Good evening!

I am at home, with my sweetie and our sweet Sophie girl! We are watching an episode of Murdoch, which is a new show for us. So far so good!

I can honestly tell you that I am T-I-R-E-D!! With all of the changes going on in my life, I am not sleeping so well! More specifically, I can’t seem to sleep past 5 AM every morning, no matter how late I got to bed. Mind you, I am really excited about what is to come for our future, but apparently my subconscious might be freaking out just a little bit!

Since, after October 28th, I will no longer be making a steady paycheck, I am SOOOO determined to create a business of my own, and right now that means SOOOOOO many hours of extra work hours. 40 for the hospital and who knows how many more for myself, not to mention commute, trying to stay on top of keeping a house, having some kind of a social life, and all of the other important things that need to get done during any given week! WHEW!! Just seeing all of that in writing has made me a tired girl! 🙂

Because I have been so busy, the two things that seem to have been easy for me to drop out of my daily schedule has been my meditation practice, and my daily exercise sessions. I am sure that is not helping my lack of sleeping/subconscious stress levels right now, so I have got to start making those two things more of a priority!

I will get on it!!

Back to my job, one of my favorite things about my current job, besides the awesome peeps I work with, is the fact that I am able to work 4 10-hour days. What this means for me, is that I get to have every Wednesday off! So, I trick myself by saying that every day I work is either a Thursday or a Friday, because that is what it feels like, which is a very good thing! but, it also means that I have a tendency to not remember what day it actually is! So, blah! blah! blah! It is Tuesday night, which means I get the entire day to work…errrr….I mean, play for myself all day tomorrow!! That is usually always a fun day, but ALWAYS a looooooong day!! 🙂

I am going to try and post a little something every day! Kind of a personal diary of how my efforts to build a successful creative business from the ground up! I am sure that there are others out there who are wanting to start a business of their own, and maybe I can, in some way, be a source of inspiration for others! Whether it be through mixed media, art journaling, the actual business side of business, I think that I would be thankful for that kind of insight from someone else going through what I am going through! That would be cool. So, I am going to create what I am looking for!

I realize that this is very long post, and it may not be interesting to anyone else but myself, but this is a new start for me! So, here is to documenting the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and the inspiring!!

Here is to creating a Beautiful Creative life!! 🙂

To have a different life, you have to live differently!

Ok, so as many of you know, I am working on cleaning and organizing my office a little everyday! I really am shooting for getting it completely done by Sunday night! Well, tonight I started tackling all of the papers – this is a big trouble spot for me. You see, I HATE filing!!! Ok, now that I reread that sentence – WHO LIKES FILING??? Anyway, I literally have boxes, and bags, and more boxes just crammed packed full of papers!! Bills! Articles! Pictures! Oh my! After working on it for about 2 hours I now have three semi-organized piles of paper.

1. Expenses
2. Important Filing
3. Personal paperwork

I guess that it will take me at least 2 more days of diligent filing to get that task completely finished, but it will be sooooo worth it. 🙂

Anyway, I am having a little bit of downtime tonight by watching The Big Bang Theory off of the DVR with my sweetie. This show is really funny, and I love that it is intelligent humor! You don’t have to dumb yourself down to get in on the fun! A few of my favorite lines:

Sheldon: Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.

***

Raj: I don’t like bugs, okay? They freak me out.
Sheldon: Interesting. You’re afraid of insects and women. Ladybugs must render you catatonic.

***

and my all-time favorite:

Sheldon: “Yes, well, I’m polymerized tree sap and you’re an inorganic adhesive, so whatever verbal projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns to its original trajectory and adheres to you.”

Have a FABULOUS night!!! Until tomorrow!!

~Christina 😉

This weekend started an extremely busy week!!! I am frantically getting ready for a brief visit from my Aunties!!! They will be here on Saturday, and the reality is they will only be at my place for something like an hour, BUT I am just SOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!! This is the first time they will have ever been to my condo, and I have lived here for almost 4 years. EEEK!!!

Sooooooo, with the help of my SUPER-AWESOME Sweetie, he is helping me fix all of the little things that have really been bugging me about this place, and I have been cleaning/organizing like a fiend – most especially in my office/craft room!!! That room has been problematic for A LONG TIME!!! and I have always felt that I let the chaos and foolishness of that room suck some of my life out of me – REALLY!!! Although it has taken A LOT of hard work, and pulling a muscle in my back (OUCH!) I can FINALLY see this room being a place that I can just play and create to my heart’s content!! Thank you, Baby – I could NOT have done this without you!!!

I will post some after pictures as soon the room is done!!

I CAN’T WAIT!!

ONWARD!

Have a great night,

~Christina 😉

Sometimes I come across an article that is sooo life changing, and sooo spot on, that I have no choice but to share it with the world.

The following article was published in Sunset Magazine and was entitled Lost and Found, written by Anne Lamotte:

Turn off Twitter, Anne Lamott says. And don’t clean the house. That’s what it takes to create the rich life you deserve

I sometimes teach classes on writing, during which I tell my students every single thing I know about the craft and habit. This takes approximately 45 minutes. I begin with my core belief—and the foundation of almost all wisdom traditions—that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

Then I bring up the bad news: You have to make time to do this.

This means you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.

Needless to say, this is very distressing for my writing students. They start to explain that they have two kids at home, or five, a stable of horses or a hive of bees, and 40-hour workweeks. Or, on the other hand, sometimes they are climbing the walls with boredom, own nearly nothing, and are looking for work full-time, which is why they can’t make time now to pursue their hearts’ desires. They often add that as soon as they retire, or their last child moves out, or they move to the country, or to the city, or sell the horses, they will. They are absolutely sincere, and they are delusional.

I often remember the story from India of a beggar who sat outside a temple, begging for just enough every day to keep body and soul alive, until the temple elders convinced him to move across the street and sit under a tree. Years of begging and bare subsistence followed until he died. The temple elders decided to bury him beneath his cherished tree, where, after shoveling away a couple of feet of earth, they found a stash of gold coins that he had unknowingly sat on, all those hand-to-mouth years.

You already have the gold coins beneath you, of presence, creativity, intimacy, time for wonder, and nature, and life. Oh, yeah, you say? And where would those rascally coins be?

This is what I say: First of all, no one needs to watch the news every night, unless one is married to the anchor. Otherwise, you are mostly going to learn more than you need to know about where the local fires are, and how rainy it has been: so rainy! That is half an hour, a few days a week, I tell my students. You could commit to writing one page a night, which, over a year, is most of a book.

If they have to get up early for work and can’t stay up late, I ask them if they are willing NOT to do one thing every day, that otherwise they were going to try and cram into their schedule.

They may explain that they have to go to the gym four days a week or they get crazy, to which I reply that that’s fine—no one else really cares if anyone else finally starts to write or volunteers with marine mammals. But how can they not care and let life slip away? Can’t they give up the gym once a week and buy two hours’ worth of fresh, delectable moments? (Here they glance at my butt.)

Can they commit to meeting one close friend for two hours every week, in bookstores, to compare notes? Or at an Audubon sanctuary? Or a winery?

They look at me bitterly now—they don’t think I understand. But I do—I know how addictive busyness and mania are. But I ask them whether, if their children grow up to become adults who spend this one precious life in a spin of multitasking, stress, and achievement, and then work out four times a week, will they be pleased that their kids also pursued this kind of whirlwind life?

If not, if they want much more for their kids, lives well spent in hard work and savoring all that is lovely, why are they living this manic way?

I ask them, is there a eucalyptus grove at the end of their street, or a new exhibit at the art museum? An upcoming minus tide at the beach where the agates and tidepools are, or a great poet coming to the library soon? A pond where you can see so many turtles? A journal to fill?

If so, what manic or compulsive hours will they give up in trade for the equivalent time to write, or meander? Time is not free—that’s why it’s so precious and worth fighting for.

Will they give me one hour of housecleaning in exchange for the poetry reading? Or wash the car just one time a month, for the turtles? No? I understand. But at 80, will they be proud that they spent their lives keeping their houses cleaner than anyone else in the family did, except for mad Aunt Beth, who had the vapors? Or that they kept their car polished to a high sheen that made the neighbors quiver with jealousy? Or worked their fingers to the bone providing a high quality of life, but maybe accidentally forgot to be deeply and truly present for their kids, and now their grandchildren?

I think it’s going to hurt. What fills us is real, sweet, dopey, funny life.

I’ve heard it said that every day you need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, or your Self, unless you’re incredibly busy and stressed, in which case you need an hour. I promise you, it is there. Fight tooth and nail to find time, to make it. It is our true wealth, this moment, this hour, this day.

Here is just a quick update of my day today!! Let’s just say I had a pretty good day!! Had a meeting with a new client first thing, and he made my day!!! I left the office a little early, did all of my grocery shopping, had a healthy dinner, talked to one of my sisters, and then my sweetie! All-in-all, a pretty darn good day!!! YEAH!! Sometimes it is the little things that make your life worthwhile!!
-Christina