May is here with all its celebration and anticipation of summer! It’s a month when we get to celebrate the joys of motherhood in all its varieties and stages. For us, it’s a month when we celebrate my oldest son’s birthday. We’re entering the teens this year, and I willingly admit I’m a little teary about it. May also brings the end of the school year, which usually means a milestone of one kind or another. Leaving a grade, leaving a school, sometimes graduating from one goal to the next. We’re in full anticipation mode for a summer of fun and time together – “Mommy Camp,” we’ve started calling it. We’re looking forward to renewing our “Summer Jar” activities, and traveling to some of our favorite places with no particular schedules to meet. I’m always thankful in May for the blessing of owning my own business and the ability to orchestrate my own routine as I look forward to spending concentrated time with my crew. But, I guess this month seems to bring bittersweet changes, too, as we shift gears and prepare ourselves for new stages. This is the month we make some of our decisions about the next school year and its activities. It’s a month when I invariably begin to think more acutely about how quickly my kids are growing up, how precious these fleeting days are.

Today, as I was thinking about the beginning of a new month and what I wanted to practice paint for my daily “letters to my daughter” post, I settled on the word “May” and how it’s often the first word of blessings and special requests… May the Lord cause His face to shine upon you, May I have this dance, May the road rise up to meet you, May I help you…. With all the changes and anticipations and endings and beginnings of the month of May, there are a lot of blessing starters there. What a great pursuit for each day of this lovely month… what blessings can I start today? I added one to my monthly printable calendar for the month…May you dream big dreams and chase them. A letter to my daughter and to myself as I continue to fine-tune what it means to create, to be a business, to be a mom, to stick to a dream. I hope you’ll click to download the freebie, and find inspiration to share with its little cut-away art.