February Challenge

If you've read my previous post you know that I've been experimenting with challenging myself. Each month I try something new, something that brings a difference to my life, something that takes me out of my comfort zone. Last month, I sworn off sugar and it was interesting to try, I wasn't wowed by the impact of that challenge.

This month I am trying something more active. I will sample 15 new recipes, that I have not tried before. It is not a crazy challenge but I feel like I lack time for this in everyday life. During the week I often skip cooking in the evening and just grab a sandwich, even though I love cooking and it relaxes me. So I want to try to force myself motivate myself to do more of that. You can see 14 recipes I have chosen on pinterest. The 15th dish is going to be a nutty variation on my sourdough bread, that I dreamt of myself so there is no recipe.

The first recipe, and the celebration of no-sugar month, was this, gorgeous looking and yummy, raspberry swirl cheesecake. When I lived in London, raspberry swirl cheesecake from Sainsbury's was my guilty pleasure so I decided to try to bake it myself.

I tasted delicious although it was a bit more wet than expected. I went for a thick variant of yoghurt, you can buy in Denmark, called skyr, instead of fatty cream cheese. It made the cake healthier but not as firm and creamy. Next time, I will go all out :) 

Life Hacking : Month One

There were a lot of new things happening for me in 2013. Finishing my studies, getting first student job and then a full-time work at another company, and a couple of other big steps forward. And yet, very few of this was actually planned in advance. Opportunities presented themselves and I took advantage of them but I did not set out to achieve clear goals. In general, I guess I am not very good at setting out long term goals and working towards them. 

So I have decided that I want to work on that this year. 2014 is going to  be the year of planned development, good organization and getting a firm grip on life. 

Inspired by the The Small Change Project blog, this Ted Talk about month-long challenges, and the Motivation Hacker book by Nick Winter I got from my husband I am making a plan to hack my life this year. 

The year will start slow with some relatively easy confidence building challenges. As my expectancy of success grows, the goals will become more ambitious and more life-changing.

I have started by setting out these 7 goals:

1. By 15th of January I need to be able to run 4km in 30m - changed to running once a week
2. By the end of January I need to be able to run 1,5km without breaking - achieved
3. I will read JavaScript-related book for at least 10 minutes a day - achieved
4. I will write for at least 10 minutes a day - achieved
5. I will eat no sugar (no cakes, cookies, candy, honey or soda) - achieved
6. I will make a 2013 photobook to keep all the great memories in one place -achieved
7. I will prepare and practice my bachelor-exam presentation on the 2nd and 3rd of January so as not to drag it out all the way until 16th - achieved (though on the 15th I have decided to redo my presentation, so I am not sure if this counts )

It is now almost February and I am excited and somewhat proud of how many of the goals I have achieved. This has been a great experience I am certainly planning to continue with it. There are a few things I've learned during the first month of the project:

1. If the goal is too easy, the challenge stops being excited and it becomes a chore.
2. If the goal is planned for a month, it should not be completed in less time (ex. I finished the JavaScript book in 2 weeks? Switching to another book felt a bit anticlimactic).
3. Input goals work better than output ones. You can only ever control your effort and not really the outcome. The winter defeated me and I was not able to run 4km before mid-January. But switching the goal to input oriented one (I will run once a week) proved very beneficial and I have successfully completed it and felt excited enough to plan for a Women 5K race in September. 
4. Leave a little buffer so that you can account for life's little surprises without failing at your goals. At the same time, be very specific about what the special circumstances are. For example, it is ok to not go running if you break your leg - that should not mean you failed your goal.
5. Be as specific about the goals as possible. The more amorphous the goal, the easier to wiggle out and the more anticlimactic the achievement.
6. Make a point of tracking your effort every day, whether in a spreadsheet, beeminder or some other app. The feeling of daily achievement and success removes the peril of delay and helps grow your success spiral. 

The special challenge of not eating sugar for a month turned out to be a bit disappointing. I can't notice any changes in terms of my skin, neither have I lost no weight due to this regime. I might be a little more even when it comes to energy supplies throughout the day - but I am not even certain about that. And I don't sleep better (or worse) then before.  I eat a bit more fruits, which certainly is positive but I don't really know if it has anything to do with no-sugar policy. 

It has also proven easier than expected. The first 2 or 3 days I did walk around randomly imagining belgian waffles in great, multisensory details. But it went away after that and I didn't physically craved it. The hardest part was definitely social occasions.  Not eating cake for friends and family's birthday events, not having coke with my pizza or sweet cocktail during the night out was certainly a challenge but not to the point where it was impossible. 

The challenge hasn't proven life changing but it did leave a pleasant feeling of accomplishment and I hope that I will take something from it. I plan to continue with no sugar or honey in my tea and coffee and no sweets other than cakes - preferably homebaked and for special occasions. 

Stay tuned for my plans for February. 

Cafe Latte Baby Blanket

No matter how many times I've started on knitted projects (and how many of them I actually finished - a few), crocheting will always my go-to method of working with yarn. 

The project I am working on now is a baby blanket with a thick, dense weave. Because it is so dense, it takes long to complete the project, but I like the texture so much, I am planning more projects with it. It will certainly serve as a sweet, warm cover for some baby. Yeah, I don't actually have a recipient of this blanky in mind, so friends and relatives, get on the topic of babies, will you? I would actually make a big blanket for myself (it really is so cozy) but I don't have enough yarn for that.

I am using light cotton-acrylic yarn that is has a soft feel to it while still being very warm. The color is cream, like a very milky cafe latte. I like it for a baby blanket, even if it's probably not very practical. 

And working on this project taught me a lesson: "never put away a project for 2 years and pick it up as if nothing happened". I wasn't sure if I remembered how to make round ends, but I made two rounds anyway. I realized I made a mistake on the round ending, I ripped two rounds...and then I realized I probably hadn't made a mistake and all the ripping was for nothing.

Anyway, I'll show you the finished piece, when I am done.

My (Craft) Year in Instagram Pictures

Looking back on this year in my Instagram pictures I discover that I have not done quite as much craft projects as I would have liked it. I have been busy with other types of life endeavours so it is not that surprising. Nevertheless, I'd like to get better with that in the coming year. I've been looking at some scheduling and life-hacking techniques that will hopefully help me take better control over the way I spend my time. Stay tuned for more on that.

Meanwhile have a look at the craft projects I did work on (and documented):

In this little retrospective exercise, I have also discovered, this time with a smile, that I cooked and baked a nice deal this year. I started baking bread and I do it once a week almost every week. I grew a bit of herbs and I now have frozen oregano ice-cubes in my freezer. And most of all, I've been happily going through the Scandalicious Baking book, which I can wholeheartedly recommend to any baking-fans. Here are some of my more successful experiments:

Sourdough bread with mixed seeds

Scandalicious Baking: Orange Butter Biscuits 

Scandalicious Baking: Finish Baked Pancake

Scandalicious Baking: Passion Fruit and Lime Custard Birthday Cake 

Polish Easter Cake: Mazurek

This year's batch of Honey Vodka

The herbs, we've been growing. Chili grown by my husband and my oregano, harvested and ready to be chopped and frozen.

Home-grown oregano harvest

   

Young chili

Apart from cooking and crafting I have also had a lot of good relaxing moments with my husband, furry beasts and in the nature.

Mushroom picking in Poland

Eddie in his private heaven 

And how about you? Did you have a good, crafting year?

and meanwhile

Happy New Year

2014

Everybody

Celebrating craftmen and women from the UK

I found this beautiful collection of photos celebrating craftpeople using their talent to produce "made not manufactured" items, still relevant today. The photos were taken by Steve Kenward and I am totally in love. Wouldn't it be lovely to have some of these hanging on your workshop's walls?

Anwyay, I just wanted to share it with you. Btw. did you know that a bowyer is someone who makes bows? I did not know that.

Other crafts: lace making

Just look at this beauty. And it is all mine! Can you imagine? A friend of mine found this mint-condition lace making pillow in a second-hand store for...wait for it...100DKK! =18.50USD! = 13.40 EURO! = 11.50 GBP! = 56PLN! Crazy!

And then, when my lovely neighbour (a tailor), saw my new toy, she immediately handed me a '50s book with lace making instructions (and tones of really funny old-school images).

So now I only need to learn how to make lace...khm, khm...

But meanwhile, I'm collecting inspirations:

1. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/163812923/womens-boot-socks-lace-boot-cuff-socks
2. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/index.php/works/punto-in-aria-powerhouse-window-construction
3. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/157055033/3-yards-vintage-ivory-bobin-insert-lace
4. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/126092096/vintage-old-french-handmade-lace-wooden
5. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/128304266/black-lace-gloves-french-lace-bridal
6. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/155433538/lace-infinity-scarf
7. http://www.lynxlace.com/mybobbinlace.html
8. http://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/119506745/sterling-silver-adjustable-ring-with

One small step at a time, one small change a month

Change is difficult. It is so for me and I think it is so for many people. Big lifestyle changes are flat out impossible for me.

In the past I've struggled with making huge decisions of the New-Years-Resolutions type and failing miserably within weeks or even days of the said decision. I guess we all know this evil circle of huge lifestyle change decision - failure - frustration - worse lifestyle than before. I still get depressed if I think too hard about all the times I decided to eat healthy or get fit, failed miserably and proceeded to eat my to frustration away or crawl in a ball on a sofa and watch TV all weekend.

It has not been a funny experience but I've felt for a long time now that things need to change. Simply put: I was making myself unhappy and that just wasn't acceptable any longer.

And so in my quest to improve my life, I stumbled upon The Small Change Project blog and took to trying the ideas that Katie writes about. They gave me some insight into what was going wrong with my resolutions and how to do it better. I have actually made some lasting changes. Who would have known ?!

One small change a month

I now realize that my previous resolutions were flawed in several ways:

1. They lacked actionable steps
2. They were too general and therefore lacked focus
3. They were too big and therefore overwhelming
4. They lacked a "fallback" option

For example the resolution to get fit doesn't describe how to do it (1 and 2), is a huge job and when you start thinking about it or planning it you might easily get buried under a pile of changes you need to make (3) and does not provide you with a solution to a "bad day" where you don't go to the gym but instead eat a pizza (4). 

But what if instead of deciding to get fit, you make a decision that this month you will go to the gym twice a week? 

1. Each Monday and Wednesday I'll go to the gym (actionable step)
2. The decision focuses on one activity (focus)
3. The decision to visit gym is not made up of many previously undefined decisions. There is only one thing I need to keep in mind: going to the gym (simple decision)
4. A failure to go to the gym one time, does not influence my ability to make good on the resolution next day or next week

My experience so far

For the past 3 months, I've been making lasting decisions about my lifestyle and the experience was good, although not perfect.

In August, I have decided to start running 3 times a week. I found a slow-start running plan and it went great. Throughout the entire August I run very regularly and saw a major improvement in my general fitness and a few centimeters went away. The situation got a little worse in September and October, partly due to a bit worse weather, a bout of flu and also slight lowering of motivation. But I am still running and slowly building on what I achieved in August.

In September, my decision was to quit sugar in my coffee.

You might not realize how big a deal that was for me but if you consider that I used 2 teaspoons of sugar in each cup of coffee and drunk up to 4 cups on a week day you might start seeing the problem. American Heart Association seems to recommend up to 5 teaspoons of sugar...yup, by any standard I used way too much.

This decision proved to be an unmitigated success. I have not had a single teaspoon of sugar in my coffee since 1.09.2013! It took some getting used to but by now I almost don't miss it. And not adding sugar to my coffee made me less happy about sugar in sweets. Many things that I used to love are now way too sweet for me. So it's definitely a win-win situation.

In October, my decision is to read a book for at least an hour a day. I love reading and have a large collection of books. But my backlog has been growing in the recent years because I take less and less time to read. And fair enough, I have been getting more busy with full time job and other regular life duties. But when I started thinking about this, I realized how much time a day I waste checking my Facebook for the 20th time in as many minutes, watching silly videos online or browsing through pinterest. So instead, I decided to carve out an hour of daily time to read.

That has been a struggle. I certainly read more but only on a handful of days it has in fact been an hour. It's hard to switch off my computer, my phone and my tablet and just sit down for an hour of reading. But the good part is that with a decision structured like this, the failure today doesn't prevent me from succeeding tomorrow. After all the whole point is to make a lasting change to my life and simply read more.

I will keep you up to date with how this whole experiment has been going so stay tuned.