2012: The Year of Courage and Freedom

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I took this picture on New Year’s Eve as we drove alongside Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It seemed so symbolic to me to see so much space spread out before us with all the opportunity of an open ocean and of the coming of a whole new year with the promise of time, new opportunities, a fresh start.

A few years ago, I came across the idea of coming up with a word for the year in an article on Christine Kane’s blog. I’ve had different words different years but just like with resolutions I forget about them. This year, I decided to share my words here so I not only have a place to come back to so I can remember what they were but also in order to have a sense of accountability. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks. I have a hard time committing to one word, so I chose two: courage and freedom.

A couple of weeks ago I shared the following quote on Facebook and here on my blog:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

For some reason, this quote resonated with me very much. I think the fact that I’ll be 35 this year, oh my goodness! that’s the second time I admit that here, is staring me in the face. I’m realizing all the ways that I haven’t listened to my heart and intuition, the ways I’ve lived worried about what everyone else thinks, the ways I haven’t honored my SELF through all of this journey called life.

I’ve been sitting with this quote, knowing that it’s something that I want to incorporate for my word(s) of 2012. I picked up on the word courage in the quote. When I showed it to my husband he immediately said freedom. Those two words immediately clicked for me. In essence, it’s about me having the courage to be free to be me, just the way I am. I need to be me just for me, not worrying about what everyone else will think or say. I’m okay with being me, I want everyone else to be too.

I also read this quote a couple of months ago:

One of the most important aspects of our lives is that they are our lives. No one else could live them exactly the way we are living them. Everything that happens in our lives is an opportunity for learning. Those moments of frustration often turn into moments of joy and creativity. – November 20 From Meditations for Women who Do too much by Anne Wilson Schaef

I figure that much of what I write about is how our hectic, chaotic lifestyle is normal… at least normal according to us. This is our life. This is what normal is to us. If it’s not normal for others, we just have to agree to have a different definition of normal. We’ve come to love and accept our version of normal, as crazy as it can be, so we’ll just continue living our normal life. And I’ll continue to write about it here…

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Do you have a word for 2012? Please share it with us in the comment section or a link to your post if you’ve written one about it. Thanks!

Knitting: Reassessing my WIPs

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Here we are at the start of another year… I’m hopeful for 2012, it’s going to be a great year. I’m starting it off with a bang and building on momentum. Over the holidays I did quite a bit of knitting, I didn’t get it all photographed or put into Ravelry… yeah, I know. However, today is a different day. I’ve been looking at the projects that I have in progress, there’s quite a few of them actually, and I’m reassessing what I’m going to do with them.

It was so liberating on January 1st to say to my husband, “You know, I really have NO desire to finish this baby hat,” then proceed to take the needle out, unravel all the yarn and just be done with it. It was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. The main reason I didn’t want to finish the hat is that I hate working with that yarn. I was working with Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller Full o’ Sheep, in all reality I know I shouldn’t have bought that yarn. I’ve worked with it before. I love the colors of this yarn but I cannot work well with single ply yarn. So, I ripped the hat out and will be destashing what’s left of the skein since I did have to cut some of it off. It was definitely nothing specific about this brand of yarn, it’s the single-ply, I destashed a bunch of Berocco Lustra because it’s a single ply yarn.

I’ll be refocusing my energies and finishing a couple of projects that have been sitting on the needle for a bit, I say needle because I use one circular needle for the majority of my projects – sometimes due to size but also because it’s easier on my wrists to use one circular than to use two straight needles.

First up, Multnomah designed by Kate Ray of Hello Knitty:

 

According to Ravelry, I started Multnomah in July 2011. I got through the body of the shawl fairly quickly and just stalled out at the border. Current status: 2 rows of the border complete, 38 more rows to go. My goal is to finish this one first.

Then, there’s Saroyan by Liz Abinante of Feministy:

 

I love this pattern and this yarn combo, I’m using a single skein of Malabrigo Sock in Velvet Grapes. I completed 8 increase sections and am working on the straight sections. I found on Ravelry that someone made this with a single skein of Malabrigo and did 8 increase sections, 20 straight sections and 8 decrease sections. I’m going to follow that and see what happens. I’m so excited for this one!

My plan is to have Multnomah blocking by this weekend so I can get back to Saroyan. I’ll be blocking a couple of other projects that I hope will be dry in time for photographs for Friday. What are you working on?

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I’m linking up for WIP Wednesday and for Yarn Along. Go check them out for more yarny goodness!

DEAR Monday: To read in 2012

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school, yes I know that was in the last millenium, the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read. Here’s the first one for 2012!

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A couple of real-life friends on Twitter and I are trying to get together a book club. I know that will definitely help me read more. We’re definitely in the beginning stages: figuring out what to read and when to meet? I hope we decide on books ahead of time so I can try to get them from PaperBackSwap (if you sign up using this link I get a book credit). I love using that site to declutter books I’ve read in exchange for books that I want to read. The only drawback has been that sometimes I wait for a very long time before a book becomes available. I have plenty of books to read already so that usually hasn’t been a problem.

I didn’t meet my reading goal for 2011. I had intended to read 25 books and I read 15. Apparently, a lot of things got in my way of reading very much last year. (Ha! I remembered that 2011 was last year and not this year) My goal for 2012 is 25 books. I hope that I have a better chance this year, I’m starting out with a stack of books to read already – a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction.

The first 9 books on the list

The books that I already have on the to-read list:

  1. At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women who Knit Too Much by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee – The Yarn Harlot – I’m planning on one a day
  2. Meditations for Women who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef – I’m planning on one a day, since they’re dated
  3. Short Girls, a novel by Bich Minh Nguyen
  4. A Weekend to Change Your Life by Joan Anderson
  5. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  6. Knit in Comfort by Isabel Sharpe
  7. A Delicate Balance: Living Successfully with Chronic Illness by Susan Milstrey Wells
  8. Stop Being Your Symptoms and Start Being Yourself by Arthur J. Barsky, MD and Emily C. Deans, MD
  9. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

I hope to be much more successful this year with my reading goal. I’ll definitely be keeping track of it all on goodreads and I’ll keep writing about reading on Mondays.

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What are you going to be reading in 2012? Do you set a reading goal? Would any of you be interested in participating in a linky party? Let me know in the comments and I’ll get one set up.

 

 

#SOCSunday: Looking forward to 2012

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I haven’t written in a couple of weeks, I got swept up in the holiday craze and I have been doing everything possible to enjoy my kids while they’ve been on vacation. I’m back again and plan on participating in Stream of Consciousness Sunday hosted by Fadra as many Sundays as I possibly can in 2012. This past year I know that the Sundays that I have participated have been helpful for me to clear my head and look forward to the next week. In a way, for me it’s like hitting a reset button.

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January 1st is usually the day that we look forward to the promise of the 365 or this year the 366 days ahead. It’s an opportunity to look at the previous year and figure out all the ways things went wrong or things that went badly. Realistically, I don’t think there will ever be a time where we will have things go just the way we want them 100%. There are many things that I wish had been different in 2011 and I know that there are some things I could have had control over and many others that there weren’t.

In 2012, I will continue:

  • to do everything possible to eat gluten-free as recommended by my acupunturist.

I have noticed a marked difference in my focus, my fatigue and generally how well I feel when I do have foods with gluten. I recently had an “I’m going to eat whatever I want” day – burger with a bun, french fries, candy, etc – and I can honestly say I felt crappy. I had a great time making an assortment of gluten-free desserts for Christmas and it is definitely something I’ll do again.

  • to enjoy crafts.

 I’ve written here about how much I enjoy knitting. I want to expand that more to spend time on crochet, sewing, working with beads, embroidery, cross-stitch. All the things I love to do but don’t always get around to. I’ve toyed around with the idea of an etsy shop again but I’m not 100% sure yet. I’ve got to think it through completely and then we’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted. I’m on Ravelry as GabyKnits.

  • to read.

I’ve shared my love of reading here. I love to read and I want to read more. In 2011 I didn’t meet my reading goal but I’m glad I was able to read the books that I did. I read 15 books in 2011 and if I stick with the reading goal of reading at least one more book than the year before then my 2012 goal would be 16. However, I didn’t meet my 2011 goal of 25 books. I think I’ll try for 25 again. At least 2 books per month and one more. I’m on Goodreads as SimplyGabriela.

  • to blog.

I really enjoy my little corner of the Internet. I’ve also enjoyed the connections that I’ve made through blogging this year, online and in real life. I want to blog more regularly, more consistently. I want to write and share what happens in our normal life and hope that maybe it can help someone else. I want to continue to participate in the link parties that I do so that I can continue to find other bloggers to read. I want to participate more fully in the blogging community – I want to comment more on blogs and not just read them, I know how nice it is to get comments. (hint, hint). I already have plans of going to BloggyBootCamp again in 2012, this time to Las Vegas.

  • to fully participate in my own healthcare.

I am my own best advocate. I know my body better than anyone else. I can be my own agent of change. I am the only one that speaks to all of my healthcare providers and as such am the only one that can give any of them a full and complete picture of what it’s like on a day to day basis.

  • to be present for and love my family with everything I’ve got. ‘Nuff said.

And of course, I have the usual resolutions that most of us do:

  • lose weight -  at least 18.6 lbs, according to the scale about a minute ago
  • reduce the clutter
  • be better organized
  • save more, spend less

I hope to share a little bit of everything with you all here. What do you have planned for 2012?

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s a five minute brain dump. This week I wrote until it felt like this thought was complete. Link up at all.things.fadra

#SOCsunday

Good-bye 2011! Hello 2012!

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Dear 2011,
It’s been fun, it’s been interesting, it’s been challenging, it’s been rewarding. I’m amazed that we are saying good-bye when I feel like we just said hello. Thank you for all the lessons that I’ve learned this year, I’ve definitely learned a lot. Thank you for all the good times, the laughter, the blessings.
As we say good-bye to this year, I go back to this post and think back on it all. It’s a post I wrote at the end of 2008 but it is most definitely still relevant today and at every milestone.
Dear 2012,
I welcome you with an open heart and an open mind. I know this will be a very interesting year. I’m not going to make any hard and fast resolutions this year, I don’t want to get behind and then get all upset. I will turn 35 this year (yes, I just admitted that on the whole Internet… sigh). I’m looking forward to this quote to guide my days:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

I’m a bit tired of worrying about what everyone else is going to think, life is too short and at the end of the day I’m the one that has to live with the consequences (good or bad) of my choices. Besides, this is MY life and it is NOT a dress rehearsal after all.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2012. I hope it’s better than 2011 was. If you had a good 2011, I hope 2012 is even better!

~ Simply Gabriela

SOC Sunday: Getting ready for change

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#SOCsunday
Ack! Christmas is in exactly one week and that means that New Year’s is in exactly two weeks. 2012 will be an interesting year and one that will bring many, many changes. My husband, Mr. Bubba, has a new job starting January 3rd, he’ll be the principal at a private K-8 school in the Bay Area. We won’t need to move or anything like that but it will still bring about many changes for our family.

Moving to the primary school level comes with a decrease in pay and a huge increase of hours worked and responsibility. Both those things freak me out just a little bit like a lot. We also got some details regarding our medical insurance after all contracts were signed, our out of pocket costs will increase for medical care and prescriptions. Luckily, we are fortunate that we have medical insurance.

There are also emotional effects of this change. My husband has worked at the same high school for the past twelve years. When my husband told our kids, our 8 yo immediately said “decline”. The high school is the only place our son has known for my husband to work. He’s planned for many, many years that he will go to high school there. That won’t necessarily change but we all know it won’t be the same. Our 16 yo currently attends school there and while he initially said he’s fine with it, he’s also expressed that he’s sad and that it will be weird to be at school without Dad.

There will undoubtedly be logistical changes – how our 16 yo gets to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. It won’t be as convenient as him riding with Dad. We will also lose the ease with which any school issues for our 16 yo are addressed. I know it won’t be as easy for him to take a day off work if we need him to. Changing jobs mid-school year will be difficult but my husband is confident that this is the right move to make. I trust that, I really do and I’m still nervous about the whole changing part of it all.

We are creatures of habit… I know we’ll adjust to the changes this job will bring. It will definitely take some time but we’ll get through it and be stronger for it. I’m sure there will be some growing pains through the process.

Congratulations to my husband for becoming the principal of a school. Like our 16 yo said to our 8 yo: “it’s going to be okay, this is one of Dad’s dreams.” I am so glad that his dream is becoming a reality and that all the hard work he’s put in has been acknowledged and validated. He’ll be a great principal, I know it.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s a five minute brain dump. Link up at all.things.fadra

Home Depot Holiday Gift Shopping

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Are you all done with your holiday shopping? I wish I could say I was! Every year I have the intention of starting early, being prepared and not letting the holiday gifting season catch me off guard. The Home Depot to the rescue! (Cue superhero music here…)

The Home Depot hasn’t been the store I initially think of for my holiday gift shopping. I’ve always thought of going to The Home Depot to buy holiday decorations, gardening items, paint, home improvement and other DIY materials. It’s an awesome place to go look for holiday gifts, particularly for some hard-to-shop for people.

My husband and I had a great time going all over The Home Depot with gift-giving in mind, although I did have to pull him away from the holiday decorating area. He was especially thrilled with the 6′ tall Disney inflatable snowglobe, the lit deer, and the other huge, electricity sucking decorations for the front yard.

We saw some great ideas of gifts for backyard entertainers including patio heaters, fire pits, grills, grill tool sets.

Of course, there were great gift ideas for the handyperson or the Do-It-Yourselfer or the crafter in your life. They had great deals on tool sets, tool boxes, I told my husband I’d always wanted a Dremel but then I had NO idea what I would do with it. All sorts of tools powered and not powered were available. The great thing is that there are items for people who are experienced or not so experienced AND also gifts in a wide range of budgets.

While shopping at The Home Depot we found information about their upcoming workshops. My local Home Depot has free weekly workshops covering a wide range of topics. In February, they’ll be hosting a Do-It-Herself workshop about installing crown molding. My favorite was getting information about the monthly free Kids Workshops. In January they’ll be teaching kids to make a very cute savings shed. It will be great because not only will my 8 year old get to make something himself while learning crucial technical skills but he’ll also get a FREE Kids Workshop Apron, commemorative pin and certificate of achievement.

While we did walk out of the store with a couple of gifts I’m so glad that I can go to The Home Depot online and complete my Holiday gift shopping and for those impossible to shop for people The Home Depot offers gift cards and e-gift cards that can be personalized with a video message, they’re the only major retailer to offer this.

UPDATE: The comments closed Dec. 16th at 8 pm. I used Random.org to select the winner and the result was:

Holly from 504Main.com who said:

We head to Home Depot whenever they have a Kids Workshop and have even gotten lucky a few time – they had a NASCAR there once and we did not  even know! I thought I had explored the Home Depot site to its fll extent…but never realized they have projects (crafty ones) on their! YEAH!

Congratulations Holly! and Thank you to everyone else who entered the giveaway!

 

 

How to enter for a $50 gift card for The Home Depot:

  • Mandatory entry: visit www.homedepot.com/holiday and comment on this post with something you learned at the site. Please include email address or Twitter handle in your comment for a way to get in touch with you.
  • For one additional entry: follow The Home Depot on Twitter and leave a separate comment including your Twitter name
  • For one additional entry: ‘like’ The Home Depot on Facebook and leave a separate comment

Comments will close on Friday, December 16, 2011 at 8:00 pm Pacific time. Winner will be announced on this post, will receive an email or Twitter DM from me and have 48 hours to respond to claim the prize. This giveaway is open only to residents of the US, 18 years and older please.

The legal stuff: This is part of a compensated campaign with Latina Mom Bloggers and The Home Depot. The Home Depot works with bloggers such as myself to conduct product reviews. They do not tell bloggers what to say about their products or how to say it. The Home Depot fundamentally believes that people should be free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. The Home Depot often provides product – free of charge – to bloggers for review as they did for this post. The Home Depot’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. The Home Depot provided me with a gift card to shop for the holidays and post my experience. All opinions expressed in this article are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone.

 

I couldn’t help it – WIP Wednesday 12.7.2011

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OK, I know that during my last WIP Wednesday post I said I was instituting a moratorium on casting on new projects until I finished Multnomah but I couldn’t help it… Well, let me back up for just a second.

I had cast on a project for my swap, I finished that small project and it’s on its way to Canada. I really though after that I would get back to Multnomah and just do the last 38 rows so I can be finished. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. I’ve got quite a few things to share on for FO Friday. A baby hat and two cowls.

I’ve also had the intention of casting on a Saroyan since September when Liz Abinante announced a Saroyan knit-along with prizes attached. I knew I was going to use a skein of Malabrigo Sock from my stash. My husband helped me look through my stash and through project pages on Ravelry and we decided on Velvet Grapes. I’ve cast on and completed 5 increase sections. I love it! It’s a great pattern and I love the way it looks in this colorway. The big bonus: it’s going to be for me! Yes, me! I rarely keep anything that I make so I’m looking forward to wrapping this one around myself.

Wanna see?

I linked up over at Tami’s Amis for WIP Wednesday

DEAR Monday: Not enough time

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Oh boy! I’ve realized that it’s the 5th of December and that means there are only 26 days left in the year. I’ve read 15 out of the 25 books that I set out to read this year. That’s 60%. While that’s good, I mean at least I’ve been able to read 15 books this year, I’m not sure I’ll make it to my goal of 25 books. There is just not enough time.

What with the holiday preparations, the handmade gift making, the store bought gift buying, the decorating, the cleaning, the decluttering, and all while trying to take time to find enjoyment in the day to day I just don’t see how I could possibly read 10 more books this year.

I know some people listen to audiobooks while they do other things like commute, knit, etc but I haven’t found that to work for me. I get distracted visually so I end up not hearing the actual book and then I’d have to rewind back to where I was paying attention and then try to concentrate. Besides that, I really enjoy turning the pages of an actual book. I do have an iPad but I mainly use that to carry my knitting patterns around. I have downloaded some books onto it but I haven’t gotten around to reading them. See? There’s that not enough time thing coming up again.

I know for sure I will read at least one more book and post a review here before the end of the year. I met the author earlier this year and agreed to read her newly released book to review here.

Do you set a yearly reading goal? Are you able to read during this month? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

SOC Sunday: Sick again…

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#SOCsunday
The past two weeks have been very difficult for me. We’ve had a lot going on as a family, I’ve had stuff going on individually, a lot to think about, a lot to do, and not enough of me to go around.

I’m on antibiotics again since I seem to have picked up a bug. I started coughing and hacking this past week, my doctor decided it was best to take the antibiotics before I got a serious infection. Due to this nasty cough I had to miss my methotrexate injection and Orencia infusion. My body is definitely feeling it. This was bound to happen since my stress levels have spiked and that always weakens my immune system even more.

It’s not easy to be a parent, it’s not easy to be a daughter, a wife, a part of a family, or a community. It’s not easy being human. I’m tired, I’m worn out, I want to crawl under a rock… I would if I could but I can’t.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s a five minute brain dump. Link up at all.things.fadra