Tag Archives: everything else

So, I don’t know if you heard, but we’ve been working on this little project called The Shepherd & The Shearer. Just this cool little project that we were kind of excited about.

We were actually a little concerned that no one would understand what we trying to do. This was a whole new paradigm and we didn’t know if people would want to take a chance on something so new and different.

Let me just admit here that we had no idea how wrong we were. We just had no idea. None.

So many people tried to purchase yarn and patterns this morning that our server crashed multiple times. And by “our server”, I mean a giant ass server in Texas.  We are back up now but it is a complete and utter madhouse around here now and we are barely keeping our heads above water.

If you have emailed today please know that we are working our way through them and we will answer you as soon as we can. Lauria is working on literally 2 and a half hours sleep but we are doing our absolute best, I promise.

Yesterday I took a big step outside my comfort zone and road the bus. I know that will sound comical to most people, but I have kind of a thing about public transportation. And by “kind of a thing” I mean that I loathe it.

Before you start with comments of the “You-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself” variety*, let me explain. I totally get that I am supposed to be a big proponent of public transport. It’s good for the environment! It’s populist! It helps with the massive traffic problems in urban areas! And those are all awesome things. I believe in all those things. I think public transport is amazing for other people. It just makes me personally INSANE.

I rode the subway every day when I worked for CBS and I hated every minute of it. Every. single. minute. I got sick all the time and I felt completely claustrophobic in the subway tunnels and I just couldn’t deal with all the pushing and shoving. It was so intense and, by the time I got to my office, I was kind of a wreck.

Ever since then I have avoided subways and buses like they were dripping with black plague juice. The only exception is the train, which seems somehow more refined and less across-the-board disgusting to me.  For whatever reason, it just doesn’t set alarm bells off in my head. Train travel is evocative of Katherine Hepburn movies and the 1950s in general, so it gets a pass, I guess.

But yesterday I needed to be in NYC for a couple of hours and the train was sold out, so a friend recommended taking Megabus. She described it to me as “Like a first class airline seat, with wifi and everything”.

Let me be the first to tell you that Megabus is nothing like a first class airline seat. It was perfectly fine, (and hella cheap!) but it wasn’t fancy. On the way up to New York, the wifi was broken and I was seated next to a man who smelled of mothballs and booze. He did the robot dance in his seat during the entire four-hour journey, but he was endearingly polite and didn’t bother me, so whateves. Do it up, Robot Booze Man!

In a stroke of what I thought was ingenious forethought, I had worn flip flops on the bus and carried my lovely new ballet flats in a tote bag. I didn’t want to take a chance on my new shoes giving me blisters and I didn’t know how far I would have to walk.

Got to New York without incident. Grabbed a taxi to my meeting. Spent two hours having my ego stroked at an amazing meeting at the Vogue Knitting offices. Caught the bus home with time to spare! By the time I met my friends Kris and Charlie at Union Station, I felt like one of those people who totally has her shit together. Like a grown-up, even.

Then I got home and realized I had left one one of my brand-new, only-worn-once shoes on the bus. And, in a flash, I was back to reality. Oh, and add $100 to the price of my bus ticket.

If there are any one-footed women reading this, and that foot happens to be a size 8, email me. I can hook you up.

*Since the very first comment was exactly what I was trying to avoid, I feel the need to explain that having anxiety about public transportation isn’t an issue of preference; it’s an issue of anxiety. If it were a matter of being an elitist I would have just, I don’t know, not written a blog post about it. I apologize for not being clear in the original post, but I didn’t want to change it because that’s kind of a jerky thing to do.

I recently downsized my life and got rid of all the things I didn’t need or love. It was both easier and more difficult than I expected it to be. There were a million agonizing decisions to be made, but once it was all over, I felt like I had gotten rid of a dozen anvils that I had been carrying around for years. It was an amazing feeling.

I want my life to be about experiences, not stuff. So these days, I spend a lot of my time planning trips to all the places I’d like to travel. Currently, I’m thinking I’d like to go to Morocco. We have a friend with a house there which is exactly perfect. When I travel, I like to pretend I live in the city I’m visiting, shopping in markets, exploring all the neighborhoods and eating in restaurants where the locals eat.

 I’ve always been curious about Iceland and this video makes me want to jump on the first flight to Reykjavik.

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

There’s great info about travel to Iceland here.

Also on my list, Portugal, India, and Thailand. My plan is to save the money I would have spent on things and take one big trip a year.

You can help me by telling me about your very favorite travel destination and where do you dream of going?

On Friday, I spent a day sewing with Julie (more on this in another post) and I left my computer turned off and my phone was dead, so I had no electronic interference for about 10 hours, which is enormous when you’re as addicted to the internet as I am.

But as I drove back home I felt the weight of email and possible phone calls descend upon me. So by the time I arrive home, although I was really proud of what I had accomplished, I was also feeling dread at turning on my phone and computer. I tackled the computer first. I had a bunch of new email, although a lot of it was spam. Mostly, I read and flagged things without actually DOING anything besides checking to see that I had email. The phone was easier to handle – two voice mails and two texts from my mother who was worrying since my phone is never off, even when I’m sleeping. (Sorry, Mom! I’m okay. I didn’t get into a car accident.) I called her back right away so that she wouldn’t be up half the night. (Turns out that she was out with a friend and they were having a GRAND old time, so I guess she wasn’t losing any sleep even though I might have been in a hospital, for all she knew!)

It felt good that nothing crucial had come up, but as I looked in my inbox, I was still feeling completely overwhelmed. But it was 9:30p on a Friday night and I’ve been telling myself and Susie that I would step away from the work so that I didn’t get burnt out. But when I woke up, I still felt my email looming over my head.

When I took this job, I knew that there would be an enormous amount of email. I had once borrowed Susie’s laptop to work on something and saw something like 87 emails come in in the span of a half hour. I work from home, so email comes with the territory. I’m no stranger to emails. At my last job I had a lot of email coming in as well. But it was all easily categorized. I filtered it into folders automatically and dealt with it as I needed to.

But here many emails might touch on a number of categories. I might be speaking with the graphic designer about one project, but also talk about another project. And emails between Susie and myself might have one subject header that quickly devolves into any number of things, usually entirely unrelated as we bop back and forth between topics and task items.

And with shipping things, I have tons of notifications coming. Which I do actually want. I need to know that the sample knitter’s yarn arrived where it was supposed to. And I have a spreadsheet to keep track of that, so I need to transfer the information into an easily digestible form. So all those emails have tasks related to them.

Right now, even though I have a number of folders, almost all my emails in my inbox are flagged. How do I tell what’s important? Where’s the priority? There are so many deadlines that overlap and I always need to work on multiple projects in a day. How do I manage my time?

I happened to stumble across inboxzero.com the other day and this morning I sat down to watch his video presentation to find out how I could better organize my email because my tried-and-true email system was not cutting it in this new job. And about when I realized that it was going to be an hour long, I grabbed my knitting. And now? Well, by the end of the video, I already archived everything in my inbox that was more than two weeks old. I felt much more on top of my inbox around then, so anything older than that probably doesn’t need a response. And I got rid of most of my folders.

I’ve been processing my inbox with my five verbs: Delete anything I no longer need (archive it if I fret I might someday need it), Respond to any of the quick stuff, Defer anything that needs more work than I can/want to do at this moment, and Do anything that I can.

After an hour, I’ve processed through Tuesday. I’ve got a lot of work to do still, and there’s a lot in my “defer” folder, but I’m getting toward Zero Inbox and that makes me feel much more empowered about the situation.

Now, though, it’s time to find something else to do. It is the weekend after all and I’ve worked more than a full-time week as it is. Time to find a little balance and rejuvenation. (That’s another uphill battle!) How do you deal with emails?

Amy and I are back at work packing up the rest of my stuff at the farm today, so no time for a real blog post. Instead, enjoy these pictures of a giant bunny  snorgling with some tiny piglets.

Full story at The Huffington Post.

Earlier this week, I had a sort of online disagreement with someone.

Actually, I’m kind of torn about that sentence for a couple of reasons. First, because the “online” might suggest to some of you that this was an internet thing versus someone I know in real life and second because “disagreement” may be to strong (or too weak) a word for what happened, depending on your perspective. (I really want to be honest here, this being a post about authenticity and all.)

Boring story short, an acquaintance that I know if real life dug up something totally benign that I had posted on Facebook three weeks ago (a compliment about someone else that we both know) and started causing all manner of drama over it. I’m really not going to get into the details because 1.) it’s super trivial and 2.) even unreasonable people deserve their privacy and 3.) I no longer let other people’s drama keep me company.

(Please don’t waste a moment of your precious life being curious about the details; it’s beyond boring and there is world full of wonder you could be exploring instead. Seriously, promise me you’ll climb a tree or take a hot air balloon ride or something today.)

I only bring this up because this person posted a really ranty rant about me online and said something about how terrible it would be if my “followers”* found out what kind of person I really am or some such nonsense. There was a lot more (like, a lot more) but that particular comment stuck with me because I have made it my practice never to say anything online or in writing that I wouldn’t be happy to see on my own blog. The way the internet works these days, posting anything online that you wouldn’t stand behind is just sort of.. self destructive? Obtuse? I’m struggling for the right word here. Stupid?

But, besides all that, I really try my best to be my most authentic self on this blog. I think the only real differences between the me you read here and me in real life are that I swear a lot more in person (like, a lot more) and I have a pretty wicked sense of humor that wouldn’t necessarily come across in writing, so I dial it back.

That being said, I am a work in progress and there is much room for improvement. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year or so working on things like confronting problems head on and becoming less reactionary. I still spend a lot of time trying to figure out how I actually feel about things and trying to give myself time before reacting. I have a long way to go and I definitely screw up sometimes, but I am always working on being a better, more authentic person.

Which leads me to my question: do you say things online that you would be embarrassed for your “real life” friends to see, or vice versa? And do you have an online “persona” that your real life friends wouldn’t recognize? I’m really curious about this because the internet is changing our society at such an incredible pace that I’m not sure we have figured out all the implications yet.

I’d love to hear your take on this.

*As you may have intuited, the word “followers” really creeped me out. It conjures up images of Jim Jones, but maybe that’s just me. “Readers” might be a better choice or words. “Customers” maybe? I dunno, just not followers.

**Totally off topic, but I read somewhere that there are all these women who were really inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love  and they make pilgrimages to the town where she lives. The locals call them “Liz-bians” which is freaking hilarious!

***In case this post was all “Too long; didn’t read” for you, here are some animals jumping on trampolines.

It’s “Tell Me Something Good Tuesday” y’all!  I’ll go first.

Hmm…Wonder what’s in those giant boxes?

Only the Colored Flock yarn for our CSA shareholders, that’s all!

Isn’t is lovely? It’s a bit more grey this year than last, which is part of what I love about this yarn: every version is a unique representation of a single year’s clip. All the early morning feedings and late nights waiting for lambs are represented the yarn. It’s a physical record of our year that we can hold in our hands and wear on cold days.

And to me, that is something incredibly happy making.

(We will be shipping this yarn out in a couple of weeks once the rest of the CSA yarn arrives. Lauria’s going down from Boston to supervise the great mailing, which is always hella complicated.)

Okay, your turn. Tell me something good, y’all!

I’m pretty sure that this is the solution to any future bottle fed babies. What do you think, Susie?

I’ve spent the better part of this week packing up nearly every thing I own. I’ve lived at this particular farm house for four years and it is amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in that time! I remember unpacking boxes when we moved in and thinking that I would never fill all those kitchen cabinets. Oh how wrong I was!

One of the things I’ve noticed since I started trying to live in the moment is that too many things can really slow you down. The thought of moving out of this house was so completely overwhelming that I put it off for far too long, all because I had no idea what I would do with all those possessions. At one point I owned nine beds, for god’s sake. NINE BEDS!

I’ve been reading a good deal about living with less, minimalism and tiny houses; this weekend I’ll be putting some of what I read into practice and selling all the things that I can live without.

I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. It isn’t. Like most people I’ve developed attachments to the stuff that furnishes my life. Some of those attachments are maybe not so healthy. Like the couch I’ve been holding onto since my divorce. It’s an outstanding couch and I seriously doubt I will ever own another that is as well built or expensive, but it’s become this giant anchor in my life, preventing me from moving into a reasonably sized apartment or even house.

Multiply that couch times a thousand and you’ll get some idea of the magnitude of what I am getting rid of this weekend. No doubt there will be sadness. Maybe even tears.

But I am trying to focus on the fact that I am freeing myself of a lot of things that have weighed me down. There will be other couches that will feature in memories all their own.

I am honestly hoping to never own 9 beds again as long as I live! You should have seen my linen closets. Madness I tell you…

If you are in Central Virginia on Friday or Saturday and need furniture, come by!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that last year I experienced an unexpected and very serious health crisis. I’m not going to write too much about all that today, for all kinds of reasons. Mostly because I feel like I’ve written and written and written about it more than anyone unrelated to me by blood could ever care to read, but mostly because writing about that time brings it back in a very visceral way for me. It would be too easy for me to live in fear of that bad time returning and that is not how I chose to spend my time.

I only bring up that difficult time because it was the backdrop for a big, big change in the way I live my life. To say that I used to be a Type-A personality would be a bit of an understatement. I have spent a lifetime trying to control every possible variable in my life. Good enough was NEVER good enough for me. I Monday-morning-quarterbacked every party I threw, every meal I cooked from scratch and every relationship in my life.

It. was. exhausting.

Just completely exhausting. And worse that that, I wasn’t getting any joy out of all that work. I recently admitted to a friend that a big motivator for almost everything I did was knowing that my friends and blog readers marveled at my over-achievements. I lived for that praise, that external validation that I was special.

Which is really pretty sad. I suspect it will also sound pretty familiar to some of you who are reading this.

Getting sick gave me one incredible gift- the ability to live in the moment. I know it’s super-cliche but it’s true. Surviving something horrible makes you realize that we have absolutely no idea what is coming and that there is nothing we can do about the mistakes we’ve made in the past. Right here, right now is the only sure thing.It’s the only thing we can count on, wrap our arms around and squeeze every drop out of. This is the show, y’all.

So what does all this woo-woo mean in terms of how I live my life? Are there practical applications? So glad you asked! Most of them are small things but they add up to BIG changes.

• I am completely unapologetic about the music I like now. I no longer feel compelled to password protect my iPod, lest someone discover that it contains both Barry Manilow and One Direction.
• When someone compliments me these days, I smile and say thank you. I enjoy being thought well of, but it is no longer my currency.
• My new footwear axiom: All comfortable shoes need not be sexy but all sexy shoes must be comfortable.
• When there is dancing, I dance.
• I say yes. When someone asks me to do something that is outside my comfort zone, I say yes. It’s making me a more interesting person already.

There are a hundred more ways that living in the moment is changing my life but I won’t bore you to death with all of them. I will say that I am much happier living this way. I worry less and smile more. I am finding that life is much more of an adventure when you are truly present in the moment you are living right now.

I’d love to hear about the little things you do to live in the moment and experience joy.