I have been Instagramed

Hello! 

This is my first Utah winter. We have lots of beautiful snow, but it's different that NY snow. Because of the lack of humidity, it is not heavy, soggy and icy. The roads are dry and we haven't lost power once. Yay!

In NY, it was a pretty common occurrence for us to lose power for a week at a time. For us that meant, no light, no heat, no flushing! Eek!

Besides enjoying this beautiful nature, I have been busy editing that craft/kit book I told you about and I have succumbed to peer pressure and joined Instagram. "Peers" being my family and friends. I am glad to be there, running into old and new friends, getting even more inspiration to make beautiful things. 

If you would like to connect with me on Instagram:

Children of Eve/ eve crespo

If you do visit me there, let me know you are a blogger friend. I would love to say hello. 

Why we left New York

Leaving NY was not an easy choice. My husband and I were both born in NYC, we met at The School of Visual Arts on 23rd St. The city was our playground and source of inspiration. And then we grew up. Our priorities changed, we felt closed in, we needed room to breath. We moved to a suburb and became commuters and had two daughters.

As the girls grew we found ourselves needing more nature around us. My interests shifted from concerts and restaurants to mushroom hunting and knitting. My husband wanted more time with us, more time in the woods, but commuting to Times Square everyday left him little time for either. Commuting two hours each way is soul draining. And once he got there he had to fight the crowds of tourists and fake Elmos just to get into his building. After 19 years, he had enough! 

Our girls, now 15 and 19 were feeling it too. We all desperately needed a change, we had become stagnant both creatively and spiritually. It was either make a major change or continue to do the same thing day in and day out, which was killing us. 

My husband quit his job after 19 years as an Illustrator/Art Director at Nickelodeon and we told everyone that we loved that we were leaving. It was no easy task. Some understood, some felt abandoned. We packed up two PODS and drove across the country with two teens, two snakes and one guinea pig. Off to find adventure and seek our fortune!

So, where are we? Utah! We love it, we feel peaceful, at home and free. We have been here for two months and have no regrets. We have no idea what lies ahead, but we know that God has directed our path and He will continue to do so. 

Now that we are settled, I am free to devote more time to blogging this new adventure as it unfolds. 

I hope you are finding wonder and joy in unexpected places. Don’t be afraid of change, life is too short. 

When the wind changes.

Greetings! I am back! 

So much has happened since my last post. I will give you the nutshell rendition and slowly peel it away for future posts. First off, we decided to sell our townhouse in April when our already too high taxes were assessed for double. Selling a house is quite a chore. I had to empty it out, it has to be sparse and clean at all times because you never know when an agent will be requesting a viewing or an open house. It sold fairly quickly and we began our search for our next home. 

After viewing many homes, we decided to rent instead of buy. We began to feel strongly that we may not want to buy in NY again. Like Mary Poppins, the winds are changing and we want to be free and flexible to go.

We moved into our wonderful rented home in August. It suits our needs so well, my girls for the first time each have their our rooms. The grounds are beautiful, butting up against woods, lots of big rocks, moss and lichens, which I am crazy about.

During the moving/settling process these things occurred:

My younger daughter was found to be Lyme free!! After a year of unrelenting treatment that was amazing news. (This is a story I must unravel for you in future.)

My older daughter "graduated", finished her homeschooling. 

We had no fridge for a month.

My sister and her son came to stay with us because she has a chronic disease and needed help and care.

Almost every weekend we had out of town visitors sleeping here, before we even had furniture. One airbed...and it leaked.

We don't know where we will end up, but for now Halloween 2017 we are all together and well and happy. The foliage is spectacular. I will introduce myself to my new neighborhood as Mary Poppins tonight. My daughter just informed me that she is going to bake some black pretzels.

Life is good and this is where you will find me...until the wind changes.

 “The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." John 3:8  

Back on the Blogging Road....

HeLLo Everyone and Happy Fourth of July! Sorry if any of you kindhearted folks worried about my absence from the blog world. I am just fine, I just lost touch with blogging. 

It all started back in March, when my two lovely friends, Holly and Alicia came to visit us. They are missionaries who run a home for "at risk" girls in Cambodia called House of Refuge. Please visit their site and support them if you can. I know firsthand that the work they are doing is legitimate and is saving girls lives.

I had the best time showing them NYC and  getting to know them more intimately. Alicia ended up staying with us for an extended couple of months. My family and I fell deep in love with her and she has become a daughter/friend/sister to us.

During that time I just didn't think about blogging. And after they left...

 I was out of the habit, I felt so disconnected from the blog world. 

I started thinking things like, "why blog?". Questioning my motives. 

Why blog?

I am blogging again because I like it! It's that simple. I love the connections I've made with other bloggers over the years. The inspiration I have borrowed from fellow bloggers is amazing. You never cease to bring new and wonderful ideas to my attention.

 I can honestly say that my entire blogging experience has been a positive, happy journey and I've missed it and all of you who keep me inspired and keep my creativity moving forward.

All this to say, I am heading back down the blogging road and I am very excited to be back. I'm looking forward to taking unknown paths and falling down some rabbit holes with you.

Adventures of an Elf

Yes, I know it has been quite a long time since my last blog post. I have been rather preoccupied with "real" life. Life is interesting, life is unpredictable. Life gets in the way of  blogging, blogging will never get in the way of  my life. There is so much to do, to see, to try. Sometimes I admit...I just forget to blog. The longer I stay away, the harder it is to come back. Today I'd like to recap a little of the past month while the memories are fresh. It has been a very exciting and fun time.

My daughter has been writing a story about a dark elf/Drow who because of complicated circumstances is being raised by her wood elf grandfather. This week she finally gathered all the necessary pieces to dress up as her elf counterpart. The autumn colors made for a perfect elf walk and photoshoot. It seems like only yesterday that she was a tiny girl devising a way to attach hair to her Frodo feet. She insisted on going to church that way, barefoot in very cold weather. We compromised with flip flops. She was born with a wonderful, brave, adventurous spirit and many times I have had to look away and just let her do things that worried me rather than crush her spirit.

 A year ago she began earnestly asking if I would let her go on a mission trip to Cambodia.  My husband had been to Cambodia in 2011. He met some amazing people there whom we have become very close with. They run a church and orphanage in the city of Phnom Phen called Water of Life and they are doing miraculous things in their community. 

When my husband first went it was scary to think about the strange and dangerous things he was doing. Twenty-six hours of travel each way, oppressive weather, strange food, anything goes traffic, trips into the jungle and dangerous slums. Our friend Holly is a missionary who runs a home for vulnerable woman and girls called House of Refuge. Sometimes girls come to her for help, sometimes she goes out and finds them. Holly took my husband to a horrible building used for human trafficking where she and her girls frequently go to talk to girls and offer them a way out. The people are so poor that many of these girls have been sold by their own families.  My husband was horrified at the misery and filth of the place. One of the girls they spoke with that very day did come to live with Holly and her girls.

 Knowing these things and then hearing my 13 year old daughter tell me how much she wanted to go of course made me anxious!  My little girl! On the other side of the world!

 She started having dreams that she was going to Cambodia, that she was there with Holly.  In my gut I knew then that she would go.  If God was setting this up for her, then she would go. How could I keep her from something that meant so much to her? To hold her back might even kill the fire in her forever.

 My husband was eager to go back to Cambodia and reconnect with the friends he had made. When a group from church planned another trip he took my daughter with them.   The children there need money for food, medicine and vitamins. But they also need mentors, adults that they trust who can guide them and give them hope for a better life. We stay connected with them through the internet and are hoping to arrange more visits going both ways.

Our team ended up at three different orphanages. My daughter taught jewelry making to the older girls while another woman did a craft with the little ones.  They were long, hard, hot days but she did a great job. That's her in the purple shirt. Dara, the boy in blue translated for her.

Only after they came home did I hear about the crazy stuff.  How they had to stay at the Water of Life orphanage instead of the hotel one night because of terror threats against Americans. How their tuk-tuk got stuck in the mud and almost tipped over. How they were threatened with bodily harm and spiritual curses when they tried to help a young street hustler. How my adventuring elf went for a joy ride on the back of Holly's motor bike. She said it was like Indiana Jones. "We drove through a crazy market that had huge pieces of meat hanging from hooks and chickens were running out of our way!" On their way home they got caught in a flash flood. The water was up to their thighs so the moto's engine flooded. They had to push/carry the moto for two miles. When she came home I unpacked her boots, they were soaking wet and had mold growing over them.

When people ask my daughter what her favorite part of the trip was she always says,

 "THE FLOOD!"

Barbie and Me

My very good friend LL Barkat mentioned to me that she and other bloggers were posting about Barbie to promote a book give away for the book “Barbies at Communion”. I was intrigued. These folks are not “Barbie people”, or even doll people. So I wondered what they would say about the doll I have an intimate love/hate relationship with. My childhood was lived during the pre- “pink box” Barbie era. Through Barbie my eyes were opened to the world of fashion. Back then the Barbie clothes were like real clothes, just tiny.  They were made of good quality fabrics with teeny buttons and zippers. A far cry from the plastic fabrics and velcro of today. Barbie became the perfect model for experimentation. I could poke, paint and glue her. I could put straight pins right though her hollow head (to keep the hats in place). You could pop off her head for someone else’s, if the hair didn’t quite go with the outfit. Clad only in a crazy arrangement of tin foil, she still smiled as if she were proud to be wearing it. She had dangerous adventures too. G.I. Joe couldn’t have all the outdoor fun. A favorite of mine was to tie string around her waist and throw her off a bridge at the top of a waterfall. I would watch her go down the falls, loose sight of her in the crash at the bottom, then pull her up after she resurfaced. This was reapeated over and over again. 

One thing led to another and I ended up in a career designing clothes for real people. I don’t know how much credit Barbie gets for that, but I’m sure she had some influence. Where does the ‘hate’ come into our love/hate relationship? Well, I don’t care very much for the new Barbies. I don’t like the clothes, the hair, the stuff.

Here I am back around 1987, obviously I had much too much time on my hands. My sister and I would go to Barbie conventions. Yes, as you see sometimes we even dressed as Barbie dolls. I sewed replicas of real Barbie outfits for us to wear. You see me wearing the hippy get up worn by 1971 ‘Live Action Barbie’. I am also wearing a wig by the way. My daughters think this is very weird. They wonder why anyone would want to dress up like Barbie. Sure, they ask me to make costumes for them too. But, they prefer to run around as Laura Ingalls and Frodo. I guess I should count my blessings!

Here is my lovely sister sporting the 1965 Francie outfit ‘Dance Party’. Francie was Barbie’s mod English cousin. I wonder whatever happened to Francie. Has she traded in her false eyelashes and snakeskin coat in an effort to “go green”? I hope not. Either way she’s probably got a blog or two out there.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Wow- I have been a blogger for one year now. It went by so quickly. The experience has been fun, but the biggest reward has been connecting with like minded folks both near and far. I am looking forward to what comes next.