
August is my birthday month and over the past few years, I’ve had rather a love/hate relationship with my birthday. But, this year I was determined to focus on what I am grateful for, what I’m discovering about myself, and what adventures await me.

I am slowly getting used to my glasses and I do think they are helping and I feel like I can see again. Clairvoyance means “clear vision” and I find that to be a necessary part of this year of being open – unexpected, but embracing it.

We have been watching the second season of Discovery of Witches, now that I’ve finally finished reading Shadow of Night. It’s really good. When we finished that, we decided to take yet another walk down memory lane and decided to rewatch Angel. I have forgotten so much of it.

As part of my birthday gift to myself, I purchased a small magnet print of a beautiful photograph by Alyssa Thorne called Poison Study.


I fell in love with it the moment she posted it on Instagram and have wanted one of her small magnets to use as artwork in my haunted dollhouse. I’m so happy with it and she sent along some other goodies, including a bookmark of one of her other pieces. (My photos do her work no justice, so I’ve included her piece above.)

For my birthday, I actually took the week off work. And it was so wonderful. I spent my mornings working on charting a new design and I spent my afternoons watching shows I’d DVR’d but never got around to (like the Oscars, a special on Duran Duran that was actually really good, and some Gilmore Girls) and stitching on a model for a pattern I’m releasing in December. It felt a bit like I was creating my perfect day – doing my journaling, reading with my coffee, working on my design business, and spending time with Eric. What better way to create a vision of what I want my life to look like?

Eric also made a meal we haven’t had in forever – ropa vieja (made with chicken instead of beef), black beans, and tostones. So so so delicious!!


And he made me my favorite kind of birthday cake – lemon cake with lemon icing.

This month, I also recommitted to doing my daily meditations or tapping. I’ve never shown photos of this meditation space that Eric created for us, so I’ll have to post more on that soon. But, here’s a little glimpse of it.


My big birthday gift from Blookmilk Jewels arrived just a few days after my birthday. It was wrapped so beautifully in black tissue paper and a moth box. My Night Creature pendant is beautiful and I am so in love with it. The onyx stones sparkle and catch the light and actually are perfectly timed with the Black Jewels books I’m reading. The stones are perfect, my little bat is perfect. It’s just beautiful.

And I feel like this piece is really reflective of me and who I am. I just feel like it’s a perfect representation – with the bat for my gothic side, the art nouveau reference for my art side, the onyx stones for my crystal-loving sparkly side. I’m just thrilled.
So, here’s to fifty.