Fiddling

As you can see, I've been fiddling around with the blog's appearance -- again. I've been getting acclimated to my new surroundings these past few days, walking through the neighborhood, mostly the main streets here in Atascadero where all the shops are located, trying to get my bearings. On the way I discovered a lovely little tea house called Wilwand Tea Company literally a block from my house. Living in this small town is almost like being back in the Tower, minus the zombies and interesting hairdos. There is a spa just up the street that specializes in wine facials, and a handful of lovely antique stores, as well as yoga studios, a pottery gallery and studio, a yarn studio -- it's all over the place, but it's interesting and fun. This is a small town with a very broad artistic and creative streak -- a few steps from the tea house is an art gallery, a few steps down from there, a fine art supply house, so. . . I believe I'm in the right place. Today I'm going to do a bit more exploring, on my own this time. I've been slowly dragging in the items necessary to create soap from the mess of boxes in the garage. I'm still trying to locate some necessary tools. The problem with picking through instead of full-on unpacking is that I keep finding things I want to play with -- a vintage bottle of tolu balsam, a small bag of kyphi from an early project, a fine, nearly full bottle of jasmine grandiflorum. I get so excited and unsettled with all these discoveries I lose track of my primary goal -- to create something! I end up exhausting my energy and time on 'finding' and don't create anything at all -- except dinner.

Front porch view of the 'place where I live' (there was a parade this day on this street, hence the police cruiser in the upper left)

I have to admit, before making these town discoveries, I was really questioning my decision to come here. Everything 'good' seemed too far away to reach without major difficulty. Once I found that those 'soul' places were within steps, I felt much better. I didn't want to live in Podunk, USA, nor did I want to live in Zombieville, USA. The decision to leave my hometown where I was born and raised was a difficult one. Leaving my friends and grandbabies was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time. The one beautiful thing keeping me looking ahead is the dream of my shop, perhaps years in the future, that I now believe would fit in this town, just steps from my front door. The "experts" say the best part of a vacation is the planning, perhaps this translates into planning a shop as well. On to the fun!