Hello and howdy from Ontario, Canada! I hope you’re doing well. I’m happy you’ve found your way to this little space I’m carving out for myself and my art.
I hold a diploma in Visual Creative Arts & Design, as well as a newer diploma (and several certificates) in Medical Office Administration. I have yet to find the place He wants me to be, which is hard to accept, as I often feel I’m back where I started — but now with updated administrative skills.
I’ve been knitting since 2007 and crocheting since 2011, and over the years, I’ve likely dabbled in countless other crafts. I won two first-place ribbons for oil paintings back in 1991, and I now help administer and send newsletters to twenty-seven ladies across Southern Ontario for the knitting group I’ve belonged to since around 2007. On weekends, I also volunteer by creating Facebook posts for Abbey Cats Adoptions.
I was widowed at thirty-nine and lost my mother at fourteen. Trauma and childhood sexual abuse have blocked much of my memory, including parts of my high school years. I live with depression and social anxiety, and I sometimes feel a deep ache for old friends from my first church, wishing I had left on better terms. I’m not sure which church I will continue attending, but I believe Jesus is the church—not the building.
This past year, I’ve spent a lot of time cross-stitching and learning what works for me — not just creatively, but in life. I’ve accumulated nearly sixty-five patterns and plan to complete two to four cross-stitched birthday gifts this year. I also have two hexagon cardigans to finish, a small rug-hooking project to figure out for my niece, a summer top that’s been marinating in my WIP pile, and a diamond dot piece to return to its owner after far too long. There’s also a tall bookshelf filled with wonderful physical books, plus a slew of likely spicy titles I picked up for free on my Kindle that may prove challenging to read.
Most consuming of all is a fictional world that lives and crawls around my head rent-free, persistently demanding to come out. It’s filled with complicated characters, organizations, groups, and families — and now Christianity is finding its way into a world that is typically the last place one might expect a “good Christian girl” to be.
So there is, theoretically, plenty to do while I wait for my Saviour to prepare me for the work He has in mind. In the meantime, my circle of friends and community certainly keep life entertaining.
Welcome, welcome!
Tanya
