Weekly-ish notes on navigating big change

holiday sanity

How to survive the holidays as a Biz Lady

“For the busy Biz Lady, the holiday season is a time of joy (Peppermint mochas! Decorations! Candle light!) and stress (Holiday orders! The post office!). Sanity can be hard to hold on to between filling orders, fulfilling family obligations and standing in the dreaded post office line.

But sanity and profit are possible. It starts with knowing yourself, your business and what you want from the season and then setting expectations (and plans) for yourself and your community.”

Read the rest of my post on DesignSponge.

 

And if you've read that post, you might like

If this is your first time here

Hi! So nice to have you! Get to know me and say hello here. Don't miss the free mini-lesson How To Be An Explorer of your Biz. And, well, start at the Start Here page if you'd like more!

Want more survival tips? Check out the (free) Definitive Guide.

Sign up here to get more on surviving your business adventures, no matter the season.

 

The Adventures

Every week is an Adventure..and this is round-up of the view, the links and the inspiration that made it special. You can see all the adventures here.

The View

Reason to love this town #324: this is the view. Everywhere. #nofilter
The lovely Johnson City
Finished!
The finished tree
Spinning this month's Yarn Mail by Christmas tree-light.
Yarn Mail by Christmas-tree-light
This is happening. (Both get on back of couch behind me) #snorgling
Back-of-the-couch snorgling
Everything is better by Christmas tree light. #quiltsbychristmas
Sewing by Christmas tree light
Love the reactions to this hat. #amusementorpity
This hat gets the best reactions…because it's a Happy Hat!

The Finds

  • “Yarnover Truck is your local yarn store on wheels, implementing the food truck business model and applying it to a mobile yarn store.” How cool is that? Support these clever entrepreneurs right here.

 

  • It's official. We're a total trend. This morning NPR did a story about what we're doing here: young (ish) entrepreneurs with no outside funding, who are succeeding thanks to….the internet! Read or listen here.

 

 

 

  • Planning your New Year in your creative business? Tammie has a list of 10 things people + spaces that can help you with that!

 

 What were your adventures this week?

2 years ago: Sabbatical 
3 years ago: My real-life yarn shop
4 years ago: Seattle recap

 

A flip through my Holiday planning

 

I can't tell you how tempted I am by December Daily. I love the idea of having holiday-specific books that can come out with each year's Christmas decorations. But with the weekly Project Life, I don't need a whole other scrapbook, ya know?

So instead, I updated my traditional holiday planning guide (I can't believe we've been using it  for 3 years!) with a scrapbook of recipes and decorations.

At the end of the season I'll have a compendium of what I wanted to do and what I actually do. This way, next year I stand a chance of remembering the decorations I wanted to make or the recipes I wanted to try (and which ones worked…or didn't).

To get started, I added in pictures from last year. When we put up this year's tree I'll add an extra page.

I also made notes of what I want to change or redo this year.

 

And I couldn't leave out our favorite ornament! (The Yay sticker comes with the kit.)

Of course, there's also business-y pages in the book:

 And the beloved Giant List of Doom:
Don't let that list scare you! The Guide is all about breaking it down into do-able to-dos and getting it done.
You can see that I altered the standard weekly list a bit, by adding a little right hand column that includes the ongoing stuff I want to do each week (blog, read, run)..and I also got smarter about adding stuff to the week, splitting it into work and play.

As the Holiday Sanity kits are filtering out into the rest of the world, I've just loved seeing how everyone uses it to plan the season.

Here's Amy's,

and Rebecca's List of Doom:

Everything you see in the above pictures (except for my own photos!) comes with the kit:

 

 

How do you organize this busy time of year?

Do you have your own system or are you using Holiday Sanity?

 

PS. $5 from every kit goes to Red Cross Disaster Relief. Thanks to your planning genius I was just able to make another donation, right before hitting publish! Woo!

 

Want more survival tips? Check out the (free) Definitive Guide.

Sign up here to get more on surviving your business adventures, no matter the season.

How to enjoy the holidays as a maker

I really do love the holidays. From watching the Thanksgiving Day parade to wrapping gifts to tree-lighting to gift-making, I adore so much of it. But it's easy to get sucked under it, into the swirl of buying, and needing, and obligating. 

To keep it joy-filled, I'm creating a series on How to Enjoy the Holidays As…. The first in the series was focused on cooking, and today's is focused on making.*

Being a maker during the holidays can be a double-edged sword. On one side, there are all these fabulous things to make! Decorations! Ornaments! Gifts! Wrapping. But on the other side: expectations. Others have expectations of you (they expect handmade gifts), and you have expectations of them (you want everyone to appreciate what you make!) It's easy to feel discouraged when expectations aren't met.

But let's opt out of those expectations and craft the kind of holiday you really want. Here are three questions to make sure you enjoy being a maker this season:

1. Who is handmade-worthy?

Remember: Gift giving isn't about you. It's about the gift-receiver. And not everyone on your list will appreciate a handmade gift…no matter how awesome it is. It isn't about you, it's about them. Instead of trying to win them over, release those expectations and accept them for who they are.

While the internet forums are full of makers + their horror stories of rude gift recipients, let's skip the drama. Don't make a gift for someone unless you're 99% sure they'll love it. It's a waste of your time and holiday cheer.

That may sound harsh, but it's very kind in practice- you can focus your attention on what they will love, and give yourself a break. You're giving them a gift to bring joy to their life – so give them what will bring them joy. Maybe that's a handquilted quilt, or maybe it's a candle in their favorite scent, or a book by their favorite Food Network star. Your gift can be thoughtful even if it's not handmade.

2. What do you love making?

I don't know about you, but I find the holiday season incredibly seductive. There are all these tutorials and ideas and crafts I've never tried! Maybe I'll take up lace tatting for a traditional snowflake ornament! Or woodworking for a book shelf!
But remind yourself: your probably crafting more in this coming month than usual. Focus on what you know you're good at and that you just love doing for hours and hours. As much as I love knitting, I just can't do it for hours and hours (my sad little wrists!), but sewing is comfortable and interesting, so I'm making quilts for Christmas.

3. What are the experiences you want to create?

Just like the foods we make, the crafts we spend time on will shape our holiday experience. Do you want to be snuggled with family around the tree? Or stuck in your studio sewing that last bunting for the tree? It's not an either/or scenario of course, but make sure you leave time for the experiences you want to have (Holiday Sanity can help you schedule that in).

Another way of thinking about the experiences is to think about what you can craft to create traditions- do you want a handmade ornament to pull out of storage every season when you decorate the tree? Or a handmade menorah to light (and pass down to your grandchildren)? Or stockings for everyone? Set aside a little of your making time (perhaps in the new year) to create these traditions.

What do you do, as a maker, crafter or artist to enjoy the holiday season?

*Got a thing that makes the holiday season hard-to-enjoy? Or got a tip for how you bring the joy? Leave me a comment and I'll include it an upcoming post in the series.

Want more survival tips? Check out the (free) Definitive Guide.

Sign up here to get more on surviving your business adventures, no matter the season.

Holiday Sanity, from Tara Swiger

 

The Holiday Sanity Kit gives you the space, questions, and system for learning from your busy holiday season. Make plans, get to work…and then reassess what actually worked and what didn't.
Grab yours here.

How to enjoy the holidays as a vegan

 

I had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday, how about you? All my planning and baking turned out great, and my vegan dishes got 4 thumbs up from the 13 year old twins. Now that the holiday season has officially begun, and the meal-including invitations are starting to fill our our calendar, I'm thinking a lot about how to enjoy the season as a vegan.

The cardinal law of being a vegan (or vegetarian, or gluten-free) is simple: Bring your own food. But beyond that, figuring out what to bring can be a challenge. Here are a few things to think about before you pick a recipe:

1. Find the spirit of the event.

Every holiday party has its own personality. Thanksgiving with my in-laws is about big plates of food and every sibling and cousin in one place around the long table. Thanksgiving with my mom is hot chocolate, cookies, tree lighting and craftiness. For some families, it's that Norman Rockwell brining-the-turkey-to-the-table moment.

Before you explore your vegan options for an event, take a second to acknowledge what you want to experience and what you love about it. Is there anything you don't want to feel you're missing out on? What doesn't matter as much to you? How can you take part in the spirit of the thing?

Can you spot the vegan options?

For example, at the big Swiger family dinner, everyone brings several dishes to share, so it's no big deal for me to bring 3 vegan dishes. Jay and I can load up our plates with food we love, and no one notices except to compliment it (out of the three sweet potato options, mine were the only ones completely devoured!).

2. Focus on the seasonal flavors.

 

A lot of vegetarians try to recreate the entire omnivore meal plan, which can be interesting, but is it really what you want?

 

What are the flavors you're most exited about? Focus on recreating those, or make sure there'll be a vegan option. The thing I always loved about Thanksgiving is the stuffing: sage-y, thyme-y, savory; paired with tart cranberries. I've made veggie stuffings in the past, but this year I made a chickpea tart that had the same flavor. My husband loves desserts, so I brought us a vegan version. Neither one of us ever cared about the turkey, so I don't worry about Tofurkey or Field Roasts.

3. Bring what you love.

While it's awesome when your uncle falls in love with vegan black bean empanadas, don't drive yourself crazy pleasing others. Be content that as long as you love it, and it improves your experience: it was worth the effort.

 

And now that you have some ideas for how to pick, here are the recipes I've used (and loved) in the last few years:

  • Black bean squash empanadas, from The Veganomicon – brought to last year's Thanksgiving, and gone to moans and compliments in under 10 minutes.
  • Festive Chickpea Tart– made the night before (but not baked) and then frozen. It thawed as we drove the 3 hours to meal and then baked for 30 minutes. Delicious!
  • These sweet potatoes – they beat out the other two options on the table.
  • Brownie Pumpkin Pecan pie – easier than it sounds.
  • Elvis cupcakes, from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World – a family favorite! Banana cupcakes filled with peanut butter frosting and topped with chocolate ganache.
  • Maple pecan pie – made this for just us…and I'm smitten.

What do you do to enjoy the many eating opportunities during the holidays?

 

This is the first in a series on “How to enjoy the holidays as a…” (Maker, Introvert, Writer, etc)

Have any suggestions for what I should cover next?

Want more survival tips? Check out the (free) Definitive Guide.

Sign up here to get more on surviving your business adventures, no matter the season.

The Adventures

Every week is an adventure…and this week was Sandy, Holiday Sanity and CraftLit.  Past adventures can be explored here. 

 The View
Beau is better than any personal trainer. Here he's saying: steps! We love steps!

Andre finds the sewing machine a warm snuggler.Too many cups of coffee later: the Digital Kit is done! Formatted, uploaded, buttoned. And $5 to Red Cross Disaster Relief. #sigh

 

The Delights

Making it about more than us.
This week was completely swallowed by Holiday Sanity. And feeling…conflicted about talking about the holidays when so many people are struggling to put their houses (and lives) in order. So I asked myself: What's worth talking about right now?  And the answer is clear: When Holiday Sanity is more than just me and you…when it makes a difference for people who don't even know us. And so, $5 from every Kit goes right to the Red Cross. Or donate directly.

Heather
I got to talk to Heather today, about crafting a season full of meaning, while ditching the culturally-imposed stress. It's the highlight of my day because Heather gets it. And she's got the best voice ever. AND she's reading Jane Eyre on her podcast, so you can “read” my favorite classic while knitting, painting or packaging up orders. Subscribe to her podcast right here.

Steph
I had video funtimes (aka, an Exploration) with Steph this week and yeah, she's exactly as awesome as you'd guess from her work.  She threw a Rockstar Geek Wedding and she's humble, hilarious, and on my must-stalk list. Get to know her on Twitter and then buy your nephew (or me!) a Kirby, mkay?

 

The Finds

How was your week? What were the delights?

The Adventures

Every week is an adventure…and this week was hot air balloons, quiet words, and stacks of books.  Past adventures can be explored here. 

The View

Epic game of Risk. #fallbreak
And then: the waterfalls.
And now, hiking the Appalachian. #fallbreak
Simpson's Clue. #fallbreak
Andre finds books snugglable

The Delights

  • I've been totally surprised by my very quite introduction of this. Just one tiny tweet (to a half-written page…it's still not finished!) and the response has been…delightful. If you're into it, jump on it.
  • Fitocracy. I'm not sure I can say anything more about this, but suddenly everything that seemed so un-Tara feels do-able + interesting. I blame it all on Lolly.
  • I could not be more excited about (and obsessed with getting everything just right for) the upcoming Holiday Sanity Kit (coming next week! Sign up here to make sure you don't miss it – there'll be a limited number) It's my first ever real-mail business-y goodness, and I'm having so much fun with it.
  • Quilting. Still. Spoonflower is having a Buy 1, Get 1 sale, so I'm finally going to order my first self-designed fabric!
  • I love hearing that I'm not the only one who procrastinates in order to savor an exciting project!
  • Too busy this holiday season with ORDERS to spend time marketing? Here's how to make it last, on Rena Tom for makers, and one for retailers on Vianza.

 

What was your week like? What were your adventures?

Two years ago (exactly!): Planning for non-planners
Three years ago: My photos – in a book!
Four years ago: Slowing

Making the imaginary real

Do you ever get really excited about something and then…not do it?

I'm not talking about when long projects drag on. I'm talking about when you get so excited about something, that you can't stop thinking about it while you wash the dishes or walk the dog or drink your first cup of coffee.

And then you sit down to work and…
You check your email.
You write that guest post.
You answer a few questions and schedule a few tweets.

But you're still! so excited! about the project!
But…you're not working on it?

That happens to me too.
In fact, it's happening to me right now.

I'm working on a Holiday Sanity Playbook (it's based on this annual, beloved class). And it's the most excited I've been about anything in a long time. It's going to come with stickers. And ribbon. In your mailbox (if you're into that.)

But…
I'm not working on it right now.
I'm writing this, because I realized I was doing everything else, instead of working on it.

And I know you do the same thing, too.
You have a fabulous idea for a new line, a new business card, a new story.
But instead, you answer questions, pack orders, make another thing.

It's not that you're procrastinating work…it's that you're savoring the perfect thing.
You see, while my idea is still in my mind – it's perfect. It's lovely, exciting, delicious and…imaginary. Imaginary things are perfect because the real world hasn't spoiled them. My imaginary Prince Charming didn't leave his socks around the house. My imaginary home never smelled like onions and garlic after I made dinner (it smelled like chocolate chip cookies and chai lattes). And my imaginary Playbook is clever, hilarious, colorful and gives each reader exactly what they need.
But no one can enjoy my imaginary life, so I have to make it real. I marry the guy with the socks because he's hilarious and adorable. I rent the tiny house because it has great light. And I make the real life product because it will help real people, not just imaginary ones.

In the process of bringing it into the world, it'll lose some of its luster.
I won't find the right word.
I'll argue for far too long with Photoshop.
I'll discover I printed something upside down.

But it will exist. And a real chocolate chip cookie tastes far better than an imaginary one.
Just acknowledging this: that I love it so much I want it to perfect helps. Just noticing that I am putting it off because I love it so much helps.
In fact, I think I'm ready to work on it!

What are you imagining today? What tasty thing wants you to whip it up and put it in the (metaphorical) oven.
Why haven't you? What are you afraid of getting not-quite-right?

Holiday Sanity and Starships

When I tweeted a link to last year's free guide and was overwhelmed with thank you tweets and emails, I realized I needed to share it again:

It's a quick-to-use, silly little guide with handdrawn lists and goofy metaphors.

Yet, it works.
It helps you get a handle on what's coming next and it makes it all more do-able.

In the Starship, we're doing weekly check-ins on ho and I'm (again) surprised by how much just  a bit of planning + a dash of accountability can improve your experience of the holidays.

So much so, that I was starting to doubt closing the Starship until January.
Last night, after chatting with Starshippers, someone said “Once again, I'm surrounded by smart and understanding people” and there was a round of “yay starship!”s.
I realized: yes, it's easier for me to manage everyone's membership if I wait to reopen enrollment until January….but this is the time of year people need help. And community of like-minded friends. And encouragment.

Thus it's decided: the Starship is now open to new Cadets.

If you're feeling a little worn out, a little apprehensive about the oncoming rush of holiday sales, and holiday shopping, and holiday gift-making, the Starship is here for you:
Community, weekly check-ins, accountability partners, everything we can do to make the holidays sane.
Oh yeah, and access over $500 worth of classes + tools. For 13 months.

Come aboard here. 

Good Shtuff: dancing, comics and sanity edition

Dance!

I'm probably a little obsessed with the hilarity of Kelly Parkinson. I mention her in nearly every Good Shtuff. But it's really good! Especially, this on How to dance (when dancing = marketing).

Comics

Jay, the house comic nerd, wants me to link to this post about what small businesses can learn from comics. Good shtuff!

Focus!

I've been thinking a lot about time + planning, so the new book by Zen Habits about Focus has perfect timing. Haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
A big thanks to @joyfulmess for telling me more about it in this interview.

Sanity!

We had a special BONUS class for the early-birds of Holiday Sanity. The post-class chat was amazing. The program's already so full of smart, helpful creatives that I can not wait to see who joins this week. If you need some Holiday Sanity, you can join us here.

Limits

Speaking of smart and helpful, I am so excited to have Kirsty Hall as a guest teacher in a class about building a business Within Your Limits. As an entrepreneur and artist and mother with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she has bunches to share about honoring your limits + building a sustainable business. You can get all the details and watch an adorable video of Kirsty here.

Amigurumi

IMAG1041

This has nothing to do with business, I just thought I should tell you that I'm totally addicted to making teeny tiny crocheted things.

IMAG0002
A pirate duck, for Havi + Selma

I've already agreed to make a ninja for my web ninja and a typewriter for my Kyeli + Amy. And a dog to match my dog.
(Oh, that's so ridiculous I can't believe I just confessed it.)
I'll be sharing patterns and inspirations tomorrow at Blonde Chicken Boutique in case you are similarly obsessed.

What have you been obsessed with this week?
<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/blondechicken/5136855989/&#8221; title=”IMAG1041 by blonde_chicken_boutique, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1059/5136855989_c4194b73b3.jpg&#8221; width=”333″ height=”500″ alt=”IMAG1041″ /></a>

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