Day 1: Something I Hate About Myself

Hmmm. Well, right now I'm overweight. In itself that tells me i'm not taking loving care of myself and my life.

For the purpose of this writing exercise, the thing I hate about myself is that I'm sooooo big on ideas and not at all big on finishing them. Motivation or stick-to-it-ness is my downfall. And it's so dumb, I even discussed it recently with a therapist. We were doing some good work, wondering what core belief I have inside me which makes me tell myself I'm not worth doing all these good things. And then I went and skipped town for a month. Never mind that everyone told me not to go. The tarot cards, people, family. OH well. Packed my kid up to what I reasonably assumed was going to be a good/tolerable/at least workable situation. Even though it blew up in my face (again! :( ), I can already see how much I "got rid of". I'm not on the constant pity pot any more. I'm less in fear about doing my creative work/things I love. More especially I sooo don't care what others think about me. The others that have been in my life or in my head for a long time. Hooray for that month releasing those talons.

One thought/belief I've gained from reading Ken Robert's creative blogs (www.mildlycreative.com) is you need to just do the thing. To do the creative work. Not worry so much or so anxiously about the outcome. Sometimes nothing may come of it other than you needed to write a 500 page book for the sake of knowing you had to rewrite it differently. If you never started, you'd still be in your head about it. I also hold on to wanting to be paid (and paid well) as a writer for all the projects whirring around in my brain and on paper. It would be better for me to just start somewhere. And keep going. To simply do the creative stuff to do it. I know I'll be successful, yet I need to separate the two. And just do the creative stuff.

I am deciding to treat this sort-of trait just like everything else I've been releasing furiously: I will trust it will work itself out and no longer bother me. Sounds great to me!

30 Days of Truth: Questions To Answer About Myself

Wow! I have a fabulous facebook friend who is an artist, Barb Black. www.blackinkpad.blogspot.com. She's inspiring to say the least! She blogs nearly every day. She borrowed from one of her blogger friends, Becky at www.thinkingtoohard13.wordpress.com. Barb has encouraged me to do this, too. I will! I may not do it every single day, and some may be easier than others...I'm motivated to dig deeper. Especially since my immediate goals are to get a writing studio and finish a book I've already started writing (got about 50 or so pages written on one part of it). When I used to be a more serious writer, I did different kinds of writing each day. I hope these exercises will free up my interior a little so i can get on the road faster! I must preface this with my excuse of being a single mom. However, thank goodness school is in session!! I often find myself big on ideas but not so big on follow up. So here's the neat list:

30 Days of Truth: An Introduction

Day 01 - Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 - Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 - Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 - Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 - Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 - Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 - Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 - Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 - Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 - Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 - Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 - Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 - A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 - A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 - Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 - Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 - A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 - Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 - What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 - Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 - (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 - Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 - Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 - Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 - The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 - Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 - What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 - What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 - Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 - A letter to yourself, tell yourself everything you love about yourself.


And if you decided to do this too, even privately, keep me posted!

List of Impossible Things

Yes, I believe all things are possible! I'm naming this after Joel Runyon (www.joelrunyon.com), who has an awesome website/blog about all the impossible things he's achieving, and also the life he's living along the way.

Here's my list:

1. Get published in O, Oprah's magazine.
2. Marry my soulmate.
3. Live by the ocean, cultivating a creative yet laid back life filled with travelling, friends, pets, spontaneity and more.
4. Travel to 50/100 countries, including Costa Rica, Bali, Italy, Greece...
5. Climb the Grand Canyon.
6. Own a sailboat, learn to sail, sail around the world or caribbean for a few months.
7. Learn about living by the sea from natives.
8. Be fit and healthy and love my body and lead by example so my daughter does the same.
9. Take a writing sabbatical in Italy, writing and eating and walking, for several months to finish a book.
10. Travel the world with my daughter so she starts earlier than me.
11. Do a triathalon.
12. Run a marathon.
13. Be a famous multi-book published author who helps people with my writing.
14. Have an inspiritational website.
15. Drive a Lamborghini 200 mph on the autobahn.
16. Own a house by the seashore with a verandah stocked with plenty of fun drinks and casual clothes!
17. Pay my debts off.
18. Get an MFA in Creative Writing.
19. Love the body I'm in.
20. Have a Pit Bull and American Bulldog as pets.
21. Learn how to garden.
22. Become an ordained minister through Lynn Woodland.
23. Live a happy, joyful life ALL the time.
24. Swim with dolphins and other sea animals.
25. Volunteer with sea animals and better understand them/their needs.
26. Experience mardi gras.
27. Have a good experience at Fantasy Fest.
28. Get a tattoo of Little Guy.
29. Get tattos of the ocean on all my back!
30. Live a magical life! Be spontaneous! Be open to love, life and happiness!
31. Learn to surf.
32. Learn to kiteboard.
33. Get certified to scuba dive (if possible with my ears).
34. Scuba Blue Hole in Belize and Key West/surrounding waters and other beautiful areas in the world.
35. Get my own long rainstick in the rainforest.



i know there's more! i am so grateful for all the wonderful things i have already done! :)

An Afternoon On The Water

I've transitioned myself into my happier life. I am again by the ocean. Sigh. Thank goodness. It didn't take much to get here, but in a sense it did. I had inertia just to get myself physically moved and to actually leave. And then the 2.5 day drive down, 30 miles short of Key West. It's all good now.

Saturday we went to move my friend/roommate's 30 foot sailboat. We amazingly put this humongous anchor in my suv. It took three people to get it out. Gypsy's friend Doc and his girlfriend Esther took us out on their pontoon to find Gypsy's boat. Driving to our starting point on Cudjoe, we saw little ponds everywhere to remind us of the torrential rains in the night. It was cloudy on the way over to the sailboat.

With high winds from all the hurricane season storms swirling around, her boat moved inland quite a bit. It was in shallow water. It was actually stuck in the four foot something water we could stand in the bottom full of seaweed and sand. Holy tangled anchor ropes! It took Esther, Gypsy and Doc about two hours to untangle the ropes, chains and anchors and prepare them for re-anchoring.

Another setback we thought we had was the boat pretty much being stuck or non-moving in the shallows. The powerful pontoon motor pulled it right out. We were relieved. So everything was taken care of in it's own time.

We didn't plan on being gone almost seven hours. Lucky Bella and I haven't been hungry since we arrived in hot hot hot Florida. We had plenty of drinks, compliments of our fabulous boat friends. As always too with a child, you can expect things to go okay for a certain amount of time. Sometimes I get tired of apologizing to others for my daughter's behavior when she gets out of sorts. She didn't want food. She wanted to jump in the water and swim. At first, it wasn't possible. In fact, after Gypsy fell in and almost hit the running motor, she punched a nurse shark in the nose. I didn't realize this. I just kept hearing or seeing her suddenly disappear, falling off into the water.

Bella loved the water! Esther had a lavender-colored noodle, so I was okay with Bella swimming by herself. Pretty soon I jumped in too. She really loved both of us swimming around together. We kept taking laps around both of the boats. Esther kept taking pictures of us laughing in the water, but soon Bella didn't want her picture taken.

My little Bella does well with me. Sometimes she has her tantrums, or her moments. We talk about things. She gets things taken away occasionally but it usually doesn't come to that. It's just been her and I. One of the reasons to move away again to live by the ocean is so it can be only her and I living our lives together. We're successfully destressing from living with my parents for 9 months or so.

One thing I dislike is when others try to tell you how to take care of your child. The woman we were with kept drinking beer after beer. None of the rest of us drank. I enjoyed talking with her, finding out about her near death truck accident on US1 a few months ago, and talking about how she had a daughter who is already 20. Because she kept drinking, I had less respect for her when she tried to philosophize to my daughter about life in relation to her behavior. I didn't blame my daughter for not wanting to listen to her.

I think we certainly had a fabulous and worthwhile day. You have to leave room for expecting to be gone a short while and being gone for many extra hours ~ this I say directly in relation to caring for my daughter. I am hoping we find better people to spend time on the water with. I would love to see the dolphins down here - we both would!