The silence of transitions

Where I've been the last 6 months

Feb 06, 2025

Transitions are not my favorite. The uncertainty that comes with them often causes a halt of tasks not associated with it, leading to 6 months of silence (in this case).

My life has been busy and is only now starting to calm enough to circle back to this newsletter, and to Meghan Elisabeth Art. So, what the hell have I been up to since August?

In the span of 1 month —

We moved out of the camper!

This was a decision that had been in the works for awhile. Long story short: road life wasn’t fun anymore. We were ready to have a home-base with an oven that didn’t burn our food, a dishwasher, and I really really wanted a garden again. We aren’t selling Bruce, but are keeping him ready for weekend - month long adventures!

We got engaged!

On our last weekend living in the camper full-time, we travelled to Victoria, B.C. to visit some friends and go to the Classic Wooden Boat Festival. Every other Saturday for the last 7 years, Austin & I have sat with coffee & cinnamon rolls and watched the newest YouTube video of Tally Ho, a 112 year old classic sailing yacht, be restored. Tally Ho was finally finished enough this year to be on the water full-time, and was going to be available for public viewing for the first time at the the Classic Wooden Boat Festival. Little did I know, Austin had some big plans up his sleeve.

An email and a very long “bathroom” visit later, and Austin and I were invited onto the deck of Tally Ho. I didn’t figure it out until he was on one knee with the most beautiful ring: his mother’s original engagement band, and my great great grandmother’s diamond.

Claps for Austin!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

We bought a house!

Moving out of the camper was not a quick process. We had been casually house hunting since Spring, viewing homes as we were in the area. We were getting antsy to move into a house, so we decided to rent an airbnb to be faster at viewing and submitting offers. By the end of September, we got lucky and an offer was finally accepted!

Two weeks and a large box truck later (turns out we have more stuff than we thought), we moved in 🤭

I applied to nursing school!

Throughout this madness, I was finishing up online courses and writing essays for my top school’s nursing application. I was also invited to observe a triple bypass open heart surgery! I spent the entire month of September laboring over this application but (spoiler!) it was worth it.

The Great Reacquisition

We have dubbed this time of our lives The Great Reacquisition. We sold a lot of our furniture and everyday items when we moved into the camper, so we were buying a lot just to function in our new home. We didn’t have a dining table, a couch, a toilet plunger, bedside tables, or a broom. I didn’t have a table for my studio, or a chair. We were busy acquiring the necessities, but also the fun things (like plants 🤭)!

We love our new home, specifically the large yard for the dogs, the flat land to park Bruce, and the kitchen with more storage than the entire camper (yep), but there are some quirky things that will need fixing. The door that exits the second story, for example (previously a fire exit) or the bright purple, pink, and yellow walls.

October and November we were constantly working on the house, and are only now finally in a place we can settle down for winter. Come spring, things in this department of life will get busy again!

School!

As you may have guessed by the spoiler above: I got into nursing school! 🎉

I’ll be starting a 1-year accelerated nursing program in MARCH! Things are moving quickly over here, and I’m about to be swamped with all things school come Quarter 2. Currently, I’m finishing up my prerequisite courses, aka all the courses with in-person lab components I couldn’t complete on the road, aka Organic Chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, and Microbiology (oof). It’s not the easiest quarter (as you can imagine), but I’m hanging in there just fine, and am finally settled into a routine enough to work on the loose ends I left 6 months ago.

Art? Studio? Business?

Throughout everything above, I’ve been creating. I’ve been focused on commissions and keeping stores stocked, and have been mostly silent on socials and email. I’ve slowly been filling out my studio in the house (thank you, Facebook marketplace), and it’s functional, but I hope to improve it to where it feels calming to be in; I want to use the studio & my art as an outlet and stress reliever in the year to come (and beyond).

I am not sure yet how MEA will look in this next year. Likely, I will be continuing the silent creation for stores and commissions, with very few online shop updates, if any. The long-term goal, however, is to bring this business back in full-force, creating pieces I love to make, that push me artistically, and that I don’t feel financial pressure to make. I have no doubt that nursing will be a fantastic career for me, but the creative freedom and flexibility nursing will provide is a huge motivation for pursing this path.

MEA is not going anywhere, it just may be on pause for a little while 🫶🏼

The Traveling Silversmith?

This newsletter isn’t going anywhere either! It’s frequency and content will be different moving forward as we are no longer traveling full-time, but I’m feeling drawn toward leaning into this platform over social media. My break from socials the last 6 months have been really nice… so why can’t I do something similar here without the doom scroll?

Newsletter style posts like this will happen when it makes sense, but shorter notes with photo galleries and updates on jewelry creations will be thrown in-between.

Note to paid subscribers: With reducing the frequency of letters, I won’t be offended if you decide to change to a free plan! Promise 🫶🏼

Here’s what paid subscriptions will look like moving forward:

You can change your subscription here!

About 7 months ago I had started a letter to you with our final few months in the camper, which I’ll be finishing at some point. Look out for the final full-time travel letter, coming soon!

Thanks for sticking around through the silence of this transition, and I hope you stay for the updates between this busy life to come.