(Personal Post)Simplify my habits + Project 33

Simplify My Habits

Two hours daily routine
30 mins: Daily work on illustrator or Javascript skills.
30 min: Clean house + Donate/Get rid of stuff.
15 min each: Draw + Work on Blog + Ankle rehab + Self Care.

Weekly
Twice a week: Meal planing + pull recipes with shopping list.
Read/AudioBook: Two per month. Ideally, weekly.

Project 333
“…is the minimalist fashion challenge that invites you to dress with 33 items or less for 3 months.”  – Courtney

“What: 33 items including clothing, accessories, jewelry, outerwear and shoes.”

“What not: these items are not counted as part of the 33 items – wedding ring or another sentimental piece of jewelry that you never take off, underwear, sleep wear, in-home lounge wear,  and workout clothing (you can only wear your workout clothing to workout).” I’m also excluding what I’m wearing for medical/health reasons like my scarves and jackets.

33 items:
5 pairs of Shoes
5 Dresses
3 Skirts
2 Pant (including Jeans)
1 Necklace (my sun one)
1 Earrings
3 Bags (Pineapple, main one, lunch cooler)
8 tops (two dress tops, 5 everyday)
–  with 5 items left

 

 

 

(Personal Post) Lessons Learned: Don’t look to deep.

A young woman is sitting on a rock by the sea

My lessons learned with grief are:

When you are facing death with loved ones or yourself, trying to process it is one of the normal reactions. One of the ways you can try to deal with grief and mourning, is try to make sense of it. Which is fine, but if you go to deep it can rob you of your joy, your personality,  and life. Sometimes being superficial and mundane is joy because it allows you to appreciate the simple things in life, sometimes that is what really does matter at the end.

Feeling too deep and caring too deep for other people, can cause drama unintentionally.  Most people aren’t in the same place as you. Losing a parent, or a loved one or coming close to your own death is an experience that not everybody has had to deal with in their own lives at this point. They can only sympathize, not empathize till they have gone through a similar journey.  They aren’t in the same space or place as you, and it’s ok but you also have to remember and respect that. Also be careful who you let in because not everybody who shows up is there to help.

My advice so far with grief that I learned that works for me is:

Forgive yourself and be kind to yourself.  There is no one fits all manual on how to deal with this and never will be. As long as you are learning, you haven’t wasted time. Sometimes looking deep is a great way to deal with things but it can cause overthinking, which can create problems that are never orignally there. It’s a balancing act that you learn with experanice.

Some people will say you are being dramatic, if your intention wasn’t to create drama, that’s more of a reflection on them than you. That’s also a sign that they aren’t the right person to be sharing deeper feelings with, even if they keep on telling you that they are. Learn to voice your emotions to somebody who understands that you are just venting till you figure things out, your safe person.

It’s ok to have mental health days or a week off but realize your goals and issues to tackle them.  Depression is normal. The thoughts and emotions associated with depression,  learn to cope with them and ride them out and if you have a safe support system, set that up.

Know that everybody has an opinion of you, and if they ain’t’ paying your bills, their’s don’t matter.  A good mantra to recite to yourself  “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”  Read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz, and tape  the 4 rules to your mirror to read each morning.

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz

agreement 1

Be impeccable with your word :
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

agreement 2

Don’t take anything personally:
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

agreement 3

Don’t make assumptions:
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

agreement 4

Always do your best:
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

 

Self Love Challenge: Day 9

musician

Loving myself enough to opening up myself to rekindle my passion.

Last night I when to a goal setting workshop for dancers. It included a workbook, that we when through in the workshop. I realized something, that knew my goals and how to break it down to get it done but I was on survive mode. I didn’t have much emotional attachment to my goal, just to survive through them. The teacher kept on telling us to get to the emotional part of us that drives the goals, so when run into a block, you have the passion to keep on going.

100 days of Gratitude/Happiness: Day 12

kettle for tea in a cafe

  • Down to 6 of 8 dentist visits I have left over the past 3-4 months. Had a wash of a dentist visit today, and still got drugged up.  At least I didn’t get charged for it.
  • Feedly. I love reading the web and tech articles that it pulls up for me to read daily. It gives me ideas, inspiration, and motivation on things that I can create.
  • Finish hand sewing the re enforcement of a bra and now I have to finish hand sewing the belt part of the costume.  I think I might pass on the idea of doing a 2nd one to make sure I remember what I learned.
  • Rain when I’m inside nice and cozy. When I’m outside, I’m just praying not to get hit or be stuck behind an accident.
  • Mason jars.  I’m organizing my kitchen with mason jars…not hipster, just shabby chic.

 

100 days of Gratitude/Happiness: Day 11

Illustration or poster with stairs and green arch with fabulous items

“When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.” – Louis C.K.

Gratitude:

  • Getting my power back after being really hurt for over a month. The quote “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.” – Louis C.K. I told somebody what they did that hurt me this morning. That person I know doesn’t care because they don’t think they did anything wrong but they don’t get to decide, and that gives me my power back.
  • My Costuming Crown Building workshop today. I sign up for this about 6 weeks ago and I sotra wanted out but so glad that I when.  Was so inspired to make things again. When without a plan but left with an idea that I want to create.
  • Getting to hang out with burlesque and belly dancers creating and exchanging ideas on creating crowns, headpieces and costuming.  I miss the celebration of creativity and sisterhood of dance.  I need to get back into performing at least once a year.
  • My body.  It’s healing very slowly but it’s healing.  Learning to be kind to myself because my time is limited.
  • Simi ego boost today.  Only in Hollywood, I could be wearing no makeup, hair in a mess bun, my dress half covered in stuff from the workshop, and I have a guy stumbling over himself trying to talk to me at a gas station while getting change for gas.  Not a bad looking guy, sort of a ego boost but I wasn’t interested.

100 days of Gratitude/Happiness: Day 7

Big idea. Happy smart girl with glasses and solution lightbulb above head. Solving a problem creative idea concept

“As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.” — Barbara Sher

Happiness:

Take 3 months off of taking new web clients, and build a mock side from underscores to add to my portfolio.

Start Date: Oct 1, 2015
End Date: Dec 31, 2015

Plan of Action:

Objective:
To better my Front End Development Skills, I am spending the next 3 months making and breaking a WordPress Mock Site using underscores.

Tasks:

Planing:
Muse for the Site
Questionnaire: Screening, Intake, Follow up

Design:
Content Strategy
Style Tiles
wireframe

Build:
Development
Testing
Launch

Success Criteria:
Meeting my time Frame.

Time Frame:
2 weeks on the first two phases max, and two months on the latter.

I forgive myself for:

content

  • trying to live up to other people’s expectations, instead of living up to mines.
  • putting the needs of other’s in front of mines and not taking care of myself.
  • letting fear rule me.
  • having imposter syndrome, and not patting myself on the back for all my amazing accomplishments.
  • not allowing me to be human when I make a mistakes. I allow everybody to make mistakes but me.
  • getting caught up in drama, because I care about the people involved.
  • not allowing my heart to fall in love in fear of being hurt.
  • allowing my father and his estate issues to rob me of over 1.5 years of my life and has take it’s toll on me, that I almost had a break down recently.

Need to keep on adding to list but this is a start.

 

 

Sharing old roommate war stories…

I was talking to my friend’s kid, man I feel old for saying that,  a few weeks ago about my college roommate experiences, which wasn’t bad compared to other people’s horror stories. Partly because I was almost never home because I helped run and held office in 2 college school clubs, which dealing with 100-200 people in each club, as I worked and when to college full time.

Most of my experience where good. Told her to have a roommate contract, a monthly amount for things you need to buy for the unit, and how you guys will divided up for chores, was the best way to go. Communicate, communicate, communicate, and communicate.  You guys were all raised different, with different values and ideas now living together for a year. I’ve learned and grown up so much with my roommates and great adventures with them. My bad weren’t crazy bad stories.

When I was in the dorms my freshman year, we had a two bedroom apartment with two roommates in each room.  One roommate in the other room, lived like ten min from the school and only got a room because it was paid for.  She came in when nobody was there and put her sheets on, then we didn’t meet her till a month later.  It sort of freak us out a little bit, because she had the same black sheets with the cult in SD that did a mass suicide but it turns out that was her older brother’s old college bed sheets.

She told her roommate, who was a very privilege OC girl, that she shopped lifted once when she was younger for fun. So her roommate overrated and cleared out her stuff, then demand to move rooms. She would only sleep there if she wasn’t there, and then slept in other people’s dorms. I had a class with her and I told her that we all know she hid all her stuff in the closet in the living room.  She freaked out and kept on causing so much drama. Was so glad she moved, and I was able to move in my other friend to replace her.

That friend that replaced the OC roommate, was from Hawai’i and from an all girls school. I didn’t realize how spoiled she was. When she came to my mother’s house, she came two hours late, then walk in without stopping going to my mother’ fridge and helped her self to food. I was so shocked. She asked my roommate to use her car to buy a loaf of bread. She had her friend over with her, and they didn’t come back for 6 hours because after getting bread they drove across LA to USC for a party for her to chase after a guy. She did’t even refill the tank after all that.

Living off campus after my freshman year, I had a roommate for a one year leave that didn’t get me a 30 day notice because she thought the lease end and decide that I can keep her part of security deposit instead of paying me her last month of rent.  After she moved out, she knew I wasn’t home during the weekend, and came back staying there during the weekend. The apartment manager caught her a month later, and I had to pay to change the locks on top of everything.

The summer before she moved out,  she decide to save money by renting out our living room. She told me that her friend need a place to crash for a month during summer school, which tuned into 2 months. I didn’t realize that she rent it out. This “friend” of her’s also set the pot on fire and I had to put it out. Lucky the apartment manager caught on and gave us a notice that she couldn’t stay with us anymore because she wasn’t on the lease.

I had anther roommate that replaced her, that had a “rich” boyfriend that sort of moved in. He lived in NYC and was going to NYU, some how he came to visit her during the summer for a month, that end up for 3 months. I kept on asking her why isn’t he going back to NYC, she didn’t know why he was still there either. What was awarded is we had a one bedroom, so they slept in the living room. It was never clear why he was still there when the fall semester started but my feeling is that he was kicked out of school because he never when back.

There were a few more stories but it wasn’t anything major. A lot of things is communication and nip it before it becomes drama. It’s something you need to learn to do with practice, practice, practice, like everything in life.