how to get back on the horse....
Happy New Year to you!!Well, I had a wonderfully relaxing holiday. I honestly can't remember the last time I took time off in a fashion that resembled a vacation or that lasted longer than an extended weekend. We were literally unplugged from the Internet, with no TV, in a cabin with a wood burning furnace and fireplace, where we brought food in to cook all of our meals - making it possible to just stay there...with no agenda and no distractions...except for the snow, a book, some LEGOs .... and a game of Uno before bed. It was peaceful. Quiet. Quiet enough to not even have to think. Quiet enough to make me wonder why I keep my head so FULL all the time. Restful enough to make me question why I push myself so hard, take on so much and allow myself to get so stressed. It had me confused and somewhat frozen about how to get back to work without falling back into the same old habits.
It's not like this is the first time I've been in this sort of spot. I'm cyclical to a large degree ... so I'll probably be back here again in a year's time. But I think the lessons I've learned over this holiday are directly connected to my mission and vision for my work. Back in September, I spoke about the catalog project in a way that touched on the importance of every day moments ... about how they collectively start to determine more than the sum of some their sometimes-boring individual parts. Over time patterns can be found - cycles (again) - and so I realize the key for me is to work simply on the construct of my day if I want to have an impact on my life as a whole. Making sure that I allow time for all the things that are important to me -everyday- so that they can create routines and then habits. It's the little bits that could impact my life by this time next week or next month or next year. Much like practicing a musical instrument, or training for a running race ... or simply taking vitamins. This has been my gut-instinct for the past several years when New Year's resolutions come around and I've made excuses about why doing just one more bit of work is more important than ____ (fill in the blank), but I think this new comparative insight could be ticket. (as my dad would say..."that's the ticket!")
So I have been (clumsily) trying to find my way into this new place, organizing things around the house to accommodate new habits. For example, while we were at the cabin, there were only 3 of us, so we washed the dishes by hand after each meal instead of filling the dishwasher. It was so easy and quick (and you immediately KNOW if you got the dish clean) but why does this only have to be a cabin-thing?? So I bought a dish drying rack and we haven't used the dishwasher all week. Silly small things....but so far they are rewarding.
Some other "house-cleaning" that I've done for our business to make communication easier, is to create a facebook page for silvercocoon in addition to/in lieu of using my own personal page. If you have a facebook account and want to follow, you can become a fan by visiting the page. I have even opened a twitter account, although I'm not sold on that yet.
New (exciting) things have already started pulling me in and I have great hopes and goals for the coming year (or should I say the future accumulation of 365 days?) Can't wait to share it with you!