Joy List Monday -- another list in photos and more grump fighting ideas

This is the last Monday in July. Can you believe it? The summer is flying by. I don't always do a good job of savoring the moments or of fighting off grumpiness but I'm glad that I'm keeping my daily Joy notebook and making lists on my blog. Taking photos helps to savor the moments and I've been trying to do a lot of that. With Instagram and with my real camera, too. So today's Joy list will be in photos again this week. Looking back at my Joy lists and at my photos can be a good place to look for ideas on how to improve my mood, too. For example, there's always flowers:

And spending time with the guys I love

in beautiful places.

And if you have to spend your one day off cleaning and doing laundry and running errands...

"Hello," strawberry shake.

Discovering secrets in my garden is one of my biggest Joys. I recently found that I have lots of cucumbers coming along.

And even one big enough to pick.

It's technically supposed to be a pickle, but I couldn't wait. And it was good.

What wasn't good was how the photos from my sewing shoot turned out.

Over exposed. Strange positioning of my hands (and other body parts). Flowers growing out of my head. All perils of a tripod and a timer and shooting outside when one minute it's cloudy and the next the sun is glaring. Basically, the worst part is that you can't really tell what these tops I've sewn look like and when that's the whole point... I will just have to be patient enough to wait until I can have the help of a certain photographer.

I hope your week is off to a Joyful start. And if you need to create some Joy, there's always painting your toenails and spending time with a four legged friend. Never fails.

bucking the mood, and a thank you

Just wanted to start by saying thank you for all the comments about bad moods. Guess my last post struck a chord.

I know I shouldn't have been surprised by my bad mood. But I was. I've always been a moody person, but in these last months I've been working on focusing on Joy (I like Simone's comment about practicing being joyful... it's true!). More than anything I was mad that I was feeling grumpy. I had no reason to be grumpy and yet I was. How dare a grumpy mood descend on me?! But if you throw punches at that grumpy mood, it will return the blows. Checking out for a while really does help and I love the ideas left in the comments, too.

• sing a little song
• watch a funny TV show or movie
• acknowledge the mood and observe it from the outside
• have a tantrum and laugh at the silliness of it
• do something physical
• lose yourself someplace interesting and beautiful

So, thank you, for that!

I'm still sewing and am excited for the projects in the works and still in my head.

I have ideas coming out of my ears and I just want to keep going. Which is fine, but I also want to paint my studio. Can't do both at the same time. If I just finish these next two projects...

Another thing I did to help my mood was leave early for work yesterday and stop at a thrift store on the way. 

They were a bit grimy sitting on the shelves in the Salvation Army, but thanks to some soapy water are now glowing once again. They'll look great with my other milk glass vases.

Hope your day is sweet!

Joy -- feeling it, not feeling it and giving yourself a time out

I think about Joy all the time. I write about it. I keep lists of it. I try to be conscious of paying attention to it and taking the time to really feel it. But sometimes, despite the circumstances, it's just not there. Yesterday was one of those days. I was GRUMPY. But I didn't want to be, which made me feel even grumpier. One of the main things that threw me into a funk was problems with a sewing project. I've been on a bit of a roll with sewing projects lately (I'll share the finished projects as soon as I have the chance for a photo shoot). Yesterday I was attempting some smocking with elastic thread and it was not working. I wanted to have a tantrum. I wanted to crumple up my top and throw it away. I didn't do either of those things. I took a break. But I was stewing all the while and contemplating how I was going to fix it. When something isn't working, I am not good at letting go. As soon as I was done eating some lunch, I was back up in my studio doing research on the Internet as to why my smocking didn't work. I pounced on a theory, got out my seam ripper, re-wound my bobbin and tried again. It DID work the second time, but that didn't fix my mood. Some days, no matter what I do or what happens, a bad mood won't be swayed. Does this happen to you, too?

So what do we do about it? Yesterday I kept running headlong into the bad mood trying to whip it into submission. And it did not work. I think what I really needed was a time out. I needed to let go of my desire to Get Things Accomplished and I needed to check out for a while. A book. A cold drink. And permission to spend the day outside of my expectations. That can be so hard to do. There is so much I want to do. So much I want to accomplish. And so few hours in the day.

Although my aim has been to focus on Joy and I have been trying not to focus on negatives, I think sometimes it's important to be able to say, I am grumpy (or sad or stressed or tired or hot or all of the above). Most of all, it's important to be gentle with yourself. The bad mood won't last. A day, or even just an afternoon spent in time out is not wasted. You can jump back into doing and accomplishing the next day and the Joy will follow. What do you think?

I do have a Joy List today, even though the grumpiness is still lingering.

The cooler weather isn't today. Certainly wasn't yesterday, either, and it won't be happening again for a while. But as one of the Joyfulest Joys of the past week, I thought it deserved a place on today's list.

I was so excited to receive my copy of the Dottie Angel book in the mail yesterday. It's gorgeous and comes with a fun little envelope of "stuff."  I had wanted one since before it came out and I finally treated myself to it. Glad I did.

I'm also glad that I ordered some full size business cards from Moo the other day during their summer sale. I love the mini cards I ordered earlier this year and I thought I should have some full size cards, too.

Love them!

I hope your week is off to a Joyful start!

It's here!!!

Earlier this year I was contacted by a librarian at my neighborhood library and asked if I'd be interested in having a Little Free Library in my front yard. The library system was planning for a few of these little libraries to be installed around the community. A local artist was busy building one with others in the works. I loved the idea and jumped at the chance. Back in June we had the first meeting to determine placement and height and today it was put up and stocked!

I think it needs some flowers.

You can read more about the local project here and see photos of the installation here and here.

The Little Free Library movement began in Wisconsin in 2010 and is now an international phenomenon. It's been featured on NPR and in the New York Times and I recently discovered that the artist Kelly Rae Roberts put one up in her front yard.

A library in my front yard. How's that for Joy?! Won't you join in, too? Contact your local library to see if they'd be interested, order one from the Little Free Library's website or just build one yourself!

a Joy list in photos -- my day in Instagram

Yesterday was the first day since we got back from vacation that Matthias and I both had off. The day from start to finish was filled with Joy. Wanna see what I mean?

Hope your days have been filled with Joy!

on a roll

I've been wanting to post, but I've been so busy DOing that blogging has fallen by the wayside. It's summer and that's how it's supposed to be.

Been doing some sewing.

Thrifting.

Gardening.

And I'm still trying to figure out which color to paint my studio. I bought samples of three (very similar) colors and painted big swaths of each on one of the studio walls and I still don't know. How indecisive can a person get? Apparently, very.

I hope your week has been full of Joys!

Joy list monday

It's been a couple weeks since I posted a real Joy list so I'd say it's about time.

• taking photos in the garden
• projects in progress in the studio
• plans to revamp my studio
• flowers, veggies, herbs!
• rediscovering Instagram
• getting rid of my headache
• cooler weather

I've just been bristling with ideas and inspiration right now. Ideas for projects, for my studio, for the house, for my garden. There are seriously not enough hours in the day. I've been wanting to photograph everything and I just got back on Instagram after not taking any pictures with it since April. I also started "following" a few people on there (hadn't ever done that before). If you do Instagram you can find me as mygiantstrawberry. I'd love to see your photos!

Here's a little glimpse of the table in my studio:

And some views of the garden:

I hope your week is off to a Joyful start!