Living is a thing all humans do and sometimes I write about my life’s experiences. I use the tag living when I want to share things I’ve either learned or experienced.
My dreams and goals seem crazy to me at times. They are so grand and lofty. They almost seem impossible. Yet, every time I attempt to downsize my dreams it does not work. Even if I am able to shrink them for a time, they will grow.
I want to say my dreams grow like weeds, but they are much more beautiful than your common weed. They are more like wild flowers, growing wherever and however they like, but doing so rather beautifully.
They are currently blossoming with the goal of supporting myself as an author and artist, who can then work on acting again. I want to be known for these three things. I can see myself achieving this and I am working towards these goals, that is why I call it a goal and not a dream. Dreams are just goals without a plan. I believe Dave Ramsey said something along those lines and I believe it is true.
My current dream includes marrying a musically talent actor, having 2 kids with him, and building a life with him. In my dream, I’m producing t.v. shows and acting in movies. Also, I want to be able to live off of 10% of my income and give the rest to God’s work and charities. I have no actual plans or steps in achieving any of these dreams. Perhaps one day when I am supporting myself as an author, artist, and actress, I will then be able to plan for my dreams.
I do want to mention that I don’t just want a lot of money, but I want to be able to make a big difference in the lives of others in a notable, positive way.
Where I am sitting right now these dreams and goals are large and scary, but they are mine. I am happy with always reaching for more, even though it is frustrating or a real struggle sometimes. I think I’ll stop trying to downsize my dreams, instead I’ll upgrade my work habits.
Want More?
I have more stories that shows how I became who I am. They are in the Journey to Me series. I also have stories specifically about God and of course I wrote a book about my views and experiences with Love called To Love.
Sometimes I feel like I should have already started a more creative life. I want to be further along in my creative career. This makes me feel like my life is passing me by. I forget to look at all the great stories I now have to pull from. I ignore the fact that each year, month, week, and day have shaped me into the unique artist that I am.
It frustrates me to see where I want to go and not be there. It is also frustrating not having a clear path laid out before me. If feels like I’m in Californian traffic during rush hour and I’m not even sure if my gps/ plan is actually correct. Perhaps there is a better path for me, or at least better steps that I can be taking.
If you want to be a doctor there is a clear plan. You go to college, then med school. Then I believe there is an internship or residence. After that you are a full on doctor. You apply to jobs, go on interviews and get a job.
If you want to be a lawyer, you go to law school, take the bar exam, and apply to jobs. Then you are a lawyer.
Being a professional artist is a bit different. You can go to school, but you don’t have to. Some people apply to jobs or get freelance jobs, but other do not go that route. Some will work on finding commission jobs, others will not take commissions.
You basically do what fits you and your art the best, but it takes time to figure that out. Of course, more and more I believe a lot of life is just like that. You need to figure out what works best for you and your life.
Sometimes it’s learning from others that will help you down your path in life. Other times it’s trial and error.
I think as long as you are moving towards your life goals, no matter how slow or sloppily, you are still going down your path and that is a good thing. This is one thing I need to remind myself when I think I’m going to slow or not seeing enough progress.
Want More?
If you would like to read more about my Journey To Me there is a full series on the topic. I also have more portfolio writing available too. If you want to get to know me better you can do so on Instagram , Twitter, or Facebook.
My trip to South Africa was amazing and eye opening. The speed of life was different, the entire way of life was different. The only technology I used personally was a ipod shuffle and a camera. The shuffle was only on the plane ride over there and maybe a car ride when we were leaving the Church’s compound/ area. Inside the Church that we stayed at was a electric kettle, but besides that, lights, and the electronics other people brought there was not any other high tech things there. This alone created a great time of focus on God, the community, and each other.
The people there were also something different. They had so little, but were happy. True they would try to get as much as they could, but when you have nothing even a lollipop is a wonderful treasure. The community we were in was filled with such pain. Family members would either die, most of the time from AIDS, or leave to find work. This left grandmothers caring for grandchildren and the older kids helping to raise the younger ones.
I loved loving on them and helping them. We gave some huts food parcels and dried soup. We also gave out quilts, since in the winter it actually gets cold. Each day that we taught the kids they went home with something special. One day we even were able to give them each a new outfit. They were so happy about that. The girls showed off their new dresses and the boys were super happy to have new shorts and a new shirt. We also prayed with the people who came to our eye glass clinic, where they also got new reading glasses. One day we prayed with the kids during their lesson. It was great fun to see how much we helped, even though they need more help.
Again, I need to say how awesome this trip was. We went on a few adventures, but I already went into more detail than I was planning on going into. I am sure I will be writing short stories about each fun adventure or story that was created during the trip.
This post was going to be telling you all about my new goals and only referencing Africa as the catalyst to my new goals and views on them. First big change is I went through and took out the goals that were just stressing me out. They were like the stale bread on my plate that I thought I needed to eat.
The first goal that I slid off my plate was my website. Once I have time I will come back and redo everything. For now it is up and running. It needs improving and if I have free time I may play around with it, but it is not a goal. Plus, it wasn’t really a working goal any ways. I was just poking at it and thinking I needed to work harder on it. It became a littler stress note.
The major thing I am taking off my plate is acting. It’s hard to do so and I love it, but my life right now can’t actually fit it on my plate. I am hoping that once I figure out how to free up my time I will reinstate this dream. At this moment I can’t try to act and write and work a full time job with at least 45 minutes of commute time. I mean I was trying to find monologues still and watch little lessons or tips when I could, but hadn’t been practicing, since right now my heart is focused on my writing projects.
I also tweaked my other goals and made them more do-able. My main focus will be on Godly studies and writing. I may write about my new goals, but for now the big changes to my life has been covered. Plus this is getting long and I do like keeping my updates on the shorter side.
Hello you wonderful people. As you can tell from reading this post, my site is back up. It took a longer than I thought and hoped for. Plus, it’s not what I had been planing, but I will work on separating and cleaning everything up from this point forward. I just really wanted some sort of website up.
Now, there are a few updates I should be sharing here. The biggest thing is that I am going to be going on my first out of the states missions trip soon. I am super excited for that. I will be going to South Africa at the end of this month. I actually made a video while the site was down explaining it a little bit more. Here is that video
I am also working on different projects that I will be publishing. Right now I am focusing on getting the first five out. I am hoping that I will be able to have finish products starting close to when I get back from South Africa and others being published every quarter. This seems like a feat and it is. It is do-able because the first one is a re-publishing/ second edition of my Growing Poems and the most of the others are short as well. I will be publishing them all on Kindle unlimited and may even look into publishing them through Amazon’s self-publishing company CreateSpace as a hard copy.
I mentioned Growing Poems, but I do have other ones and plans for them. After Growing Poems I will be publishing Poetic Art this is another poetry book, but it has a twist. These poems are coming from my more recent writings and from this blog. You may have noticed that about 100 posts have been removed. Now not all of these are being used for Poetic Art but some are. The twist with this book is that as of right now it will only be published as a hard copy, because after I have all the poetry pick, edited, and printed out I am going to draw, doodled and maybe even paint around the boarder and white space of the pages. This will bring another aspect to the poetry. I do have the actual poems pretty much edited how I would like them. Most of the work now will be the visual art.
I was going to do this next book a little farther down, but it seems to be the next easiest one to edit. This is a compilation of my short stories. Some are taken from this blog, others are taken from classes and I believe there may be one or two that I just never shared. I am going to be editing them and maybe expanded on a few micro stories. This one will need some more work and a title. For the title I’m thinking Stuff and Things, but I’m not sold on that. I feel like I should mention that if it is a series of short stories or was suppose to be a series of short stories I am not adding them to this book. This means that the I Am A Bagel, Story Time With Pink Sunshine, and Space-Riders will not be in this book. I also am going to try to revisit those series for this blog more, but we’ll see.
Now about 3 months after that is published I am going to be publishing all of my writing prompts. I am working on editing them to be clear and helpful. In addition they are being organized into story, poetry and other prompts. It may have a fourth section if I decide to re-organize it with a ‘strengthening your writing skills’ section. I will also be adding more of a description into how the prompt could help you and adding some more to the book. My goal for this book is that it will be able to give a year of inspiration at least to one person, so 365 quality prompts. That is why I am shooting for a Q4 (end of the year) publish for this book. I also need a title for this one.
The last one, besides my novel, that I am actively working on is a book called To Love. I might change the title to To My Love, but I’m not sure. The basic premise of this book is that it is a long love letter to my future husband. I have written him little things in the past, either when I am lonely or wishing for him to be known. I am also adding short stories, poetry, and I think a few monologues in the book. In addition I did add the first chapter of the first novel that I technically finished. It was just the first draft and I lost the story half way through the second draft. I added the first chapter though, since the novel was my fantasy about how I would find him and who he would be. Now, some of the writings may find their way into the other books, but I am editing the writings in this book separately. This will cause/ allow each writing piece unique to each book and give the readers something new.
I also have a few others that once the ones listed are done I will be able to actually focus on. The first one is called The Listening Tree and will be a kids book. I’m calling the one after that Dear God right now and it’ll be like To Love in that it will be a compilation of writings to a specific person. Dear God will just be the poetry, short stories, or some of my prayers to God. I am hoping with this to share my relationship and journey to God. Lastly I have one I am calling Journey To Me and this is more of a memoir type book. It is also the one that I am most fuzzy about. I know the general idea will be looking at how I became the person I am. I think it will be goal oriented and explaining how I viewed myself along with how I now view myself. It may turn into a self-perception study and most likely will have some psychological aspects to it. I am not sure though. I’m not really focusing on that or any of the last three I rambled off.
Finally I am working on my novel. It is titled Duality and I am about half way through my second draft. I don’t really want to give myself a dead-line with this. I am going for quality not quantity with this one.
I did say pretty much all that in the video below.
With all that being said, I am still going to be doing weekly DreamWard Bound posts. However, I do not foresee being able to do much more than that. Perhaps if the books become successes than I will be able to free up my time and write even more, but as the plan stands I will only commit to one post a week.
I feel like I am getting back into being dreamward bound. My schedule is filled up with meet-ups directed towards my creative life. I am painting every month with a friend. I am writing/ editing with another friend every other week. Reading articles and tips about acting almost every day during breaks from work. I am also starting to work on getting my wardrobe audition ready. This means that I am trying to buy more professional looking clothes instead of just t-shirts and jeans. I am also getting back into shape and went back to BJJ for the first time in about a month.
Yes, after a hard time of being so busy, stressed, and drained my life if back on track. It may even be more on track than before. I at least feel more thankful and blessed now, which causes a greater happiness. Basically what I am trying to say is that life is good after a stressed out and draining month or two.
The only thing that is not so great is that it is taking longer for this site to be transferred over to HostGator’s servers, which means it is taking longer to get everything configured how I would like it and set up revenue. Also, since I thought my site was going to be transferred over this week I did not want to post/ write things that may disappear if something went wrong.
This week I was packed full of work, Halloween and site stuff. I am in the process of transferring over this site to hostgator. I put on a Haunted House for my work. It was also my birthday on Thursday. Plus, I had to work a slightly later, which mean traffic. This week there was a lot of traffic in my life. It really was all traffic and Halloween crafts.
Yes, this week was busy, and I am happy that it is over. However, I am excited for the new things that will be coming to this site. I will be practicing my coding a bit more since I will have more control over the code. I will also be able to put ads on the site. I know it’s not great, but if I can get a little revenue from this site I can do more creative stuff. That means if I have ads I can post more fun things on this site.
Now, I am drained, but with the creativity of the Haunted House it is in a good way. I think I deserve the rest of the day to myself watching Shakespeare or vampires (not the sparkly kind).
This week was a good week. I was productive, although you, my blog, saw none of it. I have a couple of poems that I will be typing up and posting this week. I also worked on my book for 7 hours last Saturday and painted for a few hours on Sunday.
In addition I am gearing up for my first improv show. I’ve of course have acted in scripted plays and musicals before, but never an improv show. I am really excited to be getting back on stage. It is not for a couple of months, but we still need to get performance ready.
Since it is almost Halloween I am also working on getting everything ready for my work’s Haunted House. It is turning into more work than I have time for, but it is fun. Really, anything besides writing and acting takes up too much time in my opinion, at this moment. It is fun being creative in this way. It is basically putting on a production with very little resources.
This week’s post is pretty short and I am trying to think of other things to write, but there is nothing. I also just want to type up the poems I wrote and get going on my day, so that is what I will do.
I hope you have a wonderful week and enjoy or enjoyed the two posts that I wrote this week.
The past two or three weeks have been pretty stressful for me. I couldn’t figure out how to balance my day job, commute, and creative life. I just could not do it. I realized this week with a little help from a friend that I needed to step back and breathe. I needed to reset to see my projects as projects not stressers.
Taking a step back meant that I focused this week on resetting my brain and relaxing. I needed some rest, because I work 40 hours a week at my day job and then 20 hours (on a ‘good’ week) at my creative life. Most Saturdays now are focused solely on creative stuff. Sundays I force myself to not be creative. I basically burnt myself out and tried to keep going, until this week.
This week I took a break from everything. That is why I only posted one thing this week. I only worked on my creative life on Monday. The rest of the week was focused on helping friends, hanging out with them and not worrying.
I also took yesterday off of work to do errands and adult stuff that I never have time to do, so that is a load off my shoulders. I was going to be creative for most of the day, but adult stuff takes time and a friend was able to do lunch while my car was getting its oil change. Hanging out with my friend seemed like a good plan, especially since this weekend will be heavily focused on creative stuff. Today a friend and I are getting together for Caffeinated Creative Capers, which is basically us sitting in a coffee shop working on our projects together for 5 hours. Than on tomorrow I will be painting with another friend. We will be painting faces and on canvas, so I am looking forward to that.
Hopefully this packed weekend of creativity will complete the resetting of my brain and push me towards my goals and dreams quicker or at least help me get there. I know stress, worry, and a clouded head is the worst thing to have when trying to be creative. I just need to remember to make sure I clear away the cobwebs of everyday living regularly, I guess.
Now, I am going to prepare for being creative and leave you with the one thing I did this week.
This week I was partly trying to find balance in my crazy life and partly giving in to the low brain power that kept happening after work. I just could not get motivated or inspired to do anything creative this week. Even now it’s hard to write this. I just want to relax and watch television.
The last 2 days after work that is what I did. I just watched television shows until I went to sleep. It was nice to unplug my brain by plugging it into some interesting shows. I hadn’t watched a new show in a very long time. I hadn’t been watching television for most of the summer and wanted to limit my television time when I started again. I have only really been watching my three shows (Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Once Upon A Time) by myself. It was what I needed after a draining week at work.
I also went to BJJ class this week, which was the first time in about a month. It at least feels like a month and hadn’t gone for 3 weeks in August, also. It is getting tough to wake up on Saturday morning to go and Mondays have been crazy busy for me. I went this week though. I got there late, but I got there. It was good to be on the mat again.
I wanted to be creative and write. I do have a list of creative things I want to get done and projects I should work on. It was not the week for creativity. Other things took up my time. I guess it is okay to have off weeks, even though I do not like them.
Another note worthy thing is that I may start focusing on my list of projects that I would like to see done. I have my kids book that is still in the works. My next poetry book has a title and a few poems listed to work on. I also have my web-series, production company, novel and acting career that I would like to work on too. In addition I will be looking to find things that will create some extra income, so that I can either save up or have a little automated income stream in order to take a year off and focus solely on my creative life. I am hoping little steps now will lead to big success later on.
With all that random disjointed stuff being said I will leave you with the two things I posted this week.
This week, like last week, was a successful week for my dreams and goals. It was not so great for my body and pain level, since on Monday I hurt my neck rolling backwards at Jiu-Jitsu. I wound up pulling or straining it and had to take Tuesday off of work because I couldn’t really drive and did not sleep at all Monday night. I figured since I was almost in tears when I called up my carpool buddy to see what he thought about the traffic, I thought getting through the day at work might cause at least uncomfortable moments. Wednesday my neck was feeling better and now it’s almost all healed.
That is about my physical life though and I am more excited about my goal life. Things seem to really be coming together. I am working on a cover design for my Poetry book and even came up with a title. I also have the outline and rough draft for my kids book done. Finally, my web-series is coming along. I have a cast of four (with myself included) and would like one more person. The good thing is that I have decided on what they are meeting for, the way the new shy girl fits in, the characters names, and how many episodes will be in a season. In addition to all that, I have decided on the name of the production company it will be under. I will be starting Bagel’s Film Productions.
I was also able to publish four posts. These were all written after I got home from vacation, which is another positive thing. I also recorded two improv videos, but haven’t uploaded them. I will be publishing one of them today, after I finish this.
I will also be editing my novel. Hopefully I can get a big chunk out of it.
Today’s post is on the shorter side, but I just want to go and do productive things. That being said, I will leave you of things I published this week.
