fall days

A few weekends ago I went around the Cabot Trail with my friend Jacquie. This is taken in Red River.

It's Saturday. It's 11 am. It's late Autumn, and outside the air is cool. In the sky, there are patches of blue sky, and patches of clouds. The leaves on the trees I can see outside my office window are half orange, half green. And swaying slightly, rustling, in a lazy little wind. 

Adam, my boyfriend, is hanging out on the couch in the living room. He's watching Sports Centre. It's his happy place. He's got a blanket over him, and likely he'll doze off. The cat, Mittens, was outside earlier, so there is a good chance she'll curl up on top of Adam and sleep too. And me, well, I'm in my office, carving out some time for my business. 

What that looks like today is: first, tidying up my space. Emptying the recycle bin of paper into a blue bag. Piling up the library books that I'm ready to return. Moving the pile of newspapers I'm saving to use in the garden, from the middle of the desk over to the far corner. Creating a spot on the shelf for magazines I want to use in making collages. 

Same Cabot Trail trip from a few weeks ago, this is from the top of Smokey Mountain.

Then, I open up my planner. I take care of a few quick things: emailing my Mom and brother about tomorrow, when I'll drive up to Baddeck to hang out with them. We needed to confirm the time. I send an email to my friend Leah Wechsler, who came through the It's Business Time program with me, and who is now my "biz buddy" - we will be Skyping next weekend for a monthly check-in with each other. (We call each other Wechsler and Noble, since we are both Leah.) And I send one to my mom and Adam's mom Mary Jane, to confirm a date in November when we three will meet for lunch. 

This is at Groves Point, collecting seaweed for my garden, a few weeks ago.

Now we get to the hard part. The part where Resistance gets to come out and tap dance all over my face. It's like when I'm at the gym, and I'm on the exercise bike, intending to be there for 30 minutes, but the pedals start to feel heavy. The machine is pushing back at me. It's on purpose: it's to make me work. It's to make me use my thigh muscles to push back, to raise my heart rate, to get healthy. It feels good, and it will feel good, once it's done. But in the moment, I'm incredibly tempted to get off the bike and say "Well that was just too hard, maybe I go better read a book about exercising, instead." You know? LOL. 

It's the same with doing the work of my business. The work of my business takes a number of forms: doing design work, but also writing my blog posts, coming up with ideas for things to create, things to share. Showing up day after day after day is actually how things get done. And Resistance looooves to tell scary stories about failure, about how they're all gonna laugh at me, about not having what it takes. 

From a mid-week walk, a cloud selfie in the field near my house.

Funny how easy it is for me to forget I've been blogging since 2002. That's thirteen years I've been typing into a white box on a web browser and hitting Publish. I forget even now, thirteen years later, that we figure it out as we go along. As we show up. That content plans are great, and goals for what we want to communicate to our audience are great, but that Showing Up and Doing Work (and maybe changing the plan as the work happens and we realize new things) is what trumps ALL. 

I so want to be able to plan plan plan, and then have creative inspiration show up when I schedule it to. "Wednesday at 9 am, OK inspiration? Show up then if you can." 

But Inspiration is like, "Leah, you show up, and I'll meet you there. Sometimes. Sometimes you'll be all by yourself. But do the work anyway. I'll be there again soon."

West Mabou Beach, last weekend.

As I'm writing this, Mittens came and sat next to me, right next to my computer.

Adam is getting up, I can hear him moving about the house. I think he's going to do some sort of home-reno-something-or-other. He's the handy one in this relationship, for sure. He does things like tile the laundry room, or put a new screen door and trim on the front door. 

So is there a moral in this blog post? Ha! Likely not. Likely it's just me rambling. But it's also me showing up. Showing you pictures of life lately. Sharing thoughts from life lately. Putting into practice my belief that 60% is a passing grade. That you do the work, and put it out there. Before you're ready. Right? Right.

So now I'm going to use the remaining hour or so of the time I've blocked out for myself today to work on upcoming blog posts. I'm thinking of doing a "Day In The Life" post this week or next. I'd also like to share some actual designs I've done, but I imagine those posts will take a bit more to get together: sketches, my thoughts on the process, the finished designs. I'd also love to know in what ways I can be useful to you, my readers. What bits of expertise or thoughts can I share, that would make your day better? Do let me know. 

That's all for now! I hope you're having a lovely day, that you get to get outside and feel the fresh and delicious Fall air on your face and in your hair. 

xo Leah

just show up, yo

I was kind of in a funk this week. I did some budgeting and realized that I needed to make some Adult Choices... and man I hate those, haha. I basically was living paycheque-to-paycheque and not really keeping track of my spending at all. So I put my Big Girl Panties on... and sat down with a calculator and my bank account. It feels good to have done that, but not so good to realize I can't afford my personal trainer. (Which, man, that feels like the most yuppie thing to say EVER.)

But I'm not a rich lady. I was going to a personal trainer for a medical reason I may talk about on here one of these days, and it was super amazing and helpful. 

Anyway, that plus the fact that I don't feel like I've hit a creative groove yet, since launching this website, meant I was in a funk this week. You know, that mood where your inner critic says all the mean things.

Then I went to visit the current second year Graphic Design class at NSCC, my alma mater. I talked to them about my story so far, about all I've done to get to this point, and about what I've learned along the way. It was fun! We laughed, and shared, and I looked at all their work afterwards, and it gave me the kick in the butt I needed to remember:

Oh yeah. I GOT THIS. Just show up. Just do the work. Just put it out there. 

So here I am. Re-remembering for the 456th time (roughly) that I work best through writing it out. Through sharing. That my blog posts need not be 100% polished, perfect, with photos, with links, to be ready to get out into the world. 

And then there was this.

the story of how I got into graphic design, part 1

Photo from I Love Typography.

I'd like to tell you the story of how I got into graphic design.

It actually begins back when I was a kid, but I'm not going to get to that part for a bit. (Because I didn't realize that that's where the love started, until much later.)

Where I thought it began was: 2007. 

I had moved back in with my mother at the age of 23, having left university in my third year. I had had depression. My energy was totally depleted. I was living at my mother's house, and I remember becoming totally entranced with typography of all things. Specifically, with a website called “I Love Typography” -- and I cannot remember now how I found it. 

My computer monitor at the time was a big bulky thing. Flat screens weren’t yet mainstream. (This was 2007.) I had the computer set up in my brother’s bedroom, upstairs, which was a small room with a high ceiling. I would sit there, crammed in between a high shelf that held books and random bits of my brother’s life (he was in Ukraine then, I think), and his bed, at a small desk I’d inherited from a friend, which was wobbly and painted a weird green. I'd sit up there, and scroll and scroll through this website. I was discovering: Typography was a real thing, and I loved it!

It seemed so magical. I’d always loved letters. I’ve always read voraciously, and loved design, kind of from off at a distance… I didn’t know I loved it, the way I do now, but I knew that a beautifully designed book or magazine had a certain something that just brought the reading experience to a whole new level. I learned the term “ligature”, which means when two letters ajoin, like “fi”. I learned about letterpress printing, which seemed like another kind of magic to me. From the belly of an inky, noisy beast could come this crisp white paper with an ever so slight indentation, and a beautiful design on it. I wanted to try it. I tucked that desire away like a precious stone.

Work came again to me. Once I had my strength back, I taught seniors how to use computers at the local library, and worked for a non-profit that runs computer sites in rural communities. Part-time work was good for a while but then I wanted more money. I went looking for a full-time job and ended up at the local marina. Now, I am not a boat person. I do not long to tinker with jibs and mains, or refinish the wooden deck of a sailboat. I do love the water, though. And I love people. And my job had me in the store, working with boat parts, selling them, arranging them in the store.

I stayed at the marina for three years. But somewhere in the middle of those three years I started looking for what was next. I looked at the local community college, NSCC, which has campuses in thirteen towns across the province. I looked at their landscaping and gardening program, in the Annapolis valley. I looked at their Office Administration program, thinking I did well in office work and wouldn’t mind some sort of credential for it. I lined up a visit to the local campus, signing up for both the Office Admin tour and the Graphic Design tour. When I was in the cafeteria with all the other students, though, and it came time to actually go on the tour, to pick Office Admin or Graphic Design, I went with my gut and I went with the graphic design teacher. Being in that classroom for the first time – ah, I can still feel the way it felt! The excitement. The feeling of “I need to be in this place!” They took art and letters – my first loves – and gave it a sacred space, a room with desks and tables, a dedicated workspace for each student to do their work: try, to create, to explore. To make drawings and posters and test out ideas.

I was hooked.   

(Part 2 to come... sometime.)

let it be sunday

"This week has been chilly and hurricane threatened. We’re busy. I can feel the hustle in the air. I hope you’re taking this day to breathe deep and rest. It’s a long run toward the end of the year. I vote we take it slow and easy." - Joy The Baker, Let It Be Sunday.

one small step forward

Here I am. It’s October 1st. It’s 7:20 am. Adam has just left for work. I have a full cup of coffee. Outside it is windy and rainy, and I love it. I love a good blustery fall storm. I love the cozy feeling of being inside. With a book. And my loved ones. My family. My little family: a man, and a cat. And me.

What is the shift I’m feeling in my life right now? I feel an urge to study it, to take time and space to sit with it. Like a friend. It’s an urge away from consuming. I can feel that. I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t really read blogs much these days. I want silence. I want space. I crave those things and I am making it happen. I am experimenting with NO and with not committing to plans. 

I am here on the verge of launching my new business and I’m scared. I’ll admit. I feel like for the last six months, that I’ve set up a whole workshop of beautiful tools, some I know how to use, some I don’t, and I’ve told people “Now I have this beautiful workshop!” and now I’m standing at the doorway, it’s quiet, the tools are waiting for me, and I’m scared. I feel like I’m supposed to go in and whip up a masterpiece. “No big deal, just being a creative genius over here.” And then dance around like a monkey, grinning and being all “YAY!!”, and showing it off. But what I really want to do is shut the door. Lock it. Turn up music. Get coffee. Tinker. Play. Quietly.

But I do want to share. I want to attract people, clients, friends, readers. But I’m scared. I’m scared of --

Liz G says, “Fear is boring. Everyone has it.” I cut myself off there, in the last sentence. I cut myself off from listing all my fears, which was totally where I was going with that. Because, I just read that part in her book where she lists fears for three pages. And you can go on, and on, and on. Fear never stops.

So, as she says, make space for it to exist along with creativity. Maybe make a little bed, like a cat bed, in the corner of your desk, and whenever you sit down to write, invite your fear to curl up in it, get cozy, go to sleep. Let it be relaxed. Tell it, “if anything scary happens, I’ll come wake you up right away.”

(I have an empty basket (made out of chopsticks) in the corner of my desk. Maybe that’s what I put it there for? Unknowingly?)

“But you can’t put this out into the world just like this,” fear says. “It needs to be polished. It needs to be perfect.”

What is my brand again? Down to earth. Empowering. Enthusiastic. (I'll tell you one of these days about how my business coaches helped me figure out my brand. It was fun.) I want to empower other people to give it a go. I want to show them that they can work through the fear too. I want to show them it's possible. 

Alright, well, this is long enough. Thanks for listening. One small step forward at a time, that's how this is done. I am in the workshop, I have turned on the lights. 

Moving in to a new house

That's what this feels like. 

Yesterday Erin Cassidy, the designer behind my new logo and site, showed me around my new site. It feels like someone taking me into a home that they built for me, showing me the rooms, and saying, "Here you go. Decorate how you like. Fill the rooms with things that have meaning to you. Here is your new home."

Now I am taking a deep breath, looking all around, looking out the windows, setting a few little things down here and there on shelves and windowsills, and admiring my new view. 

Welcome!

When things go quiet

Things here on this blog are quiet. That’s because I’m getting ready. That’s because behind the scenes, wonderful things are happening. My new website has taken form, and it needs me to fill in some content before it’s ready to go live. (Early October is the due date.)

My new logo and brand colours are done. My new way of doing things -- of how I'll blog, how I'll do my social media -- is starting to take form too. I’m pivoting. When I hear that word I think of basketball. Of a player frozen in one pose, not actually taking a step but moving their feet a little bit in a new direction, readying to throw or to start running again.

"My new way of doing things" means: getting crystal clear about my offerings, who I’m serving, what my audience is. It also means changing a few things, tweaking really, about my social media and the content I put out into the world. It’s interesting to me, because when I did Dream Big Cape Breton I never thought about it all in as much detail or depth as I’m thinking about things now. I never thought, “OK, who is my target audience?” And now that I’m looking back I’m realizing that my target audience was quite large! It was something along the lines of “People who love Cape Breton and want to see a positive future for it.” That could be the entire population! It's a lot of people!

Now that I’m pivoting, changing my audience, and getting clear, and also making choices about who I want to serve (which is completely different from the voice in my head that says “try to serve everyone!”), it’s scary. I fear that if I shrink my audience on purpose, that I’ll have a smaller audience, and that I’ll be less popular.

All I can really do is trust my coaches. Trust them when they say, “Yes, but by getting clear about your new audience and niche, you are making it easier for yourself to create content specifically for them, that will really have value and meaning for them, and you’re making it easy-as-pie for them to buy you, to hire you.”

Anyway, I just wanted to drop by this little blog, which I think of as my apartment-in-between-houses blog, a place to stop and rest for a bit before moving on, just to say that things are quiet here for now. And it's because I’m putting all my energy into my new stuff, into doing the work behind the scenes to get ready for the end of the It’s Business Time program at the start of October. I cannot wait to share the new site with you!

And, thanks a million for all your support so far, for me in all my incarnations, whether as “huminbean” or as “Dream Big Cape Breton,” and now as I shift into “Leah Noble Design”. It means the world to me!

xo Leah