It is Saturday morning, the end of my third week of getting up at 5AM and practicing meditation and yoga before I start my finance job. I have heard that it takes 21 days to make something a habit, and […]
These last 2 weeks have been some really hard internal work for me. Normally when I feel this uncomfortable in my body I push myself to workout incessantly. But I haven’t done that this time. I have been sticking with […]
It is Valentine’s Day, and it is the first time in over 20 years that I don’t have a Valentine. By that I mean in the traditional sense of a man being my Valentine. This time last year I had […]
I thought that ‘being present’ would be kind of second nature once I started doing it, but it isn’t. It is hard work to be in the present moment. Because in the present moment I have new emotions that I […]
Since I have been home for almost a year, one would think that I have processed all the hurt from my divorce, and that I am ready to move forward in my life. But the truth is, while I have […]
It’s raining today. I am sitting on my bed with the window open and I can feel and smell the cool, fresh air. I can hear the sound of the raindrops on the palm trees, street and parked cars. It […]
When I wake up every morning my ‘to-do’ list is there waiting for me. And I am not talking about a list written on a piece of paper, or in my planner. I am talking about my ‘to-do’ list in […]
This year I have decided to learn more about meditation and put it into practice in my life. The reason I want to do this is that sometimes my thoughts race about the past and the future, and it puts […]
So, it is 2021. The crazy, tumultuous, deadly 2020 is officially over! When I look through photos of myself over the past year, I see a woman who was pushing through her feelings of sadness and putting herself out there […]
It is almost the end of 2020. A year I will never forget. The year that life as I once knew it, changed forever. And I am not just talking about the pandemic. This year I decided to change everything […]
I left a toxic relationship a year ago, and just like when I was drinking alcohol and stopped, it is taking a while for my body to recover and adjust to a new normal. I have come to realize that […]
So, I stopped drinking alcohol almost 5 years ago. Was I addicted? I don’t know. All I know is that I am shy by nature, introverted, and I prefer one on one deep conversations to being in big groups. So, […]
OK, so now what? We are in the midst of the second lockdown due to Covid-19 in LA County. When I walk to Riviera Village in Redondo Beach for my evening dog walk there are no longer couples and friends […]
This is the first Thanksgiving in history that we have been told to stay away from our families. Do not gather, do not mingle, do not share in person, is the message we are receiving. Such an opposite message from […]
My divorce was final in April and I was excited to be legally free, even though we parted ways last November, this was the official end to our union. It is good to have my own life, and set my […]
I used to drink a lot some nights. Usually when I was confused and uncomfortable. I was very shy as a child, and even through high school. I was awkward, so I didn’t talk that much. And when I did […]
This morning I woke up to rain and wind at the beach, I was cold and I wanted to drink my coffee indoors with a blanket wrapped around me. But my doggy had other ideas and wanted to go for […]
4 is my lucky number. This week I reached 4000 followers on Instagram. I normally don’t post about reaching milestone numbers of followers, but this is special to me. The 4000 coincides with me being in Los Angeles a year, […]
This week I cried tears of frustration. I am frustrated with my body for being attracted to men that are wrong for me. My type is good looking, tall, emotionally unavailable but sexually very available. Haven’t I learned my lesson […]
I took Thursday and Friday off work, not because I had any big vacation plans but because I have only taken 3 days off my finance job this whole year. My perspective is skewed because I have been working from […]
So I am sitting on my balcony across the street from the beach with the sun rising and a cool breeze, but I still feel warm. Last night I went out in shorts and a tank top and I wasn’t […]
Lately I have been feeling anxious. I feel like I want to grab on to something to ground and stabilize me. I am single and living alone. Sometimes I walk around my apartment and talk to the walls so I […]
I was sitting at the outside patio of HT Grill in S Redondo Beach with some friends drinking my decaf coffee. The waitress was getting ready to leave for the evening as it was late, but even through her mask […]
Relationships change slowly over a long period of time, and then action is taken that makes a break up look like a hasty decision. Last October was the last month I was together with my Ex-husband. We were both contemplating […]
The fall is my favorite time of year. Maybe it is the excitement of school starting again, football season, and cooler days. I always get a burst of energy in the fall. This fall will be different, not only because […]
This is my first summer living in Los Angeles. It is hot! And what I wasn’t expecting was the humidity. I am never one to stay indoors on the weekends but yesterday afternoon after I went in the pool to […]
My emotional changes are like waves sweeping into shore and then out again. Some days I barely think about my past life of being married and living in Portland Oregon. Other days I feel nostalgic and sad and I can’t […]
How I felt yesterday, is not how I feel today. I feel like my wants, needs, and desires change from moment to moment. It is a slow unwinding of years of pushing for something that wasn’t right for me, letting […]
I woke up this morning to fog and drizzle. I always write my blog on my balcony and I debated about staying inside when I saw the fog. But I put a blanket in my Adirondack chair, made some hot […]
It was a year ago, only a year. July 25th 2019, was my first art show. I announced in May on Instagram, to my friends, to my family and to anyone that would listen that I was having an art […]
It is mid-July, all the stores, hair salons, restaurants, and most everything else shut their doors in Los Angeles due to the pandemic in mid-March. That was 4 months ago. I was scheduled to do my art show, ‘Begin Again’ […]
So a month or so ago the lockdown was starting to lift. Restaurants and bars started to open, stores opened their doors and once again put welcome signs out on the sidewalk, nail salons and hair dressers opened their doors […]
It is July 4th weekend. Independence Day. Our country is so young compared to European countries, we are really just a baby going through growing pains. I recognize how fortunate I am to be a woman in America. I am […]
So, I received an email from RAW Artists that they don’t know when they will start having their shows again. This is the organization that scouted me on Instagram last October when I was moving to Los Angeles and asked […]
So, today I am getting a puppy. I have wanted a french bulldog for years, and now I am finally getting one. He is due to arrive at my house around 1:00 today. Even though I have wanted one for […]
So I think I have been guilty of what I tell other people not to do. I am focussing on what I don’t have, instead of what I do have. I am so fortunate to be in this beautiful setting […]
Life is not meant to be static. I was not meant to be the same person from the time I was born until I die. Experiences shape and change me, my choices change me; sometimes for the good, sometimes not. […]
I am changed. Events change people, and this quarantine has changed me. I didn’t think I had it in me to change anymore than I already have this past year, but I guess I did. I moved to Los Angeles […]
I think I am going to miss quarantine. There is something about the simple silence that speaks to me. As I sit out on my balcony writing this blog at 6:30AM I can hear the ocean waves, the birds chirping, […]
In 2 days it will be 2 months since I have worked in the office. At the beginning of March our manager called us into the conference room and handed out key fobs so that we could work from home. […]
So this week I received an email that my divorce has been finalized. I am no longer married. I am divorced, single, available, whatever the term is for someone who is no longer legally bound to someone else. It has […]
So, normally when I am done painting for the day I put my paints back in their buckets, clean up the palettes, and wash the brushes. I had been working on 2 paintings when the pandemic started, and I immediately […]
I used to put on my shorts and tank top and walk across the street from my house to the beach in the evening. I would walk in the waves and see how far out I could go without getting […]
In November of last year, I left my home in Portland Oregon. When we first moved into that house, I cried because I loved it so much. We had lived in a 1950 ranch house before, and this house was […]
Today is March 28th, 2020. Four years ago today I made the decision and the choice to stop drinking alcohol. I became Sober! Why? There is not one clear answer to that question. Up until that point, I had used […]
Last time that I went to get my hair blown out at Drybar I complained that they didn’t get my curls exactly right. I like my bangs to swoop with no curl, and then medium size curls on the sides […]
I took the day off work yesterday. I felt like I needed to catch my breathe. Between the stock market volatility and the virus, and preparing for my art show and my divorce, I was feeling overwhelmed. I needed just […]
I am not panicking. My screen is red and I click the minimize button so I don’t have to see the market going down. The market doesn’t like uncertainty, and the coronavirus is an uncertain entity. But, I have been […]
Did I waste my time? That seems like it is always the question when leaving a marriage, especially after 20 or more years. Everything ends at one point or another, so if I say that I wasted my time doing […]
So, I think my coffee cream went bad. Is it supposed to be like whipping cream? I could walk down to the convenience store that is half a block from my home and grab some fresh cream, but I don’t […]
So here I go, RAW Artists – Natural Born Artists asked me to come back and be a part of their Premiere Show in downtown Los Angeles on March 18th. It’s a Wednesday. I will have to work at my […]
I attended a Masterclass yesterday about diving deep into what is blocking me from going to the next level. Part of the reason I moved to Los Angeles is to reach a bigger audience with my art and writing, and […]
Last week was hard. It started out on an eerie cloudy Sunday. They weren’t just clouds though, it was a thick impenetrable wall of white surrounding the city. I went for a walk on the beach that morning and the […]
Today I turn in my Oregon driver’s license for a California one. Another part of my past falling away from me. I feel like a snake shedding its skin, layer after layer of the person I used to be is […]
2017 was a year of discovery and information gathering for me. I attended networking events, showed up at a variety of Meet Ups, and went to dozens of book readings. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, but […]
What mends a broken heart? If time was the answer then all broken hearts would be mended eventually, but some people never heal their hearts. So, I don’t think its time alone. My broken heart is about the past, of […]
I did something different this New Year’s Eve. I knew I wanted to do something to celebrate all my changes in 2019, and bring in 2020 with a commitment to more changes, so I googled New Year’s Eve workshops in […]
Healing takes time. I noticed that I am going in waves. Some days I wake up and I feel like I am 25 years old, and I jump out of bed and can’t get down to the beach fast enough […]
I finally took my large Queen painting out of the box that she was transported in from Oregon to Redondo Beach and hung her up this weekend. I am not sure why it took me so long to do that. […]
I began this year by asking my Instagram friends what their word for the year was, and then drawing an illustration of them with that word. I ran a contest, and whoever commented on the Instagram post, received an illustration […]
I am in a transition. I believe I did my job as a mother because my daughter is self sufficient and has her own life at 21 years old. She will graduate college soon and start her journey of finding […]
I lived in the Marina District in San Francisco in my 20’s. I moved there a few years after a massive earthquake devastated it. The earthquake knocked buildings off their foundations, created massive craters in the streets, and caused fires […]
“You are now free to move about the cabin” , we have all heard this saying when we fly. In other words until you hear that ding in the airplane, don’t get out of your seat because you might fall […]
‘Place is important!’, the organizer confirmed as I shared with the ladies in the midlife group how Redondo Beach, California had a pull for me. I joined this group 3 years ago in hopes of gaining some clarity on the […]
This is the last blog post I will write from my home in Portland Oregon. This is the last Saturday I will spend sitting in my bed in this home looking out the window to the blue grey morning sky […]
I don’t think I really understood what a ‘hot springs’ was until I went to Brietenbush Hot Springs for the first time a few months ago in March. It is a naturally occurring hot tub in the earth. There are […]
In February of this year, just 8 months ago, I thought I was too old to attend a workshop on how to use Instagram to grow my art business. I am 54 years old, and I remember dreading showing up […]
Do you ever have anxiety? I mean stomach churning, headache causing anxiety? I remember having it as a child, but I didn’t get it as much as an adult. Not because I was immune to getting it, but because there […]
It is 7:15AM the day of my LA Queens Art Show. I went to bed at 2AM after going out with my daughter to explore the LA nightlife. But I am not tired. My heart is beating with a feeling […]
I was tested this weekend, as Friday night I went to get a pedicure after work and I did not feel like painting when I got home. I was like an unruly child throwing a tantrum in my head and […]
My dad was born in England but never liked it, so as a little boy he would tell everyone that he was going to America. He met my mom when he was 19 years old, they got married and had […]
I am at the Oregon Coast this weekend. My husband, daughter and I have been coming here every summer since we moved to Oregon from California over 20 years ago. We used to rent a house that had no Wi-Fi […]
My husband and I moved to Portland Oregon over 20 years ago with our 3 month old daughter. We were living in San Francisco and both working full time, but after we had our baby we wanted a different lifestyle. […]
I feel like when I write I use one side of me, and when I create art I use the other. They are in many ways opposing sides. When I am drawing I could be in the middle of a […]
I will never ask anyone to change again. Looking back I can’t believe I wasted so much time trying to get other people to change so that I could feel better. So, how does that work? If someone changes their […]
I sat in my backyard crying into my phone. I was at my wits end. I felt like I was grasping at straws to try and make sense of my life, so I called my mom. My mother and I […]
This week, I broke through a self imposed barrier. I built a fence around me years ago mostly for my own protection. I lived my life based on survival, and not based on being fulfilled. The restrictions I placed on […]
Change and growth isn’t easy. It is one thing to talk about it, and to think about it, but it is another to take action. Taking action is hard. It isn’t just setting aside time to work on changes that […]
Yesterday after work I had an appointment to get my nails done. There was an accident, so traffic was delayed for over an hour which is rare for Portland. I tried to find a clear road to get over the […]
What if you couldn’t ask questions if you were confused? What if you couldn’t defend yourself if someone was treating you unfairly? What if you couldn’t cry when you were sad, or laugh when something struck you as funny? Growing […]
She had large green eyes, long sandy blonde hair and stood tall at 5′ 8″. She signed up with Barbizon Modeling Agency to become a model at 16. They made her cut her long locks into a shoulder length bob. […]
I remember sitting at my dining room table as a kid as my parents asked my brothers what they wanted to do with their lives. My mom and dad would listen to their answers and offer advice. I listened too. […]
I used to write frantically in my journal trying to figure other people out. Why was my mom ignoring me? Why were my sisters not on my side? Why was my boss picking on me? Why was my husband not […]
I want to connect with women to help them feel more empowered, and also empower myself along the way. I feel the need in our society for the healing of women, and I also feel the calling in myself to […]
I used to love to watch “Project Runway” when Heidi Klum was the host of the show. Before Netflix, and all the streaming services, we used to buy DVDs of complete seasons of TV shows. I had the first 7 […]
My brain likes routine and predictability. But if my routine gets too predictable then it rebels. So, is there a happy medium? Is there a way that I can challenge myself enough to make my life interesting without sending my […]
Writing saved my life. When I was growing up in abuse and chaos, the fact that I could write down my true feelings in my journal literally saved my life. I didn’t talk to my family, friends, or tell anyone […]
Why do I like Los Angeles so much? As the plane descends, I see a layer of smog coating the city, and I smile. The air is so clear and clean in Oregon, so it is nice to see the […]
So, I did it. I reserved an art gallery space for my first art show. It is going to be on Thursday night July 25th. I researched and found the perfect spot that will let me have the whole space. […]
It is warm, about 95 degrees. I am drinking lots of water to stay hydrated. My body is used to the moisture in the air, not the dry heat of Las Vegas. My hotel is at the end of the […]
Why do I care if people like me? Why is it so important that other people think that I am ‘nice’? Is this something that is taught to girls at a young age? I don’t know, but I do know […]
I am bored with myself. This morning I feel like I have nothing to say. I feel like turning my brain off and thinking about nothing. I don’t want to be challenged, I don’t want to plan, I don’t want […]
