Bring it On, 2019

New year, new art, new stories. Hold on, January. This girl is fired up.

Meow.

xo

Nessa Dee

Hello 2017!

I love beginnings. There's so much promise held in beginnings... the excitement of a budding relationship, the first day of a much anticipated vacation, a crisp clean sheet of paper that greets you in a new sketchbook, or the first line of a book that draws you in and begs you to read more. And the beginning of a new year is no different. It's a jumping off point to set our goals, map out a plan, and work towards achieving our dreams. Just like a sprinter coming out of the blocks, we all like a good start. 

But as much as I love beginnings, I hate late starts. Ten days into 2017, and I haven't even written my goals yet, much less mapped them out. I feel this sense of anxiety looming as each day passes and I haven't taken the time to even write down a goal. I have some vague ideas of smaller goals like sketching everyday, or blogging more, or writing a couple of new stories every week, but I've already balked at accomplishing these. If I were a sprinter, I would have been disqualified from this year's race. 

I don't know why it's so hard to recover and start again without that shiny new, first day of the year beginning, but it is. January 1st holds the promise of everything you hope to achieve as you set sail into the year, while January 11th feels like you missed the boat. But I have to remind myself that everyday I wake up is a new beginning. Every day holds promise to accomplish great things. So instead of staring forlornly at the January 1st boat quickly disappearing over the horizon, I'm going to bid it farewell.  I'm opting to step onto this January 11th boat. It may not seem as clean and fresh as that first day of the new year boat, but hey, it's right in front of me, and I can't wait to see where it takes me. In fact, we're already off to a good start:

-Write a New Years blog post.

-Make a sketch for this post

-Use tired analogies about boats and races in one post.

Okay, so maybe I just now added that last goal, but it feels so satisfying to mark things off a list, who wouldn't want to keep riding that gravy train?

I apologize.

Here's to making things happen. Happy January 11th, 2017!

xo

nessa dee

Hello 2016!

Did I just type 2016? It feels like we just rang in 2015, I blinked, and the year's over. I'm still writing my list of resolutions for last year, and we're four days into January '16. What the what?! A lot happened in 2015, some of which I documented on this here blog, and many of which I didn't (cue the guilt trip), but one of my goals this new year is to blog more...at least once a week to be exact. I know, I know, you'll believe it when you see it, but I've got a new trick (laptop) up my sleeve (on my lap) that's going to help with the execution of that goal! No more late night internal struggles deciding whether or not I should drag myself upstairs and bask in the glow of the screen, holed up in the computer nook whilst the rest of my family is gathered in the living room, or sleep deprivation threatens my brain function. Nope, now I can take those internal struggles with me wherever I go, and find new excuses to interfere with blogging!

Here are some highlights from 2015 before I blinked, and the year was over...

In January, Audrie celebrated her 14th birthday just two weeks after Christmas.  We also took the older two kids skiing for the first time, and ourselves skiing for the first time in 15 years. Now if there's two things I really don't like, it's heights and being cold, so you can imagine the stress I felt in the weeks leading up to this trip. I literally had a stomachache for two weeks. We skied Winter Park, Colorado, and the kids had a blast. In fact, they had so much fun, we're going again this year. Hello stress, my old friend.

*blink*

February I attended the Austin SCBWI Conference, and gained some much needed confidence in my work, and had an amazing critique with picture book author/illustrator Tom Lichtenheld.

*blink*

March meant a week of SXSW, an amazing, yet extremely exhausting experience. The highlight? Seeing Spoon perform, up close, and hanging out with the Mowgli's  before they took to the stage.

*blink*

Finn turned 9 in April, we celebrated Easter on the farm, and I  attended another SCBWI conference in Houston and heard the delightful Kelly Light speak about her journey into children's book publishing.

      

  

*blink*

You might have heard about our vacation to the Cayman Islands back in May, and Jonathan's passport fiasco. I'm not sure if enough time has passed yet for this experience to be funny.

*blink* 

In June, we celebrated Jonathan's 35th birthday, and we welcomed a new cousin-in-law to our crazy family. Thankfully, our nutty antics didn't scare Lindsay away. In fact, she just jumped right into the insanity and made herself at home. 

*blink*

Towards the close of June, our family suffered enormous heartache with the loss of my cousin, McLean. We grew up together, half of my childhood we lived right next door to each other. After high school, Mac went into the Marines, and traveled the world, and although we weren't as close in our adult life, those childhood roots ran deep. It's so hard to accept that he's gone. I've been so amazed, though, by the strength of his parents, sister, and fiance'  through this grief. Even though we miss him terribly, we find solace in the fact that we'll see him again. Mac, you were, are, and will forever be in our hearts.

*blink*

In July, we watched fireworks, went to a long overdue family reunion, and my baby boy celebrated his third birthday. Oh, August, you've added so much joy to our lives.

*blink*

In August, Jonathan and I went on a spontaneous trip to Miami to celebrate 15 years of marriage, and also surprised my brother to bid him farewell before he moved to Mexico for a couple of years. "Cause, you know...two birds.

*blink*

September meant the start of school, and venturing into the uncharted waters of homeschooling through high school. Sure, thousands of others have already made that journey, but it feels so scary when it's your own child. Audrie started taking some classes through a school called One Day Academy, and I'm happy to report that she's flourishing. Finn continued in Classical Conversations, and all three kids and I are still involved in our homeschool co-op. 

By the end of September, I finished illustrating another picture book, Varla's Gift, by Jeff R. Smith. It's now published and available for purchase.

*blink*

In October, Audrie attended her first homecoming dance, we went to the Space Center in Houston, and I started taking a picture book writing class with the lovely and amazing Liz Garton Scanlon. If you are an aspiring picture book writer, I highly recommend this class at the Writing Barn.  Plus, we dressed up for Halloween.

*blink*

November meant the start of phase two of a giant mural project for my church and the completion of illustrations for another picture book, which I will post more about once it's published. We made a trip to my hometown, I wrapped up my writing classes, celebrated my 29th birthday for the seventh year in a row, and dove head first into the holidays.

*blink*

In December, Finn competed with a team of friends in the First Lego League Lego robotics competition. I am happy to report that they advanced to regionals!

*blink*

Audrie and Finn wrapped up a year of piano lessons with beautiful performances at their Christmas recital. 

*blink*

We celebrated no less than six Christmases, some loud and crazy, some calm and quiet, but all worth it to spend precious time with family. 

*blink, blink*

And finally, we rang in the new year with friends...dinner and dancing.
*blink, blink, blink*

...and here we are, four days into January, and I'm still trying to finish my New Years resolutions for 2015. 

I don't want to blink and have another year zoom by. My main goal for 2016 is to be present and enjoy my time spent with these precious three...

Happy New Year! I hope the months ahead are filled with an abundance of joy!

xo

nessa dee

Happy New Year and hello again

  

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had fun welcoming 2013. We kept it pretty low key around here, what with a baby and kids and being old and all. We rang in the new year with movies, bubbly, and ice cream sundaes.

I didn't mean to go on such a long hiatus, and I apologize. With the craziness of Christmas, computer troubles, and then a lovely sinus infection that affected three of the five of us, I didn't feel much like blogging. But we are on the mend, are solving problems, and making resolutions, so the new year is quickly filling up with to-dos. Yea productivity! Want to know what's in store for us in 2013? Sure you do. Why wouldn't you want to know a long list of to-dos from one random family in a world of billions. Yea delirium!
[I might be a bit sleep deprived]

#1 Create. Audrie and I are embarking on a year long project to create something everyday with prompt from this book. She will be blogging our progress.
#2 Improve. I'm brushing up on my illustration, honing my skills, and improving my portfolio in the hopes of getting some illustration jobs this year and possibly even an agent.
#3 Organize. [I say this every year] It's a pretty broad statement, but mainly I want to organize my time. If I get the hang of making better use of my time, things will start falling into place in terms of school, family, work, blogging, life.
#4 Sleep. Maybe this should be #1. I'm a pretty grumpy grump when I haven't had my zzz's.
#5 Simplify. I want to remove all the excess, time-sucking, clutter so I will be able to...
#6 Focus. I have a clear goal of what I want to accomplish with work, which will dictate what I can or cannot take on.
#7 Be Present. In the age of distraction, it's so easy to get caught up in the documentation of living rather than the living itself. Don't get me wrong, I love having an easy way to journal my life, and I love being able to share our life with friends and family who we don't get to see on a regular basis. But when I'm with my family, I want to be with my family. I want to listen, play, snuggle, read, watch, grow, and remember. Our time on this earth is short, and our time with our children is precious. I don't want to miss it.

So that's it. It's the short, broad list, sans all the micro goals, and subsets. You should see the web diagram for my 2013 year. It'll make you cross-eyed.

Hope the new year brings new adventures for you! 

xo

nessa dee

Happy 3rd day of 2010!

Just wanted to pop in and say hi and I’m still here. We’re kind of in the middle of a major house reorganization, so some things have been a little neglected [ahem, blog]. Hopefully we’ll get things in order soon and I can get back to the normal routine.

I hope you’re all enjoying this fresh new year so far!

Be back soon!

nessa dee

Starting Anew

A little late, but the Christmas celebrations have finally come to an end. We gathered with my side of the family over the weekend and celebrated with our usual Christmas meal of Mexican food, the exchange of gifts, a mean round of dominoes, and all of the laughter that comes with a family get together.
My brother, who flew in from Africa on New Year's Day, greeted us with this shiner. Apparently, if you go all day without eating and are in the sun for quite some time, you're prone to fainting. And if you faint near an object with corners, say a computer, you are likely to hit it with your eye which can result in a fair amount of bruising. At least it wasn't from getting hit by a drunk soldier with an AK-47, which was his first story.

Since we've just now finished with the Christmas festivities, I feel like I haven't yet started the new year. It's going to take a little bit of time to recuperate from the celebrations and get back into the swing of everyday life. I'm excited, though. A new year brings with it so much promise. I'm ready to make some changes and get started on my new year's resolutions. But first, I have to write them.
Well, it's off to packing up my Christmas decor, cleaning the house, finding a place for the new toys, writing my new year's resolutions, etc., etc.

Nessa Dee

Ringing It In

No New Year's party here. No dressing up. No spectacular fireworks display. No champagne. No trip downtown to see a star raised at midnight. Nope, just a simple evening at home, a game of Sorry, a quick trip to the store for a special treat, a toast to the upcoming year, and the symphony of fireworks popping all over the city.

Happy 2009!

ND