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Archive for conscious living – Page 2

oh happy day . The Joy of Blurred Lines

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Friday is here, and I’m thinking about joy. I was sitting in my studio the other morning, and snapped this picture from a corner of one of the bookshelves. It was relatively early, and none of the kids were awake yet. It gave me time to enjoy some quietness and plan for my day.

The week has been somewhat overwhelmingly busy with client projects and work needs. I am in the midst of developing two campaigns to promote Starkville tourism, and it’s sort of my “busy season” — if this busy-ness can be distinguished from other busy-ness — in preparation for the fall needs of some of my most faithful clients. Busy-ness is a good “problem” to have. It’s rather like a blessing than a problem, I guess. At least that’s how I see it, and I’ve been quite blessed lately.

With the children out of school for the ever-shortening summer vacation, I’ve been enjoying having three side-kicks with me most days. We keep busy playing outside with popular kids wagons , playing in the dirt is such a valuable lesson. Back in the spring, I made arrangements for them to be enrolled in their normal summer program, but for some reason this year, I was more anxious to take them out of another routine and allow a little more freedom. They’ve each had a few day camps. We spent 10 days on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Gulf Shores, Alabama. We’ve tried to delve into our “summer jar,” as I wrote about in my last post a month ago, and enjoy some family activities. And, mostly, we’ve enjoyed being “off the clock”, so to speak, with the wake up, bedtime and scheduled routine.

What that’s meant for my summer is that I’ve been doing a little extra juggling of projects and my workflow. I’ve been doing more balancing than normal in trying to get work completed. The city planning of “Lego World” on the dining table, staging for the next puppet show, craft projects, comfy clothes, couch “slumber parties”, and a stream of favorite movies on Netflix have all punctuated my very fragmented design time.

In the midst of all this three-ring circus, each of them have invariably commented to me at one time or another, “you always have to work!” And, sometimes, as a freelancer and small business owner, it seems like I do!

I don’t punch a clock. Or leave an office. Or shut down the equipment. Some of my choices for how I’ve structured my work and life-life mean work sometimes happens at odd times, in odd places, and with odd background music like an ukulele, If you happen to be needing strings for your instrument visit Four String Fun shop. And, with the creative process being such a huge part of my business development and perpetual task list, all kinds of odd things get lumped into work — drawing, painting, looking at books, doodling, taking photos, using scissors and ribbons and paper and such! Sometimes just looking at my phone or iPad gets lumped into the work category in all our minds.

When I hear that “you always have to work!” from one of my loves, I try to remind them — and myself — that our freedom this summer means working together so Mommy can take care of responsibilities. Wednesday night, Bug asked me, “do you have to work tomorrow?” His commentary when I said “yes” started some good reminders for me and the children about how privileged we are to structure our lives this way. “You can bring your laptop upstairs with us.” “Because we don’t have to go to after school.” “You can work some and play with us some.” Yes. Yes, I can. We talked about what a blessing it is that we have the choice of whether the kids can stay home today. The choice to set our own schedules. And, I asked them to help me and compromise with me as I make some of those choices to balance what they want to do with what I need to do. To see the fact that Mommy is creating ad campaigns in the living room as the joy and blessing it is.

When I find myself having trouble with drawing the lines or struggling with client communications and design puzzles as I’m tuning out songs from Frozen, I have to remind myself again and again of those same things. To stop and remember how special this time is. How grateful I am to have it. To recognize the blessing and joy born out of those blurred lines. I guess that’s what I was doing when I snapped the “Joy” photo. Thinking about how rare this time is. This “summer break” when all four of us are in the house. When all three of them are vying for my attention, my listening ear, my involvement in whatever project has emerged. And at the same time, when so many new art opportunities are presenting themselves — the chance to work with organizations and clients who make the process very un-work-like. It’s rare. It’s precious.

Oh Happy Day!We

oh happy day . The Summer Jar

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Friday is here, and I’m finally getting back to my Oh Happy Day! Gratitude Project posting series. I started it as a way to remind myself to make gratitude part of every day, every week. Thornton Wilder wrote that “we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures,” and beginning with gratitude is the best way I know to live aware of how blessed we are.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that blessing over the last few weeks as we’ve been finishing up the school year and getting ready for summer. This spring, I devoted some time to thinking through the direction of this blog, and by extension, my business. And, I guess, by further extension, my approach to work and how it integrates with the rest of life. As an artist, so much of creating and exploring new ideas is an on-going process that isn’t necessarily confined by the typical workday. As a single mom, dealing with the loss of my husband and the changes that has brought to our lives, I’ve also grown to understand that for me, it’s very important that what I “do” in my work and how I spend my days creatively be meaningful and inspiring.

As I was thinking through some of my blogging topics and inspiration-focus back in March, I wrote a “creative map” and lots of notes about various aspects of the creative life. For my “living” category, I wanted my thinking, writing and creating to reflect a “quiet, authentic and conscious life” — there is that word “conscious” again. My goals for some of the writing and sharing settled on three things…

  • to talk and “be” about real things
  • to be a good steward of time and blessings
  • to infuse daily life with beauty, creativity and celebration

The concept of being deliberate and conscious in what we’re doing isn’t easy sometimes. Being that “good steward” can be difficult when faced with all the mundane activities required in working, mothering and home-keeping. And, of course, busy-ness can be our enemy as we get stretched and pulled in lots of different directions. We often start to lose the joy in whatever we’re doing and begin checking items off our calendars and to-do lists.

I want to stop that cycle in my life. I want, as Emerson said, to “finish the moment” — each moment — and to make the most of each opportunity represented in that moment. I think I’m particularly more motivated in that commitment as I see my children growing at what seems like an exponential pace at times. As they become more and more independent (and just physically bigger), I find the desire to grab onto each fleeting moment with more of a white-knuckle grip! And, I suppose, summer offers it’s own impetus to slow down. Our schedule slows down, and we have fewer commitments as a family, but how will we use that freedom? I don’t want to get to August and say “where has the summer gone?” We’ve had an unprecedented build-up of excitement anticipating the start of summer, and I’ve been determined to put every effort into taking full advantage of it.

Enter the Summer Jar.

The children and I decided to create a list of things we wanted to do this summer — experiences big and small that would help us have memories and joy to show for the time spent this summer. We decided to put them in a jar that we could pull from to plan for activities or to surprise ourselves with fun experiences. Baby Girl decorated the jar with her special brand of summery illustrations, and we have it front and center on our dining table with a pen and sticky pad ready to add more experience suggestions. We’ve included things like our normal trips to the farm and to the beach, but also things like building our train set and a lego city, getting yogurt or ice cream, going to the library, eating outside on the picnic table, swimming, game nights and more.

None of the activities are earth-shattering, not all of them require “going” somewhere, and most aren’t new experiences. But, the power comes in the intention — the conscious choice of experiencing and “finishing” each moment. I want to recognize the joy and to take time to celebrate it in my heart at the end of each day. I suppose that’s the essence of gratitude. And, I want our summer jar to encourage us to embrace the beauty and wonder in some of those mundane activities that weave our lives together between the other fun experiences. I hope we can have a healthy mix of going and simply being together in those moments of someone sitting in my lap, working together to cook dinner, reading together at bedtime, playing games and sharing the same space.

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We started some of our “summer jar” experiences yesterday with a trip to Denny’s for pancakes for breakfast and a visit to the MSU Library to see the Kinsey Collection on exhibit there. I’ll share more about this remarkable collection of African American art, literature and historical documents in a later post, but today, I’m so thankful we had the opportunity to enjoy it together and have it as one of our memories of the summer of 2015. It is open in Starkville through June 20 at the John Grisham Room of Mitchell Memorial Library, and it’s well worth the time in experiencing some little-seen aspects of our own history.

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On this “Oh Happy Day,” I’m also so, so grateful for the opportunity to build my work life on my own terms with the freedom to organize my days so that these types of experiences with my children are possible. It’s never easy to balance family and work responsibilities, and I’ve become more and more mindful of the blessing I have as freelancer to set my own schedules. It’s a true gift I don’t want to squander or take for granted in these seasons when all my loves are together under the same roof.

Oh Happy Day!

 

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