Ready for Some Changes

In March, Russ and I launched the idea of The Path Less Pedaled - a long, open-ended bicycle tour around the US (and the world) with the goal of connecting with and telling the stories of people who had followed some sort of calling to live a "life less ordinary."

Then, yesterday, I was laid off from my day job. After moving past all the emotions, we realized that it meant we could leave whenever we wanted. So, in July, we're really and truly and actually going to hit the road.

I can't even express how completely and totally excited I am. I'm excited to get rid of all of my stuff and live a much simpler life. I'm excited to explore various corners of the world and meet interesting people along the way. I'm excited to see how this trip impacts my jewelry and I'm excited to play with new creative outlets (like writing and sketching).

I've decided to create a sort of "portable studio" that will enable me to continue creating jewelry and headbadges as we travel. I'm still working out the kinks, but these are the tools that I'm currently leaning toward bringing...


The glaringly, obviously missing tool is my torch. But I've got pretty much all of my other oft-used hand tools accounted for. I'm half-envisioning myself sawing and sanding away at a picnic table at a campground, but I'm also hoping that I can stop in to metals classes at community colleges or fellow metalsmiths' studios from time to time to do some soldering. It's all a part of the adventure.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to slowly start changing over the language on my sites to reflect the fact that I'll be out on the road. I've got a lot of work to do, but now I've got all day to do it, so I'm feeling pretty good.