That Jolie Girl

Walking My Cat

Trilly is an old man at age 16. One thing I've always felt a little guilty about is that he's an indoor cat. When we got Trilly, as a kitten, we lived on Burnside and letting him outside wasn't a viable option. We had him for several years before moving to the more residential Brooklyn neighborhood.  He lacked the skills to be safe outside, so we kept him in.  

 

 

Last week, I drove past a lady sitting on her front steps. She had her cat on a leash and the cat looked super happy rolling around on the grass. Brilliant! I thought this might be the perfect solution for Trilly. He would be able to experience the outdoors, but not be in danger of cars or mean cats. Yesterday, Greg found a harness and leash at goodwill for three bucks. It was meant to be.

 

 

Greg and I took Trilly outside and let him walk around the backyard. I was very nervous. What if he freaked out? What if he bolted? But nothing bad happened. He enjoyed hanging out and smelling all the plants. Today I took him out for about 30 minutes. I'm so excited about this new option for our indoor cat. I look forward to many walks with Trilly.

 

30 Days of No TV

 

I decided a few months ago that Greg and I should take a month off from watching TV. We don't watch commercial TV, but we watch a heck of a lot of Netflix. I spent many years as a latch key kid and TV has always played an important role in my life. Let's face it, I love it. When I posed the idea to Greg, he quickly agreed. I had sort of hoped he would have put up more of a fight, because internally it kind of freaked me out. But I knew this was a good thing. We decided to take the month of July off.  

On June 26th, Greg realized that the Olympics start July 27th. We are both huge fans and seeing the games is important to us. So we decided to start the month the next day on June 27th.    

OK, to say that I was a little freaked was an understatement. I found myself thinking about TV during times when I never watched it. I definitely had withdrawals. Greg and I spent nights lamenting on how great it would be to watch a movie. But we never faltered. And really, it wasn't that bad.  

 

Here are some things that came as a result of not watching TV for one month

• A project that Greg and I have been talking about for years has gotten off the ground. A website has even been created. We are hoping to have this new project up and running in the next couple of months. Super exciting!
• I read Moby Dick and 3 other books
• I went to bed earlier
• I never once looked at Pinterest
• I spent less time on Facebook and playing Words with Friends

 

I'm super excited to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics tonight.  I'm also glad that we will be watching movies again.  I don't ever see us living without a TV, but taking this month off has let me recognize some patterns and change some habits.  Now the goal is to not be so dependent on it and to have more days in the week where we don't watch than we do.

 

What the World Domination Summit did for Me

 

It's easy to document my weekend activities surrounding the World Domination Summit.  All very tangible scrapbook-ish sort of things. When I re-read that post in the future, it will help me remember all the great things about the past weekend.

It's a little harder to put a finger on what I got out of the summit. As an introvert, just showing up to the event was a success for me. While I've found that being a volunteer is an easier way for me to interact with people, it's still a scary, scary thing for me.  

I started to notice that I was having a weird reaction towards the other introverts at the conference.  Folks would say that they were an introvert and then volunteer for group activities or easily talk to strangers or dance wildly and freely at the parties.  I couldn't comprehend this at all; it was mind boggling.  Then I realized the difference. While I'm completely and totally an introvert, I also struggle with being shy and socially awkward - very different beasts. I'm an introvert squared.  

 

Photo by Armosa Studios

Sunday morning, I was asked to hand out superhero cards to attendees for Chris Brogan's upcoming presentation.  As he handed me a big stack of cards, Chris encouraged me to take a card for myself.  I looked through the whole deck to see if there was a card that I identified with.  There it was: The Invisible Woman. I absolutely identify with her.  I'm at my best behind the scenes.  I don't like "eyes on me" and I'm instantly caught off guard when I'm praised.  It's not a comfortable feeling.  So I revel in being invisible. This was a main reason why I decided to not sell crafts in 2012. Marketing and putting myself out there is not something I have any desire to do.  It's also the reason that I took up photography.  If I'm the one documenting, I don't have to be in the pictures.  I can stay invisible. It's comfortable being out of the spot light.

But as the day went on, I started to realize that while this is a powerful superhero trait, maybe it's keeping me from being my best self.  Maybe it's actually a hindrance.  I have been blogging over 7 years and I've never had much of a following.  I started my craft blog back when there was just a handful of us.  I saw crafty folks that started about the same time I did and living in the same city as me getting book deals and having their careers take off.  I stayed steady treading water.  And while there could be many reasons why my blog never became the success I wanted it to be, I think one big component is that my shyness kept me invisible.  I kept myself out of my blog, because of the fear of "eyes on me".  

I can relate this same sort of thing to many areas of my life.  While being praised is hard for me, I also missed getting recognition for the things I had done.  It's a weird catch-22.  

Luckily, we always continue to evolve.  I have been making baby steps towards being seen more.  I took down my tagline 'crafty, yet shy' that I had worn as a protective shield. It's getting easier to have my face on my blog and Facebook; something I was adamantly against in the past.  I volunteered on three committees this year which put me well outside of my comfort zone. I'm trying hard (even though it's hard to tell at times) to practice my social skills.  While people hate small talk, I find it helpful when reaching out.  Just talking about the weather to someone I don't know is terrifying, I'm not at the point where I can delve into deeper topics.  But I hope to get there.  

 

Photo by Armosa Studios

 J.D. Roth was the last keynote speaker of the weekend.  He gave an incredible speech about how to take action and transform your life.  While I got a lot out of what he said, I got more out of his actions.  He freely talked about being terrified of public speaking and how enormously outside of his comfort zone it was to get on stage in front of a 1000 people.  But he did it.  You could tell that he struggled a bit during his speech.  It didn't flow as naturally as some of the other speakers who do this sort of thing for a living.  Through his fear and uncomfortable-ness, he was poignant and inspiring. Standing in the balcony watching him speak, I thought to myself 'I could maybe do that someday'.  A thought that I never have or if I do think something like that, I banish it from my mind as fast as I can. This time I sat with the thought and tucked it away as a future possibility.  

At the opening party, I caught the girl who manned the photo booth taking a self portrait.  I thought that was such a great idea.  I also thought she was crazy brave.  So when I manned the photo booth at the closing party, I decided that I wanted to do the same thing.  It was a small step in the right direction to be less invisible.  I almost talked myself out of it several times.  There were people all the around and I was crazy nervous.  At about ten to midnight, I knew the booth was closing soon and I was running out of time.  Finally, I jumped in front of the camera and took my picture.  I felt really great afterwards.

 

After all of the pictures from Armosa Studios (wonderful people!) were posted to Flickr, I looked through them to find myself.  I figured I'd be in a few crowd shots that I could grab to put on my blog.  There were roughly 1000 pictures and I had done such a great job of being invisible that I wasn't in a single picture...except my self portrait.  

It was a good lesson that I need to keep working on putting myself out there more and not be so afraid that people will see me.  I'll continue to take baby steps that put me outside of my comfort zone.  Who knows where all of those steps will take me?

What I did for the World Domination Summit

 

I was lucky enough to be an ambassador at the inaugural World Domination Summit. I got so much good out of that weekend and it even helped me make a shift to my blog that relieved much anxiety for me.  I was on a WDS high for many weeks after the event.  I was so impressed with how nice everyone was.  The positive energy was tangible and gave me lots to think about.  I was thrilled to volunteer again this year. 

 

 

Jen and I created a crazy awesome backdrop for the photo booth at the opening and closing parties.  At the opening party, I opted to help with registration.  I'm much better at helping people than mingling.  I was relieved to do this for a few hours.

 

 

I also did some leg work to set up this video booth at the Newmark theater.  Based on this idea, attendees could draw and write how they felt about WDS.  People came up with some wonderful ideas and I can't wait to see the end result when the footage is cut down into a short movie.  On Saturday morning, I monitored the video booth.

 

 

Saturday afternoon, I was free to watch workshops at the Eliot center.  I got to see the fabulous Danielle LaPorte.  I had missed Brene Brown earlier in the morning, so I was thrilled that I got to attend her workshop.  I even made Brene cooler by turning off all the lights in the very warm room.

 

 

After the workshops, everyone returned to the Newmark theater for the afternoon keynote speeches.  I was lucky enough to watch these from back stage.  Very cool.

 

 

Sunday morning, I handed out super hero cards for speaker Chris Brogan.  It was nice to chat with people as they were entering/leaving the theater.  The year was no different than last, people were super friendly.  It was inspiring to hear the speakers as well as the stories of attendees I happened to meet.  Such great positive energy to the entire group.

 

 

Sunday afternoon, Jen and I set up the photo booth backdrop at the Crystal Ballroom for the closing party.  

 

 

We were done with enough time to attend Pam Slim's workshop and see her on top of a piano.  

 

 

After WDS wrapped up at the Newmark Sunday afternoon, we headed back to the Crystal to make sure everything was ready for the closing party.  When the party was just getting started, I had the scary job of mingling with the crowd.  So many attendees came up to thank me personally and the other ambassadors for their hard work. Their sincere remarks were very touching.

 

 

From 9pm until 12am, I worked at the photo booth.  I was so grateful for this job.  Mingling, is so not my thing, but give me a task to do and I quickly become more out going.  I had such a great time taking all kinds of crazy photos.  It was such great fun.  It was a very exhausting weekend and I didn't get much sleep, but it was the most wonderful experience and I'm already thinking about being an ambassador next year.

 

Mango Circle Backdrop for WDS and A Lesson is Staying Calm

Photo by Tammy Stroebel

 

A couple of months ago, I was asked if I wanted to help with 2 photo booths for last weekend's the World Domination Summit.  I immediately said 'yes', but almost just as immediately I thought 'eek, what am I getting myself into?'.  I took a deep breath and knew it would all work out.  My good friend Jen (in the middle of this picture, I'm on the right) had this crazy idea to create a backdrop made out of felt circles.  

 

 

She created this grid of what it would look like.  OK, that's a lot of dots.  I counted all of those dots to figure out how many circles I would need to cut.  It turned out to be over 5,000 circles.  Gulp!  I had cut up the 6 yards of felt we had bought and only had about 3,000 circles.  

 

 

To make the circles, I cut the yards of felt down into 1.5 inch strips. Then I cut the strips down into 1.5 squares.  With a T-square and a rotary cutter, this whole process went pretty fast.

 

 

After I had my squares, I cut 3 of them at a time with my Sizzix Big Kick to create circles.  I spent at least 15 hours cutting 3,000 circles. Here was another point of the project where I just didn't know how this project was going to turn out - if it would at all.  But I just kept telling myself that I was going to be zen about the whole thing and that it would work out. 

 

 

I packed up my circles and headed to Jen's house.  She is an expert with the sewing machine and I was so grateful that I didn't have to sew.  My sewing ability is poorly lacking. I counted the circles for each row and got them ready for her to sew.  We quickly realized that our math was off.  We hadn't allowed for spaces between the circles.  So the math was re-calcuated and adjusted.  I was adding and dividing until my eyes crossed.  The great thing that came out of this process was that the number of circles we needed quickly dropped. Knowing I wouldn't have to cut another 2,000 circles was a huge relief.

 

 

We met several times to sew all of the circles together.  The ends of the piece where it was only mango circles went crazy fast.  The section with WDS in red was challenging to say the least.  The incorrect math really messed with the letters, but we kept plugging along.  I chanted my mantra 'It's all going to work out' over and over silently as we worked.  

 

Jen working her magic on the very complicated S. 

 

While Jen corrected the letters, (which meant eyeballing where the red circles should be and cutting/sewing circles into the correct position) I tied each row to a curtain rod.  It felt so great when the last row was hung and we wrapped the entire backdrop in a sheet for transport.

 

 

We used this backdrop at the photo booth for the opening party and the closing party.  When we arrived at Pure Space last Friday to set up the backdrop, I was super nervous.  We spent over an hour untangling rows after unrolling the piece from the sheet.  When it was finally hung, I finally relaxed.  It was done!  It looks so great in the photo booth pictures.  I had brought along the photo booth props I had made for my niece's graduation party in June.  The addition of mustaches, glasses, bow ties on sticks and chalk board thought bubbles that people could write on made the whole project come together.

 

Photo by Armosa Studios

 

This entire project was a great lesson for me. I'm a natural worrier. I'm really good at worrying about everything.  I was able to keep my worry in check, because I had confidence in my abilities and in Jen's abilities.  When she told me that we'll just make it work - I trusted and believed her.  She is a wiz at problem solving and I'm not too shabby either.  I wasn't passively thinking that it would all work out.  I knew it would be successful, because I knew we would work until it was perfect.  And we did.