Here's a great quote I wanted to share with you. Found over at zen habits...a great little blog by the way, and terrific for reducing the clutter in my head. Anyway here's the quote:
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle
Because the Nor'easter is going to be with us for a while here on the east coast, here are some lovely suggestions on rainy day activities. (found via one of my favorite interior design blogs, Apartment Therapy NYC)
I was saying to my beau the other day that he might consider spending some time listening to the silence in his life. I don't remember what brought up this conversation, but love him as I do, this guy usually has either TV or music going on in his house all the time. Maybe it's a guy thing? I asked if he had ever just turned everything off and was just "one" in the quiet. When I mentioned this new and startling option to him he looked at me surprised. (Is it really that strange?) As for myself. I'm a big believer in silence. You could even call me a "silence junkie". If I don't get enough quiet time, I begin to get a bit cranky.
I love to listen to the sound of silence in my home. Sometimes it is not completely silent, of course. Tonight I hear the rain on the window and the sound of car tires on a slick pavement. Sometimes it is the soft conversation of my boys downstairs. When I'm in the city I love to hear the city sounds outside the window and those somehow seem to also comfort me. But when I turn off the TV and the music in my immediate environment, I find my body almost immediately relaxes. Literally within minutes, I feel my neck muscles loosen and my breathing becomes more deep and regular. It's very satisfying and a gives me a greater sense of relaxation then if I were to come upstairs and switch on the TV. Silence allows me to be alone. It allows me to follow the train of my thoughts or intuitions and to sometimes even shut off my thoughts and just be. It lets me shut out the world and my goodness...it's just plain peaceful. I find that sometimes my most creative ideas come to me when I'm in silence. When I read it must be silent.
I honestly don't know why I have chosen to share these thoughts with you tonight except perhaps to somehow tell you that I'm really enjoying a quiet night at home and am wishing the same to all my readers... Breathe deep and enjoy.
For those of you who can't seem to break the sound barrier but feel the need for a Zen moment...try this great site Free Soothing Music (found via The Thinking Blog.) Free Soothing Music works almost as well as the sound of silence.
It takes me some time to recover from unexpected or unforeseen events that interrupt the course of my day. Running a business and functioning as a single mom requires a lot of organization and planning. When a cog gets stuck in the wheels of progress, I have a very hard time recouping my day. I can’t seem to just spin, pivot and find my original pace again.
I had three appointments today. Along the shoreline there was an interview with Jeff P’an, Glass Blower; a meeting with David Black, Artist and another appointment way up in Rocky Hill CT. Knowing that I would be onsite and out of the office all day I prepared for the road. Yesterday I filled my gas tank with gas. I checked my digital voice recorder to ensure it had batteries and was in proper working order. Checked my digital camera in the same fashion. Put together files and notes for the various meetings and figured out the times of departure/arrival etc. At 11:45am I gathered everything together, got into my car and… the car battery is dead! This comes as a total surprise to me. I’m stunned and in disbelief. I turn the key again. Yup, it’s dead for sure. The lights (to my knowledge) were not left on. All the doors were closed shut. Who the hell knows how or why this has happened but one thing I do know as I sit in my dead car is… MY DAY IS SHOT! I’ve just wasted the time of my clients, and the rest of my week will be affected by this one stupid event because now these meetings (and the work schedule for the next few days) will all need to be rearranged.
I wish I could just come back into the office and hit the ground running. I’m thinking many of you could just seize the day and take advantage of the “free” time just acquired. And eventually after regrouping that is what I’ll do, it just takes me some hours to do it. I usually start slowly by calling everyone I’ve just dissed and explaining and rescheduling appointments. I’ll throw in a load of laundry (just to trick myself into thinking I’m doing something productive.) I’ll maybe sit down and answer email or make phone calls, read some feeds and perhaps write a post (just like this one) and by that time I’m usually back in “work” mode and can move forward and salvage something of my day… but it’s already 3:15pm and in order to stay somewhat on schedule I know I'll be working until 8:00pm.
I’m sure Merlin Mann of 43 Folders could give me some good advice on how to cut this regrouping time in half. Perhaps help can be found in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.
Have you experienced this? Can you recover quickly? If so I’m interested in knowing how you handle these little setbacks. What’s your secret?
Things I hate:
Things I Love:
Alas, Thanksgiving and the holiday season is upon us. I have been looking forward to this four day weekend for a month. It signals the time when I imagine my clients cuddled up and cozy with family and friends, surrounded by candlelight and a feast of food. When preparations for a wonderful holiday season are gearing up and despite the rush...a joyous and festive mood prevails. Yes...I'm a die hard holiday lover! This four day weekend also signals a time when I too can spend a day or two cozied up with some good books and more importantly the luxurious bliss of being able to let my mind rest. Creativity does not work well when your life is always coming at you at 100 miles an hour.
Being that this blog has posted much about art lately, I want to post something focusing on design. Not about designing websites, graphics or interiors but my idea was about design in life and how being a designer doesn't necessarily stop when she shuts down the computer or puts the pencils away.
Springtime usually brings with it some kind of renewed spirit for reinventing one's life. Spring cleaning, new love affairs, tiny buds on the trees all seem to bring the notion that life is starting over. A new leaf is being turned. But for me, I always seem to reflect and find new life during the winter. I guess I'm not alone. I just stumbled upon Evelyn Rodriguez's blog, Crossroads Dispatches - A neo-renaissance, eco-epicurean savors, curates and shares slices from the surf's edge on innovation, design, marketing, the art of living and anything that screams Life. I discovered this tsunami survivor (yes yes...the December 26 2004 tsunami), word weaver also finds solace in these winter months. Read her Fasting for the Winter of My Content. One of the more beautiful passages that she quotes from Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti reads as follows:
"If trees were like humans, you would see them reaching down with their branches and raking up all the leaves to hold onto them for security. Wouldn't you feel bad if you saw the trees doing this, holding all their leaves to themselves as if they were in an existential crisis? This is our tendency, to pick up the pieces of our pet beliefs and theories, and hold on for dear life."
"In a real sense, self-inquiry is a spiritually induced form of wintertime. It's not about looking for a right answer so much as a stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves. In human beings, we do not call these leaves. We call them ideas, attachments, and conditioning..."
It is with ideas such as this that I embark upon my four day weekend and the start of the winter season. It is the time to reflect and begin again the redesign of myself. As I wrote here on Sept 8, designers like artists are those incredible people who are compelled to live every day designing. They can't help themselves and there is nothing else in this world they would do other than design. It's an honor and a privilege. They work for it. They live it, breathe it, talk about it, dream about it, sacrifice for it. It's in their kitchen, their living room, their hallways, it's in the clothes they wear. These self fulfulling things should be chosen carefully and deliberately. Just as when we choose a photo image to compliment our design...if the photo is lovely but not relevant, what's the point? Design is an attitude, a lifestyle and it translates to almost everything we do.
Over the summer I read Design Yourself by Karim Rashid. It's quite a wonderful book. Rashid's section on Dematerialization is a winter notion. Rashid says "I believe we can add to our lives by subtracting" And when the clutter is cleared out we can begin anew. We will have fresh thoughts and ideas. He goes on to write, "By no means am I advocating that we should not be buying or having things. I firmly believe that we should be hyperconscious of the things we surround ourselves with - either love and enjoy them or do without them."
I will find myself, this weekend, tossing out the old stuff. Recycling old magazines, clothes, shoes, handbags. Organizing papers, photos, music, my office...and taking the time to think about how different I am from the person I was this same time last year. Where do I want to take myself in the future and how will I get there? I'll even take the time to simply think about nothing and just let go.
Continue reading "A Winter Redesign - How a designer designs herself" »
Back on September 13th I decided to turn off my TV. OK...not completely turn it off but I decided to not watch a constant stream of 24 hour news. I have to say, it's been great. There are less explosions, murders, killings, war and stress in my life. I accomplish far more work and the work is of a higher quality. I love the sound of silence. Yes, I'll watch Larry King and Anderson on CNN at night, an occasional episode of Law & Order and Project Runaway when I need "brain candy"...but that's about it.
This lack of TV has given me far more time to read books, blogs, newspapers and magazines, to think and to be creative. This evening I took a stroll through the blogosphere. Usually because I'm so rushed for time, I generally read the new posts right from my Bloglines feeder but you know, I think we really miss something when doing that. I've made it my mission tonight to actually visit the blogs. It is there that we really get to taste the personality of the blogger. Their sites designed with the things they do and love. The color palette. The photos and the layout of the site. Here's some of the excellent blogs I experienced tonight:
I watched the YouTube video at Debbie Millman about A Day in the Life of Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Downtown 81. I watched all 8 videos. Merlin Mann at 43Folders has a excellent post, entitled Priorities Don't Exist in a Vacuum. Outstanding and after having read it, I exhaled...big time! KERBLOG - I like it a lot. Noisy Decent Graphics, always good, points us to the Pentagram Blog. Cult Design and Finland for Thought are highly recommended to those who embrace Scandinavia and Scandinavian Design...And last but not least, I came upon Lelia Katherine Thomas' Blog. Huh...I think it's time to update my blogroll but for now I'm off to research the Slater Museum for my upcoming interview for INK Publications.
This morning my son showed me this wonderful video about the Free Hugs Campaign. I wanted to share it with you. It will make you smile, it really will. *hug* I pretty much love the music too.
Description from YouTube: Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.
In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER!
See the Free Hugs Video here
or here
My beautiful new dragonfly bracelet from Venice.
Artist:
Gloria Astolfo
Frezzeria - S. Marco 1581 - 30124 Venezia
www.gloriastolfo.com
info@gloriastolfo.com
I've found that watching less news on TV makes for a much less stressful life. (I watched A LOT of news...CNN, MSNBC, BBC, international news, Bloomberg.) For the last week or so, I've shut down my TV and have found I'm a much happier person. I'm much less stressed and best of all I seem to be able to accomplish more during the course of my day. I'm not sure if it is because I'm not getting that constant feed of what I see as a contemptible administration or if it is because I don't have the constant noise of news, explosions, gun fire, crying children and such coming into my office, living room and bedroom on a 24 hour basis. Lately I do my reading in silence. I conduct my work with only the hand picked sounds coming from my ipod. I have to tell you, it's a big improvement and my days and nights are peaceful...for the most part :) Because I will always remain a "news junkie" perhaps I'll start a new routine and get my news from print while sipping a venti caffe mocha at the new Starbucks in town.
