On Toddler Time, BRB.

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My baby has become a boy, you guys.

Like full-on boy. I only catch the rounded cheek at certain angles now

and his smile is filling in with tic-tac teeth,

white and beautiful.

He is fighting naps like never before,

declaring them "Nap is all done? All done." even before they've begun.

As he struggles not to give in to the horrible monster of Rest he warbles to himself, "Ohhh Unny"

and it's so hard not to go in and relieve him of the discomfort.

I don't.

I can't: those scant minutes are sanity savers.

We go for long walks.

We read lots of books

and when mama is a fried egg at the end of the day, we sit quietly and eat.

He is preferring his Daddy in the morning, saying, "Bye Bye, Mama"

in hopes of hanging out solo with that tall handsome protector.

We are working hard on simple and important things for Orion like using our hands for kindness

and finding words for things that are frustrating.

He is in general such an affable kid and a good listener

but there are moments where I wonder

if the little glint in his eye means my day is about to get a little more...uphill.

A little less logical.

And so I breathe. And I make time to meditate.

Exercise, my beloved exercise?

Um....yeeeaahhhhhh.

To give you an idea of my ability to do everything I most wish right now:

I put a tamale in the microwave three days ago to heat up for lunch

and opened the door yesterday evening to heat up Orion's dinner:

Oh, hello cold uneaten scrumptious tamale!

I, lover of food like few you have seen have forgotten to eat.

I, lover of the tidy home have finally given over to the impish little piles of toys scattered in places they don't belong,

the errant baby sock in the cooking pots,

the unused Elmo potty under the dining room table

Schmilly's man-cave a parking lot for all wheeled things...

it was my postpartum pride that the house was not overrun

and now I am simply unwilling to attempt constant order.

It's exhausting. It's Sisyphusian.

Thanks to a sweep-and-mop Sunday night you could eat off of our floors,

but you might be doing that next to five kitten toys and a broken crayon.

The remnants of a leaf the wind blew in,

the kale Lil' Joe stole from the compost bowl this morning.

If you knew me in the flesh you'd hear the tenderness I feel as I go on about this season in our lives.

There is so much humor in this time,

so much exhaustion.

I already miss it

and I understand what it's doing inside of me,

not the details but the overall theme.

It's growing me

fertilizing the limited parts

to become fully realized,

breaking down all the resistance to be filled with light later.

I sometimes think I am in a bubble and everyone's lives are going on around me, around my boy and I

and though I hear the words they speak I don't know the language anymore.

I feel foreign.

I am tempted to say, "Ahhhhhlllll dun" when I finish anything.

Moments of wanting to knock on the clear divide between me and and the world, asking for someone to cut a window so I can feel more connected

and moments of snuggling in so tight I never want to go.

My world exists in Toddler Time

and though it's weird and lonely and so much work

my sunrise is in his first word of the day

and my sunset is his last story before bed

and I know it's blowing away before I've even begun to experience it so

I hold tight to the basics and breathe in the goodness of teaching a small boy how to 

find his way in a world that grows bigger for him everyday.

xo,

Sunny

Notes on This Week: Homecoming Garland Necklace and Blossoms

Homecoming Garland Necklace: Brass and Sterling Hydrangea with chrysoprase, rhodonite, pink opal and jasper.

It would seem a rhythm is presenting itself in my studio life:

dedicate the days to motherhood,

the naps and evenings to hammers and heat

a weekend day to family

and one to sawing and filing and kiln

Outside the studio though it is a hodgepodge of things...

once a week take it down a notch and surrender to tenderness

reaffirm the importance of/ systematically avoid self-care

bake erratically 

teach Orion that avoiding meltdowns is possible

by simply asking for a hug ("Mommy Hug?" he now says and oh the wonder of those words)

commit to open-heartedness in as many situations as I can blossom to

draw blueprints for the future

dreaming bigger and braver than maybe ever before

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Answering a question from Orion in the car this week I said, "Everyone's going home, Honey...we're all just going home"

Of course I meant the cottage, people's apartments and houses and condos, but it felt like a deeper truth

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Aren't we all just going home?

From the day we are born isn't it all just a gradual and definite homecoming?

What if that's how we thought of death?

Fern Filigree Cuff in Brass

As a sigh of familiarity

and a balm for the polarizing and harsh times we've known here on earth

where we kill each other for shoes

and Gods...

I would say this week's making was touched by those questions

and the tenderness they gifted my hands and my heart

as I worked the metal into reality from ideas.

This week's work was soft and warm and protective 

and achy.

I can't think of a better way to put it...

I had to look back in the blog archives this week to find a design

long past

and I got lost in reading.

Small Blossom Earrings 

After the past few years of stripping down 

it all sounded so...young (forgive me, that sounds silly if you're sixty)

and earnest and hopeful and I loved the past

again with all my present might.

I kept it sweet. I kept it light.

I thought that was the best way to share because it was a successful model.

Bless my heart.

I made a few pairs of little blossom earrings 

because no matter how much life makes us into badasses

we still house the fool on the cliff in our hearts,

the self that saw life stretching before us,

vast and without limits

like they tell you in commencement speeches

Smallest Blossom Earrings 

no advice for caution or closing can touch that place,

and thank goodness.

It is imperative that we dedicate some of our love to her,

to decorate her room

in the energies she gives us secretly

sneaking garlands around our jaded hearts in the middle of the night

making us wonder where that sense of vast potential came from

where yesterday we were world-weary.

It was nice to take an evening and remember those times and that place

closing the laptop and reaching out for a certain grey tabby who wasn't there for the moves

and the making and the dreaming...

to walk by the man-cave and blow a winking kiss to the lover who was there

and lay my exhausted bones down in the same room as the little soul

who was my most secret and crushing dream

for longer than my light and airy fingers would ever confess.

More than my craft.

Bigger than my biggest plans.

All versions of my Self in space and time delight in him 

unanimously.

The beautiful treasures you see above will wind their way into the 

METAL SHOP

today.

xoxoxox,

Sunny

On Work and Birth

Today I am Thirty Six years old.

Before I gave birth I thought the birthday was just an individual celebration,

but today after a few years of appreciating my boy

I know that it's also another form of Mother's Day.

The recognition of a child alive and thriving.

Today I think of my own mother and how she must have experienced looking at this tiny infant,

the overwhelming joy and responsibility that entails,

the hormones,

the support or lack thereof.

You may wonder why I am listing pieces on a day when I could very easily kick back and just eat cake;

this would be work if it were 'work'

but it feels so right to give the world these jewels

that they be presented

on this auspicious day

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Today is both the anniversary of my birth

and of my wedding to Anthony:

can you believe it's been five years?

Have you been with me that long here on this little page?

The moments have flown or dragged, day by day depending on the gifts and challenges we've navigated.

I was saying to my husband this morning that it's really something, marriage...

You take this path and agree to be faithful and cherish and take care of each other in the best and worst of times

to see each other at your most happy or devastated moments

to smell each other's dirty socks

see each other's naked hynies

and break bread together daily

engaging in discussions both mundane and special

or to disagree in an attempt to understand better, to peel back the onion a little more

to find each other in the midst of change and keep the other posted so you don't lose your way

in this jungle world we live in...

on its best day marriage is work

on its worst day it is work, too

but I am hearty as a mule

and he an ox.

We hold hands.

We lean in close against the wind when it blows cold.

It feels often to me that it's work of a very soulful nature, supporting love.

It's the way I feel about SunnyRising: yes, there is labor involved

but I am so fed by it, so nurtured by nurturing this endeavor.

People ask if we're going to have another baby and I tell them I already have two:

Orion and Sunny.

And no, there will be no third.

You can probably tell from this week's work, but my heart was on fire with love.

It radiates from the petals

from the rivets and cold connections of flower and drape.

I felt no weight this week, slowly working through custom pieces

and finishing the details of bits for the shop.

Sometimes I hummed Miley Cyrus or listened to soft rock radio

sometimes I enjoyed absolute silence broken by the sound of my tools

and engines.

Where last week the studio saw me healing from heartache I didn't know I had

this week saw the reward for being with the pain

and not leaving it alone when it needed me most

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The week was gossamer.

Tulle.

Feminine graces

and stubborn spring in the midst of the dying summer.

This week has been pink and green

and lovely all over.

Pieces will wing into the 

METAL SHOP

randomly, in between 

giving myself a pedicure

and lounging in the hammock

with someone else's words making a movie in my head.

Thank you for being here,

for coming by to read

and share a moment of time with me, with us.

Birth something great today, won't you?

xoxoxo,

Allisunny

Umbrella Fern Magic Earrings

Just a dash of 

ethereal goodness

for this glorious morning

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I hope your world is bursting with possibility

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These soul-protective beauties are in the 

Metal Shop

now, before the dew is even gone.

xoxoxo,

Sunny

AHOY!!!!

Here be the maiden (landlocked) voyage of the S.S. Yeti Spaghetti!!!

I know one sailor who was very sad when the kayak got put back into the garage

whose name rhymes with "I'm Buyin'"...

It's long been a big dream of mine to have a kayak

because few things make me happier than paddling around a lake or a slough

and eventually (darn, that car rack isn't free???)

I will be able to pick up and go with my guys

in this great state of California.

I kinda want to take it out right now and sit in it under the stars in the cold.

xoxo,

A

Cloudy

Labradorite and feather Magic Spell Earrings 

This week I worked breathing through the weight of sorrow.

It informed all of my choices: they became medicine.

All the metals, all the stones, all the meticulous knitting of elements

were healing things.

Seven days ago I was packing to see my Redlands crew, my heart was fluttering with anticipation

for the wedding singing and the drinking and the catching up.

We flew down and drove to meet our family.

When Matt and I tucked ourselves away in his kitchen to learn the song Chad had requested of him

as soon as we began singing it hit: the rightness of it, the perfect sense of our kids babbling semi-coherently in the other room, the sound of Irene and Anthony laughing and comparing notes on parenting experiences, the peanut-butter-and-jellyness of our harmonies that have always been so ...meant.

Our time with Jessi and Phil, staying up late talking for hours with these kindred hearts...

the wedding itself, the whole musical family there, singing for the bride and groom...

I could go on. It all felt like a balm.

These are the friendships that have stood the test of time, seen us through the hungry twenties

into parenting and responsibilities and laughing at our new wrinkles and guts.

These are my faraway hearts I pine for, our people.

Orion cried for a long time on the flight home, his first time crying on a plane.

I cried, too.

Jacaranda Heart Pillow Necklace 

I've been like a slow leak since then, trying hard to be with the discomfort as it comes

and letting it pass when it's over.

I keep wondering if it would be different if we had left Los Angeles by our own volition

but I assume it would be the same, the same ache.

An ex boyfriend once said to me, "You live in the sweetest saddest part of my heart"

and I wonder at the poetry of that phrase...

it implies so much goodness and care.

That's how I feel when I think of the alternate universe in which Matt and I went on to sing

with great frequency and renown.

In that world we were touring with our friends

and maybe even making some coin for our family.

Maybe we argued more, maybe he finally did kick the window out of our touring minivan.

Maybe it was harder on that parallel path.

The thing that is so awesome about the whole situation is that I returned north to this beautiful full life

that I love. I returned hand in hand with Schmilly

pushing our toddler son, meeting our kitten trinity at the door of our beloved home.

I know the sorrow is a gift, a reminder to call more often, to get down and make music 

more than every two plus years and I am listening.

I am getting my piano fixed.

I am writing music again.

Twin Fern Earrings with Carnelian and Turquoise 

Every time I feel the discomfort of this torn part I just breathe into it,

I greet it warmly and open as much as humanly possible.

That's where this week's jewels came from: they bubbled up whole from

the stillest waters of my connection with All that Is.

They were music in my hands.

A quiet song.

I will be offering them in the 

METAL SHOP

later tonight.

Reborn Wing Earrings with Repurposed Vintage Coral, Pink Aventurine and Chrysoprase

I want to share with you a few words about where this wing came from.

There was a day a few months back where I decided to let open my eyes to the potential

for gifts everywhere.

Really live present to possibilities around every corner.

While the baby and Schmilly played I took the hammock outside and as I set it up

there it was: this torn and HUGE wing on the concrete outside our garage.

I do not think carpenter bees even get this big, it remains such a glorious and torn mystery.

It was ravaged and yet somehow whole. Tough. I am so excited to share it with you in this soft and lovely pair of earrings.

If you wish to inquire about any of these

healing spells, please

convo 

me

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Listing tonight with love.

xoxoxo,

Sunny