As you probably know from my last few posts, this Spring I’ve been restless looking for new, or alternate, ways to enjoy the changing seasons. I don’t know if that’s “being in the moment” that I’ve been seeing lately or just something that’s relevant to me for now, but it’s been really pleasant.
So, for my latest installment of Spring and what to do I say enjoy morning tea!
The mornings are either, still, very nice , aka no mosquitos yet, or are getting pleasant, depending on where you live. Grab your sketch book, your common journal, your book, your needlework, or whatever you get lost in, and enjoy it with a cup of tea. Cookies, or other treat, are optional but nice if you add it in. It’s amazing how much focus you get by combining the two and how you will begin incorporating this as part of your me time, self care, or whatever is in order for you at the moment.
Please do give it a try and hope you get as much out of it as I do!
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Last post I mentioned feeling a bit scattered, like I was filled with ideas and feeling unable to harness any of it. About a week after I was wandering the internet looking at images, traditional Spring activities, that kind of stuff, and a light bulb came on in my head – let’s try adding in some of these traditional activities like planting seeds! But let’s put a Margi twist on it.
That said I planted seeds in these fun clay pots but I wanted to embellish them somehow. So, with Spring’s energy of renewal I remembered my odd pieces of jewelry and parts of keychains no longer attached and accessorized them. I love how it turned out.
Please go do something that brings in some of this energy, it really helped with getting me unscattered. Plus, it’s fun!
More on traditional Spring activities with my own twist coming soon…
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I’ve been feeling restless for several weeks with no end in sight. Maybe it’s early Spring fever? I’m feeling a strong surge of creativity but it’s all over the place! I have all my seed packets out but we might still get a frost, so no planting yet. I guess I could start pulling the weeds that have come up with the warmer days and, though it makes me feel better to see it cleaned out, not the same rush as putting out plants. As an idea comes into my head I start a project and fritter onto another one, mostly done, but not really since I’m not winning the “finish what you start” debate. I feel like graffiti, super energetic, not overthought, and very much in the moment!
Like Colored Pencils!
I’ve been trying to reign myself in but not having any luck with it. I went to a home improvement store today to get some practical things but couldn’t help drifting over to the paint aisle, in particular the spray paint. I’ve been wanting to spray some outdoor things with chalky paint for a super matte finish. They didn’t have the color I wanted, but looking down I fell in love with how people have been testing them on the floor! Even better, the store hasn’t removed it so now there is an evolving display of everyone’s creative thoughts.
Then looking over to the left I saw an amazing range of spray paint colors. There were so many I couldn’t fit them into one photo, it was so much fun! Like colored pencils in a box, waiting to be selected and turned into something great! The cans and graffiti are ongoing and yet finished too in an interesting way.
Graffiti make a bold statement! It’s super colorful, energetic, and has lots going on within the space-like how I feel at the moment. I’ve decided to just be ok with restlessness, I mean eventually it will sort itself out right? I’ll roll with all the ideas that are coming at me rapid fire, I’ll jot them down, sketch them out, get my supplies, etc. At some point I’ll have focus again to finish and bring things to life. But it’s fun not being goal oriented for now!!
Enjoy where you are!
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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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Last week I spent a few hours looking at the artifacts that the Rich Foundation has generously allowed us to use. It was a walk back in time and with a focus to the beautiful items available to purchase. I don’t have room to post an image of everything so I captured a few pictures of newspaper ads, one more mid-century and one from the early 70’s. Perimeter Mall is still around and still has vendors offering more upscale and luxury goods. Lots of good restaurants are there too-bonus!
I’m so very excited to do a “store front window” display at the museum! I’ve sketched out my idea and will present it to the manager this upcoming week. After that I’ll share with you!
Appreciate You All!
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I’m very excited to be in planning for an amazing exhibit at a museum near me, the Hapeville Depot Museum. More on the exhibit in a minute but first let me share a bit about this very interesting place. In addition to being a repository of local history, and also artifacts, of the railroad and Delta Airlines, they also dig deep into local history to include the Ford plant, counted as one of the most consistently productive, and also art that plays out history.
There was an amazing store in downtown Atlanta called Rich’s, founded in 1867 by Morris Rich. Rich’s was where you could get lost in a store full of beautiful displays, eat lunch, purchase luscious fabrics and sewing patterns, and bring your children to ride the pink pig during the holidays. It really was a local mainstay.
We’re getting artifacts from the downtown Rich’s store next week and I’ll share more in a few weeks. The first planning session included a meeting with the director, digging through magazines from the 50’s and 60’s, and an initial space planning for the exhibit. I love doing this, there are so many of my favorite activities wrapped up into one.
For now, I’ve got a link for you to dig into with a lot of details on the Rich’s Department Store. I’m leaving you with the iconic Rich’s holiday tree in this post and my intro image of the Rich’s clock. If you saw the clock image you knew it was about Rich’s-maybe the first branding ever?
Enjoy!
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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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