What I learned this Spring
My knee-jerk reaction to "what did you learn this season" is mostly just a shrug and "not much". But this is why I love the practice of posting these reflections - because as I have thought about the question today I have remembered a few of the things that I learned.
Life Coaching - This spring I started receiving life coaching with Katie at Flourish & Co. It has been pretty much the best thing I have done in a very very long time. I signed up with her hoping that she could help me get all organized and prioritized and help me with finding time to write. I thought of it as an investment in my writing, but now I'd say everyone would benefit from life coaching. Even if the investment doesn't come back in dollars - it will come back in sanity ten-fold. I went from a place of reactionary to something much more proactive. My calls with Katie were the highlight of my week - it was just wonderful to have someone who was 100% encouraging. We set goals and then the next week she'd check in with me. For my accountability craving personality it was wonderful. I have a post I'm working on with more details on my experience with Katie this spring. So stay tuned. I can't say enough good things about her. (psst. if you think you might like to do something like this she does free initial consultations.)
Spring - last time I wrote a "what I learned" post I mentioned that I'd learned that "You can't control the seasons" and I am still learning this lesson. I usually think about spring as being a season of life bursting out of hibernation - that hasn't really been the case for me. I haven't been twirling around in the sunshine and spring rain, I've been on hands and knees in the dirt. Because sometimes spring is a season of sowing. Sometimes spring is a season where we recognize the tender, tiny little sprigs of fresh growth and we try to protect them from being crushed. We try not to compare this season to the spring of the past or the spring that other people seem to be enjoying and move forward in the fog and quiet of this season.
One day when i was watching Emily Freeman's InstaStories and she mentioned that she uses a clear plastic pouch for various things - mostly lip products. I had been carrying around a see-through pouch in my purse for months. So i put my lip products in it- game changer right there, I'm telling you! I'm so happy that I don't have to dig around in my purse trying to find my chap stick. I pull out the case and I can see exactly what I'm trying to get.
Click -List - I got over my fear of new technology and finally ordered my groceries!! It is wonderful! I wrote a blog post about it.
I also wrote a blog post about painting my bathroom ceiling. I learned that I CAN do hard things that someone else could maybe do better, and that I will do imperfectly.
Voxer - either you are rolling your eyes at me saying "duh" or you're cocking your head to one side saying "huh?" I thought I would hate it because it is too much like talking on the phone which is something that I am really truly horrible at. But it is enough like texting that I'm okay with it. Also I have been chatting with friends on Voxer who make my laugh and we share our lives with each other a little bit differently because we can leave voices notes for each other. My hubs rolled his eyes and said "you can do the same thing on iMessage" but Voxer works with non iPhones.
Read:
Ginny Moon - Benjamin Ludwig
I saw this recommended on Tish Oxenrider's IG stories. It is SO good. I wanted to read it al at one sittings really really good from page one. Some profanity but appropriate for the situation and some suggested abuse/violence but nothing graphic.
Carve the Mark - Veronica Roth
So I basically want to be Veronica Roth. I want to write a trilogy (or whatever that was) of moderately successful YA novels and get a movie deal that is filmed right here in Georgia. I totally forgive her for everything I hated about Allegiant. I was excited that she had a new book out (it came out this January) and requested it from the library. It was nothing like the Divergent series. The world-building is stronger but I thought that the character building was weaker. It was hard for me to keep up with the secondary and tertiary characters and the whole thing felt darker and more violent and looooooooooong. Oh my goodness. Plus it didn't have a satisfying ending. It was similar to the Divergent books in the way it processes things and deals with the ethics of death. The main characters are in love but there's nothing steamy about their relationship (awkwardly so at one point.) If there is a follow-up book to this I'm not reading it. (Famous last words? I said the same thing after I read Divergent, but that was more like - oh my goodness I can't believe I just sat on my couch throwing cereal at my kids for the last 24 hours while I read TEEN fantasy!!!! But then I read the other two books.)
Watch:
Space Between Us - a baby is born on mars. He only knows one girl on earth. He goes to visit her. They fall in love. He almost dies. It was terribly romantic. But the story was very badly developed and in the end pretty disappointing.
Everything Everything - a girl is allergic to the outdoors. A boy moves in next door and she leaves home to go on an adventure with him. Based on the book by Nicola Yoon. It was a beautiful movie. Visually terrific, but cliche story and very little good dialog. The music was good though. And there is one scene during one of their first non-text interactions that has subtitles with what they are thinking/ really mean by their awkward small talk.
I need some movie recommendations!!!
Listen:
Friends - Meghan Trainor.
Wonderfully Made Ellie Holcomb
Life Coaching - This spring I started receiving life coaching with Katie at Flourish & Co. It has been pretty much the best thing I have done in a very very long time. I signed up with her hoping that she could help me get all organized and prioritized and help me with finding time to write. I thought of it as an investment in my writing, but now I'd say everyone would benefit from life coaching. Even if the investment doesn't come back in dollars - it will come back in sanity ten-fold. I went from a place of reactionary to something much more proactive. My calls with Katie were the highlight of my week - it was just wonderful to have someone who was 100% encouraging. We set goals and then the next week she'd check in with me. For my accountability craving personality it was wonderful. I have a post I'm working on with more details on my experience with Katie this spring. So stay tuned. I can't say enough good things about her. (psst. if you think you might like to do something like this she does free initial consultations.)
Spring - last time I wrote a "what I learned" post I mentioned that I'd learned that "You can't control the seasons" and I am still learning this lesson. I usually think about spring as being a season of life bursting out of hibernation - that hasn't really been the case for me. I haven't been twirling around in the sunshine and spring rain, I've been on hands and knees in the dirt. Because sometimes spring is a season of sowing. Sometimes spring is a season where we recognize the tender, tiny little sprigs of fresh growth and we try to protect them from being crushed. We try not to compare this season to the spring of the past or the spring that other people seem to be enjoying and move forward in the fog and quiet of this season.
One day when i was watching Emily Freeman's InstaStories and she mentioned that she uses a clear plastic pouch for various things - mostly lip products. I had been carrying around a see-through pouch in my purse for months. So i put my lip products in it- game changer right there, I'm telling you! I'm so happy that I don't have to dig around in my purse trying to find my chap stick. I pull out the case and I can see exactly what I'm trying to get.
Click -List - I got over my fear of new technology and finally ordered my groceries!! It is wonderful! I wrote a blog post about it.
I also wrote a blog post about painting my bathroom ceiling. I learned that I CAN do hard things that someone else could maybe do better, and that I will do imperfectly.
Voxer - either you are rolling your eyes at me saying "duh" or you're cocking your head to one side saying "huh?" I thought I would hate it because it is too much like talking on the phone which is something that I am really truly horrible at. But it is enough like texting that I'm okay with it. Also I have been chatting with friends on Voxer who make my laugh and we share our lives with each other a little bit differently because we can leave voices notes for each other. My hubs rolled his eyes and said "you can do the same thing on iMessage" but Voxer works with non iPhones.
Read:
Ginny Moon - Benjamin Ludwig
I saw this recommended on Tish Oxenrider's IG stories. It is SO good. I wanted to read it al at one sittings really really good from page one. Some profanity but appropriate for the situation and some suggested abuse/violence but nothing graphic.
Carve the Mark - Veronica Roth
So I basically want to be Veronica Roth. I want to write a trilogy (or whatever that was) of moderately successful YA novels and get a movie deal that is filmed right here in Georgia. I totally forgive her for everything I hated about Allegiant. I was excited that she had a new book out (it came out this January) and requested it from the library. It was nothing like the Divergent series. The world-building is stronger but I thought that the character building was weaker. It was hard for me to keep up with the secondary and tertiary characters and the whole thing felt darker and more violent and looooooooooong. Oh my goodness. Plus it didn't have a satisfying ending. It was similar to the Divergent books in the way it processes things and deals with the ethics of death. The main characters are in love but there's nothing steamy about their relationship (awkwardly so at one point.) If there is a follow-up book to this I'm not reading it. (Famous last words? I said the same thing after I read Divergent, but that was more like - oh my goodness I can't believe I just sat on my couch throwing cereal at my kids for the last 24 hours while I read TEEN fantasy!!!! But then I read the other two books.)
Watch:
Space Between Us - a baby is born on mars. He only knows one girl on earth. He goes to visit her. They fall in love. He almost dies. It was terribly romantic. But the story was very badly developed and in the end pretty disappointing.
Everything Everything - a girl is allergic to the outdoors. A boy moves in next door and she leaves home to go on an adventure with him. Based on the book by Nicola Yoon. It was a beautiful movie. Visually terrific, but cliche story and very little good dialog. The music was good though. And there is one scene during one of their first non-text interactions that has subtitles with what they are thinking/ really mean by their awkward small talk.
I need some movie recommendations!!!
Friends - Meghan Trainor.
Wonderfully Made Ellie Holcomb
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