Halloween & NaBloPoMo

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is such a wonderful day at our house. We regularly take it off of work so that we can spend the day preparing and feasting and later, watching scary movies. This tradition started when Justin and I first started dating and I lived with Shannon. Our first Halloween all together we made it really special with a yummy dinner and our infamous jack-o-lantern, "the eye." (Yes, it really was a big eye) We had such a good time that we kept the tradition going.

I've been really busy, so we're a bit behind in the planning but hopefully we'll catch up today and have a magnificent time. Yesterday we did manage to clean and get our decorations up though we still have to put pumpkin lights in the window. (If you want to see amazing decorations, check out Suzie's slideshow)

Justin and I are heading out shopping for a pumpkin, candy, ingredients, wine and movies. I get psyched about cooking a fabulous meal that feels harvesty and also that's often something we haven't made before. Tonight we're having:

• Shannon's unbeatable stuffed mushrooms
• Parsnip twigs
• Mushroom risotto
• Steak
• Apple Galette with Parmesan Crust* Last minute substitution. In looking closely at these recipes we're already getting a lot of Parmesan. So instead we'll be having a Pear & Cranberry Crisp.

All of the recipes are new, so wish us luck! Hopefully it will all be tasty. In the midst of our enjoying all that we have in the last harvest of the year, we'll be thinking of what we want to leave behind us. We'll be thinking of those we've lost, especially in the past year. And we'll be getting ready for the new season.

What are you doing for Halloween?

And starting tomorrow: NaBloPoMo


View my profile on NaBloPoMo

And as of tomorrow, I'll be posting every day in November for NaBloPoMo. There's still time to join in the fun! I've even created a group for Creative Bloggers, and you know that's you! Dive in and join the excitement.

Join NaBloPoMo

Join Creative Bloggers at NaBloPoMo

Create a Connection Interview

This is Shannon, Jana and me.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the friendly & feisty Jana at the Creative Bazaar in Hyannis. Not only was it a treat to get to know her, but she invited me to participate in Interview Tuesday at Create a Connection. The interview is up. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed chatting with Jana.

You can read the interview here.

The Success Principles ~ Principle #31

This week's success principle is Embrace Change. This is a pretty short chapter, perhaps because the concept (if not the execution) of this principle is rather straightforward. Things change. Fighting with that reality simply ends up hurting us. Jack Canfield is pretty abrupt about it: "Grow or die."

Canfield points out that there are 2 kinds of change: cyclical and structural. We tend to accept cyclical change - like the flow of the weather, the trends in the market. Structural change means there's no going back. Things won't be like they used to be, whether we like that or not. And this is where resistance is more likely to show up.

It's funny because in some ways I'm a rather flexible person. (Okay, I can hear my family laughing already) What I mean by this is that I love a lot of things and so I can be happy with a many possible options in situations. But one of the most challenging things I've had to accept about myself is that yes, I'm a free spirit but I don't find it easy to go with the flow. (Maybe I actually have to revise "free spirit" to "stubbornly independent spirit") If I've planned what I'm going to do for the night and Justin says, "Btw, we've been invited out to dinner with so-and-so, want to go?" My immediate and instant reaction is "No." Even if what I was planning to do was laundry.

This surprises me about me. The only way it kind of makes sense is that I'm juggling so many things that any shift makes me feel unbalanced and I'm charging ahead with such vigor that change makes me screech to an adrenalin-filled emergency stop. As I'm writing this, I'm starting to see that maybe if I tuned down the intensity, I might be more open to change. And why is that useful? Because I might miss out on something fantastic along the way. I mean, dinner with friends sure trumps laundry.

Where do you resist change?

Halloween Fun Begins!

Halloween is upon us! What fun! A while ago Shannon suggested the idea of dressing up as what you want to be in the upcoming year and that idea totally stuck with me. I played with a few ideas but finally was totally inspired to be a hippy, or actually more like the "hip '70s love chick" that my brother used to call me. This represented to me being more relaxed and at ease, just letting things happen and being good with what shoes up. I felt totally at home in my hippy digs.

I felt slightly less at home with my husband as a corporate zombie:

This was the picture Justin had on his passcard as Zombie #402-A1, employee at Most Eat Brains Inc., Department of Ughhh! He cracks me up. Clearly Justin did not dress up as what he wanted to be next year, hehe.

What do you want to be?

The After Dark Festival with the Movie Moxie

One of the coolest things about having a sister who's a movie expert is I get to tag along to all sorts of cool things. This past week Shannon, aka the Movie Moxie was covering the After Dark Film Festival. You can check out all of her thoughts and reviews here. I especially love the candid shot she got of of zombies in the street (See the end of this post here)

The After Dark Festival features scary and creepy movies of all kinds - horror, sci fi, fantasy. Where else would you see Mulberry street, an American rat zombie film; Wolfhound, a Russian epic fantasy film and Alone, a totally scary film from Thailand about conjoined twins? That was my personal playlist from all of the offerings, and a fantastic lead up to Halloween!

Thanks for the frights, Shannon!

101 Update ~ #1 Pay Off My Student Loan

Woooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Words can barely contain the excitement of accomplishing #1 on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list: pay off my student loan. When I put this on the list, I thought the deadline of December 1, 2008 was really ambitious. And here it is, October 24, 2007 and it is done! Oh, the power of setting ambitious deadlines!

How this came about was really pretty funny, a little lame and impacts #65, go to Punta Cana. Last year Justin and I cancelled our 5-year wedding anniversary trip to an apparently 5-star resort on an island in the Dominican Republic because it wasn't really finished being built. It was a major disappointment for us, but we tucked the money away and decided that for our next anniverary we would definitely have a beach vacation in Punta Cana.

Well, as we started talking about it and planning it in the past few weeks we came across a variety of little challenges. Our enthusiasm was a bit dampened, and we were discouraged. Finally I said to Justin that maybe this meant that we really shouldn't go, maybe we should keep the money and start planning for our next trip. And then he said, "Maybe we should pay off your student loan."

Double take.

What? I suddenly felt this wash of joy over me. I started to laugh. I thought, okay, this is kind of lame that I am so much more excited about the prospect of paying off my student loan than I am about walking on a beach in February! But it was the truth. The more we thought about it, the better we felt about it. We could see all the possibilities it opened up for us financially and more.

So I wrote the cheque. Put it in an envelope with a "way to go" sticker" and put it in the mail. It has cleared. And today it is offical - I am student-loan free!!!!!

I've Been Tagged...

Rachel (http://pinstripedpenguin.blogspot.com/), a new design team member at SugarDumplin as tagged me. Since I haven't been tagged in a while..I'll play along and share some tidbits!

Now I get to tag 7 people on their blogs now and follow these rules:

1-Link to your tagger (see above), and also post these rules on your blog. Done!
2-Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3-Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4- Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.

So, here are 7 facts about me:

1. I love to read and read very very fast! Read over 40 books this summer!
2. When I laugh hard I get the hiccups and worse sometimes burp!
3. I really don't like to cook..I prefer to eat!
4. I absolutely LOVE SONIC SLUSHIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. I hate cold, rainy days!
6. I took dance lessons for over 20 years. Was in a dance company and taught dance to little ones for several years too. I love to dance!
7. I've often wished I would have pursued a different degree in college..law(took quite alot) or journalism. If I had I think this would have made a big difference on my life.

TAGGED Girls!

1- Lynne http://knittahplease.typepad.com/my_weblog//
2-Melanie http://www.melaniedouthit.blogspot.com/
3- Jennifer http://www.jenniferstewarts.blogspot.com/
4- Fiona http://www.fionacarter.typepad.com//
5- Jennifer E http://www.createdfrompaper.blogspot.com/
6- Blank..this person was tagged twice..she' needs a break!
7- Kim http://kimjulian.blogspot.com

That's it for today!

Julia

Interviews with me!

As some of you know, I was a doctoral candidate in theatre at the University of Toronto and decided to leave academia in pursuit of work that would truly make me happy. It was quite a journey and recently I was able to share my tale with the wonderful, the magnificent Sabine Hikel. She has a series of podcasts called Leaving Academia and she interviewed my about my decision and what followed. It was a really great experience on so many levels. Sabine's questions led me to finding new insights into this time of my life. Sabine and I had such a great time that our friendship was inevitable. And now that the podcast is published I've already received feedback that it will be useful to students who are facing similar challenges. I sincerely hope that it does.

You can listen to the Leaving Academia interview here.

Also, the lovely Jana has asked me to be an interviewee for Create a Connection next week! We'll be discussing Expressive Arts Therapy, so be sure to check it out!

The Success Principles ~ Principle #30

I've had to take a bit of a break from these posts but hopefully as of today I'll be back on track!

Number 30 in Jack Canfield's Success Principles is face what isn't working. The message is very straightforward and made abundantly clear in the first sentence: "If you are going to become more successful, you have to get out of denial and face what isn't working in your life."

Canfield tells us to pay attention to "yellow alerts," warning signals in our life that something's not quite right. This always reminds me of something I read by Carl Jung. I'll be paraphrasing here. The universe taps you on the shoulder to send you a message. And taps you again. And again. And if you continue to ignore it, eventually it will kick you in the butt! It's definitely to your advantage to listen to the universe's nudges.

In this chapter Canfield talks about how we create reasons, excuses, platitudes and myths to support our denial and that we do this out of fear, fear that things will get even worse. As a coach, I listen for when people say, "That's just the way it is" because that always points to a stuck place, a place that's solidified to support a toleration, a place where there's currently not hope for change, a place where my client isn't believing in themself. When you can make a shift in this belief, big changes can start happening. Canfield says successful people recognize bad situations and then decide to do something about them.

Personally when I read this chapter today I think about the message that's showing up in my temporomandibular joint. Yep, messages can show up anywhere. I've been having quite bad pain in there. I'm on medication for it now that is helping but it was bad enough to keep me up in the night. In fact, I think that clenching may be responsible for my recent tooth issue. My body is definitely trying to tell me something.

I've always associated the clenched jaw and TMJ with stress and maybe anger. I would think that it might means words that are going unsaid. But the funny thing is I'm really feeling happy. I'm doing so many wonderful things and enjoying them thoroughly. Herein I notice a bit of a flaw in my thinking. I seem to think that if I'm having fun, enjoying myself, than that means I never need to take a break and that leads to my favourite addiction - adrenalin living.

So my jaw is reminding me to loosen up, to take drooling time, hang-out time and stare at the stars. Powering forward at 100 mph, even if its fun, can wear you out when you're not looking. So I am recommitting to turning my computer of at 10 and to journalling. This week I will take some chair and stare time and also some studio time. I've also booked a Thai Yoga massage and am exploring the world of craniosacral work.

What's not working for you and how are you going to shift it?

Cape Cod Adventures

Well, I've been home from Cape Cod for a week now, and as I peruse my pictures from the trip I realize that Hyannis now has a very special place in my heart. Recently I had decided that I wanted to become a more proficient traveller and this fun journey with Shannon helped me take some steps in that direction. There were a few worried moments (mostly because flying makes me a bit nervous) but for the most part things went smoothly and easily (a big shout out to the Universe in thanks for that!

We had the best time exploring, stayed in a really great hotel, had delicious meals in restaurants with great atmo and had fun jaunting about town. I hope you enjoy this 2-part slide show adventure of our trip to Cape Cod and the Creative Bazaar.

Inspiration

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness

and the sweet confinement

of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Thanks to Carrie & Danielle's wonderful newsletter for bringing this quote into my world this morning. In the spirit of inviting you to be as magnificent as you are, I'm passing it along.

Getting Creative in Cape Cod

Shannon and I have returned from our great Cape Cod adventure to participate in the Creative Bazaar organized by the wonderful Melba. We had so much fun exploring Hyannis and meeting blog friends - new and old! We enjoyed great company, great food and great creations and all in all had a wonderful time. I'm going to post about the experience in 2 parts: the bazaar and the Hyannis experience because I want to share so much. Today I'll write about participating in the bazaar.

These wonderful gift bags greeted people as the entered the Creative Bazaar. Shannon and I were stationed right across from them. I was all set to do some Tarot Coaching and thoroughly enjoyed doing readings at the event. It was great to share some time and hopefully insight with such wonderful people. Where we were set up we were lucky enough to be right beside the wonderful Melba and her exuberantly colourful creations.

It was such a treat to meet Melba in person and to be able to give her a big hug! Yes, folks, she is as warm, open and wonderful in person as she is on her blog. She's easy to talk to, has a big heart and is a woman of vision! It was a treat to get to know her in a whole new way, plus to be able to buy some original Melba creations! I can't wait to use my journal. Thanks for everything, Melba. You are a star!

We also had the real pleasure of meeting Jana of Jana's Journeys. Here she is with her creations, including 2 wonderful boxes that Shannon and I took home with us. I got wishes and Shannon got joy - good deal! Jana was a joy to meet, full of life and more than a hint of mischief. We hope you got home safe and sound, Jana, and that the journey was shorter than expected!

We also had the pleasure of meeting Mary Ann. What a lovely woman she is. And check out her creations! I am so inspired by the buttons that I bought from her. You can see more of her creations at her Etsy shop.

And in our blog corner of the bazaar universe we also got to meet Artsy Mama. She had a fabulous Halloween theme going on. We couldn't resist the treat bags.

It was also so cool to meet Anne Marie of KaleidoSoul. I had so wanted to take a Soul Collage workshop with her! But at least I did get to see the beautiful cards that she has created, which was a real treat. And we met Pink Sky from The Wish Studio, and she is so lovely. What a wonderful energy that woman exudes! And what's funny is that we also met Heidi of Birds of a Feather, but I totally didn't realize that she was a blog person until later. Lovely to meet you Heidi! And on top of all the blog people, we were able to get to know the women of Melba's family - all wonderful, fantastic women!

So as you can see, we were just spoiled rotten with getting to meet creative, interesting women! So thanks once again to Melba for making it happen. And I have to also say thank you to Shannon

Shannon came to help me out and was an absolutely wonderful travel companion. We had so much fun together, sharing all of these experiences. I'll share more about our adventures in Cape Cod later, but for now, maybe this will give you an idea...

The Metamorphed justBe...

Recently the justBe... Connected conference morphed into the Creative Bazaar, which was the part of the event that was gaining the most interest. Shannon and I are off to Cape Cod tomorrow to participate in the bazaar, sightsee around Hyannis and have the rare treat of meeting Melba! I will be sharing some tarot coaching at the bazaar, so if you're in the 'hood come and have the experience!

Have a wonderful week and I'm sure there will be lots of stories and pictures to share when we get back!

Happy Birthday Scott

Just wanted to share that today is the birthday of the man I love! Yep! Today is his big 39! Unreal! I can't believe he's one year away from that birthday but if you'd never know!!

So Happy Happy Birthday to the Best Hubby, Dad and well everything..because that's what he is to me!

Love you lots Scott,

Julia

PS..got some great news that a big set I made was picked up by this new magazine called Homegrown Hospitality! I am beyond excited and hope to have lots more in this magazine in the future. I added a link to the magazine on the right side of the blog! Check it out! My projects will be in their March Issue! WOHOO!!

Happy Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving here in Canada (or as Shannon calls it, Turkey Day *gobble, gobble*). I'm looking forward to a delish dinner over at her house tonight, yay! In the meantime, please forgive me for putting Jack Canfield on hold for this week. Today just seemed like the right time to list some things I'm thankful for.

This Thanksgiving I am Thank-full for...

• My family and friends, who never cease to amaze me in their love and supportiveness. I am truly blessed.
• My husband, who is the best gift the Universe ever gave to me.
• The new friends who have come into my life this year. You are all inspirations to me.
• The health and well-being of my loved ones and friends. We have had losses and frights this year and I am thankful for everyone that is well and recovering.
• My mentor, who has made a difference in my outlook and progress. Thank you.
• My blogging community. (If you're reading this, that means you :) Thank you for being here)
• My home and garden.
• My health and safety.
• Forgiveness and what it makes possible.
• Financial rewards.
• Memories created.
• Personal and professional progress.
• The richness of life.
• Beauty.
• Awakening creativity.
• The grace of good manners and diplomacy.
• Hope nurterers.
• Goodness.
• Being loved.
• The Universe.

The Lessons that Show Up

You'll go a lot further if you show up and make mistakes

than you will if you try to get things right before you start.

Molly Gordon

Ah. Yes. Anyone else out there need to hear that? I sure did.

Recently I had a huge a-ha thanks to my wonderful mentor, Sunny. We were chatting and I was sharing how comfortable I am with the preparation stage, you know, being a perpetual student. I'm a lifelong learner. I'm always ready to read more, research more, take another class. And sometimes I've been stuck there. Sound familiar? (I know I'm not alone here)

But in talking to Sunny, I realized that I am also very comfortable with the doing stage. I love coaching my clients, sharing Nia, being in a studio, leading a group. I love it. I feel 100% at home there. Once I'm there, in the moment, I love it.

So what's the part I'm not so fond of? That bridge from learning to doing. You know, that rickety, scary bridge that goes over that never-ending precipice? Ever been there? Hate it!

But what has changed is that now I know that the bridge is just that - a link between 2 places I love (learning and doing). And in this rickety, scary place I will make mistakes and say the wrong thing and, yes, sometimes suck, and I will do that in front of others (bleh). But I won't be there forever and with each step I will get closer to that wonderful doing, sharing place. Knowing that makes all the difference.

Today Molly Gordon's wonderful quote above showed up for me as a reminder to venture out onto that bridge. Or maybe to turn it into something more appealing. When I was in coaching training the tag name that my colleagues gave me, the one they chose in order to encourage me to become all that I am, was Trapeze Artist. I think it's time to fly.

A note about Molly Gordon

Over the past year I have done a lot of reading and research about starting a business, finding your niche, defining your target market, etc. And I found myself deeply resistant to much of what I read. I am suspicious of anything that says, "This is the way it must be done." Recently I signed up for a practice-building mentorship program. I lasted a month. It just wasn't a good fit for my independent, rebellious nature. Molly Gordon, whom I quote above, is the first person to talk about things like marketing in a language that I can relate to, perhaps the clue is in what she calls her approach - authentic promotion.

Ahhh.... thank you.

I know a lot of you reading are independent, creative women who want to make a positive contribution to the world. And I know first hand that it's a challenge to find your own way, make your own mark and feel like it's possible to be a success on your own terms - not by fitting your beautiful round-peg self into a painful square hole. I hope we can share lots of success stories about how we've done it and that we can encourage others to do the same.

It's October!!!??!!!

Seriously when did August end September swoop in and leave and according to my calendar..it's October?!! OMG I swear..did I really not blog last since August?! My bad..I'll get back in the groove I promise! So how about an update!

Let's see..school's in..kids are doing okay..Parker(aka Mr. Fidget) appearantly is not doing well at sitting still. Well this is no shock given this has been apart of his IEP since FOREVER and it's just him. I feel if he isn't bothering others, isn't causing a problem..can't he be?! I mean during reading and book time..does it really matter if he turns around? Someone let me know if turning around during this time means he isn't learning. Because he's doing well, picking up words really fast, reading, grabbing onto math faster than me. But maybe academics is no longer important. It's the ability to sit still! GESH

In honor of my cutie..here's a new layout of him with his favorite stuffed animal..his horse Bullseye!

Parker loves this layout..well he loves the picture of him too. He'll see a layout hanging on the wall and if it's him he always says...hey that's me!LOL But this one when he saw the title..Pony Up he went crazy over it. Walked around the house just saying pony up pony up! Too funny!

Here's another new layout with an older photo. My Mom took this of the boys a few years ago at Six Flags. Cute pictures of them from the back. If you're me what you notice is how similar they are. They are! I joke I had identical twins 5 years apart because it's true!

And well I had better not leave Haley out...so here's one of her. This photo was taken this summer on our lake trip. Instead of the layout being about the trip..I made it about her smile..

The kids are all about Halloween right now. Me..getting there. I'm not ready to jump on the bandwagon as many of my neighbors have and put the decorations out just yet. Maybe it's because each year the kids want to put out more and by Halloween I'm tired of it. So we're holding off a bit. It's fine..it's really a fun holiday but the work of everything up and down and keeping it all nice it's alot! Plus last year Peso kept getting tangled on the ropes of our big inflatable. I don't look forward to that again as I am sure he'll do it again. Goofball!

Another bit of news is that I decided after 10 months to step down from the SugarDumplin monthly kit design team. I really enjoyed being apart of it. But decided I was spreading myself a bit thin in my other commitments. So here's my final work for this month using the Seasonal Kit...a spooky Halloween kit!

and here's another project..

If you'd like to see more please go to SugarDumplin.com

Well that's it for now..I'll be back with the scoop on the kids Halloween costumes, I think this year is the best year! And some very cool Halloween projects I'm working on! Also a special congrats to my Cousin Jeff and his wife Lisa on the birth of their baby boy Hayden. What a cool name!

Julia

The Success Principles ~ Principle 29

This week's success principle is clearly an extension of last week's clean up your messes and your incomplete's. Principle 29 is complete the past to embrace the future. According to Canfield, when we hold onto our past resentments, angers and hurts, it ties us to the past in a way that drags us down. He recommends a process of expressing ourselves in writing or verbally with permission to the person we have outstanding issues with. The goal is not to change the other person but rather to allow you to get free of unexpressed emotions. He encourages us to express those feelings and then forgive the people involved.

I agree that carrying around resentments and anger and hurt is a heavy, heavy load. And I have learned from experience that to resolve my feelings, especially old ones, I don't always have to go to the person involved. I do need to express them and I do think it is valuable to have one other person in the world hear my pain, be it my husband, my sisters, my mom or my coach.

I've also learned that there is a real physical impact to holding on to those feelings and there can be real healing in finding ways for those trapped emotions and reactions to find their way out of your body. Sometimes crying at the plight of a character in a movie can be away of releasing uncried tears for yourself. Sometimes sweating can release anger and pain. I know that I had a lot of uncried tears for not becoming a dancer. And when I found Nia, I cried in every class for a year. I had a year's worth of tears being stored in my body. And now when I get a Thai yoga massage, I can feel in my body where I hold onto fear and resistance and by letting them go physically, I can spend my days with more ease.

Releasing these pent-up feelings is so important, and once you realize that so is keeping yourself as free from this load as possible. You can do that by being honest with yourself and others about your emotions and your reactions. I learned this lesson early on with my husband when we were dating. We hadn't been dating that long and one night I became a little insecure and jealous (Now, I have to say that Justin is a dream in this area, always behaving in a way that makes me feel special and supported and never giving me reason to feel jealous - this was totally my own stuff). I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to admit my insecurities. I knew it was my own stuff, so I thought I'd deal with it on my own.

Justin would have nothing of it. He could see I was upset and insisted that I share with him what it was about, saying that feelings like that work like poison and just spread, potentially creating serious difficulties in a relationship. I trusted him and told him what was going on. I was scared and embarrassed, worried that my insecurities would blow my cool, confident woman image. The beautiful thing was that yes, I felt loved and supported and that's thanks to Justin. But what was between me and me (which is the only thing I have control over) is that I felt free and honest. I was being me. The truth of how I felt was on the table and I wasn't hiding anymore. Sometimes being wild and free means being vulnerable.