Welcome!

(my old profile picture from "way back when"...)

I am so happy to have my old blog name back!  In 2005 I started my first blog: Mice and Moonbeams.

Back in the day when I was homeschooling my kids, I had some online friends on message boards that invited me to read their "blogs" - the word made me giggle, but I was intrigued.  My husband had given me my first laptop, an Ipod Nano (pink), a pink Razor flip phone and a small digital camera on Christmas of 2005, and we had just created an art room all my own with an easel, a few paints, canvases, needlefelting supplies and great lighting.

I have had a love affair with mice for most of my life - it all began when I got a mouse named Angora as a pet when I was about 8 or 9 years old - mice have been part of my life ever since.  I have always loved the moon and have taken about a million pictures of it.  And I adore my husband of 38 years (as of 2023).  Stephen R. Koontz wrote a book in which his male character described his relationship with his wife as being as "different as mice and moonbeams" (which describes my husband and I perfectly).  The name of my first blog was born.

I began taking pictures, then started posting them on my own "blog".  It was all new to me and as I blogged and shared my life and my art (mostly my bad art and art mistakes) I also connected to other bloggers who taught me so much about blogging and helped me to improve my art with constructive criticism.  We shared our favorite music, books, recipes, our gardening endeavors, photos, unschooling experiences and inspired one another to make art every day.  There were fun "parties" to participate in online and get to know other bloggers.  It was a happy and even magical place to be, the bloggy-sphere.

Life changed for me in some drastic ways and I left blogging for a time and lost my Mice and Moonbeams URL.  Also, I tried to make a back up of my old blog and lost everything.  Every single post.  It just deflated me and I needed to step away for a while.  I came back to blogging later, but not in a focused way, under the blog name Joyfully Donna.  Life was still in a grand flux at the time (some good and some awful) and my heart was just not into it.

Recently I woke one morning and something whispered to me to go look up Mice and Moonbeams URL - so I did. Lo and behold - there it was - available once more!  I snatched it up - but did not do anything with it. I just hoarded it and relished the whole idea that it was mine again!

Blogging has changed so much since I first began - and I suppose that is as it should be.  But it seems in the changing, much has been lost.  The connections and comments are more scattered over different social media; blogging has become a "professional" thing - "cookie cutter" - whereas it used to be like visiting friends, only on the internet instead of in one another's homes...it was the next best thing and allowed all of us from all over the world to connect and share our work, our art, our days - give support, laugh, participate in "blog parties", send one another "mail love"...it was a very joyful time to be a blogger.  I remember waking up and being excited to share something with my community and to read what others had shared that day or week.  It was more personal and while I follow many great blogs and enjoy what those writers share, something (in my humble opinion) has been lost along the way.  I agree that things must change and move on but there is something kind of sad in what was lost.

I know...I sound like one of those "back in MY day" old ladies...but there is something kind of nostalgic about those old blogging days.  I would love to bring that feeling back again, and so this will be my attempt to do so.  I am not a "cookie cutter" gal so I will do this my way, as I usually do all things (sometimes with terrible results, but that is all part of the learning process).  Following stats, using google keywords, creating "funnels" - that just isn't my thing.  It takes the joy out of the writing and sharing.  I love to see where others are visiting from, but that is really the extent of it.  So, am I blogging "wrong"?  I guess I don't really care! =)

I thought I would try to have my blog all set up, with side links and all sorts of good things before I published my first post, but I've changed my mind (I do that often).  I am going to build my blog as I go - it will be more fun that way!

So Welcome!  Welcome back to Mice and Moonbeams!

Joyfully,

Moonbeam Mouse xo