Branching out in many directions

I feel like I'm having a personal renaissance of sorts.  

I.  Personal

For awhile now, I've been tinkering with the idea of starting to paint pictures.  Not take classes (although that is definitely a possibility in the future), but just seeing what I can do on my own.  I've done a few of those "wine & paint" activities, and it seems to me that many of the paintings I could really probably do on my own.  I'm not saying they don't require skill, but the skill level they require is pretty basic.  

I love fall/Halloween, and decorate accordingly, but I don't have anything to hang over my mantel so I thought I would find a picture online and attempt to recreate it on my own, in my dining room.  Without wine, even.  

And this is what I made:

When D came home and I showed him, he said, "What did you do with M while you and your mom did that?"  (My mom and I are attending a "wine & paint" event tomorrow, which he had seen on the Ical.)  

I said, "We didn't.  I painted that here."  He said something like, "In our house?," which I interpreted as, "Damn, girl--you are so freaking talented and awesome I cannot believe my luck in marrying you."  

II. Professional

I am certified to teach grades 5-9.  When I went to school for my MAT at age 24, I didn't want to teach high schoolers for two reasons:  1.  I knew they might be significantly bigger than me and 2. I thought they might be smarter than me.  I emotionally always felt like a middle schooler, so I thought it would be a good fit.  And it was.  

In my part-time teaching gig now, I am teaching middle- and high-schoolers, and I enjoy both tremendously.  But I must admit that being able to read deeper literature and talk about deeper topics with my high schoolers is awesome.  

Now that I've got some life behind me, I know that even if they are really, really bright, they haven't lived 40 years, and that counts for a lot.  I'm older, wiser, and on medication so my anxiety about teaching high schoolers is far, far diminished.  

Which makes me think that when I take classes in 2014 to re-renew my certificate, I will put them towards getting high school certified.  

Branching out in these ways feel really freeing, like this new act of my life is full of all kinds of possibility.