Author: Chacalit

I am an older woman inspired to not give up due to life struggles and to strive in everything I do to achieve my goals. I work from home with creating different art pieces. Helping the homeless community in Denver is important to me as well. I like being creative and posting on my blogging about experiences, new information, and lessons learned. I am motivated to put information on the web hoping it will help others. I have two beautiful girls that are grown now and I hope they will be the women I know that is within them. I love technology and the outdoors. I am improving my health to live as long as possible. Life is worth living and living to the fullest.

Autumn Has Called

Here is some of my newest work from my autumn spread. I am producing at different speeds as before. This year I hope to have more exhibited.

Living Life in 2026

I know it’s been awhile but life keeps you busy. I have been working on several things this year but I want to talk about this book before I start.

Memories of Forgiveness

Just the name of this book give me strength to keep moving through my life. This is a book written by a friend’s sister. She has to be one the most courageous people to write about her life and how she made it through. It’s a kind of road map through struggles and how to forgive things that were difficult. I won’t spoil it for you. Click on the link to check it out for yourself. Ethelgoodrich.com

Now let’s get back to my update. I have been working on loosing weight. I have also been working on keeping my business legitimate. Finally, working on relationships that I want or don’t want in my life. There are a couple of other things like sewing, art, and advocacy, but I will talk about that another time.

My weight loss journey has been slow. I have been taking one of those shots but I struggle with proper diet and exercise. Apparently, some of the side effects is loss of appetite, muscle loss, and fatigue. So I am trying to build myself up with walking and I am attempting to consume more protein. This is hard with no energy to exercise and no desire to eat. I have lost 25 lbs. I want to loose another 40lbs. I started at the end of June last year but I am not down enough. I know more movement will help. So for it’s an uphill struggle.

As for my business I hired an assistant. They work once a week doing odd jobs for me. I want to give them more to do like helping me clean. I have also been working on keeping my books up to date which is really hard. Trying to be a bookkeeper, the operations person, and the marketing team, turns out to be exhausting. You have to consider that I also manufacture the majority of my items. This means that I am also the productions manager too, lol.

Finally, lets talk about relationships. I went a lovely retreat in Florissant, CO and have an amazing time. I took a workshop with Ebony on relationships and it explained that I should think more deeply on how valuable they are. For example, toxic relationship should be neutralized so that I am freed to spend more time on myself and not negative emotions. I have other relationships that are not mutually beneficial. I should be receiving a good amount from them.

So to conclude this update, I have been busy. I will try to post some of my interactions with these things below. I hope that I can keep up with all these things and keep growing as the person that I want to be. Love you guys!

A Health Journey: On the Cusp of Homelessness

A friend is sharing her store one video at a time about her journey. She has health issues that prevent her from working. Please like and subscribe she has a powerful story Here is her video:

Teri Vanderhoof

This is a representation of her story before she passed away. Teri lived in a Colorado Coalition for the Homeless building called CCA aka YMCA at the “top of the 16th street mall”. Her boyfriend lived there too but in a separate apartment. She was so talented and vibrant. She also was a Core Reach Artist and Redline Contemporary Art Center. The picture here is from our ACLU exhibition.

Prior to this living arrangements she live on the streets and found creative ways to make due until she was housed. She was survived by (I may not remember everyone) her mother, brother, daughter, and grandchildren. Of course, her family at Redline and her boyfriend also grieves of her abscense.

I can not fully tell her story but I will do my best at attempting it.

She complained about her living arrangements frequently but I remember one workshop we had attended where she had a breakdown. She was at the wits end. We all comforted her at the end of the workshop but she was still really frustrated. She told me about not being able to keep any electronics in her apartment because it was always stollen. So she keeps everything on paper and she was tech savvy. The main reason she couldn’t keep electronics (phones, laptops, etc) is that she had no lock on her apartment door.

Ok, this upset me because there is apartment managers present weekly, case managers on site throughout the week, and other staff members (maintenance, cleaning person, etc) present weekly if not daily. I told her to go to her residence council or ask for manager’s upper levels. She said tried everything to get a lock on her door.

So about 4 weeks after the workshop, I heard that she was dead. No one will give a full story but here is the pieces that I heard:

Her boyfriend and her were sleep in her apartment. Someone came in, knocked him out and killed her. WOW! Remember there was no lock on her door, as the art shows. It wasn’t breaking and entering. I felt so disgusted with the organization for not replacing her lock regardless of whatever excuse they may use. So I waited until my heart could not lash out at them or the staff that I listed above. I am still disappointed on how this happened.

This is just my account of this story. I did get permission from her daughter to write about it. I want to ask everyone to not judge the company but look think of ways to prevent future things like this from happening to any human being. Donations of door locks, volunteer you carpentry skills, or just go sit with someone to help them through a crisis.

New Episode! Collabs

I love these guys.

From the mouth of Elevated Denver. “We’re excited to share that Episode 1: Reimagining Homelessness Solutions: Inside the Collaboratory of our special three-part podcast series is now live! 

This episode takes you behind the scenes of Elevated Denver’s Collaboratory, where lived experts, service providers, policymakers, and business leaders came together to rethink how we address homelessness. You’ll hear directly from co-designers and champions about the challenges, breakthroughs, and what makes this model so powerful.” 🔊 Listen now!