Come on in and get comfortable!

Autumn! For as long as I can remember it has always been my favorite time of year. Even when I was child and it meant going back to school, which, like every child, I dreaded to some degree, I still looked forward to the newness of certain things and the change in the air. My twin brother and I spent our early lives, in the 70' and early 80's, with my mother and my grandmother, so there wasn't much money, but they did their best to make sure that we had new school supplies and a few new clothes to go back to school with. I was never one of the "cool kids" who had all of the "on-trend" clothes, but I read all of the fashion magazines at the time and worked with what I had, which, in the 80's, wasn't usually good enough, but I realized about halfway through high school that being like everyone else was boring and decided to just give up on trying to be someone else and be myself. It took a long time to figure out who I am, but slowly I am figuring it out. Sometimes, you figure out along the way that you are many people and that you change along the way, which is perfectly fine. Staying the same means that you aren't growing. It took me until I was in my late 40's to find out that that kid that the "cool kids" picked on for not being "trendy" enough had her own style that other people liked, and that I had a gift for designing clothes for others. At 52, I wish I could go back and tell 12 year old Jenesse how great things are going to turn out, after she read that paisley pattens and shirt dresses were the "in" looks that Fall and wore a (what I still think is a very cool) paisley shirt dress with a leather belt to school and got teased mercilessly. Unfortunately, I can't do that, but what I can do is encourage everyone of you reading this to be FULLY, COURAGEOUSLY YOU! Be yourself, reinvent yourself if that's what you need to do, don't stay stuck. Breathe the change in that crisp Autumn air and embrace it! Don't be afraid of what the "cool kids" are going to say and wear the paisley shirt dress!

My front porch in Autumn