Thoughts for the New Year & How We Like to Party at Passionflower

The palm reader said I have the mark of Mars on my left hand....wielding a weapon.....which kind of reminded me of this collage I was playing around with  ( above).  I fully intend to claim and reframe this imagery as though I am carrying a growing staff fighting for truth and beauty in the world.......

    

 We had our annual holiday party last night, the one we always have in January, where we visited he of the neon palm reading sign fame, across from the tattoo parlor on 7th & Lincoln......His name is Charles David and he was great, great, great!!!  His card features a red hand with a blue flame in the center of the palm and his house is crazy, cool with a little kind of creepy/spooky but not too creepy, New Orleans, slightly swampy energy.  He'sbig picture and high on symbolism and imagery.  Plus he laughs a lot.  I cannot say enough good things...Call him at 541-343-5297 should you like to look at your hands with him....In the meantime, I will tell you he told us we are a mostly creative and very independent bunch of folk here at Passionflower......though we each seem to have our own  particular shape and movement :).

Back from My Summer Wanderings

I am back from my little summer blog hiatus.  I've been traveling and it's too hard for me to work in the teeny tiny i phone format, so I'll simply say that I am glad to be blogging again and am bubbling over with all kinds of great things to share with you.  Not too mention that I think everything in my yard grew at least a foot in the two weeks I've been gone.

I wanted to start out by showing you this beatiful bouquet that Erin made for a lucky August bride.  I can't tell you how happy I was to see this picture as I was flicking through facebook in my New York hotel room. It's so great to be able to get away from the store, recharge my batteries, get inspired, and shop for goodies and know that all is in good hands back home.  I am sol lucky to have such an awesome staff.

Marcia MacDonald, I am Looking in Your Eyes

It's been a year and a day since Marcia passed away. I find myself sometimes driving by her old house but mostly looking at her photos and seeing the love in her eyes.

Now More than Ever

I am feeling it. Cutest ever little sign from Magenta.....

Art Journaling with Jill Cardinal

I have been , well frankly, pretty much obsessed with the art journal class I took with Jill Cardinal. Obsession is such a two way street, such a slippery slope. On the one hand, I live for it.
Few things give me as much pleasure as being completely immersed in what I'm doing. To just be doing and not thinking. And then on the other hand, there's still those little details to attend to like eating, sleeping , doing the laundry, and going to work....I guess, in the end, feeling purposeful makes all those tasks more meaningful too.

Jill's teaching another four week art journal class at Oregon Art Supply in July and you can click here to find out all about it.

Things that Make Me Laugh

Above an e-mail from my graphic designer after a long meeting and a little love note from my manager below.

Stormy Saturday

If it's raining & it's pouring, exactly why is the old man snoring?
Keeping ourselves busy making the store look good and working on the
new & improved website. Ready for a little sun!

Photo from our front window courtesy one of our great customer Deigh Bates.....click here to go to his blog where you can see other great photos....(and some more of Pflower too!)

Home Again

I am holing up and nesting after a frenzied (and fabulous) holiday season. Closed the shop at 3, gave away the last of the unsold holiday wreaths, came home, hung garland, put up lights, wrapped presents, got ready to have dinner for 15 the next day. Which is a pretty good way for me to wind down from the holidays....because I wouldn't know what to do with all that retail energy....Seriously it's almost like I'm on automatic and can't stop until just about yesterday when....I stopped and did not move for a very, very long time. This is one of my favorite times.....I feel grateful and well fed, patting myself (and my happy retail drones) on the back for a job well done, and now I get to enjoy the season.......recovery is so sweet.....

Photo courtesy of tiny little house blog.

Playing around with some ideas for a holiday card (in all my spare time)....

and I also have some holiday goodies for you - photos culled from the land of blogging. But I like to think of myself as a mannered blogger which means contacting the creator of said photos and asking their permission to post their photo on my blog (all with credits and links etc of course)

which is ridiculously tiresome, especially when you are feeling jammed for time. So I am right now having an inner struggle about wether to shamelesly

just go ahead and show the photos and pretend it's no big deal (I mean what's the harm and everybody does it anyway?) or wait and ask. And so right now the "get permission" side is winning the day and hopefully I'll get this little matter resolved before Christmas has come and gone and you'll actually get to see what I'm talking about.

It's That Time of Year Again

No, not the time of year when everyone brings you cookies and chocolates and you go to too many parties and drink un petit peu too much of champagne.....No, that time of year is approaching soon (like tonight at our holiday party) but this is the time of year....

when the days are getting shorter and the nights longer. When you want to go home and burn candles and fill your home with the scent of greenery....

And plant a paperwhite or a cyclamen or an amaryllis or two.....


And remember, that somewhere in the darkness you get to incubate all your dreams and desires....
and a single bloom can flood you with memories...

and even if I am having take out because I'm so busy at work, my table is still glowing and beautiful.....

This is the time of year when we are filling our homes with light and love to bring us through the darkest times of the year.....

Come to our store this holiday season and let us help you fill your home with all the joy of the season.

I've Been Busy Keeping MY

and reading about the beat poets in India and perfecting a spoonbread recipe and burning lots of candles and listening to Madeline Peyroux and somehow the blog has gotten away from me the last week or two. But mostly been putting lots of energy in making the store beautiful for the holidays and putting together our online sale site (super exciting!!)

Some days I feel like this: ready to face the world in my cute pink socks.

Other days I feel like this:

I think I need to seriously reframe this point of view.

And just so you know, these photos came from the blog of The Fabulous Garlands (aka Sophie Cuvelier), who, when she is not making beautiful, site specific paper mobiles that I am smitten with, seems to have a penchant for watching bullfights.

The View from Above

Sometimes, when I'm out a little early in the morning, I'll go about 5 minutes out of my way and head up to Skinner's Butte and take in the view. Kind of widens my perspective.

Good way to start my day.

Marcia's Memorial Service

Tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon at Opus VII Gallery will, what I am sure, be a very beautiful service with good people and good memories as we gather to remember our love for Marcia Macdonald. And I am also sure there will be good music. I remember Marcia walking to work one morning listening to her ipod, tears streaming down her face. "What's wrong? Are you OK?", I wanted to know. Perfectly fine, she was perfectly fine, just the piece of music was so beautiful, it had brought her to tears. Marcia was like that.

And here's something that brings me to tears. One of her last pieces she made, in which she was working through some of her feeling about having cancer. And which, with characteristic generosity she donated to a craft fundraising auction. I wonder who's wearing that piece now.

Many people will be wearing her work at the memorial tomorrow and I think that's a beautiful thing.

Sticks and Stones

This may be as close to swimming in the river as I will get all summer. And if it sounds like I am whining, it is because I am. Though I must say, I did love these big bold pieces with river rocks and sunflowers......

Another Marcia MacDonald Memory

Here's some things Marcia could do that I never, in a million years, could do. Like I could never wear these pants. Somehow though, they were just right for her. And another thing I was remembering today is how she would refer to our male customers as "big guy".....(believe me, I could never do this, at least with a straight face....)

It sounded something like this: To the UPS driver - "Hey Big Guy", to Judge Wayne Allen -"Thanks Big Guy", to the nervous man who just bought his wife a piece of jewelry -

"Good Job, Big Guy".....Marcia just knew how to make people feel good. And that my friends is a gift.

Marcia MacDonald - You Will be Sorely Missed

Marcia MacDonald, friend of many, passed away this last week. Many of you may remember that Marcia was our manager at Passionflower from August 2005 until December 2006. And what a time it was. Marcia was beautiful, brilliant, generous, funny (extremely), and fearless when it came to creativity. She was larger than life, a force of nature, the kind of person who lit up a room and made everyone at ease. Jeweler extra-ordinaire, teacher, excellent cookie maker and fabulous dresser. If most of us attempted to wear stripes, plaids, and polka dots together we would look like demented clowns. Marcia looked uber chic...She delighted in life and the delight was infectious. She died after a two year battle with ovarian cancer. It sounds cliched but the world is less bright without her. I will remember Marcia for so many things but the one I keep coming back to is a dark and rainy night when we were driving back from a gift show in Seattle and she said to me, "the heart is a muscle too and like all muscles it needs to be exercised.." I think she was gently telling me to get out of my head and into my heart a little more. And since that time I have often thought of Marcia and contemplated the ways of the heart. Like so many, Marcia touched me in ways she did not even know.

I Drive by this Sign Everyday on My Way To Work

I love my neighborhood.

What I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

It's been a long time since I've done a post.....Been busy.

I went to New York City and worked the Gift Show for 5 days.

Where I saw my beloved friends Ted (from Watson Kennedy in Seattle) &
Jo Ellen (from Coco & Toulouse in Portland)


Then I came home and had a fabulous birthday. Here's the crew whooping it up.


We revamped our whole upstairs space for a new Bedding Area.

Then we had Marcia's fabulous jewelry trunk show for 3 days.

And I'm having a sauna built into the back of my garage by

the amazing woodworker Sean Kelly.

And by the end of this week we've got to get our costumes together for the

Eugene Celebration Parade. It's time to bring out the Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much book. Hopefully, computer glitches aside, all will be back to normal in blog world in the next week or two.

Other Ways I want to Feel Today