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Thankful for my Favorite Holiday

by Filed Under: Photography Leave a Comment

Today I’m thankful for my favorite holiday! No gifts, no shopping, nothing but friends, family, food and gratitude!  I’ve probably mentioned before that I write every morning in a journal, it centers me and no matter where I am I try to find 30 min’s or so of quite time to myself to begin my day this way.  The first things I write in my Journal are a list of things I’ve got to be grateful for. Today I’ll share with you some of the top things I’m grateful for this past year.

Thankful for My Favorite Holiday

  • Moving to a new city that I love~Charleston, SC (The BEST place in the USA!)
  • Making new friends and loyal long time friends
  • The excitement of each new client
  • My art Studio (After 6 years without one)
  • Living closer to the Ocean
  • Working for myself~creating my own schedule and having flexibility and independence
  • The search for a new pet~a rescue dog this time! (and my parents new puppy:)
  • Living on the Marsh
  • Having the $$ saved to make this move possible
  • Visiting Norway and seeing my brother get married
  • Turning 40~now that it’s behind me I realize it’s not so bad!
  • This presidential election is behind us and I’m optimistic about the future of our country:)
  • Amazing and generous family; living so much closer to our grandparents!

I’ve got so much to be grateful for but my focus this year is on having amazing spectacular grand parents!

My husband and I are lucky enough to live within driving distance of all our remaining (3) grandparents and this week we are grateful that we have been able to spend time with all of them while enjoying some warm, sunny Florida weather!  This is my second Thanksgiving in a row not cooking and although I LOVE to cook I’m embracing and enjoying this little break.  We’ll be eating at a restaurant in So. FL featured on one of the Food Network’s shows and that will be fun!

What are you giving thanks for Today?  Hope you have more to be Thankful for than ever!Save

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Finding Electronic Files

by Filed Under: Digital Organizing, Organize, Paper management, Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 1 Comment

In my previous life as a Designer and Project manager, I witnessed a lot of different filing systems both electronic and paper.  Some of these were quite effective but many were very cumbersome and way too complicated.  Below, my take away is a system that I created based upon the best of everything I learned. I use this system across the board for all my files (on my computer, on paper and in the cloud- design-business-personal).

Having one simplified filing system that applies to all categories makes it simple to locate what you need wherever you need it.

Inside Level 1:: Broad Hierarchy based categories

You can see I have less than 12 folders that are logically divided by category.  These live in my main documents folder (which is where everything goes).

Simplified Filing Structure

Inside Level-2:: Sub Categories-Business folder (similar sub folders for other categories)

…again not many folders and I’m keeping categories broad but specific to help me quickly locate files.

Simplified Filing Structure

Inside Level 3::Detailed Categories (Year- ‘Clients’ folder)

This is where all client folders are kept by year.  I happen to keep my client folders alphabetically by last name but a numbering or other type of system would work equally well.

Simplified Filing Structure

Inside Level 4:: Sub-folders or loose files

These are the specific files I need to keep for each category, they could be monthly accounting based or whatever I may need for working files.

I use a very similar Hierarchy system for my email files.

In this case I keep emails (when needed) in Outlook folders. Level 1-Broad, Level 2-Sub Categories, Level 3-Detailed categories

Simplified Filing Structure

I hope this filing system overview gives you a few ideas of how you can simplify or re-arrange your computer filing systems.

What kind of computer filing systems do you? Are they simple or more complex than this?  I’d love to hear about them.

 

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Textile Tuesday::Knitting in Norway

by Filed Under: Art & Design, Handmade, Inspiration & Education, Textiles & Pattern Leave a Comment

Traveling back to Norway I want to share with you some of the beautiful knit wear and knitting shops I saw in my travels.  A very special stop was made to a  wonderful yarn shop called Garnloftet Helle which was closed for the summer but we had a private “showing”.  This shop is owned by the super talented aunt of my new sister in law!  The Norwegians are known for their talent for knitting, with their cold climate it’s almost a necessity to learn to knit yourself warm clothes for the winter! 

Knitting in NorwayA very special lace knitting pattern that was expertly translated from Japanese into Norwegian by the owner of the shop.  She did so by repeatedly watching a video of the pattern until she had it down.  She teaches a class for this pattern and we got a brief lesson of our own and I’ll be trying this pattern out over the winter.  I’m not sure I have the skills needed since I will have to train myself to knit continental  to master this pattern but I’m determined to try!

In addition to yarn, patterns and classes there were quite a few knitted gifts ready to buy, like these candle jar covers, fingerless gloves (below), several styles of felted “pot holders” and garments such as sweaters and scarves available for purchase.

Above and below are two beautiful examples of traditional Fair Isle knitting.  Boy would I have loved to spend a day here with some more in depth lessons but my mom and I had our guys with us who were quite patient but not enough for a day there!  We discovered yarn in quite a few other shops in Kristiansand although we didn’t visit any other dedicated knitting shops.  What I loved was that there were sections of many shops that carried a small to medium selection of yarns, patterns and ready to wear knit items.  I found these sections in a couple “gift shops” and a children’s store.  I love the idea of incorporating this creative hobby into everyday gift giving!

Spectacular stuff, don’t you think?  It really inspired me to knit this winter but having just moved to a tropical climate I won’t be knitting too much from wool for myself.  I have a big yarn stash that needs to be knit and maybe one day I’ll learn to knit like a Norwegian!

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Friday Fieldtrip::Fjords and Highlands

by Filed Under: Inspiration & Education 2 Comments

We took a LONG day journey to visit the mid-west coast of Norway and were hoping to get to hike to the top of Preikestolen– or Pulpit Rock but in the end the weather didn’t cooperate with us so we took a ferry ride instead.  This was not a disappointment though, just a different perspective on this beautiful area of Norway!  The fun thing about this adventure was that there were a ton of bridges and tunnels and 9 of us caravaned in 3 cars.

We stopped in a couple spots to check out local sites including Tronasen, check out this fun video of the crazy narrow switchback road we took to the top!  At the bottom we came to this bridge, which is the oldest suspension bridge in Norway, built in 1844.

Next we continued North towards Stravanger  where we caught a ferry along Lysefjord after feasting on a fabulous picnic on the banks of the North Sea.  There are several ferries that run along this Fjord, some for locals who are traveling just to their home or work destination and some ferries travel the length of the Fjord ending in Lysebotn while offering local tourist information along the way.  This ferry was about 2 1/2 hours long and the day was partly rainy/cloudy so it made for some spectacular and dramatic views!

Towards the end of the ferry ride we were very lucky to spot these seals lounging along the rocky shore.  Once the ride was over we embarked on another windy and steep drive up to the “Highlands”.

That’s what I’m calling it because the terrain was very elevated, there wasn’t much vegetation and there were many sheep, rock cairns, lakes, residual snow, thatched or living roof’s and several rainbows along this stretch.  It was what I imagine the highlands of Ireland or Scotland to be like. 

As we started to come down from the highlands there was more and more vegetation, especially evergreens such as spruce and pines.  There were also many more signs of life, more houses, a few small shops and villages where tourists come to get away in the summer but it was still quite unpopulated (there are only 5 million people in Norway!).

I was delighted to see some of the traditional architecture such as this wooden food storage house called a Stabbur, where food was stored to keep the mice away!  The return route home took us through the lakes and mountains smack down the center of Norway East of the Stravanger area through a couple towns like Rysstad (the picture below was taken there) and Evje both popular vacation/camping spots for the summer in Norway.It was about a 12 hour day and we covered a lot of ground but I assure you it was one of the most memorable days of my life!  I am so grateful to my brother, his wife and her mother who helped to plan this day so we could experience Norway’s splendid range of beauty!

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Makeovers of This and That

by Filed Under: Organizing Projects 1 Comment

Today’s just a few misc. makeover projects from both our move and clients.  The first is an example of a hall closet that contains some linens and a lot of “medicine closet” items that don’t fit into the bathroom.  We didn’t buy anything for this project, just sorted through what was there, relocated some items to other areas and switched things around into containers that were more functional for each type of item.

Makeovers of This and ThatWe relocated all the cleaning products to the kitchen that were spread between there and the hall closet.  This cleared up the whole top shelf for bathroom and linen related items.  We used appropriate sized containers to hold hand towels, wash cloths, extra personal care items, medicines, make up and first aid items. 

We were able to easily fit all the household cleaning supplies under the sink.  We utilized on container to hold products that could be taken room to room for cleaning in other areas of the house. Moving along to my own house, I fell in love with this chandelier in our Dining room immediately!  Unfortunately I don’t think it had ever been properly cleaned.  And by properly I mean dis-assembling it by removing each crystal and soaking them, wiping them with a soft cloth and brush to get off the years of grime.  This took me almost 4 hours and there are almost 350 crystals but what a spectacular difference it made!

Finally, this is our master bedroom before and after.  It’s a small room and we are not able to fit our one large dresser in here but everything else works well and I love the serene blue of these walls which is almost the EXACT shade of blue we had painted in our MD living room before we left.  I love this room!

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