Intro- My Story

 Hi I'm Danielle, and I sometimes went by Akasha online.  I'm a middle aged woman living in Waller, Tx with my partner Kevin in a guesthouse on his parents' property.  We have two cats, and I have a 17 year old daughter who will be graduating high school in the class of 2025.  We both work for an inventory service which takes us all over Texas and Louisiana.  I also do side jobs on apps that pay you for small jobs in stores.  I had about a 20 year career working with children in a few different capacities.  I started when I was 16 and stopped when I was 36.  Suffering from panic attacks when I was about 36 led me to need something a little more quiet and simple, so I started caregiving for elderly and disabled people in their homes.  One of the companies I worked for used me as a "sub", so I was working with a lot of different people every few days whenever their regular caregivers needed days off.  I have also been a regular caregiver, but all of my previous main clients have passed away.  After about ten years of battling panic attacks, I feel like I'm ready to start working with kids again.  But the inventory service pays pretty good, unlike any caregiving profession ever.  So I'm easing back into it by writing a book about my experiences.  I'm titling the book The Child Advocate.  It's currently sitting at a word count of 21,713.  That's a very rough draft.  I hope to participate in NaNoWriMo in November, but the daily commitment is hard on me with the kind of heavy content I'm writing.  My therapist told me that I suffer from secondary trauma as a result of caregiving jobs for both kids and adults.  As a result, I have to take the writing slowly.  Other times, a writing session is extremely therapeutic, cathartic, and helps me discover things about myself I've never realized before.  

I'm also passionate about sewing and crafts, especially up cycling.  I am working on making denim chenille quilts for an Etsy shop, and I love to make upcycled jewelry.  A thrift store near my partner's old home has 25 cent Wednesdays from 7:30-11:30 am, and I go if there are no inventory jobs. I stock up on items I can cut up for upcycled crafts.  

I'm also really passionate about self-directed education and thinking outside the box.  Self-directed learning has led me to where I am today.  It's a really long story.  I'm a firm believer that if people just pursue their passions and interests all the time, then many prosperous doors will open up as a result of those pursuits.  It doesn't matter what the interests are.  I will blog more later about how I pursued my own passions and interests, and how those led to doors opening for me.  Thanks so much for reading, and I can't wait to form new connections.