I know I owe you another entry, but I have been so busy and well, today is my birthday. Yep 32. One year before the age my mom was when, as a little girl I thought, "Wow! is THAT old!" I can remember her wearing this very 70's red shirt too. But I digress.

Here I am. 32 and what a year I have had. I went from moments of utter happiness to utter sadness. (Don't we all?) I had moments were I gave up this whole crazy dog thing, to opening up a studio and gallery devoted completely to it. Who knew? Certainly not I. I have been going back through old journals and found lists of things I wanted to accomplish. These were from when my kids were so small and I remember constanly feeling like a failure because I couldn't manage to make any of them happen. "I AM an artist, I NEED to create, please God just give the opportunity!!", I would desperately scrawl. Then in the very next entry I would describe Sophie smiling in her sleep, her big chubby baby hand curled up around her ear. Or watching Noah drift off to sleep, fighting it every moment of the way.(he still does.) I am so glad I wrote about these moments. I am glad I did experience them as they happened. Because when I think back I tend to remember the desperate moments more. The ones where my life was flashing by me. But they weren't. I was busy. So busy having and raising two babies. The moms out there know that if you do a pretty good crayon scrawl while your kids are young you are practically Picasso!! The point is, yes I think there is one, is that I have now, just a mere 5 or 6 years later, accomplished almost all the things on my list. I wasn't ticking them off or anything, they just naturally happened anyway. It is who I am meant to be, what I am supposed to do. Right now anyway. I am an artist making a living from my art. What a dream, what a gift. Lots of hard work and a belief. I have a few thngs left from those old lists, I mean, Oprah hasn't called yet, but there is still time. ;)

I am still making new lists all the time but now the desperation is not here as much. I know how much power there is in perseverence and hard work. Life knows what we want just as much as we do. The hardest part is patience. I think anyway. I am learning. Sowly. So slowly. This year sure didn't end the way I expected. In so many different ways. But I am another year older and hopefully, (such humble hope) a wee more wise. I look forward to my next year and all it holds.

Oh, yeah, and if you really want to bring in a birthday right, book an hour long massage, grab two of your best girlfriends afterwards, have a couple of drinks and belt out as many Air Supply and Ann Murray songs at a gay karioke bar (where you are the only 3 women in the joint) as you can manage. I PROMISE you will feel like you celebrated in style!!