Hello, and Welcome to My Little Corner

Hello, and welcome.

I have been thinking about starting this blog for a while now. I am not a writer. I spent my working life as a school teacher, and these days my happiest hours are spent with a paintbrush in my hand. But I have reached the age where the stories start asking to be written down. So here I am.

New Delhi to Hong Kong

A little about me. I grew up in New Delhi, in a home with my parents and my little sister. At twenty-three, with a degree in Commerce and an honors diploma in systems management, I got married and moved to Hong Kong with my husband, not knowing at all what the future held. That was thirty-five years ago.

In Hong Kong we lived in a sea-facing apartment in Wan Chai, and I loved watching the waves from my bedroom. I worked there too, in admin support at the Indian Overseas Bank, and at the Indian Embassy, where I handled documentation for passport and citizen services. I made many friends. Mariana, Elsa, Anita, Alamellu, Reshma and Susan are names I still remember. There was no Facebook or Instagram then to help us keep in touch, and I have lost touch with them now. That is okay. Those friendships belong to that season of my life, and I remember them with gratitude.

I missed my family, though my husband was very understanding. After a year and a half, when his project ended, we came back to Delhi.

Bangalore and becoming a mother

My elder daughter, Sana, was born in Delhi. When she was nine months old, we moved to Bangalore, where my younger daughter, Sneha, was born four and a half years later.

In May 1999, I lost both my parents together in an accident. It was the biggest tragedy of my life and a painful time for my sister and me. They are still with me in everything.

New Jersey and the classroom

Years later, we moved to New Jersey, in the United States. It was a totally different ball game there, but my daughters adjusted well at school. Through a friend, I found a job assisting a Montessori teacher. I always wanted part-time work so I could be home when my children came back from school.

I enjoyed being with those preschoolers and doing creative things with them. Then I earned my certification and continued teaching at different Montessori schools. We lived in New Jersey for seventeen years, and almost every weekend was busy with Rotary club activities, Indian associations and friends.

Louisville and Kiara

Both my daughters are married now. Sana is settled with her family in Louisville, Kentucky, and her daughter, Kiara, is my two-year-old granddaughter.

When we visited Louisville, we liked that it was quieter, without the nonstop weekend activities. So we decided to move here to take it easy, help Sana with Kiara and spend quality time together. We love being with our granddaughter. Watching her reach for an apple on a tree last week, I thought: these are the days I never want to forget.

How the cards began

Painting, though, began much earlier. In 9th grade in Delhi I was good at art class, and my art teacher, impressed with my work, chose me to represent the school at an inter-school art competition. I won second prize, and that was a turning point — it really motivated me. Then high school studies took over and painting went out of my mind for a long break.

Many years later, painting came back into my life. In 2020, when Covid hit and we were all stuck at home, I decided to follow my passion and painted a lot of canvases with acrylic paints. My younger daughter painted alongside me in her free time. But soon there were too many canvases to store or display.

When I moved to Louisville, I did not want that problem again, so I thought: why not greeting cards? Small art, meant to be mailed and given away. That is how my handmade cards began, and how ArtfulSN came to be.

What this blog will be

This blog will be a gentle place. Some days I will write about family: weddings, birthdays, the festivals we celebrate and the people I miss. Some days it will be about travel: Switzerland’s mountains, the beaches of the Gold Coast, an Orlando trip with family. And many days it will be about art, because painting came to me later in life and quietly changed it, and about this feeling that it is never too late to begin something new.

That is really the heart of it. Life, I have learned, does not have to be grand to be beautiful. It is painted in small strokes: a garden flower, a shared meal, a card made by hand for someone who needs cheering up.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you will stay a while, and if something here makes you smile or remember a story of your own, then this blog has already done its job.

With love,Sujata