digital fun

week 2

I'm playing along with Jen Osborn's "What are U up to today?" where we check in on Wednesdays to show what we are doing. So here's a picture of me playing in the virtual world as i work on my digital collage.




I've been taking an online course called digital magic with Marie Otero and really having fun. I'm getting to do all the things with my photos that i wanted to do digitally. it's been great to alter artwork as well. this session is almost over, but you can get on her email list and she'll contact you the next time she does it again. She is attentive, patient and didn't mind holding my hand a bit! i've found her lessons to be clear, concise and easy to follow. Anything i haven't understood, i just pop her a question about it and she lead me in the right direction! my review? well worth it!

This cute little bird, a Thrush, is from a picture my mom took a few days ago at her place (Bass Lake, CA). i thought he was so dang cute, he needed his own collage!

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tomorrow i will post pics of the project that jane and i worked on this weekend! and don't forget, there's still a few more days to enter the giveaway for a chance (x3) for Melody Ross's next session of Soul Restoration.

I'm a Brave Girl are you?

In keeping with women supporting women, I wanted to share Melody Ross with you today:

the very sweet, Melody Ross, founder of the wildly popular, Brave Girls Club, is getting ready to begin a new session of Soul Restoration. There are two parts, Soul Restoration Part 1- Finding your Truth and Part 2 - Living Your Truth.

I'm going to type out what it says inside the photo above in case it is hard to read. it is a point not to be missed and one that many of us can relate to:

Imagine yourself as a house... a beautiful perfect house..... starting out with fresh paint and beautiful windows and lovely carpet.... filled with all your favorite things and your favorite music and everything that brings your comfort. This is the house where your soul lives. Things sometimes happen in life, sometimes quickly and sometimes over time that kick our doors in, break our windows and destroy our walls. We stop making boundaries for ourselves and find that others are actually LIVING in our soul house, leaving us nowhere to sleep, no food left to eat... moving our furniture to their liking and putting up their own art. Some of us aren't even living in our own soul houses anymore...feeling totally disconnected from our truest selves and beyond repair.

Who hasn't felt like this? Things happen to us that throw us off track. I personally, went through my own life altering experience 20 years ago with my child Tucker. You all know what a painful event that was for me and one, 20 years later that haunts me. It affects every waking moment of my being (and i'm sure while i am sleeping too). It is a wound never likely to heal, that I live with. That was not the life I had scripted for myself, yet here I am living it. How I am living through it? Sometimes I don't know. I take one day at a time and do the best I can; that's my soul house in a nutshell. I try to be a good person, create art that helps me heal and makes me happy and I try to spend my time with quality people.





After I met Melody, we discovered that we had something in common and that was we had loved ones that had suffered TBI's (traumatic brain injuries). My son, Tucker, who suffered his TBI due to medical negligence and her husband, Mark, who suffered a TBI while surfing. Happily, Mark has recovered almost 100%. But the experiences she shared of those times were horrendous and made me reflect heavily on the deeply, buried painful things we experienced with Tucker; things that I still cannot face.

So you see, while sometimes we feel so alone in our pain, there is in fact, others out there suffering as well. Maybe their story is different, but the common factors are still there.






Melody took a minute to answer a few questions for me :

1) What is Brave Girls Club?

"Brave Girls Club is a worldwide community of women who want to live the best, happiest, most productive and fabulously brave life they can possibly live…and that means something different to every single one of us".

2) Tell me what motivated you to start Brave Girls Club?

"We are doing this because we believe that there’s so much to celebrate in life, even when life is difficult. We are doing this because sometimes you can’t get through things alone….and we want to connect brave women to other brave women so that you never HAVE to do anything alone again". We are doing this because we believe there is a better way…where women can support, lift-up and help each other through life…show each other how to navigate through new and scary things. We We are doing this because we want to be part of that better way…"

here's a little youtube video I found (and there are plenty more if you search, Melody Ross or Brave Girls Club on youtube)

My friend, Sherry, told me that she took the last class, so I asked her for her input:

"Melody has a way of explaining and motivating that holds your attention. She talks about life and our experiences and how we view ourselves, let alone treat ourselves with caring, compassion and understanding. She's been there...she's not ...just talking the talk. She has walked this walk and she is sharing what she has learned. These may seem like "simple", "easy" things to acknowledge or to embrace, but for so many of us, it's the simple, easy way of looking at something that holds us back. We think there needs to be some "BIG" explanation or some "BIG" wonderous moment of "AHA". We know what ails us and we know how we are our own worst enemies. Melody makes it "okay" to say that out loud and to welcome it all as part of who we are. The art? It's just an extra. No skills are necessary because we are all artists ... we are all capable of holding a pencil or pen or a paint brush and stroking out and stroking in what we need to remind ourselves of".





Now for the fun part. Melody has graciously donated 3 spots to her next session of Soul Restoration. I will be hand picking the winners myself on Friday April 1st. This is the 20th anniversary of Tucker's injury and I would rather spend the day doing something fun like, informing 3 of you that you've won a spot, instead of feeling sad. I have not gotten to take the class yet, due to time constraints, but one of these days I will!

So all you have to do is leave a comment here and share why you feel you you'd be a good candidate to win a spot. **very important - you must supply me with an email address**

XOXO,

kecia

Happy Birthday to Tucker

I just wanted to take a minute and wish my sweet little tucker happy birthday. he turns 21 today. He has been through a lot. It is very painful for me to post this baby picture of him before his brain injury, but I'm going to be brave and do it and deal with the emotions that come.

i recently read a post by Melody Ross discussing some painful memories from a traumatic time in her life and at one point i had to stop reading it. my heart was racing and i started to feel sick. it dredged up some very painful memories, ones i have a hard time acknowledging. it just is so hard to go there. I could so relate to everything she said- i just don't think i've ever been able to put it into words before.

i remembered something that happened when tuck was in utah for rehab and i went out shopping for things he needed and was so confused, disoriented (i was in a unfamilar city with no friends, no cellphones then, no computer, no money, virtually nothing), frightened and as Melody said in her post, ALONE. my husband was there in utah too, but we were coping on different levels - so we weren't working together as a team then. but i remember being out and tears just streaming down my face and it amazed me that not one person stopped and said, "are you alright?" i'm sure they had to notice. Since that time, I have stopped several women in obvious distress and said quietly, "you look upset and i wanted to stop and see if i can be of any assistance." they all said no, they didn't need my help (we never need any help, do we?) - but at least I know that I acknowledge their pain and i hope that counted.

so that's all i can handle for now on walking down that road of pain.




tucker, age 6months - (pre injury)

here's the birthday boy heading off to school. i just love him so.