So it's been awhile

I started this blog with the highest of hopes, because it would force me to practice my hands at the arts I love the most, most notably photography and culinary arts. I'm not formally trained in anything, just a girl stumbling along, documenting the learning process.

Then last year, my father died. I shut down. From that dark day in June until after New Years 2013, I don't remember much about anything.

Arts wise, I continued with my ceramics class and made a beautiful garden lantern as well as a whimsical teapot set, both of which I will post about later, and I also took an entry level drawing class, which has helped me immensely.

I am now in a place where I feel less vulnerable about the death of my father, and I think I'm where I can start sharing again. I take each day one at a time, and I make sure that I am taking care of myself as well. Dad's death nearly killed me. I was in horrible physical and mental shape immediately afterwards. I'm much better now, in a beget head space as well as over the initial bout of grief that comes after the death of somebody so close.

I also started eating a ketogenic diet, which is a variant of a low carb diet, so I'll have more recipes to share as I experiment with low carb variations of foods I like.

2013 is a promising year, and I look forward to expanding my horizons and documenting the learning process.

Life is beautiful.

Hello, 2012!

I am a slacker.

At least when it comes to updating this thing, indeed I am. I have been busy otherwise, with baking and cooking, working on my first quilt (ran out of cloth and still need to buy batting), sewing other projects (I made my first dog collar last night and it's adorable!), and putting away all traces of the 2011 holidays.

I still need to learn how to edit photos from mobile uploads but I suspect I'll end up using my DSLR more often since the picture quality on my phone is terrible. It's very grainy, vintage 70s colouring with faded tones in the wrong spots and that's without even trying to make it look that way, ala retro photo apps and editing.

I also ordered business cards from VistaPrint. Not that I plan on using this site as a business, but simply so that when I gift something I make, I can stick one of those cards in with the package. I think I picked a design that's playful and whimsical enough to match the intent of what I'm doing here, and soon I'll update the banner and background to match. Oh, and I made a Twitter account for this site as well.

I guess I'm making this official then. But there is so much to do, so much to update, blog pages to create, css sheets to design for the functionality of this site. That's also not counting everything I'm trying to keep up with in my offline life.

One thing at a time.