i can’t decide if this is a dinosaur with scoliosis, or a prehistoric centipede running away from me, or the narrative spine of steve’s book which has, truth be told, haunted both our days and nights for a while now. steve’s naturally good at the wordsmithing flesh. but we’ve had to work hard on the bones that are giving the book its shape. when we’re done, i’m hoping it will be a supermodel. or cary grant. in any case, you’ll be hearing about it in all of it’s osteo-carnal glory when the time comes.

box elder tree twigs

minneapolis, minnesota

i am still working on that pitch for target. actually, i set it down for a few days, and just picked it back up today. the presentation is scheduled for next monday, january 26th. the process of putting this pitch together has me skimming my STILL portfolio over and over.  i have noticed that i have a nice collection of STILL patterns going, but that the majority are in  shades of green, and only a few are in my beloved winter palette. so i will be setting out to correct this egregious wrong in the coming weeks. first up: allium seeds.

dried allium flower head deconstructed

minneapolis, minnesota

when we were in our late twenties, my husband and i read a book called your money or your life by vicki robin and joe dominguez. the book is a little dated now, but is still a thought provoking book worth reading. one of my favorite ideas in the book, that we still refer to twenty years later, is the idea of “enoughing.” in other words, not searching for more all the time. just searching for enough. the other theme of the book that has stuck with me over the decades is vicki and joe’s take on vacations. they posit that if your day-to-day life is truly authentic, and fulfilling, then there is no need to vacate it. vacations become unnecessary. it’s a fascinating idea. steve and i talk about it to this day. i think that we have concluded that we mostly agree with them, but that travel, as distinct from vacation, is its own separate reward. not an escape, but a deepening of experience. travel fills a different well than either daily life or the pure escape of vacation. that is not to say that, as i look forward to two or three more months of minnesota winter, i would turn down a hinano beer on a white shell beach in tahiti right now with any of you.

shells from the gulf of mexico and the mediterranean

apparently i can feed livestock, control erosion, and maybe someday run my car with switchgrass. i didn’t know all this until i got home with a shock of it under my arm. i just knew its wispy seed heads had been waving ethereally in the wind, and that they were pretty in a delicate, mia farrow kind of way. i’ll never look at mia farrow the same way again. apparently she’s an innovative workhorse, and possibly holds the key to america’s energy future. go mia!

switchgrass seedheads

rice creek regional trail, saint paul, minnesota

last night i said to steve,”ok there it is. i just put everything i have left into today’s image.  have no more ideas. no more collections. no more specimens. no more b-squad images just good enough to be still-blog-worthy on a bad still-blog day. and it’s still only january. i’ve still (no pun intended) gotta fill two whole months of winter. i’m tapped out,” i said. and i meant it. then, this morning, i took a single leaf from a single stem from a single square of yesterday’s color swatch image, and i’ll be damned if i didn’t come up with this! someday, when i’m finally worthy of her, i will internalize the fact that nature contains boundless inspiration. in the meantime, i’ll just say a humble thanks.

a single leaf from a blade of prairie grass, probably quack grass

grass lake regional trail, saint paul, minnesota