Lots of time spent in the woods here lately. Someone asked me how I spend my time, and I said watching baseball, working, and running in the woods. And that's actually a pretty fair assessment, with a few side excursions now and then. And some Pilates.
It's that time of year when Biltmore gets beautiful again. And this isn't even the acres of flowers and towering castle - even random river banks are beautiful!
Turkey Pen. Kelly and I have memorized Bent Creek so we've decided to venture out for Adventure Tuesdays. In which we. . . you know, try to find some adventure. If you consider wading across a freezing cold yet beautiful river adventurous then Turkey Pen fits the bill.
Baseball player.
The baseball player and his elder have somewhat surprisingly turned into fishermen here lately. Yes they have waders and everything. Which is fortunate because mountain rivers in the spring = really cold. Sam can state that with certainly, having fallen in a few times last weekend.
Who me, fall in?
Pack o' Boys in the creek. The essence of youth. If you're lucky.
Cattail Creek.
My main running buddy. Unbeknownst to me, poodles are kick ass trail runners.
Mountain to Sea trail near Craven Gap. A lot of rocks, not so much actual running. But lots of fun.
If you look carefully you will see my friend's son's Flat Stanley enjoying the view.
Flat Stanley's legs are short. He sometimes needs a ride.
Random parkway panorama.
Mountain to Sea trail at the Haw Creek overlook rock.
So usually I talk about my own jewelry on this blog. Because, let's face it, that's the jewelry I'm usually thinking about. But earlier this week I met up with a friend, Sarah-Lambert, who makes amazing jewelry. It's amazing both because it's unique - I've never really seen anything else like it - and because it's so beautifully crafted. I still can't exactly figure out how she does it - I'm pretty sure transmogrification and/or Harry Potter's wand must be involved, because surely no one could paint such beautiful, clever, personal watercolors on such a tiny surface. So, you can tell I'm smitten.
The thing is, she doesn't just make great jewelry, she also runs a great Etsy shop - called Tuckoo & MooCow (which, for those of you as literarily-challenged as I am, is a reference to James Joyce.) As most of you know, I decided to put some energy into my Etsy shop this fall, and it totally worked! People bought things! I shipped things! Joy ruled throughout the holiday season! And now. . . I want to keep the joy going. So when I met Sarah-Lambert I asked her if she'd mind giving me some shop advice - critique the good and the bad and the (hopefully not much) ugly.
Fortuitously enough, she also was in need of something, and a trade was arranged. What she needed didn't require nearly as much expertise as what I needed - she just needed someone to wear her jewelry so she could take some action shots of the jewelry in its native habitat - that is, on a person.
So we met one day this week, and she gave me a *ton* of good advice (which I'm going to go into in a lot more detail in a later post), and then I made faces at the camera and hopped around and tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing while she took pictures. I'll admit I wasn't expecting a whole lot - so when she put them on the Tuckoo & MooCow Facebook page I couldn't believe it. I kind of look like I know what I'm doing. She must have gotten rid of the super-awkward and dorky shots. My hair is big (my hair is always big), but not exactly finger-in-a-light-socket big. And I'm pretty sure that if there's anything Sarah-Lambert is better at than making jewelry, it must be Photoshop, because my skin didn't look that dewy when I actually *was* in my 20s! But, more to the point, her jewelry looks great. Here's a sneak peek of her shots - and you can head on over to Facebook for the real deal.
Ok, wait, speaking of dorky though - this one makes me laugh:
She did her usual great photography job, and her compact (which, it turns out, is actually quite useful if one is applying lipstick in public, or more likely for me, trying to do a quick check of whether there's something in their teeth) looks great. But I almost never wear lipstick, and if I do I'm definitely not organized enough to have an actual compact to use to apply it. And, plus, I've just never really seen a picture of myself like that, which makes me laugh. I look so intent on making sure that lipstick is really on properly.
But - now here's the truly tragic part. It turns out, after she processed these pics and put them up on Facebook, her computer crashed and ate them all. Before she had a chance to put most of them up in her Etsy shop, or back them up, or do anything else useful with them. I got these for the blog off of Facebook - but that's not exactly adequate for using them as product photography. So, I volunteered to go do it again.
But here's the thing - there's no way my hair's going to cooperate, or I'm going to remember how to look like I'm happy-but-not-manic, or she's going to be as successful at recapturing my youth. It's just not possible. So instead, these next ones will reveal me in the dorky, blotchy, crazy-haired true light of day. And I'll figure that's just the universe evening things out - some days you're the Louisville slugger, some days you're the ball. *
*I might have been reliving the 90s this week by listening to the CD collection I rediscovered during the studio overhaul. And that collection might include Mary Chapin Carpenter.
