Art journaling

I know. I know. I waxed rhapsodic about not being able to make a bullet journal work for me, but that didn't stop me from wanting an excuse to buy a nice journal and play around with it. 

So I agonized for a while about how I would use a journal and decided that I would try my hand at art journaling. 

I've always kept sketchbooks with all kinds of art in them from paintings to zen tangles and Pokemon and butterflies and you name it. 

So I decided an art journal that would give me a place to doodle and practice handwriting [a dying art!] might actually be a very zen way to spend some time. 

I spent about $12 on the following - a gorgeous little leatherette journal with lined pages and a set of bold tip ball point pens. So far I'm loving it. It's yet another outlet for creativity with no pressure. I can just write and sketch and tangle. 

I've decided to write zen proverbs and sayings in it as a means to work on my handwriting which has gotten so bad over the years because I don't have the patience to write neatly. 

Here's to beginning...

The Impatient Gardener

The impatient gardener - that's me. I want to plant things NOW and see them grow and harvest them...right now. 

Plants take time, so I tend to rush things, but I don't care. I'm enthusiastic about my garden, and that's what matters. 

Having a ton of polymer clay leftover from my miniature food obsession, I decided I could finally make some weather resistant garden markers, so for the past couple days I've been fiendishly rolling out strips of clay and embossing them with plant names using a clay embossing set I got for a song with a coupon at JoAnn's. 

Here's the finished product - they're sharp on the ends, slightly flexible and color coordinated to the crop they represent [as close as possible]. 

I won't be able to use them all this year, but I have a wide variety that should cover just about anything I want to grow. 

Now to start coaxing my little seedlings out of the ground!!

Bullet journaling, life planning and organization

I love things that are organized and color coded and neat. I don’t have that much patience for organizing, but I recently applied the Konmari method to my clothes closet and dresser drawers, and I’ve been happier for it.

Last year I got on the life planner kick – not in a big way, but it was a good excuse to buy washi tape and colored pens. Rather than spend a lot on a premade calendar or planner, I made my own, so that I could have five years of planning in one place for the whopping cost of $3.00 instead of what would have ended up costing $50 or more [much more]. I also got to use purple paper, and all the stickers I’ve been foolishly hoarding for years.

I spent a little more money on a Filofax type system that would hold all the information that doesn’t change. I created my own Filofax for under $25.00 to keep vital info – the kind of stuff people run around like headless chickens looking for when there’s an emergency. This way my husband and my kids know to look in one convenient place for all the information they might need to handle doctors, plumbers, banks, credit cards, etc.

I update the “life planner” whenever necessary. This allows me to plan things for future years and keep track of stuff from December to January without having to dig up a new calendar.

I think I’ll probably spend a little time once a year updating the Filofax.

Now I just heard about the ‘bullet journal’ which seems like another word for ‘life planner’ and/or Filofax. It’s all about analog planning and list keeping, something I’ve been doing without a fancy name for… well ever.

I make lists all the time, cross things off, migrate them to other lists, allow things that become unimportant to drop off those lists, make check marks and tables and analyses. Sometimes it’s helpful, but not always.

I love the idea of the bullet journal as much as I love the idea of the life planner and the Filofax, because it’s a reason to go to the store and buy pens and notebooks and pretty things in multiple colors. I like the idea of having a document that represents your life…

…but…I’m also reaching a point in my life where living it is more important than documenting it. Ending up with a drawer or a shelf or a box full of old journals/calendars is not attractive to me anymore. They look pretty in all the photos that the bullet journal enthusiasts post online, but I just see clutter that one day I will look at and say “Why am I keeping this? So I can know when my dentist appointment was in 2011?”

I’m also not a fan of the obsessive data recording that seems to go with the life planning lifestyle. I don’t want to keep track of pints of water consumed or loads of laundry washed any more than I want to keep track of calories consumed or trips to the bathroom. Some people do, however, and that’s fine, it’s just not for me.

My quest to become organized is currently more reliant on my quest to become a minimalist. And while I like my 5-year calendar because it eliminates FOUR calendars out of my life, and I like my Filofax because it consolidates dozens of file folders into one book of vital info, I just can’t see myself becoming a dedicated bullet journalist.

Unfortunately, I can see myself trekking to Staples to buy the various and sundry supplies to bullet journal. #zennotsozen

Bonsai again!

Finally!

I've mentioned before that I'm obsessed with bonsai and I've tried a million ways to get one that have been unsuccessful because bonsai take time and I'm impatient, the ones they sell for indoor use are outdoor trees that are destined to die for $40, and growing a tiny tree from seed produces a sapling, not a bonsai.

The other week I was looking at some dead shrubbery that needs to be removed from the front yard and I came across two small boxwood shrubs that were half dead hiding in the shadow of a taller bush. I noticed the nebari [root system] on them and I was impressed. I decided pulling them out and repotting them wouldn't be a loss - they weren't going to make it anyway, so I had nothing to lose. 

This is the second tree which turned out just exactly like the mature bonsai tree I've always wanted. I bought a shallow pot at Lowes and replanted it. Hopefully it will survive the shock and become a flourishing outdoor bonsai with a little hit of fairyland thrown in. It needs time and some work, but I think I've finally got the tree I've always wanted. 

What the Internet doesn't have

It seems like anything you want to know, you can find on the Internet these days. You can Google anything and get tons of hits, and so, of course, I spend a lot of time Googling 'menopause' and 'perimenopause', trying to find more information about the hormonal roller coaster I'm on these days.

Sadly, while there are just as many hits for these topics as for any other, there's a really not a lot of what I'm looking for. Here's what I DON'T NEED from the Internet:

A definition of menopause/perimenopause - I got all this during my first search. Why does everyone who writes about it have to include all the clinical whys and wherefores? We get it people. Dictionary and medical text explanations are passé and boring.

The ubiquitous suggestions - ugh already with the 'discuss this with your doctor', or try XYZ or PDQ. Half that stuff doesn't work anyway and the other half you need prescriptions for. Unless I'm literally out of my mind, I don't need pills. I need reassurances.

The Big 5 or 6 major symptoms - again, we get it. We know the major stuff. I want to know the unusual stuff. There are 30 or 40 common symptoms of menopause/perimenopause. If you're stopping at 5 - you're probably a man.

The weight loss talk - Stop. Just stop. We know weight gain is one of the big 5 symptoms and we're SICK TO DEATH of hearing how we have to be more vigilant now to avoid something that is patently UNAVOIDABLE. So just freakin' STOP already.

Treatments - Once again, we know that the medical industry revels in being able to declare something an illness that requires lots of pills and tests, but this not an illness, it's a normal progression. So if I search 'treatments' give me treatments, but if I search 'stories' don't give me treatments.

What do I want?

I want to hear from other women my age who are going through these things: the anxiety, racing heart, feeling that something is wrong but you don't know what, trouble sleeping, mood swings, itchiness, bad hair, bad skin, exhaustion, forgetfulness, clumsiness, irritability and stomach issues. Tell me how you feel and even better, tell me it all gets better eventually. How will I know when it's winding down, and I can look forward to normal again? What will normal be like? I want the real dope on this nonsense, not the clinical nonsense and namby-pamby 'eat less exercise more avoid caffeine and see your doctor' crap that everyone thinks I want to hear. 

Appreciating Luxury

I have spent a good portion of my life doing what we are conditioned to do – to work, and work and work in order to achieve, to accumulate, to succeed. I spent many years working 12-hour days trying to write, edit and be generally productive and generate money in addition to keeping house, cooking, raising children and constantly worrying about not being enough in any or all aspects of my life.

It was exhausting. I was thinking last night that all that exhaustive pushing to accomplish didn’t get me where I ultimately thought I wanted to go. I worked mornings and nights, holidays and weekends, when I was sick and tired and I never had that moment when I was a NYT Bestselling author or when my bank account topped six digits.

I missed a lot of days at the park with my kids, a lot of sunny summer afternoons while I stared at a computer screen. But I was conditioned, I suppose, by that old story about the grasshopper and the ants. You work your butt off now so that you can cozy up later and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Well, I did the work. I ignored the call to play and relax and now that it’s time to cozy up, there’s still no pile of gold to lie on.

I occurred to me that maybe it’s time to start appreciating what I have instead of knocking myself out to acquire more that I will never have the time or the energy to enjoy.

I realize that I am surrounded by luxury, and I’ve been taught not to see it. I don’t mean that I have champagne and caviar at my disposal. I mean that I have so many things that in so many places on this planet are considered luxuries. I have a nice home and healthy children and a wonderful husband. I have a job and a car and clean clothes and the ability to decide to relax in a hot bath on a Saturday night after a nice dinner. I can go food shopping or clothes shopping any time I want, and if I’m not feeling well, I can take a paid sick day from my job and see a doctor of my choosing. [Granted the health care situation in this country is a big joke, but it’s better than in many places.]

We are conditioned to take all this for granted in the first world. I’m supposed to be indignant when I have to wait on line for gas, or when the local coffee shop closes down and I can’t grab a latte on the way to work or when the mail is delivered after 5:00 PM or the garbage isn’t taken off the street before noon.  But what we really should be taught is that drinking clean water from a cold fridge is a luxury. Putting on warm socks on a cold night, turning up the heat a few degrees and climbing into a bed of clean sheets and fluffy pillows is a luxury. Going to work at a job that pays me not only to show up, but to stay home on holidays and vacations and sick days is a luxury. Deciding to sit on the couch and read a book, or write a book of my choosing – is a luxury.

I’ve decided that from this point forth, I will make an effort to appreciate the luxuries I have accumulated in my life. I’m not saying I’m going to stop trying to achieve, but my priority now is going to be to enjoy what I have instead of slavishly pushing to have more before I can finally consider myself a success and enjoy the fruits of my labors.

I have decided that I have enough and I am enough. I’ve been an ant long enough. 

Now I’m a grasshopper. 

Fear for profit

The older I get, the more I notice how much of our society runs on fear. The media is the chief purveyor of fear on a widespread scale, but you can find it on a more personal level every day too.

 
 

Starting with the media, however – if you notice lately, and more so every day, the headlines, the news segments are all geared around something new we need to be afraid of: cancer, obesity, heart disease, ebola, zika…fraud, floods, freezing temperatures, a torturous commute to work, a new danger lurking in the refrigerator or the washing machine or at the corner store.

 

 

 I’ve realized that if we are, as a community, afraid of something, we are more controllable, more malleable and infinitely more profitable for business of every kind. If we are afraid of a snowstorm that will trap us in our homes for days on end, we rush out to stock up on milk and bread. If we are afraid of becoming terribly ill with the flu, we will let Big Pharma inject us with chemicals as a preventative [all I’ve ever heard from people who got the flu shot is how they ended up with the flu – yet they were so afraid of not getting the shot]. If we are afraid of having a heart attack we will modify our diet [often in ways that are actually worse for our health], if we’re afraid of being fat we will turn over large buckets of cash to diet companies who will sell us chemicals and fads that only make us feel worse. If we are afraid of cancer, we will allow doctors to pump us full of poison and radiation all the while telling us how ‘brave’ we are to be fighting for our lives.

 

 

There is always someone who wants us to be afraid of something so that it will profit them.

 

 

I had a small, brief moment of clarity the other day, and for a second I could understand and feel what it was like to not be afraid. It only lasted a moment – but that moment made me think, what would an entire life be like if it could be lived without fear?

 

 

Now, granted, fear is a necessary element of survival. If you’re not afraid of the lion, you may become his dinner. If you’re not afraid of fire, you will be burned. But how often are we told that if we’re too afraid to fall we’ll never fly?

 

 

Imagine how high we could fly if we weren’t burdened with incessant fear of everything? I’ve always lived in this state of fear that society has created. While there are certainly people who live in fear of truly horrible things that are much worse than anything I’ve experienced, I realize I’m one of millions or maybe billions of people who are controlled by the fear that’s created in order to boost the profits of others.

 

 

What would happen if we stopped worrying every minute that we might be sick and not know it, and therefore should be running to the doctor all the time for tests to prove that we are not sick? What would happen if we could vote for a president because we thought that person was the best qualified for the job and not because we are terrified of what will happen if the opponent we don’t like wins the election?

 

 

I wonder how much money would be lost if we stopped being afraid of every calorie, afraid of missing a mammogram, afraid of getting a fever, afraid of growing old, afraid of LOOKING old?

 

 

What would happen if we were too busy living life and enjoying it to worry about dying?

 

 

Unfortunately my moment of clarity was fleeting, but I can’t stop thinking about it. My hope is that I can keep working on it and maybe get to a point where I can let go of some of that fear that has kept me controllable and profitable to the fear mongers for so long. My hope is that in the second half of my life I can live it on my terms and not be afraid of what anyone else will think of my choices.

 

 

 As long as I’m happy and I can get up every day and go to work, enjoy my hobbies, spend time with my family and friends, laugh and love and look forward to things – then guess what, I’m doing perfectly okay, and NO ONE has the power to make me afraid that I’m not doing what’s best for me because I’m not a customer of their fear based profit machine.