Wha...where did all this Christmas decor come from

I know I have been MIA for a while. Sorry.

I just posted this on Marimello, but for those of you who don't read both blogs, here you go.

Somehow I was enjoying a cruise to Mexico and now it's the 20th. But all that sun and sand has been muted by the news that while I was gone, an amazing woman, and mother of my best friend died suddenly. Being that she was such an influential and creative lady, I've been thinking and chatting about how creativity is passed on through the people we know.

Certainly my friend's mother was an influence on me directly. She welcomed me into her home after I only just met my friend in college and I slurped up her sense of interior decorating. On the same trip, she took me to her stylist after a series of seriously bad hair cuts and taught me to trust the powers of a good hair cut again. She knit me a scarf after a fun, but cold trip to London and encouraged me to return to knitting. Which of course led to this here blog.

But more so I knew her through people she loved and who loved her. My friend talked me out of my men's undershirts and into a fetish for shoes. She weaned me off my baggy earth-tone wardrobe and taught me that good clothes open all doors. After we hadn't seen each other for a year, we showed up on the quad with the same shade of hot pink hair. She got me into blogging and inspired my writing both on and off line. Somewhere behind all of this, her mom was shopping for stylish vintage, borrowing the pink hair dye, and reading the blogs. Knowing a woman with a pink fish tail allowed me to trust my own flashy instincts and to wear them on the outside. I couldn't be more grateful to have known Judy. And I couldn't be more pleased with the thought of her keeping the eclectic fire alive in her family and friends.