Blog of the Month - Plain and Joyful living

Plain and Joyful living follows the life of a family who has chosen to live more simple life. In the mist of the holiday season I love to follow Tonya's simple ways to celebrate. You don't need to have a lot of resources to celebrate the holidays. If you do, enjoy using them, if you don't, get creative.

Happy holiday season to you all! 

Yellow Blue and Black Christmas Embroidery

Some less wonky embroidery I have been working on. If you want to learn some new tricks I warmly recommend Mary Corbet's Needle'n thread -website. It has really great video tutorials, short and clear! 

For the Wonky Season

Only 44 days to Christmas. I love Christmas and I love to prepare for it. But like so many of us I sometimes get all stress about it as well. Mostly because I start to reach for perfection. Everything should be handmade, organic, beautiful and delicious. Perfect perfect perfect! And I kind of forget about why I love it. 

I love all the love ones being together, I love the giving and I love the peace and quiet after the laughter and talk. And I even love the darkness that gives the candles a magical glow. I'm from the very north and it gets very dark during Christmas time (except if you from Finland I'm from the shout. Everything is relative;). It is a mystical time for me. 

Yesterday I was doing some embroidery the holidays in mind and it got all wonky and wrong. First came the frustration and little after the realisation: let it be wonky. There is no harm in wonky. Even better, let this be a wonky Christmas! No strive for perfection this year but only love, peace and wonkyness!

Here you can read more about the power of wonky by the talented Tara Swiger. 

Transformation

From this

To this

And this

I like the fabrics more mixed together. What do you think? They are both Kaffe Fasset.

Blog of the Month - A Way to Garden

So many nice blogs out there and I feel like sharing. It is time for blog of the month!


The writer of the blog A Way to Garden, Margaret Roach, describes her blog as: horticultural how-to and “woo-woo.” The blog includes lots and lots of great information about gardening written in a friendly authentic way. It is packed with information and laughter. A wonderful combination, don't you think? I'm only starting to explore all the knowledge it contains and just signed up for her newsletter. I'm very exited to see how following this blog will influence my gardening. 


P.S. Margaret left her job as editorial director of "Martha Stewart Living" at age of 54 to live more creative life. She is publishing a book about her journey in February 2011. Too late for Christmas but my birthday coming up on February the timing might be just perfect for me;)

Work in Progress

I started my second quilting course three weeks ago. The first quilt we are making is the Square Dance. I had a hard time choosing the fabrics and ended up buying a ready cut package from the quilt shop. The colours are different than what I usually would buy but I like them. And I think they are perfect for the person I'm planning to give the quilt. Perfect Christmas present don't you think?

Did not bother to iron it for the pictures. Either I'm lazy or try to keep it real.

 

Radical (the book) Homemaker (me)

RADICAL HOMEMAKERS (the book)

After reading about the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes in several different blogs I finally just had to have it. I was hesitating a bit because of the word 'Radical' which so often leads to 'alienating' I feel. And the book is a quite black and white, us and them, which I don't like. But there is lot in it that is just empowering. 


This is how the publisher describes the book: 

Radical Homemakers uncovers a hidden revolution quietly taking hold across the United States.  It is the story of pioneering men and women who are redefining feminism and the good life by adhering to simple principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, community engagement and family well-being.  (for more see source) 

The book is divided in two parts, the why and the how. The twenty-year-old me would be in shock, but I don't care about the why. Not in the way Hays is exploring it, the academic way. I have studied feminism and all that and I just think I'm done with it. It doesn't interest me any more.  

But the how! So powerful! 

ME, the not-so-radical HOMEMAKER

When I was a serious worried little girl I decided that I needed to save the planet. So that would be what I would do when I grow up. When I got older the task ahead started to look a bit too challenging and alienating (radical activism and all that stuff was not for me). Finally the cynicism of the university world killed the last sparkles and I was left wonder career wise. Otherwise life was getting sweeter by the day. 

About a year ago I decided I need to do something about my career and now we get back to the Radical Homemakers and some of my favourite pieces of it. 

Because it is not about the career. It is about identifying my true source of contentment (page 46). It is about the discovery that a home-centered life is the way for me to feel connected (page 121). 


The book put so many pieces of the puzzle into its place. To name few, I realised that community-building is a skill that can be learned and while establishing limits may be necessary, passing judgement is not (yay!). That there is a method how to be self-learner:  "think independently, embrace general knowledge, work with what you have, make mistakes, find your own teachers and muster the courage to start from where you are" (p. 215). 


Changing or adjusting your lifestyle can be overwhelming,  but this powerful book gives the key to it:
"...a key to keeping pace with the lifestyle is to limit the amount of time spent doing it" (p. 224). Take baby  steps and be okay with that (p. 226). Develop a tolerance for imperfection and have adequate rest (p. 228-229).  


To come back to my career, according to Hayes "Those homemakers who seemed most satisfied...entered a 'rebuilding face'. In this period they took on genuine creative challenges tended toward engagement with their communities" (p. 47). And that is what my company is all about.