#IceBreakerChallenge

07 August 2021 - The day I made the leap from lurking to actively participating in the community! As my first interaction with everyone here, I decided to embark on the Newcomer Challenge (post yet to be made; I want to finish the tasks and post once complete), and this is part of that project!

Challenge Three: Do the #IceBreakerChallenge as your first blog post! So here goes nothing…

1.) WHO ARE YOU? WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE CALLED? WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

    I’m a girl with a boy’s name - Justin! I am first and foremost an ever-evolving and changing individual being; second to that, I am a mom to a 3 year old boy that makes my world (and my head) spin. I am a wife, partner, and true friend to a wonderful husband; we have soared, stumbled, collapsed, and rebuilt ourselves and each other from the ground up more than once.

    Justin is what most people call me and always have; also acceptable: “Hey, you”; “Girl”; “Um, yeah excuse me?”.

    I’m from West Tennessee in the United States; I grew up on a farm surrounded by animals, hard work, and more lightning bugs than street lights. I spent 3 years in Atlanta, Georgia before leaving the big city behind for a quiet return to country living. Though 3 years is nothing in the big picture of my life, my recovery journey began in Atlanta, so a lot of who I am now is “from there”.

2. HOW DID YOU FIND OUR AMINO?

    I found the Amino app while having trouble sleeping one night, and honestly was confused by the concept at first. Once I understood the basic navigation and purpose of the app and Communities, I immediately set out to find art and journal based communities.

    I’m so relieved that I found the app and community when I did; both Pinterest and Reddit content were becoming stale and repetitive and I was having more difficulty finding any inspiration to create any kind of art/journal. I love how many s actively post new and diverse content!

3. WHEN AND WHERE DID YOU FIRST HEAR OF BULLET JOURNALING?

    I began seeing some Pins here and there on my Pinterest feed, and decided to give the concept a go when I started back at college after having my son. Traditional planners had never worked for me, and I knew I’d need organization fit for a busy CEO to balance school and an infant.

    Lucky me, I met my TWIN FLAME and best friend the 3rd day of classes (we’ve been inseparable since, my child calls her Aunt or “one of” his mommy’s) and I was trying to explain to her my plans to start this weird Bullet Journal deal to help keep me caught up in all my classes. She pulled out an almost-complete, bursting at the binding leather journal and dropped it in front of me. It was her 2nd Bullet Journal and I was awestruck at the quality of the art AND organization. We’ve been journaling together ever since and it’s always been our go-to together activity.

     She helped me pick out and start my first journal in November 2018.

4. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 5 YEARS?

    I’ll be 34 years old, with an 8 year old son, and approaching my 9 year wedding anniversary to my husband. My husband was a high level soccer player in his day, and remains an avid fan…the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be hosted in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. So in 5 years, I’ll be hustling to ensure my son and husband can go to as many games as possible, hopefully tagging along on a few. :)

5. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN JOURNALING?

    I’ve had some sort of journal since graduating high school in 2010, but I created the first page of my first bullet journal in November 2018; it was the cover page for November.

6. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE STATIONERY?

    I will always and forever be a stickler for a good quality paper, no matter the color, pattern, dotted, lined, or blank. I hate papers that bleed or ghost, wrinkle under glue sticks, tear or detach easily, and ESPECIALLY those that won’t hold what’s written on it, causing smears and mess!

    As for writing implements - Medium Tip PaperMate Flair Pens are my go to for all writing, lining, and small-section coloring. No competition.

7. WHAT’S ONE THING YOU REALLY ENJOY ABOUT JOURNALING?

    I like that it doubles as a creative outlet and an information bank to refer back to. I mostly use my Bullet Journals to hold, visualize, and organize ideas or tasks; the traditional trackers and date-based structure hasn’t worked for me in the past.

     I enjoy that I can have a tangible object full of ideas and feelings as they happen, and something that will be able to offer a window into what my day to day life is like at the point in time I’m contributing to the journal.

    I enjoy that my son will have an entire collection of his mother’s interests, explorations, discoveries, ideas, and how I spent my ordinary day…long after I’m not here to share them with him directly. He’ll still have so many pieces of me in so many volumes.

8. WHAT DO YOU LIKE BESIDES JOURNALING?

    I love TV…I have terrible, trashy, and basic taste in TV shows and I am unashamed. I don’t like movies often; they’re hard for me to follow a story line consistently for that large chunk of time.

    I love animals, specifically cats and horses. I have always had a special bond with horses and my dad used to say “I knew your life was going in a good direction, and you were going to be okay, as long as you were working with horses somewhere.” I was a heavy drug (eventually full blown addict), but if I was working with a horse somewhere, I partied less, used less, and my dad knew I was safe.

    I started exercise riding for a large family farm at the age of 15; began actively training and starting horses at age 17; and at age 20, one of the other trainers and I began training horses for people not d with the farm. I’ve since become old and tired, but I rescued my 2 girls in February 2020, my son has his pony, and my childhood best friend’s horse that we grew up learning to ride on together is retired to my pasture. Pictures of our “Lady Herd” below.

9. WHAT’S THE MOST UNIQUE SPREAD YOU USE IN YOUR JOURNAL?

    That’s a tough one because I don’t use the standard date-based formatting. I use it to make sure I have a place to store and refer back to the ideas that my ADHD brain won’t hold on to or can’t bring forth when needed.

    I’ve included 2 of my more fleshed out spreads below: (1.) Home / Interior Design - Practice drawing furniture pieces and exploration of different types of perspective drawings; and (2.) Art Styles I Want to Try / Explore More - I tried to make this one more interesting to look at than just a list so I would to refer back to it and be able to practice the first style my eyes caught instead of trying to run down a list and decide.

10. LINK TO YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBE VIDEO

    I’m not 100% sure if this is supposed to be journal related, so I’m going to go with my favorite general video. **WARNING: The visual and audio quality is poor** This is a video of my husband back in his college days, playing guitar and singing lead in a (semi?) reggae band. This was taken at the Luvmud 2011, my husband is far left in the white shirt. My favorite part starts at 2:08.

Sanga @ Luvmud 2011; Don't Turn Around x Red Red Wine Mashup

11. ANYTHING ELSE THE COMMUNITY SHOULD KNOW ABOUT YOU?

    I have always been a “no” person (think opposite of a yes person…). My automatic response when asked if I want to do something, plan something, interact with anyone, or really any yes/no question…has always been no. I think I began doing it young because I was either legitimately busy or I was afraid to let someone down so I opted out of group interaction and relied on me and myself only. However, in my journey of self discovery and growth, I decided I needed to make a boundary for myself and pick 3 things that I would ALWAYS say yes to, no matter who asked, when they asked, or why they asked.

     I chose the following three things that I will ALWAYS say yes to if I have the resources to follow through with the request:

(1.) If you need a cigarette and don’t have one, I will give you one and light it for you; if I have an extra lighter, I’ll send you on your way with one. **WHY? Because as a recovering addict who gave up all my vices at once, I know the value and comfort of being able to hold on to ONE bad habit. I know what it’s like to be a smoker, crave the nicotine, or the space, or the comfort of a habit, and not have any cigarettes nor money/opportunity to acquire one. Therefore, I’ll ALWAYS provide that comfort if I’ve got one one me. I don’t care if I hate you, and I don’t care if it’s my last one. It’s yours.**

(2.) If you’re hungry, I will feed you. If I’m starving and you’re starving, and I have a small amount of any kind of food…we will share. **WHY? Food is a basic human need, so if someone has that need unfulfilled, I will gladly do what’s in my power to provide any sort of sustenance. It may be a bite or two if times are tough, but what I have I will share and what I can provide I will provide. We starve together, we eat together.**

(3.) If I know something that you want to learn, I will teach it to you if you ask me. I may not offer to teach, I may not keep asking if you want to learn if you don’t take initiative to help devise a schedule or show up. I won’t waste my time on people that are asking me because they slacked off and are now under the gun to have the knowledge (I will try but I won’t bang my head against the wall…some girl asked me to teach her a whole semester of Calculus 1 the Friday before our Monday final exam and couldn’t tell me formulas or concepts from ALG. 2 or Trig…) **WHY? Because I know what it’s like to struggle to learn something either on your own, or from a teacher that doesn’t understand or care about your learning style. It’s frustrating and sometimes people just need a figure not in a position of authority to help them bridge the gap in the knowledge they already have. I want to empower people to learn, and hopefully show them that they’re more capable than they think.**

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