I plan for 2014 to be a year of a lot of learning. In every aspect.
Here are some of the classes I took in 2013:
Classes I know I am taking in 2014:
I’ve also picked some coursera and udacity courses I am interested in and will take some of these so that I’m learning new things throughout the year. Clearly, I will not get through these but I like the variety and I like having a list. They’re in no specific order. If you’ve taken any online classes that you’ve liked, I’d love to know your list, too:
I don’t know which of these I’ll take but I love the idea of all of them. Since the coursera ones are downloadable, my plan is to download a course at a time and just watch them while I exercise each morning.
What classes are you taking in 2014?
Last week, I posted about some of my thoughts for 2014 and my three lists, and then Zewa commented with a link to a video about the new Desire Map by Danielle Laporte and she asked me what feelings I was trying to achieve with my goals.
Even though I’d heard about Danielle’s class before, something compelled me to go ahead and watch the video. And then, the strong urge continued until I finished the whole book and half the workbook. It’s like I couldn’t stop until I had my core desires.
So, thanks, Zewa, you made me lose a day and a half of my life 🙂
But, joking aside. This is one of my favorite things about the holiday season. I find that I am even more reflective than usual and I take the time to think, sit with it, and ponder deeply. I take the time to read the whole book in one sitting. I immerse myself in things. And that’s exactly what I did with The Desire Map.
Even though Danielle’s writing (and thoughts) have been hit or miss for me, this book was right on. It came exactly at the right time and was what I needed and wanted to hear.
If you haven’t heard about it, visit Danielle’s site or checkout the video Zewa linked to in this post. The short summary of the idea is that, instead of setting goals and todos for yourself, you identify your core desires. The way you want to feel. And then you set goals that make you feel that way.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
It did to me.
I spent a bunch of time writing down all the words that came to me. Here’s what my initial list looked like:
present
calm
peaceful
centered
generous
whole + full
spacious
comfortable
engaged
graceful
grateful
joyous
belonging
abundant
free
energized
fit
capable
curious
independent
alive
free of worry, stress, of disappointing others
light
deserving
worthy
inspiring, inspired
awed
inspired
full+empty
lived
fulfilled
purposeful
I then followed some of her instructions to help identify my core desires. I spent some solid time with the dictionary and thesaurus and then I finally ended up with my list of four;
- Serene
- Grace
- Engaged
- Whole
These are my core desires. Even though I am open to the possibility that they might change or shift, they feel really right at the moment. I then expanded them a bit more to be clear on what they mean to me and how they encapsulated some of the other words on my list:
- Serene: Calm, centered, peaceful, quiet, present, spacious, peaceful
- Grace: kind, ease, fluidity, generous, fit, capable, abundant, light
- Engaged: interested, curious, alive, growing, participating, living, awed, purposeful
- Whole: free, worthy, belonging, deserving, capable, independent, full
Of course, they may not mean the same thing to you but this is how they resonate with me.
I wanted to put joy on my list. Cause, after all, who doesn’t want joy? But the thing is, I think what I yearn for the most is contentment. Inner and outer peace. These four things give me that. Joy is nice to have but, for me, it’s really in honor of serenity.
Interestingly, these line up quite closely with my core values, too. The words we came up with for my values are different but the feelings are the same. I have:
- Unconditional Love – this is serene and whole
- Learning – this is engaged
- Peace – serene
- Service – Grace
- Gratitude – serene, whole
Maybe it’s not such a coincidence, I value these things because they make me feel the way I want to feel. Makes perfect sense to me.
After I was done, I thought it would be interesting to go back to my lists and revisit things I want to do with these desires in mind and here’s what came up for me:
- Of the list of things I want to learn, all the art ones and courses, classes etc are in honor of being engaged. They make me feel engaged. Doing art also makes me feel serene. Learning is exhilarating for me, it keeps me fully engaged.
- The items on eating and my nails and exercising are to help me feel grace and whole. When I feel stronger and healthier, I feel more independent when I paint my nails or get my hair done, I feel little moments of grace. These are not core to my being but they do help. They also require that I slow down and focus on self-care which increases the feeling of whole-ness.
- Self-kindness is in honor of serene and whole. When I am kinder to myself, I feel calm and centered. I feel worthy.
- On the items of doing more of, most of these honor serene. Reading makes me feel calm and centered. Journaling also makes me feel whole. Doing things with my family makes me feel whole and so does capturing those moments. Hiking, eating well, date nights, hugging, loud music (interestingly) helps with serenity. Anything outdoors is for serene. Self-care is for whole and grace.
- And finally the list of things that fulfill me, volunteering is for grace (actually I feel all four when I volunteer). When I read the list again and again, I notice that all of these on the list are to honor all four of my desires. Some lean more one way but all of them touch all four of my desires. Way to go.
So there we are. I really liked this exercise and plan to keep my core desires front and center. One of the things I did for myself for 2014 was to buy a ring that said: kind, present, listen. I think if I do those three things, I will honor every one of my core desires.
Thank you, Zewa, as I hope you can tell, your comment made a large tangible impact on my life.
2013 was my year to be present. I feel like I started out the year with a strong focus on my work and my hopes for this year. The word really resonated with me when I took a trip back home and the boys and I stayed with my parents for ten days in Bodrum. While there, I distinctly felt the conscious decision to be present and was able to truly let go of doing, being, wanting, striving for, planning anything else. I was just present. At least more than I’ve ever been before. And it was wonderful. When I came back home, it lasted for quite some time. I didn’t pressure myself, I sat in the backyard with the kid a lot and did my work in the sunshine.
But then things got rougher. I am not exactly sure where the turning point was but by the time I entered September, I was the opposite of present and it just went downhill from there. I just stopped wanting to do anything. I felt frustrated with my yearly projects. I abandoned a few, tried to change others, and stopped doing classwork in the classes I’d signed up for. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know this is very atypical of me. It was a scary feeling and a sign that I wasn’t centered at all. I just felt no desire to do anything.
As the year is coming to a close, I am finally getting closer to finding the peace again and while I feel disappointed and sad about how the last few months have been, I am still deeply grateful for this word. Even though I picked a new word for 2014, this new word will require me to be present so I feel like I am going to still be hanging on to this precious word that is very core to how I want to feel in my life.
As with each year, I’d set some specific goals for 2013 and here’s how they worked out:
Family
1. Teach Nathaniel how to read by using the same book I used for David. We started on this book but he was having a tough time at first, and then resisted it quite a bit but now we’re back to doing it and about halfway through it. Reading is a project Nathaniel and I have for 2014 so I feel good about this one.
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary). We did this every single week except for the week we were in Turkey without Jake where we just took one with my family there. I absolutely adore these photos.
3. Write daily gratitudes for me and David (Project Gratitude Journal) Oh, yes, we did this one. Gratitudes are wonderful.
4. Have a family tradition where we do something together each weekend for 1-2 hours. We didn’t really do this officially but i’ll say that we had ten times more family trips and fun times together this year than ever before.
5. Create gratitude-focused art with Nathaniel each week (Project Nathaniel’s Gratitude Pages) I did this about halfway. I am not sure why we stopped but we did. I did love all the pages we finished.
6. Create gratitude postcards with David and mail them out (Project David’s Gratitude Postcards) Like Nathaniel’s, we didn’t finish out this project but we did a lot of cards and we mailed them all out. It was really resonant for me.
7. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools I did this. Not as much as I’d like but enough.
8. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake We didn’t do this as frequently as I’d like but we did a lot of date nights and they were lovely. Even though we lost our sitter halfway through the summer (she went to college) we did end up getting several new ones and we’re back on schedule.
9. Tell our family stories (The Savor Project) The Savor project started to feel burdensome to me sometime in the summer. I changed to going digital but I’d lost my love for it. I am not sure what will happen in 2014, but I am not ready to give up on it yet.
Health
1. Continue running daily, work your way back up to 5K a dayI did exercise daily. I was running 1 mile for the longest time and recently I went back to walking fast so I could increase to 2 miles. I still hope to find my way back to running 3 miles.
2. Find a way to incorporate strength exercises weekly oh this didn’t happen at all.
3. Come up with three healthy ideas for each meal and use them When i adhered to them, i did have a routine for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is always tougher.
4. Get minimum 7hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends I think I did good on this one.
5. Meditate every day oh no, not at all.
6. Floss dailythis one wavered a lot, too. which is weird since I love flossing.
Art
1. Sketch minimum three times a week (Project Weekly Sketching) started out strong and then faltered a little over midyear.
2. Art journal weekly incorporating hand-lettering (Project SixBySix and Project Gratitude PostCards) I did both of these.
3. Pick one of the online classes I didn’t complete and do the work I didn’t do this. I did some of the lessons in the I love Drawing class and a few others but not as much as I would have liked.
4. Experiment with at least three mediums depends on what you consider experimenting 🙂 not really on this one.
5. Experiment with collage/mixed media once a week (Project Gratitude Journal) i loved my gratitude journal
6. Continue to create for my design teams (Maya Road & My Mind’s Eye) i stuck with both of these teams, too.
7. Create a new Savor Project for 2013 (The Savor Project) wrote about this one in the above section.
Celebrating
1. Write at least three long thought/idea oriented blog posts a week meh, this started out well. but as i felt down and tired, i just completely gave up. I hope to do better next year. i love writing these posts.
2. Make a list of 3 achievements each week for each family member and have a celebratory breakfast/lunch once a week. even though we didn’t do the breakfasts all year, i did list 1 celebration for each member all year long.
3. Send one kind email to someone each week wow i totally forgot about this one.
4. Have and end-of-day ritual each night and a welcoming-the-day ritual each morning this, too, didn’t happen though I still love the idea.
Reading
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week) done. reading continues to be my savior.
2. Read regularly to and with David i didn’t read much to David this year. He reads awesome on his own and we did read side by side a lot and read a few books at the same time so we could talk about them.
3. Teach Nathaniel to Read working on it
4. Regularly attend both book clubs attended almost all of the meetings of my three book clubs
Gratitude
1. Write down two things I am grateful for each day (Project Gratitude Journal) done
2. Write daily for David (Project Gratitude Journal)done
5. Create gratitude postcards for me and mail them out (Project Gratitude PostCards) i did these but didn’t mail them out.
Learning
1. Get Coaching Certification done, woot!
2. Continue to coach clients doing so. love love love my awesome clients.
3. Take two classes locally i didn’t take any classes outside of coaching this year.
4. Learn to drive on the freeway – still not giving up on this one i did more freeway driving this year than in the last 38 combined. But still not as much as I’d like. major progress here.
5. Learn to ride a bike – nor this one! not done!
Belonging (I changed this around a bit but it’s still about building community)
1. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week with a good friend (or a potential good friend). If not possible, call/email a friend to reconnect. i did some of this but really not enough
2. Invite guests over for dinner at least once a month we didn’t do so well on this in the second half of the year. more of this in 2014.
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a month i have lists and ideas but never did it.
4. Send out gratitude cards to people whom I am grateful for meh didn’t even do this one
I had some focus areas too:
1. Let go of worry: this is tough for me. I had some moments of pure peace and I am grateful for those.
2. Do Less: I actually did do this for quite some time. Next year, I will do even less.
3. Do not yell: This also was much better. Still had a lot of not-so-proud moments but I am working on it.
4. Be mindful: I am doing a lot better on this. Noticing the moments, the choices.
5. Celebrate: This was a great one to choose for 2013 and I definitely did do it. It was a gift. I know I need to continue it.
6. Cultivate Belonging: I did do some of the depth I wanted here, but I want more. Much more.
7. Self-Compassion: I’ve been working on this actively. This doesn’t come naturally to me. I am noticing it more. I am surrendering more. I am being kind instead of judgmental.
8: Be open: I’ve worked on this actively, too. This one can use even more attention. Especially being open to the possibility that things will be ok.
9. Gratitude: Practicing gratitude has become a way of life for me. But I want to up the ante more for 2014. Let’s see if I can.
I also went home to Turkey and spent ten days with my parents, my sister and her family, and my kids and went to Martha’s Vineyard for time with Jake and his siblings’ families and his parents. Both of these were wonderful and I will cherish them for a long time. I taught a class through Big Picture and I sold a bunch of art and I was published in Haute Handbags.
And here we are. 2013 was a full year. As with every year, there were ups and downs, challenges and huge joys. Deep sadness and wide happiness. I loved my word and I know that no matter what these lists say or what I accomplished or did not finish, I am incredibly lucky and blessed. My life is full and I am grateful for every moment of it.
And, with that, good-bye 2013. Thank you for your lessons and gifts.
I’ve long been a fan of Brene Brown. If there’s a class she teaches, there’s no chance I am not taking it. And this class with Oprah was no exception.
I will admit that during the class, I didn’t do any of the assignments. I did watch to all the videos and attended the live chats and thought about doing the work, but I never did. So, one of the plans I had before the year closed was to sit and do all the assignments and I am glad to say that I did all the ones I intend to do.
Not surprisingly, they were profound.
The first assignment was about setting permissions and then taking a photo of ourselves and writing the names of people to whom we trust our stories. I didn’t do the permission slips because I honestly didn’t have anything that stuck out to me. I reserve the right to do them later if I so choose. And here’s my page with the photo and list (which is on the tab inside the envelope.) On my hand it says “I am imperfect and I am enough.”
David took that photo of me. Isn’t that awesome?
I did the second and third assignments in one spread.
The left side is a photo of me that captures a sense of who I am. I love this photo because I look like I am fully stepped into being who I am. I am wearing boas and hats. I am having fun and i am looking right at the camera. I love that. The right side is a photo of me when I’d like to say some compassionate things to myself. I picked this photo because even though I am pretty young and looking at the camera, I know that I was already feeling vulnerable then. It’s all about how things will work out and how I will find belonging.
I painted the pages with golden paint and then journaled. I tried to then cover with some candle so they wouldn’t stick but I rubbed too soon and some of the ink hadn’t dried, hence the smear on the right side. But I’m okay with that, it’s a class on imperfection after all. 🙂
And then the next assignment was about making collages on what makes me numb, how I numb and what I could be doing instead (what brings me joy.) I thought a lot about this one and how to do it, and I finally decided to just make a collage on what brings me joy:
What makes me numb is loneliness, worry, feeling like I’ve disappointed myself, being overtired, frustration, jealousy, sorrow, anger. Unkind people. People lying, cheating, putting others down. Injustice. And how I numb is random surfing (pinterest often), TV, staying up late for no reason, and a lot of chocolate. But then there’s the joy list. Things that work when I do them. My comfort wisdom list:
- journaling
- sleep
- doing art
- stitiching
- talking to my parents, my kids talking to my parents
- family time
- eating healthy but enough to feel satiated
- the ocean (or lake or other bodies of water.)
- getting organized
- reading
- taking a walk
- going to the woods
- listening to Tara Brach or Brene Brown
- coffee and tea
These are what comfort my soul.
The next week’s assignment was to take photos of everyday ordinary things from our life and make a collage. I decided to just go over all my photos from 2013 and put some of the ones that make me smile on there. I picked many from home so as to keep them ordinary. Love my family so much.
Just looking at that makes me happy.
And then the final week’s assignment was to go back to page one and create a mantra. I thought a lot about mine and finally settled at the one that I’ve stuck with for a long time.
other ones I thought of were:
- give up that there’s something wrong.
- be you.
- choose joy.
but in the end, yes you can is my motto. No one gets to tell me what i can and cannot do. And I can do anything I set my mind to. Anything.
And there we are. If you’re on the fence about this class, I will, of course recommend it. I think Brene’s message is profound and I can never listen to it enough.
I will be taking the next part in March and maybe this time I can do the assignments alongside her.
Here the last photos from this year:
We cleaned up the board game closet this week so the boys played all the games.
then we drove around the neighborhood for some Christmas spirit and lights. This one was a favorite.
then it was Christmas eve, so the boys got to open one present as it’s our tradition. This year, I’d preselected the one they got to open. (That’s why it has different wrapping paper pattern.)
the reason i picked it was because they each got rainbows for their room, which only worked at night so it was a perfect Christmas eve present.
i was worried they wouldn’t work, but they were quite neat.
Christmas day the boys were awake at 6am so I set the table and made some cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip waffles. some fruit, marshmallows, chocolate chips and hot chocolate completed the breakfast.
and, of course, the tulips. i get tulips each year.
we took a photo but there was literally no light at all. it was still dark outside.
then it was time to open the stockings.
and, finally, the presents.
Nathaniel got to go first.
then David.
he kept trying to guess what it was.
and here’s his “thank you so much” face.
he was just as interested in Nathaniel’s presents, of course.
Nathaniel made us some awesome cards at school and here he is presenting his gift.
playing with all the toys is the best part of Christmas.
reading the lego book.
Nathaniel “reading.”
David finally got a microscope after asking for it for years. He was quite thrilled.
then we took some family photos.
the kids just wanted to play, of course, so they are looking at their presents instead of the camera.
and then we screamed Merry Christmas!
and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too. here’s to a lovely 2014!
Weekly Diary is a project for 2013. You can read more about it here.
Even though I didn’t write nearly as many as I would have liked, I wrote around ninety of them this year. Not terrible, especially considering how little I wrote in the last few months. I wanted to share some of my favorites from the year. These are my favorite part of my blog and I always wish I would take the time to write more. It’s how I grow, reflect and learn.
And if you haven’t already seen it, This is Water by David Foster Wallace was, by far, my favorite video all year. I re-watch it regularly:
Before this year ends, I wanted to make sure to share with you my Smash! album I made for our trip home this past summer. I bought the album with the intention to do it while I was there. I bought one for me and one for David. I figured we could journal and collect ephemera while there and do the photos when we got back.
Alas, I didn’t really touch mine. (David didn’t either.)
So when I got back, I decided to sit and do it all. And it took much much longer than I’d anticipated. As it dragged on, I got alarmed that the Smash book had so many more pages than I was going to be able to use. After months of being really sad about this, I was finally able to get over it by removing the last few pages that I knew would be blank. Ta-da! Now I feel good.
So here are the pages:
I bought the doodle one as it was the one I’d wanted to have all along.
i don’t know why this photo is so blue but nonetheless, i covered it with some washi tape to make me happy.
the first few pages is about los angeles where we spent two nights before flying home.
another page about la.
our tickets, about the trip, and the yummy hazelnuts they give on turkish airlines.
a lot of journaling about the first few days.
dad’s map of where we are and the places we’d been so far. and some photos.
my parents’ house is in the Gundogan bay.
more photos and a little bit about how we split our time.
my nephews and my favorite things about being with them.
doing the values exercise on my sister and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.
some of my favorite photos.
and ones of my sister, mom and me. i love these so much.
the boys playing in the sand. and waterguns.
just how much they played with my kids. my nephews are awesome.
mom and dad, who made all this possible.
more sand play.
a few final photos I love so much.
some wrappers from our food there. a little photo of bodrum.
and some luggage tags on the way home.
there you go. a little, lovely album to remind me of the magical times at home.
And here we are:
I didn’t want to overthink these pages so I cut my page of two 4x6s in half and put one of the boys playing chess.
and a movie on the back.
then a little card i got in the mail.
from big picture classes. so grateful for them.
then it’s christmas eve and the boys opening their one present. little rainbows for their room.
our family photo on christmas day.
love the shiny.
a card nathaniel made for us for Christmas. It’s a cheetah!
and a picture he drew on Christmas day, it’s hot lava and acid!
And our christmas breakfast table.
and finally tulips. I always end with tulips and my word for the next year.
and here we are. so grateful for this project.
Gratitude journal was a new project for 2013. I wasn’t sure where it was going to go but I loved the idea of writing my and David’s gratitudes daily and I knew it would give me an opportunity to do regular art. Of all my projects for 2013, it was probably the one that felt the easiest and least burdensome even thought I did it daily.
Even though I can’t say I was a huge fan of the actual journal I used, I loved the variety and freedom this format gave me. The watercolor one I used for The Weeklong Journal project was much more fun, paper-wise. I think I am just a fan of watercolor paper. I find it more versatile and I feel it makes the colors much more vibrant.
Putting the paper aside, I loved this project. I loved the freedom it gave me, I loved writing down my gratitudes, and having them all in a book. I loved all the color and joyful pages.
Here are some of my favorite pages:
as you can see i have more than a few:
which is a good indication that this project was a success joy-wise!
As we approach 2014, I decided to take a break on this, however. I might bring it back for 2015 but I like being able to vary things around and I needed something different. Having said that, I believe the daily gratitude practice is too valuable to give up so I think I will make it a part of my Savor Project for next year.
May you have a lovely Christmas Day!
Parallel was an impulse read. I saw it and decided I had to read it. So I started and finished in one swoop. I don’t care if it wasn’t high literature.
I loved it.
It was a fun, fast read and if the genre is your style, I highly recommend it.
I find that it’s always good to shake up the reading every now and then so I don’t ever get in any kind of rut. Given the choice, I’d always read amazing books but those are hard to find. So having some fun ones like this in between okay books is always good to have.
Today is a bunch of events from the last day of school. David singing and also reading from his myth at school.
David’s friend surprised us with cookies on our door, so I added the note to our book, too:
and the program from David’s school.
and the inside.
there we go. See you tomorrow. Merry Christmas! 🙂
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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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