Vacations

I've never been one of those people for whom a vacation means travel to faraway lands. My idea of a great vacation has always been seeing interesting places, meeting interesting people and enjoying a new experience wherever that may be. Now, because I'm doing so much traveling for shows, the entire word "vacation" has taken on a new meaning.

Vacation now means a hammock at our favorite little rented cottage on the beaches of Lake Michigan. Up on a bluff, right on the lake, with woods all around and very few people seen. Ah, perfection.

I'm now home from the most needed vacation that I can ever remember, ready to get back in the studio! I have a HUGE group of shows coming up, the most I've ever done in a short amount of time and I need to be well stocked so that no one is short-changed in selection because I didn't get enough done. I feel refreshed, revived and have tons of ideas of new pieces I want to make.

It's now 50 weeks before I'm back in that hammock, listening to the waves crash on the beach, napping and reading good books. I have a lot to get done before that...

Pictures

I was told to post vacation pictures. Before you groan, the nice thing about pictures on a blog is you can skip over them or ignore them and no feelings will be hurt! You don't have to listen to a long-winded explanation of what the ripples on the water were like that day. And be glad because I have tons of pictures of rippled water and even more of waves!

The picture of Dick shows how much of the sand/beach has been eroded due to lake levels being up this year. Where the grass is by his head was flat beach last year.

I love Lake Michigan. Each day is different. Wind from the north, the beach shrinks. Wind from the south and the beach grows. The sand gets carved out differently every day. New little stones are uncovered with each changing of the wind. Those little stones may make it into some new jewelry soon...

...once again the spaces between the paragraphs have disappeared. I may have to actually read the instructions...