Gypsy Me

Just checking in from cloudy Arizona. With apologies, because I'm very tired, and can only think in small sentences.

No paragraphs today.

Here's the view from my window.

read more

Photo Catch-Up

I've had some lovely times in the 6 weeks or so since I got back from my last trip. This and the next couple of posts will attempt to catch up on all the things.  I usually only feel the urge to write when I need to process stuff, so a lot of these kinds of just fun drafts about life at home languish in limbo. Tonight I'm on an adrenaline high from a two-workout day and I'm going to take advantage of it.

read more

All the Updates

I am so grateful for the friendships I've cultivated over the years. I'm not great at cultivation, but it seems that even my little efforts yield lovely things. It matters so much to me that others want to know how I'm doing. I always hope I'll remember to ask about you. If I don't, please remind me.

Here are updates on some of the things:

read more

My Life (or Holy Cow!)

When I was young, these are some of the things I thought of being when I grew up:

• Writer. 
• Teacher. 
• Movie editor (No, really. I did. I used to hook two VCRs and my stereo together and edit home movies complete with transitions, titles and music tracks.)
• Photographer
• Cetologist. Points for you if you know what that is without looking it up. 

Today I found myself thinking of how amazed I am at where I sit right now. In fact, I'll show you: 

Here is what I'm watching on my screen: 

If you can't tell, it's all the windows of Premier Pro, a movie-editing application. Contained therein are the guts of an instructional video I just made, being rendered into a single entity onto my hard drive so I can upload it to Vimeo, where, on Friday, it will debut as the first content for sale on the new website I am launching with my dear friend Gwen. 

I've been working on it full tilt for about a month, and it's good to see it be a whole piece, rather than just the bits I've been peering at all these weeks. It took endless tweaking and much moving (in tiny, tiny increments) of those Adobe sliders I know so well. The next one will be easier, as will the next one after that, and so on. 

When I consider my life so far, I can see that pretty much all the things I thought I might be good at, I've had the opportunity to at least try (though, in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that the Cetology thing has not worked out as of yet). I've used my skills at nearly all times for my family, nearly as often as a community and church volunteer, and over the years, occasionally as a professional. Gradually, I've gotten more and more comfortable saying to people that I AM a writer, a teacher, and a photographer. Now I can add that I'm an editor of movies. I don't have any ambition to be famous, but I am endlessly curious, and I've said yes to a lot of things that I didn't know how to do (plus I was probably holding a baby on my hip) but I was willing to at least try. I think that was a good plan for me.  

Now that I have the chance to do professional things more and even all the time if I want, I feel very strongly that my work at home being everything possible to 6 other people, plus all the project management and organization I've learned through PTA, boosters and church activities has actually prepared me really well for the next 45+ years that I might have left to live (My grandma is almost 92). It's neat to see from this perspective that everything has come along at the right time. 

It's exciting and terrifying to be putting stuff out there for people to see, love, hate and ignore. I know all those things will happen, and that's the price of living life in the real world. Fortunately, I have some experience with that. I've been loved, hated and ignored during my life so far. And not just by my kids, haha. It's good that I'm practiced at trying to move forward with confidence that what I'm doing is right for me. 

My little movie is not perfect, in fact every time I watch it a part of me wants to delete and start from scratch, but in the business world, especially when you're first starting out, there's this principle called "Ship It!" That means if you have even minimally viable product, get it out there, start selling your stuff, and then, as you get feedback, experience and capital, your output will move to higher levels. But you have to start. 

So there you go. Yet another new start. I can never say that I didn't have chances. 

Anyway,  never give up on your dreams, but don't be afraid to take a detour, whatever it is--family, travel, education, etc., even if everyone else thinks you're wrong. Be right for yourself. You've got time. Spend your energy on the most important things while they're the most important, and the other things will come along in their turn. 

I'm living proof. 

read more

A Surprising Ride to Productivity

As you know, I've been trying to lose weight since before the dawn of time. Lately, my husband has adapted his working life to include a standing desk. He no longer sits at all during the workday, thereby keeping his heart working just a little harder and bearing weight on his muscles and bones. The thought is that while it's certainly not a cardio workout, it is healthier than sitting all day and can help in the battle against the dreaded sedentary life so prevalent in America right now.

I've wanted to claim some of the benefits of this method, even while working at home, but upon experimenting with possible solutions, discovered that I really didn't like knitting while standing, even if I had something in front of me, like a desk or lectern. Sitting and knitting is easier, I suppose because of the back support. Since about half of the work I do while sitting is knitting, I needed another solution.  One day, I got the notion that a small exercise bike might do the trick because on a search for standing desk options, I saw a photo of a woman in professional dress, peddling while she read through pages in her hands.

Bingo! I found a similar-looking cycle on Amazon for about 140 dollars and not only does it work, it works brilliantly. After a fruitless search for the perfect little desk-ish thing to go over the bike to hold my computer, phone, bottle of water, knitting or whatever, my clever hubby built a perfect desk. It has the added bonus of being a good height to use as a standing desk for the times when I'm not knitting and just using my computer or talking on the phone.

I can put the resistance to low, get peddling and happily work like this for about 2 hours at a time before I need a stretch and change of venue. I can comfortably knit, sew, and do anything on my computer, including photo processing.

I'm so pleased with this set-up and have noticed an unexpected benefit. I often struggle with focused work and usually move from task to task throughout the day to keep from getting bored. This works pretty well up to a point, but while I'm peddling, I'm anchored to where I am, I'm dispersing kinetic energy, and there is a meditative rhythm going through my whole body, so I find that I can dive deeply into whatever activity I'm doing and be very productive for a long time. Time passes without me noticing! Not only that, I look forward to time on the cycle and look for activities I can adapt to doing while peddling. Because the resistance is low, it doesn't cause me to work up a heavy sweat, so I can wear my regular working clothes.

In the two weeks or so I've been doing this, I have lost more weight, which is great, but really, that has slipped somewhat to the back of my mind. It really does feel better to move more throughout the day! It's good for body, mind and soul! I hope I can use this set up for a long time.

Yes, this post was written on my cycle!

 Cross-posted to The Same Stitch. 

read more