Where do you get your inspiration? From Anne Taintor, evidently. And why this photo? (Answer buried in post.)

I’m asked that ALL the time and it’s probably a VERY gracious way of people asking what’s happening in my head and is everything ok? It might bubble up because I’m so curious about everyone else’s creative process (tell me yours in the comments below?). And so today I made a decision. It’s been coming for a few weeks, and now that I think about it, started two Junes ago (2013).

I’m restless.

Maybe this blog should have started with what KILLS your inspiration? Because that comes first and is at the root of all of this.

What Kills My Inspiration Is:

• Meetings
• Spelling mistakes (I thought about having that say “Smelling mistakes” just for fun)
• Typos
• Slow people who are not kind, just unfortunate
• Manuals. I like to make them, but hate to read them. Following them? Impossible.
• Rules. See “Manuals” above. I like to make them, don’t love following. Shocker.
• Learning new things. Lots of times I LOVE (most of the time) to learn new things, but getting back in touch with actually posting my own blogs in WordPress. Challenging. Not loving this. I feel clunky and lame.
• Clunky and lame people kill my inspiration. (Should there be a period “.” after inspiration if I’m creating this list and some of the bullets ahead don’t need periods?)
• Constraints

What Makes Me So Inspired?

• Coffee
• Color
• Beautiful magazines
• The awkward, sometimes toothless smiles of my children
• The soft green eyes of my Mom
• Old books. Just books actually.
• Glossy paper.
• Finding things
• I’m now obsessed with junk, bottles, trash, plastic I can fuse together and solving mysteries
• Hiking in the morning, like this morning with nothing but the damp air we’ve so sorely been denied, the quiet and the color
• More coffee (no, snarky girl, I am not over caffeinated as I write this, nor buzzed)
• Ooooh! Which leads me to vodka. That inspires me.
• Asian markets. Actually, ethnic markets
• Anne Taintor stuff. It’s raw, colorful, different and absolutely hysterical. I’m also very into #PicCollage, so I’ve been creating fun images for myself. 🙂
• Lack of constraints

I Am Going To Do What Works For Me!!!

So let’s go with the “Lack of constraints” mentioned above. You’re going to see less of them. Less of me trying to conform to business rules about “what works”, what “should work”, what everyone blasted says works. (Most of it doesn’t and it’s very expensive to execute.) I don’t care. I’m going to do what works for me. I’m going to work with the clients with whom I love working, on projects I love doing and drink coffee and eat a certain apple fritter brought to me by my favorite Greek friend who always knows how to cheer me up. (And last night that was followed by two halves of cake donuts with frosting and sprinkles. Oops.)

The holidays kind of make me sad (third year in a row.) I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I feel like it. And my birthday is on Friday and I used to absolutely love my birthday. I don’t anymore. And it’s not because I’m getting older (I’ll be 45, no need to sneakily try to Google it – yup, I am due for some more Botox.) So I’m not going to “do” anything for my birthday but sneak away with a delicious little Nugget that showed up in my life one day and who I could squeeze so tight (and do), that all 6′ 1″ (or whatever) of him gets paw prints on him. I am going to be the first business writing party planner with a hot male muse.

And I’m going to blog more. About what I want to blog about. And no, I’m not depressed. No need to text me to see if everything is ok. Because you know what? It’s more than ok. I’m actually in love with love, life, my friends, my loft, my psychotically organized office, my so-fun clients who are attracted to my unpredictible-off-the-wall-ness. (Business Tip: In the last few months that things have been morphing in this direction, I’ve been getting more press, clients and attention than I ever have before. Interesting what happens when you just be Y-O-U.)

There are too many normal people out there. So you, my little playmates, should you decide to acquiesce, are now part of my inner world of mischief, inspiration, color and ridiculosity. You will see it here first. The place I will be as least buttoned up, my very own cozy blog. (Sometimes I do Tweet buzzed, I’ll admit it, so that’s not buttoned up, but those are 140 characters and this is actually kind of long.) Because I no longer want to live. any. other. way.

xoxoxox and more xoxox’s from the odd goddess girl gone rogue. Ha!

P.S. All tYpoSSS in this bLog are intentional. Yup.

P.P.S. Now that I actually published this, I can see that some of my formatting didn’t take effect which is challenging, so if you’re one of the first ones to see it, sorry, we’ll tweak it tomorrow when the smart people are in. 🙂