Well friends, I skipped over my August newsletter because life got in the way.
Let's start with the big news. We moved back to Cincinnati, Ohio!! After the birth of our Leonora, we decided we wanted to raise her with family nearby. It took us 2.5 years to get here, but we have officially moved into a new home in a new city surrounded by old friends and family!
Leading up to the August Newsletter, I planned to share the impending move. I wrote down random thoughts and feelings I was having leading up to this massive move and massive life change. I was feeling incredibly introspective, remembering feelings I had when Ricky and I first moved to Houston 14 years ago, how much we grew into our own during our time there, and saying goodbye to a city and a community that we built over more than a decade. I drew cute little sketches to go with the post and then something unexpected happened; our sweet beautiful pup Frankie passed away. He was 10.5 years old, but he was a young whipper snapper at heart with a clean bill of health, so his rapid decline came as a shock to our hearts. After taking him to the vet for what we thought was a bacterial infection or stomach bug, we were rushing him to the vet hospital. 2 days later, his poor little heart gave out. While we still don't know for sure, the vets think he had lymphoma causing his liver to shut down at a speed I still can't comprehend.
We were crushed and heartbroken and confused to say the least. We were actively packing up our house to move, and suddenly one of the biggest parts of our family was not going to be joining us on this new chapter. Our packing and life came to a halt while we processed what just happened. After being on cloud nine, we were sitting in the gutter. But that's life. Nothing can be wrapped up in a neat bow. You can't have highs without lows. You can't feel love without pain. After talking and crying with friends and family, I think Frankie could tell a move was coming, and he knew his body couldn't handle it.
We carried on packing, and we brought his ashes with us on the drive to Cincinnati. I sat them in the backseat on his bed, exactly where he was supposed to be during the move.
Everything happened so quickly that I couldn't quite bring myself to revisit the newsletter and all of the random things I had written down, and the doodles and sketches I made of our little family of four. I decided to let the newsletter skip a month, but I also decided to leave everything as I had written it for you all to read. It's a little all over the place. I hadn't joined all of my random thoughts together yet, but as I have learned, life is also quite disjointed and confusing. I included more pics of sweet Frankie at the bottom of the post. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts on our big move below.
Exciting news to share - Ricky and I are about to move back to Cincinnati, Ohio!!! I was going to wait until next month to share, but I fear writing this sentimentally will not come easy once we're living in boxes and unpacking our life in a new city and a new house. So, I decided to pivot and write about it now. My newsletters this year have definitely felt weird, because this has all been brewing behind the scenes since January, but we haven't been able to share until now. It honestly hasn't felt real until earlier this month, when we started saying it aloud to our loved ones, both here in Houston and back home in Cincinnati.
Ricky, Leonora, Frankie, and I are coming up on an exciting life change: a new chapter, a new book, a new season of life.
Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall
All you have to do is call, and I'll be there!
Road Trip of Life - we came to Houston as two kids in love, fresh out of college. 14 years later, we're about to move back with a pup, a 2.5-year-old, and a truck full of memories and forever friends in tow. How do you summarize 14 years of life? You can't. In those 14 years alone, there were 10 chapters at a minimum, with 100's of footnotes to each page. The couple we were then is not the couple we are now. We had ups and downs, experienced loss, experienced immense joy, and each experienced so much growth as individuals. I always hope that my favorite time in life is exactly where I'm at. Some seasons that's happened and others not so much. But right now, it's on point! I'm so proud of who I grew into during my time here in Houston, and I'm so proud of how our relationship grew.
The Rachel fresh out of college is not the Rachel you see today. Some of her is still in there, but I've shed so many things that don't serve me anymore, and I've acquired so many things that fill up my cup. The friendships and community that we created over 14 years is WILD!!! It's something that I know will stick with me forever.
In talking about his own life, David Lynch said, “If you’re transcending every day, building up that happiness, it eventually comes to: it doesn’t matter what your work is. You just get happy in the work. You get happy in the little things and the big things. And if the result isn’t what you dreamed of, it doesn’t kill you, if you enjoyed the doing of it. It’s important that we enjoy the doing of our life.”
Looking back on the day we moved down to Houston and the week leading up to it (how I felt, things that happened, etc.), I remember crying with my mom on her back patio telling her I was scared. I remember she said that I can always move back if it doesn't work out. 14 years later, I called her to tell her the same thing. I was scared and overwhelmed moving back. It's a new season of life and a new chapter, and we built something in Houston that truly mattered, so it was hard to say goodbye. Even though we are returning home, it's still all new for me. I've never lived in Cincinnati on my own, always staying in my childhood bedroom every time I visit.
Wild story though, I wrote about this in my vows to Ricky. When we first moved to Houston, it was a stressful week to say the least. We had a heck of a time packing up our U-Haul; we left late because my step-dad had emergency surgery on his gallbladder, and a mere 45 minutes into our drive we got a flat tire. I recall crying for about 30 minutes straight as we pulled onto the highway after hugging our families goodbye in my step-dad's hospital room. After the flat tire, and waiting for a good hour or so for AAA to change the tire on the U-Haul, Ricky and I started to laugh at the upsurdity of it all. And it ultimately reminded us why we were making this big life change...to be together.
14 years later, returning home, the same upsurdity ensued. We lost our sweet Frankie, upending our packing schedule and some going-away party plans we had penciled in. We got a flat tire on our car the day before we left, and the tire shop didn't have the right tire in stock, so we left late the next day. And once again, I cried during the drive. After letting out a good cry, Ricky and I held hands and had the same feeling we had on the way to Houston....we were doing something big, but we had each other.
Well friends, that was as far as I got before everything happened with Frankie. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts. Below are some pics of our sweet pup over the years.
I'll see you next month,
Happy September!
xoxo
Rachel
Happy July, my Beautiful Butterflies!!!
This year is half over!! Like what?!? How???
Anywho, you're catching me in this newsletter fresh off a trip to San Diego for a Bat Mitzvah, and just before a trip to Cincy for my brother-in-law's wedding! So, I'm keeping this post short because mama is busy!!
I've been very heads-down working on commissioned paintings, calendar artwork, and sketches for an exciting new project with Jessica Correnti of The ABCs of Grief series this past month. But I have also been getting so much love for my Book Nook art prints, pictured below, in my Etsy Shop!
I LOVE to read not only children's books, but also adult books. I may have to do a separate post about all of my favorite books so far in life. But anywho, I made these prints to foster that love of reading at an early age. We started reading to Leonora the moment she was born. I remember my sister laughing at me reading to a newborn, but for me, it was a way to talk to my little girl before she had words herself. To let her know I was there! And sneakily, I wanted to sit and enjoy all of the books that I had been gifted by my loved ones.
Leonora is 2.5 years old now, and we still read books before bed. She also has started to pretend "read" to us which is hilarious and adorable! I recently found myself going back to these illustrations with all of the love they've been getting on Etsy, and I watched the time-lapse of the art coming together. After watching it, I knew I had to share it with all of you this month. I posted all three videos below. They are super short (like 15-30 seconds a piece). SO I hope you enjoy these super short super quick videos so you too can get back to your summer!!
I'd love to hear what your favorite books are right now, for both littles and yourself?
Until next time,
Rachel
Happy June, My Lovelies!!!!
As I'm writing this, I'm finding myself a bit fatigued (Physically and mentally). I have a habit of putting too much on my plate. I've talked about this before. I've been trying to give myself fewer to-dos, so I feel more accomplished as a whole. It's a strategy that definitely works, but sometimes makes me feel like I'm cheating the system. The thought that "I'm not doing enough" often eats away at me. But I'm tired lately, so I try to offer myself grace. Sometimes I accept it, and sometimes I toss it aside. But this month I have been feeling a little blah, and writing down what all I did last month has made me realize how much I actually have done, even if it's been at a little bit of a slower pace. And now, I shake my head, wondering why I feel like it's not enough. So, in order to boost my morale a little, I'm going to walk through all the things I've worked on in May!
Okay, so May started with 2 different chalk jobs for weddings! Wedding-related work was something I did, almost exclusively, when I first started my career. While I loved it, I really wanted to pivot to illustrative work. So, I started to only take on select jobs for weddings to free up my time. One of those jobs is chalk art for two restaurants in Houston that have beautifully massive chalkboards! They host events, such as weddings, and I get to work with the clients, drawing fun pieces to act as a cool backdrop for their evening. I would classify them in the "mural" category of my work. I had two events back-to-back the first two weekends of May. I pictured both below, along with the corresponding sketches. I typically pull inspiration from the stationery, florals, and decor for the event, so it's nice and cohesive. I also get to work on the chalkboards while the restaurants are setting up, which is fun to experience all of that happy but stress-filled, organized chaos!
I've slowly been chipping away at the calendar illustrations. So far, I've been able to illustrate one design each week. I'm currently painting the design for September. This has been a lovely, relaxing activity this month. I throw on an audiobook and paint away for an hour here or there throughout each week. This past month, I listened to "Tom Lake" and "The Art Thief" audiobooks. After finishing the Harry Potter series, these were a fun change of pace but still super calming while working.
May saw a good amount of client and licensing work. I've been working on a set of 4 commissioned paintings for a doctor's office. These will have a whimsical foliage design paired with the four different anatomical pieces that the office operates on. The idea is to give the patients in the waiting room a lighter feeling, almost taking their mind off the "blood" of it all. I have pictured below my sketches for these pieces. They will be 16x20. I have them all penciled in on watercolor paper (no small task) and will start painting them this coming month.
A local Houston stationery company commissions me to create custom illustrations. The designs vary widely from pets, maps, houses, and so on. This month, they asked me to illustrate a client's cat in a line drawing style.
I also worked on some holiday designs for my wholesale licensing agent. This is just a smidgen early for holiday work. Usually, it's closer to July when these requests start to come through, but every company is different. They were asking for a couple of different styles, one of them being "folk," and it got my creative juices flowing.
May saw lots of fun Etsy orders. I always enjoy it when new designs are trending. This month, stickers, cards, and some of my silly art prints were the bells of the ball. So far, the designs below are taking the cake!
Speaking of birthdays, May was Ricky's birthday month, which always brings about the fun challenge of creating a hand-drawn card for Ricky. This year, I made him banana bread as a yummy sweet treat to enjoy, so I made a banana-themed card to go with it!
Going back through the month, I can now see how much I accomplished. But "OOF," my friends, it's a challenge to accept that I'm doing enough sometimes, especially when I'm in a month of feeling a little more tired.
So here's to keeping on and offering yourself grace. Your best will look different each day. So, when your best is only 50% of your normal capacity, but you're giving that full 50%, then you're giving 100%!
Cheers to June, ya'll!
See you in July!
xoxo
Rachel
