live . craft . learn

eleven years

salt lake city 1946

i still miss you. every. day.
xo

less how-to

Such a profound and amazing talk by brene brown. This is the path my summer sabbatical is taking me down. To open up and finally let go of my past struggles. To let go of my shame. To really be comfortable in my own skin and to stop letting my past and the traumatic things that i dealt with as a child continue to dictate who i am and the life i allow myself to live.

Connection awaits just around the bend. I can feel it.

lesson learned

It's been a rough week.

The universe always has this amazing way to knock my thoughts and feelings a little harder into my gut, especially immediately after i admit to them. It's like another little personal sucker punch {or in this case, a knock to the jaw} as if to really drive the lesson I'm conquering as deep into me as it can. Pain always cuts deeper, isn't that the saying?

This admission of course is so connected to the emergency root canal I had to have last week after an intense and excruciating 24 hours of pain in my right jaw. It started with a little bit of hot-cold sensitivity and ended with incredibly frightening swelling within 24 hours. It worked fast.

The pain was excruciating.

If any of you suffer from chronic pain I feel for you. I mean I really feel for you! The 6 days I dealt with this and the 4 days I was in bed reeling with pain, addicted to my ice pack, was so much worse than my 3 day labor with the little man, which by comparison didn't even compare to this pain. at. all.

The hardest part was that I couldn't keep any pain med's down, from vicodin to darviset, nothing stayed in except my intense anti-b's and motrin.

It was a huge lesson in having to be vulnerable and having to really feel what i was feeling, something I am horrible at. I have always been so much better at the smoke and mirrors, the smiles hiding the painful truth I held inside; the pretend. I have always been good at the pretending.

I had to be dependent on everyone around me for 6 days. That is hard. To just let go and concentrate on getting well. Seems like such an easy thing to do but it's not, it never has been. My man and my mom dealt with the house and the little's and I laid in bed and kept thinking about how poignant the timing for this was. An expensive lesson in vulnerability.

dude, soooo very expensive!

But here I am on the other side, one week later. Feeling better, getting myself back together. Getting our home back together. Connecting the dots and being so ever grateful.

Lesson learned.

xo

dream big

 my mini book of affirmations via mondo beyondo

Once upon a time I felt like i was someone who lived their life with an open heart. I was someone who allowed myself to be vulnerable. I was someone who wasn't afraid to share and open up, to someone who loved to lift up others and someone who always said I lived my life with an authentic heart.

I felt a freedom with my emotions that I was proud to embrace. I felt it in my home life. I felt it in my personal dreams and aspirations. I felt it when I made things & when I would journal on scrap pages.

I felt free when I gave myself over to my heart & emotions.

I wasn't scared.

I didn't *think* I cared if I was judged by others.

But, somewhere along the way, sometime over the last three years, I lost it. I began allowing myself to hold back and shut down. I let myself be swayed by gossip and comments that I knew were untrue. I let myself live in a world that wasn't what I wanted. I let myself become a person that believed the negativity was the truth.

I lost me.

I lost me because I didn't believe in me.

This not a process i'm unfamiliar with really. oh no. That chip on my shoulder that whispers in my ear is like a wicked old friend who comes to visit when I let myself feel scared, when I let myself believe my doubts and especially when I tell myself I am worthless.

She is a doubter, my friend 'Chip', and I hate her.

I hate that I allow that little voice to control my life. I allow her to dictate who I am and who I will become. I hate that I know why she exists and when she moved into my head. I hate that I am 37 years old and I still give her all of the power.

I know I have a beautiful life, and yet, she is still there.

I also know I'm not alone.

So, this summer I am making it my goal to kick her and her doubting, evil and life-numbing ways, to the curb. I don't have an answer to how I'm going to do it and I don't know where the path this summer will lead me, but I do know that I plan on living a mondo beyondo life from here on out.

So bring it Chip, give it your best shot, cause i'm putting you on notice.

xo, kL

ps : thank you for all of your sweet words about my burning note moment. I was laughing as I did it and let me tell you, it felt really, really good! xo

big beautiful smiley faces

I've been trying to figure out how to say this out loud here for a few weeks.

Most of you already know that I decided to close kR paper kits last month {you can read our announcement newsletter here}. It took a few months of some serious discussions with my husband {and right-hand-man} to come to this conclusion. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it and say it was easy.

hell no!

It was hard. A very, very, very hard decision. But, our discussions about my desires, my dreams and my goals, along with quite a few buckets of tears at times because saying goodbye to a good friend {kR} is never easy, really made me see that i was filling up my time with the wrong focus and ignoring my real life, soul-honoring, happy-to-be-me priorities.

this might not be easy to understand, unless you are me.

and... that is a-o-k with me.

because in the end, when i hit send on that email, i felt a *HUGE* sigh of relief wash over me.

running kR was hard. time consuming. fun. complicated. stressful. rewarding. and it was eating up every single ounce of my creativity.

kR was also the third successful online business i've dreamed about, opened, run, sourced, advertised, built and moved on from since i was 26.

i'm an entrepreneur.

i like to work for myself.

what i have loved over the last few weeks, since that email, is the numerous emails from friends and members sharing their thanks for the beautiful kits I created and a their sadness because i decided to close.

thank you.

i wish i could contain in those 8 letters just how much it means to me that you wrote. Just how much it has meant that you shared a few more los, that you are sad. because there will always be a little piece of my heart with kR inscribed on it that feels sad too.

and i have to also admit that, because i'm a constant sucker for negativity {in her many guises, oh how i love to let her taunt me}, i've let the few negative emails and comments i've received hit me like a sucker punch to the gut too.

i'm ok with letting myself feel that part too.

but then, after i had a good cry. i printed them out, drew big beautiful smiley faces on them and burnt them to a crisp over my little's bathroom toilet and watched them get sucked down the drain when i flushed.

happy friday!
xo