One

Starting something new always feels a bit scary, but then there's the sparkle, the excitement and possibility that makes us jump in, in spite if our fears. (Not in spite of ourselves, oh no. Just in spite of the fear.)

I'm a cautious jumper. I nose around and hem and haw and think and think and think. And THEN. Then I get tired of all that, and I stick a toe in. And eventually, a wave comes along and I'm just swept into the current. It takes a while, but it's good. Here I am.

I figure a proper introduction is in order.

As the column to your left will tell you, I'm Anna~ a 30-year-old someone, dabbling along, trying to shape a sweet life. This can mean different things on different days... (Today it means, in large part, trying to be productive without making myself squawk out in pain. I think I may have danced too crazily this weekend, and my neck was very kinked and ouchy when I woke up this morning.)

What else can I tell you? I have a tiny little apartment, which I squeezed nestily into after selling my much larger house last year so that I could travel for a few months and have some much-needed adventures. I have a wonderful family~ both parents are remarried to astonishingly wonderful people. I have a 26-year-old sister and a two-year-old nephew and a 13-year-old brother. I have a sweetheart with a very sweet heart, and my circle of friends is wider and richer than ever before. I'm lucky and grateful.

I got my degree a few years back in Human Development and Family Studies, mostly because I'm passionate about parenting and early childhood. I adore pregnant mamas and new families and babies, and have considered becoming a doula over the years. Being on call, though, I'm not sure that would agree with me!

I've been nannying for quite some time and currently have a four-and-a-half-year-old and a seventeen-month-old, sisters. They are so much work and so much fun, and YES, it's because I get to go home at the end of the day that I sound so happy and patient with them in the grocery store! (Someone recently made a comment after hearing me in the store with the girls... I could tell that she was being hard on herself, saying "I never sound like that with my kids in the bulk section!" and I said, "That's because I'm the nanny and I get to go home at the end of the day!" She was so relieved. Ha!)

I've always loved to create, but I've only recently started to experiment with saying OUT LOUD that I am a writer and a photographer. It feels good. :) It's such fun to play with different materials... as long as I can curb my perfectionism and let go of my redonkulous concerns about wasting things! Squishing the inner critic is a constant project...

In the midst of what already feels like a full life, I'm in the process of starting a business called The Happy House. (Oh boy!) It's the biggest and newest and scariest thing of the moment, and I really want to make it fly. I've found during these years of working in people's homes, that I really enjoy caring for the spaces themselves. I love to clean and organize other people's stuff! And I love to design and decorate spaces. So that's the idea... (Another oh boy! For effect!)

Signing off, feeling fresh and ouchy and hopeful for a magical disappearance of this wonky neck pain come morning~