It seems to me, when there is an opportunity to sit and chat with people that have a single common interest with yourself… there is always an abunance of sharing to be had. Sometimes the conversation goes for a twisty ride and you’ll find yourself discovering topics you didn’t know you had an interest in. other times you’ll find your shared liked experiences are so similar you can’t believe someone else can related on such a close level.

I’ve always enjoyed meeting new people and hanging out with friends. I love finding out what others enjoy and why or where or what they like most. I always gain an appreciation for exploring areas I might not have known of before.

Over the past week I have had a number of opportunities to talk with people face-to-face that I otherwise only spoke with online via email or chat. I’ve strengthened current friendships, gained new friendships, gained new appreciations and understandings for people I hardly new and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it all.

I went to San Francisco over the weekend to meet up with peers and collegues. We talked, we laughed and debated… we listened and learned and brainstormed. I was able to talk one-on-one with a few people whom I only knew of as a screen name. I heard stories of how people got to where they are today and I “talked shop” in chaotic spurts.

The energy level was both invigorating and tiring, but absolutely well worth the trip. It’s a fabulous thing, when one works alone from home, to sit in a room full of like minds. There’s a new found motivation after leaving this type of event.

I returned home Sunday with new ideas and new friends.

Then…

Last night I hosted a little bbq dinner party. There were old and new friends… We ate, we chatted, we talked business. Our kids played together as if they had already been friends for a while and we all enjoyed eachothers company. A few of my guests I only met as they arrived at my door. Other friends I have known for years. We come from different areas of the country, have different backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common as a group… The internet. Each of us has some kind of work related connection to the internet; we’re affiliate marketers, designers and retail merchants and internet sales gurus.

As the night went on, we shared ideas, experiences, swapped stories about all kinds of things - work or not. By 10:30 or so we all began to call it night. I’m pretty sure if the need for sleep after a long day hadn’t kicked in, we would have all stayed up until the wee hours gabbing away.

I had a great time.

It amazes me how diverse our own little worlds are, and I often wonder how anyone can go walking through life without learning as much about people as I do… daily. The creative energy, determination and passion for one’s work that many I’ve met have… it’s truly inspiring. I wonder how I can do more or be better… without passing out from exhaustion first.

I think a great image for today’s thoughts is this scrumptious Banana Split We all bring different yummy flavors to the same fabulously delightful dish.

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Oh happy day, it’s Tuesday! Again. That’s one thing that’s nice week after week, the consistency that you can rely on of the same days are going to eventually pop up again and again and again. Instinctively I’d usually say “Ho Hum!”. I’m not a big fan of the mundane. But, today I’ll say HooRay! Because it is the consistency of the little every day things that make it easy to twist in your own creative whims while you can still feel comfortable that the world will continue on if your creativity causes any unexpected chaos. Which, of course, creativity usually results in a wide array of unexpected things — most quiet lovely. (That’s called serendipity ~wink).

Creative Girl

I’m sorry for skipping the Tuesday blog last week. I hope you didn’t miss me too badly. The family and I ventured off on a road trip for Memorial Day and returned at 3am Tuesday morning. I cold have blogged about exhaustion, in the midst of my delirium… but I decided it might be smarter to sleep.

This week, there are a ton of interesting topics for the day. Tattoo Day, do you have one? I have two. National Chocolate Macaroon Day - I love chocolate and I love macaroons… so I’m pretty sure I would be in heaven with a chocolate macaroon. Pull your pants up day (more for the hip hop crowd, but I’m sure there are more of you out there in the non-hip hop arena), and it’s also The first day of pet appreciation day.

I Heart my Dog

Growing up, my family had two cats and two dogs. Now, with a family of 5 we have no pets - our last fish died about 6 months ago. Our neighborhood, however, is loaded with rabbits - most of which live in our backyard in a rock retaining wall. So, for today, I will appreciate the lawn eating bunnies.

Three Bunnies

Share your thoughts for a Tuesday topic… what do you have to say today?

Happy Tuesday!

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I just stopped to hunt down a topic idea, as it’s definitely past the beginning of the day and I am still drawing a blank on suggested topics. Things have been busy at my house… for the first time in years we have plans to go places and see people… multiple times within months. We have baseball and soccer and swimming and school ending and registration starting. We have creativity coming out of our ears, but it’s all handmade crafty types of projects, not visions of fabulous new doodles.

And then, today, my baby girl turned a year old.

My world is standing still in the midst of the universe’s ever changing frantic chaos. I can’t begin to remember where the year went. I remember this day last year and all of the sudden today is here.

What have I been doing with the year? What have I accomplished? What great new designs have I created for you to enjoy? I don’t know. It’s all fuzzy when I try to get a good picture to recap the events over the last 12 months. I do know i was here to see her first tooth and hear her first babblings… and watch her first stepswith accompanying first falls. That makes up for all the lost time and definitely all the lost sleep..

So back to my topic searching, I looked on one of my favorite daily trivia sites and found that today is “Pick Strawberries Day”. What a brilliantly colorful and happy kind of view that brings to my mind’s eye. Just yesterday I played hookie from doodling while my 5 year old and I planted our first real veggie garden. We included strawberries.. just because they’re our favorite to pick and eat fresh.

The thought of this brings a smile… a great big smile. Every day should be a strawberry picking day. Giggles and skipping and a little bit of silliness. A day to enjoy something sweet, no matter how many seeds and no matter how small. Because, when there are strawberries, you know there had to have been some fabulous sunshine in the recent past, if not today… there definitely was last week. The kind of days that are filled with sunshiney smiley happy oh-so-joyful visions of delight.. or the thoughts of such rainbowness.

i don’t have any smiley strawberries to share with you today — I have a baby girl’s birthday to celebrate instead. — but next week, watch out… smilies galore!

I’m a Strawberry Girl!

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Today is Tuesday and I do indeed have a topic for you today… it’s the “I think I can do more than can but I’m going to add more to my list because I love new ideas day”, otherwise known as the Over Achiever Syndrome. Yes, I have it. I sometimes get it confused with my “need to be productive even while I sleep disorder” as well as the “busy me busy bee flu” but they’re all actually quite similar.

This is how it works…

I have a to-do list. Usually when I begin my to-do list I run across something else (sometimes related, sometimes not) that I have forgotten about. Sometimes it’s not a forgotten item but a brand new thought. Now, many people would stop right there and write down the new thing and continue on their list. Me, no… I have to stop and ponder and sometimes just jump on board the new bus and take a ride. This of course always leads into to new “oh cool idea” moments and “wow I didnt know that” findings that I must, of course, also investigate. Next thing I know it’s 3 weeks later and I’m back at the beginning of my to-do list… and it’s twice as long as it was the last time I looked, but I’m sure I haven’t enjoyed a single bon bon.

Sorry for missing last week by the way - I was distracted with myself being distracted.

So how do we, the over achieving workaholics battle this? We get married, have kids and add to the list. We work for ourselves so we don’t continually get fired for not finishing the to-do list someone else dictated. We also work around our own self distractions and call it intentional. Sometimes we even allow ourselves to venture off into one of these unending distractions and we label it research. I am a particularly exquisite breed of researcher; I research, don’t mark the path I followed - 3 months later forget I went on the journey to begin with and stumble upon it as if it were new, all over again. So  self entertaining!

So the next time you find yourself feeling as though you’ve accomplished nothing because your to-do list is a mile long and you’re positive you haven’t finished a single project in weeks… stop for a moment, one last distraction for the day, and walk memory lane to rediscover how your new to-dos got on that list. I’m sure you’ll find you’ve accomplished mountains of over achieving. You’re just not ready to show the world what your great doings are

Today’s comment have no image for your viewing enjoyment. If i stop to find an image that will fit my thoughts, I’ll decide there are none that fit just perfectly so I’ll have to doodle up something and that will remind me of other doodles I’ve been meaning to do and next thing we’ll both know….

-breath

It will be next Tuesday and you’ll really be wishing for my silly Tuesday’s topics which are two weeks missing. So I’ll let you distract yourself for a moment while you envision your own doodle for today.

-moment of silence for the doodle day dreaming….

I’d love to see your distraction doodles and hear your stories of cluttered discovery!

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