There is saying that "there can be too much of a good thing." Apparently Debra has never heard that. When she is on a roll, look out! At present she is working on several projects for publications. One involves a new very cute organic fabric line from Birch, along with it a bamboo batt from Fairfield. Then it spilled over into a couple more projects and now she is using Xotic bamboo felt from National Nonwoven. 

Where will it end? Never apparently around here. Debra takes being green seriously and is enjoying having a little compost bucket of her own. So much for us getting much in the way of scraps and I don't mean the pieces that fall from her cutting table. Ah well at least the green view is interesting and if we can just entice that crow closer on the roof...that bread scrap he has looks tasty! Follow the Fowl! Fran & Freda

I am finally back to work in a regular fashion after all the moving. With the moving I was often writing email on top of a box or looking for scissors in a variety of locations. After losing the phone the other day and finally resorting to pressing the locator button I am wishing everything had a locator button. I am a fairly well organized person but my memory is not as it once was so starting work in a new place...well all I can say is labels are a good thing! Living on my own I realized I didn't need a separate studio space I can work wherever I want. I need a guestroom more so the wide hall with closet is perfect for a studio space. There is a corner for my new sewing table I can wheel in front of window when working and the dormer with closet is perfect for my office. The kitchen island is a great cutting surface. Projects in progress have a place in the guestroom closet.

Exciting things are in the works! Full details coming up this week! Keep creating! Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

WELL finally Fowl Friday! The moving has finally stopped, when Debra does anything it is never halfway! Not content with moving both her daughters and herself once in three weeks, she decides to move twice in a week! We do approve, that being Freda and myself Fran of the new space! The loft is perfect for us of the bird persuasion and we have our own room! Debra calls it the guest room but hey we are perennial guests. Love the new towels, great for nesting.

The big windows have a great view of the water and sunsets, "romantic" some around here say as that certain someone goes floating by in a pink dress and dreamy smile. Anyway enough said. Freda's photoshop skills are nil but she wanted a picture in the big windows so here she is pretending to be an eagle, I am thinking seagull more realistic! Follow the Fowl! Fran & Freda!

I am back on the island visiting my daughter, returning home today. Was a month since I had seen her so it was wonderful to be here. Has gone by too fast but I have to get back to finish my last unpacking and back to work seriously this week.

All three of us are now living in new places, making and finding home. The spaces are new, for my youngest and myself new cities. It is an adventure and one that makes you realize home is not really a place. It is a feeling inside that is present when you are with those you love dearly. My heart finds home in several places at present, it is different and yet also a blessing for life is all about love, living deeply and meaningfully.

So I journey home leaving love here and returning to love at the end of my travel. Follow the JOY always! Debra, CEO!

Been two weeks since my last post. I spent an entire week without any service, cable, wireless and living out of boxes for two weeks. I am looking forward to getting back to work full time and cooking again. Hope I remember how!

I am organized, love labels and had a floor plan for the movers, yet I am also open to the adventure and possibilities life throws in. I also learned many practical things too like even though I downsized a 16 cubic foot truck is not big enough. My daughter's move used an 18 and what I need as well. However it worked out because the mover brought the second small load of storage totes, two days later and in that two days life had changed again. My very nice landlord came by a few hours after I was in the lower apartment of this beautiful heritage home. Already I had unpacked my living room and my porch was filled with my plants. Apparently the upper loft apartment with the washer/dryer in bathroom had just come available and would I like to see it. (Pictures to follow when my camera is unpacked) Anyway the sunroom foyer and up the stairs to a wall of windows with the most spectacular view of water, mountains and sunset. How could I not say yes! So it meant another week of living in the lower apartment out of boxes and when the totes arrived moving those only once into a different area for storage.

I now sit at my desk in a dormer window with a view of the city from this side. Each room has a dormer window large enough for a comfy chair and table. I loved my home and the apartment downstairs was really nice but I now live in a space that is just beautiful. I feel so grateful and blessed, I followed my heart and it has led me to a life rich with love and beauty. (plus fifteen stairs to keep my legs in shape!)

By next week I will be back to regular posting and of course Fran & Freda's opinion of the whole move, Freda has visions of flying off with the seagulls overhead, Fran will give the full details next week of their moving adventures. Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

These days I am reminded of a scene from the movie "Parenthood" where Steve Martin's character is always looking for order and plan amid the lively chaos of his life. Grandmother chimes in with how she never liked the merry-go-round as it just went round and round, kind of boring. Rather she liked the roller coaster with the ups and downs, the excitement, the fear, the adventure of it all! Although I am not good on actual roller coasters I am riding one everyday lately.

I find myself as moving day is only a few days away feeling excited one moment, scared the next, missing my daughters who both have moved in the last couple weeks too and feeling sad to leave a place I love. Mix that in with a mover who didn't show up for my daughter's big move out of province, the car breaking down in rush hour traffic, cats being sick, big personal and work commitments and it definitely is a roller coaster life these days!

We never know what each day will bring and that is the adventure of it all, that is life. We can plan our day which should include planning for two hours of chaos in there somewhere. What we also have control over is how we approach each day, greeting the day with gratitude and a sense of adventure, with a playfulness and purpose makes life really worth living.

Life changes abound these days and it is a little scary but the constant through it all is love. My daughters though not under my roof anymore are still in the same place in my heart. I move forward to a new life filled with love and laughter. Life is what we make it. Life is simply a love story. Embrace life and love, hold it always with an open hand and it will remain close to your heart forever! Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

 The day has come! The house is feline free! Freda and I are rid of the feline terrors at last! They left for PEI with Kate, we miss Kate but not the C A T S!!! Freda is doing the happy dance! I am afraid she is so happy she might pull a muscle or wear out her toes doing the dance! Debra left us for a couple days to get Kate settled in her new place. We partied just a little, well Freda did have some male company, a new rooster friend she met on Hatch.com. He swept her off her feet with his Frencch Canadian accent, he is from a farm up near Tracadie, NB. I don't find him particularly charming but apparently Freda does! Anyway we managed to clean up all the evidence before Debra got home! I think she was a litte suspicious with the clink in the garbage bag, Freda likes her wine!

So another week and we are out of here ourselves! Debra is off on a new adventure in a new city. She is smiling a lot and has a happy glow, kind of like Freda's but different. Freda doesn't believe in long term relationships but Debra is a committed kind of gal! So the summer is shaping up to be filled with adventures and travel, if we play our cards right we might be able to sneak into her suitcase now and then. If not we will have fun at home, Freda's Tracadie rooster has GPS and I am looking for a rooster myself. I need a little more intellectual stimulation than Freda does, so a rooster who can put more than three words together is required! So that is the scoop for Fowl Friday! Fran & Freda!

Debra is off tonight for a very special reason, the Relay for Life, twelve hour walk 7pm to 7am in honor of her friend Donna who lost her battle with cancer in April. She walks as part of Team Donna and part of a special event that is committed to celebrating the Survivors, honoring those lost and committed to treatment and finding a cure!

Yesterday my youngest daughter moved into her new place on the lovely island and province of Prince Edward Island. To keep her company her three cats moved with her and were very quickly at home. They love the rug and couch from the house and those moved with them. Before we left I used some scrap wood and built them a climbing tower. After seeing the ones in the store for two hundred plus I decided I could build something. Using four by fours, shelving scraps, sisal rope, cheetah fabric from my stash and left over ball fringe pieces from Expo International I built Milla and Bella their tower!

Her new place is on the third floor withut an elevator so there was a lot of stair climbing getting everything in! The movers were great, there were a few tense moments with the oversized couch as it seemed it might be staying in the hall but in the end it made it! The movers left at 2:30 and by the evening everything was in place. We celebrated by collapsing on the above mentioned couch, eating chocolate chip coolies and watching a movie!

Before

After

She is going to be on the island for at least a couple years as she pursues her dream of being a pastry chef. Her kitchen has a big island and I picture her there baking. Her glass cupboard holds her grandmother's china, quirky cow dishes from my guy, a cookbook filled with recipes from her baking stepmom, most of my cookie sheets and a funny fish sculpture from her sister on the island. She heads into her future surrounded by her past and those who love her most dearly. I leave tomorrow excited for her new beginning and my own in less than two weeks! With beginnings there are endings. The little girl with the blanket and bunny is now a tall eighteen year old young woman with her own place ready to build her own life. Am I ready for all of this, do we ever feel ready for major life changes? Probably not but that is what makes for butterfly moments, that fluttery feeling of adventures to come & possiblities unknown. "Life is not measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away." Always Follw the JOY! Debra, CEO!

Happy Memorial Day to all my American friends and followers. May you share with those you love all that today means to you.

My youngest daughter leaves home this week. I am glad I am going with her to help her settle in. I knew this day would come but am I ready, no. Are we ever ready when each child leaves? I have been a Mom with children at home for twenty seven years in total and now that is ending. I feel excited for her and so sad to see her go. She will be several hours away and I will miss the daily hugs, her sweet smiling face. We wil skype and connect often but a new chapter begins for us both. I move soon myself into a new and exciting time in my life. New beginnings mean endings, life is a mix of events and emotions. I am so very grateful to have been a Mom to two amazing young women who go forward in life contributing to the world in wonderful ways and are a delight to know and love. I have always believed that life is simply a love story. Who we love and how we live with love tells our story. My story has been defined by the most precious of gifts. To my darling daughters Amanda & Kate! Love always xoxo Mum

Fran here on Fowl Friday! We are two frazzled fowl! Debra has had us on duster duty everyday, not only is the feather duster getting thin but my tail feathers are falling out. No sympathy around here, Debra just picks them up and glues them into feather duster! 

Meanwhile those fluffy felines around here do nothing but spread their hair. Also they might be pretty to the human eye but bright they are not. I know Freda isn't the smartest chick about but she is a genius next to the feline trio. As I peck out this post, the youngest Bella is sitting in the screened window pressing her nose against the screen. On the other side of the screen a very large hornet is buzzing away. I wonder how big a cat's nose can swell? Guess we will find out! or not, Debra will probably rescue the fluff ball! The same fluff ball also thinks the fish bowl is a water dish, apparently climbing on a shelf and stretching as far as you can reach and putting your head into oversized bowl is normal for felines!

Packing is underway and Freda found out that packing tape also is very hazardous to feathers. I wonder what it might do to cats, if they were bald our dusting days  would be over! Hmm must ponder that thought and its execution. Debra is busy this weekend.....Follow the Fowl! Fran & Freda!