I’m a definite homebody. I need my space and my time in my home to ground me. To be quiet enough to hear the cardinal outside the window chirping before zooming to snag a bug off our white vinyl siding. Quiet enough to hear what my future me needs to hear. Slow enough to take time to iron the napkins and notice there sure are a lot of grease spots on them. If other people are around the house, I’ve got a history of prioritizing them as they advantageously take me for granted. Better boundaries began construction at the first of the year as I made commitments to several big life changes to tak ..read more

I was reading recently how in order to be grateful and happy, you need to be present in the very moment you are in. To experience it fully and be thankful for it. This is practicing mindfulness. and absolutely does increase your happiness quotient.  But if you are an anxious person, you aren’t present. We chase ghosts while our beautiful nows bloom and fade before us. We’re always rushing off to worry about something in the future we can’t control or something in the past that we can’t change. We chase ghosts while our beautiful Nows bloom and fade before us. If the statistics are righ ..read more

…Flashback to February 2023… Yesterday, I made some efforts and worked on my work and ended the day on a proud note. Easy for me to write but know how this particular action has been hung up in my head, and in my life, by my inaction from saying the very same thing to myself over and over again without doing the actual thing. The Backstory of the previous months You may or may not know, (in 2023) I had a pretty lousy holiday season which left me exhausted and spent. I was barely climbing out of that trauma and overwhelm in the beginning weeks of January. Gladly, I completed the required manda ..read more

Recently, I have come to understand that my mother’s emotional well-being was my responsibility growing up. The understanding of this came from a book titled Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD. Symptoms I recognized included an awareness that there was no room for even mild disagreement, I was expected to comfort and emotionally support her but couldn’t count on her for the same. And knowing that my feelings and joys weren’t validated or supported, I was invisible. Gibson explains that emotionally immature people cannot regulate their self-esteem or their ..read more

The 100 Day Project began on February 18th, 2024. This is the second year that it’s begun in February, I think. Prior, it’s begun in April. And is followed by the ICAD challenge. (Unfamiliar with this global 3-month long project? Go HERE. See a roundup of my 2022 100 Day Project, click this little link.) When I’m creating, that’s my ladder to a better place. I build armor around myself when I create. I begin to feel more entitled to happiness and joy. I feel more aligned with what’s important to me. This is my 8th time participating in the100 Day Project. And I’m glad I came back to this ch ..read more

One of the biggest promises I made to myself this year, was to actively address and change any situations where I felt shame or blame in my life. One of the reasons I made this promise is because someone in my life keeps actively shaming me. There are people who you may have to deal with on a regular basis who rub you the wrong way. They may be coworkers, in-laws, or even your relations that you are forced to endure. However, each of us has the right to be us. To live and make mistakes and gain weight and go in debt without being shamed. We do not “invite” shame by being us.   Better Mot ..read more

What does it take to create a new perspective? First it takes you being so sick of the story you’ve been telling that you will do almost anything to rewrite the one you’ve been living. The new year was approaching, and I needed a new story. I made few decisions ahead of time. One of these decisions was that I wanted to stop shame dead in its tracks and take back responsibility of my finances. Suddenly, I saw the Dow Janes course that looked right for me because it is directed towards women, and I knew in my gut it was right. Since I take care of the finances at my house, I asked if my husband ..read more

I am about to chew through my third journal since the beginning of the year. Apparently, I can write a lot. Writing in my journal is how I figure out where I am, what’s important to me, and where I want to head. I have kept my writing parameters loose from the New Year through now, not over-structuring my writing efforts while I just listened to the chatter in my head. And this is what I’m hearing. I am dancing with my writing again in the larger future kinds of ways. Hearing my voice tell the stories that I’m living now. Knowing that they are pertinent to me a lot of others as well at this t ..read more

I’ve begun again. That pesky 100-day project thing. Why do I keep doing this? Commit myself to showing up to my craft room workbench day after day, year after year? Because I need to remind myself and remember, I am an artist and I love showing up to create. See my post about showing up for myself. But what I also know is that when you show up to do your work for so many days in a row, there’s magic that happens. With your muse’s help, you begin to understand that showing up for yourself is an amazing gift to you. Like when your parents showed up for your school concert, you knew you were imp ..read more

You know those sudden changes you see other people go through seemingly overnight. You think their hair looks better and they’re carrying themselves differently from the last time you saw them. Or that lady you used to say Hi to at the store is suddenly on a morning talk show you watch. And you wonder what changed for them so suddenly? Seeing people from the outside isn’t reflective of what they may have been going through on their inside, especially if you seldom see them. Big changes can have occurred which may all have started with an internal shift. For me, I decided to no longer be a par ..read more