My Very First Post.......

So here it is...my very first post.  It feels like an occasion to open a bottle of bubbly, no? As my profile indicates, we live near the water.  We enjoy quiet seclusion situated 1000 feet off the main road.  Our only child Aaron (aka Micah) lives a short drive away in Chicago.  If I could live anywhere else it would be on the eastern shore of Swans Island, Maine. Many days my heart and soul straddle both locations, as well as eras...modern and colonial, future and yesterday.  I hope I don't confuse you going back and forth between these locations and eras.

I retired at the end of 2013, having devoted the vast majority of my career to the office furniture industry in procurement and surface materials, and finally as an Account Manager for a Canadian textile mill serving the office furniture, healthcare and hospitality industries.  My friends and family describe me as a designer, artist, crafter, quilter, teacher, writer, cook, savvy analytical business minded person deeply concerned about my fellow humans, born in a modern era with a centuries old heart.  My thoughtful times flow from that most conscious state between sleep and awake.

But to the point of this blog.....Perhaps you've noticed (and are concerned like me) that we are losing the art of craft, devaluing work done by hand and labor.  Today is about speed and instant information.  So I'm vexed since I love picking up my iPad researching a topic. To give proper credit to both, this blog will be about learning, where I write the curriculum and syllabus and the measure of success. I hope to put color back in a black and white binary world of speed and technology.  Much of our daily life lacks touch and face to face communication, disconnected, driven by instant gratification. We want the destination without the journey.  I want to honor craft, its processes, analyzing the smallest of details which we make by our hand.  I will touch on music, poetry, art, fiber and quilting, storytelling and good books (I'm a Jane Austen fanatic), travel and great food from recipes using whole foods, all intended to nourish the mind, body and soul with dignity and a sense of humor.  Lastly, I've avoided anything remotely resembling social media FOREVER, at least until now.