This is my first blog post, ever. I pay for a website to highlight my work and bring more customers to my Etsy shop. That’s what the website is for and I admit, I am a terrible business person and I always fail to utilize the resources that I pay for to enhance and amplify my business. SO I thought I would give this old fashioned blog post thing a try….is it even worth it in this day and age? Do people even read these now? What would I even write? I spend a lot of time thinking. Thinking about the chores I need to accomplish, the food that needs making, the advice I give to my kids, the creative ideas I have in my head that 95% of the time go unused and unutilized. Sometimes I record ideas on my phone, or write them down, or draw them out in my sketch book….but sadly most of my creative ideas die in the ether between lunch and dinner.  I live in a quiet bubble of small town, homeschooling and home business thoughts. I am pretty sure I have ADHD but it would seem that’s not terribly special or unique of artists in general. Most of us are a giant bunch of jumbled distracted messes, and snatching just one idea a week out of the ether to make it real seems like a winning situation for me. I can only imagine if I could act or solidify the other 95% of those thoughts and ideas that rush to me before breakfast. My studio would be overflowing!!!! But art making is not necessarily about productivity, and not every idea is necessarily a good one. Some things are best left in the Ether.  SO blog writing as a middle aged, somewhat surviving financially, somewhat popular locally, ADHD random thinking and introverted creative artist seems like a great idea right? Why not?  It’s making some of those thoughts real, welcoming strangers, friends and family into the void of my mind where I am alone to ponder it all. Maybe it will at least entertain you if not draw a few sales to my shop right? As one good at marketing friend once told me” Everything is an opportunity to make a business connection and a sale!” Perhaps this will not only speak to you all on a sales level (buy my stuff please!) but on a personal one too? Don’t we all feel the same collective grief over these changing and challenging times, trying to think of new ways (or really old ones like blogs…lol) of connecting to our audience and in the process supporting one another emotionally and financially through this slog? Wow, this first blog post is turning out to be pretty depresso espresso! Sorry about that. I thought I would approach it like a diary or a manifesto? Something that tells my story, and makes you see yours like a mirror perhaps. Would it sound cliché to say “we are all in this together?”  In some ways I feel like the bubble I have been living in makes me feel very distant and separate. Lately I keep making concerted efforts to burst it though. Attending local art shows, applying for other local and regional art shows, going to openings to meet “my people”. I joined the local art club last year (Sylvan Lake Art Society) and I really feel like it has opened some doors. Doors inside myself and doors within the community. I also made a conscious decision to quit complaining about the volunteer situations I find myself in as a parent and instead look at those as opportunities to meet some more of “my people”. Giving of your time to benefit your children is incredibly rewarding if you frame it in your mind that it’s also benefitting you as well as your child. For years I found it burdensome, like it was taking time away from my own pursuits. Then I realized that your children are the greatest pursuit and my creative energy can be directed to other things and feel just as satisfying. “Making” is like a high you see… the best kind of endorphin rush there is. I became selfish for it. Addicted to it. And then I learned that using your gift to enhance your community, your children’s lives through their pursuits was a long lasting high that is sustained. You can just see it in their faces. And that is ENOUGH. I guess what I am getting at is that I have changed, and have been changed through time. I might give that credit to homeschooling or being a working artist but I think it was just part of my journey and I had to arrive here in my own natural time.  Productivity as a creative is not the end goal, how many paintings you make in a week does not a better artist make. It only steals all the creative juices away from you thinking about how to be more productive and honestly the work ends up suffering. It lacks passion and depth when you are doing it for the volume and not for the joy. I choose Joy. It sounds facetious and trite but it’s simple.  Anyways, if you made it this far, thank you for joining me on this long disjointed rant as an opening to blogging in 2026 when blogging seems like it’s really not a thing. If only one of you read this, I am grateful for your time, as I know it’s precious.  Stay tuned for the next post, I might tell you something about myself and not just rant about productivity and volunteering at your kids schools…lol Stay classy and sassy!