Typical, get thinking about posting regularly again and then get the flu badly! The last week has been full of trying to get rid of the flu and laying on the lounge chair watching daytime tv – something I only do when I am sick. Yay for repeat episodes of MacGyver! Did you like MacGyver? I loved it…and pretty much everything else Richard Dean Anderson was in, especially Stargate SG-1. If you also like MacGyver, you might enjoy the MacGyver Lexicon. Oh My! I just discovered that Richard Dean Anderson is on Twitter! Wow – following!
Do you follow any celebrity types online? I follow a few, shall share them next post. I am currently making chicken stock for tonight’s Chicken and Fennel risotto! OmNomNom. I should return to cooking dinner lest I burn it!
P.S: I am on holiday break now – much posting to come!
Ah, Friday. Best time of the week, I think. You have Friday evening, and then there is still all of Saturday and Sunday to come! I am chilling out watching some music videos on YouTube currently. After buying Darren Hayes‘ recent album, ‘Secret Codes and Battleships‘, I have also been listening to his older albums and his music from Savage Garden days. So much good music!
Thinking on my lack of updating on here, and, well my lack of most creative pursuits, I realised that what stops me is my wanting to always be perfect. Whatever I do MUST be perfect. No mistakes. But really, that isn’t possible (and when I checked this post for mistakes, I had typed ‘that isn’t impossible’ hmm). I may want to keep everything all tightly wrapped and perfectly formed, but life isn’t like that. And living that way, you miss out on so much of life’s special wonders. There is no way to control everything, you need to learn how to let go of the things you cannot control. To do the best you can with what you have. And by ‘you’, I mean ‘me’!
I’ve watched a couple of Brené Brown’s talks (1 & 2) from TED recently, and her research and her message strike a cord. Shame and vulnerability. For me, they are a big part of my perfectionism. I don’t like to feel vulnerable, which is how I feel if I do things that won’t be/aren’t perfect; plus I feel great shame when my results, or even my actions, are the opposite of perfect. I don’t want to show vulnerability or face my shame. But in reality, I need to do both to move forward, to grow. I am inspired by Brené’s statement that “Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage”.
It always seems better to wrap up the shame, the things I perceive to have done wrong or not perfectly and cocoon them into a ‘hidden’ ball. But then they just snowball and the layer around them gets bigger and bigger until they start to hinder future goals. Like a roadblock. A landslide. A wound. A splinter.
But how to you learn to not be so caught up in perfectionism? How do you face the shame and let it go? How do you learn to be vulnerable, but go forward anyway?
Some of my thoughts come from waiting for the results from my cataloguing assessment which was completed on Wednesday just gone. A big part of me wants it to be 100% marks or it is a failure. Another recent assessment saw me obtain 42 out of 50. My first thought was that it equalled failure. Not good enough. Silly, I know. But…
Do you also want to have all your creations be perfect? Or have you learnt how to let go of that need to be perfect? Have you discovered how to let go of shame? Please share! You can email me at alyshajane@gmail.com, if you’d prefer to respond that way!
I really do need to do something about this blog, don’t I? I’m back to study at Tafe and have been very busy with study and learning. The perfectionist in me demands full marks or as close as possible, which means a lot of study! I enjoy it! Pippin keeps me company and helps me notice the important sections! hehe
If anyone is still visiting this blog aside from the Googlebot, what did you or do you, enjoy about my writing and blog? Now that I have my schedule more in hand, I think I will get back to blogging. Would the occasional library related post bore you? Or perhaps those are better elsewhere on a dedicated blog. Hummm.
Hello, again! I should have said that first. How have you been, dear reader?
As you may guess from the title, dear reader, I have decided to complete my Library and Information Studies course ( I may have previously alluded to this). I had gone back to web design for a year but found my heart just wasn’t in it and I was completely sick of demanding, rude clients who thought they could take as long as they wanted to pay invoices. Do not want! Some of my current subjects are Cataloguing, Acquisitions, Databases and Information Research. Those are not the exact class titles, but sum up each class quite nicely. When I finish, I would love to find work in the Cataloguing/Archival areas.
Now that design can be for fun, I’m slowly starting to find my creative spirit again, particularly in terms of my own sites. This site will likely change a bit, every now and then, as I tweak the design and get it to look just so. In working on this site, I was browsing through my archives and discovered that on March 20, I will have been blogging for twelve years! There have been a few pauses in there, but hey – I’m still one of the early bloggers from before Blogger itself and even the ability to post a comment on a blog! That dates me a bit, too!
With some travel time each week, I’ve gone back to working my way through The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I’m almost up to the end of the second book; no spoilers, please! It is amazing how fast time flies once I start reading, I’ve almost missed my stop a couple of times.
I shall post a few photos next post; some of the Kittens who are growing in leaps and bounds (or should that be fluff and meows?) and also some general snaps, including some of my latest stitching project. Mmmm stitching, I think I shall do some tonight!
While I was going to do a complete redesign, I got busy and decided to alter just the header, for now. I will be back to posting in a few days, just wanted to post an ickle message and say ‘Hello’!
With it getting close to Christmas, I’ve been thinking about decorations, menus and traditions. Do you have special things that you always do at this time of the year? About now (or sometimes earlier in November) my Cliff Richard music comes out, or rather, my Christmas playlist gets a workout on iTunes. I do have some other Christmas music (including classics from Bing Crosby and co) but my Cliff ones are the only ones on iTunes at the moment. I must dig out my other CDs tomorrow. My current favourite is Cliff’s version of ‘Let it Snow’:
For one reason and another we haven’t put the tree up for a couple of years. I would love to have a tree this year but am worried about the kittens hurting themselves. Lights, baubles, tinsel, tree falling and associated risks. I’ve been toying with the idea of weighing the tree down, so it can’t tip over when climbed (the husbitect has a brilliant plan for tree safety) and making some felt decorations filled with catnip. If the kittens get them – no harm done!
I have some vintage and breakable ornaments I’d love to decorate with, but that seems too risky. At least this year. Any ideas on how to use fragile ornaments safely, and out of kitten reach? They can jump up quite high now, so putting a small tree on a high shelf may not work. Oh! Oh! I think I may have it, dear reader. As I was writing this, I thought of our glass display cabinet – surely I can display the fragile ornaments in there. Perhaps in baskets or bowls?
How about movies, do you have movies that you watch every year, at this time? The first that comes to mind for me, is probably one of the most commonly suggested Christmas movies; ‘It’s A Wonderful Life‘. I think one of my absolute favourites, however, is ‘While You Were Sleeping‘. Ohhhhh, I adore that movie! I’ve lost track of how many times I have watched it – it can never be too many times!
I also enjoy those classic movies from Rankin and Bass. You know the ones; ‘The Year Without Santa Claus’, ‘Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer’, ‘The Little Drummer Boy’, ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’. Such adorable puppetry and stop-motion animation. I think I am the only fan around here, so I will likely be watching them on my own, this year. The Kittens will join me!
Now, speaking of Christmas movies, there are two that I saw many years ago, that I can’t find now. The first was about a Snow Goose, and was very 70s with its design and script. It was American, and I think it had a group of male singers who were very ‘Jackson 5′ in style. Ring any bells?
The second is more vague (yeah, I can be even more vague than above!) and was about a Christmas tree. I think its title was something like ‘The Little Christmas Tree’. The tree in question was sad because it was overlooked, and really wanted to be a family’s special tree. I can picture the final-ish scene showing the tree all decorated with lights and baubles. Do you remember that one? It may have been a book, but I’m sure it was a movie, too.
If you can point to information about either movie, you will be a friend for life!
Please do share your traditions with me, dear readers. It doesn’t have to be ‘Christmas’ related – anything that is a special tradition for you, at this time of year. I love learning about other traditions and experiences. Gosh, one thing I have done once, but want to MAKE a personal tradition, is reading Doctor Who books, while slowly savouring toffee sweeties. It was a very hot December that year, and I remember spending much of the end of December savouring my gifted tin of sweets, as I savoured each page of my new Doctor Who novels. See – doesn’t have to be even remotely Christmas related!
Have you seen the latest Simon’s Cat video? It is titled ‘Catnap’ and you can watch it below! I really enjoy Simon Tofield’s work, he captures Cat attitudes and mannerisms perfectly. My Husbitect bought us the last couple of books in the series plus one of the plushies. I may have ‘Squeed’ when I saw it! If you had not heard of Simon’s Cat before, head over to the official site. You can watch the videos (including the new ‘How to Draw’ series), buy the books and more.
I am still battling away in Skyrim as a Breton female, level 15. I’ve played through some of the main quest storylines, but have sidestepped away from them for now to spend some time simply exploring Skyrim. There is a lot to explore – not to mention fights to pick, ingredients to find, deer to hunt and treasure to be discovered!
When not playing (or working!) I have come across some fabulous sites to do with Skyrim. Here are five of my favourites:
Skyrim Nexus – One of the best sites to find game mods, view player screenshots and pick up a few tips from the modding tutorials in the wiki.
Time for some new skills for this alyshajane. First up on the list is Joomla and possibly also Drupal. I am still working in design and will continue to freelance while I finish my library course. Any and all IT skills will be as useful in information management as they are in web design.
I came across the JoomlaShine blog via Twitter, it looks to have a wealth of reading and links. Of most interest to me currently, is the list of Joomla books. The blog has a fantastic table of books for beginners and more advanced Joomla developers. I really appreciate the guide on what format each book is available in. I’m going to try them on the Kindle reader for iPad – much more affordable and portable. Another interesting blog is cocoate.com, looking forward to reading their Joomla Beginner’s Guide.
I’d love to learn a programming language as well, PHP would be the most likely candidate and one that I have wanted to learn for a few years. Time to get thyself in learning gear and improve, improve, improve! I love learning new things and am all excited to get started!
The Husbitect and I have been thoroughly enjoying playing Skyrim over the weekend. A game that was worth the wait not to mention the hype. The gameplay is enchanting and fast-paced, whether you are exploring the lands or following the main quests. The graphics are awe inspiring, although I wish my rig was up to playing in Ultra HD!
I’m hoping someone creates a weight/encumbrance mod soon so your character can carry more items. It’s frustrating to get to the lowest level of a cave or other such location, find much treasure and not be able to carry it! Hurry up modders!
One day, as I was going through the spam that was caught by Akismet within WordPress, I noticed that a few of the spam comments used quotes or were just extraordinarily funny and strange. I decided to embroider some of them with added images. I have a text file full of spammy comment for future embroideries or cross stitch projects. The first of my ‘Spambroideries’ is below:
I’m by no means the first to do spam embroidery, some fantastic examples of others spambroidery can be found here. What do you think of my attempt? This is only my third embroidery, with only two completed, one still going. I’m still learning and loving the journey! Next time, I will use a larger font and space the letters more. The kitten image is from doe-c-doe.
Do you have a favourite embroidery or cross-stitch site?
I love taking photos with my iPhone, especially since the newest iPhone came out – the camera is amazing! Better than my little compact digital camera and smaller. Plus there are all the fun photo apps available. My favourite of these is Instagram, with which I took the photos below.
I'm a happily married, pink haired woman in her late 30s. I love cats, all things pink, geeky, the three C's (cooking, crafting, creating), reading & learning new things. Library Technician student.
I'm a happily married, pink haired woman in her late 30s. I love cats, all things pink, geeky, the three C's (cooking, crafting, creating), reading & learning new things. Library Technician student. 