Well the big news around here is I decided to leave my job at Microsoft. I have felt a little stuck the last little while. While I've never felt more creative, I've also never felt stifled in quite this way before. And not by my job, like so many other creatives who long to go full time freelance but are too worried financially to leave their day job, but actually just by the rules of my work visa. Since I can't really start my own business as a Canadian on a temporary visa living in the U.S., it's either work as a designer for an employer or don't work at all.

I'm truly so lucky to be in a position where I even have this option, and I think about that a lot! My husband is fully supportive and recognizes I needed a break in order to keep being my best self. So at the beginning of June we drove to the border and re-entered the country, except this time I revoked my work visa and am now classified as his dependent.

The goal of all this was to take the summer off, make as much art as I can, get to all the project ideas I've kept in a little spreadsheet but never acted on, all the skills I've wanted to learn and get better at (ceramics, animation, sewing!), and honestly just draw every day, which makes me happiest. That was the goal. I'm almost a month in though and still struggling to find my groove. I got savagely sick the second week in and that threw me for a loop. Now, this past week, I've been prepping to head out for a 10 day trip to meet up with my parents in Yellowstone. By the time I get back it will already be end of June, and I don't know how I'll feel. I'm booked to be away in Canada for most of August too....all of a sudden it feels like it's July or bust for art time. But I'm still hopeful. Every day, I get a bit more "achieved," and feel a bit more of a routine establishing itself. So here's to a restful and inspiring trip in nature, hopefully I'll come home and be raring to get to work.