A Year (or so) In Review

Really it’s been more than a year since I’ve posted anything.

When I was pregnant I thought something like this would never happen to me.  I looked at my friends who had gone on hiatuses from their art careers (most often coming back) and thought I wasn’t that kind of person.  I respected their decision, but I just thought I am so driven.  I love making, I need to be making.

On the other end of the spectrum are those people who can balance it all (or somehow seem to).  And let me just say, if you are one of them....I am so in awe of you.

And then I had a tiny human in my apartment needing to be fed, and cuddled, and changed.  And well, he, was just so sweet.  And changing so fast!  Right before my eyes!  And, I was so brain dead.  I could barely have a creative thought let alone finish a work cycle.

 Still I gave half-hearted attempts at making work.  Starting blog projects, having specials in my etsy store.  I was renting a space that I was never able to use as my partner’s work is very demanding, my baby was demanding milk every two hours, and I was finding it really hard to not just watch Netflix, breastfeed, and have a glass of wine at the end of the day.  Did I mention S was born at the beginning of a long upstate New York winter?  And I was feeling so guilty for not using my space.  Somehow that Spring I realized that I needed a home studio.  We decided to buy a house, I got a full time 2 month job opportunity that I accepted, and I made the difficult decision to put everything in storage.  I thought we would be in our new home in 3 months or so. 

What did I do then?  I decided to be a Mom.  I picked berries and made jam.   I grew a garden in our shady backyard with pretty decent results.  I learned how to knit.

We picked 38 lbs of apples in the Fall, and then we embarked on the nightmare of getting approved for a home loan after the real estate market crashed.  

We closed on our house Jan 3, 2012 three months past our target close date.  I realize now, that it actually could have been worse.  Since then I have been decorating our new space, working part time, and I have finally, finally, finally settled into a work rhythm.  It is nowhere near the amount of time that I used to have, but it is something.  I have a lot of new surfaces, but I’ll tell you more about that later.  I’m back in action, getting ready to re-launch my etsy store, redesign my website, and so much more.  Only this time I have a lot more insight on how to balance my time between myself, my family, and my job.  
Here are some snippets of home decorating and my studio-more on my studio in a week or so.