I woke this morning remembering a dream I had many years ago. Which I am able now to interpret. I have always dreamt vividly and if I were able to focus on my Carl Jung studies I'd be stronger at deciphering them. When we were at the Bidwell House and I was becoming ready to move (not sure to what) I had a very vivid and telling dream.

This part is not the dream. I walk everyday in the meadows one outside my gate, the other across the street along the railroad tracks, down along the river to the mouth and then the shore of the lake. It's a mucky walk and it's too hard now with 3 dogs, one totally unruly, so I rarely take this one anymore. I used to go with my girlfriend Stephanie, and it was really wonderful and magical. Walking out there for 3 years together, we noticed many CSI nature footprints. One thing we noticed is one of the giant and ancient cottonwood trees along the path, when I stood at the base of it, I swear on everything I hold sacred, it looked like it was moving toward me. Call me crazy (sometimes I do) , every time I would test this I would see it move. Stephanie agreed . I used to tell her a story about how it was a time travel portal.

This is the dream. My husband and I were at a football game at the high school and we were directed by someone (can’t remember) to go out to the portal. We got there and we both knew we would be going to a very different place. He was in front of me and when we got to the mound , there was the rabbit hole, he just jumped in. Assuming I’d be right behind him. Not even a goodbye. I was devastated because I remembered the children and then would if I took them and they were in danger and then what if we got there and there wasn’t water or TP or matches or an ax or knife or first aid or penicillin or string . I didn’t have my survival pack. I stood at the edge of the small hole and realized I couldn’t go. Not that I was afraid of the unknown, but I wasn’t prepared for anything. I ran home and began to pack. The rest of the dream on the exterior was about the things I chose and the slow methodical gathering. The interior was a vow, which my dream observer wittiness, which was I was going, it just was going to take me longer to get ready.

I woke before I got to go back to the hole, but I knew the dream wasn’t about what was inside the hole, but what was inside of me.

This dream was easy to interpret. Ian and I were working together, running the Inn, raising a family and the inn and it’s owners weren’t able (for whatever reason) to give us what we needed to survive as a family for our basic needs. After one of our twins died , the other (lady Jane) had major surgery and we were all in the hospital, we faced a huge medical bankruptcy. The heartbreaking double whammy (so beyond that now) but our insurance was so bad, so basic, it didn’t begin to cover it. Our salaries were enough to get just by. Ian is stealth. He tried a few things to change our situation and finally became a deputy sheriff. He jumped down the hole. I stayed home cared for the Inn and the children while he moved away to Academy for 5 months.

My turn down the hole came 6 years later, hence the very long dream of gathering, the day I gave notice, I gave them a year, and I jumped into a life totally of my making. I couldn’t see beyond the rabbit hole , because I hadn’t created a vision for myself yet. I knew I wanted out of that place and my resentments were mounting, which is like drinking poison for me. I was in so much fear about how I was going to help my husband I couldn’t see what I really wanted. I was only seeing have tos.

Through a big process and a ton of courage faith, willingness to risk. And if you are interested that story I have pasted it below. I am building my business. Painting, photographing , teaching, making beautiful weddings. Answering only to me and ultimately picking and choosing my clients. I love what I do and I have such an magically beautiful enchanted life and most days am so grateful for it.

My process to becoming a photographer. The becoming. I am still in process and am sure I will always be in the process of becoming a photographer. It began a few years ago when I left the Bidwell House, a bed and breakfast I managed with my husband and 5 children for 13 years. If you want my story before Bidwell, go to www.kimjamesphoto.com and feel free to read the bio or the bio at www.kimjamesfineart.com it has a bit more. We moved just next door from the Bidwell. I did not want to alter my life too much. Although, it needed a good tweak, next door facing Big Meadows and Last Chance was good enough. I am a creative, but also, I have been told, a rare balance of left-right brain, I am not sure how rare it is. I am the CFO of my family and my husbands concrete business and my multi-media co. 1000 words productions. I have been a manager for 2 decades. My creativity had met it’s end through the Martha Stewart lifestyle we lived and the elegant English Garden Weddings we put on. The business there had reached it’s maximum potential for us and I do not do well in stagnant waters. I needed more and I defiantly needed different. I had been studying the watercolor media for 9 years at this point and I teach the elements of design and watercolor to elementary school children. I have a creative understanding of line, texture, color value and hue, shape, form and space and I teach it. I am in love with art of all forms. I began showing my watercolors in a few galleries, but I knew this would not be the road to financial well being and serving my creative side. I need both, I want both. I needed to find a way to make a good income, satisfy my creative needs and be able to still call all my own shots. 5 children take much of my attention. Also I live in a rural area. I didn’t want to move back to the city. I also understood a photo studio in Chester would not be profitable. I wanted to travel, the youngest is 9 now. So I spent a good couple of months preparing for the jump off of Half Dome. What to do? What to do? That was most of my thoughts for about 6 months…. Then one day I was looking up my old friend David Jay. A fashion photographer I worked with in SF while working at City, the modeling agency. I loved David’s work, his pictures were still vivid in my mind. This man knew beauty and could shoot it like Scavullo. Rare, in my book, for a straight male. His photographs were provocative, sensual and always clean. So there I was typing in David Jay and what came up was a wedding photographer, who is quite big and well known in the wedding photography industry, which I did not know at the time. I soaked in his entire site. Over and over I looked. Then I heard a whisper, ever so small, “You could do this?”. Then it all made sense. My past seemed to be grooming me for that very moment. A convergence of all of my skills, abilities and talents. There was a reason I modeled in New York , Paris and San Francisco. There was a reason I edited stacks of slides for years. There was a reason I scouted and developed New Faces, models. There was a reason I made model cards and portfolios and worked with countless, super talented photographers and stylists all those years. There was a reason I studied psychology, leadership and business with a vengeance. There was a reason I continued to cultivate my love of fashion and make-up. There was a reason I created weddings for over a decade at the Bidwell House. There was a reason I had and photographed all of those children. There was a reason I shot all of the subjects I painted first. All of my roads led to photography. No longer was it “what to do?“ . It became “have to do“. I had been photographing for years for my own pleasure, for my art, for my family and for the Inn. From that moment I jumped….free fall into…Make this happen. Then I ventured into the deep and dirty waters of self assessment and appraisal. Granted, inspiration and excitement still isn’t a ticket to go 30,000.00 into the hole. I was, am, making a bet I could lose. The process to making a decision, to put all my energies into photography and putting aside my beloved paint brush for awhile, was arduous, really scary, full of self doubt, full of humility, morbid reflection and still is. My assessment , inventory of my business and creative self found I was already half way there to being a professional photographer. I went to my old friends and asked for their critic of my present work and what they knew of me. That was hard. I went to my toughest critics my husband, an ex fashion model, my oldest son, who loves to tell me I suck If I do. I went to people I knew in business and ran my potential business plan by them and always the questions was “Do you think I can do this?”. Then I would show them the top 4 web-sights. Do you think I have it to do this? Everyone said yes and yet I still wasn’t certain. I began to spend 6 hours a day studying the wedding photography industry. I am an outsider looking in. Detached and skeptical. I know I won’t make $$$ with a photo studio in tiny town. I have to go big or stay home. When I ran the women’s fashion division of City, I was enthralled with Ellen Von Unworths work. My dream was to one day be such creative. So I went back to my fashion roots. I stopped looking at local photographers. I went to American Photo and looked up their top 10 wedding photographers in the world. And like Anthony Robins says “Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find the best in their field and take notes.” So I began my own curriculum of study. I studied all 10, I still do and I found more that I like even better. I looked global rather than local. Without the net I wouldn’t even have considered this to be a game I could play in. I fell in love with David Beckstead’s work and his business model. He had more similarities I could identify with . He lives in rural area, artist, bookes destination weddings only. If I wanted to stay in Chester I would need to follow his business model and through a great stroke of luck I am co-hosting one of his coveted and always sold out workshops this October. www.shootwithbeackstead.com . But, what else I discovered in the top 10 was 7 were on the west coast. Some had moved to fashion editorial and fine art blended with a photojournalism style. Instead of just the over saturated photojournalism. I knew from years of studying art my own style was imperative. I LOVE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY. I LOVE CLOTHES. I LOVE MAKE-UP. I had spent years on the set. I knew I needed to bring what I love to my game. I was a model scout for 10 years. I am known to pull my talent out of in and out burger and the local grocery. I don’t need to find models, I remembered I made models. I can do it again and at this point everyone I have shot on my site for fashion and beauty I have found, I did their hair and make up and I dressed them. I started to really FEEL I could do this. After going through all the wedding photographers and getting my finger on the pulse of a very saturated and redundant industry I went back to the fashion greats, www.jedroot.com handles the worlds best fashion photographers stylist makeup artists, as well as www.artandcommerce.com . I started looking outside the wedding industry for what I could bring back inside through my own fashion translation. The wedding sites are really looking A Lot A Like. Hence why I took on such an odd template for my site. There were some innovators in the wedding industry I found on Grace Ormond’s sight www.weddingstylemagazine.com . Apparently if she likes your work you are made. I like her taste. My evaluation, certain fashion will always be classic and so will weddings. Besides the technical aspects of digital photography I read Vogue, Elle and Allure, it’s all about make-up. I study them. I have a link to French Vogue online and Italian vogue. I practice make up on my subjects and my daughters. I do model tests once a week. If had 5,000.00 I could take Greg Gorman’s digital workshop over in Mendocino, but I don’t, I spent it on my camera. So I will study his pictures and practice setting up studio lighting like he does with my own subjects and styling. I have much to learn in the ever changing digital photography industry. I spent 1000.00 on the New York Institute of photography pro program. Their teaching material is from the 70s and 80s ooops. It would be fine for film but technology is moving at breakneck speed. They do have a digital CD they send out, but I feel that money could have had a bigger bang some where else. I wish I could afford the time and leave form home to go to Brooks. I take workshops. I thought a certificate from NYIP would legitimize me to my clients and to some it might but, my pictures, my guarantee and my insurances are what really legitimize me. The internet is educating me every moment . I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop cs3. I read trade magazines and I do not stop shooting. I shoot lighting in studio and I spent 3000 on various lights. Pleased with them all still learning. The best money I spent was on Big folio for my web-site and their site optimization. WOW. I came to the conclusion based on my history that photography is for me. Can I handle a business? Yes. Do I know enough about photography to take pictures that will please my clients? Yes. Do I know how to see my subjects? Yes. The light? Yes. Am I disciplined enough to learn the aspects of digital photography new cameras, lighting, computers, web-site design, blogs, programs, raw, Photoshop, Lightroom,? Yes but I’ll struggle. Can I do hair make-up and styling? Yes. Can I see bone structure and the best most attractive angles on people? Yes. Do I know when someone is really bringing It for the camera or dogging it? Absolutely. Do I have the money to buy the gear all the pros have that are in the game. No. Brick wall. How I did it. Back to what to do? Hate being here. I like having a direction. Ultimately I decided to take out a loan. I am 44 I don’t have 5 years to build a business and I am a girl who jumps in both feet. I didn’t have time to buy used and then buy better when I get a gig. I already built a site that I disassembled 1 month after because I knew it wasn’t good enough. I want to shoot high end weddings, they are beautiful, I needed some high end equipment and big coverage if something goes wrong. My loan wasn’t a business loan, you have to prove profitable at least 2 years in row before a bank will come in give $, and it wasn’t credit cards. I took out 30,000.00 spent 24,000.00 of it on studio lighting backdrops, canon cameras and lenses, computers, an Epson 4000,a printer, fax scanner, web-sites blog, Pictage, which I am still not too sure its working for me, insurances, bags, batteries, chargers, back-up programs and systems, I joined PPC Professional photographers of California and PPA,America, the local chamber, which I probably won‘t do again. I will rejoin PPA and go for WPPI next year and drop PPC. I bought my own font, Youch. The rest of the money is for an emergency and I have begun to take bookings which are paying for my monthly expenses. My basic monthly expenses are 350 for my loan, 100, pictage, 50.00 cell phone, 80 for my 3 web-sites, 50 for insurance, equipment, liability and 100 for misc. expenses. I have a 850 sg ft studio Ian built for me. We own it. My accountant gets to figure out that one this year. I don’t draw a penny and haven’t. My business is paying for itself at this point. But I went big on equipment and web site and small on everything else. I do not have all the equipment I need. I have a huge wedding at the CIA Greystone in St. Helen coming up in Feb. I rented $5000.00 worth of Canon gear for $480.00 to enhance the gear I have. When I have 5 weddings like that in a few months period I will consider buying the 5D and 85mm 1.8, but, for now I will rent. www.borrowlenses.com in San Mateo. In order to pay my bills at home, I wait tables and I teach watercolor to elementary school kids. I am running all the time to make this thing work. I get up early and go to bed late. I wish I could tell you that I am flying all over the planet shooting what I love, making a ton of money doing it, and it gives me the time I need and want to spend with my family. But, what happens next, I don’t know. It is a process I am in. I have heard so many times the journey is the goal. It is. All I wanted to was to understand Raw and I do now. I am grateful. Here is a list of the people on my favorites of my favorites. Just a few. www.mariotestino.com www.santedorazio.com www.gormanphotography.com www.davidjayphotography.com www.davidjay.com www.popphoto.com www.lexar.com www.cutframetv.com I love this site!! www.wedhooter.com Big folio's wedding blog. They didn’t make the top 10 but could have. Some of the darlings of the moment, in the wedding industry, at least on the net, are Becker, Mike Colon , Jim Garner, Joe Photo, Dane Sanders, Jose Villa, David Jay, Gary Fong, major industry innovator, I bought his fong dong and his chrome dome. Don't laugh, I don't know how he came up with the names, but these things are cool. This wedding season will determine if I have to use my emergency funds for 2009. Before I took the jump, my husband and I both spent time considering the consequences if I lost my bet. We agreed we could live with the worst case scenario. We would have 20,000.00 in camera equipment to shoot soccer games of our children with.

6/26/08 footnote

I have enough work to pay the bills. My business is growing. I have my work in 3 galleries. After Greystones wedding they put me on their preferred providers list (HUGE) and their partners in Planning Five star productions put me on theirs too. I am still engaged, excited and enjoying what I do.

Dan Garcia shot this image of me on my wedding day. He was one of my test photographers at CITY model management and SO talented. He was from San Jose. That was 20 years back. I loved his eye. Brilliant photographer and then gone. He just dissapeared. Maybe disenchanted with the modeling business?

Man I would love to shoot with him.

We had an amazing visit with Ian's family from Melbourne. Aunt Felicity (super wit), Uncle James (my kids thought he was the coolest) and Cousin Anna (very fun and soooooo cool). She has a very fun blog about her adventures working on a cruise ship http://sound-of-the-shell.blogspot.com:80/.

My favorite story came from Felicity, it was about the very poisonous snake they ran over (40 years back) tried to kill and how it was stuck under the car. They had to run for their lives. They left yesterday for our family's house in Sonoma. Jane is down there with Ian's folks and her Aunt Dawn. I was supposed to go, but the fires are proving too hectic and getting worse. I rescheduled everything, which is better all the way around. I am taking off to Reno tomorrow, again, for supplies and then I will have a few days to frame up about 20 pieces. I should be buying mat board too. I have 3 shoots to edit still. I am looking forward to seeing them. I think I got some great Bull Riding and Rodeo Shots.

On the way to Pat and Judy's to shoot yesterday in the am I noticed a bunch of thunderstorm activity already starting up around Mt. Lassen. It all made for a beautiful sunset by the end of the day. But not enough rain and too many lightning strikes. Now many wildfire blaze around us. It will be a while before I will have another opportunity to take photos this clear at sunset.

Ian's aunt and family arrive from Austrailia today. Big family dinner tonight. Scubbing of the house today with the troops. I wish I could use my husband's taser it sure would make things go faster. My nephew is here too.

Finishing photo albums with Graphi this week. Packing for SF. Big week.

We had a blast at the xtrem bulls on Thursday. Really the last 10 rides were better than the first 40. I think they must have been saving the best bulls for last. I shot about 1000 images. 55 rides (some re rides) and I shot it like a sport photographer. 10 frames per second on my canon 1d mark 111. Really, I need 2 of them. It stauled out at about 6.5 seconds. As a Bull riding photographer I know the most EXCITING DRAMATIC images are going to be "out the gate and the dismount." There are only a few Bulls that will jump the whole time (the last 10 rides). I think I am going for a 300mm lense for this purpose as well. I need to be closer without getting in the pen. I don't want my gear all dusty. Also my energy is endless when I am shooting an event. I am very happy in the doing of it. I learned a lot as well. I shot in P mode with a 2500. Probably too high but I didn't want blur so I exchaged it for a little amount of noise. I am off in 10 min to shoot my friends Pat and Judy on their beautiful front porch. It really looks like the front of a post card I hope I can capture it.

I leave for Reno with the boys in 10 min.

So excited Traci (my sister) and Jake (my nephew) are coming today.

Felicity and James arrive from Australia this Sun for a few days. Haven't seen them in 6 years.

I am putting my work in 2 galleries with deadlines by the 1st of July.

I did it again busier than heck.

Lovely Heather Green (very talented painter and graphic artist) www.thegreengallery.com created my logo after I threw a few ideas her way. I am pleased with it. I put it on my new business cards and they are 3.5 x 3.5 square business cards. The 2 images are the front and back.

That sounds funny...and it is very uncharacteristic of me in many ways. I listen to all music , but country...I am a Civil Liberal, I am a big city girl by heart, but I get a huge thrill photographing bull riding. So off to Reno tomorrow with my son Mike and his buddy Kirk in tow, a budding bull rider himself, made his teenage debut at the Chester Rodeo and this summer he'll try 8 seconds at the Lassen fair grounds. I had a hard time watching Ryon QB 4 years of college football. It made me sick to my stomach. I am sure I'll have a hard time watching Kirk too, being the fixture that he is in our household.

It's a 40,000.00 purse. 40 bulls 40 riders 40k. My adrenaline starts going just thinking of it.

At www.kimjamesfineart.com under Galleries, under Rodeo, is my attempt at creating the adrenaline rush with my Rodeo photos.

I am so close to having the brochures, business cards and post cards I have been working on for months. They will be here just as I am leaving to go to SF to photograph an engagement shoot and the Gay Parade and to teach a friend how to photograph while we're there.

When I get back its marketing marketing marketing…

I had no idea how long it would take to build a business. I am about 8 months off from my target dates for many things. I have been hitting my goals, so far so good, it just takes longer than I think. It’s not paying me yet, but it’s paying all the bills and giving me lots of incentive to keep going.

I love the arts…………I am looking forward to the xtreme bulls.

I completed my art web site, completely redid it. I am with a new company the one through Costco didn’t work for my kind of business. I like the format much better and I am excited about having a site I can put the images up I like and am proud of. Now I have a site just for my weddings and portraiture. My motto should be “ I SHOOT ANYTHING I FANCY” some people in the wedding and portrait photography industry are super serious about shooting one thing to define themselves. I just can't do it. I have to shoot the light and what is in it. I really love shooting weddings and it's what I am strongest at. I also like shooting everything else. I like having a voice for my writing and poetry as well. Funny I should get accolades over work I consider to be pretty ripe to say the least. I won a spot in the Vagina Monologues here in Quincy last year , with , yes, a pretty sexually explicit piece on the difference between sex and love. Some mothers told me they wished someone had told them when they were young. I wrote it for my daughters. I am not a writer, I am a story teller, I know how to weave a story I do not know how to create beautiful pros to be read and memorized I can barely stand that stuff myself. I want the meat of a story. Although I like it prepared gourmet, if not, I’ll still eat it if it is a strong story. My friend Marcos http://theviruscarries.com:80/updates/ , known him for 22 years now and we have been trudging buddies, co workers, siblings, but never lovers, thank God, because as he puts it if we were we would not be friends today. Although, according to him I always wanted it so, I can’t seem to find a stitch of truth there. Although, I do find him attractive and what attracts me the most about him is his LIAR LIAR quality of truth telling. It may not be kind , but man is it refreshing. I appreciate the truth as I know life is SHORT! Anyhow, he is a writer and a poet and a great creative and offensive to some. Not me,usually. He asked me for a very candid piece on my childhood and an after. A before and an after. This is how he asked Dear Friends...if you have received this email it's because I would like you to take part in one of my latest endeavors...in dealing with my daughter recently, and seeing how much she has suffered and been formed by my and her mother's worst characteristics...and now on top of it having them split up, it makes me think about myself and people like you who I either KNOW, or conjecture had it rough at times when young, or made it rough on themselves, or both...I want you to capture your experiences, so that other people...mainly kids, can be inspired by your stories...all of you are successes in my eyes, despite the early hardships...if you are interested let me know and we'll go from there...it is all confidential until if/when published...all of you have something valuable to share with the world...so please consider saying it...thanks, M I wrote a before a few years back and now I am going to write an after. If you want the before it will be in a book someday. Here’s the after. This might be harder to write than the before because the before is an accounting of aspects of my childhood with the slant of a very strong spiritual program. The now is difficult to tally without the slant of the 20/20 hindsight. It is unedited I am 44, I have 5 living children and one dead, (it’s part of my story). I became abstinant from any mood or mind altering substances when I was 23 and have stayed that way since and I hopr to remain that way (also a huge part of my story). I am married and have been with Ian since I was 23 and he 21. I am an artist, photographer, business owner, art teacher, writer, worker, wedding planner, friend, sister, daughter, advisor, board member on two community boards, gardener, dog owner, perpetual student, homeowner, naturalist, social liberal (marriage is a human right, not just the right of the religious right), fiscal conservative,(have an abortion if you must, but I am not paying for it), human. I am an ex smoker, ex drinker, ex fashion model, ex model agent, ex waitress, ex bed and breakfast manager, ex girlfriend to a special few.Ex agnostic. I am recovering co-dependant, I work two vigorous 12 step programs and all that goes with that and have for over 2 decades. I make mention of this because there is no other way to explain the dramatic turn around in my life from my very rough youth. I also believe this is why I am not a diced up piece of meat, victim to my past. My abstinance from all mood and mind altering substances is my spiritual practice to stay in touch with my Creater's will for me and I believe profoundly for ME that I can’t do that with a system tainted. I also work on unlearning the characteristics I learned in childhood for survival and that no longer work in my life and relationships today. I have accepted and embraced a life that is ever changing, learning and unlearning is part of it, I believe for a lifetime. I will not graduate in growing spiritually and humanly, that ante is always being upped. So far, I continue to trudge this happy road. My marriage is also a spiritual practice. I have had and hope to have only one. I have many residue charter traits from my past that I have learned to live with, and as my creator sees fit, work hand in hand with me for a perception and personality change. I have healed from the post traumatic stress I experienced in my 20s and early 30s. I have an acute sense of people, I can smell dishonesty a mile away, although I may not know what it is exactly, but it scares most, that I can seem them. What they don't realise is I have no judgement about what I percieve unless they mean harm to one of my children. Being a BS detector I can’t help. I have learned to live with the fact that I need to have every corner of my house stuffed with food. I am not getting a therapist to work it through with me. I feel good when my cupboards are full and I know my kids will never know a hungry day (if I can prevent it ) even if I throw out a few hundred dollars worth of food a year. I have hundreds of users manuals on everything. Especially medical, mental, spiritual, history tons of history, gardening, canning, you name it. I collect information. In my young life there wasn’t someone I could take my many questions to, so, now I can take them to books. I have my own library. There used to be a time you could eat off my floor, now you must where shoes, I gave up the fight to keep it perfect with 5 kids, 3 dogs and dirty husband. I conceded and turned my attention to art. I keep my life very protected and sheltered. I paint happy painting. I don’t watch the news or dark films, “Little children.“ screwed me up for days. I keep my environment light, because I deserve Disneyland and I never got it, so I give it to myself. When my husband became a cop I contemplated divorce, seriously. He did it 14 years into the relationship. It started with “Didn’t I tell you I always wanted to be a Canadian mounty?” AHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I didn’t want the 6 o’clock news in my house. I made and make beautiful weddings, gardens, ran a pretty B and B which I worked my butt off for years to make pretty. For the most part Ian has to share the gore and horror of his job with others. I am happy to listen to the comedy. When I am in a sad or melancholy mood I listen to the raunchiest comedy possible. I laugh until I cry. Trust was a huge issue and sometimes can still be. I have many limitations I have come to accept and as I sicken of them I move on to healing of them, when it comes to dealing with my fellow humans. I was very social as a child and I still am but I simply don‘t have the incentive to deal with certain types of humans. I can’t go upstairs to my children’s rooms, because if they are messy I will freak out and I fear I will explode for their serenity and my sanity, so we keep the goodnights downstairs and I hire people to deal with it so I don’t lose my serenity either.They are doing pretty good. And I have been going up. Too much noise hurts my ears. I have no patients for victims of their own circumstances who won’t do anything to change the situation they put themselves in. I am not a strong listener for some that just want to complain about a perceived hopeless situation of their making. I hate lazy people. Strong word, but that is how strongly I feel about slothfulness and gluttony which I struggle with as well. I demand perfection from myself, although through a great amount of emotional work I have lightened up on myself and those around me. I work very hard on this disease of perfection. People that have unpredictable tempers are out. Anyone without integrity, users of other humans, out, and especially of me and mine, out. People that chips away at me, “Many a truth is told in jest.” with sarcasm, out. Anyone that I don’t know intimately intrudes with a prying questions about my sons or husband, out. Anyone that gossips about their own friends and family, OUT. That means they’ll throw me under the bus too. I also don’t edit much as I am sure by this peice you can tell. I spent much of my childhood treading very lightly. I checked the mood of each adult in power and read the energy field that permeated the house before I decided whom I would be when I walked in. This is no longer a safety mechanism I use. I am what am. I don't think I will ever be as intimidated again. This is a life of my own conscious choosing. I create it for myself everyday. It is no ones responsibility to make me happy, keep me safe, love me, keep promises, be sweet. It’s mine to me. I put my will and my life into the care of my Creator’s and I do not make people places or things my Higher Power. I have people in my life who I love and trust and help me grow spiritually. My life is amazing today. I taught myself to paint and write and photograph and garden and mother and housekeep. Externally I live in the most visually beautiful place with gardens and BEAUTIFUL dogs & beautiful children and husband. They are truly beautiful in everyway. I have come to know that those beautiful people, places and things didn’t come my way by accident. I have worked hard and long to understand God’s will for me and I have surrendered my life, my marriage, my children and I will continue to daily. I face my fear daily in this life and I climb into the moment if I want relief from that fear. I am learning humility (not humiliation) I am learning to let go, I am learning to grow and I do not regret the past nor do I wish to ever shut the door on it. Shame binds and imprisons me, the light must be brought to my darkness. There have been many lantern holders in my life. Who held the light while I dug my ditch,(loved me while I worked on myself) Lucille Isabelle, Shirley, Carol, Jacquie, Traci, Ian, Ryon, Michael, Joey, Liv, Jane, Tristan, Bob, Donna, Robin and Robyn, Stephanie, Kathy, Kathey, and Cathay Pat Judy, Julie, Nancy, Dee who have loved me anyway despite my obvious flaws. Who have urged me on and anchored me to this life. Without their love I am nothing. I am full of gratitude most days. My childhood did not define me, losing my anchor so young, My grandma, does not define me , nor my lack of education, nor my really BAD choices in my teens, nor what I do for work or creating, nor my circumstance, nor losing our daughter. I have overcome only because of my relationship and belief system in my creator and, that I was born with. I know I have overcome because, so far, I wake up each day excited about the prospect of life and I love life and almost everything in it. And today I know and believe life loves me too!