L-E-A-P-I-N-G into their goals and dreams! Oh yeah, and

kissing too, for you traditionalists out there ;)

This is a story of juggling love, dreams, and fears.
Once upon a luau, two summers ago, I was on my fourth mai tai…

…and stumbled across a handsome juggler.

*Swoon*

*super duper swoon*

We talked, we cuddled, and��fell redonkulously in love.

When I had first moved back to my small home town after college, I’d been convinced that I would watch Hugh Jackman films and eat cheddar bunnies with my twelve cats until the end of my days.

But this was a self-defeating thought, and I had literally decided only a month before I met my handsome juggler that I would no longer think that way. And the universe was like:
BAM!

You got this.
I realized that if I could let go of my fear of loneliness, of love even (because with loving comes the fear of losing), then what other fears or doubts could we both face and overcome together?

Why….doing the one thing that would give our parents strokes……juggling and writing! :D

—Just get a real job so we don’t have to support your college educated ass—

Financial security is always a good thing, naturally, we concur. What we (and probably many of our generation) don’t concur on is sacrificing our talents, our passions, and happiness in the pursuit of just a paycheck. It’s been either a blessing or a curse that our generation (the 18ish to 30ish year olds right now) got derailed by that little recession thing in 2009.

That’s when I was laid off from my awesome��Science Outdoor School gig in L.A. (because they lost all funding) and, while endlessly job-hunting, began doing what I used to do when I was ten: sitting in my room creating art and writing….and watching Land Before Time…and I thought to myself…

I could do THIS for the rest of my life! So I wrote feverishly, maniacally, obsessively on my first novel, and now, many jobs, numerous coffee cups, and glasses of wine later I have written four books, won a big writing competition, got published, started creating book covers for my publisher, cartoons for a popular cat blog (cats at the bar), and am currently working on three more novels!
I faced my fears of possibly living under a bridge at sixty, of rejection, eye-brow raising, self and other’s doubts, and stood up for what I believed in: myself!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s has been and will be a very long uphill struggle to ultimately achieve my authorly & artistic goals…

But when it comes to being an artist, in my mind, this is my only other choice…

SO,I will keep doing this…

Because it makes me feel like…

…A WARRIOR PRINCESS RIDING A HAMBURGER POOPING UNICORN.
And my handsome juggler will keep doing this…

–To view his talents in action click here–

Because it is our goal, our dream, our reason to get up in the morning with purpose and passion! Chasing dream careers, especially unconventional or very difficult ones, can feel and look a bit like this…

Which is why we are both moving to the big city (a.k.a. San Francisco area) very soon to help solidify our goals. If one wants to be an entrepreneurial artist/homeless person then one must go where opportunity lies. Two little country bumpkins facing the world together with juggling clubs, pens, and determination.
Here we go!

I will chronicle our journey as it unfolds, so if you’��don’t feel like washing��all the dishes and have nothing else to do, check back periodically for more life adventures with a juggler and a writer! :)