SeaHeart

My Pentacle, on the Mother Tree in Salem, MA. <3


This past week, we celebrated our first year (and fifth!) wedding anniversary by journeying to New England. That handful of days, the moments of pure, intense magic and the riot of blazing colors nature gave us, in abundance, was a gift I'll cherish my entire life. It was the first time visiting New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont (that I remember--I went to these places when I was a year old, and less, but obviously that's not been kept in my brain ;D), and after a lifelong OBSESSION with them, getting to actually go was a dream come true.

Old Bennington Cemetery in Vermont.


We returned to peak leaves in New York state, too...so everything, for the past eight days, has been a treasure in my eyes. When I blink, I see rich colors, when I dream, I dream of palaces built of trees crowned with gold. My favorite season has unfolded itself in a savoring, beautiful explosion of sacred moments, and I've simply been soaking them up as each new one presents itself to me.

I'm going to post more in detail about everything--I have to go finish wirewrapping the Glamourkins for tomorrow's update--but I just wanted to share my many mixed emotions. I feel loved and held and homesick and sad and happy and just...indescribable, really.

Maddie's Yule gift to me last year was a tattoo that we both had spoken of getting for years and years. A quill. It's taken this long for all of our schedules to come together, but we're finally getting them this Saturday. I've had the design idea in my head forever, and yesterday, after we got home in the wee hours of the morning, I sent everything to my tattoo artist. This morning, I received the sketch and stared at the laptop screen, breathless. My heart stopped beating.

All of my stories come from Her, so I needed the Goddess in the quill. And She's there in ways I never could have imagined. Just like in my life. Just like in my heart.

And, on Saturday in the magic season, She comes out--again--upon my skin forever.

- While I'm getting ready to post the Fable Tribe update, Jenn is doing something we've been trying to get set up for months: she's posting the first update in our vintage Etsy shop, A Clover and A Bee! <3 It's going to be filled with 80s paper ephemera, toys and antiques--the first update is from Jenn's childhood and teenaged sticker collection, and it's filled with utterly adorable stuff. Take a peek! <3

ACloverAndABee.Etsy.com


- We spent the weekend down with Jenn's parents, celebrating the annual Cancerian Birthday Party (I'm a Cancer, and so are both of Jenn's parents. <3). It was awesome and wonderful, though came right on the heels of another incredibly-almost-catastrophic health related issue concerning her dad. :/ So it was really wonderful to see him okay.

- The Bone Girl is being released August 28th, my first anthology Love Devours is going to be released earlier in the coming month, and Project Unicorn is starting to get a lot of press and notice and OMG EXCITEMENT, WHOAH did people want this. :D I had hoped, but really, the amount of support has been absolutely staggering. <3 So that launches not next week, but the week after it. Holy crap, you guys, it's going to be INTENSE. I love the Project Unicorn themes, but one of my FAVORITE ones is for this first month, "The Dark Woods." It also somewhat ties in to what I'm wrapping up with Love Devours, and what I've been working on with Follow the Wolf, which is part of Sappho's Fables (it's the "Little Red Riding Hood" retelling). So, in short, not surprisingly, and--as always--we're knee deep in stories and words, and there are so many exciting, shiny things coming. <3 Viva la story! <3

- Jenn and I are heading on our yearly pilgrimage to Salem/Gloucester/Rockport in two days. <3 This year, as many things in our lives have, our trip has changed. This is the first time that Jenn and I are going by ourselves (Maddie's going a week after, with her mum! <3), so there's a real feel of second-honeymoon-ness going on. <3 Also, we wanted to have the most inexpensive vacation known to mankind, so we're not staying at a m/hotel. We're camping at Winter Island in our GLORIOUS! PALATIAL! SPARKLE-TENT! We're so hella excited about camping there, words escape me. Every year, we experience the place more and more like the locals do (our hearts belong there, after all!), but this year, we're diving even deeper in that. We're not going to use the car at ALL while we're there, instead simply walking, and taking the train where applicable. We're going to spend hours and hours in coffee shops as we outline our upcoming novels, discussing stories together. We're going to spend hours and hours and hours on the beach at the campground, cavorting in the water like the mermaids we are...it's going to be an easy, relaxing vacation with absolutely nothing to do but spend time with each other, create, and be in love. <3 <3 <3 I'm over the moon. I think this trip is going to change our lives. I have a feeling.

- That's where my mind is. Stories, and going home to the most precious place in the world, to us. Being together, exploring some of our favorite haunts, inventing new trails, being embraced by the perfect blue waves. <3 Finally, going home as a free woman--it holds more meaning than I can describe, that. <3

My dearest ladies and gentlefae, you know that my beloved wife and I have worked tirelessly on transforming an unused space in our home into a veritable grotto of sacred acts of creation involving much LIBERAL USE OF GLUE AND GLITTER (translation: A CRAFT ROOM :D). We have FINALLY finished.

It is:

THE SPARKLE ROOM.

And now, here, we present it to you in all of its purple, glitter, rainbow-y decor and glory for your amusement and enjoyment. BE WARNED: THERE ARE MANY COLORS. ADJUST YOUR EYES BEFORE ENTERING. <3 <3 <3

If you step over the rainbow rug, you will enter: SPARKLE ROOM.


( SPARKLES FOREVER )

It was so important to us to be surrounded by things our loved ones have gifted us with, precious treasures that make us smile and remind us of them. <3 There is so much joy and sparkle and love and happiness in that room--it is the most perfect place in the world to create, and we are so in love with it, happy with it, and grateful for it. <3

We want to go through and make posts like this for all of the rooms in our home. <3 We're so happy with how the bedroom looks, finally, and we're almost done re-ordering the Temple Room (AGAIN, we do this every month, I swear--we love changing it up! :D), so that'll be next~ <3

We're going home~ <3

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Jenn and Maddie and I embark on our yearly pilgrimage to the North Shore--Salem, Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts. I've been walking on cloud nine all day--my excitement knows no bounds.

For as long as Jenn and I have been together, we have had one deep-seated goal: move to the North Shore. Going there isn't a vacation--it's a home coming. I know every street of Salem, every nook where you can curl up with a book of magic, every boulder along the shores of Gloucester to climb and rest yourself like a mermaid. My heart is singing, home is calling...

I hope your weekend is beautiful~ <3

The Rockport sea, 2008