For the love of it!

Hello!  Is this thing still on?  (grin!)  Where have I been?  Well, technically....I have been at home, at the beach, enjoying family and friends and summer. There are a lot of things going on in my life right now so I am just stamping when I can get the time.  (More on the other stuff later on!)

The good news is that my subscribers have increased while I have had my (almost) 3 month hiatus, proving that silence is indeed golden:)

I have decided to step down from a lot of teams and I haven't been submitting to publications anymore because, while I loved doing both, they both took a substantial amount of time.  Because of how I am hard wired---I find it extremely difficult to do anything half way.  When I started running 5Ks---I ran them to win.  Then, I wanted to run a marathon.  Same thing happened with stamping.  I started doing this crafty stuff as a hobby and then I found out about design teams, publications, etc. and I had to try to do it all.  I pushed myself to try to do it all...and did it for awhile and then my mom had an unexpected surgery (she is doing great!) and I took a long look at my life. 

Yes, making cards and things is an important part of my life and I think it will always have a place but I had to prioritize my time.  If design team work was interfering with my other responsibilities, is it fair to keep doing it? Why was it so important to me to be on so many design teams or published so much?   So, I decided that if I wasn't making a true salary at this to make it work the sacrifice of my time....then I had to cut back.  So I did. 

Then, I had gallbladder surgery (end of March) and it was actually such a relief. I felt very good just a few days after surgery but my energy was a bit zapped for awhile.  So I took it as another sign to slow down. 

When the summer rolled around, I decided to just enjoy the time with the kids while they were out of school.  I did not stamp all summer!

So now...having been there and done that...I am back.  Back to sharing my life and my crafts with you.  On my time.  When I can....purely for the LOVE of it!

My first blog hop will be next week using the new Gina K Grateful Heart Stamp TV kit, which released today :)

Here is a card I created using the house from Stamp it Big 2 and a sentiment from SRM Stickers:

Enjoy!  See you next week (and not a moment before!)  Thanks for hangin' in there with me!