Step Away From the Cake

 Right now I am "meditating". I do this sometimes instead of sitting quietly and trying to quiet my mind. I have been saying to myself that this works as well as meditation because it calms my mind, slows my thoughts, and definitely puts me more in touch with myself. But is that true? Am I fooling myself into believing that this is as good as meditation? I do believe that journaling, freely journaling, can be extremely beneficial. I know for me it definitely helps me sort out the jumbled thoughts in my head. I also feel like I can focus more when I journal regularly. It has helped me come to understand that not everything is about me. That I can survive most things. And that what happens in the world generally doesn't affect me as much as I think it does. I think that journaling helps me put distance between my feelings and what is really happening. Of course, I have the ability to separate feelings from reality. And that's not something everyone can do. Imagine if ev...

 I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights. I wake up in the middle of the night and start worrying about the 3-day festival I have coming up. I'm worrying about the fact that I need to buy a tent. That I need to leave my art there overnight for 2 nights. That I don't freaking know what the hell I've gotten myself into. I've just been kind of freaking out about it and of course that happens at 2am. So last night I sat down and wrote an email to the lady coordinating it just to get a little reassurance from the organizers. I also talked to Hubby about it. He was very wise and I should have talked to him right away. He said, they've been doing this for 30 years, I'm sure they have it down and know what they are doing. He's right. Yes, it might not be perfect, but they have been doing this a long, long time and I'm sure they make it as safe as is possible. Could something go wrong? Absolutely! Is it likely? No, not really. So I felt better ...

 I've always said that I must have ADHD because I can't seem to stay with anything very long. I will start something and then lose interest, or forget, or just lose track of what I'm doing. But the truth is, in many ways I can only focus on one thing at a time. For example, I've been so focused on my art for the last few weeks that I haven't been paying attention to much of anything else. I've been eating like crap. My food intake yesterday was the following:  coffee french toast candy soup and 1/2 a tuna sandwich more candy cinnamon roll with ice cream Yeah, that's not even close to good. I am a little hungry this morning which is not surprising considering I had no real nutrition yesterday. I was busy thinking about school work and the show I have coming up in 5 weeks. Yikes!!! I'm going to expose myself to the world in 5 weeks. Yikes!!!! So I need to learn to shift my focus from time to time throughout the day. I should plan my food here at home, that...

 So it's weird. It's like something has tripped inside my head. Every night I sit on the couch watching TV and this week I've been working on my photos and my website. Every. Night. That is so odd. It's like something has finally clicked. I'm posting things I have made. I'm updating all my listings. It's awesome. I don't know what changed, but something clearly did. I have been watching reels on how to make decent videos. I have a free course on how to use Edits to edit videos. Last night I threw together a video of me entering the  workroom from 3 different perspectives. It's weird how this stuff is suddenly rising to the surface. I've brought some school work home and I need to get that finished this weekend and I'm set on doing that too. I don't think I'll be cutting this weekend but that's okay. Sometimes you cut and glue. Sometimes you film and edit. And sometimes you do schoolwork. Accepting that different things need to get...

 I have got to keep that in mind. One inch forward progress every day. Yesterday I made just one inch and that's okay. It was kind of a big inch (if that makes sense). I discovered that PhotoRoom can post directly to my Shopify store. Um, hello??? I can create images in PhotoRoom and then have PhotoRoom create the listing and post it directly to Shopify. WTF??? Yes, I have to make some changes and add some things, but dude, the heavy lifting is done for me. I have fun creating photos in PhotoRoom and now will be able to post them right to Shopify. I am so in. I created 2 listings last night from work I had already done. Anything at all that makes this whole process easier, I'm there for. So that is my latest discovery. All these things exist to make life easier, I need to really start using them.  In other news, I have none. Just plugging through the week. I feel like my life is divided into two parts. One part is the work and the other part is the business. I try to keep them...

 what a little forward motion will do. 1 inch forward is the absolute truth and a real game changer. I have been in such a pit for a few months now. I have seriously considered just giving up on this art thing. I mean seriously. I really only hung in because it took too much to shut everything down. Then something this weekend just kind of kicked in. I sat at my computer on Friday or Saturday, I think it was Friday, and just starting making posts. Just started putting things out there again. For no reason. There was no plan. No intention. I just started posting. That little bit of movement caused some further movement. On Saturday I sat and cut out 12 ornaments. Then sat and put them all together. Saturday night I glued them all. Sunday morning I oiled them all. Took pictures of them all. Then sat last night updating my website for the first time in freaking months. Probably close to a year. Seriously don't know what happened. Could not tell you what changed, but something clearly ...