Waking Up at 5am–New Habits!!!

Robin Sharma has a book out called “The 5am club”. Though I’ve never read the book, I’ve followed him for many years on Youtube and enjoy listening to all of his golden bites of wisdom.

This January and February I have made a commitment to waking up at 5am. I typically wake up at 6am–but with a struggle. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and start doing “hard, uncomfortable” things. Waking up at 5am seemed like a significant challenge but I wanted to see if I could FINALLY DO IT. I had been thinking about it and talking about it for years. I had been rehearsing the steps in my mind…even contemplating all the possibilities…all the free time…the chance to get WAY ahead of the day. I thought of how much I could get done and how liberating it would feel to get the house cleaned up and ready to go, to initiate some exercise, maybe even do some painting! But, despite all of this, I HAD NEVER TRIED DOING IT FOR MORE THAN A COUPLE DAYS.

I’ve been setting my alarm for 5am every night before bed. And, believe it or not, I have found myself getting into the habit of actually waking up at 5am. It’s been a very rewarding experience just to witness myself do this! I makes me feel incredible to know that I have been rising to the occasion and fulfilling this challenge I have set out for.

When I wake up early my days improve by 100%. I get a ton accomplished! Perhaps the biggest perk of waking up early has been my sleep! My sleep has improved PHENOMENALLY! I actually sleep at night and don’t find myself waking up for 45 minutes hoping to “Fall back asleep”. I also fall asleep soon after I lay down–which means I’m not wasting more time tossing and turning. In other words, my sleeping period if much more efficient and compressed. I get WAY more out of sleeping when I fall asleep quickly and sleep more deeply. I also feel much more recharged each day.

In a way, by waking up so early it’s like I’ve compressed my sleep period for deeper, more refreshing, undisturbed sleep period each night.

I plan to keep on waking up at 5am but also get into the morning habit of exercising too.

If you have any trouble sleeping at night like I have had for the past 7 years, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend CONSISTENTLY waking up at 5am. This trick works like MAGIC! You will have no trouble falling asleep at night (I usually go to bed right around 10pm) and if you do wake up at night, it will be MUCH BRIEFER than what you’ve experienced in the past.

Becoming a BIG SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER, THOUGHTS

When blog posters or social media influencers tell you things you already know…you already thought of…you already know how to do and yet they have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of followers and subscribers, do you become resentful or irritated?

Why, you could have been doing or saying or writing the same thing–but like 23 years ago!

You may be disappointed in yourself that you didn’t start your internet game earlier. Those years of waiting “for the right time” led to thousands of other people jumping on a social media platform ahead of you and saying stuff you could have said–and gaining followers and $$ in the mean time.

I think we all have these thoughts when we stumble across various big social media accounts. Why are they doing this? Who are they to tell us things we already know and also, make a passive income on it to boot! Why didn’t I do this when I had the chance?

It’s tempting to write this whole game off and say “ah well, all the good ideas are already taken!” How could I possibly contribute now? There’s nothing more to invent, say, write about, design or suggest. People will just stumble across my content and think “I’ve already heard/done/thought of this before”. I’m done here.

I don’t think these are good enough reasons NOT TO TRY to become a creator on social media. It’s pretty clear to me that all the ideas aren’t taken, and certainly, all the possible angles on the ideas out there aren’t taken. And, even if you do happen to unintentionally recite, repeat or recycle the same stuff your readers have already heard or read or watched, it won’t be the end of the world! It certainly won’t be the first time anyone has done it. And if people unsubscribe or unfollow, no harm done! Thanks to the population of planet earth, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

The popular children’s Youtube creator Blippi started making videos for children in 2014. He now has over 17 million subscribers on his Youtube channel. 2014 wasn’t that long ago. I think the recipe that he found was that he found an area that he was interested in and then he kept on track. He continued to upload video after video until he started to have a snowball affect. People start to see you as a legitimate youtuber, blogger, instagrammer etc. if you have a big following, and so, that leads to even more people pushing that subscribe or follow button on your account. It’s all very psychological at some point. That’s when the snowballing starts to happen.

But what about those months, years or decades before the snowball affect? During that period it’s all about consistency and regularity and not giving up. It’s about recognizing that you do what you do because of your intense curiosity for the subject! You like to write in the first place because you love the act of wordsmithing….making your words dance on the page. Maybe you like to make little videos showcasing your artwork or you like to build things and post before and after’s of your projects. You enjoy doing it this in and of itself, so why not use a social media platform and just continue doing what you love?

In the end it’s not about gaining a massive social media following but doing what you love and proving to yourself that you’re not a quitter. You determine for yourself that you will start creating digital content of some kind and you’ll upload and post regularly. I’m pretty sure this is the exact mindset of all thoes instagrammers, and social media influencers.

Finally, remember that everything on the internet is constantly in flux. What/who was popular last year is less popular this year. Some social media accounts will fall by the wayside because not everyone can stand the boredom of uploading and posting regularly. Not everyone can get out of the perfectionist mindset and JUST DO IT routinely. This means there is always room for new people who can (potentially) gain massive followings.

Our Blogs On Their Way Out?

I’ve recently become extremely curious about the way blogs and written content on the internet is being viewed.

Are people going to write and READ blogs anymore? or written content on the internet? Are we, as a civilization, done with reading long sentences or…*gasp* paragraphs?

Has the influx, the demand and the reliance of fast paced Tik Tok videos and Instagram reels brought us to the lowest possible level for our attention spans?

I am worried that we have reached a new level for our brains. People want to consume information in bite-sized chunks more readily than lengthy paragraphs. This trend doesn’t seem to be going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse.

Studies have found that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015, which is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish (9 seconds).

This is shocking information! So many things in our lives require focused attention for a lengthy period of time. Learning requires attention and time!

Imagine what this “attention shortage” means for the future of education and careers? Not to mention everyday duties like household chores that are often long and BORING?

As much as I want to ditch blogging for good, I think I’ll stay a luddite for a while longer. I want to develop and increase my own attention span. Blogging large blocks of text will help in this process. This requires both my attention and time.

I believe attention is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets.

I stretch every day and I do cardio exercise each day on the Peloton. I neglect my attention span. I think it’s important to commit to a period of attention everyday. Picking a topic to blog on and working on it for a half hour or so is a way to train my attention span.

It’s important to remember that there are plenty of people who are still looking for content to read and not just “watch”.

My C-Reactive Protein is High!

Recently I found out that I have high C-reactive protein levels. C-Reactive Protein is a measure of systemic body inflammation. High levels of chronic inflammation in the body can cause problems with the heart, joints, brain and can even be a marker of underlying diseases like cancer. My level was 22.6 mg/L. Normal levels of C-reactive protein usually less than 3 mg/L. My new goal is to try and figure out how to lower this high level of chronic systemic inflammation in my body! I’m only 41 so I’m at a very young age to have such a high level of C-reactive protein.

Since I’ve been having inflammation in my right knee for most of 2021 and all of 2022 (so far) I’m guessing my high C-reactive protein was due to rheumatoid arthritis in my knee, specifically. Hopefully no other area of my body is being damaged! Hopefully I’m not experiencing underlying atherosclerosis or some kind of insidious degeneration of my brain or heart.

But to be safe, I’ve initiated radical changes in my lifestyle starting last week Tuesday (January 25, 2021). I have removed sugary treats from my diet. I still eat rice, pasta, potatoes and breads occasionally; but no ice cream, cookies, cakes, pies…you get the idea. I have also started an exercise routine where I exercise vigorously on the Peloton at least 20 minutes a day.

Today is Sunday January 30, 2022 and I started my first fast. I last ate yesterday around 7pm, so I won’t consume any food until around 1 or 2pm on Monday.

My first day of Intermittent (18 hour) fasting has taught me a lot about myself. It’s dawning on me that I’m an impulsive and thoughtless eater. I’m constantly putting blueberries, apples or random food fragments from the counter into my mouth. I brainlessly place them into my mouth and then I realize, whoops, I’m fasting! Then I spit them out and start again. Thankfully I’ve never swallowed anything yet so as not to waste my effort fasting!

There are so many things I do that are impulsive and mindless so fasting has been a very enlightening experience. Now, if I could just start a cleaning/picking up messes fast where I only allowed myself to tidy the house for a 6 hour window of the day. Imagine how much more I could get done during the other 18 hours?!?!?!?

I will be back very soon to blog about my progress fasting, exercising more and eating less sugar and any changes I’ve witnessed in my knee inflammation.

Pencil Box from Old Baseboards

Last year when our family was still living in Alaska we decided to remodel our kitchen.

Many baseboards needed to be torn out in the process. I thought, why not start making containers and pencil boxes from the old damaged baseboards instead of tossing them?

I used my Hart saw to cut pieces to size and then glued them together. I finished them off with painted pictures and some epoxy.

Here is how one turned out.

Blogging is Hard

Blogging is hard. I haven’t posted in well over 2 years and I’m finally logging into my account again.

The thing I have to keep reminding myself is:

It’s hard to dedicate time each week to “write” but I’m doing it for myself. If other people happen to stop by on my journey of creativity and self growth that’s an extra bonus!

It’s hard to dredge up content. It’s hard to do anything half-ass because most of us are ‘do nothing if it isn’t’ perfect’ people.

20 Minute “like new” Ottoman

The other day I came across this ottoman at a thrift store. It was $10. Decided to buy and reupholster.

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All done! Clean new fabric.

Please excuse my crazy paintings on the wall (the highest one up isn’t mine, bought at a Flea Market in Krakow, Poland-the other two are mine).

OLD STAINED T-SHIRTS TURNED INTO A SKIRT!

What do I do with all of my husband’s old T-Shirts? Turn them into skirts, of course! This idea recently popped into my brain so I thought I would share.

I used this other skirt as my template:

Then I made a pattern like this from leftover paper and cereal boxes.

You just put the pattern layers on your fabric, kinda like this. Cut them out. Sew one set (of the 4) for the front of your skirt and one set (of the 4 layers) for the back of your skirt.

TA DA!

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Lots of busyness lately! But hopefully more posts soon 🙂

Kitchen Window Sill Gardens and Recycling Plant Containers

This is a fun idea I thought up the other day. I was in the garage and I noticed some of those plastic containers for plants (the one’s that your annuals and perennials come in at the store).

I thought, why not make this plastic container into a real pot? So we got out the glue gun and some of those fancy glass stones and tiles from the craft closet.

And we glued the stones onto the container like this:

Over the past few weeks we’ve been trying to propagate multiple geraniums from one geranium plant. You simply cut off a stem portion like this:

You can stick it in water to see if it will start shooting out roots.

Or, you can simply insert the stem into a pot. We filled our newly crafted container with potting soil and stuck in our geranium stem.

And here is our kitchen window sill with all our recent greenery. A big thanks to my Mom who propagated both of the philodendron plants from an original “Mamma” plant and gave them to me. I brought both of these plants up to Alaska from Oregon (in my suitcase on the plane). They made if safely here and are surviving.

I hope that our new geranium plant takes off. We will keep you updated.

My Vinyl Wasn’t Final

You may have remembered when I had a couple vinyl chair that looked like this:

These were rather dirty vinyl chairs from the 1960’s. They were airport terminal chairs that came from France. Together they cost me 70 euros at an antique store in Germany. Also, the board which the cushion was sitting on was particle board that was crumbling apart, as pictured below.

My father cut me a couple new boards for the cushions to rest on. Instead of particle board that was 60 years old and disintegrating, he used ply wood like this:

I changed the vinyl to look like this (my first upholstery attempt). My first attempt at sewing with vinyl too. You may remember when I blogged about it here: Vinyl Chairs My First Try

But I realized that I actually really liked the original white look of the chairs so I went and bought white vinyl and started the process again.

And I did both chairs this time in white vinyl. Slightly different pattern.

And I did the other chair in the same original style but with a seam down the middle to effectively use my vinyl without having to purchase more, if you know what I mean. I button tufted the seat cushion (first attempt at button tufting too!). I can’t wait to do more button tufting!

And here they are together with some semi-cute pillows I sewed.

A Slice of My Trash, Travels and Tots

A Slice of My Travels and Baby Blog

Author: reneeandj