useful distractions

I always get a bit anxious at the beginning of any work project and today is the eve of one. Fortunately there were enough things to occupy my mind and time even as the internet constantly went on and off due to some plant trouble and made me worry about missing last-minute emails from client (there have been none so far).

I went out to buy bird seeds (in my new home my mornings are serenaded by bird song and I wish to express appreciation) and ended up having coffee with my sister.

When we got home my dad was in a home-improvement mode and we finally had the TV mounted on the wall plus I got the wall frame rack mounted as well to keep all our accessories (necklaces, rings, brooches, headbands, bracelets, and other frills).

I also took the cat for a quick trip to the vet to have his claws trimmed. 

In between I read Sherlock stories.

So now I am a bit too tired to waste energy getting anxious and worried. I will probably relax even more with a cup of hot chocolate after dinner. In the meantime I will figure out what I can play on the newly mounted TV given that I have yet to apply for an extension cable and all my consoles are still in the old place. 

Later.

snapshots

Bills to pay loom every month. I have to keep working to keep paying. I wish there was a better alternative to all this.

I badly want to make art but I am struggling with work.

A little bit made for someone whom I really like and admire so much and who has been inspiring me no end for the past eight years.

My NaNoWriMo novel is getting some good treatment in between heavy loads of work. 

Recovering old titles I had and loved and sold years before to raise funds for a trip.

Discovered and loving Snapeee, a photo app.

What I hope to do more consistently every single day.

For now I just need to survive Wednesday

I bit off more than I can chew when I tried to do two projects simultaneously. I keep kidding myself that I could still do midnight/ all-night work marathons. But I can't anymore. Not only because I am no longer twenty with endless energy but also because it is very clear to me what I want to do and it is not slaving away over a report. What I want to do is write books and make art.

But bills have to paid. And I do have considerable skills when it comes to the work I have to do. And going to London will cost a lot.

So here I am, cramming once again. It is very unfortunate that those so-called energy drinks do not work on me. The only thing with any slight effect to keeping me awake for an extra few hours is the brewed coffee from McDonald's. And that only means I can stay up until about 3AM. Then I start feeling really cranky and nauseous.

On a good note, I figured out a better way of doing my reports which I will use on the next report. For the current report (the one due on Wednesday) I had to restart and re-do everything to save time -- I know that sounds odd but it worked somehow. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I will finish in time and be able to sleep by tomorrow night.

Please send wakeful energies along my way.

Keep Calm and Buy Books

Keep calm and buy books. Secondhand so you can buy three for the price of a brand new one. Then count the days (6) until you can start reading to restore the wreck you have become after juggling two big projects in an effort to raise funds for monthly bills and dreams of travel (still not enough).

The past few days have been sprinkled with delays and time snarls. In the next few days the repercussions of those delays will be fully felt and I will most likely be a zombie by Tuesday evening.

Still, the work I did this week is not without its hidden nuggets of inspiration. And help does come in some form when you absolutely need it. And there is always my health and my skills to be grateful for. And there is always Sherlock and the Doctor and Neil Gaiman.  

up before the sun

Starting on a new schedule today. Last night I went to bed at 9AM. Up at 3AM today. Will do this for the next couple of weeks and see how it goes. The energy left at the end of the day is just not enough to let me do things. So I figure I'd call it an early night and get up before everybody else does and then do my own thing.

It's a different kind of feeling to check off your to-do list before the sun has even woken up.

Out of the Blue

I'm an Advil girl. But I've run out of the nice blue capsules so I have these red ones by Medicol. They're on standby in case the migraine hits sometime along the very long hours I will be spending working and cramming.

Doctor Who and Torchwood keep me sane and awake and optimistic. There is no other way but through this monstrous pile of data and out the end of it. Will it help if I think of it as saving the world from aliens?

Deep Working

1-inch thick single-spaced, font size 10, data documents for reading and interpretation

I have been a hardworking girl for most of yesterday. Got a good amount of work done and making progress even though I am well aware that time has not been on my side. I have barely a week to complete a report before another fieldwork begins and the report for that queues up on my Urgent To Do's.

post-it + pen + highlighters = manual mind-mapping. still so much better than any app.

Hence I declare this week as a full working week, no disturbances or interruptions allowed. No meetings or sneak-aways.

No rewards until I have passed the halfway mark, and then the best rewards saved for last. One of these is the last episode of Sherlock which I haven't watched : Reichenbach Falls.

How do you motivate yourself to keep on moving forward on a must-do task?

looks like rain

The sky caught my attention on this late Saturday afternoon as I doggedly prepared for a full-day work session tomorrow.

Yes I owe you stories from the beach but let me sort through more than a couple hundred of photos. Oh, and I need to also get some urgent work done until mid next week.

has it been a week??!

Yes, it has. In fact it has been more than a week. More than a week of no posts.

I could not gather myself enough for a full post these days because I have been working on two big projects and my attention is already spread thin enough as it is. So I will try to at least update with some snapshots and quick notes for the next few days.

Today I cooked a week's worth of food to be frozen or refrigerated so all I will have to do is reheat them. That way I won't have to worry about menus or even chunks of time spent preparing and cooking and washing all the pots and pans after.

Work will still be intense until the end of this month, then there's a Holy Week break, and then the work will pick up pace once more until I am free to go on a beach vacation in early May.

All my crafts and creative projects are on a pause as I get the work projects done. I miss them a lot. The most I could do now in between work breaks are read books and write in my journal.

Oh well. I gotta do what I gotta do while the other good stuff that I've been visualizing are still on their way to me. :)

Leaving you with one of my mom's cartoons:

coming soon!

Just a quick note to let you know that I already have a few posts lined up and they are currently in progress. I had to deal with a lot of work when I got back from Hong Kong so I could not get back fully into the blogging groove yet.

For the past days I have been doing fieldwork that starts early in the morning and finishes in the afternoon. After that I have to do some post-work and some home chores and I haven't even caught up on any sleep yet. I am also behind on some banking errands --- yikes!

But here's what's been cooking so far in my blog draft folders:

-  the return of the Baker's Dozen : 13 Best Things About My Five Days In Hong Kong
-  the Liebster Awards! -- I am so happy to receive one from Chrystina and I am putting together my own to pass forward
-  introducing Sunny Side Up, the little shop that my sister and I have been "playing" with for the past few months
-  a little story about my mom's creative history and a gallery of her drawings made way back in the 1960's!

So there -- at least you'll know that I haven't been idle nor neglectful. Although I do occasionally find myself lost in thought, dreaming...

a tiny break

Just finished five long data-gathering sessions in the past three days and tonight is my tiny break before I begin the data analysis and report-writing by early tomorrow.

For now I share some snapshots from the past few days when I managed to snatch a few minutes to myself from all the work.

my sister and i wore our happy shoes to add bright spots to grueling days

my friend dropped off fresh stock for the store. we hope to open shop sometime in the first half of February

last night i was able to cook for dinner and i adapted from my cousin's recipe of pork tenderloin with vegetables

How has the week been treating you? I'm dying for a full night of sleep!

breaking four days of silence

That's four days without blogging! That's how busy this week has been. I had to focus a lot of my time on work (the serious, money-making kind). I miss crafting and handmaking so bad!

I should be tucked in bed by now to be able to get up early tomorrow for more...work. But I have to do something non-work-y or I will just simply start getting unhappy. Hence I will do a quick post before calling it a night.

Last Sunday I had to run a few errands at the mall (mostly replenishing supplies for the Other Business) and my sister wanted to check out the hair accessories section which led to us buying a few pieces for ourselves. I am so vulnerable to impulse shopping when I am bracing myself for days of hard work with no creative time but fortunately, what I bought are actually very useful. Check these out...

I am also happy to report that my little indoor garden (grown from seeds) seems to be growing well. I added a pot of basil and it seems to be surviving.

Oh, and I finally was able to go to the supermarket tonight and I got an extra bag of flour because I just might force some free time into my very tight schedule to bake something, or two somethings. But I forgot to get some cream so the panna cotta will have to wait.

I dream of becoming a housewife (to a financially stable husband) and own an Etsy shop. I think I just might make a vision board for that.

busy turning work into play

I have this Other Business. It's actually my first business since I left regular employment and at first I thought that was going to be it forever. Like it was going to be the work that defines me. But as you would have seen in the past few months it will not be the only thing that will take my time and effort, if at all.

However, I also recognize that you cannot (although some will probably say you can) just let go of something you have built from scratch into something significant for sixteen years. There is also the reality that it is what is feeding me and my family right now. And I don't dislike it. It's just that sometimes it reeks too much of work -- the kind that eats up your life and leaves no room for anything else. I went solo to get away from that but then last year taught me that it was not that easy.

So what I tried to do for the whole day yesterday ( and will continue today) is to revisit the plans for the Other Business and to redefine it. I want to integrate it into my now-blooming creative and crafty life instead of allowing it to bully everything else out of the way. In the process it will also help the business acquire a better and stronger identity and purpose, thus be able to also offer better service.

I got a lot of useful help from the book The Right Brain Business Plan -- and I wish I found it two years ago! Its style appealed and resonated with me because of my strong creative side. The questions in the book had me writing non-stop and I filled at least fifty pages of my planning journal in long-hand!

I encountered a few roadblocks though and had to seek the advice of my sister. We talked for a few hours last night to work those out and I got some initial ideas on how to resolve them.

the cover of my planning journal. My Creative Work Matters!

a favorite quote from the book Socrates Cafe by Christopher Phillips

some images and ideas that I'd love to translate into my work

I've always been a National Geographic fan and I've always been inspired by their work - the photography, the writing, the intentions, passions, ---everything. I would like to be able to embody similar values in my business to make it more aligned with how I want to live my life as a whole.

Integrating the business into my creative life and my financial needs and where I want to go was one of the difficult parts. The kind of work I do for the business can be taxing on so many levels so I need to figure out a way so I will not be overwhelmed. I really don't like the feeling of toiling through days just to get to pay the bills!  (Thank God for Good Clients who are great to work with and who appreciate the work.) 

I wish to continue to reform myself because the workaholic sometimes slips back in. I also need to have more trust that good projects will come as needed and there is no need to compromise on my standards (or my fees!) just because I'm worried I might not make it to next month's bills. I want to be able to push for the values and identity that I want my business to have and those are what will help it grow big than if I just subsisted on compromises.

These are some of the fun stuff from the Right Brain book. I'm doing some of them today and the rest will be for over the weekend. So yes I will be busy!

I got this beautiful quote from Twitter this morning:

"If your work is play, you will never get tired. If you make everything a play time, you don't need to work at all!" (Swami Satchidananda)

Have a great work/play day!

truly nesting in

My back has been aching since yesterday. I must have strained it with three whole days spent redecorating and painting and walking long hours through shops looking for ideas and materials.

So today I decided to stay home and take it a bit easy. I was planning to start on painting my wall but I didn't want to make my backache worse. Hence after doing half an hour of yoga for back pain, I contented myself with painting smaller objects. I also got a start on fixing my kitchen cabinets and making sure that there are no old useless stuff to carry on to the new year.

My home is starting to look and feel bright. It is no longer just a waiting place, or a transition place. Regardless of how my life turns out this will be my little refuge. A place and space for creativity and comfort.

A definite good morning as the morning mail brought my Mod Podge order from Deovir.

It's orange day today. I got this pretty shade called Tiger Lily from Ace Hardware. 

This metal lamp got a bit of extra after the paint. Glittery jewels in the middle of the biggest flowers to add a bit of something.

My entrance table gets a brightening up as well so it does not melt into the shadows and the somber gray of the refrigerator (which it is actually trying to distract from).

The refrigerator gets clothed in bright stripes to complement the entrance table. Mr. Pebbleman is assigned the welcoming role.

Whole waiting for the paints to dry I started fixing my kitchen cabinets. I need to get more of those shelf helpers that let me maximize my shelf space by adding second layers. The mason jars at the top shelf are joyful finds and will be used for projects as well as some food preserves.

The mason jar box became the Mogget box.

That's pretty much what I got to do today with my back feeling bruised and beaten. I took a lot of breaks during which I read The Perfectly Imperfect Home -- a perfect match for my current activity. This book is one of my Christmas gifts to myself. I also read from Alphabet of Thorn, a fantasy book I purchased for my iPad Kindle. It's been a while since I got caught up in a magical story, I didn't realize I missed it so much.

Only two more days until the new year. I should get started on my new year lists! Maybe I'll put that on my to-do for tomorrow. Until then, savor whatever is left of this old year! Tweet

gifts and goodies

A quick break from Christmas cramming to share with you some snapshots of this year's gifts and goodies.

bread pudding with mixed fruits

decorative tape used on kraft paper instead of buying printed giftwrapper

my color theme

hand-designed gift tags