The four letter B word:

The four letter B word has challenged me to the core!!!! 

What word is this? take a guess.

b    l    o    g.

Why you ask?

Content:

Seems my Kindred Spirit Pinterest Folder is the most popular board that I curate, so maybe I should focus mostly on art? But there is so much more!!

Presentation: 

Don't get me wrong, I have seen people who are near complete perfection on the outside with their skin, body type, style, house and decor, and their lives, compared to mine, appear near perfect.
Is this me??? Not even close.
God made me completely flawed in every way for his great purpose.
I can continue to fight that, or I can just accept it, embrace it, and move forward, Praising God for using our weaknesses as strength. And praising God for this miracle of life.

I don't want to be sucked into that world, you know the one, where we all try to present ourselves as beautiful, smart, organized and amazing. Because if I present my world and life all cleaned up, looking pretty, having it all together what good does that do for the world and for other people? 

Seems so parallel to what I have learned about our tendency spiritually.
We want to just help Jesus out a little bit with our own salvation by cleaning up our own language and stopping behaviors that might be considered sinful, or shameful, etc. etc.,  so that we can purify ourselves a bit before we come to the Lord or go to church.***

This leads me to believe, that if I clean up my own life for my blog, it might be pretty, but it won't help anyone very much.

Presenting myself as some sort of perfect amazing person who's got it all together might help those out there who are struggling to compare their lives with other's be more critical of themselves,  and it might help those out there that have a tendency to beat up themselves up with negative talk when comparing themselves to others dish out more negative talk to their own hearts.

Nope, this is not what I want at all. I want to be as honest here as you can handle and to encourage and inspire you while being a bit raw. Hopefully, you will be able to relate with the struggle and begin to pursue God and your creative story more authentically.

The truth is, I am far far far from anything that remotely resembles perfect. I live a messy life where I struggle through everything!! Struggling to be an artist, a good wife and mom. I am struggling to draw again and to get my photo projects started. And I struggle to get the crud at home done well on time and right. I struggle in social situations, in friendships too.

So, which reminds me, I struggle in drawing so much. My friend Kristi mentioned this to me last week. You see, I draw, erase, draw, erase, draw, erase. And all those layers, they end up making my drawings richer somehow. The struggle is known and seen and it enhances the work somehow. Maybe in blogging and in our lives, we need to show more of that struggle. 

I am on a quest people!!! I am seeking complete authenticity and sometimes it just ain't pretty.

Do I want to share that? Not really. My thought would be you probably wouldn't like me then, and that leads me back to thinking I need to present a cleaned up story.

Hence, blogging is challenging me to be authentic, engaging and positive, disciplined and to be honest  and not depressing and to stay interesting and etc etc. Plus, I have little to no readers just yet. And this is discouraging at this point, but one day that will be different I hope!!

So as my commitment to blog regularly, even though I have felt like I have had nothing to blog about for days on end, this is what flowed out of me unexpectedly. 

a wonderful store I discovered this week!!! Rain 

Now I will end this with a list of honest observations: 

1. Living in NYC in the summer is Hot and so exhausting. period.

2. I have procrastinated doing our laundry for one week. It is official now I have 4 tons of laundry to haul down the street today. Am I looking forward to this? no. I am still procrastinating. 

3. I rearranged my son's room so that 1/2 of his room is his, and 1/2 of the room is my new office. This is how we live folks.

4. I have had some great ideas the past few days, and this is encouraging because I thought all my ideas were dried up. But taking action on those ideas is the problem. ( Ideas for sale here, get your ideas)

5. I got put on a waiting list for a great studio space  this week!!!!!!! and I am number 597 on the list. whoooo hoooo.

That should take awhile.

6. If you are looking for an amazing restaurant to take your friends to, Boqueria in Soho.

And stay tuned to hear about Shakespeare in the Park tonight!!!

oxox,

K

(***But from what I understand the truth of the Gospel to be is God wants complete deep to the core honesty and authentic repentance. He loved us while we were his enemies. We will only become our true selves slowly once we admit we need Jesus' forgiveness and his righteousness, through the sanctification process. And it will be of no work of our own, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9)