Is there anything you don’t do?

As I was Tweet-ing back and forth with Kenneth (also fondly known as Tall Pajama Man) throughout a few days, he raised the above question last night – if there’s anything I can’t do – which in turn prompted this blog post.

To answer his question, actually yes, there are so many things I wish I could do (and I’m planning to learn how to). But for now, let’s make a list (don’t act all surprised, you knew this was leading to a list eventually!) of some of the things that I can do – and which express slightly tomboyish traits

I could just call most of these collectively ‘basic repairs around the house’, but making a list is so much more fun.

So, I can:

• wrench on a car – I used to help my grandfather in the garage when he still fixed cars
• wire and install an outlet – watched the electrician do it a couple of days ago and asked to give the other one a go on my own (am planning to install a new one in my room too)
• take a door off/put it back on its hinges all by myself and properly use WD-40 on said hinges (or others) to stop them from squeaking
• take a bed apart (or almost anything really) and put it back together without leftover pieces
• tile a countertop (upcoming DIY tutorial in a few weeks)
• paint doors, window frames, shelves, walls, fences, etc.
• build a shelf, fasten legs and handles on cabinet
• hook up the entertainment center, set up Wi-Fi and operate Total Commander (I’m including the latter only because I’ve been told ‘Girls never use Total Commander.’) 
• jump fences (sshh our little secret, alright?)

(Later edit – a couple of things I forgot/learned since publishing the original post)

• reading a map and not getting lost even without one
• use a staple gun (re-do upholstery)
• use a foam gun
• drill holes (correctly) for pelmet and shutters 

All that aside from the regular being great at cooking/baking, decorating cakes, interior design, arts & crafting, playing the piano (a bit), singing, writing, rollerblading, riding a bike, tutoring, floral art, photography (improving as I go), … I think that’s it. Hmmm… guess I should stop being amazed when people call me a true renaissance woman.

I’m hoping this post falls someplace neutral in between obnoxious self-importance and boring earnestness.

So, let’s talk business – want to adopt me?

And tell me: what are you guys good at that’s generally considered a task for the opposite sex? 

Are you allowed to?

For the last full week of May we didn’t get a self-love assignment from J as a part of her Love Project.
That means I spent the past eight days – though not deliberately – paying attention to anything but loving myself or giving myself a break. Both figuratively and literally. (Although to be fair, I did reward myself by starting lunch backwards after today’s achievement and had dessert first )

It was definitely a full week that I’ve spent mainly with cleaning up and sorting stuff (after a new water heater was installed, after rearranging all the furniture in my mom’s room (plus, it’s beyond me how I can take a door off its hinges, carry it outside, then bring it inside and put it back in its place ALL by myself – but then hurt my ankle while moving a bed when I have help…), tutoring, decorating my grandparents’ birthday cake, making lemonade, having company over, finishing/mailing wedding favor orders, wiring and installing an outlet (gotta love home improvements!)… etc.
And while I loved doing all of these and they give me a boost of happiness, they also left me beyond tired. Add that to windows/doors being changed this week throughout the house and don’t forget to include little-to-no sleep – I’m not sure what you’ll get as a result come next week. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

However, even if I didn’t have time to sit down and properly work on it until just now, after being very much inspired by J’s post, and the quote which inspired her – every time something came to mind I jotted it down and by today, I came up with the list you’ll find a couple of paragraphs below.
So I did do some soul searching and that’s always a plus

“ It’s interesting that the allowed list is harder to remember and to write down. I think we might be afraid of how much freedom we actually have, and how much we’re expected to do with that freedom. ”

– Seth Godin, Poke the Box

The quote really got me thinking of how kids are raised given a whole list of what not to do/say/think. Of how, when we’re all grown up, we turn that into an even longer list we live by. Generally without second guessing, and especially, more often than not without even thinking of all the thing we ARE allowed to do.  

So, here’s some of what I’m allowed to:

• I’m allowed to not be as perfect as I think I need to be
• I’m allowed to enjoy the silence
• I’m allowed to hope – it’s the bravest thing I have
• I’m allowed to change, to be different
• I’m allowed to be myself – no one else will
• I’m allowed to play
• I’m allowed to try and learn – anything and everything
• I’m allowed to make messes
• I’m allowed to trust and don’t disregard that first instinct
• I’m allowed to choose
• I’m allowed to feel – love, sad, happy, relieved, anything and to (below)
• I’m allowed to not feel guilty
• I’m allowed to occasionally overreact
• I’m allowed to do what I think is best vs. what everyone thinks I should be going
• I’m allowed to cry, to hurt, to be vulnerable – once in a blue moon, once a week, every day… whenever
• I’m allowed to pause to reflect
• I’m allowed to go for it, to rather regret going for that part on Life’s Stage, than regret not trying out at all
• I’m allowed to be full of hesitation, to be positive that I’m unsure

Feel like sharing? What are you allowed to do?

Premeditated acts of self-love

For last week, J thought we could commit premeditated acts of self-love together. It was fun, and today couldn’t come fast enough, I couldn’t wait to swap stories with everyone.

Below is J’s proposal for each day of the week and how I applied said suggestions.

Monday: Indulge in at least one guilty pleasure. 
Sugar overload and junk food… I balanced it out by eating a huge salad for dinner though.
Tuesday: Express yourself. (Have fun with this one.)
This one will be a stand-alone post in the upcoming weeks.
Wednesday: Reward yourself.
Enjoyed a leisurely morning spent in my pajamas, wandering through the pages of “The Confessions of Catherine de Medici”, after having breakfast in bed.
Thursday: Take 15 minutes (or more) and wander (mentally or physically)
A friend of mine took me shopping with her. I rediscovered how much I dislike shopping. The drive there and back was so much fun though, I loved catching up with her and reminiscing. This evening ended up including both mentally and physically wandering.
Friday: Sip something delicious.
Wine – ‘nuff said. 
Saturday: PLAY.
Out of the blue, just because kind of a movie night with a friend. (I can totally add playing with the cats and bunny to the list too)
Sunday: Love someone – fearlessly, consciously, as only you can.
Not just someone, but more than one person. I love them – consciously, for no specific reason, as only I can and (almost) fearlessly even if it gets my heart broken in a million different ways.
Maybe someday I’ll share the whole list, but for now I’ll say the one I had to focus on most yesterday: figuring out how to say goodbye to a very fear friend of mine who is going back to the States after many month of having her in the same city as I am, just a phone call away and seeing her every week. I love her and will miss her so much!

How about you guys? Did you do any (or all) of the above throughout the week?

One thing, seven days

Because I like a nice challenge. Because J’s awesome. Because I’m slightly a wonk in this department and enjoy homework assignments. And comparing notes

J invited us to join her and give ourselves permission, every day, at least once. So last week, I gave myself permission to:

1. Be vulnerable – On Monday I somehow got an extra day off to relax a bit. It gave me the chance to finally stop procrastinating and I wrote myself a love letter.
2. Sleep in – I had the alarm set for 9 AM on Tuesday morning. It woke me up. I decided to turn it off and wake up when ever.
3. Take the long way – I arrived for tutoring 20 minutes early on Wednesday and instead of walking inside to torture the poor kid longer than I was supposed to, I kept on going and walked around the block. I got to take some pretty pictures and also captured some graffiti love on film.
4. Cry – Sometimes (for me specifically on Thursday) you just need to allow yourself a good cry…
5. Put things off – Friday evening found me exhausted. I still had emails to answer, things to write up, take care of, organize, etc., but I somehow managed to make myself stay away from it all and tackle it the next day.
6. Don’t care – I got the new HeyHiHello album on Saturday. Listened to it all afternoon. I decided not to care if neighbors could heard me or not and sang along even in the yard as I hang the laundry to air dry.
7. Be a child – I found “The Flintstones” online. I loved it so much as a child. So guess what I watched Sunday night, ignoring everything else I needed to get done?

How about you? What did you give yourself permission to do?

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?

Ten things I believe

I’m stepping away from my posting schedule, I know, however being this close to Christmas and the end of the year somehow makes me want to write a couple of more soul searching posts. So bear with me as I follow in J’s footsteps (from last year, and this year)

For a long time now I’ve been meaning to write a list of things I believe. Life somehow got in the way of my doing that.

Until now. I’ve set aside two hours last night for this.

And after much staring out the window, noticing how my cats have taken over my bed, thinking of a battle plan to re-conquer my territory, making myself a cup of tea, catching up on new blog posts with the help of Google Reader, leaving a few comments here and there, listening to the movie my mom was watching in the other room, re-arranging existing notes and adding new things to my inspiration board above my desk, and generally getting distracted by everything else that was around me… I’m pleased to publish the following list.

Ten things I believe:

1. Putting myself first isn’t selfish, it’s necessary. (Need more time to believe this 100% but I’m glad to be closer to it than I was at the beginning of the year.)
2. It’s okay to follow someone else’s lead from time to time.
3. Everything that goes wrong can go right too.
4. Outer order contributes to inner calm.
5. Leap and the net will appear.
6. Change is good, even when it’s the hardest thing you can possibly do.
7. The only way out is through.
8. Life is messy – however, we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we’re here.
9. We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.
10. Reality is unforgivingly complex.

After putting this list together I realized why writing it took me so long. Some of these are things I’ve heard from friends, read on blogs and in books.

It took me a while to get comfortable with posting them, as they’re not my own thoughts, but then I remembered: this is why we’re here, and how we can strive to make our lives better – by learning from others!

So, what has 2010 taught you? What do you believe?

Handmade Christmas Crafts – Quick tutorial list

I kind of outdid myself last year and posted tutorials for a week’s worth of Christmas crafts

So this year I’ll list them here for your guys to have all  in one place for easier access (since I’ll be using the same methods). And I’ll only post a couple of new ones depending on my available free time before the holidays.

• Winter and Christmas window decorations #1 & Winter and Christmas window decorations #2

• Advent wreath or table centerpiece

• Christmas flower decorations

• Christmas gift bags

• Christmas tree decorations from plaster

• Christmas present gift tags and greeting cards

• Last Christmas special: Candle holders and wall pictures

Happy Christmas crafting everyone