Ugh. You just can’t get in the right place to write. Can’t find the energy to start working on the empty canvas collecting dust in the corner. When your boss approaches you with another list of projects that make your head want to explode. When the list of things you have to do pushes all the things you want to do down to the very bottom of the page.

When your friends seem far and your family even further.

You just can’t do it. You can’t even.

Now I tell you ten ways to make this go away! Like all great blog content I solve your problems with simple solutions to fix your everyday slump. Just like every popular youtube tutorial, I’ll transform your life into the shiny, stylish, sparkly thing that it is supposed to be.

Ah, if only.

This blog isn’t about fixing, and Simple Unity isn’t about perfection. I know things are rarely ever simple, and communities, more often than not...

This past weekend was my lovely sister’s bachelorette party. It was a much needed time for a group of very diverse, very loud, very fun group of girls to get away from our daily routines. There was lots of alcohol, a few fights, some pretty cool dance moves, a tear or two, but more laughter than I’ve heard in quite some time. On my flight back to San Diego I had time to digest the weekend and reflect on how lucky I am to have a sister who loves deeply and has so many that love her back, each in their own special ways.

Moving is lonely. Even with my husband, starting over in this new place has been nothing short of challenging. The weather is fantastic, the beaches are beautiful, and San Diego is great. But what you forget about home is the comfort of calling up your best friend and being able to meet for lunch the next day. The freedom of stopping in at your favorite lunch spot and...

I attended a Writing Workshop by Pixar veteran Matthew Luhn last Friday. My mind is still reeling from the cool people I met, the amazing tips I learned about storytelling, and the fact that I got to hang out with someone who animated and worked in the writers room of Pixar for 20 years.

Meeting experts in creativity never ceases to remind me why I am working to become one as well. The advice they give is always so simple yet so true to the art they’ve brought into the world. Just like I met Imagineer Rolly Crump a couple weeks back I love to takeaway quotes, write them down and store in my mind when the creative juices have dried up. Matt didn’t give me just one quote but six pages of notes about storytelling that will take me quite some time to wrap my head around. He also drew me Carl from UP which is currently sitting on display in my home. Every time I look at him I feel...

Start looks like a weird word all by itself. It is usually accompanied by concrete action words. Start running. Start cleaning. Start over. Start all by itself allows the brain to jump to much deeper meanings. Start living, start doing, start believing. It can be powerful, game changing. But often times it is plain overwhelming.

Starting over in a new city. Starting the first year of marriage. Starting in general. The amount of energy that you even have to build up just to start anything can be a lot of work. It took me years to finally start a business I dreamed about since I was 10 years old. Start. When it’s so much easier to just stop. Lay down. Forget it.

Lately I’ve been caught up in getting my business started, measuring my success by the amount of likes, followers & shares that I get. It’s been harder than any other job I’ve had. I think entrepreneurship and startups have...

Last night I attended the Oceanside Film Festival and got to see a lot of great films, some not so great, but I appreciated the effort and the art of filmmaking. The first film was a documentary on Rolly Crump, the creative genius that had a huge hand in designing the Haunted Mansion & It’s a Small World at Disneyland. This man worked right along side Walt Disney and described how clear of a vision Walt always had, even if all of his designers couldn’t see it at the time. It always amazes me to learn about greats like Walt & Steve Jobs, people that see brilliant creativity a mile away in a dark corner and find a way to incorporate it into the big picture. It gave me hope that I could possibly have a boss one day that advocates for the weird, the creative, the different, and make it into something much greater than I could ever imagine.

Back to Rolly, Walt saw that he had these strange...

This next week through my new business, Simple Unity, I will be posting about Creativity. Creativity is a favorite topic of mine because I have grown to dedicate much of my time to it. In other words, creativity has everything to do with my new brand Simple Unity. I have spent years learning to create through fashion design, floral design, costume design, writing, painting, drawing, reading, traveling, exploring & on & on & on. I’ve read amazing books like Big Magic by Liz Gilbert & Creativity Inc. I love the subject. I love creating. My favorite thing about creativity? It’s so cool to see how everyone creates in different ways. I hate that others try to box people in as creative types or not. Marketing takes creativity, believe it or not Accounting takes creativity. Whenever you have to think outside the box to solve a problem, that’s creativity! I just love it.

So this next week I...

It’s strange to have time on your hands. I’m so used to time going too fast, not enough time, limited time to do the things I want. Out here feels slow. Everything moves slow. Everyone moves slow. There’s been mornings I wake up with my heart pounding, thinking how much there is to get done today. But it’s all a shadow of the past year, a time where it didn’t matter how early I got up, I never accomplished my to do list. A wedding will do that to you.

I bask in time, in the sunshine that seems to endlessly shine out here. Every day a perfect, endless summer day. It sounds like a dream, and to some it may be. It is so strange to search for ways to spend the time. I am aware this will change, that I will find commitments to make. That all moves start out slow. I am trying to learn to value this time I am given to be slow. To edit my life, to makeover the parts that have fallen apart...

Over a week ago I moved to Chula Vista, California. Every single day is sunny and beautiful. We, as in Nathan and I, are surrounded by every possible store we could ask for with a beach less than an hour away. It’s strange to be here and have so much free time. I went from planning a wedding while working multiple part time jobs to this place where I can literally sit pool side all day long and no one would think twice about it. It’s a strange balance, to feel needed or overwhelmed. To feel you have too little to do versus way too much to do. I have to remind myself to go through old creative projects I let fall by the wayside during the last couple years and pick them back up while I have the time. To write again, create again, paint again. It’s harder than I thought it would be, picking up the creative side of myself and letting the busy body go. Focusing on the time I have now and...

She sat in an empty room. Not just empty of people, but empty of things, empty of feelings, empty of awareness of space and time. She hugged her knees in close to her chest and lowered her forehead onto them. She felt the skin of her knees to the skin of her forehead, which calmed her for as far back as she could remember. The lovely pale pink skirt of her dress fell around her. Her long dark blonde hair rested in waves on her back. If she could only feel as empty as this room maybe she could bare the rest of this day. But she felt far from empty. She sat full of anger and sadness, fear and disappointment. She would gladly give a lot of these emotions to feel empty. It took everything out of her to feel so many ways at once. Not only was she full of emotion she sat full of memories. Memories that were so lovely they hurt to think about. Memories of deep love, sincerity and a family that...