Swamp Thing

Some of my favorite people & I went kayaking/canoeing recently, leaving the city behind on a beautiful day which has been more than needed. SKM has been moved to the back-burner unfortunately, while my job gets some things sussed out I've had to put in full time work which is really life/creative/emotion sucking. Hell, I thought I'd posted these pictures a while ago, only to realize today how neglected Etsy & blogs have been. Kudos to those of you who work full time & operate successful online stores or creative endeavors; I am the biggest baby about working full time & not having enough creative space or quiet time. This trip out onto the water, which wound up looking like a Southern swamp thanks to the lack of rain (hmmmm, "lack of rain" in Portland seems like an oxymoron), was refreshing, inspiring, and somewhat hilarious. And laughter is always a nice cure for the work-day blues.




This disgusting monstrosity is made up of... you guessed it, OCTOPUS! BRAINS! DECOMPOSED HUMAN FLESH! (Someone's been watching too many Bones episodes). Hmmm, no. It is made up of thousands of frog eggs, though!? We swore to high heaven the four of us had stumbled upon a horrible murder mystery, but research later proved us wrong. Which is good, I think.





My mind has been swirling around with what can come up for the (scary) fast approaching holidays, and I think skm can finally take a turn toward the more personal, illustrative, more appropriate path I have always wanted it to follow. While I am fortunate to have spent part of my summer this year abroad, the past few months have been some of the most challenging I've ever experienced. One of the things I have always told myself and others is that life is so, so short, that we need to live in our hearts and live out our hearts at every moment possible, and I need to start taking my own advice. This year has been devastation and death, which are two things I struggle with on so many levels, but it has also been beauty, inspiration, and a tremendous amount of personal understanding. I'm looking forward to sharing what I truly want to put out in the world, so thanks to all of you for reading, supporting the shop, sending me nice e-mails, extending friendship (especially new friendships), and allowing little trips on the water to be shared electronically.