This weekend

I'm still on that freaking Martha Stewart list, and keep adding to it. Here's what I have left (that I care about):

• Move the geraniums from the front yard into pots for the back garden - after listening to an excellent podcast on digitdownunder I must admit that I have a new fondness for the old-granny-plant. And I'm thinking of combining two tasks by potting them in the old crates we've found around and under the house during the renos.


• Stick some happy wanderer in the ground so I don't have to stare at ugly fencing when I do the laundry - well I haven't got to this yet but I have planted a white and a purple variety on either side of the sunroom at the front of the house in the hope of improving its visual appeal - that's my compromise. Jeff refuses to get rid of it and while I HATE it, the expense is too great when only one wants it to happen (kinda like ivf and having children... oh that's another story). So let's hope the happy wanderers do their job.


• Paint around the windows of the sunroom - I tested the charcoal paint and I think it's a winner. Now, if it would only stop raining. What is this! Isn't there a drought or something?


• The mint chandelier... I just had a brain wave - by combining two tasks again! Plant them in tins with drain holes... yes, that's the plan.


• I also want to make a heap of ceramic magnets with the white stoneware that I brought home from pottery.

Speaking of pottery - I'm afraid that half of the first batch of finished work has turned out to be an ugly disaster. Some photos to serve as a reminder that I must NEVER make pinch pots again. But coiling is ok.

Next week's will be much better. A LOT of pieces being fired this week plus the ones that I'm glazing on Monday. I'm really happy with this first stage. Pottery is turning out to be quite a winner for me...

Redevelopments

This is my second home. Unless you count this other one, in which case it's my third.

For the past few years now I've been looking, looking for what the hell I'm meant to be doing here. You can run through my rants over at BettyonaBox. And Ill still be ranting. It's just that this one helps me get a more balanced approach to life - a little bit of Sunshine.

And while on this search I went to a life coach or two, two shrinks, a therapist and I even studied life coaching in the hope that it would rub off.

So I now seem to have come to this realisation that maybe I should just do it all and quit wondering if it's THE right thing that I'm MEANT to be doing.

So, given how I tend to chop and change what I'm into so regularly and I'm into so many things, I'm changing the focus of this blog a little. It's now a space for me to explore all of the things that make me happy - craft, gardening, cooking, photography and art. Everything that makes my heart sing, really. And by doing all of those things, maybe, just maybe, I'll find that elusive happy place.

Oh, as an adjunct, today is the day I start taking Lithium so I'll be monitoring that as well. I'll soon place a chart in the sidebar, if you're interested. I'm sure there'll be tonnes of fun and games there.

So I'm here at TGIF on Chapel Street (don't shoot me, I needed an internet hotspot and they have one for an hour, free if you spend $10). I've just taken my meds, have had a hot chocolate and am about to have a Campari and lemonade (my last drink for a long time). It's kinda nice here, at the bar, surrounded by smiley uniformed staff with walkie talkies. It's nicely American. And I do like American. I mean, I'm married to one.

Inspiration for Feb

I'm totally inspired to do a few new things this month, including:

• Learn to rollerskate in time for VRDL's fresh meat intake mid-year. Here are some videos that helped me to skate like a champ in my dreams last night (seriously, I was VERY GOOD).
• Make some beautiful embroidery like this by Anita Katita
• Finish my Cert IV in Training and Assessment
• Finish my short story and submit it to Going Down Swinging before March 31. I'm nearly there.

That's all!

Queen of the goals

I am a goal setting Queen. After more than a decade of the corporate life packed with "fun-filled', "interactive", "team-building" workshops that have used an abattoir's worth of butcher paper that by the end of the day was covered in colourful scrawls and arrows and have helped to put 3M post-it notes on the map (literally - I used to work for Lonely Planet), I am a genius at writing SMART* goals.

Creating goals has always involved a new notebook. Not your common 29-cent 8mm feint-lined A5 exercise book because GOALS deserve so much more than that. Something like this. Or my current favourite that isn't exactly stylish in the traditional sense - a mini flip notebook with the Virgin Mary, halo aglow, on the cover. Look, I need all the help I can get.

My home is filled with dozens and dozens of such provocative and inspirational notebooks containing one or two pages of goals and lists such as:
• things to do on the weekend;
• things to make on the weekend;
• things to finish on the weekend;
• my five-year plan;
• my 10-year plan;
• my 12-month plan;
• april plan;
• to do Christmas break 2008-9;
• start a blog;
• goal to lose 10kg;
• goal to lose 5kg...

You get the idea, no doubt.

It isn't that I'm a gonna. I do plenty. I live by the motto "idle hands are the devil's playthings". As well as "idle hands lead to boredom and premenstrual tensions with my significant other" or "idle hands make TV very very boring" and finally "idle hands make snacking far easier". I'm constantly stitching, knitting, crocheting, writing, planning, planning, planning. The problem is that I sometimes spend so long planning that there's barely enough time for doing and I get sidetracked doing things that are perfectly fine, but not what I intended because I get so bored from all of the planning and over-analysing that I just don't feel any joy at the mere thought of what I was planning in the first place. But that's not to say that goal-setting is evil. But poor goal-setting definitely is.

This year, 2009, has been the Year of the Coach for me. I've been studying life coaching, started listening to a tonne of podcasts about creating life and business and even enlisted a couple of coaches for myself.

And I found http://www.stevepavlina.com/

Steve is a no nonsense entrepreneur and personal-development "preacher". He won't be to everyone's taste and, to be honest, his ideas freak me a little but he has an alluring approach to life and how to start your own business. He espouses the notion that the best way to start a business is to quit your job and just go for it without a plan, just figure it out as you make mistakes. I'm not quite down with the school of hard knocks, having been knocked about before but I do like Steve's approach to life. So along with my studies (7 weeks to go) I've decided to take a new course of action in my life.

Firstly, I want to start my own business so that I can quit my job sooner rather than later. And as Steve says, if you want to start your own business, just start it right now. You don't need a logo, a flashy website or business cards right away. The first thing to do is create value. What do you know about that will be of value to others? Right now, I know three things already:

1. I like to tell people what to do;
2. I like making things;
3. I like to look at pretty things that other people have made an telling people about them.

Number two is easy - make things (remember, idle hands...) as is number three.

Number one is the reason why I'm studying life coaching - to harness my skill and use it for good instead of evil. Coaching is far from telling people what to do. Coaching is helping people uncover their value and how to plan the (very) real steps around bringing that value to the surface so that others can bask in it with you. Ready, fire, aim, as Steve Pavlina suggests. We mostly live by a slightly different ethos - Ready, aim, fire. The problem with that is that we spend so long aiming that by the time we're ready to fire, the target is long gone. Remember what I was saying about spending so long planning that I end up over analysing the idea to death and get sick of it? Of course, if you're planning to sink a few million into an idea, or even a few thousand, you might want to spend more time aiming but that's not what I'm about. As a sole proprietor whose only expense is an internet service provider then the approach - Ready, Fire, Aim - works because the more time I spend on the right masthead and the perfect widgets then the less time I'm spending on creating value.

So today, I decided to grab the first notebook I could find, which happened to be a 29-cent 8mm feint-ruled A5 exercise book, in my husband's draw in the study, tore out the first few pages that already had some scribble on them, and walked the dogs to the local coffee shop for breakfast. I even forgot a pen and had to use a mini pen that I have dangling from my keys. Hardly comfortable, hardly stylish but definitely able to do the job.

And this is the result of my first post. Because I AM great at setting goals, and now I'm even better at working towards them. After all, I am a coach on a never-ending road towards discovery through making.

*S - Specific
 M - Measurable A - Achievable R - Realistic T - Tangible or Time focused