VIDEO Debut – Watch the 30×30 Project Unfold

30×30 List: Living Life Before The Lottery Video Debut

Gearing up for the publishing world, check out the 30×30: Living Life Before the Lottery video.

 30×30 List: Living Life Before The Lottery Video

30×30 List: Publishing Project
Click Here For Video

As in life in general, the 30×30 list/project/book has been experienced and is coming in stages. I think that’s designed on purpose. Maybe if everything happened all at once we wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So as I delve deeper into the 30×30 book publishing project and the world of book publishing, I am finding that this too comes in stages. Stage one, write the dang thing. Check. Stage two, read it. Check check. Stage three, find an editor, layout guy, author community, and book publishing gurus to tell you about all the other unknown stages and parts needed to actually birth a book. Check and check. Stage four…do it.

Wait. I got stuck on that one. The doing it part actually involves stage 3.5, find funding. So on that note, I have started a Kickstarter project for any and all who want to be a part of the publishing journey. Publishing is not a solo act. As soon as Kickstarter approves and publishes my 30×30 project (any day now), I’ll have exactly 30 days to fundraise the $8,500 it’s going to take to get this thing off the ground and in print. Kickstarter is an all or nothing thing. I either raise all of the $8,500 needed in 30 days or I get nothing. Daunting? Maybe to some. I did the math, and if every one of my Facebook friends donated $33.46, I’d be on my way to the printers. Cakewalk. (Ok, we all know it’s a little more complicated than that, because not every one of my Facebook friends has $33.) Personally, I think it’s quite fitting that the 30×30 book project has 30 days to raise the dough to do it. So let the kickstarting fundraising games begin! I can’t wait to high five my supporters and backers I continue on in the next stage and next chapter of this 30×30 journey.

Check out the video.

http://animoto.com/play/sGpPf0lBzAVcHRBElGmJww

And hunt for the 30×30 project within the next few days on http://www.kickstarter.com

Be sure to let me know what you think. I love thought bubbles.

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Phone Sensitivity – Guilty.

While at a Christmas cookie party I found myself barraged with questions which later led me on a journey of self-reflection. It’s funny how something that seems so simple on the surface can be so fully loaded underneath. There are several things on the “Next List” that fit into that category. Without knowing the backstory, they look pathetically easy and almost like a cheap check-off. This is the case with #13, “Kiss goodbye to the dreaded Blackberry.”

This is how I roll…don’t be jealous.

One fabulous and lovely girl at the party started innocently poking fun at my cell phone (as she should, it’s a sad beat-up little Blackberry from the ancient days), and I was quite amused and rather relieved when a long-time girlfriend stepped in and ever-so-sweetly yet protectively said, “Uh, uh. Ash is a little sensitive about her phone. Leave her alone.”

This goes far beyond new tech phone jealousy. Much deeper than affordability or upgrade eligibility. I’ve been eligible for a fancy phone upgrade for months. So why the delay? Why the sensitivity? Why not just cross that off the list and get it over with?

Because in my world, it’s not that easy. I wish it were.

Little backstory: First and foremost I had a Blackberry for work back in the day when it was still cool to do so. At the beginning of the year I had given up the yucka Blackberry when a loving and generous boyfriend bought me a new state-of-the-art fancy pants phone when he asked to merge phone plans. Cute. It was a random act of kindness that meant a lot to me. I wish the story stopped there. I’m not a tech person, and it took me a long time to succumb to the Apple bug when I bought a Mac for photo editing purposes. I loved that someone would see the need and step up and take care of it for me, not because I couldn’t do it myself, but because they were willing and wanting to do so. There is just something so beautiful when someone shows they are paying attention and that they care.

Fast forward several months and I am sitting front row at a funeral and later canceling the account and returning to the store the very gift that once made me smile and feel so cherished. Going back to the yucka Blackberry stung in so many ways that I can’t even describe without fighting back tears. And as painful a reminder it is and as desperately needed a new one may be, I somehow just can’t bring myself to purchase one for myself. I wish I could. I’ve even walked into the AT&T store multiple times telling myself that “this is the day,” and have walked out empty handed every time. Maybe some day I’ll be successful. Maybe a small part of me wishes that somebody, anybody else, will be kind enough to know me well enough to be strong–and care enough–to take that bullet for me (because I evidently am not strong enough to do it myself.) But today is not that day.

It does not make it any easier that just a few weeks ago I sat on a friend’s couch catching up with a bunch of giggling girls and looked around and saw that all three girls sitting around me had not just fancy new phones, but iPhones. Of course I would notice them. When I salivated and oogled their new toys like they were candy I couldn’t and shouldn’t touch, I winced to find out that each girl had been given the phone as a gift by their significant other. Random acts of kindness in action. The salt in the wound was when all three acted as if it weren’t a big deal at all. I heard multiple times, “I didn’t even really need one, he just did it. I don’t even know how to use it.” Ouch.

So at the cookie party when I awkwardly fell silent and turned red in the cheeks, I was grateful to not have to answer or defend my questionable taste in phones. The fact that I’m even able to talk about it now to the “public” is for me, a really big deal and a huge step in an attempt to hopefully someday be able to cross off #13 on the list. In my world, this is not just  simply “time to get a new phone,” it really is for so many reasons something I need to have the courage to kiss goodbye. Anyone can purchase a new phone. It’s not hard. But when it comes to supposedly “easy #13” on my Next List, it IS hard for me and I really do have to kiss it goodbye. And if I am the one that has to go in and make that big girl purchase, then quite honestly I’m just not ready to do that yet. For now, it stays on the list.

One Frustrated Cookie

Can You Identify?

Ever had a dream drop down in your heart that you know you were to do, to have, or to experience? It’s actually quite scary when it happens, because the excitement of living out the dream can drown in the very realistic possibility of it not happening. And who wants to live with an unfulfilled dream? Maybe that’s why some people crush it before it can even begin to take shape. Sometimes we think that it’s easier to not even start than to take the risk beginning something we don’t know how to finish.

Destiny and fate are words that don’t quite describe it accurately, but the feeling is something along those lines. It’s that nagging feeling of a dream that just won’t die, no matter how dyer the circumstances seem. The scary part happens when you just can’t see, reason, or figure out how it’ll happen, but you know deep down that it’s on its way and it’s for you.

That’s faith, my friend. Believing in something that you can’t see, feel, or touch…but believing nonetheless.

That’s how I feel about several things in my life, but mostly about this stinkin’ 30×30 book. More than anything I know, that I know, that I know I’m to write this 30×30 book and get it out there. There have been many many moments when I want to throw my hands up in the air in utter defeat. I’m not sure I even want to any more, but that deep down gut feeling that I’m to do this just won’t let me go. Barf!

The struggle lies not just in the writing, but in the actual producing and publishing processes that I know absolutely nothing about. I’m just me, who am I to write a book? Let alone how to publish it. And who am I to give any type of advice to other people…it’s not like my life’s in order or that I have everything figured out.

But when we’re given a dream and a vision, it’s in the pushing forward when we don’t have it all figured out that breakthroughs happen. It’s in doing what we can and trusting that God will come through in the things we cannot. And that’s where I sit right now with this book dream.

As I move forward in this book project my head spins with ISBN’s, layout, editing, websites, marketing plans, and of course…funding. All things I don’t have the slightest clue in. So as a little peek under the tent, I’m in the process of putting together a Kickstarter fundraising project to kickstart the final stages of what needs to happen to get this book dream out and in print. All I have to say is, I don’t know exactly how, but I know it’ll happen. Stay tuned for more on that as I put the pieces together. It’s coming…

I read something this week that hit home in my heart. “We often think receiving what we’ve been guaranteed ought to be a cakewalk, but Scripture shows the opposite is more often true. The most profound things God promised were often fulfilled against the greatest of odds and through the most difficult of hardships. To God, faith is often the point–God does nothing cheaply. Perhaps the divine nature of a promise fulfilled guarantees its expense. We may receive a hundred unexpected things from God with delightful ease while the fulfillment of some of the things we believe He promises us proves virtually impossible. You see, the impossibility is what makes the fulfillment of the promise fall under the God category. God makes promises man simply can’t keep.” — Beth Moore, The Patriarchs

So on that note, all I have to say is that I’m hanging on to this book dream…along with several others. Quite honestly I’ve had it for a while but I just didn’t, and don’t, know exactly what to do with it. I feel that God dropped this book idea into my heart for a reason and come hell or high water, it’ll happen! Who am I to let my fears and doubts stop God from doing His thing. There are some behind-the-scenes reasons why this book project seems impossible, but I am so glad to know that I am hooked up with the One who specializes in the impossible. Can’t wait to see how this whole thing plays out.

One day there will be a book in print. And then I am going to throw a party.

Thankful for random fortunes that make me smile. How did it know? Thanks cookie.

QUOTABLE QUOTES FROM PEOPLE MUCH SMARTER THAN I:

• “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.“ – Walt Disney
• “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.“ – T. E. Lawrence
• “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.“ – Saint Augustine
• “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.“ – Henry David Thoreau
• “All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.“ – Martin Luther
• “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re goin’, and hook up with them later.“ – Mitch Hedberg

Saying Yes to Loonies n’ Toonies

Saying Yes to Loonies n’ Toonies

Canada invited me up to visit…and I said yes.

Ok, that’s not exactly what happened. What really occurred was an out-of-the-blue invite from a long-time friend to join her for a long weekend up in Vancouver after she saw “Canadian Passport Stamp” on my Next List blog. What a pleasant surprise! I could’ve come up with a million reasons why I shouldn’t and couldn’t go. Instead, I dusted off my documents, set the date, and before I knew it we were giggling on the plane.

This reminds me of a lesson learned from my original 30×30 list…when given the opportunity, jump. Some things go in the “just because I can” category, and this particular cross-off is one of them. More than one item on my 30×30 list was crossed off simply by saying yes when it was time to say yes.  The funny thing is, once my list was officially created, written down, and communicated and not just some idea in my head, opportunities started coming out of the woodwork to actually do them. The thing is, you just never know if and when the opportunity will arise again. Some of the best things in life happen when you choose to say yes when you could’ve said no.

“Some of the best things in life happen when you choose to say yes when you could’ve said no.”

In this particular case, my friend’s parents were temporarily stationed in the heart of Vancouver for a project for the next 6 months and were open for a visit from their lovable daughter…and apparently her friend. (That would be me. Growing up I was kind of the Kimmie Gibler of this family, and I guess even in adulthood nothing really changed. Maybe I’ll expand more on that some other time!) What it ultimately boiled down to was the fact that more than likely I would never have an opportunity to experience Canada quite like this ever again. The excuses had to go.

And I am so glad they did. Over the course of the trip I can now say that I’ve added a Canadian stamp to my passport (little mini lesson: you have to actually ask the customs agent for this…and hope you get a nice one), managed to purchase a Canadian lotto ticket, had a coffee in Whistler and waved to the Olympic rings, have officially eaten a Timbit, experienced a Canadian aquabus, molested some nice Canadian statues, walked over 14 miles in one day while playing tourist at the breathtakingly beautiful Stanley Park, and now know what loonies and toonies are. (For those of you who don’t know, loonies and toonies are Canadian money. Yeah, I didn’t know that either and quite honestly find the money titles a little amusing too.)

More than anything this was an opportunity to take a breath, nab a passport stamp, bust out my camera, say hello to some long-time friends, and enjoy a different part of the world I’ve never been to before in a way I will probably never get to experience again.

And all because I said yes.

True Loonies and Toonies. No joke.

View from the apartment – hello Vancouver.

Whistler – Olympic Plaza

Timbits – and they come in pumpkin!

Don’t ask. No comment.

Welcome back. Why thank you!