Inspiration Elsewhere is my way of saying I think you’re awesome. Every week I post three things I have enjoyed or been inspired by on the internet for whatever reason and then I ask for you to share something you want to tell the world about it. It can be anything and everything you like, love, want, can’t stop talking about and so on.

And please remember, you are encouraged to post as many links as you like as well as including yourself among them. You are amazing and there’s nothing wrong with a little polite self promotion from time to time.

If you have something to share that does not come in linky format – maybe an act of kindness or amazing experience you think we’d find inspiring – please feel free to use the comments section!

Here are my three picks for this week – please click on each image to go to the website of origin.

My little girl is not herself unless she spends the bulk of her day being creative. These adorable origami houses I discovered at How about orange… are on our to do list for next week. She’s going to love this project!

This next one was brought to my attention by my very good friend Chandra. She and I talk to one another on Yahoo IM nearly every day and regularly share links. I can’t wait for the weather to improve so that we can BBQ again and I can try making these amazing looking buns from Mennonite Girls Can Cook! How yum are they? The Mennonite girls can indeed cook, from what I can see! If I ever get a dinner invitation from The Mennonite GIrls I’ll definitely be making room on my calendar!

These hair pins at Hot Pink Chick on Etsy are gorgeous! I bought a ring from another seller on Etsy a couple of years ago made with the same type of flower in a pretty spring pink. I love the antique feel to these hair pins. Have a look around the rest of Hot Pink Chick’s shop too – there is so much to look at!

Now it’s your turn. Please tell me and the rest of the world what inspires, thrills, excites and energizes you! What have you seen or done lately that makes you think ooooh yaaaa, awesome! Let’s create a little linky lovefest and be the butterfly flapping its wings here and causing something beautiful everywhere!

Please note that this is a positive and encouraging environment – inappropriate or offensive links will be removed by the website administrator.

more inspiration elsewhere can be found by tiptoeing yourself thisaway

I’ll be honest, these are an indulgence of the highest order. They are amazing fresh from the oven, of course, but fair warning: you will enjoy them even more the next day. They scream glass of cold milk or hot cup of tea. The biggest problem will be restricting yourself to just one. Then again, problems are usually a matter of perception. I say have two – or three, or four – and problem solved!

The frosting I used is the same as I’ve already posted for pretty summer cupcakes but this time I chocolatized them up real tasty-like. My recipe for dreamy chocolate frosting follows the cupcake recipe.

ingredients
3 c all-purpose flour
2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs, beaten
3/4 c vegetable oil

4 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 c buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
6-8 oz 70% cocoa dark chocolate, roughly chopped

instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.

Whisk egg in a separate bowl and add oil.

Add egg/oil mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until combined – resulting batter will be chunky and that’s okay. Do not beat the batter.

Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Stir until combined completely but do not over mix.

Add roughly chopped chocolate chunks.

Pour batter into lined cupcake pan and bake at 350 for about 18 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean. I know it’ll be difficult but let the cupcakes cool to room temperature before frosting otherwise you’ll end up with runny bloppy frosting and no one wants that.

absolutely dreamy chocolate frosting
ingredients
2 3/4 – 3 cups icing sugar
6 tablespoons cocoa
6 tablespoons butter
5-6 tablespoons evaporated milk*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

* Use a bit of regular milk if you do not have evaporated milk on hand but be careful to add a little at a time so that you do not adversely affect consistency. But if at all possible do use evaporated milk – it’s what makes this frosting absolutely dreamy.

instructions
I use my KitchenAid mixer for making frosting. A mixer of some sort is recommended.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.

Cream butter in mixer and then gradually add milk and sugar, alternating each until all are incorporated. Add vanilla. Beat until light and beautifully fluffy! Add more sugar or milk if you need to adjust consistency to suit your needs or taste.

Use a icing bag with a large tip of some description – or, alternately, a completely open ended icing bag – to create a tasty mountain of frosting.

I did a few of these cupcakes with vanilla frosting because my little girl isn’t so hot on chocolate. You can do the same although, honestly? Madness!

If you’ve got kids I bet they’d love to be in charge of the frosting. I know mine were happy to assume the task!

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Don’t forget to enter our August Giveaway to win a signed copy of Author Therese Walsh’s book The Last Will of Moira Leahy.

Thanks for sharing in my gratitude journal ~ Don’t forget to enter our August Giveaway

If I were to attend a class outside of the home I lean toward hot yoga or Bikram yoga. I attended a hot yoga studio for several months last year and found it both healing and rejuvenating. If the studio were more conveniently located in relation to my home I’d like still be going once a week. However, studio yoga will never make up the bulk of my practice. I prefer the quiet of our second floor loft space where I am bathed in natural light and can slip into the sliver of quiet I have managed to keep hidden in my mind.

My organic yoga practice does not follow a rigid style or schedule. I do tend to begin with the same movement each time – a padahastasana series – because I know from experience that it’s the right opening sequence for me.

From there I will often wander into several balance postures or, alternately, go straight into a downward facing dog. What comes next depends on the experience of the current posture. The flow from one position to another is less a conscious effort than a reaction to the way I am feeling in the moment. I allow myself to be deeply in tune with my body and let it tell me what it wants and needs next.

This method has been the most rewarding for me throughout the years and will always be something I give myself. I enjoy the opportunity to become lost in self awareness, especially given that most of my time tends to be about the awareness of others.

The problem with this approach to yoga is that I may sometimes lose out on new yoga experiences and postures. As with anything, it’s easy to get comfortable with what you’ve always done and forget to set new challenges for yourself, without which you cannot grow and growth is essential. This is why I expose myself to different yoga experiences from time to time and keep my own practice open to new ideas. I then incorporate whatever feels right into my organic yoga practice.

Yoga is something I find to be a deeply personal experience, when done right. Unlike spinning classes and marathon clubs, yoga is something I excel at without the encouragement and company of others. When it comes to weight lifting, do put me in a room with people who are stronger and more capable than I. Their excellence is fuel to my fire. For yoga, though, I prefer an individual and self directed undertaking.

That’s me – what about you? What, if any, yoga practice works best for you? I’d love to know. As I said, I embrace new experiences and your thoughts just might be something my next organic yoga session is looking for.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to achieve great success? Where do successful people find the courage to fight past the fear and doubt we all inevitably encounter when pursuing our loftiest goals? Is there a secret to success? Who better to ask than someone who knows firsthand and is willing to share their wisdom?

Today Novelist Therese Walsh, author of The Last Will of Moira Leahy, is our first guest in an ongoing series of interviews on The Courage to Succeed.

Be sure to also check out our August Giveaway and enter to win a signed copy of Therese’s book. You can leave a comment on this post or on the giveaway page to be entered to win. The contest will run from August 3rd 2010 until August 15th. Please see the Giveaway page for complete rules and details.

The Courage to Succeed
Therese Walsh

Denice @ little light: Thank you for agreeing to be a part of the Courage to Succeed series at little light magazine. My first question is, do you consider yourself successful and is success something you’re comfortable with?

Therese Walsh: Thanks for having me!

I think of success as reaching the summit of whatever mountain it is that you’ve been struggling to climb. I struggled to climb the “publication mountain” for six years, so yes, I do consider myself successful on that count. However, there is always another mountain, and so I’m focused on those next hills now.

Denice: How do you define success for yourself?

Therese Walsh: Success is reaching the top of that mountain, taking a breath, looking around in wonder at all you’ve achieved. And then it’s making a new plan and deciding what to tackle next. I’m probably more comfortable being a climber than I am standing still for too long to look at the vista.

Denice: I can relate to that completely – standing still doesn’t feel right to me either.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Has your path to published author been easy or were there times you doubted yourself? Did you ever feel like quitting?

Therese Walsh: The writing bug bit me slowly. I took a class on magazine article writing in graduate school that inspired me and made me wonder. When I got a job at Prevention Magazine as a researcher, I wanted it to evolve into writing. It did, somewhat, but my writing career didn’t really take off until I left Prevention to become a freelance writer. My daughter was a baby then, and I wanted to stay with her fulltime; that’s when I began reading lots of picture books every day. That led to writing picture book manuscripts, and eventually to writing adult fiction.

Did I doubt? You bet. This story had already been rejected once. But I wanted the story of these twin girls to make it into a book.

Denice: How did you find the courage to work through those times and end up where you are now?

Therese Walsh: Little things kept me going. Some of the positive rejection letters were highlighted and sat beside my desk, including the words of the agent who’d encouraged me toward the path of women’s fiction. My critique partners were always encouraging. Mostly, I felt in my gut that the story needed to be told, and I had a strong desire to continue to grow as a writer—to be as good as the story concept.

Denice: How much of your success to you attribute to having the right mental attitude?

Therese Walsh: All of it—or at least 99% of it. The keys to my success were perseverance, listening to critique without defensiveness, and trusting my gut.

Denice: Why do you think you have been able to succeed where perhaps others have not?

Therese Walsh: I kept at it, reworking, reworking, reworking the prose and the concept until I believed in it wholly. And I continued to grow as a writer during that time, too—studying craft books and works of fiction that resonated with me.

Denice: When you look back, do you think you could have predicted the success you currently enjoy?

Therese Walsh: No, I wouldn’t have. Too superstitious!

Denice: How much stock do you think aspiring writers should put in the commonly offered idea that it’s incredibly difficult to break into the writing market?

Therese Walsh: I think they should know that it IS incredibly difficult. And then I think they should say, “Yeah, so? I’m going to work my ass off, and I’m going to succeed. Just you watch.” And then do it. That’s what it takes.

Denice: Do you think that success feeds on itself and creates more success?

Therese Walsh: It can. But there are also a lot of things outside of the control of the writer. Is success selling a bazillion copies of your book? You can’t control that part of the business. You can control writing a great book. So I would say always make sure, when you’re choosing the next mountain to climb, that you’re facing the right direction and choosing the author’s mountain—not the publicist’s mountain or the marketing director’s mountain. If you write great books, eventually you’ll be well known for those books.

Denice: That’s a great answer – I think ‘facing the right direction’ is something a lot of us forget to do once we’re caught up in the energy other people bring to the table.

Do you think that success is a skill that can be learned?

Therese Walsh: I guess when you break it down into the keys to success, yes. You can learn to push yourself. You can learn to open yourself up to criticism. You can learn to rebuff advice you know in your gut is incorrect. You can be brave enough to lean into a hard edit to improve a story—even if that hard edit takes another two years of your life, as mine did.

Denice: What advice would you offer to someone who is struggling on the path to success and feels like giving up?

Therese Walsh: Don’t give up. The road to publication is littered with people who didn’t pack Gatorade. Know going in that it’s going to be a struggle. You’re going to have to revise your manuscript countless times in order to get it as close to perfect as possible. You’re going to be exhausted. Gatorade in this industry is a support network; it’s what you’ll need to lean on when your own internal drive wants to blink and fail—and it may once or twice. Just keep going, and your drive will return.

Denice: Is there anything you feel is a prerequisite for success?

Therese Walsh: A stubborn determination to succeed. And a true love for your story concept. If you don’t believe in your story down to your bones, you may be in trouble.

Denice: In what way has success changed your life?

Therese Walsh: Becoming published has increased my visibility and connected me directly to readers. Those readers are my lifeline now. They tell me what they loved about my work and what they didn’t love. Their words help me to grow as a writer, while validating many of the steps I’ve already taken.

Denice: Do you have any new projects or news you’d like to share with us?

Therese Walsh: The Last Will of Moira Leahy comes out in trade paperback today, August 3rd, and was recently named a Target Breakout Book. You should be able to find it in Target beginning in mid-August and running through mid-October. We’re all very excited about that.

Other than that, I am working on my second novel now and love the characters to pieces.

Denice: Therese, thank you so much for your thoughtful and inspiring answers on The Courage to Succeed. Congratulations on today’s exciting release of The Last Will of Moira Leahy in trade paperback and good luck with your second novel!

Therese Walsh: Thank you for having me!

Don’t forget to enter our August Giveaway to win a signed copy of Therese’s book!

Please join us next month when iPhone App creator and eBook author Carla White joins us to share her thoughts on The Courage to Succeed.

I am happy to announce that the winner for the August Giveaway at little light is Diane (bookchickdi)! An email has been sent to Diane to notify her of this happy news. Congratulations, Diane!

Thank you to everyone who entered and thank you to Therese Walsh for the generous book donation and awesome interview.

Novelist Therese Walsh, author of The Last Will of Moira Leahy, is graciously donating a signed copy of the newly released trade paperback of The Last will of Moira Leahy for this month’s little light giveaway! We thank Therese for her generosity!

The giveaway will be open from today August 3rd until Sunday August 15th, 2010. To enter please leave a comment here or on our interview with Therese on The Courage to Succeed. All commenters on both posts will be entered to win.

The winner will be chosen at random and announced on August 16th, 2010. The winner will be notified via email and is asked to respond within one week of notification. If response is not received in that time, another winner will be selected.

If you haven’t already done so, please do check out Therese’s interview on The Courage to Succeed. She offers encouraging wisdom and advice on how to stay on track and achieve your loftiest goals.

The links on this post will not work for the first ten minutes the post is live. Please be patient as we publish the interview as well.

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More today i am grateful for…. gratitude journal entries can be found here.

what you’ll need
1 can chickpeas, drained and liquid reserved
1, 2, 3 (or however many you like!) cloves of garlic, peeled
1/3 c tahini paste
1/3 c lemon juice (add this to taste and stop when you think you’ve got enough)
salt
fresh ground black pepper

what to do
Put first 3 ingredients in a food processor and whaz it up until the chickpeas are sufficiently mushed. Add half of the lemon juice, taste, add gradually add more until it’s lemony enough for you. Add salt and pepper.

If you like your hummus chunky you might not need to add any of the reserved chickpea liquid. Most people, I think, prefer a creamier hummus. If you are one such person, add as much reserved liquid as desired. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Hummus is an awesome mid day snack or to have with a light lunch. It will keep well in the fridge for up to one week – if it lasts that long! It never does in our house!

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check out these recipes as well for a perfect addition to hummus ~
homemade whole wheat crackers
homemade flatbread with herbs and sea salt

What to share: are anything you find happy, fun, beautiful, funny, fascinating, exciting, inspirational!

Here are a few of my own Inspiration Elsewhere contributions for the week!

Gorgeous free coloring pages from Eye Pop Art! Click on the image below to take you there:

A thoughtful discussion on how to interact with people on the issues of death and loss from Kathleen at A Longer Letter Later ~ please click on the image below:

These stunning DIY coffee cans at Design Sponge are high on my list of summer projects! Once again, please click on the image to go right to the project!

It’s your turn! What would you like share with the world? Where is the beauty, joy, wisdom and whatever else you want us to know about? Add your links below and remember – you are encouraged to share your own beauty as well as that of others!

Please note that this is a positive and encouraging environment – inappropriate or offensive links will be removed by the website administrator.