Juniper was born one year ago. Life sure is different than I’d imagined in many ways — but at the same time not. I knew it would be unimaginable to some degree, so this is just what unimaginable looks like. I like it. I’m madly in love with my daughter. The one painful part of the year was learning how to let go of über productive Alanna and let the mommy in me get some breathing room. I finally learned to stop fighting against the tide when Juniper was about 9 months, and it was just about then that she started blossoming with independence. She got much happier once she could get herself around and she enjoys hanging out with her nanny more now than when she was little. They have great 5 hour adventures once a week and she comes home happy as a lark.
I was fighting for time and energy to do my own things. I didn’t want to see an entire year of my life vanished completely to baby stuff. That sounds a bit awful and selfish to me in some ways. But I think it’s important for Juniper that I have my own life, and for some reason I was obsessed over this idea that if I lost a year, I’d just completely loose all momentum art-wise and never get it back. I now know I can never loose it, heck even if I wanted to I can’t. I do feel unfocused a bit, but I move forward, however slow.
So as a favor to myself, I wanted to make a list of things I’ve accomplished this year.
- 16×16 mosaic of an egret. A test for a fireplace mosaic I want to do when Juniper is old enough to be around broken glass
- Took 2 fused glass classes at Aquila. Started making pollinator pendants with images of bees, moths and butterflies. Still perfecting the image and the right kind of necklace to use
- Made three small fused glass platters
- Made some fused glass mosaic pendants for necklaces
- Took a glassblowing “class”, really a hands-on demo
- Did some drawings and sketches in sketchbooks
- Did several small music maps
- Finished two encaustic paintings, which may be in season two of Portlandia
- Sold a drawing to a design firm for an architecture book
- Tried some wood burnishing on a Christmas tree I sawed up.
- Expanded the front garden
- Painted an old bookshelf and started a little vegetable bed. Harvested lots of kale, bok choy, and spinach out of it.
- Worked on the back garden, added a shade perennials area
- Built a bamboo fence to keep Mississippi out of my garden areas
- Expanded the vegetable garden in the backyard. planted 8 tomatoes which are currently going gangbusters, plus cucumbers which are doing well and bell peppers which are not doing a thing
- Started a garden plot with my neighbor at a community garden a few blocks away
- Canned blueberries and canelinni beans
- Made a whole lot of delicious food for my family, nearly every night
- Made my own baby food
- Saw lots of art shows, just less than usual
- Made two skirts
- Worked on Juniper’s hexagon quilt
- Hemmed two tableclothes and 6 napkins from Ikea fabric. Wait, make that three tableclothes and a bunch more napkins
- Took a sewing class
- Made my baby’s first birthday cupcake
- Kept a blog for Juniper
- Made living room curtains
- Lots of work on the house (painted studio, my office, screen door)
- Made homemade dog treats for Mississippi
- lots of walking, hiking, and picture taking
- Made a bunch of flannel diapers
- Made a diaper changing pad
- Sewed an iPad cover
- Went to Boston by myself to visit a friend
- Went to New Jersey for Thanksgiving with Tom’s family
- Visited San Francisco
- Drove to Bend for the weekend
- Weekend at the coast
- Day at the beach
- Took Juniper to swim lessons and took her swimming lots
- Had a surprise party for Tom’s 40th birthday
