Muzzling the Know-it-All

Today is the day! Got out of bed, made a slow carb breakfast and mopped the kitchen floor. I'm convinced that productivity is all about getting some momentum going and keeping it going. After two months of eating anything and everything I wanted, it was nice to get back to something healthy that will fuel my body the right way.

In my last blog post I mentioned that I was going to sign up for an online class and I did, and I love it. After some deliberation, I chose the Draw Your Awesome Life workshop by Joanne Sharpe. It's fifteen lessons for $38 and her style and mine are very similar so it seemed a good fit. I went to Asel and spent $20 and I was ready to roll! I've done three pages so far and even though I'm not in love with any of them, I like something about each and more importantly I learned something from each lesson. 

I have a condition I call closet perfectionism. I have pretty low expectations about my housekeeping and my appearance but there are certain areas that I zoom in on and at times I can get so critical that I no longer enjoy something that should be fun. One of the symptoms of closet perfectionism is the delusion that I am supposed to be good at things without trying, learning, or practicing. To that end, the ugly little know-it-all in my brain can sometimes get her red pen out and scribble all over things I've made. In this class we do pencil drawings that we then cover with permanent ink and then add a watercolor layer. For one of my drawings, I used a pen that said it was permanent, but when I added the watercolor, it ran a little an muddied the colors. The results weren't bad. You could almost look at it and think it was intended but the know-it-all knows it wasn't and she's been trying to get me to tear that page out and start over. I'm leaving it in my notebook because it is a lesson, and because the only way to shut up the know-it-all is to stop playing by her rules. The joy is in the process not the product. 

If you happen to have a case of closet perfectionism, here are my suggestions on how to muzzle the know-it-all in your head:

1. Remind yourself that you are playing. Singing, painting, writing--creative pursuits of any kind, are supposed to be fun. 

2. Practice isn't supposed to be perfect. Practice is a process to improvement. Progress not perfection is the goal.

3. Buy affordable supplies to learn with. One of the ways my know-it-all beats me up is to criticize how much money I have spent compared to the product I create. When I buy a leather bound journal and an expensive fountain pen (hypothetically of course) I expect myself to write a journal worthy of those materials. The first time I misspell something or have to cross out a word, the know-it-all assures me that it is ruined. When I switched to gel pens and composition notebooks, I found I was more likely to use the notebooks and not worry if there was a phone number or a shopping list in the midst of my creative writing exercises. 

4. Don't start tearing out pages. If you want to try again, try again on another page. Document the process. When the know-it-all convinces me that I have to hide my mistakes I am playing right into her hand. Mistakes are part of life. 

5. Set process related goals. I will draw something every day. I will write 7 pages a week. I will learn a new song every two weeks. If I set a goal based on the product, everything that falls short feels like a failure. If I set goals based on process, the product will improve on its own. 

6. Fight the know-it-all by exposing the lies to the light. One of the best practices I've established is to let something sit for awhile before analyzing it. A little time and distance will remove some of the emotional attachment and allow me to look at, listen to or read things in a more productive manner. We should look at our work with a critical eye provided the motive is to improve but there is a difference between an honest critique and bullying. Part of the process is to learn the difference.

I'm off to get stuff done! Peace, love and creativity!

Tuesday's Creation

These are some birthday cards I made. The colors are more vivid than it appears by my photo and there are also some sugary sparkles on the cupcakes that aren't very visible. I used my Cricut to cut the diecuts and then outlined them with a thin black marker to give it a more handmade look. The background of each card is a page from one of the books we use in my recovery program that I watercolored. (I'm making the cards to share with friends when they celebrate their recovery date anniversary.)

I love making cards and having some stockpiled because it's often challenging enough to get ourselves together without adding a run to buy cards, gift bags and tissue paper on celebration days. I also like to give handmade mostly because I can. It's a win/win, I get to enjoy my time making cute stuff and people really seem to appreciate the effort (and well, it's cheap too! The card blanks cost pennies and the rest of the stuff I already have!)

Today is Saint Patricks Day and as it is my first with this fine Irish sirname, I am going to boldly go where I've never gone before: I'm cooking corned beef and cabbage. My husband is delighted and I am not nearly so sure, but I'm using a recipe from Taste of Home. If you don't know about ToH and you like good food, you need to check it out. I fell in love with the magazine years ago because it had recipes from real people to make real food like the stuff at a church potluck. All the other magazines had recipes that required pans I didn't have, and spices I didn't have and ingredients I'd never used to make stuff that I wasn't sure I'd really like. So I'm off to fire up the crockpot and figure out what kind of yummy fun I can get into before Big Daddy gets home!

My Creative Life and Girl Scout Cookies

One of the challenges of being me is that there are a dozen things I want to do at any given moment and none of them are the things I need to do or have to do. Lately I've been journaling and doing creative writing a lot and when I'm in the zone with that it's so good and I love it so much and I want to do it forever (like the first box of Samoas) and then one day several weeks in for some inexplicable reason I need to paint something (time to open the Thin Mints!) only actually I want to paint everything! so I head to Michaels for $60 in painting supplies and I'm going to paint forever, I am a painter, woo hooooo and then a book comes in the mail and nevermind the six books I have lined up waiting patiently, no I've got to read and read and read and read (mmmmm Tag-alongs!). I've always been like this and it's been the source of a lot of frustration and confusion for me because when my brain tells me this is it, this is your thing and you are going to do this thing forever and you are going to be great at it I believe my brain and I purchase things like I'm going to love it forever and I talk about it like I'm going to love it forever and frankly I know it makes me look like a big flake when someone asks me about the big fat forever thing before last and I have to say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that anymore." It took me years to realize that these things are cyclic and the good news is that I really don't get bored and the things I like to do come back time and time again. It's like having these wonderful wealthy friends that come to visit having just returned from someplace exotic. When they are visiting, we stay up late and play show and tell and I'm so glad they're back and just when we fall into a comfortable routine they're packing their bags to head off to Istambul and the phone rings and it's another friend who's at the airport and wonders if I can pick her up (Trefoils, where have you been!?!).

This week is Spring Break and I've been looking at crafty blogs for two day straight. I've found some amazing stuff I'd like to try my hand at. I've still got the mantle decorated for Valentines Day and it needs to be redone. I'm going to try my hand at a spinich stuffed pork loin tonight. I've got a new writing book that has my brain working on story ideas all the time and our garage is a complete disaster. The closet is over run and every piece of clothing in there needs to defend it's worth because Captain Pack Rat here is getting frustrated with trying to find something to wear to church. I bought a sewing machine at Christmas that I'd really like to learn to use better and the Book of the Month club just sent me an email telling me my book is on its way. The list just goes on and on and on and somewhere in this big casserole of things I love and things I love to do is a career.

Speaking of careers, you should check out this color test that tells you various careers that would be a good fit. Big Daddy and I both had creative as our strong suit but his second strength was in organization and mine was in persuasion. It's weirdly accurate and it only takes a minute to do. Hey, now that I think about it, perhaps I could persuade Big Daddy to organize our closet!

So I'm going to challenge myself to do one creative thing each day of Spring Break and I'll post it on the blog and posting the blog doesn't count as my one creative thing. Hopefull I will use this time to live a little more mindfully and a little more gratefully. My dad used to have a quote on his desk from Benjamin Franklin. It read, "Do not waste time, it is the essense of life." Amen!

Here are some of the ideas I fell in love with:
butterfly art
fake cupcakes
tea wreath
omg cute flipflops
collage on canvas