sarah

[sarah]

Ways to look after yourself #2

Deactivate Facebook

Comparison is the thief of joy, and nowhere is comparison more actively trying to suck the happiness out of your cells than on Facebook. Your friends, colleagues and acquaintances are excellent human beings, but there is such a thing as knowing too much about a person. If you want to sit down and tell me a personal story full of TMI because it helps you, great: I’m here. But do I want to know your thoughts on every single article you read and every video you watch? No, no I do not.

I’m not a curmudgeon (well, not exclusively): I understand and enjoy the connection and community that social media brings to my life. But as an introvert I find being on Facebook for a while as draining as being around a crowd. If you are going to survive in this modern life, sometimes it’s important to step back and create a space for yourself where there is none. Sometimes you just need to withdraw.

There are downsides. You may miss some invites. You may miss some gossip. You will almost certainly have to explain yourself more than once. “You’re not on Facebook?” But you can reactivate your account if you need to. And I recommend it, sometimes: it will almost certainly reassure you that it doesn’t add anything to your life and you don’t need the added noise.

Facebook is the internet equivalent of standing in someone’s garden and staring into their window while being upset that they’re warm and happy while you’re standing in a muddy flowerbed in the cold. If it adds value to you, keep it. But if not, think about taking some time to tend your own flowerbeds instead.

#self care #facebook #look after yourself #anxiety

[sarah]

Inspiration of the day: Rachel Castle’s use of shape and vibrant colour https://www.castleandthings.com.au/

Thoughts for me: circles, fluorescent, bright, simple, bold

#inspiration #rachel castle #art #prints #colour

[sarah]

Ways to look after yourself #1

Stop watching the news

TV news channels need to fill 24 hours a day with endless, rolling news. The news is already dramatic enough without adding talking heads speculating non-stop about the what-ifs and the wherefores. In times of chaos and boredom, I used to come home, sit down and watch it unfold in front of me, congratulating myself: watching the news is what adults do, look at home responsible I am!

Last year I cancelled my cable TV and moved to Chromecast only. I still pay a TV license, so I could still watch endless pontificating, but when you have to sit down and plan for it, it’s not something you really do anymore. I still read the news, and I still know what’s happening, but I don’t let it suffocate me for hours anymore. 

#self care #coping #anxiety #news #look after yourself

[sarah]

#life and style #food & drink #vegan food and drink #vegetables #chefs

[sarah]

There was a TV ad depicting a Grand National style event in which, thanks to AV, the horse in third place magically finished first. This was unrealistic on two counts: partly because the example they used was impossible, but mainly because all the horses survived.

[sarah]

"I didn't realise Milo's story was going to be about a bereaved boy when I started writing," Silberberg says. "It was going to be a funny story about a goofy kid, but two chapters in I realised I was in a place I'd not been to for a very long time."

[sarah]

(via Nedroid Picture Diary)

Actually, I would like to go to the zoo.

[sarah]

(via e photography: Creativity)

[sarah]

This week, [Nicole Scherzinger] announced her forthcoming debut solo album or, as she put it, "a miracle of Haiti's disaster": she had met the album's producer at the recording of a charity single for Haiti. "The one good thing to come from that tragedy," she suggested, "was my music", which will doubtless come as considerable comfort to relatives of the 316,000 people who died, the 1.6 million left homeless and the 3,500 affected by a subsequent outbreak of cholera. Obviously they're suffering, but with the news that Scherzinger got a "raw, soulful and funky" solo album out of it, at least their suffering isn't in vain. "

Come earthquake or tsunami, there's always a celebrity there to help | Life and style | The Guardian

[sarah]

Those damn curtains didn't work out AT ALL. I was so sure they would sell! I didn't know how to sew, but I figured that if I designed them, any seamstress could sew them. I STILL have stockpiles of silk from all the custom curtains I didn't make. Wanna know how many curtains I sold? One.

ruby star rising: racy thoughts from inside my head

[sarah]

design work life » Frank Aloi: Divine Dairy

[sarah]

All very benevolent but still, given the current climate, it seems bonkers to invest seven years of education into a non-profit scheme, subsidising your rent by tutoring maths when you could be making a packet in the City. "I know," he laughs. "All my friends are bankers and I'm their poor student mate. But it's my choice." And, frankly, there are enough bankers to go round, allowing people like Dr Broni-Mensah to turn staggeringly obvious ideas into life-changing schemes.

Britain's new entrepreneurs: young guns go for it | Business | The Observer

[sarah]

'The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke's head caved-in down an alley in Bradford.'

Daily Star reporter quits in protest at tabloid's 'anti-Muslim' coverage | Media | The Guardian

[sarah]

If I had a theme for the day, today's would be "round things". Still slightly regretting not buying the compote jar in Waitrose (just because I have no idea what one does with "compote"...)

[sarah]

Other people's processes are the most fascinating thing in the world to me. 

[sarah]

People have asked me many times to say what, exactly, is the point of this project. I've always had a fascination with the ways that creative people balance inspiration and discipline in their working lives. It's easy to be energized when you're in the grip of a big idea. But what do you do when you don't have anything to work with? Just stay in bed? Writers have this figured out: it's amazing how many of them have a rigid routine. John Cheever, for instance, used to wake up every morning in his New York City apartment, put on a jacket and tie, kiss his wife goodbye, and take the elevator down to his apartment building's basement, when he would sit at a small desk and write until quitting time, at which point he'd go back up. (When it was hot in the basement, he'd strip down to his underwear to work.) The only way to experience this kind of discipline is to subject yourself to it. Every student who has taken this project had a moment where the work turned into a mind-numbing grind. And trust me: it won't be the first time this happens. The trick is to press on. For each new day (whether it's Day 28, Day 61, even Day 100) brings with it the hope of inspiration.

Michael Bierut's 100 Day Project

#design #project

[sarah]

swissmiss | What is a Browser?