A Day Of Gratitude

I got an email yesterday which had a link to this article
http://www.sedona.com/whatyouhavetobethankfulfor.aspx about a Dr. Robert Emmons who has been studying gratitude and has found that practicing gratitude on a regular and deliberate basis can improve your health, physical fitness, optimism, help you cope with illness, deal with stress and anxiety better, and have better success at achieving your goals, etc.

No wonder I always felt like my life was running smoother when I regularly wrote in my gratitude journal (I'm still meaning to get back into the habit of doing that again).

(Emmons has also written a book called Thanks, which a preview of it can be read here...in fact, I've read just enough that I think I might want to buy it.)


So thankfulness and gratitude aren't just for the day where we bring out the big turkey and all the other yummy stuff. But of course for today I am more aware of taking the time to consider what I am thankful for...

Today I am grateful that for my little sister being able to come down here for Thanksgiving.

I am grateful for a roof over my head. Something that I can take for granted so easily sometimes.

I am grateful for shedding layers of fear, shame, worry, etc. like a reptile or insect might shed its outer skin as it grows.

I am grateful for selling over 200 virtual tea products I created for a virtual world in just two days time. (I know, I'm a nerd.) That's definitely a record. And I am so grateful for the group of women I worked with to make these virtual items we sold in a special promotional event together. To be part of a team that was so supportive and to share in our creative efforts, increase our skills because we had each others input and knowledge shared amongst us, and more.

I am so very grateful that I am overcoming my fear of sewing and of making monumental mistakes when I sew. (I've made three things now...and made monumental mistakes on all three items, but could laugh, smile, or just be at peace about it. Okay, there were times I just got frustrated too, like when I made the same mistake twice, but I didn't blow my head off or turn on the waterworks.)

I am eternally grateful that I opened up my heart to an old high school friend and told her how much she made a Huge positive impact on my life...that she was the catalyst for some of the first real changes I started making in my life. And to see how my telling her so helped her out as well.

I am grateful that I had the energy to make the bathroom all sparkly and shiny, go shopping, and that, even though I was tired, I was able to make my now traditional for Thanksgiving day dessert of panna cotta (an Italian gelatin dessert made with gelatin, heavy cream and vanilla...shown on the left with a raspberry-cranberry sauce), mashed potatoes (that's hard work when you're doing it by hand), and stuffing, and misc. stuff.

I am so grateful that I finally realized how I was badly deficient in magnesium and that now that I've been taking it more reguarly my health is much better.

I am grateful that dealing with negative thoughts also has freed up a lot of energy that had been being channeled towards being tense, stressed, anxious, etc. and so now instead I am less tired than I used to be.

And really...I am thankful for....turkey. How can I not be?


P.S. I wanted to show off our funny little tropical decor twist to our Thanksgiving. We had two kinds of cranberry sauce, rasberry-cranberry and also orange-cranberry, but we didn't want to mix the two kinds up. So we quickly pulled out some little paper parasols and used them to differentiate the two kinds of sauces. :)

Today's Self-Discovery

Being able to admit I am wrong means I am teachable. I am open.

Instead of being rigid and inflexible and uptight, I instead become open, peaceful...and I gain greater understanding than I would have when before I strongly defended my position and therefore was closed off to a better way of seeing, knowing, and being.

Watermill at Onden

"If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water...

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend."

~Bruce Lee

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Ukyio-e (pictures of the floating world) by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)

Altered Vision

Cool vintage eyeglasses I found while out thrifting.

"To see a thing uncoloured by one's own personal preferences and desires is to see it in its own pristine simplicity." ~Bruce Lee


How do you view the world? Are your "glasses" rose-colored? Green? Brownish-gray? Perhaps a cheerful yellow, like sunshine? Do they make you see sharper or more fuzzy? Can you really be sure that that the glasses you view the world through make things more clear? Do you wear different glasses on different days? Sometimes seeing the world "this" way...and on another day seeing them like "that" instead.

But more importantly than all that...Maybe someday do you think you could discover that you don't need those glasses at all...and you can take them off and really see the world more clearly? Without artifice to tell you what it really is?

From Falling To Pieces...To Finding Peace

So today I thought I'd take on a new project. I've been wanting to learn how to sew. I know the bare basics. But frankly, I've been far too intimidated in the past to have a desire to really dabble in sewing. But today I decided is the day I am really going to do it. I picked out what is supposed to be an easy sewing project too. Should only take an hour or two. But here it is many, many hours later (it's now one in the morning and I think I started at four p.m.)...I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but it's absolutely, completely obvious that I have *majorly, completely, absolutely* botched the whole thing up. It's a mess and needs to be rescued.

But here's the amazing thing. I'm fine. I'm calm. I am almost totally at peace.

This is unusual.

Before learning effective ways to deal with negative thinking I'd either a) have become a blubbering mess, bawling and crying over my frustration at how confused I am, how messed up my little project is, etc. or b) just frustrated, fed up, and giving up. Or a combination of both. If it were the first thing I'd be worse off than the poor little project I'm working on. I'd have fallen to pieces.

Having worked on negative beliefs such as I shouldn't make mistakes, that making mistakes is bad, I'm an idiot for making mistakes, others will dislike me intensely if I make mistakes (lots of illogical beliefs like this one haunted me in the past), etc. has so I am now instead curious about my current reactions. It's so interesting to see me be calm, when in the past I would have been so extremely upset. My reaction is kind of like, "Hmm, will you look at that. I'm not tearing my hair out, wanting to scream or yell (at myself, the fabric, the sewing machine, or any other person or thing). Well, what do you know."

It's certainly a refreshing feeling. Instead of feeling ragged and raw, I feel instead more like I've been spending a summer afternoon relaxing on a porch, sipping from a tall glass of cool lemonade. (I know, odd analogy since it's fall, but there you have it.)

So cheers! Here's to projects falling to pieces and feeling at peace. :)

Dazzled by Zazzle

Okay, so in an earlier post I was writing about a shirt I made on www.cafepress. Well I decided tonight to start playing around with another online t-shirt site, www.zazzle.com and I have been having sooo much fun there. I still like cafepress, but zazzle is very different.

I took the same image design with the quote "Don't believe everything you think" that I had used at cafepress and put them on a couple things on zazzle (but if you'd like to have that image on other zazzle products I think I have it set up so you can just easily choose what other product you want it on).

But then I created a whole new image..."Once Upon A Slipper" which I've put on a key chain and magnet so far.
And then...I put the "once upon a slipper" image on a pair of shoes! The shoes have to get "approved" first before they can be put up for sale (unlike most of the other stuff). And I think they are so adorable! My first designer shoes! (Yeah, and they're expensive too...so I probably won't be getting a pair myself. I made them mostly for the fun of it.)

Here's a little flash widget thingy showing off the things I've made (I believe it self-updates, so any new things I add will maybe eventually shown on it as well).


create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Okay, I've got to bed...I'm supposed to work in the morning.

Open Source Sewing

I just found the coolest website. I've heard of open source software, and I know the idea of other things being made "open source" but it had never occurred to me to make open source sewing projects. But that's just what this site http://www.burdastyle.com is. Since I've been getting back into sewing (I still haven't done much sewing yet, but the sincere desire to sew is there...something that frankly startles me to find myself interested in sewing), this is a great find.

I've found an eye mask pattern...I've been searching for something like this for a long time! Yay! At a quick glance it apparently it lacks good instructions though. Still, it's a start.

I also found a hand warmers pattern (aka fingerless gloves), which is great since I have poor circulation at at times which leaves my hands freezing even if the rest of me feels just fine. I've done a couple of these in the past that were basically just a tube shape with a hole in the side for the thumb, but this is a better pattern, as it actually has a section for the thumb instead of just a slit in the side.

I also like this simple top and bottoms for nightwear, which the top could easily be used as a tank top/camisole for day wear as well. Even though this is supposed to be an easy project, for me when I start thinking of making anything that's clothing like shirts, dresses, etc, I start telling myself it's really hard and I can't do it. So here's an opportunity to work on some negative thinking again. And back in junior high school for my sewing class I had to make a nightgown, and it turned out just fine...so there's proof that I shouldn't worry so much.

And even though it's of a slightly higher level of difficulty I like this "Azalea" dress. So if I become ambitious enough and brave enough I might try it too.

Vintage Wallpaper & Bingo Card Pockets

I spent some time the other day making these two little "pockets" out of vintage bingo cards on one side and vintage wallpaper on the other sewn together. And lace and other bits and bobs used to create a sort of collage art on both sides of the pocket as well. They have lace handles so you can hang them on a doorknob or anywhere else you can hang things, and then tuck things like love notes or whatever you like inside.

Dream Pocket
The first one is my "dream" pocket hanger. On one side is the bingo card with a "price tag" that says "dream" on it, a rose made of ribbon placed within a slide thing, lace, etc. And on the back side is the vintage wallpaper. Glued to it is a little doily folded in half so it forms a little pocket as well, and it has the word "dream" taken from a dictionary page tucked in it, and a paragraph clipped out of a copy of the Simple Abundance book is pasted onto a cute bit of ribbon with pink roses on it, and the word Dream is written on the wallpaper as well.


Dress: A Reflection of Your Mood Pocket
This next one is my "dress" pocket hanger. On one side is a page from the book Simple Abundance with a quote on it. And just underneath is a scoop shaped pocket made from cute pink, vintage wallpaper. Part of an old children's dictionary with the definition for the word dress has been glued onto the wallpaper. And a little rose made from ribbon is glued on as well. Along the bottom is a fringe of pink pom-poms.

On the back side is a bingo card. With clip outs of words and cute images from an old children's dictionary, a bit of ribbon, and little white flowers.

I had so much fun making these that I'm sure to make some more.