Ornamental

in springtime come the birds...

ah, the assembly line feel of of taking a step by step approach to major jewelry production.  how i love it.  not.  this step, the one in which i take all of my small silver bezel forms and find my own images (limited, now that i've lost all of my computer files, mind you), cut them to miniscule size and secure them, then fill with resin and wait, wait, wait for the resin to cure overnight - watching for the ever errant bubble to form, to rise, to stubbornly stay unless i forcibly remove it - i hate this stage.  i do. 

but oh, the fun the day after when i have before me like a tray full of hard candies all of the little pretties, shiny and ready to be made into a story in jewelry form!  this part i like, i truly do.  i'm trying desperately to get ready for art and soul, coming up this weekend in virginia, so i worked through the weekend sitting at the big windows looking out to the mountains and forest beyond my front deck; it wasn't as bad to be hunched over a table, nose and eyes and hands concentrated on the spread before me, when i could glance up and out, from time to time, to see an occasional hawk, the resident phoebe, a fussing wren, a scattering (or "murder") of crows.  spending day in, day out, day after day, working like this with my hands, eyes, heart takes its toll on my body and mind:  come nightfall, i'm bleary eyed, addle-brained, and my poor aching arthritic hands can hardly hold the book i'm trying to read in bed.  is the work worth it?  yes.  am i rewarded?  truly.  some words of rumi come to mind as i write this, and i'm reminded of a favorite journal page i designed back in 2002 (thank you, o thank you again LK, for your wonderful gift so long ago of the rag and bone journals xo):

Birdwings

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
if it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

- Rumi

taking out my journals, pulling them down from the dusty shelf, has made me realize how very much i miss the act of keeping a private journal; having been over-committed to a couple of large collaborations for going on two years now, the act of pulling out a journal - someone else's - and making art in it has become more of a chore, an obligation, than a pleasure, and that is a crying shame.  i need to get back to my own artwork, my own musing, simply for the fact that i can pull the books off of my shelves years from now and see just where my mind and spirit and artistic endeavors were at that particular point in my life...

for now, the endeavors rest solely in teaching and in creating art to be worn as orna- mentation for the body.  this brings me pleasure as well, in spite of the fact that i don't get to store them on bookshelves and pull them out for musing in the wee hours of the night.  as usual, my work is centered of late on birds, birds, and birds.  nests, eggs, twigs, branches, sky, clouds, wind that blows gently, the grasses that are greener now with spring.  see?  (you may click on the jewelry photos for detail).  they make me feel better, these pieces of spring worked from silver and paper and wire, these images from nature that come from outside my window and onto my worktable, to go back out into the world again and be worn around necks and dangling from the ears of the likes of someone such as you...

editor's note:

mr. and ms. phoebe of firefly road, north carolina, are proud to announce the brand new arrival of their five "beautiful"  babies, born april 30, 2007.  mother, father and grandmother nina are ecstatic.

april moon

Blossom

In April the ponds open like black blossoms, the moon swims in every one; there’s fire everywhere: frogs shouting their desire, their satisfaction. What we know: that time chops at us all like an iron hoe, that death is a state of paralysis. What we long for: joy before death, nights in the swale - everything else can wait but not this thrust from the root of the body. What we know: we are more than blood - we are more than our hunger and yet we belong to the moon and when the ponds open, when the burning begins the most thoughtful among us dreams of hurrying down into the black petals into the fire, into the night where time lies shattered into the body of another. Mary Oliver

crickets, grasshopper

i tried and tried to find an image of a cricket, or crickets, because of the muffled quiet here on ornamental.  my search took me to a delightful childhood book with garth williams illustrations, and i settled for the grasshopper, which is just as well, for i am always tacking on "grasshopper" to the end of long sentences i've uttered that may sound lofty or unintentionally sage.  and if you don't understand the use of the word, then i'm dating myself, and will leave it at that.  at any rate, i became absolutely ensconced yesterday in elves and fairies (which i see is out of print and only available for highly elevated prices) and took a few quiet moments with a cup of tea, as it was a rainy day, to leaf back through its giant pages.  i felt like a little girl again, lost within those images.

i love this image, the sea green night sky, a moon very full, and yes, a wood thrush sitting perched on the branch overseeing a little boy's dance, complete with tousled hair and red pajamas, within a fairy ring.  (my own wood thrush is back again, now that it is spring, and sings early early in the morning and then last thing into the twilight, just before dark.  its haunting song is the most melodious ive ever heard, like water running sweetly over beautiful stones.  have you never had the pleasure?  go here, and you may listen.)

and here we have mrs. robin (on second thought, i believe that is mrs. finch) at the front door, quite lovely in her kerchief, whose bright eyes and confident stance remind me so very much of my resident phoebe, perched in her nest just above my head in a gutter hovering over the deck.  every time i walk over and peer around the corner to catch a glance at her, she sits frozen for a moment, trying to stare me down before she suddenly flies away. the phoebe birds fuss and fret and wag their tails from a nearby tree each time i choose to sit outside, and i wonder why they do this every year, why they build those nests right next to me when they have such lovely trees for miles around.

why do any of us do the things we do?  i'm sure they're wondering the very same thing about me.

for Alexandra

yesterday i received a letter from my sweet friend gina, of sweet sister gina, about a seventeen year old girl named alexandra, who is a neighbor of hers.  i was very touched, and wanted to share gina's letter with you all, in the hopes that perhaps some of you will be willing to help.   this blogging community has proven to be a generous, supporting, and loving one, and i told gina (she didn't ask, this was my idea) i'd like to pass her letter along to you all.  gina wrote back and added that alexandra's interest in photography and the computer "came as a result of a friend she made during her treatments who had died.  the girl's parents gave alexandra her camera after she passed.  i feel so drawn to her on many levels and want to do everything i can to support a creative outlet for her in the midst of all she must endure."  gina is a sweetheart, and i want to help in any way that i can.  maybe you can as well.  her letter follows below.  xo

Dear Friends and Family:

I am emailing you to ask you to consider your blessings and in so doing consider a donation on behalf of a wonderful young girl.  Alexandra is a 17yr old girl who lives in my neighborhood.  She lives with her mom and 2 young sisters in a small apartment near me.  Alexandra has a rare and devastating form of cancer and her littlest sister has leukemia.  She has been struggling this past year with many different and stressful types of treatment and has still kept an amazingly positive attitude despite it all.  It has made me count my blessings many, many times.  My friend Marisa has put together a fund raiser on her behalf.  The idea is to raise enough money to buy Alexandra a lap top computer so that she can put her family photos and memories in it.  We are hoping to give her something to raise her spirits when she is down from her treatments.  So I am teaching an art class for the fundraiser which will be held May 6 to try and raise the money needed.  Obviously, most of you would not be able to attend; however, I am asking you if you would please think about making a donation on her behalf.  All donations are tax deductible through the Talbert Foundation which is a 501(c)3 non profit corp FEIN 20-0330559.

You can click on the link below to make a donation

-PLEASE REFERENCE "ALEXANDRA'S FUND"

http://www.talbertfamilyfoundation.org/pages/DonateNow.html

Thanks so much,

Gina

the visitor

 

finally, spring!!!

look where i get to go when the weather finally decides to turn nice, to act like the season that it is truly supposed to be.  this beautiful stream runs through the incredible great smoky mountains national park, a mere fifteen minutes' drive from my house.  lucky me!  one of my most favorite pastimes is to spend an hour or two (or an entire day, a week - i have to be dragged away) at water's edge searching for rocks and whatever other treasures i might happen to chance upon.  nature always offers me gifts, and the journey there, the visit, is a beautiful gift itself.

for weeks and weeks, we've all been waiting here, we western north carolina mountain folk, for spring to arrive.  it teased and wooed us a month ago with summer-like days that coaxed poor trees and bushes to come dancing forth with green frills and bursting blossoms, white dogwood frothiness seen scattered throughout the woods like lace draped amongst other brown branches.  and overnight, just before easter, a coating of snow and bitter temperatures slapped back the spring that was eagerly on its natural way.  leaves withered, dried up, turned brown.  and ever since, we've all been sternly watching for the next tentative signs of another round of warm days.  i think they are here; i say that with held breath, for fear of jinxing the goodness, but i really, truly, do think that they are here.

yesterday morning i glanced into the bedroom to look at my fourteen year old dog - aspen, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure - and shook my head at the sight.  what a slug.  and what a slug i've been as well.  up went the windows, open went the door, and at the mention of the word "go", aspen went berserk.  after months of staying cooped up inside a house looking out, he was ready for an adventure.

what a goober.  no matter what the temperature is - it could have been twenty degrees out there - aspen instantly heads for the water.  notice the leash?  well.  my old buddy gentleman has lost just about all of his hearing.  he likes to explore.  likes to sniff things, pee on every bush and rock (there are a lot of those out in the great beyond), and when i call to him, he does not come.  does not.  the leash made for a very frustrating time there, for the both of us - picture taking was limited, to say the least - but leashed he had to be.  fortunately, again for the both of us, i wore my chaco sandals, excellent for stepping into the water and wading about (yes, the water was frigid, but when in search of the perfect rock, cold be damned).  i took this photo to share with my upcoming sticks and stones workshop students in virginia, as many of the smaller pebbles i took home with me yesterday were for the class to use when learning how to drill through stone - i thought they might appreciate the precise shot of where, and when, and why.  who knows.  aspen didn't; he barked.  he tugged.

amazing stuff, huh.  beauty was everywhere.  everywhere!  i was so amazed and happy-drunk by this day that i was snapping photographs in every direction, including straight up.  just look.

   

and when you look down, see what treasures, what gifts, are there for the taking.  well.  i'm off.  it's far too glorious a day again today for me to be hunkered down in front of a computer screen, tapping away on something as unnatural as a plastic keyboard.  you do the same.  go outside.  see what is patiently waiting for you there.  xo

coming into the light

thank you so very much, to all of you who posted comments and who wrote me privately to offer words of consolation and commiseration about the loss of my photos and files.  your words and the fact that you continue to reach out, many of you to a total stranger, means a great deal to me, and i'm touched more than i can convey here on this page.  so, as you can see, i'm coming back out into the sunlight, out from the shadows.  here is a photo that was taken the first evening in port townsend, washington by sweet misty, just as the last bits of sunlight filtered through the tall pines and fell across a weathered old barn out behind our cottage, when the air was crisp and clean and the whole of artfest lay before us, promising (and scary) and full.  this was a wonderful moment of perfection for misty and me, this moment of coming to the cottage and finding our little haven of tranquility, there amongst the trees, when the sun shot through with an incredible orange and golden light and stayed there long enough for us to fire off a frenzied series of amazing photographs, of the barn, of the sky, of the trees, of one another.  i found these photographs again today, on my camera's extra memory card i had so thankfully saved, and wanted to weep with relief that the images were not forever lost.  i do love my photography, my digital memories, and am beginning to now slowly wander around the house re-snapping some of the familiar ones i once had stored within the computer.  it takes a great amount of thought and time and light and fortune to capture the images just as i wish to capture them, and then again to work with them in photoshop, to crop and tweak the contrast, the lighting so the colors won't be washed out, watered down.  i didn't do one thing to the photograph above, except to cut it down to size;  the moment was that perfect.  life needs to have a jillion of those moments, and in looking back, i remember that somehow it always does; this week needs to have one nth of one.  please, universe, send me a tiny nth?

i had forgotten for the past week to look back at the times i spent in port townsend, the week that i was there.  it was cold, yes, and windy, but it was port townsend, and i love that place.  i'm trying to count the times now that i've visited, and if i am correct, for i've taught at every artfest, that makes eight times?  i don't know, i've lost track throughout the years.  it is a hauntingly beautiful place, and offers a nature girl like me so very many favorite spots to frequent time and time again.  this house is now spilling over, tabletop to floor, with bits of driftwood and o! so many stones, each of them treasures i never can bear to leave behind.

and, after a full day of teaching and a chilly trip to the windy beach, it was good medicine to drag back to the cottage late of an evening, light a candle, pour a glass of wine, and recap the day's activities with my dearest friend.  the quiet moments were few and far, with such a hectic schedule, so we treasured them.  and now - now that i'm back home alone with a persnickety new computer with its difficult connection, with a washing machine that overflowed and flooded the entire downstairs night before last with 1.5 inches of water (damned mouse chewed through a small hose leading to a pressure gauge), now that i'm here tucked away in the mountains, it is nice to light the candles at the end of the day, pour a glass of wine, and have a three hour phone conversation with my girlfriend about nothing and everything, laughing into the midnight hours while the rest of the world seems to sleep.  friendship is a blessed thing.  where on earth would i be without this?!

well.  back on track i am trying to get.  there are deadlines to meet, upcoming classes to teach, jewelry to make, journals to fill.  aren't there always?  but for today i revelled in the renewed delight of taking a few hours to photograph some of my favorite things, and thought i would show them to you...

and kelly rae, honey - this last one is especially for you.  tonight when i light the candle that makes the buddha's face glow into the night, i'll think of you....xo

in the shadows

i've been away, if you've noticed, absent from the computer, from the phone, from any number of contraptions that work (and don't work) in this modern world of ours.  two days after i posted the last entry, my computer crashed - "fatal error", it said to me, on a big black ominous screen, and after much wailing and pulling at hair, i realized that it truly had finally died.  several days later, after having my usual computer fellow come out, take the computer back to his house with him and attempt to remove all of my files and photos from the last six years of my life, we sent the hard drive to the big guys in charlotte to see if they could work their hopeful magic.  i held my breath for two days, hoping beyond hope that the news would be good.  it wasn't.  all of my beloved photographs were gone.  all of my painstakingly written class descriptions and materials lists , gone.  and no, i had not backed up a single thing, because for years i had begged both boys to show me how, and for years they had told me there was not a way on our dinosaur computer to do so.  wrong.  wrong, wrong, wrong.  are you wincing with me?  wrong.  and, gone.  lost, gone, vanished into the place where memories go after the mind chooses to stop wrapping itself around an image any longer. 

"My

hours

are

married

to

shadow."

- Sylvia Plath

all last week i spent suffering a peculiar and paralyzing sense of loss all over again - the loss of my brother ben, who died over a year ago but whose loss i feel even more acutely now that i no longer have the very last smiling photos i snapped of him, on the last day we spent together.  i feel again the loss of my boys' childhood, and their absence here at the house now, all felt even more painfully.  gone are their graduation photographs from high school, the shots i culled and carefully edited in photoshop.  gone is adobe photoshop 5 itself, a tool i used several times a day.  my beloved camera sat dormant for what, ten days? on a tabletop, useless without my blasted computer.   unable to cope, i became a silent shadow.  and shadow, i have been for all these many days.

spring has been slow to come here.  last friday, good friday, the day of The Crash, it snowed, and the cold snap took with it all the tender shoots and blossoms that had shyly sprung forth with earlier summer-like days.  whole trees covered in fragrant frothy white petals went, overnight, to a sad brown mess outside my bedroom window.  grass turned pale, and all manner of north and south carolina peach and apple crops died.  i cried over that, unexplicably.  then came the tragic news from virginia, and i found myself calling the boys, absolutely weeping, telling them how much i ache with love for them.   they must wonder about their poor mother, crying in fits and starts, here and there, over what must have seemed very removed to them.  a computer, photographs, thirty three deaths of young adults in another state, young folks i never knew and now certainly never will.  so why am i so damned upset, then, about something as material as digital photographs, or document files?

we live, and we lose.  life seems so full of itself, so full of richness, and of loss.  the older i get, and the more the wrinkles set in across my face, the more i realize how fragile we all are.  perhaps that is why i was so frantic all along to document the people that i so fiercely love, to have them there within my grasp, even if only on my #(*%# computer, there where i could reach out and have them close at hand.  to have those images snatched away so quickly, so mysteriously, knocked the breath right out of me.  but as my mother said to me on the other end of the phone, as i wailed, they were only things.  and as my father also said, in his gentle and kind-hearted voice, we still have our memories.

re-entry

 

reflections

i begin this post with an image of an incredible treasure rock that my beloved misty found for me on one of our walks along the shoreline at fort worden in port townsend, washington this past week.  do you see the veins of X and O ingrained in its lovely mottled green surface?  a rock with a hug and a kiss:  i lugged that heavy cargo home with me wrapped carefully in tissue paper, a prize that will stay with me until i die.  my pockets were full all week of beach glass and heart stones and round ones, others white and egg shaped, but the most precious ones of all came from her, gifts from the heart that will always take me back to this week that we shared together as teachers, as comrades, but best of all as kindred spirits through and through.

"There are two ways of spreading light:  to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it".  - Edith Wharton

i think of this quote when i see this photograph of misty and me, snapped by misty spontaneously when i was showing her the vintage dresser mirror i'd purchased for customers to use when trying on my jewelry designs.  i watched misty unfold her spanking new teaching wings, wet at first but strong and beautiful, this past week at artfest, and marvelled at the grace in which she handled the hectic flocks of students and admirers hovering around her like so many circling moths to her bright flame.  it wasn't easy for her, this explosion of fame, the propulsion into a spotlight that made her feel uneasy and off kilter from the sheer force of its frenetic energy; yet she handled it with her typical radiant beauty and gentle spirit, mostly, and our evenings were spent feet up on the coffee table, wine glasses in hand, spent, shell-shocked, away from the crowds in our beautiful little hideaway cottage where we could recount our days' stories with one another.  back at home now, i'm absolutely pining and aching for her company, for our evenings of camaraderie, as tired as we were; we laughed a lot, and cried more than once.  a beautiful friendship we have, indeed, and that is what grew out of last year's artfest, after we'd conversed online for several months beforehand.  i have teesha and tracy moore to thank for that, and for so many other things - but every time i try to credit them for changing my life, they simply brush it off with a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head.  modest people, those folks, but it's true.  they truly have changed my life, and all for the better.  thank you, thank you, thank you, for believing in me, supporting me, having me teach at each and every artfest, from the very beginning; it's been both a privilege and an honor.

i've met some wonderful new folks this year, and saw some dear familiar faces as well.  that is the beauty of a retreat like artfest, being surrounded by birds of a feather, all fluffing and preening and cooing to beat the band.  the energy hum was at an all time high - something that i as a fairly reclusive person found hard to handle by the time vendor night (friday) rolled around.  i think sweet carla sonheim pegged my feelings perfectly when she wrote that "by the third day of every artfest i feel mentally ill", and added that she wasn't kidding.  i know she isn't; i so utterly get the very same way.  nothing makes sense; my words don't come out right; senses, emotions, colors are heightened in a good way, but i may also get weepy, a bit short of memory, and just plain old tired.  people without fail begin telling me how worn out i look.  this, on the heels of the australia/new zealand trip, was particularly depleting for me this go 'round, and by saturday i was no better than a zombie, complete with either a raging cold or allergies.   in fact i was so exhausted by trips' end that on tuesday morning at 5am, in the seattle airport, i fell backwards down the up escalator, flat on my back and right elbow, all in a skittering tumble with two suitcases mixed up in the brew.  it wasn't pretty, and both dignity and elbow were severely bruised.  needless to say, this morning i'm quite stiff, but still intact.  but i am digressing again.  let me share some photos with you...

the one above is a classic - i love you, gina!  here was this little pixie of a gal, peering over my table at a demo, watching every wire twist i made right at table level.  i had to snap that photo, and something about her winsome ways won my heart.  it wasn't until the end of class that she divulged that she was sweet sister gina (armfield), a blogger with whom i'd been in contact frequently in the months before class.  what a honey she is. 

this is the lovely tejae floyde, another blogger who kept her identity to me secret until after my teaching was done at day's end.  i was so very, very touched by her beautiful gift of a polymer clay heart box that opens to reveal yet another heart within, and was compelled to snap a photo of her hands holding it (you know me, with photos of hands).  you may, and ought, to click on the photo for closer detail, as it is magnificent.  thank you, tejae, from the bottom of my mortal humble heart!

the photo of the smiling gal wearing a dangly necklace filled with charms is none other than what i should have dubbed my "girl friday", a.k.a. kathy peterson.  look at the grin on her face!  i think she was proud of the jewelry she created in the knot now, nina class, but not nearly as proud and grateful as i was for the help she was for me both before and during class, purchasing and rounding up supplies, gathering kit fees, and being quite an efficient assistant all around.  thank you, kathy, for being such a wonderful voluntary trooper!!!

the gal in the red, sporting several different necklaces (one is mine, one is hers, and one is made by a student - julie - who took my class in australia!) is the warm and loving, beloved kim boehm, delightful blogger friend that i've come to know via this ornamental home of mine long before we met in the two classes she took from me.  what a true sweetheart she is, sending me birds' nests in the mail, writing comments to each and every post i compose.  i wasn't prepared for just how much i would love her, though, in person. 

ah, sharon and joyce!  i love you so.  regular class attendees of mine, we've grown to be closer friends in the last year, going to dinner in portland last fall, then to lunch in port townsend with misty this past week.  these two gals travel together to art retreats, have a shared money "kitty" that they dip into for treats (a little zippered bag), and always, always have smiles on their faces.  i'm extremely fond of these two, and wish that they didn't live clear across the country.  but, sigh, california is closer than new zealand!!! 

oh, john!  what can i say?  what a sweetheart you are, who cuts to the chase and sees directly into the central heart of things, where it matters, who loves me even when i am grumpy, who laughs the livelong day, who appreciates the goodness and glory of life.  we love you, dear man. we do.

and annie lockhart - dear precious annie - "mmmmmm mmmm!", as she would say.  you know how much i love you, and the rest of the world will too, the minute they get their hands on you.  annie, i might add, has a lovely article, called "the next chapter", in this month's issue of somerset studio, along with fellow artist and friend pam garrison (go, pam!) with her beautiful and quite original artwork; be sure to buy a copy!  i was fortunate and blessed to have annie in my class at the wonderful (incredible, powerful, should i keep going?)valley ridge art studio in wisconsin back last summer, and i've been proud to call her Friend ever since.  keep a close eye on this gal; i have a feeling she'll be teaching one day soon.

ah, artfest.  what a ride!  it started even before it began, up in the air on my delta steed high up in the sky.  as you can see, i don't meet many strangers along the way, and made friends with misty's and my flight attendants (she and i met up in cincinnati), laughing it up with them and towards the end of the flight, given a little gift package of the biscoff cookies they knew i loved (and can only get on delta flights, unless ordering online).  there was the vision of mr. bones peering out of an upstairs window above my classroom, spotted one  morning by andra hepler, another blogging friend and a student that day.  and the wonderful visit, unplanned, with the beautiful and very dear kelly rae roberts, cute thing, who took my knot class and sat next to me at vendor night, generously shared wine and stories, and who has a delicious little edge to her that i can so appreciate!  with her was the delightful liz elayne, someone from whom i'd also heard via ornamental and with whom i'll hopefully continue getting to know in months to come (but of whom i got no photos, alas)....

there was misty's birthday, april 1, after artfest was over and everyone but we had left port townsend behind.  it was nice to have the place to ourselves, to unwind, to sleep late, to have no plans, to amble a bit dazed and confused through the downtown streets arm in arm, to eat a late lunch of thai coconut noodle soup, then back over to north beach (a first for me, after having visited the beaches of fort worden for eight years) where the wet wind was so biting and cold that we hunched and huddled together for as long as we could take it, then bolted back to the cottage for wine and baths of hot, hot water....but not before i found her this single rounded treasure of aqua blue beach glass.  a piece of the sky, nestled there amongst the cold grey and black and green rocks, it was meant for the birthday girl.

these images just barely, barely skim the surface.  there were many, unfortunately, with whom i did not get to spend any quality time - you know who you are, it breaks my heart that time was so scattered and spread so thin - and there were many near and dear to my heart who never came near this camera of mine.  so frustrating! and heartbreaking, as i'll not see you for another six months or so, and some of you, not for another year.  others whose photos i did manage to capture had blurred images that did not turn out, alas, alas.  i will hopefully be pulling together an artfest album for the blog, to be listed soon.  stay tuned for that.  i'll have photos of several students wearing their jewelry, as well as a few of the marvelous tea cozies that were created.

all who were there with me last week were delightful, loving, helpful and kind, as well as supportive, encouraging, appreciative, and beautiful.  i would not be here, were it not for the likes of you all, and i thank you, each and every one of you, for being who you are, and for being there, for continuing to come faithfully to my classes after all these years, for making me feel that the art and the jewelry i create is something that truly speaks to you.  i certainly hope that it does, for that is my goal - to speak from my heart through the pieces i make, and to let my voice carry on through yours, in the wisdom you may have gleaned for the new original creations you'll design from here on out.  you are wonderful, all of you, and i'm back home fully rewarded from this big adventure.  here's to the next one, with wishes that i'll see you all again soon, very soon.  this bow is for you.  xo