Monthly Updates + Facebook

I've been up to my eyeballs starting a new online business. My painting has even been put on hold for now and I miss it. But I need to earn money, and I enjoy creating on the Internet, so once a stream of income begins, then I can get back to painting more regularly.

I still volunteer at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts once a week and today I'm going to my favorite Artist's house an hour's drive away to see her for Open Studios. Open Studios, for those who don't know, is a yearly event that spans two weekends where participating artists open their homes, workspaces and studios to the public. The artist has his or her profile entered into a directory and a place on an area map so people can find them. They set up their space like a gallery to sell their work. It's a way for some artists, who have never had the opportunity to show in a gallery, to become discovered and/or make some sales.

Nowadays, I'm on Facebook a lot more often and I find that making brief comments and updates is far easier than updating my blog. That's why PeekInside has fallen so far behind! I don't plan to give up this blog, since it's been around since my days in Bangkok and is like my living diary. So I'll likely update it monthly or even every couple of months or so. I'm just so busy with other projects that it's not my priority any longer. So look for my profile on Facebook, it's at http://www.facebook.com/amy.rainier And if you haven't already, add me as your friend and I shall do the same. :)

I'll sign off for now with a picture of Aidan. Lately he's been into drawing and writing. He went from scribbles to actual pictures in a matter of days, it's amazing. In this photo, his daddy showed him how to draw and color the Thai flag.

GOALS

I've been reading, reading and absorbing, absorbing strategies, ideas and stories about micro-businesses, online businesses, independent location businesses and art businesses. I want that so badly! I need to find my niche.

You know what I would LOVE to do? Go back to Thailand for a few more years. Let Aidan experience his Thai culture more fully.

And I would work on my own terms. MAYBE teaching art workshops and classes if needed. Otherwise fully promoting my Expat woman's guide and website by traveling around the country and in Bangkok reviewing services and such (I have another idea about that, too), making my art, and showing it in local galleries. That's my dream and fully doable within the next couple of years.

All this would depend on Golf's business, too. His work is more prominent in the United States and I feel my work would be more prominent in Thailand. Funny how that works out!

So in the meantime, I'm painting and building up a body of work as well as trying to get the whole business end of things figured out.

Confirming my suspicions

My suspicions have been that I've always been an on the fence non-conformist. And it's easy to be seduced into the status-quo, but if I picture myself making all the safe decisions, I also know I would be drowning slowly in misery and utter boredom. At least I know myself and I apologize if this sounds too cryptic to make much sense.

The purpose of this post is to spread the word about a couple of writings from a blogger and traveler named Chris Guillebeau who has a site called The Art of Nonconformity. I'd never heard of him until I got a blog post in my reader from marketing sensation Seth Godin's site where he mentioned Guillebeau's new manifesto called 279 Days to Overnight Success. The title intrigued me, so I downloaded it.

It offers 11,000 words of free advice on how to create your own success with your own project.

Who It’s For:

Bloggers, writers, online artists, and anyone otherwise interested in creating a new career or expanding their influence using social media. If you want your online presence to grow far beyond what it is now, read and apply.

That's all I needed to read to know that I should download this manifesto and give it a gander. It was teriffic. It gave me some more ideas about my Expat website, and I'm kicking around some ideas for creating another project, both of which I hope to subsidize my art career.

The other manifesto Chris Guillebeau wrote is called A Brief Guide to World Domination.
It's a more generalized piece of writing about how to live a fulfilling life by living and working in service to others. He notes that all the mega-rich give out lots of money to help others, otherwise despite their wealth, their life feels hollow.

A Few Things You’ll Learn in the Report

• The Two Most Important Questions in the Universe
• Why Ruling and Changing the World are Interrelated
• The Clear Alternative to Being Unremarkably Average
• True Stories from Zen Habits, Kiva, Randy Pausch, and more
• The Most Important Work We Can Do
• Life Lessons from My Singapore Airlines flight to Tokyo

What does he mean by ruling and changing the world? Well he doesn't mean it in the traditional sense of the phrase. Download the PDF file and see for yourself.

Chris Guillebeau's writings got me thinking lately, so I wanted to pass on this information to anyone else who might want some inspiration. :)

Art Blog Updated

Just wanted to let you know that I have updated my Art Blog with my new painting

Worth Savoring Slowly

Enjoy!

Subbing, Painting, Squidooing, Volunteering

Gosh, I've really neglected this blog a lot, and I'm sorry for anybody who still follows me on it. I've been quite active on the internet, though.

Like the rest of the world, it seems, I joined up on Facebook a few months ago and then a few days ago I finally joined Twitter, although I don't have much to do on that site, YET. I hope to use it to promote my art down the road later.

In the meantime I've been substitute teaching a lot, bringing in some extra income since Golf's translation jobs have been slow lately. That takes up most my day every day.

Then I've been painting like crazy, I just finished Melanie's birthday painting and I gave it to her yesterday. I will update my art blog about it as soon as I have the photos ready to upload.

Squidoo I've been working tirelessly on. I've got some new lenses up. If any of you reading this wouldn't mind, sign up for Squidoo and then go to my lensmaster page. Scroll down a bit and you will see all the articles I've written and then rate my articles! The higher the ratings, the better page rank I get and the more pageviews I get. It's a stay at home income revenue I've been working on.

I've listed some of the ones I've done already, but the rest I've finished lately are:
Bangkok by Boat
Short Stay in Bangkok?

Right now I'm working on a lens promoting Golf's online shop called Discovery Day Studio, where he sells PDF service manuals for various electronics.

Lastly, I've been volunteering a few hours a week at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, and today's my day to go in. It's a chance to get my foot in the door and get to know other artists and those in the art business. I will eventually (hopefully) get to exhibit there too!

Reinforcing what I want with Aidan

Ever since reading The Secret a couple years ago, I've made it a habit of always thinking about what I want instead of what I don't want, or turning a negative statement into a positive statement.

This has filtered down into my parenting technique as well. I'd read somewhere that if you tell a child, for example, "Please don't climb on the bookshelf." The only thing the child hears is "Climb on the bookshelf." and that's one of the primary reasons kids misbehave. They need to be told what to do, as opposed to what not to do.

So I've been practicing and catching myself when I tell Aidan not to do something. I turn it around right away and tell him what I want him to do and sometimes I have to stop and think about it. I've been so accustomed to expressing what I don't want that it can be difficult sometimes to think about what I want instead. If I don't want my child to stomp around on the floor (we have neighbors one floor below us) then what do I tell him I do want? To walk softly please. If I don't want Aidan to put the holly berry he picked in his mouth, what do I tell him? "Don't put that in your mouth?" I used to say that. I now say, "Keep the berry in your fingers." or "Hold on to it."

Having a child to practice positive statements on is great. You have to really stop and think sometimes about what it is you want when it's so easy to think about what you don't want. I'm sure that at some point it will be as easy to express my wants as it is my don't wants. :)

Busy!

I had to substitute teach everyday except Wednesday this week. Wednesday was supposed to be the day I enrolled Aidan in preschool but the program had only three slots available! Needless to say, I was unable, so I was moody all day. I had told Aidan how he was going to get to go to preschool - he's been telling me how much he wants to go. What a letdown. Next time I won't tell him until he's actually enrolled.

So besides working I've been still learning Squidoo stuff and I created a couple more lenses:
Tips for Thailand Expats
Medical Tourism in Thailand
Resources for Learning Thai

I now would like to expand and cast a wider net. I've got some more ideas. Eventually I'd like to create quite a few more and make some money. So far I've made 11 cents! Woo hoo!

Meeting someone special and Squidoo

I've been laying low on Peek Inside for a little bit now, just haven't had time to catch up. I've been spending too much time on Facebook and working on my Expat Woman's Guide to Living in Thailand website during my free time during the day - which is very little. Next week, I'm making myself available to substitute teach again because the economy is making business slow, just like everywhere else.

I'm meeting someone special next weekend, March 1st. She is an artist I admire greatly and I found out about her through a book I read last year called The Wishing Year, by Noelle Oxenhandler. After reading her book, I visited her website, where I found out about the artist, Carole Watanabe, she talked about often in her book. I went to Carole's website and fell in love with her paintings. Carole had also written a book called The Ecstatic Marriage of Life and Art and so I ordered a copy and was completely inspired by additional works of art and her inspiring words. It was this book and The Wishing Year that pushed me to take the action and return to art; I started painting again because of these two books, so I'm indebted to these two women.

I put myself out there and did something I never have before. I wrote a letter (fan mail!) to Carole, enclosing a color photo copy of my first painting I did. I heard back from her about two weeks later inviting me to give her a call in February. So I did - I called her a few days ago and I was nervous. But we chatted for half an hour and she's a delightful, easygoing person who melted my nerves. She ended up inviting me to come meet her in person! More than anything I want to see her paintings in person and talk to her. She's had so much life experience and has made a success of her career as an artist. What a wise person and mentor to have. That was a wish I had, actually, to have a mentor whose art work I admire and who is also a savvy business person. So there it is - on March 1st, I'm driving to Sebastapol, where she lives, to spend some time and learn, grow, share and be inspired. Thank You Universe!!!

I've been spending time on Squidoo making lenses and it's been fun. I have three made so far and plan to make some more. It's good writing practice and it can even earn some money, too!

Here are my lenses:
Tips for Expat Women in Thailand
Some Western Restaurants in Bangkok, Thailand
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a GREAT Movie

So there you go. I'll update my Squidoo pages as they come. I'm having fun, too!