May is such a topsy-turvy month for me. It’s the month I got my first residential remodel project (2013) and the month we moved from our original 1992 location to Old Town in May of 2015 and have never looked back. It’s the month we were graced with our first magazine cover-Phoenix Home and Garden magazine May 2020, and in the same issue blew it by mis-citing sources.

I want to clarify the following- the stained-glass window on the cover was masterfully crafted by Bob Berg at Chanikva studios. The staircase lighting was by Hinkley’s. The original landscape design was by Berghoff Design but Landscape Brokers is why the gardens are so lush in the magazine photos, so they also should have also been mentioned. The outdoor furniture was by Ebel, not Summer Classics.

I sincerely apologize for these mistakes and can only say I got my wires crossed. We are in deep gratitude to all the vendors we work with, and I am deeply sorry for this mix-up, especially to our lovely client, who was the first to spot my errors. You can see the corrections (without the aforementioned corrections) and the full issue here.

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Click below for the corrected sources.

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May is the month I got divorced from my first husband in 2003, the month we celebrated my Papa’s birthday every May 23 for 82 years, which also happens to be the same day as Earth and Images’, an extra special day because of this. May is the month we said goodbye to him just 3 days short of his 83rd birthday on May 20, 2004. My Mema, his beloved wife, went to heaven just a few days before him short of a year on May 28, 2003.

Isabel with her Mema and great grandmother

May is the month I found out I had cancer in 2017, and the month I found out I was showing no evidence of disease 2018.

Isabel with Nikka Bochniak and Angelina Ponce

Isabel with her husband Mark Candelaria during cancer treatment

This year it is the month we can come back to work after a stay-in-place order to prevent COVID-19 contagion with changed protocols and new rules about how we can move about and do business.

Kiki asking Isabel to take a break from work

Alan in houseplant while Isabel is on a work call

Alan sleeping while Isabel is drafting a floor plan.

May for me is a month of change. Some wanted. Some unwanted. But even the unwanted ones have led me to greater times. I continue to push through and face the challenges of change, and because of this, I, and those around me continue to grow. I am also just happy to be here, even if it isn’t all rosy. My greatest growth has often come through difficult times, failures, mistakes, life-lessons, and quite honestly and probably most profoundly, by facing death with cancer diagnosis. Since I have been given the gift of more time, I am focused on doing what’s right regardless of what’s gone before even more impeccably now. I am learning like Pat Cleveland, the 70’s fashion model, to “celebrate the meanness and the joy”.

As I lead Earth and Images into its 29th year, I am looking forward to what it becomes. I often feel it is its own thing without me, and that is even more true now that we have 5 talented people contributing to our success. One of them, Nikka Bochniak, is soon to be made partner with the dream that Earth and Images will continue on and grow into something even more beautiful, and perhaps bigger. As I begin a 10 year plan of creating crescendos in my career and also of slowly letting go, I will remember that this is the movement of life, and embrace it all with joy.

Earth and Images 28th Anniversary