We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams

We are about to embark on a HUGE construction project at our house. In fact, we've been in the design process for months, and we're now waiting for the final permits before construction starts. It's been so long that I can't believe it's actually going to happen.

We're living in our "forever" house, at least while we're in Seattle. We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it, and it was the first house we saw. But it's not a house for little kids. It's a crazy 70s multilevel house, so each floor has a couple of rooms and then a half-staircase to the next floor. The kids' bedrooms are two floors away from ours. Great when they're 16, not so great when they're under 5. 

So we consulted with a few local design/build firms and chose one, and they came up with a fabulous design for us, something we never would have thought about doing. The design process actually lived up to my expectations - we gave them a list of our priorities, and they designed an addition that met nearly all of the Pri 1s and 2s (yes, I'm a software geek). 

So our new theoretical addition will have all bedrooms on one floor, an extra bathroom for the girls, an office for TJ, a play room, air conditioning in the bedrooms, and (wait for it) a 13x17' craft room. O.M.G. I can hardly believe how awesome that's going to be.

Some observant readers will remember that this is one of the items on my Mondo Beyondo dream list. And at the time I made my list in late 2011, firmly out of reach. We weren't inclined to take on such a huge project and we weren't sure about staying in Seattle (well, one of us wasn't). 

But then my craft room sprung a leak earlier this year, and we started thinking again. What if? It's been both fun and terrifying to go through the process - looking at different room layouts, choosing countertop surfaces and carpet, assigning rooms to the girls, writing huge enormous checks in exchange for large sheets of paper (so far).

If all goes well, construction will start next month, and it'll be 4 months or so before it's done. We'll probably have to camp out at my parent's place nearby for a while (fortunately they don't use it much in the winter). I'm sure there will be many disrupted naps and frustration with the noise and dust.

But in the end, we will have a house that fits us perfectly. And I just cannot WAIT.

BlogHer Book Club Review: My Life Map

I was really excited when I got the opportunity to review My Life Map by Kate and David Marshall. The timing was right since I'm on maternity leave and the sleep situation is not so bad. Being on leave for so long is also a great time to think about long-term planning. And you know I'm a planner.

After taking the Mondo Beyondo class last year, I'm a fan of doing introspective "work" and thinking about what I want out of life, instead of just floating through it trying to get to the next day. Admittedly, as a new 2-kid family, there are days where we're just trying to keep everyone happy, clean, and fed, but not so many that I can't keep an eye towards the future and the life I *want*.

This book is a guided journal to help you draw a detailed timeline of your life: past, present and most importantly, the future. It's structured very well to ease you into big goal-setting.  I had a hard time getting started because it seemed too "big", but the questions are actually very directed and "bite sized".  I love that it starts with the past and present, which are easy to map, since they are fact-based.  This is a stepping stone to planning the future, and there are lots of exercises and questions to guide you.

What I especially love is the way they've structured the Maps -  you do a "Whole Life" map first, and then a 10-Year Map, then individual "subject" ones for work, family, friends, play, learning, and service.  It's all open to your interpretation, and you can do them in the order that makes sense.  In fact, the authors suggest different ordering based on your particular outlook - whether you're a top-down or bottom-up thinker.

The authors' website has electronic copies of the Life Map form in several formats, which is very handy, especially if you intend to do this exercise more than once, which they recommend as you go through different stages in life.

My minor quibbles are about the physical book itself - I wish it was spiral-bound to make it easier to leave open when filling out the questions and making notes, and the hardcover binding gives me a bit of a mental block about writing in it, because it seems "too nice" to write in.  I also would have loved an e-copy of the questions themselves, so that I could print copies and write on those, rather than in the nice book itself.

But I do think this is a great (and inexpensive!) tool for anyone considering their long term goals in all areas of their lives. It's the sort of thing that gives back as much as you're willing to put into it, and can be worked through over a period of many weeks or months.

So if you don't know what you want to be when you grow up, or are facing a transition period in your life,  give this a try!

I was compensated for this review by BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are totally my own.

Feels like the first time

aka, Cutting Adhesive Vinyl in the Silhouette machine.

My crafty eyes are bigger than my stomach.  Even my huge almost-7 months-pregnant stomach.  So I tend to buy the supplies for projects I intend to do *sometime* in the future, and they sit for weeks, or months.  Or maybe even a year.

When I bought my (beloved) Silhouette SD die cutting machine back in 2010, I figured I'd mostly use it to cut paper - letters, shapes, etc for card making.  But it also cuts vinyl, which you can use to make iron-on T shirt transfers, or adhesive stickers for signs, laptops, and cars.

So I bought a pack of assorted colors of adhesive vinyl sheets to try it out.  And that vinyl sat and mocked me in my craft room.  I'd see it, get excited about using it, then realize I had a million other things to work on.

My Dream Lab class gave me the kick in the pants I needed.  One of the class "challenges" was to "Go Big", and put up some kind of message or sign out in the world for people to see.  I didn't want to hang something up on someone else's property, but one of the suggestions was to put a sign on your car.

And I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to try out a vinyl decal.  I'm pleased with how it turned out:

My first thought was to put up something short and sweet to the effect of "get happy" or "find joy" or something, but that sounded too much like a command and sort of annoying.  So I figured maybe this would just get people thinking.  And probably wondering what the heck it means or what I'm trying to sell them...  TJ, of course, thinks it's odd, so I guess I've succeeded.

But the project was surprisingly easy and quick.  Here's how I did it:

Supplies and Tools

• 2 6x12 sheets of adhesive-backed vinyl
• Silhouette Machine(love this thing!)
• Cutting Mat(the thicker one)
• Cricut Vinyl Transfer Tape
• X-ACTO Knife

Design

1. Using the Silhouette Studio software, I set up the page so it was 6x12 on the cutting mat, then chose a sans serif font with thick lines (in this case Franklin Gothic Heavy, conveniently included with Windows 7.) 
2. I created one document for the "what makes you" portion, and sized the font to be as large as could fit on the 6x12 sheet (spread over two lines).  It ended up being 156 pt.  I created a second document for "happy?" because I wanted it in a different color and also larger - 204 pt.
3. I test cut the design on a 6x12 piece of cardstock just to get a feel for how big the letters would actually be and whether they were readable from a distance.  Since I had only 1 piece of vinyl in each color I wanted to use, I wanted to be sure it was right before cutting into it.

Cut

1. I set the Silhouette machine's Cut Settings to 'Silhouette vinyl" (even though it was a different brand), a cut speed of 9 and a thickness setting of 7, and used the blue cap (0.1mm) and made sure the 'use cutting mat' box was checked as well. 
2. I stuck the white vinyl sheet to the cutting mat (short end in) and loaded it into the machine.  I clicked Cut and held my breath, and fortunately it cut just fine.  I repeated the process for the yellow vinyl sheet.
3. I should have taken a photo at this point, but didn't realize I was going to write this up.  Basically, the Silhouette just makes the cuts, so the substrate (fancy word for paper or vinyl) just has faint cut lines in it, but doesn't look like the end product.   

Weeding

The "fun" part is removing all the bits of paper around the design very carefully, so you're just left with the part you want.  This is called "weeding" the vinyl (see Steps 3-6 of this excellent tutorial).

1. First I removed the cut vinyl sheet from the cutting mat and used my paper trimmer to trim the portions that weren't cut, so I could reuse the vinyl for small designs.
2. I carefully peeled off the outer part of the vinyl (ie, not the letters), very slowly, and cut away portions as I went, careful to leave the letters intact on the backing sheet.  The adhesive is very sticky and can mar the letters if a piece gets stuck to itself. 
3. I used the Exacto blade on a few parts of the letters where they didn't get cut completely.  I carefully peeled out the center portions of letters like 'a' and 'o' to get the little blibbets out.  (no, that's not the technical term).
4. I then stuck the phrase together by taping the back of the backing paper in the exact orientation and spacing I wanted it on my car.

Transfer

1. I cut a piece of transfer tape to cover the entire phrase and peeled off the backing, after wrestling with it to uncurl it.  Those more patient than me would benefit from flattening out the cut piece before proceeding.
2. I laid the transfer tape over the design, and smoothed it out with the handy popsicle stick provided.  You can use a squeegee, credit card, brayer, or any sort of smoothing implement to do this.  Make sure it's stuck on there really, really well, and all bubbles are squeezed out.
3. I carefully peeled away the backing from the original vinyl sheet.  The letters should be adhered backwards onto the transfer tape.  Go very, very slowly and smooth down the transfer tape as needed if the letters aren't coming with it. 
4. Hooray!  Now you have a piece of transfer tape with your phrase in the right spacing, and the sticky sides of the letters facing out.  Be careful and don't accidentally bump into things with this, or your letters will get stuck onto something.

Installation (aka sticking your sticker)

1. Since I was putting this on my car, I used a couple of baby wipes and a paper towel to clean off the windshield and dry it before putting on the sticker.
2. I carefully placed the transfer tape with letters facing down where I wanted it, and used the same popsicle stick from the previous Step 2 to smooth it down and get rid of all bubbles.
3. I carefully peeled off the transfer tape, and VOILA! the sticker was stuck on the car.  Hooray!

Notes

• The vinyl I used is not rated for outdoor use, so I'm not sure how long it'll last.  But the outdoor vinyl's adhesive is very strong, and I wasn't sure I wanted to use something that hardy on my car anyway.
• Thicker letters and designs are much easier to work with than delicate thin ones with a lot of detail.  For words and phrases, thicker ones are easier to read at a distance, too.
• Check out this awesome blog post for more info about cutting vinyl, colors and brands, especially for indoor wall decals.
• I have the older Silhouette (SD) which is limited to 8.5" wide substrates, but the new Cameo can cut things up to 12" wide, which is pretty awesome.  I can't justify upgrading, though.

If you read this far, you deserve a jellybean.  Now I'm itching to cut more vinyl stickers for journals, my laptop, picture frames etc.  I'm also trying to figure out something I can cut for BabyX's new room.  Maybe a pennant banner, since I'm totally in love with those.

So, do you have a Fabulous Cutting Machine?  Have you made any vinyl designs?  Tell me!

So let's raise a glass

I'm enrolled in the online Mondo Beyondo Dream Lab class right now. It started about 2 weeks ago and I'm woefully behind on most of the "assignments". As I was scurrying around trying to get "caught up" today, I realized the ridiculousness of the situation.

Dream Lab 2012 is all about inviting play, rest, and kindness into our lives, things that are often overlooked in our nonstop action-packed lives.

This essay called "The Busy Trap" by Tim Kreider is well worth a read. I especially love this line:

More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.

I can't cram 2 weeks of self-care and self-awareness into one morning.  So I'm giving myself permission to stay "behind" and be ok with that.  Maybe I'll "catch up".  Maybe I won't.  But I promise to make time for myself, to savor the lessons and enjoy them as they are meant to be done.

Last night I started putting together my "play kit", which is a box of stuff that invites me to slow down and have fun.  Not surprisingly, a lot of the items were pilfered from the extra stash of stuff I have to entertain T.  Because nearly everything she owns is part of her "play kit"!

fun in a box

What's in it?

• A jar of bubble solution
• Reese's mini PB cups
• Bubble gum (I remember how to blow a bubble!!!)
• A brand-new Hello Kitty coloring book
• Brand-new 24 pack of Crayola crayons (only 50 cents at Target, no joke!)
• A brand new kelly green notebook
• Markers
• Awesome Pilot G2 black pen
• 2 packs of Lego minifigures (don't know what you get until you open them!)
• Cool patterned tape by Todd Oldham's new line at Target (thanks Peck Life for the tip!)
• My fabulous birthday crown
• Colored Post-It Notes
• Cute envelopes
• Play-Doh
• Little slips of paper with different "rest" and "play" activity suggestions

Sounds fun already, right?  It makes me happy to look in this bright red bin and see a bunch of completely non-utilitarian, fun things. 

This morning, one of the assignments I read was to pick out something from the box and have a little fun, letting go of my stresses and mental load.  So I built this little guy:

 I'm pretty stoked about this class, and have "rebooted" my brain from "OMG another obligation" to "hey, look, a chance to have fun".  Because THAT is what life is all about.

And also, my life is going to get much harder come October so I am going to play NOW.  If anyone has a good way to fast forward through say, the first 4-5 weeks of having a newborn, please let me know :)

Strange Coincidences

In the past week, two things happened which were unexpected and very cool.

I got another one of those "free drink" coupons at Starbucks that comes from using my Starbucks card way too much.  I've been hoarding it for the right time as I'm trying to save some money.  I love my chai, but I don't *need* one every day to make me happy.  Maybe just a couple of times a week.  I was wishfully thinking about how I could get more free Starbucks drinks.

And then, the next day, we got a letter in the mail from our mortgage broker.  With a $25 gift card from Starbucks, because TJ referred someone to them.  How freaky cool is that??

Second weird coincidence:  last week I had to get blood drawn.  In my doctor's office there were these really awesome paper collages - cute sunny scenes that made me happy.  Here's the one I liked best:

Dandies in a Field by Kate Endle

I couldn't find the artist's name, and had to hurry out of there to get back to work.  Through the week I thought about those collages and wondered who the artist was.  I have another appointment in a few weeks so I vowed to ask then.

Last night I was reading a coworker's lovely blog, and saw she had a link to the new Caspar Babypants album Hot Dog! and a quick mention that his wife was also very talented, with a link to an Etsy shop.  So I clicked over and what did I see?  My beloved collage from the doctor's office!  Hooray.  I was *so* surprised.

I am thrilled to know the artist's name, and that her work is affordable.  Once we figure out Baby X's sex and theme for his/her room, I'm totally coming back to her shop.  And I may even get a little something for my new craft room. 

Both of these things reminded me of something we talked about in my Mondo Beyondo class last year - little random good things that happen that move us forward towards one of our dreams.  These two things are so trivial, but what amazes me is just the thought in my head of "I wish..." resulted in me getting just a tiny bit more happiness in my life.

Obviously, I should be wishing for things like winning the lottery, right?  Heh.

If you are contemplating taking Mondo Beyondo, they are running a HUGE sale right now to get the $99 class for only $49.  It's so totally worth it.  Use coupon code mamasrock49 at checkout, but this is only good through the end of day Sunday (tomorrow).

Let me know if you decide to sign up?  I'm in for the Dream Lab class in June (you can also use the coupon for that too!).

Courage to Dream Your Own Dreams

My friend Ginger left a comment on my Vacation Limit post a few days ago that was very insightful.  The part that resonated with me was this:

I don't like traveling.  It seems obligatory to put it on one's wish list, but I've finally accepted that this is someone else's dream, not mine.

I thought about when I looked at other people's Mondo Beyondo dream lists and noted how surprised I was about how different they all are.  Many (most?) of them included some form of travel, usually to far away destinations.  Some of them including things like *moving* to a developing nation to do charitable work.

And each time I read one of these, I realized I don't want any of those things.  And I felt a little twinge of guilt about that.  I mean, shouldn't I want to see the world?  And clearly I *should* want to help those far less fortunate than myself.  It made me feel selfish.

But seriously, isn't the best time to be selfish when you're coming up with your list of dreams *for yourself*?  I'm not being true to myself if I include things I don't really want to do, just because I think they make me look good when I tell people about them.  And how unsatisfying is that - to work towards something I don't really want?

As women, we're culturally programmed to think of other people all the time.  To forego our own needs (especially mothers). 

I think it takes courage to dream our own dreams, without worrying about what other people think, or feeling obligated to include certain things on our lists.  Go forth and be brave!

Revisiting the List and the Awesomeness of the Universe

I've been meaning to revisit my Mondo Beyondo List of dreams to see what's happened since I wrote it up.  Also, I'm sure some of the things I wrote down are no longer things I'm interested in.  So here's a little progress update on the awesomeness of the Universe.

T holding a part of the Universe

• Live in a nice house in Dublin (Ireland), with our dogs

Well, sort of.  We're going on vacation to Ireland for 3 weeks, sans dogs, unfortunately.  But we should see if we like it first, right?

• Expand our house to have a separate room for Trillian to do school work, a bigger craft room for me, a luxurious soaking tub, a welding/torch space for me and TJ, enough storage for everything

I'll probably have to break this one down into parts, but after vacation we're going to call someone for an estimate on how we can expand our house to get the craft room, a guest room and some storage. 

• Go through our house top to bottom and organize it. Get rid of everything we don't need or use or love.

In progress.  Anyone need an old XBOX/DDR pad?  How about a 20 year old subwoofer?

• Organize *all* my email Inboxes and be able to keep up

After reading Laura Vanderkam's 168 Hours, I'm not sure this is a priority, except at work.  So GMail will likely be delightfully overflowing for a while.

• Organize all of our photos. Make albums.

Making progress.  I'm about halfway through 2010 and 2011.  Sigh.  But getting there!

• Have just a few really sharp high quality knives (instead of a ton of dull ones)

Done!!  We "donated" all of our extra knives and the knife block that was taking up space to my parents' place here which is an improvement for both of us.  Now we have about 6 knives that we use *all the time* on a magnetic wall rack.  I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  Weird, huh?

Spend 3-4 weeks per year traveling somewhere interesting

In a week, we'll be leaving for Ireland.  Dream vacation, since I was a kid.  Woot!

• Spend one weekend in a (local) fancy hotel all by myself.

Done, Mama Weekend Away was a big success in January!

• Minimize commitments and stay home, but still have some time to myself during the week

Work in progress.  Writing this one down made me do better at looking at our calendar as a whole, so that I don't overcommit us.  Life has been a lot more chill.  I also stopped taking custom orders in my Etsy shop and stopped wasting time on Facebook and both of those has done wonders for my stress level and available time.

• Make money on blogging, papercrafting, other projects @ home

Not much to speak of here, but I am making *tiny* money on my blog again.  Enough to pay for the domain name, and maybe a Starbucks chai or two.  That's progress though.

• Stop having that panicky stressed feeling most of the time

Done.  Not sure exactly how, but we worked this out and life is good.

• Stop focusing/worrying about money

Also done.  Much more zen about money, which is good since we're down to 0.65 of an income :)

• Help people get what they want out of work-life balance. Be a great example.

Not sure if I'm achieving anything here but I've talked to several people at work interested in working part-time or on a flexible schedule.  I may also be interviewed (anonymously) for a work-life balance article in the next week (not sure of the publication).

• Get cards or papercrafts published in a magazine

Well, not quite papercrafty, but my Hooray necklace is going to be featured in the June 2012 issue of Bead Trends magazine, also run by the Cards Magazine people.  It's a baby step, right?

• Learn to take great photos and document our lives

I started Project Life this year and am nearly "caught up".  At least we're in the same month I left off.  I'm loving this exercise because not only does it "force" me to do a little craftiness every week, but it also reminds me to take pictures of us hanging out, even if we're not doing anything particularly special. 

• Enjoy my marriage to the fullest
• Stop keeping score

These are related, and again, a work in progress.  But life is good.

• Send T to the best school for her, regardless of cost

The new preschool is working out well despite my propensity to worry about things that don't really matter.  She is so excited to go there, and her teachers are excited and happy to see her.  What more can I ask?

• *Want* to live a healthy life and eat right, exercise etc. Not have it be a chore.

I wish I could check this off and say "Done!", but I can't.  However, my mindset is different.  It's not a chore.  Eating right is a gift to myself and when I'm mindful about it, it's easy.  But I still have to work hard at it.  I suspect I always will.

• Speak fluent Spanish

We're nowhere near fluent, but T and I are enjoying our Spanish class together.  She got to practice at a local Mexican restaurant, where our waiter was thrilled to find out she knows a few words of Spanish.  She loved it too!

• Have a quail parade of awesome kids

Maybe not quite a quail parade yet, but we're awaiting the arrival of Baby X' (read as Baby X Prime) in October.  Or, as T will tell you "my mama has a baby in her tummy!".  Woot!  Sometimes the Universe really does have its own plan!

Following our dreams

It appears that the Mondo Beyondo magic is rubbing off on our household.  (And of course this was my intention!)

My fabulous husband gave notice at his job, so his last day is Friday.  He doesn't have another offer lined up, or a detailed plan.  In his words, he's "borrowing 2 years of retirement". 

my two favorite people

I should be freaking out, right?  ZOMG, primary breadwinner quit his job.  How will I afford my Starbucks on my days of "leisure" that I'm not at my part-time job? 

But I'm not stressing.  In fact, I've been encouraging him to do it for a while.  I'm of the opinion that if you're not happy, then you need to make a change.  If you can't change your job to make you happy, then maybe you need a new one.  Or some time off. 

I don't subscribe to the "work until you're 62.5 and then sigh in relief when you retire" philosophy.   62.5 is a long way off, and that's a long time to toil in a job you dislike.   What about finding a career that you *like* and maybe doing it past the standard retirement age?  Or try out a few different career paths?  Life is all about exploration, yo.

Of course,  we'll be adjusting our lifestyle a bit.   Our next Canlis dinner may be a long time from now.  And I'll probably be making my iced soy chai at home, since it doesn't require any fancy equipment.   I increased *my* hours at work to 25, which isn't much of a stretch since T's now in preschool 3 days, and I have the option to go back full time as needed.

But dude, I am *so* looking forward to trips to the zoo mid-week.  And trading off toddler-care when it gets crazy up in here. And maybe restarting custom orders in my Etsy shop if I can convince the Mister to handle all the administrative stuff, so our throughput can be higher.

Hooray for being brave!

It's so clear now

I have a TON of topics I'm anxious to blog about, which is crazy.  That never happens.  So I've started keeping a list.  Incidentally, I need to switch to a consistent note-taking application, preferably electronic and cloud-based.  Right now I'm just creating "draft" emails in GMail so it's ridiculously messy and unsatisfying. 

It's a trick I learned from my friend N, who I worked with ages ago - she'd email herself to-do lists each day, and since we live in our email at work, it was a good place for the lists to be front and center.  But it becomes unwieldy.

I love Microsoft OneNote.  Love, love, love.  But I use 3 different computers regularly, *and* my (now Android) smartphone.  And I didn't know how that would work with OneNote since the notebooks were usually saved locally.  But in OneNote 2010 there's a really easy, built-in way to sync with Windows Live SkyDrive, so you can access your notebooks anywhere.  That's EXACTLY what I need.  Except that I haven't made time to sit down and set up a personal notebook.

Things I want in that notebook: 

• A place to stash URLs to projects or crafty resources with some notes.  I could keep chucking them in my Favorites/Bookmarks etc but I can't make notes there to remind myself of why I saved it, or what I want to do with it.

 

• My daily, weekly and monthly task lists.  I need to get a little more structured about chores, especially the maintenance stuff like doctor checkups, swapping disposable contacts, giving the dogs their flea protection, downloading/processing photos from cameras, etc etc.  I may chuck these all into a Google Calendar specifically for that purpose since it might be better to actually schedule time/days for these things.

• Vacation notes.  We have SO MUCH to do before our Ireland trip.  I also want to make a short list of the things we want to see there so we can plan our day trips.  I'd also like a compact place to keep things like the address and phone number of our house rental, our local cell numbers, flight info, etc.

• Personal projects and to-dos that aren't urgent.  Potential blog posts.  Unfinished craft projects that I'd like to get done eventually.  Expiration dates for unused Groupons (also need to put them on the calendar).

• Ideas for activities to do with T.  I have a ton of books with age-appropriate home activities for learning and fun.  We never do them because I rarely remember to plan ahead.  Maybe a sort of "lesson plan" for more fun things to do at home once a week or so.

• A living Mondo Beyondo list that I can refer to often and update.  There are things I can check off the list I posted on the blog, and new things begging to be added.

• Some way to store passwords and links to the accounts I use regularly.  This one freaks me out so I need to figure out the right solution for it that's secure but also can be accessed from anywhere.

• Meal planning.  A list of what we should *always* have in our fridge/pantry.  A stash of easy, standard meal ideas. Why this is so hard, I don't know.  But I haven't yet gotten it together and I swear THIS will be the year.

This is on my to-do list for the weekend of Jan 20-22.  Why then, you ask?  Because I am taking my Mama Weekend Away.  It's one of the items on my Mondo Beyondo list.  The magic just keeps happening.  I finally *asked* TJ for the time, and he agreed, and I've actually scheduled it.  Before Mondo Beyondo, it was an amorphous "someday maybe" idea.  Now it's happening.  Next week.    Me, a fancy hotel room, big plushy bed, no alarm clock, free wifi, and a spa.  Heaven!

borrowed from www.panpacific.com

It's a little retreat to get my thoughts together and plan the upcoming year.  I obviously have the big things laid out already but I need some time and space to really get down to business and plan and organize the details. 

So.  If you had a weekend like that, how would you spend it?  If you were putting together a notebook for yourself, what would you include?  What am I missing?

And to all a good night

I started this with the intention of writing a whiny post about "doing too much" and the sheer exhaustion I feel after being in charge of Christmas magic. It's a weighty responsibility now that I've got a small person who's old enough to understand what's going on.

But I'm not going to do it.  Instead, let me share a few things I'm grateful for:

• A husband who gets it
• The one absolutely perfect present I selected for T
• Her four loving, engaged grandparents
• BabyT's 6:30pm bedtime

I'm looking forward to the start of a New Year, and closing out this one.  Cleaning house, both literally and figuratively.

Oh, and this is the last I'll mention it, but if you're still thinking about signing up for Mondo Beyondo, you can use the coupon code BRAVEYOU2012 to get $20 off.  And let me know if you use my link and I'll share any bonus I get with you.  10 people I know have signed up!  I can't wait to hear how it goes for them.





Kristi Lloyd Photography, (c) 2011



My Not-So-Secret Mission - A Message from the Universe



yes, it's a fake tree.

I promised I'd write about one of the "Secret Missions" I did for Mondo Beyondo.   I posted earlier about the "affirmations" we were supposed to put in a place where we'd see them.  I'm still not so sure about the value of these things,  but it makes me happy to see the little circles I made.
Well, one of our assignments was to leave an affirmation for someone else to find.  It seemed to me like it was putting out good vibes to the universe, and then maybe some of that goodness would come back.  But not with that expectation, of course, because that would ruin the magic juju.  Hehe.  I'm not sure I believe in all that, but I did want to brighten a friend's day a little. 

Other folks in the class put up the affirmations on community bulletin boards, or in library books, for strangers to find.  But I wanted to focus my efforts on people I knew.  I struggled with how to do it.  I wanted to mail them, but knew the Redmond postmark would give me away to most people.  So I let this assignment sit while I did other things, and hoped that my brain would come up with some way to make it work.

Eventually, it came to me.  I decided to "secretly affirm" a few women that I worked with, and picked 5 people, a nice round (small) number.  This way I could also hand-deliver the circles to their offices in the dead of night.

Ok, not really the dead of night, more like 8pm, but that sounded more dramatic and secretive, right?

So I made up the circles using scraps of pretty patterned paper, tucked them into tiny little coin envelopes with some sequins (because who couldn't use a little more sparkle) and set off into the night to deliver them.

All went well. No one saw me drop off the little packages of mystery and it was all I could do to keep it to myself.

About a week later,  I received an email from my friend D, who asked if I knew anything about a little note she got in her office.  I'm not a person who likes to lie outright, even if it's for something innocuous and fun like this, so I admitted to it.  Apparently the craftiness of the item gave it away so she suspected me.

That same week, my friend J asked me if I knew anything about it, and I couldn't lie to her either.  She and her coworkers loved it - she said it was like "a message from the universe".  Which I thought was pretty awesome.

The other 3 folks haven't figured it out yet, and I don't think they read this blog so my secret might be safe.  Even if it's not, I had a really fun time plotting this adventure.  Maybe that was the point?

Did I mention the next session of Mondo Beyondo starts the first week of January?  Oh yeah, I did.  If you need some magic in your life, go sign up.  Really.

On a vaguely related note, I found out yesterday I was chosen for a workshop/training program at work.  It was something my friend J had done a few months ago and highly recommended.  It's about balancing work and life, finding happiness and focusing on your health.  Yeah, it's right up my alley.   I applied a few weeks ago, figuring that tons of other people would apply, and not really expecting to be chosen since I work part-time and I don't participate much in our 'Women's Leadership Council'.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find out they picked me!  There are 12 women in the class, and we'll have monthly 2 hour peer group sessions plus two all-day workshops.  The whole thing runs for 6 months.  Apparently the women who run this program are fantastic career/life coaches, and the folks who have gone through the program RAVE about it.  Some have even quit their jobs as a result ;)  So I'm looking forward to it starting next month.  I love working for a company that invests so heavily in training for its employees.  Watch this space as I learn how to hate group interactions a little less...

Envy and dreaming

envy pear, by take_me_breathless on Flickr

I love searching for abstract concepts on Flickr and seeing the genius that comes out of it.  Today's post is brought to you by the deadly sin of Envy.

During Mondo Beyondo, we were invited to share our dream lists.  When I looked at some of the other folks' lists, I realized two things:

1.  I've already done (or have) many of those things.
2.  Wow, I *so* have no desire to do (or have) THAT.

I thought people would have similar lists, because I expected a sort of selection bias for people with a certain level of income, education and age given the cost, medium and content.

But, as it turns out, we're all different.  I know, so obvious, right? 

The exercise reminded me of one of my (many) previous efforts to lose weight.  Weight Watchers has a pretty active online community, and since it's focused on weight loss, they have an (optional) piece of your profile where you list your starting weight, current weight, and goal weight, ostensibly to keep people motivated. 

At first I was horrified by that, because I hate revealing "the number", but then I realized that everyone around me in that community was in the same boat.  Furthermore, my "starting weight" was actually some folks' goal weight.

It's kind of an interesting way to look at gratitude and progress, right?  I might not be happy with my weight, my financial situation, or my travel log.  But chances are, there's someone else who thinks where I am is exactly where they want to be.  And I'm not talking about being grateful about the crappy Hot Pockets I ate for dinner because of the starving children in {insert faraway place where starving children are purported to live}.  Though of course it's good to be grateful for things like food and shelter.

I'm talking more about managing the envy.  This post idea popped into my head last night when I was reaching for Cards magazine.  I had a flash of jealousy, thinking about all those paper crafters who got published in my dream magazine while I have not yet.  (Never mind that I haven't entered any of their challenges or sent anything in to them!)

Because I was in a contemplative mood, and because Mondo Beyondo is like the gift that keeps on giving (in a good way!), I processed that feeling for a moment.

Why was I envious? 
Because *I* want to see my name and my craft in that gorgeous magazine.

What can I do about it? 
Look up their submission deadlines and themes, and put the dates in my calendar. 
Make more cards, to figure out my personal "style" and get more practice.

What am I afraid of?
That I'd try to get in, several times, and fail every time. That people think my work is ugly. That I'd waste time on all those submissions and still not get in. That I suck?

This led to me thinking about envy in general, which is a feeling I'm unfortunately well-acquainted with.  As I thought about it some more, I realized something that made me feel a little bit better.

I'm envious of skills and accomplishments, not "stuff".

I'm so happy that I'm not jealous of my friends who have more expensive houses and cars than we do.  Or my friends who really, truly don't have to work (for whatever reason, be it high earning spouse, tech company payoff, etc.).

But oh the envy when I see people taking beautiful photos of their families.  Or have blogs that actually earn enough to buy more than the occasional Starbucks chai.  Or get published month after month in gorgeous crafty magazines.

And of course, those are *my* current dreams. 

I thought back a little more and remembered the envy pre-BabyT when I'd read other people's Facebook updates announcing their pregnancy, or reading mommyblogs where every pudgy baby detail was celebrated.  It took us a while to get to that particular "accomplishment", and of course I was impatient.  But once we took it seriously, and created a plan, everything came together.  Of course, there was some science and a lot of luck involved too.

And before that, when I first started my Etsy shop back in 2007, I averaged less than one sale a month for that first year.  I moped around, being envious of those who had better photos, made the Etsy front page, had 1000 sales. 

I took action by learning how to stage and photograph my work, the "tricks" of listing on Etsy, and kept improving my craft by taking classes and practicing.  Then I started making the stamped tags, and my shop TOOK OFF.  Like a freakin' rocket.  So much, that this holiday season, and most of this year, I decided not to take custom orders, because it's too stressful.  I never imagined I'd get to this point back in 2007 when I was fervently wishing someone not related to me would buy something.

So where am I going with this?  I'm trying not to be envious of other people.  It's hard.  But with a little more introspection, I can see that envy for what it really is:  a reflection of something I really want, right now.

So, your turn.  Are you envious, or do you just find others' success motivating?  Or discouraging?

Mondo Beyondo Online Class Review and Wrap-Up - Handcrafted Life Plan, Part 6

It occurs to me that I never wrote about completing my Mondo Beyondo class.  If you've talked to me in person, you know that I'm all "OMG, life-changing!" about it, but I wanted to write up a summary here to help folks who might be on the fence about taking it.  I searched for reviews online before I took it, and while I found several dream lists, I didn't find much about the class itself.

So my first leap of faith was going on my friend LauraC's recommendation and what little I could dig up online, and signing up for it anyway.  That was the first of many times I was encouraged to put my natural skepticism aside and try something new.

First, let me tell you what it was not:

• A time-management or to-do-list prioritizing scheme
• New age, hippy-dippy, crystals/chakras/healing energy nonsense
• Time consuming (lessons were short and sweet and totally self-paced)
• Forced interaction with strangers (there was a community but you could do it all on your own)
• Supply, tool, or technology-intensive (most lessons were simple reading or audio or journaling)

My quick take on what it was:

• A structured set of lessons to help you discover your values and dreams
• A safe, reassuring space/time dedicated to YOU (ie. not kid time, not errands, not work...)
• Tools and skills that you can reuse as your life changes
• Magic juju to get you motivated to make those dreams happen (seriously. weird, I know.)

How it worked:
The lessons arrived via email, usually in the morning.  Due to my work and mama schedules, I completed them in the evenings, so it was a nice little treat to look forward to all day.   On my busier days, I could skip the lesson and do a few together when time permitted.  Everything was also handily archived on their website, in case I misplaced an email.  There was also a separate site for class members to interact with each other, if they chose to, and this community lives on after the course session ended.

My thoughts:
What I loved about the lessons was their mix of "assignments".  Some were just thoughts and stories to read about and absorb.  Some were audio interviews with inspiring people.  Some were concrete assignments to make lists or write down thoughts about a specific subject.  For the free-writing ones, the instructions had a lot of encouragement and prompts to get us started, so I didn't ever feel like it was too hard.  The lessons that required the most courage (and abandoning of skepticism) were the "Secret Missions" to reach out to others.  I'll write more about one of them later (it ended up being a Not-So-Secret Mission when my friends figured it out.)

There was a definite progression in the lessons, so they eased us into the ideas before asking us to do the really detailed, introspective work.  While we were invited to share our insights with others in the class, we were never required (or even cajoled) into doing so, so it was definitely a "safe" space to dream really outrageous things.

My biggest fear was that I'd waste money on something that was super airy-fairy and just not that useful.  I'm trained as a scientist. I'm logical and practical.  I'm a project manager by trade, so I like lists, schedules and plans.  This course satisfied those parts of me as well.  The lessons were *useful* and the assignments were concrete and built upon each other.  I could see just enough of the roadmap to know we were going somewhere, but was pleasantly surprised as each lesson arrived and taught me something new about myself.

I'm not typically a "joiner" so I didn't participate much in the community with the other students, but I liked that it was there.  Others probably got a lot out of interacting with their classmates. 

It's now been a few months since the class ended, and I'm still seeing its positive effects.  I've signed up for a photography class to improve my skills in documenting the fun things we do as a family.  I'm making more time to be crafty. I blog more, and people read what I write.  I radically overhauled the way we eat.  I'm simplifying our "stuff".  I love my job now. 

Here's where it gets weird:
The course gave me both the insight into what I really want, *and* the motivation to go after it.  The strange thing is that I can't explain why this worked.  There's something sort of magical about figuring out your dreams and writing them down as concrete items - I've found that they just start *happening*, through no major effort of my own. I start to believe things might be possible, rather than dismissing them out of hand before they have a chance to form. And that's about as new-agey as I'll get here.

If you're thinking about doing this yourself, I HIGHLY recommend it.  There's a new session starting in January, which I think would be the perfect way to start a new year.  If you click any of the links here to register, I'll get a small referral bonus which I'm happy to split with you if you email me.

Got questions?  Leave a comment.  Or if you know me in real life, buy me a coffee and I'll talk your ear off about it.

Dreaming about parenting advice?

I finally spent some time this weekend catching up on my online Mondo Beyondo lessons.  Which is good since I think I only have one or two weeks left.  It's also been an interesting exercise for me in really taking in and *savoring* the information, not just reading through, automatically writing down the exercises and checking off that box. 

It's just not that kind of class.  What I get out of it directly correlates to how much I put in.  So I can't crank through 5 lessons in an hour.  I may need to re-read and re-do some of them again to really make them work for me.  There's no quantitative measurement on whether I did "well" in the class.  The only evaluation is my happiness and excitement about what the future holds.

Which is very weird for me.  I'm used to things like the Microsoft Operations Framework class I took a few weeks ago.  After listening closely to about 10 hours of lecture, reading through the book, and taking two practice exams, I took the certification exam.  Last week I found out I passed, so I'm now MOF v4-certified.

But I'm getting more comfortable with the "dreamer" inside of me.  (Cue Rainbow Connection - which, incidentally is one of T's favorite songs after she heard the Sarah McLachlan version.) 

One of the exercises I recently completed was to listen to an audio interview with Mike Robbins, a personal coach/motivational speaker/author.  I had never heard of him, and when I heard "motivational speaker", I thought of Tony Robbins and rolled my eyes.  But, one of the things I'm getting out of the class is learning to put aside my skepticism just long enough to give something new a chance.

So I listened.  And loved it, actually.  I took about a page of notes, but the one thing that really stuck with me was when he shared the parenting advice he got from a friend.  This is paraphrased from what I remember from his interview.

We have two jobs as parents.  The first seems like more work, but is actually easier.  The second is more important.

1.  Teach her how to "be in the world" - manners, getting along with others, how to tie her shoes, get dressed,etc.

2.  Teach her how to love herself.

And how do we accomplish #2?  Teach by example.  We love ourselves.

So simple, but so freakin' powerful, right?  But such a great thing to hear, amidst all the manufactured stress about what preschool to send her to, why she won't sleep, why I have to ask the same question 6 times before getting an answer, etc.

Did I already mention I love this class??

Two year sleep regression is kicking my butt

Arghhhh.  Just when I thought we were over the obsession with baby sleep.  T has been sleeping more crappily than usual for the last couple of months.  We're back to the voodoo of precisely timing naps and bedtime and trying to figure out the secret to keeping her asleep all night and not waking up at dark:thirty.  Today's wakeup time was 5am.  So delightful. 

I think the whole mess started with her switching to a new class at daycare last month.  She will not nap for more than 90 minutes there, and sometimes not more than an hour.  So by the time she gets home, she's a hot mess.

Moving bedtime WAY up worked well for a little while.  We started putting her down by 6-6:15pm.  And that helps her get caught up, and back to her usuall 11 hours at night, and then we can usually guarantee a 2+ hour nap for her the next day when she's home with me.  But another day at daycare and BAM! she's on her wack schedule again.

I wake up at the slightest whimper from the baby monitor and now I've apparently developed the inability to get right back to sleep.  I think having a kid has completely ruined that for me.  I don't sleep as well anymore.  (And certainly not as long, sigh.) 

I thought she was just having issues adjusting to the new class at school - she only goes twice a week so I figured it would take her a while to settle in.  But it turns out, the 2 year sleep regression is a real thing.  I knew I could count on AskMoxie...

So here I am, at 1am, catching up on my Mondo Beyondo lessons.  On the bright side, I won't be as ridiculously behind anymore.  And once I do get to sleep, I'll get to enjoy our fabulous new memory foam mattress.  So all is not lost.

handcrafted life plan part 5, again. The First List

So as part of my Mondo Beyondo dreaming class, I had to make my first list of dreams. We were told to set a timer for 10 min, and then just write what we want. And then we did it again, immediately, a second time. Once I (finally) got started, it was strange and awesome how all these dreams and wishes came pouring out of me.



Dream by jbelluch on Flickr


The class leaders dared us to share our lists publicly. So here's the first draft. More to come later, I'm sure. Because I'm a geek and found recurring themes in my crazy 20 minute scrawls, I organized them into buckets.

Live

• Live in a nice house in Dublin (Ireland), with our dogs
• Expand our house to have a separate room for Trillian to do school work, a bigger craft room for me, a luxurious soaking tub, a welding/torch space for me and TJ, enough storage for everything
• Go through our house top to bottom and organize it. Get rid of everything we don't need or use or love.
• Organize *all* my email Inboxes and be able to keep up
• Organize all of our photos. Make albums.
• Have a lovely, inviting, and fully organized craft room
• Have just a few really sharp high quality knives (instead of a ton of dull ones)
• Have a home in California
• Get weekly housecleaning
• Have a second home somewhere warm and easy to get to

Travel

• Go to Xmas Market in Munich
• Spend 3-4 weeks in Germany
• Spend 3-4 weeks in Australia & New Zealand
• Spend 3-4 weeks per year traveling somewhere interesting
• Visit Las Vegas for a weekend 3-4 times a year

Time

• Craft daily
• Spend one weekend in a (local) fancy hotel all by myself. Maybe take along some crafty stuff.
• Have time to communicate with far-flung friends (email, writing letters, etc)
• Have time to shop and cook without stress
• Minimize commitments and stay home, but still have some time to myself during the week

Work/$

• Quit job, but make enough income on side projects so we're not stressed out
• Make money on blogging, papercrafting, other projects @ home
• Provide amazing infant care to someone who can't afford it.
• Stop having that panicky stressed feeling most of the time
• Stop focusing/worrying about money
• Buy little things without worrying about money
• Write a successful book that makes lots of $
• Make lots of money without feeling like I'm working for it
• Hold and love and teach lots of babies
• Help people get what they want out of work-life balance.  Be a great example.
• Get paid to do papercrafting
• Become a professional organizer

Crafty

• Get cards or papercrafts published in a magazine
• Sell papercrafts without feeling hassled/stressed about it
• Make tons of awesome mini scrapbook albums
• Learn to take great photos and document our lives
• Learn how to do calligraphy
• Make gorgeous jewelry for myself and others
• Take magical photos of T doing ordinary things

Relationships

• Have close local friends.  See them often.
• Enjoy my time with family without feeling stressed about obligations or how things "should" be
• Love our dogs as they deserve to be loved
• Enjoy my marriage to the fullest
• Stop keeping score
• Become closer with my old friends who I don't talk to/see much anymore

Trillian

• Make sure she has an awesome childhood and grows up into a happy and secure adult
• Be her friend through life, as well as her mama
• Send her to the best school for her, regardless of cost
• Know with certainty her college expenses will be paid for
• Monthly photo shoot with a professional photographer

Me

• Be skinny and wear awesome clothes
• Run and like it
• Run a sub-30 minute 5K and like it
• Learn knife skills
• Find another book series I love as much as Harry Potter and read all of them, then read them again.
• *Want* to live a healthy life and eat right, exercise etc.  Not have it be a chore.
• See Pearl Jam live
• Speak fluent Spanish

Crazy

• Have a quail parade of 3-4 awesome kids
• Homeschool them part of the time (+private school)
• Be a drummer in a rock band
• Sing backup in a rock band

Yeah, some of those things even surprised me when I wrote them down, like I didn't know I wanted them ;)  I loved doing this exercise and then reading the list a couple of weeks later, because I had forgotten most of what was on it.  Obviously some of the items are more goal-oriented and doable, and some are just crazytown.  But that's why they're dreams, right?

I won't tag anyone to do this because it is personal, but if you decide to write up your own list, leave a link here. I'd love to read yours :)

Intuition and the unhappy grad student

I've been dutifully completing the exercises for my Mondo Beyondo class, like the good student I am. It's been really fun. Today's "assignment" was to blog about a time where we took action based on our intuition.

Despite being such a logical person, I do trust my intuition. My "gut feel" rarely leads me astray so I try to be quiet enough to hear that little voice. The first time I really noticed was one of the biggest decisions I've ever made.

Flashback to 1998. Summer in Seattle. (Cue horrible late 90s music like "Tumpthumping".) Best time of the year, and a *real* summer unlike the impostor we had this year.

I was a poor grad student in biology, preparing to take my qualifying exam before beginning my PhD research for realz. I worked at the shiny new Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center for a professor I really liked and respected. I was long-distance dating my college boyfriend, and I lived in a house with 2 of my college friends. Life was good on the surface but I JUST.WASN'T.HAPPY.

I put in the long hours required of me in lab, just like my fellow grad students. I got good grades in my required classes. I liked being a teaching assistant and mentoring a local science teacher for a summer program. I was working on a paper with my research advisor. Sounds great, right? But I couldn't shake the unhappiness. It wasn't a "take to my bed" kind of major depression, but kind of a low-level funk that hovered under the surface, popping up in my quiet moments.

One late night, I meandered through the library at "the Hutch" as it's affectionately known. I happened to notice a section of science-related books that *wasn't* scientific journals, which is a rarity for a science library. I idly chose one from the shelf and opened the page to a quote by Barbara McClintock, who is the only woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

"I couldn’t wait to get into the laboratory in the morning and I just hated sleeping.  I couldn't imagine a better life."

That quote hit me like lightning. I realized I was supposed to be *excited* about my job, and if I didn't like what I was doing, I needed to find something else to do. But I was in the midst of a PhD program, for which I had received a fancy-schmancy training grant from NIH, and furthermore, it was exactly what I had studied for at Caltech and worked for every summer in between. I had NO idea what I would do next.

But I knew I had to take action or else I'd find myself in the same place, a year or two later.  At that point I would feel like I had put too much time into my PhD program, and would be compelled to "stick it out" for the 5+ years it would take to finish. And I knew I'd be miserable every minute.

So I gathered my courage and spoke to my research advisor about it.  Amazingly, he went out of his way to show me the options for alternative careers in science.  I visited a local biotech firm with him and met some scientists in industry.  He introduced me to a colleague of his who was working on her own research to start a company.  He encouraged me to take another computer programming class that quarter as well.  I did not expect that from a "manager", whose "employee" essentially told him she was ready to quit.

At the same time, I signed myself up at the career center at the university *and* prepped for the LSAT, anticipating applying to law school as a backup plan if I was unemployable.  I took advantage of all the resources: company visits, on campus interviews, career fairs, etc.  I landed a couple of job offers, and picked the one from Deloitte Consulting, which lured me in with the shiny travel, paid expenses, and TONS of training in a completely new field.

It was exactly the right choice for me, and turned into a job (and career!) which I loved, and was good at. I no longer had the underlying ick feeling and felt a huge burden lifted the day I defended my proposal research to officially get my "consolation prize" Master's Degree.  The courage to make that HUGE change also catalyzed other big changes for me - I ended that relationship which I knew was really not good for me, and found the motivation to lose 35 pounds.

I still work in the same field, for a great company that lets me balance my work life and my home life.  I don't regret "dropping out" of my PhD program *at all*, not even a teeny wistful pang of "I wish I could be called Dr. HouseofPeanut".  Nothing.  Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. 

That's how I know it was the right decision for me.  And I owe everything to Dr. Barbara McClintock, who was dedicated to science in a way I most certainly was NOT, and the courage to do what my gut was telling me.  Woot!



Barbara McClintock, 1947. (from Wikipedia)



handcrafted life plan part 5 - i've got dreams to remember

So this has been Week Zero of the Mondo Beyondo class I'm taking, and I LOVE it so far.  The geeky me also loves that they are using a zero-based index.  I was skeptical that the exercises would be too fluffy, airy-fairy, filled with things like "open your third eye" or chakras or other new-Agey type concepts that I'm just not into.

But it's not.  It's surprisingly down to earth for being a class about dreaming.  Which is just what I need to ease into it.  I'm looking forward to the emails that arrive each day to see what new activity they'll bring.  It's a little slice of quiet contemplation in the middle of my busy days.

One exercise this week had us identify our core values.  Here are mine:

• AMAZING WIFE & MAMA – guide my daughter and partner with my husband by being patient, kind, gentle and loving
• KICKASS WOMAN – be me, be joyful, experience life, have fun, be crafty, redevelop close friendships
• CONTENT & CALM – have time for quiet moments, mellow days, no envy or major unmet wants, low stress, happy and present
• HOME BASE – make our home organized, functional, warm, comfortable, imprinted with “us”
• LOOKIN’ GOOD – get to a healthy weight, exercise and challenge my body, dress well in clothes that make me happy

I know, nothing earth shattering here.  But it was good to go through the process, and the way they framed the exercise was cool.

Another activity was to print a bunch of positive phrases and put them somewhere we'd read them regularly.  It wasn't enough for me to just print them on plain white paper - I needed some color.  So I got crafty, and made pretty circles out of them.

I put them in a ceramic bowl made by my friend June our senior year of college.  She didn't like it, but I thought it was cool that she made it herself (this was long before I became crafty). 

We're not in touch, really, but I like to keep it around. She is someone who follows her big dreams - seriously pursued an acting career, quit her job to travel the world, went to business school after working as a scientist, just to name a few.  So I thought her bowl was a fitting place for these statements about dreaming big.

There are still a few spots left in the class and it's not too late to catch up.  If you want to sign up, use the link here or in my sidebar and I'll split the referral bonus with you so you'll get a little discount.

handcrafted life plan, installment 4

My online dreaming class starts today.  Yippee!

I've been taking a ton of training at work lately, because I needed to renew my Project Management certification this year, and it requires about 45 hours of continuing education every 3 years.  But all of those courses were practical and of course, work-related.

This one is just for me. And like most classes I've been to, they ask why you're there. Except here it's more deliberate - not just idle curiosity, but to consciously articulate what we expect out of the class.



So here's why I'm taking it:

I want to figure out what my dreams are and how to create a life of joy for myself. I’m practical, analytical, and skeptical so it’s really hard for me to allow myself to dream big dreams. I want to set a great example for my daughter on how to create the life you want, not one filled with “should” and “supposed to”.

I'm really excited about the next 5 weeks.  Laura told me it was nice to have something little to do for herself every day.  I also love that it's not required for me to be social or "share" with the rest of the class - I can do all the exercises myself, and keep it to myself.  Or share when I feel like it.

Also, it's been a week since I started my health goal.  How did I do?  Well, my weight is at its lowest since mid-2009, so yay for that.  I was 7 for 7 on tracking my weight daily, but only 4 for 7 on tracking my food.  Did I mention that I hate tracking food?  Sigh.  But I can only improve on that front, so here's to another week.

But the simple act of writing out my goals has helped me be a LOT more focused on it than I used to be.  I even wrote it up on the whiteboard we have in our kitchen.  (Yes, after Caltech, I can't live without a whiteboard in my home. Or several.)

Well, enough navel-gazing for today.  T and I have a busy day, with a trip to the library, Trader Joe's and the park.  *That's* the life I want.

handcrafted life plan - thing 2

Now that I've got my work schedule squared away, and BabyT's summer activities are over (yay!), I've got some time to think about setting some goals and getting some direction in my life.

I've been particularly inspired by Laura, who I went to college with. There's the fact that she manages to blog EVERY DAY, even with a job and twin boys. She's a hugely talented family photographer and has started a business. A while ago, she mentioned taking an online class called Mondo Beyondo, that helps you figure out your big dreams and goals (or even little ones).

I looked it up and thought it sounded interesting, but didn't really feel like I wanted or needed to do that kind of personal exploration. That was during the months where Trillian was most definitely NOT sleeping through the night, and really it was all I could do to get through the day.

But now that I have time, and the aforementioned midlife crisis, and building my Grand Unified Handcrafted Life Plan (tm), it's the perfect opportunity. So I signed up. Class starts Sept 12 and it's all online. It seems like the sort of thing where you get out of it what you put into it, so I'm looking forward to doing some introspection and making this thing work for me.

If you think it might be your kind of thing, you could sign up too - there seems to be space in the class that starts in a couple of weeks. The link below is an affiliate referral thingy so if I get something from you signing up, I'll happily split it with you ;)



I'm excited about this. I don't know much about it, except Laura's endorsement of the class, and some other good reviews online. What I do like is that it seems like I can do this stuff on my own, and don't need to share a ton with others. That's the part I hate most about the "soft skills" type training classes I've taken at work - all the mandatory "sharing" and interacting you're supposed to do with your classmates. Ick.

I look forward to writing a little about what I learn, and what I want to be when I grow up. Watch this space :)