Being Authentic vs. Being Perfect + Storage Inspiration

Today over on Christy Tomlinson's blog she writes a wonderful column about what it means to be authentic, and what you have to gain by letting others, whether it's your spouse, your friends, or your readers, get to know the REAL you.  I  hope you'll click over and read the rest, bc it's full of the kind of messages I can never get enough of.  But this part in particular stood out for me:

...and remember that being authentic means NOT having to be perfect and not having to live up to others expectations.. but just BEING WHO YOU ARE and being okay with that. YOU are enough. Sometimes we try so hard to be someone we aren't. We want to be the perfect mom, or the perfect friend, or the perfect wife. Guess what? NO one is perfect and guess what else?  Your family only WANTS you..it's the same with your friends, your work, your community. They want what YOU have to offer them. THEY NEED what you have to offer them. We all do. We all need each others true selves.  You know the other cool thing about being authentic and sharing yourself.. is that when you do.. you will get that back in return.. again and again and again.   What a beautiful concept.. a beautiful relationship to have with others.. INCLUDING yourself

It goes right along with what I've been facing in my personal life right now, and I must say that it is so refreshing to just be me and let whatever happens happen.  I hope you can do that today too :)  I've spent so many hours wondering and worrying about how imperfect I am and it hasn't helped a single situation, so I'm trying a new attitude.

My massive overhaul of my craft room is still ongoing.  I found sooo much stuff that needed to be thrown away, like paint bottles from about 2001 that I've carted from apartment to apartment to house, etc.  I highly recommend going through your supplies, pulling out the stuff waaaay in the back, and making sure it's still useful.

The other situation, I've come to realize, is that my supplies were so scattered that I've ended up buying multiples of things I didn't know I already had.  (Seriously, I found 8 sheets of dark brown felt...8!!  What did I plan on making??)  I've come up with a storage plan, mainly inspired by this post over on Make It Homey.

This photo was posted by Sandi Sharp for her article entitled "Toy Armoire."

My idea is to put a small bookshelf in my armoire, adding more storage space to this HUGE and unused piece of furniture.  When we moved into our house, we used a professional moving company and they somehow managed to get this enormous piece of furniture into the tiniest room of the house, and it will remain there forever more.  (Also, there's a sofa in another room that's the same way, we have tried everything but bacon grease to get the ugly thing out to no avail.)  I was going to use the armoire as craft supplies storage then, but it became a dumping ground instead.  We're now changing that room into a bedroom for our son, and we decided that if we let him use the armoire for toy storage (like Mrs. Sharp did) my son would literally rip the doors off the hinges because he likes to "swing" on doorknobs.  So he gets the closet and I'm taking back my armoire from the Clutter Monster who moved in when we weren't looking.

Totally An ADD-Day (picture heavy)

This being a new blog and all, I haven't mentioned yet that I also LOVE and spend waaaay too much time playing World of Warcraft.  (aka WoW.)  I read the books, know the lore and I keep abreast of all the latest game info and I can even gossip about characters in the game.  Other people have celebrities, I have WoW.  My husband and I have played consistently since the game's release in 2004 and I have characters in the game that are technically older than my son by a full 2 years.  Ouch, didn't realize that til just now.

So, to get to the point of this post:  Today, well every Tuesday, is a day where they shut the game down to...do something computer-y which I don't understand, but TODAY a new part of the game begins.  In WoW-speak, Patch 4.2 is up and running, and we need to save Thrall!!  So, instead of eating, cleaning, or doing anything else, I want to play my game and revel in the awesomeness that is Blizzard.  (Blizzard is the company that created the game.)

My point: I should be playing my game but instead I'm blogging.  And then I realized I need to link my characters to my blog or something, because I do love them, I should after spending so much time with them, right?  And I want to check out some of the new fan art on Blizzard's site. I love the ART of the game as well as art from it's fans.  So you will most likely be subjected to a few of these in between my book reviews and crafty tutorials and so on and so forth.

This is Lady Sylvanas, also known as The Dark Lady.  This is a fan's artwork, from here. 

This is Deathwing.  He's bad.  Very very bad.  Linked from here.

See, who wouldn't want to live here?  Well, except for Deathwing and all......  Linked from here.

SO----
As if the excitement of WoW isn't enough, I also got my order of art supplies from Dick Blick.  I'm ready to do some collages right now!!  (Notice I'm still here blogging though....)

A side note:  Do you see this paper? 
It's high-quality paper, 40 sheets of it, and it's a huge 12" x 18"!!!  Do you know how much it cost?  If it was in the scrapbook aisle as opposed to the art aisle, it would be at least $10 on sale and with a coupon, and it would be just 12x12.  This set me back $3.15.  Yup. I'll say it again: $3.15!!

Oh, but it's just plain and not patterned, you say?  Check these out:

Those cost me $6.63.  So all together, I got TONS of awesome stuff for tons less than a single pack of stickers from the scrapbook aisle.  Seriously, I wish I had known this before last week!

Oh!!!  AND the markers.....  And this Colorless Blender: It's only $2.27!  And it fixes your mistakes, and then you can clean it on a paper towel, but it also blends and does...other artsy things.  Watch the video (you can skip to 1:22 into it to see this baby in action.) 

Oh, and one last thing calling my name:

I won this awesome craft kit from Amy at Positively Splendid.  Woot!  It came in the mail yesterday, and my son did an actual double-take when he saw it.  Look at all the stuff in it!  And the really funny thing is that I'd bookmarked the set to buy for my son.  Gotta love that, right?

OK, off to do, well, all of the above :)  Thanks for sticking with me through this crazy post!!

Almost Tuesday Already?

The past 2 days have absolutely flown by me!  But the 10 Tasks in 10 Days list is getting whittled on down....

1. Clean up my craft room and make it safe to become James's summer bedroom. Well, I'm still working on this.  I have crafts I want to do, crafts I might want to do, and crafts I'm not interested in at all right now.  This makes it hard to organize, but I'm trying.  It still looks like a tornado has been through there though.
2. Get a dresser downstairs for our clothes.  This has been discussed, but remains unfinished.
3. Organize my books.  Hmmmm, maybe this was a stretch.  I'm actually a full-on Bibliophile, and my "library" was completely organized.  But for the last 2 months, my books have been in boxes and I miss them.  This will take at least one full do-nothing-but-this day to complete.  Those are rare, so I may have to amend this task.  But that's ok!
4. Organize and clean up the playroom.  Get more seating in there (the rocker from James's room or Tifney's furniture from the garage.)  This is 90% completed, I just have to ask my husband to carry the rocker down here for me.  This room is organized, but still has very ugly walls.  I'm working on that though.
5. Set up the TV, Blu-ray and the Wii in the playroom.  Done!  But, true confession, this was mostly a "honey-do" situation, but I helped.
6. Try ONE new recipe.  I haven't even thought to look for a new recipe! 
7. Organize all my craft supplies.  OK, I just realized that my #1 has the information update for this task.  Anyway, this is incomplete.
8. Organize our bedroom.  Nope.  Not even close.
9. Laundry.  Then some laundry.  Then some more laundry.  Does anyone's laundry ever get caught up?  Where did we get all these clothes?  It's unreal!
10. Get the "technology" picked up and out of the way.  Again, this has been discussed, but remains right where it's been for longer than I care to think about.

So, overall, I'm ok with where I'm at!

A Busy Saturday

Well, I'm very proud of myself for my work on the Ten Tasks In Ten Days so far.  I've been in the craft room for HOURS today (although if not for my little one it would have been maybe 2 hours, lol.)  I would post a picture, but it's that stage between clean and dirty, where if you sit back and look you'll think that a bomb went off and get discouraged.  But it's really almost done.

I'm so thankful for Cha Cha of Sit, Relax and Read starting this challenge!  I would probably have not started to organize my craft supplies on my own.  But I'm so glad I did!

I also did 3 loads of laundry yesterday, and that's awesome too!  Woot!

On Perfection

Around Mother's Day 2010, I started to come out of a deep depression I'd been in for a very long time.  (Years, actually.)  I began to see some of the self-destructive ways I was living, and how to change some of these behaviors.  One of these, the most destructive in my opinion, is this need, this drive, for perfection that I have always felt.  I used to joke about it and say "Oh, it's just a Virgo thing," but the truth is, it's a Kim thing.   And it has to stop.

So this is what I came up with, and I feel the need to repeat this here, as I begin a new blog:

***I must learn, believe, take to heart, and endorse the realization that perfection is an illusion and it is unattainable.

***I am not perfect and I never can be perfect.  I can only do my best every day, even if my best is lying on the sofa watching TV.

***Having perfection as an ideal means I have already failed.

So, maybe you feel the need for perfection in your life too.  Stop it!  We are not perfect creatures, we can never be perfect creatures, and let's face it, life would be pretty boring if we were perfect!  Let's focus instead on the good things around us, and allow "not perfect" make us happy.

Summer........

It's way too hot outside, but I'm already bored inside the house. Pinterest has become my newest obsession, but I also have fallen in love with art collages. No really, IN LOVE. Look at some of these:

by Christy Tomlinson

by Junelle Jacobsen

and another by Christy:

She listened to her soul

I've started following Christy Tomlinson's blog, and she's set up Creatively Inspired...a summer art challenge.  I've already got some ideas, and I want to get some crafty projects done this summer.  I get into a trap on the Internet, and even through Pinterest, where I get so busy bookmarking that I never get around to actually CRAFTING.  So this summer, I'm going to make sure I get some crafting done!

Ten Tasks in Ten Days

I want to participate in Sit, Relax and Read's challenge, so this is where I'll make my list.

1. Clean up my craft room and make it safe to become James's summer bedroom.
2. Get a dresser downstairs for our clothes.
3. Organize my books.
4. Organize and clean up the playroom.  Get more seating in there (the rocker from James's room or Tifney's furniture from the garage.)
5. Set up the TV, Blu-ray and the Wii in the playroom.
6. Try ONE new recipe.
7. Organize all my craft supplies.
8. Organize our bedroom.
9. Laundry.  Then some laundry.  Then some more laundry.
10. Get the "technology" picked up and out of the way.

Today, I'm working on the laundry.