life is a blank canvas...its mine and yours to paint

You ever get those days where you just need full balls-out inspiration? You need a bit of a push to get you back on your ferris wheel? You want to see or hear about someone who has came from a state of mind where they didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives and you, YES YOU can witness their accomplishments?!

So yesterday, instead of doing my regular 'go to Urban Frog to eat a sunflower wrap' or 'a stroll down N. Broadway street to people and car watch' or a random errand run during "lunch time" I decided to visit one of my very dear girl friends new Art Gallery. She's always been an older sister to me and it just works that we have the same type of passion with the arts. We always have something to chat about and how she puts it, "our conversations can start over here (using her left hand as a starting point) and can twirl around in circles and 5 hours later we'll get back to what the point of our initial story actually was."

I walked into "Christine's Gallery" on 111 N. Wisconsin St. in De Pere, WI at 12:00pm (ish) yesterday - my eyes just lit right up, my heart dropped and I became the most proud of her I've ever been! She went out on a limb after endless hours of thinking and processing how this could be either financially stable or financially instable - knowing that this is a big risk - to create her dream. So many opportunities presented themselves to her and she finally grabbed them by the bulk - A beautiful space opened up for rent in the MOST PERFECT location, she found a timeless, unique apartment less than 2 blocks away from her soon-to-be-gallery, she found the time to "get in her zone" to paint and explore her full potential and most of all...through all of this she found herself.

Uplifting? Yes. I had needed an extra boost of inspiration to get going on a few freelance projects and seeing all of her art was the most uplifting Thursday noon experience I could have gotten! I'm thinking I'm going to start bothering her a bit more.... [I promise Steen, I won't talk! You do your work and I'll just look at your pretty, breathtaking artwork and become inspired enough to do mine!]

Lesson of the day - if your dream is something you can see in your world, make it a reality. I just sent my sister, Kelsie off to college and my younger sister, Mackenzie (I call her Dootsie) and I gave her a memory book...a small portion of my advice for her was "Explore. Take advantage of every opportunity regardless of the time and cost. Never let money get in the way but be smart. Live out loud and remember the best things in life are silly. Be yourself and stick up for what you believe in. Remember God and ask him for help when you need it. And remember to thank him. Love yourself because that's the only way anyone can love you back. Make mistakes but learn from them."

When I walked in that gallery, I could tell her heart was happy and that made me love her even more.