Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Because it is SOOOOO hard to get into the holiday spirit in a place that feels like a truly endless summer (not complaining), I'm living vicariously through last years photos of last year's Halloween decorating extravaganza.

Somehow it just doesn't seem like Halloween without skulls, spiders, and brain-shaped rocks lying about the house.

Go figure.

This guy looks pretty real, doesn't he?

He scared a few people.

He would move in the wind.

(Not that it's windy very often in Idaho.)

I lied about not having any spiders here in Hawaii.

Actually there are spiders around here that look just like this, only they're brown and they're bigger.

Much BIGGER.

Creepy.

Wishing you all a spooktacular Halloween...

BOO!

What I've been up to...

It's no secret that I've been in a bit of a creative lull lately.

I blame it on the fact that my studio has shrunk to miniscule proportions.

(As in, it doesn't exist.)

And the fact that my poor man's studio--dining room table--will hold 3 dinner plates at a time with no room to spare, doesn't help. Seeing no change on the horizon, I finally schlepped my supplies out into the middle of the living room, stopped making excuses, and started sewing.

Several hours (and much sweat and tears, but no blood thank goodness) later, my new pillows were born.

I'm quite smitten with them. Of course, I'd be smitten with anything made out of linen. Especially white linen.

"It's my favorite," says the ten year old in me.

I love how it is wrinkly and heavy and drapes beautifully.

I'd eat it for breakfast if I could.

Oh yes, and buttons.

I love buttons too. Especially mother of pearl buttons.

I used buttons of all different sizes and shapes and shades because...

Well...

Because I could.

That's why.

That and the fact that I really hate things that match.

(It could explain why my fashion-conscious sixteen year old refuses to walk next to me at times.)

Kleenex and character...

I cried last night for a long time. Cried and cried. I laid down on my bed with tears streaming down my temples and puddling in my ears. I went through a half a box of Kleenex crying. My eleven year old laid on the bed next to me with tears running down his cheeks, trying not to let me see that he was crying too.

It was wonderful.

There are moments in life that one wouldn't trade for anything. Among my favorites are the sweet, stolen moments, serendipitously found between the yellowed, dog-eared pages of a book.

We shared one of these last night, my sweet boy and I. We were reading the book "A Day No Pigs Would Die" by Robert Newton Peck. In a hurry to finish a book report for school, we picked the shortest book we could find in our bookshelf and launched into what we thought would be a quick and easy foray into the life of a backward Shaker boy in the early 1900's.

What we got was something completely different. True, the story was about a backward Shaker boy in the 1900's, but what we learned, felt and shared was so much more than that. We learned that it is more than age that makes a man out of a boy. We learned that some things just have to be done no matter how hard or painful it is to do them. We learned that life is not always fair, but that the character built in a man in the face of unfairness is the hard-won prize.

And we learned that reading and crying together creates a bond. I loved my son more after sharing that time together than before. And I like to think he loved his teary-eyed, runny-nosed mom just a little bit more too.

These are the moments I will never trade.