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Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

May 24, 2021

Splash Pad Party 2021: What is it, and Why I’m a Sponsor

 The Splash Pad Party is a Craft Along that runs from May 28 through July 31, 2021. The eligible crafts are knitting, crocheting, spinning, and machine knitting (though machine knitting is counted at half the grams for FOs as the other crafts). There’s a sign up form on Jen Lassonde’s Ravelry group for the host of the Down Cellar Studio Podcast or her website


I’m a sponsor for the Splash Pad Party 2021, because I want to have even more fun with the craft-along, allow folks to get to know me a bit better, and allow more folks an introduction to my patterns. I’m getting really excited about this event. 


The projects I’m planning for the Splash Pad Party 2021 include knitting some socks, knitting a gnome or two, spinning some yarn, and making some blanket squares to hopefully finish a long standing work in progress.


If you think you might enjoy the Splash Pad Party, head on over to Jen’s website or Ravelry group and sign up on the Sign Up Form. The more the merrier, for sure!


Feb 1, 2021

Dancing through January

 Hi y'all!

I was raised my first 8 years mostly in North Carolina in and around Ft. Bragg, and even though we had neighbors with international heritages, I still have southern vocal patterns. Oh well, it is what it is. My parents are from the front range of Colorado and the midwestern part of South Dakota, so they don't really have southern ways, and their parents weren't southern either. It's just something I picked up over time. 

Anyways, I liked having the word of the season being Dancing. I had a section of my habit tracker in the bullet journal for it with the quote from myself discovery work, "Dancing the dance of life brings me joy." In that section, I also doodled some eighth-notes, a dragonfly, and a five-petal flower. I like the look of it, and it was visible every-ish day when I checked in about whether or not I had done the 22 things I was tracking for the month.

I used a lot of music through the month. There were the weekly zoom meetings with other crafters on Sunday afternoons that the local fiber store owner hosted where the first two-thirds is music jams supplied by the participants in a Spotify playlist we all listen to as we craft along where we happen to be located, then last third is us sharing our names, locations, and what we crafted that day (sometimes, since the last meeting, but not often). 

I also have been listening to the Daily Wellness on Spotify to get some music and some meditation and just have a happy start to the day. That lead to liking lots of songs, and then finding songs and artist from when I was younger and liking their music on there. Now, I listen to hip-hop women artists when I do a lot of my typing as I like the lyrics and the pace for focusing.

I've also been Dancing through my crafting. I thought I'd be lucky to craft 500 yards when the month started. Then, maybe 1,000 yards. Not even 1,500 yards would be a stretch. Nope, I Danced my way all the way to 1642.1 yards crafted, and 1478 yards out of stash through a skein of yarn that hadn't been removed when I got rid of it a while ago, so that's 3201.1 yards out of stash for the month of January. I'll do a separate post of the projects and their details later.

I've also been enjoying the scent of a vanilla and sugar candle. It's not Dancing exactly, and not quite hip-hop style, but it's been helping me to feel happy with the passing of the colder days of winter. There had been a mulberry colored candle that had a spicy scent, and it gave me a headache. This one is nice, and warm, and floaty, like Queen Latifah singing a mellow ballad. 

I just like all the joys of Dancing has brought to me this month. No, it's not in club, mostly in my living room, jamming as I bee bop along through life, and that's cool. It's nice to add some pep and some joy to your steps, some rhythm to your days, beyond the routines of getting up, some music to your cardio. It's all good stuff, and that's very good for my soul.

Take care, y'all, I'll write more later,
Jen

Jan 20, 2021

The Power of Yet

 Hey there, everyone!


Recently, I listened to the podcast, ADHD ReWired, and it was the episode 357 “Accept the Brain You Have with Terry Huff.” In that episode, Terry mentioned something about goals not getting done, and the host, Eric Tivers, made the distinction that a goal hadn’t been done yet. And, that small, three-letter word got stuck in my head. Yet.


We folks who have ADHD, or a sub-type, have lots of goals that haven’t been accomplished. Yet.


I am empowered by that little word. Yet gives me the hope that it will happen someday. Yet means I still have time to get the work done. Yet makes it possible for “done” to happen. 


So, how do you feel about the power of the word Yet? Is it a new thought, or, something that you’ve heard before? 


Let me know in the comments, and we can keep the conversation going.


And, with that, have a good day/night as the case may be!


Stay safe out there,

Jen


Jan 6, 2021

Word of the Year, Personal Review, 2020 ~ Manage

 My Word of the Year for 2020 was Manage. This came from a larger quote, by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, “One who can learn to flow with the current as well as manage the current is the successful one.”

I think I focused on the wrong part of the quote, but the season before last year had been one of floating a lot, and I wanted a little more direction. By the end of the year, I had come to dislike the word Manage for my word, but not enough to change it.

The year began simply enough. January, was it's usual beast with 100% of the days being full of migraines. (I have a new theory about this for a future blog post, so watch for that! It's not earth shattering, just mind expanding for me with implications for future changes.) The migraines continued into February with some other things going on in the personal world to Manage. March, what can I say that hasn't already been said before? 

We in the US, not sure about the rest of the world, began the month of March much the same as any other month in the rest of the 21st century. Then the weekend around the Ides of March in the middle of the month came (for those that don't know their Julius Caesar history, the Ides of March are the 15th of March, the date to settle debts, which Caesar did with his life, as did a great many people in this century from that date forward, but I'm getting ahead of myself). And, my household went into a holding pattern, as many in the world did. Would we go to work on Monday? Would we be able to go to the grocery stores? The hospitals? What exactly was closing and when? So many questions. So much misinformation. So much confusion that looking back could have been avoided. But it wasn't and so we are still digging out from the mess that was started first by those in leadership saying it was a "flu" and then because of that not providing adequate care and information for the masses needing an unprecedented amount of both.

April passed in a blur of Managing expectations and wearing masks when out of the house. Because whether or not they did anything, what if they did do something. And, they showed as a sign of respect that I respect your health, so I'm wearing my mask to protect you in case I'm asymptomatic and don't know it. That's the simple thing that showed up a lot in the Spring and Summer months was the sheer entitlement of folks not respecting each other. Folks deciding that their anger at the situation was more important in grocery store videos that went viral than the government and store rules that we wore masks. 

May came and went with more time outside. My pup and I took some time in our neighborhood to take socially distanced walks around. Our neighborhood is semi-rural and so we walk on the roads. I carry a mask in my pocket, to pop on my face if I happened to come across a person who wanted to come closer than 7-8 feet even though the distance for masks at the time was 6 feet. I have had some weird health things in the past, so was and still am acting from a very cautious place with this. 

June the world learned the name George Floyd. Managing my own internal biases and learning which family members were being ignorant on purpose and so were trying to pull me into discussions about whether it was possible for black people to have the same prejudices with white people, which for the record, it's not, was an interesting exercise in patience, which I don't have a lot of. There's not a 400 year history of black oppression of white people by black people with the rules of one drop of whiteness in your blood making you white so there's more white people, so there's more enslaved people to work the plantations and homes of the black oppressors for free. Sounds kind of ridiculous when you change the positions of the races. To paraphrase Dr. Jaiya John from a podcast I heard in October, through the Good Ancestor podcast by Layla F. Saad, white supremacy is a virus that we have lived with and don't know what it would be like to live without. I want to live in that world. 

July was more Managing. This time internal as well, as I had asked for an assessment for distractibility and memory issues. I had been noticing that I couldn't settle my mind to much of anything. I had been putting it down to the pandemic for the last few months, but thinking on my life, I noticed that this was how I just was. Always mentally curious and able to do deep dives into subjects that are interesting, but hardly able to do anything that wasn't at all somehow motivating to me. I had to know why it was important, agree it was important, and like doing it, to maybe even want to do it. Or, I'd find an excuse not to do it. Doing it because of making other people happy doesn't work because that's manipulating them, if I don't want to do the thing. So, at the end of the month I was evaluated for adhd. 

August was more Managing. Still internal, but with others too. In early August, I got the diagnosis of a type of adhd. Then, I did deep dives into what that was. I took a dedicated break from a crafting group I'm part of to figure out my place in the world with this new information. Also, my pup was beginning to do poorly, and I didn't want to deal with a lot of questions, so a break would give some space for whatever happened in the next few months.

September came with some hard conversations to Manage. We talked with the vet about the process for euthanizing our dog because he was doing so poorly. As a last option, we took him to a specialist vet on the off chance that something might be easier for him in the last days of life. The first appointment was in October, so we Managed to wait for a while, did I mention I don't have a lot of patience? The new school year brought a new pattern to the schedule of the weeks. Since March through June the weeks had been fully remote through the computer. Then the summer was it's usual break. Summer school had been thought about, but dismissed in this time. So, the county had been in the yellow for most of the summer with occasional bursts into the other two colors. (out of a red, yellow, and green system, with red being fully remote, yellow being hybrid, and green being fully in person allowed.) The school district chose to do a yellow hybrid system for the school year, until and unless they had to go red - fully remote, even if the county went into a green zone to better protect the students and staff. That means our days have had a different pattern than ever before with two days in person, a remote day, and then two days in person. Getting used to the pattern of days has taken a bit of effort, but it's happened and now feels normal.

October came with more chances to Manage. Early in the month my pup met the specialist vet. I have only ever heard her voice over the phone as the visits have been curbside the whole time of knowing her. She did some tests, used her vast knowledge and care, and developed a plan to try to turn around the bad bacterial infection he had had for a long time that was resisting other antibiotics he had tried. She started him on an antibiotic that required wearing gloves, washing hands before and after administering the medicine, and making sure not to touch it to anything we would ever use for human consumption. While he was using that medicine, we couldn't let him lick us or touch his nose or face to us at all. He did sleep on the bed, but that was too much of a battle to fight at the time. In October, I also went to the orthopedic to see what was going on with my shoulder that was really sore and weaker than it should be, and had been since the summer. He took some xrays, gave me a shot of steroids and lidocaine, and sent me to regular pt. I started pt and loved going there, as the people were great and it felt good.

November, I also Managed expectations. I was still going to pt and wasn't progressing like I felt I should be. At the end of about 2 months, I was still at what felt like the beginning of the process. I requested another appointment with the doctor to see why. Until then, pt was the only time the shoulder felt good naturally, so I continued appointments until the day before the doctor's appointment in mid December. I also Managed handling the scary medicine for my pup. The medicine could cause a weird kind of anemia in those that touch it and ingest it. I also Managed writing about 37,000 words for the month in NaNoWriMo, an international writing competition to write a novel in a month. It was the first time I tracked my words written in a month.

December was a month to Mange lots of things. Near the beginning of the month I said good bye to a new friend as they left their internship at the pt clinic. I Managed to show my love in tangible ways thanks to the beneficence of the year. I Managed to write 8,000 words without the help of the daily check ins and sprints of the writing community. which is still pretty good. I have a simple bank book system that has columns for date, document name, starting word count, total word count, running balance (resets monthly, manually), and then time in minutes and a words per minute column where the word count for document is divided by the minutes. Oh, and there might be a comments column, I usually have one of those in most spreadsheets. The math columns are formulas, so I don't have to do the math mentally, and I have them filled in for about 20 rows at a time until I get to the bottom of the filled in rows and then pull down the formulas another 20 or so rows. (All this in case you want to duplicate your own spreadsheet.)

So, towards the end of December I participated in Susannah Conway's process to find your Word of the Year. I had the idea before beginning that I wanted something funner than Managing, and I wanted something more active and external as well. Dancing was running through my mind, but I had heard that this process would help solidify the Word of the Year for folks that were a bit vague on it at the moment. 

I went through the process of the first two days about a week after receiving all the emails. Then, I set it aside for about a week. Found it again and finished the day's work that I had been doing. Then, continued on through the process, just not always giving it the time that the process had intended. By the end of the process, I had solidified that Dancing was a good word for me in 2021. To support Dancing, I selected Energy, flexibility, Vibrant, and Ease as these are the feelings that Dancing creates in me. 

In hard times, our attitudes can make or break our spirits. May yours make your spirit sing, and if it isn't change it. 

Nov 18, 2017

Guilds and Fairs, Oh My!

Last Saturday was the Craft Fair at the local grange building. Granges are community builders that promote togetherness and agriculture in the US. There were 2,100 communities with 160,000 members in 36 states as of 2005 in the US. The Grange is a fraternal order that was founded after the Civil War in 1867. There's usually one local to many Mainers. Anyways, the town I live in has a fairly active one, and they held a craft fair last weekend.

I bought a few items. One was to support a local cheer team, and the other was to support a painter from the area. Both are going to be for Christmas gifts this year. 

Today, I attended the Guild meeting for the Southern Maine Spinners and Weavers Guild, which meets at the Dorothy Stevens Community Center in Kennebunk, Maine. We had a great time describing what we have been learning and setting up for our holiday party next month.

I volunteered to set up the Facebook page and maintain it for a while to see how it goes. I already have a fairly low key Facebook page for this blog, and, so feel comfortable with the Facebook side of things. I also have been the Public Relations officer for various groups in the past, so am excited to be initiating this outlet for the group.

Anyways, I learned that there's the ability to add editors to pages on Facebook, so will see how that works and go from there. I'm also looking forward to finding out more about the group and how it can change through this mighty step forward.

Jan 14, 2015

It's been a couple of months with the Bullet Journal, A Retrospective

I've been using the Bullet Journal for a month or two now. I like the system.

I'm using a graph lined composition book from Staples for my actual journal.  I use the note and task boxes.  If I complete a task, I check the box.  If I move the task to the next day or later, I put a right pointing arrow in the box.  I don't really use the event marks.  A note mark is just as easy.

I've been sick for a couple of weeks, or this update would have been published sooner.

Nov 17, 2014

Bullet Journal


The above video is a handy introduction to the BulletJournal.com system of organizing your days and tasks.

Basically there are three types of data to enter, tasks, events and notes.  Tasks are signified by an open check box.  As a task is completed, the check box gets checked.  Events are signified by an open circle.  Events are appointments and dates that you want to remember.  Events can include food journals, chronic illness tracking and other such things.  Notes are signified by closed dots/circles.  Notes are things that you want to remember, but are not tasks or events.  These three types of data are fairly easy to keep track of.

What happens if plans change?  Then you place a right arrow through the open box or circle indicating that the task or event has been postponed.  If a task or event becomes obsolete, just cross it off the list for that day.  There you have it for those unexpected life happenings.

How do I know if something is important or I want to find out more about it?  For important things, I use an exclamation point in the margin next to the signifier for that data point.  For things I want to investigate, I sketch an eye in the margin to show that I want to look up info about "x".  But, how do I know what the various symbols mean?

I have an index page in the front of my journal.  There is also a key/legend page opposite the beginning of the index.  The legend page is where I have all the signifiers and their associated meanings.  The index page is a listing of what kind of data is on pages such and such.  I have a few blank pages after the first index page before the beginning of my first calendar pages.

On a fresh spread, I topic each page with the name of the month and year for the current month.  I list the dates down the margin of the left page.  In the margin next to each date, I put the day of the week abbreviations used at my first college.  U=Sunday, M=Monday, T=Tuesday, W=Wednesday, R=Thursday, F=Friday, and A=Saturday.  This way you can use one initial and know exactly what day it is without wonder if the T is Tuesday or Thursday, or the S is Sunday or Saturday.  On that page, I list any appointments in pencil that are not standing appointments.  On the facing page, I list the things I know as of today, that I need to get done for the month, like registering my car in August, rather than December. ;)

On the next page I repeat the calendar, only on this page I plan out the menu for the entire month.  If I have an old calendar handy, I'll look at 11 months ago and copy the menu plan, only tweak it to reflect food changes and taste changes that have happened.  I'd rather not eat the same thing every 9/15, so that's why I go back 11 months.

Anyways, then on the next page, I start my daily pages with the data points that are important for those days.  Most days currently have the following tasks, with intermittent appointments added in as needed.

  • Get ready for the day.
  • Get dog ready for the day.
  • Dishes.
  • Sweep.
  • Knit.
  • Read.
  • Enjoy the day!
So far, I've been doing this for a few weeks and am liking the break from a traditional calendar and having all the data in one linear form.  It fits with my love of paper and is easy to keep up with.  If I miss a few days there's no biggie, and if I only want to include a few things or a lot of things it's easy to accommodate.  I really am liking this new way of journaling my days. :)

Jun 20, 2012

POTD, Plan Of The Day

In no particular order,

  • TOPS meeting, take minutes and participate, share about tracking food being too tedious for now what with all that is going on, and with the headaches out of control, I want to control this by not tracking calories, carbohydrates, and exchanges.
  • Continue to eat in a way that is healthy, balanced, but also allows me to eat what I want, not just what's a good choice.
  • Finish reading Mark chapter 9, I think, and record my thoughts on it
  • dishes, laundry and other housework
  • rest my head as I'll be taking migraine medicine, but not till later as I want it strongest in my system when at the meeting tonight
  • hang out with K and a friend
  • knit more hexipuffs, fun little hexagons knit from straight edge to straight edge
  • maybe make some hexipuffs with fun designs
  • pics and posting of stitch markers
  • play with making more stitch markers, they're fun and addicting to make