Lately, the neighbor girls and I have been inspired to paint.
We started an Art & Wine Night.
It’s friggin fun!
Bottles of wine are consumed and we let the art take us where it will.
We use plain old acrylics and inexpensive canvases.
And then we create masterpieces.
At least we think so.
We also have a blast.
Next time…we will be painting large wooden letters to hang on our front doors. It will rock.
Well maybe only 3 steps to get started.
I admit it already. I think I am hiding it, but we all know I’m not covering it up well. I am a pack rat, a hoarder, a sentimental junk collector.
There I said it out loud. Isn’t that supposed to be the first step?
Yeah, about recovering from this…not gonna happen. Instead, I spin it my own way into being organized. Can anyone define OCD for me?
I love to collect snippets of life along this journey to remind me of thoughts or feelings or events. Not that I re-visit them all that much, but I still save stuff. Perhaps you have seen my card album post?
1.) Enter the SMASH BOOK
It’s messy and colorful and my life mushed into a non-scrapbook scrapbook. I get to continue hoarding meaningless baubly silly stuff and I can do it without encroaching on every inch of living space that I share with 2 other human beings who seem to like clean and orderly living. Win.
2.) Pinterest
I know I link to it often, it’s just that I am still in love with it. It’s digital hoarding of stuffage that I want to read, research, try, explore. Even though I’ve been on it since the beginning I still have an obsession with it. For me it’s not the thrill of digital collecting just to be collecting, although that’s valid if you are so inclined cuz it takes up a lot less space than say collecting real taxidermied wild animals, which is also valid if you are so inclined. Just not my cup of tea.
The disclaimer on the fabulousness of Pinterest is this:: when your boards reach critical mass…stop. Just stop collecting and start organizing. I made the mistake of thinking I will have only 10 boards, that’s it! Then my problem became scrolling till my hand cramped to find exactly what I KNEW I had pinned 2 1/2 yrs ago. Now that I have broken out some of the critical mass boards into usable storage boards, I am getting more inspired all over again.
I am obsessed with the organization of information I can actually FIND again when I have the time to read, research, try or explore. It also tames the out-of-control paper tiger that was wreaking havoc on my home. No more printing information to stack up only to get lost in the abyss of my office. Another win.
3.) Contain it
I am a big believer in glass jars & baskets. They can contain anything.
And if you are still finding yourself at critical mass, try 40 bags in 40 days.
Holy cow it works!
I like food, and I can admit it freely. I am a control freak, and I can also admit to that. I am also a recovered anorexic. If you have ever had anorexia touch your life, you know that it is not only about food, but that it is motivated by control. My anorexia was halted by the news that I was pregnant in 1996. For as much as I was an inner train-wreck at that time, I could at least look past my own neurosis to realize I had to eat for this baby’s sake. So I ate. A lot. I gained 50 lbs. to make sure my child would be born healthy. I had an excuse to control my eating in the polar opposite direction to give this child a healthy start in life. And it worked. I let go of the self-imposed stigma pertaining to eating, and I let go of the unhealthy obsession with being coat-hanger thin. Once this little boy started to eat real food, I had to finally cook. It’s really easy to not learn to cook when you don’t ever bother to eat more that a saltine cracker or 2, and a glass of milk every day.
The problem was that while I cooked healthy food for my little family, I began to eat in larger quantities than ever before in my life. I gave myself permission to overeat on a regular basis and ended up getting way too heavy to feel good about myself. For 16 years now, I have been overweight. I have also been afraid to lose that weight. Know why? Yup, you guessed it. I still have panic attacks and control freak issues. This means that I am afraid to diet because I will end up right back where I started. I don’t want that. I have told myself for these past 16 years that I would rather be fat and happy than thin and miserable. It stops me dead in my tracks every time.
My New Year’s resolutions for 2011 and 2012 both included trying to lose 1 pound per month. I figured if I did it the slow and steady route, I wouldn’t land myself back in Anorexiaville. That calculated move worked to a degree. Over the first year, I actually lost 14lbs. Yay for me! During 2012 it didn’t work out so well. I merely held steady over the year and contemplated Weight Watchers, or Zoomba, or something to jump start it again without going overboard. But when I would make the effort to try one, Anorexiaville keep throwing up these huge flashy billboards, and arrows pointing to JUST STOP EATING banners. I always look away quickly and then go find the chocolate chip cookies.
When 2013 rolled around, I made the resolution to give it another try. It hasn’t been working out so well. And now we are drawing to a close on the year, and I’m trying to decide a new approach. I’ve been looking into lots of diets; Paleo, Vegan, Clean Eating, South Beach, Weight Watchers…I just want to change my life not follow someone’s dogma. So I’m throwing that all out and starting over.
Simple calorie counting. There’s an app for that.
For a fews days now, I’ve been driving past a dead squirrel on my street. I’ve named him Stanley. Every time I go past him, his fluffy little tail is flapping in the wind. The rest of him is not. I hate when I see things like that.
😉
THANK YOU to Dani at Teddy and Tottie
And another
THANKS GIRL to Jane
Some very kind people think I’m OK, so that is really cool. You should go visit some of my friends because they are awesome and I know you need some awesomeness in your life. Because really, we ALL need as much awesomeness as we can get. We deserve it.
Psssst…these are waaaay overdue thank yous so help me out here, please?
So you may have noticed I took a little bloggy-break. I needed a recharge with all that stuffage that goes on in my day-to-day boring life.
And just what have I been doing in my boring day-to-day life you ask?
Trying to jazz up canned corn for one thing. Yep, not gonna happen. Canned corn is merely that, canned corn.
So, there’s that. And more canned corn. And more canned tomatoes. And more gardening, and sweating, and dragging of garden hoses, and mundane BS.
We’ve had a semi-successful gardening season this year. Meh, ya win some and lose some. No decent squash or peas, but lots of tomatoes and cucumbers. And the damn birds ate nearly ALL of my blackberries and raspberries. I mean geez, I grow enough to share with them but they were just plain greedy this year. There will be more harvesting and canning and freezing in the coming weeks and I am even revisiting my canned mushrooms recipe from last year.
Oh, and I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there would be a yarn giveaway soon. Soon gets here tomorrow.
Not that the statement really means anything. Because it doesn’t. I just can’t get the line out of my head. It sounds like the title of a children’s book. I have a very long list of those. I don’t ever seem to get the actual writing of the books and I definitely can’t do the illustrations. Unless I do stick figures. I can rock stick figures. Too bad there’s no market for stick figure drawings and non-existant books with fabulous titles.
I love to go junk shopping. Thrift stores, garage sales, it doesn’t matter what it’s called if I see a sign…I will most likely stop just to wander around aimlessly. It’s like your Mom letting you rummage through her jewelry box and try on every shiny bauble you fancy when you are 5 years old.
I feel like I hit the jackpot when I find crafty stuff and this was a great find recently. At a church tag sale I picked this 60’s sewing kit up for a song. It was on a table with other crafty type things and heavy and janglely and I wanted to be surprised so I didn’t open it until I got home. Kind of like my very own Christmas-in-July-present-to-self. Wanna take a peak inside with me?
Well yikes, that’s quite a tangley mess.
The vintage sewing patterns and books were pretty fun. I think, no, I know I wore those shorts with the side ties in the 70’s…and a very similar dress in the early 80’s…lord help us all if this stuff makes a comeback.
After sorting through it all and tossing the junk…there were several salvageable bits and pieces.
Not that I need them, but I scored several hooks and knitting needles. I think I will be making some more funky hooks soon.
In the very bottom in the back of the box I found this.
It brought back childhood memories of watching my Mom get ready for a big night out and breaking open the fancy little glass vials of expensive perfume. She would get all dressed up and I would watch her in awe of the beautiful dresses and high heeled shoes and her good jewelry and I would always hope that one day I could feel like a princess getting ready for a date. Remembering life through the eyes of a child makes actually being an adult really difficult sometimes.
Awhile back I showed you my first diaper cake.
Meet diaper cake 2.0.
You can find my directions here.
Besides the diaper cake, my other gift to the mommy-to-be was another very hungry caterpillar cocoon. The post on the first one is here if you are looking for more info.
Goodreads
Bloglovin
WordPress
Ravelry
Craftsy
And that my friends is merely a SAMPLE of my social media. I keep a spreadsheet to remember all my passwords. There are 39 lines on my spreadsheet. And that just ain’t right!
In the past 2 years, I have made a conscious effort to be more social to overcome my introversion. How’s that working out for ya panic attack girl?
I have done it to get my name out there so that when I market a book, I will have well-placed outlets at my disposal. How’s that book writing coming along?
I tried to interact with others more, I just am not into it. My book writing is at a snail’s pace. I waste too much time with social media. I even missed International YarnBombing Day this year! That just ain’t right either! Too many different apps and sites and forums and trolls. The one I like the most is this little bloggity blog site we call WordPress home. I interact with all kinds of lovely people from fantastic places and we humbly share the things in life that move us.
This week, after a little thought on the subject I read multiple blog posts by people that felt similarly. Why am I working so hard and spending so much time trying to be something I’m not? I’m just not that social, nor am I a marketing mogul. I truly prefer the positive side of life, and yet I’m feeling like a friggin creeper at a train wreck.
I am embarking on the journey to extricate myself from time-wasting social media. Buh-bye Goodreads and Twitter and Bloglovin. So long forums and message boards and Instagram…bring on some silent reflection, bring on more music, bring on the yarn.
I have not given up human interaction completely, just completely honed in on the social media that is worthy of my time and effort. It was a spring cleaning of sorts that is making me feel much better. So if I have connected with you on some of the platforms that I am no longer a part of, please know it’s not you, it’s me.
One blogger captured my thought so completely about being an artist at heart and how being overly social squashes that creativity. And really, if I saw one more Instagrammed plate of salmon filets on a bed of arugula with tangerine-peppercorn-mango salsa I was going to hurl.
So my friends, you will continue to find me here at WordPress. My family, you will still find me on Facebook occasionally. And Lord knows, I lurves me some Pinterest and Ravelry because I never have to talk on those. Most of the others are already gone, and the rest are being phased out as we speak. I am vowing from this day forward to not be seduced by social media, I will merely use it wisely and spend more of my time creating.
Art is life
and
life is art.
yarnchick 