#SketchnotingLife Archives - Carrie Baughcum

February 22, 2015March 31, 2015

SIT Conference 2015

My friend told me about it, conference for students by students.”You totally should come. Tricia is finally old enough to attend. Tech and kids…it’s a fantastic day,” she said.
Trusting her and her knowledge of great things and things my daughter would love (bonus: our girls would be able to hang out together and well the promise of technology…no brainer). I signed my daughter up to attend the Buffalo Grove SIT Conference 2015. Then I decided why should she have all the fun and I signed up to be a volunteered at the conference!

Bright and early on last Saturday morning my daughter and I drove to Buffalo Grove. There we would join hundreds of other 3rd-12th graders for a technology conference for students by students. To top that there would also be four other SIT Conferences going on the exact same day and time as ours throughout the state of Illinois!!!

At check in I was amazed at every detail that had been noticed. Every procedure and process had been put in place and thought of to make sure this conference for students by students was safe for kids. It would allow this all the students to be as independent as they wanted to be and have a real conference experience.

As quickly as the keynote started she was off with her friend to the sessions they had selected. The conference had started and to say it was a beyond awesome experience would be an understatement…

At lunch Tricia barely got a bite of food in as she talked non-stop about all that she was experiencing and learning she had done.

I honestly had never heard her talk so much in her life.

As we drove home from this fantastic event, I looked in the review mirror to see Tricia’s head leaning on the window… she was sound asleep. I smiled. I knew in that instant that we will forever support and be a part of this incredible day!!!

December 30, 2014March 31, 2015

Crazy Holiday Fun

Well that was fun!! I don’t know about you but I have a serious love hate relationship with Christmas. This year my procrastinating tendencies caught up with me and honestly I didn’t handle it oh so well. There may have been some anxiety and stress. In the end, as always we I got through it and I was able to look back at it all, laugh, smile and see all the fun we had!!

This is just a glimpse at some of the crazy fun I had!!

December 14, 2014March 31, 2015

Motherhood…Living on The Edge

Last week was one full of those on the edge moments! You know those moments you want to run out of your house screaming someone save me from this insanity. Those moments you count down the time until your husband will be home from work so you can tag him…”you’re it”! Those moments you filter so much, your families mouths would drop if they knew the things you really wanted to say. Well…wrapped up in all that insanity there is awesomeness. The you wouldn’t have it any other way moments of motherhood.

Last week was a smidge more on the am I going to survive side…
Motherhood...The Edge of Awesomeness and Insanity By Carrie Baughcum

December 6, 2014March 31, 2015

Giggles, Fun and Christmas Lights

Early this week I shared my new found love for what I have now learned is called #sketchnoting (I personally think it is so much more then a boring name like that. Don’t worry, I’m working on a new name, prettier and way more creative name for it). Even with a boring name my love for what I like to think of as writing with intertwined words and drawings continues….

Last weekend my 9 year old asked if we could decorate the outside of the house on Saturday. How could I possibly say no. So we brought the lights up from the basement and got to work. It was so much more then I could have expected.
Giggles, Fun and Christmas Lights

December 1, 2014March 31, 2015

40, Teary, Thankful and a New Happy

I started this post the day of my 40th birthday…over two weeks ago. I wasn’t short of words. I didn’t need any ideas. I knew what I was going to say. The post was simply waiting for a finishing touch, a picture, some word art, some splash of heck awesome.

So it sat… unpublished.

A Google+ post came into my stream. It was a post about Lynda Berry’s illustrated syllabus and homework assignments. The article shared how she uses humor, creativity and drawings to write her syllabus and homework assignments. It is just too cool and seriously, who wouldn’t want to do that homework.

Mt daughter’s drawings stared at me from the magnets they hung from on the fridge as I ate my breakfast. Their collages of words, imagination, fearless free thought, full of color, ideas, flowing, oozing with the details of their life, shouted their creativity.

I had been missing something lately. Something that kept me from doing more, from writing more, from creating more and it finally hit me…I’ve been missing drawing.

Suddenly it hit me. I knew what was missing. I knew what I wanted to do. So, I asked Olivia’s if I could use her sketch pad. I got out my favorite black pen and I began to draw (big step for me as I usually draw on the iPad, drawing on the iPad means I can fix my mistakes, I can make it perfect and hate what my drawings look like on paper). The drawings and words began to swirl and became entangled on the paper. My heart warmed and happiness flooded me as I felt my personality, my words and my story illustrated on the paper.

My daughters joined me on the floor, each with their papers and pens. We sat and drew together. We smiled and giggled and passed crayons to each other and admired each other’s drawings.

I knew in that moment…this type of writing, this type of drawing, this type of creativity filled my like none before. (Mommy BONUS…it also gave me a half way point with my daughters and our time together. It allowed us all to write and draw and create the way we love to do. It allowed us to spend time together, doing something we all loved.) I had finally found a creative outlet that was fun, artsy, free flowing, portable and most of all it made me feel like I have wanted to for so long… like an artist.

I give you the first of many, many _______(I am certain there is some fancy smancy name for this type of writing/journaling. I have no idea what it is called. I just call it my art…my happy)….
40 Teary Thankful and Happy