Lord be good to us, for the sea is so wide and our ship is so small.

Yesterday was the first day of the season for fishing. He sounded more excited about fishing than I have heard him in many seasons; maybe it was the "pep talk" we had after receiving the student's tuition bill, or maybe it was the drawings for a proposed art studio in the back yard or maybe it was just the beautiful surroundings. For whatever reason, I am thrilled! I have to dig way back in the memory banks to remember the excitement that permeates the town on those days leading up to the opener but it was also nice to find a couple of pics in my folders that my daughter took the season before last coming back to town after a successful fishing period. I imagine the weather they had yesterday was equally nice as He said he even put sunblock on!
I think it is about time for me to join Him again. It is such a thrill to see the fish hit the net and haul in the net full of glorious blue and silver salmon. They are such beautiful fish. I never got very good at picking the net but I'm not to old to learn. Watching Him do this job He is so good at makes me so happy. He is such confident man on His boat and on the water. It is His element. He said he cleaned the boat out good enough for a girl this season so hopefully when I get up there in July it'll just need a freshening up in order to welcome me aboard! I am sure that our girl will not tolerate much of a mess overall so there is hope. I am so excited for her to fish this season. My hope is that now as a pre adult she will look at this season with fresh percpective and see the possibilities in it. She is such a wild at heart girl... and a turd bird... she sure makes me smile!
My respite is almost over. She will be home from her first year of college tomorrow. I am so proud of her growth, her accomplishments, her bravery and her spirit. She inspires me. She also drives me nuts and I am going to enjoy my clean and quite home tonight like you can't believe!

Dear Sweet Mabel

So there it is. It is finished. It is gifted and it is soo satisfying. I took this pic a bit wonky to aviod the glare that you'll see on the ones farther down. This is my dear sweet Mabel, my grandma, when she was 17. It is my most favorite family picture of all. This is the culmination of all the daydreaming I had for this shadow box. I am so thrilled to have actually finished it and given the gift! So often I struggle with the finishing.

It was a trully happy Mother's Day.

So this is an empty nest?

When is it really an empty nest? When we dropped her off at college and drove away? Or will it be when she moves out of our home permanently into her own private little domicile?

I approached my daughter’s first year away at college with great personal trepidation. I began plotting all sorts of ways to occupy all my “free time” that would be spent oh so lonely with out her. I imagined every nook and cranny of my house clean out and organized. I thought of all the knitting I could do. I could finish up a couple of quilts waiting patiently in a box in the work room. Should I take a couple of classes my self? I could gear up my Ebay store again... Ultimately I settled on opening an Etsy shop as I had just stumbled across Etsy last spring and fell in love with it.

So in August after arriving home from our summer excursion up North I set to crafting up a bunch of handmade envelopes and note cards using vintage maps and atlases and other damaged and discarded books. I have no idea how much time I have in these buggers but I do know that they were good for my soul. Well after crafting nightly after work and most weekends I hmmed and hahed for way too many months trying to decide on a shop name and finally settled on ReduxPapers. And yet a month later took pictures of my inventory and set up shop. It has been fun, and distracting, and a great learning experience. I have unabashedly bought more than I have sold and just love Etsy!

This school year has gone by so fast for our little family and we have all survived and I would even go as far to say that we are all thriving. The student has found her stride, the parents have found they still like each other and all seems right in our world. We sure do miss that girl but she has been home so often this year on this break or that break that just when I really begin to miss her all of a sudden, there she is!

My nest doesn’t feel too empty yet so I think we are really empty nesters when they set up their own housekeeping. That’s good because I am too young to have a truly empty nest.