Cloud Nine Girl

Sometimes It’s The Simple Things That Get You Through

I sit at my desk.

I sip my second cup of coffee and think about all the tasks I need to pull together this week to get ready for a huge event…

…My eyes drift.

I see my boss’s window from my desk. I see the line of trees just beyond it, and I think of yesterday, Sunday, when my husband and the kids lifted a beautiful rainbow kite in the shape of a parrot, above the trees, high in the sky, caught in the wind, and fluttering all free.

Sigh.

I look at my to-do list. The phone rings. I take the call and do my best to find an answer. I hang up and make a note, and I glance at my computer screen, at the picture of my kids at the fair last year stretched across my monitor. They stare at each other’s face, one all red like Spiderman and the other gets her arm painted with glittery pastel flowers. Then I’m thinking about Saturday, packing up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, taking the kids to my son’s soon to be elementary school, and swinging on a giant red metal porch swing in the sun, eating our lunches and dreaming about the fun we’re about to have crawling all over the playground.

Simple reminders planted around my desk make me smile. I remember these simple moments in life—the best moments. They help me find inspiration and joy, and they push me to keep doing my best at work. To be a role model, to be a good team player, and to teach the importance of the values I love at work to my kids.

The most important feeling I’ve learned in life is to look for the happy in the simple things, and being happy, manifests more happy. More happy manifests dreams and builds reality.

So as we’re looking to build our castles in the sky, remember the dirt, the flowers, and all the exciting parts we live every day.

Happy Monday!

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Posted in Erika Beebe, getting through monday, Simple things

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Lesson Learned: Never Assume

May 19

Posted by Erika Beebe

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Ever felt like you chased the wrong thing one day, you poured in so much energy and fear into the possibility of what could happen, and then when you stare and face it, nothing happens at all?

That was sort of my week this past week, which brings up a really good point, I love it when I’m wrong. Now don’t get me wrong, at first it kind of stings. I back up and I think, “What just happened here?”

But the clouds start to fade and the emotion breaks up. I feel joy instead of fear, and I remember my husband and I, standing in the kitchen while I cleaned up dinner this week. He asked me, so, how did your meeting go today? I felt a giant grin lift my face as I wiped down the counter and I answered back, surprisingly, nothing bad happened, and you were right.

I have always said, I am my worst critic. It’s true and this past week has actually been really good for me—a reminder to relax and live in the moment. A lesson for next time to stop myself and say, you know what, you don’t know.

Right now, I’m feeling thankful for my Facebook community and all of my new friends. Searching out quotes and pictures centered on peace, love, and happiness, keeps me focused. So I’m learning and thinking about giving every moment a chance, and to never, ever, assume intention.

I’ll keep doing my best!

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Caught In A Moment? Erase Later.

May 14

Posted by Erika Beebe

This post is for my facebook friend Dawn. Thanks for the tip, my friend.

I played soccer in high school. Left-midfield because I am left-handed and naturally left-footed. Built for endurance, I could run, I could set a pace and stick with it forever, another player forever, and I kind of liked to steal the ball, too.

I remember the field of grass with the white painted lines, me staring straight ahead at the goal post at the far end as I shadowed a girl from the opposite team, pushing forward with her. The crowd roared, the bodies a blur in the bleachers to the side, and the ref stuck it out somewhere close by, ready to stop the game if anyone broke a rule.

My foot darted between a pair of legs and snagged the ball away, with me turning and rushing fast, ahead of the girl even faster, and I plowed.

I didn’t stop to think, did I run the right way? Maybe I should have cut to the right instead of the left—or pulled the ball back and spun in instead of out. The picture is in your mind. You know the goal and you move toward it in the game. If you second guess yourself before you move, then you might not get moving and miss your chance.

Writing and soccer are sort of the same—in principle anyway.

You see this picture in your head, you know your plot points and you’ve developed your characters so well you practically live them. If you stop yourself, hung up on a word before you finish a chapter, and most importantly the story, the momentum might fall and the picture begins to fade away.

A first draft is a field of grass with a goal at the end. Your fingers are the instrument, pushing the keys or the pencil and you move, flying with your ideas and writing straight ahead. You could stop to revise your word choice, but just like the game, with a first draft, it’s best to keep writing. Mistakes will happen and there’s always time to fix them when you’re done. Also like the game, you can’t always go back and see the picture as clearly as you did the first time.

I have two tips today, useful ones you could apply to any activity you love to do. First, don’t stop your flow, and two, make mistakes. It’s the intention that matters and mistakes are ways to learn and grow once you’re done in the moment. So keep going, let loose, and don’t be afraid to let yourself get caught up in the moment and the feel of the world around you. You can always find your way back.

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Posted in Erika Beebe, keep going, making mistakes, writing tips

My Dream! I Can Finally Share My Biggest News

May 13

Posted by Erika Beebe

One More Day, J Taylor Publishing’s latest Anthology of short stories is set to release in December 2013 in both ebook and paperback, with my YA piece Stage Fright inside these beautiful pages.

Here’s the Theme for Each of the Stories Inside…

What if today never ends?
What if everything about life—everything anyone hoped to be, to do, to experience—

never happens?

Whether sitting in a chair, driving down the road, in surgery, jumping off a cliff or flying …

that’s where you’d be … forever.

Unless …

In One More Day, Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, Danielle E. Shipley and Anna Simpson join L.S. Murphy to give us their twists, surprising us with answers to two big questions, all from the perspective of characters under the age of eighteen.

How do we restart time?

How do we make everything go back to normal?

The answers, in whatever the world—human, alien, medieval, fantasy or fairytale—could, maybe, happen today.

Right now.

What would you do if this happened … to you?

And How Do I Feel?

“Hope is a waking dream.”
~Aristotle.

My dream is becoming life. I’m waking up. Hope keeps filling me up. So here I am, my name on the cover of a book along with six other exceptional authors.

Never give up. If I can make my dreams happen, so can you.

~Erika

Posted in Biggest Dream, Erika Beebe, Never give up, One More day

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