Coming Clean

Hi.

My name is Jacquie. I am a sporadic blogger.

It has been almost 3 months since my last fix..... I mean.... uh, since my last blog post..... 

 

Wow!  Time has really gotten buried under a lot of cashmere cats, fabulous Christmas customers, and the quiet hush of another year's sand slipping its last granules through the hourglass. In retrospect, 2014, was one beast of a year! Apparently, the Fates wanted to see how much I could handle. The pained details of 2014 had taken center blog stage but the year ended as it started: my family together and strong.

I'd love to say I am committed to blogging weekly in 2015,  but I am powerless over my wanderlust.  I have tried to get a grip on it but just when I think I am stable footed, I see another tempting hill in the distance and I'm off chasing footholds and fossils. I'm okay with that.  It's who I've always been and it's what keeps me jumping out of bed one morning to the next: the infinite creative possibilities in each day ahead.

I can promise to take blogging one step at a time.  I will practice consistency.  I will try to stay focused but let's be real: I'm a creative soul.  This is a blog about the ingredients of a creative life. Every adventure goes in the bowl alongside creations great and small.  And with loving hands, all is blended with the drama of life until a smooth, creamy batter sweetens the pan.

So bring it on 2015!  I'm stronger than I've ever been. 

LOVE & 2015

*Photos are property of Hand of Bela Peck, snapped in the great state parks of Texas
 

 

 

Homecoming

 

Hubby returns from Bangladesh today and the house is full of excitement.  My favorite part of his homecomings is watching our Baby Girl, now 18, light up when I announce, "Homecoming Day!!" She has always been Daddy's little girl, and she wears this badge with pride!

Over the years they have been connected by their motorcycle fanaticism and a deep seeded need for adventure. It started early with dirt bikes... watching her Dad race hare scrambles in the palmetto ridden woods of Florida.  Soon she was riding alongside him. When we moved to Texas, the dirt bikes gave way to bigger machines. 

Then came the impossible question: would a teenage girl want to take a cross country trip to see the back roads of America? With her father?  On a motorcycle?

Without blinking an eye, the answer was YES!  This set in motion three summers of endurance riding across America with the goal of seeing every US state and the majority of Canada before Baby Girl graduated high school.  The trip through the Yukon Territory and into Alaska was by far the most perilous with snowy steep mountain roads, free roaming bison, constant rain and the need to wear every item of clothing they packed just to stay somewhere above freezing. 

 In the summer of 2010, the travel goal had to be delayed while Baby Girl had open heart surgery.  By 2011, she was back on Dad's Harley and racing into Michigan, Maine, and Connecticut on an Eastern US tour.  The bond these two share just melts my heart.  They are one in the same and driven to go farther, see more, and be a part of the greater picture.

This also scares me.  The same traits that made me fall so in love with Hubby are the very traits I see burning wildly in our soon-to graduate Baby Girl.  There is fire in her eyes of working in Africa, on world relief missions, and getting the hell out of Houston (which is a dream we all share!).  There is the realization that she is 18 and free to go where she chooses and I sense the wheels already turning on short term summer trips.  She is like her Dad in every way. Stubborn and ready to take on the world.  I can only imagine that in time I will be running in to announce to Hubby, "Baby Girl is coming home today!!" and he will light up just as brightly as she does for him.

 

LOVE  &  HOMECOMINGS!

A Rare Bird Flies South

Images from Papaya Art

 

My Foo Foo bestie, Ashlie Blake, of Painting Bliss, is coming to Texas this weekend!!!!

 

We all have friends- but, if we are lucky, a person comes along with whom you click, you jive, you laugh, you cry, you grow, and you just know this person is a soul mate.  Not the marrying, fall in love, mushy mushy goo goo soul mate- but a friend so close she surely was kin in another life.  

 

I met such a rare bird 7 years ago and she has been my sister ever since.  Ashlie lives in New York, I live in Texas.  With growing families we both have been bound to our home states and our friendship has grown through the internet, phone chat and Skype.  We have never met face to face.  Well folks, that era is about to come to an end!

 

 

Oh there will be an airport ruckus of girlish squeals and peoples' eyes will roll in their doldrums disgust!  There will be late night coffee chats, thrifting marathons in Houston, wildflower romping in Round Top, and beachy fun in High Island!  Oh there will be blogging and a Smash Book project as well!  And who knows what else we will find in the great wide openness of Texas!

 

Ashlie is such a part of my life she is insta-family, my right arm, and my morning cup of joe!  (Insert Hubby's eye roll and snide comment about my foo foo affections HERE!) This weekend marks 7 years in the waiting coming to an end and the dawn of a new chapter in our epic friendship.  And I CANNOT wait another second! 

 

LOVE  &  A NEW ERA!