Gratitude, Self Care, and New Art for 2025

How is April nearly over already?

So much has been happening over the past 3 months, but so far 2025 has been all about self care and gratitude.

What is Self Care?

For me, self care is focusing on all the things to better your own health and wellbeing. I’ve been scheduling bi-weekly massages with my favorite massage therapist, Janell at Guided Hands Therapeutic Massage here in New Bern. I tend to carry all of my stress in my shoulders and Janell does a great job of helping me relieve my stress.

I’ve also found a wonderful new menopause specialist who has helped me get my menopause symptoms under control. Derek did some research and was able to find Dr. Knuckles up in Greenville, NC for me via the NAMS website (North American Menopause Society). She has helped me nearly eliminate my night sweats and hot flashes. I’ve finally got energy back now that I’m actually getting better sleep at night. It’s amazing how much better you feel with a good nights sleep.

Derek and I have also joined our local gym in our neighborhood. We go three times a week; he swims in the morning and I go and walk on the treadmill. I usually enjoy walking outside through our neighborhood, but with the pollen and heat (yes, heat already), I struggle to enjoy the walk outside. So, the gym is the next best thing.

We are starting to fill up our Gratitude Jar… trying to write down what we are grateful for every day (if we remember) and toss it into our jar. If you missed my story about the gratitude jar and how we got started with it, check it out in my last post (see link above by clicking on gratitude jar).

Goals for 2025

One of my goals I set for myself for the 2025 new year was to read more.

As of today, I’ve finished one book and I’m nearly halfway through my second book. Both are art related of course, but they are awesome and I highly recommend them.

First book: “Art For Your Sanity — How art journaling can help you manage chaos and unleash joy” by Susan Hensley. It’s a quick read, wonderful paperback with so much information on how to navigate life changes. And you don’t even have to know how to draw to get so much out of this book. It’s all about how to cultivate mindfulness, work on your self-compassion, and how to build a healthy relationship with your inner critic.

Second book: “We Need Your Art — Stop messing around and make something” by Amie McNee. Another awesome book on how to stop procrastinating and get busy making your art. Any kind of art! Whether you’re a writer, musician, painter, dancer, etc. This author grabs you by the shoulders and tells you how to get out of your own way and get past your insecurities and self-doubts. It’s a must read for any artist!!

My third book on the list for this year, I haven’t started it yet, but I hope to start it soon is: “The ONE Thing — The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results” by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. It comes highly recommended by a couple of my art business friends. I can’t wait to dig in and learn how to do more with fewer distractions. Authors talk about how to cut through the clutter of everyday life and achieve better results in less time. As well as how to dial down stress!! I NEED to dial down my stress, that is for sure. I look forward to giving you my review soon.

Surface Pattern Design Update

YEP, I’m still pursuing this dream of becoming a surface pattern designer. Click the link to see my previous post announcing this ambitious dream back in 2022.

I signed up for Bonnie Christine’s Immersion course again this year as an alumni. Now that Derek and I are settled here in New Bern, and not moving again (at least not for the moment), I have been able to knuckle down and focus on this amazing online course and I am all about learning Adobe Illustrator and learning how to make repeat patterns. With any luck, I hope to start pitching my artwork soon to stationary, home decor, and fabric companies. I have my online portfolio built and now I just need to get my new pattern artwork into the portfolio and send out the pitches. Below is a sample of one of my new patterns.

I’m also taking Juliet Meeks’ “Licensing for Artists” course as an alumni in May. I’m looking forward to brushing up on my research and putting together a pitch email. I really need to learn how to best research the companies that fit my style and figure out how to find the art directors for these companies. Juliet is so good at this and is a wonderful instructor. I can’t wait to combine my efforts from both Bonnie and Juliet’s courses and make a go of my licensing dream.

Juliet is also offering a FREE workshop called “Get Ready to License” starting April 29th and runs through May 1st. So, if you’re interested in learning more about the process of licensing your art, her workshop would be a great FREE resource to see how the process is done. As an alumni, I’ll be glad to answer any questions you may have about her course.

In Other Art News…

I’ve moved out of my downtown New Bern studio at the end of March. We moved all of my art supplies back home. I’m now working from home once again. My studio mate, Veronica, and I decided that with all the uncertainty of the current economic times, it was best for us to give up our beloved studio space and move everything back home. It was a difficult decision but one we felt was necessary.

We were both undecided for various reasons as we both loved having the space to meet, work, and collaborate together, but costs (especially the utilities) were just going up and up and we hadn’t been able to sell enough artwork to constitute staying.

We keep in touch and try to meet up regularly for coffee and/or a hot chocolate to discuss art. We also text regularly. So, life is good.

Roy-G-Biv Art Show

Veronica and I are both entering the Roy-G-Biv art show again this year at the Bank of the Arts in downtown New Bern. It’s a fabulous show all about color. Roy-G-Biv stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, in which the sequence represents the colors of the visible spectrum, from lowest to highest frequency. Each entrant receives a 12’x12″ art board and an assignment of color. My color is Red this year and I have made a beautiful linocut block print design for the show. The show opens May 9th. Stop by and see the show if you’re in New Bern!!

The Next Big Adventure

Next week, Derek and I are taking a much needed vacation!! Derek has been planning this for many months and it’s finally here! We’re heading to Scotland!! This trip is basically the honeymoon we never took and includes a 7 day train trip around the Hebridean Islands and also visits with Derek’s family.

We are planning on going with backpacks! No checked luggage for us! We want to make the trip as easy as possible, without the hassle of having to check luggage and the airlines possibly losing it along the way. Taking our backpacks with us makes for easier connections and we don’t have to wait at baggage claim when we reach our destination.

Derek wrote up an entire blog post on the top rated backpacks for travel. Be sure to check out his post on his Atlantic Destinations blog: 8 of the Best Backpacks for Air Travel. Derek has and uses the Osprey backpack and loves it.

I have bought and used the Thule Aion backpack. Although I found it worked well, it was a bit heavier than I had hoped and the pack itself is a bit bulky and was difficult to get into the small overhead bins on the smaller jets.

So, this trip I am trying the Cotopaxi Allpa, which by the way is so colorful!! Each Cotopaxi backpack is hand made, comes in a variety of fun colors, and no two packs are alike. I can’t wait to give you my review.

New Bakery in Town!

We have discovered a new (well new to us) local bakery in Bridgeton, just around the corner from our home. Our kitty sitter, Patty, recommended this amazing bakery called Back Street Bakery. Let me just say, Kimberly and Sophia are absolutely the nicest people you could ever meet and the treats are out of this world fabulous! I highly recommend you stop by if you’re in the area. Please tell them I sent you.

Happy Spring & Easter!

Wishing everyone a wonderful spring and happy Easter! Thank you for continuing to follow me on my artistic journey. If you are interested in reading my future topics, please subscribe below and share my blog with your friends.

Sending love and positive energy your way. I’ll write again soon.