I’m Kristen Rabideau!
I’m a wife, to Tim, and mother of three, Eva, Charles and Elizabeth. They are all pretty awesome, especially Tim.
I started out my career as a chemical engineer working first for Eastman Chemical, then for Hemlock Semiconductor (more on that in my resume). However, about three years ago, I changed gears and decided to stay home with the kids.
I homeschool my kids, try to keep the place clean, work on my blog www.drawn2bcreative.com, and blog for Catholic Schoolhouse. I draw coloring pages and printable activities for kids, and sometimes draw for commission.
About the same time I started my website, the entrepreneur bug bit Tim and he wrote a book, Troubleshooting with your Senses. He’s always been a car guy – I don’t think he’s comfortable unless he’s in torn jeans, a shirt with holes in it, and covered in some sort of grease or dirt from the inside of a car. It has been an awesome experience to see him put his car knowledge to work in creating a book that appropriate for anyone. I’ve learned so much about cars from him, it’s nice that other people can too. He has a personal site as well, where you can read about all the crazy stuff he does.
When I’m not drawing or illustrating (or chasing the small people in my house), I love camping and the outdoors. We have a garden that I try to keep alive, and a back porch ‘of inspiration’ as we call it. I also love, no wait, LOVE coffee. I am partial to my own chocolate chip cookies, too. The recipe for which I have only ever shared with one other person in the world- my sister. She’s a graphic designer, and you can see her stuff here. I guess art runs in the family.
My faith is really important to me. In 2009, I joined the Catholic Church after a year of formally studying it and several years of just asking Tim and his mom a million questions about it. I grew up in a household that I’ve labeled “apathetic Christian,” in that my parents taught us to believe in God, and His son Jesus who died for our sins. But that was about the extent of our religious education. We had some Bible stories floating around, and if company came into town over the holidays we would go to the nearest Presbyterian Church. Why Presbyterian? I dunno. At some point in Highschool I really started feeling something missing in my life. I think my SIL would call it a ‘Jesus sized hole.’ In college I tried out lots of different churches and groups, from the non denominational tiny groups meeting in a karate studio to the mega church of First Baptist in Houston. When I met Tim he introduced me to the Catholic Church and I started going to mass with him sometimes. After college, I started RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), and joined the church on Easter in 2009.
I’d love to have a blog one day explaining all the beautiful facets of the Catholic Church, so that maybe my non-Catholic friends can have a glimpse of what I see in it, but now is not the time. I’m very busy keeping little kids alive 😉
Thanks for reading! If you want to know anything else, just write me a comment!