November – Kristina Hamlett writes to connect, heal, and be a force for change.

Year 4 of Bloglikecrazy

Today is Day 30. The last day of bloglikecrazy challenge. As predicted, there would be times where I didn’t feel like it or I was grasping at straws to find just the right thing to write. As I promised myself at the beginning, there was no beating myself up if I couldn’t finish this or anything else.

At the beginning of the month, I started Miracle Mornings, rising just before 5am to learn more about morning routine, entrepreneurship and exercise. I realized I was left a mess on most of those mornings and gave it up halfway through the month. I have no regrets. I acknowledge my limits and abide by them.

I also had a rough draft to turn in. I did and although I have plenty of work and writing left to do, that first part is over. I also led a self-care workshop for co-workers and am in the midst of planning my first community workshop for this weekend.

Some of my greatest joys from this month came this last week from an invigorating walk, seeing my family over Zoom and a couples Zoom game night with my sister and her husband. I remembered how much I loved our game nights in their kitchen. My sister can attest to me being a little loud (especially when I win) and competitive but all in good fun.

I rejoined the See Jane Write Collective. The virtual write-ins were integral to me getting work done on pieces I hadn’t fully developed yet. I also had a post inspired by a podcast interview with Lewis Howes and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Jericho Brown, “Make a Plan”, retweeted by the poet himself!

December will bring lots more work, classes and aching to see my family. I am not even mentally prepared to be without them on Christmas Day. My husband and I will have to start our own special traditions.

Each year, I ask myself if I will participate in bloglikecrazy again. I always end up saying yes. November becomes my month to pay closer attention to the wisdom I hear, the beauty I see and the love inside and around me.

I get to walk through this process with See Jane Write sisters. I learn about their traditions, families, businesses, art, healing and passions over 30 days. It doesn’t leave me with much of anything to say “No” to. I am proud to say year 4 is done and year 5, I look forward to you.

Blog Like Crazy: Year 4

Against the advice of a few, I am back for year 4 of #Bloglikecrazy! What is it? And why was the advice so negative you may ask?

Bloglikecrazy is a challenge created by Javacia Harris Bowser of See Jane Write to publish one blog post everyday in the month of November. I have completed the challenge every year for the past three years. I have posted through sleeping on a cot beside my husband in the hospital, travel, during a strenuous 75hard challenge where I exercised twice a day while working my 9-5 and while I felt ill.

So why have I received advice against doing it this year if others have been so successful? Because this year my writing goals and dreams are starting to become more realized and the fear of the few who advised against it (and love me) are that I will drown in a sea of time management chaos.

The truth is their fear is not unfounded. In the next 30 days or so, I will be preparing for and facilitating two writing workshops, working on pages due for a big project in Spring of 2021, present at a virtual Writer’s Conference and Monday-Friday this month, I will be up at 5am for morning routine challenge led by the fabulous powerhouse entrepreneur Amber Aziza. There’s also this little thing called being a wife, taking care of home and working my regular job (remotely).

I will be the first one to admit it’s alot and in the past “alot” meant anxiety and panic.

But I also am going to make myself some promises:

If I miss a day, I will not treat it as a big deal. The earth will continue to revolve around the sun. I will still be a writer committed to her craft.
If I start to feel overwhelmed, I will stop. I am already working on writing I love. There’s no need to apply pressure.

I almost didn’t write today but the truth is as soon as concern was expressed, I wanted to write about it. I missed writing here and when I look back at previous years, I have no regrets.

Blogging Like Crazy: Year 3

I debated whether I would take the challenge this year. It would be my third year participating in bloglikecrazy (created by See Jane Write founder Javacia Harris Bowser) but beyond talking about 75hard, an upcoming birthday and time spent with family, I didn’t feel like I had 30 days in me this year.

And then I took a walk.

I slept in and decided to go to a local park for my first workout of the day. It was much cooler than previous mornings but I was grateful for the ample sunshine. I noticed the parking lot was full for a Friday morning. I saw a group of well dressed people gathered on a landing overlooking the lake. A few of them smiled at me.

By the time I walked another lap, I saw the group surrounding a slender woman with a beautiful afro in a silky emerald dress and a white fur shawl draped around her shoulders holding hands with a man, presumably her groom.

As I continued to walk around the park, I walked with more intensity, buoyed by the sight of an unanticipated wedding.

I realized blogging (for me) has always been a place to share not just the musings and thoughts about writing, plant-based living and mindset but a record of the beautiful, the random and the unexpected.

All Done!

It’s here! I’m done!

These past 30 days have unveiled so much! I am certain I want to post twice a week: Tuesdays and Thursdays. My Tuesday posts will be health related–be it physical, spiritual, plant-based, mental or financial health. My Thursday posts will be writing related. I would like to devote that day to my work, featuring other writers and storytellers and general career and reading updates.

About halfway through this bloglikecrazy challenge, I felt the topics and the flow came easier than last year. I didn’t struggle the same way. There were only a couple of days where I felt like I had nothing to share but when I focused, the frustration disappeared.

If you ever feel like the writing process is stale, I encourage you to challenge yourself to bloglikecrazy or develop a plan of your own.

As for me, I can’t wait for next November!

Healing

I don’t have much in me today. I am not sure if it’s because I am 26 days in and it feels a little like I have senioritis.

But there are 4 days left after today so something will be written each day until I have accomplished my goal. So here it goes:

In my post about being whole, I wrote about wanting to start a yoga or Pilates class in the new year. I was talking to a co-worker (and devoted Yogi) about self-care and all of a sudden, I couldn’t come up with a reason to wait. She told me about a studio close by. I found a class on the their site that embraces women of all shapes, sizes and levels. My first class starts Sunday. I haven’t been this excited in so long. When I read the description, it clicked and even if it doesn’t live up to my expectation, I will know I took steps.

I didn’t wait for my healing to begin.

No Greener Grass

I charged up my old phone last night, an LG Razor Edge. It was the phone I used when Hubby and I were dating and when we were first married. I retrieved the text messages and looked at the photos. I still have the first text and photo we took together. Like many new couples, we often said we loved and missed each other. We were mushy and flirtatious.

When I first got engaged, a few women (married women) told me not to get married. They seemed sure I would be miserable and unfulfilled a few years later. It’s true–things did get harder. We have faced medical issues that have scared me and adjusting to living together, merging our lives and finances has not always been what I dreamed it would be.

But there are times when I look at him and know I couldn’t be anywhere else and there is really no grass that is greener.

What’s better is we still flirt, hold hands and say I love you. Six years of marriage and we look forward to seeing each other at the end of the day.

I have told some friends I (almost) wish more couples could go through trials where they fear they could lose the other person. Even for a moment. More people wouldn’t be so quick to throw it all away. Happy doesn’t always look and feel the way you think it will and no version of perfection actually exists.

I certainly don’t have all the answers to anyone’s relationship problems but I would ask anyone to not take the love they have at home for granted.

It may turn out to be the love you were supposed to fight for and the love you may never have again.

Ready for 2019

Today, I woke up excited for the new year. I know–it’s November and there are still holidays left to celebrate.

I can’t put my finger on why I was jubilant on this particular morning however I know there is so much to look forward to. Here are a few:

1. Going somewhere new. Hubby and I choose a different city/state and hopefully soon, country to go to for our anniversary in lieu of gifts.

2. I am going to a Broadway show in New York again and I am determined to see an Alvin Ailey show there in 2019, too.

3. My digital story, along with the other women who participated in the University of Alabama Digital Storytelling Workshop for Women of Color will have our work published in Liminalities.

4. 2019 will be the year I dance consistently as part of a class. I have never felt as strongly as I do now that I need to have something just for me, something I commit to, just for me.

5. Finishing my novel. I have talked about this at length before. This will be my year. That’s all there is to it.

Your turn:

What are you looking forward to in 2019?

Halfway

I am at the halfway point of my #bloglikecrazy challenge. Here are three ways it’s already different from last year:

1. It has not been as hard to come up with topics. I am not sure if it’s because I set the intention from Day 1 that I wanted to explore more topics besides writing and plant-based health but it works!

2. While I’m writing, the words flow more freely and I believe it’s because of the consistent practice of blogging in the last year.

3. Because it’s no longer a new challenge, I look forward to not only hitting my goal of completing it but seeing how my focus shifts afterwards.

I am grateful to be halfway and look forward to other takeaways as bloglikecrazy comes to a close.

Confessions

10 things you most likely don’t know about me…

1. I have lost a lot of my hair over the years due to PCOS and girl, please go to a hairdresser on a regular basis to take better care of your natural tresses.

2. I watch an episode of “The Office” almost every day. It still makes me laugh..some of the best writing (and acting) ever!

3. When I was younger, I used to rip out reviews from the TV guide written by Jeff Jarvis and save it because I thought being a TV critic had to be the coolest. job. ever.

4. When I was 22, I went to Costa Rica and my purse was stolen at a restaurant along with my passport. Needless to say, I got back in the country but that was a night I will never forget.

5. I hate shopping! Mall shopping has actually made me queasy. I want to buy what I need and get out immediately.

6. I still have the original text message my husband sent me in 2010 to introduce himself.

7. I can walk on my toe knuckles. I don’t do it anymore but when I was little I loved it! I wonder how I even found out I could do it in the first place.

8. One of my favorite movies is “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” I don’t know why I love it so much. I am not a huge Streisand fan but there is something about it that makes me giddy to watch.

9. I didn’t have any social media until September 2016 and had I not joined School of Greatness Academy, I probably still wouldn’t.

10. Watching people dance (well) on stage can make me cry. I mean even an audition on a dance competition show can trip me up. Sometimes I choke it back because I know it’s ridiculous but when I am alone, you would swear something happened to me. There’s something about dancing with passion and precision that gets to me.

So those were my confessions! Hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little better!

And on another note, I hope you voted today.

Why #Bloglikecrazy?

I am sitting here, fatigued from fighting allergies and looking forward to my second year of taking the #bloglikecrazy challenge. Every day in November (per See Jane Write founder Javacia Harris Bowser), we are challenged to write a post.

It couldn’t have come at a better time for me. The last 2-3 months, I intentionally took some time away from consistent blogging. Hubby and I are on a healing journey that became more serious in nature in August. There wasn’t much left in me to express.

I couldn’t seem to find the words. I didn’t want to look at new recipes and there seemed to be no words left to write about any aspect of writing.

After the Digital Storytelling Workshop for Women of Color at the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, new life was breathed into me. I want to keep blogging but I know I want to shift my focus. After all, I am interested in so many things: minimalism, plant-based food, natural hair, spirituality and religion, dance, travel, natural healing, fertility, reading, storytelling, paying off debt, giving back and becoming an established writer with entrepreneurial skills.

Although I am not sure what that looks like yet on this site, I do feel drawn to figuring it out now.

I believe blogging like crazy will help me shape these ideas and forge a new path for me as I head into 2019.