Goals update

Hey there! I'm stopping by after midnight on a Friday night because that's what is exciting to me right now: spending a Friday night with a glass of wine, being introspective.

We're newly returned from our trip to Chicago. It was so good. Adam and I bonded as a couple and saw lots of great friends. We walked til our feet were sore, and bitched at each other. We ate good food and danced to some of our favorite songs at two Phish concerts.

But I only took my phone with me, not my laptop, and it's so good to get home and be able to print off the It's Business Time worksheets, and spend time writing in my office for hours, and be HOME, and not beholden to anyone else or in anyone else's space.

I mentioned last month that I read the book "Essentialism", and that really gelled a lot of stuff in my head that I then thought a lot about, over our trip. The idea behind essentialism is that if you do fewer things, you do them better than if you try to do many things at once. I've always been someone who prided herself on having a big plate full of commitments she was juggling, and thought that that was what made me interesting in other people's eyes. But that way leads to burnout. The more balls you're juggling, the more awkward it is to put them down if you need to. Plus it's just not actually as productive as it could be!

SO. Taking a break from my schedule for the Chicago trip means that I come back to it with fresh eyes, and a fresh resolve to pare things back and make only a few things priority. So I'm looking at the list I laid out last month of some goals, and here are the changes I'd like to make. The original goal is italicized, and the updated YES or NO is in bold.

• Finish all the work for the crowdfunding perks. Date: end of this year. YES: this is priority. I've already sold my time to people, so I need to make good on those promises.
• Get digital photos for the last seven years made into photo books. Delete the digital versions of the photos. Stop worrying about losing them! Date: end of 2015. NO: no longer a priority.
• Put a couple of older posts from Dream Big Cape Breton onto “goCapeBreton.com” — maybe a beaches post, the post about the transportation system. NO: no longer a priority.
• Launch and then run a successful first year of the Creative Soul Weekend, with Emily Chafe. YES. This is important to me. 
• Launch my business (October!!! Watch out world!) YES. On track with this, with the It's Business Time group.
• Grow a small veggie garden and plan a bit for next year’s veggie garden (get tarp, put rock around the corner of the yard where it will go) YES. Not difficult to do, and being outside working in my garden is a nice antidote to being online working. Plus, Adam does show an interest in it, as long as I'm doing it, so it's a nice way for us to bond.
• Go on vacation in August with Adam and check email only once a week. Pack super light. Enjoy and soak up the moments. Let the time away from things be refreshing. YES. Done!
• Keep working out twice a week with my rad new trainer Steph. Do an unassisted pull-up. (Maybe by the end of this year, it may take longer.) I don’t have a specific weight-loss goal, because my goal with training is to gain strength and muscle, which may not mean any change in the number of pounds I weigh. YES. Super important to me.
• Keep doing yoga once a week. NO. I have to cut back on some stuff and this isn't necessary. I can stretch and do yoga at home in my own time, I don't need the class. (It's wonderful, of course, but the trade off is more time at home, which is the more important of the two right now for me.)
• Be “hands free” as much as possible when at home with my family. We want to grow our family in the next year or two, and I’ve seen over the past year that the more hands-free I am, the more connected Adam and I are to each other, and the richer our family life feels. YES. This doesn't take extra time, it just takes a bit of a shift in my consciousness around my phone.
• Look into starting a podcast. MAYBE - in 2016. Not right now. This would be fun but I can only have a few things that are priority.
• Look into doing an extended walk, perhaps around the Cabot Trail, in 2016. NO. Again, this would be fun, but I want to cut back what I'm doing and focus on a few things. This isn't necessary: I can walk shorter distances. 
• Look into writing a book. (!!! This one in particular feels SCARY to say out loud. But yes. I really really really want to write a book.) NO. For the same reasons as the walk, above. 

WHOOSH

What's that?

Oh, that's the sound of time flying. 

And what's that in the photo?

It's the beautiful little cabin where, in September of this year, Emily Chafe and I will hold the inaugural Creative Soul Weekend in Port Hood. There are six spots open. Find out more and book yours here.

What else?

Well! Man, oh man. Have I got some plans! I read Essentialism last week and decided, hey, maybe I'm NOT writing a book right now. Maybe I'll do that down the road. That's fine.

The book was awesome and inspiring. It lit a fire under me to cut back, again. Again, again. Why do I think there will come a point when I'm done cutting back?! When really, that's life.

So, what's on my plate right now:

• My day job. Because, you know, bills.
• Creative Soul Weekend. Because: passion projects.
• It's Business Time. Because: self-employment, sooner rather than later.
• Fulfilling the crowdfunding perks. Because: honoring commitments.

And.. .that's it. No new clients til - I want to say - October. But it might even have to be later than that, depending on how those crowdfunding perks go.

And the reason that's it, is because these things are on another plate of mine, a no less important plate:

• Adam
• Mittens the kitten
• Garden
• Walks and exploration
• Fitness
• Family
• Sleep.

Meanwhile... as a result of It's Business Time and planning my new site and business, I'm thinking about blogging and what that's going to look like for me in the future. Good news for you, if you like reading my blog posts: I'm going to put more time and effort (read: some time and effort at all) into blogging! I'm excited to share more stories.

For now: we're off to Chicago next week! I'm pumped. I'm packing light. (And in my head I'm thinking "Ooh! A future post idea!") Follow me on Instagram to see what I get up to in Chi-town!

xo Leah

three bullets // july 21

Today's a busy day for me, not much time to write, so I'm just going to use three bullets and keep it short:

• Today was one month into my new training regime. We measured my hips, bust, thighs, arms and waist and over all I've lost 5 inches. (Waist was 2 inches, bust was 1, thighs were 1, arms were 0 and hips were 1.) My weight is still the exact same. I'm stoked! It feels great and I feel like I finally found the sport that I want to get obsessed with. (I was never an athletic kid.)
• I bought this book and I'm so pumped to read it. And then report back to you all.
• Here is a post by Alexandra Franzen that I'm reading and re-reading these days. I love the idea of a production list, and of cranking tunes.

Have a great one!

I'm writing a book

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And I don't know what it's about yet.

But Elizabeth Gilbert told me I must. 

Well, she didn't tell me that herself, not to me specifically. But I listened to the first episode of her podcast on Friday of last week, and it might as well have been created for me!

In it, Elizabeth talks to a woman who has a gnawing feeling that she wants to write a book. This woman - I think her name is Erin - has done a lot of things towards this goal. She's had a blog. She's gotten quiet with herself. She's self-aware enough that she knows she is procrastinating, that she knows she's scared of telling her own stories and putting them out there in the world, so she hasn't started yet. She's got a husband and kids, and she feels guilty about going after something that has nothing to do with them, that is only for her.

Elizabeth Gilbert tells her, among lots of other wise things, "You're on the runway, and you're ready for liftoff. If you don't take off now, you'll crash into a bunch of houses on the other side of the runway!"

The runway is everything that led up to this point: It's the years of blogging. It's the practice in writing. It's teaching other people how to do the thing, too. It's giving yourself permission to write. But now it's time for liftoff. It's time to thank the runway, for all it gave you, and then accelerate and fly.

So yesterday, Sunday, after listening to the podcast episode again and writing some of it down in my journal, I decided it was time to begin. Even though I have only a very small idea of what it takes to write a book. Even though I really do not know if I have the stamina to go all the way through with it. Even though fear is shouting All The Things at me. (It's a little bit - no, actually a LOT - like working out and having a fitness goal. Hmmm... more to come on that, I think.) Because you have got to freaking start somewhere. You've got to put on the exercise clothes even though you feel chubby and out of shape, and go anyway.

So I took out my computer. I sat with it in bed. I created a new folder and called it "Book" and put it on my desktop. I opened a new Word document and called it "Part 1". (Part 1 of what? I have no freaking idea. That doesn't matter. Keep going. The file needs a name, so name it something.)

I started typing. I typed for an hour. I wrote 1165 words, in Georgia font, 12-point. 2 pages. I have no idea what of these 1165 words will eventually be printed. Some of them are just me going "Begin." But I did it. I wrote. And as I wrote, thoughts appeared, seemingly out of nothing. The way leaves on a plant in the garden do. Yesterday there was just a little sprout coming out of the dirt. Today there is a leaf. Tomorrow there will be a stem beginning to curl upward, looking for the support to grow on.

Now, an aside: another thing Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in the podcast episode is how there is the book you will write, and then there is the book you will publish. Erin, the gal Elizabeth coaches in the episode, wants to write a book about following her gut even though she's out of practice, re-learning how to follow her instincts. She knows there will be family and personal stories that will she will tell, that will be part of her book, and that that could be difficult, on other people in her family. She doesn't know yet which ones she'll actually want to publish, to print, to have out there in the world for everyone to read.

Elizabeth Gilbert advises her to write it all out anyway, privately. Because there is the book you must write for YOU, and then there is the book you will publish, the parts that you decide get to be printed.

So for now, the book that I'm writing, I'm going to keep it private. I had thought, last week, that I would use this blog space to write the book. That to motivate myself and keep myself accountable, I would write, every day, whatever I want to put in the book. And that may end up being true in a way -- maybe some posts I write here will be used in my book. But the bulk of my writing (I think now, anyway) will be in a Word doc on my computer.

So... how will I publish this? Will I find an agent or an editor? Will I pitch publishers? How will this book actually come into the world? Again, I have no idea yet. The start of a book, I'm finding out, is about faith. It is about saying to yourself, "Yes, I want this thing, this end goal. Yes, I don't know what needs to happen between right now and that goal, specifically (besides, well, writing). But yes, I know the only way to get there is to move forward. Is to accelerate on the runway I've been on for the last few years, and take off."

Because baby, it's time for me to fly.

On home

     

I mentioned in a post earlier this month that I want to write a book. So today I thought I'd do my daily writing practice and use it to flesh out what I want to write about. (In between tossing a ball for Mittens, who is up and at em at 6:30 am, of course.)

When I'm driving or walking, that's usually when my ideas come. And they come in little flashes, no real explanation. In this case it was "Write a book about home."

So now I'm wondering what the heck my idea-generator meant by that.

I love reading memoirs and collections of personal essays. Ones I've read lately are "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan, and "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. I feel like I could actually write one myself (and ooh the vampire voices come up when I type that!).

But seriously, I could. I've been blogging for thirteen years. I got the "writing about myself" thing down, I think.

I want to explore the concept of home. I want to do this about Cape Breton, about my relationship with it (as both someone who has lived here my whole life since I was 8 months old, and as someone who was born Away and whose whole family is from Away too). I want to do this about the Earth, about the ground and trees and sky we are all born from and which we must take care of, for our own sake if nothing else. I want to do this about specific towns. I grew up in Baddeck but now I live in North Sydney. I want to do this about relationships: I didn't move out of my mom's house until I was 28, when I moved in with my partner and formed our own home.

I want to tell stories. Stories that I don't even realize yet are waiting to be told. Stories from my own life. When you just kind of look back on your own life, I don't know about you, but mine feels rather normal. It's just ... my life. But when I read the memoirs of other people, yeah, it's their life, but it's in the way they tell the stories. The lessons they draw from what happened. The humour they find in it. The humanity.

(Oh! The humanity!)

Anyway. It's now 6:54. Time to get ready for work, and a dance party. Thanks for reading, as always, and for witnessing me. Saying things out loud, to someone else, is the first necessary step for a big journey, whether that's on foot or around the world or diving deep into a big project. So, thanks for hearing me do that.

Witness the fitness

Today I want to talk about fitness. (Blog post title from this song.)

In Junior High I was the kid who sat out of gym class.  I hated the teacher, hated the other kids, hated having to work out with everyone else watching. I would make up notes from my mom, or tell Mr. Billard it was my period. I'd do whatever I could do to get out of it.

Flash forward to today. That picture above is me, sweaty and disheveled and with dirty hands from lifting truck tires, in the bathroom at Platinum Fitness. My whole body is sore and singing with having WORKED.

In between gym class in Grade 7, and today, I've been learning how to live IN my body. How to love it. Despite my pudge. Despite my fears of what other people think. Despite my own inertia. I've done yoga, I've walked and hiked. I've swam. And now I'm working with a trainer, something I never thought I could afford (it's actually crazy affordable), and I love it! It's got me all kinds of fired up, thinking up blog posts, imagining being super toned, and feeling stronger than I ever have before. It also just makes me happier. (I'm using the hashtag #leahgetsfit on Instagram to keep track. You can check it out! I think another Leah was using it, but that was like a year ago and so far it's just me using now.)

Onward to the day ahead! Day-job awaits, and then tonight I'm eating at the Bitehouse with some good girlfriends. Life is sweet.

daily writing practice

Get it in however you can. For me, right now, this blog is serving that purpose.

I used to blog for joy. Then I blogged for a mission. Then after a few years of that, I felt like blogging wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped for a while.

Now I'm back to wanting to blog for joy. The trick for me, for that, is keeping it loose. Keeping it unstructured. Keeping it easy. I ask myself each day, "What do I want to write about today?" And I listen for the answer, and then I start typing.

I want to write a book. And I imagine (having written a long thesis) that the way to write a book is to write, and then write more, and write some more.

The un-overwhelming way to do that is to do a little bit every day.

Hence, here we are. Me, writing. Daily. The internet is a tool, not a tyrant. I can use it how I need to. And you can use it how you need to.

Something else: I recently got turned on to Greg McKeown's work on Essentialism. It's blowing my mind a little. Or more like, blowing a fresh breeze through the house of my schedule, my life. I foolishly think, a lot of the time, that I'd someday reach a point where I was good, I didn't need to pare back more, or watch out for what I said yes to, anymore. Ha! That's not true. You always do. There is always something to get rid of. Something nagging, something I'm resentful of. There is always more that I could give love to my husband*, my pet, my home, myself. There is buckets of inattention to make up for.

*Technically we're not married. But I still think of Adam as my hubby. We intend to be together for the rest of our lives, and we hear each other fart, so I'm pretty sure that's what marriage is, right?