Creativity-- Tick Tock!

I'm working on getting into a creativity schedule. It sounds a little silly-- because isn't creativity spontaneous? Eh, as a teacher of gifted children (and as a graduate of the "gifted" program), I tend to think giftedness and creativity are both nature and nurture. You CAN create beautiful things out of nothing, but it's a lot easier to create beautiful things with fancy-schmancy art supplies, computers, and journals. Creativity is also a state of mind. I see pictures in the clouds. (And Colorado has an abundance of beautiful clouds!) I listen for unusual sounds and think in lyrics all the time. In working with children, I speak up about beauty around us-- in a sunset, in the set up of a plate, in the humor of a tv show-- to encourage creativity there too. Eh, who knows.

So, I have many, many posts trapped in my brain and scribbled in a journal plus many pictures in my camera and my phone to share. What's the hold up? Energy! Creativity! Cleaning up! Going to work!

This day has started fairly productively-- but it also started above 60 degrees (I walked the dog in a tank top, pj pants, and flip flops!), but it's been so blustery and windy, my dog keeps barking at all the sounds it's making in the corridor of our apartments-- to set that apart now, it's below freezing and raining-- which means, it will be snowing in about 3, 2, 1...yup. I see snowflakes out the window. 

I know I moved to a state that has cold winters from one that has one or two snows a decade, but it's still instilled in me that snow= snow day. Stay inside. It's dangerous out there! There's a part of me that wants to just keep this cup of mint tea going all day and watch Buffy on Hulu. Le sigh. My little munchkin will be disappointed in the car line if I don't make it. :)

So some creative things on tap-- some recipes of yummy foods I've made lately, some hiking recaps with gorgeous pictures, more painting, more fiverr orders that I'm delivering (woo-hoo!), and concert reviews. I'm going to the Colorado Writer's Workshop on Friday and I can't wait to see what types of things I will learn to help guide me on a publication journey. We went to see The Airborne Toxic Event at the Ogden Theater in Denver over the weekend and it was incredible. I loved the theater and the whole evening. This is the second concert we went to where they were filming the music video that night. Chris nudged me at one point because I was so into the show that I didn't notice the camera man filming over our shoulders! We are going to see another one of my lyrical favorites tonight-- Bastille. Definitely looking forward to this. 

Some of my favorite lyrics have beautiful imagery and symbolism to history, gods, and pop culture. I wonder where these guys were in some of my younger years-- I could have used these words:

When all of your flaws and all of my flaws when they have been exhumed,  you'll see that we need them to be who we are, without them, we'd be doomed

If you close your eyes, does it ever feel like nothing's changed at all? How am I going to be an optimist about this?

I don't want to hear about the bad blood anymore. I don't want to hear you talk about it anymore. It's been cold for years, won't you let it lie?

Do you understand...the future's in our hands and we'll never be the same again.

Icarus is flying too close to the sun... Living beyond your years, acting out all their fears, you feel it in your chest...Icarus is flying to an early grave.

Are you going to age...with grace? without mistakes? with a path to trace? Are you going to age with grace?

Oh I feel overjoyed when you listen to my words, I see them sinking in, crawling under your skin; words are all we have, we will be talking, what is there to gain? I feel overjoyed when you listen to my words. 

And last but  not least, their Sesame Street-like take on learning vowels: Ay-ay oh Ay oh. 

So, thanks for listening to my words. I hope to have some put together a little more coherently soon. Stay strong, my friends. Shine. 

Creating Capital

[I won't lie-- I had to look up the difference between capital with an a or with an o. Oh grammar, I just can't quit you!]

Lately, I've been trying some alternatives to traditional career moves and I came across a website my friend Redd from college has been actually making a LIVING off of. I have been so proud of her because she's one of the most creative and industrious people I've ever met. A couple of highlights about her...she moved from the UK for college in the US (so brave!), has supported herself working in a career of her dreams (stage management) in Atlanta, then took a huge leap and moved to Las Vegas and worked for Cirque du Soleil! How cool is that? She has written an excellent, relatable food blog that she also published as an e-book cookbook. Now, she's been doing voice over work for a long time and has made her career off of this site called fiverr. Her voice is beautiful and she's technically minded, so she can edit and market herself quite brilliantly. She's my "living her dream" hero! 

A few months ago, I started my own fiverr. I'm sticking with stuff I know-- letter and card writing, water-color painting, and homemade natural living products. I'd like to add some editing and other digital services, but for now, that's what's on my plate.

So, if you're interested, please take a look! Feel free to share far and wide, because I'd sure appreciate it.
Remember my post about making natural deodorant? You can buy your very own container of it-- customized with essential oils of your choice. Click HERE for deodorant.

Want to relax and take a break? I've read recently about the effects of magnesium deficiency in our diets from the environment being stripped of certain minerals. Did you know a nightly (or weekly, comeon, ain't-nobody-got-time-for-that) bath in epsom salts can help restore your magnesium levels naturally and safely? Check out my customized bath satchets HERE.

My fiverr gigs also include hand painted water-color cards (or could be on a small, frame-able paper) HERE, post cards from Colorado HERE, and hand written, locally printed (Leanin' Tree Art in Boulder, Colorado) cards HERE. If you know me in real life, you know I send cards and postcards like nobody's business already. ;)

If you're interested in something along those lines from me...please send me a message! I am pretty shamelessly plugging myself here, but maybe you'd be interested in this cool world of five-bucks-a-pop.

Payment note: fiverr.com uses paypal. For some people, that's very easy. For others, it's a new financial system. Until recently (thanks, Trina!) I was not a paypal user. It's safe and easy...and I'm still scared of bitcoin.

Grateful for...stuff.

I've had this feeling. It's been growing- waxing and waning since about May. It's this overwhelming, but not scary, sense of gratitude. A sense that the town crier shouting, "12:00 and all is we-lll," is maybe, just maybe correct. It's late-- past my bedtime for sure. But this peaceful gratitude-- it means All Is Well. 

All is well? Yes. In two days, I'll be out of my apartment. My apartment was my safe haven, my cozy little spot. It was under 400 square feet-- just a rectangle with a closet, a bathroom, a kitchen, and lots of windows. Since I moved in my sedan, I didn't have furniture. So in August of last year, I was in little apartment with a slightly leaky loaned air mattress and a few boxes, bags, and suitcases of my things. I had a few things shipped from Georgia; I went to Goodwill, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Ikea, and Target; I checked freecycle and on Craigslist. I found an amazing amount of treasure next to the dumpster on my street, just waiting to be discarded, but with a former owner who hoped it could get some more use. Somehow, that little rectangle box with good windows-- it became home. It had my magnets. My cards. My pictures. My books. Somehow, all those things become you, even though 'you' aren't 'stuff,' our 'stuff' makes us feel like we belong. Have roots. 

In August last year, I bought a futon to sleep on. In November, I decided I was too damn old to sleep on a futon, so I bought a bed. That was a good choice. My little apartment with good windows had a rug, shelves, plants. The plants came from freecycle with many of the pots from Goodwill. Amazing what plants will do for a living space. 

But a year has come and gone. I've added clothes and accessories to my wardrobe I never needed before my life up here at 5280 feet. Snow boots, thermal layers, woolen socks, a headband with a hole for my ponytail. Hiking gear, running gear, picnic-in-the-park gear. I noticed it when I moved, and it became true for me-- I think Denver people don't mind having small apartments-- because they get to spend so much time in this great grand wonderful outdoors. The sun is shining 300 days a year-- even when it's cold, it's rarely miserable out.

All of that stuff came in-- one bag or box at a time and all of it had to leave too. So, here we are and I'm back to being grateful. I sublet my apartment (shh!) while I was in Atlanta for a conference and much-needed family time and it turned out to be the best situation for both of us. My "housesitter" was recently out of a bad relationship and needed a homebase that wasn't squatting on her well-meaning friends' couches. She kept the place clean and nice and took care of my furniture. She's a photographer and makes beautiful art. She paid on time and in full. Can't be anything but grateful there. 

And here I am again, feeling grateful. A mom I met, selling her that futon that I got back in August, pointed out that she "meets the nicest people on Craigslist." I couldn't agree more. For all that furniture that I required to make my little space mine, a lot of it had to go. The counter stools, the futon, the ottomans, the mounted dish rack, the vacuum, the bed. One by one-- with ads on Facebook (a bust!), posted by apartment laundry rooms and door frames (a bust!), and craigslist ads, I got rid of those pieces one by one. I haven't met one mean person on craigslist. They've all been grateful for the deal they got and excited for the "new to them" from my home to theirs. Two of the women I met selling things I no longer needed? Also started out, this summer instead of last, with a car full of stuff and nothing else-- departing from "back East" to this haven of buildings, mountains, and rivers in Colorado. Something so poetic and cyclical about getting the things that I needed to replace to someone in nearly the same situation, a calendar's turn around the sun later. 

For all those things I "needed," I realized I had too much. I gave away items on freecycle. I placed books in Little Free Libraries. I brought a load of odds and ends to the Goodwill (the cycle continues!). And somehow, my Christopher could stop gently correcting me for saying "your" apartment to "our" apartment. My magnets and books and jewelry and things were incorporated with his books and video games and art and Das Boot memorabilia. The stuff? It's our stuff. Or it's now someone else's. Lots to be grateful for tonight.  

Farewell little Dexter St. apartment. We had good times. 

So what about you? Could you distill your life into a few small boxes and bags? Fit everything in the space of a car? What stuff would you get rid of in your life...if you dared?

Eloquent adventures for my week-ends

Let's see, the last time I checked in here, I was moving to Denver in a few days. Well, I made it!

There's obviously been a thing or two going on with getting situated, renting an apartment, starting a job, purchasing all the furniture to go in that apartment...so writing and blogging have kind of been on the very, very bottom of my stacked-to-the-ceiling to-do list. 

I've been getting back into some writing this week-- my dear friend Al (her page is here) sent a very lovely care package that included some perfect small-enough-to-slip-into-my-backpacking pack journals. So there's really no excuse. I attempt (and have largely succeeded) to hike somewhere every weekend. It gives me some time to think and reflect over this slightly surreal life I'm living. 

Everything had little notes of explanation!

I do hope to get more into a habit of writing and blogging about the day trips I've been taking. I'm working at an Independent school (read: private) that is an "American International" school (read: like American schools that exist in a strange vacuum in foreign countries) and therefore I have access to charming, new, and lovely colleagues who are from a myriad of other countries. In the teaching staff, we have at least 7 languages represented...and more dialects too. Every day is a Communication major's dream-- we have so many ways of tackling any issues!

I only mention this because one of my colleagues is from Senegal and he and I were discussing what we'd done over the weekend. I've noticed that with both teachers and people whose first language is not English, those groups of people like to summarize at the end of a conversation, to have reasonable assurance that they understood everything. This man is no exception. So, after describing the hike I'd taken that weekend, he said, with his lilting accent and activist's eloquence, "I think I understand. You are using your weekends to go and adventure in all the beautiful places that Colorado offers?" 

Yes. Yes sir. I'm adventuring in Colorado. That's for sure. 

Traveling on this overpass-- noticed snow on the peaks for the first time. Oh Colorado. So gorgeous.