Gathering My Lessons
I am constantly learning from my life. Someone special to me said that I could glean a lesson even from a recipe.
Which is what I did in my post, When The Recipes Must Go.
I call them Ahas. I can also stand on a Soapbox every once in a while.
And I learn some pretty big stuff from some little people in my life. The good and the bad and
the happy and the sad. My friendships are very important to me. The past holds some wisdom yet to be learned.
And my husband’s lessons are occasionally shared by his voice here. I may repeat myself, but guaranteed,
I’ll get you to think about life just a little differently.
Forgiving the Stuck
Ah the stuck. It smells of mildew and shame. It’s the place that you dread being when things need to happen. It’s the place you don’t want to admit to being, especially when everybody knows you just need to do “this” and “that” and it will all be done. Over it. Moving on. But here you are, still stuck, feeling bad, and generally sad. Oh I know I look super busy and productive to you making all these things happen and those things shiny and feeding my kids. But honestly, there’s always that thing that you can’t...
read moreShifting from Should to Could
The shame of not doing what I should have done is sometimes unbearable. I really do mean well and know better, yet I keep hearing myself berate me for not having already done that and gone there. I am a very smart woman, I should know better, do better. And all that serves to do is make me not want to do it even more. If I’ve made it a should, I’ve cursed the possibility of having it happen. Or I hold an invisible knife to my throat for so many tasks that would make me a better person. This idea of the difference between Should and Could was...
read moreDrew’s Story of the Spinach Salad
Often we live and experience our lives through an expectation or understanding we developed as children and we’re sure that it is and will always be this way. How do we know our truths are absolute? A truth to us can be completely distorted until we come face to face with it. Our friend Drew has a story he tells about being in a café in Ireland. And he looks on the menu and decides to order the Spinach salad. Apparently there were other elements that were being offered with the spinach that seemed appealing . His experience up to this...
read morePitching the “When I Lose Weight” Clothing
I am still engaged in a lifelong battle against my own body. A perpetual hostage of “when I lose weight”. Most of the past three decades has been spent judging my physical self as under par and trying to fix it (This may also have applied to how I felt about my mind too but we’ll stick to the injustice at hand …and belly and… ). I have been in a perpetual battle of disgust with myself and I am so very tired now. I’d like to call a cease fire. There is no fix for this fixed fight and I will always lose....
read moreCreate the Life You Want to See and Be
There is a place where each of us thrives. Where we know we belong to ourselves when we are there. It is a crossroads that when we stand there, we are rooted with our own self-trust. And that no negative words could blow our buzz. That place is our home. I am searching for it. I want to create the life that I’m meant for. I may even be standing directly over top of it. And I feel many of you are too. I am near that place when I am writing from my heart. And I’m even closer when I am in a creative community engaged in creativity...
read moreThey Do As They See
We all mean well as parents. Well most of us. We mess up trying to overcompensate for the advantages we didn’t have as children. We spoil them and we coddle them when all they really need is our undivided attention and our faith in them. But the one thing many of us seem to overlook is that how we treat ourselves shows them how to treat themselves. And that is only a good story if we are good to ourselves. There is a woman at the exercise gym I belong to who teaches several fitness classes. And her hyper self-loathing comes out when she...
read moreA Wrap Up for the Our Creative June Challenge
And just like that, we’ve come to the end of Our Creative June! I hosted this challenge on Instagram where I encouraged people to join me in creating something daily in the month of June and post it with the #OurCreativeJune and #OurCreativeSelves hashtags, and they did! These artists and creatives stepped up onto the platform alongside me and we collectively creatively kicked butt. When I chose to double my offerings to arting twice daily by taking on the ICAD (index card a day) challenge as well as my 100 Day Project (...
read moreFear’s Worst Casualty is Hope
Today was a breakthrough day for me. A gorgeous June day with a breeze that lifted your spirit upwards. So I went out to the backyard and I gardened. Not a big deal to anyone else but a huge deal to me. I haven’t allowed myself to garden in a long time. And this decision has just left me feeling hopeless. For years. The cause has been so many things, but mostly, I gave up. Fear of not doing it well enough or not having the talent, time, money, or whatever other lie fear will tell you and “see ya’ later” soul gratifying thing. I...
read moreLet Joy and Glee Rule
You can start over at anytime. I say this and I believe it yet there are layers to every awakening and restarting. And today I’ve, discovered another layer. In order to move onward, I am in a perpetual state of revisiting and re-asking myself the same questions. What makes me happiest? Where is my joy and my glee? What makes me think that life isn’t supposed to have joy and glee ruling my decisions? When we ask our inner selves questions like these instead of bullying ourselves by telling ourselves what we think we should do, we...
read moreAll the Things
She said she was going to get “ All the Things” done while she was kid free. And I knew exactly what she meant. And now I realize why it felt so familiar. Both with my to do lists and in my creative endeavors, I fear “All the Things” are beyond what anyone needs to try to do. And I am overwhelmed and in a constant state of lack for pursuing this lie of accomplishment happiness. Seems this is very much a Creative’s curse. We are excited by all the possibilities and want to see how each thing will add to our lives. All the...
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