What Makes a Home a Home?

I find it strange that most people think of their apartment being temporary housing.  Maybe it’s because Apartment Therapy has been hanging out on my Facebook News Feed too much.  But other than painting the walls, I feel like I’ve made this apartment feel like home, but then again, I’m a Cancer.  Home is home, no matter how long you stay in it.  Sure, I don’t have a lot of experience in this area considering I’ve moved once and have lived in only two places in my entire 30 year existence, but come on.  Home is indeed where the heart is.

I’ve been thinking about what a home is a lot lately.  Partly because we’ve been house hunting, partly because I’m constantly trying to make this home, as temporary as it will be, as safe and comfortable as possible.  When I have the energy (usually in the morning while baby is still asleep), I tidy up the daily life clutter that has accumulated throughout the weekend and week.  Sometimes to keep my husband happy and sometimes because I can’t stand the creative clutter.  Some say that clutter actually clogs the soul, instead of keeping the creatives creative.  The more I dive into my jewelry design, the deeper I understand that efficiency is way better than creative clutter.  Having all my tools and supplies neatly at my fingertips is the best way to maximize my time.  Time is money and with a baby, I don’t have time to waste.  So, I’m desperately trying to organize and streamline my production of designing and packaging.  But my workbench has a long ways to go.  The packaging part is always evolving though.  Through trial and error, I’m slowly getting everything together.

Apparently the root chakra is related to hoarding.  My root chakra always seems to be unbalanced.  Having such a difficult labor really didn’t help with that, because it’s also related to the base of the spine and lower back.  Getting back into my pre-baby flexibility has been really hard.  I do yoga for a bit, then get lazy and stop, then pick it back up again.  I’m going to try out the local yoga studio down the street to get back into the groove of things.  At least with all this house hunting and the idea of moving in the back of my mind (either to a house or to a 2 bedroom apartment), my root chakra is finally starting to level out.  I’m weeding through the clothes at Mom and Dad’s that I’m never going to wear again.  It’s so weird going through them because it was the stuff I never brought with me to the apartment.  It’s like a relic of who I was pre-marriage and pre-baby.  Thankfully I really didn’t gain much weight during the pregnancy (the only good part about having gestational diabetes).  But yeah, I’ve even taken to clearing out as much clutter as I can here so I don’t have to haul it with me to the new place.  Purge purge purge has been  my motto lately.

I love this apartment.  My marriage started here and I’ve watched my baby grow up in here.  We’re getting a new AC unit, finally.  It’ll be sad to say goodbye, but with every door closing, there is a new door opening.  Until then, I’m going to clear out the clutter and enjoy every moment I can.

Creative Vacation

Baby is on a crazy growth spurt this week. Tonight he woke up screaming bloody murder around 1:30am. Geez, kid, I hope you’re over 6 feet tall at the rate you’re eating and sleeping. Ever since last Friday, he’s been napping from 8am to 11:30am. Strange but I get my “me” time in the mornings. Well, that hasn’t been the case since Tuesday night. So it’s been a grueling few days and all I’ve really wanted to do is stay home and rest.

I’m coming to the realization that I need to just chill and roll with the punches life hands me. Right now I have to focus on my baby and whatever his needs are, without sacrificing too much of my sanity. With that said, I’m tabling any extra creative work for awhile. It sucks, but at the same time, I need to do some creative soul searching and I think a break would be good. I need to streamline my packaging and overall organization of my studio so it’s reaching maximum efficiency. While I have been creative for the past month, I need some new inspiration. I’ll continue to make my most basic pieces… chainmaille, Rock on a Rope, Chinese Knot, etc, but no new designs until I come out of hiding.

Jesse.1 is coming next week for her spring break so maybe I’ll get the creative boost I need from her. We’re going to go visit the Flower Fields down in Carlsbad on Saturday. We’ll go to my favorite German deli and market while we’re there for bratwurst and my highly coveted strawberry filled German chocolate. Apparently I can get it from Amazon… but that defeats the purpose of going down to the deli. It’s the experience that’s the fun part. Oh and the apple strudel. I hope to someday go back to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. That was a great trip back in high school.

Hello rest and relaxation. Maybe I’ll even pick up the Artist’s Way again. We’ll see. Namaste.

Contentment

I know who I am.

I don’t know who I will be.

I like who I am.

I don’t know how I balance everything.

I am more than enough.

I am loved.

I am happy being myself.

Finding My Center

13

I did yoga this morning. Baby was still asleep and I had time, so I did it. And it felt amazing. More motivation to do it twice a day like I want to, regardless if I’m exhausted or less than exhausted. I posted this on my Facebook status afterwards:

I welcome the sun and the day with hopes of pleasantries and accomplishment. Namaste.

I’m slowly coming to terms with being a gazillion different things. This is coming from a few things… my body healing and slowly returning back to it’s pre-pregnancy state and a little bit more consistent sleep. 2013 is the year of balancing life and work, which is exactly what I’ve been doing, trying to balance family with the jewelry business and still working for Dad. It’s not an easy task, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Coming into the office 3 to 4 days a week works out fairly well and my sister sometimes comes to the house on Fridays to hang out with her little sweetie pie. Today I’m at least feeling like I’m going with the flow and accepting life for what it is.

Last week was a whirlwind of creativity I haven’t had since before the baby was born. Honestly, I haven’t been that creative since the weekend before he was born. The freedom to be able to pull out all the supplies I needed to manifest everything that’s been stewing in my mind was simply amazing. I can’t wait to harvest the photos off my camera as soon as I can carve out some time. Then post some new Etsy listings too.

The journey of an artist is never ending, just like our thirst for knowledge and capacity to learn new things.

Wellness

I love how “wake up early” usually equates to baby waking up after about 5 hours of sleep, whereas, he’s been sleeping for a solid 7 hours most of the week. -_-

One thing I’ve noticed since I hit 30 and had a baby is how damaging our modern lifestyle is to our bodies. While being super flexible during pregnancy was awesome, my hips need a lot of extra TLC to get back to their pre-pregnancy state. I can’t wait until I don’t have to constantly lift the baby 50x a day so I can give my upper body a rest. To compensate for all this excessive motion, I’ve been figuring out ways to ergonomically pick the baby off the floor without falling over. I also take the extra time to either put him in the crib or slowly lay down on the floor, deposit him, then get up and do what I need to do. Less bending of the back equals less strain. But yeah, we’re so used to being couch potatoes and hunching over our computers, that we don’t know why our posture sucks or why we feel so lethargic.

While I had no excuse not to practice my daily sun salutations this week, I’ve been making a habit of doing yoga twice a day. Once in the morning to greet the day and the sun, then another time in the evening to bid farewell to the day and welcome the moon and the evening. It’s a nice 10 to 15 minutes of me time, even if I have the baby kicking and cooing on my yoga mat while I workout. I need the grounding and the focus it provides to maintain some sort of sanity. That was the whole point of buying a new yoga mat for the house. And the baby loves to feel it and start scratching it with his nails. It’s sensory overload for him right now. Hehehe.

Dieting is also another pet peeve of mine. I admit that I’ve been blessed with a strong metabolism, but that’s no excuse not to eat healthy and treat my body with respect. A crash diet isn’t going to get you anywhere except a dark and dreary black hole of I hate my body, because you can’t restrict yourself to the point that you binge when you let yourself go. It’s a lifestyle change and I think that’s what people don’t understand. Pregnancy weight gain is only an extra slice of bread or a heartier portion of dinner or dessert on top of your normal dinner. It really isn’t a lot of extra calories like some people actually believe. So with that in mind, I’ve been attempting to eat less junk and more healthy things gradually. I have moments when I crave vegetables so I make sure I always have lettuce on hand. And I always have apples in the fridge. Soon I’ll be able to stock my fridge full of strawberries and peaches. Having gestational diabetes really killed my love of fruit and I need to get back into my apple a day habit. Being able to only have half an apple with peanut butter a day really kills that idea. It’s also a quick snack while toting the baby around. One thing I need to do is to set out my snack mix of fruit, nuts, and dried berries for the day so I remember to eat it.

I’ve also been making it a point to limit my screen time, which includes the iPhone/iPad. We’re so connected that we’re disconnected from our basic human need of socialization. Most people of my generation are afraid of calling people because they prefer to text. While it is due to trying to avoid confrontation, it’s sad how dependent we are on our mobile devices. When I am sitting at my computer, I make sure my back is supported and my arm rest is supporting my right arm so mousing isn’t so strenuous on my shoulder and hand. It sounds silly, but proper computer posture is important. I even make sure I have proper posture while I’m making jewelry because that’s really going to hurt if I hurt myself badly enough that I can’t make jewelry. The futon is perfect back support, but my feet don’t touch the ground. When we eventually move, I hope to get a recliner that will double as a nursing/cuddle station as well as a reading and chainmaille station. I can’t sit at my workbench anymore because it’s too high off the ground and as hard as I try to make it work, I will wait until I get a new jewelry desk. It makes me sad, but I’m taking care of myself. I’m putting myself first, which is a difficult concept for most people to grasp. But this is the secret to not be old and grumpy when I’m old and grumpy. I want to make sure I can live up to Jesse’s expectation of how Asian women outlive everyone. Not that I want to outlive him though.

Be nice to yourself. You’ll be happier for it later.

Working on Earrings

7 hours of sleep, just about.  Whoo hoo!  Getting some work done for Dad, ate breakfast, and finishing up extremely late Christmas presents.  Mostly working on earrings, now I need to go dig through my stash of green amethyst.

My boys are both asleep.  Typical Saturday morning. ♥

Jewelry Porn

The only way to truly sell jewelry online, to invoke the same feeling and emotion of what it would be like to buy it in person, is to take epic photos.  Also known as jewelry porn.  I think this is as good as I can get today, but it’s a pretty awesome photo.  I love the silver lines on the mug and how they tie into the photo of the earring.  Edgy, daring, beautiful.  I’ll be taking more photos like this…

I started this new earring design Friday morning before running off to get a much needed haircut and visiting with family.  And doing work, of course.  I realize now that I can only be truly creative when I’ve gotten enough sleep and baby is napping.  I need to make the matching one and take it for a road test, but it has some really epic potential.  Especially with some Swarovski crystal or pretty stones.  I’m overall very happy with it.  It truly embodies the Chainmaille Straight Up kick I’ve been on lately.  All my stones are saying they want to be simple earrings to go with my Rock on a Rope collection.  Weaving beautiful chains gives my brain a much needed break since I’ve been extra sleep deprived this month.  I have more ideas to churn out… come one baby, I need another night of sleeping 7 hours straight.

Other than that, it’s been a pretty lazy weekend.  We started watching Season 2 of Game of Thrones, did some laundry, cooked a few meals, and I went grocery shopping.  I’m off to bellydance class in a little bit, but not before feeding my hungry little dude.  He’s still on epic growth spurt and developed a new bloodcurdling scream.  Lovely.  Like the old one wasn’t good enough.  This one is so much more shrill, Jesse immediately jumped out of bed to fetch him this morning.  That was pretty cute, though.  Oy, my baby will be 6 months next week.  Crazy how fast time flies…

A Good Day

Finally got to sleep for 7 hours straight. Managed to get baby down for another 2 hours so I could tidy and start a new earring design for my Chinese Knot earring collection. Whoo! Didn’t get to finish it, but I did get the general idea out of my head. I need a lot of sleep to get any creative work done. Most of the time, I’m looking for my next nap so this was refreshing.

Scurried off to get a much needed haircut, then to Mom and Dad’s to meet up with my sister to run errands, and eventually get some work done. All and all a good day. Now to do some yoga before calling it a night. Here’s hoping baby sleeps like he did last night.

Namaste.

Grounded

I’ve been working on the floor this week. I just figured out why. Hui.1 is trying to roll over but he hasn’t quite figured out how to roll over from his back to his tummy. He can sometimes roll from his tummy to his back, but he has to be in the right mood for it. Since he’s either on the floor or playing on his gym, he’s down there and I need to be down there next to him too. So I’ve been working on the floor. I feel like a little kid again. I also had Jesse.1 lounging all over the apartment floor for the week she was here, so that also has something to do with it.

I’ve been diligently working on my Rock on a Rope collection. I feel that this is the year of “understated elegance”. Something that can be used for both causal, lazy days and that extra bit of something special for more dressier occasions. We’re busy women, taking over the world and taking care of everyone but ourselves. Some women can’t afford a huge piece of bling and I get that. That’s why this collection is so dear to me. It’s just enough femininity and practicality rolled into a tiny package. And those modern day rock hounds can appreciate my love of obscure, rough stones.

So come on, get your rock on.

On Introversion

I am an introvert. My mother coined the term “hatching” for my oldest sister who was always upstairs reading romance novels as a teenager or simply not being around with the family. I would hatch when I wasn’t hiding from a long day of work because there’s a distinct difference between hiding and hatching. I strongly recall celebrating my hatching time in 2011 because I was so busy with wedding plans and whatnot. But let’s go over the difference between hiding and hatching…

Hiding: the need to recharge after a long day of work or overstimulation from socialization.
Example: Watching He-Man to simply get lost in childhood nostalgia after a long, grueling day at the office.

Hatching: free time to get lost in thought. The freedom to sit around and enjoy my solitude.
Example: lounging around in silence, eventually working on jewelry designs, most likely *new* jewelry designs.

The right mindset needs to happen before I can design any new jewelry. The last time this occurred was the weekend before the baby was born. Jesse.1 was here for Labor Day weekend and we had nowhere to go on Sunday. So I let her play World of Warcraft on my computer while I sat around and made jewelry with my “Bach on a Steinway” album playing in the background. That was an awesome day… I made a pretty necklace out of nowhere. It truly embodies the notion of “spontaneous design” because I sat at my workbench with no set idea of what to do. I simply sat there because I wanted to, I had the time, and I wanted to see if anything would come to fruition.

Hui.1 is starting to sleep longer 5-7 hours a night, so I’m slowly starting to feel the shift between hiding and hatching. I’m hatching now because we both got about 7 hours of sleep and he’s down for his next round of sleep. I’m parked on the futon, previously reading a book about introversion, and now writing this post. I recall putting him down for a short nap then telling Jesse I was going to go hide in the front room. Hiding is more of recharging my mind and body whereas hatching is recharging my soul. I was exhausted so I was sitting on the futon, wondering what to do with myself. Such a stark difference…