Visit me at Tales of an Unlikely Mother!

Tales of an Unlikely Mother: Mommy Friends: A How-to Guide

Today Darlena from Tales of an Unlikely Mother has featured a guest post from little old me! It is about my experiences as a lonely and bored Stay at Home Mom and how I had to venture out and make some Mommy Friends to save my sanity.

In this guest post I give a few tips about getting out of your comfort zone, staying open minded, and, of course, different ways and places that you may be able to meet other moms!

Darlena is a truly funny and candid writer with a big heart for her two little -unexpected- twin toddler girls, so while you are there check out the rest of her blog. She is always making me laugh, I'm sure you'll find a guffaw or two!

This is my first guest post and I'm very excited (nervous!) about it. If you like my guest post, I'd love it if you left your thoughts in a comment there and then share the post freely! Click here to visit!

Thanks for the support, everyone. You are all so amazing!

xox
Farren

Stepping Outside my Comfort Zone

I'm that weird mix of person that is confident and shy at the same time. Does that make sense? I believe in who I am and what I do - and its true that there are times when I'm pretty loud about it - but when I'm meeting new people I hold back, I question whether or not to let my freak flag fly.

But being a new mom can be pretty isolating, especially now that I'm staying home with Desmond and don't even have work as a social outlet. Most of my friends with children live far far away or their babies are older and they are back to work. And, as weird as it is to be shy and confident, I'm also shy and extremely social. I like people. I like talking with people, being around people, meeting with people, learning about people - I need to be around people. 

The library: My favorite place to meet.

So, I'm stepping outside my comfort zone. I'm pushing through the shyness and I'm meeting new people. I'm biting my bottom lip and going to playgroups. I'm putting up a brave face and adding friends-of-friends through facebook just because they also have babies. I'm marching up to moms at LLL meetings and handing out my phone number, my e-mail address. And then I'm going ahead and making plans with them.

Its a fine line between friendly and creepy, I think, but I like to believe I'm doing okay. We're all in the same boat, thrust into this new world of endless day time hours and bedtimes that start before most people even leave for the bar on a Friday night. I'm doing something entirely different from my vagabond party life, I'm investing in someone's future. In may cost me my evenings out right now, but at least I'll have sunshiney days and, hopefully, some mama friends and babies to share them with.

Carl Honore praises Slowness: TED Tuesday

I had the pleasure of attending one of Carl Honore's lectures last year. He was a deliberate, funny, and thoughtful speaker who brought a lot to ponder to the table. He spoke of his family, what was important to him, and how slowing down his life made it easier for him to enjoy even the smallest slices of life.

I think that some people are naturally better at this than others. For some of us, it is a conscious choice to take a step back, eliminate those extra stressors in our lives, and enjoy what we've got.

So instead of stressing and hemming and hawing over a complex TED Tuesday feature post this week, I'm going to side with slowness and simply share the video. And I'm going to take that extra time I've saved and savor a delicious meal with my family. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Carl Honore Praises Slowness:

Srikumar Rao - Plug into your Hard-Wired Happiness

Do you generally feel that you are a happy person or a cynical person?

Srikumar Rao, the speaker in this video, believes that all of us are hard-wired to be happy all of the time. Every moment. And that we are taught to be unhappy, to be constantly reaching for something new that will bring us happiness, that success is measured by the accumulation of WHATEVER as compared to our social peers.

Have you ever been so happy that you could sink to your knees in gratitude at the tremendous good fortune that has been bestowed upon you? That you become radiantly alive several times through out a day?

If your life isn't like that, he claims, then your life is sadly wasted.

Srikumar Rao commits to providing us all with strategies and tools to get there and start Plugging into your hard-wired happiness and living life to the fullest. Watch this short video lecture and see if you are on the right path to happiness:




Do you invest in the outcome, or do you invest in the process? Since actions are within our control, and outcomes are not - perhaps investing on the outcome is the same as focusing on failure. Live your life in a way that celebrates your success while leaving what is out of your locus of control behind. You will be infinitely more satisfied with life and the choices you make.

Simple Tips: How to Organize your Craft Space

To tell you about my craft space, first I have to tell you a bit about my apartment. I love my apartment. But not for the size, or the landlord, or the arrangement, or the way the kitchen appliances are over 35 years old and the colour of crusty mustard. Though that last one grows on me more and more with each addition of blue kitchen-ware. I am in love with the location and the relatively inexpensive rent, considering I live very central in a pretty large city. The building is sinking and I hear sirens, traffic, and wanderers at night - but the people who live in this neighbourhood are so diverse, interesting, and mostly harmless - anything less just wouldn't be home to me, now.

But the limited space does mean that my handsome manfriend and I need to be creative when figuring our how to be productive in our tiny place. My craft locale is a folding table, nestled delicately between the sliding balcony door (one of our only sources of natural light!) and the giant bookshelf full of novels, texts, my gigantic collection of national geographics, and vinyl records.

I had a lot of fun organizing everything and learned a lot for next year - as I definitely seem to be the kind of crafter who collects odds and ends with the hopes of doing something fruitful with it another time - hence the 200 issues of National Geographics. Ha.

Here are some of the little tidbits that made my re-organization successful, pleasurable, and efficient:

1) Start with five piles or boxes: things to keep, things that need a "forever home," things to recycle, things to give away, and things to throw away. Be ruthless. If you don't do it now, it will just haunt you later. Get rid of your trash, recycle, and give-away boxes immediately, don't look back!
2) Once you have figured out what is staying in your craft space, spread it out in front of you. Dump out drawers, open all your boxes, empty all your kits and cases. Start to really consider your art.
3) This is where it gets personal. Think about your own method. What works for you? What is important to keep you motivated? I like sunshine and plants, so I made sure that was a part of my craft space. I found an absolutely gorgeous vintage picnic basket and decided to use it to store unsold finished projects, and soon after stumbled about a vintage child's toy picnic basket which worked perfectly as an area just for my unfinished projects, as I can't stand constantly putting them completely away.
4) Group like with like. This is a great way to visualize how much space everything really does use. I put all my scissors and art knives together, all my different glues and adhesives together. My elastic and ribbon, my thread and bobbins, vintage buttons, stamps, everything went into little piles all over my table and floor - I pulled out every photo box, every old jar, vintage make up case, wicker basket, pencil box, or antique tin I had lying around to see what might fit where. Other ideas to contain your supplies include napkin holders, cake platters with domes, and envelope books. Etsy.com is a great place to look for items such as these!

5) Don't forget to think outside the box, too! I'm very visual and tactile, I like to see and be able to touch all my supplies immediately. Everything that I use often found a spot directly on my table or closest shelf. My top drawers reserved for items I reach for most - but I also decided to hang a few things - like an envelope to hold recent receipts until I can file them as well as small butterfly clips on a string so that I can hang baggies of earring hooks, snaps, and brads. I make my own patterns, so I finally made them each their own envelope and then drew the garment on the front of the envelope in neat sharpie colours and slid them all into their own little box.
6) Be comfortable in your own space. Stick to a style you love. I love warm, open, and cozy spaces and wanted my tiny craft nook to reflect that style. And I wanted it to be a place where I love to spend time. Mission Accompli!

For me, this organization project was at first a daunting task that turned out to be a lot of fun and didn't quite take the effort I was expecting. It can be very inspiring to see all the supplies, colours, and tools to have at one's disposal! Good luck to everyone launching their own organization project, I think you will find that a clear space translates to a clear mind - which really lets those great ideas sparkle through. Shine on you crazy diamonds, Shine on!

Non-TED TED Talk

Get it? No? Well, then, I will explain. Randy Pausch is an amazing man. I've seen some of his speeches before, and they are always inspiring, jaw-dropping, and so get-up and go motivating (as opposed to spiritually motivating, I suppose), so I wanted to include a TED talk by Mr. Pausch today.

Mr. Pausch's TED talk is here, and it is an hour and seventeen minutes long. I strongly recommend watching the entire video, every word he has to say and every moment he shares is incredible, moving, and powerful.

But we don't all have an 1:17 to spend on that today, so I am deviating (GASP!) from the formulae to bring you the TED talk Coles Notes - We call it Oprah. If you are not a fan of hers, don't worry! This is Randy Pausch's moment to share "The Last Lecture" -as in, what would you say if you had to give the absolute last lecture of your life?

Please watch and leave your thoughts and comments below. Oprah jokes accepted only if they are funny:




Yep, I tear up at the end, every time. I feel like I could watch this video every morning.

While watching this TED talk, I worked on this:

Did you work on anything you'd like to share?

The 8 Secrets of Success

A quickie TED talk, today! I found this speedy little video the other day and watched it for my own curiosity. Am I on track with my goals and aspirations? Am I moving towards success? Turns out, there were a few things that I was already doing, a few things that I know I needed to focus on, and a few things that I needed to re-evaluate about myself and my goals.

Even though this video is extremely short, it is packed with useful and motivational information that helped me feel like I was on the right track. Hopefully you feel the same way!


"Why do people succeed? Is it because they're smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success:"



Motivated?! Let's get creative!

To view more TED talks, go here.