Moonshine Junkyard

It's almost a full moon and November is passing through the night, away into tomorrowyears. November: the time of my birth. The time of thanks giving with our lovely families. momma love! Prissy Nettie. the night-after-thanksgiving annual show where my hubby ROCKED!!! month of white-knuckled road trips in sudden snowstorms! november = prayers and food and warmth and coziness and love.

"...places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - John Muir (once again) This Thanksgiving it dawned on me that every year, Thanksgiving in our little Northern Cali town happens to be beautiful. Drop dead,take-my-breath-away BEAUTIFUL. Cause we're lucky like that. So Darin and I took a little ramble around his mom's neighborhood, which also happens to be my old neighborhood where I was a teenager walking up to swing at the park at night and singing songs to the moon. All these trees, the fine skies, the bright vibrantly green overgrown witchy-wild yards and fields and leaves and vines, maples and hollyberries and ponderosa pines hold tiny stories of our lives. The twisty roads with bumps and curves, the layers upon layers of magically colorful hillsides, the shade and sun and secret hiding places. Hope your Thanksgiving was beautiful and bountiful!

Ah Walt Whitman! Your brilliance knows no bounds. Tonight I am thinking about gratitude and how it enriches every best moment of life. To be present and thankful, truly consciously GRATEFUL for all the good stuff, fills your heart with something akin to truth or god, something beautiful. I think it might be the most important feeling, like constant prayer, like benediction all the time, for everything. It is something to strive for. I suspect it brings peace. So I am thinking about the many many things I'm grateful for, and the list never ends. But here are a few undoubtably vital ones: my pops. way too good to me: marmy, pure light: Darin, you amazing husband, oh YOU: sweet siblings, all, and this whole great radiant family o' mine! and these ravishing and rollicking friends o' mine: My quaint, pretty town: Stormy, sick but hanging in there, and all my sweet crazy cats: Laundry on the line, mmmmm: these amazing mountains i live in, and of course a sister to share ...

Toay was Etsy-posting day. I have a whole new slew (whew!) of great vintage stuff that I am trying to sell for the holidays, so it has been the project around here as of late. (of course, check my shop for all the updates!) Now, getting Darin to pose for photos is a chore. You may not know it from looking at him, but he hates having his picture taken and especially, having to act like a model. So it gets kinda fun and really funny doing Etsy photo shoots like we did today. Because as the day goes on, he gets weirder and weirder, dorkier and dorkier. For example, here he is posing in the Christmas sweater, acting like Santa's elf who knows that you've been naughty: Or way overboardly, uncomfortably too-warm in his thick woolen sweater: Or he'll do strange little dances to try to be funny, and it's so ridiculous that it IS funny, and I get pictures like this: And these are the kind of weirdo pics he takes of me! Thanks, hon, for snapping this right as I snapped my ankle...

I love being a girl. I'm just gonna say it. I really really love it and I just plain feel sorry for boys. (above is my sister-in-law Amy being the cutest mama-girl in the whole wide world!) Best of all, out of all the sweet little perks of being a girl like being able to say "cute" a lot and die over anything with ruffles and cry during sappy movies and baby talk your cats, well better than all of that is having SISTERS! (and sisters-in-law which is terrible terminology for a lovely thing.) Because with sisters, you can get the most goofy, go the most crazy, talk for the most hours, have the most giggly laugh attacks, tell the secretest secrets and still, somehow, be loved unconditionally. I had such fun with the girls last week. Girlylove makes everything fun; activities as simple as having morning coffee: going to the movies: (yes, we saw Love Happens ((what is WITH that name? boringstown!) at the dollar movies and yes, we cried and i promise i'm not even really...

On a beautiful and golden November afternoon in Utah... I took a walk with my amazing family. Up this path into sacred Rock Canyon -- Where native people once gathered to sing to the stars. How lucky to walk in these mountains together and carry our children up to explore rocky caves, and wander up narrow trails through scree and brambles, looking down upon the glowing valley from high upon a cliffside perch. Gazing out upon the life and magic spreading over the earth below, we are mesmerized, until the sun falls.