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An update for the weary

25 May

It has been brought to my attention that it has been more than two months since I updated.  Truth be told I have nothing to update.  I have not created in God knows when.  So really it just comes down to this:

I still love bubble baths after football.  Especially with dirty toes.

I still love bloody marys, and more than that I love them with amazing food.

This is Sproles…he’s the newest rescue.  This is after a “run” because we are both trying to get in tip top shape for some kickball…

…as seen here.  Sproles is still unsure of kickball…or maybe me.  The world may never know.

Kickball is serious business! Do not make the mistake of underestimating what it means to Ball So Hard!

With that said my dears, this is my life.  Work, puppies, bloody marys, playground sports, and attempting to get in shape.  Till next time my loves…

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Balance

1 Mar
I am not a balanced person. I can barely, scratch that, can’t balance a checkbook.  No really I never passed accounting 101. I rarely can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. I am a very excited and passionate person.  Chances are if you are excited, I will get excited with you.  I am an idea girl. I am a girl that rarely balances rational and idealism.  I say yes much more than I say no, thus causing a long to-do list.  I am a lot of things. I am excited, happy, stressed, trusting, hopeful, faithful, sometimes pissy, but balanced, yeah that word doesn’t fit into my description.
Each new year we make a list of things that we are going to do.  A list that usually consists of lose weight, save money, stop drinking coke, etcetera. I have made these very same resolutions.  This year I decided to just tell myself to do things.  I would say, “Yo, gah, run a 5K.” or “Stop whining and dance.” or “Forgive, silly.  Just forgive.” and “Yo! I told you to forgive, that includes yourself.” Somewhere on those list of things to tell myself, which I call my 2012 Manifesto I wrote, “Learn to walk the tightrope.” I am going to let that marinate a bit.  Has it marinated? This is not a deep seeded task of balancing the different aspects of our lives. This is a very cut and dry goal. I will learn to walk a rope that is about 2″ wide. I call it tightroping (or on any given day, let’s watch Whit bust her ass), but the pros call it slack lining. I promised y’all last month I would update and I keep my word.
You will notice 2 things:
1. I have decided I want to be able to jump on the rope, stick the landing, and arms up….right now this just happens in my mind.
2. I have learned that a crash pad is best.
Tip I have learned: Keep a slight bend in your hips and knees.
Happy Balancing.
lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Call the dogs!!!

25 Jan

So many times we look for something amazing to do, a passion, a way to give back. I found mine in a pup named apple. She was my foster dog and now in a forever home. She changed the way I looked at pets, their story, their life.

On May 26th I will help host a benefit. I will update the page Appelez les Chein on here and on Facebook

The benefit will have games, space walk, food, silent auction, raffle, and more! If you in the blog world would like to donate your art/creations please email me. If you want to donate gift certificates, unique gifts, etc, email me. You will be heavily advertised in all programs and banners and on social media. Not to mention, you are helping save the life of a fur-friend!

Most importantly, we hope to see you there. Remember to be the paper rainbow to a furry friend, adopt!

Lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Conquering the Tight Rope

22 Jan

Here we are a little bit more than halfway done with January 2012.  I mentioned last week that I wrote out my manifesto.  Part of my manifesto was to walk the tight rope.  Let me explain. 

My friends opened a boot camp gym.  The trainer Justin put this rope across it.  I was intrigued.  He informed me that balancing on it works your core and balance.  It takes a lot of balance and core strength to start walking.  It also as I quickly learned takes a lot of mental strength.  I find myself repeating in my head over and over as I try to stand, “You are a balanced person. You are a balanced person.”  This of course isn’t the case nine times out of ten, but none the less, for those minutes I can feel what it is like to attempt balance. This is the month 1 video.  I intend on recording my attempts to see how far I have come.  As you can see in the last frame…I stood for about 5 seconds. Oh-my-awesomeness

 

Tips:

I find it is easier barefoot.  Others say with shoes.  I say this means I need a pair of Vibrams.

Keep your chest up.  DO NOT lean forward.

Find a focal point. Focus.

Music helps.  I like to put on the Jason Mraz Pandora station…it is the perfect tight rope combo: calm, fun, balanced.

Use your entire body to balance. 

Start with pushing the rope down and keeping it still and unwavering, then try to pick your other leg up.

Alternate legs.  Don’t want one being stronger than the other.

Now go forth and be balanced.

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

 

creating a manifesto

17 Jan

I recently was turned on to the Creating Clever blog.  It was a site that made me happy and kinda reminded me what I set out to do with my ramblings in the first place.  I got really interested in the Do Good Project that was happening with it.  So much so that it inspired me to do something crazy awesome, but that is announcements in the coming weeks, stay tuned…really tuned that is going down in May and a lot will be revealed in the coming weeks…hint : it involves my foster banana.  Last week or so Creating Clever issued a challenge to write a manifesto for the coming year.  I really liked this idea, so challenge accepted. I will let my short simple “will’s of the heart” speak for themselves. 

If nothing else in 2012, remember to find the paper rainbows…

…lifetimes of them.  W

UPDATE: I am becoming a master tight roper…watch out world!

letters published: part 1

18 Sep

I have asked myself many a times why I continue to write here.  Is it some ploy for the slightest bit of attention? Is it to work of emotions, be it happy, stressed, upset, elated?  Is it that somehow I feel connected to a whole world from a small town in Louisiana when I write here? I suppose all have a yes that comes along with it – if I am being honest. 

There is one thing in 350 blogs that I have missed in all this and last weekend opened my eyes.  I was sitting listening to the Avett Brothers, Bob Schneider, and some David Gray and while having this great conversation and the topic of the southern narrative came up.  Most of us in Louisiana or anywhere have experienced the moment when we are completely engulfed in our grandfather’s story. Words seemed to roll off his tongue.  His inflection raised ever so slightly as he got closer to the climax of his story.  You hung on every word as he spoke of the sugar he got from that pretty girl way back when.  The idea that in combination with the morning feedings of the catfish, my Nana’s perfect cinnamon rolls waiting for us after, and the way he left me with a sense of home each time I left seems to be, well, quite amazing. 

It has been a little over 5 years since my Nana passed and just under 5 since my Papaw joined Jonny, June, and Nana.  With me they left their narrative or at least the narrative they created with me.  In 350 blogs, with this one 351, the one thing I missed was that in some small way, I am writing my narrative. 

Something is lost when I tell my story verbally as I do not talk slowly and words have never just rolled off my tongue.  I have always been better at writing it down.  I suppose in that sense I am my father’s daughter.  My father was journalist.  He never told me one story in person.  I imagine had he it wouldn’t have the same effect.  I imagine he spoke fast and tripped over the right words to say, but he wrote beautifully.  He left, leaving a story in my hand, unintentionally, but he left it. 

I remember reading this article about him written long after he was gone and Mr. Hilburn told the story of his charm and then he shared my fathers creative writing story of him working the lumber yard.  My dad spoke of this gentleman with arms bigger than the logs they were cutting and they shared a common lunch of vienna sausage.  How when the work day ended with a bell he simply looked at his new friend and said, “It’s Miller Time.”  I suppose in that one article I summed up the story of my father.  His logging story became his narrative, his bed time story, his letter, to his daughter.  Written words.   It is the power that came from his written words that  give me confidence when I am told to slow down when talking, or when I am fussed at for saying “like” 50 times in a 100 word presentation, or when I am told I talk in circles.  I may never be one that can tell you my story or any story verbally, but just like my dad, I can write it down and so I do.  Sometimes I hit publish.

I am not going to be so grand as to say my intention all along has been to share something that would describe ever so perfectly who I was, but unintentionally I was writing my narrative.  It has become my time line of 3 years.  My narrative has evolved because I have.  It is an awesome experience when Whitney circa 2008 speaks to Whitney circa 2011 because I chose to write it down.  Because I had a story to tell, be it ever so unimportant then or now.  It is an amazing thing to know where my confidence lied, as I am sharing my creative process, my thoughts, my narrative in a very public forum. It is enlightening to read my letters I wrote to the world wide web…letters never sent, but published. Letters that tell the story my journey to my summit.

To be continued. 

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

finding your truth

11 Sep

{so this says 17 days, because it is from the 3 week series from almost 2 years ago.  You can check out that day here–humbling to go back 2 years}

I am sure we have all faced a point where we wonder, “What exactly am I setting out to do. What is my passion, my truth?”  I have a hard time believing that any of us set out to be mediocre.  We all have a passion for something and it usually happens that our passion for one thing allows us to fall short somewhere else.  Thursday night set out to start a 72 hour period that would once again force me to self reflect. 

In my life there is that vice, that idea, that intangible force that holds on to me in a way that I can’t explain.  It has taken on many forms in my life, but none so present as hope and fear.  I have only experienced the two in a synergistic presence at one point in my life and it was an interesting experience of self-reliance and co-dependence.  It was on Thursday that the reality of these two emotions showing up in my life in a tangible way became a possible reality.  I felt my heart suddenly get trapped in a vice.  I felt my breath shorten.  It was until about Friday around 3am that I realized that I had to stop and breathe.  I had nothing to fear.  I had a truth about myself that couldn’t be shaken. Best friend Whitney started telling frantic Whitney to calm down and write it down. So I did…

My truth:  This is my life and I was living it, in ways that I loved.   My truth was that I had the best friends and family who love me and 90 percent of the time like me too.  More than that, I like me.  My truth: I am many things. I don’t think in this world I will ever be just one.  I doodle on myself to inspire myself on Sunday evenings. I paint windows with words that I love.  I am a lover of words, the way they roll or your tongue when used in the perfect sentence. I love lyrics and how when it hits the beat of music and sung with the perfect inflection you can imagine your movie, your life flashing before your eyes. I dream of writing a book.  My own tales of invisible people.  I am human and dream of redemption found in a good glass of wine, the perfect handwritten letter, and a hug.  I believe in taking some sort of chance in this life.  Sometimes its taking a chance that I will be able to walk an 8 hour day in 4″ heels.  Then there are those times that I took the chance on hope and fear and left all behind.  Each chance unique and ultimately worth every second and moment My truth is unwavering, but it does expand.  It expands into truths of others, truths of my dog, truths of my heart that remind me daily it can beat to a different tune.  My truth was something I had to fall in love with, something I had to like, for it is the core of my life…of who I am, of what I sometimes lost. 

So at about 9 am the next morning when I had written the bullet point list of “my truth,”  I found myself breathing a tiny bit slower and freaking out a little less.  This after all is my life.  I have to stop expecting it to look like something it’s not, and start living it. 

What’s your truth?

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

productivity

3 Sep

I often times wonder how productive I really am in this life. I mean there are plenty of things I accomplish. I learned to swim, ride a bike, cook a good pot of gumbo, graduated college, got a job, got another job, have a great place to live, have awesome friends, the list goes on. That seems pretty productive.  I often times look at my list of things to do and I wonder where the time went.  One day it’s monday and before we know its friday and the “work week” is over.  This work week ended and we embark on the phenomenal labor day weekend.  This makes me happier than my discovery of Nutella (I know I am late to the ball game people).  I have a list of things I want to get done, and most of them are awesome creative things.  Magazine designs, new business cards, save the dates, and more new business cards. I want to clean out the studio and get rid of a lot of the “art” supplies I will never use. I want to organize the office.  I will figure out if the studio should move downstairs and just leave the studio as the guest bedroom – technically it is my bedroom when company comes.   The possibilities for the long weekend are endless. 

In preparation for the weekend, I wanted to get the creative juices flowing.  So I started doodling.  I ripped off pieces of trash paper and just went to town.  Only to realize that I really want to order more markers.  Then something happened.  I bought a card for my brother for his birthday and I thought, heck, I could make this and so I did come home and make him one too, because well the one I found was actually very much me.  I went to town with so many little images and wondered at what point I would actually start doing something with my doodles. The mind starts to wonder and then that’s where my un-productivity comes in…I get so side tracked in my doodles and creations that my to-do list takes the back seat.  So with that said, this weekend I will get the first draft of everything on my to do list done.  Expect updates. 

Till then…

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

Lagniappe: I am obsessed with Insta.gram

the list vs the idea

8 Aug

So often I find myself torn between the to do list and the ideas that are forming in my head. I am in a city that is full of entrepreneurs and people with ideas that made them come to life, thus finding myself inspired to do something like only do freelance invitations, designs, and write. I find myself wanting to illustrate my children’s book and really do it (this time). I find myself wanting to take what started as a joke between two girls and then moved into a conversation with 2 girls and a guy and make it something awesome. I find myself completely over the list of practical and in love with the idea.

To most of you this may not seem like anything different, but trust me…it is a fire that has been lit in my heart, that I can’t seem to contain. I am writing down all the ways that I could really make it happen. How can one make a decent living and still live off an idea?

Idealistically, I hear all the cliché pep talks that one could be given right now and on the other end, I hear all the rational reasoning as well. Please do not think this is Whitney about to start marking things off of a bucket list like she has 6 months to live, but…. it begs the questions:

“When did I become so scared to follow my dream/bliss/idea?”

“If every successful venture was started with an idea, at what point did it become rational to add the idea to the to do list?”

“How does one evaluate the list vs the idea, in other words, how can one really compare the rational to the dream?” (they are two forms of fulfillment.)

till next time when hopefully I have more answers than questions…

lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

home is where the heart is

20 Jul

I passed another year, another birthday.  I can remember looking at Trav last year and him saying, “28 is going to be your year, Whit.”  27 was  a rough one…for many reasons that I don’t need to go through.  I turned 28 and I was unemployed, no place of my own, no direction, completely down on my luck, crying daily, and all around pretty miserable to be around.  28 wasn’t easy, but it was a turning point…I got a job, a place of my own, a bit more direction, started making my own luck, and the crying…well I just had to look at the cause, myself…that in turn, hopefully, wiped out me being pretty miserable to be around.  28 was a slow process year.  But I look at one July to the next…I learned a lot, more than that, I figured out what was important.  So for you dear friends, here is what you gave me.

I have some of the best friends a gal could ask for.  They say that it is not the quantity, but the quality of friends in your life.  I am blessed with both.  I was overwhelmed with sweet messages of love and well wishes, some from the tried and true friends, thank you Jen, Laura, Jenni, Cousin, and Mom.  Some from new friends, who came together for lunch, gelato, margaritas, dinner, and girl time.  My cup ran over…and a place became a home because of your love, laughter, and support. 

I have been obsessed with the idea of home since I can remember.   Never more so than when I lived in Texas…I remember when I decided on my birthday years ago that I was coming home, back to Louisiana…little did I know, that was not the end of my quest, but first…a little reblog.

“I remember the first time I really defined home as a place…It was Hurricane Andrew and I think I wanted to pack up everything in our house to take it with us. My mom assured me that these were just material things…she assured me that what mattered is we were safe. It is what mattered, but I still saw that house as home. I need to see an oak tree. I need to drive over water on a regular basis. I need two lane highways through pine country. I need drive through daiquiri places. I need parishes. Most of all I need late nights in lawn chairs with empty beer cartons and boxed wine as side tables while we decide which one of us will become the next democrat president…2032, watch out! I need home.

I have this dream on a regular basis. I am headed east on I-10 and I go around this curve. My dog is sitting my lap and we fly off the edge. As the car flips in the air, I stay where I am, holding on to my dog, telling her, “Shhhh little one, its all part of the journey.” I was driving home from Houston one day and I was coming through Lake Charles, Louisiana. I came across the lake. I am cruising at about 75 and I see a sign and it tells me to slow down. I do and look to my left and then the right. As I see the businesses of the interstate, it hit me, “This is the curve in the dream.” I was never meant to drive back and forth from Texas to Louisiana, waiting to cross mile marker 112 so I can put on the Marc Broussard and sing at the top of my lungs, “Mama, baby girl’s coming home!”

I was born in Shreveport. My mom is from Jonesboro. My dad was from Minden. My mom is a teacher. My dad was a journalist. My mom once made the comment, “I don’t know how two kids that were never raised by their dad could be so much like them.” I will never be “Daddy’s little girl” but I will always be my mother’s daughter. With that said, I want to teach design, I want to define design, but because it is genetic, I want to tell my story. I want to write my story, my story of a grace that can only be achieved by falling flat on your face and relishing in serendipitous drama. What I am trying to say is though she may not see it, I am the genetic mix. I am genetically North Louisiana pines, but I miss the South Louisiana oaks. I miss the piece of me that was defined in the oaks, I take the half that was defined by being their daughter with me everyday, but my story needs a setting. My story needs home.

My story can only be told by going home. Home lies on the concrete river I like to call I-10. Home lies at the intersection of Highway 190 and hope. Home lies in a place where I breathe deep and smell dank and feel the heat and humidity rise of the Mississippi. Home lays in a place where my story began and where I will begin once again. Home lies in the piece of mind somewhere along two lane highways, in a town that is known for its speed traps and catfish, in Masperos or Bonnie and Clyde’s(the gas station or the flea market). Home is somewhere past mile marker 112. I am coming home.”

I found home about 8 miles from mile marker 112.  Had you asked me 6 months ago, I would have told you that I chose Lafayette, Louisiana for all the wrong reasons. I followed my heart.  When my heart turned out to be wrong, I was convinced it was not here.  On July 14, 2011 I realized that was not the case.  This town chose me.  It lies at the intersection of Highway 190 and Hope.  I may not feel the humidity rise of the Mississippi, but it rises off a basin, off the Vermilion, and I am quite certain I can feel it off the gulf.  Home lies in a place where I started writing a story, only for it to be merely a chapter.  It lies in a place that brought me back to life…that flipped the light bulb on.  It lies in a place where I fell so hard into, only for it to teach me how to stand again.  A place defined by people who laugh with me, who create with me, who have an undying spirit for life, a place that had it not chosen me…I would have chosen again.  It lies in a place where friends that barely knew me came together and celebrated the 14 days of Whitney as if it was quite normal.  That is something that drives inspiration in me.  That is something worth opening your heart to.  This is a place where my heart has finally found a place to stay still.  My heart lies 8 miles past mile marker 112.

Thank you to all my friends who made the journey worth it. You are the epitome of paper rainbows.

 lifetimes of paper rainbows…W

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