Adventure bound - 2017 here we go

For some people, all they want for Christmas are two front teeth, or a hippopotamus, for others, it's an adventure. Put us in the last category.

When we sold our house in the spring of (now) last year, we were intending to send the Universe a message loud and clear that we are now ready for a new adventure. Sign us up, let's go. Not really knowing what we signed up for.

Then we sat around and waited in our new temporary apartment.  For a while that was great. We needed some down time. After finishing up the house and selling it, we were so drained. So we just let our hair hang down for a good long while. It felt so good actually. My hair likes to be down.

We had leased the apartment for 9 months. Cooking up a new adventure can't take longer than making more people, can it?

Nothing happened.

People started asking: So where are you moving next? Which areas are you looking at? But of course we didn't know. We were listening for the Universe to tell us and the Universe was keeping more tight-lipped than a Wall Street banker appearing before Congress.

We went about our business and just kept trusting the process. A fabulous exercise in patience. Dear God, please give me patience and I want it NOW kind of deal.

Crickets.

Then after a few months, in the late summer time, I met a new very shiny human being through mutual friends.

Let's call her a spiritual advisor intuitive life coach. Her name is Michelle and you can find her here. She is so very amazing.

I called her up for a discussion to hear what the hold up was with the Universe and all. You know, like you usually do.

She said that she couldn't 'see' me. There was definitely something going on. Cloudiness. Negative energy. We need to clear that out. I will be right over!!

A few days later she came over and did a whole house smudging with sage. I have never had any of those done before. It was quite lovely. It was sort of like a space clearing if you are familiar with them, which I have done a few times.

This was just a few days before we went on our month long trip to Denmark.

(A swan mom in Denmark with her almost grown kids. I could totally relate. The ducklings look like they are getting their driver license soon too - gasp. I can tell Swan mom is quietly stoic on the outside but completely freaking out on the inside)

So we didn't really get to enjoy the full effect of the clearing until we returned back home.

Frank returned two weeks before me and I did notice quite some activity in terms of going through the honey-do-list. After B and I returned home I slowly started noticing my energy perking up as well.

Over the summer, I had grown immensely tired of the main stream coverage of the election - especially through Facebook, so I had swiped Facebook off my screen and took a very long break. In the new empty slot on my phone, I added Youtube and I began watching nail art, brush lettering tutorials as well as illustrator tutorials.

The nail art and hand lettering eventually produced this piece which I thought was so much fun. In 2017 I want to practice hand lettering even more. I love it.

But the Illustrator tutorials ... it was almost magic. I can not tell you how many times over the years I have tried to become really good at illustrator but kept failing. I was proficient, sure, but I just could not put the final pieces together. I would do a series of commands and it would work, then I would do it again and produce a completely different result. It felt like trying to touch a house of cards without it falling, but it always did. So frustrating. But this time. This time it was totally different. The right tutorials just seemed to appear in my feed right as I was wondering about a specific question. It went so well that I have now completely changed my workflow for when I design websites.

Then, as you may know, In March, I had split my website Shift Ctrl Art into three new sites: A Home for Design (the one you are reading now), A Home for Crafts and A Home for Food. I had made some logos in March as well but I wasn't satisfied with them. Now, as I was feeling all this inspirational energy, I sat down with all my notes and scribbles as I had done countless times, but this time the new logos just came to me. Schwisjjjj. There they were. And here they are. A mix of fonts and hand drawings.

Her are just a few of the projects I made:

You can find all my craft projects here.

So with all this new found energy, what was it again with our new adventure you ask. Wheel it in already, right?.

Let me fill you in.

It turned out to be a really

Merry Christmas for us as a new opportunity presented itself right as we were settling in for the holidays.

Frank got a new job and it is out of state, so we will also be moving!!!

Wait, what? Where, when?

This will be a goodbye to California for now (where we had our golden egg 'B' 16 years ago. I remember having such a pull to go to California in 2001 and as soon as we got here I got pregnant with the fabulousness that is now known as B here on the blog. He is excited about the move too. Cautiously optimistic even. Teen style.) We will be back for visits of course.

Now, we are headed up to Seattle and when I say soon, I mean fantastically soon. Like as soon as you can almost imagine.

Our plan is to get up there to a temporary apartment but with a very short lease. It will probably be a furnished apartment situation while we go house hunting. All the details are still being worked out as we speak.

If you know any good areas for house hunting up there, do let us know.

The Universe really came through for us in a major way and we are filled with immense gratitude.

We can't wait to see what this will all become.

Adventure bound. That's were we are headed.

I am already very excited for 2017!