Sunday Gratitude and Sparkly Things

 

Hello friends! Happy New Year! I don't know you about you, but I'm glad to have made it past 2025; it was definitely a challenging year. Here's to brighter days ahead! I was pretty absent from this space in 2025, short of a few "here's what happening in my crazy life" updates, but I'm hoping to get myself back on track this year. If you're still here, please know how much I appreciate you following along. 

With everything I went through in 2025, I tried to keep up my creativity, but even that came to a screeching halt when my dad passed unexpectedly in the midst of my sister and me helping him work through some major life changes. I always post my creative work on my Instagram, and the last time I posted anything creative there, short of the amazing creations that are my daughters, was in July. This bracelet is the first little piece of creativity I've added to the world since then! And I owe a debt of gratitude to my daughters for it. While they were home in Jacksonville for the Christmas break, in addition to helping me continue to recover from my total knee replacement in October, they were determined to get me back in my studio. One dragged me down there in the hopes of me creating a couple things for her and a couple presents for her friends, thus this bracelet! One of her friends loves mixed metals, so we came up with this piece using 14K gold-filled wire and sparkly silver metallic Czech glass beads. Super simple piece, and we both loved the way it came out. 

But really, in addition to just getting me down there to make something "so you can get back to yourself, Mama," they really put in the work to make that possible. They sent me upstairs to ice my knee and then proceeded to totally clean up and organize (as much as humanly possible with the amount of supplies and interests I have) my art studio workspace. Now that I'm back home in Jacksonville, I have far less space, so it's no easy task getting - and keeping - it organized. Add to that my ADHD brain, and things can get - and stay - pretty messy down there. My goal this year is to put up the supplies I was working with before moving on to something else! 

Another way I hope to corral my ADHD brain this year, in my creative work anyway, is to try working in collections. I tend to bounce from thing to thing and back again pretty quickly, so I'm going to work on roping that in a bit. We'll see how it goes! I may bring Free Bling Friday back this year as well, still considering that. I do love sending my little pieces of creativity out into the world, even it's sometimes for free! 

Thank you for stopping in! I hope you'll leave me a comment to let me know you were here! Are you on my email newsletter list for monthly-ish updates and subscriber only discounts? Sign up here!   

When Plans Change

Heads up: long, personal story post coming up … My husband always says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans,” his way of saying those plans rarely go the way you’ve planned. 

Dad on his 80th Birthday

I shared back in this post that my sister and I were helping our Dad though a major life change. That major life change was a divorce, not of his choosing, at 80. His now former wife, Kathy, who filed the papers, is 78; she was his third wife, and they had been married nearly 28 years. When preparing to write this post, I noticed that the last time I posted here was August 6. Friday, August 8, my Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly of an apparent heart attack. As I had feared when I first learned of the divorce, the stress of the situation ultimately took his life.  

Because Dad passed prior to the divorce being final, Kathy got everything she wanted … him out of her life AND his social security and life insurance. To add insult to injury, my sister and I were paying Dad’s attorney’s fees because Kathy controlled all the money in the relationship other than his monthly social security payments, and she even refused to reimburse my sister and me the funds we spent on his behalf for the divorce she wanted.  

The previous four and a half months had been really challenging helping him through the divorce and working through what the next stage of his life would look like post-divorce. He and Kathy adopted Kathy’s grandson as an infant (her daughter is a drug addict), so they were parenting a 12-year-old at the time of his passing. My sister and I knew that once the divorce was final, Dad would be living a pretty sad existence in an apartment, as he wanted to stay in West Palm Beach to be near the child. So when I learned of his passing, it was one of those surreal moments in which I really didn’t know how to feel. On one hand, I was sad that I’d lost my father, but on the other hand, I was relieved for him that he was no longer in that horrible situation. It’s been three months now, and I’m still wrapping my head around it. As life goes sometimes, it’s not lost on me that I also lost my mother – to suicide – in the middle of her going through a divorce from her third husband. 

Books - The House in the Cerulean Sea Duology by T.J. Klune

Ya'll! Read these books! I'll just start with that. I had been hearing about The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune for quite a while and kept trying to catch it at my favorite used bookstore - Chamblin Bookmine - but they never had it. Apparently people don't give it up! And now, I am one of those people! This book has earned a permanent spot on my bookshelves.  

Here's a quick summary: The House in the Cerulean Sea is a heartwarming novel about Linus Baker, a caseworker who investigates magical orphanages. Assigned to Marsyas Island Orphanage, he encounters six unusual magical children and their charming caretaker, Arthur. Linus's life transforms as he grapples with his own prejudices and discovers the true meaning of family, love, and acceptance. The story explores themes of found family, prejudice, and the power of empathy. That's your basic Google AI summary. But, oh my goodness, this book is so special. I laughed, I cried, I got angry, I laughed again, I cried again, I got angry again, and I just didn't want the book to end. There were several laugh out loud moments for me, but the one that got me the best involved my home state. I won't spoil it for you, but I'm guessing even folks not from Florida will laugh at that one. 

 

The large majority of our book club loved this book as well. There are some themes that may make some folks uncomfortable, and honestly from my perspective, I truly hope those folks read the book even more. One of the magical children is the antichrist, at seven years old, named Lucy. I thought the author handled this beautifully  - it is a fantasy story, after all! - but the very religious may feel otherwise. The other magical children included a wyvern named Theodore, a shape shifter named Sal, a garden gnome named Talia, a girl who could make trees named Phee, and a big watery blob named Chauncey who just wanted to be a bellhop. Adult caretakers Arthur and Zoe are also magical, but I won't spoil their magic for you! It's a beautiful story about accepting others for who they are, tolerance of differences, fighting for those you love, and love in all forms. When I finished this one, I immediately wanted to start it again. And then...

The sequel came out!! Yay!! Somewhere Beyond the Sea came out in September 2024 and picked up right where The House in the Cerulean Sea left off. I enjoyed this one just as much and rooted along for Linus and Arthur as they continued to fight for a world that accepted the beauty found in all of us, no matter how different we may look. I found both of these books to be true balms for the soul is this time of division and political turmoil that we are experiencing here in the United States. I read some pretty heavy stuff sometimes with my love of historical fiction, and sometimes I need what my next door neighbor called a "palate cleanser" of a book. These two books definitely deal with heavy topics, yet they do it in a way that hopefully opens your eyes to the treasures we can find in each other if we just take the time to truly get to know that person rather than judge them by their appearance, difference, ability or disability. The pair has made it to my top 10 all favorite books list.     

  

ICAD 2024 - Week 2 and Hello ... Is There Anybody in There? ...

 ... Just nod if you can hear me ... Is there anyone home? Any Pink Floyd fans out there? I'm not a huge fan, but Comfortably Numb seems to stick with me and seems apt for the moment. As I shared earlier this year, I've really wanted to try to get back to blogging regularly in 2025, and while I think I've probably written more posts in the first half of 2025 than I did in all of 2024 at this point, I still wouldn't call it the "regular" posting I was hoping to do. Funny how things that were once strong habits can so easily fall to the wayside in this crazy over-saturated, internet-driven world. I do miss the more in-depth writing part of the old blogging world that's been taken over by the immediacy and in-your-face video streams of Tik Tok and, more and more now, Instagram. I've been checking out Substack lately, not posting anything myself, but enjoying the more long-format writing you can find there, and one of my old blog friends who I really enjoyed following, Christine Mason Miller, is now on Substack. I'm so glad I found her there. She recently shared a post there about this very thing - what happened to blogging? - and it really resonated with me. Maybe it will with you as well. 

I'm not doing ICAD (index card a day) this year, but I'm still sharing my ICAD 2024 work with you ... you know, since I shared hardly anything here in 2024! This was week two for me, above, and a close up of my favorite for the week below. I do miss doing ICAD but my world is still just in a bit of a mess right now like I shared here, and we're still working through all sorts of things that continue to come our way, so my art making time has been slim to none. I'm in the process of moving mostly back home to Jacksonville, as I've been given the go-ahead to work more fully remote for this next academic year. My daughters finished up undergrad this summer and are moving into my Tallahassee house for grad school, so while I'm not having to pack up and move the whole house, I am packing up and moving all my art supplies back home to Jacksonville. And I'm not ashamed to admit I, like most of us who have a variety of creative interests, have far more art supplies than I truly need! So it's still a rather large process. I've been trying to load up the back of my SUV with whatever will fit every time I go home, but I fear a small U-Haul may be in my future.

So ... Hello! IS there anybody out there? If you've come across this post, I'd love for you to leave me a comment so I know you were here. Just say hello and let me know where you are! And if you are following someone on Substack you'd like to recommend, please do! 

      

One College Graduation Down, One to Go!

My girl Sarah officially walked across her college graduation stage last Friday evening. It was a super long day that started with a small ceremony for her major in the Classics department. I thought that was super special! She was part of the College of Arts and Sciences graduates ceremony, and by my count, there were nearly 2,000 graduates on that floor. But the smaller Classics ceremony earlier in the day let each of them shine individually. The faculty introduced every graduate, and each received a crown wreath in true Classics fashion. Then we headed to El Jalisco for a quick dinner and celebratory margeritas before heading to the larger Commencement ceremony at the Tucker Center. 

As most grads do, Sarah wanted cash, but I wanted her to have a little something to open other than a check, so I made these earrings for her. I'm super happy with the way they came together and I hope she loves them as much as I do! Sarah graduated with a bachelor's in Classical Civilizations and will begin pursuing a master's in Information Science in the fall. Liv graduates in August with a bachelor's in Environmental Science after her final internship summer, so we've got one down and one to go! Liv will begin pursuing a master's in Aquatic Environmental Science in the fall. If you've been reading this blog from the beginning, you've watched them grow up! Thank you for following along!