Here's to 2009! Here's to 2010! Here's to you!

Twilight Road, Ann Arbor Michigan

I stopped by to wish you all a Happy New Year.

I've found this last half of the year, I have not been as able to celebrate with you all, or other people as much as I wanted. I've felt a bit overwhelmed by my own concerns, and didn't really feel that I had the room to be present for others.

For that, I apologize.

I have decided that for 2010, I am going to focus more on paying attention to the abundance that is already in my life, and not be so concerned with those things that I lack.

2009 has been a very hard year for many people, I know. It seems most everyone has been struggling with losses, financial hardships, difficult choices and all sorts of troubles.

I personally have not felt the pinch this sharply since I was a kid.

It would be easy to only think of 2009 as a year of constraints, but I choose instead to look at it for the growth and development. I am choosing to be thankful for the lessons that I have learned this year.

I am grateful for being able to watch how my kids have turned from babies to actual kids. Becoming more and more able to communicate and explore their own world independently. One is potty trained completely, and I have just one more to go. Woo hoo. Here they are, actual fun little people. It makes me eager to see what else is coming, who they will become.

I am thankful for finally being able to overcome some of my own insecurities and begin selling my art to people I do not know. Even though I feel like I know many of my clients now. I have become a business woman, even if I am not very profitable just yet, what has come my way has always come my way just exactly when I have needed it. And more than the money, the value of becoming a business woman is in the way I have come to look at myself and what I can do. I still have far to go, but I know I can learn what I need as I go.

I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to write, even in those little minutes that I had, while the kids were watching tv or while everyone else was occupied with something else. When you days stretch empty and unencumbered, it is so easy to take your time for granted. This year, I have squeezed every minute I could out of my busy life so that I could feed my soul.

I finished my latest first draft just this morning. Yes, I thought i was done yesterday, but it was this morning where I wrapped it up and added those two little words, "THE END." That was cool. More than any other book I have written in the past, I feel like this book is marketable. It's not done, and I want to make it as good as I can, but there is something here that sparks. That welcomes others. So I'm counting this as one of my successes that I was able to focus on because of my constraints in other areas of my life.

I'm thankful that I have found a whole new language, a whole new dialogue with my art and my online community... without which, it is doubtful that my painting would have gone on the journey it did. Imagine, if I'd had the freedom and money to go out and do all sorts of things in real life, would I have sat at home painting every night, and spent my afternoons talking to you all? Doubtful.

And then there's a big one. Being financially strapped this year has made me pay attention more than ever to my own spending habits. To the ways that I am wasteful, not just with money, but with resources. I have begun cooking more meals from scratch and utilizing the leftovers. Did you know chicken bones can make a delightful SOUP? Yes, Virginia, soup does not have to come out of a can. I have also learned to focus more on those things that I did have. This is hard sometimes, but after a while, you come to realize how much you don't need ALL. THAT. STUFF. Things aren't where importance lies, really. It's in people and in the connections between people.

Lastly, I am thankful for my own creativity. Constraints in life demand creativity. Making a doll for my daughter instead of buying one. Finding new ways to use recycled items, like making crowns out of old cereal boxes. Discovering the wonderful world of blanket tent making, or cushion fort-ing. Making do with what resources we have, instead of always going out to buy what we think we need is one of the most basic ways to utilize our creativity.

I think that's where human creativity comes from, and why it is so important to our society and our humanity. We make what we need. We find new ways to interact with our environment. We discover new things about who we are and what we are capable of, about what is important, and what is not as necessary as we thought. Creation is how we excercise the grand capabilities of our wondrous minds.

There is no limit to those capabilities, if we use our creativity to keep looking for ways to make our lives into what they need to be.

So here's to 2009 and all the lessons we have learned, the journey on which we have travelled.

And here's to 2010. To its limitless possibilities, and all that we can create with what we are given.

And here's to you. Imagine me raising a glass of champagne, here. Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Things of Land and Sea are We

Kooky Mermaid w Purple Hair and Sea Family. By mama


This is one of the things I've been working on this month. A mermaid doll, not a pretty mermaid doll, a funny mermaid doll. And the little dolphin pet. And the finger puppet octopus and jellyfish. I am particularly proud of the jellyfish inspiration. A little tulle, a little beaded trim, and voila.

Here's Ivy playing "hello there would you like to dance" with the invertebrates.

Sometimes I've been feeling a little like I was under the ocean with all the things I've had to do lately. But without the fins and gills and tentacles and such.

I've decided that my new year is going to be....

well... let me stop.

I haven't decided anything, except I am going to keep trying to do what I've been trying to do. I'm going to take the next steps and see where they lead me.

I'm going to revise my just finished first draft of my Werewolf Novel. (Just this morning! Yay!)
I'm going to find some critical readers.
I'm going to find out how to get an agent.
I'm going to try to get this puppy published. This is the one, I think. After all of the "ones" I've had before.
I'm also going to keep going with my art. Work on my etsy shop, which is taking a necessary break right now.
I'm going to try to paint bigger, if I can.
I'm going to work on some new creativity projects still to be defined.


But along with those goals I have, I'm going to work on adjusting expectations. Accepting what is. Enjoying life as it comes. Keeping motivated and productive. Being open to opportunity. Being realistic about what I can accomplish with my time.

I've come a long way this year, but it's not as far as I was hoping. The truth is that as a full time stay at home mom with a 4 year old and an almost 3 year old, I don't really have the time or energy to do all I want creatively or in a business.

That was an important realization to make. Life comes first, you see. Even if creativity feeds my life, I still have to take care of the physicality of life, the needs of little people, cleaning the house, cooking, laundry, eating right, maintaining relationships. All that stuff of living.

I have a tendency to live in my head, to dream up ideas, to paint and write and focus on all that.

Now as a mother, I am learning this balance.

A thing of land and sea I am. A mermaid in life. Half mom and half artist. Half woman, half fish.

I am still learning to navigate this strange environment.

But there is no deadline to living. Every day is a new chance to grow, learn, change, retreat.

January first is a great day to take stock and review and envision the year to come, but it is still just one day in life. And every single day is the first day, as they say, of the rest of your life.

What do you want to achieve in this next year? What are you willing to let go of?

A Breather (and then dive in again)

Yesterday morning, I looked out of the window and discovered we were in a cloud! So I stepped out the front door, with barefoot children following, and walked around the corner to take a photo.

Yesterday, I also took a breather from creating. I sketched some ideas, I made some lists and researched some ideas, I worked on packing up an order, I posted and I even wrote a little installment in my group story project, but I didn't make any new products. Hmm. Looking over that list I can see that I did a lot. It was a day where I thought I did nothing but surf the internet and it turns out I was still working, still making, still producing. That's very interesting. I'm trying to find ways to relax and not work so hard... without guilt and anxiety.

ANY WAY, funny segue. While I'm trying to relax, I've just taken on a new project. The Portfolio Project, it's called, and it's the brain child of Jen Lemen and Jen Lee. The idea is to commit the next 12 weeks to creating a body of work-- a portfolio.

It's up to each individual who's playing to define what that body of work should look like. 50, even 100 paintings? A publishable draft of a novel? 15 great poems? Morning Pages every day? 84 photos? Some will be great, some will be not so much.

This reminds me of a couple of the projects I have done lately, nanowrimo, AEDM and my own personal challenge where I did a Flying Girl everyday, and ended up continuing on for about 2 and a half months. After taking on those projects, there has been a transformation in my life and in the way I interact with the world. Not the very least being the absolute explosion of my creativity.

If you come on my blog and say, "Oh, she's so creative. I wish I was that creative. I could never do all that stuff," I would just like you to read back in my archive a year or two or three. Or four. In fact, my first entry here is when I was pregnant with my 3 year old, and bemoaning the fact that I was unable to create. That drought continued on for three years, until I took up the project of regaining my creativity. Since March. And most of this huge output of art and writing? It's all since Summer. If I can do it, you can do it. You can do YOUR version.

For me, I think I'd like to take the Portfolio project and have it take me from my previous work, most of which was done in my journal, or in the privacy of my writing corner never to see the light of day, to work that is designed to be shown, to be sold, to be published.

I've said it before. 2009 is, for me, The Year of The Business Woman, and my business is the creative.

What about you? What do you want next year to be about for you? Would the Portfolio Project help you get there? Do you want to play the game of the Portfolio Project with us? Join in. Everyone's welcome.

Some things to think about for the beginning of the project, from Jen Lee's Podcast, and elaborated on by me.

Accountability: How will you be held accountable for doing the work. Will you blog about it? Will you have friends join and work with them? Will you tell your family about it and have them bug you for the rest of the 12 weeks? Will you start your own little workshop once a week where people come to share their portfolios in process?

Definition: Define what you want your product to look like at the end of the 12 weeks. How many paintings/poems/pages/photos? Be specific, give a number, not a subjective state. Plan backwards. That means take the number of products you want to have in your hand and divide by the number of weeks/days. That's how much you have to do each week/day. Don't forget to be realistic with that number.

Schedule: Look for time in your daily routine to get your Portfolio Project done. You can't get it done without building in the time. I personally found time at the end of the day, while watching my wind-down tv for the night. That's when I painted (which is why I lost my down time, but that's something else I have to work out). But maybe you can find some free hours (haha) or more likely, maybe you will have to rearrange your routine to get things done. For instance, do you REALLY need to check all of the blogs in your googlereader in one sitting? (Rowena, I'm talking to you.) Also, look for short blocks of time in your day. You'd be amazed at how much can get done in a mere fifteen minutes. Maybe you can tuck your project into your already busy day, but more likely, you will need to shake it up. Ask for time from family. Get a babysitter. Give up the weekly meeting with the girls. Sacrifice something on the altar of your creativity. (no, no drama there.)

and lastly
DO IT!
Just do it. It will never get done if you don't just do it. Commit. Sit down at the computer. Pick up your brush. Steal those ten minutes every morning for your morning pages. Carry your camera everywhere. Close that door on the world and open up the one inside of yourself.

In the wise words of I really don't remember who:

Writing is the fine art of applying ass to chair.

Get that ass in gear.

So you wanna play?