Susan Branch Studios

It’s really time! Lots of good news here! But first, MUSICA! And now, what I’ve been waiting so long to say:

AND IT COMES WITH a LINK!!  Click here for tickets and detailed  information. 

We’re having a PARTY! We flew in books early just for this! And WOW, what a party is being planned for my girls (that’s you) for the afternoon of the night of the almost-full moon, Sunday, October 25, from 2pm to 6pm. 🎉. I’m so excited, the “characters” you have read about in my books will all be there! My oldest and dearest, Elaine, my sister Shelly, Diana, Cliff. And of course, JOE!💖 There will be a BAND, MUSICA🎶🎵🎶, so while I sign your books, everyone can party 🥳 . . . there will be tables to sit at, and little noshes, and a pizza oven, and a cash bar, and a gorgeous setting in (get ready, because it was named this before I came along), “The Secret Garden💘 “… about 5 min. up the road from beautiful Avila Beach, which you really must save time to visit if you never have, and go to my favorite French Restaurant called Blue Moon ⬅️ ~ yum! (Where I’m going TODAY, to have lunch with a girlfriend I haven’t seen in person in 20 years 💃🏼). But I digress, for those of you who have been to book signings in San Luis Obispo before, you will know what I mean when I tell you this Event is being put on by many of our old Apple Farm friends!💝 So you KNOW it will be wonderful!💖 

Also, I’m sure you remember that Diane Keaton shockingly died when I was writing our new book? That’s when I first wrote on Instagram that when I had my first book signing, I wanted everyone to come wearing their best Diane Keaton outfits (you can Google her to get some ideas, and p.s.no-one HAS to do it, btw!😂). I just thought it was a fitting memory, and the pictures alone would be amazing! Watching her movies was always inspirational (see Baby Boom, one of my favorites for her great outfits).  A few months after she died (I HATE to say died, but I hate saying passed even more!) After she went to heaven💫💫💫 . . . they put her clothes up for auction on-line from an auction house in NY. And you know the rest! But in case you DON’T…. it was my first auction, Joe was reminding me every day for a week🥰 . . . I bid and lost, my heart beating a hundred miles a minute, and bid and lost, AGAIN, and then I bid and won! Her shoes! Now my shoes! (⬆️ See? She’s wearing them!) So I guess you know what I’m wearing to our event ~ I will be walking in Diane Keaton’s shoes! I like to think she would love being at our party, incognito for a change. So plan your outfit, and COME!💞  

You might think it doesn’t get any better than this. But this time it does ~ not better, just MORE!💝

Right NOW, Kellee and Sheri are preparing the STUDIO SALE … sort of a yard sale for my Studio, so everyone can have a souvenir from all the years of STUFF we’ve gathered, little things and big, from quilts made from my fabric, to vintage quilts I collected for us to use as table toppers for Studio events, to even “damaged” cups and books, that you can’t even tell there is anything wrong with them, one of a kind things like teapots from different collections; there are bits of fabric, some things that never made it to market because of how the world changed in licensing in the 

early 2000’s, notepads and cards and SO MUCH MORE,even my wonderful long conference/work table, handmade for me in Martha’s Vineyard! It’s very large, 4’2″ wide and 11’4″ long (50″x136″), this photo ⬆️ doesn’t do it justice, but it won’t fit in our little house or I’d take it in an instant! There’s lots of office stuff, like a whole lot of gorilla racks (you know what they are if you need them). I think everyone is going to have fun at this thing, seeing each other will probably be the best part, and meeting Kellee and Sheri in person! You probably know by now I’m going to semi-retire, meaning I’m keeping my blog so I can continue to visit with you, and book sales will continue through our website, but we’re downsizing everything else…. I always had in the back of my mind that I would write a book in my 80th year, and have been allowed to DO it, so lucky, doing my best to say goodbye in the best way I can, no loose strings flapping in the wind, to tell you how much I love you and thank you for a lifetime of FUN and connection. We’ve seen each other through a lot, you were so good to my dad, and everyday I get a letter or two from our girlfriends, cards for my eye, birthdays, and words of love. Letter’s in the mail-world is mostly over, but not yet for me.🥰 You know, at book signings, all the most fun is had in the line! So much laughter and making of friends. I always wish I could get up and join it! 💞 I THINK that’s what this Studio Sale will be like!

The Studio Sale starts at 7:30 am, on the 25th of October, the same day as the Book Party! It’s OVER at 11:30am that day, so you can go to the party, But it CONTINUES the next day! Monday the 26th, from 9am, until everything is gone!♥️

Susan Branch Studios, 7489 El Camino Real, Atascadero California

 I know it’s not fair that this is only happening in California, but it had to happen somewhere, and this is where the studio is. Please forgive me, we tried to make up for it by having lots of things on sale in our website these last few months. We didn’t know what we could DO with it, impossible to just throw away!♥️ And who better than You to have it. If you’re there, take pictures! And I’ll ask Kellee to take them too, so I can show you next time!

If you have my 2027 wall calendar, you probably read the back and maybe have even looked through it. So you know about this ⬆️. And I have wildly wonderful bittersweet, but mostly sweet, news. I have just been told by my realtor that it’s okay for me to tell YOU that our house is finally under agreement!!! Two years it took! House is SOOOOO Picky. Waited to get just the right people! The baton for this most wonderful house is being passed! There’s a new lucky couple getting ready to do their stint as caretaker to history.💖 We’re supposed to close on November 4, keep your fingers crossed. It will allow Joe and I pay off mortgages and lessen burdens, and there is something very good about that. Not sad about loss, grateful for the years . . . That it even happened at all, to this young, constantly astonished girl from Reseda, California USA, is a miracle. 💫💫💫 

We hope to meet the new owners when we are “home” in December; we get there around December 5th. We’re staying in the house right behind our old one . . . a house WE remodeled a long time ago and used as my Studio for a while. But never slept in. Now we get to! And use the pantry we built! And eat in our kitchen! The people who own it decorated it in pure charm. It has two couches and a fireplace! Heaven! So we will be in our same neighborhood, with Lowely two doors away and Martha right across the street! Don’t worry, I’ll take lots of pictures of the house and the island and everything.💃🏼 BTW, Look, up there, what Kellee did with our photo and our snowman ⬆️ she put us (the first year we owned our Spring Street House) in my watercolored snowstorm! I hope we get snow! Such serendipity, me with a brand new WINTER book, and getting another winter! Timing is everything! But I’m remembering the COLOR so many of you are enjoying right NOW!! 

It was 1989 when we bought our old 1849 house on Spring Street, long before the onslaught of social media, before the invention of blogs . . . waaaay-way back to the time of princess phones on the kitchen wall and a flash camera in the drawer . . . at that time we referred to the house simply as Spring Street. I was fully engaged with the house by the time all that other stuff happened, House Crazy with Love is how I described it . . . but when Instagram came along I recognized it for its other personality, and nicknamed it The Prop.

Because wow, look at that . . . you can’t make it up! I can still hear the leaves crunching under my feet and the long call of the ferry horn coming up from the harbor. I ran away from home and found a dream. A crazy dream! MAS MUSICA

Our house was maybe the hardest working prop in all the land, just by standing still . . . it made simplest things wonderful, even the view from the kitchen window…

And it did it all without even trying . . . Once in a while it would speak up . . . can you please give me pale pink wallpaper with little rosebuds on it . . . and call it the Peter Rabbit Room? And I said, of course! And gave it all my Beatrix Potter books and bunnies. I always listened to it. It spoke loudest during storms, when the electricity went off, the gas stove still provided tea, and the whole place was lit in candles. Creaking windows spoke of 1860 storms, before-electricity storms, and 1910 storms, and wartime storms, and now my storm.👏👏👏

It never wanted fancy . . . it wanted cozy. Once I gave it fancy drapes, remember? I know some of you do. But from the very second it got them, my house said NO, and tried to schluff them off, which it finally did. Because my head began to ache just looking at them, so I helped. Thank goodness I hadn’t thrown out the old green curtains I found at Ikea. I learned my lesson. Listen to your house! It didn’t care what I gave it as long as it was simple, and for the most part, old.💝

I think it was just channeling its history . . .

And being our guardian angel. . .

 Remember our change-of-season shadows that fell in and outside of the house? I’m going to do a whole blog of them sometime, they were so wonderful!🍁

The Prop . . . who knew???

Spring Street brought us so many red letter days . . .The reason I will never miss it is because it will never be gone from me. I could go on all day with this. So many pictures. So many moments.

Joe’s Birthday when everyone came over to watch 25-year-old slides projected onto a sheet hanging from the clothesline on the maple tree, eat spare ribs, watermelon, and carrot cake, drink wine, and sit under twinkle lights in the arbor for hours on a summer night.I did take care of them, and now I’m reliving them! It works! 💖💖💖 

Do you know what I figured out the other day? My first book, Heart of the Home, came out of THIS ⬆️ house on October 29, 1986. It has been exactly 40 years since the publication of my first book! A red letter year, because I met Joe in September of the same year! I never realized it, even while getting everything ready for my new book! And many of you have been with me since the very beginning. That’s my first island kitty, named, guess what? You know! Man Kitty of course. See the oak leaves turning orange, the tiny pumpkins on the porch, the cardboard skeleton on the front door? I always wanted a house with a porch, so in 1982, the first summer after I bought Holly Oak, my friend Carlton built it for me on top of the three cement stairs that were already there.

Here we are…sweater weather even in California!! (It’s been up and down, right now it’s FREEZING here, like 54º at 6:30 in the morning. I’m forcing myself not to turn on the heat. I’ve become a weenie Californian 😂 again!)  In this photo, Joe and I are actually AT Sycamore Springs (where we’ll be having our Diane Keaton Booksigning!) for another event . .

Shelly is taking our picture but I don’t realize what Joe is up to until I see these! . . .

Still don’t know he’s sneaking up on me . . . eeek

And there he was, coming in, the sweetest! And what am I thinking?

They gave away the flowers on the tables, and my sister Shelly (youngest of the 8 of us “kids.”) got them! And that’s my right eye (on the left in this picture), getting better!!!

I know you’ve been waiting for this . . . I didn’t forget! Here you go! A new 2027 Full Moons Bookmark.

The new 2027 Full Moon Bookmark is ready! Click to print it out!

Off I go . . . here’s the ocean I’ll  be looking at today. Supposed to be 68º with 15 mph winds☀️. Sweater weather! What a beautiful world, right? We just need to take good care of it!  I think that’s everything! If I forgot something, I’ll add it later! As my darling English Girlfriend Rachel would say, I love you more. . .