katiemae_days

the evolution of a blog

I've written this post in my mind several times over and then this morning I woke with it in my fingers, ready to put it down on cyber-paper.  

I started "katiemaedays" as a journal on mama-life, photography and gratitude. I've gone through periods of writing consistently and then not. This past year would fall under the category of, not. I was busy launching a coaching practice and completing coach certification training and well going through my own personal evolution. Exciting stuff I tell you.

In the last couple of months though, I felt the pull to revive "katiemaedays" and its in this space in particular I'm noticing the evolution of both the blog and me. What I used to write about though still close to my heart is not necessarily what I want to write about now or perhaps better said in the same way.

Truthfully, some of my writing has felt contained and forced on occasion. Not purposely. I notice that I have held back sometimes from letting myself write freely in effort perhaps to try and make this blog something it isn't meant to be. I wasn't always clear as I pushed the blog forward just what it was meant to be? A mommy/photography blog? Hmmmm. Well, I stopped trying to figure it out and just listened to me on the inside. And what I know is I love to write about life. 

So here it is in a nutshell, I am a Coach. I love my work. How delicious it is to get to be with people in their journey, to connect with my clients to create the life they dream. I've spent the last year on my own personal evolution and now it feels like I've let my full self out to play. I like to write about this coaching stuff and I'm figuring its high time to create a blog for this space in my life. So, while  I'm not retiring katiemaedays forever, I'm letting her be for a little while.  I'm grateful for the writing and photography and connections that have led me here and the living proof of where I've been.

So, without further ado, I'm pleased to announce the opening of my brand new blog "Your Delicious Life" . You can also link to it through my coaching website http://kathyweinkle.com . 

In the meantime, I'm co-authoring another blog with a very dear friend of mine called "The Designer and the Coach. thedesignerandthecoach.wordpress.com.  Here, she and I write about whatever we feel like which is a blast.

I like to write and I am committed to practicing through these new projects.  Thank you for reading "katiemaedays" and thanks for following me to what's next. I'll continue to post here every now and then but for now,  please, come on over and say hello in these new spaces.

amazing and powerful...

A mentor Coach in my life posted this on Facebook today. I am sharing it here.  Kate Makkai powerfully and so movingly delivers her truth and soul. 

I hold dear in the lessons I teach my girl about knowing her greatness, who she is, what she dreams for herself in this world. I will teach her she is far beyond the confines of the word pretty. I remind myself of the same.

 

A friend sent me this article which I've posted just below. Just the fuel I needed to get moving today. I feel a bit run down with a slight cold but have a pile of to dos I want to get done. Truth be told, I feel not much more than a speck of motivation. I'm bypassing this lack of steam and pushing myself to get a few little things done like filing and de-cluttering and bigger things too like studying and bookkeeping and writing.

I have some big work goals ahead and its in those I feel the lack of motivation. I'm excited about what i want to create and a little stuck in inertia. I could run down this list of 99 excuses and attribute any to my not being in action or I could keep moving and forget feeling motivated or not. At least by taking one step, I'm in some action. Working and achieving something. At least with a cleaner office, I will be able to create and think more clearly!

Check out this article. Any of this familiar to you?

http://the99percent.com/tips/6842/99-excuses-for-not-making-ideas-happen

loving this saturday

Soaking up fall with my little point and shoot and a borrowed i-phone and loving:

our saturday market, listening to music and this week's veggie pics: bok choi, tot soi, chard and rainbow carrots.

the colors and textures of fall right up close

hydrangea

and crackling leaves

And I love the goodness of the people who found my camera left soaking in the rain and hung it on our side-view mirror. I love that the camera still works and the pictures were saved!

 

girls rock...

If you've not yet seen "Girls Rock!", see it. 

This documentary about "The Rock "n" Roll Camp for Girls" in Portland, Oregon has been in my movie queue for at least a year. I finally saw it the other night and I tell you after watching it, I was ready to sign up for the rock n roll camp for big girls that minute and by all means start a camp fund to send my girl to rock out some summer in the not too distant future.

Girls come to camp to explore their appreciation for music, grow their blossoming music related skills and learn something about being in a band. The movie follows four of the girls ages of 7 to 16 through their five day journey at rock camp. Each of these girls show up with with varying issues around self-esteem, body image, and struggles of fitting in to who they think they're supposed to be.

Besides learning how to play an instrument in five days, girls are taught band communication, self-defense and expression. They see in their counselors, all women, role models who are intelligent, beautiful no matter what their shape or size, and powerful in their beings. The counselors/teachers lead these young girls into smashing through cultural stigmas and pressures; to strip away fears of being who they are as they are.

What is perhaps most moving is the transformation each young girl experiences as she awakens into her full, unabashed being, confident and proud. By the end, these young girls are rockin out as they never have before letting their spirits fly free. 

The stories each girl reveals of themselves is moving and powerful. Laura, one 15 year old honestly and bluntly talks about hating herself and feeling like she never fits in. She covers up her pain with an outgoing personality and a whole lot of humor. By the culmination of the week she gets  that she IS incredible, beautiful and amazing just as she IS. She allows in, support, friendship and reflection that reveals to her she is powerful. She allows her spirit to fly.

Misty, a 17 year old has grown up in group homes, raised at points by grandparents who told her she was a loser. She comes to camp and is made to feel like what she has to say matters. She gets the chance to feel good about herself something that she's not experienced much in her life.

Another young girl, Amaka who is eight talked about not feeling like she's liked in school. She runs through a roster of names of girls who she perceives don't like her. She makes noise, plays music to free herself from the boredom that quiet is to her. In the final performance, she let's go completely in full death-metal fashion and screeches into the microphone and pulls off a guitar performance that is something to behold. Her mother talks of how amazed she is to see her girl let it all go and just be in her full self.Absolutely beautiful.

Palace, age seven is a force. She has some issues getting along with her bandmates and at one point punches one girl in the face when she wants the microphone back. What ensues is the counselor leaing the girls through conflict resolution. Each of the girls is real with Palace about how they feel about her actions and attitude; and this young 7 year old listens without defense. She is then given a chance to speak her feelings and experience. No one is punished, made to feel wrong. Each girl is given responsibility and together they work through the hard and in the end put on a great performance.

The camp directors, teachers, counselors some from famous girl-bands are diligent in their mission to strip away societal messages and pressures of young girls having to look and be a certain way.  Every voice is valued at this camp. Girls are empowered to know they matter to know they have a voice and its theirs to speak, sing, screech. How powerful it is to really let go and experience being confident in our own self full throttle. 

What I love about this movie is girls not only get comfortable with music but with themselves through the power of music. I see this movie and brainstorm how to bring a program like this right into our school or after school for young girls. I see this movie and dream about how to infuse powerful outlets of expression into curriculum beyond reading, writing and math. I see communication through music, art, movement that gives kids the opportunity to climb out of the box that culture can create. I see workshops that empower youth to build on compassion, integrity, love for themselves and one another.

I'd been dreaming of these ideas already but seeing this movie has inspired me more. 

 

colorized macro monday...

I took a long walk this morning which proved to be a great hill workout; and a beautiful exercise in noticing Fall up close.

perspective...so refreshing

Somewhere over the rockies I'm figuring

 

I've been in the conundrum of seriously studying my mother self I realize for weeks. Goes back to that writing I did on holding myself under the microscope of perfection. So hard on myself I can be. Of late, I've taken myself through the ringer of examination and over-analysis looking for answers on how to be a better mother. Thank goodness I stopped short of doing any statistical analysis for reasons only that I don't get statistics. Ugh, knee deep in looking for the fix, making the hard stuff all better.

I've looked for new ways to parent and respond to the the more challenging ways of my 7 year old almost daily. Yes, I'm admitting this out loud and without feeling sheepish or embarrassed in the name of keepin it real. 

Here's what I am finally remembering. There's nothing to figure out or to fix. Nothing. There's just being with this time and space. Being with me and with my delicious girl. When I let go of reacting and believing there's something to fix about myself, I feel free. Peaceful. Perspective I tell you and so refreshing.

I am quite sure I am not alone in looking for ways to fix. We want to make something better. Noble huh. Tiring it can be though to strive for the next great moment when we'll get it right, finally. In that, we miss the moments happening right now. Letting go of all the how it should be's and instead being with the what is. Now that's perspective.

As I was up in the air the other morning you know at 35,000 feet I got a little perspective of what it is to be in the journey. How freeing it is to begin to let go of where we 'need' to get to and instead be in this very moment.

There's a vision blooming from all of this. A project I am creating. Stay tuned.

wanderlust....

City Life. Love a dose. Gets me in a wanderlust. Someday, I say, I'll spend one month a year soaking in some city. Chicago. New York. San Francisco. London? Dreaming out loud.

In the city, buses, trains and taxis loops round and round. Bicycles too. Green-space stretches for miles while brilliance in the form of architecture rises to the sky . Look up and marvel as vintage meets modern in magnificent harmony. 

 In the city, art is alive everywhere for anyone to access. 

 In the city, I walk for miles through the bustling streets brimming with marathoners, mamas and papas pushing babies in their strollers, country music festival goers wearing ten-gallon hats; altogether now.

In the city, I soak in this energy infusion of everything everywhere

And love every minute.

 

 

somewhere over the clouds...

I just flew in from Chicago via Denver a couple of hours ago marking the cap to a great few days away in the windy, although not this weekend, city.

I woke up early today, very early: 3:45am CT/1:45 am PST to start my journey home.  The sky today was beautiful all the way from the midwest to Pacific Northwest. We took off in the dark of the early morning and flew as the sun rose.  I sat in the window seat from Denver to Seattle in order to take in the clouds. Scattered in places and constant in others. Cumulus, cirrus I don't know except to say these beautiful cloudscapes looked like yards of cotton balls laid across the sky and potatoes mashed and whipped into billowy sculptures. Meditating in the quiet above the clouds on this early morning focusing only on the beauty in the sky. 

Fast forward to now feeling both energized and a little travel worn, sitting in a food court here in Seattle taking advantage of free wifi and enjoying a cup of hot tea. As I sit, I challenge myself to write something.

So this is a post of meandering with purpose. The intention is  to see where my thoughts go without over-thinking and to write for practice. And even in this moment there is self-doubt which turns to fear that rears its head issuing warning that what I write may not be good enough.  

There is this fear  and the self-imposed expectations that everything I write must be good. This fear I challenge and practice letting go in order to free myself to write and release.  I write in order to not stop what I dream. I dream to write, and so write I must. Practice in every word, every sentence, every post. 

To accomplish something we have to start somewhere. To move forward, we must challenge what we fear. Stepping out of what feels safe stretches us into a whole new place of possibility. 

 

”You learn how to make your work by making your work … art you care about -- and lots of it!” 

From Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking written by David Bayles and Ted Orland 

 

 

 

a good dose of city

 

I'm in Chicago and loving being hunkered down in the city for a few days. There is energy and buzz that is the perfect dose of something right now.

After landing the other evening, I found my way to the Orange Line and rode it into the city.  I love sitting quietly in the midst of all the loud of train on tracks; and watching the city flicker by.

With directions in hand , I caught the Purple Express next and made my way to see some good friends in Evanston. I soaked in some baby love from their precious 5 month old and visited over good food and wine with mama and papa. In the morning, we strolled a little and visited about motherhood. Through rich conversation, we share our mama experiences, open up and learn from one another. We create community and connection. We create the knowing that we are never alone in our experience as Mother whether our baby is 5-months or 7 or any other age. 

So after an entirely sweet morning with my friend T, on this beautiful cloudless Fall day, I hopped back on the train for me into the city this time on the Red Line. I pulled out my book but didn't read more than a page or two, feeling more interested in snippets of conversations around me.  More clips of the city whiz by as the train zoomed down the track, buildings and billboards in focus and out. City life on film right from the red line. I imagine, as I look out, who might live in these buildings and what they do with their days. I wonder what it would be like if we lived here in the city. 

Next stop Monroe where I found my beautiful red-headed sister-friend and hugged her tight on Wabash. We got some Greek food to go and walked over to Millenium Park and ate in the sunshine. Miss S just got married two weeks ago and I had to miss her wedding. I've known my dear friend over twenty years. She is beauty, strength, adventure, movement, grace and power in one. We catch up like no time has passed and look through wedding photos. I ooh and aah at the love and elegance that shines through every picture.

This friend of mine is a designer and a performance artist, a musician and in perpetual motion. She walks through fears to do what she dreams. Recently, she and an artist partner of hers have created a created the Hug Progect. Please go check out their blog and if you live in this City, go witness the hug. In my friend, I'm inspired by what it is to put your dream out there and do it; to be who you are without stopping. These two women are creating love all around by taking their stand weekly all over this city. Two women creating a shift. Powerful.

After this rich and delicious hour or so with my red-headed wonder, I met up with my mom and dad and sister and ran some errands around the city amidst the blaring horns and bumper to bumper traffic. We ate great Thai food and laughed and toasted and talked about work, religion and education. Though I miss my posse at home, I love this time and am soaking in every moment knowing how good it is to be here.