Inspired by today

I love Fall mornings like this. The air is cool and crisp. The leaves are starting to turn orange, red, and yellow. There is a light misty fog causing the world to have an orange tinted glow. 

Fall is my favorite season, hands down. The gorgeous fall-color explosions everywhere, including a lush blanket gracing the ground, the apple laden scent in the air, the cornstalks and pumpkins decorating houses and stores alike, and the promise of all the best holidays so close by. 

Promise. Fall is full of promise. The reminiscence of new school years, the start of something new, the excitement of dressing up for Halloween, and soon to follow the good family times and yummy food at Thanksgiving. 

All beautifully segueing into winter and the breathtaking quiet beauty of snow and the most magical of all holidays, Christmas. Red, green, and blue lights twinkling on trees and houses. 

And the best of all, after a new snowfall when the world is under a blanket of white and you spot the red and green glow of twinkling Christmas lights on bushes beneath the fresh powdery layer of snow. Love that! 

For me this time of year is magic. From September through the New Year, it is one beautiful season and holiday after another. Four months of total bliss. 

I intend to savor every moment this year. I will look up from my computer more and look outside. I will put on layers of warm clothing, go for short walks around my neighborhood and whisper prayers of gratitude for the beauty surrounding me. 

I would love to know, what is your favorite thing about this time of year? Please share in the comments below. 

xo ~ Kim

Invest in yourself - Amazing Biz & Life Academy

I just found out that once you sign up for the Amazing Biz & Life Academy you are locked in at the price you signed up for! So, the price is $199 a year (or $55 a month for 4 months if you want to use the payment plan) IF you sign up by September 30th. On October 1st her price doubles to $497 a year. 

If any of  you have been thinking about signing up for the Amazing Biz & Life Academy, you should do whatever you have to to make it happen now. Then it's only $197 a year for life. If you wait you will end up paying almost $500 every year! 

I have already made some awesome connections at the Academy and I've only been there for a week. I have signed up for an awesome side group that one of the members has put together to go alone with the Business Goddess e-course starting October 1st. She wanted to go through the e-course with writing in mind and thought it would be great to have a side Master Mind group with others who also want to focus on writing. We are put into groups of only 3 people each and will call each other once a week. This way an hour-long call will give you 20 minutes each to talk about your own process and what your intentions are and what you might want help having accountability with. I can't wait! :) There are also so many other awesome mini groups within the Academy that would fit just about anything you might want (even on topics of health, making your home a haven, etc.). 

I'm so excited I got in with the $199 a year deal before the price went up! Yay!!! 

Click HERE to go to the Academy. 

Hope to see you all there!

xo ~ Kim

Day 4, In Which My Creative Spirit Has Been Set Free!!!

My left hand and wrist are very badly sprained. This happened early Sunday morning. Thus I didn't write my blog post yesterday because of the pain. This one will be short and sweet for the same reason. I am extending my 21 Day Blogging challenge a day due to my injury.

Even though my hand is bound with an ace bandage, my creative spirit has suddenly become unbound! I have clarity for my goals and dreams like I have never had before. This isn't pain meds talking since I didn't get any . . . ; ) 

I wish so much I could write about it all right now, but for the next week I will have to keep my posts short. 

Thankfully I am a righty and can write down with pen and paper all of this beautiful inspiration and clarity. My focus is going to be changing. I will be changing the About page to reflect that at the end of the week. 

I AM SO OVER THE MOON EXCITED!!!! I cannot wait to share all of this with you. I will write a little more about this tomorrow. Now I need to go ice and rest my hand. 

xo ~ Kim

Day 3, In which I Share Part of My Career Dreams List

I just had my first ever Reiki session! It was a distance Reiki session with my ARTbundance Coaching Certification classmate Kuumba. It was really interesting. At some points I felt tingly and several others I felt some definite heat. I'm not sure what to expect now. 

I've been thinking a lot about art journaling lately. I think it would be helpful to me in getting through this creative block/fear. It doesn't matter how it looks in an art journal. It can be truly awful and it would still be okay because it's just an art journal. 

Been thinking so much about my dreams and what they truly are. Sometimes being a Renaissance Soul really sucks. I have so many interests, so many dreams. They all fall into the creative arts realm, but there is only so much time in the day, ya know? 

Here are my "career" dreams, in no particular order:

• I want to sell my paintings and reprints of my paintings.
• I want to write and illustrate children's stories.
• I want to write and create e-books and e-courses. 
• I want to write novels (sometimes). 
• I want my artwork to be licensed by Demdaco.
• I want to write for creative mags like Cloth, Paper, Scissors.
• I want to be in an issue of Artful Blogging. 

You want to know what my over-the-moon mondo beyondo dream is? The dream that would make me think that this was the absolute ultimate of lives to live? It's the first one.

When I ask myself the question, "What would I do if I had all the money I would ever want or need? How would I spend my days?" 

Besides being able to spend more time with my kiddos, I would paint! I would paint even if I didn't need to make a living from it. I can see myself so vividly in my dream art studio, spending many happy hours each and every day painting to my heart's content. 

I remember when I first answered that question. It was back in the mid 90's. I had just learned that I could actually draw and draw quite well (thank you Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain!!!). I thought the answer to that question would be that I would spend my days writing. I had wanted to be a writer for the past decade. Writing was my first creative love. Writing was (and still is) what I feel quite confident in. I was so shocked when I saw that visual of me standing in this gorgeous art studio happily painting away. 

I ask myself that question every six months or so and the answer has always remained the same. I often question the sanity of that answer considering the fact that I haven't painted in nearly a year. I have a crazy mad block/fear and find it difficult to even pick up a paint brush. 

I MUST get over that. I don't want to look back on my life and have this regret. 

I am trying. I have done some artsy things, not quite painty things, but something at least a little artsy craftsy and that is definitely a good step in the right direction. 

Tomorrow I am going to get to Mindy and Alena's Magic*Making online art course. I am very far behind, but I plan on putting a good dent into it. I will do it if I have to tie a paint brush to my hand! ;) 

Maybe in tomorrow's post I will tell you about how I got into that class. It's a pretty good one. At least I think so. :)

I hope you are all having a great night, dreaming big dreams and taking tiny baby steps toward them.

xo ~ Kim

Day 2 in which I realize that I forgot to write this post yesterday . . .

I wanted to have a self-care weekend. I want to get caught up on the exercises for Magic*Making and read the YA novel I got yesterday, “So You Want to be a Wizard.” 

I don’t really want to think about business or anything like that. My mind needs a break.

I can’t seem to shut that out of my mind though. 

I'm worried that I will never get it off the ground. I worry about having to go back to work in a couple of weeks and if my body can take it and how much pain I will be in. And, of course, how the pain and fatigue of my Fibro will be so overwhelming that I won’t be able to work on my business in order to get the hell out of having to have a day job.

I haven’t done anything creative or fun yet. I took a short nap a little bit ago. Now I’m drinking cup of coffee #2.

I realized this morning I didn’t write my blog post yesterday for the 21 Day Blog Challenge. The second day and I missed it . . .

I thought about it in the morning, but had such a busy day yesterday that I completely forgot about it.

So, today I will try to write two blog posts.

Right now I am going to read a little more inspirational goodies from the internet and then go to my beautiful art studio and go on to the next exercise in Magic*Making.  

21 Day Blog Writing Challenge

So I sit here and wonder. Is it fear that is keeping me from creating my dream life? Creating paintings and e-books and e-courses and blog posts?

Or is it that I am just plain lazy. I can spend hours, all day even, reading blogs and articles on the internet. If I could get paid to do that I would be enormously rich.

It doesn't take any effort to read blogs. It doesn't require any bravery or courage. All it takes is curiosity and an interest. I have that in spades.

But really, what holds me back?

I am remembering old feelings of frustration when writing with a purpose in mind. Journaling is easy. I can write whatever I want. No one is going to see it. I wish I could write this easily for stuff that will be seen by other’s eyes.

With journaling I don’t have to think about it at all. With blog posts, I want to make sure they sound good, are grammatically correct, spell-checked, edited, etc. Oy with the poodles already! (anyone know what show that saying comes from???)

Yeah, so I’m thinking of just adding this to my blog. I haven’t written in a while and I want to put something up there.

I’m thinking of doing a 21 day challenge like Colleen Wainwright does. But what in the world would I write about – for public eyes – for 21 days in a row?

I don’t live an exciting life. I have low energy (thanks, Fibro!). I’m an introvert and don’t interact with lots of other people.

I would feel all kinds of pressure if I did this challenge. Wouldn't it suck all the fun out of writing a blog?

But wait. I’m not having any fun writing a blog since I’m not even actually writing blog posts.

Maybe it will be more fun than I think? Maybe the act of writing for the public would help me to improve my writing skills? Maybe I would grow to enjoy writing more and more on my blog? Who knows? 

It could certainly help me to overcome my fear and self-doubt. And, really, that is the center of what holds me back from writing more. 

Maybe I should compose my blog posts in Microsoft Word, right here in my computer journal, like I'm doing right now. Maybe it would feel less intimidating than logging onto Blogger and writing in the smallish box. It would be like I’m just writing another journal entry.

I could try, couldn't I?

Here’s to Day 1 of my 21 Day Blog Writing Challenge. Cheers! 

xo ~ Kim

Coloring Book Fabric Collage

Sue Bleiweiss is hosting a DVD, Fabric and Book give away on her blog. The DVD shows you how to make a gorgeous quilt featuring houses (one of my favorite themes!) using her hand-dyed fabrics. She also shows you how to dye your own fabrics! You can check it out here.

I so hope I win! I've been getting the urge to quilt again. It's been many, many years since I've quilted and I really miss it.

This would be the perfect thing to get me quilting again, especially since she includes fabric to make the quilt with. :)

Happy quilting!

~ Kim xo

On My Way To An Amazing Biz & Life!!!

I did it! I just signed up for the Amazing Biz & Life Academy!!! I'm SO SUPER excited!!! I have missed being a part of that community so much. There is no way that I am going to miss out on getting back into the Academy before the price doubles. This is a huge step for me to invest in myself financially. 

I was so bummed that I couldn't renew my membership in the Academy at the beginning of this year because I just couldn't afford it. I actually still can't afford it (it's super inexpensive - only $199 for a year membership or $55 a month for the four-month payment plan). Things are super financially tight over here in Kimville, but I also feel that I CANNOT afford NOT to get back into Leonie's Academy. So, I will juggle the finances for the next four months and, in the meanwhile, build my business to increase the flow of moolah into my life. ;)

I just wanted to let you all know that Leonie puts out the most amazing resources I have ever seen on the internet and I have taken tons of online classes over the last five years. Several of them cost lots and lots more than the price of Leonie's yearly membership. 

I was in her academy before it was called the Amazing Biz & Life Academy and it was amazing!!!! Ha ha . . . no pun intended. ;) The women who are part of the academy are the most generous, creative, down-to-earth, supportive, and encouraging women. 

Leonie is the most GENEROUS online entrepreneur that I have ever met. She includes ALL of her courses, meditations, visualizations, colorful and whimsical posters, and her Yearly Life and Biz Planners (which are the best I have seen), etc. in the price of the annual membership. Any new programs, e-courses, meditations, etc. that she creates during your membership is ALSO included! She is also no longer taking any coaching clients, but is doing coaching calls with all the Academy members. I can't wait to get in on one of those! 

The academy includes really great and very active forums with topics in any area that you can imagine. 

Leonie's business e-course is, by far, the best that is out there. I have it from when I was in the academy last year. However, she has revised and updated it and is coming out with the new and improved Business e-course on October 1st! 

I want to encourage you all to check it out and sign up! I promise you won't regret it. Check out the Academy information page HERE. (In case that hyperlink doesn't work, here is the actual link: http://tinyurl.com/kdmjvd2 ) 

I am so excited to get back into the forums at the Academy and hang out with so many women that are on the same journey that we all are on. 

If you want to know a bit more about Leonie, here is some more information:

Leonie is a woman who really walks her talk. She’s managed to create a half million dollar a year company, working a few hours a day, spending loads of time playing with her family + making art + living a really full life. And, like me, she believes in making this world an amazing place by giving generously to causes she believes in.

I really resonate with Leonie, and I think you will too. Plus, she knows her stuff when it comes to business!

Leonie created the Amazing Biz and Life Academy, which gives you over $3800 (!!!!) of business and marketing programs to create a powerful and profitable business, zen-your-mind meditations, creativity, spirituality, home and health e-courses to help you live your best life yet. It is a complete toolkit for transforming whatever part of your biz or life you want to focus on. 

I felt an urge (intuition) to send you all some more information about Leonie and her Academy so that you can sign up for it before her prices go up on October 1st. 

I know I probably sound like an infomercial and I so don't mean to. I'm just over the moon excited that I'm back in the Academy and I want to share more about it with all of you because I really believe in Leonie (she is a total rock star in my book!) and I really believe in her courses. She knows her stuff and this time I intend to follow her business course step by step in order to create the business and life of my dreams. I will not let my fear get in the way this time. 

Sending you all so much love and inspiration,

~ Kim xo