Living the Creative Life

Originally published as a guest over at a la Mode : Five things every woman should know how to do: #1 -- Fry an egg No really. There's something awesome about knowing how to make the perfect fried egg. It's gotten to the point where I don't even like eating eggs other people have made because I like how mine taste better. #2 -- Pin stuff on Pinterest Because it's fun. And relaxing. And a great artistic feeding ground. I am learning that, as an artist, it's very important to feed my inner artistic self or I will not be able to be very creative. For some reason this is easier said than done. I think maybe we artists get used to being depressed and "blocked" so much that we forget that the quickest way out of it is to inspire yourself with other people's creativity. One free way to feed your creativity is by curating a Pinterest stream that speaks to your sense of wonder and imagination! #3 -- Go to the movies alone Okay as an introvert,...

I started working through The Artist's Way this week, part of which involves doing what is called "Morning Pages". Basically what you do is, first thing every morning, you hand-write three pages. No more, no less. It's supposed to like... unblock your creativity... or something. Although... as a card-carrying night owl, this totally terrifies me. How can I do anything first thing in the morning before my coffee, let alone write three pages long-hand? While I appreciate the novelty of such things, it's been awhile since I've actually hand-written anything. (Thank you, Internet). I thought maybe doing my Morning Pages on the computer instead of hand-writing might work better for me. I made the mistake of mentioning this idea to someone who's been doing Artist's Way off and on for decades. Apparently this is NOT the way "real" Artist's Way students are supposed to do their Morning Pages. It's like... a rule... or something. Which ...

Because of my recent post about de-cluttering your email inbox , I've been thinking more about the process of unsubscribing in general. I mean, it's not particularly hard, but it got me to wondering how many lists I'm actually subscribed to. I could think of a few off the top of my head, because I actually enjoy those newsletters, but every so often I'll get a random email catalog and be like, "When did I sign up for this?" Lol. I stumbled across a very interesting app today that helps clarify this question of "What am I subscribed to?" and makes it very easily to both unsubscribe from them and also to combine all of the subscriptions you do want into one post (instead of the dozen or so posts that you may normally receive from all the various places you've subscribed to). Unroll.me is a free website to sign up for. It scans your (Gmail or Yahoo) inbox in about 20 seconds and then lists out all the subscription lists you're on. It actu...

I was thinking about time spent today and what's considered "downtime" as opposed to what's being "lazy". I am reminded every so often (on various blogs and podcasts) that downtime is actually a very necessary ingredient for creativity, simply because our brain needs room to ponder before it can come up with ideas. I think in general too, our brains are less stressed when we don't jam pack our day full of busyness and stuff. For an introverted person, especially, I find I also need that space to just be in my head and let the thoughts rumble around a bit. Without that time to breathe, I always feel rushed and hurried and unable to focus when I'm actually at work/school. We live in a super busy society, so it's really easy to feel guilty for not constantly filling up every day with commitments. But ask yourself if you really love each of those things you're committed to do. Are they necessary to get you to the next stage in your goals or are...

I'm becoming more and more convinced that stress is a key factor in not only our health but also in how happy we are and how long a life we live. Before I went back to school a year ago, I was sick constantly! I was also completely stressed out by my work environment. It was this situation where I wasn't being appreciated, I wasn't given enough to do, and I had absolutely no control over changing any of that. In this past year though, as I've struggled to keep two Etsy shops afloat, gone back to school full-time, and moved twice... I've actually been far less stressed! I rarely get sick anymore, either, was is quite amazing to me! I'd started to think being sick was just "normal" for me. So as I'm looking back over this past year and loving the positive direction my life is taking... it makes me want to continue in that direction! If you've been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I love setting resolutio...

Yesterday I stopped by the local farm store and was poking around their garden section. I've been meaning to start an herb garden for like 5 years, so figured this was a good a day as any to get started on that. Did you know you can buy cayenne pepper plants? Did you even know cayenne peppers grew on plants? I'm not sure that ever really occurred to me. I've only seen cayenne ground up in jars in the spice aisle at the grocery store! Lol. Anyway, after browsing everything they had, I decided to start my indoor garden with a pineapple mint plant. Pineapple mint is so named because supposedly it smells like pineapples when you brush past the leaves, although it just smells (and tastes!) like plain old mint to me. But it's a cute plant and should be fun to (try to) take care of! My grandpa had a patch of mint in his backyard when I was growing up that I loved to eat, so this seemed like a good plant to start with. Some of the other plants I saw at the farm store w...

via #1 -- Stop avoiding stairs. Stairs are my new best friend. #2 -- Drink more water. American's are way more dehydrated than we realize. #3 -- Read more. A happy mind is a less-stressed-out mind. #4 -- Eat more veggies and fruits. Especially local varieties. #5 -- Eat smaller portions of a higher variety of foods. Boredom of the tastebuds leads to overindulgence. #6 -- Stop using the computer in bed. Beds are for sleeping in, not working in. #7 -- Go outside more. I hear there's this new invention out there called fresh air. #8 -- Stop stressing about my shops so much. Make what I love and people will follow. #9 -- Make an effort to get to church every week. God loves meeting me there. #10 -- Clean / throw away stuff more often. Dustbunnies clutter the mind as well as my living space. #11 -- Make more art. For fun, not for profit. #12 -- Eat less processed "food". Because it's not really food anyway.

I highly recommend this book, French Women Don't Get Fat . French women eat very differently than American women do, generally speaking. Meaning that they lay out a plate that looks good... they choose the freshest produce that tastes and smells good... they eat slowly and savor every bite... which they pair with the finest wines. Eating is something they set out to enjoy... experience... celebrate. When was the last time you (or any typical American, for that matter) enjoyed, experienced, or celebrated your food? Thanksgiving, maybe? Definitely not every day. That would be too fattening. Wouldn't it? Maybe not. She says French women know the importance of drinking water, eating fresh, and enjoying life. They also know a "secret" that we Americans would almost call sacrilegious... less is more (as in... just because that first bite or two of chocolate cake was divine, that doesn't mean you should eat the whole thing). Drinking Water French women (and ...

I could so live here! What a cool way to design a living space.

I was attempting to catch up a little on my blog reading this afternoon and ran across this hilarious video. Have you ever heard of dance walking? Yeah, me neither... But, if I knew how to dance... and if I didn't mind doing it in public... this might just be the perfect way to work out. Lol. ;P Notice some of the funny stares he gets when he starts doing it (about a minute into the video). He is pretty good though, actually. By the end, when he gets other people to join him, it kind of reminds me of an exercise flash mob. Ha!

Well after 2 days of searching, I finally found my cell phone's contract end-date ! (they sure make it impossible to find!). My contract doesn't expire until August, although they'd be more than willing to let me upgrade to a new iPhone w/ no extra fee. Lol. Switching to a GoPhone would be a break in contract though, of course. They just want to make sure they get every last drop of money out of me! Oh well, I tried to be fiscally responsible. That counts for something, right? Hopefully by August I'll be raking in the dough with a graphic design Etsy shop and it won't matter anyway that I own the most expensive phone on the planet. ;P ***** Have you linked up this week?

So... here's what I'm pondering... What if I sold my iPhone (the iPhone 4 is going for around $300-400 on eBay), purchased an iPod Touch instead to use as wifi-internet access / media player (brand new would cost $200-300 from Apple), and then bought a pre-paid flip-phone to have on hand if I ever actually need a phone (which is a rare occasion these days - I think I called someone maybe twice last month). Crazy? I LOOOOOOVE my iPhone, but the truth is, I rarely ever use it as a phone. Instead, I'm paying through the nose to have instant access to the internet wherever and whenever I want. Which I suppose is slightly ironic since most of the places I go have wifi access. So I'm asking myself... WHY am I still paying monthly for my iPhone?? Is the convenience nice? Absolutely. Is it worth it when I don't currently have a steady income? I'm beginning to wonder. That $70+ a month could buy an awful lot of gas for my commute to school. And really... the...

I bet you've been wondering... how is Jennifer doing on her technology detox ? Well... I'm glad you asked! Some areas of detox are going well, while other aspects have crept back into my life. I haven't been strict on myself, but instead remind myself regularly to slow down, observe my restfulness level, and not try to constantly keep my mind busy with technology. Some technology is fine, but constant technology has a way of not letting your brain ever really rest. Netflix: I'm doing well with this resolution. I've maintained my one DVD at a time rule, and am still not watching any streaming. It's been interesting to discover that the lack of thousands of movies at my beck and call makes that one movie on the weekend so much more interesting to watch! TiVo: I went ahead and deleted everything two weeks and older on my DVR. I still had Christmas movies on there! If I haven't watched them by the middle of February, I probably never will. It's w...

Has it really been a week since I started my technology detox ? I haven't been 100% strict about it, but mainly just wanted to keep an eye on my focusing ability. I've noticed that the more I multi-task, the less able I am to settle into a deep focus when reading/writing/studying. In fact, it's probably been a good 12-14 years since I've been able to settle into a good book without being distracted every five seconds. (With the one exception being the Harry Potter books. As any good bibliophile knows, those books suck you in and don't let you out until you've finished all one hundred gazillion pages of them!) I used to be like that with every book though. In junior high and high school you could barely find me without my nose in a book! Then came the computer revolution and with it my growing need to "keep up" with everything going on online. Being both a creative and a people-watcher, I find the internet to be an endlessly fascinating place to ex...

Delete any online accounts that demand more from you than they give back. Anything you feel obliged to check more than once a day counts. Check and reply to email only twice a day and never first thing in the morning or last thing at night . Be strict about this. Get rid of any streaming services you pay for. DVD's by mail are okay in moderation, but remember that anticipation makes viewing sweeter and too much choice makes all your options look dull. Limit your queue to less than a dozen movies . Really make an effort to do one thing at a time. Enjoy each moment for what it is. Do nothing for at least ten minutes a day, outside if possible. Lie back and look at the clouds. Don't think about your to-do list during this time. Turn off all non-essential notifications to your smart phone. It's hard to be present in every moment when your attention is constantly being tyrannized by the urgent. When in doubt, weigh the pros vs. the cons . Is checking Facebook five hun...

After a day of partially  unplugging --- okay not even 12 hours --- I'm already going a bit nuts. The thing I miss the most is Twitter, oddly enough. I didn't even think I was that into Twitter. I found myself watching a little bird chirping on a tree branch outside and instead of being in the moment, I was thinking, "Okay, I need to Tweet so-and-so about such-and-such... oh wait... I don't have a Twitter account..." And there was this giant panicked feeling, like all the adrenaline in the world entering my body at once. This happened several times yesterday. Sleeping was strange too. I've gotten so used to reaching over and checking my iPhone whenever I think of something I'm curious about. Google. Wikipedia. YouTube. They're all my friends. But I figured part of the disconnect process was keeping them in their places. Nothing wrong with looking things up, just... not when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I did something else last night that I ...

I've begun the disconnect process this afternoon and boy does it feel good! Also a little anxiety-inducing. I switched my Netflix account to have NO streaming and only one DVD at a time. I'd almost forgotten what anticipation felt like! It'll be fun to await each new arrival in the mail. No longer is media instantly streamable for me. Strange but oddly relieving. I deleted my Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr accounts. As much fun as they were, they were also far too demanding of my time. The constant drug-like pull of them to constantly stay connected was too hard to ignore. I turned off all notifications on my iPhone (with the exception of texting, which I rarely use anyway), and switched Mail to be manually pulled. Now I'll have to intentionally check to see if I have new messages instead of being demanded upon to deal with them all as soon as they arrive. I plan to check email once or twice day, so if you don't get an instant response from me like you used ...

I'm trying a new thing this year - I turned all the clothes in my closet backwards. As I wear them, I'll turn them forwards again. Whatever's not turned back around by June gets sent to Goodwill!! I suppose you might not be able to do this if you have vastly differing weather during different parts of the year, but here in Oregon it stays roughly between 40 and 80 degrees all year round. It does occasionally get  hotter or colder, but generally speaking, the same wardrobe works in every season! So anyway... here's a look at my closet (taken about two weeks ago when I started this). I'll take another photo when I clean things out in June!! Maybe I should buy more than black, blue, and gray??? What about you? How do YOU determine what you do or don't keep? Are you a ruthless de-clutterer or do you keep things around longer?

I spent the last 20 hours without (much) technology. Starting Saturday evening around 8:30pm, I powered down my iPhone (!!!) and stashed it in a drawer. Then I covered over my television, put my MacBook on a shelf, and... read a book! It was amazing. Haven't actually done that in awhile (with the exception of textbooks). I got the idea on one of the million blogs I follow (can't remember which one at the moment) and thought it sounded like a breath of fresh air. I chose Sunday because it seemed like a good day to focus on God instead of Twitter, but it could work any day that you choose. Maybe next week you'll join me? Just... pick a day... the same one every week... and purposefully free yourself of the interwebs for those few hours. You don't need to forgo electricity or cars or microwaves (unless you want to). Just consider what is constantly pulling on you for attention and lay it aside for a day (unless that thing is your kids -- don't stuff them in a drawe...