Re-Inspired

It's been a few months since I've posted here. I seem to always start trying to post more of my creative things on another, separate blog but I always seem to come back to here I have recently become re-inspired to start posting here again and following through with why I created this blog in the first place. When I started this blog about five and a half years ago, it was to start living a more healthy and natural life while creating handcrafted things. Through the craziness of life, my follow through waxes and wanes. I have started creating mandalas and "zentangling". I have finally learned what zentangling is and love that I can be creative and do meditation at the same time. I have been posting my creations at my other blog, http://pixiewindow.blogspot.com. My latest creations are below:

I am also re-inspired to change my eating. I have been working on changing what and how I eat, and it's been a challenge. With the new year starting, I am joining up the with the 100 days of real food challenge. I am also trying to work more on how to add why I write about in this blog into my professional life. I love who I work for, but I don't love working in the nursing home arena any more. I want to do something more with nutrition and creativity and now that I have my LICSW, I feel like I have more options. I feel like I need to make more changes in my personal life so that I can be more credible in my professional life. I would love to have a place where I can have a creative arts studio and a kitchen and garden where I can teach about nutrition and where food comes from. I would love to have a place where people, especially children, can come and learn how to eat healthy and learn where food comes from and what different types of foods there are and how to create healthy delicious food that they will enjoy. I also want to teach ways of being creative and how to use creativity for relaxation and meditation. Someday, if I keep trying to figure it out, I will find a way to have my passions be part of both my personal and my professional life. I'll, hopefully be writing more about my plans and what I learn. I'm sure I'll continue posting on pixiewindow.blogspot.com, but I will be sure to continue to be active here and post about my mandala, zentangle, gardening, and cooking and eating healthy.

Best Wishes on living a balanced, handmade and natural life< Amy

Wednesday

It's Wednesday again, and even though I haven't been playing every week, I thought I'd join in again with "Wishcasting Wednesday".

This week Jamie asks, "What belongings do you wish for?"


I hate being materialistic, but I figure it can't hurt it I wish for something helpful.  So here I go!

1.) I wish for a larger house.  Nothing too big, but just big enough for my 3 kids, me and my husband.  I would love it to be big enough to have a kitchen, living room, dining room, playroom for the kids, 4 bedrooms, a craft room for me, and a woodshop for my husband.  I would love to have a bathroom for the kids and for me and my husband (thinking on the second floor), and one for everyday use (on the first floor).  This sounds huge since right now our house is 3 bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen with a semi finished basement and 2 bathrooms.  I don't need huge rooms, just big enough to be comfortable in.

2.) I would love a new wardrobe!  I would love to have nice, good quality items that I can mix and match with fun trendy pieces.  I don't want too much, but enough so that I am stylish and trendy without being crazy.  I want enough classic pieces that as styles change, I can switch out some of the more trendy pieces so that I can remain in style.

3.) To go along with number 1, I want some fun items to fill my new house.  I would love fin furniture and storage to help me maintain being organized, yet make my house look very stylish.  I guess when I thin about my style, it is probably very eclectic ( as I am with almost every area of my life).

4.) Again to go along with number 1, I want the outside to match the inside.  I want to have both fun and useful gardens.  I want to have fun things for my kids.  I want to have a fun, relaxing outdoor environment to relax with family and friends.

5.) I would also love new craft supplies of any kind at anytime I wanted them.  I would love a new DSLR camera, as well as a new macbook.

6.) I would love to have a place (outside my home) to create with others and by myself.  I would maybe even  love a store/studio to have a new career.

I know I could go into more details, but I don't have the time to detail all of this.  This is a basic outline of the belongings that I wish I had.

Even though I wish I had all of these things, I am so thankful that I have what I have.  I have a great husband, 3 great kids, great family (both mine and my in-laws), friends, a house with a large yard for the kids, transportation, and food.  I really shouldn't ask for more, but this was fun to think about!

Amy

Who Am I?

This post is more for me to think about who I am and what do I believe in.  It's really a post for me that I am sharing with anyone who reads this.  I think it is really important for all of us to, every once in a while, sit down and think about who were are and what we want out of life.  I think sometimes life just gets so busy that we forget our goals and belief systems and I for one, feel like I often need a reminder and a lilttle slap to re-focus me  back to where I want to be.

Who Am I?

I am a 37.5 (yes, I am being fairly exact) year old married female with 3 kids, 1 boy and a set of girl/boy twins.  I dated my husband for almost 14 years before we got married, and he was well worth the wait.  I have a graduate degree in Social Work and as much  I am happy that I have it, I'm not sure that it is my true passion. 

I love being a mom and I love that I am able to stay at home with my 3 kids.  I wish I could get myself into a better routine so that I don't feel like I am floundering trying to come up with ideas on how to keep them busy and get them to learn the things that they should be learning as well as keeping my house in order.  Since the new year started, I have been doing better.  I still need a lot of work to get my house in order.  I hate housework and I'm sure that I put it off, finding other things to do instead.

I love the whole idea of a natural holistic life, but sometimes I get to caught up in taking the easy way out, that I don't always follow through with my ideals.  I want to make sure that I use as few chemicals in my life as possible, especially when it comes to my and my family's body and environment.  I am try to use better quality body products, or even make my own.  I am trying to cook all our meals and snacks from scratch rather than buy processed items.  I am trying to use natural products, as long as they clean well, in my house cleaning.  I really need to make time to exercise, even though I hate it!  I need to make time to meditate and do yoga.  I want to learn more about herbs and essential oils and how they can benefit us in everyday life.  That is definitely one of my passions!

One of my other passions is being creative.  I love to make things!  I love taking something like a plain piece of paper, material, yarn, and make something beautiful and useful out of it.  I love the idea of handmade items versus commercialized products that everyone has.  I love learning new creative outlets.  I have not enough time to spend on all the things that I love to do.  I want to sew more, knit more, make more cards, scrapbook more.  I love anything creative.  There are so many creative avenues that I want to explore!

I really love to cook.  I don't always love to eat everything I cook and I absolutely hate to clean after cooking, but I love to make food!  I love cookbooks.  I love cooking shows.  I love trying new recipes.My new goal is to cook and eat healthy.  I am trying to be a little more adventurous in how and what I cook.  I want to cook more vegan/vegetarian foods, but sometimes I just want a huge hunk of steak!  I am trying to eliminate dairy, wheat, and gluten as well as refined sugars from my diet.  I believe that I have an intolerance, at least, to dairy and wheat/gluten and I just want to eliminate the refined sugars because they are just plain not good for you.  I am doing better with this goal, but still have a long way to go. I can't wait for the nice weather so that we can start our garden and have fresh food from our garden.  I will be better at planning out meals this year so that we can use what we have instead of running to the store!

 I really want to re-purpose/up-cycle more.  I want to lessen my carbon footprint by either making something myself or reusing things in a new way.  I really want to stop spending my money at stores where the items are made outside of this country.  Along with that, I would love to start eating with the seasons, so that I eat local foods not foods that are shipped in from South America or even California or Florida.

I love my family!  I love spending time with them.  I can't even remotely imagine my life without my husband or my kids.  This is the life I was meant to have.  I know that there is more about me to write, but if anyone reads this, it's already too long.

I wish I could make a living at my passions, but at least right now I can't.  That is not to say that in the future, I won't be able to find a way to include my passions into my work.  I'm sure that there will be more posts likes this, especially when I find that I am not living up to my beliefs and not enjoying my passions like I should be!

Amy