Surprised? With a how-to:

You Are a Realist

You don't see the glass as half empty or half full. You see what's exactly in the glass. You never try to make a bad situation seem better than it is... But you also never sabotage any good things you have going on. You are brutally honest in your assessments of situations - and this always seems to help you cope.

And just so you know, Psychology Today says I'm an optimist. So there. I score 68/100 on hopefulness, 76 on coping skills and a mere 22 on cynicism (and I'm sure these test results are just as valid as a session with an actual psychologist).

You're shocked, I know, because I'm always going on and on and on about how the world is going to hell in handbasket if we don't get off our collective over-privileged western asses and do something. This remains true. But if I weren't an optimist, I couldn't be in the job I have, trying every day to change things--you have to believe change is possible or you just can't do it. I do. I really think we can pull this off. Otherwise, I would quit my job, go home, and eat chocolate until the apocalypse comes. But that's different from believing that we don't actually have some serious problems on our hands.

Still, part of that loopy logic-defeating optimism (sure, we need to reduce our consumption of planetary resources 75% over ten years--who's with me!) is thinking that 62/100 overall isn't bad, but if I worked at it a little bit, I could probably do better. So when I read in an article a short while ago that one way to increase one's optimistic outlook is by writing down three good things that happen every day in a journal, I thought, I can do that. Three things, can't take more than five minutes, and maybe it'll save me a heart attack one day.

I also like the idea of writing down three good things that happen every day without a specific emotional agenda except to become slightly more optimistic over time, unlike the daily gratitude journals which, honestly, kind of creep me out. Who wants to force themselves to feel grateful every day? I mean, come on, aren't you ever entitled just to have a really crappy day and not feel thankful for it? Whereas I think that even on a really crappy day I could probably find three small good things that happened, and write them down, even if I can't manage to feel good about them at the time. (1. I didn't die. 2. The world did not end today. 3. I have not been convicted of a felony. (Here's hoping I never have to use that list.))

There was only one problem with this scheme.

I never remembered to write them down. My journal was always in some other room, and by the time I was ready for bed I didn't want to go downstairs to get it just to write down three good things. Normally I like to keep everything in the one journal. Daily events, brainstorming, the occasional to-do list, daydreaming, rants, what have you, it all ends up in the same orange journal because otherwise I feel schizophrenic, as if I'm dividing myself into Selves. I don't like it. Still, I thought, for the sake of this one project, I could probably have one split-off journal. Something small that can easily fit on my nightstand so I see it every day. I looked around, I had nothing handy. I thought about buying a little notebook, but found it wasn't something I really wanted to spend money on.

Instead, I looked through my book-making books and made one (the link goes to the book I used for this project). A little single-pamphlet that took about twenty minutes. Eight sheets of blank sketch paper cut 9.25" x 4.5", a piece of cardstock cut 10" x 5". Fold them all sharply in half, nest them, and use a ruler to mark where two holes should go, about 1" from the edges. Use a good strong needle to make the holes. Three plies of embroidery floss run through the holes once and tied into a double knot on the outside makes it a book (you can also use sewing thread or even dental floss--whatever you have handy. The plus of using embroidery floss is that you can make four books this way, and then use a friendship-bracelet pattern with the embroidery floss to join them together, as illustrated in this book-making book. I figured this way if I ever got to the point of filling four books with good things--they're not big, it's conceivable--I could join them all up together and it wouldn't be hard or take long but it would look nice.)

Frances liked mine so much she asked me to make her one too, but with an orange cover and a frog stamp but it still had to have the pink swirlie and she had a very particular title in mind. She's doing something a little different with the contents, though (each page, so far, is being coloured one solid colour). It turned out to be such an easy project that I think we are going to do it again, when the first volume is filled. Frances is very excited about having a book that is all for her that her mom made. It also makes me sound very crafty and wholesome and good-Momish, even if it did take only twenty minutes and use scrapbooking remnants. And because you're making it yourself, it can be any size or colour you like, with anything you want on the cover. For the inner pages, you could use watercolour sheets, papers that are patterned on one side and blank on the other, lined paper, drawing paper, envelopes, whatever suits the use you're going to put it to.

It was so much fun that I've been making other simple and not-so-simple books since then, one of which I think will turn into a vision-board-in-book-form as a way to keep the goofy collage off the walls. (I like my walls. I want to have attractive things on the walls.) I might post a few of them when they're done. It's one of those things that sounds intimidating but, once you give it a shot, turns out to be very simple. And now I have the perfect mini-journal for a particular mini-project.

Posted by Andrea at 3:26 PM | Comments (6)

Andrea + Books = True Love Forever, Also No Money (Or: the UnShopping Midway Update)

January I did ok. In January, this is what I bought:

A birthday present for one of Frances's friends.
Art supplies for an actual project that I am working on and having great fun with, sort of an art journal/book of shadows in a box.
Three magazines. That's where I slipped up. They were not essential and did not meet my criteria.

Still, for a month of no shopping, that's not bad.

First weekend of February, do you know what happened?

I bought four books. Yes, four.

One is Bub and Pie's fault. I saw a comment she left on another blog about The Highly Sensitive Person and decided to read it. There were no copies available in the library system (I checked) so Chapters it was.

Two is The Green Family's fault. I am trying to cook more meatless meals, and my current cookbooks aren't cutting it. Sure, they have pasta and dairy dishes, but almost all of them have meat. So I bought a vegetarian cookbook. This, I told myself, was a reasonable compromise that will allow me to make environmental contributions for years to come. I tried the potato-and-cheese frittata on Saturday and not only did I love it, but Frances liked it too. And it had onions in it! (Frances is not keen on the vegetables.)

Three is Fun on Friday's fault. I decided it would be Fun to teach myself how to cook indian food on Fridays. This is when I cook for myself, see, and make things I know Frances won't touch. So I bought an indian cookbook, and actually went straight to the grocery store afterwards to get fixings. Ground beef curry, green beans, potatoes and basmati rice later, and I was very happy.

Huh. It just occurs to me now that I'm going to blame the blog in one fashion or another for three of my book purchases.

Four is not only squarely my fault, but led to more shopping. It's a workout book. I have the elliptical, that's good; I have a few cardio dvds, that's good. I have weights and a few workouts torn out of magazines; I've had them for years and they are getting very boring, not to mention too easy. That's not so good. This one looked like it had enough variety to keep me going for a good long time and it wasn't wimpy. No offence, but I like it when it's hard to go upstairs the next day. That's my aim. And couldn't I have waited until March? Yes ... but no. I got it that same Friday.

This then led to the realization that the 15-lb weights I had been using and which were already too easy and had been for a while were going to be really too easy because these workouts use fewer reps and sets, and if you're not a weights person that won't mean anything, but I knew there wasn't going to be any point doing these with 15 lbs, and I tried it on Sunday and I was right. So I went to a used sports equipment store and got new weights--dumbbells that will get me up to 35 lbs and if that doesn't keep me for a while, I'm screwed.

But they were used! Does that count?

Lesson learned: I can do one month.

Second month is a bit tougher.

But I'll keep trying. And in the meantime I can make yummy indian and vegetarian meals while contemplating my innate sensitivity and then burn it all off by hurtling around a few chunks of heavy iron.

Posted by Andrea at 9:17 AM | Comments (12)

Puffed Sleeves

"So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and grinning about to himself for two weeks, is it?" she said a little stiffly but tolerantly. "I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I must say I don't think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three good, warm, serviceable ones this fall, and anything more is sheer extravagance. There's enough material in those sleeves alone to make a waist, I declare there is. You'll just pamper Anne's vanity, Matthew, and she's as vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she'll be satisfied at last, for I know she's been hankering after those silly sleeves ever since they came in, although she never said a word after the first. The puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they're as big as balloons now. Next year anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways."

Poor Marilla.

~~~~~

One night on my vacation I was determined to be frivolous. I went to the bookstore with the sole intent of purchasing something colourful, glossy and entertaining. I had been feeling lately as if everything I do nowadays is another kind of work. Paid work, housework, childrearing, cooking, exercising, writing--even the reading I do is generally in the service of some other goal. I needed something fluffy, I thought; something resolutely anti-intellectual. Something featuring a handful of anorexic-looking women, extravagantly priced unnecessary merchandise, an overabundance of advertising, and nothing even remotely taxing to read. Something that is generally sold in a bookstore yet which I classify, mentally, as a catalogue. Yet which would not insult my intelligence too deeply, by pretending that a breathless in-depth article about lipstick was anything but advertising, or that somehow, after several million years of human evolution, someone had discovered something truly new about sex. Is it so much to ask? I wondered.

Apparently it was. I left without a magazine. I could not find even one which met my criteria.

Instead, I went home and read Mary Dalton's latest book of poetry, Red Ledger, which was lovely and taught me about Newfoundland culture, and how to use language economically to great effect. (I still struggle with economy, you will have noticed.) I enjoyed it, yet could not help but notice that I had utterly failed in my goal of doing Not-Work. This is ridiculous, I thought; even if I am a single-mom-with-a-full-time-job-trying-to-get-a-writing-career-started, I should be able to find a few hours a week to engage in something harmless and unnecessary, and a harmless and unnecessary activity to fill them with.

Thus was born Fun on Fridays. I would spend Friday evenings doing nothing productive, and this would force me to find something harmless and unnecessary (and hopefully fun) to do instead. How hard could it be?

It's Friday (as I write this) the 4th. My very first. I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do tonight. Maybe something crafty. I'm saving my Frances scrapbooking for when I next get a chance to scrap with a friend, so it would have to be something else. Maybe I could carve a stamp. It's been a long time since I did any stamp-carving. Maybe I could do some scrapbooking about me, though I'm finding it hard to get over the mental hurdle there (like I don't write enough about myself already? I need more--as Dani put it--life-streaming?). I've been toying with the idea of making an art journal for years, and that could be a fun project. Not about me, necessarily, just a place to futz around and do something colourful and vaguely artsy. I suppose I could crochet or knit but there is always the temptation to make it something Useful, which I am trying not to do; but I do have a lace bookmark half-done I suppose I could piece together. And I wanted to do a stitchery that says "Ruined by Reading" to put on the bookshelf, I think that could be fun. Maybe on linen, in bright colours, that will fit in a 4x6 frame. I have a bright pink tea towel and coaster to finish off. I suppose painting the night-stand is out of the question. I could read, but all of the books I want to read right now are Productive--they are either research for the novel or writing books or books by authors I admire and whose style I want to learn from.

What is wrong with me? How is it that all of the things I can think of to do tonight are so distinctly non-Loaf-y?

Worse, I am struggling to resist the temptation to go home and work on my novel. What I want to do, right now, is write a few pages about Kyrie, about what she looks like and how she walks and the way her voice is soft and slants upwards at the ends of her sentences, so that you would never guess she has a mind like a toothed vice; and Gudrun, whose name might change soon, and how people assume that because she's visibly strong she must be stupid, and she lets them, and I want to know why, what purpose does it serve her for people to think she is a muscled tough without a mind? And Gir, huge, who looks like he was carved from a slab of granite, and who frightens people because of it, and he knows it, so he spends most of his time backing off, backing down, trying to put people at ease.

I know I need time off. Regular time off, because when I don't get it, I am unhappy and tired and unable to think clearly. What is wrong with me? Why is it that spending a night goofing off I approach with all the excitement of eating my leafy greens and taking my vitamins, but spending a night making a book from scratch (ooooh! I could spend a night making a book from scratch!) or stitching a picture for the wall or delving into the mysteries of Aristotlean philosophies or modern Matriarchal societies--that makes my heart beat faster?

"I don't see how I'm going to eat breakfast," said Anne rapturously. "Breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment. I'd rather feast my eyes on that dress. I'm so glad that puffed sleeves are still fashionable. It did seem to me that I'd never get over it if they went out before I had a dress with them. I'd never have felt quite satisfied, you see. It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give me the ribbon too. I feel that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It's at times like this I'm sorry I'm not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future. But somehow it's hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra effort after this."

What is wrong with me? Even my puffed sleeves are warm and serviceable.

~~~~~

Postscript:

This is how the first Fun on Fridays turned out:

The coaster. Stem stitching around the edges, and the flower is daisy stitches, satin stitches and seed stitches. I think it turned out pretty well.

Next time I might use one of my many stamps to print a picture on a piece of cloth, and then stitch over it. Cheating, sure, but who cares?

The tea towel. Running stitches along the top and bottom but the cupcake is a laid stitch, and took forever (I started this back in August). Initially I was going to stitch "Sweet Tooth" on the right but I figured if I waited to get around to that, I'd never finish it. Next one, maybe.

A rubber stamp of a water goblet for use in witchy crafts. The stamp is on the bottom--obviously; above it to the left is the sketch, and to the right is the stamped image. I think it worked out pretty well, too.

Posted by Andrea at 8:52 AM | Comments (12)

Because I'm not dead

Though after so many days' silence, it might seem like it.

This is furniture refinishing project #1--my night table. It used to be a dark-green faux-marble. No more. Mind you, it took five turns with the stripping chemicals to get the eight layers of existing paint off, and then there was priming and painting and taping and painting and wiping and painting. At first I thought I might have gone a little bit too bright, but now that I'm getting used to it I think it's just right.

Posted by Andrea at 6:12 AM | Comments (7)

In Canada, 'tis the Season

Because our Thanksgiving is in October, once Hallowe'en is out of the way, it's Christmas.

And I do mean Christmas--trees, santas, ornaments, lights, elves and reindeer in all the stores. Of course, "Holidays" is the official term, but the symbols are entirely Christmas. Except in my neighbourhood, which is predominantly Jewish.

And in my house, which is entirely Yule. You'd have a hard time making the distinction between our Yule and Christmas, though.

So I've been busy already, making an embroidered Santa pillow for my Mom, and cards for everyone. I'm up to 33 now, and not sure if I need to make any more.

The strange thing is that some of them turn out so well, and others so poorly, even using basically the same design. Effort doesn't seem to have much to do with it either, because some of my favourites took only a few minutes, and some of the ones I spent the most time on I don't really like.

On Friday a friend and I went to a local scrapbooking store for a wild evening of card-making. I admired hers, she admired mine, and we both spent about five times as much money on card-making goodies as we would have spent on the equivalent number of Hallmark cards. But the money's not the point.

It's just satisfying to make them myself, and a pleasurable way to pass an evening or two.

The hard part is giving them away.

Posted by Andrea at 7:10 AM | Comments (16)

The Budget Board

I've set myself some ambitious spending goals for the next year--or, rather, non-spending goals. In order to reach my eternal target of donating 5% of my after-tax income to different causes, I need to cut down my personal spending to $50/week, so that I can give $30/week away. Five per cent (or fiving) doesn't sound that hard, until you see it laid out like that: I will be working towards giving away almost half of my weekly disposable income.

It's not something I expect will just happen, and it's important to me that I do this--or at least make some progress towards it--so this requires planning. I made some good progress last year, increasing my monthly donations from about $45/month to about $85/month by signing up for regular giving programs through payroll deduction, automatic credit card payments, and automatic debit withdrawals.* (I've found it's much easier to donate money when I never have it. If I have a chance to spend it first, I generally do.)

I even spent an afternoon of my vacation holed up in the basement with Excel, deciding how I should allocate my remaining disposable income, and setting up regular transfers to a new savings account to help me keep track of it all. The whole thing is giving me a stomach ache which, to my way of thinking, means I'm on the right track: there should be some sacrifice involved. In the end, I know it will be better, more ethical and more satisfying to contribute to a cause that's important to me than to buy another magazine I will read once and recycle.

But this will only take me so far. I know myself: When I turn on the computer, it's to play. If the success or failure of this venture hinges on my ability to regularly scan my excel spreadsheet and determine what my contributions are, it will fail. It has to be in my face. It has to be off the computer. It has to be easy.

Enter: The Budget Board, a (literal) board set up to allow me to categorize and keep track of my disposable and charitable spending. I know the regular thing is to go out and buy one, but that seems counter-productive when the entire point is to allow me to spend less--and considering what my spending goal is, really, the more I spend on setting this up the harder it will be. So (to paraphrase the Grinch) if I can't buy a budget board, I'll make one instead.

Materials used:

• One old cookie sheet (you could also use a piece of foam core, corkboard, or cardboard)
• One largeish fabric remnant (an old piece of clothing would do just as well) One spool of ribbon (could have used shoelaces, string, floss, rubber bands or twine)
• Stamps and paint (stencils would also have worked)
• Letter stickers (not needed, but I have them and wanted to use them up)
• Sewing machine & thread (Not strictly necessary, but very helpful. If you don't have a sewing machine, you can also use iron interfacing adhesive, available in any sewing store.)
• Four envelopes
• Cardstock (any sort of decorative paper would work--or you could skip it altogether)
• Magnet tape (only relevant if you're using the cookie sheet)
• Buttons

This project was partially inspired by ReadyMade (the book) and partially by an old article I remember reading about how you could use cookie sheets and magnets to display children's artwork.

The first step was to make envelopes for each of my usual spending categories. For me, this equals four: books & other print materials; craft supplies; website and magazine subscriptions; and fiving. I trimmed the flap off of each envelope and to the front (the side with the "v" cut out) I adhered a piece of cardstock trimmed to fit. Then each was labelled with the letter stickers.

I cut a piece of fabric large enough to cover the flat side of the cookie tin and wrap around a good ways behind it, and hemmed it. Then six pieces of ribbon were cut: three equal to the length of the fabric piece, and three equal to the width. These were placed at equal intervals in a kind of grid, and the ends were sewn in place. A measuring tape or ruler is helpful here.

A smaller fabric remnant was cut out from a different colour, and I stamped BUDGET on it, ironed on some interfacing (to cut down the translucency, as it was thin fabric--this isn't necessary), hemmed it, and sewed it on to the top of the fabric piece.

Buttons were sewn along where the bottom edge would be. These are hooks, sort of; I can loop things on to them.

Then the fabric piece was sewn onto the cookie sheet: The corners were folded tightly and sewn in place to hold the whole thing together, and then the sides were laced up like a corset to hold the ribbons tight. Around this time I decided to stamp some images on to the envelopes to match the title.

Result: A faux-french ribbon board. The envelopes tuck into the ribbons, and I can put receipts, bills, or whatever else I want to in them. I can hang things off the buttons. And, after sticking a few buttons on to the magnet tape, I also have magnets I can use to stick things on the board if they don't belong in one of the envelopes.

Altogether it took three or four hours, and cost nothing. Everything in it was reused, so it was environmentally responsible. The end result is not a work of art, but it is prettier than a corkboard and more than functional enough for the purpose.

Next step: Hanging it, and using it.

*If you're curious about how I did with my goals from my last post on fiving, I'm doing what I said I would do plus a bit more--a monthly donation to AboutFace International and the Yellow Brick House as well as the others. But obviously, still not at my goal total.

Posted by Andrea at 1:59 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack