If my boys had a room like this...

Source

 Light and organised and tidy and spacious.

I don't think they mind very much that their room is only about half the size of this room with a window that overlooks the carpark (and cemetery beyond) because, well, the Samurai is 8 months old so what does he care, and the Angel is far more interested in the boxes of toys that take up any floor space he might have had to play on. He happily (and regularly) takes over the living room if he needs space to play.

But if they had a room like this I can guarantee that the art on their walls would change very frequently, and would be photographed often. Frankly - this is the only honest reason why I wish the boys had a room like this... because I am tired of being disappointed by the photos I have been taking of my work... my complete lack of space (and professional stylist) are frustrating. As for the boys? as far as they're concerned, the whole house is their room so they don't care if they have a schmick and nicely styled place to sleep (thankfully)

Photos of my work will be coming soon, and stuck all over etsy and the new selling platform Nookroad (check it out) but it takes me a while to think up descriptions (I won't pretend that they're witty) and click through all the categories my work fits into and enter sizes and postage costs and all that other stuff. So I have cut some corners and posted all my current prints on the blog for you to have a look at. (Click on the 'print sale' tab along the top) When I get some more time I will be moving them onto etsy, but you'd be doing me a favour if you bought them from here so I don't have to put them up hahah... yeah.

Hmmmh...

The Elm Tree: the real life shop  is coming some time next month and everything has been super busy getting it sorted out. I have had zero time to do art or anything very creative so I have to apologise (again) to those with subscriptions. I am putting together something special to make up for my tardiness! Promise!!

If you are interested in being part of our store I will be posting more details soon.

Sick days

It seems like every winter I am bemoaning the same things. It is probably indicative of some kind of disastrous vitamin deficiency ( :( ) but every time the weather gets cold our house needs to be quarantined. We are the tag team family of phlegm (ew) as soon as one member of the family has wrestled their illness into submission and reached a state of wellness the next person leaps in to the sick ring. Last winter I remember having to cancel nearly every social commitment we had because we didn't want to infect our friends.

Everyone is slowly recovering and so the days here are punctuated by naps. Family naps.

I came out of my 'office' (I have my computer set up in the angel's room) and found this.

ps. Ky dressed them - and obviously dressed himself - and they're matching. Pretty cute. The room was really dark so these are the clearest photos I could get - and it took a lot of tries to get them. Blur city. 

Ky

Kyle served a mission for our church in Washington DC. I served one in Taibei.

As you might imagine, living away from home with a strict set of rules, working hard to share something that is deeply personal (faith) with a lot of people (most of whom reject your message) can be quite challenging.

Recently Ky was asked to make a short documentary style film for his course - using a voice over and photo montage.
I don't think that either of us are overly preachy people (obviously asides from the time we spent actively being preachy as missionaries) we just live our lives and let other live theirs and our relationships with people are not contingent upon them agreeing with our lifestyle nor us with theirs.

So it was somewhat surprising to some people in his class when he produced a film recounting part of the personal journey that he went on as a missionary. It's not really about being Mormon so to speak, it's not even really about God... it's just about a journey.

I drew some of the images for him to fill in the holes where photos were absent. The girl who appears in reference to girlfriends never actually dated him (he actually went out with that girl's friend) - he just didn't have any other photos.

And as a final note - I hate that last photo. I totally wasn't ready for the camera to go off. Boo.

Baby mine

For the entirety of their lives I have used songs to calm down my babies (admittedly not a very long time - but still)

Yesterday while we were playing with playdoh (well the Angel was playing while I tried to keep the Samurai from eating it) my two year old started to sing to the baby a song that I used to sing to him every night (and still sing a few times a week, and whenever he cries)

He mumbled words and sang off tune (I probably do too) but in my grumpy and sick mood it made me surprisingly emotional.

I am exhausted from looking after a tiny restless baby who can't breathe properly through a stuffy nose, but it gives me hope to know that they are sometimes listening. Even if it's only when I communicate via song.
 
*

This week has been busy with commissions and sick babies at doctors offices and next week looks like it will be similarly busy.
When I get the chance I sit down and play with photoshop. I love doing my sketches in ps because I can just layer and layer and then delete it all... it's not the same as the sketchbooks that I keep, but it helps me to feel arty without making an epic mess.

Seriously

I often feel like one of those plate spinners from some cheap carnival or cheesy talent show.
I have so many things going on at once that I don't feel like I can do any of them with any real degree of excellence. So I rush about like a lunatic, smiling in a sequin encrusted outfit acting like I know what I'm doing, hoping that if I can fool you, then maybe I can fool myself - spinning these plates until I lose concentration and one falls and breaks... and while I'm crying about broken crockery another one falls, and then I am so overwhelmed that none of them are being maintained and I am surrounded by broken plates.

This week the boys are sick.
The bank account is empty.
Next week is the Samurai's specialist appointment.
My mind is full of dreams for future endeavour - so much so that it is making it difficult to focus on the things that I have in front of me to do.

My brain is such a busy (and unproductive!) place to live in sometimes.

Trying to remain positive and constructive I have been drawing and working on some commissions and I need to say - everyone should draw.
I don't think that it is very important to draw super well - I don't think that I am very skilled at recreating things exactly as I see them - but when you draw things you have to look very closely at them. Even more than you would if you were just taking a photo. You really observe how things are put together, how the pieces interact, textures, and light. Drawing teaches you how to see things.

So in all the chaos of my noisy mind, I am grateful for the time I have been able to enjoy just sitting down to stare at the delightful faces of lovely people, the glass wings of insects, the iridescence of beetle shells, and all the other things that fill up my eyes and try to make their way through my hands onto paper.
Even when my drawings are unsuccessful (which frustratingly, is most of the time) I enjoy just sitting and watching.

This is my note book where I scribble things and keep notes. Where I write down nice things that help me out even on days like today when I look like a reject from Nirvana in a plaid shirt and lank bleachy hair... (seriously grunge - am I showing my age? I'm not even old!!) The letters are from a Frankie magazine... I don't remember the name of the artist who designed the alphabet (boo Eleanor) so if anyone knows it - do share.

Oh how my wondering mind wanders...

Some days stress just smashes me.

Like today.

These days

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. Right? And this bag was just dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in."

- American Beauty

There are times when I feel like I have missed my calling. Like I should have been a writer or a photographer, or a film maker - though I am not very good at any of these things.

Sometimes there is just so much beauty in the world. So many small moments that create such a fabudonkyulous world that I feel like there should be some way of recording them. Of possessing that beauty. Memory seems inadequate at those times.

I find my artistic skills just as inadequate at imparting those feelings, and I'm not really a poet (despite my enduring love for the haiku) and as you may have noticed from what I have shared with you on this blog - photography is still outside of my skill set.

I feel like my body fills up with so much feeling, and I am so incapable of expressing it, that I just sit around feeling emotional, and inadequate. Moments like these are given to us to make something out of them, I am convinced, otherwise why would we have them? Inspiration to creation.

 One of my favourite bloggers  writers said this:

"I get so damn tired of feelings sometimes, the way they crash over you, threaten to drown you, and then slowly recede, leaving you wet and stinking and covered in seaweed. I think that in my next life I'm going to come back as a robot that's incapable of feeling obligation or regret. I think that that would be nice."

I guess that is what is means to be human, and even more so what it means to be suffer from mental illness, though I don't feel that us 'touched' folk have the monopoly on intense emotions.
All I know is that I adore this side of the coin. The feelings before the plug gets pulled from the bath and you slowly get heavier and heavier, and colder and colder. The joy of beautifully real things. The pretentious feelings that make people film paper bags dancing in the wind.

My work is small and certainly not profound by any definition of the word, but I want you to know that I have aspirations. That my work, especially the things I do for myself, are my way of trying to tie up and own a tiny part of why I think that the world is lovely, and hopefully share that with you.

Don't get me wrong. Life is dangerous and awful too, and that makes me just as emotional - and I make art then too... even more than when I am absorbed by the beauty ... 

I am glad that Ky is studying film, I hope that he gets to share his vision with everyone of the worlds in his mind. I am glad that there are people out there who can write the way I wish I could and film and photograph moments that reflect the feelings that I have.

Like this guy.



We Were Wanderers On A Prehistoric Earth from James W Griffiths on Vimeo.


I never intended this blog post to be as ... emo (?) as it turned out.
Editing it now seems disingenuous so I won't.

For the Samurai

In 2011 Evangeline Cachinero quit her day job and sold paintings every week to make the money she needed for her rent. 

Love is at your fingertips - Evangeline Cachinero

That is all that any artist is doing when they sell their work I suppose - paying their rent, feeding their faces, clothing their bodies, and paying for the things that they need.

Living on a budget is in many ways restrictive - mostly when it comes to food... I have to keep meal plans and bake way more than I used to (I don't like baking... ) and I don't really have the luxury of just deciding I don't want to make dinner so we'll just get pizza (which happens a lot. Cooking isn't really my thing) but it is also freeing in a way.

Without the option to waste money - we don't. I am more organised out of necessity and marginally less lazy too.

The best part of it all is that Ky is happy. He is doing something that he enjoys, and if that means he isn't working full time for the moment then I am okay with that, because our household is a nicer place to be part of when we are doing things that we find personally rewarding.

One of the downsides though is the lack of flexibility when it comes to emergencies or unplanned for expenses.

The Samurai needs to see a specialist with the possibility of needing surgery for some baby issues. Nothing that's going to kill him, but definitely something that needs to be dealt with now to prevent problems for him down the line.
It's going to cost us quite a bit of money, and if surgery is required, even more... 

 At the same time - I will be reorganising my Etsy store so that everything is up to date.

I am taking a page out of Cachinero's book and selling things with a specific purpose - Ronin. I will be selling things here through my blog until they are gone, and the money will be going towards those unplanned expenses - namely, the paediatric urologist who we will be trusting to heal our little Samurai.

To check out everything that is for sale, click here - or click the URGENT SALE tab along the top.

Thank you!

Part of the process

Sometimes life is a chaotic mess of activity.

Sometimes it's just a chaotic mess.

At the moment it is busy, the Samurai is teething, the Angel is still two... (and has a new streak of stubbornness)  On the plus side, Ky is into the post part of his film. After two weeks of him leaving early in the morning and coming home late from shoots it has been awesome to have him home - even if he is tinkering with edits on his computer.

The film he made with his night class is finished - (you can see it here Warning - swearing and violence.) - after they workshopped it together in class Ky's script was chosen to make (his script had no swearing - that was added by the actors) and if you watch till the end you'll see baby and I at a funeral and the angel wandering around the cemetery.

Amidst all the activity of the household I have been working on some commissions and some new art for those awesome people who are subscribed.

Here is something that I have been working on.

I really like working on sketches in photoshop. I'm not really sure why that is - but it probably has something to do with the ease of deleting things. Lines are my friends on the computer, tones slightly less so, and colour is my photoshop enemy ... which is to say that my digital art skills are incredibly limited. So here the first part of what most of my art starts as - a sketchy scribbley mess. (This is Jack and the beanstalk in case you didn't guess)

Keep an eye out for him as he makes his way to paper, paint, and the printers.

Happy mother's day!

I realised while I was painting Lisa and four of her five Kings that I had featured mothers of boys. Maybe this was some kind of subliminal bias as I have two children and they are both boys - but I did invite other mums who have daughters to be a part of this conversation about motherhood.

I have had a wonderful time learning more about the beautiful women who have shared their stories with me (with all of us) and if you missed any of them, check them out:

Lisa
Caley
Jess
Kesh

I love my mum. She has been firmly on my side throughout my life (despite the foolish choices that I may have made), and I have never doubted that she loved me.
I hope that my boys will always know that I love them too. Even when my hair is falling out (by the handful) and I am airing out a wet bed (again) or doing any of the less than glamorous jobs that come with being a mum... it will all help me to love and appreciate my own mum more.

Thank you for inspiring and uplifting me with your examples and encouragement (not judgement or comparison.)

Happy Mother's Day ladies :)

of mice and men (and mothers)

The change of season always brings sickness into our house. It doesn't seem to matter whether it is getting colder or warmer, the change just screws around with everyone's bodies.
At the moment both of my babies are sick. Which means runny noses, coughs, and sneezes and tired grumpiness.
The Samurai sleeps more, but the Angel has warped into this tantrum throwing yelling machine who fights through the day until he passes out as the sun sets.

The end of this week is Mother's Day and I had grand plans to feature different people I know and their views on motherhood and various other wonderful things like that. Instead every one in our house has taken turns at being sick, and I have been busy doing all the mundane things that facilitate our lifestyle (and lives!), like making sure that we have food in the house.  I find myself in a more reflective than celebratory mood when it comes to thinking about being a mum. The kind of mood where I just stare at Gabe and am utterly bewildered by the being that he is. I'm not sure if that makes sense... all I know is that I am very tired.

The art and words from others will still come. Tomorrow - and the day after, and every day until mother's day if I manage to be that organised; and by then hopefully my children will have bested the nasty germs in their bodies and I'll be able to have a rational conversation with my two year old (yeah, I'm not going to be holding my breath.)

Anyway.

Kyle has been filming for the past two weeks solid - illustrating the downside to this career choice. Prior to that, he had school holidays (the upside!) and we got to escape to his parents house for a few days and look at horses and feed chickens and be outside and do all the things that you can't do when you live in a busy area in an apartment block. Asides from having a virus ('tis the season) it was magnificent.

On Beauty (and death)

I drew this in 2007.
I posted it on deviantart and there it has lived for all the time from then to now.  I have typed the smaller text below so that you can read it. It makes the whole story more understandable.

This is a true story.
It happened long long time before I drew it.

BECAUSE DAWN IS VERY SAD...

HER DAUGHTER HADN'T COME BACK IN THE MORNING

IT WAS LIKE GROWN-UP COT DEATH

SHE WAS LOST

SHE DIDN'T KNOW THE WAY HOME

SHE WAS LOST

For a really long time she was my ideal for what beautiful was.
I would lay really still in my bed with my hands on my chest and hope that I looked as beautiful as she was.

Hairy business

While I may have mentioned previously that I try not to use the ineffective coping mechanisms I used as crutches as a teenager (and 20- something) to deal with my mood swings and bipolarity, I do have to admit one thing.

It's not scientific in the slightest, but I would swear by the magical qualities of hair changes.
Not awkward puberty hair changes, I mean more like hair cuts, and colours and that kind of thing.

I'm not taking to my head with the clippers - which I have done in the past (it looked awesome just so you know)  - but I still feel new when I have new hair.

Some proof of how well I photograph.

 

Living in Taiwan 2008 (it got shorter)

 I mention all this because this is what my hair looks like now.

photo by Analiese

I did it myself, just a few days before this photo was taken. I'd dyed it not long after the Samurai was born, but over summer with all the swimming in pools and such it had faded. My ear is actually a bit coloured hahaha.

I don't really know what my deal is with hair colouring and changing, but it is the easiest thing to change, and I don't mind just getting rid of it all.
Am I the only one who feels the magical abilities of hairdressers or just haircuts/colours in general?

Now it looks like my head is on fire.

Katniss Everdeen eat your heart out. 

Shame shame.

About a week ago I fell over.

I was walking with my family down the sloped driveway of our apartment complex wearing sandals that have exactly no grip on the soles of them. In an unrelated and fairly uninteresting tangent - I bought them while living overseas and my good sandals broke. I just haven't gotten around to buying good ones again.

Our driveway is made of flesh tearing concrete with tiny pebbles pressed into it... the kind that is uncomfortable to walk on. Do you know the kind I mean?

So my sandals were unsurprisingly crap and betrayed me, one foot slid out ahead of me down the hill and the other collapsed and I smashed my knee and the top of my ankle into the driveway which took some skin and Ellie-meat as a souvenir.

The husband let go of the pram to help me up, which went drifting down the hill along with the four month old Samurai. It was dramatic. (You had to be there I'm sure)

I hobbled back to the house and cleaned up and we went out again without any more issues, but the whole thing was actually fairly embarrassing.

Which got me thinking.
Some things are just WAY more embarrassing when you're an adult. (Most of them are bodily function type things.) Here are some of the things that are more embarrassing (for me) as an adult:

1. Falling over. I'm a touch over 6 foot tall and it's like felling a smallish tree when I fall over. Highly ungraceful.

2. Not knowing how to drive. Not driving as a child - legal and acceptable. Not driving as an adult? Lame. I don't, and the older I get the more awkward it is when people ask me about it. Working on it!

3. Getting words wrong. I remember for a long  time I thought that my Opa was fighting gorillas when he was in the army. Stories of him punching cows (he was a farmer and this only happened to the most ornery bovine) made this seem even more logical to me. Turns out they were guerrillas. Another time I was reading a book and asked my mum what brassieres were. Bra's she said, and what kind of book was I reading?? I read the sentence and they were actually braziers - which made a lot more sense. I now look up any words that I don't recognise in text, my spelling is still atrocious, but my vocabulary is much better.

4. Not knowing my times tables. Along with telling the time on analogue clocks, I just never really clicked with times tables as a kid. I have since mastered telling the time (phew) but I still sometimes have to sing the times tables songs to remember them. Thankfully phones have calculators.

5. Calling people the wrong name. Most people have called their teacher 'Mum' at some point - admit it. I called Ronin by his brother's name for a full month after he was born. I only have two children - there really isn't much chance that I'm actually confusing them, my brain is just turning into mush.

6. Sanitary Pad failures. Been dealing with the whole 'being a lady' since I was 12 - getting it wrong is still mortifying.

What things embarrass you as a 'grown up' ?

In my mind

So it's nearly the end of March and in my mind I still feel like it's January. I don't know what's going on, but my sense of time seems greatly distorted.

When I was 18 I travelled to China to teach English for 6 months. While I never really said it aloud at the time (for fear of sounding pretentiously idiotic I'm sure) I hoped that the time away from my comfortable and familiar life would help me to 'find myself'.
What I faced instead was an internal and external struggle not against cultural differences, but myself.

Despite the drastic change of environment, I was still the same uncertain person who couldn't bear the thought that other people may think badly of me (regardless of what I thought of them.) That fear led me to apologise for anything that may cause other people offence, whether I had done something wrong or not. I made bad decisions, had toxic friendships, and lost sight of who I was by trying to be the girl that other people thought I should be, or wanted to be, rather than the person I wanted to be myself.

"Finding" yourself is a joke. We create who we are, sometimes more deliberately than other times.
This is of course entirely my opinion. There are many people out there who are happily anchored, and don't toss about like a boat in a storm with every different opinion they hear, every action made by a friend. This is a skill I am striving for.

Ten years have passed since I was in China, and I still see in myself those same weaknesses (thankfully to a lesser extent)
I'm sick of beating myself up about them though.
So I will acknowledge that those weaknesses are born of a trusting and loving heart and a desire to make peace and happiness in the lives of others. That's not a bad thing surely.

So here at 28, wife and mother of two - still riddled with weaknesses and faults - I'm getting over it.
I had a cranky week, I re-dyed my hair (I look like my head is on fire when my hair is out) I rearranged my whole house (it took two days) and with those simple superficial changes I feel more prepared to launch myself into deeper changes and continue on the ongoing journey of self discovery creation.
I think like losing weight, losing bad habits and emotional problems is best done with action.


Here's a song.

I have big heart for Neil Gaiman, he's my favourite author ( I met him once - he has very soft hair ) and for his wife Amanda Palmer who I've never met, but who's music I have admired for a long time. When I found out they were married I was excited to an illogical level that totally reveals my fangirl status. Whatever.

:)

memories longer than the road

It isn't my way to lay out my life on my blog. This is predominantly a vehicle for me to share my art with people... however. Sometimes my soul feels all crumpled up. Sometimes music can really help.
This is one of the songs that smooths things over.

I actually like this cover better than the original (its a beatles song) and have loved it for years. Lately I have been mega stressed and so I escape in the evenings to go running with my sister, or to deliver flyers around the neighbourhood. It's hardly a 'running song' (Nut Bush is like the best song ever to run to) but it is just so ... peaceful.

Get amongst the music sharing, and link up with Jess at A Heart Full of Frost.

Painting People (part 2)

 This is my niece and her duck. He died a while ago so for her birthday this year I thought I would take a photo of her and Mr Cow-y and turn it into a little work of art for her.

Her birthday is next week, but she is turning 4 so the likelihood of her seeing my blog and ruining the surprise is next to nil.

In the background of the painting (its gouache again - I'm addicted) I drew some of the things that remind me of Miss Lolly.

I am going to be putting my brushes and pens down for a while so that I can study full time. While I would love to be an artist full time, the pay at the moment isn't allowing me to do that and I really need this qualification to get the currency moving into our household again.

To make it clear, I will still be working on commissions (So commission me!!) But unless it's after work/study hours I won't really be painting. I haven't given up by half. I am submitting my portfolio to a few publishers - which will potentially take FOREVER to hear back from - but the dream is alive my friends. 

While I am studying I would love to fill my evenings with painting pictures of your children, or you. Just send me a photo to eleanor.mccomb@gmail.com and a list of things that you want drawn in the back - along with $50 and I will transform it into an illustration/painting that you can keep forever as a reminder of how cute your kiddie winkles are (or once were)

I would like to say as well that I appreciate a lot the support that I have gotten from friends and family as Kyle and I forge our way through this year's jungle of adventures. It's not even the end of February... grief...

Dude sings like a lady

Sometimes I am super glad for the internet.

When I was living in Taiwan someone gave me a mix tape (okay it was a CD, but mix tape sounds better) and there was a song on it that I loved and learned all the words to and was like super geeky about.

I didn't know who sang it or what the song was called but due to having Mandarin powers (diminishing by the day) I turned to the all-knowing Google and found them, my new most favourite Chinese band (sorry Jay Chou) - Sodagreen.

Turns out the female singer who I thought was amazing was actually a male singer (oh dear)

This is the first song I ever heard of theirs and I like it a LOT. 

So that's my soundtrack for the week. Today I've had Simon and Garfunkle songs in my head, so they'll be next I'm sure. 

And this is my link up with the awesome Jess of A Heart Full of Frost.

Check her out!

You love gifs, don't deny it.

A while ago, on a previous blog, I mentioned that I have bipolar disorder.

After a long time of thinking it was totes normal to hate on myself (for any reason possible) and draw emo things, it was a revelation to know that actually it's totally uncool and I shouldn't do it.

While it still sometimes sucks ( a little or a lot) most of the time my attitude about being bipolar is kind of like...

... you know. Whatevs - It's how I roll. 

This post isn't actually about being bipolar, it's about when I had kids, and about art, and about fears, and whatever else.

When I had the Angel I was terrified that I would get post natal depression, and when I instead got a placid baby who I liked pretty much straight away I was pretty pleased. Two years later when the Samurai showed up, I wasn't worried. I was going to have a baby, take a few days off and get back to art and looking after the Angel and studying medical terms and all sorts of 'not related to baby' type things.

I left the hospital the same day that he was born feeling all tough and womanly about my staunch reaction to child birth.

And then I got home and went to bed and fell into what I would deem to be a self inflicted depression.
I wasn't connected to this squishy little guy, I never managed to get everything done in the day that I wanted to do, he was always (always) hungry and feeding him was a painful trial...
I felt guilty for saying anything about it, and just stared at his little face hoping for some kind of revelation - before going to make dinner, or clean something, or sit on the computer, or do something else that would take me away from him.

Dummy.

I was distraught that he wasn't like the Angel, that I didn't love him the same, that I couldn't 'figure him out.'

Then I realised that I didn't know him. He was just new and hadn't been around for the two years I'd had his brother.
I slowed down, spent more time with him. Realised that he whinges because he LOVES being around people and chatting and laughing and staring into peoples faces. After the first few weeks he even started sleeping through the night (um way to become the favourite - jks!!)
He's awesome, and super cute and totally different to his brother which is fantastic. I love his guts.

The moral of the whole story, or perhaps a moral of this story is that while I may be able to shrug about how I deal with my mood swings and bipolarity, and while I know that I don't need to hate myself, I can still draw emo drawings.

Shunning sadness and irrational desires to cry has meant that I put away a lot of the things that I did at that time to cope for things that actually worked.

For example.

Listening to sad music while sad - not helpful
Complaining to equally depressed friends while depressed - not helpful
Cutting off all my hair and/or dying it yet another colour - not helpful
More earings? - NOT HELPFUL
Watching world movies - not helpful

See?

So while I still love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm hardly going to rely on it to help me manage my emotions. Rather I'll go for a run or better yet, call my husband for a whinge and then go have a sleep.

I stopped drawing my emotions around the same time that I was diagnosed, and I shouldn't have. Drawing allowed me to constructively express myself without wearing down my loved ones with constant complaining.

So this is what I did today.

Because sometimes I need reminders of things. I will always know that I love my son, but the story of how I figured that out contained important lessons for me, and those I might forget.

Ride Sally, Ride.

As a foreword to the quote below I would just like to say that I think it is lazy to quote people about whom you know nothing. Google it people. Really, it isn't that difficult. 

Sally Ride is someone I knew of without Google's help. She's awesome and so I have no qualms about quoting her... she's also right. Adventures are scary. 

Ky got into film school. 

I'm excited for him, and terrified at the same time because I will be stepping up to work from home, while looking after the Angel (hah!) and the Samurai. In less than two weeks he will be a full time student and I will be a full time artist/mum/businesswoman... so I am really pushing myself to get my head out of the safe 'dabbling with etsy' mentality and into the actual 'real life' of building a brand, making money and you know... being successful.

I really appreciate all the support that I have gotten from friends and family to build my confidence as an artist and designer and while there are only a couple of people who follow this blog (sup Jess and Tara!) I still have confidence that I can make a go of it and live the dream of doing something that I love to support my family. 

So while I am still studying to be a medical transcriptionist, I do not love it, and I will be happy to cast the keyboard aside in favour of paintbrushes and pens or even my tablet and stylus (despite how noobish I feel when using it) 

So. 2013... come at me bro.