Oi vey!

I have a plethora of life details to share with you!!!

I’ve missed you. I’ve missed my home. I’ve missed Idaho. I’ve missed Mister Pinkerton.

And land sakes! I’ve missed my princess and the pea bed!

RW and I are finally home, for at least a couple of months, in Pocatello, Idaho. I cannot tell you how good it feels. We figure in the past 6 weeks we’ve been away for a total period of about 4 weeks and it feels like it! I’m so relieved to be off the road, out of the airports and back to my homespace on this enchanting piece of property we’ve named Plume Gables.

1. We’re up for another life change as RW has been hired on as a smokejumper at the Winthrop Washington smokejumping base!

I know what you’re thinking right now:

WHAT?

RW IS GOING TO LIVE IN ANOTHER STATE THIS SUMMER TO SMOKEJUMP?

WHAT IS THIS SMOKEJUMPING ANYWAY?

WHY IS JILLIAN SUPPORTING HIM IN THIS WHEN HIS CURRENT JOB IS ALREADY SO TOUGH ON HER IN THE SUMMERTIME?

Officially, I want you to know that I TOTALLY support him in this job change. As a couple, we’ve always believed in helping each other chase down huge dreams and life goals. Smokejumping has been one of RW’s dreams for at least a decade now. He’ll still be fighting forest fires, but he’ll be jumping out of planes to do initial attack fire fighting instead of hiking in with a crew of twenty dudes. I’m really proud of him because smokejumping is for the best of the best of wildland fire fighters. I can’t stress how incredibly elite this job is and how difficult it is to get into smokejumping in the first place. I believe in him, his abilities, his leadership skills, and his ability to work independently and I think Winthrop picked an incredible man for the job. Robert’s the bomb and the best man I know. Let’s hope he’s good with a parachute.

We aren’t moving to Washington. Yet. RW needs to make it through rookie training which has a 40% failure rate! Fingers crossed that he makes it through and gets to live this dream. I’m so proud of him, I feel so close to tears as I write this, I’m just that darn proud.

It’s going to make for a bloody tough summer for me, tougher than the past two I’ve made it through while he’s been hotshotting. But I know this is something he needs to do and I don’t want him to have any regrets in life. So we’re all going to make it through. I know that already.

To be quite, terribly frank, I would rather have RW smokejump for ten years straight than

stay on his former hotshot crew for one more year for reasons I shant disclose here.

***IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS BLOG, WELCOME! PLEASE CLICK ON THE COLORED LINKS IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS TO SEE THE WIKI DEFINITIONS OF WHAT RW DOES OCCUPATIONALLY!

2. The Rumors of the Sea series is going to hit the Etsy shop tomorrow. I have had a heap of inquiries about this design series so I’m going to set the listing time for 7PM MST. Be there or be square! And thank you so much for your interest in this series. I’m still so excited about it, the concept does not yet feel finished so if you miss out on one of these designs, not all is lost! I’m still dreaming of all the different things I can do with metal, glass and stone when it comes to recreating the sea with jewelry designs…

These necklaces are SO cool and are built entirely from scratch, including the enameled focal pieces. The only things I didn’t make with my bare hands are the pearls, coral and iolite components. Obviously! I’ve worked so hard on this series, I can’t wait to see where they fly off to!

Now I’m off to eliminate the remainder of my computer duties and then out to the studio to swing some hammers!

Loving on you birds something fierce,

PS Thanks so much to all the amazing guys and gals that took the time to meet up with RW and I on our journey to and from Tucson. It was such a pleasure to camp, eat, drink, laugh and love with you. Thanks for your friendship and for being part of our lives!