help.

I have so many ideas, so many visions, spinning around in my head right now that I can't keep anything straight. Yes, I've made lists. Yes, I've drawn sketches. I have what I am jokingly calling 'Inspiration Piles' sitting everywhere. (They are roughly the equivalent to 'Inspiration Boards' but far less orderly and two-dimensional). I need focus, people. Can someone tell me where that's on sale right now???

With all of the upcoming things on my plate, I am finding it harder and harder to make choices about each of them: Which pieces will go where? What color scheme is the best bet for that show or this space? Should that particular theme be saved for the very special project and are we actually going to be able to complete that very special project in the current timeline? Is it just me on 'overwhem' or is it the new normal? 'Cause I don't like it at all. Deb needs some structure to her thoughts and it's totally escaping me. Any suggestions, my friends?

'Later that evening'......

Thank you so much for your helpful and VERY entertaining comments!

Sue, I can't shut it off. That's my problem! I work allll the time and my head spins with ideas constantly. Only Advil PM shuts it off. Marydon, you are hereby appointed my personal physician. I like your prescriptions!!! DeeDee, pass the fork, sweetie, I'm ready to take that first bite! Megan, go to my design blog and scroll down until you see the post where I am giving away my notes for show booth visual tips. And Christina, I'm still lookin' for that sale!

Bob and I sat down this evening after dinner and had a pow wow about stuff on our minds. We made some hard decisions. That 'very special project' that I mentioned has been given a longer timeline so that we can do it RIGHT, instead of FAST. (Hard for us, trust me. We are REALLY psyched about this idea... it's just not TIME for it yet.)  So the pressure to complete that within a few short weeks is off. That gives me a bit of breathing room to FOCUS ON and complete the other tasks on my list, PLUS have time to enjoy the holiday season and grandson's birthdays and 2 of our kid's birthdays. We decided that we missed a lot of summer because we were working hard - not working smart. So that's our goal now: work smarter. I'll let ya' know how that works out.....

Sweet Friends

I had the most wonderful day today.... the sun was shining, my hubby and I got some work done, and I spent a few lovely hours languishing at a marvelous restaurant in Downtown Seattle with friends. The food was sublime (crab cakes for two, grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato bisque soup for three) but the real deal came with dessert:

Timi's cupcake, above.

Creme Caramel for Kimberly and I. (hers was to go, as she had #2 to pick up)

The fresh doughnuts that this place is famous for were Lisa & Serena's choice. They smelled DIVINE! And isn't the way they are served just adorable?!

(Sorry, Lisa, this shot of your plate is a bit fuzzy... I was overwhelmed by the aroma!)

The only thing better, sweeter, and more satisfying than the desserts was the company and the conversation:

Serena Thompson, Timi Botorff, me, Lisa Hildebrand, and also Kimberly Taylor (she left before we did the photo) had such a beautiful time connecting over shared interests: business, food, family, husbands, kids, junk shopping, vintage shows, being women in business, our shared desire to attend Silver Bella!, and more. It is an amazing thing to find your 'tribe' and to know that you don't need to explain anything you talk about because they get it all.

Thank you, girls, for sharing yourselves and your time. You are all so inspiring! Thank you, Serena, for being such a gracious hostess and friend. You definitely brought the sunshine to Seattle today!

Home Again

We are home, at last.

We are snuggled deep under the down comforter in our comfy nest of a bed, candles burning, laptops blazing as we catch up and soon head for a night of blissful sleep. Outside, the wind is blowing, dark clouds fill the sky, rain falls and pellets the windows.

We've been serenaded by rain since crossing the California/Oregon border sometime in the wee hours of the morning, pulling over to snooze a bit, and then continuing on our journey homeward. In our absence, winter has arrived in the Northwest. Long gone are the clear sunny skies and 85 degree temps in So Cal. ;0) But the sunshine of our grandson's smile when we stopped by to visit him before driving the last 30 minutes home more than made up for that...

Who ARE You?

I just read this quote in a MORE Magazine story about Diane Keaton:

“She lives her life in question marks and exclamation points, and listening to her is like drinking Champagne: pretty soon you feel giddy, too.”

When you read those words above, as excellently written by MORE Mag writer Johanna Schneller, can’t you just picture Ms. Keaton’s smile, laugh, bubbly personality, and effervescent presence? I can. I think she is a remarkable example of vitality for women of any age. She’s also stylish as all get-out and her hair always looks fab. (OK, I know she has a cadre of stylists to care for her, but still…) However, the greatest measure of her presence is due more to her confidence, her ebullient personality, and her wisdom as a woman ‘of a certain age’ than to her physical appearance.

I’d love to live my life in a way that could be so perfectly and succinctly captured.  

As children, we are all asked ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’.

My answer was always something creative: The glassblower at Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, or the cake decorator at Knott’s Berry Farm. Then, ‘Interior Decorator’ was the answer that stuck with me for years.

If someone asks me ‘What do you do?’, as often happens when meeting new people, I tell them I am a retail visual designer, speaker, and writer, and also co-owner of a company that produces recycled/restyled home furnishings. What I’ve realized is that these kinds of questions are about what kind of service, product, or intellectual property we provide to the world as our job or career. It’s not really about US – who we are. And I’d rather focus on that, thankyouverymuch.

So that’s my goal right now: define to myself, for myself, who I am NOW. Not just that I am a woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, business owner…. but what am I about? What do I believe? What do I stand for and support? How do I express myself and reach out to others? How am I perceived, and how will I be remembered when my time here is done? What words would an interviewer choose to describe the essence of my life, my personality, who I AM, in one succinct sentence? Heck, I can’t even do that right now. Time to get my ‘elevator speech’ together – if only for myself, to have the knowledge of who Deb really is right now.

I know I will change – as I have many times in my life, moving from place to place both physically and spiritually. As we walk through life’s journey, old friends and opportunities are left behind and new ones welcomed (as Miss Kimberly is finding out). Our own personalities and beliefs and goals evolve and change. Our physical features may be altered to the point of not being recognizable even to ourselves (as Miss Stephanie is growing through, bless her sweet heart). It’s not that we are playing different roles, like actress Keaton, but that every step brings us new opportunities to discover more about ourselves. We dig deeper, and delve into the secrets and dreams and hurts to discover and define who we are and where we are headed. It’s a necessary part of life, of womanhood, of growth as a human. No one else can do that for us. 

But a good reporter with a well-turned phrase sure helps… which brings me to this: Should my effusive use of exclamation points and ellipses in my writing be included in my life’s synopsis? “She lives her life in exclamation points and ellipses, filled with enthusiasm and wonderment at discovering the world around her”... ;0) 

Image Credit:  cinematical blog via Google image search (this article is about the new film that Keaton discusses in the MORE magazine interview).

Along the Journey

I am sitting in my father in law's hospital room, waiting while he is having tests performed, staring out the windows facing Eastward. I can see the panoramic view of the San Bernardino Mountains in front of me, stretching out brown and bumpy like a badly-formed loaf of french bread.

I can trace the line of Hwy 18 up from San Berdoo, and remember every curve as it winds through Waterman Canyon (past the famous Arrowhead Springs) and up the steep inclines and hairpin curves to Lake Gregory, then Lake Arrowhead, on to Running Springs, and finally reaches Big Bear Lake. I know that road intimately, as we lived up there in Twin Peaks and Lake Gregory for years. I've driven up the highway in fog so dense that there was no way to see even the lines along the sides of the roads, and once a boulder bigger than my Isuzu blocked the road in the middle of the night. I smiled recently as I saw a familiar sight in a Nic Cage film: the Cliffhanger Restaurant, perched on the side of the highway right at the Twin Peaks/Lake Gregory turnoff.

There was a time, many moons ago, when Bob and I toodled up that highway to the strains of Led Zeppelin's 'In Through the Out Door' album on one of our first dates - a lovely picnic at Big Bear Lake. Another time, we traveled silently up for a weekend camping trip. We had just found out that I was pregnant, and had to make some fast, tough choices about our life together. We chose to face our parent's disapproval, get married sooner than we had planned, and start the family we had not yet decided to have. I have never regretted that decision. (The weekend was full of drama, and I'd gladly change THAt part of it.... it involved dropping our only set of car keys into the lake and having to call our parents to bring us a duplicate set. To say they were all not very happy is a massive understatement....)

As I stare at the landscape out there, at the winding ribbon of road climbing the brown hills, the blue sky and bright sunshine, I realize that life is a journey that often takes hairpin curves and circles back on itself. We follow a road that is undefined, and we revisit situations and locations quite often.

How many times before have I sat in hospitals with those I love? How many times have I hidden the worry and concern I feel, put on a brave face, and conversed with those people to distract them from their own fears? How many times as a grand daughter, daughter, mother, wife, and friend have I listened intently to the doctors rattle off medical terms and jargon, attempting to decipher their words and find understanding there?

Every visit brings back the ones before....
I am fifteen, and lying about my age to get into ICU to see my grandfather. SO glad I did that, as I never would have seen him again if I hadn't. He died the night before he was to come back home, while I was at my first Homecoming dance.
I am twenty one, giving birth to a child that I am told will not survive. Then I am coding, and neither of us is breathing. A wise RN is the only reason we both survived.

I am twenty four, and standing beside the recovery room bedside of my two year old daughter, who is not waking up after surgery to repair her shattered fibia bone after a horse riding accident. I am touching her and talking to her and pleading with God to let her come out of the anesthesia. She does. (And is very grumpy!)
I can't even count the number of visits to the ER with four children - and an accident prone husband!
I am forty, standing at the recovery room door waiting for  waiting for word that my hubby has come out of the anesthesia from his hand surgery.
I am forty two, standing outside of the hospital room that my grandmother is in. She is alseep, and looks like an angelic child with a slight smile on her face. I could not bring myself to wake her, so I kissed her cheek and whispered goodbye. I had to return to Seattle.... but didn't know that my words would actually be my last goodbye to her. She passed away a few days later.
I am forty two, sitting on a gurney as I hear the C word spoken to me by my doctor.
I am forty four, standing beside my daughter in a delivery room as the C section begins. She screams in pain, and I watch her eyes widen in fear. She is two years old all over again... a deft movement puts her under, and her son is placed in my arms.
Last year, I stood beside my daughter as she awakened from anesthesia after surgery. I didn't see a young adult lying there, I saw her as a small child. I guess all moms do that...

In all of these moments, I have experienced every emotion I can possibly think of. I was actually more calm when it was me as a patient than when it was loved ones. Over it all, there hovered a soft blanket of the knowledge that I am not alone, but am surrounded by the prayers, thoughts, and love of family & friends - including those who have gone on before. Love is a powerful thing, and it strengthens us as we face our fears and the worst things that life can hand us. Love is not bound by time or space or a body, it is carried by spirit to where it is needed. Then it carries us along, through the hard parts. It's the fuel that makes our life's journey possible....

Memories to Keep...and Love to Share

Hiya! I'm Jameson Ward Kennedy. AKA Bubba, Jamers, and Lil Dude. My grammy is Debi, and I bribed her with squishy hugs and drooly kisses to share pictures of me on her blog. I don't know what a blog is, but my grammy really likes them! I let her take some good pictures of me today to share:

Today was my very first Halloween! I don't know what Halloween is, either, but I got to wear this totally cool costume that my daddy picked out for me. He said it reminded him of himself at my age, and grammy agreed. With a smile.

So I laughed.

I had fun today.... I played in the clover lawn at my GREAT grandpa & grandma's house.

And my Great Grandma (GiGi!) showed me off to all of her friends. I think her friends look kinda' funny, but then maybe it has to do with this Halloween thing...

Then I learned how to do something called 'Tricks or Treats'. It involves yelling loud and banging on things, so it was pretty easy for me. I'm good at that. ;0)

And when it was all done, I had to get a bath and my jammies on, and get ready for bedtime. 'Cause even lil' devils have to say their prayers.... I'm off to dreamland, and I really am glad that I got to share my first Halloween with my grammy & grampy, and my great grandpa & grandma. And all my aunties, too. And my great GREAT grandpa, even! Lots of fun.

Next year I hope they give me candy. See? I learn fast. ;0)
_______________________________________________________

I thought I'd share a very happy part of our trip with you. You see, Bob & I are in Southern California due to his dad's failing health. All of our kids also gathered here on Thursday, coming from Washington and Texas, in order to spend some time with their grandpa and let him know they love him. Bless their hearts... this is so hard for them. They all have had such close relationships with Bob's parents, are so connected to them. They never really thought about this happening. As the situation unfolds, each of them have had to face the realization that the hardest part is coming. 

I wish I could fix it all so that my children and my dear husband would not have to bear this burden. It is not easy to face this... ever. I had to face it very early in my life, losing my uncle and my grandfather in a matter of months, and then my grandmother. My son's wife faced it last year when her mother died suddenly. She and I talked about how to help the men we love so much through this very difficult time - I can't even tell you how much I admire this young woman, who is so giving and loving and supportive. Her empathy for what she knows Joel will be going through is remarkable, and she is so good for him. My girls, they are each so brave... they try so hard to smile and cheer others up when their own hearts are aching. They pitch in and help with things that need to be done, and they shoot furtive glances at one another in a silent support system between sisters. Each of them had a moment when the fear finally won out, and the pain I saw in their eyes just stopped my breath. I know that pain. I don't want to see them go through it, and would do anything to prevent them from having to know it firsthand...but it is a part of life that I can't protect them from.

Have you seen the film 'Big Fish'? My father in law reminds me so much of Albert Finney in that film... his heart, though too weak to sustain him, is filled with so much love for his family. When our son said goodbye to him tonight, as they reluctantly left to return to Texas, I thought that big ol' heart would break. Until then, he had been putting on a brave face. He looked at his son, grandson, and great grandson standing in front of him, and he cried. Something I have never seen him do before.

While it is a stressful and sad last-minute situation that brought us all here, there were also wonderful moments of all of us being together that we will remember forever. I may not be able to be in Texas in just a little over a month for my grandson's first birthday, but seeing him for three days really filled my heart. His great grandparents got to meet him and spend time with him, and there are many photos to share for the years to come. In the midst of all of that we are facing as a family, that is a true gift.

The bond between grandparents and grandchildren is a strong one... my children, my husband, and I have all known that kind of limitless, unconditional love. I am devoted to carrying on all of that love, and sharing it with every one of my own grandchildren. A legacy of love.... I can think of nothing better to pass on to future generations.

Just One (or two) More!

Just a few shots of our space at the show last weekend...

(you can see more on our Retreat blog)

One of my favorites sold first thing:

A hot pink bowling ball used as a vase for vintage flowers!

Altered bottles as 'Spells & Incantations'

Farm Fresh Furniture & Lighting

Crowns for every 'Scream Queen'!

And fresh, hot 'Sweet SWANKY Pumpkins'! Two women picked some up and sniffed them, then asked me why they were called 'sweet' if they weren't sachets.... I honestly didn't know what to say for a minute. What would YOU say?!!!

Framed

Oh lordhavemercy, get a load of THIS!

My friend Cindy just sent this to me in an email.... her exact words were 'I thought of you when I saw this, you'll know why!' and I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it!  I am SO going to add this to my dining room chandy. ASAP. Thank you, Cindy!!

Photo Credit: Better Homes & Gardens