The day after Christmas, I was sitting with Jake, trying to decide what we should do for the following week. We hadn’t really had too many adventures over the holidays and I wanted to see if we wanted one last hurrah. Nathaniel mentioned he wanted to play with snow so I asked Jake if he knew of a place relatively closeby that had snow. After some searching we found this farm which was about a hour and 20 minutes away.
Nathaniel really wanted to build a snowman and David wanted to ice skate. I wanted to see the lights. We decided a Tuesday afternoon would be considerably better than New Year’s Day so we got on the road around 2pm. As it worked out, between construction and traffic, it took us much longer than 75 minutes. But we persevered. When we got there, the little mountain of snow the farm owner mentioned ended up being really hard, fake snow. Not ideal for making snowmen.
We tried and tried and tried but then after realizing how hard it was going to be, I told Nathaniel that maybe we should just aim to make a sinking snowman instead. So we finished off his head, gave him a nose, eyes, some buttons and called it a day.
Not the best but sometimes you have to make do with what you have.
We then ice skated for a while, the kids raced some cars, got some cupcakes, and I got to have my light tour. The drive back home was considerably less painful and we all enjoyed our lovely little adventure. Here’s to more adventures.
Stories from 2016 is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s girl seven:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
- Weekly Intention: This week is a full, full week and even though I usually spend time Sunday evenings planning for the week ahead, as it worked out, we decided to take a last minute skiing trip this Sunday so we just got home and it’s 10pm so I am choosing to go to bed instead of doing my planning. Which means the week might start of even more shakily than usual. But I am grateful for the wonderful day and maybe this was a sign that my intention for this week should just be to be more present and in the moment instead of worrying about planning this week out.
- Choices I want to make:
- One: I want to choose to eat well and do my exercises despite the very full days.
- Two: I want to choose to spend my moments at home with my family instead of working since I will be at work a lot this week.
- Three: I want to spend the rest of my time getting as much rest as possible.
- I am looking forward to: Seeing some of my coworkers from Zurich who will be here for the week!
- This week’s challenges: This week I have two back to back summits at work which means I will be going to the office every day. And there will be two social events at night and all day meetings for 4 days. This means a lot of other work will need to be caught up on afterwards. It means I will be home very little. It means I will need time to fill up my energy since I’m introverted and need the quiet time to fill up.
- Top Goals:
- Work: Get a lot of productive work done while all the visitors are in town. Use face to face time well.
- Personal: Keep health a priority for the week. Be kind to everyone even if you are stressed/tired.
- Family: Spend as much time with my kids and husband as possible.
- I will focus on my core desires (kind, strong, true, generous, brave) by:
- Being really present at work and at home this week.
- I will be kind to myself and others during this hectic time.
- I will be generous with my time and effort.
- I will put aside anything that’s not urgent so this full week can have all my attention.
- This week, I want to remember to: I want to remember that it might be a long week but it’s just one week and it’s transient and it’s wonderful to have the summits here for a change. And that since I do have to be in the office so much, I would like to use that time wisely. I want to make the most of it.
Here’s to a wonderful week!
Living Intentionally is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s girl six:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s girl five:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s week one in my sketchbook of all the daily choices I’ve made so far. I started with the second because I did 🙂 I actually drew these sketches a while back when I was on my last trip to Zurich. One is out of the plane’s window and the other is the cheeses they gave on the plane. Before I ate them, I decided to draw them all. To be honest, I didn’t like any of the cheeses so I was glad I got some use out of them by drawing them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this particular project because getting a page of sketches in each week seems tough some weeks, especially since I seem to hold myself to some invisible high bar. I don’t want to give up on the plan but it’s possible I will do some collage, photos, or even blank pages this year. I really want to make sure I do the daily journaling and don’t give myself excuses to get out of that.
Most of the choices this year so far have centered around eating well, exercising, resting a lot, and being kinder. Not much of a surprise for week one of a year but let’s see how it goes.
Here are closer shots of each side:
Today I Choose is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s girl four:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
I read The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History for my book club. Yet another book that could have been a long, interesting article. Instead, it’s a long, repetitive book. And a bit alarmist. Even if what you’re saying is true, if you say it in a way where it sounds so extreme, i am more likely to write you off than to listen. It’s better to make your point in a way I can digest and in a way I feel like I can do something about it.
Maybe it’s unnecessarily harsh of me. This book is interesting. It makes some legitimate and scary points. But I would have preferred to read the article version instead.
Here’s girl three:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
Here’s girl two:
Fashion Girls in a Monthly Project for January 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
If I had to pick a winner for what took up the most of my time during Christmas vacation, the hands down winner would have to be the Rubik’s Cube.
A few months ago, Nathaniel started saying that he wanted to get a Rubik’s cube. He asked if we could get him one. Then he asked if he can take the little one David had to school. I noted it down in my memory as a Christmas present for him and right when I was buying presents, David mentioned he wanted one, too. So I got a cube for each of the boys. A simpler one with no stickers for Nathaniel and semi-seethrough one for David.
When they opened their presents, I decided I wanted to see if I can solve it. As a kid, I had tried it many times but given up. I figured I could never, ever actually do it. When I opened the instructions for the cube, I almost laughed out loud. The paper said the first step was to make a white cross, and then it said “This step is easy, we have no tips for you.” Well, that was helpful. NOT.
After I spent hours and hours and hours on it, I was finally able to consistently get the white cross and the white corners. (Which are steps 1 and 2) but then, not matter how I tried, I could not get the next step (which is finishing the 3rd and 2nd layers. After another few hours (I literally spent my whole Christmas day on this and now we were on the next day.) David showed me a video he was using to learn.
Which finally did the trick.
I watched it again and again and then after I was able to complete it three times, I wrote down notes so I could remember what to do. I then solved it so many, many times that I can get to the sixth step without having to look at my sheet. Maybe if I keep at it, in a few weeks I can memorize those steps too.
I know this might seem pointless to many people. I was angry with myself on Christmas night for wasting my whole day trying to solve this crazy cube and not being able to. But now I am proud of myself. Not because I can solve this and not because I memorized a bunch of moves. But because I stuck with it. Because I showed myself again that hard work always pays off. Always.
Oh, and, solving the cube is always a neat party trick isn’t it?
For future reference (for me), here are the steps and moves I wrote on my paper:
- The White Cross
- If you have to flip the edge, do: F(CC), U(C), L(C), U(CC)
- The White Corners
- The Sides – (while looking at the yellow side, line up a non-yellow side so it makes a T and then look at the direction you need to move)
- Left to Right: Face left, Bottom Right, Right forward, Middle Right, Right backward, fix the white face
- Right to Left: Face right, Bottom Left, Left forward, Middle Left, Left backward, fix the white face
- The Yellow Cross
- If you have the bar: Clockwise (FRU), Counterclockwise (RUF)
- If you have the hook: Clockwise (FUR), Counterclockwise (URF)
- The Yellow Corners (to get to fully done yellow)
- The fish tail faces to the top right: RU(C), R(CC), UR(C), Up 2x C, R(C)
- Now line up the corners of the top layer:
- R(CC), F(C), R(CC), Back 2x, R(C), F(CC), R(CC), Back (2x), R(2x)
- Final Step:
- Clockwise: R2, URU(C), RURUR(CC), U(C), R(CC)
- Counterclockwise: R(C), U(CC), RURUR(C), URU(CC), R2
Stories from 2016 is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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