Yeah, I got no time. I'm exhausted and I'm too broke got a full-time job and I'm a mother of four no more excuses. You can leave that at the door Kelly great break it down time to let the world know if you wanna be an artist let the world be your stage working every day. Let's see just what it takes how to be an artist with Kaylee gray no more excuses. And that's all I gotta say. Yeah.I used to be what I will graciously called passive. I had and have a really good life. I was born into a self-made wealthy family every bit of my life and the lives of my ancestors was put together so that I could live an easy life. My parents did this weird thing where they actually loved each other. They love me too. My sister was amazing. My friends were amazing. None of us did drugs School came easy to me. Everything came easy to me laugh was easy and because of this I just let life do its thing. I allowed the mother of my high school boyfriend to fill in on a University application for me and I went there simply because I got in I Put any thought into what degree I was going to do was chosen based on what I didn't want to do. I found a group of incredible friends with in my first week of being in a new city at University because we were the only English speakers in the residence. I even met my future husband while I was playing around on my computer. Laughs was good. And I was certainly good in that. And then a few things started creeping in from the cracks that I had ignored. I grew into the biggest oppression of my life. I didn't fall into it wasn't smacked in the face by it allowed myself little by little to grow into something simply because I didn't make an effort not to I didn't go to the psychologist. I didn't force myself out of bed, right when the feeling started. I didn't learn coping strategies. I simply allowed it to consume me. A welcome to depression like an old blanket and I hidden it's cozy fought in my second year of University. I had a breakdown I can still distinctly remember the exact moment that I called on the floor in a University Residence shower and I cried I can still almost smell the shampoo my depression lasted for a year in this time. I destroyed myself I went on to medication and I went off it without the required weaning. I went to absolutely zero University classes. I ignored my friends. I fought with my family. I became friends with the wrong people the wrong person. I slept past my feelings. I eat my feelings. I dyed my hair for the first time so that I wouldn't look like myself. I stopped contact with my best friend and future husband. I drank in the middle of the day because I heard that's how people coped it didn't work. And that stopped like immediately. I Cry A lot and even that cry wasn't anything it was just a little passive cry. I spent a lot of time in the bath. I became a shell allowed myself to break. I was broken. And then the bricks that my family my friends my future husband had been building for me when I was too weak to do so myself started forming a foundation then a house and then I could stop living in my depression blanket fought and I could move in there allowed myself to be looked after and after 365 days of the worst year of my life with the work of people who surprisingly still loved me. It left me. Looking back. That was the sign. The years that followed that magically saw me get my degree a long-distance dated my vengeful husband moved in with the guy move 12 more times went through a bunch of smaller depressions are found a corporate job. Thanks to a family friends contract contact and I got married and then my husband T had a job offer that involved a year in my favorite country in the world. This job offer wasn't handed to him. It wasn't given to Default, they thought of him because he had won the Student Competition with the company. I'd been around when he was working towards this competition. It was held in his last year of his studies. It was in addition to his crazy engineering workload. He and his team spent nights in the labs on this project when I said that I mean until 5:00 a.m. When he had nap for an hour and then go to class. I mean that this happened more than once I was waiting for him and his daughter. Dorm room during one of my visits I never saw him. I played some songs in his freezing dorm room and I made a little tea some to hang out with he and his group actively worked on this project for so long and so hard that there was no doubt that they had when they want to stack of money for the University and a trip to see the company in Germany. I joked that based on all the time. I had put into not seeing him. I deserved a trip to Germany. I got my trip to Germany and with that everything changed. Germany began with my husband and I in different countries because on marriage pasta was lazy. We were only legally married in the system ages off to our February Ting this meant I could not get a Visa which meant that only after two months three months of our brand new marriage was spent really far away. Now, the problem was that I was essentially homeless in South Africa because we had moved out of our apartment in preparation. I lived out of a suitcase and my parents until the Visa would come we had No idea when and this not knowing is the worst part of anything staying with my parents was restorative allowed my parents to look after me restorative. But I still had nothing to actually do no job. No Hobbies not even something to clean. And so I started a project I'd seen and never got around to Project Life and Project Life showed me that I was actually doing things and not completely useless during this transition period of nothing it also made me say yes to a lot of things just so that I could take new photos along with my parents project laughs saved me from Oppression now a project love is still isn't quite in South Africa. And so in 2013, it was even less there. I had to be really active in the way I look for it. I could only use digital products or scrapbooking paper from the early 2000s. So I was using almost exclusively Paisley pressed digital scrapbooking products. That's how I discovered that a whole world. I discovered that creative teams meant that you got to use your favorite products that you would use anyway. Way but be paid for it applied to be on the pastry prescriptive team. When I look back at what I was making. I've no idea while is Sidious to me. There's truly changed my life. It was reinforcement that I was doing what I was doing Matt it enough that someone actually wanted me using her products and showing people it was reinforcement that this was a worthwhile project that other widows were doing to it forced me to keep doing this if only to make staff Not actually crab to put on The Paisley press blog. I can simply stop doing this like I'd done with any other hobby before this would Sonny was something that had to continue. I put that big exciting email from Learners as a photo in my album. And then my Visa came I went to Germany in Germany. Everything was magical Germany has castles and fairy tea and dogs and last people and beer drinking in the Irma Germany has Amazon and scrap book of Acts taught and really really good internet Germany had Adventures over time. These advantages were reserved for weekends since T had to do the thing. We came here for and work after trip to France after lubich and Heidelberg off to Rome and Tuscany and Greek Islands kept me busy. I'd five days straight with nothing to form a time until 10:00 I could do something. I had an entire year during which it was literally illegal for me to work we joked and he said that I had retired at 25. So I had a year to do all the things I ever dreamed of doing except the problem was that I never had any dreams. What did I want? You don't want to be I had no idea. There was no big laugh Revelation that happened no core changing laughs event. This was not a confetti fold Revelation. It was not a Eureka moment. This was a slow change. I looked at my current life and the tiniest tiniest part of me whispered at the possibility of more after 25 years of suppressing that voice. I'm not even sure how I heard it at the time. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my life that I could see looking back. I can be more objective about it. Like know that the way I was living was dead. Directly contributing to my depression my relationship suffered. They were big stretches of time that I couldn't account for even directly after that happened. I wasn't living to my potential. potential still hate that word feels dirty on my lips. That's why the negatives of passive living or so difficult to quantify. You can't quantify the things you've missed out on the true measure is how much you could have done and could is not scientific measurement? After years and years and years of ignoring that voice I made a list it wasn't a grand list by any stretch of the imagination. It was 25 things. I want to do a 25 years old. It really didn't matter what those 25 things were admitted that there were words after each number after the Paisley, press creative team. This was my second step into actually doing something. I still have that list that list or me. A lot of things about myself firstly that I needed to take Tom to Tony. What would be on the list and revise revise revise? Secondly that I actually liked making a list of things to do and I like being deliberate instead of passive and thirdly it taught me that I really love doing things with purpose. From that list. I started actively seeking things like Ruby I didn't care what they were. I just cared that they were things I made deliberate my focus word for 2014 and in every single decision that I made I made sure to choose the option that was not passive and that's stretched me. It wasn't easy. I had a lot of setbacks. I started searching for things that made getting the stuff done easier. I devoured books on books on books about the topic. I did things that had an inkling about at some stage so that it wouldn't sit in my mind making cobwebs. I finally started the Etsy store that I'd always wanted assault things made with my own two hands plus Photoshop and some love I got into blogging I made friends with similar people. And then we love left Germany and we left Germany to live in the city that are always hated. So it's the type of city that people live in to make money. That is that's why people live there. There's no other reason in common is high because the standard of living is so low in the City compared to the rest of the South Africa. It has the highest crime statistics in South Africa. I hated going outside. It was little security risk. I was 1,200 kilometers from Family the internet and electricity was unstable. I struggled struggled a lot. The only thing stopping me from staying in bed under the covers every single day was my maid Juliet. We also got a dog and I bought my dream car Fiat 500 things helped but I stop doing things. I slowly started my default passive living again. I could feel the comfort of depression starting to develop me. I didn't want to do that to my husband and so I started making an effort to move away from it. I started with very little things and then I went on to big things. I fishy quit my job. I started my own little company with mostly design work plus a little bit of etsy store thrown in I worked hours and hours and hours. I went to sleep at 1 a.m. And I woke up three or four hours later really excited to carry on working. I take things off the to do this and I felt really good about myself. It was really tough, but I knew adulthood was And then one of my favorite bits happened along with my internet BFF Lauren we decided we were tired of the creative things we wanted to do that would never done and we started with our chilling. We committed doing something on an ongoing basis making art journaling a habit, even though we had yet to make a page and for some magical reason it worked. I just joined us in the momentum built this turn into the mac. And now we have over 2,000 members with people making things every single day. Give me a see his turn into the most amazing community and the people who are part of it have helped prevent and get through many breakdowns. The best part is that I'm not finished doing things makes me want to do more. It makes me a man. I hired makes me excited for the future. I'm faced with a choice every single day depression or doing something some days and the choice is harder to make than others. Sometimes I actually do choose depression, but I've grown I'm so much better than what I was I've leveled up and I'm ready passionate about helping you level up too.
 I used to be what I will graciously call passive. I had (and have) a really good life. I was born into a self-made wealthy family. Every bit of my life (and the lives of my ancestors) was put together so that I could live an easy life. My parents did this weird thing where they actually loved each other. They loved me too. My sister was amazing. My friends were amazing. None of us did drugs. School came easy to me. Everything came easy to me. Life was easy, and because of this, I just let life do its thing. I allowed the mother of my high school boyfriend to fill in a university application for me and I went there simply because I got in. I didn’t put any thought into what degree I was going to do, it was chosen based on what I didn’t want to do. I found my group of incredible friends within my first week of being in a new city at university because we were the only English speakers in the residence. I even met my future husband while playing around on my computer. Life was good, and it was certainly good enough. And then a few things started creeping from the cracks that I had ignored. I grew into the biggest depression of my life. I didn’t fall into it; I wasn’t smacked in the face by it; I allowed myself, little by little, to grow into something simply because I didn’t make an effort not to. I didn’t go to the psychologist, I didn’t force myself out of bed right when the feelings started, I didn’t learn coping strategies. I simply allowed it to consume me. I welcomed it like an old blanket and hid in its cosy fort. In my second year of university, I had a breakdown. I can distinctly remember the exact moment that I curled on the floor in a university residence shower and cried. I can still smell the shampoo. 