Athena Dreams Design

Beautiful Things from Beautiful Women

I have this category, somewhere over there on the right in my little cloud of categories, that I rarely ever use, and I want  to dust it off, and see the cloud increase the size of the category: Women Who Make Beautiful Things. I am guessing by the size of some of the other categories - like Colour Colour Colour - that the size of the type is based on how many times you use the category. Make sense? OK, so I want to increase the category size, and in order to not get caught up in the too mathematical I will not digress too much and I give you: some Beautiful Things from some Beautiful Women:

Alex of Gypsy Girl's Guide blog and etsy shop is having a Sale AND a Give-Away.  Above is an image of hers that graces my home, called Sweet Frangipani. I find that there is a magic and a delicate sweetness to her work that intrigues and calms me all at the same time. Alex is a world traveller and an extraordinary writer and thinker, and her photographs tell their own stories of the beauty and fragility and glorious mysteries of being alive on this planet. Visit her etsy shop, give her some love, and give yourself or someone else some beautiful, soul-filled photography.

Liz of Be Present Be Here has a shop where she sells her amazing wares, it's called  The Little Room and many wonderful things happen in this little room of hers. She pairs fabrics and colours and threads and creates the most amazing scarves and aprons and bags, and has just added jewelery maker to her list of talents. Above is a scarf that she made for me, which I have gotten only one chance to wear so far this year. But it seems that 80 degrees and sunny is finally leaving town (it is after all mid to late November, and we are, after all in Northern california). Seems that 50 degrees and cloudy is moving back in, and man I can't wait to get some use out of this amazing scarf. I showed you all the pendant that she made for me, special-like (yes, she does custom orders!), but in case you want to see it again, here it is. I wear it everyday. Everyday. And sometimes I find I need to wear it to bed and have it on in my sleep too.  Liz is also selling her aprons and bags at Artstream Studios shop. 

There are so many women out there creating amazing things, and creating amazing lives, and sharing their beauty and their wisdom and their own unique voices with us as they go. Celebrating all the creative and beautiful women out there is so very important for all of us who are creating a life as we go, and needing to know there are other kindred souls out there doing the same, and so my small contribution, growing the cloud category: Women Who Make Beautiful Things. 

The Gift of an Hour

Many people's favourite day is June 21st, the longest day of light, or Thanksgiving when family and friends gather, or their birthday (oh, that's one of my faves too) or any number of other holidays or special moment kind of days, but I have to say that my favourite all around good-times day is the first day after the clocks have been turned back in the fall. I mean, a whole hour, for free. 

I hear myself and others say all the time that they wish there were more hours in a day, we need more time, more days in a week. The plea is always for: More. Time. So, this one day when we are gifted with an extra hour is just the best of all worlds for me.

When I was a kid, I would get up and rearrange my room. No kidding. Actually rearranging my room was a once or twice a month routine for me, but on this longest-of-hours-in-a-day day, it always felt like the perfect activity to start the day off. I don't remember exactly what else would fill my favourite day, probably some reading and some drawing, and playing with friends, I mostly remember that rearranging the room was the highlight.

So every year on this day, I awaken and think, what will I do with my longest day?

This year, I painted. All day. Painted joyously, all the day long and into the early arrival of evening. 

I know for many, it is the start of the darker and shorter days, and there are feelings of dread and sadness about the dark. Dusk seems to fall so very much earlier, and it is the pronouncement that summer is certainly over now. But that hour, that wonderful gift of an hour, still fills me with pure joy. 

Now, the dark, yes, sometimes the dark does get to me. But the dark of winter for me is that time to pull in, take stock, make lists and review. During all the sun and heat filled days, I find it hard to pull in and focus, there is too much to do, and the trails call to me, and the long light filled evenings are about gathering and playing and talking and experiencing. In the winter I get to experience more deeply, more closely, what is going on inside. 

And so I wonder... what did you all do with your gift of an hour this year?