6.26.2015

Being Inspired

I have people email me all the time asking how do you stay inspired? How do you know what to paint? Etc...etc.... Well honestly I find inspiration in lots of places. I love Pinterest, instagram, looking out the windows on trips, books, and other artists work. It's kinda like a giant viewfinder wheel in my brain. At.All.Times. It gets annoying honestly because sometimes the ideas come so furiously I can't get them out. But you know what? Really what doesn't allow them out is ME. I am my own biggest road block to my creative process.

I'm reading this awesome book called time to make by Ginger Hendrix. I am so not gonna spoil it for you. Because you have to go out and by it. (run) And highlight and sticky note and read it twice. And help her become really famous for telling us all what we all need to hear. I can summarize for you this though: she says you need to get off your butt and make stuff. Stop making excuses. Some stuff may turn out like a pile a crap or it may be the next big thing. It may be sell worthy, it may not. You may think oh my gosh I am going to sell these like crazy and they end up in your basement the next 20 years and people will be going through it at your estate sale and yelling whoop whoop I found a crafter. The point is, making is important to YOUR life. (If you are reading this anyways. I always just assume everyone likes to make stuff. Your stuff doesn't have to be paintings. It could be photos, or cupcakes, or bread, or decorating, just stuff.)

Being inspired honestly takes very little effort. The trick is allowing the inspiration in. So many of us put up walls of "I can't do that" that you've started believing you can't. And so the inspiration gets shot down before it has a chance to even surface. I say put on your glasses, pour a glass of whatever you need to get the juices flowing and start something. Then hey....let me know whatcha made okay? Because I love being a part of your story too. Being here makes you part of mine. Right?



oh and PS.....if your making includes baking cookies they are my favorite food group in the pyramid. If you need my address let me know. wink...wink...

6.24.2015

Being Seen


You guys know I've been working on my second e-course. For some reason this one has been harder. Maybe because I think I used up all my tricks last summer. Maybe it's the constant on the go with Will for baseball. Maybe it's this freaking Georgia heat. Oh and let's not forget the surgery that I was supposed to "bounce right back from" and it's been almost 2 weeks and I still have this insane pain at the incision. Whatever the reasons....the past few days I've been wrangling all the ideas and thoughts and art for the course. And falling in love once again with blogging. Not sure why I step away from it. Blogging is the one place I allow myself to be really seen. I had art camp this week and one of the moms said she loves reading my blog because I say things she's thinking but afraid to say out loud. Talk about WHAM...Jenni get off your little pity horse and jump back into this creative world you LOVE.

I've been reading this book this summer. Highlighting and dog-earing and neon sticky noting it to death. I highly recommend it especially if you are having trouble staying motivated. I literally have boxes of paintings in my basement right now. Which could be most discouraging, in fact make me not want to paint anymore until these go. But I can't not create. It's who I am and it's how I find joy in the everyday living. I love this Ginger says in the book "You don't have to always be wishing that you could squeeze in time for the thing that makes your heart the happiest." In other words the there are things about being a creative type that have to be done to keep your SOUL alive. Without art, I am not really whole. So I vow to continue to connect and continue to allow myself to make art and share that art with you all. Because I wanna live a long long time and have the fairy tale. Don't you?

6.13.2015

Not On the To-Do List

So yesterday's activity was not originally on my summer to-do list. Yeah....no it wasn't. If you've been following me for awhile then ya know I have struggled with some health issues over the past 3 years. I've had more blood drawn than I think is in my body to begin with, more crazy tests, peed in a tiny cup 100 million times, more blood pricks, seen more doctors, paid more co-pays, had more seeing of my body than I care to discuss until last week. When upon my sweet hubby's insistence went to see ANOTHER doctor. Another GYN. And she looked into my crying eyes and with the most calming voice said, "I want to go in and see what is going on. I personally think you have endometriosis." WHAT? What is that? I had kids...I thought that meant you can't have kids.

Of course Billy was out of town so we talked shortly on the phone about this possibility. I mean seriously....3 years and not one freaking doctor mentioned this? This is where I kinda lost it folks. I won't go into all my symptoms but let's just say that the newest symptom since March was pelvic pain at the level 10 scale with the giant frowny face 24hrs a day/7days a week. The specialist doctor I was in touch with kept saying, "just give this birth control another month sweetie and you'll feel all better."  Bullshit. I was getting worse by the day. To the point of it affecting everything in my life. All I could do was sleep. Because that's what your body does when its in THAT much pain. It shuts down. I was prescribed prescription pain meds...none worked. Like none. (Oxycodone is most recent one..and that didn't touch the pain) So of course I started gaining weight. I was exercising, because that felt good, but evidently not as much as needed to keep my weight down. So that got me down. 10 pounds up in a few months is a red flag for me. And for my new doctor. BTW this is me when I was healthy and happy and running my first 13.1.....I am pretty sure a few months after this is when I started getting sick. This was in 2011.

So I found out last week I was having this surgery...needless to say I was a nervous wreck. I mean so many what if's right? What if the pain is a giant tumor that was gonna kill me in a month? My head goes to those places...it does people. Yesterday my hubby and Daddy took me to the Outpatient Center and waited with me. I am not gonna lie. I was so scared. But as I was sitting in my recliner with warm blankets waiting for my surgery I hear Dr Kale coming in and all the nurses doing "hooray's" and "Oh my gosh Dr Kale we love seeing you in here." on and on.....so obviously this doctor is loved. Because the place was all but pulling out the pom-poms for her arrival! I calmed down a smidge at this point. I was in good hands. All the nurses were super kind and gentle too. Of course being wheeled into the OR I about lost it. And they could tell. I tell ya doctors and nurses are little slices of angels. They calmed me and got me prepped with ease. And just like that I was in recovery. I had what's called a diagnostic laparoscopic surgery. Turns out the only way to diagnose endometriosis is to go into your body like this. Kinda invasive right? Alien like. I remember Dr. Kale's sweet voice while headed to recovery say, "Sweetie I found it....it's endometriosis. We are going to get you better." And then my went lights out for another hour.  When they brought Billy and my Dad back I could tell from Billy's face how relieved and happy he was. He too went to dark places....

So today I am resting...well trying to. I wanted to start video taping my new e-course. My abdomen is so sore. She only peeked around, didn't take anything or mess with anything.  But it still hurts. In a nutshell, endometriosis is a disorder in which the tissue that normally grow inside your uterus grows on the outside. And since it has no way to escape, builds and attaches to places which causes the pain. In my case it has obviously attached to places that have given me GI issues. So 3 years ago when I had the extreme GI issues, this was the root. And now the extreme pelvic pain. And the chronic fatigue. And the candida. And the bladder issues. It's ALL FREAKING related. To this. To this.....I just can hardly breath I get so mad. Mad that I didn't push the doctors for better answers. I guess since I had kids it wasn't a thought in the doctors minds...they just kept pushing more birth control changes for the pelvic pain. And honestly the changes would work about a year then I'd have to go in again. But this last time....oh man since March has been a whirlwind.

So I am on the road to recovery. It's not going to be easy. There is no cure for this. There are treatments, one of which I refuse, one we are going to try because I refuse the radical treatment. My doctor is kinda with me on the radical treatment so that's good. We meet this week to start treatment. I am really looking forward to healing and getting back to myself again!! And I tell you folks...I wish I'd been more pro-active in my testing and questioned why the doctors did what they did. I will be much more aware with my daughter if she starts having issues. No one should go through what I have. No one. Dr. Kale is my hero right now. Safe to say my husband and children's too. They are ready to have their Momma back.

Well...I am off to eat and then sleep. Like I said, pain meds don't really work on me. Weirdo right? Maybe I should locate the liquor?
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