Chaos is comfortable to me

After much thought about how to make more time in my schedule to be creative, I decided that I’d approach life more proactively again. I’d schedule meals, blog posts, and laundry so I could write more. And what happened was that I experienced more ease. You have less to do and you get more done. It was a lesson I’ve learned before and knowing this made me uncomfortable.

Fear is so idiotic. Like those highway patrol people with their speed guns, it leaps out into oncoming traffic and has you pull over to the side of the road because you may not have your safety belt on. Then it convinces you that it’s safer out of the car walking. Then you find yourself back at home suddenly convinced that you didn’t need whatever you were setting out in the car to go get. And soon, you are a shut-in.

I am used to chaos. In fact, I’m a former chaos junkie. I used to think that it was cool to strive and thrive on adrenaline and fear. But then I had kids and that isn’t a great tactic when you are trying to raise them in a calm safe reliable environment. But somehow the winging it thing creeps back into my life after I swore allegiance to intentional pro-activity. And I find myself tired and haggered and not sure what I’m making for dinner at dinnertime.

Every day is an opportunity to start over. So again I started over with meal planning (once you have meals chosen, you can swap them out as you feel inspired). My laundry is only to be done twice a week. A full weeks of blog posts waiting to go out is a good minimum. And every loving thing I need to consider goes into the Google Calendar. Because I don’t need to expect myself to remember everything everyday. I just want to get on to the business of writing. Bigger badder writing is burbling underneath waiting to be seen and heard. And that is a priority worth planning for.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Co-creating with my Family

You know that I’m all about creativity. I’ve been described as an ambassador to creativity. Putting a slice of yourself into the world is affirming in the most wonderful ways. And I also believe that community creativity is a sure fire way to join people together.

My family is regularly subjected to family art projects by me. In the Fall, group pumpkin carving is mandatory. We go out and pick our pumpkins and one night before Halloween, we sit at the kitchen table, draw out our jack-o-lantern faces, scoop out, and carve our pumpkins together. Then have dinner and watch a favorite scary movie with the jack-o-lanterns lit up on the bookshelf in front of us.

At Easter, we all dye Easter eggs together. I make sure I have the eggs cooked and we all try different techniques like tye dying and rubber bands and drippy eggs. Our fingers get dark with dyes and we chatter and say”look at this” and there is a palpable feeling of pride in creation. It makes us feel good to create and we feel good together while we do it.

So when I had this idea to art these plates for the garden fence wall, I thought why not involve the whole family in making the art? We chose animals and insects that we’d encountered in our backyard. I bought the right paints for ceramics. I downloaded the animal pictures. Then I cut out the animal shapes from clear sticky back shelf paper and adhered them to the plates.  The animal shapes would come out white after we’d painted them and peeled  off the shelf paper.

My son chose to paint the turtle and the firefly. My daughter painted the fox, the raccoon, the squirrel, and the rabbit. We joined together with great sincerity and intention in our now air-conditioned garage and set to work to create art. And that’s what we did. Each persons’ was different yet they were all united by a theme. And just this weekend, I finally mounted the last four as I had to go buy more plate hangers.

Creating memories with my family is always an ulterior motive. But luckily my kids are creative and grab any opportunity to find themselves within whatever medium is laid in front of them, be it pumpkin, egg, or plate. And long after the kids are gone, I’m still have a piece of them in my backyard.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

The Last of the 100 Day Project 2019 : Days 70 through 100

I wrapped up my second year of participation in the 100 day project in the middle of July, 2019. My last post for the project, Days 36 through 69 for the 100 Day Project 2019, was back in the middle of June !

Summer got ahead of me and I am having fun and making lots of plans for progress on the blog , in my writing, and in claiming my place in the world as an artist.

I am adamant that creativity leads to a better understanding of ourselves and how we fit into the world. Our anxieties want to run us down and out but when we allow ourselves to create, especially on a regular and consistent basis, we create a loop of self-trust that makes us fuller more complete people.

Thank you so much for following along with me during my project. I felt the encouragement and enthusiasm of my audience and it makes all the difference to stay the course when you know that people are invested in you. I hope you’ll join me next April, 2020 for my next 100 Days of Shalagh.

Go HERE to see the first two weeks of the 100 Days of Shalagh 2019.

Go HERE to see days 19 through 35 of the 100 Days of Shalagh 2019.

Go HERE to see days 36 through 69 of the 100 Days of Shalagh 2019 aka my 100 day project.

Go HERE for a definition and the home of the project. Or search the #100DayProject hashtag on social media.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Permission to Be Me

It is truly hard to claim yourself. What do you like and who do you believe yourself to be are two of an intricate network of questions for which the answers represent you. Except we are so inundated with facts on who we are supposed to be a that by the time we are old enough to have the power to define ourselves, we’ve all but forgotten who we are.

“You can be anything you want to be” is such a ridiculous statement, we think. I’m supposed to be all these other things.

I keep thinking that I need focus on who I see myself as. To actively engage in a process where I define myself to me and the world. For years, I have had the intention of delving into my journals and blog posts to get to know and appreciate myself better. Am I doing that? Not.

Except, self-love is giving yourself permission to be you. And if you don’t know you, how do you know where you end and others begin? Or what makes you happy? Or what you’re good at? All your decisions are driven by the answers to these questions. Or they’re not. And you’ll feel lost if you are choosing life choices based on other people’s expectations of you.

So I am again setting myself to seeing myself in my writing by reading my words. I want to hear what excites me again. I want to know what my priorities. Like an archaeological expedition, I want to rediscover myself and find out what parts of that need to be fleshed out. What flames need to be fanned into a bonfire that I can tend and share. Thinking that my daily art effort will now be redirected to this project and we’ll see where it takes me.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

My Garden Party Looked Like This

As you may, or may not, remember, I overhauled my garden this Spring. It took me many days and weeding out over 30 wheelbarrows of weeds before I won my garden from those weeds.

I had given up on the garden and my power over it. I kept saying I couldn’t possibly… And then I decided to change that to I could and I would as weather permitted. And I began because there’s no finishing until there’s a beginning. One nice day at a time.

I am far from done but I have taken my garden back to ground zero. And that was an occasion worth celebrating. I chose June 30th (’19) as the date to host a Garden party. And our ladies gathering group eagerly said yes. But as we got closer, I knew the weather was going to be ridiculously hot. So I decided our party location would be the newly cooled garage instead.

Remember, my husband has an event lighting company, On You Mark Lighting Design and Equipment, LLC . I know what toys I have at my disposal to play with and chose a chandelier and Fete lights. I cleaned out the garage further an reused an old table and a 4 x 8 board for our table. Bought a wickedly discounted tablecloth at Kohl’s and gathered all my linens and props and began to play.

I ordered flower bunches from my florist and gathered Queen Anne’s lace and made one big arrangement and filled enough canning jars with bouquets for everyone to take one home.

The menu was a Vietnamese noodle salad, a Rose sangria, cucumber limemade, and a key lime pie. Everyone brought wine and a few appetizers and other deserts and we happily spent hours talking, eating, drinking, and strolling the garden.

I love seeing people feel special when they are at a party. To feel privileged and pampered is a wonderful feeling and that’s what I aim to achieve with every party I throw. Plus my garage and my garden have never looked so great! Plus I get the depth of conversation I crave. We celebrate people’s successes and we listen to their concerns. The validation of our humanness is worth all of the effort we can make.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.