Another year, another milestone.

But before that, Happy Mother’s Day to my lovely wife, my amazing mom, and all the other mother’s who have had an impact on my life. One day a year isn’t an adequate thank you or recognition of all the love, support, and effort you have all put in, but I hope you know I, at least, appreciate you every other day of the year as well.

And now for this year’s card for my dragon-loving wife:

No, this isn’t a repeat of last year’s card, but it is similar. Last year I decided to mark the high school graduation of our youngest kid. This year, our oldest graduated college. I still haven’t wrapped my head around last year’s event, so there’s no hope for me for this one.

Aging the dragon kids has been an interesting challenge, as has trying to make them recognizable as each of our kids. But, as I have mentioned several times in recent years, the hardest part has been coming up with themes or scenarious for the cards.  With everyone growing up and entering different stages of life, complications creep in and it has become more challenging for all of us to do things together. At least anything noteworthy that I could turn into a fun memory on a card. Even this year with our oldest graduating from college we weren’t all together. We have an elderly, disabled dog, so our middle kid ended up staying home to take care of her while the rest of us traveled 7 hours away for the event. So far, the kids are all still living with us, but when they start leaving the nest, I know those experiences will be even harder to come by.

I like to think that I’ve always been an observant and insightful person. I have tried to be, at least, though I’m sure with varying success. I spend a lot of time comparing my life to that of my parents’, trying to think about what they were going through when they were whatever age I just reached or went through a milestone I just experienced. I think about how much time I got to spend with my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents because we all lived relatively close geographically, and I think about how different things are now in general, but also specifically for my kids. Without belaboring the point too much, I just hope I am able to make more time to spend with family going forward and that my kids will want to spend time with us (and the rest of the family) once their lives inevitably (hopefully) diverge from ours to become their own. If that’s the case, I shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with ideas for these cards.

Anyway, we are fast approaching the halfway point of 2026 and I don’t feel like I’ve achieved as much as I would like to have by this point. In fact, I feel like I’ve barely accomplished anything creatively. It’s been a struggle to get into the studio as much as I want due to various obligations and unforeseen situations (like the aforementioned disabled dog). I have always targeted 20 hours a week as the minimum goal, and I figured once I “retired” from being a scoutmaster at the end of 2024 and I no longer had kids that needed to be driven back and forth to school that I could shift that number upwards. The reality is I’ve been having a harder time getting to that bare minimum since the middle of last year than I had when I seemed to have more stuff vying for my attention. I know some of that falls on my shoulders. The way my responsibilities have shifted has really highlighted an issue I’ve been aware of for a long time but haven’t dealt with and seems to be getting worse with age. I have massive issues transitioning between roles or activities. Going from “real world” obligations to art to working out to chores to sewing/making, etc. is almost painful. It’s like each of those functions is a different setting in my Brain and the knob to switch between them has gotten gunked up. There are times I’m doing nothing other than trying to transition to a different “mode”, but somewhere, deep in the background, my Brain is screaming “JUST. GO. DO. THE. THING!” But I can’t. Not yet. The frustration and irritation with myself build and make the situation worse. I need a Brain cleanse to unstick that knob or something.

Alright, this was supposed to be about Mother’s Day, not a venting session. I am who I am because of all of the mom’s in my life who raised me, loved me, supported me, and/or sacrificed for me. Mother’s Day is just one day, but there haven’t been enough days yet that would amount to an adequate thank you.