Have You Missed Me?
Do you ever have those moments of sudden realisation that life is spinning by so quickly, that you get scared you'll miss too much if you blink?
That's me today. I was looking at photos to do a post and suddenly realised that it's the end of March. MARCH!!! It literally feels like only a few weeks since we were in America, and I still miss it like crazy.
The weather has finally cooled down a little here. It was so insanely hot that I felt like I was going nuts from sweating all the time. I know that doesn't make sense but it does in my head so that's okay I guess.
Anyway, the last few months have been more hectic than ever; we have so much going on. The Eldest One is in her very last year of high school. It's crazy to think that she turns 18 this year, she is an adult in the eyes of society. I can still remember being 17, hell I can remember being 13 which is the age Miss Emily is now. But my later teens I can recall with such vividness that it seems wrong to say it was 22 years ago.
I guess what scares me most is the sudden knowledge that she is her own person, and very soon will be off living her own life. One that I will play less and less of a role in. That's scary, sad and wonderful all at the same time.
She had her school ball at the very start of the school year, about 6 weeks ago. She looked absolutely stunning. We bought the dress when we were over in the States, at Macys and it is the loveliest dress you've ever seen. Samantha is such a beautiful girl (as all of my babies are), and while learning to be an adult comes with it's own trials, tribulations and mistakes, I know she is going to be a kind, caring and gorgeous woman, both inside and out. Some days I wonder how on earth we will all ever survive teenage girl hormones, but some days I wonder how on earth I got so lucky to have such amazing children. I guess that means I've at least done something right.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Penelope Wonderwoman loved watching Sam get ready for her ball, but then she loves hanging out with her older siblings anytime and all the time. She's so full of personality these days, and full of temper tantrums too. She runs everywhere; she's in a hurry all the time. Unless she's cranky. Then she throws herself on the floor, quite literally mind you, and screams, yells and kicks enough to make me wonder if the neighbours will knock on the door asking what we are doing to our child!!
But on the other side, she is happy, talkative and full of life. She has a great vocabulary now, and she speaks really well for a 20 month old. She won't sit in her high chair, instead she sits at the table (well, stands on a normal chair cause she hasn't learned how to kneel), and eats off big people plates like everyone else. She drinks from a normal cup and refuses to be treated differently than the other kids. She's also pretty stubborn. Not sure where she gets that from......
.JPG)
She loves her Grover and Tigger so much, she sleeps with them everynight. She draws and paints with me in the studio most days, and climbs on everything! We even had to take the side off her cot and convert it to a toddler bed already to save her trying to kill herself falling when she was climbing in and out. Yep, that's right. She would drag stools or chairs or toys, anything she could into her bedroom and use them to climb into her bed, then try to injure herself figuring out how to climb back out. So she sleeps in a bed now and she quite enjoys being able to get herself up in the mornings. Although she has hit me over the head with our Lego Yoda alarm clock more than once, so I don't know if I like it as much!!!
We've also had two birthday parties in the last couple of months: Miss Emily's 13th and Little Dude's 10th. I was amused as I was looking through photos, at the difference in not just boys and girls, but what that couple of years older means in terms of how the kids interact. The girls pretty much spent the entire sleepover party in Em's room. They listened to music, talked, laughed in the way only 13 year old girls can; that scream-laugh that's so high pitched and incredulous but giddy all at the same time, and had phones and iPods out interacting on Instagram and whatever other social media is 'in' right now.
The boys on the other hand, played outside for most of the time. They got saturated playing with water balloons and squirt guns, then had no shyness when the needed to get changed into dry clothes. There were ten year old boys stripping down to almost nakedness all over the house. It was quite disturbing.... They played Nerf wars and shot each other loudly. They farted and became giddy with laughter over it... and didn't shut up the entire night!
And the Social One, what has she been up to? Well, still being pretty damn social!! So much so that as I looked for photos to put up today, I realised that I have very little photos of her from the last few months, and the ones I do have all include one of her siblings. She is never home! She works and when she doesn't she is either in her room being decidedly anti-social, or out with friends. She went on camp with her school soccer program last week, and in July she is heading to New Zealand also with school. They are going skiing for a week. She's very excited of course, and I'm just a little bit jealous. Not that I should ever ski as I would most likely break several limbs given how clumsy and uncoordinated I am. She does take after me, so I am slightly concerned about the possibility of her injuring herself, but she has travel insurance.....
We also finally met 'the boyfriend' in the last couple of months. Myles is his name and while I was initially all 'what?!, NO boyfriend!!!!', he does seem very nice. Eden seems to like him a lot and so I can give myself permission to say it's kind of cute. Here they are:
It's a terrible photo cause I swiped it from her facebook page. But that's cause she's never home to take photos of!!!!!!!
I've also been doing a lot of artwork over the last few months and I have a lot of stuff in the works.
One of those things is an arts festival in Minnesota in September! It's the Lakeville Arts Festival held over the weekend of the 19th and 20th. It's juried so I have to apply to participate. This is great because it ensures a high quality of artists are included and it is awesome to be able to put that you were successfully chosen on your art resume. I'll keep you updated, but if I get in the Awesome One, myself and the two youngest kidlets will make the trip. :)
I also have work now in a brand new gallery here in Western Australia. It's called the Artisan Store and I have several pieces on their walls. I'm also their first feature artist! If you want to have a look at their website, you can by clicking HERE. As I'd like to make the trip very worthwhile, if any of you lovely readers out there have any gallery/arts connections that you'd be happy to pass on to me I will very gratefully accept them!
Amongst several other projects I am simultaneously working on, the biggest is a joint project with a local textile artist. We are planning a major exhibition that will look at the perceptions of, and expectations placed on and from girls and women within society and social media. It's a huge project and we will be looking for funding through grants and crowdfunding in order to pull it off. We're hoping to exhibit it in Fremantle around International Womens' Day in March next year. It'll be such a major step in my art career, it'll be worth working on it for 12 months!
I've been running an art journal challenge online as well that I know some of you have been participating in. It's free and totally online. Each week I post a different topic and you create a page in a journal for that topic. It's easy, and a good way of incorporating some creativity into your life! I've had so much amazing feedback from people who have been saying how happy it's made them, how thankful they are that they are part of it, and how much they've enjoyed the non competitive and encouraging environment! If you have a facebook account and you'd like to have a look at it and join in yourself, just click HERE to go straight to the album with all the weekly challenges in it. :)
So on that note, I'll finish this not so short update on us with a few photos of work I've done recently.
This is a piece made from gesso, ink and wax. It's my version of the Tree of Life.
This was a commission, it's ink and wax.
Minneapolis stone arch bridge - wax and ink
This is kind of like an inner self portrait. It's me but not me, as in I didn't intentionally draw me it was someone else. But it represents me in the way I feel hence the inner self portrait. Yeah... I know, I'm a little nuts. It's okay.
Some Jim Morrison anyone?
Couldn't resist including this one of the Awesome One. Cause he really is kind of awesome. :)
And lastly, a photo of my work (and me) at The Artisan Store Gallery. :)
Until next time, I hope everyone is having an awesome time, whatever it is you're doing!
That's me today. I was looking at photos to do a post and suddenly realised that it's the end of March. MARCH!!! It literally feels like only a few weeks since we were in America, and I still miss it like crazy.
The weather has finally cooled down a little here. It was so insanely hot that I felt like I was going nuts from sweating all the time. I know that doesn't make sense but it does in my head so that's okay I guess.
Anyway, the last few months have been more hectic than ever; we have so much going on. The Eldest One is in her very last year of high school. It's crazy to think that she turns 18 this year, she is an adult in the eyes of society. I can still remember being 17, hell I can remember being 13 which is the age Miss Emily is now. But my later teens I can recall with such vividness that it seems wrong to say it was 22 years ago.
I guess what scares me most is the sudden knowledge that she is her own person, and very soon will be off living her own life. One that I will play less and less of a role in. That's scary, sad and wonderful all at the same time.
She had her school ball at the very start of the school year, about 6 weeks ago. She looked absolutely stunning. We bought the dress when we were over in the States, at Macys and it is the loveliest dress you've ever seen. Samantha is such a beautiful girl (as all of my babies are), and while learning to be an adult comes with it's own trials, tribulations and mistakes, I know she is going to be a kind, caring and gorgeous woman, both inside and out. Some days I wonder how on earth we will all ever survive teenage girl hormones, but some days I wonder how on earth I got so lucky to have such amazing children. I guess that means I've at least done something right.
Penelope Wonderwoman loved watching Sam get ready for her ball, but then she loves hanging out with her older siblings anytime and all the time. She's so full of personality these days, and full of temper tantrums too. She runs everywhere; she's in a hurry all the time. Unless she's cranky. Then she throws herself on the floor, quite literally mind you, and screams, yells and kicks enough to make me wonder if the neighbours will knock on the door asking what we are doing to our child!!
But on the other side, she is happy, talkative and full of life. She has a great vocabulary now, and she speaks really well for a 20 month old. She won't sit in her high chair, instead she sits at the table (well, stands on a normal chair cause she hasn't learned how to kneel), and eats off big people plates like everyone else. She drinks from a normal cup and refuses to be treated differently than the other kids. She's also pretty stubborn. Not sure where she gets that from......
She loves her Grover and Tigger so much, she sleeps with them everynight. She draws and paints with me in the studio most days, and climbs on everything! We even had to take the side off her cot and convert it to a toddler bed already to save her trying to kill herself falling when she was climbing in and out. Yep, that's right. She would drag stools or chairs or toys, anything she could into her bedroom and use them to climb into her bed, then try to injure herself figuring out how to climb back out. So she sleeps in a bed now and she quite enjoys being able to get herself up in the mornings. Although she has hit me over the head with our Lego Yoda alarm clock more than once, so I don't know if I like it as much!!!
 |
| Surprised Penelope |
 |
| Inquisitive Penelope |
 |
| Happy Penelope |
 |
| Angry Penelope |
 |
| Woe-is-me Penelope |
We've also had two birthday parties in the last couple of months: Miss Emily's 13th and Little Dude's 10th. I was amused as I was looking through photos, at the difference in not just boys and girls, but what that couple of years older means in terms of how the kids interact. The girls pretty much spent the entire sleepover party in Em's room. They listened to music, talked, laughed in the way only 13 year old girls can; that scream-laugh that's so high pitched and incredulous but giddy all at the same time, and had phones and iPods out interacting on Instagram and whatever other social media is 'in' right now.
The boys on the other hand, played outside for most of the time. They got saturated playing with water balloons and squirt guns, then had no shyness when the needed to get changed into dry clothes. There were ten year old boys stripping down to almost nakedness all over the house. It was quite disturbing.... They played Nerf wars and shot each other loudly. They farted and became giddy with laughter over it... and didn't shut up the entire night!
We also finally met 'the boyfriend' in the last couple of months. Myles is his name and while I was initially all 'what?!, NO boyfriend!!!!', he does seem very nice. Eden seems to like him a lot and so I can give myself permission to say it's kind of cute. Here they are:
It's a terrible photo cause I swiped it from her facebook page. But that's cause she's never home to take photos of!!!!!!!
I've also been doing a lot of artwork over the last few months and I have a lot of stuff in the works.
One of those things is an arts festival in Minnesota in September! It's the Lakeville Arts Festival held over the weekend of the 19th and 20th. It's juried so I have to apply to participate. This is great because it ensures a high quality of artists are included and it is awesome to be able to put that you were successfully chosen on your art resume. I'll keep you updated, but if I get in the Awesome One, myself and the two youngest kidlets will make the trip. :)
I also have work now in a brand new gallery here in Western Australia. It's called the Artisan Store and I have several pieces on their walls. I'm also their first feature artist! If you want to have a look at their website, you can by clicking HERE. As I'd like to make the trip very worthwhile, if any of you lovely readers out there have any gallery/arts connections that you'd be happy to pass on to me I will very gratefully accept them!
Amongst several other projects I am simultaneously working on, the biggest is a joint project with a local textile artist. We are planning a major exhibition that will look at the perceptions of, and expectations placed on and from girls and women within society and social media. It's a huge project and we will be looking for funding through grants and crowdfunding in order to pull it off. We're hoping to exhibit it in Fremantle around International Womens' Day in March next year. It'll be such a major step in my art career, it'll be worth working on it for 12 months!
I've been running an art journal challenge online as well that I know some of you have been participating in. It's free and totally online. Each week I post a different topic and you create a page in a journal for that topic. It's easy, and a good way of incorporating some creativity into your life! I've had so much amazing feedback from people who have been saying how happy it's made them, how thankful they are that they are part of it, and how much they've enjoyed the non competitive and encouraging environment! If you have a facebook account and you'd like to have a look at it and join in yourself, just click HERE to go straight to the album with all the weekly challenges in it. :)
So on that note, I'll finish this not so short update on us with a few photos of work I've done recently.
This was a commission, it's ink and wax.
Minneapolis stone arch bridge - wax and ink
This is kind of like an inner self portrait. It's me but not me, as in I didn't intentionally draw me it was someone else. But it represents me in the way I feel hence the inner self portrait. Yeah... I know, I'm a little nuts. It's okay.
Some Jim Morrison anyone?
Couldn't resist including this one of the Awesome One. Cause he really is kind of awesome. :)
And lastly, a photo of my work (and me) at The Artisan Store Gallery. :)
Until next time, I hope everyone is having an awesome time, whatever it is you're doing!
Comments
Post a Comment