thatlevywoman: unencumbered

Showing posts with label unencumbered. Show all posts

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Life in Utah - First Stop

We both got what we wanted in Utah. Rocks!

Our first stop was in St. George where we rented a furnished space for four months. It did not take long for us to immerse ourselves in our surroundings, the most spellbinding expanses we had only begun to realize were ours within minutes of our place. Snow Canyon was particularly fascinating with great expanses on which to crawl up and scramble on. It was like having a dessert you couldn’t get enough of.

Nathan, ever the adventurer, would walk about the property daily and soon discovered the nearby stream where he harvested river smoothed stones that he could not resist. Neither could I. Within our first thirty days there, my raw stone obsession was born. Those I confiscated from Nathan’s loot were wire wrapped into pendants with the same kind of energy I had experienced for the first time in Sedona in 2015. Several of these pieces below are in my online shop. Click any pic below to see details if they are still available.

Navajo Sandstone with Amber by Tina's Sedona

Handmade River Stone Pendant by Tina's Sedona

One random morning, encouraged by creative excitement, I filled a backpack with jewelry, walked in "off the street", and landed a spot in Gallery 873 located in Ivins just as they were opening that morning. One of my bestest wraps ever sold within days. It felt like a “Welcome to the Southwest”!

wire wrapped chert pendant by Tina's Sedona

Four months flies by when everything is new and there is so much to learn, to navigate, and to still plan yet another move. When our time was up in St. George, we were fortunate to find a very affordable apartment with a view of the Pine Valley Mountain Range from La Verkin, just outside of St. George and only 20 miles from Zion National Park. Oh joy...

PS. The sunsets in St. George competed with Florida beach sunsets and it was definitely a tie!

St. George Sunset - courtesy of Tina's Sedona

Watch for next month's post from our LaVerkin abode where we lived pandemic-free for four months before the US was taken hostage by Covid.

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Friday, July 3, 2026

Utah Bound May 2019

This particular blog post is more of a pictorial than a travelog. It reflects the transition of topography spanning from the humid East Coast to the arid Southwest of America. It was my first and only cross country road trip and, looking back at this May 2019 move, I am struck by how brave we were - leaving our “tribe” and property behind. I’ve been enjoying revisiting the feelings of freedom and excitement. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity! Enjoy just a small taste of the infinite beauty within this amazing country… CLICK any photo to enlarge. Videos can also be enlarged to play then hit esc to downsize it again. Happy viewing!

Georgia

Texas

Arizona

Watch for next month's post when our life in Utah begins... Is it yet clear to you why we fell in love with this part of the Country?

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Sunday, May 10, 2026

A Dream Unfolding

We had the Universe’s attention. Once our belongings began to melt away during The Big Purge, we moved into the next phase of our journey. It became clear that it was time to put our house on the market. Because of its location, we sensed that it would sell quickly. You see, our ¾ acre homestead was bordered on two sides by a century old cemetery the owner of whom had approached us several times over the 25 years we lived there.

All we had to do was call my very good friend, who happened to be a realtor, to extend an offer. While we were attending a pre-planned trip to the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in January 2019, we received a response to the proposal. In fact, due to our delay in responding for several days, the offer got upped! Just as fortuitous, we were able to negotiate staying in the house rent free until May. It all felt like a dream. What we never knew at the time was that we would eventually end up living the rest of our lives in Tucson. But that's a whole other story for later.

When we returned from the Show we ramped up for leaving Florida in May. We downsized our transportation and became a one-car family, purchasing a used Ford Flex with seating for seven all of which was easy to collapse and make room for our precious cargo. In stages, we began packing the moving boxes that Nathan, an experienced “tucker”, altered to fit and stack within the car. Of course, my load of beads got special placement as I planned to bead cross country! For the next few months, the boxes took over the center of the house as we calculated and recalculated the available space.

We continued to downsize our belongings as we realized they just wouldn’t fit. Most notable among them were treasured artwork pieces by Nathan and my folding clothes rack that had belonged to my mother. Ouch.

During this time, I created an itinerary for an eleven-day journey to Utah with 7 stops along the way. I planned one last monthly coffee with “the girls” at our home and we had a little ceremony in the backyard. I researched and rented a VRBO in St. George, Utah, for four months, not knowing where we intended to live in the area. We began to say goodbye to the home where we had lived together over twenty years. We built more fires in the backyard pit, savoring the Southeast’s earthy lushness we were leaving behind for the arid, mountainous Southwest.

It is truly the oddest feeling- surreal, for sure - to literally walk out of a house you know you will never see again. A vessel that held love, transcendent healing, and a once-in-a-lifetime community of purpose. Your feet will no longer feel the hardwood floors installed in 1948. The house parties with upwards of fifty guests, the gourmet holiday meals with friends and family are over and done. It is finished. You are free.

In certain ways I will always be tied to the sacred space we left behind and what I experienced there. I call this my “Ode to Chez Levy”.

Watch for next month's post where we set off for Utah!

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Saturday, March 7, 2026

The Big Purge

Something is in the air and it deserves some talking about. Relocation or maybe it's better called Migration. I’m wondering if it’s my imagination or if an inordinate number of people are uprooting to seek life elsewhere, even overseas. ( I realize that some citizens are fleeing our country.)

I’m not sure if it’s because Nathan and I have been through a cross country move that I am more aware of others pulling up roots and moving on. I am especially aware of young couples

Envisioning Life “Out West”

Returning from Arizona in 2016 - [See prequel Jan. 2026 blog post] - Nathan and I began to play with the fantasy of relocating to the Southwest. Personally, I began to consider what such a move could mean for me. Would it be safe for me to leave everything and everyone behind - at retirement age and after 30 years in a community - and move cross country? Would my husband and I hold our tight bond regardless of any adversity we might face in a new setting? We had both failed in prior marriages so I might have been terrified at the prospect of becoming a “stranger in a stranger land” if this well intentioned adventure ruined our marriage. To my surprise and great relief, all of these thoughts were brief and fleeting. After 20 years with Nathan, my guts had "a knowing" that this marriage was indeed solid. This wasn't the first time that my guts had delivered this message.

Snow Canyon, Ivins, UT near St. George

Our decision to leave the nest was so easy that it had to have held a cosmic force behind it. In 2017, we began planning for when to sell the house, what to purge, where to live, and the logistics for getting there. Getting where? Would we become nomads? Where would we visit? Were we looking for a permanent home? We studied maps. We dreamed of the life we wanted to live. We decided to wander without commitment and to head for St. George, Utah, for starters. We hoped to stay for a year and make side trips of a couple hundred miles out from there. When we were “done” there, we planned to center ourselves in another spot and repeat the cycle until we decided to settle down.

How would we get there? We started shopping for a big comfortable car that would take everything we could pack into it for the long drive to move cross country. Everything else had to go. We started planning for a huge purge of our possessions. Watch for next month's post about our year long effort to lessen our load!

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Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Getting “The Itch”

Sedona

As I shared in my December post, when I returned from my first visit to Sedona in 2015 I held a creative energy from which there was no release. I then shared my Southwest experiences with Nathan in the hopes that he would develop an interest in visiting. I was doubtful that he would, though, because he had lived in California and had already traveled in the West. I wanted it to be “new” to him! It turned out that, other than a visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon years before, he had not explored Arizona. It also turned out that I didn't have a clue about the vastness of what is considered to be "the West". I grew up in Maine, ya know?

So, the following year, I was thrilled when we flew out to explore Sedona and beyond. Imagine my alarm when, as we drove into the outskirts of town, Nathan began to shout “Stop the car! Stop the car!” I thought he might be sick to his stomach. But when I did manage to pull over, he jumped from the car with his camera and quickly headed for the looming reddish orange bluffs!

the aha moment

It was a whole different trip than my last. We hiked and explored Sedona shops & galleries. We discovered nearby Payson with its Travertine bridge within Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, blindly selecting several trails - purposely unmaintained I might add - that took us four hours to complete. What were we thinking???

yes, that's me

waterfalling from "the bridge", but wait there's more!

We also travelled up to the South Rim for a few days. On day one we walked the Rim Trail amongst a throng of visitors. That night, my dormant brave side told me that I needed to experience those canyon walls. So on day two, with Nathan impressed by my gutsy attitude, we hiked down into the Canyon for a limited distance and then took at least twice as long to come back up. It’s steep, ya know, and we were taking pictures during breathing breaks. LOL

elmo, the professional stowaway

If you have ever hiked this trail can you prove it?

For me, the Canyon Rim hike just added fuel to the thought of actually living in the Southwest and having ready access to mountains that were calling to the spiritual side of me. Besides, my body was welcoming the physical challenge of exploring those rocks.

After ten days of “mountain highs” hubby and I returned to Florida and a clock in the ether began to tick - with intuition emerging at weird intervals - towards the possibility of a cross country move. “But where would we want to live?” was the question that began to haunt us throughout the next year.

Arizona turned out to hold so much more than just gorgeous Sedona. 😎😎😎 - to be continued

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Thursday, December 25, 2025

The Story of Tina's Sedona

Many people seem to think that I live in Sedona instead of Tucson and are puzzled by the name I gave my small woman-owned business. I thought readers might be interested in how the name Tina's Sedona came to be and clear up any confusion. Every December differing versions of the "Christmas Story" are told, to which not everyone subscribes. So, here is a refreshing true story not open to debate.

In 2015, a friend and I traveled to Sedona for the first time. In preparation, I spent time researching the nature of "vortices" and where I might find one in Sedona where it is believed they run rampant. My efforts were needless, because within 24 hours of arriving, I began to feel either high or drunk, I couldn’t decide. Vortices do move around and apparently they found me. Everywhere I went I asked people if they could feel it. Their response? "Sounds like a vortex has got ya!" There is much debate on the subject of altitude's impact on emotions. With Sedona at 4300 feet above sea level and me -- back then -- from St. Petersburg, Florida at 48 feet above sea level, that may have been a factor. That said, I would argue that, for me, this experience felt much more spiritual than physiological.

Seeing captivating red rock formations up close and personal within Sedona proper was indeed mesmerizing. Their energy was palpable! At the local airport, my friend and I attended a daily event that rendered an absolutely spectacular sunset.

This is me at the airport. Do I look high or drunk? (I was neither, I swear.)

Was I inspired by the trip? Likely. But more than that, I was strongly influenced. The colors of the red-rock buttes, the vivid blue skies, and extreme sunset compilation heightened my innate love of color. The whole experience seemed to create a sense of confidence, a “knowing”, and a steady stream of ideas with an urgency for my hands to produce artistic creations at a frenetic pace. Suddenly, color, texture and nature became imperative for my pieces. Returning to Florida, my creative nature turned somersaults and began to produce creations that I had not before considered.

So instead of "business as usual" I got serious about my artwork knowing that my impression of Sedona and the energy I experienced there was always going to be with me, with no way to turn back. In every piece I produced, I would have no choice but to reflect my interpretation of Sedona. Hence the name Tina's Sedona! It came quickly and surely, like an old friend, just waiting for me to discover it. ➰➰➰

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thatlevywoman

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Life in Utah - First Stop

Friday, July 3, 2026

Utah Bound May 2019

Sunday, May 10, 2026

A Dream Unfolding

Saturday, March 7, 2026

The Big Purge

Sunday, February 8, 2026

Envisioning Life “Out West”

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Getting “The Itch”

Thursday, December 25, 2025

The Story of Tina's Sedona

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