This time of year is so interesting, isn’t it? If it’s mid-winter where you are the days are starting to get longer, you might be seeing some little plants push through the ground, and there is a restlessness like we want to wake up and get going, but where to? It’s still winter and if you aren’t doing a resort trip what to do?
Don’t you feel like something new? Like moving the furniture in your house, trying a new flavor of tea, really a restlessness sort of. I’m so there! So a few days ago I shared this activity with a friend.
I planned out an afternoon where we could chat about our new ideas for ourselves, our gardens, well, theirs, I’m still working on that skill but I can dream. For me, the ideas I carried over from last year felt like they needed some weeding so that will be my garden of sorts.
The weather was bright and sunny but it was still chilly outside so it was perfect for a cup of hot tea with cinnamon sticks for stirring, plus we had some gingerbread cookies, some lit candles, and had an amazing time sharing everything on our minds. The take away was a fun afternoon doing something totally different, both energizing and a refresh in itself.
Don’t wait, try this or something similar now! I promise you it will help pull you out of any mid-winter doldrums and you can get a start on your Spring plans now.
Appreciate You All!
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Mondays, they don’t get me down but I’m not filled with a sense of energy to dive in either, which doesn’t make sense. They are like any other day – you make them what you want, but what to do if you have no recollection of being a huge fan? Read on for my Monday edits, created last week!
This year what I’m feeling is to carry on with last years goals but take it as a new chapter. Let’s take my business, I had some ideas of what I wanted last year and some intentions I completed, others were dropped when it became clear they weren’t what I wanted, and new intentions came up in their place. I’m excited about writing my script in that way!
Do you remember last weeks mention of affirmation as part of my vision notebook? When I felt particularly stuck a few years ago one affirmation was written what felt like hundreds of times and I’d repeat it during the day as I was driving, etc., and yes things changed for me along with baby steps towards what I wanted. I still intend to do that if there’s something that feels stubborn and unchanging in my life but it occurred to me I can do a twist on the usual way of doing affirmations.
Last week, I took an affirmation that is relevant to a major goal for me. On Sunday I decided on an affirmation to start and put it in my calendar each morning with an alert so it’s on my phone screen for a few minutes and sets my tone for the day. Today I selected one as the next baby step and I’ll do the same. There are no rules here so if I want to keep an affirmation for several weeks I will. Additionally I say them throughout the day and, though this didn’t feel relevant the past week, they can be written as well.
Monday doesn’t feel as dull with something to look forward to-a new start and a shift! Here are a few affirmations that may be helpful if you want to try this. Create your own or go online-there are oodles of them!
I am capable of starting and completing tasks, I am a great friend and attract great friends in return, I am confident in my ability to lead and grow my start up.
So easy and Monday’s won’t be the same!
Appreciate You All!
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For those that know me they will most likely say things like, she’s creative, she’s always got these great ideas, and most likely they won’t say she’s got this really great organizing system, or something like that! It’s true, I love the creative downloads and then harnessing them via a super structured way, not as much. Don’t they have people for that? That said, it’s me that needs to harness them and figuring that out is as creative as the dreams and ideas I get. Here are my thoughts on a possible way to be creative with the fun stuff and harness the ideas to bring them to life.
I’m not sure if this is where vision boards got started, most likely not, but, after watching “The Secret” video with a friend, that’s where I saw first saw them. It seemed a great way to take a creative thought and bring it to something tangible. Now it’s fun to go into coffee shops in January and see a group of people drinking coffee and making vision boards together!
What I didn’t like about them was the poster board size didn’t make them exactly portable! For me, I wanted something I could easily take out and jot down some more thoughts, add another image, or just thumb through and look at an image that made me happy. It occurred to me a notebook would be perfect to accomplish all that, part vision board, part journal, and part commonplace book.
The notebook in the image was my first go at it and I’ve not looked back! I’m still using it noting the year on the top of the page and I’ll add things throughout the year. A vision board is a collage of images, pictures, and affirmations of what you desire and it’s meant to keep you inspired and thereby motivated to keep moving toward your desired outcome. You may have heard or read about celebrities using these, Steve Harvey, Katy Perry, and Beyonce are a few.
For me, anything goes. A few of my supplies are in the image but I’ve also used stickers, colored pens and pencils, paint, ribbons, even parts of cards I was given-anything I felt captured what would resonate with my idea. You don’t have to spend hours on this, unless you want, for me I like to input things when I’m feeling it strongly because I capture the essence much better.
Pictures and words are the way most people go and it makes sense. Thanks to the notebook’s flexibility I’ve even written down things, some folks call them affirmations, that I thought would propel me further/faster. For example, one year everything felt really stuck so I wrote what felt like thousands of times “Unexpected opportunities appear in my life out of nowhere”. Writing it made me feel as if I had the power to shift things and that made me more optimistic. With the optimism I kept taking the baby steps, doing the work as they say, but also it had me becoming more aware of events in my life, recognizing even the small events that I could use to move forward. That was exciting and also gave me a glimpse into how powerful keeping a focus can be.
There are so many detailed videos on YouTube I won’t go into a lot of details here unless you want me to share in more depth what and how I make these. Let me know!
Appreciate You All!
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I just learned about this national observance thanks to my latest phone update! It’s now noted on my calendar. That said, after learning more online, I wanted to share something I learned about a movement that’s happening now. Please know this information is online via a New York Times article posted on 8/22/2022, authored by Kevin Noble Maillard. The beautiful person in the photo is Angela Ferguson on the Onondaga Nation Farm in central New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/dining/native-american-agriculture.html
The photo was taken by Tahlia Mintz of the New York Times (love how the breeze catches the hem of her shirt). There are so many interesting articles about people around this country, and the world, that it really is worth the monthly subscription.
Having spent many years growing up in Europe I learned so much about people from different cultures, and we have that here too! Find an ethnic area around you and enjoy the shops and restaurants. We also have an amazing resource via our Native American neighbors. This article focuses on one aspect, the community gardens and home gardening. Angela is the supervisor of the Onondaga Nation Farm and her crew grow, among other things, corn, beans and squash which are known as the “three sisters” of their agriculture. A free weekly farmers’ market on the Nation is something to enjoy and if you want to learn more, classes are offered to teach the traditional ways of cultivation and cooking. I’m here to tell you I could use those; growing veggies and herbs in my back yard has yielded less than desirable results!
There is also an understanding of what’s going on with the land and how to edit what you do to work in cooperation, a lot like taking care of yourself if you think you’re coming down with a cold. This reminds me so much of what I see around me in the form of community gardens where the neighborhood can go and harvest the crops as they need them, like the peppers and tomatoes. It also reminds me of the growing farm to table I’m seeing in the form of community supported agriculture programs and restaurants that offer seasonal menus based on what they can get locally.
Please do try to get this article and also look for information on your own. If you do a deeper dive, please take a minute to share with me-I love to learn. That said, I learned something writing this article-check out a community garden the start of the growing season to learn some successful growing tips!
Appreciate You All!
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Recently I asked for your input on what is changing for you in 2024 and I was amazed with all your ideas, goals, and creativity. Thank you!! There was so much I couldn’t just do a random select because it meant I wouldn’t share every comment that I found energizing. Seriously, reading them provided ideas and inspiration on ways to further shape what I want to focus on. To get it all on paper I looked at the patterns and saw some main themes emerging so I’m sharing them in that way.
Get Into The Great Outdoors…Spending time in nature, watching sunrises and sunsets, walking outside, to name some, do lift you up and give you a different frame of mind. I’ve been pulling weeds and putting down new mulch and even though that’s tedious I do get more relaxed being outside. I would think if you’re in the city planting flowers in a pot to put on a deck would give you the same perspective.
Getting Motivated – So true! Get there in bits and pieces, usually 5-15 minutes will start moving your goal into shape. Look for an upcoming post on this.
Love, Kindness, & Happiness – So true! Start with yourself, maybe the 5-15 minutes of something important to you, something that makes you happy, daily or a few times a week makes a big difference! You deserve it. Love that this came up as a theme.
Travel – Do get out and explore, it’s amazing the people you meet and things you see. I’m starting to do this where I live, exploring my city like someone traveling here to visit, kind of exciting!
Work Through Tough Times – I totally get this one and being in the middle of it feels like you’re walled in. From talking to people, reading, and going through tough times, seems like it’s part of being a person, if you get an idea to read something, talk to someone, write a dialogue about it, etc. do it-those nudges are motions that help you to feel unstuck. I have a journaling link below to use or to spur ideas. Let me know what you come up with.
Eat More Sourdough Bread – Sign me up!!
Bye for now!
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I love this time of year, January! Yes, I know you start getting end of year notices from your bank prepping you for tax season, big eye roll, and it gets really cold. But, there is so much more than that with January!
For me, every year it feels like I’ve got every possible avenue open to me-the adventure is refreshing! I also get this feeling to a lesser degree in April, with the spring weather, and October with the falling leaves and chilly evenings. More on those in a minute. Think about the New Year, the previous is now only a memory so if there were less than desirable things going on it’s in the past.
With that said, what are you going to do with any remnants you no longer want to deal with and what new cards do you want to deal into your life? It’s all a choice, and with baby steps, you can make edits and shape things to better suit either the direction you want to take or how you want to face something. Nobody can take that choice from you, it’s totally yours and that to me is exciting!
So usually each January has me changing the art in my home, lucky me my Dad and brother are both painters so there’s never enough wall space for everything, and refreshing my organization, and making plans. Also each year I tend to also take a deeper look at where I am in life, things like my spiritual take on things, or how I can edit my approach and be a better listener, stuff like that. And I look into the next baby steps to bring about the things I’d like to experience and see.
About a week ago I asked for your input on how you plan on recharging for 2024 and the responses have been amazing, really I’m inspired and grateful to read your goals. I want to give it the rest of this week and then I’ll randomly pull ten to post, but it may be more because I’m overwhelmed with how great they are. If you are on the fence, I won’t post any names but I’d love to share because they have inspired me and I’d like to share the same with you.
I’m posting the two things I’m excited to work on as a recharge in 2024 and that’s looking deeper into gratitude for even the things that aren’t desirable and also partnerships and what I’m bringing to the table to be part of a team whether it’s personal or business. In April and October I’ll look to revisit what I’m working on to see what feels relevant.
Bye for now!
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So, I’ve always had a fascination with the color hot pink, along with chartreuse and teal, which is somewhat mid-century for both clothing and interior design. Though I don’t count orange as a regular fave, I like adding it into the mix sometimes especially in warmer weather.
Back to Hot Pink, I love it so much my selection of last years holiday cards was made because the envelopes were that color, and besides, who wouldn’t want that much cheerfulness in their mailbox during winter season? I seriously considered sending one to myself!
Looking at how it’s getting combined with other colors online I see a lot of it getting punched up with white, which is nice during the warm weather seasons, I also see it getting used with black pumps, jackets, etc. Both options work and also keep the color front and center. But what if you used it as a color to be mixed with other very cool and on trend colors? It’s still a standout but it gets pushed in a different way. My two colors for now, because I’m still having fun playing with it, are copper and a paler green in the pistachio range; let me say this exercise was fun!
My focus was on pieces purchased together for a head-to-toe look when you want to go that direction. You know by now, if you’ve been following my Style Of The Week I drop every Thursday, that I love, love, love to pull pieces apart and play with how they can be aligned in new ways. That said, below are some ideas I came up with.
Throw in your moto jacket or denim one because that will work too. In fact, I’m slightly obsessed with the idea of the sandals and the moto jacket for late night after parties with your bikini top, especially if it’s metallic copper or orange.
Have fun and bye for now!
Margi
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So, I’ve started this year obsessed with organizing, weeding out, and sorting my house. And I mean my house! I’ve got a list by room of things I will do this year to refresh and/or edit things. I’ve been going through drawers, and even looking at expiration dates on everything, including my cosmetics! Crazy? Maybe, but I’ve only dented the surface and it already feels so much better. Plus, it feels like I’m a little more organized in my head which I didn’t expect.
This feeling came on me towards the end of December, and, serendipitously, while reading through the Apartment Therapy blog, I saw their January Cure they offer annually. Each weekday, gratis, for 20 days they send an email with the coolest ideas that are super easy, and quick to do. Check it out via the link below. If you do decide to go for it, and who cares if January is mostly finished, reach out either via the comments, or on my SM, and tell me what you think.
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/january-cure-2022-sign-up-37004167
The work I was doing organizing and restyling my house brought an awareness that I was dissatisfied with my style too. Truthfully, I’d been feeling creatively stale for awhile and it felt as if I was putting a stale version of myself out to the world. Focusing intensely, managing my construction project last year, felt consuming to the point I wasn’t aware of changing incredibly inside. I’d been changing a lot in a positive way as a person but was too busy to realize it. You’re constantly changing, even if you aren’t aware of it at the time. Change was happening to me but it was background noise due to focusing so intently for so long. My client’s comment frequently that because I do styling, having a concern or feeling off must not happen to me. I’m here to tell you, even after years of styling for film and advertising – it happens to everyone!
Organizing, sorting, and weeding through my home caused me to realize the issue wasn’t “stale” creativity, it was no longer resonating with who I was before embarking on my project.
It’s time to put an editing eye on my closet! Everything was going into the project so I hadn’t purchased anything new for awhile. But, more than that, I wasn’t putting a fresh eye to what I had. Yes, some things will no longer “feel” right and those will go to someone who will feel amazing in them. It’s time to put a fresh take on what will work, what “fits” who I am inside now, and what I still feel amazing in. Then, I’ll add new items to my closet.
So, having figured that out, I got to thinking there are probably lots of you reading this that feel the same. So, I decided to offer a promo to kick off 2022. How exciting, am I right?
Here it is, just share a question, or concern, with me, and I’ll work with you to resolve it. Just IM me or send an email. It’s that simple!
Looking forward to sharing in your New Year/Updated You adventure!
Bye for now!
If you’d like more information plus inspirational images, please follow me!
Ready to start journaling? Click to get my free journaling workbook!
I’ve been listening to a series of talks on generosity and gratitude this past month, which is timely since we just celebrated our Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. Another reason the talks are timely? The three VERY large goals I’ve been working toward this year, building a business, building a garage, and making everything else work during the pandemic, is finally moving to fruition. So, yeah, I’ve been doing my Snoopy happy dance for sure!
In going after my goals, this year has felt like a series of competency tests, one after the other, and for that reason this year has been a marathon. Those times where the goal isn’t to finish really quickly, like a sprint, but just working to finish! A good part of the challenge was a feeling that no matter what I did, there seemed to be no movement, and even, at times, it felt as if I had setbacks. Yep, even after taking action that should have given me forward movement. So this year, I’ve been doing a lot of filing in the “you can’t make this stuff up” file. Yeah, it’s funny now but there were times I was glad to have friends who let me vent my frustrations.
Because of all that, I ended up with a new tool for life, and that was the realization of feeling deeply grateful. It not only made me feel better in the moment, but also created an opening for me to figure out “what next”. And a huge part of that was my daily journaling! Listing 3 things I’m grateful for each day meant really focusing on where I have it good, especially on those days where it felt like I only had problems to solve. If you’d like to see that, get my free Journal workbook at the end of this post.
I’ve always been optimistic, and, for the most part, I’m satisfied with my life (though I believe a little dissatisfaction is a good thing because it’s one way to see where you want to experience your next adventure in the form of change). Years ago I read somewhere that gratitude isn’t a laundry list of items, a recitation, though that can be a good place to start. It’s really considering what you are very deeply thankful about, or where you are very satisfied.
Maybe because of the curves life handed me this year, and how relentless I had to be to keep things on course, I begin to feel a deeper sense of thankfulness and satisfaction. Sometimes it was coming home in the evening and snuggling in with whatever interested me at the moment. It was also sharing a good meal with good friends, or even just watching trash TV.
I’m going to do a series of blog posts on managing the long periods of challenges, whether they’re seemingly never ending tasks to reach your goal, or whether you’re facing new experiences without a “how-to” app. For those times it’s all about digging in, persevering, and taking that next step even if you feel doubt or uncertainty. Those times aren’t always easy, or fun, but sometimes it’s just what you have to do.
Bye for now!
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Last year sure created a different lifestyle for us, and very unexpectedly too! While our situation was scary, in many ways I felt so alone, it was enjoyable to go online and see what people were doing to pass time. Puzzle making, knitting, growing container gardens, and probably the most popular-making bread! For me, I sewed more, did adult coloring to play with color combinations, and I started journaling.
Now, this wasn’t my first time at the journal rodeo, in fact I’d tried several times over the last ten years and for whatever reason it didn’t stick with me. Even trying different styles of journaling, such as writing free form or responding to prompt questions like my favorite book, felt off. Purchasing fancy journals, colorful composition books, and bright, colored pens didn’t make a difference-it just didn’t resonate. It was frustrating because I’d heard of the many great benefits of journaling regularly and felt I was missing out.
I’m not sure why journaling came to me last year. Maybe it was the overwhelming feeling of confusion to be without my normal routine, being without the daily contact of my friends, or maybe just finally being ready but this time journaling stuck with me and felt natural. It actually felt amazing! Plus, it gave me a rhythm, a routine and connectedness that went missing last year. Even better, I became more focused, goal oriented, and even stopped procrastinating. Bonus!
Researching the long term benefits reveal a lot of pluses, some obvious and some not so obvious, and here they are:
Information on how stress negatively impacts your physical, mental, and emotional health has been around for awhile. Journaling, along with diet and exercise, is an amazing stress management tool. Studies have shown that journaling even 15-20 minutes 3-4 times a week helps.
Journaling boosts memory, comprehension, and increases your working memory capacity. Yes, I’ll take second helpings of that!
This probably plays into the first reason, stress reduction, but people who journal regularly have discovered it helps improve their mood, and they had a greater sense of emotional well-being and joy. Those feelings will attract more positivity into your life, a big plus.
Continued journaling helps you become more connected with your inner needs and desires. You engage right brain creativity as you write and flexing this “muscle” boosts many things, including problem solving.
Hey, it’s new territory so it could feel awkward at first. Once you get a rhythm going, like anything new, it’ll be a part of your life you look forward to. Just show up at least 3 days a week, even if only one sentence is what you end up with. It’s amazing to go back a week or month later and see what was going on.
The journal system that got me going is easy and has three different segments that can easily be finished in 10 minutes. You can spend more time if you want but it’s not necessary. For me, I think best when writing so it’s all about pen and paper. Studies have shown that writing, particularly cursive, helps boost creativity, improves memory, learning comprehension, and fine motor skills. It’s your thing though so be comfortable. I’ve created a free workbook to get you started! Just download it below.
You’ll have so much fun in the morning with your cup of coffee, or winding down at night capturing everything end of day. Let me know what you think and if you come up with any cool new methods of journaling!
Bye for now!
If you’d like more information plus inspirational images, please follow me!
Ready to start journaling? Click to get my free journaling workbook!
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