Today is the five year anniversary of my blog! I have to say, I find this so incredible. I’ve celebrated this day in a lot of different ways over the last few years, like writing super long blog posts or by doing giveaways and going to community events. This year, I'm going to spend it reflecting, planning and having some small adventures with my family. I have some giveaways planned for later in the summer, but today is definitely a day for reflecting about how to take the next step with my writing and creative endeavours, including language.
Read moreMaintaining a Writing Routine After a Maternity Leave
So it happened. I returned to work last week after being on maternity leave for a year. My work is exciting to me in that it’s an area I’m quite passionate about—Indigenous education and Indigenous language revitalization. And while I’m excited, I’m also trying to figure out how all of the pieces fit together. How do I keep writing, making art and contributing to my community in the best way that I can? How do I continue to make progress with my language learning and honestly have time to send good energy back out into the world? This is really important to me. Especially because I think the world needs good energy right about now. Needs to be reminded that peace is important and that it is possible for us all to have enough. Anyways, here are some of the things that are working for me—bearing in mind that none of this is really advice, just me sharing how things are going :).
Read moreMy Creative Goals for 2017
2016 was a difficult year for the world, filled with loss and change. In some ways, it was difficult for us too but it was also a tremendously special year and I’m grateful for all the wonder and happiness that entered our lives.
My husband and I celebrated our one year anniversary in September. We welcomed our second daughter in May. And we moved into our new house in October—all very wonderful things.
2016 was also the year that I made the most progress with realizing my writing dreams. I launched my publishing company on January 21st, 2016 and published six books over the course of the year.
Read moreHappy November
Wow! How is it almost the end of November? This year has sped by and the last few weeks have been particularly crazy. There have been a lot of things happening in my life on a personal level lately and a lot of things happening out in the world. I'm just going to take a minute here and send a huge blast of compassion to you all. I find myself more and more aware of the challenges our different experiences and ways of thinking create but I'm going to keep hope that we will find a way to practice compassion and empathy with one another. I'm also going to keep hoping that we can all find a way to come together to protect the water, because truly - no matter what views or beliefs we have, we and our children need water to survive. I'm so grateful for water and I know it's one of those things that is too important to take for granted. It's also something we can all work together for.
The last few weeks I've been super busy with my course work and preparing my research proposal for my dissertation. Academic writing is so interesting (very different from my creative writing) and I have really valued learning how to go about it.The topic for my dissertation is exploring community-based collaboration in the area of Indigenous language revitalization - which is a passion of mine. It's nice to read about the great work that's going on and it's also nice to be inspired to speak and use the language more (I'm learning Cayuga).
Read moreHome Sweet Home
I sometimes lose track of how many activities I like to do. Reading. Writing. Painting. Running. Playing video games. Taking long walks in the forest. But over the last few weeks I’ve remembered just how important they all are to me. They make me feel truly alive and happy and healthy—which helps me to feel more creative and imaginative.
We’ve just finished moving into our new house (yay!) and are in the process of getting settled. After so many months of being in transition—packing up one house, living with my very kind sister and her family for two months until finally coming here—I can honestly say that I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
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