Eight years later. Eight.

 "Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind." -Nathaniel Hawthorne

In 2014, I wanted to revive this blog as a place to share whatever it was I felt like sharing. I have long wanted to get back in the groove of creating and using all the stuff I've accumulated over the years in the arts and crafts realm. I get going for a bit, then it all sits. Months sometimes pass before I step foot in this space. Often, the scraps of the last project from months ago greet me to be put back in their places. I've toyed with boxing everything up and finding somewhere to donate everything so I don't feel like it's being wasted. I've struggled to find purpose in creating just for the sake of occupying my hands and mind. I mean, shouldn't I DO something with the things I create? Where does my style fit in? What IS my style? Can I even create something that isn't guided by a sketch or video? Shouldn't I make money? Do people still want handmade things? What's going to happen to all this stuff when I leave this world? 

Paper and ink have always been the places I go back to, where I feel at my crafty best, the place that has fed me creatively for over 20 years. While I had periods where I would get back into the groove, I've dabbled in other things. After my grandmother passed in 2015 Time and Trees I made a quilt to focus my mind on something besides how much I missed her. She was who I would send random cards to the last several years of her life, just to connect and make her day. I've art journaled, painted, continued to do an annual digital family album, taught myself to crochet, sewn a few things, and now trying to knit. I even made an Instagram account dedicated to paper things. (User: papergirl1974) I've bought new things in an attempt at finding some inspiration, only to get minimal joy or use out of those new things. 

In our household, we are approaching 12 years almost to the day of moving here. I have a dedicated room for all my stuff vs the basement or den downstairs. We graduated our daughter from high school and will soon graduate her from college. I didn't go back to work after the nest emptied. Too much time had passed that kept me out of the real world and I simply didn't want or need the stress in my life that workplaces often bring. We bought an RV a couple years ago and it has become my happy place. 

We've endured a global pandemic and all the challenges and change in life that has brought, and I can honestly say that during 2020-2021 when spreading joy through cards and other things was likely needed and welcomed, I was in no head space to do so. 

I have all the time in the world, yet I've fizzled hours of the days scrolling meaningless stuff that neither fed me nor inspired me. (Quite the opposite, actually. ) Social media is a chasm of comparison and illusions of perfection that don't exist in the real world, yet we are sucked into believing it all. Comparison truly is the thief of joy. 

So here I am back in my own digital and physical space where I can hopefully find a shadow of the joy I used to derive from spending hours just playing, learning, and engaging with the creative community in whatever way happens. 

Thanks for coming along.