BOOOM Day! Four Strong Men and this monster truck… came this weekend AND TOOK IT ALL! MUSICA. We’re leaving for our cross-country trip, heading out on the ferry on the noon boat TOMORROW! I’ve been kissing the walls here all morning. Saying Thank you to the House. We’ve grown very tired of doing this every day so we are ready!. As Rachel put it, because she just moved too (poor thing), “we’re lucky to have these First World Problems”… too much stuff. Well, because we saved everything “in case” we found a use for it! Hopefully, OTHERS will find a use for it now! With a world like ours, no one should ever have to buy anything NEW again! BOOM!

Booom, great name, it’s an adjective! Because that’s what the guys that came with this truck did. So if we leave tomorrow, that means this entire event will have taken us just under four months. Boom is right! Main idea was not to spend any longer being in limbo, doing this, as humanly possible. BOOM!

We’ve still been having our ups and downs, tears and laughter, probably a LOT more to come tonight! … because these kinds of decisions are hard on people, but it really helps to get sick of it. Doing the same thing every day for four months will do that to a person. Now we just glad it’s done! We don’t care anymore … “TAKE it” has been the attitude. (I’ll read this back later and realize I lost my mind!) We’ve been living for “tomorrow” for the last 4 months! Now we’re there. It really IS tomorrow!👏 BOOM!

It is going to feel so good, but probably not until we get to the Adirondaks . . . and then we’ll probably go antiquing all the way across country!🤣

This was my sewing room . . . look how clean and empty.

I loved it … sweetest sewing room in the world, little breeze through three huge Linden trees planted 150 years ago by Captain Gilbert Smith outside the windows, bees humming in the creamy yellow flowers on summer days . . . the fragrance . . . the birds, the church bells from across the street, the ferry boat horn up from the harbor….

BOOM! This is an upstairs room you’ve hardly ever seen on my blog because it was always a mess ~ nothing to see here! But LOOK, it’s almost empty! The trick has been to move it all out of its normal place and into a different location. Clean out the closet, every single solitary thing, and put it somewhere else to pack it, even across the room onto a table. Makes it so much easier to deal with when it isn’t in its normal place. It LOOKS different in a different spot, attachment falls off immediately! And when all seemed lost, that empty closet put little wings on my ankles… and hope in my heart to do it again the next day. 😳💖

This is our dining room yesterday which we’ve used as our major staging area . . . BOOOM!

All the stuff we saved for ourselves has already arrived at our house in California. Some of my favorite things are staying, but getting new homes because they BELONG to the Island. For instance, does this sweet little hutch look familiar to you?👀

Here it is at Holly Oak . . . specially made for me in about 1984 by my old friend Carlton Sprague. Remember? I wrote about him in Martha’s Vineyard Isle of Dreams   . . . The same guy who remodeled and built everything in my first little  house on the Island, my kitchen, the fireplace, my bedroom, he built my little guest shack out back,  . . . the guy who made a table for the town library from the old Linden Tree on Main Street … And remember the chicken lady? Nancy Luce? Carlton brought her house back to life without taking away any of the simplicity, using his talents and passion for old things and old ways. He’s done so much for this Island but oh-so-quietly. Back then, when I couldn’t find something, I would just ask Carl and he would make it! I’d be sitting at the dining table writing a book, while he was working around the house. We were young together, and he’s still my friend and still one of the most interesting non-boring people I’ve ever met. He’s one of the magical things that seemed to come out of nowhere when I moved here.💫🤩

There were so many of them! 🤩 

He made this armoire too … I needed a place to put sweaters. He put a little hidden jewelry drawer inside too . . . It’s been my sweater cupboard all these years. But now I won’t be needing so many sweaters!!! 

I felt his hutch belonged to the island. So I called Carlton’s son Nate and his partner Rebecca, who just built their own wonderful house with their own two hands (you can see it on Instagram @trailertotimberframe), and told them I had these special pieces of furniture, and they came and took both the hutch and the armoire, that Nate’s dad made in 1984, to their home. I also gave them a 14′ starched, ironed, elegant, heavy damask, vintage tablecloth from which Rebecca’s going to make GORGEOUS curtains. Makes me so happy to know they have them. Recycling at its highest best. Isn’t that a perfect ending to that story? Just part of the fairy tale!

All is well Girlfriends. And, by the time we leave here we’ll be celebrating BEATRIX POTTER BIRTHDAY WEEK! How appropriate . . . in this time of change for us . . . celebrating the perfect example of what can happen in even the scariest moments of change if you follow your heart.💖

You know I’ve had a crush on Beatrix Potter, the person (not just the botanist, conservator, artist, storyteller, farmer, or business woman, not JUST that, but the sum of all her creative facets) for many years 🌺 ~ she’s the reason I wear that flower necklace all the time, in honor of my garden-loving friend, Beatrix Potter . . . she came to me slowly, over the years, and probably not quite totally, until this very moment ⬇️ . . .

. . . in 2022, and our picnic in Beatrix Potter’s Garden. Not at Hilltop, where I’m standing … which is heaven, but even better . . . just across that meadow … MAS MUSICA! (This is Al Bowlly One of my grandma’s favorites, isn’t he wonderful?💖)

. . .  to her garden at Castle Cottage . . .

. . . the house where Beatrix lived from 1913 to 1942 with her beloved husband, William Heelis (for whom the British National Trust main offices are named). It was a BYO Picnic Basket Party, Joe and I sailed over on the Queen Mary 2, and I invited everyone on our blog to join us in the Lake District . . . Girlfriends came from lots of different countries to experience this day together. The day before I was lucky enough to tour her house, which was nice but unfortunately (because I love old things), modernized… but I found her on the old brass doorknob to the house, worn smooth from her hands, with age and use, and stood quietly in the room where she died in 1942, and saw her last view … and remembered her words about her never-ending love of nature:

These little critters were my very first introduction to Beatrix. I saw these figurines in a shop in California when I was around 22, and to me, they were so perfect they practically glowed in the dark! I saved my money, and got them one at a time, without even knowing who Beatrix Potter was . . . but they were the beginning, and they have followed me wherever I’ve gone, all my life.💖

Slowly I learned more and more about Miss Potter . . . each thing I learned made me more curious . . . and I wanted her around me.💞 

She was good for my soul. I added wildflowers between the pages of old BP books I found  . . .🌺

And sometimes I watercolored her line drawings I found in these old books . . .

I turned the bedroom under the eaves of our house into my Peter Rabbit Room . . . and gave my Peters a Christmas bonfire.🔥

I wrote a book and shared my excitement about going to Hilltop for the first time, going back in time, walking where she walked, seeing her stove, her hat, her clogs, her doll house, her embroidery, walking up to Moss Eccles Tarn with Joe where, in the evening, Beatrix and William would row and fish . . .  and so much more. And in honor of Beatrix, Kellee put LOTS of BP things in our webstore on a special Birthday Celebration page. And just for you, and just this week only, Kellee has devised our very first “coupon code.” Ha! But it’s worth 10% off all items in the Beatrix Potter section of our store. Just put in BPBDAY10. Celebrate! Heroes R US!  

Considering that she raised sheep, I never understood why she didn’t make a lamb figurine, so I drew one of my own. 💖

I painted her and Castle Cottage in my book as symbols of dreams come true . . . imagining .  . . 💫

I love celebrating her, remembering her, passing my discovery of her along to a new generation because there is nothing better than having a hero. It gives you a star to reach for. Read about her. She’s amazing.💖💖💖 

By the time I finished reading the excellent Linda Lear biography, I had learned so much from Beatrix . . . I felt for her presence everywhere I went in Near Sawrey . . . 

She grew up in a wealthy family and due to the overwhelming worldwide success of her charming books, she could have done anything, gone anywhere, had anything, been the toast of London, Queen of the world if that was what she wanted. She could have worn silks and satins, lived in a REAL Castle, and had breakfast in bed her whole life. Instead, she thwarted customs concerning women in those days, and followed her dreams. She was born wanting to DO something with her life, even though it was not expected or even encouraged. Look at those eyes➡️. 👀 There were terrible setbacks, she stepped over them ~ and in a nutshell: her confidence grew, she broke away, overcame heartbreak, bought a small farmhouse in the Lake District, her favorite childhood place. She raised sheep, and instead of satin, she wore the itchy heavy fabric she made from their wool ~ she surrounded herself with nature, farmland, and animals, spectacular views of meres, fells, pikes, crags, tarns, and dales ~  she never put electricity or running water into either of her houses. And used her money to buy up farms to keep them from developers, which she gave to the National Trust and are still working today. She was happy and it was wasn’t money that gave her that. She was happy because she chose the life that fit HER, the one she really wanted. That’s what made her my hero. (A lot like Carlton when I think about it.)🌺

Now, I’m afraid . . .

I’ve started to look like her. It’s the Miss Tiggy Winkle look we all love so much.💝

Here’s the view from my kitchen window this morning. So green. I never want to forget. We had a delightful weekend . . . doing the last things on my list . . .

Hugging goodbye (for now) to the GENEROUS, hard-working, creative, glow-in-the-dark MAGICAL women that changed my life and made it SO MUCH FUN, made this Island a true heaven . . . for all the TGIFs, for every glass of wine, every delicious dinner, every accidental meeting downtown after a storm, every lit candle, every cozy evening in front of the fire, for the rings we put on each others birthday candles, all the beach parties, picnics, Halloween Chili-offs, dropped off treats, flowers, gorgeous table top, and garden tours, for every song, every sailboat ride, every sunset, and every farmers market, and every time we got lost trying to get to a party and laughed ourselves silly . . . for the sunrise drives around the Island, for every smile of understanding, for every lightening of the burden, for every forgiving …. For every time you made your own dreams come true. For the LOVE. They were part of my dream and they came TRUE! As in: Once Upon a Time, there was a knock at my door ~ and there stood a magical princess. I said, “You look so pretty.” And she said, “I did it for you.” Girlfriends Forever. Waaaah. It was the BEST BEST BEST.

I have to carry this everywhere I go!😩 But don’t YOU cry. We’ll keep meeting just like this, and I promise we’ll come back to the Island, and we’ll go to England see Rachel and Paul’s new house. We’ll meet again. . . no fear. It could never be BETTER, but more of the same is just FINE with me, it will be FUN.❌⭕️

Here we are solving the world’s problems. . .

Lowely and Martha making crepes with strawberries and whipped cream at my yard sale a few years back!💝 They made everything better.

My Girlfriends gave it ALL away . . .💝💝💝💝

Can you IMAGINE how many pictures I have like this? I could do several posts with just them. But I can hear Judy and Kellee yelling already … “It’s too long, STOP.” (They should know by now I can’t help myself!💞)

I could not have had better inspiration for my Girlfriend Book!💖

Coming to see what Margot was painting at the Whaling Church in Edgartown.👀👏👏👏

Every day was a reason to celebrate here in Camelot Martha’s Vineyard! 🥳

Last Friday night we met everyone at the beach … for one last beach party on Martha’s Vineyard this summer . . .

A big halt on busy lives for a little sit on the beach…just shooting the breeze.🥂

And it was a perfect night . . . BYO Lobster Rolls! Don’t ever think because I love my Girlfriends so much, I underestimate the value and wonderfulness of our guys. Ohhh noooo. Double lucky to have these Princes among men.💖💖💖

 

It would have been no fun without them!

And we’ve loved showing them that they can be Girlfriends too.💞

So darling . . .

 Time for a group picture . . . ANOTHER one!💞

Where’s Margot and Tom? (Herding cats).

True love means it’s hard to get out of the parking lot!🙌

We leave tomorrow for the long long drive, going slow, taking maybe 10 days, the Northern Route! I can tell Jack knows. He seems excited too. Got him a new cat box. Highly suspect. SOMETHING must be going on!🙀 When I get to California, I get to finish this painting!💝 And that’s only one tiny thing I have to look forward to! (You know who you are!)💖

I can’t wait!

Back Home in California… I wonder if we’ll have artichokes on the bushes we planted before we went away (for the new people!🤣). No one knows what will happen next. We just don’t know! Such a fun ride!😘 We’re leaving Girlfriends behind on the Island to oversee the sale of the house, and then the “estate sale” in our wonderful old house on Martha’s Vineyard ~ it’ll happen when the house is under agreement . . .  Once the house is sold, it’ll take a couple of months at least to close on it… I promise I’ll give you time to plan … and let you know when the sale will be as soon as I know. I have to say, there are lots of sweet things still here.💝 Keep a trip to see the leaves turn on the island in the back of your mind. OMG, we’re talking about fall! 🤣