Tag: blogging

When Inspiration Strikes

Published by dee on May 9, 2016

Somewhere on Facebook I saw a reference to the book Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. It piqued my interest, so I looked it up on Amazon and bought it right then and there. I devoured it over the weekend. It was such a simple, easy read but it stirred something up inside of me.

I have been feeling such a lack of inspiration to create lately. I mean I really just haven’t created anything at all. I’ve taken photos, yes. But to say I’ve created – well, I can’t. The thing is, by not creating, I’m missing out on so much of who I am. It’s like I’ve lost part of myself.

The title, Steal Like An Artist, comes from the idea that nothing on earth is original. Every idea sparks from something – another work of art, something you’ve read or heard, or even an experience. Everything comes from something, you just take little pieces from all of your experiences and expand on those things to create and make it yours.

This got me thinking about where I get my inspiration from. You guys, it is you – all of you out there on the internet sharing such amazing things with your writing, your photographs, your art. I realized that the time in my life that I felt the most inspired to create was when I was back in the good old days of blogging when there were true connections and it wasn’t all about selling or pushing the next greatest product. I miss those days. I miss the friendships, the connections, and the true sharing of ourselves and our art.

Another of the big takeaways from this book is that to be an artist, you need to create EVERY DAY. Yep, Every. Single. Day. I’ve definitely been missing that step.

There is more, so much more, that I want to implement, but to start I’m going to start creating something every day. I want to start writing again, even if it isn’t always public. Creating may take the form of a blog post, journal entry, photograph, or even a craft project with my kids, but it will be something. I plan to find a way to track it so I can keep myself accountable too.

I want to make sure I am exposing myself to other sources of inspiration as well. I’m going to start following a few bloggers again and actually reading, not just skimming Facebook (Bloggers, where you at?!?). I’m going to be more intentional about who I follow on Instagram and other photo sites. I may even pick up some art history books at the library this summer.

The tricky part will just be finding the time and actually sticking to it. Here goes…

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Writing about not writing…or something

Published by dee on July 18, 2012

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/NO139Ck-Re/

You know what I miss? The good old days of blogging before my life was crazy and chaotic. I’d sit down either in the evening or the beginning of the day and just write. It didn’t have to be anything important – just a few sentences here and there about what was on my mind. I didn’t know or care about page views or SEO. I had a handful of friends that read and commented and it didn’t matter because it was fun. I posted about the most mundane things that now I would only post on twitter or facebook.

These days I feel like most of what I have to say isn’t worthy of a blog post. There is no way I have the time to sit and type out my thoughts when I can barely even find the time to think them in the first place. So instead, I post a quick thought on Facebook (or Twitter if I’m really feeling the need for interaction). Most of those posts only go up because I have my iphone handy. My laptop sits dusty on the shelf at home. It was once my constant companion. Now it gets cracked open maybe once a week or so, sometimes less often than that.

Many of my old blog friends have stopped writing too. Their blogs sit stagnant. I miss their words. I miss the connections. I miss the conversations. I keep up with a few of them on facebook. I watch as their lives change, their babies grow older, and updates become fewer. I miss these friends, who were there for me when I shared the news of my first pregnancy, when I was going through difficult times, when I wanted to celebrate, when I “came out” and made my blog public. They were my community, my support, when I felt like I had no one else to turn to.

Times change. Lives change. I sit and look at my family, my three kids – when at one time I wasn’t sure I would be able to have children. The story of my life belongs in a completely different book now. My world revolves around those three amazing little people. I snap photos because I want to remember every second, every little smile, every giggle, but there is no time to write. I wish I could write it all down to read when I am older and my mind is losing the details, but life is moving too fast right now. I’m too busy living it.

This isn’t meant to be a good-bye post. I’m not closing up shop. Just something that has been on my mind the last few days.

(Since I’m not writing, I have added my Instagram feed to the blog to fill in some gaps. If it gets annoying to the few of you who are still reading, let me know.)

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Unblocked

Published by dee on April 6, 2012

There’s something about pregnancy that seems to give me a creative block. I’m not sure if it is simply my body just being too tired to care or what, but during my last two pregnancies, I’ve been blocked. My ability to write, or create anything really, just seems to disappear.

Fortunately, after the babies are out, it all comes back. Right now my head is churning with all of the things I want to write, create, and photograph. There is so much going on up there that I can’t decide where to start. Perhaps the best place to start is to take a nap so I can stay awake long enough to complete a thought.

One thing that needs to be a priority, is the design of this blog. For some reason, I suddenly hate the layout and look of the whole thing. My writing and frequency has changed a lot over the last couple of years and I feel like it is time to change things up a bit. So, as soon as I can find the time to sit down and think, there will definitely be some changes. A change in design tends to encourage me to write more as well, and I’m told that people actually do like to read what I write so I suppose that’s a good thing.

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Time For Change

Published by dee on April 8, 2010

I’ve been having some thoughts about this little space here on the web. I’ve been thinking about these things for a while, but haven’t really been able to make any decisions so I haven’t moved forward. I really want to make some changes but (besides being indecisive) I haven’t had the time to put into it. However, I’m also really tired of all this stuff bouncing around in my head so I’m putting it out here. I’d love any feedback/ideas anyone has that they would like to share.

I want a new name for my little space on the web. Voices In My Mind was just something I threw out there because it happened to be in my head at the time I was searching for domain names, but it just isn’t me anymore. I want something catchy, something that is me – not just some random lyric that I came up with.
While I’ve always kept this mainly as a personal/mommy blog, I want to start including more photography/craft type of posts rather than putting them in separate blogs. I kind of want all of me in one place, if you will. My recipe blog will stay where it is, but everything else is going to merge together.
I need a new design/look. I like what I have now, but it just all feels a little stale. Sprucing things up always seems to motivate me again (at least for a while) and I need that right now. I also want to clean up the sidebars while I’m at it.
I’m re-considering the ads on my blog. I’ve had BlogHer ads for a long time, but I’m not sure how much they actually benefit me. The small amount of traffic I get from them is nice, but the pennies I make from them don’t necessarily make all of the restrictions worth it. I’m not really sure yet which way I’m going to go with this, but it is something I’m thinking about.
I want to revise all of my categories – consolidating some and expanding others, but the thought of going through and re-categorizing every post kind of makes me sick…and extremely tired. Not sure if that one will actually happen.

I think that’s it. As I said, these ideas are still bouncing around but at least this gets them out of my head. Please feel free to add any input in the comments below.

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Brutal Honesty

Published by dee on March 15, 2010

A while back I decided that I was ready to make some changes in my life. I’ve made this decision many times, but I start and stop and eventually I completely fail. For one reason or another, I always find an excuse to stop trying. It’s too hard. I’m too stressed. Life got in the way. I don’t have time. I’m the queen of excuses when it comes to these particular goals and quite frankly, I’m just tired of it. It is time to get serious. I want to get more fit. I want to lose some of the weight that I carry around. I want to be healthier for myself, my kids, and my husband. I want to be a better version of me.

I wanted to start blogging my progress, but not here. I was tired of telling everyone about my failures when it comes to fitness, so I did it privately on a separate blog. I wanted the accountability, but I didn’t want to tell everyone I knew when I failed…again. Since I started the fitness blog, I’ve started and stopped twice – the first time because my knees were killing me, the second because life events happened that really were out of my control. But today I started over. This pretty much sums up what I think about it:

I’m beginning to think that I should plead temporary insanity and call it a day today. I decided to start the Couch to 5K program and nearly killed myself before 7:00 a.m. this morning.

If you want to read along, you can follow my progress at A Better Version Of Me, my fitness blog. I don’t plan to say much about it here, but at some point I may decide to import the entries over. For now I just need to keep that space separated from this space. I’m trying to be brutally honest about everything over there and sometimes that is harder than others. This here is my happy place and I want it to stay that way, therefore, the separation. As I said, if you want to follow along over there, please do. I can use all of the encouragement I can get!

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Because I Don't Have Enough to Do

Published by dee on March 5, 2009

I’m sure it won’t be a big surprise to anyone who knows me, but I have a new blog (Hey, I saw those eyes rolling!). Yes, I know I can barely keep up with the ones I already have. It is a new blog, but really it is just an extension of this one. You see, I’m being a follower and starting up a review blog just like 97% of all the other bloggers out there.

I gave this a lot of thought and have actually had it in the back of my mind for a really long time. Recently I’ve had several opportunities to review and/or give away products that I’ve had to turn down because I didn’t have a place I felt comfortable posting it. I really didn’t want it to be a part of my main blog because I’m not really sure how long I’ll keep up with it plus there are some restrictions with the BlogHer ads that I have here.

The solution to that was to set up an entirely separate page to post reviews and giveaways. I hope to do reviews of things I’ve purchased myself and if I’m lucky I’ll get a few things to review for free. I also hope to be able to give away some fun stuff to my readers.

So, please go check out my first post and if you feel so inclined, enter the contest to win a Wonder Wash and Mini Spin Dryer. Don’t forget to subscribe by RSS or E-mail while you’re there so you don’t miss out on any future contests!

And now, since you’ve read all the way to then end (or at least skimmed this far) you get rewarded with cute kid pictures!

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