words with friends

The first thing that happened was the kite got away.

The dads ran after it. But alas, it was gone. What's the saying? There is nothing quite like a crisis to bring people together. 

But it turns out, we didn't really need a crisis. We clicked. Just. Like. That.

The story goes something like this:

I meet Katy online about a month ago. We chatted via Facebook, then email and then texts. Katy was coming with her family to San Diego for the weekend and so we invited them to dinner at our house. But then, the Sugar Daddy had to travel, so I asked if we could just meet up for dinner a day earlier.  

Long story short. We ended up meeting them at the Hotel Del. And staying in their villa with them overnight. 

Just to be clear, Ben and I don't do this sort of thing. It isn't like us. We are rather timid, cautious people. But I think maybe, it was meant to be.  I think maybe there was no way we could not be friends with Katy and Paul and their two kids.

We put the littles to bed and stayed up talking and laughing.

Paul and his brother invented a little game you might have heard of called Words With Friends. It was fascinating to hear the story of how they created the game and the risks they took to make their dream come true.  

Our kids played so well together. I loved seeing them have so much fun with new friends.

Thom was in heaven hanging out with a family that understands his game obsession. He had just started playing Words With Friends with his cousin a few weeks ago.  

I often wonder what my life would be like without the internet. I love that I can make new friends anywhere in the world. I love that if I am having a good day or a bad day I can simply pick up my phone or sit at my computer and tell a friend about it. 

Because, after all, having words with friends and family is what life is all about.

Connection.

This Katy girl is already the type of friend you can go make-up less and braless around. She could walk in my house, and open my fridge, and get herself a coke, and kick off her shoes, and plop down on my couch, and tell me a story, and it would be as if she and I had been friends since childhood.

Is it rare to find a new friend like that? I think so, but the internet helps.

Thanks Katy and Paul!

I'm working on pictures from the workshops. Hopefully I will have them up later this week.

me too

This piece was inspired by the art of Magic Jelly. We share a love of anything vintage.

I have this friend name Brene Brown. You might know of her. She's become pretty well known over the last few years.  She studies shame and vulnerability.  Sounds morbid, but she's not at all a morbid person. Quite the opposite.

Anyway, a few months back I had somebody leave a mean comment here on the blog and it really upset me. So I tweeted some vague thing about hating being so vulnerable and hurt. Brene sent me a direct message that basically just said she hates it too.

Earlier this week somebody left a nasty comment for Brene. Really mean stuff about her appearance that had nothing to do with the message she was giving.  It upset her. So I direct messaged her that, yeah, it sucks. It happens to me too.

Another really good friend sent me a text saying that her life has completely changed since she started connecting with other people through social media.  She lives in a very small town. She never realized there was a whole world of women out there struggling with the same stuff she struggles with.

Social media is a double edged sword. As you read this, I'm guessing there are other things you should be doing. Chores. It's easy to waste a lot of time online. Believe me, I have internet loafing down to a science. 

But I believe the good of having the internet out weighs the bad because of one big reason that tips the scales.

Connection.

I live half my life in total fear of rejection.  I care. I wish I didn't. I wish I could blow off nasty comment and people who don't like me. (Bastards.) 

But I can't.  I care.

And it really helps me to know that other people are as scared as I am.  It helps to know that other mothers worry about not being what their kids need them to be. It helps to know that other artists hold their breath when they put their art out for other people to see.

I have met so many wonderful people through the internet. I have friends from all over the globe. That thought makes me so happy.  I have learned things I never would have discovered if I didn't connect via the world wide web.

For me, the real value in having this network of amazing people is that I constantly hear those precious words: me too.

I've learned to be very picky about what I expose myself to on the web. There are so many beautiful blogs out there, that look like the nuclear family living in a Pottery Barn catalog eating food made by Wolfgang Puck everyday.  I'm looking for authenticity.  I much prefer the blogs where the children are running around the  backyard in their diapers and the mom is still in her pajamas at two in the afternoon. Because, you see, this tells me that I'm not the only freak living in a world of normal people.  

This is not to say that I don't like pretty. I do. I try to surround myself with beauty. It's just that at my stage of life, beauty is peppered with dirty diapers and peanut butter on the bar stools. 

So today, I just want to say to you, me too.  I'm scared and vulnerable and half looney. It's not just you.

This is Brene talking about all this stuff in her second TED talk she did a few months ago.  She's says it so much better than I ever could.

I decided to bump the final workshop class post in order to write about this because it's been heavy on my mind. You can learn more about Prospector Artisan Letterpress class on Friday!