Back when I was filling college applications, a common question I had was, “What’s your favorite movie?”
Dead Poet’s Society.
That was, and still is, and likely will forever be my favorite movie. I have seen many other movies that I loved. But none has come near this one. This movie touches my soul and reminds me of so many important things:
Make your days count. Your time on this earth is limited. Sooner than you think, it will all be over and you’ll be food for worms. How are you going to make your days count? Make your life extraordinary.
Change your perspective. Look at things from a different point of view. Things don’t look the same everywhere. Don’t think about what they are thinking. What are you thinking?
Don’t let your poems be ordinary. They can be about simple things. Yet they can still be deep. Just don’t let them be ordinary. What will your verse be?
Find your own way of walking. Don’t imitate others. Make up your own way. Find your walk. Learn to think for yourself.
And now that I am a mother, I see deep, poignant points for parenthood.
Sometimes your kids think everything inside them is worthless and embarrassing. Sometimes it’s not just when you’re kids. But during those early teenage years, this fear can be paralyzing. It is so strong and it should not be ignored or not taken seriously. It is real.
Listen to your kids. Let them show you who they are. Don’t chalk it up to passing whim. Look for the passion. Believe it. Let them see your faith in them. They might be young but they are not stupid. They deserve your respect.
Your kids are not here to live the life you imagined. Don’t put pressure on them. The sacrifices you made were your choices, not theirs. They are here to live their own life. Make their own choices. Walk their own path. Let them. Even better, hold their hand. Support them.
I think in so many ways, teenagers are more fragile than babies. And yet we don’t remember that. We take care of babies so diligently. But we are often infuriated with our teens. I truly hope that I can remember this when my kids are teenagers.
A teacher can make a permanent different in your kid’s life. Choose your kid’s teachers carefully. And be thankful for the good ones. They are rare. Very rare.
All from a two-hour movie. How could it not be my favorite?
All I needed to hear was in the first fifteen minutes: seize the day.
I started this blog on August 2000.
Since we just passed the nine year mark, I’ve decided to try some new things for the blog. Mostly to keep myself regular and posting everyday and also a chance to try out some things I’ve wanted to for a while. So I made a little schedule for myself and as a reminder to myself I am going to post it here and do my best to keep to it.
photos
I will still keep posting daily photos. I want to take more “non family” photos so I will attempt to do more of that. I will still have daily Nathaniel since we’re still in his first year and I promised I will take photos every day in his first year. I will make sure to have at least one photo of David every week. One photo of myself every week. And monthly (ideally more frequently) photos of me and the kids and Jake and the kids and all four of us. Let’s see how this goes.
Here’s a schedule for non-photo posts I want to make daily:
Mondays: I will post a video of something. Either a photoshop/digital tip or a non-digital technique etc.
Tuesdays: A new layout/mixed media art, etc.
Wednesdays: A digital download package. It will have anywhere from 7 to more digital elements in it.
Thursdays: My weekly tag.
Fridays: Books. I am starting to read more and will challenge myself to read a book a week (more coming on this) and on Fridays I will write about the book I read that week.
Saturdays: A photo tip. This will be a tip on photography. Technicals, how to improve, how to use your camera, etc. Just my compilation of this information.
Sundays: A new creative therapy catalyst.
My plan is to also post at least 3 longer journaling-type entries a week. When I look back upon my years of posting here, besides the photos, those are my favorite posts. Here’s to hoping I can make that happen.
I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit down lately. Lack of sleep will do that to you. And the thing with being down is that it goes into a spiral. The more you’re down, the more down you get. Everything suddenly looks blacker and it just self-perpetuates from there.
So, since I’ve been on this negative bend lately, everything seems to be getting to me. One of those things, the topic of our day, is the blogs I read. It appears that everyone in the world (in the blogosphere) is having a perfect life (besides me). I had the same problem when David was 3 months about how I just can’t take this perfection anymore. It’s like a disease.
I know that blogs are selective sharing. The weird thing about it is that people tend to share just enough that you feel like you know them. You feel like you get a glimpse into their lives. Personal lives. Yet, you totally don’t. You only know what they choose to share. The way they choose to share it. You think you’re friends with this person. But you are not. You’re really just one of the voyeurs into the person’s life. The part of their life they put up for the world to share.
While I know all this, it’s all too easy to distort this reality. Especially on a day when you’re seeing it all through negativity-tinted glasses. I read these blogs. I read about their perfect lives. Their perfect children. Their perfect jobs. Houses. Husbands. Friends. Weather. You name it. It’s perfect. And I crumble to pieces. I wonder why mine can’t be so perfect. Why doesn’t my kid sleep? What am I doing wrong? And the guilt and loneliness just swallows me up.
Funny thing is, blogs are supposed to be about connection. Or so I think. And I understand the urge not to write the bad stuff. Who needs their laundry aired in public? Especially when it’s cached forever. I get this. I swear I do. Yet I can’t stop myself from the despair I feel when I read the perfect entries. I don’t know that there’s a solution. I just know that maybe it’s time for me to walk away from reading them for a while.
Just in case anyone out there is reading my blog and thinks my life is perfect, I want you to know it’s not. I have a lot of wonderful things and I am truly thankful for so many of them. I appreciate it all. But it’s not perfect. I have days where: I get depressed. I fight with my husband. I get impatient with my kids. I don’t clean up the messes in my house. I fail at my job. I cry. I have all sorts of bad days. They come, they go. Sometimes they stay longer than I want them to. In the end, I am thankful for all that I have and I think most of the time the good days far outweigh the bad ones but I want to make sure you know that there are plenty of bad ones.
That’s just how life is.
I’ve been feeling kind of off lately. I can’t think of a word for it except maybe fragile. I feel small, like I am folding into myself. Not sure what it all means or where it’s coming from but here it is.
Tomorrow Nathaniel turns four months old. Most people say that it’s the first few months that are hard. Not so for me. This is where it gets hard for me. Four to Seven months.
The thing is, when the baby was born I expected to put my life on hold. I knew he was going to consume all my free moments. He was going to need nutrition, love, and being cared for. Especially since I’ve done this before with David, I knew it would be overwhelming and all-encompassing. And when Nathaniel came, I dove into it all. I tried to pace myself and keep up a positive attitude. Stuff wasn’t getting done, but that was expected so I wasn’t feeling sad about it. This was the number one priority for now.
But, now, months passed. I feel myself getting anxious and tired and yearning to get my life back on track. Back to the schedule I was on. Back to getting some “me time” and getting some sleep. I am starting work soon and I am worried it might all come crashing down.
This is the time I start getting depressed because it feels like there will never be light at the end of the tunnel. This is when I can’t even remember my life before and I feel like I will never sleep again or do anything for myself again. That overwhelming drowning feeling sweeps in.
I know it will pass. I know he will sleep. I know I will too. But, right now, it just seems so far away.
Please take the time to say hi today. Tell me that you were here. Just this one time.
This is inspired by this post by Andrea Scher who reminded me about the amazing book art. Somewhere she said she wished she had books she could arrange this way. This made me realize that I probably had enough books to try this out..
Here’s how it turned out:
To be fair, I didn’t take the time to do all th shade-sorting he did but I think it still looks quite awesome. I did a few adjustments. All the extra-large and extra-small books went on the bottom two shelves. Each shelf is double-stacked. I got to have 3 whites, 1 yellow, 1 orange, 2 pink/reds, 2 greens, 2 blues, 1 brown, 1 purple and grey, and 3 blacks. I must admit, I love looking at it.
See, Cole, it worked!
I wanted to put shelves in both kids’ rooms so I could put fun things on them. I have yet to buy more but I already like the way they turned out.
Nathaniel’s shelves have a print by Kal Barteski, a drawing by gingerwinks, a few stuffed animals, David’s first pair of shoes, and a lot of books.
David’s shelves have two photos of him that I love, the letter D, a favorite book, some more stuffed animals, and a small pring by Kal. There’s more coming here, but I already love it.
and here’s a sneak into Nathaniel’s closet. His clothes are color-coded where orange and pink are 0-3 months and green and blue are 3-6 months. I know it’s a bit obsessive but it makes it easier for me to find stuff. Also the boxes on top are sorted by year for one, two, three and newborn (stuff he’s already grown out of).
This is inspired by a wonderful etsy shop item. Ever since I saw this, I wanted to make one for Nathaniel’s room. Mine is far inferior to hers but it’s handmade by me. And I love going in Nathaniel’s room and seeing it every day.
Doesn’t it look sweet?
As we move into our new home, I had some projects I wanted to try out. This is me documenting some of them.
The first one is creating a new scrap space.
When I unpacked all my scrapbooking stuff, here’s how the living room looked:
And then little by little, I put stuff away, so my table ended up like this:
isn’t that much nicer? and here’s everything else:
All those black buckets store a LOT of stuff. And here’s a peek inside the drawers:
Tim Holtz stuff.
More Tim Holtz stuff.
Paint. All of the drawers are organized by categories that make sense to me. I’ve been using them for ten days now and so far the system is working great.
And here is the wall I look at when I work. A wreath from Pottery Barn, a sign I bought from a yard sale, and a beautiful painting by Kelly Rae Roberts. The other wall has a beautiful bird drawing from this etsy shop (which you can see in the “after” photo.)
So far, I’m loving this space to bits. Very functional and very tidy.
Two movies from the last weeks of our life. First, David jumping in the pool in swim class.
And then Nathaniel and his new-found fist.
There are some people who come into your life during important stages in your life. People whom you will always remember even though they may not remember your name a year from now. For example, I remember the name of each person who interviewed me for my job at Google (and there were many of them.) I have, over the three years, run across many of them and they don’t remember me, yet I know I will never forget them.
Same goes for the person who did my college interview or the person who sold me my first car, etc. The person who told me about Carnegie Mellon some twenty years ago. I bet he has no idea that he has completely changed the course of my life. I owe my education, my husband, my career, in part to him and his having mentioned the school to me all those years ago. These one-sided experiences always fascinated me.
Yesterday, I was talking to one such person. A woman who’s helping me through another huge life moment. I told her how thankful I am for her help and how I will remember her forever. I said, “I know I am one of many for you because this is what you do, but you are and will always be special to me.” She was touched and thanked me.
I wonder if people realize and appreciate the effect they might have on others. The tiny comment that might turn someone’s life around. Something you do as part of your job might actually leave a lasting spot in someone else’s journey. Isn’t that magical?
I think we don’t tell enough people how they’ve changed our lives. Imagine if someone told you about such a thing today. How something that was insignificant/effortless to you (something you likely don’t even remember) actually left a permanent mark in their life. Wouldn’t it be great to hear that. A bit scary maybe, but really awesome in a way that would put a smile on your face and remind you that your reach in this world is much wider than you imagine.
So take a moment today and thank someone who did that for you. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t worry about how they might take it. Don’t expect a response. Just do it. Maybe, just maybe, you might make someone’s day.
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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