NEW PEEPS; NEW EXPERIENCES

I have two new Tea Kettle Characters! I especially love the one with bare feet, who is only the second little person I've made that had feet at all. Those mugs are hard to find! (The first one I found wore cowboy boots.)

I plan on listing them in my Etsy shop tonight. Here they are:

On the subject of new experiences, I had two today:

First, I got to sit in on a garden club meeting. I've wondered for years about garden clubs, and what it would be like to be a member. Just the words "garden club" conjure up visions of ladies in flowered hats, holding tea cups, and chatting in Latin.

"You should see the pelagoriums this year! Stunning, simply marvelous."

"My euphorbia griffiti is so bright, simply the perfect foil for that delightful Aconitum x cammarum Bicolor I put in last week."

And frankly, that would be bliss for me, although I'd forgo the hat. I do look awful in a hat. Once every five or six years maybe, I find one that looks good.

It wasn't like that, much. There were a lot of people there, many more than I'd expected. I'm guessing at least fifty, and everybody looked perfectly normal, and not the least bit stuffy, even if a number of Latin terms were tossed about. I loved the Pledge of Conservation they recited at the beginning, and there was an inspiring reading about butterflies, or more precisely, metamorphosis, as a metaphor for life and its transitions.

There were also two guest speakers, of which I was one. That was the other new experience. I've never been invited to talk to a group about my art before. It was so much fun! I'd been concerned I might be nervous, even though I spend a fair amount of time on stage singing. Talking, having to speak freestyle, as you might put it, seemed so much different than having lyrics memorized. But I wasn't nervous, and everyone seemed to enjoy my little talk.

One of the meeting's activities this day was a sale of garden art. I had a table, naturally enough. (As I recall, that's how Robin coaxed me into being a speaker.) People were enthusiastic about what I had, and I do believe it had something to do with talking about my art, letting people inside my head, as it were.

I'd do it again in a New York minute. (That's quick, right? No one ever seems to define that term....)