Simplification Sunday: Week Five

These are some shells and coral and rocks I found in the ocean in Miami. I love them.

Whoa. Five weeks of simplifying. I'm finding it very surprising at how hard I have to try to simplify and how much the world seems set up to keep you busy, tired, stressed, over-worked/burdened/whelmed. I feel like a salmon in the stream, trying to wiggle and fight just to cut back, streamline, and declutter.

This week was a good one!
- transferred my bank account to a branch close to school (instead of an hour on the subway to Etobicoke!)
- got a cell phone and killed my internet and phone at home (it's only been a few days, but I can see the pros and cons of these decisions and I'm going to have to work hard on these)
- cleaned out a few small bins of craft supplies, threw some stuff out
- destashed some fabric to my new friend Anne, she was thrilled . . . as was I to see it leave my home
- left my computer at school all week (i.e., no aimless time wasting on the internet at home, I like a disconnected house)
- finished 2 of the 14 things on my "To Craft" list (wooo!) . . . only 11 to go!
- and . . . drumroll please  . . . I passed in a major paper I'd been working on for 6-7 months. Talk about liberating yourself from an albatross and a half. Good lord.

I am so super happy that I made this resolution! And I'm excited for the start of week six!

I finally caved and got a cellphone. Surprisingly it wasn't peer pressure or all the yelling of my friends that finally did me in. It was me being really sick of paying my stupid phone company way too much every month for a landline I hardly use. It was so annoying. I figured for the same price I could have a phone that could do a lot more for me. It wasn't the Earth shattering ontological catastrophe that I thought this was going to be. I'll survive. 

Making a sock for my phone helped a lot. It's cold in Canada in January! 

Scrap yarn phone sock: $0

Smart phone: $50 less a month than my dumb phone & internet

Simplification Sunday: Week Four

Well lookit this. Simplification Sunday number four. All my New Year's resolutions are intact. The year had a rocky start, but I can see that things are starting to calm down and I am enjoying some early benefits of trying to simplify my life a bit . . . though the road is long, rest assured.

So this week I
- did a quick sweep of my dresser to throw out a few more worn out things, add a few things to the heap for Goodwill
- took a big bag of stuff to Goodwill
- finally put all my sewing things together (which were tucked in drawers and containers alllllllll over my house) in one organized tray. Threw away anything I didn't need or couldn't identify.
- packed all my lunches for the week.
- got my stupid bike fixed, which for a busy girl in a big, ugly city, having my bike means everything goes faster, smoother, cheaper . . . it really does make me feel so much better. I hate transit.
- made a list of all the crafts I promised people or have unfinished . . . it's 14 items long. Scratched off one this week. I'm not going to say yes to any more crafting requests until this is down to 3 items or less.
- and best of all (for me), this photo above is all my outfits for the week. Done and done. I am NOT a morning person. I hate them. I feel like I want to die when I wake up in the morning. I'm cranky. Ugly. Hideous. Awful person. When I have my outfit picked out, and know that I like it, it makes my whole day so much better. I hate looking schlumpy at work. I've been in this habit before and it pays huge dividends for me in terms of lowering my stress levels and making me feel better about myself. And I get another 20 minutes of sleep in the morning . . . at least.

Well, this is kinda cute! This photo will be appearing in the 2013 Icelandic National League calendar. I had forgotten I submitted it. It is an Arctic Riverbeauty and seemed very common from what I saw. I remember this spot very well. We were taking our bus into the middle of Iceland to start our trek and we had about an hour break at a place with a pretty waterfall. There were some sheep kicking around, too. Lots of sheep. Always.

I'm actually not super crazy about this photo . . . there's something wonky about it, but I should just be happy about it and stop whining. Right? Seriously, Erin. Tsk tsk.

Good heavens, I love that country and miss it so much. I want to move there ASAP.

Simplification Sunday: Week Three

This week was a good week of simplifying, but it was also not so good in that I did say yes to a few crafting requests and some other things that maybe I should have said "no" to . . . oh well. Onward and upward.

This week I:
- quit The Committee from Hell, which should free up enough emotional energy and time for at least 17 lifetimes.
- cleaned out junk drawer in kitchen . . . really, when am I hosting a birthday party?
- did groceries and prepared some meals in advance (this is more of a battle for me than you can ever know)
- threw out some old, worn out sports clothes that I replaced over Christmas
- purged my first aid supplies and tossed most of it . . . seriously, Erin, your pink eye drops come with Norwegian instructions. You haven't been in Norway since 2007, nor have you had pink eye since then. Ditch them.
- unliked a bunch of stuff on Facebook. Everyday National Geographic posts a photo of the day, and every day I don't go look at it. It's just clutter and something I feel ill about not doing or taking care of.
- stopped all email announcements from Facebook. I live on Facebook, I don't need it clogging up my inbox every three seconds with a message I know I've already received.
- said no to two social engagements, I have a bad habit of booking myself up weeks in advance and end up feeling way too exhausted to be nice to anybody.
- I sorted and organized all my knitting tools because I made this . . . I tossed three lonely needles, some weird things that I didn't even know what they were

I really have to say no to more things for a while . . . and finish more crafting projects and school projects I promised people. Did things get simpler for you or more chaotic this week?

I've been feeling a bit prickly about my crafting lately. A few very small things have come up that have made me really rethink my approach to sharing my crafts. Sometimes people are forgetting to thank me, or being kinda demanding about me making them stuff, or not paying me at all. I've been posting more of what I've been making for myself on my Facebook account and it's garnering a lot of attention and requests. Like so much attention I'm quite taken aback really. I know readers of my blog will identify, I'm feeling a little . . . hmmm, not used exactly, but a bit like a Craft Monkey that can just churn out cool things for free for anyone at any time. I'm a bit frustrated because (as everyone really does know) these things take a lot of time and money . . . and I have other things to do in life. Crafting and creating isn't my primary occupation, nor is it a meaningful source of income. Admittedly this is mostly my fault. I don't pay a lot for my craft supplies, I create just for the sake of creating because I love it, I'm pretty generous by nature, so I don't really care 90% of the time to just give stuff away. But . . . I think I might be at a bit of a wall on this one. So, I've decided I'm going to start charging and charging what I think it's worth. This doesn't exclude gift making by any means, but for crafting requests that I want to take on I will not sell myself short. It feels icky when I do, and I make really nice things that you can't find in stores.

This said, many, many of these requests are accompanied with the offer to pay for the piece & my time and sometimes people even pay me more when they think I've undersold myself. So I'm totally not slamming anyone here, I just realized that I'm at a point where my crafting has hit another level and that if I feel like I should be paid for something, it is up to me alone to open my mouth and say something.

I would really welcome any comments from my readers about how the negotiate this. I think all of my readers are crafty and generous and many of you have struggled with these same kind of boundaries, I know.

Ohhhh. Did my crafting stars ever align yesterday. I met up with my swimming pal (ugh, I'm out of shape . . . but that's another post for another blog perhaps), and she had brought me presents from her Christmas travels, which included a very tasty praline from the South. I thought the packaging was adorable! On my way home from getting my tail kicked in the pool I scoured my Goodwill because there was a 50% off sale and found the cutest little brand new home for my praline package for only $.75! I love it.

Usually the only thing I sew are quilts, which is kinda a big, onerous, tedious undertaking. I don't actually like sewing, but quilts are so worth it. Much like my sloppy, novice knitting, I'm kinda a bad seamstress, too.

Oh well. After a few years of with a sister in Japan and 70 years of crafty ladies in my family, I have so much good fabric. It is a shame I don't make more things. So I thought of a few smaller projects to make that might be nifty.

I like it. And it only took about 1.5 hours (including a snack and half watching TV online).

Scrap needle holder thing: $5 in materials . . . maybe.

You asked. I deliver.

Some friends have been curious to see my bead stash. Well, here it is! The wall of my cabinet has just over 50 strands of beads. Then there are 3 large tackle boxes, 3 medium sized, and 20 small ones. The small have a dozen spots for beads. Then there are a few boxes of beads to sort and unfinished projects, the stacking containers of seed beads & spacer beads, and in the shelf above there is my big tray of findings (chain, clasps, jump rings, and the like).

The bottom photo is my new cover image for Facebook and shows off some of the treasures that are in those tackle boxes. As you can see, I have a bit of a penchant for bright colours. Oh glorious beads!

I have about 150 finished beaded creations that I keep for myself, and another 30-40 separate for my Etsy shop. And though I really have no idea, I bet I've sold or gifted well over 300 projects in the last few years. So, yeah, I have a lot of beads. :S

Now that the presents have been opened, I can share them with everyone.

 For Penny

 For Alana

For Marla

For Mom (She lives in Miami, so there is no need for a scarf!)

And for my poor Dad, well I just emailed him $ for a bottle of gin.
I don't think he was unhappy with that. 

Simplification Sunday: Week Two

Here is yours truly sporting two finished knitting projects. I'm a total lamesauce knitter. The hat is my first non-square or rectangle project, so I'm pleased, even if it is a rather crude product. I am also pleased with the relative success of this project because I modified a pattern to fit the scrap yarn I wanted to use, and I also had to make the hat ohverymuch bigger than the largest size. I have a big head and a heap of big hair, so I needed a hat that was at least 24" in circumference and 10"-11" from crown to edge.

Now if Toronto would offer up some winter weather, I'd be all set. I really like knitting.

This week in Simplifying was met with mixed results. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for a little simplifying . . . especially when it comes to banks & phone companies, eh? Regardless, I managed to finish my hat, delete all the bookmarks on my internet browser (I bookmark then never look at them again), downgraded to a phone package that is more affordable and sensible for me (with more changes to come on that front), threw out two pairs of pants that were totally worn out . . . along with socks that have lost their mates, set aside books & CDs to give to friends who can put them to better use, and cleaned out the cupboard above my fridge. I gave my living room and bedroom a good clean up and my little heap of stuff to drop off at Goodwill is growing. I also acknowledged that I would not be sending out cards this year and that was okay, because I can send a card to anyone any time I like, right? No sense hanging on to guilt about Christmas cards in January.

I thought I'd delete my Facebook fan page for money can't buy taste this week as a way to further declutter my electronic life. I even posted that I was shutting it down, then I ended up not being able to do it. I'm too attached to it . . . so I don't know what will happen over there, yet . . . weird.

I've been spewing a lot of "I'm going to shut down my Etsy" kinda words & thoughts lately. Totally not feeling it. And then, today, in the death month for retail while I was waiting for my toast to pop, some kind woman in the UK adopted "An Organic Matter".

Maybe I'll be patient and let things sit for a minute . . .

Simplification Sunday: Week One

How delightful is this? My fortune cookie fortune from a New Year's Eve lunch with my momma. So perfect for the day before the start of a New Year. 

I've mentioned already that this feels like a year for simplifying, thinning out, finishing projects. That said, last year felt like that, too, then I went a little nuts and had three jobs and flipped around Asia for a month. My mania often trumps the best of my intentions. Oh well. 

Here is the first of what I hope will be weekly posts, "Simplification Sundays".  My life is so ridiculous sometimes; like how and why do I have four bank accounts for the love of God? This needs to change. So today, I transferred to a snazzy new wallet, cleaned out all my rewards miles (of which I have laughably few) and biffed the cards and other crap I don't need. I started a to-do list, did laundry, finished a scarf, cleaned a bit, said no-thanks to a time burning extra curricular commitment, and fully organized my desk drawers. 

If this lasts until March, I deserve a huge reward in the form of many cookies. Me thinks.