The third time's a charm!

I considered starting an entirely new blog to cover up my poor blogging track record. But I decided to return to Drawing Near and keep my blogging history intact. The first time I tried blogging, in 2008, I had a newborn daughter and an ambition to blog daily with a different theme for each day of the week. In a word, crazy! My second foray into the blogosphere came in 2009, when I had a toddler and a second newborn daughter. Though more realistic about my blogging schedule this time, I just couldn’t keep up my enthusiasm. I skipped a year and let both my girls get solidly into toddlerhood—they are now 2 and 3—and now I’m ready to try again. This time around I’m not doing a daily theme and I’m not focusing on updates on the girls. Instead, I’m interested in recording my efforts to revive and maintain my identity as a creative spirit in the midst of my roles as wife and mother.

I don’t like to get too caught up in a narrow definition of what it means to be creative, so that if I don’t create an art journal page or work on a collage, I feel like I haven’t been “creative.” I want to recognize all forms of creativity in my life—planning activities with the girls each day; finding some new way to brighten the house or recharge its energy; figuring out how to organize the toys, papers, and other piles that seem to crop up everywhere; planning meals; thinking of some new food, activity, or craft to try. But beyond the everyday creativity required by parenting and “homemaking,” I also want to explore and describe my broadening interests in arts and crafts.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s paper. And beads. And fabric. And paint. And pens. And books. And art journals. And collages. And decoupage. And altered objects. And polymer clay…You get the idea. What I lack in focus, I make up in variety! I have discovered by reading the words of many other blogging moms that I am certainly not alone in trying to enjoy my creative identity and share the fruits of a creative spirit with my children. I am hoping to use this blog to celebrate and explore my creative self.