Part of my gathering 'what I've been up to's has had me returning to October's Breast Cancer Awareness body painting jam and I think it was my favourite event of the year...this is it:

 

http://www.juliaarts.co.uk/breast-cancer-awareness-body-paint-2013.php

We are halfway through January and I am taking quiet time. I am hampered by having an only half functioning right hand, but also quite intentionally taking time to try and work out a healthy balance between my little business and the rest of life (and some relaxation:P,I am here working at 22:30 but I did have a massage today:P)

December became such a blur as I attempted to run an advent giveaway calendar through my facebook page and bit off way more than I anticipated work wise...I missed one of my regular things, a quarterly giveaway, supposed to have happened 20th December.

Last year the December giveaway didn't happen as I had no names to put on the list. the names come from contibutors of pictures, reviews and the such. This year the list is taking some compiling.

Compiling my list of contributors from the last three months has led me through some amazing memories and it prompted me to take time to look back through 2013 as a whole. I worked pretty much constantly, often functioning at the very edge of what was sanely possible for me (and those around me) for days on end to see a project through, only to take a breather for a second before having to step up to the next festival/party/photo shoot/charity event on the list.
It has left me with quite a year to look back on!

Of course all the while trying to book-keep, facebook, website manage, advertise, stay insured, order stock, produce stock, keep learning, provide excellent customer service...let alone raise two boys and try to fit in some life.

Off to finish the list and maybe create a 2013 hi-lights thingy:) xx

Aready the days and evenings are beginning to return into a garbled string of internet information where each thought and remembering of something I need to do leads me further into the ever tangling internetty spaghetti...and somehow my house looks the same!

Softly and gradually the year begins to come to life.

 I am still quite peaceful and the pace is quite slow, a few bookings already for later in the year and a handful for the next few weeks.
I am spending time clearing the house and my art spaces, watching tutorials, aiming to keep a mellow pace and playing with paint a little.
I am hopefully imagining getting out paper and pencils, but remember the exact same hope at the beginning of last year so am trying to carefully focus the energy into providing the space to easily do so.
 I enjoyed tentatively  painting small faces and a couple of grown ups at a friends 5th Birthday today with my half working hand. It has slowed me down a bit and it was quite awkward to do things from some angles, but some pretty faces came about and a wonderful rainbow Spidey face.

 More happens than it feels like and it's hard to imagine right now how much I must get done when the pace of life seems so fast and insanely full as it has been the last couple of years with frequent weeks of ticking off checklists from 7am til 3the next am. hmmmmm.

I want to do something with this post
http://hopewitch.livejournal.com/5578.html
can't move on and close the window without logging it somewhere.It's rough but holds quite a lot of something I'd like to turn and polish like a stone into something clean and flowing yet solid.

I'm loving reading through old entries and my youngest is enjoying it too!:D I don't seem to take photos much when I am not blogging, so it's been sweet to look back.

I am beginning to suspect that I have to do the google+ thing in order to follow other blogs now? I am out of touch with functionality...and also considering tumblr, but perhaps that can be for work and this for me:)...though to be fair I love my work enough that much of it is all I want to do!:)

I have many pieces of writing that I want to bring into the present, to have them within reach, in sight and easy to focus on for a while...

We'll see :D

Big Kisses

Just a bit tired

One of my last posts was a mention that I was learning to face paint...the slideshow is gone, the platform defunct no doubt, in the time I have been missing from my beautiful blog space. I have been working hard.

My retrievable blogs go back to this time of year in 2005...they spread across three livejournal accounts, myspace, and a few other defunct spaces...old ning communities and the such and I am aways so grateful to find myself again in their pages...to shortcut to glimpses of having had time enough to reflect on, learn from and record my life.

I need them right now. I need to remember that I have that space...how to re-find that essential time.

It is a usual state for me around now...this year, knowing how tired and lost in work I have become for the last two years, I hope to remain.

The last two years I have worked so solidly. The first year still being a childminder with all the busyness and paperwork that involves, as well as creating, building and nuturing JuliaArts, my face and body art business. 2012 was so busy that at the end of it I surrendered my childminding business to concentrate on JuliaArts...JuliaArts was 2 years old by then and I thought I understood what would be coming next, how things would grow, and how I needed to be able to commit more time to it.

In truth I had very little idea

I have learnt masses in the last few years, so much that my mind boggles at it all.

I have experienced so much personal change too as to not even know where to begin.

But this is what I yearn for, to come back here, to write and record and explore. To express just for the random rambling pleasure of it, to enjoy the growth and expansion of who I am as I discover and rediscover.

To explore and relish in others' shared word worlds and grow through the communication.

And maybe to hide from facebook