Sunday, May 17, 2015

Barrel Planting

Hello everyone, lets see how I do on this blog again.  Sorry for the absence.  It is so much easier to play on Intagram or Facebook where  you don't have to commit to much writing or pictures and you know you have an audience listening to you.

So where to begin, when you have been absent all these months ?   Starting  where you are now. ?

Keeping it simple.

A couple of weeks ago a friend was visiting from out of town  and I took her sightseeing in a little town called   Steventons, and we went to a cool little garden centre and I asked my friend  what her favourite colour theme was . She mentioned purples , yellows and whites.  I realized those where colours I also liked but never seem to plant. That day I purchased orange pansies and a beautiful purple daisy.     Fast forward to today, with some white allysum  added in,  the other plants were perennials that were there from last year.   Voila !  It is cheery and will be perfect when everything fills in

Be well.

Alice





Monday, March 3, 2014

Feeling Burned Out ?



I like reading these kinds of  posts , they give me a perspective about work/life that I may not have seen before.  Hope  it gives you  an answer to something you've had on your mind.
Alice
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Feeling Burned Out ?  The One Change That Could Fix Everything .
By : Chairlie Helm

Within a matter of months, I quit two amazing jobs.
The first was director of special projects for Tim Ferriss, the bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body. Secondly, I was the co-founder of a profitable tech startup.
Both gigs had highly desirable qualities: I got to work on exciting projects, collaborate with talented people, and I was making good money. For a 25-year-old, I was living the dream.
But then I quit.
Whenever I had to explain why I’d left, I felt spoiled and embarrassed. I had no desire to do the work--I wasn’t interested in what I was doing anymore--and I’d burned myself out.
And yet, I still felt obligated to live up to people’s expectations. Everyone asked me what I was going to do next. And I’d panic inside because it felt like I was losing. There was this voice in my head that kept telling me how far I’d come, and now I was blowing it. I’d let everyone down. I needed to become a successful CEO or a millionaire in order for the world to accept that I was okay again.
This pressure I felt to make it was such a burden--until I realized that no level of success was ever going to be enough. I would always be chasing the world outside of me. What was the point of working so hard if it wasn’t for my own happiness? The solution became very clear: stop doing work that doesn’t matter to you.
You might roll your eyes at this. “I can’t quit my job! I have a family and bills to pay!” I understand. I didn’t quit everything I didn’t want to work on right away. I just started making a conscious effort to work on projects I actually cared about.

CHANGE HOW YOU THINK ABOUT WORK

Rather than viewing work as a stressful obligation, or a means of getting rich, my work was a game I chose to play.
I wanted my work to be a game I would willingly play. I thought back on the activities I repeatedly played throughout my life because they were fun and I was good at them:
  • Creating my own art
  • Making people laugh
  • Developing skills
  • Building with my hands
I started setting aside 20 minutes each day to play one of my games. I’d come up with a fun project that allowed me to do work I cared about. The project could be small (assembling furniture, drawing a funny picture) or ambitious (learning a guitar solo, writing my first book). As long as I gave myself 20 minutes each day to work on something personally rewarding, I was happy. It gave me an internal paycheck.
I wanted to spend more of my time doing these things, so I gave myself a rule: Any work I did had to allow me to create my own art, make people laugh, develop my skills, or build something with my hands. If the gig didn’t meet my criteria, then I would turn it down. The work had to be its own reward.
Before I quit my jobs, my state of mind was messed up. I never thought of my work as a game; it was simply work. Every day was serious business. I needed to get more results. I needed to earn more money. I needed to have more success. I needed more--and I completely missed the point.

FOCUS ON CREATING YOUR OWN FUN

When I tackle work with a sense of play, my creativity and optimism soar. I fall in love with the process. My energy becomes contagious, and I’m able to create unique art with the people around me.
I’ve met a lot of incredibly talented and successful people, and nearly all of them approach their lives this way--they play.
No one forces them to work on things they don’t care about or tells them how to spend their time. They just give themselves permission to follow their impulses and pursue what excites them. They create a little universe that revolves around their own fun.
Instead of grinding it out in jobs they hate, these people become passionate and highly skilled at what they do. They team up with other great players and collaborate on interesting projects. Then one day, they’re making magic. Their mastery shines through in everything they create, society reaps the benefits of their gifts, and our world changes.
Every treasured contribution in the history of mankind was created through play: music, art, books, film, comedy, sports, dance, transportation, technology. We pay a premium for these things so we can experience the fruits of other people’s play!
Play is the true source of all the immeasurable value and wealth humans have injected into this world. It’s the DNA of our culture, and the backbone of our global economy. All of our most beloved creativity, profitable innovations, and fulfilling jobs have come from the freedom to have our own fun, for hours and weeks and years on end.
If we all pursued our own interests and natural talents, we’d fall in love with our work. We’d become highly skilled at what we do. Ingenuity would thrive, the quality of our goods and services would rise, and our lives would become richer.
Today, we all work because that’s what we’re told to do. But our system is broken. Every company is downsizing, outsourcing, and strapping their remaining employees with bigger workloads. The unemployed masses are left to fight for measly paychecks that come attached to uninspired, mind-numbing jobs. To the many who bought into the old ways of work, the future looks grim.
But there is a way out, a simple choice in how we approach our lives: to play for a living.
--Charlie Hoehn is the author ofPlay It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Hello





Hello, I couldn't let the the year end without posting something new.

November was a month of hat knitting.  I found a childs hat pattern called "Golden Pear Hat" by Sweet Fibers on Ravelry, wasn't sure why I wanted to knit these hats but something in me just wanted to make them.  As time went along I started thinking that I would sell these at a craft show for Christmas.   As it turned that didn't work out but I did have a friend who wanted to buy several of them as gifts for Christmas and she also wanted one knit for herself. So all the hats found a home except two of them.  That made me happy.



See you soon,

Alice





Saturday, August 17, 2013

Never Forever



You can't love someone forever,
just this moment.
You won't hate someone forever,
 just this moment.
You can't be sick forever,
 just this moment.
You won't be healthy forever,
 just this moment.
You can't be scared forever,
 just this moment.
You won't be happy forever,
 just this moment.
You can't live forever,
 just this moment.
You won't die forever,
 just this moment.

 You can handle it, just this moment
   - Alice Dunne








Sunday, May 26, 2013

Right Direction

There's been a shift - a good thing. The look of my new reading material. Steps in the right direction.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Matilde

I just received these pictures a few days ago and wanted to share with you.

I would like to introduce you to baby Matilde . She is the cute owner of the little sweater Maile that I made and posted about on January 17. This was a baby gift that I sent to Portugal for my cousin's daughter's baby that was due in February.
What is so extra special about these pictures is that I also get to see the baby's grandma and she is modelling  one of the  6 shawls that I sent over to the family in Portugal  iin the summer of 2012.    I had been told by the family that they would send me a picture of everyone modeling the shawls but that never happened, so I was excited to see this one. 

looks like the sweater will last a couple of months


nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby.

Proud Grandma, happy Mom and sweet daughter.

I`m so happy I decided to make this little sweater and send off to Portugal, as I would have missed seeing these wonderful pictures.  
Alice 

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Sitting On The Dock By The Bay





This picture was taken over a month ago and as I seen it again, reminded that I had intentions of sharing it here.

It was a glorious sunny winters day so Jim and I had gone for ride. We went searching fora spot by the water. All bundled up in our winter coats, it didn't matter the temperature as long as we could feel sun on our faces and see the water with our eyes.

This moment reminds of the song of long ago " Sitting On The Dock By the Bay" . Perfect.

Alice