Nina

I am passionate about words, about affecting children's lives for the better, about music, hope, and support. I love working with creative people who want to use their gifts to challenge and change the world in a positive way. I love independent magazines and detailed, custom design. I love to surround myself with beautiful things.

To Everything – Purge, Purge, Purge

 declutter, Organization  2 Responses »
Feb 012013
 

Don’t you feel lighter when you have less stuff around? I know I do. If I have too many things clogging my space, my mind feels cluttered. Then I have a hard time focusing, which means I can’t write.

So I’ve decided to start on my purge early this year. I’m purging clothes, lighting fixtures, furniture, and books among other things. The problem is I’m not the selling type. I’m the mail it to people I know or drop it off at the thrift store type.

The biggest problem for me is setting aside the time to actually do it. I always feel like I have to make extra special concessions to get this stuff out of my place. It’s definitely a process. I have to get my head right, make a plan, and drag the stuff down to my car. I’ve had a bag of junk, er stuff sitting in my trunk for the last month and I have no idea why.

A new revelation – no more stuff.

I have this horrible habit of collecting things and then stuffing them into random spaces I almost never visit, like cabinets, drawers, or parts of my closet. It’s the whole out of sight, out of mind thing. Hoarding tendencies I suppose. I no longer have the luxury of keeping the stuff I don’t use because things are looking rather cluttered.

Here’s what I’ve heard you should do if you’re interested in purging:

  1. If you have more than one item, keep the best one and get rid of the others.
  2. If you no longer fit into a piece of clothing, it’s time to let it go. This is the hardest one for me because I have a lot of clothes that I love and I’m just not ready to let them go yet. Maybe you are?
  3. Go paperless by scanning everything. Have you all seen Try Neat? I don’t have one, but I do have the VuPoint Scanning Wand. I’ve used it to scan my magazine clips collection and it is amazing. My intention with this gadget has been to scan all of my bills and important papers, but it’s been a year since I entertained the idea and I have yet to start.
  4. If you’re still using CD’s, it’s time to get an MP3 player. Seriously.
  5. Organize your junk drawers. I do this like once a year.
  6. If you have kids, go through their toys. Are any of them broken? If so, toss. Have they outgrown them? Perhaps give them away. There are so many toys in my home that it feels like a toy store. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s a good or bad thing. I am also trying to figure out a way to organize the toys. Check out this blog post by Rachel Meeks about how to declutter toys.
  7. Only buy furniture that works with your space. I wish I had burned this into my brain when we first moved in. We brought way too many pieces from our old apartment, but I spent good money on them and didn’t want to let them go. I now realize how ridiculous that was. In the last three years, I’ve slowly gotten rid of a lot of our huge pieces of furniture, but I still have some that I can’t bare to part with. They sit in the back of my closet, but now that the clutter is building up, I think it’s time to get rid of those pieces too. It’s so sad because they are so beautiful.
  8. And the best idea I’ve heard about purging, stop buying new stuff.

Here’s a great article by Peter Walsh about how to declutter: “5 Steps to Kick-start your Clutter Cleaning.”

Good luck all!

 

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Bite More, Chew Less

 Dreams, Life, Prioritizing Your Time, Writing  Comments Off on Bite More, Chew Less
Nov 272012
 

I constantly bite off more than I can chew. I know I’m not the only one. What I want to know is, why do we do this?

Every year, from October thru February, my life is insane. I have no business taking on a new project, but like many people out there, I have a superhero complex, so I do. This past month I decided I was going to give Nanowrimo another go. After all, the last time I completed Nanowrimo was in 2005.

This year, I actually had a good idea and spent time creating a chapter by chapter outline. I even wrote a character analysis. I was ready to construct my amazingly, awesome, completely thought-out novel, but after writing 1,000 words I realized that I couldn’t devote the amount of time necessary. This of course, was in addition to the fact that I needed to finish up the other projects I have in the works.

I have no business starting anything new.

This is why I’ve decided to take this new novel bit by bit. I will finish it when it’s right for me to do so and it will be right when I have finished all of my looming projects. I desperately want to give this new project the respect it deserves.

On that note, there isn’t very much time left for Nanowrimo, so I’d like to wish all of the Nanowrimer’s out there much luck. Keep going! You can do it!

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Tug-of-War Time

 Chicago, Connecting, Fun, Inspiration, Life, Life Evaluation, Motivation, My Videos, Prioritizing Your Time, Writing  2 Responses »
Nov 192012
 

Why does living life seem to take up so much time? There are twenty-four hours in a day to spend however we’d like, which seems like a lot, but it’s not. Not when you have to spend eight of those hours recharging. Not when you’re getting ready for work, commuting, actually working, commuting again, eating dinner, spending time with family, cleaning up, decompressing, and getting ready for bed. In that case, twenty-four hours may as well be one.

I think the lack of time is getting to people. Well, it’s getting to me. There are way too many distractions. I’ve noticed that I’m happier when I spend time doing the things I love. Don’t people seem to be happier when they’re spending time doing the things they love? It’s like a personal road map to happy.

What would happen if we took a few moments during the day for ourselves? How awesome would you feel if you did something you truly enjoyed? Now how often do you do that for yourself?

I vow to spend a few moments of each day on myself and you should too.

I made a short video about this very thing. Take a look.

Thanks for watching!

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The Project Pages

 Chicago, Connecting, Design, DIY, Fun, Inspiration, Life  Comments Off on The Project Pages
Nov 172012
 

Hey all,

I’ve finally completed some projects. Yea! Check out my projects page to see what’s new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve also added some new photos to my Chicago Picture Project, which is seven years strong. Enjoy!

What projects do you have in the works?

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Renegade 2012: A True Love Story

 Artists, Chicago, Children, Connecting, Design, Life  1 Response »
Sep 092012
 

Once upon a time there lived a little boy who woke up very early one Saturday morning ready to go outside. He shook his sleeping parents awake and told them of his plan. After eating breakfast they headed downstairs and began walking towards Division Street for they heard there would be a DIY festival of magnanimous proportions. To their delight the festival was filled with beautiful and magnificent handmade things!

The little boy and his parents walked from booth to booth looking for the perfect item and finally, they saw it – a light blue whale sitting inside of a colorful honeycomb. It was the most wonderful toy the little boy had ever seen. He picked it up and squeezed it with all his might as it was love at first sight. He would name this little whale Wally.

He loved Wally as much as any other toy and carried him around where ever he went, even to Costco. While walking around, the little boy’s mom asked if she could carry Wally so he wouldn’t get lost, but the boy said no as it was his toy to care for. After their shopping trip they went home. That is when the little boy noticed that Wally the Whale was missing!

His parents called Costco and found that it had not been turned in to the lost and found. The little boy was so heartbroken and distraught that he cried and cried. His parents tried to console him, but his pain was immense as he had lost one of his greatest friends.

The little boy would ask to start a search party, but his parents told him before they did that they would try to locate Wally on their own. They called Costco again, but Wally the Whale had not turned up. This upset the little boy so, but his parents had a plan.

It was the festival’s last day of operation and his parents went to the same booth to see if another Whale was available for purchase, but it was not. Instead, the little boy picked up a small, blue squid and gave it a huge hug for he loved it almost as much as the Wally the Whale. The squid made the little boy so happy that he asked his parents to buy it for him and so they did.

On the way home, the little boy told his parents that he loved his new squid, but that he would always have love in his heart for Wally the Whale should he ever return.

The end.

This is a totally true story! The Whale and Squid toys are available for purchase from Zooguu. Check them out if you get a chance. Their toys are super cute!

The other two businesses that caught my eye at Renegade were Tumbleweeds and Stak Ceramics. Tumbleweeds makes amazing wooden sunglasses. My favorite ones were heart shaped. Come on people, who doesn’t like hearts?! You can check them out here. Stak Ceramics makes some of the most unique and beautiful pieces I’ve ever seen. I especially love functional pieces of art and if you do too, you need to check this place out. For more info about Stak Ceramics click here.

I had a great time at Renegade and hope you did too! If you didn’t get a chance to make it this year, remember there’s always next year. For more information, please visit: http://www.renegadecraft.com/.

Laters!

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Good News, a Coconut, and a Paint Splotch! Oh my!

 Connecting, Dreams, Life, Literary Mags and Journals, Motivation, Parenting, Writing  2 Responses »
Sep 042012
 

These past two weeks have been incredible. I won a query critique and a critique of the first two chapters of my novel from Amanda Sun. Her YA novel, Ink is coming out next year, which I can’t wait to read. I won the critique through The Write On Con, which is a completely amazing and free conference for writers. I implore you to check it out. It recently ended, but you can find tons of incredible information through their archives. Please go visit them when you get a chance: writeoncon.com.

A few days later I got notice that my short story, The Town on the Road was to be published in Luna Station Quarterly, which publishes speculative fiction from new and emerging women authors. It’s now live so you can follow this link to read it. I am so glad LSQ exists and I wish them much success in the future. Now I just have to find a home for the other short story orphans sitting on my desk. To read the rest of issue 11, please visit this link. As you all know, literary magazines are labors of love, so if you have a few bucks to spare, please support Luna Station Quarterly by buying an issue. Issue 11 is available for purchase for $2.99 in EPUB, MOBI and PDF formats here.

In other news, I recently visited Stanley’s Fruits & Vegetables in Chicago and bought a coconut. I wanted my son to experience the awesomeness that is coconut. He was super excited, but the best part came when he was watching me crack it open. I used a drill on the seam of the coconut and cracked it open with a hammer. My son was obsessed with the insides, but for some reason he refused to eat any of it. Oh well. More for me! Here’s a photo:

 

I’ve also been working on completing some home projects and as I was pulling the top off of a paint can, it slipped out of my hands and landed on the counter. Here’s what I saw when I lifted it:

 

Even the paint splotch was upset at my mishap! LOL!

Well, I’ve got to get back to work! Laters!

Have a lovely week y’all.

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Yes, I Cry When I Read Books

 A Writer's Writer, Brilliant Creatives, Connecting, Reading  4 Responses »
Aug 092012
 

Confession: I cried at the end of Sounder and Bridge to Terabithia. I also cried at the end of Steven King’s short story, “The Body,” in which the movie Stand by Me was based on. And the reason I cried at the end of that story was because Gordie’s character felt he had to mourn the death of his friend Chris in his car by himself. He didn’t think anybody would quite understand. And that kind of loneliness gets to me. And this is also the reason why I cried when I read George Orwell’s, Down and Out in Paris and London. When Orwell touched on the shame of being poor and the way he hid his poorness from others, it struck me hard. Most recently, I cried when I read a beautiful passage within Jamaica Kincaid’s book, Annie John.

Annie John was speaking about her father and how he was given to his grandmother when he was a child. He was so close to her that they slept in the same bed until adulthood. He woke up one morning to find that she had passed away. He was eighteen and alone. Even though he ended up with his own family, no amount of love they gave him would ever suffice for the loss of his grandmother’s love. Annie John never thought of how sad her father was until that moment and that sentiment made me cry like a baby. And you would have to know a small part of my family’s past to understand that.

My father’s mother died when he was seventeen. His father passed away when he was twenty-four. He was parentless by the time he was twenty-five. I never thought about what that could do to a person, let alone my dad until my late twenties. To this day, I can’t imagine that it wasn’t completely devastating for him. I know that’s how it would be for me. Even when I brought it up a few years ago, he quickly changed the subject. Could he still be mourning their deaths some thirty years later? I think so. As we all know, there is no time limit on pain. This is why I could empathize with the passage in Annie John.

The pain exhibited in all of the above-mentioned works is so strong and relatable that it shook me to the core. Now that’s good writing.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to read about a character’s struggle or pain without feeling some sort of emotional connection to the writer. What do you all think? Which books do you feel an emotional connection to?

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The Eye-Roll is the Lowest Form of Communication

 Life, Life Evaluation, Reading  4 Responses »
Jul 182012
 

Life is harsh especially when you come to the jacked-up conclusion that you no longer have anything in common with a friend. It’s not that they did anything wrong. It’s not that you did anything wrong. Time has happened. You’ve changed and they’ve changed, such is life. Nobody tells you this is how it is, but it is.

It starts off slow. They say something that doesn’t make sense to you. You say something that doesn’t make sense to them. They invite you out dancing and you decline because you are married, are in your mid-thirties, and have a child that you adore that you wish to put to bed every night. And you’re not into pretending you’re ten years younger than you really are. And you’re not into flirting with somebody to buy you a drink because by this point in your life you’re totally capable and willing to buy your own drinks because you realize that you prefer your own company to the company of others. And you’ve already found the love of your life who you are madly in love with, so there’s no need to look. And you have a lot of other things on your mind that you don’t want to get into. Things, you don’t think they can even fathom, but they haven’t changed. They’re exactly who they’ve always been. They haven’t done anything wrong. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are simply in different places, on two different paths. But the question is: can two people living completely different lifestyles really be friends?

I decided to meet up for dinner with some former friends and as we were in catch-up-speak one of my friend said, “I don’t read books. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I read a book.” And they scoffed as if books were the lowest form of entertainment, like they were meant for nerds and not for everybody. And my heart bled a little because I realized then that we don’t have much of anything in common. Sure we can gossip about people from the past, but that gets old quick. When he said he didn’t read, it was like a line being drawn in the sand and I knew that we were fundamentally different. Books are important to me. Reading is important to me. And after that, I had a hard time taking anything he said seriously. It was a blaring sign that the rekindling of this former friendship was not going to happen and it wasn’t just the reading that did it for me.

He actually rolled his eyes while I was speaking and mid-sentence too. I can’t even remember what we were talking about. All I remember is the way he made me feel when he did it; irrelevant and stupid and like crap. Maybe that wasn’t his intention, but that’s how he made me feel. I know that people often misconstrue the eye-roll because nobody is in anybody else’s head and nobody else can tell what an eye-roll means except the person doing it, but that’s the vibe I got. And I don’t remember him being that way with me in the past and to be honest, it caught me off guard. It was like I didn’t know him at all. I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to meet up. Must’ve been nostalga. There had to be a reason we hadn’t talked in over ten years, right?

The night ended and I went home. My friend went to a club.

We are just two very different people. Maybe we always were.

Okay, so maybe it’s not just the difference in lifestyle that changes friendships, but more so how we feel we are treated. If you start questioning your friendship and think you’re destined to be your own best friend, chances are your friendship has changed because you’ve already reached the point of, with friends like these… well, you know the rest.

So do I think two people living different lifestyles can be friends? Of course I do, as long as there is respect. But if there isn’t, take that as a warning. Respect and trust go hand in hand and if there’s a crack in the foundation, chances are the house is going to sink.

I’ve lived long enough to know that my time is precious. I don’t want to spend it with people I have nothing in common with. I do not feel guilty or obligated. I feel relieved that I know myself enough to let a former friendship like that go. Like I said before, he didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. Our former friendship has simply morphed into an acquaintanceship and I’m okay with that.

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 Posted by at 3:41 pm

The Pain Inflicting Trainer

 Health, Humor, Life  Comments Off on The Pain Inflicting Trainer
Jun 192012
 

I recently joined the gym and I’ve got to say, I like it. I like the way I feel after I’ve finished a workout; strong and as if I’ve accomplished something huge for the day. This is why I keep going. I usually stick to the elliptical and the row machine in addition to the weight lifting machines, but I’ve also been taking a few classes. One such class was a boxing/kickboxing class. I’ve never taken one of those before and I was intrigued. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one because the class was filled with newbies.

We started off with some drills and if you remember anything from high school gym class, you know how drills are the bane of everybody’s existence. They are horrible, yet effective torture devices. These drills consisted of pushups, sprinting, jumping rope, and jumping jacks. Like I said, torture. The entire class was exhausted after fifteen minutes of warm up. Which brings me to this, why does it seem like some trainers/teachers derive some sort of sick pleasure by inflicting pain onto their students? It’s got to be some Schadenfreuden thing. But why? Is it the little bit of power over others that makes people go a tad crazy? I’m thinking yes.

I tried everything she said. I said I tried everything she said, not that I was physically capable of doing it. And then we got to the bag. Oh, for the love of God, not the bag! But I was ready. I lifted my leg to kick and barely skimmed the bag. Get closer, she coaxed. And so I did. Kick the bag she said. So I kicked, unaware that I was flexing my toes. I kicked straight into the bag and felt this sharp pain vibrate through my big toe. “Oh God, my toe hurts,” I said. Her response was something like, “Yeah, these bags are the hard ones.” Huh? What kind of response was that?! But for some reason I kept going and I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to seem like a quitter in a room filled with newbies. Maybe it was because I thought I was tough and could handle the pain or maybe it was because I’m insane. But whatever the reason, it’s irrelevant. I was injured and that was that.

I hobbled out of class. When I got home I looked at my toe. It was swelling and fast. So much so that it felt like there was a marble underneath. I’ll spare you the photographic evidence, but trust me, it was bad. I started to walk on the side of my foot to compensate for the pain. And I thought, that’s it, it’s broken. It didn’t help that in the evening my leg also started to throb. I ended up taking several Aspirins for the pain and eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, I found that my toe was black and blue from the front to the back. Not good. But I needed to get some stuff done, so I was hobbling on it all day. That probably wasn’t the best course of action, but like I said, I needed to get some stuff done. That night I called the Nurse Hotline via our insurance and the nurse said that even if it was broken, there was nothing they would really do for me at the hospital except take some x-rays and bandage it up. So, she gave me some quick tips for pain relief; elevate, ice, Aspirin, and the buddy toe bandage. I did all that, but guess what? It still hurts and it probably will remain that way until the end of the week. The good news is that I’m hobbling less and I can almost walk on my foot again. Woot!

I intended to go back to the class this weekend, but I think I’ll pass. I honestly don’t need another injured appendage.

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Kites in Flight

 Chicago, Fun, Life  2 Responses »
Jun 012012
 

Chicago summers are fabulous and this year’s Kite Festival at Montrose Harbor added to the fabulousness. It was that fun. Check out my video below.

Being at the Kite Fest reminded me of how much I missed being a kid and just having fun for the sake of having fun. It reminded me of late night soft serve from the ice cream truck, biking around the neighborhood, and playing those games like “It” and “Red light, green light,” and those awesome “hand games.” Remember those? Being a kid was fun.

Here are some of the songs we used to sing that accompanied those “hand games” I was talking about.

Uno Dos Siesta
To the East, the West
I met my boyfriend at the candy store.
He bought me ice cream, he bought me cake.
He took me home with a belly ache.
Mama, mama, I’m so sick. Call the doctor, quick, quick, quick.
Doctor, doctor, will I die? Count to five and you’ll be alive.
One, two, three, four, five.
I’m alive on channel five.

Mrs. Marry Mack, Mack, Mack
All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons all down her back, back, back
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For 15 cents, cents, cents
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants
She jumped the fence, fence, fence
She jumped so high, high, high
She touched the sky, sky, sky
And she never came back, back, back
Till the 4th of july, lie, lie

Here’s how we picked “It.” We made everybody put in a single foot and used our pointer finger to go around in a circle and for each word of the song or rhyme, we moved our finger one shoe over until one person was singled out. (Yes, these rules were very intricate.) Here is some of what we said:

My mother punched your mother in the nose, what color was the blood?
“Blue.”
B-L-U-E
And you are out of this entirely game
Not because you’re ugly, not because you’re clean
Just because you kissed a dirty man behind a dirty magazine

Then there would be three of us left and we’d say something like:

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Whomever was in the last “moe” position was out. Then there’d be two people left so we’d say something like this:

Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?
“five.”
One, two, three, four, five
and the whole, and you are out of this entirely game rhyme would start.
And whoever was left was “It.”

Do you remember any of these? Do you know a different version? Did you sing completely different songs? If so, what were they? What awesome memories do you have from childhood?

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 Posted by at 7:18 pm
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