Peck Life

Unplugging: August 2012

Welcome to the third and final of a summer series about taking the time once a month to “unplug” {here’s month 1 and month 2}! If you unplugged this month, feel free to link up below!

After only three months, I feel like this whole “unplugging” thing is becoming second nature. At this point, it’s just NOT a big deal and has instead, turned into a day where I can shut the part of my brain off that constantly dings at me to check blogs, respond to emails, work on a post, edit photos, or even do mundane things like balance the checkbook and pay bills {since I use the computer for so much of that}.

This time around, the day was spent keeping Sky busy {seems to be my life these days!}. Power wheels, playing trucks, and a trip to grandma and grandpa’s for a some play time at the lake, cheeseburgers, ice cream, and torturing of Scottie the cat.

Although it didn’t happen on my actual unplugging day, I also baked a cake recently. I figure anytime I choose cooking over blogging should be noted, right? I used the last of our Italian plums to make the plum cake I mentioned in my July garden post. In addition to plums, I added some fresh blueberries picked a few days earlier. The consistency of this cake borders on scone-like, but it is also very moist and not heavy at all. It goes PERFECT with a cup of coffee in the morning.

I’d love to hear about your unplugging attempts/successes! You can link up below or just share your thoughts in the comments. A huge thank you to everyone who participated over the last few months!! For me, it was a great exercise to remind myself just how often my nose is in a device, and forced me to be more present and find better ways to use my time. I hope it did the same for you!

Unplugging: July 2012

Welcome to the second of a 3 part summer series about my experience unplugging for a full day. I’ll be doing it once a month all summer and invite you to join in the fun! You can read part one here.

If there’s one thing I gathered from unplugging this month, it’s that one day might not be enough. What I thought would take me months to warm up to, has quickly become rooted and left me only wanting to do more. One day is great for quieting your mind and catching up on things that have fallen to the wayside. But to truly reinvigorate creativity and relaxation, more days are needed.

My actual unplugging day this month wasn’t anything special. We stayed home and did chores, played, worked in the garden, and I think we drove somewhere {although I can’t remember why?}. I just remember being in the car and consciously having to tell myself to not check my phone. Although, more and more there isn’t a strong urge to constantly check when I remind myself that I’m not missing much. I’m finding that the summer has been a quieter time in blog land and I like it. Do you feel like people are online less in the summer? Everyone seems to be taking their own mini-breaks, posting only when they feel like it, and generally staying busy with other activities like vacation, being outside, and playing with the kids who are on summer break.

To give you a glimpse of how I’ve been spending my time when I’m not online or at work, here’s a peek into our adventures lately:

Sky likes to make messes, but not in a destructive intentional way…..more in a “I’m a boy and this is just what I do” way. Last week, he climbed up into one of the empty raised garden beds and started playing with the dirt. I indulged him as you can see…

I got a new lens for my camera – a 50 MM 1.8 and I LOVE IT. I’ve had so much fun playing around. Lily was nice enough to sit still for 30 seconds so I could take a picture of her ear.

July has brought with it the daylilies, daisies, crocosmia, black eyed susan’s, and spirea in the garden – all perfect for flower arranging. We celebrated 2 birthdays so far this month – both of our moms! So, bouquets were a necessity.

We attended a local street fair and all Sky wanted was an ice cream cone. Sweet boy got his wish and proceeded to bounce off the walls for the next 2 hours. The shoes, the giant band aid, the entire package….he’s too cute.

When I was little, picking huckleberries was one of my favorite pastimes. It was how we spent our summers. I’m happy to report that my boy is a little huckleberry hound as well and we enjoy picking anywhere we can find some bushes {mainly in nana/poppa and grandma/grandpas yard}. The crop is robust this year!

Yet another mess we’ve made lately has been with BEANS. They keep Sky entertained for quite a while with all of his trucks. They do get everywhere but thankfully any beans too small to be picked up can just be vacuumed!

I’d love to hear how you’ve been unplugging this summer and welcome you to link up below!

Unplugging: June 2012

Welcome to the first of a 3 part summer series about my experience unplugging for a full day. I’ll be doing it once a month all summer and invite you to join in the fun!

Well, it happened. I turned off my phone and the computer around 11pm the night before, and didn’t check anything until 9 am the day after my full day of being technology-free. I’m not sure why I was hesitant to do this or acted like it was the end of the world, but it was not as scary as I envisioned! It was actually really liberating and it felt SO GOOD not to check anything and just be present in the day. Sometimes it's easy to feel like you need to be connected all the time and that you can't miss out on that one comment....or tweet....or photo. But in the big scheme of things, does it really matter? Does it make your life so infinitely better that you need to see it right away? For me? No, definitely not. Does it make my life infinitely better to enjoy my actual surroundings and spend time with my family, go outside, or work on projects around the house? YES.

My new hanger collection from grandma’s

On this first unplugging event, I spent most of the day helping my parents clean out my Grandma’s house. Since she passed away in early May, we’ve been slowly going through the many, closets, drawers, and cupboards figuring out what needs to be saved, tossed, and put aside for the estate sale. It’s a daunting task, especially since she lived in a big house and there is over 40 years of STUFF in there. After Grandma’s, we were pretty lazy {and tired} the rest of the day…..hanging out at home and puttering. I gathered a couple of bags for the goodwill and managed to go through lots of piles of STUFF that had just been collecting dust. The evening was quiet and I went to bed at a decent hour for once!

Excited to have found these envelopes, un-used!

The next day when I was connected again, I quickly realized that I didn’t miss anything important on Facebook or Twitter….the world was still revolving….and nothing bad happened. If anything, my mind felt clearer and re-set and ready to do even more unplugging {once i felt confident that i could do it!}

Really vintage pillowcases courtesy again, of Grandma.

I'm excited to hear about your unplugging experiences and welcome you to link up below! We'll be sharing stories on the 20th of each month so even if you didn't get a chance to unplug yet, there is always next month. :)

Getting Sh*t Done

Lately I’ve been feeling REALLY busy, yet also really unproductive. The day flies by and I feel like I start it with a million things to do and end it with a million things to do. In a nutshell, work and home life is king right now and creative time is getting squashed. I get that it’s not realistic to think I can sit around all day and do what I want, such as {but not limited to}: learning to knit, making valentines, reading the dottie angel book I got for Christmas, taking pictures, gardening, learning the business of blogging, shaving my legs for once, thinking about BlogHer, editing photos, baking cookies, and working on Sky’s big boy room BUT when it's festering in my head 24/7 vs. getting worked on, I get a little crazy, a little frustrated, and a little stifled. Why is this stuff even important? I don’t know. Sometimes, it just makes me feel better, I guess. Two years into this whole “kid” thing, and I’m still learning to accept that the “me” time I had pre-baby will never, EVER come back. Not ever. Or, maybe it will...when I’m 60.

Even though I spend 40 hours a week working, another 10 commuting, and many more in between caring for Sky and not seeing my husband as much as I’d like, I also blame my lack of creative DOING on the internet. Yeah, that’s right. YOU INTERNET. I love it to bits but sometimes I feel like all my free time is spent reading other blogs and keeping up with the constant churn that is Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. It shouldn’t go away completely, and it won’t…but, there has to be balance. I think as bloggers, we have all gone through this, right? It’s a never ending struggle to stay in that sweet space where life feels equally distributed. Ebb and Flow, Shift and Settle. Words that stick in my brain lately. I feel like a buoy.

Kirsten’s ALT recap brought to light a good point, that I’ve heard before, but it can never be said too much. Via Jenny {at little green notebook}:

10% of your time should be spent on inspiration {blogs, pinterest, magazines} and 90% of your time should be spent on doing and acting {working on projects, getting outside and taking photos, decorating, shopping, etc.}.

It’s SO TRUE.

{photo via Ez via Stephanie Reid}

I’m not sure what the answer is to complete balance. Perhaps it’s that spurts of pure balance are few and far between and what keeps us going is the constant corrections we make to stay on the right path. Or, maybe balance is more wine and chocolate. Could be.

2012 Resolutions

I’ll admit that I’m not typically a “resolution” person although each year I vow to drink more water and stretch everyday {notice I didn’t say “exercise more”? haha}. But this year, something just feels different. Internally, I feel like I’m at a point of growth, of metamorphosis, where I’m becoming more of myself but also realizing what needs to change in order to move forward and become a better person. Not all of it is stuff I would normally admit about myself but I think clearing the air and writing it down is one of the ways it moves through the system. So, with that, some hopes, dreams, and realizations for 2012!

1. More patience, understanding, and positive thoughts. Since having Sky, it seems that feelings are magnified. Is this what a child does to you? There are high highs and low lows. Maybe it’s because of sleep deprivation or being constantly tested and pushed to your limit, but for me, it’s very easy to get frustrated and bogged down with negativity, stress, or anxiety over little things, which slowly stew in my brain and ultimately result in me shutting down and going into a “funk”. Life is too short to be funky all the time so one of my main goals to myself for 2012 is to learn how to control and manage this. I need to be conscious of when I get to this point, and find ways to cope and adapt so I can steer things in a different direction. Perhaps this list of 12 things happy people do “differently” is a good starter.

{Photo via The Notebook Doodles}

2. Go on adventures. Getting out and about is invigorating and I don’t do enough of it. In fact, I usually avoid it since everything is at least an hour drive away and I hate messing up Sky’s nap schedule. To add to the excuses, Josh works a lot on weekends and it’s no fun without him. This year, that needs to change. We need to get out, see and do new things, explore our area, meet up with friends and family, enjoy our surroundings, and stop being a slave to the normal everyday routine.

{Print by the lovely and talented, Katie Daisy}

3. Learn to photograph. Say hello to my little friend:

Yep, we did it. We made the investment in a digital SLR camera {a Nikon D3100 bundle from Costco to be exact} and I will master it. This is the year that I will conquer my fear of words like ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. I will become a better photographer. It’s amazing to me that I took photography in college, shot in manual mode with a FILM camera and developed photos in a dark room with absolutely no recollection of anything I learned. Baffling, I tell you. I know to some of you, this camera is the “baby” of DSLR’s but I’ve only ever used a point and shoot so this is my beginning. I can’t wait to learn all about it!

4. Grow this blog. While increasing traffic and growing my audience is certainly a goal, it’s only a small piece of the big picture. For me, blogging is therapeutic. I do it because it helps me sort out my thoughts and learn more about myself while opening up a creative outlet I don’t otherwise have at my day job. Growing it, evolving it, nurturing it, and taking it to the next level means that, in turn, I’ve done those same things for my own self. It’s all goodness.

{Photo via Amanda Cherie}

5. Be a better wife and mom. There are always little things that can be done to improve in this area. In a nutshell, Josh and I need to make sure we always have time for each other and stay connected among all the crazy, and Sky needs to have good examples provided for him in all aspects. With each passing day, he is smarter and more aware. He’s a super sponge – soaking in every little thing and it’s making me more conscious of what he absorbs. On a related note, I thought this article about creating a confident child was really good. I’ve always been a wishy washy person so these are definitely skills I hope we can instill in Sky.

{This picture was taken 2 days ago when Sky insisted on wearing sunglasses to Fred Meyer – he kept them on until we got in the car to drive home}

……

And now, I’m linking up with Martha to bring you 5 more things that I will NOT be changing about myself in 2012 because they are awesome and I should probably keep doing them.

1. I’ll keep reading bedtime stories to Sky. It’s probably my favorite time of day. Funny how I used to dread this hour of the evening.

2. I’ll keep showering, getting dressed, and wearing makeup 6 out of 7 days. Any mom knows this is by far an accomplishment. Sometimes I wonder how often I would do this if I didn’t work full time?

3. I’ll still be a good friend and wife. It’s so hard juggling everything and there are more people I’d like to spend more time with, and there is always room to get better. But, I think in general – my friends and husband don’t think I’m terrible and hanging out and staying close!

4. I’ll keep being as organized as I can be. Let’s just be honest – I’m anal and probably have mild OCD. Now, off to Ikea for more magazine files!

5. I’ll keep loving and eating dessert any chance I get. Never pass on dessert! It’s an endearing quality, don’t you think?

Psst! Martha will be doing a “livin’ the dream” challenge each week so be sure to join her!