Love projects – Pay it forward

Today, I want to share with you guys a couple of (love) projects I’ve been doing.

It all started with the week of extreme nice inspired by Gretchen Rubin back in December last year. It was a week where I decided to help out (my family, as they’re always so supportive of me) in every way that I could, not to question, criticize or judge and just do everything they needed even if it was unspoken, and just be extremely nice.
Though it’s not sustainable for every single day from that first day forward, it reminded me to be even more attentive, selfless and loving.

After new years, I read Judy’s post. I completely agree with her when she says “I believe love should be our default position.”
I loved the idea of making this into a project, and while I do act on impulse trying to make people around me a bit happier on a regular basis, by sending e-cards, e-mails, leaving loving comments, sending postcards and letters, giving unexpected small gifts, being there when all seems hopeless, talking on Skype when in fact I’ve had the account for about 5 years and barely used it a couple of times, calling just to say “Hi”, and lots more…
I’m feeling more accountable and so much more happy since I’ve decided to start consciously following J’s Love Project. Go check her blog out, take the cute love project badge and put it on your blog; she truly inspires people to join in and experience a year of loving fearlessly.

Which brings me to one of the loveliest ways I can entwine spreading love and my crafty side, and one which will go wonderfully with January being International Creativity Month –>

Last week, while flipping through my GoogleReader before heading out in the cold and our sidewalks consisting of pure ice to get to the last tutoring lesson of the week, I found this "Pay It Forward" blog post on Becky Povich: Writer and Bliss follower’s lovely blog. I instantly fell in love with the idea!

~Rules~

ME:  I will create something handmade to send to the first five people who leave a comment on this post saying they would like to participate! – And I just can’t wait to receive my gift from Becky
YOU:  To play along you must be willing to repost the photo + this part of my post and do the same, offering something handmade to five other people. (The Rules don’t specify that the five people must be the first five to leave a comment on your blog, but that seems like the fair approach.)
YOU & ME, BOTH:  All handmade gifts will be sent sometime in 2011, and they can be anything you want. Simple, light, funny and endearing, a hand drawn card, even just a poem written especially for someone if you’re not so handy; anything goes.
Just remember the main goal: bringing a smile to someone’s face – selflessly and fearlessly spreading the love!

Now, let me see a show of hands: who would like to receive something handmade from me and make a few people more happy themselves?

Clear some clutter, clear your mind

Outer order contributes to inner calm.

I’ve read this numerous times on J’s blog, in Danielle LaPorte’s guest post, and quite a number of times on Gretchen Rubin’s blog and it made me start contemplating.
For the longest time I haven’t actually thought about the reasons behind starting cooking, baking, crafting or cleaning when I was upset. It felt right, so I did it.
But after I’ve read this simple statement, this little six word sentence, it rang so true.

Another thing I’ve noticed as I started thinking about this, was the immense amount of clutter the human mind can hold on to and process for the longest time.

These past few weeks haven’t exactly been the best, nor the easiest ones I’ve lived through so far in my life.
So, as I like to clean when my life is in disarray, I’ve found myself cleaning the bathroom, the kitchen, my room, my closet, drawers, and as to provide further evidence of the mild case of OCD I have, I even helped clean other people’s rooms. (My work area is sometimes a "creative mess," but that’s an exception.)
It’s vital not to get overwhelmed and only tackle little things. So these smaller tasks were perfect… for small happiness boosts and getting energized.

Regardless, over the weekend, I’ve decided to move my room’s entire content into my mom’s room for a day, move around all my furniture keeping nothing in its old place, then throw away everything that seemed like junk and only keep/take back the essentials.
It gave me a concrete thing to focus on. Being surrounded by disorder makes me feel discouraged, overwhelmed, and depressed, and straightening things up even a little bit makes me feel more in control.
While it may sound as a distraction and some people did call it (including myself at one point before realizing it really wasn’t) distraction because of the immensity of the task I’ve taken on, I (now) simply call it clearing out and letting go.

While I was tackling all this, throwing away boxes and bags of stuff I’ve found I could live without, and some of which I wondered why in the world I’ve kept for so long, stuff which I most certainly won’t need ever again, my mind was in a different place entirely.

I took pictures of that advent calendar hanging on the wall covering a huge hole where I tried to once hammer a nail after we moved into this house fourteen years ago. I took pictures of the vase and of the plastic flowers my friend and I painted more than ten years ago before she moved away. I took pictures of the pretty colorful striped flower pot I broke, then glued back together when I accidentally knocked it over last year.
I took pictures of a lot of things I won’t ever admit to having held on to for this long.
Then I threw them all out.

And at the same time of clearing all the clutter my room once held, I somehow managed to clear my mind.
Although emotional crap isn’t as easy to let go of, nor to overcome in just one weekend, and while I know this is far from over – as I let go of many things I’ve collected over the years, I could more easily let go of the clutter I had going on in my mind as well.
I “took pictures”, then I threw them all out…

The result? My room looks brand new, incomparable to its old layout and infinitely better.
I don’t feel like I can’t breathe anymore. I have a wonderful new writing space!
And most importantly, I don’t feel like I can’t think anymore.

I think choosing to clear some clutter, letting go – both physically and metaphorically – is the best way to start a new chapter!

 

So, any of you in the mood for de-cluttering after reading this? Do you find yourself doing the same when life gets too demanding?

One little word (and more) for 2011

Last week, as a part of her latest wonderful Friday list J asked her readers what their 11 words for 2011 would be. I took a day to type in my words in a comment on her post, but overall the words were easy to choose.

Then a couple of days later, I’ve accidentally come across this post from BigPictureClasses which also got me thinking. This time of a single word for 2011. Now that was harder!

To be truthful, as I started contemplating, I kept thinking along the lines of choosing one word out of the eleven I had already chosen.
But somehow, they didn’t fit.
They’re great words with much meaning and hope for the year to come, for who I am right now and who I’ll end up being when 2011 ends, yet I couldn’t make a decision and choose just one.

And then it hit me – the one little word has chosen me. 
I love it already!

So today, after those few days of being inspired and considering both these post’s provocations, and because I generally tend to do things on my own terms, I present to you – my combined list of words in one sentence:

In 2011 I choose to hope, dare, live, smile, dream, love, create, appreciate, listen, leap, enjoy.

Somehow choose was the exact word I needed, without my even knowing it. Because thinking about it, every day, every week, every year (and by extension – Life) can be broken down into a series of choices.

 

And so, I choose to hope. To refuse giving up on anyone, including myself. To see the best in others. To keep believing when everyone else has stopped. To think that good will always prevail in the end. To open up my heart and mind to the magic I can/will find behind each reality. 
I choose to surrender to the moment, to trust the voice within, to let go, to move on, to accept, to look fear in the face and act on Life’s stage, to dare to live and to smile throughout the journey especially at times when I’m hurting or when I feel like crying.
I choose to believe in myself and in what I do, to stay optimistic, to continue to dream, making my dreams an asset, turning dreaming into doing.
I choose to fearlessly love everything that makes me happy.
I choose to create. I have a rich imagination, many many ideas in various creative fields, the ambition to put them into practice, so I choose to take the chance of making messes sometimes in order to achieve creating something I’ll love. I choose to appreciate my gift(s) and not to second-guess myself.
I choose to not only hear, but to listen. To put aside pride and ask for help when I need it, to be open for suggestions, and constructive criticism. To foster understanding and to reflect upon what has been said.
I choose to leap – and by extension, to trust that the net will appear. And even when it doesn’t, I choose to enjoy the flight and land on my feet.

 

I will make many choices this year!

However, I’ll keep in mind that sometimes, when it’s least expected, it works the other way around too:
words, characters, books, songs, places, objects, people, feelings, dreams, happenings… Life – will choose me.

 

Your turn: what are your eleven words for 2011? What about that one little word your heart is whispering to you right now?

Tomorrow is a new day

Have you guys made any New Year’s resolutions? Will you work hard on keeping them or will they be forgotten in the following few days when the hectic-ness of everyday life takes over again?
Do they matter?

I’ll make and reaffirm my life choices whenever needed; when I walk on a different path or make my own path, when I feel lost or confused, when I’m in need of a change, when I want to experiment and when I make mistakes…
Some of these happen often enough that I have a New Year almost monthly

I like the prospect of tomorrow being a new day.
Tomorrow is always a new day with no mistakes in it yet.
It always offers a chance to turn the page on yesterday,
even on last year, and its old ways.

2010 has been a year of angst, of possibilities, of mistakes, of dreams come true, of striving for the best I can achieve and be, of hope, of helplessness, opportunities, of Life… It has been one of the messiest, scariest, toughest, challenging, yet also one of the best years so far.

So, I’ve decided to re-work a bit, add a few things to my personal commandments list and publish that as opposed to a resolutions list, precisely because I think personal commandments are the core behind everything else we may want to achieve, the principles that guide our lives.

 

Estrella Azul’s Personal Commandments

• Be Estrella
• Dare to dream and dare to live
• Be flexible, be willing to compromise and make course corrections
• Be determined and diligent -> stay positive and maintain optimism as much as I can
• Listen carefully so I can learn something new as often as I have the chance to
• Know my weaknesses -> embrace them, and learn how to overcome them
• Enjoy Life more -> decide to ‘Go For It’ when I have a good opportunity, and remember to have fun and enjoy the journey
• Be grateful for all I have and all I am -> ‘give back’ with kindness and charity, help others
• Accept that Life is messy -> that I need to make messes in order to find out who I am and why I’m here
• Notice the little things
• Be creative, improvise, work with what I have and sometimes, if I’m really lucky, what I’ll have will turn out to be exactly what I need
• Know that it’s okay to follow someone else’s lead from time to time
• Leap (and the net will appear!)

 

Now it’s your turn, tell me, what are your personal commandments, resolutions and or expectations from yourself for 2011?

Do you clean to be happy?

Just a few thoughts today

After reading an interesting post on the Happiness Project blog, I got to thinking: do I clean to be happy?

I’ve written a blog post a while back about how I probably don’t know how to just sit tight and relax. But now that I think about, it’s clear that when instead of sitting around doing nothing I clean the house it’s so much better on the long run. 

I do everything I can to keep the house clean and tidy or I feel all out of place (and space ).
My fiancé always tells me to leave it for the next day, but I just can’t function like that unless I’m sick and can’t get up to clean.
The pile up of newspapers, fliers, etc. stuff may be okay and work as a “treat” for him and sometimes for me too at the moment when I throw my notebook or magazines, hat, scarf, jacket on the couch and leave them, but in the end it just makes me feel worse and that’s just not worth it.

Weird how something like this can make such a difference, but for me too:
outer order does bring inner calm.

So what do you do, clean or don’t clean to be happy?

Will you be mine? by Estrella Azul

“ He felt nervous.
This has been on his mind for the last 3 weeks, if not more, and he just wanted it to be perfect, or as close to perfect as he could get.
Counting down the days his nervousness grew.

At night he was dreaming of various scenarios it would go by and all of them had some flaw he didn’t think of before and made him more worried.
More possibilities ran across his mind like if it had rained and he wasn’t ready he didn’t have anything romantic planned.
Should he take her to dinner and ask her there?
Have his friend help him and decorate the room for when they get home?
Should he do it somewhere else instead of the lake but still outdoors?
Or visit the high school where they met and do it there?

Finally Wednesday arrived, the day of their anniversary. The beauty of it was that it wasn’t a round number like 1 year, 2 years so they’d celebrate luxuriously.
She couldn’t have figured out his intentions too easily.

They made plans to take a walk by the lake and catch a movie afterwards.
His plans however were a bit different.

While prepping to go he looked at his girlfriend getting ready.

She looked beautiful!
Her long amazing hair arranged very simple reminded him of the first day he saw her, her way of applying make-up and still look sweet and natural, her semi-formal outfit were all perfect for the occasion, but he couldn’t tell her yet.

They left for the lake.
To hide the ring he told her he was bringing two phones and made sure she wouldn’t ask any questions about his pocket by making his speech very short and technical.

By the time they got to the lake he had his eye on his watch just to be sure they have enough time.
He knew he would have his work cut out for him as they went past the peer.

He asked is she wanted to go for a ride with the paddle boat.
The water was deep, she was afraid a bit, but her confidence in him made her accept.
He was now thrilled and more nervous than before.

They got into the paddle boat and paddled away, going along the edge of the lake, then when his girlfriend was comfortable with the ride he aimed the center of the lake.
There, he stopped and they enjoyed the view.
Asking her to take photos, while she turned away, he took the ring out of his pocket and waited for her to turn back.

Those few seconds passed even slower than the hole time he had spent planning the proposal.

When she turned back facing him and saw the ring:
everything made even more sense to him than before, her shock and happiness was glowing on her face, he remained speechless.

After a moment he regained his thinking and while placing the ring on her finger asked her the question they were both waiting for… for so long:

“Will you be mine?”

As she said:

“Yes!”

He realized how truly blessed he was. His happiness couldn’t even been described as they sat there hugging and kissing.

After taking her to dinner and watching a romantic movie, on the way home they stopped again for a few moments at the lake and stared into the dark waves.

He did it: managed to turn that day into one of the most perfect and romantic ones they had.

She couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful and meaningful proposal!  

In the morning after the proposal, he got this letter from his fiancée.

 

“Sweetheart!

I know how good we are together, I know how unbelievably lucky we are to have found each other, how we still love each other as much as we did in the beginning and every time we say "I love you!" we actually mean it, and that we worked out how to be together. I know how fortunate we are to both want the same things, and most importantly – each other. I know we both get crazy sometimes but ultimately we have the best thing going and I want to say: ‘I want to keep this’.

I believe that you and I will do all the things we want to do together. I believe that in a while from now we’ll have our own remodeled house, our own children (in time) and our own individual lives in many ways too. I believe that we will be our own family.
I don’t believe in big weddings, or rather, I don’t think that they’re an accurate reflection of what it’s all about. What I want is the promise, the rings on our fingers and the future. I’m delighted because this is the nicest feeling in the world: to love you so much that I want to do something apparently quite random, just because I can’t help thinking that surely there must be some big way to express the way I feel about you, and about us, and our intentions. Getting engaged and married is about choosing to be tied together just in order to be together even homeless, childless or otherwise.

I believe that I can promise to love you until the day I die. And I believe that, if we can work out together what it means to us, making a promise and a commitment to one another can only strengthen the incredible bond we already have.

So… since I believe all this can and will happen, all I have to say is: Yes, Sweetheart! :*:P

I love you, always had and always will!” :*:P

He felt good, happy and more in love with her as he would’ve imagined 3 years, 9 moths and 1 day ago.”

 

Based on a true story.

50 ways to help our Planet

I had this link in my Save Our Planet link list for a while now and thought I’d advertise them one at the time for readers who also care. Here are some very simple ways to help our Planet.

My favorites are:

no.2   -> Turn off PC for the night
no.17 -> Shower with your partner
no.21 -> Second-hand doesn’t mean second-best
no.22 -> Buy local
no.38 -> Give it away

and overall I just love all 50 points on the list, each and every thing is available to me, not a big deal to achieve and in many cases it cuts down on the bills too.
I strongly suggest trying and committing to it!

It’s a win-win situation!