Weekly-ish notes on navigating big change

Searching for "say no"

Feel Good: Homemade Pumpkin Spice Soy Chai

As part of my Feel Good Experiment, I'm paying attention to what feels good, and that includes all those tiny wants. You know, when you're in the middle of something, but you think, I would really love a hot cup of tea. Well, now that I'm paying attention, I realize that I crave warm beverages a lot. All day. I want coffee in the morning, tea all day, and hot chocolate at night. But then I tell myself, Ok, just wait until you finish this email. Or, Get one later. And 8 hours later I still don't have my tea and it's time for bed and I say, Oh well, I'll get one tomorrow. 

Homemade soy pumpkin chai & pumpkin oatmeal. Yum.

 

Putting off a cup of tea might not be a big deal…once. But my daily deprivation, my unfun do-this-before-you-get-what-you-want game is a sign of something bigger. It's a failure to really listen in to what my body wants, and it's a symbol of all the other things I don't listen to (stretching a cramped leg, getting that Dr's appointment, a feeling that this project isn't quite-right).

So a cup of tea is the perfect place to start listening in to what feels good. It's small, it's risk-free, it's delicious and warming. And taking the time to make a perfect cup (and then enjoy sipping it) is a lovely reminder that I'm allowed to feel good, that I'm allowed to bring more good things into my life.

 

Yesterday I posted the above picture to Instagram and got a few requests for my recipe, so here it is, my guide to make the perfect cup:

 

Sharing pumpkin soy chai on the site today!

There are two steps to making this tea: make the pumpkin spice + brew the tea. The first step can be done way in advance – I make pumpkin spice in bulk every week and then add it to everything: smoothies, oatmeal, coffee, apple pie.

I started with this recipe, but tweaked it to fit my put-it-in-anything plans.

Pumpkin Spice for Anything:

1 cup of pumpkin puree
2 tsp cinammon
1 tsp ginger (I love it freshly-grated, but dried will work too)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (you might want more, but I don't really like it)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 cup soy milk *

Mix it all up with a fork. It'll still be a bit thick, but that's ok, because you're going to add liquid any time you blend it in to anything. Seal it up and keep it in the fridge for a week.

 

*Important note about non-dairy milk substitutions:

I prefer almond milk (and hemp milk) for just about everything: baked goods, on my cereal, smoothies…but NOT for this. Other milks get weird when you heat them up…almond milk gets bitter, hemp milk starts to curdle and rice milk heats fine, but it's just way too thin for a creamy drink. If you're going to mix this in hot tea or coffee or oatmeal, use soy milk.

(Could you use milk? Sure…but why would you? The soy milk has a sweet nuttiness that really plays well with chai)

 

Making the tea

2 Tbl Rishi Tea: Masala Chai (loose tea)*
1 cup soy milk
1 cup water

Bubbling soy chai;

Put the tea and liquids in a little pot and bring it to boiling. The directions tell you to boil it for 5 minutes, however! If you keep it all the way up at High for 5 minutes, it gets a little bitter. So I turn it down to medium (still boiling, but less angrily) right after if it comes up to boiling. Set your timer and enjoy the chai-y fumes.

While the chai is bubbling, scoop a big spoonful of your spiced pumpkin into the bottom of your cup. If your drinking cup has a narrow mouth, use a wide mouth bowl or measuring cup for the next step. I want the hot liquid to hit the pumpkin to dissolve it, so scoop the pumpkin into whatever you're going to strain your tea into it. While you're at it, get out your strainer.

 

Straining the chai

 

When the timer dings, pull the tea off the stove and strain it. The pumpkin should dissolve nicely, but give it a quick stir just to be sure. If you've strained it into something else, pour into your mug.

Untitled

There you go! Delicious pumpkinness!

I love it in my oatmeal...

And if you've got a little tea left over, pour it into your oatmeal.
(Go on and add an extra scoop of the spiced pumpkin to your oatmeal while you're at it.)

 

A few other ideas:

  • The spiced pumpkin recipes all call for sweetener. If your tea isn't sweet enough for you, splash in some maple syrup. The soy milk I used had some sugar in it, so I didn't need any, but when I add the pumpkin spice to coffee, I usually do.
  • If you don't have loose leaf tea, use a tea bag (I like these) steeped in 1/2 soy, 1/2 water, then mix in the pumpkin.
  • If you've got the chai liquid stuff, mix it with soy as directed on the box, heat it up, then scoop in the pumpkin. (I like the Oregon Chai brand.)
  • When you're all warmed up (or sipping this butternut soup), make a pumpkin smoothie! 1 frozen banana, 2 scoops of spiced pumpkin, about a cup of almond milk, 1 Tbl of flax seeds: blend it all up.

What's your favorite feel-good drink of the fall?

 

How to experiment and feel good

 

This month, things are going to be different.
How often do you say that? This year, this month, this week, this next hour.
But how? How do you make an hour or week or month different?
Do you buckle down and try harder and push more?
Does that make you more productive? Or more tired?

I'm trying something totally different.

For this month's experiment, my premise is simple: do more of what feels good, and less of what doesn't.

Basic math, right? Add in more good stuff, and my life will have more good. If I listen to what I actually like (and not just what I think I should do), I'll be happier and more sure I'm making the right decisions.
But…what's good, what's bad?

What do I mean by feeling good?
Things that feel good…
-bring me joy
-connect me to others
-feed my enthusiasm
-build momentum
-are comforting
-nourish me

My theory is simple: If I say yes to more good-feeling stuff, my work and my days will be filled with good-feeling stuff.

I have to admit that there's a loud voice of midwestern pragmatist that tells me this a terrible idea. If everyone just did what felt good, our society would break down! People would be selfish! I'll be selfish!

But wait, is that true?
My experience with this is that when I do what feels good, it's often the kind thing, the gentle thing. Being truly selfish, or being rude or self-centered actually feels awful. For example, this week my husband's great aunt died. I'll be attending the funeral this week, and while it sounds hard and unfun (funerals are never easy), I know that going and comforting my husband and his family will actually feel good. Not happy dancing, giggling good, but deeply, profoundly right. Connecting with people always feels better than disconnecting (even when it's scary).

The trick is knowing the difference between what I think will feel good (or what I think I should do) and what will actually feels good.

Another example: people often ask to work one-on-one with me. And as much as I love talking to someone and getting to know them, the one-on-one relationship is just too short to be fulfilling + productive enough for me. What feels great is working alongside someone for a few months and seeing the growth in their business. So I've learned that what will really feel great is having them in the Starship, and helping them over time, so I can celebrate the Yays and help them through the Overwhelms. This goes against every bit of advice, and every bit of good sense. But it's true for me, and time has shown that it's good for the people I'm here to help. They get more momentum, which leads to more resutls, and in the meantime we both to know what'll work in the future.

But so far, I've been guessing. I've stumbled onto what works and what doesn't.

That's where the experiment comes in, to see if this is, in fact, something true, something I can trust.

My hypothesis: Doing more of what feels good will bring more good. Period.
The Parameters: At least once a day (before I start making my to-do list), ask myself: How can I bring more of what feels good into the day? And how can I get rid of what doesn't? I hope to remember to also ask myself this before making any decisions (Will I take on this project? What will I eat for lunch? Should I focus on this or that today?)

During the experiment, I'll be sharing the things that feel great, and inviting you to do the same.

Are you experimenting this month?

If this experiment thing is new to you, read How to Experiment right here. Join in by sharing your experiment (make up your own or join me in feeling good) in the comments. And if you'd like to to check in weekly (and ask questions) during your experiment with others, check out the Starship.

How to Experiment: Review

Happy New Month!*

The beginning of a new month means its time for a new experiment! We'll start the new one tomorrow, but today let's review how the last one went (Reviewing is Step 4 of Experimenting).

My experiment

I decided to experiment with asking myself one question every day, to see how that regular, focused attention would shift both the thing, and my relationship to the thing. My daily question was: What can I do to make the Starship more awesome?

What did you learn?

Wow! I know I have this realization all the time, but it's so true! When you turn the sunlight of your attention to one thing, it flourishes and grows. After over a year of steering the Starship, I thought I was pretty settled. I know why people join, I know what they get out of it, I know what works well. Or so I thought. Asking myself the question repeatedly, and forcing myself to come up with at least oneanswer every day allowed me to dig deeper, beyond what I thought I knew. Questions led to more questions, which led to more tiny experiments.

Some examples:

One day, I twisted the question a bit: How can I make the Starship awesome-er on the inside? And that got me thinking: Why do people on the inside like it? What do they get the most out of? How can I increase the stuff I know they love? 
I started asking Captains, and then I realized we have some real success stories. People join and then reach their goals, grow their business and change in a zillion tiny ways. So that prompted me to interview those people, as an encouragement to everyone (those stories will appear in the Early Boarding Party)

I also recognized that relationships are the driving force behind everything  good. It's the reason people come to the check-ins each week, it's the reason they work hard to have something good to share in the check-in. It's the reason they open up and ask their most-scary, most-stuck questions.

So of course the follow-up is: how do I feed those relationships? And how do I help connect new ones? 
(I've got a whole list of answers that I'm working through, including more one-on-one time with me, offering taste tests to the Early Boarding List, more videos) 

Conclusion

This is the best thing in the world. Take your thing, anything you love, from a product to a service to a relationship and ask “How can I make it awesomer?” every day. Allow yourself to see beyond the obvious, to see beyond what you “know.”

Change does not mean failure. Acknowledging that there are changes that can be made is NOT the same as admitting you did it wrong before. Everything in business is iterative. And things take time.  So making changes is a sign of a sustainable business, not a sign that you messed it up before.
And if you did mess it up? Now that you recognize that and are making changes, this is good news, not bad.
That, that whole change is not failure thing, is maybe the hardest lesson for me, and I learn it a little more everyday.

This is the heart of any experiment:

Permission to get it “wrong”
Accepting there might not be a “right” way
Giving yourself space to be surprised
Embracing change as growth, not a sign of past failure

And now it's time to review your experiment:

What did you learn from this experiment?
Does that give you an idea of what else you might try?
Do you want to experiment with something similar to gather more data or switch to something totally different?

 

Share your results and review in the comments, or on the Facebook page.

 

 

*I had a very rotund 7th grade Ohio History teacher, Mr. Antonopolis, who would start every new month with that exclamation and an explanation that it was customary to greet each other this way in…some country, and I can't say it without thinking of him. 

Follow your bliss? Or make what they want?

It's all well and good to talk about bringing more of yourself into your business (and we'll be talking about it tons in today's workshop), but what about the other side of the equation? What about what your people want? How do you balance the two day after day? How do you decide what to make? What you love? Or what sells like hotcakes? We're always talking about this in the Starship, so I invited artist (and Starship member) Amy Crook to share her thoughts with us: 

 

When I go to galleries, the pieces I really connect with are often abstracts. Online, it's usually adorably clever fan art. Sometimes I'm fascinated by technique or quite humanly envious of talent, skill, and “I wish I'd thought of that”-ness. Sometimes I just want to stand and stare at the piece for a while, especially with in-person art.

When I'm making art, I'm often inspired by my own materials and techniques. I want to play, to try this or that and see how it comes out. I want to create a piece of art that gives the same sense of connection to the viewer as those pieces I see in the gallery.

Or I want to draw something clever and adorable that connects with the fannish awww (different from fannish awe) in my audience. I want my characters to be recognizable but still a cute parody, and for the concept to be clever and original.

 

But what I'm really hoping for, sometimes, is that pull of DO WANT in my audience.

The problems arise when these two things come into conflict. When the art that makes my soul sing and my fingers fly, my brush swoop and heart soar, is art no one seems to want to take into their home and love and keep (naming it George: totally optional). When the idea that makes me grin like a loon goes over like a lead balloon with my audience.

When I put up what I think people want, or what I would want, and the crickets chirp and dollars totally fail to roll in.

The problem is, no matter how much pure inspiration goes into a piece, I'm not the “create for yourself” sort. Perhaps it's a flaw in my character, but I want someone else to appreciate my art, otherwise, what is really the point? I could imagine my art all by myself without ever having to lift a brush or pen, and save a lot of time and effort to put into accountancy or something.

The other problem shows up when the art that people want more of isn't something I want to make again and again, as an artist. If it's something that I've lost interest in, or was just trying as a one-off and don't want to pursue. Or worse, if it's something that I didn't actually like that much, but went ahead and shared because I needed to post something and sometimes someone still likes the ones that are too orange or too busy or too squidgy for me.

It's easy to say “be true to yourself” when you're not worried about making next months rent (spoiler: freelancers are always worried about this). Nothing about this issue is black and white, except maybe some of the art.

So how do you balance the things people want with the things you want to create? Does inspiration dry up or move on when a series or style gets no love or no sales? Or do you keep on trucking through the wastelands of commercially unviable creations, trying to find your way out the other side without giving up on the ideas that excite you?

I don't really have answers here, just questions. Thinky thoughts. Quandaries. What do *you* think?

 

 

(All of the images in the post are Amy's art. Click through to see details or buy it.)

The Best + Worst advice for your business

Today Kim wrote about some of the worst advice she ever got, and it shocked me, because it's strikingly similar to what I considered to be some of the best advice I ever got.

A business advisor told me: Become an expert, and then share that expertise.

This is when I was only dreaming about making yarn full time, and I took her advice immediately to heart. I knew that what would matter to my yarn-buying customers is my expertise about eco-friendly yarn sources. So I started researching, writing, and just generally sharing what I was learning. And that landed me in my first magazine and my photos in a eco-focused knitting book, which gave me the confidence to pitch my first paid writing gig. And all that strengthened my business to the point where I could quit my dayjob and make yarn full-time. When I started getting questions about how I quit my dayjob, I realized people saw me as an expert in that, so I did lots more research (I was already obsessively reading every business book published in the last 3 decades) and started share that. Three years, and conversations with hundreds of creative businesses later, I wrote a book.

 

So, for me, this was great advice.

It gave me focus. It gave me a goal. And it gave me an effective content marketing plan (I always knew what to write about and what oppurtunities to pursue).
New fibery goodies

But a funny (unintended) thing happened.

I focused so tight, I narrowed myself. I put so much work into exploring my One Thing, that I cut off other things. I assumed that yarn people (or, business people) only wanted to hear about the one thing…so I filtered everything through that One Thing…to the death of the wholeness, of my complicated-ness.

It's that steely focus that made me SO terrified to start writing and talking about business, even when I really wanted to. It's that cold pragmatism that makes me so shy to share my utter geekiness. And it's that unyielding narrowness that made it hard, and yet so so necessary to write about the you-ness in your business.

I'm just starting to break free from self-imposed exile, and in doing so, I'm seeing that this isn't based on good business sense, it's fear. Fear to be myself, even among the people who love me best. Fear of boring you, annoying you, or just being misunderstood.

dogwood on bobbin

But I know I'm not alone in this. Every month I have a conversation with a crafter that says “I've really been thinking about doing x…but is that too far out there? Too unexpected?” The designer that wants to build software. Or the writer who wants to do puppetry videos.

I'm still figuring this out, but Kim is one of my heroes. She built an enviable career around crochet and editing, and then chucked it. And yet, her worst fears didn't come true. She still thrived. She still worked. She still got to pursue her passions.
And I look at other heroes, the artist who brings her fangirl-ness into her work. And I look at my own history. I thought, when I started talking about business to my yarn customers, that they would be bored…but I couldn't ignore my enthusiasm and followed it into a whole new career that I adore.

And you're not alone either.
If you're nodding along, if you've got passions, interests and just ideas that don't fit in with what you're doing now, let's talk about that! Join me + Kim next Tuesday (just one week!) while we discuss all this. We'll talk about how to build a business that can contain your multitudes, and how to handle all the sticky situations that come up (talking to your uncle at Christmas, or introducing something new to your customers). We've got adivce, stories, and answers and ideas for your specific situation. Join us right here.

More Than One Thing

You are more than your business.
You make things, you sell things, you write things…and then there’s all the other things you want to learn about…

But…
You have to pick just one thing. (Right?)
Focus on One Thing and build your business around that. (That's what they say…)

So you've tried it. You’ve boiled your gorgeousness down to one really marketable skill or product.
You've focused your attention on it, and let the other stuff take a back seat.

But it’s hard. You get side-tracked thinking about all the other stuff you love, the other stuff you want to do. And now you’re doubting if this creative business life is even worth it.

As a maker, as a enthusiastic creative, you don't have just one thing. You have zillions. You read, write, photograph, make, knit, …..
To pick just one is way too limiting, way too…stifling.

If you're tired of trying to be just one thing,
If you’re afraid of introducing all those other things (What will people think? Will I seem scattered? What about my brand?)
If you’re lost about how your business will continue to thrive after you inject other things…
You are not alone.

We (Kim + Tara) are with you. Kim built a career around editing and crochet, then she quit her job and sold her business. She was certain people would hate her, or at least lose respect for her, but the opposite was true. Now she edits, writes, teaches workshops, speaks and makes videos about creativity in general (and sometimes about crochet), and she doesn’t bite her tongue anymore when she wants to talk about science or books or how she watched the whole first season of The Newsroom one Saturday when she had the house to herself. Tara was a full-time yarn-maker who pored over business books on the weekends, until she flipped it all on its head. Now she writes and teaches for makers during the day and makes yarn on the weekends. Embracing these other, sometimes random, passions was scary. And lonely. In a world where we were known for One Thing, it’s terrifying to (publicly) try something else.

This is something we (we, the creative community) don't talk about enough, the idea that you can express your multitudes and be successful. That you can embrace all those sides, facets, interests and build a business around the cohesive you.

Well, we're talking about it now.
This Wednesday, at 11am PST (2pm EST), we’ll share what we’ve learned and we’ll answer the questions you have about it.

In this one hour class, we'll cover:

  • How to know it’s time to move beyond doing or being just one thing
  • What to do to prepare to introduce your multitudes into your business
  • Several possible ways to handle the transition
  • Ways to make sure you keep wiggle room in all new projects

What's included, for $25

  • Access to live video workshop, on Wednesday, September 26th, at 11am PST.
  • Recording of workshop (even if you can't make it live, you'll get the whole video!)
  • Workbook, including a written summary + worksheets so you can apply what you learned to your own business.
  • Answers to your specific questions

How it works
Click the Register button, check out with Paypal (you can use any card, check or Paypal) and you’ll immediately get your invitation to our live video workshop. You'll get a friendly email asking you for your questions and your story (as much as you want to share), so we can make sure to address your specific concerns during the workshop. At the appointed hour, tune in to the private page to watch our video live, and ask more questions on Twitter. After the workshop, you’ll get an email with a link to the recording, and the workbook to help you embrace your multitudes.

If you can’t make the live workshop…
You’ll still get a recording of the entire workshop and we’ll be on the lookout for your question on Twitter. In other words, yep, go on and register NOW, because registration closes when the live event starts.

Still got a question?
Ask me!

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The adventures

This week has definitely been an adventure. A travel-cross-country, get stranded in an airport, totally exhausted kind of adventure. But! I loved it! And it inspired me to add a new section to this here weekly round-up of Adventures: The Lessons. Scroll down to see 'em!

 

The view

Seattle skyline from Bainbridge Ferry :: Teaching an EtsyRAIN workshop :: Knitting the TARDIS shawl with a DALEK :: Captain Kirk's actual chair :: At the baseball game :: first Pumpkin Spice of the season, as I waited for my much-delayed flight

The lessons

Captain Kirk's chair isn't that impressive in real life (kind of a peel-y vinyl), reminding me again that the symbol is the thing, and the value we bring to objects.

Support is all around. Again and again during the trip, I'd worry about something (like which busses to take to get to my workshop, without getting sweaty) only to have support show up (within an hour, three different people texted, unprompted and offered to drive me.) This happened so many times I lost count. Note to self: Keep your eyes open, the help you need is within reach.

Setting goals is powerful. I've had a dream/wish in mind all summer, but didn't know how to make it happen. Way back in June, I wrote that I wanted the Starship to my full-time focus  by September. But it seemed impossible, so I didn't make any plans for it…and then a series of random events made it possible to extricate myself from long-term client projects (happy on all sides) and dedicate myself full-time to the Starship this month. Magical. Also, freaky.

The finds

  • Breezy – A life-saving app! I had to print worksheets for the workshop (and couldn't print them ahead of time or they'd get all squished in my luggage), and Breezy lets you send any document to any local, public printer (like, Kinkos!) right from your phone or iPad.
  • I like what Cairene is saying here about commitment leading to magic. I've been learning this lesson over and over again lately, and I'm so glad she wrote it.
  • This is a pretty impressive handknit sweater for a baseball fan. I'm kinda tempted. Recognize the pattern?
  • Marlo! We had lunch after my workshop and she is just…well, it's hard to talk about her without sounding cliched. Smart! Great! Hilarious! Also, so so in tune with what crafters need to know. Since I don't work one-on-one with clients anymore (unless you're already in the Starship), I'm referring everyone to her.

And that's it for my Adventures this week – what were yours?

 


Another lesson  learned? I love talking to you. So now, for this month only, every one boarding the Starship gets a free jam session. We'll talk about your questions, your dreams and your plans, so you enter the Starship prepared to get exactly what you need. Offer ends (and the Starship closes to new members) on 9/14.

How to experiment: Reports + New Experiments

Looks like home.

Last month, I launched an experiment (and some of you joined me!). While doing the experiment is fun in itself, the real power lies at the end, where we determine if the experiment worked the way we thought it would.

To analyze your experiment, start with the thesis. Did you prove it true? Or not? You might find that you didn't measure what you needed to measure to really learn what you wanted to learn. Or you might learn that while you started the experiment with one plan, the territory changed it into something else.

The important thing in this analyzing step is that ALL DATA IS GOOD DATA. It's not our job to judge the results, just to report in on them, explore them, and then use this experiment to make our next.
I want to really stress this: even if you didn't finish your experiment or complete it the way you thought, you still gathered data. You still got results. Whatever the results, you now know something you didn't know last month. And that is very good news.

My experiment results.

The thesis: blogging everyday would help me explore both my relationship with blogging and my connection with the community.
Results: Happiness! The blogging reminded me that what we appreciate appreciates. The more I write, the more I have to write. As for the community aspect, I was completely delighted by the explorers that joined me! I loved reading about your experiments and it definitely made me feel more connected through our shared vulnerability. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

And now for the next experiment.

Before I introduce my next experiment, take a moment to think about yours.
What did you learn from this experiment?
Does that give you an idea of what else you might try?
Do you want to experiment with something similar to gather more data or switch to something totally different?
A word of warning: it's easy to fall into the habit of just trying the same thing again and again and hoping to learn more every time. But that's why we put parameters on the experiment: to push you to come to some conclusions about one thing and move on to the next. So even if you stick in the same arena (say, blogging everyday), be sure to change your thesis and your parameters to reflect what you learned this time.

My next experiment

Now that I have proof that what I focus on flourishes, I want to turn my focused, daily attention to something else: the Starship. It's my most favorite thing to work on and for months I've been shifting my business so that I can focus on it exclusively. Sorta unexpectedly, that happened this month, and the Starship is now 98% of what I do (I cut waaay back on individual clients).

I couldn't be more thrilled. But I've also learned that when your favorite thing goes from part-time to full-time, it's easy to lose enthusiasm and get bogged down in the quotidien. To keep the Starship my favorite, and make it even more fun to be in, I'm going to do one thing every day: I'm asking myself the question “What can I do to make the Starship more awesome (inside or outside)?
Some days the answer might be to brainstorm, some days the answer might be to implement. Some days the answer might be to work on upcoming classes. But everyday will see me asking the question and working through an answer.

Thesis: Asking myself one question each morning will lead to bigger and better ideas, clearer priorities, and maintain my enthusiasm for my favorite project.
Parameters: Every day, I'll start the day with the question, and then I'll write and brainstorm an answer. The experiment ends October 1st.
Support system: I already write every morning, so this will just fit in there. I'll use my journal or 750words.com. I'll be implementing the ideas as I go through my weekly system of communicating with the Starship Captains and with the Early Boarding List. Oh! And I'll ask the current captains for their help in coming up with ideas.

(Sneak peek: I started this yesterday, on my flight home, and the answer  was: Come up with ways to make a new captain feel welcome + special. So I wrote a list of 10 things and I picked one. This month all new captains will be invited to talk to me one on one about their business and their goals. I am so excited about this! It sounds like so much fun, but I never even thought about it before!  Today the answer was: Reward people who buy the Starship in one fell swoop. So I've lowered the single-payment price to $450, for just this week*. I'll report back next week on how this question is changing other things, but for now I just had to tell you: it is so much fun and giving me ideas I never had before!)

Now how about you?

What's your experiment for this week?
Share your thesis and parameters in the comments.

 

 

*If you want to find out about the special things I'm offering new captains, be sure to sign up here. And remember, the Starship is only open for one week, so all the other ways I awesome-ize the Starship will only be for members, and not available publicly.

The Adventures

Welcome to a new little weekly thing, wherein I bring together the scattered pieces of a digital life. Each Friday I share pictures (from Instagram), my favorite links (I usually tweet them), and whatever else I think you’ll like. This is totally inspired by Colleen and Elise. See all the Adventures here.

The View

My kinda beans #pink #nofilter

The colors of my morning.
Seeing Singing In The Rain. On the big screen. #bestdateever
Pink beans :: picking the right belt for my Seattle workshop :: making this hummus :: colorful morning :: seeing Singing in the Rain, in the theater!

The Places

  •  The most important thing I did all week was admit that you're dangerous…and I like it.
  • “Every project you do broadcasts your intention.” I was looking for something else, and found this, about working for free.
  • I'm totally biased, because I'm Kelly's Idea Partner (yeah, we made that up), but I'd love her Bear + Bunny videos (secretly about writing for your business) no matter what.
  • Another person I'm biased towards (because she's just that great): Cairene. And she's got an ANTHOLOGY. Read it. Now!

The Finds

  • Thanks by WS Merwin is the poem that won't leave me. We are saying thank you…
  • “Practise makes permanent. The more you practise the wrong things, the more you lay on the hard drive and the harder it is to get rid of it.”  It's about archery, but it's true about everything, don't you think? 
  • A Dr. Who inspired shawl? I'm all over it. Cast on this week!
  • If this week had a song, it'd be Brand New Key, by Mad Tea Party.
Next week I'll be adventuring on the West Coast. Do you have any suggestions (coffee, yarn, fabric, food) for Brookings, OR or Seattle? 

 

The Adventures

Welcome to a new little weekly thing, wherein I bring together the scattered pieces of a digital life. Each Friday I share pictures (from Instagram), my favorite links (I usually tweet them), and whatever else I think you’ll like. This is totally inspired by Colleen and Elise. See all the Adventures here.

The View

Anniversary dinnerIs there anything better than getting real mail, so sweet and handwritten you tear up? Thanks, @lindsaydrake, for cheering up my afternoon!

Farmer's market haul (we found a local grower of chile peppers) :: Quilting with The Doctor :: Roasting :: Anniversary dinner :: Thanks

The Places

  • Monday I started a Grand Experiment and asked you to join me. Have you?
  • After the Experiment started, the scaring-myself just didn't stop, with thoughts on commitments and crickets.
  • I've been using the Translation Guide on my client's work for years, but I finally shared how to make it work on your own, right here on Rena Tom's lovely site.

The Finds

  • I'm probably the last person in the world to discover the joy that is Dr. Who. My extended family has been into it since the 70s, and of course the whole knitting world has been laughing at the inside jokes since forever…but Kyla's claim that it really is that good finally flipped the switch. And it flipped hard. After just one week we're on Season 2 and going around saying “Exterminate!” in screechy scary voices. I might even be having dreams about it.
  • My new favorite thing is Literary Jukebox. A song paired with a quote. This is my favorite. But this one too. Just listen to them all, ok?
  • I found this great handmade bag, thanks to Twitter. But I still can't decide between it or this one.
  • A good chunk of this week was fixing up the email adventures I send out. Now you can get all the blog goodness in your inbox. Clickety Clack.

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