Little baby MNJ, 10 months

MNJ wearing his Halloween bear suit, 14 months

While Celeste is out of the house I am "babysitting"... or really Auntie-ing... while the boys are asleep. I thought I would put up a post before sitting down to draw, and I've been here all night. I've had a lot of posts floating around this week after all the excitement of Crafty Wonderland... a whole handful of drafts in the background back here. For tonight, I'd much rather follow my thoughts........ . . . .

Why does this blog keep turning into a discussion on change? Where is my period of "sweet savoring" (I recently read these words and they have stayed with me, a goal I'm looking forward to with certainty)? It must be because, since 2007 and the opening of these adventures in creativity and childcare, that changeable life is the one I've chosen. We've chosen. It must be a part of saying "I will be an artist" or "I will be a parent" (I'm an Aunt, but I'm writing this in regards to both my own, and my sister's, experience) to open yourself up to this Rubik cube feeling on constantly shifting views, circumstances, emotions, abilities, energy.

SL around 10 months, when I stopped taking pictures because my camera broke

SL in October 2009, 14 months old

So what about life now? What is working and what has not worked (and what are we still striving for)?

These sweet boys are honestly in my thoughts 24/7. My nephews have just turned 15 months old, and I can say for sure that they've entered a point where I can't clearly remember what they were like as infants. Isn't that weird!? How *fast* that happens? What is 15 months but a small blink of time, except every time I look back I feel humbled by the incredible enterprise we're undertaking here, together, and in our own individual lives. I feel even more floored when I think of how much is yet to come. These babies remind us, at the best of times, just how full of miraculous possibility life really is.

There is also never, really, any longer a time that goes by when I am not aware that I'm a small business owner. As I've mentioned before, my hours have (blessedly) increased to full time at my place of work, so that finding time and resources for my Etsy work has been the name of the game ever since. I like to feel challenged, and I feel as though I am learning in-step with the changes going on in my job, how to continue to be an Etsy artist.

However, out of the post-Crafty Wonderland experience has come a flood of inspired thought I'm desperate to find a way to make real. And there lies the quandary; working full time and running the shop are possible running parallel to each other, but where does the new work fit into that? This is the next hurdle to leap. Or, maybe it has been for a while. Maybe this need to "find time" to make art, draw, paint is really becoming insistent. I mention it again because that one is still mysterious and elusive.

I think to myself, what if these boys grow up to be artists? What will my story be to them? What if I have children someday, wouldn't I want to teach them that art is a trustworthy, worthwhile endeavor? Wouldn't it be nice to be profitable, healthy, intelligent, and happy in my business of art not just for my own benefit? Isn't that what my parents want for me?

It's interesting, to write those words and think- what if, just maybe, after these 2.5 years of working at this... what if the confidence and the ability to thrive from my own art as a career were right around the corner?