April Blooms

At last! A beautiful day here ~ after days upon days of dreary, drippy ... well, of APRIL ... the day today is sunny & bright!

I've been so contrary about keeping up with my writing here ~ listing so much in my shops both on Etsy & on ArtFire & writing there, packaging sales & enclosing notes there, writing *far* too much in the Etsy Forum ... but here? Here where I *should* be writing, I've been so quiet. I must find a way to be more consistent in my posts. <~ note to self
My driving force to be here today is a long over-due 'thank you!' owed to a fellow Etsian ~ LindaButterfly

I fell in love with a pretty conch seashell postcard in her shop a bit ago ... and finally treated myself. In North Carolina years ago, I made the happy discovery of an exact twin of this beautiful shell ~ the shell long ago disappeared, but seeing her sweet postcard brought back such a wonderful flood of memories for me ~ of that summer, those wonderful days with family & friends on holiday. So. I treated myself to the card (along with a beautiful mosaic card) ~ and I couldn't be more delighted. They're on my supremely overcrowded bulletin board where I can see them whenever I'm here at my computer desk.

I was there, in Linda's neck of the woods ~ England, not long ago and her photography brings many of the sights and sounds I loved to my mind's eye so very clearly. The day I drove into Bath, as I looked along either side of the road, I thought how beautiful it must be to have these blue blue pools of water framing the road as you drive into town each time ... until I realized ~ the blue was not water at all! It was flowers I saw! A sea of blue ~ miles of blue ~ framing the road. A blue so very dense it waved like water with the morning breeze. I couldn't make out the variety ~ I believe it was either grape hyacinth, long escaped to the wild from a neat garden, or they were blue bells. Or perhaps lupines. I never did stop to make the identification certain ~ I was and am content with simply having that beautiful blue brilliant in my memory.

This truly is the very best part of shopping in Etsy, you know ~ when you just 'go' with it, relax & truly browse, you're offered a chance wonderful glimpses of the unexpected: turn a corner into a new shop & discover old memories & loves. Browsing in Etsy is going down the rabbit hole ~ and delighting in the loves & talents & offerings of others.

Do stop by Linda's shops for a quiet browse ~ she's one busy lady ... you'll find her here and here .