I’d been dreaming about having a spiralizer for a while now. I try to avoid refined carbs as much as I can, and a spiralizer would make it easy for me to substitute pastas and noodles and add more veggies to my dish.
Dave got me this spiralizer from Paderno as an early anniversary gift! And I’m so in love ❤
It’s been super hot here, and our apartment overheats really easily, so I’m happy to have recipes that don’t require me to turn on the stove after, like, 10am.
It was really easy to assemble and use the spiralizer. Making my zucchini noodles was a breeze!
This recipe is so simple. I was eating my zucchini pasta with avocado sauce within 10 minutes.
Zucchini Pasta with Creamy Avocado Sauce. It’s a light and tasty dish perfect for summer lunch!
I had a bunch of cherry tomatoes and basil from our gardens, and they made a nice addition to this cool summer dish.
So refreshing and healthy!
It was so good, I practically inhaled it!! 😀
There will be more spiralizing happening in my future for sure! Do you have any favorite spiralized vegetable recipes? If so, please share in the comment 🙂 I’d love to hear!
July 31st was my one year anniversary of quitting the regular day job! Whoa!
Happy first birthday to an-independent-artist/entrepreneur-me 🙂 I’m still here, alive and kickin’!
I honestly can’t believe it’s been a year, and I just feel so grateful and privileged to be able to pursue my passion every day.
When I left my day job, I gave up a steady paycheck and good benefits. And in return, I gained the freedom to create work from my passion and decide how I’m going to achieve my goals.
And, I love being my own boss. For the most part anyway.
But one of the hardest part of being my own boss is – well, not having a boss.
What does a boss do? They give you a guidance, direction, support and a feedback. Well, at least they should, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have bosses who did all those things 🙂
And it can be extremely difficult to do that for myself sometimes.
Especially when you work so hard and don’t see the results right away, not getting that constant validation and encouragement that your’e doing a good job can be tough.
I’d imagine many entrepreneurs feel this way. Or if your’e a parent or a boss’s boss. It gets lonely up here!
You know another thing I miss about the day job? An annual performance review!
Is that weird? I always felt so refreshed after my review. It’s a wonderful opportunity to sit and reflect on all the things you’ve accomplished and set an intention for where you want to go next.
So I wanted to review my last 12 months and share with you what I’ve learned.
What I’m proud of:
Started taking mini sabbaticals every 7 week. I believe self-care is super important and wanted to put a regular self-care practice in place to prevent burn-out.
Did 5 art shows
Ran the Creative Coaching 4-week email course and a pilot program
Have been meeting with 2-3 accountability partners regularly to stay focused and motivated on my goals
Consistently writing & posting blogs and newsletters
Launched my first art collection, Eat a Rainbow, this summer
Create a better, more streamlined system for marketing
Explore new social media platform (e.g. Snapchat etc.) so I can interact with my followers more deeply
Continue prioritizing my health and wellness and take regular sabbaticals
Allow time for reflection and long-term strategies (every quarter or 6 months?) even if everyday busyness seems more urgent.
Narrow down my focus
Become more comfortable with taking a risk, don’t be afraid to make a mistake, and if I make a mistake, don’t dwell on the negatives. Learn the lessons, and move on!
Prepare better financially for slow times (e.g. In-person teaching is super slow during summer so maybe do more shows to create a better cash flow).
Expand my wholesale capacity and partner with more retail shops
Expand my teaching offerings both in-person & online
What I want to learn:
Research and learn more about product business/manufacturers/wholesale, to make my biz more profitable
Effective social media marketing strategies & apps
How to make better videos and shoot photos
Sewing and more fun creative projects for myself!
Next Step:
I’ve made an appointment with myself later this week to sit down and do a planning session for the next 6 months. I’m going to figure out timelines for my goals, break down my goals into baby steps, and make a plan of attack!
I was surprised that it didn’t take very much time to make a list of my accomplishments. It’s so nice to remind myself that I am moving forward even if the progress seems slow.
If you don’t have a boss to give you a performance review, I highly recommend you do this with yourself at least once a year. I bet you’ll feel inspired and motivated by how far you’ve come, too!
I took my sabbatical week off during the week of 8/1. (You can learn more about my small scale sabbaticals here.)
I was supposed to take it off the week before, but I had so much to do, so I decided to push it back one week.
The week before I’d originally planned to take my week off, I was planning on making 4 tutorial videos for Sakura of America, and it took a lot longer than I anticipated (duh!)
And at the last minute I was invited to be at a craft show, and I agreed, so I spent hours preparing for the show at the same time.
It became obvious to me that I wasn’t going to finish the video project and tie all the loose ends before the end of the week.
Rather than doing a “half-on, half-off” sabbatical week, I decided to push it back one week so I could finish everything and fully enjoy my time off the following week.
Or so I thought.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to tie all the loose ends by the end of that additional week, so some work did spill over to my sabbatical week. Sad face 😦
I’d put in long hours the week before and worked the craft show all day Saturday 7/30, so I was really wired going into my week off.
My booth at the show 🙂And it was a gorgeous day to be outside!
Plus my husband Dave had been away for 2 and a half weeks for work and came back on late Saturday 7/30 night. Originally, he was going to come home on Sunday 8/1, so it threw me off the loop.
And whenever he comes home late, I go to bed at my normal bed time but just can’t fall asleep until he gets home…
As an introvert, even though I love and miss my husband very much while he’s gone, I also enjoy my quiet alone time. And it usually takes me a few days to adjust to having him around again.
Oh, and we had a couple of guests stay over at our place with kind of a short notice… and I’d already scheduled my social time with some friends that week (Max 3 social engagements per week!). So I ended up having a bit more people time than I’d wanted.
We hosted a hand-roll salad bar one night, and it was fun and delicious…
Even though I generally have a good time when I’m with friends, I prefer to have them scheduled in advance and need to have a good amount of down time in between to recharge.
And as for work, I got an inquiry from a customer who wanted to place a big rush order of my block printed tote bags on the first day of my sabbatical week.
My hand block printed artichoke tote. Cute, yes?
Initially, I said no because there was no way I could have the goods ready within the timeline, but the customer was really interested in working with me.
So I tried to make it work by having them screen printed rather than me hand printing them. And that meant a lot of back and forth with the print shops and the customer throughout the week…
After all, the customer decided not to place the order because the timeline didn’t work for them. Which was fine, but I couldn’t relax completely until all the loops were closed…
I also have a new class to promote, followed up with people who’d just signed up for my email list, and Instagram just rolled out their Snapchat thingy (a.k.a. Instagram Story) and I got embroiled in that too!!
The Seafair, which is a big summer festival in Seattle, was going on during my sabbatical week, and we live very close to where the Blue Angels perform. Their performance is cool and all, but the noise is totally unbearable. It is SO LOUD.
Oh, Blue Angels… Only if you were quieter… Photo credit: Monica Zaborac
So on Saturday, I tagged along Dave’s teaching gig at a university to get away from home. They had a pretty loose, hands-on day for his class, and I got to hang out with Dave part of the day and read, too.
And I went for a walk in the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle waterfront with a good friend 🙂
On Sunday, I ended up doing chores and went to see a movie (BTW, loved the new Ghostbusters movie!!) to get away from the Blue Angels noise again… 😀
I LOLd so much!! 😀
Before you know it, my sabbatical week was over. O.V.E.R. Sigh.
It wasn’t the most relaxing week off, and I was pretty bummed about it.
Self-care is a top priority of mine, and not having a regular down time is pretty hard on me. When I can’t get enough rest, I try to breathe and be more compassionate with myself. I do what I can to take care of myself and just accept the things for what they are.
With that being said, I did spend some time reading. I’ve been reading “The Highly Sensitive Person in Love” by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., and it’s fascinating! (In case you missed it, I talked about my Highly Sensitive nature in this post.) I love exploring my inner world… ❤
This!
I also made some art for fun during my sabbatical week.
Dahlias with Sakura Koi pens, micron pen, and a gellyroll pen.
These dahlias were inspired by the beautiful community garden I was at for the craft show ❤
I also got to spend more time with Dave than usual and slept more (including naps!) so I’m more refreshed to start my work week.
I’ve got a couple of trips coming up this summer, too, so even though I didn’t get a full time off last week, I’m glad some important work got done! It’s a balance, I guess…
It has helped me to lower my stress and anxiety about the work and the unknowns of the future. Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed about what may happen, I can bring my focus back to my breathing and notice how I’m feeling in my body now.
It allows me to know on a very fundamental level that whatever I’m worried about isn’t actually happening right now. Even if it lasts only for a split second, it calms my mind.
I started making new drawings to express my appreciation and to encourage myself to continue with the practice.
Though it was not my intention to create a series at first, more ideas kept popping in my head. And creating these drawings is sort of meditative, too!
Live like you have everything you need.May all beings be happy, peaceful, and liberated.I’d rather be here and now.
Last year I had a lot of fun making a wall calendar, and perhaps this could be my new calendar design for 2017?
I personally would like to have this hanging on the wall to remind me to breathe 🙂 Wouldn’t you?
p.s. You can follow me on Instagram to see more works from my sketchbook!
Honeyberry Diary 