C A L M 2014

As it is the beginning of another round around the sun, I thought of spicing this round up with something to concentrate on. It looks like new year's resolutions are completely out and everybody's choosing a word for guiding the year ahead, which I'm only noticing now. I'd chosen my word in early December and heard of nobody else's words, so I had no idea I'm in there with everybody else. But I have a word to guide me too. My word is

C A L M

with big, spaced out capital letters to let it all sink in, slowly.

And the way it might manifest itself - I thought, might be that instead of me sitting still and doing nada and *being* calm, I might try to actively produce calm, to *create* it. The being calm might just happen miraculously once I've created some space for it to exist.

I'm a master of beginning things, and it's super easy for me to leave everything half done (see my previous post). So there's about a million half-done things laying around in my life, and I tackling those, in a calm manner, one by one, and with concentration and some deeply breaths, is my plan for the beginning of the year. I'm intending to *create* some calm every day, especially at work.

And this is what I've done so far:

1st of January

I was at home, and sewed some half done products for the shop that were laying around the sewing table waiting for "the right moment". It took about an hour, and now they're one step closer to becoming finished, 3/4 finished. 

2nd of January

The first day of work for this year. I decided to begin the calm-creating by tackling three little drawers on my desk at the shop. I decluttered them and left only the direly needed stuff there, so they're easy to find when I need them. I also found there are business cards that are sort of half done (I scrapbook them from card stock and printed recycled paper), and some elastics and satin ribbons for the ballet pointe shoes that need packaging and restocking. I had none left in the shop although I have all the materials for them, so they clearly needed some crafting.

So as well as cleaning the drawers, I finished the elastics, made some 20 packages of them for the shop, and sorted out their pricing and the restocking options from the manufacturer.

3rd of January

The second day at work meant more finishing business. I packaged the pointe shoe satin ribbons, and finished one roll of ribbon completely from the storage shelves, making sure I have a reminder in my calendar to order another roll with the back to school -orders in March. This is how many there are now - they should last us until next autumn. Oh, and the packaging is from an old book that I salvaged from the local University Library. It's an early edition of the three musketeers. SO much fun to read as I chop the pages :)

4th of January

This was the day of packing at the shop (were taking the shop to another town for a day), so I didn't have as much time for the finishing business as I had in the previous days, but I did finish most of the business cards I had half done. Now there's plenty again, and my little watering can looks so cute with the cards in :)

Although there's still a few business cards let to finish next week when I get back to work, the three drawers are looking pretty calm already. This is the bottom one of them:

So the year is off to a good start.

What's your word - and how have you manifested it in the first few days of the year?

Finish.

The more I peek into my life and try to amend things so that life would be more manageable, the more I come across one particular thing - unfinished business.

I am great at beginnings, I do love a good beginning and the thrill of it. But halfway through the project the thrill wanes, always, and it's a miracle I can get anything finished. And when I do, it's usually a very stressful experience, for I'm usually late, the deadline is either long gone or it should be finished NOW and I need to hurry it through. The relief after finishing something that's been on my mind for far too long is obviously huge, and that's probably one reason why I keep finding myself in the same situation again and again. Finishing something in time is hardly a cause for celebration, but the relief of stress after finishing something far later than expected is huge, and requires definite celebration.

When I have edited my possessions at home and at work, I find I'm more at peace when I get to a point when there's a space with no more unfinished business for now. That however hard I look, I find only things that are thought over, needed and done. And that look is so serene. Where there's no unfinished business, there's no stress, for me.

In our living room at home, I have a shelf for my knittings. I'm usually actively working on one project at the time, but there can be several that are sort of half-done.

And although I've gone through that shelf and there's hardly anything extra there anymore, this basket made of an old vinyl record caught my eye last night. They were calling to me, those knittings. Although there's no more than two items there that need attention, that's definitely two that keep calling my name until all the Christmas presents are finished and I can concentrate on my own stuff again.

There's a pair of gloves. One of them is already finished, and the other one would take no more than a day or two of active work to get done. I started them in the late summer / early autumn, and have forgotten all about them until now. They'd go well with a triangular scarf that I made for winter some half a year ago, but I can't bring myself around to finishing them. 

And a pair of lace socks. The yarn is so pretty, and the model easier than I thought. And yet something holds me back from getting around to finishing the sock no. 2 (I know, it's the Second Sock Syndrome, SSS, and I'm not the only one suffering form it, but it's worth pondering through).

My challenge for the living room will begin with these two right after Christmas. The gloves and the socks. To make the stressful stuff disappear from the knitting basket, and to see some unfinished business get finished. It's a small step for this house and for my life, but if it reduces stress even the tiniest bit, it might just be worth it.

How will it be for you? 

Where are the little things in your life, at your home, at work, at hobbies, that cause you to be stressed, that you might not even be aware of? Is there a way or two to diminish the anxiety they cause? 

My January will begin with learning more about stress, how it manifests itself in my life and how to live with it so it doesn't cause damage. Sandra Pawula from Always Well Within is holding a three week course on Living With Ease and I'm taking part. I'm so excited :)

Anjusha

Cast-On Fast

I finished a pair of woolly socks last night. My son needed them for the coming winter and I thought of using some left over yarn to make stripes for the socks - both to get rid of the extra little balls of yarn and to make sure the one bluish-brownish ball I had purchased for the socks will definitely be enough to last until the end of the second sock. I'm happy to say the dark brown and the blue-brown yarn were just about enough, with only a few meters of left overs after the socks were finished, so my goal of getting rid of the excess balls fulfilled itself fantastically. There's only a bit of green left, and that can be given to a friend, who has just recently bought the same type of yarn for the first time. 

One thing I realized as I was darning in the ends of the yarn. More than being happy of accomplishing something, more than a feeling of contentment of a finished project, I was already feeling excited over what I'll cast on next. In fact, many of my knittings become very hard to get to the end point because of this. I'm so excited about new stuff, that I can't be bothered with the old anymore. I can't be asked to even finish certain UnFinished Objects because there's no joy in the accomplishment itself. 

Yesterday I was happy about finishing the socks. I was proud of myself for sticking to one single project at a time, for making sure this pair of socks is properly finished before thinking of anything else. But lo and behold - as soon as I set the darning needle off my hands, my mind was wandering off to the UnStarted Projects, and my hands longed to crawl into the nest of my yarn balls and find something suitable for casting on next.

And I thought there's something wonky about that. I do love yarn, and I do love beginnings, but not even being able to take the time to notice something being accomplished was something that struck me. 

So I thought of trying out something I've never tried before. 

I didn't cast on anything new last night. 

I didn't cast on anything this morning. 

And although I did take two balls of yarn and some needles and a knitting magazine with a pretty winter hat tutorial with me to work when I packed my things this morning, I haven't cast on anything for the whole of today.

There's an empty void in the knitting department. Nothing new has been started to replace the finished object, and boy does that feel weird.  

I can't remember a time like this, when there hasn't been a replacement in line waiting for the old project to finish.

I'm intending on lingering here for a few moments, for this is new territory for me. 

How about you? 

What are the moments in your life where you have so many things in line waiting to be fulfilled that you never ever even dream of stopping still for a moment and appreciating what you already have done? Emails? Dishes? Hoovering? Shopping? Christmas card making?

How about stopping anyway and seeing what happens?

Anne

What to do with to-do?

I'm a to-do-list girl. Since high school, I've made hundreds of to-do-lists and still do. My then french teacher gave them a word - she used to tell us to "do a posture perfecting movement" whenever somebody had forgotten to do homework or show up for class. So my to-do-lists are called "posture perfecting movement lists", "ryhtiliikelista" in Finnish, to show how one should really start behaving like an adult and take responsibility for one's life and deeds.

I make the lists for home, and most importantly -running a little dance wear shop on my own - I make them for work. I have a book for to-do-lists at work and keep ticking away the chores as they are done. They do work well, and I love the feeling of drawing a line over a chore that needed accomplishing to show the world that I've accomplished something. I also can't forget the things that are on the list, they are visibly there as a reminder, and it helps tons with this limited brain capacity of a human brain :)

One thing I've noticed lately though is that I'm progressively feeling less inspired about the to-do-list book. I don't particularly want to have a peek of what's STILL to be done, and what I still haven't accomplished. For there's a lot to be done, and the more I look at the book, the more it looks like there's no hope for me.

The problem with the work-related to-do lists is that the lists never end. When I get one thing ticked off the list, at least two or three new tickables appear. There's no joy in completing an action when there's thirty-odd more to be done, and then some.

It got to a point a few weeks back when I completely froze looking at the book. There was no point in trying to accomplish anything, because nothing could be accomplished without an addition of two or three more chores to the end of the list. And there I stood, not daring to open the book because for sure the french teacher would come out of the book and tell me off for being such a bad girl and not taking the responsibililty of completing all possible actions to-day.

And as I thought about it, it dawned on me.
The book was my own doing. I had invented all of those chores for myself. I had proper deadlines of about 1/10 of all of the chores (taxes do need to be paid and inventories made, that's not of my own choice, but even their deadlines are negotiable, if need be), and the rest were chores I had completely invented on my own.
Good things, all of them, I'm sure. Things to make the shop easier for the customers and myself to be in, plans on making the shop a better place. Cleaning, clearing, bringing in something new and establishing further the collection I already have. Making new orders and contacting customers. And had I been the owner of the local H&M-store, things I'd have no problem delegating to the immense amount of staff under my fingertips and got done in no time at all.

But as I am here on my lonesome, I can't possibly do 30 odd people's worth of work in no time at all. I can do what I can do, I realized. And that is a lot. But it's certainly not 30 odd people's worth of work.
So I needed to *do less*. Prioritise. Chuck away the book that gave me the shivers and try out something more manageable.

I downloaded the free Ommwriter -program to the computer and listening to the soothing sounds it makes made a list for this week. A list of four things to do. Four, and no more. And once one thing would be done, I would not add another, but look at it disappear for good. The list had things that would be helpful to get done this week, but if that would not be possible, I would not hang myself. I would not make another list until that list was completely empty.

My list for this week first list was:

*To get a certain product online that I've had in the live shop for a long time. It deserves a good space and time dedicated to it. And just that one product. Not the ten who are all calling my name at the same time :)

*To mail all the orders that can be mailed to the customers. This week, and not next week. Not because I have to, but because I want to be of help and of service. And to remember to thank each of the mailed customers separately for their time and attention. For they are who I'm here for, and they have trusted me with their orders.

*To wash and dry a newly acquired materials for another product at the shop. Not to get carried away with the project and try to finish it all in a day.

*To make orders to the manufacturers. This was quite a vague thing to be said, for ordering is something I have to do regularly, at least around this time of the year. But I had listed three companies on the list for this week.

It seems considerably easier to do four things than to do 30. And these would obviously go on top of the ordinary everyday things at work, so even four is quite plenty, for one person's week.

I'm encouraging myself (and offering you a chance to come a long for the ride) to do less, and by doing so concentrating more on the little things chosen to give one's attention to.

Completing the washing and drying made me smile a little. Waving the last mailed letter goodbye today made me feel even better. Somehow lighter. Not a single thing has been added to the Ommwriter list, but I've been watching the deeds disappear one after another. There's still some to be done, but there's still part of today and the whole of tomorrow time. There's *time*!

So I'm encouraging you fellow to-do-listers to try out the calm and quiet four-part list (instead of the usual there's-a-million-things-to-be-done -version) for one week.

Here's how:

*Find a nice writing atmosphere and space. I'm loving the calm of the above mentioned new writing space, and if it's something you'd like to try, you can try it for free.

*Write down 4 things that you think need doing. If possible, make them small enough, so you'll have time to concentrate on every thing you've planned to do. Forget the original to-do-lists for one week, and just go with this one.

*Explain to yourself, why you should concentrate on the four things chosen. Write down reasons why each of these these four made your list. Write down what good they will do and how it will help you and the world around you if you complete them.

*Complete the four tasks in your own time throughout the week. Make sure to breathe through doing so, and stopping to concentrate on whatever it is that you're doing. Make the moment last, and be reminded of the reasoning behind your deeds.

*As one chosen thing gets done throughout next week, watch the deed disappear from the list. Delete it thoughtfully, embracing the reasoning behind your original choice, and realising you're free of the stress it ever managed to cause you. Do not net new things crawl their way onto the list at least until it is completely empty.

*Marvel at the space you have just created, and marvel at the things you have just accomplished.

There's my plan for next week.
How does your week look?

A few is enough?

In this world of plenty options sometimes cause the biggest amount of trouble. Perhaps a wardrobe filled with clothes results in "I have nothing to wear". Maybe a fridge full of groceries results in you not eating at all because there's so many things you can't decide what to eat. What happens at our place usually is a book case full of CDs (or Spotify for that matter) results in "there's nothing to listen to". A pageful of things on your to-do list may result in you sipping your cup of tea and doing nothing because it's simply too much to be thinking about what to choose and how to choose.

Running a little dancewear shop means the world is open and full of choices. There are companies offering dozens of different types of shoes and leotards and tights and bags and everything money can buy, and to a little person like myself that is plain overwhelming. There's the everything new that's on offer plus the extra baggage of the stuff and belongings from the history, from the previous owner. Even if I had all the money in the world (which I luckily don't), the job of choosing would not be any easier.

About a year ago I grew tired of the skating tights of the shop. The collection was the heritage of the previous owner of Tanssiina, and to my eyes it was a mish mash of styles and sizes and colours that I could not deal with. There were about 9 different styles of tights for figure skaters alone, two colours of each style and seven different sizes to each colour and style. A plentyful of tights, which, when ordered, had to be ordered in packs of three. A quick calculation later I realised I'd need a fortune just to keep up the collection, which hardly anyone needed anyway. We are a dancewear shop after all, and are serving the local figure skaters, but with a fairly smallish and basic selection. The choice for the collection had been made without me, so at first I thought I was going to have to live with it and sustain whatever the previous owner had thought to be good. And I tried it for a good year and al half until I came to a halt.

As I sat down with my calculation of nine times two times seven times three times about 20-25€ (equalling plenty), I figured something HAD to be done. My shop and it's wee collection of skaters' tights would need someone to take responsibility for it and that someone needed (unfortunately) to be me. So I sat down with the collection and the knowledge I had of the local skaters and figured a scary and drastic change that I had no idea if anyone would be happy with. I figured I needed tights for rehearsals (thick ones), tights for competitions (thinner and shinier) and maybe, just maybe, something extra special (to make up for the loss of six extra models, to be honest). Not nine different models but essentially two, perhaps, and at it's most, three. I decided the tights that *deserved* a place in the shop's collection needed to be durable, well made, made in a place where I would know for certain how the workers are treated and paid, and made with the best possible materials. They would also have to be models that were not only needed by skaters, but would have to fit other moving people too (like the aerobics girls who use the shiny tights for their competitions). The cost would most definitely be more than the cheapest possible models', but I would KNOW what I'm serving and would only need to sell the best.

The collection of tights was reduced from that day on. I put all the old models on sale (and cried a little for I had bought them for full price), stocked up on the newly decided ones (and prayed the money that would come from the sales of the old models would pay for at least some of the newly acquired models) and have been sticking to the well decided models ever since. Only one of the nine models made it through to the new collection, and two new ones were chosen to cover up the loss of the rest. Now, almost a year later there's ten pairs of the old models left on sale, and the new collection is slowly finding it's place in the world. It looks like I'm the only one in the whole country to offer bamboo fiber tights for rehearsals, and our extra special shimmer tights are one of a kind too. The importer wonders about my choice of tights, for no-one else orders them and she has to specifically order my batch of tights all the way from Canada and they take time to order, but the collection makes me a happy shop owner. There are people, for whom the quality of the tights and the working conditions and environmental issues are important, there are people who care about the skins of their little girls who go skating with their tights right next to their sensitive skins. The collection is small, and it's early days for it, but the year has shown many times, that the direction is good and valid.

And the small skating tight selection has resulted in plenty of other choices for the shop too. One of my favourites is as simple as a pen. I've reduced the amount of ball point pens at the shop to one. There are two or three black felt tips for writing bigger stuff, but only one ball point left. And now that I put my hand into the drawer with the pens in it, my fingers find the one and only ball point in an instant. It is never lost. And every time I find the pen, the simplicity of it all makes me smile. I don't need ten pens. I don't need ten different types of tights. If I choose wisely, it might be enough to choose (and maintain) one, or perhaps two.

There's still work to be done, and the skating tights are definitely not the only area that needs careful thought and deep culling, but I'm seeing the good results in choosing one (or few) rather than ten in a lot of different areas of the shop. There's one type of gymnastics balls (six colours, but one type), one type of menstrual cups (three colours, but one type), one type of glittery tapes for the gymnastics hoops and clubs (12 colours, but one type), and they all have resulted in people finding the products more easily, because something in this world of plenty has already been chosen for them. And because the thought process behind the products have been thorough enough.

So even if the process of ending up with just a few is sometimes hard and takes up a mountain of thought, and the resulting few need all the care and attention you can give them, living with the few does make the world a little easier place to live in. It reduces stress for there's less to maintain and choose from, it gives you the possibility to be on top of the things you've chosen rather than letting all your stuff take control over you, and it makes you wiser because you have to think things through before making decisions. You'll know that with each desicion your collection of stuff becomes more and more toned to your needs and your priorities.

My next "fewing" for the shop will deal with the social media.
What's yours going to be?

Anjusha

Survival plan.

Things in life tend to get hectic occasionally. The beginning of the dancing season in August means there's plenty to do at work, all days go by serving live customers and being in a frantic rush. The shop at the end of the day looks like a tornado has hit it, I haven't had time to do any of the "extra" things I was "supposed" to do, there's bills to be paid and orders to be made and people to be contacted and I feel exhausted.

It'll only last until people are nicely settled into their normal dance-class routines, and then it's time to breathe again, and things will get back to a more dealable pace. But until that breath of fresh air shows itself from around the corner, something needs to be done, and things need to be put in order. 

So I've figured in order to survive, and in order to enjoy even the frantic days of this life, there has to be a survival plan. And here's what my plan looks like (I try to learn to live by it, slowly):

*Sleep.

Simply put - the brain will not have enough bandwidth to work on if it's running out of steam before you even begin your day. Getting enough sleep means even on the hectic days your brain will still have power to think straight.

*Eat.

Plenty of veggies and one or two warm meals a day. Snacks and breakfast and evening things. Consistent flow of decent energy keeps you in much of a better mood and makes you being able to function.

*Be.

Just breathing for a while without doing anything extra will help just that little bit. It'll give you space to get your head around things and to see things in the right light. It can be called anything you wish. Meditation, prayer, me-time, fishing - you name it. Or it doesn't have to have a name. Just be.

*Move.

Exercise of any kind will make you think of other things and not concentrate on how stressed you are. It'll make you think of yourself and of how you feel. It'll ground you towards gravity and remind you of who you really are. 

*Love.

Being with the people and beings and things that you love obviously gives you comfort and fun times socially, but it also is rewarding to simply love. To be giving something of yourself to someone or something and not expecting a return. To show support and respect. And if you're into the religious in life, this goes with that too - loving your neighbour, loving your God. Spending time with things that are important in life. Giving yourself to the things and beings you love and being grateful for them.

*Simplify.

When everything else in life gets messy and out of control, a clear table top will make all the difference. It'll give you hope to know that simple things can be found anywhere, and they can be made everywhere. Simplifying requires some energy, but the energy you get as a reward of simplifying something that needs to be simplified will be enough to not only fill the void it left behind but to top up some of the remaining need for energy with an added bonus of some calm feelings. And simplifying goes as well for your table tops as for your finances, for your relationships as well as for your bookshelf. The less random thoughts everything around you creates and forces you to take action and to be a part of itself, the more you will have space in your bandwidth to decide whether you really want to be a part of it or not. If the hallway table speaks to you every time you walk past it requiring you to clean it up, perhaps it's time you took action and quieted it once and for all. Keeping the table clear means one less thing to stress about when things get hectic.

Looking at the survival plan I realise these are the things that are needed in life anyway. It might be a survival plan to get through the hectic days, but at the same time it's a survival plan for life. Without food, rest, exercise, compassion and some time without stress life could not go on for long without it influencing our lives in a fairly bad way.

And although the plan seems quite vague, and is full of things everybody knows are needed in life, it serves as a reminder of what's really important (and I for one tend to forget them when things get hectic). What's best is when the really important things are in order, there's space and time and energy for the not-so-important too.

This is what I need to remember.

Anjusha