I am making a list of 22 things for 2012- my list of new things I want to try and habits I want to incorporate in my life in the new year.  Turns out, I’ve had to revise this handwritten list 2 times, and will be revising it a third time later today, there is so much mulling over in my head that I’m telling myself it’s a labor of love and important to keep making the revisions as new ideas present themselves.

Christmas is a day away and I’m thrilled.  I’ve come home to my father’s home on the west coast and I’ve come to realize the intersection between love and frustration yields patience if you truly care about someone.  My dad is not known for his tidyness, or even for his ability to see basic tasks to completion.  That being said, I came home to mess.  Trash on the floor, a dirty kitchen and plenty of unfinished projects and unbathed pugs.  I also had the epiphany that some of this “problem” was my fault and instantly found forgiveness.  When I moved out a year ago I cleared away much of what Gram and I had collected in my Dad’s house (she passed away in 2008 and it’s been hard to donate or clear her things away) I cleaned up much but left plenty of emotional and physical debris.  I sought to rectify that this trip and just started purging everything- momentos from my old business, random knick nacks and paperwork that was no longer relevant.

In my dichotomous life between Chicago and here, there was plenty to be dealt with in either of my “lives,” and I have a lot of cleaning up to do.  It’s come to my attention that in my Chicago life that I don’t need to just clean, but to build.  This last year was a whirlwind- much of it spent with my head in a book, pouring over texts to work on my M.A. degree but also others to build my blog and create that “life.”

What I’ve failed to do is build a life for myself- outside of the internet, outside of books.  To truly build a life for me with the network of connections and people that can only be fostered by real interactions. 

This new year will be a time to really live life.  While I don’t think I’ve completely failed at living- truly, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I must admit it’s been a lot of work and I’ve forgotten how to play.  Even when I’ve been out this year, my mind was always on the next task, and when I wasn’t scheming I was buried deep.  There was never time to just decompress, be present and be human.

This year, I’m making time to be human.

I find that I’ve been great at working- but the other necessary element to creativity and productivity has been lost on me.  While it’s necessary to put in your time each day to work towards your goals, you also must insist on cultivating creativity with time spent outside, with people, with no intentions or goals- just to be.  The best work takes time- and that time cannot be forced or scheduled.  You best bet is to create wise habits and your best work will bubble to the surface in time and simple beauty without being forced.

I can no longer approach work like a machine, I must be truly human to do my best work.  To be with people, to develop my soul, to build a schedule around my priorities that allows for time to simmer.  I’m going to really push myself this year to schedule in time for habits that matter- taking time for exercise, cooking my own food, walking my pug and doing yoga and gasp- mediation!

Again, and again- it’s become clear:  If you want to produce your best work you cannot approach it as a machine would- working all day to hope genius appears.  You must schedule time for work, and time for healing and relaxation for the soul.

You must learn to cultivate a soul behind your work.

I’ve learned if you don’t cultivate the human being behind the work you seek to produce, it will appear as cold and machine like as the being you’ve let yourself become.   While there isn’t a true “balance,” you must approach life as you would a garden- nurture a tree with a variety of supplements- water, nutrients, sunlight, pruning and of course, affection- and it will eventually yield fruit.  Too often though, we plant our own trees with just water and maybe some basic soil- hoping it will bear a harvest instantaneously, or we see it yields fruit and then keep demanding and demanding more production without taking the time to ensure production is sustainable and it becomes unhealthy.

In 2012, it is gotta be all about soul.

I’m going to give up Top Ramen and Lean Cuisine for real food. I’m going to push myself (uncomfortably so) to take time to stretch each day- physically and metaphorically.  Expect to see more photography, more crafting, more creation- and hold me too it.  I’m not sure how my waist line will do, but I plan to eat, drink and be merry all year long.  I’m going to treat time for “me,” as seriously as I would treat time with clients or for employers.

I’ve read enough- it’s time to live.

In my life, fashion has always been an afterthought- while I love it, it never seemed like the smartest way to spend my limited cash.

To be honest, while I’ve always considered myself well provided for, there’s never been enough cash around to justify anything beyond the practical apparel necessities and a few frills.

I love fashion. Problem is, I suck at it. For pretty much all of my life, fashion has been a fascination but not a priority (or at times even feasible).

I have been blogging for the better part of year now and people kindly see me as a fashionable frugality blogger {thank you kind people!} and it’s made me wonder-

Can I really afford to be a real fashion blogger? Read more →

There’s something odd  about blogging.  You find something you’re totally enamored with, you hop on WordPress, and you start writing.  You’re ready to tell the world about your many loves, your deep thoughts, and those adorable shoes you had to buy.

You’re ready to take the interwebs by storm, to offer your piece to the greater community, to become a part of it- to be noticed for who you are.  You type, and type, and type….and pour your heart out…and sit and wait to make that connection, to be recognized, to be a part of something.

You keep writing and you wait and hope, not knowing when the day the spark of ignition that got you blogging in the first place will finally take hold…then it just does.  That moment happened for me at the 20SB Summit in Chicago this past weekend.   I think we all know why we blog, but it’s pretty darn amazing to be reminded of your purpose when sitting in a room of people who really get you and why you do it.

Friday was the social sponsored by Murphy Goode Winery at the Crimson Lounge in Downtown Chicago.  There was plenty of complimentary wine and beer, but I assure you- that was not the best buzz going on in the room.

I had. a. flippin. blast.  I’m not sure if it was the atmosphere, or the awesome people, or the fact that some of the most genuinely awesome (read: nerdy) people were in the room but it was great.   Photo booth? Dice games?  People with snazzy business cards and cool stories? Done and done.

Read more →

I have had to cut back on my spending simply as a matter of necessity.  In late summer of 2010, I moved across the country to start graduate school (expensive!) and I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel there for awhile just to get by.  Though I desperately needed to revamp my wardrobe ( read: city life in a new climate changes EVERYTHING!)   I simply couldn’t afford it- and honestly, as a writer about frugality who was trying to convince other young women to think seriously about their finances and save some moolah for their future, it was hard to justify any triple digit purchases in the name of “looking good.”  Needless to say, though my work pants were saggy and ill-fitting, and my jeans  didn’t flatter my figure I thought I could just…you know...deal with it. 

The sad fact of the matter was though- I looked awful and felt pretty bad too.  My change in lifestyle necessitated a change in wardrobe.     My whole life had changed, and my wardrobe was still stuck in a time warp, and to top it off- it simply didn’t fit.  My jeans (read: low rise doesn’t work for curvy girls!) fit/didn’t fit in all the wrong places and would fall down when I walked. My work clothes were showing some serious wear and tear and didn’t exemplify the new understanding of professionalism I hoped to convey, so I was in a frugal fashion funk.

Read more →

There are plenty of people in my “real life,” that don’t get why I blog.  I’m a graduate student in a decent school and blogging has a (sometimes deservedly) bad wrap as being small league, unacademic and homespun.  The more I blog, the more I find that just because you use the internet doesn’t mean you get it.  I blog because it allows me to be in touch with an emerging market of internet business that is revolutionizing the way we sell, buy and make money, yet many academics, especially the younguns who use these technologies but rely on their “education” to build a career, simply don’t see it.

I originally decided to go to grad school because I loved sociology and the potential it held for understanding social problems, applying a personal and scientific methodology and interacting with those being studied to solve social problems.  That, my friends, was my nieve little dream- and it didn’t come true.  After about 4 weeks in the graduate program, after hearing cyncial professors joke about how we’d graduate to no jobs, loads of debt and disturbingly low prospects on ever landing the very tenure track positions they were using to tell us such things, (but hey, would still take my money) I was shocked and deflated.

I had busted my butt, spent hundreds of dollars, applied to 13 schools and took the worst standardized test ever created, and I sat in a bar with a friend in downtown Chicago and literally cried in my beer.  I had made an epic mistake, and it was costing me a lot of money to do so.

In fact, that epic mistake costs me about $8k a semester.  I write papers that nobody reads, about social issues that the country is divided over, and hand them in (poorly edited) to professors who have openly admitted to me that they don’t get to read it throughly  (and my good grades reflect this).

That chilly November evening was the start of a new thought process for me.   As I played with my coaster and chewed my bottom lip, my friend took pity on me (you know, after having a good laugh at my naivety) and we began to talk.  He was working for an online company at the time- and that kind of thing fascinated me, something he had to point out since I obviously didn’t want to admit his job was more exciting than my future career.

At the time, I had read blogs- I loved blogs, I had bookmarked them, shared them on Facebook, and made a few friends online, but I had no idea how it worked.  I also had no idea that entire careers were made around blogging, long established old-timey companies were now engaging in it, and indeed, there was something to be gained from becoming a blogger.

At the time, I like most people, knew that blogs were around but had no idea how they operated, how profitable they were, and I undoubtedly underestimated their power.  I didn’t understand that people were making money from home either writing, manufacturing or tinkering with blogs.  I had no idea that the internet was revolutionizing the way we do business and entrepreneurs make money- I knew it was happening, but I was ignorant to its magnitude and scope.

I was terrified but excited. The internet was changing the game, and reclaiming hope for the academically disenfranchized like myself.  I would remain in grad school, but the rules had been changed- the frame had been broken.  I didn’t have to wait around and play the game like other grad students did in order to be allowed to teach.  I didn’t have to pour hours into my writing only to have it languish in obscurity.  If I wanted to publish, I didn’t have to wait around or play into stupid academic politics to get published in a journal, all I had to do was hit publish. The power to tell me if my writing was good, or it sucked, or it needed work, or it meant something was no longer in the hands of few- but it was put out there for potentially, millions of people so different from myself.   My anger was turned into power, my frustration into movement.

Some days, I still grapple with my decision to stay in the program and finish my last semester or two.  The cost is high, the time is that I will never get back and sometimes the classroom is the loneliest place in the world for me since I lack the passion for program that so many of my esteemed peers have found.  I still love sociology, it has taught me about a myriad of social problems, but perhaps I have learned more about social problems by being in the program and seeing how the academic world isn’t functioning to actively solve them- and sadly, I think schooling is now creating some problems.

Sociology taught me about social problems.  Graduate school caused me to live social problems -especially those associated with our generation.  Suddenly, I was meeting students with 20-100k in student loan debt, living on food stamps and anxiously hoping someone would give them a break. It made it abundantly clear that our generation is going to graduate to epidemic debt, and has done little to prepare alumni to tackle the cost of their careers.  It has also taught me that education is based on an outdated framework.  In my few short months of blogging, I am seeing how the world is changing because I am no longer simply a consumer of these changes, I’m watching them happen and as a sociologist in practice, I am predicting how these social changes are going to completely change each aspect of our personal and professional lives.

Sadly, I see so many students applying emerging technologies to make their academic work simpler and easier, but fail to realize that these technologies are making the work easier, but it will not make the outdated pedagogies of the university system relevant.

Students use Skype for study groups, sidestep the over priced campus bookstore through Amazon,  give brutally honest reviews on RateMyProfessor.com, and learn languages via podcast.  While these technologies are making college better, they are also wiping out the very careers and employment mindsets of the previous generation- yet we, as a group, seem to be oblivious to these changes and cling on to the hope that our piece of paper we sacrificed so much for will be enough to save us in the digital age.

So, this is why I blog.   I love to learn, I love to engage, I love to do so for free and even make money as I learn.  Waiting for a teacher to package learning for me, and even paying to do so isn’t sustainable or even attractive anymore.  The jobs in academics are evaporating as we speak, so let’s get engaged.   As a generation, we are witnessing the changes taking place, the markets are shifting and it’s nothing to be scared about  - turn on your technology, turn on your mind and thrive in the rising tide of the digital wave.