My passions are ever evolving and changing.  I call them my obsessions.  I can get completely involved in something - whether a certain project, art medium, videogame, book series, or whatever for MONTHS! Some things end up not panning out, whereas others expand into part of my daily life.  Some of this passions get replaced by new ones over time, as I am sure is true for everyone.

For the last five or six years on my greatest joys has been art journaling.  I discovered this medium while completing my graduate degree and needed some kind of creative outlet.  However, I really found myself drowning in art journaling while I was coping with my divorce.  It helped me rediscover who I was without my ex.  It also opened a whole new world for me with the online community, as well as really sitting with myself during my newly expanded alone time.  This is a passion that has continued on for many, many years.  Although I don't get as much time to work on my journals with my daughter in the last two years it is still something I truly love.

Since my daughter was born, my passion for scrapbooking has rekindled as I want to document every single moment of her precious life (yes, I struggle with that goal).  I have been scrapbooking on and off since highschool (almost 12 years ago) and have various parts of my life documented in this wonderful medium.  If you scroll through my blog posts, you will see how this passion has kind of overtaken this little corner of my world.  I do need to be better about showing the other things we do in our little studio - I'm working on it - promise!

Another one of my current obsessions is child-led learning.  I have specifically been taking inspiration from Montessori philosophies and trying to incorporate them into our home.  I love the ideas behind child-led learning and I am enjoying providing my daughter with the tools and ideas I've found through this obsession.  We do a lot of sensory play and inspired Montessori activities in the evenings and especially on the weekends when we have more time together.

So those are my current passions.  I've just learned to embrace my obsessions, because if they are not a good fit for the long term they will fade away.  I have literally spent the last two months doing nothing in my free time except for playing a video game series called Dragon Age.  I spent about 80 hours playing Dragon Age: Origins, another 20 hours playing the expansion from that (called Awakening), another 50 to 60 hours playing Dragon Age 2, and finally got to the third game in the series (Dragon Age: Inquisition) and at about 80 hours into that game got bored and started playing with my scrapbooking stuff, prepping an art journal, and doodling in another journal.  That's a lot of hours considering how limited my free time actually is.  I just chalk it up to I needed something different to kick start some part of my brain.  Sometimes you just need to go with the flow!