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I should have let my fear go
I ventured north with a friend to the Kingwood Center Gardens to see their early spring blooms and orchids in the greenhouses on Monday, which was lovely. Snowdrops, some early daffodils, hellebores, and a few other early bloomers were all putting on a show, their colors bright against the dull brown of the earth. Cardinals were flitting to and fro, stunning sapphire peacocks roamed the yard, and ducks swam in the small pond while small children fed quarters into the corn dispenser to haphazardly throw at them. 70 degrees and sunny. Spring, if not here officially, is nearby. We both packed our sketchbooks in case we wanted to sit and…
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Favorite sketches from 2023
Two years ago, at the end of 2021, I decided that 2022 was going to be the year of creating differently. I had turned my creative hobby of choice, knitting, into a full-fledged business as a brick-and-mortar yarn shop and was in desperate need of some sort of other creative outlet. Knitting all day every day, both at work and at home, was wearing on me and I was finding myself uninspired and, frankly, struggling to enjoy life. Learning to draw filled that void and gave me the break I needed, creatively speaking. It gave me the space I needed to take my mind off the stresses of business and…
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I feel like I have superpowers now
I have been struggling this summer. It has been long, hot, and so much of a slog that it has become unbearable to do the thing I love the most – knit. Knitting patterns with lots of easy knitting to do have proven too boring for me, and more complicated projects that require focus have been set off to the side because while they’re my jam, they’re not necessarily the things I need to make for my shop. I don’t know why it never really occurred to me previously, but last week, when pressed with the need to do a bunch of boring knitting but also needing to finish a…
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Baptized by the Rain
I want the rain to wash away the dirt and grime of my soul the way it washes the leaf in my garden. I want to stand and sway in the rain, letting the earth cleanse me of all that weighs me down, letting each drip drip drop fall away from me and puddle at my feet. Let my broken and dead branches be pruned in the wind, allowing the weight of those things I have held onto for too long be finally set down so that I might grow and bloom in new ways. I want to raise my arms to that gray stormy sky and be free. Free…
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Bedtime with Buttercup, in 4 frames
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On Depression
I can’t remember a time when I haven’t suffered from some form of depression and anxiety. I’ve always felt everything intensely. My highs are really high, and my lows are dangerously low. I love and give of myself intensely. I feel everything so intensely that sometimes my husband jokes that I have no feelings when we watch a sad movie and I’m not crying, because I’ve spent years trying to not be intense. Elementary school was rough. Middle school was even worse. High school is when the self-harm thoughts began. That stone wall I built into my personality was my attempt to cope and protect myself from the world. I’ve…
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I’m going to go bake a loaf of bread after this.
The weather has turned, and autumn is decidedly on the way. It’s a cool, gray, dreary day in the best kind of way. Declan and I are both home sick today, embracing a day of rest for our infection-fighting bodies instead of feeling the need to power through the day for the sake of productivity. The weather change has me craving soup and homemade bread, wanting to shift away from all the outside activities and turn more inward to focus on home as we begin to go into a period of more indoor living. I’ve canned large batches of tomatoes for winter, jams have been added to the pantry over…
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What’s new, boo?
Apparently, it has been since 2019 that I’ve really and truly blogged. Oops. I don’t need to tell you that a lot has happened since 2019… we’ve all lived with the ‘rona and *waves hand* all of this. I did something super crazy during it all, I’ll admit. Maybe it was just the whole pandemic gave me a fresh perspective on what’s really important in my life, or maybe it was the burnout of working in public health as part of the response team combined with the constant turnover in my department (not to mention feeling completely unappreciated and certainly underpaid)… but I made a leap and opened my own…
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Solstice
This season I am working on slowing down. Simplifying. Buying less, baking less, and just – on the whole – putting far less pressure on myself to create the “perfect” holiday season. Most days I am ok with it. Other days, like today, I find myself jumping in and going overboard again. So far, today, I have baked a gingerbread house for decorating later, baked gingerbread cakelets, made birdseed ornaments for the birds for Solstice, and am currently working on baking through a batch of my great grandma’s chocolate chip cookies. I still have decorating of this gingerbread house to do, and some mint Oreos to dip in chocolate. This…
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And now I can breathe
The semester is FINALLY over, which means I can now go back to a somewhat normal life for the holidays. I’m still awaiting the grade for my final project for the class, but I nailed my final exam with a 98/100 score, so I’m just going to put school out of my mind for a good while and take some time to get caught up on housework, my non-education-related reading, knitting, etc. I am… struggling with the holidays this season. I love the glitter and the lights and the cozy nights with family and friends and the food… and I have found myself outright hating the commercial aspect with gift-giving…
– Handmade in Ohio –
