a rainy Friday evening

         It's a rainy Friday. The grass, the ditches, the trees, all are blushing green with new growth. It's so refreshing to me after the long, cold, slushy winter we had. I stopped at the Co-Op store on Keltic Drive on my way home, and bought seeds and onion sets. I didn't venture out into the wet yard with all the potted plants, though. I'm thinking this year of not going too plant-crazy with purchases, and just tending to the garden I already have, tidying it up a bit. It's so good to be home, for it to be the weekend, and especially a rainy one... that makes me feel so cozy! Other than going to see Pitch Perfect 2 with some gal pals, my plans are to stay in our house and on our property. I'm feeling the urge to nest, to cuddle with our new kitten, and to tend to my own work. Whether that's my design freelance work, or my own home, just to have some time to get to my own stuff, instead of my day-job that I do through the week, it's a heavenly feeling.

Today is day 2 of posting-for-a-week. I'm realizing how much I've missed daily blogging. It was necessary for me, personally, to step away from the "Dream Big Cape Breton" brand back in the winter, but I need to remember what I loved about blogging, and get more of that in my life.

get random

I had lunch today with my friend Mary. She's got her own company doing social media consulting and management,  and she inspires me a great deal with her passion for nature and the environment.  She's just pretty rad.

Anyway, we were chatting about blogging, social media, starting a biz, all that good stuff. And I was giving her advice about starting a blog, and saying that it was totally fine -- and in fact, attractive to people -- to post a random assortment of stuff, not just "The Top Ten Ways to Maximize Your SEO" or other biz-related posts.

And then I realized, I need to follow my own advice.

Part of the reason I'm quiet on my blog these days is I feel like now that I'm writing a blog for my biz, that it has to be all biz, all the time. That and, I feel it needs to be a lot more polished.

But, newsflash Leah! I'm not polished. And I'm the person that people will be working with. If they're drawn to me, they're drawn to me. If they're not, then there are hundreds of designers out there for them to work with instead. That's totally OK.

And in the meantime, in the time I'm wasting being worried that people won't like me and my random posts, I'm not posting and not having the conversations with readers that I could be having, that will further my business.

So, I'm going to post every day for the next week. It will be random. It will be from my daily life. I'll see how I like it. You'll see how you like it! And we'll go from there.

1, 2, 3: Get random!

Oh and -- that's my new kitten, in the photo up there! Her name is Mittens. I love her to bits.

worth it (a bit about juggling)

A voice in my head sometimes -- OK, often -- asks, "Is it worth it?" The "busy", the "hustle". The end goal, of having my own business. The short term goal, of completing work that is not my day job.

When all I want to do is lie in my bed all Sunday long, reading and drinking coffee, listening to the birds outside the open window, I have to admit that it doesn't feel worth it, to get up, and pick away at my To-Do list. To do the work I naively signed up for by selling my time in the crowdfunding campaign last month. (It will definitely get done, but ignorance is bliss, let me tell you.)

And, some Sundays, I do lie in bed most of the day. And relax. Because that's worth it, too, in a different way.

The Busy -- and that's sort of how I sum up the whole body of To-Do lists, is by calling it "The Busy" -- is a restless toddler, not content just to be held, but always squirming around in my arms. For me, right now, anyway. And it seems there is no one Perfect Time Management system, but rather I must keep the level of tasks I've said "yes" to at the level that I can manage it. In my own way: with my paper dayplanner, with my methods of checking in with the lists each day, and getting work done piece by piece.

In a recent conversation, my coach Tiffany Han asked me and the others in the 100 Rejection Letters program, "If you're feeling overwhelmed, you've got to ask yourself, what is it you want? Are you wanting to learn how to juggle better? Or do you need to look at the balls you're juggling and figure out which ones to put down, at least for a little while?"

And I thought, "You know what, I think I'm as good at juggling as I'm going to get. My goal is not to become a Cirque-de-Soleil level juggler, astounding the audience with the sheer impossibility of the juggling act. My goal is to be a juggler who laughs and jokes around while she juggles, because she is juggling at a relaxed rate. Two or three objects. Solid in her hands, slow and easy. And she can set them down whenever she likes, and have a beer."

I suppose even the squirmiest toddlers grow up, as well! The Busy, it seems, just wants some attention, and then it will relax a little. One day at a time, one step toward the end goal at a time, along with some quality time spent in bed reading, and it is indeed all worth it.

storyteller

I'm sitting here at my desk on a Wednesday evening, doing my "It's Business Time" homework for the week, which is to come up with a small business offering that I can try out on a guinea pig client, and I'm thinking about storytelling.

Because: On the one hand, I remember being a little kid in the early 1990s, before "storytelling" was a marketing buzzword, and going to a storytelling festival in the Appalachians with my Dad while we were visiting my grandmother at her summer condo in North Carolina. I remember sitting enthralled listening to a storyteller, and thinking, "I want to do that!"

I also remember being a kid with no television living in a cabin in the woods outside of Baddeck, and how I used to take a plaster coat hanger, sit on my bedroom floor, and tap-tap-tap the hanger against the floor while I told stories to my little brother. We called it "bonking". Sometimes we'd sit there for hours.

But: On the other hand, I do feel "storytelling" has become a buzzword. And my poet's gut tells me to shy away from buzzwords, to discard cliches, to find my own way to say a thing.

Both hands are out. Both have valid points. But the one that tells me to claim to word "storyteller" wins.

So, back to my homework. We'll see where this goes!

why i want a lion tattoo, part 1

"I think perhaps we are acting as lion tamers when we are, in fact, simply put, lions." -- Erin Loechner. AMEN, sister. Here is the Pinterest board where I'm pinning images about my next tattoo.

Curious about my first tattoo, which I got only a few weeks ago? Here it is.

I thought for a minute that it was Monday -- it feels like a Monday for some reason -- but lo and behold, it is Wednesday. WHOA. And life keeps charging, hurtling, flowing onward like a spring brook.

Soon -- maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week? 'm not sure when, because the only things I'm sure of these days is work during the day and rest in the evening -- I want to tell you about some things. I can feel my desire to write like a heartbeat in me. Some days it's fast and wants to run. Other days its slow and wants to just sit and stare out the window.

My job, my lifelong job, is to follow it and give it what it wants.

have a lovely weekend

I've been reading a LOT of Alexandra Franzen blog posts this week. It's inspiring me to write. And write more simply. And get to the point.

And get off social media (she doesn't use it at all -- mindblowing!) ... at least for a little bit, here and there.

This weekend I'm signing out of Facebook. I'm going to soak up the sunshine. And I'm going to get some work done that really needs to get done (and stop telling myself I'm not good enough yet of a designer to do it).

And, I'm going to spend some time with my sweetheart. Because today is someday.

xo Leah

good words

When I woke up today I seriously considered not getting out of bed for another hour. I wake up at 6:15 or so, each day, and usually I'm pretty happy to get up, go make Adam's breakfast and lunch, pour his coffee, and then start my own day.

This morning, with grey skies and cold rain, and a warm and cozy bed, was a different story.

I got up anyway. I did the stuff anyway. However, just before I left the house, I did lie on my bed for about ten minutes, with my head on my comfy down pillow, and just breathe. And it did the trick.

On my way to work I put in my headphones and listened to a podcast. Which is pretty normal, but this morning though, I listened to a podcast I don't subscribe to and don't normally listen to, because this particular episode was linked to in a Facebook group I'm in. It was The Lively Show, the episode with Alexandra Franzen. In the episode Alexandra mentions that on her website she's got scripts for saying NO a way that uplifts both parties, so when I got to work today I spent a few minutes on her website.

And her delicious writing reminded me: I too have the gift of clarity. I too have the gift of words. I too have a space where I can write, and share a bit of goodness with the world.

I get awfully caught up in the vampire voices in my head that say I mustn't post unless it's The Best Post That Ever Was.

And I forget the truth of the matter: posting something simple, more often, is worth more than the fictional, totally imaginary Best Post That Ever Was.

I hope you're having a creative day!

xo Leah