What is it about a birthday to make you sit down and really think about life? As I approach my 38th year, I recall memories of the past year. I have managed to finally graduate from college, written and published two more books, and managed to stay alive through it all. I am extremely proud of those accomplishments, though the dreaded job search has proved more difficult than imagined. I have decided that I want to teach and go back to school for my Master's, and while I approach this new front in life, I look back on all of the years leading up to this. You see, I have been a mom, a wife, a student for as long as I can remember. I suppose deep down I never truly prepared myself for what it would be like as my children settled into school and I actually finished. I've spent so much time adjusting schedules between three fiesty and busy daughters mixed in with hours of studying and writing and cleaning a house that never truly stays clean that after I crossed that bridge between tests and graduating that I missed a step. I was so focused on the end result...graduating and then working that I forgot how hard it was looking for a job. After I graduated from highschool, all I knew was work. But after meeting my husband and moving with him, that life changed...morphed somehow from the young wife and worker into the challenges of the unknown life of motherhood. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I learned how to juggle so much more than I ever thought I could: marriage, motherhood, then the life of an author/illustrator to follow. I love it all so much at times I wonder how I could possibly be anything else. But that is the beauty, right? The feeling that anything is possible? I didn't feel that when I graduated college just a few short months ago, but now I do. I want to continue my journey as a wife and mama and author, but I also want to add another title. I want to teach, but I know I have to put on my "patient hat", one I'm not the best at wearing and wait for that job. I am applying and interviewing, and know somewhere in that big unknown lies the perfect place. So with that being said, and my birthday approaching, I hope this feeling of "anything is possible" can last. I am an avid believer of following your dreams, and have been so lucky in so many ways. As I said before, If you believe in magic it will believe in you. I believe.