Glow by Lady E

  There are days when I paint strawberries. Not because I need a strawberry illustration. Not because I have a product in mind. Not because I am developing a collection, creating content, testing a concept, or planning to sell anything afterward. Sometimes I paint strawberries because I want to see if I can paint them differently each time. Sometimes I put blobs of paint on the paper and let the blobs determine the strawberry’s shape.  And sometimes that is enough. I think we have become far too practiced at asking what everything is for . What will this become? Can I monetize it? Can I post it? Can I turn it into content? Can I sell it? Can I teach it? Can I build something around it? Even joy has somehow acquired a business plan. A hobby cannot simply be a hobby anymore. It has to become a side hustle. A quiet afternoon becomes a content opportunity. A new skill becomes something we should master. A beautiful moment becomes something we instinctively reach for our phones to ...

  Lately, I’ve been letting myself have crushes again. Not necessarily on people. Although, apparently, Siri has other ideas. (Siri is hijacking my playlist as I write this. Flooding me with 70s to 90s love songs. 🙄) I mean the small kind of crushes. The ones that make you linger a little longer. Pick something up just to look at it. Think about it later for no particularly sensible reason. The kind that make an ordinary afternoon feel just a little more interesting. I have a crush on reading again. For a while, books had started to feel almost like another item on a list. Something I should make time for. Something good for me. Something productive. I was a voracious reader from childhood to my 20s.  But life got in the way -  Mommyhood, priorities change, careers, homeschool.  And then somewhere along the way, I started wanting them again. Wanting to disappear into another world for a few chapters. Wanting to sit somewhere quiet with a book in my hand and nowhere ...