My First Winter in Maine

My how time flies! I've already been living in Portland for four months now. I'll admit that during the first couple months between painting during the day and traveling for holidays I felt a little like I was on vacation from New York. However, once I got back to Maine after New Year's and experienced a real Maine blizzard I came more to terms with the move I had made. Luckily I do generally like winter and love snow, so my first Maine winter hasn't been too bad. However, considering this is almost the coldest and snowiest winter on record here, I think I am allowed to complain about the weather from time to time.

Above are a selection of my favorite instagram photos from the past couple months. Even though wearing my Bean boots every day along with a giant coat, hat, gloves, scarf and long underwear gets tiring, when I've had the chance to do a little winter exploring up here it's been beautiful. My boyfriend and I tried cross-country skiing (him for the first time, me for the first time in 17 years), which was fun, and we also went to Sleigh Day at a local farm and got to take a sleigh ride, which was a first time experience for both of us. I'm still looking forward to trying snow-shoeing too!

As far as working goes, learning to balance the freelance lifestyle is a new challenge. I enjoy it, but obviously, as with any kind of self-employment there are uncertainties that differ from having a full-time job. So far, I love the freedom of being my own boss and finally being able to pursue ideas I have during the day, rather than at night and on the weekends. On the other hand, it's sometimes tough to decide what is a priority when there is no specific deadline for a self-imposed project. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what this year has in store. If you're curious to know more about my thoughts on being a self-employed artist you can check out this interview I did for Work Your Art.