Feet Firmly on the Ground

Home again, home again.

I spent days (um weeks, months) preparing for the three classes that I was teaching in Colorado.
Two of the classes I taught at Deb Prewitt's shop "Blue Twig Studio" were ones that I had taught before so that made it a little easier.

One of the best parts of my trip was getting to spend some real, honest to goodness quality time with my friend Liz Kettle.

She (and her husband) graciously invited me to stay at their home in Monument, where I stayed the last two years on my treks there. I think that I've been there enough now that they step right over me, put the broom (or dish cloth as the case may be) in my hand. Even the cats (and Duke) treat me like "one of the gang" while I'm there. Which is fine with me!

I love feeling at home, at ease with people.
I love becoming a part of their lives.

I arrived in Denver on Saturday, June 2.
Liz picked me up at the airport after the plane circled from DIA to Montana for an extra hour or so.
There was a huge storm right at the airport with wind gusts up to 60 mph.
It was just beautiful from my view point with the wispy clouds.
You Harry Potter fans will understand when I say it looked like a bunch of dementors flying in to the airport. Liz assured me it wasn't that at all - just rain that wasn't hitting the ground.
My story was much more interesting and scary though...imagine being stuck in the airplane with all those people...
dementors surrounding us...

Well. You get the idea.
My imagination gets away from me on occasion, doesn't it?

Back to the real story.
I loved that this plane had the tracking screen in front of my seat.
I could draw the landscape view from the plane and look on the screen to see which state we were flying over at that particular time.
And it was fun (though a little discerning) to watch the little plane (on the screen) go from DIA to Montana, not once but twice while waiting for the airport to open back up.

Sunday we went to Deb's shop "Blue Twig Studio" (and her home) in Colorado Springs.
What an awesome teaching space!
Surrounded by all kinds of art goodies (oh no!).

We did the "Whimsical Mark Making" class first, with a studio full of brave, brave women.
By the time the day was over, these ladies were drawing and painting all kinds of cool art journal images/pages.

They even drew each other.

I had met most of the women at "Textile Evolution", the mixed media fiber retreat that Liz created.
It was more like hanging out with good friends that I hadn't seen in a while.
Lots of laughing and teasing each other...a lot of smiling, support and edification (and don't we all need more of that?).
I like the Word Origin & History section of the dictionary that describes the word "edification" as "building up of the soul".
Isn't that what a group of supportive women do for each other?

Building up of your soul.


Really think about that for a minute.
Is that what you do for your family and friends?
Or do you tear them down, rip them to shreds with your words and/or your actions?

I wasn't planning on writing the last paragraph but it came out anyway so I'll leave it.
Writing tends to be that way, eh?
The words that want to be uttered find a way out.
As writers, we have to let them.

I'll pick up here on the next post.
And I'll leave you with a couple of photos of Deb's home studio.