Tag: family

Celebration & Gratitude

Personal
my favorite gift: sweet new plants
and something I can never have enough of: olives!

The other night my daughter and her boyfriend had my husband and myself over to celebrate my upcoming birthday. It was a great evening, with wonderful food, fantastic music, awesome conversation, very fun tabletop gaming, and much love. In my typical weirdness, I felt then and still feel now that this was not deserved, the big, positive, warm attention.

My daughter knows me well, and her gifts to me (in addition to the above food, music, conversation, and gaming) were a jar of kalamata olives, and a beautiful little plant. I also received a cool-looking new game, Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein, which I’d seen highly recommended in recent reviews. As we didn’t want to dive into an hour long read of the instructions for a new game, we played a long-time favorite, Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Betrayal at House on the Hill,
and Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein

I’ve never spent this much time or energy contemplating any particular birthday or age. I am not sure why fifty is doing it, but I guess that is not so uncommon. But so far, this one has actually been one of the best.

I’ll know soon enough if fifty feels any different from any other age, but regardless, I’m letting go the worry, and just allowing the astounding gratitude I’m feeling for having made it this far, and with this much love in my life.

Thanks for reading,

~ Nellie

New Beginnings

Personal

Finally, I’m updating this site!… I have had a hell of a time with the previous WordPress theme, and just installed this new, much more basic one.

late October 2019, Vermont

Yesterday was Halloween – or Samhain, which is the mark of the New Year in some Pagan traditions, and the new moon was just a few nights before. I feel like this is a good time to make a better start with this portfolio, and a real start with this blog.

Art has been important virtually my entire life… after my mother died, a counselor told my dad I would express my pain through art. Whether or not that was indeed true, I don’t know – back then I drew pictures of my mother as an angel, and I drew birds and animals, and the sorts of things little kids drew. But it was such a constant for me growing up (and my dad being an artist himself was a huge influence as well). As I got older I discovered cameras, and how much I loved taking and working with pictures as well as drawing them. So I’ve been doing that a very long time as well. And writing, well… Mercury is conjunct my Ascendant in the 12th house… seems rather fated 😉

So this is me anyway, with my little inconspicuous site. If you’ve happened upon this page, hi there.

Thanks for reading,

~ Nellie