Slow Food is Good Food!

This new print will be in my shop soon! I hope you are as excited as I am!

Cups of tea, Spring re-newel and The Cheshire Cat

Spring is finally here in Wisconsin. After such a long winter I don't even mind the cold. It's raining and there are thunderstorms and the grass is turning green. I hear whispers of possible snow on Friday...but I don't care. I'm not going to let that make me grumpy. The birds are chirping. They are optimists and I'll stick with them on this one.

Starting next week I will have my giclee prints on display at the wonderful Macha Tea House on Monroe Street in Madison. If you are in the area, please stop in for a pot of tea and some amazing food.

Spring is a great season for drinking tea. I enjoyed 4 pots of tea today. Let it rain all day and let me drink my tea. Re-birth, Re-newel, sewing seeds, all the amazing metaphors of Spring give us reasons to celebrate. The energy of thunderstorms, the electricity, the BOOM!

I dreamt of Uncle Fred a few weeks ago. He had his long white hair and beard, but his body was much younger. He gave me one of his amazing hugs and we both cried. I woke myself up crying. It was definitely a dream of letting go. I had another dream that my Uncle Larry, who passed away 16 years ago, suddenly came back to life. A dream of re-newel.

Oscar's Great Grandma Floeter passed away in March this year. She was an amazing, intelligent and generous woman. We let go, we embrace. We search for balance in a world of chaos. We seek quiet in a world of constant chatter. We live and we die.

This Spring I am planning a trip down south to Mattoon, where I grew up. My granddad was "Charlie the Coke-Man" and my mom's parents owned a furniture store for 50 years. Sometimes I have dreams that I'm exploring the dark familiar corners of the store. My secret hiding place wasn't in a forest, but in a 170 year old building, up-stairs, the storage room with creaky wood floors, back behind the bunk beds and recliners. Soon my mom will be selling the house her parents built in 1969 to move to warmer weather and to embrace a new adventure. My Aunt is doing the same. Friends of my mom's who I know as family, they sold their house in March, packed up their Airstream for new horizons.


"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like." - Lao Tzu





A few weeks back I was picking Oscar up from his amazing daycare. (seriously, we are VERY lucky) He is getting in the car and talking to the cat balancing on the fence. He says "mom, it's the Cheshire cat!" We had been reading Alice in Wonderland, so I didn't think much of it. But then as we were taking off in the car, he kept telling me "mom, it's the Cheshire cat!!!" He was clearly very excited, and I'm like "yeah!" Then suddenly I see it out of the corner of my eye. He is talking about the MOON! THE MOON IS the CHESHIRE CAT!!!!! YES! OF COURSE!!!! DUH!!!!! (Can you sense my enthusiasm??! It was seriously an amazing discovery)

When we arrive at home, Oscar is super excited to get out of the car and look up at the "Cheshire Cat". We are standing at the end of our driveway looking up at the moon and we hear a little bell ringing. Ding Ding Ding, up pitter patters a little orange cat with a bell around its neck. She hugs our legs, Oscar gives her a pat on the back, and she runs off.

Magic. Pure Magic.


As for me, I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under the trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sleep in bed at night with any one I love,
Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of summer forenoon,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown,
Or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring...
What stranger miracles are there?  

-Walt Whitman