Here are five things I have tried, started or gotten recently I think everyone should know about. 1. Savory Oatmeal You, like my housemates may think this sounds gross. However it isn't fair of you to say this unless you try it (or are allergic to oatmeal). I tried this while I was on the excitement high of researching for the creativity post, I thought I was out of raisins and so I googled "unusual oatmeal toppings" this is what I found. I have tried soy sauce green onion, the spinach garlic, and the bannana one. I love trying new things, and this green onion soy sauce oat meal is something I eat just about every day now. My Recipe: makes 1 serving 1/2 cup old fashioned oats 1 cup water 2 teaspoons soy sauce 1 green onion chopped thinly (optional: 1 tsp sesame oil, i think this gives a fuller flavor) Put oats and water in microwave safe bowl for one minuet. Remove from microwave, add soy sauce (optional sesame oil) and half of the chopped green onion. microwave for one minuet thirty seconds. Top with remaining green onions. 2. Podcasts I have at least two hours in the car everyday. Thankfully it is in small 30 minuet chunks, but still, that is a lot of time. Recently I discovered that time can be filled not only with NPR, but with podcasts!! I am sure many of you already have discovered the wonder that is podcasts, but in case you haven't you really need to give it a go. I think what is hard about podcasts is finding them. Once you find a genere of podcast that you like, you just sort of naturally hear about more. I am constantly listening to small creative business podcasts. which are a complete education. I am learning so much. It is like going to school two hours a day in the car, which is pretty great. I also listen to a few just for fun podcasts for Thursdays and Fridays when I am feeling info overload. Current Podcast List: Mico Biz Tips & Inspiration: Being Boss She Percolates Elise Gets Crafty Marketing Moxie For Me: Dear Hank and John Around The Table Ted Radio Hour Her Money Matters 3. Sharpies So, I had never bought a pack of sharpies. Until it was my assignment to buy them for a group craft project. I am so in love. I completely recommend that you buy a fun pack of sharpies (but not for full price!) Or buy gel pens (loving those lately too) or whatever favorite pen you have your eye on. Get something new and colorful that will make you want to draw and write. And then doodle away. 4. Pretty shoes A couple weeks ago my housemate gifted me with a new pair of ribbon sandals. I don't generally chose to spend my own money on pretty shoes, but wearing those sandals changes my whole attitude. They make me want to dress up for work. My job is very casual, so I struggle finding ways to feel like I look good while I'm there. These sandals really help encourage me to wear a cardigan or just put that little bit of effort in. So if you need any easy mood booster, or outfit update, get a pair of pretty shoes. 5. (Paper) Budgeting Ok, I know. Budgeting is scary. It is hard. You are good at it or you aren't- Actually not that last one. Budgeting is learned. It is never too late to figure it out, or make a better system. We have really struggled to set a realistic budget, and stick with it. I think the main problem has been just over complicating everything. We have sat down several different times and made an excel sheet, that we then promptly never look at again. It was always stressful and we avoided it as much as we could. I set us up with Mint (great finance app) more than a year ago, and that has been really helpful in tracking and visualizing our spending. However we haven't been able to really budget through that system. Just before last month I got reinvigorated by the Her Money Matters podcast (mentioned above), and decided just to keep things simple and made a 3 category budget. Food, Gas, Shopping. I set a limit on each category and then just wrote in bills and other expenses that were one time. I also set a goal that I wanted to be able to get a haircut at the end of the month. That haircut goal really helped me save, because I didn't want to spend any money that could be going towards my haircut. I also decided that to make it work we would have to sit down and track our spending once a week. So every Tuesday night I got out a paper, made my categories, wrote down all the transactions for the week in their categories, totaled them, and totaled the spending for the month. It was hard work, but I got really into keeping track. One week Tuesday night didn't work out, and it really bothered me that I din't know how the budget was going. I was so excited at the end of the month when I had enough to get a haircut, and we had extra money to move into savings. It was the most rewarding feeling. I highly recommend working to find the budget system that is for you. For me I need to touch the numbers and tract the transactions myself. Maybe something like Mint, or a pre-made excel template is all you need, and that is great. Get to it. Budgeting is hard, but highly rewarding. Not only when you meet your goals, but also because the goals that you set and meet are at the core of your lifestyle. Budgeting allows you to do what you really want, through the hard work of saying NO to everything else. But in the process you realize that what you are saying yes to is more important. Have you started or found something great lately? Let me know! I love new things.
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My whole life people have told me "you are so creative!". I have loved making things since I was small. I would make up stories, make toys, doddle, origami, anything. My family summed that up as creativity. I always felt a little confused because I didn't do anything original. My family saw my love to create, I saw my lack of ingenuity. We were thinking of two different types of creativity. So lets explore what creativity is, and find some creativity definitions. This week I was listening to an episode of Elise Gets Crafty, an amazing small business/creatives podcast, in which Elise interviews Jen Lara who has done a lot of study on creativity. She defined two kinds of creativity; expressive or inventive. Expressive creativity is creating as we think of artists, painting, dancing, music etc. Inventive creativity is a part of that, but it is also much larger. Inventive creativity is problem solving, it is ideation, it is coming up with new-ness. This is the kind of creativity I was sure I had none of. I have always struggled to come up with ideas. I can make things, I can follow instructions, but I cannot invent new things. But in this podcast episode Jen is telling me that creativity can be exercised and encouraged. Really? I listened to the episode twice and then searched for other podcasts about creativity. Of course I found one on the TED Radio Hour. Bits and pieces and interviews surrounding 4 TED Talks about creativity, the perfect thing to get my brain exploding with connections. The first guest on the podcast is Sting, and when asked he defines creativity as "the ability to take a risk". That sounds really scary. I don't generally like risks. I like nice safe things, such as my bed and my house. But I kept on with the podcast and Sting said that when he needed to re find his creativity he had to get out of his own way, get over himself, and in his case get into the heads of other people. Which aligned very well with something the next guest Charles Limb had to say about his research on jazz pianists. He was astounded (as we all should be) by the pure creativity of their work, and as a researcher decided to find out what was going on inside their brains. Naturally this meant MRIs fitted with keyboards. Watching the jazz pianists' brains Limb hypothesized that their self-monitoring systems were being suppressed while they played. What are self monitoring systems? Thats stuff like self consciousness, and self judgment. All the things that keep us from making "mistakes", or doing things "wrong". The judging, deciding, consciousness in their brains, hypothetically, is turned off to allow their creativity to flow. They get out of their own way, take risks with music and we love it. So why do most of us struggle to be creative? I have a terrible fear of being wrong. I remember even just being in college (I went to a small private school, where class sizes were still around 30) and not wanting to raise my hand unless I was sure the information I was sharing was correct. In order to not be wrong, whatever you are saying or presenting, has to already be proven. Which by definition, means it is not new. Someone else risked their neck on the information or idea, and it is now generally accepted. New things can be wrong. But creative things have to be new, otherwise they aren't inventive. So they might be wrong. Jen Lara says in the podcast that the biggest gains in creativity happen in elementary school, And in the TED radio hour Sir Ken Robinson says that schools teach us that being wrong is the worst thing that we can do. Following our previous logic, our creativity is often stifled, right when we should be getting most of it! Jen has some attainable hope for us though. She talked about two exercises to try and grow creativity. One is just finding multiple answers or solutions to a question, obviously in a real life situation you would then have to pare down the answers, but being able to create possibilities is part of creativity. The second activity to grow creativity Jen suggested was to find two random objects in your house and try to find a connection between them. Like what is the connection between a banana and a stapler (What is it? put yours in the comments!). We can grow our creativity!! That creativity exercise made me excited because I actually have a board game all about making connections between random things. It is called Connexio, and since it apparently will help us all become more creative we should play it. Although I must admit it is challenging, which means it is working out my creativity muscles right? The last guest on the TED radio hour was Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat. Pray. Love. (which I'll admit I haven't read, have you? should I go pick it up?) She defined creativity as "going into the uncertain". She also spoke about fear, and she used a hilarious image of fear and creativity as conjoined twins. She said that fear was always going to be with us when we do creative things but that we should not let fear make any of the choices. Just like Sting said, to be creative, we have to take the risk. Creativity is important. it is something that we all have to some degree, and that we can grow (whether with Jen's suggestions or with our own projects and challenges). Everyone said that creativity is challenging, risky, and scary. They said it takes honesty, and getting out of your own way. But I think all of their lives prove that it is worth it. So here is to pursuing creativity. I am trying, I hope you are too. Lets Journey together.
Let me know in the comments what your thoughts on and experiences of creativity are! Ted Radio Hour Episode Elise Gets Crafty Episode Further Reading: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon This book is quick, inspiring and honest. I enjoy his writing style immensely, and think everyone should read all his books. Which you can likely find at the library. The Book of Doing by Alison Arden I have done projects out of this book in other blog posts (here, here, here and here), and if you need challenges to help you get out of your routine, this will definitely help. The Flinch by Julien Smith This is also a challenge book, but shorter and sweeter and more to the point. it is just 2.99 in the Kindle store, and it will definitely make you think and do. Hey guys. So I moved. I had no idea what I was getting into. For the last several weeks all my usual routines, aside from work, were replaced with things like: empty cabinet, fill box, take box to car (repeat x ∞), drive to new house, empty car, attempt to hide boxes in a)living room b)third bedroom or c) basement. Oh, and organize new house.... right.
Pro Tip 1: Think about how much stuff you have, and develop a plan that enables other to help you. DO NOT try to do it all alone. I did not anticipate what I was getting into, or that we would fail to have internet set up until recently. So there is your very belated explanation of where in the universe I have been lately (basically, in my car). Pro Tip 2: Call and have internet set up BEFORE you move in, if at all possible. The last time I moved was 2 years ago when I moved out of college. That doesn't seem very long, but I've been busy since then. Accumulating a full kitchen, gathering all my childhood boxes from home- Oh, and acquiring a husband and all his stuff. When I thought about moving, I thought about packing my dorm room in one day, filling my car a few times, and grabbing some furniture I had in storage. Needless to say, this move had much more than that in store for me. Once solid week of moving every spare moment, and several loads since then (and a couple more to go). Pro Tip 3: Get your critical eye out early, start über Goodwill-ing several months before you move. (although lets be real, at least designate a Goodwill box as you are unpacking) The move will be worth it though, our new space is beautiful, and hopefully some week soon I will have my very own craft corner set up (just need to build a table...). This has totally messed up my crafting rhythm, however I have finally received all the piece to a new project I'll be working in my new craft space. Pro Tip 4: Prioritize your unpacking zones (i.e. craft table first). I feel like I will be organizing and sorting until it is time to move again in a few years, but hopefully we'll be all set up soon. Slowly but surely everything is coming together. Aside from all the busyness and craze of moving, it has been good to touch all of our things again, and for me to recognize how much junk I have. New goal: to be ever so slightly less clingy with stuff. My cheap side says: "Keep it! Then you'll never have to buy it again" but my reason says "you never touch it!" I am trying to listen to my reason as I look for new places to put everything. I hope my experiences help you be prepared for your next move (although I hope more you don't need to move!). This week...
Finished reading: The Catcher in The Rye Started (re)Reading: Harry Potter & the Sorcerers Stone Listening to: T. Swift 1989 Hobbies: Photography, brush tip lettering * * * I read the first two harry potter books more times than I think I've read any other books. Of course, that was when I was in elementary school. So as I began the book I hardly remembered it. I am remembering more as I get further in, re imagining all my mental images. I'm glad I'm not in school so I wont have to dodge homework to read it. It feels like it has been a long time since i've read a book i can really sink into. It is very refreshing. I've been wanting to experience the series again for a while, reflections to come. * * * I went on two photo adventures this week, having this place to decorate with images has brought my camera back off the shelf, which is nice. It reminds me how little I actually know about photography. I shot in Manual on both adventures, and have very little to show for it, hopefully that will be motivation to learn more. I'll share what is worth looking at. * * * Focus. Not one of my top skills. Jumping randomly from task to thought to project to chore and back again in a different order is more my style (if you couldn't tell from this post). However that does not lead to being very skilled at any one thing. January is coming to an end, and with it the new years productivity boost. Today it was 60 degrees out, its time to think about planting flowers again, and tend to the plants that lived through the winter. I want to plant more creativity in my life this year, I just can't decide which kind to plant. Sewing, photography, image making, typography. Or live with my consumerism, and scroll scroll scroll. I'll keep my goals a secret. I'll tell you when I'm done. |
Hello!I'm Sara. I live in Portland, Oregon. I have chickens. I love coffee AND tea, I make stained glass pendants in my basement, and I love adventures and new ways to live. I have an Etsy store as well. Categories
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