karenika

Knowing What Works for You

One of the things I realized last year was that one of the keys to happiness and living a peaceful life was getting to know myself as well as I could. When I discovered my scrappy “voice” two years ago, scrapbooking became considerably more fun for me. I felt like I’d found my little corner and I was finally at home. And over the next year I realized more and more that life is similar. If I can figure out how I work and what I like and what I dislike in more areas of my life, I can be a lot more clear about my path, my intentions, my friends, my relationships, my choices, etc.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Whenever I do or feel something, I try to step back and be more aware so that I can see if it’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that defines who I am. Journaling every morning helps me with that journey quite a bit.

This morning, as I journaled, I realized that I was feeling off. Not really upset but just off. There was an underlying level of anxiety and I didn’t like it. As I dug in deeper, I realized that it was because I felt like I still had a lot of items on my todo list for work. Some of these items were not clearly defined for me so I didn’t know their scope, making it even harder for me to have them undone.

I’ve learned over time that having things undone is not a comfortable place for me. Neither is lack of clarity. I tend to prefer clear deliverables with deadlines. And I will always, always, always deliver under the deadline. This is important to me. So because I know it’s important to me, I tend to get anxious when I have things due. All I can think about is getting them done. And this morning’s anxiety was of this kind.

So I did what I know works best for me. I sat down and got a bunch of stuff done. This helped clarify the scope of some of my items and eliminated others from my list. And guess what? Anxiety went away. Even though I didn’t actually finish the list or even clarify all the items, I still felt much better because I made solid progress and that’s what I needed.

The trick is to know what works for you.

In this case, I just needed to sit and get stuff done. There are cases where I need to sit and journal. Or get up and take a walk. When I am really really upset emotionally, I often need to take a nap so I can “reboot” and look at things with fresh eyes. If I am really really angry, I need to take a break and play with my kids so the joy and gratitude comes back and I can remember what matters most. If I am conflicted and super-frustrated emotionally, I tend to journal so I can sort out my feelings/thoughts on paper. There are cases where I just call a friend because I know I can’t resolve it on my own or just need to hear myself say it out loud.

There’s no right or wrong thing to do here. The trick is to know what works for you.

I don’t always get it right, of course. Sometimes, even when I know what I should do, I don’t do it. I whine. I wallow. I live in self-pity. I let it get out of hand. I scream. I do all these things, too. But more and more, I am trying to pay attention to what works for me so that I can have it in my arsenal of things to try when the need arises. I think the more aware I am of their existence and use, the more likely I am to look for them when the time is right.

Or so I hope.

ps: If you’ve sent me an email or left a comment in the last few days, I am deeply sorry that I haven’t replied yet. I’ve been desperately catching up on a long list of tasks and I have class tonight and a lot of work all week. So just please know that I will reply as soon as I can and I am not ignoring you in any way and also that you words are really important to me (which is why I am not just rushing with a precut reply.) I truly appreciate your patience with me.

The Savor Project – The November Album and some Changes

One of the reasons I start my yearly projects early is to get a chance to test them out and make sure I have the process part down and make sure that I am going to actually enjoy working on the project. While I always reserve the right to change my mind, alter the project throughout, or even stop it, I tend to prefer to stick with it so I like to give each of them a test run before the year starts.

Such was the case with The Savor Project. I talked about it at length on this post and talked about my plans. I made pages all throughout November and then took a break for December since I was doing the December Daily album then.

When I came back to it to finish my last two November pages, my book looked like this:

It didn’t take long for me to realize that this system wasn’t going to scale. If my book was already this fat in one month, how would I fit 12 more months in it? How many books was I going to need? As much as I liked the idea of having this book and this specific format, I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. So for a few days I completely obsessed over it. And finally found a new format that was a little less ideal than I’d like but will scale to hold the whole year. I will do another post to talk about that project in my next post on Wednesday. For today I wanted to show you the full November album. I changed the cover slightly to reflect the changes and decided to declare this album the Savor November Album. And there we go.

So here’s the new cover:

I just changed the year to 2011 and added a little “nov” and that was done.

Here’s a quick look at the first pages I’d already shared with you with the text explaining them:

That page of journaling comes out and you can read more:

Here’s one from November 7:

And here’s one from November 8:

This one is quite involved as the left page flaps down to tell one more story:

And the right side has a top flap and a tag that comes out from the side and the heart is a journaling tag that also comes out:

this is an extreme example and most of my pages are simpler but it does show how far a spread can be taken:

and here’s an example with ephemera. My jury duty papers:

and our safeway (grocery) receipt from that week:

this is November 10 and 11. On the left is the kids playing together and David’s new desk which we spent all night putting together and he’s already lined up his legos on. I also added the box for the Robitussin because I was sick that week and absolutely hated taking this medicine.

this page has the back of the medicine and then a printout of a bug that caused me to work on a day I was officially off work. I took the 11th as a vacation day but then we had a compatibility issue and I ended up chasing it down all day so it wasn’t really a day off. I printed the public bug report out and put it in the pocket to remind myself.

Behind the printout, I put a photo of Nathaniel surrounded by diapers. This is to remind me that he finds ways to self-entertain when I am busy with work or being sick. And it ends up okay. It might be a mess but he’s happy.

The next spread is just a photo of the kids playing on the left. I was still sick and Jake was out of town. The kids were just sweet as can be. Played quietly and happily. I just feel indescribably lucky. The right page is about when Jake gets home from his trip and the kids are so happy to see him and hang out with him.

And finally the last spread. The one on the left is my performance evaluation. Just wanted to be able to come back and look at them. The right side is both the kids writing at different times of the day and how much joy it brings me to see them at the table and how much they enjoy writing.

and here are the rest of November pages:

November 17. On the left it’s about David and my reading project and the book we were reading then: The Westing Game. The right side talks about Nathaniel looking at all the catalogs we’ve been getting for the holidays and telling me all the toys he wants. And then on the bottom of that page is the first book in my new book club.

left side of this spread is Nathaniel’s sharing day at his school and how fun it was to watch him. The right side is about going to see the fourth Twilight movie with the same friends I’ve seen the last three.

And this page is November 20 – 22. Left side is David feeding Nathaniel and how much I love seeing them help each other. And the right side is about how silly they like to be together and how they always make me laugh.

November 23. I love how Nathaniel loves to go through my notebooks and look at my sketches and my art. So I have a photo of him doing that and some words on how it makes me feel. The right side is a surprise I got in the mail. Even though I had sent an email to Christine, I’d completely forgotten about it so I was very surprised when I got her card in the mail.

so I put the card in a pocket on the right side with the envelope it came in. I love the whole thing. Thank you, Christine.

The next spread is on Thanksgiving Day. On the left is actual Thanksgiving dinner and then on the right it’s all about setting up our tree and getting ready for Christmas.

And here’s the last spread of the month. On the left side is some of the happy mail I got that wasn’t actually Christmas related. A pair of heels from my mom all the way from Turkey and some wonderful prints I’d bought from Kal Barteski. And the right side is photos from the day of art and fun and rest we had during our Thanksgiving weekend.

And that’s the end of this little book. I still have some empty pages in there which I will likely take out and use for other art projects. I love how this little book turned out. I loved working on it and I am very grateful for it. Here’s to hoping my new setup makes me just as happy.

Letters with Nathaniel – A

As I explained a few weeks ago, the goal of this project is to spend some time with Nathaniel, just the two of us, so he can have projects with mommy, too. I plan to keep this project simple and fun for both of us. So, Friday night, I printed some letter sheets and bunch of things that start with the letter A. I cut them all up and then yesterday, Nathaniel and I glued them down together to create this simple page:

We talked about each of the words and then differentiated between big A and little A. Then he colored all the A’s on the left side and asked me to color the one on the right side. And we were done.

Here he is coloring:

After we were done, he said “Fun, Happy.” So I took that as a good sign that this project is going well. Simple and fun. That’s the plan.

Letters with Nathaniel is a weekly project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Weekly Diary – January 7 2012

Our first week of the year was relatively hectic. David went back to school and Jake went back to work. I hit the ground running on work, too. Nathaniel was home for one more week. The boys are growing up so fast. Nathaniel is becoming more and more vocal and insistent and difficult. He likes to put a teen after all the numbers. So it’s not four but fourteen (even if it’s 4) and then fiveteen. Even if we correct him, he insists it’s not 4 but fourteen. He also likes to whine and whine until he gets his way. The drama level has doubled or so. David’s growing up too and getting bored more quickly. But I am working with him to try and adjust his attitude. He’s still kind and generous and caring in his heart and I just hope that never goes away. Next week we all go back to routine but I have 4 appointments so it promises to be another hectic and full week.

Anyhow, here are some highlights from the first week of the year:

New Year’s Day, David made some awesome lego creations:

This one says “you are nice” and the lego men are building the letters. Isn’t it awesome?

then, around sunset, we went to a bird pond and watched the ducks, and the birds.

it was a lovely time to take some soft photos.

the boys held hands. I love it when they hold hands.

to the right of the pond was a muddy section with some black little birds and some sandpipers.

Nathaniel insisted on holding both Daddy’s and David’s hands.

It was also right by a small airport so the boys watched the planes take off and land.

the next day was the last day of our vacation so we got out the stamps:

and the markers

and just had fun

the boys loved it and I made an art journal page sitting there with them.

after david went back to school and jake, to work, Nathaniel hung out with me and colored while I worked.

when I stopped for a minute to take his photo, he smirked but wouldn’t look up.

but I kept insisting so finally he gave up.

and laughed and laughed.

he also played with stickers to entertain himself.

I snapped this rare shot of David smiling at me that day when he came home from school.

Nathaniel also grabbed the ipod and watched some movies (with no sound) to entertain himself while I worked.

On Friday we took our family shot. but no matter how hard we tried the boys wouldn’t both look at the camera at the same time.

Then Nathaniel got into this tiny box and asked Daddy to push him around.

which thrilled him to bits.

there was much joy

and jubilation

until it was David’s turn and you can see Nathaniel crying there in the background.

he wouldn’t stop weeping until he was back in the box.

despite his brother’s joy, he got up and let Nathaniel have one more turn. Then, this morning while I exercised, the boys decided to take out all their cars and trains and line them up. It was a long, long line.

when David was in swimming class, Nathaniel and I worked on his book so when David came home, he immediately wanted to share it.

and here we go. Another wonderful week gone. Here’s to a great week next week!

Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Journey into Collage – Week 1

Well here we go. I’ve started working on this project but I still don’t know how I feel about it. Some weeks are going to end up more mixed media and less paper. Others…oh I have no idea. I am taking it one day at a time and doing whatever makes me happy. I don’t have any collage elements and I need to work on that. Anyhow, for now, I will share one page at a time and let’s see how this thing goes.

Here is the first page in my book:

The background of this one is just Tim’s tape and then the black circles on the bottom is a stamp. The other little ones are punched out of Margie’s papers with a little clock rubon from Maya Road. The big butterfly on the right is a chipboard one I covered with blue tissue tape. The rest is paint.

That’s it for this week. Not so much collage, I know….

Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Forgiving Myself

I had a really rough morning today. Last night, I ended up working much later than I’d hoped. There were some problems and I just didn’t want to wait until today to resolve them. It meant that I went to bed almost two hours later than I usually do. As it got later and later, I told myself not to stress and that I wouldn’t let this lack of sleep and mess up in routine get to me. Tomorrow would be just fine, I said.

Then tomorrow came. And all was ok. I woke up and exercised, journaled and even sketched. I woke up the kids, made lunch, breakfast and sat to read to David. I was feeling good and proud of myself for not letting stress and tiredness get to me. I’ve been calm for the last few days and it’s been so nice.

As we got ready to walk out the door, I realized that David had left his jacket at school. This might seem harmless to normal people but he’s done this so many times before and we’ve had so many talks about it that I just lost it. I went to that bad place and started seeing dark. We went to school, me ranting pretty much the whole time. Looked for the jacket, couldn’t find it, and then I left David and got in the car with Nathaniel.

At which point, I burst into tears. I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I felt terrible about the person I was being. About how much this was upsetting me. About how it really didn’t matter and couldn’t I just get over it already? I felt shame and frustration and anger and sadness all over me. I almost turned around several times to talk to David but he was well into classes now and I didn’t want to interrupt.I emailed the teacher when I got home and cried a bit more. (I did also apologize to David later when he came home.)

Then I decided I wanted to finish my sketch and try to ease my soul a bit. Then work blew up so I had to do that. While I was working feverishly, Nathaniel swallowed one of his peanuts the wrong way and coughed and coughed and finally threw up all over himself, the carpet, and me. Once he did and got over the shock of it, he was back to his happy self, so I cleaned the carpets and everywhere else.

We cleaned ourselves up, started a wash and I got back to work. About midday, I realized that for the last three days, I’ve been at this frantic pace where there are so many things going on that I cannot catch up no matter what I do. Every time I do one thing, I am thinking about this other thing I should be doing. I get stressed and end up not finishing any of my tasks. This is true of both work and personal projects. So now I have eleventeen (i like to use that when i mean many many) tasks that are halfway there and nothing done.

This is about as far away as you can get from my “happy place.” This is the opposite of savoring and being calm.

So I just decided I needed to take a big, long breath. I stepped back from the two computers and took a little walk around the room. I sat back down, closed my eyes and decided to show myself some self-compassion (I have a lot more to say about this some other time soon) and took a big breath. And then two more.

By then, Nathaniel was awake so I got him and as he played, I made two big todo lists. One for work and the other for personal. I wrote out everything I could think of. Everything on my mind. In detail. And then I got up again. I decided I needed a break. I played with Nathaniel for 30 minutes. Hugging him, holding his hand, remembering what matters most.

And now here I am. Trying to honor that breath. My plan is to go back to my lists and tackle them one at a time. If a new one arises, it gets tacked to the back of the list unless it’s super-urgent. I know I can complete all of this in the next 48 hours if I just stop freaking myself out. And whatever doesn’t get done, will do so next week. As it turns out, none of these are so urgent that it needs to put me into a frenzy.

The frenzy is not good.

So here I am, taking a breath. Forgiving myself for a hard day. Forgiving myself for not being my best. Forgiving myself for not being my kindest. Forgiving myself for not being at my most productive. Forgiving myself for being human. Making mistakes.

With this breath, I forgive and I let go of it all.

Then I get to start again. Whole.

Art Journaling – Paper Canvas – Set 2

Here’s the second and last set I used with the Bienfang paper canvas. I do still have a few left but I won’t be using them for now. Don’t like this paper one bit.

So here’s the second set:

The full text reads: Give your heart with caution.

I layered two stencils for this but I don’t like the colors. It just didn’t turn out the way I envisioned.

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: Life is ephemeral.

I used acrylics on this page. No idea where this came from 🙂

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: There is freedom in self acceptance and compassion.

I love the colors but still hate the paper. So I finally just decided to stop using it.

Here are all (but one) of the pages I made with this paper:

Starting from here onward, I am using Fabriano Roma paper and 5.25×8.25 so I can glue into my Moleskine.

An Audience of One

I was talking to my husband tonight about how I finally tracked down someone who might be able to help me find a personal trainer. We talked a bit about different options and the cost and flexibility of each and then I said, “Won’t you like it if I do this?” or something to that effect.

He replied, “Don’t do this for me. I think you’re great just the way you are.” Or something to that effect.

And I smiled.

Here’s why: Last year, at some point, I decided to change my thinking completely. I decided that everything I do will be “for me.” This applies to all areas of my life. It’s easy to make things about other people, but it also has nasty pitfalls. When you think you’re doing something for someone else, that comes with some entitlement whether you admit it or not. Even if you’re the nicest person in the world, after doing something for someone else again and again, you’ll eventually start resenting them for not doing something for you in return.

I think that’s human nature. At least in my opinion.

So instead of doing things for other people and then little by little resenting them, I decided to turn around my point of view and do everything just for me. There are some obvious cases where this is easy, like the art, journaling etc that I do for me. It’s easy to think of it for things like the exercise and weight loss too. Because while my husband might benefit from them, I certainly enjoy the outcome of my efforts wholeheartedly. So it’s definitely something I do for me.

I’ve gotten so good at this way of thinking that it works on even the not-so-obvious cases. For example, I make breakfast for my kids because it’s important to me that they eat a healthy, balanced, nutritious breakfast. I read to my son because I love reading these books for the first time or getting to reread them and share them with him. I love to see what he thinks, I love to share those moments with him. I focus on the benefit I am getting out of the experience instead of thinking how he’s lucky to have me. This allows me to remember why I do it and puts me in a space where I expect nothing in return. So I don’t resent him for taking my precious time. I am choosing to give it. To share it.

Same goes for many other things I do all day long. I take time to step back from each thing I do and think of why it matters to me. What personal benefit I am getting from it. This way I can keep the focus on me. It makes it so I feel no entitlement and no resentment.

So far, I haven’t found anything where this system doesn’t work. I still get upset sometimes and I try to catch myself. If I feel I am getting bitter or feeling entitled, I give myself a good talking to and maybe even journal. I then let it go. The thing about life is that you only have control over what you do. How you feel. So if you start doing things for other people in the hopes that they will then do things for you, you could get badly disappointed. Because people may or may not respond the way you want, hope, expect, wish. Other people do what they do. You only get to decide what *you* do. So I think it’s best to do as many things for yourself as you can.

Changing my perspective and my way of thinking has made my life so much better. Happier. Calmer. Now I am doing things for an audience of one.

Me.

All those other people in my life? They just get the side benefit of me doing things I want to do.

And it works like a charm.

A Book a Week – Delirium

After having read the Lauren Oliver’s previous book and loving it so so much, I was almost reluctant to pick up Delirium because, for me, there was no way it could measure up to the previous one. And I wasn’t so thrilled that the writer was jumping on the dystopian bandwagon.

I put it off for a while but then finally picked it up.

And I was right.

While the novel is ok and she is definitely a fine writer, this book was nowhere near the caliber of the previous one for me. It didn’t have the profound effect and I particularly didn’t care for the ending. All in all, this was just another YA dsytopian novel whereas Before I Fall truly had a lasting effect on me.

I look forward to more books by her nonetheless as she’s definitely a great writer.

The November Savor Project – Week 1

The Savor Project is sort of a combination between Project Life and December Daily. Something I created for myself so that I could savor the little moments of our life and preserve our stories. You can read a lot more about it in this post.

Since I started this project in November, the first few weeks I share will be from November. I then took a break for December since I worked on my December Daily album then and I am going back to it for January. So here we are with some pages from November:

That’s it for this week. More next week.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read more this album here. But then I changed setup and here is my new setup.

Doing What Lights you Up

One of the frequent comments I get here is about how I do it all. Where do I find the time? How do I manage? How can I possibly have time to do everything?

The answer is simple, of course.

I don’t.

The list of things I don’t do is way longer than the list of things I do each day. When people read my blog, they assume I do everything they do plus the things I do. Just like we assume a writer’s published book is how he writes or a blogger we admire has only the life she blogs about. We fill in the blanks. But we don’t fill them in accurately. Sometimes we assume the best, other times we assume the worst. We are rarely ever assuming the truth. I can even say we never do.

But what I was thinking about today isn’t even about how we are inaccurate so much of the time. It’s about quantity. I don’t think that doing so “MUCH” is an achievement by itself. Quantity is time consuming but not hard to produce. What’s harder is quality. And I don’t mean quality like creating an artistic masterpiece. I mean the quality something adds to your life.

There are some activities that lift your spirit up so much that doing them truly makes your day better. Not in the same way as checking off a to-do list item. For example, I exercise every morning. I do it as soon as I wake up, while it’s dark out and before I’ve checked my mail. It’s not an activity that lights me up. It doesn’t make me happy when I think of doing it and definitely doesn’t make me happy while I do it and often times not even after. I am just grateful it’s done. I am committed to doing it because I know it’s beneficial to my heart and body and health. But that’s it.

Then there’s the sketching. I often start my sketch while the kids are still at home and then finish it after I’ve dropped them off at school. Those 20-30 minutes spent on a page are some of my favorites in the day. When I am sketching, I don’t worry about the passage of time, I don’t feel frustrated. Most of the time, I don’t think at all. I just sit there and get into the joy of it. I feel like my sketches need a lot of work. There are many others whom I admire and wish I could be like. I yearn for more talent, better eye, clearer understanding of perspective, etc. etc. But despite not being anywhere near where I wish I were talent-wise, I still adore my sketching time. It’s an activity that definitely lights up my day.

There are other activities that add value to my life. Like the journaling helps me get organized and helps me sort out my head. This is exercise for my brain and soul just like the treadmill is for my body and heart. I need them both. But they don’t make me lose track of time the way sketching does.

So when thinking about how to spend your time, I say don’t worry about HOW MUCH you’re doing but worry about WHAT you’re doing. Are you taking care of your soul, brain, heart, and body? Are you doing things that light you up? Even if it’s one single thing. Even if it’s just for 15 minutes a day.

Sometimes we pile so much on our todo list that the whole days goes by without a moment of light. Without a moment of pure joy. When I watch my little son and see how many times a day he laughs all by himself, I find myself wishing for the same. I want to laugh with joy too. I want to do something that makes me so happy. This is not a race. And if it were, I think the ones who win are not the ones who do it all.

It’s the ones who do what gives them the most joy.

So look at how you spend your time. Look at your 2012 list. (I’m sure you have one.) Pick one thing that you know will give you joy. Don’t worry about all the others. Just do that one. Today. Right now. Do it for 10 minutes.

I promise you will be glad you did.