There are 96 days left…. Do you need help?

A little over 13 weeks…. just 96 short days left until April 15th.
Yes… it’s that time again.
Taxes.

Do you need help?
Are you overwhelmed with the shoeboxes full of receipts that are stuffed in the back of your closet?

I’m here for you.

First – Take a deep breath. No… really – A DEEP breath, the kind that tickles your belly button and you can feel in your toes.

Second - Squish your shoulders up as high as they can go in your neck … tighter, tighter, tighter…. okay – RELEASE!

Finally - Make ten tiny circles with your wrists and ankles…. great! Now, change directions and do ten more tiny circles.

Feel better?
Good.

Here is the good news, tax season will be easier because:

1. You have started early! – Like now. It will give you three good solid months to gather, check, double check and triple your numbers before you have to send in your return.

2. You made a donation to something! – There have unfortunately been many disasters this last year, but the good news is you can claim any charitable contributions to disaster relief as deductions! And NO, contributions to your favorite political candidate (disaster or not), are NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Only donations to federally recognized charities are deductible, here is a great IRS Charity Search Tool website to help if you have questions.

3. You made a major life change! – Get married? Move? Go back to school? Make energy saving improvements on your house? Start your own business? All of those events qualify for deductions! Yay!

4. You have investments! Don’t forget it when doing your returns, lots of good deductions. If you don’t currently have any investments, but are interested in how this could help, go here for more information, they are great, knowledgeable people ready to help you.

5. You can always contact me! – I am here for you. Even if I have to come to your house and sort through the receipts myself, I will help you through the process.

THEN

Breathe – In through the nose, slowly, deeply, and out through the mouth. Close your eyes and do it again. Scrunch your toes up when you breathe in, and relax when you breath out. In and out. Repeat

NOW.

Get up and go for a walk – Lift your arms over your head and swing them around. Walk and stretch and swing for at least 10 minutes, and tell yourself:

“I can do anything. I am amazing.”

Because you are.

Find more stress-busting tips HERE

And don’t make next year as difficult, manage your money better by following a budget. Need help with that? Check this out.

I’m obsessed with France.

Lately, I have become obsessed with France.

Perhaps because I have never been.

French food, french wine, french snark, and most recently Viva’ France in the form of Le Mis (along with sixty-billion-other-Christmas-movie-going-people).

Today in fact, I watched my favorite Al Pacino movie (Scent of a Woman) in French (it was dubbed), Amelie is next on the que.

2013 seems like a lucky year to have an obsession like this.

So, today, on this New Years Eve of 2013, I am declaring my 13 expectations for this coming year:

1.) I expect to travel to France.

2.) I expect to receive more money.

3.) I expect to continue to create more beautiful art.

4.) I expect to relearn how to play the piano.

5.) I expect to become more active in my lifestyle.

6.) I expect to continue to live a life completely full of love.

7.) I expect to travel to visit long-distance friends.

8.) I expect to do at least 4 book-signings/readings.

9.) I expect to travel somewhere tropical.

10.) I expect to learn basic conversational French (for/during my trip to France).

11.) I expect to learn conversational Spanish (for perhaps a little stop-over in Spain after I am done visiting France).

12.) I expect to continue to share delicious and healthy meals with loved ones which will nourish the soul as well as the body.

13.) I expect to smile and laugh every. single. day.

In summery, 2013 is full of happiness, travel, art, love, passion, great food and great friends. It is starting to sound like the perfect year!!  What do you expect to happen in 2013?

Because expectations are the better part of resolutions.

Dear 2013, Manifest-This!

Every year people make resolutions they don’t keep.

This year, I’d like to try something different. I”m not going to make any resolutions, I’m going to make EXPECTATIONS.  Let me explain.  A few years ago, three of my friends and I got together and created this “Manifestress” group which was the perfect excuse to meet for tea/coffee once a week.  But here was the catch, on the first meeting, each of us described – with CLARITY what we wanted our life to look like.  It could be ANYTHING your heart desired.  There were no limitations.

Then, every week after that first week when we met, everyone in the group spoke to each other AS IF THAT “WISH” WAS OUR REAL LIFE. It was immensely powerful and amazingly transformational, and I think we only met for about a month to a month and a half.

Since that meeting, EVERY SINGLE ONE of us manifested/created what we spoke about in those coffee dates.  One friend got a book publishing contract with an option for a second book, the second just recently returned from Europe where she recorded a new album and performed and the third is working her dream job in a city she loves.

This weekly coffee date was immensely powerful and changed all of our lives.

I want to do that again!

So, I am.

With 2013.

ONLINE!

And anyone can participate (the beauty of doing this online!)

We share what we EXPECT to happen in 2013, then keep each other updated as if those things have already happened (or are already happening), and watch the magic. It’s super easy!

Wanna Do it?

Shoot me a note!

We need to talk.

Yes, those dreaded four little words.
But, baby, you and me, we need to sit down and have a serious conversation.
This isn’t working.
You aren’t going to be happy over the long term.
I know, I know, it feels good right now, but …. *sigh* I just don’t see a good future.

We need to talk about your spending habits.

I am a practical sort of girl, and I love you very much. I am prepared to hold your hand through this, but we need to make some serious changes.

Baby, the debt situation is a serious issue. It is a very clear symptom of a deep seeded issue we need to address. We have got to find some balance in this whole spend/save situation.

Creating a budget isn’t rocket science, but you have to sit down and do it, AND (now, darling, this is where it could get difficult), you need to stick to it.

I know, I know, it’s a commitment issue. It’s a paycheck issue, it’s a “oh my gawd that unexpected thing just happened and I have to use my credit card” issue.

Sweetheart, a new pair of shoes isn’t an “unexpected emergency”. Neither is Christmas. I promise, no one is going to die if you don’t get them the newest, fanciest, gizmo or gadget.

Now, put those Credit Cards away.

I love you. I am here for you. But, you have to be there for yourself.

Here: This will help

How to Create Wealth (2011)

Reviews: “Easy techniques and strategies that ANYONE can use to help their finances regardless of income. So many ‘create wealth’ books only give practical advice for those who already have comfortable incomes. This books puts things in perspective for people of all income types and gives encouragement that regardless of income you can create realistic attainable goals. Fun, quick read to the point and easy to use techniques.”

“This book is so simple, so down to earth, so REAL. Yes folks, as much as I wanted something that was going to tell me how to magically manifest millions of dollars, I came to this which gave me the real tools and techniques that actually work.”

There are few books that combine the how-to tactics of budgeting with the mindset changes that are necessary to implement a new budget. “How to Create Wealth” by Rae Jones is one of the few that successfully does this.

Synopsis: Ms. Jones humorously talks about finances and budgets like she talks about diets. Almost everyone needs to work on both, but prefers to avoid the topic if at all possible. This book is full of easy to read information, worksheets and baby steps for those who think budgets are too hard to follow. Learn how you can have $20k in your pocket in 10 years. Highly recommended for anyone thinking (and/or stressing) about their money.

ISBN-13: 978-1463728007 $9.95 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 146372800X $2.99 (e-book)

Purchase Options:
Amazon
CreateSpace
IndieBound
Powells

Time Tornado.

Standing at the precipice of the end of the year, and, according to some, the impending Mayan-fueled-zombie-infecting-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it Apocalypse. It is only appropriate to take a look back. Not for just reminiscing, but also as a reminder to how far you have come. What (sometimes thorny) path you chose, clearing the way, and touching the brangle-berry scars of your flesh.

I watched a Ted Talk recently about why you are who you are. Trying always to answer the age-old question of “Know Thyself”. The gentleman speaking was talking about wristwatches. He made a good point of saying – the face of the watch is not the watch, neither is the band or the hands or even the little gears inside. But, rather, it was the entirety of all of those pieces working together which made the whole unit.

Like you. Like me. All of the individual pieces (like our job, our hobby or even our relationships) are not us. It is the entirety of the package together who makes us who we are. Working together, moving. Same as in life. We must always be in motion for all the pieces to work together. Not that this is a profound thought, but the wisdom comes from looking at all of our individual pieces and putting them into the right place, putting them in motion, in our lives to serve us the most. Making our personal life-watch the most efficient/effective/happy/wise as possible.

So, I will take a look back to before the creation of time. In the brutal strength of darkness. In the thick, inky suffocating blackness, there was a call.

Fiat Lux
Let there be light.

A call forth for the brilliant flash of light. A call to create. From my lips, my breath, to the Universe.

My RE-creation moment, my light in the darkness, my love, and my breath began in Bali, Indonesia in April of 2011.
(I wrote about it in detail in my book Breathe – pick it up, I know you will like it.)

In May of 2011 I began to write, and published 6 books by the end of that year and marked the transformation process with a new tattoo.

Just in time for 2012, the year of the Water Dragon and the beginning of the end of the Mayan Calendar. Change is always a little bit easier when you do it in the water, so I was thankful to have the energy of the swimming dragon with me. 2012 brought me a a Feature Endorsement Commercial on a pair of shoes I loved, and a visit with a Pharaoh.

I wrote and published two more short stories, as well as the signature piece of 2012, my memoir.

Breathe was a book born out of the turmoil of 2011. It was published on November 10, 2012 (with a release party and everything). I have never been so proud.

There were so many pieces which came together to make it perfect.

A perfectly timed watch with all the jewels inside. A perfect moment in time. Clear. Calm. A silent eye in the storm of the time tornado.

2013 is coming, and with it will bring those winds of change once again. Are you ready?

Spare a moment in this Time-Tornado we call life and take a look back. A look at all the pieces which came together in harmony to make you who you are. The pieces which influenced your life. The things you love.
Then, armed with that knowledge and internal strength, march forward into 2013.

Strong.

Arms open.

With the wisdom of the past and the knowledge that you can handle anything in the future.

It’s the moment between dress.

There is a special moment I’d like to pay homage to. That quick special moment between dress. The moment of getting out of your pajamas and getting dressed to get ready for the day and conversely, after coming home from a hard day and getting into your pajamas.

I love jammies (especially jammies with feet).

I love even more the in-between-nees. The moments between dress. The moments between breath. That is where the magic happens. It happens in this space when you aren’t looking. When your socks are half on and half off and you are trying to remember the grocery list and bus schedule and not trip over the cat.

It is in this space that the energy of magic, and inspiration, and creation comes in and wants to befriend you. It crackles on the air like fire, and you hop around desperate for a pen to write it down before it is gone again on the next breath.

It is the moment between stress and relief. Between naked and clothed, between routine and adventure.

Find your magic place and take it inside of you. Take it in deep.
Swallow the magic with your skin.

Even if it takes you to places where you exist half-naked.

Because Half-naked is the better part of clothed.

I just sit here breaking….

Breaking rules, breaking pencils, breaking hearts, necks, mirrors, Breaking Bad and that God-Forsaken Breaking mutha-f-lovin Dawn.

Breaking through.
Through silence and fear, uncomfortable conversations and distance.

Breaking through writers block and waves and sound barriers.

My book broke these things. It broke skin and memories, boundaries and comfort-zones.

Just like a Breath breaks through the surface of water.

*****

This memoir was the stitching of time, the stitching of those broken pieces together in the currents of life.

It is not Chronological. It was those cacophonous broken pieces of memory put back together to find meaning.

It is poetry and hope.

It is acceptance and love.

It is defiance and death and all the things in life which break, and it is the courage to put those pieces back together.

I have broken champagne bottles, expectations and pride as reminders of this journey.

****

To date, I have signed every single book that has sold.

I must have broken some sort of record in that…

Did you get yours?

Great Conversations.

I’ve had a few great conversations in the past week. Conversations that I’m sure at one point or another, you have had. It is those life-questioning conversations, the ones that tickle the depths of your skull. The ones that burrow deep into your marrow. The ones that hop onto your skin and scurry along with you like some invisible sidekick.

Conversations that bring along epiphanies and life lessons. Things I like to share.
Including:

Them: “In life, you have good stuff, you have bad stuff, and you have more stuff.”

Me: “I can fit all my stuff in a 40lb backpack”

Them: “Oh good, that means that you can get up and leave any time you want”

Me: “Leaving has never been my problem.”

Conclusion: I love new adventures. I love the excitement of the unknown. I love leaving and being missed. I don’t particularly love routine.

Which led to another conversation:

Them: “If you can get here, I will be sure you have a place to stay, food to eat, sunshine to lay in, waves to listen to, and awesome music to dance to”

Conclusion: I’m not a big fan of the cold, rainy, dark, grey that is Seattle. It is wonderful in the summertime, with all the tourists and sunshine. Everyone is happy to chat and share and have a pint. But in the winter… the tourists leave and Eeyore’s cloud looms large.

AND

I was looking at doing a writers retreat anyway. I finished and published my book, I have taken a bit of a breath, and am ready for a new adventure.

Do You Hear That UNIVERSE! I am READY FOR MY NEXT ADVENTURE!

Sometimes I need to get away for a while, and into the sunshine to stoke the fires of passion and inspiration.

AND… If there is one thing I know, it is hard to start a fire in the rain.

Thoughts (and words) have power.

Book is out.

Like having a baby, it was messy. And beautiful.
A beautiful disaster.

Please buy, please read, and please review.

Reviews make the world go round in the book-buying/selling/searching world.
Your words have POWER!

It is available through my publisher HERE
On Amazon,
Barnes and Noble
Powells
or even review it here on
Goodreads

If you don’t like any of those options, you can send me a note, and I will be sure to figure out a way to get you a copy.

xoxox

Because FREE makes me happy. – UPDATED

Soooo the countdown begins.
10 5 days left until the launch/release of my memoir Breathe.

It will be held at Blackbird Wine from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday November 10th.

Please come and join the celebration!
There will be a champagne toast (at approximately 4pm), complimentary snacks AND I will be giving away a FREE copy to a lucky, randomly-selected, attendee!

Because FREE makes me happy!

Free Champagne!
Free Snacks!
Free signatures!
and a FREE BOOK for one lucky person!

Everybody wins!

Would you please come join me?
I might hide in the bathroom all night, but the people at Blackbird Wine are super awesome and great at holding a conversation.