Clearing Space 365 Days

I've signed on to the 365 Days project on Flickr. That means I've been taking (and posting) a self portrait every day. I started on January 1st, and I haven't missed a day so far.

Each day, I take anywhere from three to thirty or more self portraits. (I don't take hundreds because I do not have that kind of time!) I then pare down the selection to one or two "best" images to post on Flickr. This leaves me with hundreds of "out takes" every week. And how many thousands of images can fit onto my camera chip? Lots? Oh, dear.


It's a challenge to keep up with the daily selfie, yeah, but it's even more challenging to deal with the flow of spare images. It's relentless. I delete, delete, delete as I go, or at least a couple times a week.

It turns out this project is as much about daily space clearing as it is about creating a daily self portrait. I shoot, I edit, I pick the shot of the day and upload to Flickr, and it's Buh-Bye to the rest of the remaining shots. I like that once I make my choice, I have no obligation to hang onto extras.

Does that image ever need to see the light of day? No? Delete! Is it the lesser of the group? Yes? Delete! Does it duplicate fifteen, I mean fifty other images that are equally imperfect? Yes? Delete!

Just as in the rest of my life, there's no need to hang on to extraneous files, wishing that they were different/better or thinking that if only I had enough hours in the day to spend with Photoshop, I could massage it into something interesting or useful...some day. Noooo! DELETE!

On a related note, my mother (in the throes of her own decluttering) just offered me some of my dad's mustache hair from when he first started growing it when I was a baby. No, I don't think so. But it's red, she said. It would be interesting to look back on it and compare colors. Don't you think the little girl would want to see it when she gets older? Not really. I can't be a museum for what was or might have been. Delete!

As in photography so as in the rest of my life. Pick what you really want to include in your life, and get rid of the rest. Delete, delete, delete!
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New Year - Living the Life That's in Front Of Me

Hello, New Year! How is it going so far? I've been engrossed in everyday life and haven't been posting - sorry! And I got stuck in my other G00gle account and boy was that a pain. Excuses, excuses!

Just before New Year's I found last year's "Life List" of things I wanted to do with my life. To my surprise, some of the things had been started or completed.

I've been mentoring someone in a small way. I got a really nice haircut and learned how to style my hair. I've been corresponding more by Skype. I've been lifting weights and building core strength. I've pruned trees, notably the fig trees, much to their delight. And I've been cooking good food all year, thanks to the renovated kitchen space.

Without even remembering it, I've been working on new things all year.
Other things I started doing last year:

Exercise regularly, revived my decluttering, sold bunches of baby gear, and started teaching Sunday School again. We took a family trip to Florida to visit my cousin, which was a whole host of firsts in one. (They took us on a "hasher" run and my cousin took me purse shopping, which reintroduced me to the joys thereof. The little girl dabbled in the ocean.) We went camping with the little girl on several different occasions, and I started wearing accessories more effectively. I wrote another crazy dance. I called more squares. I wrote candid emails to my sister. I cleared a corner of the office for the little girl to have her own work space with table and shelving. I've been hacking away at my stories. I pared down my online reading.

All good things.

So, no, I have not walked across England or learned how to make creme brulée (sorry - I can never remember how to spell it) or relearned all my languages or written that book (well at least not THAT book), but it was a good year. I'm not even mentioning all the cool stuff that went on with my daughter and my family.

And the best thing is that I've been "Living the Life That's In Front Of Me." That's my code phrase for paring down distractions and really doing what I want to be doing. It's taken me away from the Internet a fair amount, but really, that's okay! I'm doing more, and that is huge.


When I went to brainstorm a "Life List" for this year, I found myself writing down similar things. Of course, the creme brulée and all that popped up again. But I found myself writing things like:

Edit... Learn... Read and contemplate... Write... Build... Write... Paint... Declutter... Make...Write...Create... Nurture...

Essentially, I want to clear more space in my life so I can create more.

I want to clear the desk and write and illustrate. I want to play. I want to eat less overall, spend less overall, and distract myself less overall.

Since the beginning of the New Year, I've found myself, without forethought, taking up projects anew.

I decided to undertake the 365days project on Flickr, a daily self portrait. Holy cow, where did that come from?! I decided to take out my ukulele for the first time in nearly two years and play with chords and harmonies. Music! I'm dreaming of space to set up my paper and pencils and paints. The siren song of Illustration is calling me. I'm writing. Hack, hack, hack. I attended a step aerobics class. haha! I started taking more naps. Mmm, naps.

Some of that is conscious and some of that is not. I'm thinking that if I plant seeds of intent and then live the life that's in front of me, wondrous things will happen.

What wondrous things are you contemplating this year?
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FlyLady Report - almost Winter edition

FlyLady likes to call Wednesday "Anti-Procrastination Day," and so this week I was pushing myself to take care of a few things.


I cleaned out the fridge to some degree, especially the drawers. Wiped down the areas that I cleared out.

I threw out a bunch of things I've been meaning to ditch. The exact items escape me!

I called an estranged relative to wish them a happy birthday (they weren't in so I left a message).

I also sent a package and then went to the mall to catch a visit to Santa if we could (more about that later).

I replaced the furnace filter and vacuumed the old one. It's one of those filter you can clean, so we alternate between two of them.

I swept the floor.

Oo, and today I washed a bunch of random items that hang around my sink. AND I scrubbed down both sides of my kitchen sink. Mm, shiny!

I mixed up two kinds of cookie dough in preparation for Christmas cookie baking.

I called one of my friends I hadn't talked to in a long while and set up a playdate at a local children's museum.

I took at loooooong nap. I've been needing one of those!

I've been working away at clearing the living room, sorting which toys to store away during the Christmas season. Need to make room for the tree, ya know.


What things do you need to do that you've been putting off? Or just needing to fit into your schedule?
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Ten Good Things - NaBloPoMo Edition

Ten Good Things - Because I don't always have something elaborate to say.

1. My daughter putting herself to sleep.

2. The little crock pot with removable crock that gives me incentive to work ahead.

3. "Go Green" postal stamp designs.

4. Large copper frog sculptures - playing a fiddle on a bench, flashing a peace sign, hanging out. Made by multi-media artist Beau Smith, and featured on his Beautiful Frog Blog and on random sidewalks near you.



5. Extra garlic in winter soups.

6. Public libraries. Also: accessing my account online.

7. Book Mind Set: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. See also. Another reason we are avoiding praising our daughter (too much).

8. Shaggy dog stories ending in terrible puns. I caught my FIL on tape enacting one just last week.

9. Jazzy or offbeat Christmas songs popping up on the radio.

10. Kale! Steamed with olive oil, sautéed in stirfrys, added to stews or lentils or...


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Sunday at the Park With(out) Mittens

So we are in the middle of visiting, as usually happens in late November, and I'm catching up on my writing. Some of it may post a little out of order.

We went to find a park this afternoon. The little girl is always happier when she can burn off some of her energy with active play, so we find parks and playgrounds along our route, and drop in for an hour or so. We make sandwiches or fire up the camp stove for mac and cheese or hot chocolate. We nosh and lunch and relax our bodies free of traveling vibration. Sometimes the weather is too raw to linger long, or too hot, perhaps. But we always run around on the grass, run up and down any available hills, and climb any available playground apparatus.

Today, the first park looked promising. Merry-go-rounds and swings and slides, oh my! But it was still wet from the rains and cold and oh, the wind was picking up. The little girl gleefully climbed all the way up to the to top of the double decker platform, but all of the slides (and there were several) were wet. And then she slipped on a wet incline and fell unpleasantly and that was the end of that. She did swing for a while, but it was cold in the wind, and we'd forgotten to pack her gloves.

We wound our way through town and back and forth across the river, trying to find the other park, my husband half-remembering old cut-throughs. It was partly under renovations, but there were better swings, and there was much rejoicing.

And then we went to the large discount store to find toddler gloves, because it was clear we wouldn't survive the trip without them, what with the little girl needing to go out in this weather. The other option would be climbing all over Grammie's furniture, and there is only so much the interior can take before things start getting broken or knocked over.

Toddler mittens, ho! Tomorrow, there'll be another park and another playground, and maybe the rain will have dried up.
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Muzzling the Truffles of Winter

The Christmas merchandise is already out in the shops. Perhaps you've noticed. This time of year, I always feel the urge to stock up on Christmas candy.

Every year at my parent's house, we fill each others stockings. My speciality is usually chocolate truffles or other special candy. And of course, it's pricey candy, or becoming pricier. I remember when Lindt truffles ran about 25 cents each. I remember when they went up to 30, then 35 cents. Somewhere in there, they got up to nearly 50 cents, then over. So now they are reeeeally pricey, considering I buy several per person, often tracking down rare or seasonal flavors. Spending thirty or forty dollars on truffles alone is not uncommon. And that's not even including other specialty chocolates.

I've had to cut back a little. There are some delicious imported "Mozart" chocolates I had to stop buying because they were getting upwards of eighty cents each. If I'm going to spend about a dollar per piece, I want to actually wrap it up for under the tree, not stuff it into a stocking! Or such is my thought. These are special treats that everyone loves to find in their stocking, not gold. I don't have to break the bank.

However, I'm having to moderate my truffle spending for other reasons as well.

I noticed my usual urge to stock up on truffles. Yes, maybe I can get some of them on sale. Maybe I can buy them before the season really heats up, and so avoid going to that crazy retailer after Thanksgiving. Maybe I can stash them in the back of the cabinet or in the closet. You know, to save them. So I don't have to inconveniently buy more later. Uh-huh.

I found myself feeling reluctant to stock up. I was remembering what really happened to that stash of chocolate the last couple of years. I had a pile of chocolate in the house, and no matter how well it's "hidden" or wedged into inconvenient corners, I always know it's there. And of course, we have to sample some every so often. The longer the stash is in the house, the more we eat. And the more we eat, the more stressed our bodies and minds are from the extra sugar and fat. And of course, that does nothing good for our overall diet. Yuk.

There is such a thing as overload, and we have hit it.

It seems clear that the more we have in the house, and the earlier it comes into the house, the more we eat. And if it's in the house, it'll get eaten. You can see where this is going. We're going to have to stop bringing candy into the house.

Horrors!!! Is that even possible? I do enjoy seasonal candy - in moderation. I only eat good chocolate, but that does not matter when I am faced with a large quantity of good chocolate. How many calories, I mean, bars of peppermint bark do I really want to find myself eating this year? Not that many.

So I am resisting the truffles' siren call. When I see the aisles of seasonal candy, I avert my eyes. If I pick it up, I put it back. When I see the tubs of specialty chocolates at the bulk buying store, I tell myself, "You don't want to eat that all by yourself, do you? No!" I will wait to buy exactly what I need for stocking candy when I need it. Like the week before the holiday. Or a couple days previously. Or maybe less of it overall.

A part of me is whining about not eating as much peppermint bark as I want. I'm telling myself gently but firmly that it's more fun to anticipate eating than have had eaten it.

So this year, I'll make my own peppermint bark again, and eat that instead. And bake fewer cookies but more varieties. Fewer cookies, fewer temptations. People might get fewer truffles, but I will too. It's a win-win! I keep telling myself that and eating more greens. Yum!

Not only do I not have to do it all, but I don't have to eat it all, either. Ha.
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Flickr Friends part 1

I miss my Flickr friends. I used to spend a lot more time both posting and perusing. Life intervenes, of course. But I miss checking out what people are doing and commenting and observing. I miss the interchange of ideas and images.

I was just doing a quick scan through my contacts, just some highlights. I've seen beautiful trees and new babies, Christmas applique and freaky scenes aboard ferries. I've seen kitties in shadow patterns, surprise crickets scaling the soap dish, and whales splashing amidst blues. I've seen fantastic old Pyrex and new birthday hula hoops and jars of honey and beeswax endearingly tied with wavy white yarn. New designs from favorite online comic artists, old portraits from The Library of Congress.

And the stories! I love the stories that accompany these images. The son that got his first white belt, the bowl her grandma was going to throw away! The yearning for ravens as if they were old friends or wishing for better health. I see them capturing ones friend, or ones grandchild or ones own face.

And these are just the highlights! No time to really delve into their photo streams, which pains me because I know there is so much more to see and read and contemplate.

Some of these friends I've known for years, others I've discovered within the last year. Some friends let an image stand on its own, others comment on how the moment came to be captured. Others, like McNeney, write fantastic little stories to accompany their images. Others use Flickr as a supplement to more extensive writings. It's all part of a stream of sensory enjoyment.

I dip my toe in, peek at what's going on, stop in and say Hi! I love the contrasts and composition! Wow! Love the tones here. Wow, he has grown! Oh, this story really grabs me.

And then I duck back out wishing I could visit longer. It's been lovely. I'll seen you again, soon, I promise. And I'll post some more images, too.
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