This site was created as a way to collect and share what inspires me, what sparks my interest, and what helps me cope with life in general. 

I think of myself as a musician first, with the majority of my time being devoted to work within the classical music field, be it teaching, collaborating, or performing. My days are usually very busy, and I genuinely don’t know how to slow down and relax without feeling guilty or lazy about it. Over the years it has proven to be not a very healthy mindset as it ultimately led me to go through multiple burnout episodes. Back in 2015, while finishing my Masters of Music degree at UNO, I found myself in one  such episode. 

Around that same time, I started having a recurring dream: every night I saw myself walking around and finding buckets of paints, all sorts of colors. I’d dip my hands in these buckets and watch those paints drip off my fingers. I started to think I was going mad. After a few weeks of this dream, I finally found myself walking in the art isle at the local Walmart and decided to go ahead and buy some watercolors, acrylics, and paper to paint on. I came back to my dorm room, opened up a YouTube beginner’s watercolor tutorial and started learning how to paint. My mind was calm and quiet for the first time in a long while. The recurring dream went away. 

Around 2020, the world went nuts and shut down, and it sparked my desire to do something crafty to keep my hands busy — in addition to music and drawing — so I picked up some cross-stitch kits and proudly finished a tiny sloth pattern. That opened up a whole new can of worms, as I now have more cross-stitch kits than I’ll ever have time to finish. I hope I am not the only one who gets obsessed with something and goes way too far in over-optimizing all the aspects of each new hobby. 

Sketchbooks have also been my friend and the best anti-anxiety and anti-burnout tool I have. The practice started with my beloved husband gifting me a carry-around sketchbook a few years back. Doodling and drawing what I see when I have a spare moment has been one of the best habits I’ve stuck to — and the only one that makes me actually finish a notebook.