Big News from Pan Pan Studios!

Just a bit of an update!

The blog has, for the time being, moved over to The Boldness Initiative, where I will be posting more regularly about bold and creative ways to live, even during a time of pandemic and global upheavals!

Also, more big news!!

My professional website, www.panpanstudios.com, is now live, up and running! Come visit, sign up for updates, and follow me on all my social media links!

Thank you for being loyal to this blogsite for all of these years! I'm leaving this site active because I might want to return to it at some point. And I appreciate my readers and didn't want you all to think I'd just disappeared!

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay calm, and stay in touch!

Re-release of The Absence of Anyone Else

This is just a short post to let you know that The Absence of Anyone Else has been released as a second edition, just in time for Cyber Monday! It has a new cover, book club questions, and a forward by Cassie Premo Steele, author of The ReSisters. You can follow the link below to order your copy today!

The Absence of Anyone Else Second Edition

Say Yes to Green! My Collaboration with Hippocampus

The synchronicity, or as it's called in the new Deepak Chopra book I am reading, SynchroDestiny, of life never ceases to amaze me. If you pay attention, you learn that coincidences are generally anything but that. They are actually minor miracles, little nudges and pushes to get you on the right path and, once you are there, remind you that you're on it.

Back in the spring, I met a lovely lady at our local Farmer's Market selling natural beauty products. We had a great conversation and I bought some of her goods, which I very much enjoyed. I also followed her on Facebook (Dittany Nutt)  and Instagram, because we live in the digital world and it's what we do :-) And I also wanted to be in the loop of new products and such that she might be posting about, or given that she's a pretty cool person, I thought she might be posting about some pretty cool stuff in general. Which she does!

One of the posts that caught my eye was a skirt she had purchased from a company called Hippocampus. The skirt featured a drawing by a child, and as a former elementary school art teacher,  I thought that was very cool. I followed the link to the site and saw designs by adult artists as well, and almost on a whim, I decided to send a query to them, asking "Hey, are you interested in any new artists for your company?"

The result of that query, sent on a whim after just happening to see a post about the company, is the skirt below, based on my artwork titled, Say Yes to Green!

Say Yes to Green Skirt

I'm not including any photos in this post because I want you to click on the links, and see not only the skirt featuring my art, but also all the other amazing items they offer!

This is very exciting opportunity to me and I owe it all to the little series of events that led to my discovering Hippocampus and to the events that led to creation of the artwork...I'll share the story of that next time!

Finland, Home of my Heart

My son and I spent summer in Finland and during that amazing time, were able to meet in person Mari Penanen, author of Finnish lifestyle blog, Saimaalife.com.

Below you will find the link to the blog I wrote for SaimaaLife, aptly titled Home of my Heart. This just covers our adventures in the Lappeenranta area, where we stayed for a bit of our trip. There were so many others in and around the Helsinki area as well. But I will cover those another day!

Finland, Home of my Heart

Be sure to follow Mari's blog for insight into Finnish culture and lifestyle and suggestions for visiting the area (which I do highly recommend!)

Standing up to Live

Tallinn, Estonia, 3am

"How dare one sit down to write...when he has not yet stood up to live." Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was 3am in Tallinn, Estonia, and the white night was too mesmerizing for sleep. Couple that with the time difference in the States, or rather, my corner of the States, which had led to a flurry of text messages from abroad during the wee hours, and you had the perfect recipe for a sleepless night. Which could become a problem, because....

...I'm not a night owl. To the great annoyance of many who know me, I'm a early bird. Though I have my moments when I stay up past the bedtime of most nine-year-olds, truth is,  I like to go to sleep early and wake up early. There's a few reasons for this...in art school, I worked several jobs and was generally exhausted by evening. If I didn't rise at dawn for a little time in the studio before heading to class or one of my jobs, I would't have any time in the studio. Rising early became, in my mind, interlinked with determination, dedication, success...

Fast forward a few years, and I'm parenting a young child solo, while working a full-time job and a couple of freelance jobs to make ends meet. I learned an entirely new definition of the word 'exhausted.'  Rising early then became, in my mind, interlinked with sanity, self-care, a window of time to myself, just to breath a little...

Now, the young child is a teenager and I've managed a balance between work, home, and all the other things I fit into my days. But the early bird in me is still going strong. Even during this 10-week vacation, I rise around dawn, no matter what time I go to sleep.

Morning coffee in the window of the Hotel Metropol, Tallinn, Estonia

I find myself apologizing for it a lot when I am in the company of others. It seems I'm always tip-toeing around, trying not to make any noise, wanting to be courteous, but tired of lying in bed wide awake, waiting on everyone else to stir about. But regardless of the motivations that set the pattern into habit years ago, rising early has just become part of who I am. And while habits can be broken, this isn't one I want to break.

This works for me.

"How dare one sit down to write...when he has not yet stood up to live," is one of my favorite quotes by Emerson. I found myself thinking about standing up to live this week, how I do it each day, and I've come to believe that rising early is simply one of my ways. It's not a big thing, but apologizing for how we stand up to live...well...that might be dangerous ground to tread. That might be a big thing.

Everything we do in the course of a day has the power to set plans into action. In preparation for pending life changes, I cleaned out some files this week, purging old papers, receipts, bills, letters. Opening space, clearing paths for the new. I also removed supplies for crafts I no longer do, purging a shelving unit and several storage bins, opening a lovely space, and freeing myself of the burden of creative guilt that came from looking at the unused supplies. Dreams change, after all. Sometimes standing up to live is a bold move; sometimes it's baby steps. Sometimes it's something as seemingly mundane as the ritual of pre-dawn coffee in a quiet house, an open book in the hands and a bouquet of flowers on the table.

Today, for the first time in a while, I sat down to write, thinking about how, each day, I stand up to live. I often say, I'm a work in progress - I think we all are. But however I choose stand up to live each day, one thing is for certain...

Morning kahvi (coffee) in a Moomin mug, Hytti, Finland

I like doing it early.

No apologies.

:-)

How It Is Now

There is some work being done on the grounds of my townhouse. Everywhere one looks, there are piles of gravel and pipes; bulldozer-type machines parked in random places; and that lovely red mud the South is known for. Overturned in clumps and ridges, it scars the landscape, making it virtually impossible to walk anywhere without getting stuck in the muck of it all.

So there is a new system in my home to taking out the garbage and the recycling. One must first don the large, rubber boots that now have a place of honor by the front door. It has been like this for weeks, and there is every reason to believe it will continue to be like this for weeks to come.

We don't fuss. We don't complain. We simply put on the boots when we need to toss the garbage. That's just how it is now.

We didn't used to need to do this. We could walk out across the soft grass in bare feet if we wanted. My herb garden - composed mostly of souvenir plants from Colonial Williamsburg -  lined the way to the bins. Now, the soft grass is gone, the herbs destroyed by machines, and hard red mud that lay beneath it all is exposed in the place of what was.

Putting on boots to take out the garbage. Such a minor annoyance, really, in the grand scheme of life. In just a few weeks, it's become an instinctive habit, and soon it will just seem normal. Like it's always been this way.

Subconscious Adaptation.

Even to the smallest change.

We adapt to big changes, too. The ones that break us, even. The ones that create new landscapes in our lives. We say we will never adjust, that we will never get used to the way it is now. But we do, because deep inside of us, the primal that remains knows that like the city hawks and suburban coyotes, we, too, must adapt in order to survive.

We could miss what used to be. We could miss who used to be. But we would get bogged down in the muck. Some part of us knows that we have to simply have to plow through to get where we need to be.

I won't lie, I miss the little pathway I created. I miss the herbs so carefully selected on one of our favorite travels. But these things are gone now, and missing them does little to restore what was. The new landscape, barren as it is, has become normal to my eyes...but it, too, will change. By spring, the work will be done. The ground will be leveled back to normal, and grass will grow again. I will recreate the pathway and replace my tattered garden with new plants.

I don the boots without even thinking and walk outside, bag of trash in hand. I lift my eyes upward,  past the barrenness of the landscape. I see trees alive with autumn fire. I see a pileated woodpecker gliding from one tree to another. I see emerald green moss covering a fallen tree. I see leaves drift slowly into the creek, where they spin and float away. Captivated by it all, I move forward, remembering that I will miss what beauty remains if I avoid plowing through the muck.

This Summer. These Moments. These Days.

How do you sum up that which seems impossible to sum up?

How to express concisely that which is so, so far from concise?

I read once that it seems years and years will go by without many changes at all, then suddenly everything changes all at once. That seems to be the way of it, I will agree. My last post, on Palm Sunday, we were looking forward to Spring Break trip to Legoland, summer vacation and well, just the joy that comes with the spring blooms and warmer weather.

A few weeks later, I was hired to teach a class at a local university. One of my long-time goals. Just one class, not a full-time position, but still, thrilling. In the midst of this, however, my mother passed into spirit.

My mother, in her late teens

We all hear about how difficult it can be to lose a parent, but until we go through it, it's impossible to understand. I won't write more about this now. But it happened. And in the midst of processing this, something else happened...

I interviewed for, and was offered, a dream job! Another long-time goal, finally realized. A bright spot. However, the very day after I accepted the position, my father was hospitalized with a massive stroke.

My father, in his 20s

And all the while, regular life went on. Animals had to be fed; children had to be cared for and kept in the age-appropriate spaces between knowledge about what was happening and protection from the knowledge of what was happening; homes had to be tended; bliss and joy had to be found and shared. I reconnected with old friends and reacquainted myself with things I once enjoyed but had, for whatever reasons, not found time for lately. I shed the skin of a former profession and, through workshops and training, stepped into a new career. I found moments of laughter with family I'd not seen for years, and depths of compassion I didn't know I possessed as I watched my beloved, rugged, lumber-jack like father struggle to feed himself.

Though I am in my 5th decade of life, my mother's passing, my father's stroke, and my career change have all left me feeling a bit lost in the world. A strange mix of grief and emancipation. I miss my mother and long for my father's return to a healthy independent state. I am nervous about learning the ropes of my new job and a bit more sentimental than I expected to be about leaving my old one. I feel as though I am leaping without a safety net, and at the same time, have a rush of creativity that has me doing everything from creating new works on my easel to making jewelry from found objects during quiet summer-citronella-incense-coffee-friends evenings on my patio.

Autumn Puddles, diptych, oil on canvas

And all the while, the birds sing, the cicadas hum, the sun rises and sets. Nothing waits for us to catch up or be ready. Eventually you being to feel normal again. In time, people quit texting or calling to see how you are. Cards quit coming in the mail. You are able to forget that terrible things have happened for moments at a time, and you can fully reach out and embrace with joy the new things that are coming your way. As Robert Frost so eloquently said once, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

I sit with my toes in the sand while my child rushes the waves. I am grieving and I am happy. I want to both hide from the world and revel in it. I want to sing and laugh from excitement and I want to be silent and still with sadness. And in this summer, in these moments, during these days, all of this is normal.

All of this is sane.

All of this is me.

Spring Rolls In...Some Exciting News...and Palm Sunday!

Spring is rolling into Carolina! Hooray!

This past week was a bit tempestuous, however.

We were treated to two days of dramatic storms that brewed flash floods and tornadoes all across the Southeast.  If you remember fall 2015 as well as I do, then you know I do not take flood warnings lightly. Not anymore. Amazing how some things stay with us, even long after we are healed from the trauma of it. Still, we were blessedly safe and all the anxiety resulted in two days of coming home early from work. I'm not going to complain about that as there was plenty to do here as always!

During the worst of the weather, I finished up my dad's birthday slippers. He turned 70 during the week but we celebrated yesterday. On Thursday, my son made his gift for my father, which was a homemade fruitcake.

Now that, my friends, was a true labor of love. We made the little one so we could sample it. My oh my. Definitely keeping this recipe for Christmas gifting. Here it is for you!
 http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/christmas-special-fruitcake

In preparation for the special day yesterday, we went out for strawberries last Saturday! This time of year many local farms let you pick your own, which is backbreaking work really that reminds us to truly appreciate and thank all of those who play a part in getting our food from seed to table.

These strawberries were used to make the strawberry shortcake for my dad's birthday party yesterday. It was a big hit. A spring and summer dessert staple around here. Luckily the storms this week didn't do much damage at local farms and we'll be able to go gather more throughout the season...

...because nothing beats strawberry jam, right?

 I was up to my ears in strawberries last Saturday it seemed, but so worth it to have several jars already for enjoying and gifting to others. We are still moving towards more and more homemade and handmade gifts for all occasions and nothing beats yummy foods! Everyone already seems to have so much stuff, don't you think? 

I also made a shoofly pie last weekend, and let me just say, oh...my...goodness! This is one I will definitely make again, maybe even today.

The recipe came from a little book I have been enjoying reading a bit of each evening. Because no one does simple living quiet like the Amish, correct? 

It's a great little read, filled with great traditional recipes from Amish country and reminders of how to slow down, step out of the hectic, consumer-drive pace of mainstream society and embrace the things in life which matter most.

Which brings me to a bit of excitement...I have secured a monthly meeting place for the SC based branch of Radical Homemakers! I am really excited about this and busy planning the year's curriculum now! What would you like to learn about and enjoy if you attended these meetings? I'm thinking of everything from learning to keep bees to making Christmas garlands from old cards. Oh, it's going to be delightful! Learn more about the Radical Homemaker movement here http://theradicalhomemaker.net/ and if you are local, join our SC group for updates and meeting times/location! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1731283990482692/

Today is the Palm Sunday Procession and service at our church and since our priest applied for and received a parade permit, and we know bagpipes and donkeys are going to be included, we are pretty excited about attending! Afterwards, a slow Sunday with lots of playing outside and a bit of painting for me. I've a commission to complete and a few new pieces, including this one, Pine Moon, to varnish for upcoming shows. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a blessed and happy Palm Sunday!

Honoring the Wishes of Children

It's been a busy few weekends. I've had a lot of fantastic art opportunities, and for that, I am very grateful. However, it's required a lot of weekends spent in the car, driving at least an hour away to deliver art to be exhibited.

I've tried to make the best of it each time, turning one such trip into a fun-filled day at Congaree National Park outside of Columbia, SC. If you are in the area, I highly recommend spending a day at this magical, mystical place. I've never seen terrain like this! We can't wait to go back. We spent the day there with a friend after dropping off a piece of art for a Women Speak, an art exhibit for Women's History Month Exhibit at the State Library in Columbia. I bought a sun printing kit there in the visitor's center that we can't wait to try out!

As this weekend drew closer, I reminded my son that I'd been invited to attend a gallery reception this weekend in North Carolina to see a friend's show, meet the gallery owner and network for possible exhibition opportunities in that area for the future. Professionally, this was important. And while this gallery is not too terribly far of a drive, but it would have meant another Saturday in the car.

Normally my son is as excited about weekend adventuring as I am, but apparently he'd had enough road tripping for a while, and expressed a deep desire for just a 'stay-at-home' weekend. For both of us. He wasn't whining; he just really, really, really wanted to be home.

Home. Our refuge, our favorite place above all. The place that inspired me to start my Radical Homemakers of South Carolina group. The place where we live and love. Where I create, where I gain my strength, balance, and focus.Yet for the past couple of months, it has seemed that on weekends, we've barely been here. This was an important networking opportunity....but...I am mother before all else. There will be more receptions and more networking opportunities. He is young and in my care only for this short, sweet while. And his voice deserves to be heard. His feeling and opinions matter. And if I, as his mother, don't teach him that his thoughts and feelings are important and deserve respect, who will?

It is always a bit of a balancing act when your life's work doesn't operate around weekly 9 to 5 hours. As an artist, you worry people won't take you or your work seriously if you don't attend or participate in events. But when you work full-time as well, the balancing act can begin feel like a juggling act. I found out that I, too, needed some stay-at-home time. Somehow, in the fun and adventuring of delivering art and attending events, the weekends have been slipping away with very little real, actual rest. Lying in the meadow in the sunshine yesterday, feeling the earth warm beneath me, hearing Spring come alive all around me, I remembered how important this balance of rest and energy is. How important time in nature is. Not just for children, but for all of us.

At the end of the day, my son, the aspiring chef, made Lemon Bars and I made Fudgy Vegan Beet Cupcakes.  A friend visited for coffee and conversation and had the delight of sampling both! Our evening ended peacefully as the day had begun.

Today I'll make some carrot soup with carrots we picked up at the Farmer's Market yesterday and banana bread with the Quinoa flour I splurged on because I've given up bread for Lent. Or maybe I'll let my son make one of them. Or both. Because it's easy to adventure without leaving home, really. And of course, I'll work on a few paintings here and there in between, as I always do.

Happy Weekend!

I currently have work on display at The South Carolina State Library and The Richland County Library, both in Columbia, SC. Pending exhibits in July and August; more information to come!

Black and White Photo Explorations

Well it seems I rarely find time to come around this way lately, but I've been painting and working and road-tripping like a fiend. And playing, of course. A lot. And playing around with black and white photography, an old love of mine that I return to from time to time.

Me, playing around in the woods after a day in Athens, Ga.
Love the way nature dwarfs me in this pic!

As my friends all know, and are likely tired of hearing about, I discovered our Cuban Cafe Uptown and have fallen hopelessly in love with Cuban coffee.

Colorful decor in black and white.

Small but mighty!

Of course exploring new coffees is one of my favorite traveling purposes! I was surprised when the boy was willing to try Turkish coffee with me at our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant!

 I have a Turkish pot at home and make this coffee frequently thanks to a friend who is married to a Turkish gent who brought me a pot back from Turkey and taught me how to do it properly!

He wasn't a huge fan...but I am proud he tried it!

Also been doing a bit of reading...

...and wandering about in nature wearing inappropriate shoes because the urge to wander in nature, for me, is always spontaneous...

...and enjoying - probably a bit too much - the Panera Bread that opened up here in our town last week!

Here's the boy and I at the grand opening...at 6:00am!

And since black and white is the real theme of this post, here's a shot of our new kitty, Sevarus Snape! He just happens to be...you guessed it...black and white! :-)

So stinkin' cute!

So that's a bit of what all I've been up to! If you are local to my area, check out my solo exhibit at The Mill House, which will be on display for the remainder of this month. I am preparing now for shows in June and August, and booking more as time permits. I'll keep you posted here about upcoming shows and new works!

Thanks for checking out my black and white photo explorations! 

Happy Sunday!

What I Want to Say to You, Sam Kashner

Earlier this week, I finished When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School by Sam Kashner. I didn't want the story to end. But of course, they all do. They must; otherwise we'd never discover the new stories.

I discovered this book on the shelves of a local thrift shop, and my first thought was excitement. "Who else in this community is reading about this? I want to meet them. I need to meet them." In small, rural Southern towns like mine, like-minded folks are often few and far between. Then I realized if it was at the thrift shop, they'd given the book up and maybe weren't so like-minded as myself after all. I paid my dollar and hurried home. Sam Kashner, if you are reading this, sorry that your book was in a thrift shop being resold for a dollar but if it makes you feel better, I've discovered my own book in a thrift shop before too. Happens to the best of us. And being a paperback, mine was only fifty-cents.

But seriously, I hope, Sam Kashner, that you will read this post one day and know that your book was probably the best dollar I ever spent. I can't even put into words how much I needed to read it. Your honesty, at times brutal and at the expense of your own ego, I'm sure, made the experience more real for me, the reader. But it was more than that, and this is not a book review. This was what I would say to you, if I could, if I had been able to find your email address or ever run into you on the streets when visiting New York.

Your book woke something up in me that I didn't even realize needing awakening. It reminded me that, throughout all the difficult and often financially un-prosperous years, my art, in whatever form it takes - painting, poetry, my one ill-fated book (long story there but involves years of work diminished by a shady publisher) - is always worth doing. Despite the fact that it may never set the world on fire, it's my legacy, and what I was born for. And financial prosperity doesn't always equate real success. As you know better than most, many of the Beat writers were always one step away from desperate poverty. Yet they accepted this and kept on living in the only way they knew how. Kerouac's reaction to his success is legendary, and I always felt like it was because he never expected it, not really. When you are used to a very select few people understanding you, truly 'getting' you, it would be nothing short of overwhelming to suddenly have the world at your door, clamoring for an audience, just to say to you, "I feel/think about/understand the world the same way."

Reading about your experiences was engaging and even humorous at times, but the end, the last chapters were what affected me so deeply. This next part I'd have to actually tell you personally, because it's far too intimate for me to share with the rest of the world why I related so much to the last pages of your book, and why they might have inspired me so. But you know what you wrote.What I want you to know is how glad I am that you wrote it, that you had the courage to tell your story from start to finish, open and honestly. Again this isn't a book review, but nevertheless, your story will remain with me now, in some small way becoming part of mine.

This is why what we do - our art, our poetry, our writing - is always worth doing.

And the Winner Is.....

jen_marie226 of Instagram!

You've won Shannon Hayes'  The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook!

Congratulations! Please contact me via email to complete delivery! Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway! More to follow!

Happy Homemaking!

Will You Take the Pledge to Support Small Business Saturday?

Small businesses contribute to 55% of all jobs and 54% of all sales in the USA. If you are shopping this holiday season, it is crucial to support your favorite local stores! 

Most of you who know me well know that I tend to operate by the following principles...

However, sometimes I just have to shop. When I do, I strive to shop local and support local business owners in my community.

Small Business Saturday is a movement to remind people to support local businesses and keep our communities thriving in the midst of a Big Box, 'Black Friday' world. 

Fundera, which helps small businesses get the funding they need to be successful, explains why small businesses are so integral to communities here. Please follow the link, then take the pledge to support Small Business Saturday on November 26th!

Below is a list of small businesses local to my area! 
Hunny Bunny Designs Handmade stackable bracelets, ready made and custom. 
Breezy Quarters  Handmade Soap and Skincare with High Quality Ingredients for the Whole Family. 
Dinglehopper Decor Props, Custom Accessories, Calendars and Ornaments
Origami Owl Custom Jewelry
Hunter's Headquarters South Carolina's Home for all Your Shooting Sports Needs
Main & Maxwell Art by Hand Gallery and Boutique featuring and operate by local artists
Abbeville Sporting Goods  Abbeville Screenprinting, Awards & Embroidery
Aromas Village Coffee Restaurant and Coffee Shop featuring items by local artists and craftspeople
The Pantry Shoppe Deli and More
Hobby & Garden Center Garden Center and Toy Store
Emerald Farms Health Food Store, Toy Store, Gifts and Antiques, Goat's Milk Soap and Products, Train and Hobby Shops, Herb Gardens
Hospice Store Thrift Shop 
Rudd's Camera and Video Photographic Services and Supplies
H.H.Turner Jewelers Fine Jewelry, Custom Jewelry, Jewelry Repair Services

There are so many more, and many in your own communities as well! Please step out and support your local businesses tomorrow and during this holiday season! Take the Pledge! Shop Local!

Radical Homemakers of South Carolina First Official Meeting and Giveaway!!

Over the years, I've experienced quite a shift in perspective. Twenty years ago, for example, my focus was purely on career, and what kind of dynamic one I could (and should- I was a child of 80s entitlement after all) have, and how successful and prosperous that career would make me. Etc., etc., it gets quite boring if I go on because it's basically the story of every young lady my age who watched Working Girl.

However, times change and so do we. Twenty years worth of experiences, including grad school, motherhood, and working often more than one job to make ends meet have lead me to realize that, at the end of the day, when we are tired and dragging and exhausted by the world, there is one safe, almost holy place we retreat to.

Home.

What makes our home such a sacred place isn't trendy furniture, mod wall decor or stainless steel everything, it's us. It's the story of our little family, in photos and child-rendered art and postcards on the wall. It's the smell of something baked earlier in the day that lingers in the air for hours. It's the inherited antiques and handmade items that remind us where we came from, and it's our faith and the joys of a life simply lived to remind us where we are going. It's mending a beloved shirt and picking one's supper from a backyard garden. It's a feeling of taking care of ourselves, others, and the earth through simple living and honoring nature's cycles. It's stepping out of the fast consumer pace of mainstream society into something a little...bit...slower.

I discovered Shannon Hayes' book, Radical Homemaking, at the perfect time of my life; a time when I was coming to terms with who I really was and what I really wanted from life, and trying to wrap my brain around how I could have gotten to such a dramatically different mindset from where I started. Hayes' book laid it all out and made something painfully clear - it just makes sense. For the sake of our families, our communities, and our environment, there must be change in how we live our daily lives.

And this change must start at home.

It isn't easy or simple to change one's lifestyle overnight; my journey took years and involved coming full-circle back to faith and accepting the idea of inter-dependence over independence. As a single mother, I have to be a breadwinner as well as homemaker, but my heart is fully centered on my family and making the most of the time I don't have to be at work (Luckily for me, working in education, I can enjoy more time off that typical careers offer!) Over the past few years, I've found amazing ways to save money vs. having to work additional jobs to make more money, which has opened up new paths in our lives for friendship and connection with like-minded others. Trading, bartering, using less, reducing waste...as I type this, three small baked pumpkins cool on the stove. Decorative? For a short while, maybe, but they will soon become pie filling, and their big brother outside will become pumpkin butter next week. This little bit of work is just a tiny taste of what a producing home looks like. Just like last year, the majority of our holiday gifts this season are handmade, either by ourselves our others. And much of it is edible.

Small steps towards stronger, healthier families, communities, and environments. Lifestyle changes that will make a lasting imprint on our children and provide for them the groundwork to leading more sustainable lives. If this interests you, please consider joining or creating a Radical Homemakers Group in your area! (our South Carolina based group page is here!) If you are in my area, consider attending our first official meeting next week, where we will be crafting holiday garlands (inspired by this post by Faye at Blessed Hearth, one of my favorite blogs!) and eating and drinking yummy homemade things. To kickstart our group's first official meeting, I am giving away Hayes' popular book, The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook: Healthy Cooking and Good Living with Pasture-Raised Foods.***

To participate in the giveaway, leave a comment below with your name and email address! Extra entry if you share this post on social media (mention in your comment that you did this!)  And, if you are already in the SC based FB group, comment on the blog post on that site for an extra entry as well!

Happy Homemaking! Will be blogging soon about keeping the holidays simple and the importance of Small Business Saturday (coming up next week!)

***Giveaway open to US residents only! So sorry my foreign readers but shipping costs on the book are just insane! :-(

Fall Pow Wows....and Preparing

Yesterday, we released the small Box turtle we were fostering back into the wild, so that he could eat eat eat before his hibernating instincts kick in. I had planned to keep him a couple more weeks, but I grew weary at seeing him pressed against the side of his container, little feet up, looking out. Confinement, even when well-intended, can seem so cruel sometimes. And while it pained my heart to let him go, I knew it was the best thing for him in those moments.

Look closely...

My son is becoming a very confident, independent young man who also desires freedom, a bit more right now than I am honestly willing to give. Like the small turtle, he wants out - out into the world. He uses terms like 'quest' and 'adventure' and I can remember being his age and asking my own parents for permission to sleep alone in a tent at the far end of our property. The small turtle took baby steps into the wild; my son wants to run and leap into it as most young men do. And while I don't want to confine him, I am still a mother, and mothers hold on tight. We also prepare - prepare our homes, prepare food, prepare our young to go out into the world. The first two things we do instinctively, sometimes almost mindlessly, it seems. The last one, well....

This weekend we attend the Palmetto American Indian Association's 10th Annual Powwow. 

Grand Entry

Grand Entry

 Summer here in the South is intensely hot; we spend more time indoors that usual, too much time indoors, really. So when Autumn finally comes around, it's liberating, and weekends are sacred times spent together, getting out more often, and attending as many Autumn powwows as we can. 

I grew up attending and dancing in pow wows; it was a huge part of my youth and some of my best memories with family are from pow wows. I introduced my son to pow wow dancing as soon as he could take a few steps; he was 4 when he danced solo for the first time. Of course, in keeping with tradition, all of his regalia was handmade by me or passed down to him from someone else. I danced too, and was thrilled to be passing on to him these traditions.

Solidarity with Standing Rock is so important right now.

Last year's rains and subsequent flooding meant that we didn't attend any fall pow wows at all. It took us most of the winter to recover and come spring pow wows, we were still catching up, it seemed. Then the smothering, stifling heat of a Southern Summer settled in all around us. I read. Painted. Took long (and very early or very late) walks with my son. Took care of home and hearth. Gardened. Played. Lived. Loved. But we didn't go out and about too much, especially during the middle of the day. Naps took the place of afternoon outings. 

Edisto River on the drum

Pow Wows are much more than dancing. Culture, history, the ways of our people...this is a place to learn, a place where it all comes alive.

However, the first cooler days of fall have gotten us up and at 'em early on Saturday mornings, eager to get out more often, to quest and adventure, to hit the pow wow trail, see old friends, make new friends, teach my son, as he steps towards becoming a man, the importance of culture and heritage. To instill in him the stories and the traditions that will guide him on his path.

We watched the little turtle we released for a good while, watching the path he made as he went deeper and deeper into the woods, further and further away from us. We could only choose when to let him go; we couldn't choose for him what trails he would make or follow. My heart ached just a little as he disappeared from sight, making his way, instinctively.

With our children it is like this, times infinity. We spend so much time preparing them that we don't even think about what we are, ultimately, preparing them for. We just do it, instinctively. In the three hours since I began writing this post, I had to pause numerous times. I've washed the week's laundry and made breakfast, taken care of animals and checked on skinned knees. I've helped search for lost things, put a pot of beans on to cook for coming week's meals, hung laundry out on the line to dry and prepared the gift for my Mother's birthday celebration later today. I know very few artists, artisans and writers who have hours of uninterrupted time to hone their crafts. No. Most I know work in this same way - constantly pausing. Always preparing.

Fry bread life!

For the next few years I will prepare my son to move towards manhood. For the next few weeks, I will prepare for coming pow wows in Georgia and South Carolina. For the past few days I prepared the little turtle to be released. Today I prepare for the party this afternoon and food and clothing for the coming week. The morning is cool; the earth is letting go of summer to prepare for winter. 

Mothers are always preparing. 

I was inspired to go out to more Pow Wows this autumn by Evenbrite's Get Out More Often (GOMO) campaign, which is all about spending your money on experiences this fall rather than material things.  For information on how they can help you plan your next event, e-support ticket sales and other features, including discounted options for non-profits, please visit their event management page. For more information on pow wows in your area,visit www.powwows.com or Six Directions Traders Pow Wow Page.