This week has been pretty good - I've set up the bones of what I want to cover day to day - one of the main things in store for this coming week is getting my 'branding' sorted out. And the theme for the week is to be 'using what I've got'.
And throughout the week:
I was loving the content over at Bentlily, especially Monday's piece on absence rather than presence - I am so in touch with the need to tune out.
I guess I have a thing for poetry this week as another favourite would be the Silk Worm by Jalaludin Rumi over at OCG.
Loving all things needlework related right now.
So for the weeks to come this blog now has a format
Monday is for Making
Tuesday - for tuning into the invisible stuff
Wednesday - for Wishcasting on Whensday
Thursday - the Thoughtful Thread
Friday for some Fashionable Authenticity
Saturday for some Silent Sunshine and Smiles
and
Sunday for the Usual Sunday BS.
Got the structure set up - now I have to work on the aesthetics, branding is key.
Friday
is going to be Fashionably and Authentically fit from here on in.
catherine@whenatthemacsx.blogger.com
When I initially started The MacsX I had an Ebay shop featuring quality recycled fashion, the true intention was to 'upcycle' rather than recycle wanted to add my own twist, but never quite got round to doing that. Whilst I had rave reviews for the quality of the pieces and for my customer service there was always something missing. The customisation, the upcycling and the styling. So I closed the shop and whilst I still love shopping for pieces for myself that was as far as it went.
In keeping with using what I've got and doing what I 'say' on a Friday I'm going to feature some authentic fashion. And I'm going to start with me.
'Alice' is my mannequin. She didn't actually have a name until we moved house last year and the removal man asked where I wanted to 'put Alice'. One of the pieces I had used when covering my mannequin, on the right hip, was for 'Naughty Alice' he just read that and so the mannequin with no name has been 'Alice' ever since. Over the next few weeks I'll be using Alice to restyle my wardrobe and to use my creativity to do some upstyling. After all if I can't do it for myself how can I be expected to help anyone else. So Fashionably and Authentically Fit starts here.
Fitting Authentically is a whole other side of the coin and one that I'll cover on another day.
In
keeping with the redesign – and my one day at a time deal – I’ve decided to
make Thursday the day of the Thoughtful Thread.
Mainly because I want to combine my love of words and creativity and
create some inspirational canvases.
Today’s
piece, inspired by my chosen word for the year, is a bit of a cheat as I’ve pc’d
it together – for next week I will create a needlework piece. In fact I might well pop over to Molly Mahar’ssite and kill two birds with one stone, create my entry for her PinterestContest. Combining my love or words,
needlework and Pinterest – how much more inspirational can it get.
Just because I'm re-organising doesn't mean everything has to change. I like the idea of Wednesday Wishcasting and so popping over to Jamie Ridler studios on a Wednesday for now is a keeper. Albeit Jamie seems to be short, or late on wishes today.
I am learning daily about the beauty of enough, and wish everyone enough. This past year my son has been suffering from, what we now know to be, pseudo seizures. They are scary enough to watch and I can only try to imagine how scary it is on the other side of them. We had a really good day at the beginning of last week where he got up, and went for a walk round the park before going to school. I had been giving some thought to defining happy - and that was 'enough'. My hopes and wants have scaled back tremendously over this past year. To have some happy, healthy, quality time with family - that is ENOUGH - in fact it felt almost overwhelmingly more so.
May all your wishes be cast into the world and bring back ENOUGH.
There
are few phrases more frustrating than “I can understand how frustrating this may seem”. Feel the double whammy of the slap in the
face when closely followed by “these tests have come back negative so we can
rule out serious illness a, b, and c”.
In the meantime life has been on hold for the best (or worst) part of a year
or more as it would seem every life threatening illness has been
eliminated. And still the pain and suffering continues. I don't say this to look for sympathy I say it to emphasise the futility of dealing with physical conditions with a psychological base.
Given a name for our condition 'pseudo seizures', but no guide to treatment, I finally done what I had avoided for so long - I googled it.
Is
it just me, or is there an overwhelming need to put a label on things? Rather than actually dealing with symptoms and
getting on with some healing, labelling seems to be key. One of the pieces I read focused mainly
on naming the condition and whether or not names were suitable.
Personally I believe that 'Pseudo Seizures' is a misnomer as there is nothing 'pseudo' (artificial or false) about these episodes.
One thing that rang alarm bells throughout my look around the net was the length of time it seemed to take to figure out what the underlying symptoms really were - yet this does not seem to be a complete unknown.
It is a sad reflection of modern life that more and more people suffer these 'invisible' conditions and they seem to be hitting them younger and younger. Not wanting to seem like an old twat but I think the pic I seen recently on facebook sums up the whole information overload.
I believe that the more we talk about the 'invisible', unexplained and misunderstood workings of the human mind the more we will come to understand it and perhaps be able to focus on treatment rather than labels.
Apologies if this seemed like a bit of a ramble. Sometimes it helps to put a whole load of 'stuff' out there to find some clarity. Hopefully in tuning in on the coming Tuesdays things will become clearer and life simpler.
So,
this week I’m organising things here at The MacsX, even looking at name
changes. And a some simple branding
changes.
I’m
restructuring, or should I say finalising the structure of my blog. I’ve been examining why I set this blog up in
the first place - ultimately it was to
decompartmentalise everything and to make a difference.
As
of now, Monday is for Making. I love
checking out all the creatives over at Handmade Monday, and I love being
creative and working on building my Portfolio and increasing the stock in my
Etsy Shop. Giving some focus to all this
on a Monday can only add positives – structure – dedicated time – consistency.
I’m
hoping you’ll be encouraged to stop by and see what’s going on.
This
week I’m loving the latest Crafty, I feel like I truly know a whole lot of the
contributors this month. If I were to
get published in one Craft focused magazine this would definitely be my first
choice. And I’m working on some more
Unique Ribbon Jewellery, using this and next seasons key colours.
Monday 10th I'm creating a procrastination list, I really enjoyed this take on procrastination when I was reading Free Range Humans and would have added this to last week's post but....
The week’s discoveries/rediscoveries: Springforest Healing Fest - I started this journey but once again let life take over, I really need to work on that. The key things I took from this were that western medicine is a passive healing, it's not preventive and looks only at the symptoms and not the cause of the illness - treating the whole person is the way of quigong. energy is effected by - emotion - nutrition - changes in weather/season - environment - wrong medication - injury To experience this healing energy go into the emptiness keep everything simple use your consciousness elements - breathing, postures of body, mind and sound faith, confidence, call upon the master's energy, visualisation, focus, consistence love, forgiveness and kindness Life is for happiness When it is time - it is time xoxo PinterestI pin to share as much as to remind myself of the idea. Am I the only one who finds myself going to repin something of mine that someone has repinned - because I like it, still.
Meditation, the way he described it, was a way to stop running. You sat still, and watched your thoughts and emotions and desires and aversions come and go, and you resisted the urge to try to flee from them, to fix them, or to cling to them. You practised non-attachment, in other words. Whatever came up, negative or positive, you stayed present and observed it. It wasn’t about escaping into ecstasy – or even into calmness, as the word is normally understood; and it certainly wasn’t about positive thinking. It was about the significantly greater challenge of declining to do any of that.
[T]he daily rituals and working routines of prolific authors and artists – people who really do get a lot done – very rarely include techniques for ‘getting motivated’ or ‘feeling inspired’. Quite the opposite: they tend to emphasise the mechanics of the working process, focusing not on generating the right mood, but on accomplishing certain physical actions, regardless of mood. Anthony Trollope wrote for three hours each morning before leaving to go to his job as an executive at the post office; if he finished a novel within a three-hour period, he simply moved on to the next. (He wrote forty-seven novels over the course of his life.) The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.’
Seth Godin - 'making a point' via Miss Swiss "ideas that are free spread faster and ideas that spread win" xoxoIs it sad that I really want to send myself a Burberry Kiss - xoxo I found the magic of space held by the Yoga Mat via Jamie Ridler I just need to find my Yoga Mat now! xoxo I realise this is all a bit 'bitty', it's a reflection of life around here recently. Still, over the next week I intend to get organised, get things in order, finish stuff I've said I'll finish and move on. Here’s to another week And
to using up lots of stuff
I originally started writing this post a few weeks ago. I had planned on tying together the Storytelling for Change Labs I've been doing and what I really want The MacsX to be.
As I put my necklace on this morning I had that ‘aha’
moment. That’s the story I want to
tell. What I like to call the story of
WHEN.
I’m sitting on the top deck of a London bus looking through
the window. And then I stop looking
through and start looking in. Etched in
the window is the word WHEN. And it’s as
if that window is speaking to me – bear in mind that I am on the edge of a
major melt down – WHEN? When does my
life start? when do I get what I want? When do I get off?(and I don’t mean the
bus). There were a whole host of other
questions that really needed to be asked.
But it was if I were hearing my own voice for the first time in a very
long time. Really hearing me. And really
recognising that I was not happy with my lot – sure I had loads to be grateful
for but I hadn’t found ‘it’. What I
wanted to be when I grew up – ‘happy’.
That one word etched in the window in August 2004 was the beginning of a
monumental journey, which I take a new step on each day. I am Catherine McAtier and in finding my
authenticity I hope to light the way for others. And NOW is WHEN.
That was how the day started then life took over and I got kind of derailed. This is the first Wednesday in what seems like forever I've been able to get back to focusing on the MacsX. Working my way through my Feedly stuff I was delighted to see my #ImaPiece jigsaw piece included in the Craftivist Collective post today. My piece is end right on the middle row.
And the when messages just keep on coming, I especially love the 'dispel the "I'll be happy when..." myth' over at Kind Over Matter This was posted on Monday but I'm playing Feedly catch up today.
So, today I'm finally getting back to some semblance of order - and getting to use what I've got. I have a whole host of info on Feedly, I seem to be finding pins worth looking at over on Pinterest and I'm looking forward to getting my Etsy Shop back on track with a new improved look (more later...).
And finally over at Jamie Ridler Studios it's back to Wishcasting Wednesday - Today's prompt is What Do You Wish to ....
Me, I want to discover my Authentic Life, I've been doing some work in the background between life's interruptions and hope to put all my discoveries together very soon. So far my moon board is kind of moon oriented but over the next week or so I'm hoping to add some wishes.
In the meantime I wish everything my fellow wishcasters wish for themselves and may they discover their wishes in the way and at a time that is best for them.
And the
weeks just keep getting better and better.....
by Catherine at When at The MacsX
One of the first things I read this morning was the Dottie Angel Post about little things. Certainly over the
last few weeks I have really learnt to embrace the ‘little’ things, to make
the most of a sunny day by having lunch in the park, by ‘being there’ when it
truly is the place to be, even staying down for a ‘little’ while when you fall
just to draw breath and gain perspective.
Yes, I did fall over this week. I
have the skinned knee and bruises to prove it and the peace of mind that I can
be 90% sure that nothing is broken. I’m
using blind faith and gut instinct for the other 10% because I really do not
want to have to spend any more time in A&E. I’m going with the positive tude and a little
r and r to get me through.
I finally
finished my International Craft swap this week, it is now wrapped and on its way
to Australia. I really want to show it
off here but feel it wouldn’t be right, not until Valerie gets to open it up.
Can you see what it is yet?
I also
finished reading the draft of Marcella Chamorro‘s
new book – and can’t wait until she releases it to the world. It truly is beautiful , you can pre-order it here. And I promise to write more about it when it is fully revealed.
So, I can
smile and say that I have made some positive little steps this week, and I’ve
already set out another in my diary for this week coming re Storytelling for
Change – Somehow serendipity seems to be at work again as this will be the week
where my story comes together – time for the great reveal? To say I'm doing some editing would be putting it mildly, the surprising bit is I'm putting back the 'not so fun parts' and making it
And I am loving Beth Beulow's message of "view and hold others as whole, capable, and resourceful." I believe that this is key to overcoming the whole 'victim' mentality and is a whole post of it's own making.
Keeping the creativity going and maintaining connections I intend to complete the Artists in Blogland - Colour this Quote June Challenge. I'm loving the message ("May there be peace and prosperity within your walls." Psalms 122.7)and the creative accountability my committing to this brings.
Here's to another productive week - and one full of lots of little blessings.
