Uncategorized

New office supplies!

 

Not pictured: exciting plans and new possibilities.

{ 0 comments }

I had some very fine times in 2011 and since I wasn’t a good blogger, I’m going to write about them a bit now. I’d like to look back and remember.

A whole lot happened.

I rented my first studio, had lots of amazing out of town visitors, traveled quite a bit for work, gave lots of speeches, wrote an entire book, stayed in Vermont more than ever before, made new friends and decided to change my life direction. Wheew! I’m exhausted just typing all of that.

Let’s start with my studio.

I love it. It’s big and white and stays clean and it’s just perfect. I feel so creative here. I love the white paneled walls, the big noisy radiator and all of my creative neighbors. I did some great work here. Sadly, I’m letting it go this year. My year lease is up and it’s not possible to go month-to-month. Since I won’t be living in my current town for much longer, I can’t keep it.

 

The above photo is an outtake from a photo shoot for a British magazine.

Visitors. We had plenty this year and I’m always so glad to have people come to visit. This past year, we were lucky enough to have my very good friend Elizabeth come to stay for a long weekend. Elizabeth and I have been friends online for many years now but never met in person until 2011. She and Eric met before when he took a business trip to San Francisco, where she lives.

We had such a good time. Elizabeth wrote about here trip here. Sadly, I can’t seem to find most of the photos we took when she was here. We ate roadside food, hit all New England states in one day and gave her a tour of our town. I wish she lived closer, it can be tough to have most of your friends live so far away. I adore you Elizabeth!

Travel for work.

I traveled a lot less in 2011 than I did in 2010. I’m not complaining about it either. 2010, (another year of no blogging from me) was crazy busy. From the day The Handmade Marketplace was released, it was go go go!

My two favorite trips of 2011 were also both my biggest.

First up, I went to Seattle to teach and speak at Schoolhouse Craft. Such a good time. I met so many wonderful folks and was able to reconnect with lots of old friends. Apparently, I didn’t take many photographs. All I have is how I ate breakfast everyday. I would get a yogurt and a coffee from the coffee shop in the lobby and eat it outside. Very glam travel life, huh?

People I adored:

Kristen Rask, as always (and she’s featured in my new book!)

Rosalie Gale, who is now my penpal

Emira Mears, whose book, has been a major influence on me

Danae Horst – always a favorite lady of mine to be with.

The most fun I had on that trip though, was with Jessie Oleson. Jessie and I go way, way back – at least 6 years – and I spent one of the very best nights of 2011 with her. I had a signing at her adorable shop/gallery and then we went to dinner. I won’t go into to much detail, but I will say, again, it was one of the best nights ever.

Next Up, the Summit of Awesome in Baltimore. This was my second year teaching at SoA, and just like in 2010, it was a great conference. Again, I made lots of new friends, met up with old ones and had some adventures. I met a long time mentor and had wonderful students. I had one of those crazy nights where you get dressed up take a cab and barhop all over a big city. I saw crazy things, drank crazy drinks, ate pizza on the sidewalk at 3am, surrounded by crazy drunk people, danced wildly, met weird-o people in bars and hung out with them… and I loved it all.

This guy was one of my favorite things about the Summit of Awesome. Isn’t he cute? Sewing his sweater? Aw, Matt.

I also finally met Tara Gentile in person. She is super swell and I like to think that we connected as much in person as we do online. Tara treated me to a lovely dinner and we took a nice walk together. You think I would have taken a photo of that, but no. Instead, please enjoy this photo of Tara leading one of her sessions. She is smart and lovely.

Once again, not many photos. Here though, is a bag of cats that were traveling on the plane with me. I photographed them in the Hartford airport.

Wrote a book. Yup. Look for it this summer. It was wonderful to write and I’m crazy happy about it.

Vermont. ILOVERMONT.

This is Pony and Foal. They were our Vermont neighbors for awhile.

My heart is in Vermont and has been for years. Sadly, my body has been in New Hampshire, Alabama and Massachusetts. In 2011 I got to spend more time there than ever, which makes me dizzy with happiness. The farmers markets, the old country roads, our lovely farmhouse there with its magical wrap around porch… the yard where our dogs can run free and wild… I could go on and on about why I love it there so much, but I won’t.

Change of Life Direction:

I don’t have much to say about this one yet. We’ll be moving to that house in Vermont, so that’s one change and I’m going to focus more on my home life and the kind of lifestyle I want to have while changing the direction of my business. I have a book coming out, so the second half of 2012 will be crazy and I’m looking forward to it.

Now you! Did you write a wrap up of your 2011? If so, leave me a link – I’d love to check it out.

xo

{ 5 comments }

I love new beginnings – I’ve written about it before, but give me a Monday, the first of any month or the start of a new year and I’m a happy girl.

I’m feeling reflective this new year. First of all, my life has been pretty incredible the past few years. My husband, Eric, and I have made a lot of our wildest dreams come true. Both personally and professionally, I’ve been really happy and the most fulfilled I’ve ever been.

We live in the town of our dreams, we have a cute, albeit super tiny, apartment, our pets are happy and healthy and most of all, we are confident in the direction of our lives. My business is successful, my husband is able to follow his creative directions and we are lucky and grateful to have the freedom that our lives allow.

With all the good, it can be confusing when things start to change. I have a whole batch of new dreams – and I’ve been resisting them for some time. It’s easy to want things to stay the same when they’re so good. Why would I want to change what I have if I like it so much?

The thing is, dreaming doesn’t stop. There truly is no limit to the good things we can all have and create. I’m going to stop stopping myself and begin to let gratefully let go of the this funky habit of holding myself back when things seem too good to be true.

Looking back, I can see that I cause myself more problems by resisting. The more I procrastinate, the more I push away, the slower my overall progress becomes. It would be great if I could zap myself into some kind of one-woman production machine, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t work well like that either. Does this happen to you? What do you find helpful?

Most of what I’m talking about here is personal life stuff, but truthfully, my business is personal. I love helping people with their businesses and dreams. I like being an author. I adore public speaking and the travel that comes along with my job – but I’m ready for some changes. I want to reexamine what I’m doing professionally and how I can adjust it to suit my current interests and passions.

I’m looking forward to it. After all, I love a fresh start and new beginnings are right up my alley.

xo, Kari

{ 2 comments }

Wow! It’s been so long since I’ve been in this space! I recently read somewhere that if one is not a regular blogger, when one comes back to their blogging space, they shouldn’t apologize. I like that idea. The reason I haven’t been blogging isn’t because I haven’t had things going on, in fact, I’ve been busier than ever. The reason I haven’t been blogging is because I’m not sure I have anything useful to say.

I love blogs – in fact, I began my first one way back in the early 2000’s. I had a Geo Cities blog, and then a blogger account and then in 2005 I think I bought my first domain and moved to a more grown up feeling dot com.

The thing is, I used to love blogging. I loved sharing parts of my day or of my life and I enjoyed hearing back from people who understood what I was doing or how I was feeling. I also loved reading blogs.

Then at some point after The Handmade Marketplace was released, I didn’t like blogging anymore. All of the sudden I felt like people were coming to my blog looking for more business advice, and I still wanted to write about my dogs or what I was cooking or good yard sale finds. You know – personal stuff.

There are so many wonderful, strong, smart and focused business bloggers out there, that I felt/feel sort of like that’s being covered. I write business books for creative people, and I just don’t want that to become the focus of my blog. Am I making sense to you?

So as I struggled with this for the past almost 2 years, I just quit blogging. Sure, here and there, my sweet husband would put something up for you to read and I appreciated it.

But I think I’m ready to begin blogging again. My second book is about to be released and I’m having a new website designed and I just finally feel like it’s OK to show up in this space and just be myself. I’m not sure how much useful business content I’ll provide – because that’s what I feel like my books and eCourses are for – but I’ll share anything good that I have to say.

So you can expect a lot of pictures of my dogs, my families house in Vermont, details on what I had for dinner and I’ll be sure to write more about my adventures of being an author.

Sound good? I hope you’ll continue to come back and be a part of my life.

XO, Kari

{ 8 comments }