I’m blogging at alexiapetrakos.com.

I coach creatives and new creative entrepreneurs at thrivecreativecoaching.com.

And I still do a bit of WordPress consulting at wpchick.com.

Hope to see you around!

He’s ramping up for his new business coaching program that’s set to launch July 22nd. I’m rather interested. It seems I’m becoming somewhat of an entrepreneur and I have LOTS to learn. I think coaching is the next step for me – as I have tons of ideas but I usually flake on the implementation.

I’ve also been seriously considering becoming a coach. A creativity coach to be more specific. Someone who comes along creatives and helps them be the best artist they can be. Yeah, cheesy but I do like the idea.

My first step is to be coached first. I’ve not really been through any life coaching so it seems like that would be a great place to start. There’s a 12-week group coaching program I’ll be starting in August, so I’ll get exposure to the process as one-who-is-coached and see if it’s something I’d like to do myself.

Next, I can probably start coaching for free. The certification process is really all about training and not so much certification from what I understand. There is no regulatory body as there is for psychologists (which is one of the reasons why I haven’t gone on to grad school for counseling), so pretty much anyone can call themselves a coach.

In fact, I already do. I recently started a new biz helping folks figure out the intricacies of WordPress since I’m knee-deep in it most days anyway.

The training I’m seeking will give me some tools that I don’t have already. Instead of reinventing the wheel and trying to create my own methods (although I’m sure this will come in time), I can begin learning some established, tried & tested tools that will help me in my future practice. Two places I’m looking at are the International Coaching Academy & the Creativity Coaching Association‘s certification program.

One step at a time. I’m one who likes to dive in head-first, but money is a huge hurdle for me with either choice above. It’s not cheap, but I hear that the processes you learn with both are helpful, and you’re plugged into a community of coaches for support in building your coaching biz & further education.

Either way you slice it, I think this is my next step!

6 pounds down, total of 6 inches lost.
Walking almost every day with the hubster, too – about 2 miles.

So far I’m doing pretty well. My body’s finally responding appropriately to my new eating habits & exercise. Got an ego boost as well – it’s always important to feel some success for me – I tend to get discouraged easily and tend to give up. I know I have made a commitment to check in on this blog every so often so I’m a bit less likely to stray.

Oh, and the picture is my usual lunch. This diet requires eating massive amounts of protein (for me) and eggs have always been my fall-back when I don’t want to shove 8 oz of chicken down my throat. This is a Tomato-Zucchini omelette with sprouts on top. I add some Mrs. Dash Tomato/Basil/Garlic seasoning when scrambling the eggs and it makes for a rather tasty omelette. Add some toast w/ some light butter & it’s a meal!

I’ve pinpointed it to 3 things:

• Stress: due to the 15-ton 35+ foot 100 year old tree that fell in our yard and has been hovering over our neighbor’s house since Monday morning
• PMS: self-explanatory
• Cheerios: I never realized Cheerios has sugar as it’s 3rd ingredient. Crud

I spent a little time wallowing in my self-pity for gaining back those 3.25 pounds, but I’m not going to give up in my first week…

*photo by annette

I’ve said it before but I think this is it – this is the time I’m going to keep it off. I’ve been struggling with my weigh since I can remember – health-nut mom gave me slim-fast shakes at 10 years old (!). No wonder I have such a freakish relationship with food & my body.

So I’m at the tail end of the 3-day prep period which looks VERY much like the 3-day prep on an Atkins diet. All the meat you can eat cooked in whatever fats you want and all the greens you can shove down your gullet. To counteract some of the starch/sugar withdrawal they add one orange plus their frankenfood supplements to the mix, but it’s essentially the same. So far I’m down 3.25 pounds which is a good start. I know it’s probably water weight, although I’m drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day, but for a psychological boost, you can’t beat it.

Tomorrow I begin “Plan IV” – 3 servings of starch, 8oz milk, 3 fruit, 4 veg & 2 portions of lean protein plus their frankenfoods.

This is the inaugural weight loss post mainly because I need accountability. If I know I’m going to be posting at least once a week about my progress on top of reporting 3x a week to the center, then I’ll be more likely to stick to it.

Here’s to my new Weight Blather category… *cheers*

*Photo by peter_w

One step closer to getting done. gotta get myself in the art-making habit… I know that if I don’t make art on a regular (if not daily) basis, I become sluggish, bored, depressed and useless. I’ll keep updating as I progress on this painting.

btw – the look I’m going for is my art journaling crossed with traditional iconography. I think it’s going to be great.

For my final project I’m painting. So far I haven’t been able to complete the very last discussion questions though not for lack of thought & copious amounts of writing & re-writing. I decided to put that on hold & paint. I’m not quite done yet but here it is in progress:

It’s called “Fully Alive” – from the quote from Iraneus of Lyons “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

I’m going to paint an icon-like halo around the figure using the colors traditionally associated with the Trinity (gold, green, brown & blue) as found in the icon of the Trinity. God the Father is clothed in blue which represents divinity and wrapped in a shimmering gold cloak signifying that He is not visible. Jesus, the Son is clothed in brown – expressing his humanity, blue for his divinity and the gold stripe for kingship. The Spirit has blue (divinity) and green garments. New life is signified by the green.

It should be done sometime this week & I’ll post a picture of it then.

Wishcraft is celebrating 30 years in print – and has been re-printed numerous times due to the overwhelming demand for the book. Go Barbara! Anywho, she’s celebrating on her Wishcraft website with an obstacle course (and prizes!), a ‘behind the scenes’ of what lead to Wishcraft, and a photo gallery. Let’s see what the next month has in store!

I’m quite a bit late on my assignment for the third week of this course, but as my brain wasn’t functioning at all last week as it was fuzzy with a cold that lasted 7 days, I couldn’t get much done. Excuses out of the way, here are my thoughts about what it means to be FULLY human.

Those of us who are Christian or have had any exposure to the Christian faith knows that one of the essentials (hah!) is that we are created in God’s image. In Genesis 2:17 God creates man out of dust, in in his image. What this really means is that just like a daughter has inherited some of the characteristics of her parents, so we who are children of God have inherited bit of God’s personality. He is the Creator, so we are endowed with the characteristics of creativity – we take what is here, what God has already created and make something new, or explain it using words, or even dissect it and describe how it works.

As Dan Wilt said in a video I saw, the worst thing society has done recently is convince us that only some people are creative. The ones who paint or write or play music. Everyone else is just not creative. I would like to find out when this untruth began, but the fact is we are all creative. Every last one of us. The mere fact that we can synthesize information, find new ways to calculate the distances between stars (again, from Dan’s video), to figure out solutions to business problems, to do someone’s taxes – all of this requires a creative brain – not just the right-brain activities like drawing and writing poetry – but left-brain stuff like math and logic are creative. Problem solving is the synthesis of seemingly unrelated ideas. Child-rearing is a creative endeavor. To help a child become a fully-functioning adult takes a great dose of creativity.

One of the things I truly enjoy is helping people realize they are creative. I teach art and craft classes and to see the look in someone’s eyes after they make something they never thought they could… gives me chills. I know this is God – I know this is my calling…