Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
Dear Travelcraft Journal community,
What I wish for you – this year and always – is to feel peace in the midst of life’s storms.
I wish for niches in your schedule to be creative, to explore, to experiment, to play.
I wish that whatever life brings you, you’ll be able to find something beautiful there, and that wherever you are, you can take a moment to enjoy the view.
Thanks for being here,
Stephanie
We saw this fabulous weather-beaten tree at Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area in Nevada.
I changed my Twitter cover image to this when the yellow brittlebush flowers I had previously chosen seemed too sunny. It looked wild and windswept, and it somehow fit my mood better.
Another day, I didn’t start out thinking about the tree. I was thinking about how I tend to feel my life needs to conform to a certain pattern, like I’m not valid if I’m not checking off a set of boxes, when – in reality – we are all writing our own stories as we go.
Life is not lined up and orderly. It is organic, unpredictable, wild.
The thoughts found their way into a short poem, and one of the images in my mind as I wrote it was that tree in Nevada.
Not a fence post
but a tree,
rough and irregular,
both warped by
the elements and
strengthened by them.
Each meandering ring,
a storyteller.
I can be kind of a browser tab pack rat, keeping things open I want to get back to, accumulating tabs with various sites throughout the day.
Melissa of Stirrup Queens posted about her tendency to do this one Microblog Monday and asked everyone to share what they had open. I started typing what turned out to be a pretty lengthy comment about what was stacked up in my browser that day.
Then the page refreshed and erased it all.
So I decided that it was probably better as a post than a comment anyway and started over. Since it’s been awhile, there are updates in brackets.
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I’m writing this March 7 just before noon [see what I mean? been awhile!], and here are the tabs I have open on my iPad browser:
1. Local news article about Souhwest Maker Fest, which I’ll be presenting at. [And did.]
2. BlogHer 16 conference info, because I’m going and wanted to post about it. [I’m now also going to be speaking.]
3. Hotel I was thinking of staying at, but it looks like it’s permanently closed. [It’s actually not open yet.]
4. Alternate hotel that maybe I would stay at instead if they’re done with renovations in time. [Nope. No end in sight!]
5. Draft of a review of markers. [Done!]
6. Coffee shop I was checking the hours of.
7. tumblr.com/register because my friend Anne recommended moving my other site to Tumblr. [I still might.]
8. tumblr.com/docs/en/blog_management, because I still have so many questions about tumblr. [Yep.]
9. devoutfashion.com, a tumblr site with a nice layout.
10. themestation.co, the site where devoutfashion.com’s nice theme came from.
11. Mesa Arts Center calendar to see what outdoor movies they had coming up.
12. ScotteVest, because my friend Lori and I were discussing whether you could actually do all your packing in a jacket with a lot of pockets. [Maybe.]
13. My watercolor therapy post, so I could grab the link for Microblog Monday.
14. The Stirrup Queens, where Microblog Monday lives.
15. And a draft of this post. #meta
So that kind of ended up being a weird journey through my head.
What’s on your mind and in your browser? You certainly don’t have to go into that much detail, but feel free to post a list or share a screenshot!
I was laying on my back on the couch watching clouds drift by out the window and blush pink and just had to take a photo.
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We’ve had this dwarf pomegranate tree for about 5 years (6? more?) without any sign of fruit – until this past spring.
I was so excited when I spotted a couple tiny red buds one day that I texted photos to Phillip. And my parents. And posted one on Instagram.
Those buds blew off on an unusually gusty day, and I thought it was all over for this year. Then new ones grew.
Yesterday, on the eve of the summer solstice, when I was on the patio worrying about my plants in the 119F-degree heat, I spotted a little pomegranate fruit.
Phillip thinks the tree is in a better spot at our new place. I think it’s because I’ve been watering it with water from Frida’s tank.
Either way, I’m glad to see it flourishing.
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