Sowing Seeds

This past October I wrote about feeling bored with my blog and needing to refocus.  I tried to return to my original intention of  The Ideal Me, but I just feel like the sentiment is just not where I am anymore.

So, I’m making a fresh start.  Each new year I like to think about how I’m living my life and what I want to do next. What improvements do I want to make?  What excess in my life is draining my energy?  What’s important to me and deserves my focus and attention?

When it comes to my blog, I feel like I need more freedom.  More space for creativity.  So, I’m giving myself that option.  And I’m crazy excited about it.

I love the idea of sowing seeds. Cultivating changes.  Nurturing them.  Watching them grow.

I’ll post about what’s going on in my life–crafting, cooking, style, planning this year’s garden–as well as some photos and reflections.  I may even change the name to sowing seeds. I’m not really sure how this is going to shake out, but I’m looking forward to seeing how things develop over the next year.

I hope you’ll hang with me during this change.  I’d love to hear about what’s going on with you and what you think along the way.

I hope you’ve had fantastic first week of 2012. This could be an amazing year for all of us.

Pumpkin Obsession

I’m a little crazy over pumpkins.  I have to work really hard to resist buying anything and everything pumpkin related. Stoneware, embroidery patterns, pumpkin flavored pasta, that evil pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks.

You guys, I buy one of those lattes every year and I think they are gross.  To me they taste like bologna and Play-Doh.  And I still buy one every year.  I have a problem.

So, I was very proud of myself when I came home from the Farm to Family market with only four pumpkins.  It took me 15 minutes to decide which ones to take home.  I wanted them all!

In the end I chose three pumpkins that could be used for cooking, and only one that was purely decorative and more traditional.  That one was for T.  I pick the crazy knobby, warty, veined, weirdo ones over the traditional orange every time.

In the coming months I look forward to enjoying my pumpkins in a couple of ways.

1. Just staring at them.  It makes me happy to enjoy them sitting around my house looking pretty.
2. Cooking them. I’m excited to try some new recipes and see what kind of results I get.  You’ll get to see if I totally wreck them, or actually make something tasty!

So, yeah.  My name is Julie, and I’m obsessed with pumpkins.  At least it is a seasonal love affair.

Work in progress

I’ve learned a lot this first year tending a garden.  It takes daily work, interest, and love.  When you lose sight of what you’re doing, your plants won’t produce.

I’ve found these same lessons apply to my blog.  When I lose sight of why I’m writing things get stale.  I copy the same post over and over.  I don’t even want to read my blog, much less write for it.

So, I’m going back to my original intention: to write about my journey in bettering myself.  To realize my ideal self. This return feels like a breath of fresh air after months of stale recycled office funk.

My blog and my life are works in progress. Every moment of your life is a choice.  You practice living the life you want most. I hope you’ll join me in my daily practice by making meaningful choices for yourself, and maybe even sharing them with me.

Things Are Changing!

Over the past two years,my life has changed pretty drastically…and my need for the “Ideal Me” project waned.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and will be making a few changes.

The Ideal Me will be more about exploring your ideal self. About finding what is truly, uniquely you…in all aspects of your life.

I hope you enjoy this change, and I’m excited about taking this journey with all of you.

So, how do you see your ideal self?

Returning to center

Lately, I’ve been quite off center.  After a busy month and a half full of reiki, event planning, and dancing (and a distinct lack of posting) I became rather off balance.

Now I’m returning to center.  I’m making a conscious effort to tend to the ideal me (and my blog). Check out the Spring ’09 List of Awesome, see what topics have been the focus of my library love, and leave any random question you may have for me in the comments.  I’d love to hear from each of you!

Less plastic is a good thing

Do you want to know who uses the most plastic bags in our home?
Check it out.

Our kitties Tybalt (reclined) and Chaz use more plastic bags than my husband and I combined.  Okay, I understand that we actually use them to clean up after these handsome gents.  We’re just not of the mindset to try and potty train two cats.  So, one plastic bag a day was used when cleaning their three boxes (that’s a whole other story).

Then one day it hit me.  We use a natural corn-based litter that is flushable.  Yet we put this biodegradable matter in a plastic bag just so we don’t have to smell it for a little bit.  Totally ridiculous.  So now when I clean their boxes I either use paper bags (thanks for the idea, Nix!) or simply take the time to walk to the restroom, flush away the stink (hey, it’s good enough for us, right?), and then quickly swish the bowl clean.  Simple!

Now if I could just find a great alternative for our kitchen and bathroom trash cans.  Someone must make biodegradable plastic trash bags, right?

One Week ’til Winter

My thanks to all of you who shared you interests in this post. The feedback was very inspiring! I have been working on big, life-changing projects and sorting out my values and interests over the past few weeks. It has been fantastic having a touch point to come back to when I’m feeling freaked out or like I’m full of stale ideas.  So, again, thank you!

My Autumn LoA has been on my mind. With a special event to run for work, dealing with the sinus funk for almost a month and the hospitalization of one of our kitties, it’s no wonder time has moved very quickly for me this season.  With a week left to focus, I’ll report on what I’ve done and debut the ’08 Winter List of Awesome. I’ll also do a little holiday decorating, attempt to make something festive with some of the greenery in our yard, and take one last stomp in the leaves before I mulch them for the season.

I hope you all enjoy your last week of Autumn!

Julie and Sagan

Julie and Sagan, originally uploaded by yelahneb.

I’m not the kind of girl who goes crazy over babies. Mr. Sagan here really tested that part of my personality when I met him back in October. I did not want to put that little dude down!

Interests

I’m usually really interested in one or two things for about a month, and then I switch gears.  There was that month that I was all about knitting.  I bought a ton of knitting gear, dropped $80 on yarn, and grabbed a pattern ready to become a knitting fiend!  Well, I have successfully knitted two scarves since that month about two years ago.  ::shrug::  Once I thought about making beaded jewelery.  I never even made it to the craft store.

This new focus on living as the ideal me has helped me define what I believe is important and valuable.  If an interest matches up with those values, I just don’t get tired of learning about it.  I know it seems like common sense, but I was all over the map there for a while.  This new focus is quite liberating.  I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time and I rarely feel bored.

Here are some things I’m really into right now.

• Low-cost, useful and sustainable holiday gifts.  This relates to gifts I’m giving and gifts I would like to receive.
• Marketing small businesses.  Especially businesses in the “wellness” category.  Especially with regards to using online methods.
• Canning.  I grew up in the south, but I never learned how to can.  This must be remedied.
• Community building.
• Sustainability and green living.
• Dancing and choreography.

So, what are your interests?

Whoops.

I’ve been a total blog slacker for the past two weeks.  I’ve been really into my dance classes and enjoying reading all of those awesome library books.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about setting a blogging schedule and what I’m going to post about.  ::sigh::  There I go with all of that just thinkin’ again.

So, consider this my return post.  The writing may be sporadic for a little while, but I will be posting a new List of Awesome any day now.

I promise.  So stay tuned.  Please.