Update to my previous post

Update from my previous post today... I'm sad to say that my favorite jewelery store closed. Kismet. It was and art and jewelery shop. After I saw that, I didn't even attempt to look for a ring today. Back to online shopping, Etsy, I wasn't gone for long. Instead I bought a new outfit to wear out tonight when I meet up with friends and went to Best Buy to get the Windows 7 upgrade for my laptop. I am trying to hold out on this laptop until I buy a Macbook and I do not like Vista! I hope this works and fixes the problems I've been having. Hope everyone is having a great Saturday.

Love & Peace,
Kim

Travel Trip to Everyday Bliss

Still reading, still loving the book "Creative Awakening" by Shari Gaynor. When I read something like how to incorporate "Everyday Bliss" into my life, I get so rejuvenated! Excited.. wow'd, but...reading about it and putting it into action are two different things. I mean who wouldn't want "Everyday Bliss" in their lives. Everyone is talking about it, "Bliss" almost seems to be an overused word these days. Everyone is doing it, right? I mean putting bliss into their lives. How happy everyone must be? Well, I don't think it is that easy all the time. We are so busy taking care of our families, our careers, others that just managing daily routines seems like all we can handle and to stop to add that personal bliss each day can seem like a task. So it is just about making it a habit and not a task so that it comes naturally. In reality, I (we) probably do put "everyday bliss" into our lives maybe not daily, but maybe? Maybe I'm not recognizing it and it is already a habit? What I do recognize is that when I first started on my journey to get back to me, I consciously did things that I hadn't done in awhile and I tried new things. Now that I am back in a balancing act of work, family, social life, I haven't quiet found my rhythm yet. My goal these days is making sure my new job is going well and everything falls around it haphazardly almost. I want to make sure I don't lose my "everyday bliss" in my daily routine. This is a good reminder for me.

A travel tip for creative awakenings that I thought you might enjoy. (I am condensing it a bit, you might want to check out the book for complete details)

Everyday Bliss is about process, not product, or outcome. Think about things you love or used to love to do that maybe you don't do anymore. Try something completely different for you to help you revitalize your soul. "The only rule is that it must be completely enjoyable."

"Each day take 20 minutes for yourself, do something that brings you joy and renews your spirit. Mix it up." Try everyday bliss at different times of the day, see what works best for you.

Here are some examples of everyday bliss actions: spontaneous painting or drawing at the beginning of your day, a quick poem, a 15 minute work out or meditation, or dancing. One of the author's favorite action is a "daydream meditation" where you let your dreams flow onto your paper, using your non-dominant hand.

Here is the challenge. Put yourself first for the next 30 days. Put yourself at the front of the line. It will take 30 days to create a new habit of self-care, to bring a sense of balance and renewal to our lives. Can we do it? Remember this is to promote self care, its not meant to have us abandon those we love & care about. (unfortunately, I've seen this happen with the definition of "bliss" attached) This is a way to consciously remember to take care of ourselves, to promote self care. In order to take care of others, we must take care of ourselves first!

I would love to hear some of your ideas on how you incorporated "everyday bliss" into your daily routine. Today I am going to look for a ring, yep I would like a new ring. Nothing expensive just something fun. I don't often to shop for just myself or by myself. When I do, I usually don't go anywhere, I shop on via the internet. Today I'm venturing out by myself to see what I can find.

Love & Peace,
Kim

Meet Me in Margaritaville

Good morning,
Tonight Mr. Road King, friends and I are going to see Jimmy Buffett in concert! I am so excited. I have never seen him in concert before. We've always enjoyed his music tho' we are not Parrot Heads...yet, but who knows, maybe after tonight we will be. It will be fun to be taken away by the music, on a little vacation, as his music always makes me feel like I'm in the Florida Keys or vacationing on some tropical island. Jimmy Buffett, take me away!


Picture credit: Boston.com

Hope everyone has a great Thursday!

Love & Peace,
Kim

You & Me by DMB

I needed a little Dave Matthews Band today. I love this song, the music and the lyrics. It is off of their latest album “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King." Makes me smile. :)

I am looking forward to our annual pilgrimage to see DMB in West Palm Beach in July. Tickets are on order! Yippie!

Enjoy.

Love & Peace,
Kim

Sunday Afternoon Drive

Yesterday spur of the moment we decided to drive to Ponce Inlet, South Daytona Beach. I wanted to get out of the house and it was nice to just get away for a few hours. So Mr. Road King (yes, I gave you know who a "blogging nickname") and I, hopped in the Jeep at about 1:30 PM and headed north to Daytona which is about an hours drive from our home. We had a wonderful afternoon. The weather was perfect! It hit 70 yesterday and was beautiful. We walked around Ponce Inlet Lighthouse area and stopped along the road at an unmarked park (or fishing area) to see what we could find. Exploring and taking pictures... my kind of day. We saw the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, decided not to go up this time. We also walked around the boat dock, taking pictures of the Brown Pelicans lounging around. A Great Egret made himself right at home on a boat's deck, looking like he was ready to take a cruise. We stopped for lunch at Racing's North Turn Beach Bar & Grill. It was yummy... what I could taste anyway, this cold is a very good diet! Although, I wish I still didn't have this darn cold...I had to bring my Puffs box with me and my nose is very red. It was good to get away, relax and be outside. Fresh air and the sun feels so good.

Posted here are a few pictures I took, with one exception, Rich took the awesome picture of the Lighthouse with no people on top! (you can see this one on my website Save My Sunshine.) Hope you enjoy.

To see the rest of photos you can go to my website Save My Sunshine.





The pictures were taken with a Nikon D60 55:200mm lens.

Why intention and not a goal?

I am reading a book called "Creative Awakenings - Envisioning The Life of your Dreams through Art" by Sheri Gaynor. I'm only on the first chapter and I love this book! Working in a corporate world for most of my adult life, we are taught that we have to have a goal or we have to meet a goal..goal, goal, goal! In this book right in the beginning page 18 in the chapter "The Envision Process- Creating a Vision of Possibility" the author talks about the difference between a goal and intention and while goals are important like to reach a deadline or when writing business proposals, they are linear and limit us from seeing the possibilities leading up to accomplishing the goal. The aim puts us on a path that keeps us from giving ourselves permission to dream or see new possibilities for our lives. In other words, we become so focused on the goal, we don't let anything take us off that path, even if it is for the best.

Creating intention on the other hand, is about creating a vision of possibility. "Intention is the union of aspiration, intuition, vision, personal action, synchronicity, and sprinkling of alchemy. Intention invites you to take on the explansive view- broad, receptive and wide-sweeping." The author goes on to say that the difference between a goal and intention is "Intuition". When completing a goal, we usually have a defined list of steps to help us achieve the goal, get to the end result. This can cause us not to pay attention to our inner wisdom or intuition. However, when we create intention, we have a "desired result in mind." So instead of relying on a step by step list, we rely on our inner wisdom to guide us. When do this we can see the end result but we can also see the full view. When we see the full view it allows us to be open for change, new possibilities, new ideas, and synchronicity that may not have been part of the original view. In the end we might discover where we thought we were headed isn't exactly where we landed. But what is great about this is that when we look at where we ended up, it has some of the original plans and some new and unexpected pieces as well because we allowed ourselves to take in the full view of possibilities.

I thought this was such a wonderful explanation on the difference between goals and intention and why we should focus on intention when creating a vision of possibilities. It is so important that we don't lose sight of who we are and that we pay attention to our intuition. To listen to our inner wisdom and let it guide us on our journey. At age 41, I look back on my wonderful life, I know I listened to my inner wisdom often. I also know when I look back at the times when I wasn't as happy (like in a particular job), I pushed it for a goal, not paying attention to who I was and getting lost in ambition, even pride- to achieve a goal, but finding myself not happy in the end because I wasn't true to myself. This is a great reminder to me to make sure I continue to pay attention to my intuition- my inner wisdom and create intention so I can see the full panorama and not miss out on the possibilities that our wonderful world has to offer.

"Dreams are like the paints of a great artist. The dreams are your paints the world is your canvas. Believing is the brush that converts your dreams into a masterpiece of reality. - Unknown

With Love & Peace,

Kim

Happy Award, thank you!

Thank you Bethany for awarding my blog with the "Happy Award."
You are too sweet! I love thinking about what makes me happy, just making the list about it, makes me happy. It was so hard to pair it down to ten things, I could go on and on. Again, thank you Bethany for the award. Check out Bethany's site and her beautiful family HERE.

Here are Ten things that make me happy!

1. My Tribe = My Family and Friends, unconditional love and support they provide.

2. Bebe and Blue, my dogs...really part of my tribe. Love them!

3. Photography -taking lots of pictures, photo editing and digi scrapbooking makes me happy.

4. Hanging out with friends that make me smile and laugh & that I can make smile and laugh. (you know who you are!)

5. Traveling & Exploring

6. The sound of the waves at the ocean.

7. Working on my blog and reading all the wonderful blogs I follow. You all inspire me and make me happy.

8. Hugs

9. Music, all kinds

10. Drum Circles

I will send on the award tomorrow, need to get some rest.

Love & Peace,
Kim

Girls Giggle

Unfortunately I cannot seem to shake this cold for good. Ugh! I have a sniffly nose and congestion. No fun! So tonight it is lots of vitamin C and Zinc. It is the oddest thing, my cold started almost four weeks ago, it's been 5 days on, 3 days off.. and so on. Anyway... that's not what I am here to talk about.

I wanted to share with you some fun I had taking a few pictures of my daughter and her girlfriends. Tonight they went out for sushi and then came back to the house to hang out. I love that! I love having a house-full of teenagers. I'm glad they came by. They have a busy weekend planned, tonight was sushi, tomorrow night is a concert, and Saturday is celebrating a friends 18th birthday. In between time, our daughter is working. Yes, she got a job! Working at Planet Smoothie. She is learning how to balance school, social activities and now work. We are entering into a very busy time of the year, we need to hold on tight, take our vitamin C and zinc, and celebrate when we can keep it together, at least some of the time.

Love these pictures of the girls, they are so much fun! There is nothing like hearing girls laugh and giggle... at any age.

Love & Peace,

Kim

Focusing on what's important

Monday is almost over, then it's Tuesday, Wednesday...and you know the drill. As I have written before, I started a new job a few weeks back. The first two weeks I was in Kansas City, training with the people I'll be working with, then last week was my first week on my own at home. Now I am into my second week and today was a rough day. I know that I can be a perfectionist, so It is hard for me not to know everything now and be able to have all the answers NOW. I'm trying to be very patient, but when it comes to servicing my clients I want to know everything there is to know and have all supporting information readily available. I'm not there yet, the team is not there yet. I am trying not to let it get me down, I know we will get there. I will get there.... just trying to be patient and hope my clients can be too. The good news is I am more calm, more at peace with myself this go around. I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be, this past year of discovery has shown me (reminded me) that there are more important things in life than a job. (I tend to throw myself at whatever I'm doing the most... pride in my work and my reputation are huge factors!) But I'm learning that I don't need to take everything personally and I don't need to worry so much. So there's progress! Wish me luck with my learning and patience, tomorrow is Tuesday... and I'll keep reminding myself it will be day 2 in week 2.

This is just a quick snapshot of what happens to be on my refrigerator right now. My husband, my children, my family, my friends, my animals, music, art, laughing, and being around those I love... that is what is important! All this other stuff... it can wait.


This picture is of me and my good friend Carl. This picture was taken a couple weeks ago while at a drum circle. We were enjoying the music, the company, the amazing energy, laughing and having a wonderful time. I love this picture of the two of us. That is what life is all about. Love & Laughter.

Love & Peace,

Kim

Happy Valentine's Day

Rich and I were engaged Valentine's Day 1987. The first best day of my life. I say the first, well because of that day, because I said yes, I have had the best life I could have imagined. And so many "best days" have followed. Sure there are some "interesting" days... some "challenging" times, but without those times life might be pretty boring. A little spice doesn't hurt anyone if you know how to handle it. Right? As I said there were so many "best days" that came after that Valentine's Day in 1987. The day we got married, September 12th, 1987, the day our son was born, March 9th, 1989, and the birth of our daughter in 1992. And everyday in between! All best days! I married my best friend and he loves me just the way I am. We have so much fun together. Happy Valentine's Day.

"If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand." - Unknown

Bekah took this picture of us today when were were out for lunch.

My Tribe Page

I am working on "MY Tribe" page on my site. The page is going to be dedicated to my wonderful family and friends, my tribe. I am still working on what that means, a photo gallery of family & friends, highlights of family events, or a combo platter of stuff. Just not sure yet. I blog a lot about my family, they are the most important people in my life. So, I am not sure how I do this and not make it a duplicate of my blog itself. We'll see. As I said the site is a work in progress!

Today is my father-in-law's 81st birthday! I had the awesome privilege of hanging out with the guys this morning during their weekly walk through the Renninger's Flea Market, breakfast and lunch outing. Today they mixed things up a bit with a trip to a sports bar instead of their favorite BBQ spot Sugar Boos. Thought this would be a great way to kick off "My Tribe" page.

Love & Peace,

Kim

Blogher NYC... here I come!

Rich encouraging Bekah before her 5K
in the hills of Asheville, NC. Summer of 2009.

I'm registered! I registered for the Blogher conference in NYC in August! Whoo Hoo! I don't have a flight yet or hotel room, but I am all signed up for the conference. I am so excited. So... who's going?

I haven't been blogging as much since I started working again. When my sweet, caring, loving and very supportive husband came home from work today he told me that he had read my blog today and noticed that I haven't been writing as much since I started back to work. He was so incredibly loving, he wanted to encourage me to keep writing, to keep up with my creative passion. He said, the last year has been so wonderful with me getting back to my creative side that he didn't want to see me go back to work, work, work habit and lose what I had regained this past year.
Isn't he the most amazing man!

Love & Peace,
Kim

I believe in you...

Zack & Bekah Christmas in Savannah 2007, the year Zack graduated from high school

"If someone believes in you,
and you believe in your dreams,
it can happen."
Tiffany Lauren Rowe

I'm thinking about my wonderful children tonight. One already out into the world, on his 100 consecutive day at sea. Working for us, protecting our freedoms and standing guard to defend them. I could not be more proud of my son and the path he has chosen to take. He will be 21 in a little less than a month, I can't believe how fast he has grown up. Our daughter is on her way... she told me yesterday she has about 55 days left of school. That time is going to fly by, in about 4 short months she will turn 18, then it is graduation. She will have the summer to prepare to move four hours away to Tallahassee, Fl., enroll in school, and find a part time job. As a parent, it is our most important job, raising our children so they are prepared for adulthood, to be out on their own and thrive! I feel honored and privileged to have this opportunity. Thank you Zack and Bekah for being you. I love you.

"The future is sending back good wishes and waiting with open arms." - Kobi Yamada

Explore 2010... so far so good!

If you read my previous posts you know that the word I chose to live by for 2010 is EXPLORE. I am happy to say, so far so good… I know it is only February, but I am feeling pretty good about it. In January, I started working on my site Save My Sunshine, I got new job, flew to Kansas City, tried Octopus Sashimi and liked it, tried unfiltered sake (and really liked it!), I also went to a Korean BBQ Restaurant and tried all sorts of new food! I spent time with two friends on two separate occasions that I had not spent time with in over 20 years and went to a full moon drum circle, learned to play the crystal singing bowls and met wonderful new people with such good energy. I have also reconnected with friends and made new friends that I have so much in common with, it is wonderful, a feeling of love and peace for just being myself. Oh and I started the 365 project – a photo a day, over at Shutter Sisters, http://shuttersisters.com/. I am pleased with my year so far.

February is turning out to be just as good! I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the new year.



Love & Peace,
Kim

A New Job

As I introduced a couple weeks ago, I got a new job. So far so good. The corporate office is in Overland Park, Kansas City. A beautiful part of Kansas. I'm not moving though... I will be working virtual from Florida. The people are awesome, so helpful... really have welcomed me with open arms. The company is called CXO Global Solutions. Here are a couple pictures I took of these wonderful statues carved out of trees... I am hopeful it was a way to recycle a tree. Also are pictures of the frozen lake behind the office. Being a Florida girl, a frozen lake was something new to see! Beautiful! I was in Kansas City last week, home for the weekend and back up here this week.
Ready to go home now though...I'm missing my tribe!