Hello Beautiful Blossoms!
I have a Thanksgiving story of Gratitude-Giving to share with you. It’s all about how a treasured friendship lost gave me something life changing to be grateful for, and how it’s made my life a happier and better place to be!
Treasured friendship lost
Has it ever happened to you? You’ve had a friendship with someone who simply brightened your heart with so much happiness and big smiles, who made a positive difference in your life, but then time, distance, circumstance … life … happens and your friendship is lost, but the love is still in your heart?
It has happened to me with great sadness. I will miss my friend forever, but I am grateful for every wonderful, life changing gift I got from our friendship.
I know I’m not alone in this as I’ve talked to other gorgeous souls who have experienced friendship loss as well. We talk about how great it was when we had our friend in our lives, and invariably the conversation always drifts to wondering … What went wrong? What happened? Why did our friend let go? Sometimes we get answers. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we can reconnect. Sometimes we can’t.
My thoughts for my friend-lost and my shared wisdom to the gorgeous souls I talk to … I take from the book/movie Eat, Pray, Love … send them your light and love and wish them well wherever they are in the world and in whatever they are doing. I feel this truly and deeply in the depths of my soul. Yes! For as much as I miss my friend, there is a reason I miss her so much – she was a delight in my life – and I wish her goodness, healthiness, and love in all that she does, even if it means without me.
For as much sadness as I’ve felt from the loss of this friendship, I have so much to be grateful for, and especially as it is Thanksgiving and a time for Gratitude-Giving, I want to share with you the amazing life changing gifts I received that made this friendship so worth the pain of losing it.
Life changing gifts
To start, I am grateful for every single day I got to spend with my friend … for all our laughter, shared love, shared wisdom, shared goals, shared philosophies, supporting one another … the absolute delight of feeling fully connected to another person in this giant lonely world and getting to spend time with her. What a gift!
And she gave me another gift; one I never saw coming. It changed my life, forever. She gave me the gift of encouragement. It helped me grow a new confidence in myself I’d never had. She saw a creative talent in me that I didn’t feel was worthy of sharing. She disagreed. She told me my art looked like me. It had all my happiness in it. That my art was a visual embodiment of my voice.
Then, she gave me the gift of knowing … she taught me how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
I started out slowly. Figuring out the digi-tech part of art. Playing around. Birthing a new craft. And as my confidence grew, I tried new and bigger things.
Living my gifts
And this is how Lub’s Very Happy Day story came about!
A few years ago, while we were still friends, I decided to create a children’s story and share it with her as a prezzie. She – like me – loves children’s picture books to fall asleep to. … You know how life can be stressful? Well, at nighttime, you want to fall asleep, not being stressed. You need to let go and relax. You want to go to bed with good juju running around in your head so you can have happy dreams, not stressy ones. A novel, although a very happy escape … if you get sucked in (we’re talking hours of awesome reading), you lose sleep and rest. So to help us calm down, me and my friend love to read happy kid’s books. They’re quick. Cute. Fun. Often silly and squee. And help you calm down and sleep sweet.
So I thought, hey, why don’t I write a cute, happy kid’s book for us to enjoy before sleepy-time? I wanted it to be filled with happy images of favorite things. So that’s exactly what I did.
- I love cute monsters – so of course Lub would have to be adorable.
- I love PINK – so, lol, of course – Lub’s the PINKest monster, EVER!
- I love LOVE. Love in all it’s kindness. Giving and sharing. Compassion. Big Heartedness. Playfulness. Silliness. All of it!
- I love nature and being outdoors. The sunshine. The woodland creatures. Adorable buggy boos. The flowers and the trees. And oh how I love bright, sunny, warm blue skies with fluffy cotton ball clouds floating by … and all the imaginary shapes I can see!
- I love reading, creating, playing, eating healthy snacks.
- I love spending happy time with friends and loved ones.
So of course, Lub’s Very Happy Day! is inspired and guided by all this love and happy goodness. It’s filled with delightful brightness and big huggy smiles! (It’s self-care in picture form!)
I can’t look at Lub & her picture pages without smiling so big! For me, she has that silly something that just makes me feel better instantly. :0)
Lub was born from all my squeelightful monstery pink-hearted happiness and giddy clapping to brighten our days and sweeten our nights! Her very presence on paper is a silly monsterification of all the giddy love in my heart! And she’s been keeping me company at bedtime ever since.
Not too long ago, a friend – who is also a retired elementary school teacher – was visiting me, and we were in my studio. She saw Lub’s book, and she smiled huge (Lub will do that to you!). My teacher friend asked me about Lub; what her story was; and how it came about. She started flipping through the pages, and page after page, her smile grew bigger. She told me I should publish the story. That she thought it was really good!
I was all like, “Really? … Like share with other people kind of good?” I had written it for fun and bedtime positive imagery, never thinking to put Lub into the world.
But my friend insisted.
I was moderately convinced. My artwork in my personal copy was from my first days in the digi-painting world. My doodlebug fingers hadn’t grown their confidence bones quite yet, back then. So I asked around to other school teachers I know. Every single time I got the same thing. Share Lub! She’s adorable and so happy and so fun!!!
Fueled by all the excitement of how easily other peeps were falling in love with Lub, I decided to update the artwork. For as much as I loved her and everybody else seemed to be loving her, too, I knew my art could be cuter with my improved and more experienced doodlebug digi-skills.
Along with redrawing and updating all of Lub’s artwork, I learned that Amazon print services requires a minimum of 24 pages. Lub’s story fell short, as I hadn’t written it to meet any page requirements. I thought about the power of creativity and coloring and art to sooth, heal, detress, reduce anxiety, and relax, so I decided to add in some Lub coloring and activity pages for fun.
And voila! Here we are today. Lub’s Very Happy Day is a story come to life to share happiness and love with like-minded and pink-hearted monsters who are giddy clapping for more POSitude and happiness to brighten their days and sweeten their dreams.
My life: a happier and better place to be!
This is how a treasured friendship lost gave me something life changing to be grateful for! And how it’s made my life a happier and better place to be! I have learned how to be a digi-art doodlebug! I’ve grown my skill with experience. And I’ve gained confidence in my doodlebug digi-art skills and having a visual voice to share my love and happiness with you! I feel this is a gift that pays forward. Now that I’m digi-art doodlebug, I have another medium to share all my Love and Big Hugs with you, and this makes me so very happy!!! Especially as, let’s face it … most of us are visual people. A picture is worth a thousand words. And my art is me all over the page sharing all the PINKness in my heart to help you feel better, more loved, happier, and healthier. And this is gratitude in my heart!!!
I hope you give yourself the gift of Love and Big Hugs all day long today on this Thanksgiving day! And every day. May your day be filled with love, happiness, and healthiness, and may you be surrounded by peeps who get you, love you, and cherish you for all the goodness in your heart!
Lub is the happiest, PINKest, most love-filled monster, Ever! Her big, PINK heart is always with her, and it beams brightly in everything she does!
Lub loves you!
Join Lub as she shares with you her love and very happy, monster-ifically delightful day! Feel playful and bright, smile big, and be happy! Have fun and be cheerful as Lub lovingly models healthy behaviors, like:
- Being happy
- Smiling big
- Having fun
- Being kind
- Spending fun time with oneself
- Having independence/self-reliance
- Being imaginative
- Having positive friendships
- Napping
- Eating well
- Having compassion
- Enjoying silliness
- Valuing companionship
- Being grateful
Watch your child’s face brighten with big smiles at every adorable page turn. Kiss them goodnight with happiness floating in their heads and big smiles filling their hearts!
Additional Features of Lub’s Very Happy Day:
- Adorable, bright, full color, happy art and images spark big smiles
- 6 Delightfully fun coloring activity pages included
- Positive, lighthearted, and encouraging
- Fun to read and experience
Feel Lub’s love, happiness, and fun! Bring her home to share now!
Find more gratitude, POSitude, and Self-Care from me at Etsy!
You can also check out my new ETSY shop!!!
Get Your POSitude On!
Feel happier! Supported! Loved! Hugged!
Bring brightness and goodness into your day, and into your life!
Get inspired every day with a deck of my new POSitude cards! Available in my Etsy shop. Check them out and learn more, now!
Until next week …
Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for you! Big loving you and hugging you tight!
