Balance

I'm really excited to announce that not only do we have a new DIY in the latest Blanket Magazine issue, but that we're going to be continuing on as regular contributors to the magazine! Bec puts together such a great magazine and we're really honoured to be joining the team. This month is the Landscape issue and it is just as beautiful as ever, I really recommend checking it out. Amazing cover art by Jo Cheung, photography from one of my favourites Erin Tyner and some other fun tutorials in diorama and tilt shift photography (miniature landscapes!). Our tutorial is teaching you how to make a simple landscape inspired mobile. The trick is all in finding the balance points, which is surprisingly easy so maybe you'd like to give this a go! 

Balance, definitely something I'm still trying and learning to achieve in my life. I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I am a total last minute person. I need that pressure to get things done, and as much as I hate it when I'm actually pulling the all nighter (or, attempting to as I most definitely can't to it anymore. I'm too old and sleep is too good!) it's always seemed to work well for me. Only, the aftermath of said late nights is starting to get to me and it's this; the messy house, candy wrappers and mugs of tea all over the place, my sleep schedule all out of whack, that I'm thinking really needs to change. 

Like I mentioned in my last post, the shop update I had planned for Tuesday had to be postponed. And then postponed again. Both reasons were totally unforeseen and there wasn't much I could do about them, but had I been a little more on top of things I might have been able to work around them. I wonder if I can trick myself into being more organised? Anyway, in an attempt at being realistic about how I work I've postponed the shop update until next Monday (13th Oct.) despite having done most of the work for it. I'm really hoping that my brain takes the cue that this means I should work on it a bit each day, thus leaving me the time to do other things rather than sit at my computer surrounded by post-its and scraps of veneer all day. As a sign that things might be on the up and up, I've already purchased a Christmas present for this year! I'm hoping to have everything ready to be able to ship to NZ/Australia at the cheaper than 5 days before Christmas rate. Let's just not talk about the fact that some of the gifts I'll be sending are ones that never made it out in time last year. Sigh.

A sneak peek at the mobiles we've been working on, that will hopefully make their way into the shop update. Think falling leaves, the milky way and tiny landscapes!

On letting go.

listen by courtneydawn (I highly recommend checking out her entire flickr stream, so good)

Awhile back I talked about my endeavour to become better at having balance in my life, with one of the key things being the ability to let go. This has become a bit of a theme for me lately, letting go of clutter, letting go other people's expectations of me, letting go of the excuses I make for myself that ultimately just hold me back. Definitely not perfect at this yet, but I'm working on it. It's tough you know, I think part of it comes down to being someone who loves big ideas (and small ones). I love the planning, the researching and the dreaming but I find myself often disappointed that I can't do every one of these things all at once, right now. Which is crazy, because I know if somehow I could magically do that I would actually hate the busy.

I had grand plans for this week, especially as it is Richard's last week of holidays. I'd planned out all sorts of errands and jobs to be done on Wednesday, a shop update and an amazingly clean house. I then spent almost the entire day at the dentist. Apparently I have to have a root canal, and some lovely and very thorough UBC students helped prepped my tooth for it. The dentist! I can't tell if I was more bummed about the pain, the money or the wasted day. After being a huge grump for the rest of the day I decided that you know, the shop update doesn't have to happen today. Yes, my house is a bit of a mess but my tooth no longer aches and I`m healthy. I'm behind on updating my 365, but really is that the most important thing? It's Richard's last week of holidays, surely walks in the park, movies on the couch and good conversation is the top priority here.

So this weekend I'm taking my time. There may or may not be a shop update on Monday. We've got beautiful sunny days forecasted for Vancouver, so we plan to picnic and go for walks. I'm going to take the time to really organise (or think about organising) our apartment so that it feels inspiring and calm to me. I'm going to finish my roll of film. I've been craving some kind of fruity scones, so I might just bake some.

What are your plans this weekend? I hope it's a good one.

xo

The Balancing act, some thoughts.

I find that I've been getting overwhelmed quite easily recently, life gets busy! There is lots happening now that Fall is here and the year is starting to wind down. Craft shows, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Halloween and scarily enough Christmas are all getting much closer. Eep! So I've been thinking a lot about the balancing act that life can become, and in trying to figure out how to balance all it can sometimes start to freak me out even more! Am I alone in this? I think not, especially in light of conversations I've had recently with fellow crafty ladies and those working for themselves. Then, in the middle of all my thinking and worrying came two fantastic posts by Lauren over at The Boss of You blog, called The Balance Myth (pt.1 & pt.2) that so completely spoke to how I was feeling. Please, please read them. Hearing someone else talk about how they feel the exact same way as I did was so good! Especially when that someone is a person that I not only greatly admire, but totally imagined was balancing everything perfectly. I'm sure that these perceptions of others play a large part in my/our feelings of inadequacy because there are so many other fantastic bloggers and the like, who seem to have it all together! When, the reality is we're all viewing only certain parts of those people, only what they chose to show us. I'm not saying that its dishonest or that they're trying to trick us, because we all do it. We all edit and make decisions about what we give others to see about ourselves, both online and in real life. While it can be hard to remember, we have to remind ourselves that they are all real people just like us, with unfolded laundry, unfinished projects, unpaid bills, unanswered emails, etc. And that's ok.

So, while I am definitely going to be taking Lauren's advice in pt. 2 of her post about helping to stay organised and balanced (especially the twitter one, how easy that can become overwhelming) one of the most important things I've learnt from my thinking, discussing and reading Lauren's blog posts, is letting go. Both letting go of thing I don't actually have to be doing (but have made up in my head that I should be, or that I have taken on but secretly don't actually want to be doing) and also letting go of the worry when things don't all get done. I really want to be living in the present (hippy-ish, I know) much more than I have been and enjoying the day to day rather than getting uptight about what is or isn't getting done.

Any thoughts?