Flash Forward

So it's been quiet a while since I have done this, forgive if I'm a little rusty, but there is a lot to report since I last paid this blog a visit. Over a year ago I learned I had landed my first teaching job and now here I am into the first week of my completetion of my first year of teaching...and boy am I exhausted. To put into words all that has happened in this past year would be near to impossible. The past 9 months have changed my life in ways I could never explain. I have learned so much, I have worked my body to exhaustion, I have pushed my sanity to its limits, but I can honestly say I truly love teaching. It is the hardest job out there for sure, and people that don't teach can never understand. My life has been changed and has changed 300 little lives. I know every one by name, I have spent countless hours trying to find ways to convince them that Art can change their lives, and I can honestly say that I have seen an evolution in them.
But now it's summer, and time to wind down and have some time for myself.... all by myself. The one thing I can explain about being a teacher, is the longing and loving of having ones own space and quiet in the world. And that what I have done all week... just slept, and listened to music, and enjoyed the quiet. I feel bad because I have friends texting to do things and go out, but for now I need to wind down, rest, let me nerves settle and my mind ease. Teaching puts you on constant alert and it takes some getting used to, to not have to entertain, teach, and parent 300+ kiddos.
So here's to the start of my summer, and some much need me time!

This is the first day of the rest of my life...

I have taken 24 days of my life and put all my energy into find a teaching job. I have not let myself paint, or draw, or blog, or work on my website, just job hunting. And today after the long and winding road of trying to get a professional job to call my own, I was offered a teaching job at 8 am this morning. I got to visit my future classroom, heard the words salary and benefits, oh my god! I can't believe this is real, but at the same time it feels so natural. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and every thing I have ever wanted out of my life is obtainable. So here it to the beginning of the rest of my life, now I can relax and enjoy the rest of my summer in peace!!!

Manic Creative Energy

Man my brain is swirling around with ideas and things I want to accomplish that my brain might burst with excitement and anticipation!!!!!
So before that happened I decided to jot down my ideas before I forget them all in this surge of ambition.

First and foremost I want to use my art to help people, since an art therapy certification is not in the cards for me right now, I want to try to change the world one tiny way at a time, here are the bare bones of my ideas

• Paint bowls to donate or sell to raise money for local animal shelters


• Sell some artwork to donate money to the Animal Rescue for the recent oil spill


• Get some celebrity bowls signed for Empty Bowl Project


• Raise some money to help rebuild the playground at Brooke Elementary


• Host a fundraiser for an OCD organization

Uhhfooo breathe.

On top of that I also want to start chipping out a place in the art community for myself. I want to create products to sell at festivals. Get prints made of some of my artwork I cannot part with, and really try and get out there and develop skills, including

• Caricaturing, and drawing pets


• Exploring my love for making cute ceramics


• Learning to make jewelry


• Having a show of my own


• Writing / illustrating a children's book

And on top of all these things, I just want someone to give me a real teaching job, so I can have a stable permanent home and have that part of my life mapped out and in place.

ahhh there now I wont forget anything.

reinVENTING

Haven't wrote in a while for fear of breaking on of my resolutions, dwelling on the negative, but I realize that I have to vent and get it out somehow, for it has stunted my creative growth and therefore caused me to not make art or write for weeks. So right now I'm sad, my favorite cat disappeared and hasn't come home, job hunting is awful, makes me feel like an unorganized cow, and I had been feeling like a sloth. I know now reading this it could be worse, but I get stuck in a rut and I'm ready to snap out of it. This week has been alot better, I started working out and eating better. This has given me more energy to brainstorm and find new ways to deal with my unhappiness. I have a new plan of action for finding a job, no more of these cattle call job fairs, its time to take a more personal approach and not worry about whose shoes I might step on. I have found a creative project to deal with the loss of my Chu, and allowed myself to be devastated no matter what others think. What people don't understand is that I lived on my own for many years and the only company I had through all of Jeff's absentances were my pets, and now my Chu who I had for 5 years since she was a little Christmas kitten chewing on my belt, being toted around in my purse, sitting in the passengers seat of my car cat is gone. Time to move on, think I'm gonna volunteer at the animal shelter this summer, help other kitty find homes. Anyhoo, just feeling blue, tomorrow will be a better day...

Reclaiming My Youth

I've decided to try to reconnect with my high school self. I realized looking through a bin filled with letters, artwork, poetry, and pictures of my teenage self, how much I missed that girl. She was so sincere and romantic, reading poems that I wrote and so fearlessly put out there, make me blush and cringe now. And they shouldn't, the old me wasn't afraid to love whole-heartedly, and be a little dramatic, and see the movie magic moments in the everyday life. When I was younger I was a dreamer, and a big old mush, I'm going to try to reconnect with that part of myself before I became jaded by the real world. This could be fun, most of my close friends never knew me when I was a writer, wanting to live in the dessert in New Mexico and write movies and learn how to paint. I'm going to try once a week to put some of my old self out there, I want to be that girl again!

This was my favorite piece or artwork I made my senior year, the one and only year I took an art class in high school. It's a mono print that I went back over with chalk, it was shown at the AISD end of the year student art show.

Spring Break

Spring Break for me came a week early, I had a very soothing spiritual trip to the beach. I tried all week after to put it into words why and how the ocean is so healing and helpful for me and all the things I did and learned in the 3 days I was away, but I just couldn't. Sometimes I think it is better to just experience, rather than try to capture or document. I think this photo and quote do it best...

-Everything in life can be heal by saltwater

Whether through sweat, tears, or sea.

Farewell to February

With the end of another month just checking my resolutions to make sure I'm keeping them in tact. I succeeded in making 2 artworks a weeks, experimented with mediums and ideas I had wanted to for a while and didn't question if it was stupid or silly. Been keeping up with my blog, I realize that the writing everyday would be way to hard to keep up with, so as long as I blog a few times a week I feel happy with myself. Bank account still in the positive, paying my bills, treating myself to art supplies and movies when I'm good. Still no small shoes! Planning my first trip for the year, to the beach here I come, where hopefully I will get some time to tan and finish my book that I started in January, ugg the only resolution I have been bad on, reading! I am such a ridiculously slow reader, I relish every word, it takes me forever to get through a book. It's okay, to make up for each month I don't finish a book I have to double up for the following, so I am now making myself responsible for finishing the current book and two others by the end of this month. Lastly for getting active in the community, I'm in the beginning stages of two projects I want to make happen. The first, to collaborate with an old friend on a new mural for our elementary school. The second is to paint and sell custom dog and cat dishes, then for all profits to be donated to different animal shelters and clinics. Well yey for another month, let the good times keep coming.

P.S: Plus I passed my final certification test, I can officially teach in Texas as of February 19th!