I have some things to work on. I realize I have to put my own swing on this because otherwise I might lose my way. I am thankful for all the help and suggestions and ideas.
At the bottom of my blog s I’m going to put a QR code that when clicked on will ask if you want to open. It will then go directly to my first book on Amazon. Eventually there will be one for Beatrix as well. If anyone knows anyone who would enjoy a colorful picture book about breathing and feeling, it’s easy to find with the code.
I figure whatever I can learn on my first book, will make my second and third books better. My forth and fifth will be amazing. I have some ideas of what to also try next.
Blogging has been fun. I enjoy the WordPress community. I like writing. It’s interesting to look back and see my progress. I think I’ll be glad I recorded what I’m doing like this. It’s been a whole journey and it’s far from over.
I’m not sure I have good advice for anyone. I’d probably just say don’t worry, life is long. You are going to make some good choices and some bad choices. You can’t control most things anyway. Do your best, don’t be so hard on yourself, and don’t listen to people’s opinions. Follow good examples. Eat better. Smile. Enjoy being young. You are good just the way you are, stop trying to change to be more like you think people want you to be. It just distracts you from the fun you’d be having being yourself.
In case you are wondering, life never got boring, you did become happily married, the church people didn’t know what they were talking about, your parents were right about a few things, and in the end, you ARE an artist (so stop trying to be something else). Also you are smart and you hang out with people who don’t treat like you aren’t
Relax, it’s all going to be ok, (when if feels like it’s not, just wait a little while).
Time to attach my phone to the tripod and work on some illustrations.
I have a little window of time. A space. Some art supplies. A tripod.
It’s a new day.
Time to give it another go.
Some days this feels like I’m not moving forward
The mock up has taken weeks and still isn’t printed. Another Friday with another reason why it’s not. The last email from them was confusing until I realized they didn’t read the instructions I sent off weeks ago. They are closed on the weekend.
Social media has me wondering. After several ‘Learn more’ clicks, I’m convinced that everyone just wants my email address and to sell me something that promises things it can’t possibly deliver. Want to lose weight? I need to eat more food?! For only $37 or $97 or $199 I can learn how to grow my business, write a blog, publish a book, sell my art, tone my muscles, become an affiliate marketer. It’s easy! So easy that I’m stupid not to be doing it. Only a few cicks and I can make thousands while I sleep, lose weight and tone up with a 12 minute workout once a week. One woman just said Im not eating enough carbs, vegetables don’t count, what I need is to eat bagels or muffins along with more fat in order to gain muscle. Another said if I’m craving sugar, it’s because I need to eat more sugar. Uh. My deep dive into trying to learn about this, is leaving me conflicted. And confused. And distracted. Does anyone wonder if any of this is factual? I guess no one cares about that.
What do they care about? I can’t tell. I don’t even know what I don’t know. My BS meter is getting a work out anyway.
I wrote Beatrix Betterfly after hearing about teens and preteens getting caught up in the filtered frenzy of trying to measure themselves against people they saw online. Many were discovering the magic of looking better than real and everyone else was buying it. This got worse during Covid because actual interactions were few and far between. How can anyone compare to a filtered well lit, carefully posed version of someone they see for five seconds online? Lots of kids were comparing their real faces with perfected almost cartoon versions of online faces. Eyelashes alone were out of control.
I wonder if anything on the internet is what it appears to be. There must be a few things. I need to sidestep this whole subject because I’m losing time worrying, when what I ought to be doing is brainstorming a new way, a new approach. Im not the first person to be deterred by the internet. Do I want to let it make me quit?
Everyone I’ve been hanging with lately. I’m missing a few who are out of town but I’ll catch up with them soon. It’s what has made these last few months and this trip so wonderful. I LOVE my people!
Why am I letting this get to me? How can I shake it off? I think what I have here today is a perfect opportunity to practice using my own tools.
What will make me feel just a tiny bit better? Have I meditated? Am I breathing consciously? Maybe I’m hungry…
Hmmm
I walked away and I fixed myself an egg on buttered toast and a cup of tea. Everyone has their comfort foods. This is a bit more than comfort for me, I used to make for my kids. Maybe you’ve seen it with the hole in the bread, they always loved the little toasted cutout piece. When I was a kid it was more no nonsence. Regular buttered toast with a poached or coddled egg. You actually eat it cut up as if you are still a toddler, too young to cut your own food. I’m acting like a baby (waaaa why do people keep unfollowing me…) I might as well eat like one.
After a fun trip to find something called ‘Guanciale’ and stopping at a new ice cream place. I’m enjoying another cup of tea and some painting time.
I’m already feeling better. I’m not sure why this one thing is so discouraging for me. I’m not sure about any of it right now, but it’s okay. I’ll take a little step back and do some things that are more fun and helpful, because regulation is important, and man, was I dysregulated!
This is mudThis QR code will take you to Amazon directly to Peaceful Hearts. I hope it works!
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
I love shoes. Usually I do. Lately I haven’t thought much about them other than if I’ll be walking a long way, or how easy are they to put on. I love my Sorrel running shoes because I can walk for hours in them and they are quick on and off. They are cute enough comfortable.
One of the nice things about being old and out of school and not even having kids in school, is not having to care if I am liked or not. It has been years since I worried about if I was going to be rejected. I don’t know. I have a comfortable friend base and I’m fairly confident I can make friends easy enough.
That is until recently. When I was a kid we moved a lot. My dad’s career path involved a fair amount of transfers, so I found myself as the new kid at a new school in a completely new town enough times to recall that feeling easily. It didn’t help that I had a terrible sense of direction.
I spent a good chunk of my childhood lost. which is a little like how I feel on instagram. As a new kid, I didn’t ‘get’ things about the new school, sometimes, for weeks. Teachers cared about different things, Basic subjects were taught differently, desks were different, kids were different, lunch was different, recess was a nightmare. Even ‘cool’ was redefined in every new place. Always there was a core group who led the pack and just seemed to effortlessly confidently crack the like-ability code, or maybe they wrote it.
I haven’t lost my school girl admiration for whatever that quality or mastery is. One thing I remember is that making friends in our neighborhoods was way easier. School had so many rules or norms or things you had to understand. Kind of like hashtags and algorithms. No one in the neighborhoods seemed to care about what was trending, we just made up what we wanted to be into. If I stumbled into a school and managed to figure it out quickly enough, I made friends, if not, I just had to hang in there until the next move At least I had friends in the neighborhood .
I didn’t come away from any of this with good skills or even enough experience to help me out in adulthood, (or Facebook , clearly) It’s possible I have the tiniest bit of PTSD instead. I’m fine now, or at least I was, but my present baffling experiences with social media has me wondering.
Do I HAVE to do this? Is there no other way?
Once, I moved to a new school and was asigned a very strict teacher. On one of my first days, as I was scrambling to get an assignment right, my pencil lead broke. I needed to sharpen it to continue working. The teacher had left the room and when she came back, many hands went up. Apparently there was a rule about getting out of your seat when the teacher left the room (even to sharpen your pencil) and apparently these new kids enjoyed ratting me out. The new teacher showed no mercy, she gave me, shy new kid that I was, a punishment I had never heard of before. I had to copy dictionary pages. The kids seemed oddly glad. There I was thinking I was doing the right thing, only to find out I was not. I had trouble fitting in at that school, it wasn’t a good fit for me. It might be that social media and I are not a good fit either.
I didn’t get to choose if I wanted to quit school in the fifth grade. I wonder if it’s not optional to quit trying to do Instagram or Facebook if I want to get a book or an idea out into the world either…
We were heading into the ICU at Yale hospital when my daughter-in-law called. Did we want to fly out on the first she wondered…
G looked at me like I was crazy. We couldn’t just leave.
Well, who would have predicted the rapid recovery of our patient? No one. The hospital went back and forth from calling us in to say our last goodbyes to troubleshooting with his oxygen numbers.
Not two weeks later, he was on his way home, I was on a plane to California and G had left in the car to head back across the country.
Three grandkids who missed us at Christmas started that ball rolling, and here we are so many weeks later, still on the adventure. Everyone still doing well.
We’ve packed in a lot. I’ve made many tech strides with my books, I’ve met up with friends, spent quality and quantities of moments with family, heck, we even went to Disneyland. Talk about one of the best gifts ever! And it keeps on giving.
Peace Kit 