karenika

A Book a Week – This Must be the Place

I chose This Must be the Place because one of the reviews said the author was like Anne Tyler. And since Anne Tyler is one of my all-time favorite authors I knew I had to try it.

In the beginning, I didn’t like it. I didn’t dislike it but I just couldn’t get into the story. But eventually the characters found their way into my heart and I ended up loving the book. Even though I could tell the twist long, long before it was revealed (though I sort of think that was the author’s intent.) I still loved every little bit of this book.

And it did remind me a bit of Anne Tyler and her quirky, sweet characters that I always fall in love with. I am looking forward to seeing more from this author.

Walking Slowly in the Direction of your Dreams

I often see blog posts about how to achieve your dreams. How to do what you love for a living. How to build your life around what you love to do. Etc, etc. When I see these posts, I think about several things simultaneously:

I’m so glad for this person who’s able to live so wholeheartedly and align his vocation with his passion.
I wish she or he talked about all the things you have to give up or compromise on in the process. Because these things are never so simple and people have to make choices along the way. Choices that not everyone might be willing to make. But when these things are not highlighted, it makes the process seem simpler. Big decisions, even in the direction of your dreams, are never simple.
What if I choose to fully embrace my dreams and then, after a lot of time and investment, find out they weren’t my dreams after all? They never seem to talk about that.

The thing is, I don’t know what my dreams are. At different points in my life, I had different dreams. And some were big and some were small. Over the course of my life, I’ve tried to align things as much as I can.

Here’s what I do know: you do not have to wait to start living a part of your dreams.

Many people I know are desperately waiting for the right time. Waiting for the kids to be older, waiting to have more money, more time, more self-esteem, more support, more whatever.

But I am very much against the all-or-nothing approach. I feel like the right way to start a new endeavor is to take a few steps first. Get your toes wet. See if you like it. I understand that this won’t work with all situations but it works more often than not.

For example, if you think you want to sell art, try making a lot more art and even having friends commission a few pieces (not for money). See if you like making art on demand. See if you can meet the deadlines. See if the joy starts dissipating after a while (when it’s work and not just fun) or if you still love every bit of it. Then, open a small shop. Try to sell a few.

When I started my photography company back in 2005, I already had a camera so I took my husband and son out for a shoot for some samples. And then I created a tiny website with the photos to show others. I then emailed the two moms groups I was in and asked if anyone would like free shoots. (They had to pay for the pictures if they ordered any – at a discount – but the shoot would be free.) Within the hour, I had over 12 clients. Over the next few weeks, I did shoots. I met with clients. I figured out how to present the photos, how to deal with ordering, how to deal with difficult clients, copyright, etc. My clients were understanding since they were getting a huge discount so it was easier for me to try things and worry less about making mistakes.

More importantly, I didn’t buy a new, better camera. I didn’t order stationary. I didn’t pay anyone to design me a logo or a website. I just took it slow and cheap.

As time passed, word spread, and I got more clients. Ones who paid for the shoot and the photos. I learned what kind of shoots I like. What kind of clients I prefer. How I work best. What I like and dislike about this particular career path. This allowed me to enjoy it more and, in return, do a better job.

Life is not all or nothing, if you ask me. You can always be doing something to walk in the direction of your dreams: learning new skills, practicing regularly, connecting with others, etc.

Instead of dumping all you have and embracing a new life or doing absolutely nothing and being sad, you can choose to just walk slowly in the direction of your dreams. Try things out. See if you do indeed like it. You can take tiny steps first and as you have more time/money/dedication take bigger ones.

You’d be surprised how much progress you can make with tiny steps.

Daily Sketching – Week 51

Here are the sketches from last week:

Sunday:

Nothing Monday-Thursday cause I went to work as soon as I woke up and went to bed the minute I got home.

Friday:

Saturday:

that’s it for this week.

Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2012. You can see a detailed post on my steps here.

Healing

If you’ve been reading here with any regularity you know that I don’t like to talk about work here. You also know that I’ve had a high-urgency work problem that stopped me from being able to write down thoughts here for two weeks. While things are shifting and possibly calming down a bit, I am not ready to talk about anything just yet. And I might not ever want to.

While I’m generally a firm believer of talking things out and getting them out of my system, I’ve sort of been trying to do the opposite in this case. Ok, maybe not exactly the opposite…

Here’s the deal: in the last few weeks I’ve experienced a lot of negative emotions. Shame, fear, frustration, sorrow, exhaustion, embarrassment, resentment, and just plain old helplessness. I slept fitfully and ate very little and not well. I abandoned most of my routine and saw very little of my kids.

By the end of the two weeks, I was pretty much a wreck. A bitter, frustrated, spent wreck.

I found myself unable to let go of a lot of the anger and resentment. Part of me kept remembering that shame couldn’t live in public and I had to share. But I already had told a few close friends about the events and I really didn’t need to talk about it anymore. I felt like I was holding on to the feelings for no good reason. I was letting the anger and resentment envelop me.

So, at some point today, I just decided to let it go.

I decided that holding on to all that was hurting me more than anyone else. It was hurting the people I love. And it wasn’t really doing anything to those who upset me to begin with. So it just felt like by letting it go, I could immediately make my day better.

Don’t get me wrong. I will still need time to heal. To catch up on sleep, life, and get my soul shining again. And after the two weeks I’ve had, it might take a long time to get there.

But the first step is letting go. And forgiving. Forgiving myself. Forgiving those who hurt me. Giving people the benefit of the doubt. Letting go of the hurt. People will hurt you. Most of them don’t matter. It’s only worth healing the hurt between those whom you love and you. The others are just not worth your time and energy. And I decided that by holding on to the hurt, I was giving others more power than they deserved. So much of life is about letting go of what doesn’t serve me. It feel like I have to learn this lesson again and again.

So, today, I started the process of letting go. Forgiving.

And now comes the long process of healing.

Never be too scared to explore and question everything

This is a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye for winter CHA.

And the journaling says:
My sweet boys One of the things I learned as I got older is that it’s important to explore as much as you can. Follow all your interests. Never be too scared and don’t give up too soon. You never know what will end up being the thing that fills up your soul and if you get scared to explore you will miss out on living life in the best possible way. So go down every path. Ask questions. Embrace life fully and wholeheartedly.

details:

David’s BoGM – Week 7

Here is the next spread from our book:

This is a little map of mystery LEGO mini-figures you can get and he checked off the two he already has.

There we go. That’s all for this week. More coming soon.

David’s Book of Good Memories is a bi-weekly project for 2012 with my seven-year-old son David. You can read more about it here.

Weekly Diary – March 24 2012

Alas, another not-so-great week at work. So I will keep this brief. I am hoping things will start getting lighter soon. In the meantime, here are some photos Jake or I took this week and they make me happy. And grateful.

here are some highlights from last week:

Nathaniel playing with David’s Batman computer. He loves that thing.

Over the weekend, both kids got some legos. I loved watching Nathaniel follow instructions and try to put his own together.

he even managed a few things all on his own.

and then called in daddy to help.

David’s front tooth is all crooked because the next ones are coming but this one isn’t ready to fall off just yet.

The best thing I get to see every day. The best.

David had pinkeye on Sunday. Here he is with eye cream on Monday. He was really worried about the cream but it turns out it didn’t hurt (which I told him it wouldn’t but alas he wouldn’t listen.)

love my boy.

this one, too. He loves his new Star Wars pajamas.

he’s so happy.

I feel so grateful that I seem to have such happy kids. I was pouty as a kid.

The boys cleaned up while I was at work, too. Love my boys.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole world. Just to have these three.

Nathaniel just refused to look at the camera. He thought it was funny not to.

And here’s the tickle-time.

and here we go. Like last week, I am extra grateful for my family. I want to hug them tighter and closer. Here’s to hoping things are better next week.

Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Journey into Collage – Week 12

Page twelve:

I made this page for Jenni Bowlin’s blog. It was so much fun to make and I tried not to overthink and just let myself go with the flow. I’ve been thinking a lot about knowing who you are and making a point to own it and be proud of it and not try to be something you’re not just to make someone else happy or to look good.

Here’s a video of me making the page:

more next week.

Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Art Journaling – Fabriano Roma Set 16

Here are some more pages I did:

The full text reads: Do not try to be perfect, just be you.

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: Pay attention to the journey.

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: Make sure to laugh and breathe everyday.

Well here we go. More coming next week.

I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers.

The Savor Project – Week 10

And here’s the spread for week nine:

here’s a closer up of the left side:

The first story here is David learning to tie his shoelaces. The second one is about Nathaniel’s creativity and the third is about a burying ceremony I did for Body Restoration.

And here’s the right side:

The first one is coloring the paper airplanes we made during family night and the second one is about putting grass seeds in the backyard.

As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo.

So there we go. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

A Book a Week – Will Grayson Will Grayson

I am a huge fan of John Green so I don’t know why I kept putting off reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson but I finally picked it up.

And, of course, I loved it. I just love the way he writes. I’d never read the other author but I liked his parts, too. Though, of course, not as much as John’s. I love his characters, writing, pacing, etc. I have now read all but one of his books (this post was written months ago, before his January book released but I already have that on preorder.) and I am going to save it for another downturn in my reading list (as it often occurs) because I know I will love it.

I have simply never been disappointed by this author.