I read something today that said how important it is to celebrate the successes in your life, and not only celebrate them but choose to keep those moments fresh in your memory, giving them the most airtime whenever you are thinking about your past.

While I do appreciate where I am a LOT, {I do}  I am still somewhat notorious for reaching the place I wanted to be, giving it a quick nod and turning immediately in the direction of where I’m wanting to go. Which would be fine if I didn’t lament that I wasn’t there yet, again. {not today! Today I celebrate}

I couldn’t let July slip by without acknowledging that somewhere around the middle of this month was this blog’s 4 year anniversary.

For someone who really isn’t much of a journaler, gets easily bored by too much of the same routine, and is {was} mostly private and shy, that’s a pretty big accomplishment. Not to mention all the daily paintings I’ve created and shared here too.

4 years. wow.  I don’t know if I honestly thought I’d keep a blog that long, and now I can’t imagine my life and business without one.

I chose the selfie photo above, the one of Outi and I on Abbot Kinney in Venice that I took for one of my very first podcasts, because it reminds me of the beginning.

I used to even make mini Imovies for my podcasts guerilla style, and I mean true guerilla style ~ just look at my point and shoot Canon digital elph I was using ~ it only captured 1 minute of movie at a time ;) But I loved it, because I was making something with what I had. It was all new, I wasn’t making any money yet, I had no expectations, nothing and no one to compare my work too, and I was creating just for me.

Honestly somewhere along the way I lost some of that, that feeling of pure creative expression. Once I realized people were actually listening to me, buying my art, reading what I wrote ~ Once I could keep up with all those other artists and bloggers who started at the same time as me, seeing how they were expanding and succeeding, and letting my own sense of success be influenced by whether I was keeping up with everyone else ~ I began to think about how everything I did would be received, and I began to lose a little of me. Mind you, this doesn’t happen all the time but it happens enough. Enough for me to know that I want it back.

That’s what I want for the next 4 years of this blog.

 I also want to say that ~

Knowing that you might enjoy my newest creation, some snippet of my life, my often, very long thoughts on things, a random podcast or video with more of my thoughts on things…and getting your insightful thoughts back ~ continues to inspire me to blog.

Thank you for being here.

happy weekend xoxo