Hi there! It's been awhile since my fingers have met keys on my creative blog and I'm so glad that you are here reading my words. Didn't it seem like 2022 just flew by? And to think 2023 is just right around the corner. My year was filled with homeschooling and lots of enjoyable readings with my young learners. They are in their tweens so learning and engaging with one another have been such an enjoyment. I love seeing my children create, think, read, and follow their interests. Most of my creative time has been dedicated to my children's art resources and meeting my goal of about 1000 fun, low-prep art activities and resources for kids that even adults will enjoy doing. However, I wanted to switch gears for 2023 and I'm hoping to focus on pursuing one area of creative interests that I've had since I was a kid, and that is to write, illustrate, and publish children's books. I've been putting this on hold for awhile and my creative goals for 2023 are to work on children's books, to take courses that will challenge and push my art skills and to learn about this market. Wish me luck and with that note, I'm wishing you a creative journey in 2023. *Image captured by me, 2022

Since I was a young girl, I've had such a fascination with words and enjoyed writing poetry, journaling or putting my thoughts on paper. Realizing that it was due to my introversion that I find I express myself better on paper (or keyboard keys) than in spoken words was a relief. Lately, life has been challenging and in the busyness of it all, I had to learn to slow down once again. Navigating a chronic illness definitely requires one to slow down. And despite these challenges, I'm grateful to learn to slow down and I'm excited to be able to return to writing when the days aren't so hard. A few months ago I started to write poetry and focused on Haiku poetry, as it uses less words but still challenges creativity. Read more about Haiku here and I hope that you'll challenge yourself and try writing one too. Here's a Haiku I wrote as a tribute to the winter season, which is usually a challenging season for me: