I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I’m supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

Now I’m old and feeling grey. I don’t know what’s left to say about this life I’m willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there’s many tales I’ve lived to tell. I’m ready now, I’m ready now, I’m ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream

The car ride home was even different. Our wedding was 3 hours away from our home so we had a bit of a drive to think and talk. We got to a certain part in our trip where we had no cell phone service, no lights around ANYWHERE. Internet, we were in the plain back road COUNTRY! I paused from our conversation to gaze out my window. The blanket of stars were astonishing!  I wish we could just pull over and star gaze with each other , I casually mentioned. See my last post, I said I was going to do that! Jared quickly pulled over on the side of the road and just stopped. I looked at him with an excited and confused face. We JUST DID IT. He opened the sun-roof and I stood on my warm leather seats to take a better look at the sky. Wow. I have never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. Never have I been able to see SO many stars in the sky.

We decided, Hey we’re already stopped. Lets get out and take a picture!! So we did.

We set up our tripod, secured the camera and pointed straight up. Now, Im not a professional at taking pictures of stars but I think my very first shot was a money maker! I set the settings I thought would capture it best and clicked the shutter. 30 second shutter felt like it was quite a long time. Especially standing on the side of the road next to a cemetery. I leaned into Jared for some warmth while we stood there quietly and patiently just letting life happen. And we enjoyed it. Together.

Life is too short. Stop and take pictures of your memories!  

I woke up today from enduring an agonizing yesterday of hurt, rejection and depression. Like it was out of a movie, it was raining on a dark day for me. I sat to myself thinking, praying, considering, re-evaluating, deciding, re-deciding, and failing. My list of dreams, achievements I want for myself and life-time goals were floating around in my head. With everything great that came, fear over-lapped it. Telling me, YOU ARENT GOOD ENOUGH and HA! You think you can be like THAT person, FORGET IT! They out work you and out love you by 1000 times!! I fought and fought and fought with this fear inside of my head. Trying multiple times I asked it to stop. Too politely obviously. It still came back. It never left me alone for one moment of my day. Or in the past several weeks, but yesterday was the bottom. And the end.

This morning I sat behind my desk writing out my list of fears. Dear Internet, one of my fears is allowing people to see into me too clearly. To find something out about me that makes me not as cheerful and bubbly as I come across. I’m afraid of sharing MY personal feelings. But today that ends. I will be laying out my list of fears for everyone to read and to see. To see into me more clearly and get to know me so beyond my confident front.

Here goes nothing….

I’m afraid of…..

• Looking dumb
• Wasting my time, and others time
• What people say about me. Is it positive or negative?
• Discouraging comments. I don’t try a lot of new things because, OH MY what if this person, who I barely know, doesn’t like it? That’s changing.
• Disapproval from the ones I admire and look up to
• Working hard and not making it to my standards of success
• Not having money to allow me to make it to my standards of success
• Debt. I hate owing anything to anyone. I’m in a lot of it. Not just money, but to people who have extended their greatness and love to me.
• Taking bad pictures. That’s right. There is a little voice constantly inside my head telling me “that wasn’t good enough, try again”
• Not performing my best. Some days I just don’t feel like being upbeat. I’m afraid my clients will be able to tell.
• Losing my creativity. I focus too much on a clients standard check list. Aren’t I hired for my creativity???
• Making the wrong decision. Letting go of my fear, taking a risk, and it not working out.
• Losing everything. Everything we’ve worked hard at building up. One day it could all be for nothing.
• Not being the “salesman” business standards ask of you. I couldn’t sell fire to a freezing Eskimo if I had to.
• Letting go some of my work flow to better myself in other areas. I’m a micro-manager and that has to STOP!
• Sticking behind my prices. So many people try to talk you down on cost, cut your confidence and point out why they wont pay that kind of money. I fall into a place of believing them. That stops NOW.
• Feeling like I’m worth something. I’m different. I know that. I can offer a personality and service that no one else can. But Im afraid to express that to its fullness.
• Being alone. Literally, being alone. I cant stand it.
• Un-happy clients. I work beyond my capabilities to make someone happy. People tugging at me all directions. One person gets left un-happy and it haunts me.
• Unanswered emails. I often get told “thanks for the quick reply!” because my email app on my i-Phone rules me. I hear it ding and like a trained animail, I jump to answer. It has me working all hours of the night. Scheduled time for answering emails starts NOW. All client emails will and should be answered in a 24 hour time frame.
• Not being available 24/7 for someone who needs me. I love being there for others. Taking time for myself is hard when someone else is in need of an ear or a hand.
• Giving up comfort for a risk.
• Giving up a good thing for a possibility at a GREAT thing.
• Losing love and fun.
• Being worn out, grumpy and unhappy
• To be confident in myself. Proud of myself.
• Of sharing my deepest desires and wants.
• Of opening my mind, thoughts and crazy dreams to anyone but my husband (kind of can check this one off due to this blog post)
• Investing. Or so they call it. So much money wasted on workshops that were a waste of time. (See above fear of wasting time as well)
• Flying. I HATE FLYING. I die a little inside every time I fly.
• Regretting my inability to due greatness and over-come fears when I’m older. I don’t want to be 70 and thinking “What if I would have just LET GO!!!”

It took me only 25 minutes to think of this many fears I have circling my mind in my everyday life. I’m sick of the brick wall standing in my way to be something great. I wrote down all of these fears in my journal and will have a burning ceremony this evening to letting them all go. NO LONGER will I hold back when I have something crazy I want to do. I will love deeper, fight stronger and kick fear right where it counts. I will travel, discover, accomplish and be crazy. I will lay in tall grass with my love by my side counting stars. I will try new business ideas and if they fail. SO WHAT? Other people think I’m crazy? SO STINKIN’ WHAT? I will make decisions that might be wrong. But, you never know until you try.

LET GO of whatever is holding you back from being something great. Dont let someone tell you that you CANT do something. Life is too short to be cut down and scared of what others think. Most importantly. Life is too short not to LOVE unconditionally and to not offer an unending forgiveness. I challenge you to make a list of your own fears. Share them. Create a plan to destroy them and BURN THEM! Go out and do something great for someone today.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT!!!

The photo on the left displays what comes Straight Out Of Camera (SOOC). The photo on the right displays Sassy Pants. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments!

We are so excited to start using Sassy Pants on a regular basis!! It gives the images exactly what we feel it should!

Jared hopped off the swing that was hanging from the oak tree. What a crafty husband I have. I love the country styled swing he built for me. With a beverage to relax him from the day in one hand he supported his body weight with the other to plop down next to me on the blanket. Right there. In that moment. Was perfection. I lifted my head to his thigh for better support and we both gazed up into the on coming-thunder baring-storm. We glanced at each other with little smirks and both commented on how beautiful this moment was. We talked about our future together and all the goals in life we both wanted to accomplish. We joked about the day and how we accidentally had just walked 4 miles by getting lost in our new neighborhood. Then comes Dash. Dash was jealous that his mommy and daddy were having a moment of time with just each other to cuddle with. He nudged himself as close as he could into the cracks between us afraid of being left out. Yes Dash, we see you there. We started laughing some more when I began feeling little drops of rain on my forehead. We hopped up quickly and looked out into the wall of rain that was roaring our way. Gathering up our blankets and tossing them into the porch the rain fell down harder. This time it didn’t feel like sprinkles it felt like little BB pellets. We hurried ourselves to make it under some shelter before we got too wet. And right at that moment we stopped. And kissed in the rain….  

Stranger than Fiction was the film of choice and boy was it a good choice. We all sat there laughing and poking fun and just simply enjoying life outside in the country. I had a moment of excitement roll through me as I thought about how important it is to spend fun quality time with your family. Away from work, away from facebook and away from general “life”. We were livin’ and it was great. The Jacobus clan never fails to make fun memories with each other and it was great to add this to the memory bank. If you find that I don’t update as much, or you don’t find me on facebook as much, its because I’m out livin’ life how it is meant to be lived. Free, fun and in love!

The beautiful sunset we got to enjoy before the movie: