sugar city journal

Dear Melissa,

I'm very happy that you are blogging again. It's just not the same without you out there on the other end. I've really missed the fun of an ongoing shared project with you... I'm always motivated by your creativity and what you produce. You push me to think and try things that I otherwise wouldn't do or learn about, and I love that. It's so important to keep your inner life alive, don't you think?

Over the year I have thought a lot about letting the blog go as I've gotten busier with my family, or at points when the whole thing started to feel tired and overworked and stagnant. A fresh start feels good. For me, what I am constantly trying to figure out is balance - elusive, right? - and I feel like I can use this blog as a tool to help find it. I love the idea of sometimes painting, sometimes reading/discussing, and sometimes family life and things home-related (I do love a good home design blog). After reading your last post I foraged through my dusty garage and dug out my oil paints and supplies, and have been working on a few cloud pictures. I will show you when I finish. You are right, oil paints do smell so good.

The book...The Inferno - yipes! Daunting!! But in a good way. I think that has been on many a reading list I've been given in my life and I've only ever really read excerpts. I think it's poetry appreciation month or something coming up - (is Dante poetry? I have no idea but it seems like it is)... Speaking of poetry another author I'd like to spend some time with is Mary Oliver, or even revisit Shakespeare. How many pages is The Inferno? That might be the deciding factor for me. :) I will google. {More ideas, people?}

Love,
Lynne

(p.s., I re-opened my little shop, this time on etsy. It is kind of a random collection of this and that.)