Stacyverb

Signs of spring

Thanks to daylight savings time and warming weather, I was able to enjoy a little outdoor time when I got home from work last night.

This was my view from the porch--blue sky, Bradford pear blossoms. And by the way, I was sitting on the glider when I took this. :)

The Renaissance Soul

As I've said before, this blog is called Stacyverb because verbs are words of doing, and this blog is about whatever I happen to be doing, whether that's going to an event, making something, or just thinking about stuff. Popular wisdom says that blogs with a narrower focus succeed more than those with a broad range of topics. But writing a blog like that would bore me to the point of...non-blogging. Also? Define "succeed." (Note to self: future blog topic!)

Anyway. Margaret Lobenstine calls people with many interests "Renaissance Souls." And this book, which I got from the library, is all about how to make the most of this kind of life. Whewwww, what a useful book! Because when you like a million things, and you want to do a million things, and then you keep discovering more things you could like and/or do...it can be overwhelming.

As Lobenstine says, we're not talking here about people with ADHD who, biochemically, can't stay focused. Renaissance souls get easily distracted not because we have short attention spans, but because there's so much juicy stuff to try, to learn about, to get involved in.

What I like about this book is that it doesn't try to change you. It wants you to thrive on your curiosity, embrace your willingness to try new things, and stop worrying that you're a "jack of all trades, master of none." It offers practical advice about how to prioritize your interests with what she calls "focal points." Basically what this means is, yes, you can DO ALL THE THINGS! But you can't do them all at once. You can do, say, four of them in rotation for a while.

Lobenstine has you do some little exercises and make some lists (scoff all you want, list-haters, but junk like this reallllly helps my jumbled mind function more coherently) to figure out what your focal points should be, and then she gives you some tips on working these into your everyday life, and then she turns you loose. And when you master a focal point, or get bored of one, or whatever, you can add something else into the mix, because-- let's be real--by then you've probably discovered half a dozen more things you want to pursue.

This book isn't about strict schedules (whew) or five-year plans (barf) or any of those usual techniques for figuring out your life. If anything, I think the focal point concept lets you micro-manage your time less and leaves more room for spontaneity, because you're not trying to juggle so many damn things. And I think it will lead to more satisfaction and less frustration because it makes you think about specific activities that will help you with each focal point.

So, one of my focal points is "mandolin." Instead of just having a huge, vague, overwhelming idea about learning to play the instrument, I've zeroed in on some specific things I can do that will help me: memorize some of the tunes I've been working on; practice tremolo at least a few minutes every day; research local places that offer lessons. Similarly, with my "making clothes" focal point, I'm concentrating on finishing three current projects and making a fourth from stash fabric. What I'm trying not to do is spend my time shopping for more random fabric just because I have a 40% coupon, or looking at Ravelry for more pattern ideas (the last thing a Renaissance soul needs is more ideas!).

Do you think you're a Renaissance soul? Or are you more the type to be deeply focused on one life-long interest?

Put me in, coach!

Last week I read Chris Cleave's novel Gold, about two rival cyclists training for the Olympics. One of the most compelling characters was their coach. During that same week, I happened to watch a few episodes of Friday Night Lights, featuring the trials and tribulations of football coach Eric Taylor. And one day at work, I had a conversation with a shop customer who makes her living as a business coach.

With all of these coaches crossing my path in the same week, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of coaching. When I hear the word coach, the first thing that comes to mind is sports, and having never played any, I've never had a coach in that sense. Or any sense, really. When I hear about life coaches and whatnot, I kind of cringe, to be honest. The phrase just sounds cheesy to me.

But then again, what does a coach do? The sports coaches in Gold and Friday Night Lights do much more for their athletes than just monitor their physical training and develop a strategy for winning trophies, and that must be true for real life sports coaches as well. The good ones, anyway, have to figure out what each individual athlete needs psychologically to achieve the best performance possible. What motivates one person toward greatness might not work for someone else. And in the case of a team, the coach has to figure out how to make all the different personalities work together. What these coaches do doesn't sounds cheesy to me at all. It sounds like a lot of hard, helpful work.

So why wouldn't the same be true for other kinds of coaches? Hearing my customer who is a business coach talk about her work, I recognized that she does the same thing--help people reach their goals. She figures out their strengths and weaknesses, and helps them get from where they are to where they want to be. She does this in the context of small businesses, but I guess a life coach just does the same thing in the context of...well, life. Who couldn't use a little guidance like that?

I could use some guidance, but I'm in no position to hire someone to coach me. But something else I also came across recently was this post from Holly over at Sweetheartville. The book she mentioned sounded like it was right up my alley. While my local library didn't have that one, Goodreads showed me one that seemed very similar, called The Renaissance Soul. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know how much I struggle with juggling so many projects and pastimes. So a book that can help me "thrive on many interests without feeling scattered" sounds like just the kind of coaching I can use. I've picked up the book from the library and plan to spend a lot of time with it this weekend. I'll let you know how it is!

Sentimental streak

A few things have happened in the past week or so that have got me feeling sentimental and at times downright melancholy.

One, I reconnected with a long-lost college friend via Facebook. That's a good thing, a great thing! But combined with the rainy weather (I went to college in a town known for its constant drizzle) and the fact that Pandora suddenly decided to pepper my mix with a bunch of old Smiths, INXS, and Depeche Mode? The next thing you know, I'm staying up late, having a mad craving for my favorite sandwich from a deli that's been out of business for years, and Googling pictures of the old campus. And by the way, when you Google the name of my beloved dorm, the first thing you find is a series of photos of it being demolished. Gut-wrenching!

Also, last Friday was my 19-year Atlantaversary, so I was kind of reminiscing about my early days here, and then I got the news that a woman I worked with at my first Atlanta job (which is also where I met my hubby), died suddenly on Saturday. She had contacted me several months ago, and I was glad to hear from her after many years, but it's not like we were close. Still, I liked her and kept thinking I needed to make a point of catching up with her more in depth, and I never did.

Anyway...what to say about all this? Life is short, but freshman year was longer ago than it seems, and we should all make sure to get together with the people we care about just in case one of us is about to die? Ugh!

I'm not one to dwell on the past, fret about my age, etc., so when I'm suddenly confronted with the swift passage of time, it throws me for a loop. I feel two very conflicting things:

1) Wow, time is passing faster than I thought, so I should stop putting off some things I keep thinking about doing, and just do them.

But then that makes me feel all pressured and panicky, leading to:

2) Now all I want to do is curl up in the fetal position with a library book and a mug of spiked hot cocoa.

Two equally attractive options, right??

The future is coming at us, but the past is still here somewhere. The trick is not to let the present get lost in the middle, I guess.

 

Movin' on up (the street)

This week has been CRAZY, people. Mostly with good stuff, like a friend visiting from out of town. And finally getting a diagnosis for our senior cat, Mimi--she has diabetes! The vet says it should be totally manageable, but we're still getting used to the new routine of her special food and insulin (more about all that in another post).

It's all a lot to deal with while mainly, during everything else, my days have been filled with this:

My workplace has officially moved out of our old space and into the new. We're not re-open yet because, well, relocating is a huge undertaking. We work hard all day every day, and by nighttime it looks like we haven't even made a dent. But we have! We really have! And when we're done, it will be awesome.

Gotta go--there are more shelves to be moved and boxes to be unpacked!

Spend out

Confession: earlier today, I finally spent a gift card that I'd had for over two years. This was an extreme example, but I do things like that all the time. I don't hoard, exactly, but I ration special things out. It might be a gift card, or a favorite beauty product, or whatever. I make it last as long as possible--sometimes to the point of not wanting to use it at all.

I started thinking about why I behave this way, and I guess a lot of factors are at work here (besides me just being a general wacko):

1) I'm saving the special thing for a rainy day.  And when a rainy day comes, sometimes I keep on saving it, because I figure an even rainier day is bound to come along.

2) Rationing something out bit by bit lets me have my cake and eat it, too.

3) The anticipation of using it is part of the enjoyment of having it.

4) I'm afraid of not using it right/wisely.  Like in the case of a gift card, what if I use it now and then later I see something I need/want more?

5) With our household budget the way it's been the past few years (which is really at the root of all these reasons), I'm so accustomed to not having any choices, that I become paralyzed when given the chance to choose something.  That was the case with the gift card I spent today. I'd almost used it many times, but just couldn't bring myself to make a decision.

In Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, she talks about "spending out."  Whereas I ration things, Rubin often doesn't want to use things at all, and she says this habit gets in the way of her happiness. She resolves to spend out, rather than saving something for a special occasion.

This needs to be one of my resolutions, too. I know my rationing gets in the way of my happiness, because it's coming from a place of fear--fear that there's no more where that came from, fear that what I have will need to last me indefinitely, fear that circumstances will get worse and then I'll realllly wish I had XYZ back. Like Gretchen Rubin, I hope to learn to "trust in abundance" and not be so stingy with myself. Not that I want to squander what I have, but to enjoy it as it's meant to be used.

Welcome, 2013!

Happy New Year, everybody--did you all have a great holiday season?  I definitely did. The best Christmas present I got was the news that I will NOT be losing my job after all!  That definitely helps me start the new year in a much more relaxed frame of mind.

As for 2012, it certainly had some stressful times, but there were lots of good times as well.  My overarching resolution last year was to feel more like myself than I had in the past two years, by making more time for reading, sewing, and other activities that are important to me.  I think I achieved that pretty well, so, hurray!

When I look back at the highlights of 2012, I think especially about fun times with family and friends I don't get to see often enough. More of that in 2013, please! Also, more music and other cultural events, and more challenging-but-rewarding projects. These are the things that make me feel energized and engaged with the world around me.

For my part, I guess I just want to be as positive as possible this year.  There's so much darkness and crappiness out there, so many things to worry about, and it's so easy to get bogged down in all that.  But I don't want to contribute to it, you know? Whenever possible, I'd rather champion the good. This could take a lot of different forms, I guess--donating money to causes I believe in, doing favors for friends, performing random acts of kindness, whatever.  Maybe I can't make things better, but maybe I can make them somehow suck less? It's worth a shot.

How about you? What are your hopes/dreams/plans for 2013?

Peace on Earth

Thanks so much to all of you have emailed or left comments lately!  My work situation is still up in the air, unfortunately, so the anxiety level remains pretty high.  My employer might be going out of business in the new year.  Worrying about that is pretty stressful. 

However this mess plays out, I'll be okay.  In the grand scheme of things, if this is the worst thing I have to worry about, that's not so bad.  I keep reminding myself of that.  Keep calm, carry on, serenity now, etc.

Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane to go visit my family for Christmas, so HURRAY about that!  A change of scenery and some family time will do me a world of good.  Meanwhile, at home, Anthony and I have put up a Christmas tree for the first time in several years.  This is one of the few advantages of having older pets--these cats have zero interest in climbing the tree or tearing the ornaments off.  Now it's more like this:

 

So cute and cozy!  I hope you're all having a joyous, peaceful holiday season.  This is such a hectic time of year, but try not to let it overwhelm you or stress you out.  It's supposed to be fun.  If you can't do everything you want to do, that's okay.  Just enjoy what you can!

The blahs

There's a lot going on here, but I can't really talk about it or show you pictures of it.  Doesn't make for a very active blog, I'm afraid!

My job has been causing me a lot of stress, which eventually I'll be able to write about, but not right now.  In my off-time, I've been working on making some Christmas presents, which obviously need to remain top-secret, so you won't be seeing any photos of those works in progress. 

In sewing news, I do have a skirt in progress for me, and that should be done soon. Also, I've been reading The Colette Sewing Handbook over coffee in the mornings, and learning a lot from it.  I have plans for a Truffle dress in the near future, and I'm excited about that.  Of course I'm modifying it a bit, but I'll be using the Truffle pattern.

I'm trying not to overload myself with projects, because I just don't feel up to it, honestly.  Stress is getting me down, and I'm also feeling melancholy because it was this week last year when we lost our beloved Nacho kitty. The memories of that terrible day keep popping up and taking me by surprise.

Geez, this post is a downer.  Sorry!  I'm just struggling a bit and can't express myself right.  Hopefully, I'll be able to write a better post soon.

While I haven't been blogging

...a bunch of other stuff has been going on, which I haven't slowed down enough to document.  My life is just going through a busy patch at the moment!  Quick recap:

Braves game--we had some cheap tix we needed to use before the regular season ended, so we were glad to squeeze that in.  I actually took some pictures of that, but they all came out blurry.  (Go Braves!)

Had dinner with our friend Melissa, who was in from CA for a work thing.

Another night, had dinner with our friend Ellen, who was in from BC for fun.

This happened at my work this week.  Work has also been hectic as we geared up for this event, now underway.

Anthony started a new part-time job this week, so the schedule at our house has become wack-a-doodle as far as sleep, transportation, meals, junk like that.  With luck, we'll both settle into the new groove this week.

I've been revisiting the work I did during Camp NaNoWriMo, and gradually dipping my toe back into doing more writing on that.

I'm making a nice dent in my yarn stash.  I've turned out four small knitting projects in the past couple of months and have a fifth in progress, all from yarn I already had.  Most of these are gifts, though (except these), so I can't show you any photographic evidence!  Top secret!

The glider project is stalled due to weather.  Last weekend, the weather was perfect, but we were out of town visiting Anthony's mom.  This weekend I'm home, but it's supposed to rain.  So #@$% frustrating!

Dreary days are great for indoor projects, though, so I plan to start some fall wardrobe sewing today.  Hint: this pattern will finally see the light of day.

Anyway, that's what's been going on with me.  I'll probably write more detailed posts about some of this stuff soon.  Also, I'm waaaay behind on my blog reading, so I need to catch up on what everyone else in blogland has been up to!