separate, but connected and interlocked, part of the whole. She turned 49, which puts her in her 50th year - just like me. It's not the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the world, but it does have sort of a Barbarian Chic, don't you think?
And so, onward... silver, beads, beans... another busy day...

Konichiwa

When I looked out the window this morning, I thought I'd woken up to winter in Japan. I've never been to Japan, but this is how I imagine it. The mountains to the south have incredible depth that can only be seen when the sun is just so, or when they're draped in gauzy clouds like they were this morning. This is my view from my writing table/dining table. It's actually the view from the whole front of the house, which faces south and is almost completely floor-to-ceiling windows for terrific passive solar. We never bother to close the curtains, because the daytime looks like this, and the night time sky is a thick soup of stars. In summer we can even see the milky way. I can't bear to block any of it out, so the neighbors get what they get if they decide to peek across the yard into our windows!I zoomed in on the tops of the hills, and sure enough, that's snow. Oh boy... here we go. Too lazy - and in denial - to build a fire, I closed the bedroom window and found my warm bathrobe in the back of the closet...
Then to cheer myself up, I poured orange juice into a gold-rimmed wine glass, put my buttery toast on a yellow Fiestaware plate, and drank lots of coffee while waiting for the sun to come up over the clouds. It was worth the wait. It was even worth finding my coat for the first time in months and herding the goats over to the other side of the yard so they could eat some of the last leaves and flowers of summer.
Meanwhile, Rick is on the coast of northern California this morning - a place notorious for it's gray skies and endlessly drippy days... But it's sunny there this week, and he's enjoying a beautiful drive up the coast on his way to Seattle. I'm so glad! And looking out the window here once more before heading for the office, it looks like the sun might win today, and melt the snow, and give Taos another bit of Indian Summer.

Mandalas to go!

My friend Rae has been designing beautiful mandalas for a while now, and has put together a wonderful website where you can buy her images as cards, book marks, buttons, and more! She even has little greeting card-sized altars - altarcitos - which are perfectly portable and fit almost anywhere you want a beautiful focus for your attention.
Visit her fledgling website at FourRavens.com. You'll enjoy your time there!

the right tools for the job...

I had a great day. I try to call Sunday my "day off", but usually get sucked into doing some kind of work related thing... Not today though. I woke up to dark rainy weather, and was actually happy about it. If you know me at all, you know that rainy days generally make me want to crawl in the closet and hide until the sun comes out. I'm like a reverse vampire. I need sun. But today was different. The rain was a good excuse to stay inside and bump around the house, doing whatever I felt like doing from moment to moment. The first thing I did was take my coffee back to bed and read a few pages of Writing Down The Bones. When I read the two little words "writing table", I about jumped through the ceiling. Table! I never thought of a writing TABLE! I'd been thinking desk all this time, and wondering where I was going to fit another designated little space for myself in our already-crowded house. Then I realized that we have this big, beautiful dining table that we don't even like to eat at. I smoothed out the pretty French tablecloth with it's pomegranite pattern all red and cheery, and covered it with my laptop, notebooks, pens, books I'm trying to read, and my dusty deck of tarot cards. I haven't looked at the cards for a long time, but have today's picks sitting in front of me for inspiration. It's not a traditional deck. Those are too creepy for me. This has lovely artwork and names like Playfulness, Comparison, Creativity, and Receptivity. I find a lot of intuitive clues to what's really going on in my own head. The next step is to actually do the writing! I spent this afternoon at a poetry reading and a fashion show, followed by meeting with friends at the Taos Inn. A great time the whole day through. I feel a little guilty having so much fun without Rick. But you know, there's a lot to be said for some time to ourselves now and then. Time to do as we please without compromise or negotiation. I wanted to hang my pajamas in the bathroom this morning, and darn it, I did! I wanted to watch Desperate Housewives tonight and did that too. Then TV was too lame, so here I am, at the end of the day, at my Writing Table, pretending for all I'm worth to be a writer, until maybe someday I actually will be. And the funny thing about this - I ate my cheesy eggs and toast right here at the table this morning, grinning at my writing tools, my computer humming away at my side...

Counting the days...

I mentioned before that Rick was going to Seattle for a family and friends reunion. He's driving, so it will be about a two week trip. That's a long time for us, since we spend almost all of our time together. I could freak out and feel lonely right off the bat, but I've been planning to use the solitary time creatively, and possibly even productively. I have that silversmithing set-up that's been neglected since August ... and a lot of reading that never gets done... and writing. I've been thinking for years that I'd like to be a writer, a serious writer, a consistent writer. Ha! said the Universe and handed me beadmaking instead. No complaints about that, but I still seem to have the tug to write, so maybe I'll start one of those books I've been thinking about...

Natalie Goldberg helped me a lot with the getting started phase, years ago, when I read Writing Down The Bones. I still love it. Still have it in the "to read" stack. Natalie used to live in Taos, and talked about it a lot in her books. She's at least a little bit responsible for our moving here. We looked at Taos because she said she loved it. She didn't steer us wrong.

So here I am, in Taos, a self-imposed recluse for a couple of weeks. I'm not nervous with Lucy here with me... she tries to eat our friends, so I know she wouldn't tolerate intruders. She and the goats and cats are good company. And well, so am I. I just never seem to have time to hang out with me. I'm planning some serious frou-frou spa time here. Mud on my face. Pink toenails. Chick flicks. The works. And still... I miss Rick already, and maybe because I'm counting the days until he comes home, I suddenly came up with the idea to create a calendar for you. Something pretty, beady, download/printable one page at a time, and best of all, free to you! Watch for it in December. Then you can count some days of your own.

Lucy is looking kind of sulky this evening, so I promised her pizza. Maybe she'll let me paint her toenails too...

the HEART of space

I'm not the only one seeing hearts everywhere. Rick has been lining pathways with river rock, and keeps bringing in heart-shaped rocks in to show me. He also "accidentally" made the paths that connect to the labyrinth into a giant heart. Wonderful! I've gotten email from two of my beadist friends, Deni and Michelle, steering me to this beautiful Heart Nebula...

The website is Astronomy Picture Of The Day, and the heart can be found in the archives for October 3, 2006. Guess what I'm going to make today!!!

Trajectories Catalog

The Bead Museum and the ISGB have gotten together for a really beautiful bead exhibit that spans the glass bead movement over the last 10 years. We've come a long way! The Trajectories exhibition runs through mid March at the Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona, and will then go on the road, maybe to a town near you! One of my beads is in the show, which I'm quite pleased about. I'm in excellent company! I got my show catalog in the mail yesterday, and it's just beautiful. Order yours by contacting the Bead Museum. You'll find me on page 28! This is my bead...

Queen Of The Roller Derby

Lauren was in town this weekend, just because she missed us. We had a nice visit, and got really silly and went roller skating last night. It was my idea. I really had to twist some arms to get everyone else to go. I hadn't skated in about 20 years, but back in the day, I was the fastest kid on the block. My mom had gone to school with Ann Calvello, who was the Queen Of The Roller Derby. She told us stories about Ann, and we watched roller derby on TV on Saturdays... man, I really wanted to be in the roller derby too! And even though that window of opportunity has been closed and been stuck shut with layers of old paint for a very long time, I still love to skate. What could be better than wheels on your feet and wind in your hair? The rink here is pretty crummy, with a worn out concrete floor that will soon be iced over for hockey season. It's hard when you fall, so I didn't fall. But poor Rick.... he biffed four times - hard. And he's 6'4", so he has so far to fall. He's napping now. Nothing broken but his pride. Before we go to "Roller Boogie" night again, I think I'll get him some padding. I wonder if there's a Senior Roller Derby circuit I could join...

A note to all Beadists on my NEW mailing list... It's October! My Beadist Anniversary Month! I have a gift for all of you - a Virtual $10 Gift Certificate for each and every one of you. You can use it any time this month, one discount per person, only on beads. It's my way of thanking all of you who have kept me going all this time, and also of encouraging those who still don't own a Kim Miles bead to get one now! Thank you everyone. Without you, I'd still be making pizza for a living!