A lot of life has happened between blogposts. And in the future, I'll hopefully share stories from the time that has passed, but not today. Today's focus is taking action. It's about returning to the habit of doing what speaks to my heart and sharing that. Over the past several years, as I've mentioned before, I've retreated a bit from life as I've dealt with unexpected turns, both good and bad. But it's time again to reopen myself up to life. Time is marching on whether I'm ready or not, so I might as well make the most of this precious gift of time. I'm ready to reestablish a routine that includes doing what I love and value. It's  time to get moving again, rather  than standing still, frozen by overwhelm, sadness, and fear. This summer, despite more unexpected life turns, I slowly began to get moving again by starting a Happy Planner by mambi . I found my way to the Happy Planner, inspired by both friends using similar planners and by...

It's the new year and January is really chugging along. Like many others, I've done my best to start moving towards better physical health. But when choosing my word for the year , I also thought about all my goals for the year, including those unrelated to physical health. Normally my word would encompass what I wanted out of the year, but in choosing Innovation , I feel its more about looking for new ways to view old problems. So this led me to think of a new method for reminding myself of what I want to reach for each and every day. I would like to be creative on a daily basis, whether it be the more traditional making of art and crafts, or less traditional creative activities such as cooking, baking, and even problem solving. On the same note, I'd like to make a greater effort to work on my photography daily. I would also like to practice gratitude on a daily basis, possibly with a journal or just sharing with my family at the dinner table (or both). Keeping thes...

Happy 2016!  It's a new year full of new possibility. The past couple years have been emotional for me, but I'm feeling stronger and feeling it's time to regain control. What better time for a fresh start than at the beginning of a new year? As with the past several years, I've chosen a word for the year rather than a list of resolutions. The word of the year has worked well for me in many cases, even though I'd say I lost sight of last year's word, "Open." But that that doesn't matter now. It's a time for a fresh start. As I tried to decide what I want for my life in 2016, I started seeing a Facebook game that would generate a word for 2016. Several of my friends had shared it since they were given fun words like "Joy" and "Happiness." So I thought I'd give it a try. My resulting word was "Change." Ugh. I hate change. I'm a creature of habit. I had just gone through the most major of change in l...

Tinkerbell, the Castle, and spectacular fireworks just before we began our family 5K Mother's Day weekend I had the pleasure of running the Neverland 5K and the Tinkerbell Half Marathon through the streets of Disneyland and California Adventure along with my family (the 5K) and my good friend, Jacee (the half). We signed up for the race back in August (Disney races are known to sell out almost immediately) which seemed far enough away to take the leap even with all the uncertainty I felt. My heart was still aching from the loss of my dad in April, but I knew I needed to do something to keep myself moving forward. When race weekend arrived a few weeks ago, I'll admit that things didn't look like what I had imagined they would. Don't get me wrong: a fun weekend away with my family, visiting with my good friend, racing through the magic that is Disney--That was all perfect. But I wasn't the me I had hoped I'd be. My training had gone fine and I was prepared...

It is time to let go. It is time to let go of what's not working. As fun and valuable as this weekly art project is for me ( 52 Weeks from the Heart ), I often find myself stressing to keep up or catch up. So it's time to simplify, even if it's just changing my thought process.  For instance, this month I had originally planned on focusing on photography projects since it was last March that I received my first dSLR camera . But unexpectedly I found myself pulled towards a daily hand lettering challenge on Instagram . So rather than stress about balancing both projects this month, I've decided to focus on the hand lettering right now. I'm going to follow my inspiration. I'm also going to move away from the "52 weeks" approach and aim for weekly projects and blog posts. The end result may still look the same from the outside, but I'm hoping it will help me let go of some of the stress of keeping up with a 52 week year long project. I'm goi...

inspired by Made Vibrant 's #HandLetteringCourse and #MeetYourselfMarch Another month has raced by and it's time to check in with my 2015 health goals. I'm still starting out slow but little by little I'm making progress. I've traveled another 108 miles by foot (of which 22 miles were run). I'm still working with my Jeff Galloway training plan as I prepare for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in May. I've enjoyed a few runs with my older daughter, Rebecca, and some fun yoga sessions with my younger daughter, Katherine, including a fun Star Wars Yoga adventure . I am still struggling with my weight, but I'm starting to really see the source of my current troubles--emotional eating. Grieving the loss of my dad has set me on quite the emotional roller coaster and even now, almost a year later, I still find ways to numb the pain rather than face my feelings. I'm hoping to address this by starting a long overdue daily journaling practice. I'm rea...