Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog Week 2 featuring Johanna Rae

I am pleased to welcome Miss Johanna Rae to my blog. First off let me say her book, The Mercenary is one of the best book's I have
read in years. It was AMAZING!!! I strongly suggest you go out and buy it.
  

 All the things that make me ME

Johanna Rae

When I became pregnant with my first child, I had a few challenges and had to leave work very early on in the pregnancy. Many of my friends and family asked me what on earth I was going to do to fill in the days until I became a mother. They seemed to think I would be bored out of my mind by the time the baby came but they could not have been more wrong.

I have a multitude of hobbies which are almost all within the realm of creativity. Until this point I’d had to pick and choose what I gave my time to as I balanced my job and marriage. Now I suddenly had time upon my hands. My two biggest passions have always been writing and art. Back then writing was just a hobby, an outlet of unrecognized potential. I still have some of the stories I wrote during that time and I hope one day to go back and polish them up. The only thing putting me off is that they are all handwritten in notebooks. You see, back then I didn’t have a laptop either. For now they are in the ‘one day’ pile.

It’s amazing how much can change about a person in a few short years. Since having children I have not only been granted an unexpected perspective of the world, I have also learned a lot about myself. When I say this I do not mean I learned the hard way that babies mean sleepless nights. I do not mean that I had to search within myself for patience I had not previously possessed either. I love being a parent and yes that has been a journey. What I did not expect was to learn so much about myself as a woman along the way.

In my early days of motherhood I suffered from post natal depression.  In dealing with that and striving to be the best mother that I could be, I did a lot of soul searching. And as my child grew and two more joined his side, I began to explore the woman that I was beyond motherhood. I guess you could say that I came out of my shell. 

I continued to sketch and paint, and of course write. Now that my creativity had been unleashed, I expanded it further, and took up hobbies such as jewelry making, scrapbooking, music and knitting. There was never any time to get bored, for if I was not spending time with my children I was busy creating. I’m a deep thinker which leads to a lot of analysis. I’ve found that no matter which creative outlet I choose, it in turn inspires something else.

Ultimately as I have allowed myself to grow, the writing has started to overshadow everything else. I’m okay with this as I believe it is probably the largest piece of who I am.  Now that the center of things has shifted I find that everything feeds the writer in me. Whether I am sketching or camping with my husband and children, my subconscious is always looking for the next story.  I’m okay with that too. Hi, my name is Johanna Rae and I’m a writer.

You can find my blog  on Tracey's website

Visit the rest of the Sisterhood's blogs below for more great treats from amazing ladies!

A.L. Kessler

Patricia Laffoon

Johanna Rae

L.S. Broomfield

Sherrie Henry

Stacy Moran

Torie N. James

Tracey Steinbach