Itaya Lightbourne: About Me

Hello and welcome to my 'About Me' article where I will share a bit more about the 'me' behind the scenes of ItayasDesigns as I was known by at Squidoo.com and ItayaLightbourne as I am now known as here on hubpages.

I have lived in the Pacific NW, USA for the past 20 plus years and love being here more and more every year. There is always something to keep me busy both indoors and out as I am very creative and love to garden.

I am a mother, wife, and a proud grandmother to a wonderful little grandson.

My life is full and I am always looking for ways to express myself and to learn more new and wonderful things. I share more about me as well as some of the articles I have written about my many interests. I suppose this article qualifies as both an 'about me' and a lensography article. Read on to learn more about ItayasDesigns!

Image copyright by ItayaLightbourne

Why I Loved Squidoo

Image Courtesy Of PublicDomainPictures

My journey to Squidoo was primarily because I love learning new things. ALL kinds of new things. Always have and hopefully always will. I feel that a mind that is constantly learning will not be as likely to wither away from lack of use.

There are so many wonderful authors on Squidoo and it amazes me that you can take one subject and have 20 people write about it and get so many different and fascinating perspectives. I really enjoy that about the authors that write on Squidoo.

I've been on Squidoo since June 12, 2009. I'm a graduate of the Rocket Squids group for authors that want to refine their writing skills. I'm also a Rocket Squid Greeter, Giant Squid and a Squid Angel.

Being a Rocket Squid Greeter allows me to meet and greet the newbies in the group as well as pass on some tips that were shared with me to help improve my writing skills.

I enjoy writing about my many interests and Squidoo gives me the perfect platform to do that. Squidoo is filled with the most amazing and helpful people as well. I love being a part of the Squidoo community and making new friends every day.

I love learning different art techniques with acrylic paints, water color paints, drawing and so much more!

If you love exploring your artistic side, these books may help.

Click for more options!

Image Above Copyright by Me - Itaya Lightbourne and titled 'Majesty'

I started painting not long after I moved to the Pacific NW to Washington state way back in 1992. This was a huge change for me as I moved from the deep south in Tennessee and traveled for three days to get here.

My three siblings all lived here as did my mother. I was the last to make the journey out west and after about a month of being here, I fell in love with this part of the country and have never been back.

After several months, I was working in downtown Seattle and had my own apartment. This was my first time to live alone and all of a sudden the possibilities were endless! I had so much space to call my own and lots of time on my hands when I wasn't working. It was both scary and exhilarating.

So I decided to learn how to paint. I watched the Bob Ross painting shows on TV and just knew that I could paint 'happy little trees' and 'happy little clouds' as Bob did. He made it look so easy that I just KNEW I could do it too!

Before long I was turning out landscape paintings in oils and was having fun stretching and growing with my artistic abilities. I sold a few paintings to friends and coworkers and this helped me to gain more confidence in my painting skills. I painted in oils off and on over the next several years.

In 2007, I hung up my corporate hat for good and gave up a four hour a day commute to tackle either working closer to our home, or working from home. That's when I turned back to my painting with renewed interest and this time I wanted to learn to paint with acrylic paints as well as to share my artwork online.

My art blog became the first window that I shared my paintings through and then I found Zazzle.com and started sharing my artwork there. I became ItayasDesigns on Zazzle and about that time I found Squidoo and the name seemed to follow me here.

In My Yard

Image Copyright by Me Itaya Lightbourne and can be found in my Zazzle shop.

You can't live in the Pacific Northwest and not love the abundant nature to be found all around you. I love the lush greenery and how the evergreen trees keep things colorful all year long.

We started living in our current home back in 2003 and I fell in love with the wide open spaces and the huge potential with our .75 acre lot. I had no idea how much work it would be to keep it looking nice, but it has so been worth it.

I love gardening and have written about several types of gardening in some of my articles here on Squidoo. We do have fairly short growing seasons for vegetables and such but there are ways around that.

Growing herbs, vegetables and flowers along with the many flowering shrubs and trees on our property have kept me pleasantly busy. Time flies when I am out puttering in one of my gardens or pruning around our home.

I miss being able to see sunrises and sunsets as we are pretty much surrounded by giant evergreens, but I do love having so many trees close by that I barely think about it anymore.

It is important to me to live in harmony with Mother Nature and to be as Earth friendly as possible in all our activities and choices. These books about gardening reflect quite a bit how I've come to feel about gardening and living green in general.

Image right Copyright by Me ItayasDesigns - Itaya Lightbourne

I love my family and spending time with our little grandson. It is amazing seeing the world through your own son's baby's eyes. It brings back so many lovely memories of my son when he was little while now watching our little Jeremy discover the world.

We love having game night or just visiting with my son, his lovely wife and their little one. It's amazing how much more patient you find yourself being with the little things when you become a grandparent.

My oldest son and his wonderful wife live several states away and we don't get to see them quite as often. Hopefully one day we will all live closer and can hang out together more.

My husband and I love exploring this wonderful part of the country we live in so we take lots of day trips. He has a vacation coming up soon so I'm thinking there are more day trips and fun things headed our way. Hopefully I'll have even more places to share with you in my articles as a result!

I will probably always be involved with something creative whether it is writing, painting, digital design or exploring the different crafts that catch my attention. In the fall and winter months I usually have a few crochet or knitting projects going for around the house or for gifts. There's just something about cooler weather and curling up with a crochet or knitting project that really makes me feel cozy inside.

The last aspect of me that I can think of to share is my spiritual and metaphysical side. I am not religious at all, just very spiritual in my views, feelings, and beliefs toward this wonderful gift of life. Learning about different spiritual disciplines has always been fascinating to me. I am a Reiki Master and believe that we are all beings of energy and are affected by the energy around us.

Well, there you have it. I've shared some about most of the parts of me with you. Hopefully you now know the Me behind ItayasDesigns much better.

I believe we are spiritual beings having human experiences. These books are just a few of my spiritual and metaphysical interests.

I have all four of these books and they are wonderful to refer to time and again. Each time I pick one up, I learn something different and relevant to me at the time.

I do appreciate you taking the time to read more about many of the aspects of ME in this article!

If you decide that you like my artwork and designs, I've listed several links for you to see more.

What did you learn about ItayasDesigns?

I hope this article has given you more insight to the many aspects of ME behind the scenes. As most people are, I am always growing and evolving and changing every day as a result. No matter if you are reading my articles or looking at artwork that I've created, now you can say that you understand me a bit more.

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments or just say Hi! Thanks for dropping by. :)