Crystal Madrilejos

Photo taken from my rooftop in 2005*

I got up super early on Thursday to go to a 6am hot yoga class. It felt really great. It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time and I finally just did it. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful waking up early has been for me. I haven’t been more productive in ways that I thought I would be with extra time on my hands. But I feel better about myself, for sure. It feels good to be able to journal daily and to just sit and think and plan and not feel bad that I’m taking time away from the other important things in my life. I think I had a lot of guilt before and it was one of the things holding me back from feeling fulfilled. Guilt about not being present with the kids and Andrew, guilt for expecting Andrew to carry more of the load than he already does, guilt for constantly dreaming about doing rather than just doing. I feel like I’ve gained back something in my life without sacrificing other parts of it. Yes, I am a little bit tired. And yes, I get greedy and am genuinely discouraged when this little amount of time I have is infringed upon – be it my unwillingness to get out of bed or by a kid who gets up earlier than usual. What’s the old saying – if I don’t have time, make time? (more…)

I’m halfway through my 40 day commitment to waking up early. A little background on the 40 day commitment: as part of my creative coaching sessions, I had to create a “Dream Day” and from that day, I had to choose one thing that I could implement now in my life and commit to for 40 days. For me, this was waking up early. Aiming high, I know.  (more…)

On Wednesday and Thursday, I got up super early (5:30!) to go to the Rec Center to get my cardio on. I really wish that there were more things in my life that required me to get my heart rate up naturally. And by naturally, I mean that the sole purpose of the activity isn’t to “work out” – this is why I need a farm that requires me to toss huge bales of hay or something. Basically, I want to be a young, Amish man where I raise barns all day. How many Amish guys do you think need to “go for a run” to get exercise? Not many, would be my guess. Or maybe I need to take dance classes or yoga classes because at least I’d be learning a skill at the same time. I’m looking into 6am yoga or barre classes in the area because when I get motivated, I turn into a glutton for punishment. Kidding! I actually enjoy being active. Though I’m not a fan of running, no matter how hard I try to like it.

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The Creative Coaching sessions I’ve been doing have not only been helping me improve my approach to how I work, create and live, but they’ve also been helping me work towards big goals. One of the first homework assignments Kathleen had me do was to describe in detail my ideal dream day. She encouraged me to put in as many details as possible, down to what I was wearing and eating. I was pretty descriptive and was able to knock out two solid sheets, single spaced no less. I’ve obviously thought about this a lot.

I won’t go into every single detail, but since I was also required to make a Pinterest Board around what the day felt like, you can see some of what would look like by viewing my Dream Day board here.

The three major things that my dream day included were: A custom built house on a permaculture homestead, homeschooling our kids and somehow combining these two aspects into a sustainable business model.

So yeah, really big lofty goals! Like, huge life-changing, uncharted-territory-for-me-and-my-family type goals. Even though attaining all these would be a dream, they are in the distant future and I’m actually appreciative that I am not in a position to make these things happen right now. The nature of these goals requires a lot of learning and discovery, and for the time being I’m in a great position to do just that. There are a lot of things between me and my goals that are outside of my control that I have to just work with at the moment, but there’s a part of me that thinks the Universe is giving me this time to not only prepare, but figure out if this is the right fit for me and my family.

I’m fortunate that I currently have a great job that not only supports my family but keeps me grounded. It’s helping me grow as a designer and creative decision maker and I’m always learning new skills that will help me down whatever path my future takes me, homestead or not. It also lets me put into use the problem-solving tools I acquire and allows me to implement new approaches as I continue to find the best and most effective way for me to create.

It’s all a process and I’m learning new things everyday. Like I said earlier in the post, I won’t share my entire dream day, but here is an excerpt of what I wrote and found especially dreamy, it’s a cross between a Portlandia parody and Kinfolk Magazine, which will, in reality, probably end up looking more like Doomsday Preppers but whatever:

“We all wake up early on the homestead because there are chickens that need tending and veggies for harvesting, compost that needs turning, gardens that need watering. We all have our jobs to do. The kids start their school day early because the way we live is a huge part of their education. They learn by doing, by understanding the connection our lives have to our surroundings, to our environment, to the way we choose to live consciously.”

I’m sure there is something to be said for the fact that I didn’t portray my dream day as one where I sit on the beach all day. I’m just too practical, I guess. What does your dream day look like? Does it look like work, but work that you love doing? Does it look like a vacation? Does it look like Rivendell or The Shire (man, that’s a tough one!)?

xo,
c.

Intentions
Watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability and it helped me come up with my intention for today. I intend to not try and control and predict all the outcomes of every situation but rather enjoy them in the moment and be okay with uncertainty and imperfection and not let insecurities get in the way of meaningful connections and productivity.

Reflections
This weekend was for my little family. We didn’t do anything significantly different than what we normally do, though I didn’t feel as overcome with anxiety for not getting done everything on my to-do list as I normally do. It was enough to just do what I could and feel accomplishment and worthiness in those few things. I wrote blog posts. I woke up early. I was present with my family as much as I could be. Even as I felt agitation and the beginnings of my nerves starting to buzz from uncontrollable forces (*cough* hormones) I was able to calm them most of the time. There were a few moments where I started to feel some darkness creeping in my stomach and I started to question everything in a negative way. A few fleeting moments of doubt. But on a brighter note, I felt connected with Andrew. When I stopped trying to force him into my plans and analyze him, rather than just work together and allow myself to be vulnerable in front of him, I found that I felt much more optimistic about things.

This morning Quil and Ellis wanted to paint and draw so I sat with them for a little while when Andrew went to go feed the alpacas next door. It was nice to just sit and make some marks on paper with no purpose other than just to explore. Yesterday, we made a test batch of pumpkin cookies for Thanksgiving. Andrew has made these in the past, but this time we used homemade pumpkin puree from the ones we grew, harvested and froze back in September. They turned out great! Lighter in color and texture than ones we’ve had in the past with canned puree.

Past Posts
Week 3 Mantra: Be Vulnerable – Day 2
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 3  
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 2
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 1
Mantra: Reflections on Week 1
Introduction to Creative/Life Coaching

xo,
c.

Since I’m sure my lack of mantra posts have been keeping you all up at night (Ha!) I figured I’d mention that even though I journal around my mantra daily, I decided to only post on the weekends because I don’t take as many photos to go along with them during the week and Intentions/Reflections sans photos might be a bit heavy.


Intentions
I intend to keep my mind and heart open today and not try to have all the answers but rather be thoughtful before responding and not be too quick to offer up my thoughts and opinions but rather to just listen. I feel even right now at this moment some agitation, irritation and annoyance at having to do this. It’s hard for me to dissect those feelings, but I will keep note of it and see how it goes today.

Reflections
After hitting publish on a blog post I had been working on for sometime,I had to go back and take it down and re-write it. I had to make a major shift in my content because I realized I had confused two different things I had read recently that made for some interesting thoughts but inaccurate info. After this realization, I wasn’t feeling too secure in what I was coming up with. And this is where this week’s Mantra comes in – I asked Andrew to read what I wrote and give suggestions. Not that I don’t value Andrew’s opinion. It’s actually the opposite. He is at the top of a very short list of people who I give two shits what they think of me. So I can take it hard when he doesn’t have glowing reviews of something I’ve done or am doing. I know, I’m working on it! But throughout the day, we worked together on the post, bit by bit. I would write between family activities. And if he had a free minute he would read what I wrote. There were definitely moments when I felt completely discouraged, but took some deep breaths and stayed open to hearing what he had to say and you know what? It all worked out with minimal emotional strain on my part. This all sounds like a really in depth analysis of some pretty basic life functions, which I realize. It’s just a snapshot of one small aspect of today while life went on. But I’m finding it’s the small shifts we make along the way that can lead to bigger changes in the future.

Past Posts
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 3  
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 2
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 1
Mantra: Reflections on Week 1
Introduction to Creative/Life Coaching

c.

I mentioned in one of my previous posts about how I had to create an “Ideal Dream Day” for my creative coaching session, which is basically what I’m referring to whenever I talk about mine and Andrew’s goals.

Our goal is to build a self-sufficient, sustainable, Permaculture-based homestead for our family. I’m putting this out there, which isn’t something that Andrew and I usually do. We’re both of the sort where we don’t like to voice desires/wishes/plans until we feel like there is proof of being able to follow through with it. We’re usually not ones to make superficial claims – the whole “say what we mean, and mean what we say” thing. Though this is really more descriptive of Andrew and less so of myself. I’ve been known to get dramatic and use the words “never,” “ever,” and “always” when things get heated. But, I try to be aware of it. Anyways, side-note!

For a long time, Andrew and I have wanted to build a home for ourselves. We just couldn’t ever see us living long-term in something that was not our own. Something that we didn’t get to consider every aspect of. For the amount of money it costs to own a home, we couldn’t resign ourselves to having to make compromises. Of course, we’re realistic. We will have to make compromises even if we build our own home, but they will be compromises of our own design. What Andrew and I want is nothing elaborate. We want something that is sensible and smart.

After all these years of dreaming, we’re about at the point where being able to take action is visible on the horizon. We’re still a long ways off, but it seems like a real possibility. So, in the meantime, we’re doing what we can to research and learn about what it will take to build our homestead. Getting smart, as I said in a previous post.

I’m looking forward to sharing what we learn here! Any advice or tips from those of you who are out there building your own or have built your own homestead are welcome.

Coming up, I’ll talk more about the “Ideal Dream Day” that I came up with for my coaching session. It’s, dreamy to say the least!

Above is an image our backyard at the place we currently live. Pretty dreamy to wake up to everyday. That’s our house directly to the right of the barn, slightly obscured by the tree. (Not the house on the far right.)

xo,
c.

Intentions

I intend to accept and work with the fact that a lot of the planning that Andrew and I need to do towards our goal at the moment is research. There are items on our list that are currently not within our control or not plausible for the moment. But what we can do (something that Andrew and I used to always say) is we can get smart. We have to learn everything there is to know about what we want to achieve so that when the time comes, we can hit the ground running. I have a few items that I have on my to-do list that have to get done work-wise, but today I intend to spend at least some time just learning. Also, one if the things that I realized in last week’s intentions/reflections was that I have this tendency to view things that I really want to do as things that are “special treats” and can only devote time to them after I’ve taken care of my “responsibilities.” I love to read and I love to research things that I find valuable and interesting, things that inspire me to move towards my goals. So these things usually fall at the end of my priority list because there are always other things that “need” to be done. But in the grand scheme of things, the work that Andrew and I put towards our ultimate goals in life, are more important than most tasks that seem to take up the majority of our time. So, with that in mind, I intend to try and change my perspective in regards to things that I view as priorities and things that I view as “nice-to-haves.” Because i’m sure most of the time, I confuse the two.

Reflections

I did spend a lot of time today reading and researching. Not a ton, but more than I have in the recent past. I’ve always been an avid reader, and this is the first year of my life that I didn’t read a bunch of books. I think I managed one, maybe two? I’m currently reading “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander and his colleagues, which I’m finding to be really engaging. And also, “An Introduction to Permaculture” by Bill Mollison, who is considered the father of Permaculture. So in that regards in did have some success in sticking to my intentions today. Something I realized today is that I have a really hard time pulling myself away from work. Especially when I have a problem that needs resolving. I can’t just walk away and come back to it. I work until I feel utterly frustrated or until something else comes up that forces my attention away. Even though there is a rational side of me that knows that taking a break would be good, I just can’t seem to stop. And it was extra frustrating today because I knew that I wanted to spend some time reading and the only thing standing in my way was this one problem that I couldn’t just let be for the time being. Something I need to work on.

Past Posts
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 2
Week 2 Mantra: I Have a Plan – Day 1
Mantra: Reflections on Week 1
Introduction to Creative/Life Coaching

xo,
c.

Intentions

Above: Showing Q how to jack up a pizza oven. Moving it to the barn for the winter.

Above: E being a huge help.

Above: Lunchtime. I never thought I’d see the day. Two kids, feeding themselves.

Above: Harira over brown rice. Recipe here.

Reflections 

Intentions

Allergies are the bane of my existence today. That’s all about that. New week, new mantra. And this one has already been a doozy. My mantra ties in closely with my commitment to do one thing from my Ideal Day for 40 days. And that is a plan in itself. Wake up early and discuss plans and intentions for the day with my partner and other half in life, Andrew. I emailed Kathleen this morning about how Andrew and I had a couple…. cathartic, is the best word to describe them (tears may have been involved on my part, yikes)… conversations last night and this morning around planning and expectations. Basically, there is a bit of conflict in our approaches to how we get things done. And when your lives are so intertwined, having two different planning styles will require compromise, which in turn can leave the person who is more introverted (in this case, Andrew) feeling encroached upon and the person who is more extroverted (myself) feeling lost and out of the loop. What we discovered and agreed upon after our discussions is that in our planning process, Andrew needs to be more verbally communicative about the steps that he usually internalizes in order to help give me direction, and I need to be more action oriented so our planning discussion feel productive to Andrew rather than just another chore. So how does this all relate to my intentions for today? I intend to try and sort through my discussion with Andrew and lead with my head and not my emotions, similar to how I’ve been trying to approach roadblocks at my job. This might sound counter-intuitive when dealing with a loved one, but I need to work on seeing Andrew’s feedback as constructive rather than critical because in the end, him and I are working towards the same exact goals and dreams, we just interpret the journey in different ways.

This all came about after Andrew read my about my “Ideal Dream Day” (another thing I will discuss more in a later post) and I was somewhat disappointed by his response. Which was that he felt “daunted.” He did say he was hesitant to use that word since it wasn’t a totally accurate word for what he was feeling. It was like that moment in Funny Farm when Chevy Chase asks his wife to read his manuscript and afterward she starts crying because it was that bad. This is also not a completely accurate comparison. Andrew didn’t think my interpretation of an “Ideal Dream Day” was bad. But instead of seeing it as an end-goal, he saw it as the cumulative effort of all the things it would take to get there.

My old COO at my job used to sometimes refer to brand positioning as “sausage making” – people like to eat the sausage, but they don’t like to see how it’s made. (Which this analogy might doesn’t apply to everyone since some people don’t east sausage at all, but you get the idea) This is sort of an apt analogy for me personally when it comes to dreaming. Sometimes, I just want to dream and not let all the reality that lies between me and that vision stop me from just… dreaming.

Reflections

Okay, it’s super late so this might be total ramblings. I fell asleep earlier reading to Quil and then got up around 11:30 and am still awake. Today was hard in general but mainly due to the whole allergies thing. If my head is unclear on a normal day, with allergies I’m basically a zombie. But anyway. I did pretty well with my intentions today. There was good communication between Andrew and I. I was able to be decisive and more action oriented. There was one part of the day, where I felt like I was able to flex my proverbial wings in terms of focusing on steps rather than getting immediately overwhelmed. Andrew had dinner planned, had all the things he needed, but our plans got interrupted because he had to go help my parents move some things because my Dad had hurt his back. So, rather than be derailed by the fact that things didn’t go according to plan, we were able to change course smoothly. I took over and made dinner, something I might normally have felt too overwhelmed to attempt by myself with both kids (another aspect of my psyche that I’ll have to delve into another time). Now this might seem like a super minor, unimportant, non-issue for most people. And it’s not a huge issue for us. It’s not like we would normally fight about this and we averted one this time. Not at all. What it showed was that we can be agile in our approach to how we manage tasks without me feeling overwhelmed – simply by communicating and adjusting my perspective of the situation. Now, ask me how I feel when hormones are raging and the kids are screaming, and it might be a different story. But for today, we were good. Small victories!

Past Posts:
Mantra: Reflections on Week 1
Introduction to Creative/Life Coaching

{Photo taken in 2012 of the path to our side door that we never use, that I insisted that Andrew and I re-lay ourselves when I was 9 months pregnant with Ellis.}

xo,
c.