Kelly: Happy to be here!
Hello everyone! First off, let me say thanks to Miranda for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful blog. I’ve read through many entries and surfed your blogs, and this is truly an amazing, inspiring, delightful, creative group of women. So who am I? I’m a mom foremost, yet that’s a title I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say. I guess I knew I always wanted to be a mom, but when I met my DH (“darling” or “damn” husband, depending on the day 🙂 ), he told me fairly early on that his chances of giving me a child were pretty slim; of course, he waited until he already had me hooked to tell me that. I was 26 at the time, and that biological clock hadn’t really started ticking too quickly yet; we married three years later. And by the grace of God, eight years, several attempts at IVF and a miscarriage later, we welcomed our beautiful red-headed twin girls, Sarah and Olivia, in 2005.
As far as creativity, I welcome and attempt just about all kinds. With a bachelor’s degree in Communications and a master’s degree in English, I’ve held a variety of professional positions that have utilized my writing and public relations skills: assistant sports information director at Florida State University, account executive for a travel and tourism related public relations firm, and as an adjunct college English instructor; I’ve been teaching college English off and on for nearly 20 years now. For the past 14 years, I’ve served as the Director of Student Life and Leadership Development for a very large community college here in Florida, a position that really doesn’t utilize my writing skills much but does require a lot of creativity in time management, planning and marketing. My blog has been a way for me to exercise those writing bones a bit more. Art wise, my creative passions include artisan jewelry and handbag design, photography, and mixed media collage, something I just started dabbling in this year. My primary art “business” is my jewelry, which you can see here.
Lastly, I get quite a few comments on that silly avatar of mine [which you’ll find under comments], so I guess I’ll explain. My girls did my hair that day and wanted me to take a picture (you can see the large version and a couple others from that day here.) I’ve always felt that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you have no right to laugh at anyone else, and we try to laugh a lot around the little happy shack we call home. My family and I live by this saying, coined by my DH: “Life is far too important to be taken too seriously.” I look forward to sharing my life with you all while I learn more about each of you!
Studio Mothers: Life & Art 