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Showing posts with the label Life Snapshots

Studio Reset

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Good morning!  Yesterday I had Hubby Help me do a bit of a rearrangement of furniture in my studio.  this has been on my mind for a couple of months.  I wanted more natural light on my work and to get my computer out of the big window.  Mission accomplished! A few minor things need to happen, like touching up the edge of my big table that was against the wall and never painted white.  The result brought in so much more natural light, made my large table more accessible for larger projects, and created a fresh space I'll enjoy working in.   I was able to stash my sewing machine table under my large table and move some shelving under one end of the table and will now be able to cut fabric without setting up a small space in the hallway.  Moving the shelving under the table opened up a new space for watercoloring as well. In the photo above you can see my large window, before the work of rearranging the space it was partially covered by my large comp...

There's a New Camera on The Horizon

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I've only talked about getting a new camera for what seems like a decade.  Yesterday I finally splurged on my first large-format camera.  I also purchased a super zoom lens that I can not wait to get my hands on for wildlife photography.  So what did I buy and why... Nikon Z5 Mirroless ( Adorama.com ) I bought a Nikon Z5 Mirrorless Camera, a 24mm to 400mm super zoom lens, and the Nikon Mount Adapter.  The adapter will enable me to continue to use my F-mount lenses on the new Z-mount large-format camera.   I've been shooting with Nikon since the early 2000s and getting another one was a no-brainer.  In some aspects, camera people are like car people.  You're a Nikon, Cannon, Fugi, etc. just like there are Ford, Dodge, or Chevy people.  Why mirrorless?  I've been watching mirrorless cameras since they came out a few years ago.  The prospect of a lighter camera with lens options has intrigued me from the start, but when they first came...

Deleting Instagram

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This morning I posted the following on all three of my Insta accounts:   I'm returning to blogging - right now you can find me on my blog - https://www.theporchpostscript.com/ and you can find my photography - https://www.stacypetersen.com/   I haven't made the decision on a specific place for the art part of my life yet, but I'll announce that on The Porch Postscript when and if I do. You can also find me on Substack - https://theporchpostscript.substack.com/ In the last month, I've left the IG completely. Was it because of all the changes? No not really. The changes made me lose interest. I joined IG for photography and a place filled with artists and makers. This isn't that place anymore. It's time to go back to blogging and build something I want rather than chase what the algorithm wants.   I plan to delete all of my accounts in a few weeks. Yes, I did say delete. I've downloaded the data and am now ready to cut the cord and delete it. About a month ago...

Reinventing Myself to Come Back to Myself

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Just how many times have I reinvented myself?  It's hard to say.  I've changed career paths a half dozen times in my life.  I've moved states three times, getting ready for a fourth in a couple of years.  I've written four different blogs, counting this one.  I've dabbled in a handmade card business.  Attempted a marketing business under the ideas of others' influence.  I abandon things when I lose interest or get bored.  Yet here I sit at the crossroads of reinvention and coming back to something I used to love. I wrote recently about Sharing Without Social  Sharing Without Social .  About kicking Insta to the curb and being unsure of making a home on Substack.  The truth of the matter is that I really need to come back to writing and sharing for the sake of my own enjoyment, not because it's the latest place to share or an algorithm tells me this is what gets the clicks.  Doing it because I enjoy having a record of what I've ...

Choosing Less

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 Choosing less doesn’t make me less, it might even make me more. Last week I wrote about how Hustle Culture is a Thief and I asked the question - “why is it not ok to be content with less hustle and less busy in life?” Today I’m going to talk about myself and why I choose less. Here’s a bit of background. I’m a skilled admin with a ton of customer service experience. When I say ton, I’m not kidding I’ve been answering the phone for a business since I was about eight years old. My dad ran a business out of our home and there was only one phone line for everything. My skill set is becoming rare in this current cycle of employable people. In my current job, I was hired for this particular skill set, that comes with a side of take no shit. The door opened to me, has allowed me to choose how many hours I want to work, and has given me freedom I’ve never had before. This job also came with an expiration date I set myself. When I was hired I agreed to stay three years, at which point my h...

Friendships Are a Lot like Pants

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 Friendships are a lot like pants, you gotta try a copious amount of them to find the perfect ones. We’ve all been there, the dressing room for trying on new friends. It’s a work party, a social gathering, and maybe even the line at the post office. You gather a few bits of information from your interactions and agree this could be a great fit. You buy the pants so to speak. The thing with pants and friends is not all of them are gonna fit. Sometimes they're cuter in the dressing room than when you get them home, sometimes they shrink in the wash, sometimes they’re seasonal, and sometimes they fit perfectly and you can’t imagine life without them. There are those accidental friendships that grow organically, like my best friend that I’ve had for nearly three decades. We met in a bar, his friend thought I was cute. Would have never guessed he’d become the brother I didn’t need and I’d become the sister he never wanted, but here we are. This is the friendship that is akin to cozy leg...

Hustle Culture is a Thief

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 Why do I need a why? Why do I need to hustle anything? Why do we need to be so busy we can’t live a life? Yesterday in my Instagram feed I saw a reel with a quote that deeply resonated with me - Time isn’t a thief, our “hustle” culture is. Let that sink in. Go ahead, reread that. Those of us living in the US have been brainwashed into thinking our lives haven’t been validated if we aren’t constantly in a state of work, a state of hustle. According to Fobes, 765 million vacation days go unused, and around 52 percent report working while on paid leave. Americans, as a culture, work constantly and when we aren’t at work all we can talk about is work. I find it interesting that valuing your time off or having boundaries for your work is almost frowned upon. I also find it interesting how many people have developed the habitual answer of “We’re crazy busy you know how it is” when you ask them how they are. That answer assumes that everyone in your circle is also consumed by being busy ...

Reconnecting to My Joy of Knitting

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 Knitting is very cathartic, meditative, and soul-soothing. When I put it down for long periods of time I often forget that. I walk away from projects and leave them in a WIP (work in progress) state, often for years. Knitting projects often get finished, but on occasion, they get frogged (torn out).  A couple of weeks ago I picked up one of the WIPs in my knitting basket. I finally finished a cowl that’s been on the needles for in the ballpark of a year, maybe a touch longer. The knitting mood has finally struck and I’ve reconnected with the joy it brings me to create with two sticks and some yarn. Upon completion of the cowl pictured above, I cast a new project onto the needles. I pulled some yarn from my stash and after doing a rabbit trail of a pattern search, I pulled out my much loved Gradient Shawl pattern. Gradient Shawl by Ola Grefling is available on Ravelry if you’re looking for what I’d call a relaxing pattern. It’s very beginner-friendly and perfect for knitting w...

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

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This morning I was thinking about this as we ate breakfast. Our oven igniter went out two weeks ago and we’re waiting on the part, translation I’m unable to bake our weekly loaf of bread. Instead of a loaf this week we’ll be eating flatbread and pita pockets, both of which could be made on the stovetop. I kind of smiled to myself, we’ve been overcoming cooking challenges our entire marriage. Improvise, adapt, overcome is an unofficial slogan of the Marine Corps, and 16 years ago when I married a retired Marine this phrase became a way of life. We’ve lived in four states, owned three homes, and faced countless challenges along the way. Life has given us a lot of lemons, but that never stopped us from figuring out the challenge and moving forward.  When we moved to Missouri, in an ice storm, as newlyweds and took up residency in our first home we had no kitchen appliances. No biggy, we improvised. It was December so a cooler could be put outside our backdoor with groceries until we c...

Drawing and Painting Home

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Home is and always will be Wyoming.  Home is not really about the town I was born in, but more about the state where I spent the first nearly three decades of my life.  I'll always be a Wyoming girl no matter where I live.  At this point in my life when I talk about going home, I'm referring to my brother's ranch, that's home.  My heart is there, my family is there. I've always loved taking photos at the ranch, and when we were home for Mom's memorial it was no different than all the other trips.  Spend a little time here and you'll also learn I have an infatuation or maybe even an obsession with trees, and the ranch has many old cottonwoods and cedars to make my little dendrophile heart.   One afternoon Hubby and I were sitting in the yard listening to the birds and talking about family and what's next in our lives.  I kept studying the same tree.  Eventually, I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick pic.  I mentioned to him that I wan...

2024 - The Year of Release

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I've been selecting a word since at least 2019, with the exception of last year.  The month leading up to 2023 made for a lost year, but more on that another day.  The word I've chosen for 2024 is release .  I don't have clarity yet on why I chose this word, or perhaps it has chosen me; the year will tell.   In the days leading up to the new year, I reread past journals, searching words, and while I found several that I liked release seemed to keep calling me back.  Then, while I was reading articles about resolutions I found one writer who talked about the origin of the word resolution.  It comes from the Latin  resolvēre - meaning to loosen or release .  That sealed the deal for me, release would be my 2024 word. I find it interesting, that the cultural norm is to vow to be a "new you in the new year" and each year we we put all these expectations in place.  Then reality comes colliding in around February and many of the chosen resolu...

Life Snapshots June 2017

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I took Friday off last week and gave myself a long three-day weekend to rest, relax and reflect.  The 2017 year has been a bit tense and I needed some time to just chill.  I'll spare all the details, but I can say I definitely needed this weekend to unwind and recharge. Day 1 : I enjoyed an iced coffee and a good book after running a few errands in the morning.   Snapped a pic of the honey bees that are enjoying the dandelion field where my garden usually is.   Sat on the grass and supervised Hubby repairing our garage roof. Day 2 : Enjoyed a homemade waffle for breakfast while doing a bit of journaling. Spent some time hanging out in the yard with the pups, enjoying a large glass of iced tea. Did a bit of reading about Nature Journaling. Grilled some chicken and bacon for dinner. Which I turned into a delicious spin on a cob salad, to go with my red wine and Sunset magazine. Took an evening stroll around o...

Routines

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Good Morning.  Have you started to settle back into your daily routines?  Or are you still sorting it all out? I'm happily getting back into my everyday groove.  Loved being on vacation and celebrating the holidays, but I'm a creature of habit.  Having a routine helps me stay grounded.  There's a quote I pulled out of something I read a while back that is so very fitting of my nature. Highly sensitive people, having daily rituals in their lives can help them feel at one with their world, instead of just being overwhelmed by it most of the time.   I love my mornings.  They are slow and filled with daily rituals, or habits if you will.  I read blogs, sip coffee, post on Facebook & Instagram, write, enjoy breakfast with my Hubby and work through a yoga routine.  I'm blessed with a part-time job that allows me these luxuries. This year I'm considering adding an art journal to my mornings.  I've been thinking about th...

Back From Break

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Where have you been?  Oh, wait.  You're probably asking me that, aren't you?  Well, I ran away to paradise for a couple of weeks.  I've been on an island, soaking up the vitamin D, and enjoying 10 hours of daylight.  Did you just read that and think "What?  Who talks like this?"  If you aren't from Alaska and have never lived here then this might sound like some fresh brand of crazy talk, but it's not.  Okay, fine I'll explain. When you live in the Interior of Alaska, you experience the shortest day of the year, known as "Winter Solstice," in a totally different way.  On this day our area has only about four hours of daylight.  No, don't adjust your glasses or your computer screen.  You read that right.  FOUR FREAKING HOURS - that's it!!  You view this day as a right of passage and begin counting the minutes that will become hours of daylight.  You've survived the darkness.  With the lack of light, comes...

Currently December 2016

The flu!  Is there anything worse?  Yeah, I can't think of anything either.  I got sick over the weekend, spent most of two days in bed.  I finally feel human again, after three days!  The only upside, I lost 3.6 pounds.  It's a hell of a way to lose weight.  I'll spare the details, but this little bug sucked.  I'm thrilled it was just a few days of hell.  I'm not a good sick person, not that anyone is a good sick person, but I'm a terrible sick person.  I'm whiny, hard to be around, and unable to make decisions about anything.  I also spend a lot of time apologizing for things that I really can't control.  These are all things that are not a part of my natural personality, but we'll save that discussion for another day. So, now that the flu is over where do I go from here?  Moving past the flu, I've added a couple of new blogs to my reading list: Against All Grain - really inspiring to me, as of late I've been givin...

Alaskan Winter December 2016

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Winter storm warning, it's started snowing since 5:30 am yesterday morning.  It's more of the fine, dry snow.  The kind that limits visibility when a car passes you on the road.  The temp has risen to five below zero.  Regular heat wave here in the Interior.  I'm guessing when I say we got about four to five inches. I've officially reached an age where the cold bothers me.  This is the first winter where cold has really bothered my hands, as in my hands hurt and I'm still looking for the right gloves kind of hurt. Up until now, I've always been loyal to Isotoner gloves.  I love them.  They were the perfect gloves, warm enough, yet still great for functionality.  I own a pair of what I'll call ski gloves for lack of a better description, they're the big bulky kind.  Super warm, but totally dysfunctional for handling anything but ski poles.  Currently, I'm wearing a pair of Hubby's mittens with the flip-top, that expos...

Life Snapshots November 2016

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Good Morning, Are you ready for your day?  Did you start with a glass of water?  Have you had your coffee?  What about breakfast? I don't know if I'm ready for my day just yet.  I did start with a big glass of water and enjoyed a smoothie for breakfast.  I'm enjoying my third cup of coffee as I write this.  Yes.  I said third.  There's something about hot coffee on a cold morning.  It's 26 below again this morning. We had a bit of snow last night.  It's the dry, fine powdery snow.  The kind that blows away the minute the wind comes up.  We need a good, heavy, wet snow to insulate the ground and provide moisture.  It's been pretty dry in this neck of the woods. What are you reading?  I'm trying to finish Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp .  It's not a bad book, it's just that I keep picturing the cast from Tombstone while I read.  I've seen the movie a dozen or more tim...

26 Below Zero

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It's 26 below zero today.  Winter has finally made it's way to Alaska.  We've seen it colder many times, but it's always a shell shocker when the mercury drops this low. We have a slight ground covering of snow, not more than an inch or two.  It's a fine powder and will be gone as soon as the wind brings the temperatures back up.  That's how the winters are here.  You wish for something above zero on the thermometer, you'll be wishing for the wind as well.  Most of us will accept the super cold to avoid the howling winds. The light is sitting around the five-hour mark.  What I mean is we currently have about five hours of daylight.  The sun rises at about 9am and sets around 4pm.  I could live here for 20 years and never really adjust to the dramatic changes in weather and light this time of year.  Since I am neither a fan of the cold nor the dark, winter in Alaska is a bit of a struggle. It's that time of year where we put boot...

Midori Traveler's Notebook

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Last night I set my Midori up with its 6th journal insert.  I've been using a Midori Traveler's Notebook for nearly a year, and it goes everywhere with me.  I thought I'd share what my setup currently looks like. The exterior is starting to show some lovely scuffing and wear marks.  I've added three charms to my elastic closer and beads were added to the bookmark you see peeking out the bottom.  The happy binder clip serves to hold my pen. The first thing inside is the handmade Midori folder, I created last weekend.  In my setup, it hugs an insert. Inside the folder are a few samples of washi tape and a couple of extra paper clips.  The right side is a generic insert that I picked up at Michaels a while back.  This insert is the one I did some of my InkTober pen and ink in. This is the back of my folder, the inside pocket is currently empty.  The other side is the grid insert from Traveler's Notebook.  This is the insert y...

The Alaskan Moose

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The Alaskan Moose - big, grand, beautiful creatures.  Big, grand, pain in the tuchus!  These marvelous beauties have done grand things like eat our garden, drive our crazy dog crazier, and hold me hostage in the house while laying in our front yard. Morning Moose - Alaska (02 November 2016) Outsiders, yes you who watch the "Alaska Reality" shows, think it would be grand to see these beasts from your living room window while sipping a hot toddy and watching the snowfall.  Yes, that a beautiful Hollywood vision, but it's just not reality. Reality is checking your yard before letting your dogs out, as moose have been known to stomp dogs to death.  Reality is they are 500 pounds and will take on a human they see as a threat.  Reality is they are near-sited animals and who see humans, smaller than them, invading their space. Yes.  Big, grand, beautiful creatures, when they aren't found bedded down in your yard from the night before, keeping you from g...