an excuse for not posting

I was walking on Davie last night and was struck at how warm it was, when I noticed there are already some early blooming cherry blossoms! After that miserable month of rain in January, this little Saskatchewan-sun-deprived-gal-living-in-Vancouver has totally been eating up the overall sunshine we've been getting. And with the blossoms blooming, it's spring!

It took the cherry blossoms to make me realize that it's already March! And now I am finally managing to make my first post for 2006. I knew when I started this blog it would be spurratic on the best of days. I've had thoughts I wanted to record and post, but the rest of my life was larger than life (ie. barely just managing it all).

Truth be told, I've been spending much of my online time working on moving the website my sister built for me last fall over to its new proper home. She did the grunt work of defining the site objectives and structure, and setting up the initial pages (I totally hate that part!) I managed to rebuild it using style sheets (I love those!!). It was a real team effort. (thanks Flo!)

So please visit my new little home online for my "hobby" at www.itjustflows.ca

I've been thinking about doing a website for a long time, and even praying off and on. It was a divine fluke/provision for my sister to do the site for her class project and get the ball rolling for me. The time was just right - 3 of the 4 wedding invitation designs on the website I've created only as of last fall. And I needed a break to recover from my overload of things online from my last job working 4 years on an e-zine.

It's snowballing a bit now - more friends getting engaged wanting invitations, and others who want business stationery. At a networking alumni event somoeone I didn't know came up to me and said she heard i do design and have a website. Word spreads fast, I told her, because the website was only new as of that very morning!

We'll see where God leads me on this path... I don't know if I have the discipline to make a living at it, and I would need more training (ironically I've ever only taken one design class). For now, I'm just happy to call it my hobby and have this avenue to serve my friends.

quit trying so damn hard

This week I've been getting quite distracted with bringing my future business ideas to the front burner. My sister is taking a web design course and will be creating an initial website for my future company. I've been quite happily distracted at that, drafting parts of my business plan and web copy. I seem to only get things done if there is a concrete deadline attached!

As I was thinking about how cool this opportunity is to get my butt in gear on making some steps towards my card company dream, I came to realize a lesson I am slowly starting to learn.

Being the over-ambitious goal-oriented person that I am, often I am setting goals that only set me up for failure (I am terribly unrealistic in goal-setting). But this year, I see that a lot of growth in my life has simply just happened, without planning or intentional mustering up of my energy and self-effort. Sure, it is helpful to have goals to know which direction you're headed, but the actual execution of them is a different story altogether.

With the card company dream -- The Tim Botts calligraphy course fell on my lap this year totally unexpectedly, which should help with some of my future card designs. Then I am working on 3 wedding invitations this year for friends, which broadens my portfolio and gives me enough to show people what I can do. And then now my sister is starting up this website for me, which gives me a concrete deadline to build my business plan which I've been meaning to do for years.

And of course, the other major area in my life that I want to grow in is the whole being overly-independent thing. The Vietnam trip, co-mortgage on the new apartment, and having 2 very social roommates were direct answers to my prayers and desires to learn to live interdependently, yet were all things that I could not have orchestrated myself and were exactly what I needed to stretch me in this area of my life.

Both of these seem to be part of a broader theme/lesson that God is trying to teach me (as usual there is seemingly nothing coincidental in my life happenings). Self-effort and mustering up enough energy to live out my millions of good intentions will only get me so far and leave me exhausted when I tread down that path for too long.

Let's hope I can practice what I am learning to let go and not try so hard to make everything happen (and thus stress myself out unnecessarily!). This way I think I can enjoy the ride more...