joy

Day 189: Gratitude 29

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Gratitude of the Day: The Farmer’s Market

Where I live there’s a Farmer’s Market every Sunday. I only occasionally go since it can get sort of expensive, but I love going. Even if I don’t buy anything, it’s fun to sample the fruits and vegetables (and cheese!). It’s nice just to be outside and meander around and not really have to do anything. It’s nice to chat with my friends and look at the new vendors and go see the what’s on offer from our favorite stands.

It’s honestly strange that I don’t go more because I enjoy it so much. Maybe I’ll add it to my Sunday routine. I really should look at what activities give me happiness and energy and make it a point to do those regularly. Another project for another time.

Until tomorrow

176 Days to go

Day 140: Reframing

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

rawpixel-com-369775.jpg

 

Hellooooooooo!

I’ve been MIA again for awhile. This time I haven’t been working so many hours, but I have been doing a great many things. December is a busy month with the holidays! Everyone is trying to cram in last minute get togethers and there’s holiday parties and shopping galore. So basically I’ve been busy, which isn’t always an excuse but sometimes it can be.

But I wanted to share something I discovered recently which I’m pretty excited about. Podcasts!

Just kidding. I know all about podcasts, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to them since I switched jobs. There’s just too much to do and I can’t really concentrate on the podcasts unless I’m cleaning or sorting laundry or doing some other mindless task.

Enter driving to ballet. The class I like is pretty far away, especially after work when it’s rush hour. It’s been a definite issue in the past with me not wanting to drive half an hour after work to go exercise. My willpower is low in the evening and the commute doesn’t help.

Then while I was listening to Happier with Gretchen Rubin they were talking about reframing. Basically you take a negative task or idea and frame it in a different light so it becomes a positive. And then it hit me! The perfect time to listen to my podcasts is during my dreaded commute to ballet class. It’s a good chunk of time, so I can listen to the longer podcasts and it’s something I look forward to, so I’ve finally found a way to overcome the commute obstacle. A perfect solution to a thorny problem. 🙂

Until tomorrow! (Podcast & ballet day!)

225 days to go.

Day 132: Book Round Up

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Something different today! I’m slowly working towards my goals, but there hasn’t been much to report. Just the grind of getting things done and trying to balance what I want to do with my life with my actual job. It’s tough. But things have slowed down the past couple of weeks so I’ve been able to get some reading done!

Sixty.jpg

For some unknown reason the first book I decided to read after my grueling month of work was Sixty: A Diary of my Sixty-First Year  by Ian Brown. As someone in their twenties, it’s interesting to see the perspective of someone at the other end of their life (Sorry, Ian, but it’s true.) He worries about a lot of the same things I worry about: money, relationships, accomplishing great things in life. He does talk a lot about health and death, which I found both boring and panic inducing. Mostly this book just helped to increase my feeling of existential dread, which I don’t usually have. Imagining myself and sixty and whether or not I’ve lived the life I’m aiming for now caused a sense of fear I don’t usually feel. I guess at the very least it will help me work harder. Thanks Ian.

Recommendation: Read it!

Do the work.jpg

My ever increasing need to be productive led me to my next book Do the Work by Steven Pressfield. This is one of those books that everyone who works in a creative field seems to tell you to read. I personally found it to be one long motivational quote. That works for some people, but I’m prefer books which give me concrete tools to improve my life (lists!, pomodoro method!, reward systems!). It just really depends on what kind of self-help books, you find most helpful.

Recommendation: Pass for me, but maybe not for you!

Bernadette.jpg

Frothy fun! That’s what I need and that’s what this book is. It’s been on my To Read list for ages and I’m glad I finally read it. It doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure (peppered with emails, police reports and memos) and I think it’s all the better for it. All the characters are witty and delightful (even the terrible ones) and everyone is smarter, prettier, better dressed than I am. This is a book that believes it’s readers are smart and can put together the pieces. We are and we can! Escapist fiction! Exactly what you need once in awhile.

Recommendation: Read read read!

So that’s something different for now. Don’t worry, I’ll be droning on and on about goals and New Year’s Resolutions soon.

Until tomorrow.

233 days to go.

Day 99: Perfection

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

perfection‘

I try to be perfect. I really do. I get upset with myself if I even make the tiniest mistake that someone else catches. It could just be a typo or a missed punctuation, but I’ll beat myself up about it the tiniest bit before I move on. I think this can me a good thing sometimes – I learn from my mistakes and it serves as a reminder to double and triple check my work when I’m tempted to just send it along to the next person. But I also think it can be a mental block that gets in my own way. It prevents me from going to exercise class because I’m not “good enough” or it prevents me from sending along my writing because “it has to be perfect.” It prevents me from trying new things because I’m afraid people will look at me and secretly judge me (or openly judge me, but that would be rude.)

I need to remind myself that it’s okay to be perfect. None of us are. I need to try and be less self-conscious about my imperfections. Most of the time people are so worried about themselves, they don’t have a thought for me! And if they do, the so what?! Their thoughts about me have zero impact on my life, so I should just live how I want to. It’s a hard thing to remember, but I think it’ll definitely help me to get over a few mental hurdles so I can make it to the next step – whether that be trying a new dance class or submitting my writing for consideration.

Until tomorrow. Happy Halloween too!

266 days to go!

Day 91: Monthly Check in 3

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Time for my third monthly check-in! It’s been three months since I started this self-improvement plan (project?) and I think I’ve done relatively well so far! The holiday season is quickly approaching so it’s best that I come up with a few ways to stick to my goals (next post!)

  1. Work on my Novel – I finished my novel (again!) after cutting out the whole middle section. Now it’s just time to edit again (and again and again and again. Will the editing never stop?) I do think I’ve learned a lot in this process and hopefully my next book will not require so much cutting and rewriting and editing (but it probably will.) I’m hoping by the end of the year I can have a solid book and begin sending query letters to agents.
  2. Ballet – The cycle for the beginning of class started again, so hopefully it’ll stick this time! It’s definitely been a struggle (clearly), but I’m always hoping to do better.
  3. Promotion –  DONE! 
  4. Get out of credit card debt – Blargh. Still working on this and I will be for quite some time. Hopefully with my promotion I can start paying it off more aggressively (plus that bonus and tax return next year will hopefully help!)
  5. In a relationship – Still Bumbling. I’m not sure if anything is going to work out. Usually I get irritated with people by the third or fourth week and I can feel it happening again. There’s just an expectation with online dating that everyone wants to either just hook up or jump directly into a relationship. And I don’t want either of those things so I feel people are often disappointed.  And I’m resistant to both so we get nowhere in the end.

So there’s my third monthly check-in. Ninety one days in and I’m a little farther along with all my goals except Ballet. Perhaps November will be Ballet month, just like October was meant to be Ballet month.  Eventually I will figure out a way for it to stick!

Until tomorrow.

274 days to go. It’s a lot of time and it’s no time at all, right?

Day 76: Be Terrible

~ joypetite ~ 1 Comment

Yes! Success! For the first time in a couple months I went to ballet class. I was initially apprehensive about going because I haven’t been in awhile and even when I was going, my attendance was quite spotty. I’ve realized recently that often times my decision not to go to class had only to do with my own fears and anxieties. I was the one standing in my way because I was worried my teacher would judge me for all the progress I’d lost! Which is ridiculous! I’m not going to become a professional ballerina or even go on to dance in any sort of recital. This is for exercise and for fun. For my health! The thing I should be least worried about it what my teacher will think of me.  The thing I should be most worried about is making sure I attend class, so I can take care of my body and myself. And so this is another lesson I learned. Be Terrible.

Okay… don’t be terrible, but don’t be afraid to be terrible at something. I’m an adult! I have a job I find moderately rewarding and pay my own bills. Everything else is just for my own enjoyment and happiness. So what if I’m terrible at pirouettes.  At least I’m getting out there and spinning across the floor like my four year old self would be proud of!

This advice is important for not just exercise, but also for writing! I’m often worried of what will happen at the end of writing my book. Will all the hard work be for nothing? Will it be rejected? Will I even get an agent? Will it arrive on shelves and then sit there until it’s put in the bargain bin and I’ll never write another thing again? Or will I be a wild success so I can quit my day job and just spend my days writing and writing and writing? (Yes, please!) But none of these are an option if I don’t at least finish the book. So let my story be terrible and I’ll fix it up afterwards. After all you can’t even read empty pages.

Until tomorrow.

289 days to go.

 

Day 2: Life Gaps

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Every morning I get up and I read the news. Sometimes I only read the arts section or do the crossword puzzle, or some days I immerse myself deeply in all the the goings on of the world. I miss somethings some days, and other things other days, but without fail I always read the articles about improving your life. (Clearly this is an interest of mine.)

Several years ago a read an article called How To Live Wisely. It’s a pretty typical article about improving your life, but there was one thing which struck me. And that’s to make a list. Well, actually two. First, make a list of activities or things you highly value and then track how you actually spend your time. Do they match up? For me they rarely do. And I think for most people they rarely do.

For some reason I’ve taken to calling these Life Gaps – how I wish I spent my time vs. How I actually spend my time (more on that tomorrow). Part of the point of this blog is to try and make sure they match up more in the future than they do now. And of course that’s not everything, but it is important to remember:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

– Annie Dillard

Day One

~ joypetite ~ 1 Comment

07/23/2018

I was driving to work this week and for some reason it dawned upon me that I don’t particularly like my life. Sure, it’s fine, but there’s very few things I do on a day to day basis that I enjoy. Reading, watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, writing in my journal. Those are all fun (solitary) things, which enjoy, but the life I currently lead is vastly different from the life I have in my head. (Maybe not vastly, but some hyperbole is allowed.)

So I’ve decided to change my life. Today is (music swells) the first day of the rest of my life. And a Sunday to boot, so how fortuitous – unless you think the week starts on on Monday.

But, back to changing my life. This day next year, I want my life to be closer to what I want. Closer to who I want to be. So here’s what I want.

  1. Novelist – I’ve been working on a novel for the better part of the past year. It’s a children’s book which I find amusing, but I’m not sure if anyone else will. So this time next year I want agents to have been queried, publishers to reject me and hopefully one who’s accepted me. Maybe I’ll have a pile of rejection letters, but at least it’s out there in the world.
  2. Ballet! I wrote a few posts about ballet and have not really done much. Work and life gets in the way, as it does to all things. This time next year I want to have moved up to the next level at my studio.
  3. I want a promotion. This is a bit tricky because someone has to leave for a position to even be open unless they add more teams and jobs. But too often I get in my own way and curtail my ambitions, so if I position comes open, I’m going to apply.
  4. Get out of credit card debt – Ugh this is the worst. I racked up a bunch when I was unemployed and I’ve been paying it off pretty aggressively, but I think by this time next year I should be out of it or almost out.
  5. In a relationship – This would be nice, but would be like a bonus to my life (the frosting on the cake, as it were) rather than something I really truly want to aim for.

So there we have it. The things I really want out of the next year. Of course, there’s tons of other things I want to do as well: learn French, how to fly a plane, go on a trip, learn to play the piano. But those are other things for other days and other years and right now I’ll just focus on these. Maybe on July 23, 2018 I can put some of those on my list.

Until tomorrow.

Roadblocks

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

 

I knew this would happen! It’s why I stopped watching TV in the first place, but Master of None came out (amazing), then Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (better than good), and then I discovered Veep (truly excellent). For the longest time I wasn’t watching TV  because I knew once I found something I wanted to watch, I wouldn’t do anything else. And now I’ve opened a can of worms.

Building new habits is a hard thing to do. I’ve managed to build small ones like flossing every day (pair it with brushing my teeth!) and doing my DuoLingo French (with my coffee in the morning), but anything which requires more time and energy is kind of a struggle. I know myself and I know that pairing works and pure willpower doesn’t. I know that making things into tiny blocks instead of one big block helps me get the most done, even if my pace is slower than a snail’s.

I know I don’t have enough will power to stop watching Veep in the middle of the series, so I’ll just try my best to not watch it until the weekend. After it’s done, I’ll cut the cord again and I’ll be back on track with all my goals (more to come!)

 

 

(But…..if you haven’t you should watch Veep)

Ten Thousand-ish

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Ballet

 

For the past few years I’ve been taking ballet classes off and on. Adult ballet classes. I never took them as a child, but I always wanted too. I remember at a young age asking my one ballet friend all about class and performances and what being part of a production was like. To me it just seemed like magic. Even as a teenager, I looked for adult classes I might be able to join. Sadly, there weren’t any in my area.

Then one day a few years ago I suddenly realized – I’m an adult and I can do whatever I want, whenever I want (for the most part, as I am very law-abiding and rule oriented). So I signed up for a beginner class! By myself. It was scary doing something new and all alone, but I loved it! It’s been a few years since I took that beginner class and so I want to get back in the saddle (or rather in the shoes). I’ve been having trouble making it to class for the last year or so and I want this blog to be some sort of accountability. I know I’ll never dance on stage, but I’d at least like to make it into pointe shoes! At least once.

They say you need 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Maybe I’ll never make it there, but I want to get as close as I can. (I even have a tracker on my phone. It’s called Mastery.) So here’s to the start of 10,000 hours and some sort of accountability. And practice. Lots and lots of practice. I’ll update my progress along the way with some other blog posts thrown in about things I love. This is – after all – a blog about finding things in life which bring me joy, however small.

xoxo