Talena Winters's Blog, page 9

Impostor Syndrome, P.T. Barnum & the Enneagram

I think I figured out the primary reason I’ve been so off-kilter the last couple of days: Impostor Syndrome.

I didn’t expect this. Not now. Not when I hadn’t experienced any of my usual triggers. And when I recognized it, and then immediately saw what caused it, I got pretty annoyed with myself.

Over the years, I’ve discovered a common theme for when Impostor Syndrome shows up. For those unfamiliar with the term, Impostor Syndrome is used as a bit of a catch-all phrase for any time a creative person (or any person) is afraid that whatever Thing that just happened will finally reveal to the world that they’re a fraud, a hack, and that they don’t deserve the rewards for the work they’ve done.

One remedy for this that’s often bandied about is to remind yourself that the only people who don’t get Impostor Syndrome are actual impostors. That doesn’t work for me.

For me, I need to understand where the feeling is coming from before I can move past it. So, over the years, I’ve noticed some common threads about Impostor Syndrome:

It’s a form of fear. (Duh.) It’s the fear that you will be exposed as undeserving or unworthy of success or that others will hate your work. In other words, fear of negative repercussions for doing something that matters to you or being in a position you feel unqualified for or unworthy of.

It tends to show up when you’ve done something risky that makes you feel vulnerable, or when you’re contemplating doing so. E.g. Sending your work to an editor, beta readers, ARC readers, release day, getting a bad review, etc.

And—this just in—it’s a need for validation from people whose opinion matters to you that your work is actually good, in whatever way you define “goodness”.

That last one? That’s what I’ve been experiencing the last few days. It was triggered by several factors colliding at once, which I won’t detail here.

But now that I see it, I am moving past it. Now I just have to move past the deep resentment of the fact that I felt this way, which is, um, complicated.

Yes, I have feelings about my feelings. (Always.)

A ringmaster. What an odd picture to illustrate this, amiright? Don’t worry, we’ll get to it…

I Once Was Blind

I’ve talked briefly here about my journey of self-discovery with the Enneagram that started this spring while I was revising Every Star that Shines. And part of the reason for the briefness is partly that I’m afraid discussing it in depth might look a little bit too much like navel gazing for a public blog and would be better saved for my personal journal, and partly because I’ve discovered some uncomfortable things about myself that I wish didn’t exist, so talking about them feels very risky.

Okay, I think more definitions are needed. I’ll try to keep it brief.

My Way Over-simplified Definition of the Enneagram:

The Enneagram diagram with common type labels. The lines connect you with other types whose traits you also have access to, and you can also exhibit traits from one or both “wings’—the types on either side of you. But your core motivation comes down to your primary type.

If you’re not familiar with the Enneagram, it’s a very old (like, centuries or millennia) tool that looks, at first glance, like a personality test dividing all people into nine personality types. (Or like one of the weirdest geometric symbols ever.)

When you dig deeper, you discover that the divisions are much more granular—down to fifty-four, with near-infinite variations on that.

But the tool isn’t actually about putting people in boxes, but rather, it’s designed as a tool of self-discovery and growth. That’s because each of the nine types is defined by their passion (one of the Christian “seven deadly sins” plus fear and deceit), which is the force that drives us, even though how this manifests can look very different from person to person.

Until we’re aware of what the passion is, it drives us unconsciously. Once we recognize it, we can begin to grow into healthier versions of ourselves, no longer driven by subconscious behaviours and, hopefully, reducing the amount of damage we do to ourselves and others because of our blind spots.

Now I See

I am an Enneagram type Three. A bit about the Three:

Type Three: The Performer/The Achiever
Passion: Deceit (as in self-deceit or vanity)
Core longing: To be worthy or valuable
Blind spot: Acting like a human doing instead of a human being. Not understanding that who you are isn’t the same as what you do.

Because the Enneagram is so old and is constantly being iterated on, you can find information about it all over the place. (I recommend the Chestnut-Paes Enneagram Academy website, YouTube channel, and podcast, any book by Bea Chestnut, and Drew Newkirk’s YouTube channel for folks wanting to dive in and know more. The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile (affiliate links included here) is also a good primer for getting oriented with all this stuff, though I’m not sure I would have found my own type from that book if I started there).

Even though I was pretty sure I was a Three when I started learning about all this, many of the more detailed descriptions of the Three didn’t resonate with me at first. It wasn’t until I found my subtype that I knew for sure I was a Three.

So, in what feels like a painfully soul-baring act of vulnerability to me, but which, to you, will probably only be interesting information (unless this hits close to home for you too), here is the definition of my subtype from the Chestnut-Paes Enneagram Academy website:

Self-Preservation Three: Security

The Countertype

The Self-Preservation three has a sense of vanity for having no vanity. This Three also wants to be admired by others but avoids openly seeking recognition. Not just satisfied with looking good, the SP three strives to be good. They are determined to be a good person—to match the perfect model of how a person should be. Being the perfect model of quality implies virtue, and virtue implies a lack of vanity. SP Threes seek a sense of security through being good, working hard, and being effective and productive.

I’m sure you see the inherent conflict in being driven by vanity while wanting not to have any vanity. So, now we’re about to get back to the feelings about my feelings.

“And that is the beauty of the Three, our gift: inspiration and authenticity.”

This year, I’ve been learning to observe myself in the context of my type, and to see how these behaviours play out. To be honest, I’ve often struggled with seeing the positive aspects of my type, and, frankly, I always have. I’ve spent most of my life wondering what it is people like or admire about me. (An enneagram Three seeks validation through achievement so we can feel worthy, but I have a very strong Two wing, which means I also have a strong need to be found likeable.) On the rare occasions where I’ve figured out something of value that I contribute (note the focus on value and action—true to type), it’s always felt like this huge revelation that I then perpetually doubt as true.

Yes, I see how ridiculous this is. Acknowledging that something doesn’t make a lot of sense isn’t the same as feeling any differently about it.

So, this morning, when I saw what was at the root of the feelings I’ve been having the last few days—the need for validation—I was both relieved to have figured it out, unsurprised that that’s what was at the core (I mean, I’m a Three, and I know it now), and then super irritated that I felt that need at all.

Seeking Grace

To be honest, I’ve spent a lot of time this year irritated that I need validation from anyone. Which is, of course, where the complications come in—while the Three needs validation, the stance of my subtype (the countertype to the Three) is not wanting to need validation—vanity about having no vanity.

Which means that when I actually receive validation from someone and feel good about it, I then get irritated with myself for that. Like, how messed up is that?

So, here I was, my Impostor Syndrome triggered by feeling the need to be validated, which irritated me. But if someone had validated me by acknowledging my good work in the way I wanted, I’d also be irritated—not at them, but at myself for desperately wanting that validation in the first place and then feeling good about it.

Okay, so we’re definitely in territory that I should talk to a therapist about here. I see that. However, I suspect they’re going to tell me the same thing I would tell a friend who said this to me: to give myself grace.

Like Sarajane Case says in her book The Honest Enneagram, a pattern of behaviour isn’t bad just because it’s part of my type.

I’m learning to see how this is true. One of the ways I’m learning this is by recognizing other Threes I see, especially in stories.

The first major breakthrough I had about this was listening to the soundtrack for The Greatest Showman, a story I am very familiar with. I hadn’t listened to the music for about a year at the time (which wasn’t long after discovering these painful truths about myself).

The reason this was a breakthrough was that P.T. Barnum, as portrayed in the movie, is a Three—a different subtype than me, but definitely a Three. Which means most of the songs in the movie are based around Three themes. In fact, if you, like me, tear up every time you hear “This is Me” or “Come Alive”, you might be a Three too (or have a strong Three wing from Two or Four). (Note: I’m pretty sure Alexander Hamilton as portrayed in the musical Hamilton is also not only a Three, but possibly my same subtype.)

While re-experiencing the story of The Greatest Showman in the context of the Enneagram, I realized something: even before P.T. Barnum learned his lessons about what matters most and putting people before success, he still did a lot of good. He helped people. He inspired them to become something and achieve something they probably never would have on their own. Even while he was still unconsciously spurred by his passion and was causing emotional harm because of it, he was still a force for good—an ability that was amplified after he got in touch with the truth he needed to learn to become whole.

And that is the beauty of the Three, our gift: inspiration and authenticity.

I still have a hard time seeing it sometimes. And I definitely have a hard time remembering to hold grace for myself for the ways my passion spurs less-than-desirable behaviours—especially because those same behaviours can be exactly what’s so beautiful about my type when in the right context.

My journey has been in sorting out the difference. And learning to give myself as much grace as I tend to give others.

My Fears Relieved

“My journey has been in sorting out the difference. And learning to give myself as much grace as I tend to give others.”

Going back to Impostor Syndrome: while I’m pretty sure I’ve now found the root cause of why I experience it, the root cause for you may be different, especially if you’re a different Enneagram type.

For instance, Fours, whose passion is envy and whose core longing is to be significant, tend to suffer a lot from comparisonitis, and may be susceptible to Impostor Syndrome because they feel they haven’t contributed something as unique or beautiful to the world as someone else has, and therefore don’t deserve recognition for what they have contributed. Other types probably have their own passion as the root.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if some types don’t often experience Impostor Syndrome—for instance, Eights, the Challengers/Protectors. I have a son who’s an Eight, and I suspect Impostor Syndrome just won’t be a big concern for him. (Don’t worry, he’ll have other challenges. ;-D)

So, if you’ve stuck with me through this long discussion, I’m very curious: do you tend to experience Impostor Syndrome? If so, do you know your Enneagram type? I would love to know if there’s a correlation between Impostor Syndrome and Enneagram type. Let me know in the comments.

And, even if I’m now talking to the wind, this post has achieved its purpose—I know what caused the feeling. I can tell the rest of my day is going to be better already.

Learning to Follow

In some ways, the things I’m doing to slow down could be considered a form of mindfulness.

And some days I’m more mindful than others. :-)

I have a sticky note on my monitor with the question, If I skip this, will it matter?

Unfortunately, this week I have a lot of things on my plate where the answer is yes. Which is probably at least one of the reasons I’ve been struggling with feeling overwhelmed already, and it’s only Tuesday morning.

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A post shared by El Arroyo (@elarroyo_atx)

I mean, it’s not the only reason. But when you’re already dealing with some emotional disequlibrium, it doesn’t take as much to feel that way.

So last night I weeded even more off my list. Things I could answer the question with “not as much” or “not if it waits.”

It helped.

You know what else helped? Spending the last ten minutes looking at the wall of the El Arroyo Tex-Mex restaurant on Instagram. I mean, laughing usually helps, amiright?

So does coffee. :-)

Lately, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about my goals and what kind of life I want to live. Maybe it’s part of being forty-five. I mean, I’m at the stage where my kids are growing up and planning the next stages of their lives, and I’m trying to give them advice, but inside I’m like, “I don’t know, kid. I haven’t got anything figured out yet either.”

I mean, that’s not strictly true, it just feels like that some days. I guess this is what a mid-life crisis feels like?

But who really does have anything figured out? I think that’s the problem—when we spend our time looking at others, at the polished image they present to the world, it looks like they all have their ducklings in a row, and they’re walking confidently into traffic like they have some kind of invisible force field that will let them reach their destination unscathed.

Image by Vlad Tchompalov @tchompalov, courtesy of Unsplash.

Which, ironically, is a strategy that seems to work out pretty well for the ducks most of the time, since most humans will go to great lengths to make sure they get safely to the other side.

I feel like there’s some kind of life lesson there, but I hesitate to read too much into it…

But as I chewed on that, I remembered the time when Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and lamented that he often wanted to gather its people to him like a mother hen protecting her chicks.

Maybe my real problem is I keep trying to be the confident mama who is leading her babies where they need to go, when what I need to do for now is just nestle in under the wings of my protector and follow along.

Because guess who actually knows where we’re going? Yep, Jesus. So instead of watching the images others present and trying to emulate them, I need to keep my focus on him and where he wants to lead me.

In fact, maybe the overwhelm is from taking on things that were never mine to bear? From that dashed sense of over-responsibility I seem to have carried since childhood.

I mean, between sweet Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet and her busy sister Martha bustling around to make sure her guest was comfortable and taken care of while missing the opportunity to truly connect with him, I’ve always known which one was me.

But in my heart, I want to be more like Mary. I just often struggle with how to do that.

Laying down the burden of having it all together, of knowing what to do next, of the results I want to achieve… that’s one of the hardest things for me.

But it’s just the kind of mindfulness I need.

If I skip this, will it matter?

Yes. Because by skipping the things that don’t need to be done this second, I can slow down long enough to discover truths about others. And myself. And to make the connections I need to incorporate to truly have that life I want to live.

I’m still learning to say no more often, so I can say yes to the things that matter most.

And I feel like I’m one step closer than when this blog post began…

In case you didn’t have enough cuteness and reasons to smile yet this morning. Image by Meg Kannan @meghankannan4 courtesy of Unsplash.

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

— Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)

I needed that reminder today. Maybe you did too.

Happy Tuesday, friend. May you find your strength renewed today.

Playing with Audio Robots

Earlier this week, Jason and I finished watching Lost in Space on Netflix. I absolutely loved the show, but I did have more than one chuckle that the main robot character in the series, the companion of Will Robinson, was named simply Robot. All the other robots got much more interesting names (also by Will. I think Robot’s bland name was the result of him being the first one found).

However, despite the unremarkable moniker, there was a lot more to Robot than met the eye. He is a wonderful character.

And now, I can say the same thing for Google Play Books auto-narration services.

The Friday Night Date Dress is now in audio

I mentioned last week that I was experimenting with the digital narration service currently being offered by Google Play Books for free.

I went in with very low expectations, not even sure I’d come out with something that would work for fiction.

I was wrong.

Not only did the listening experience surpass my expectations, I found I actually enjoyed listening to the story this way.

About my only complaint is that there is no way to tell the AI to emphasize certain words, which can make some sarcastic or emphatic sentences come out a little flat. But really, that’s not a big deal, especially not with this particular title.

This morning, I published the digitally narrated audiobook of The Friday Night Date Dress. And, because I want you to be able to try it free just like I did so you can make up your own mind, this audiobook will be free for the foreseeable future.

So wander on over there (click on the image), listen to the sample, and, if that piques your interest, please give the whole audiobook a try.

As for me, I’ve already decided to create digital audiobooks of my contemporary titles, at the very least. Maybe I’ll even try it for the fantasies. And I’ll be offering these digital audiobooks for prices comparable with my eBooks.

I’m hoping this will mollify people who always ask if the book is in audio long enough to be able to afford human narrated versions of all my titles at some future point.

Happy Friday! And please, let me know what you think about the digital narration. It’s a whole new world, folks!

 

P.S. This isn’t my only audiobook that’s out. I have another digitally narrated short story, All I Want for Christmas, created last December through DeepZen. In my opinion, this new Google one is already a better product—that’s how fast the technology is improving.

I also have a human-narrated fantasy novella from my Rise of the Grigori series, The Waterboy.

In case you’re reading this in the far future, you can click here to see which of my titles are currently in audiobook.

Themes and Things

When I woke up on Monday, I could tell something was different.

I was… happy. Excited to be going back to work. Feeling good and energetic.

Yes, this was partly a shift in hormones. But I haven’t felt like that in months.

“Huh,” I said to myself. “Maybe this slow productivity thing is working.”

Go figure.

It’s been a gorgeous week in the Peace Country, weather-wise. I’ve even managed to take advantage of the sunny blue skies and warm temperatures with a couple of walks so far. Maybe today will be three for three for walks on work days this week. New record. ;-)

Image courtesy of Pereanu Sebastian (@sebastian123) and Unsplash.

Probably the most exciting thing (for me) that happened this week is that I dove back into my manuscript yesterday (Book Two in the Peace Country Romance series). I finally have a handle on my heroine’s personality, lies, and longings, and that has made a huge difference. Fortunately, the existing outline only required minor tweaking to align it with that.

I’d previously only outlined about the first third because my lack of clarity about her left me wandering around in the dark after that point. Yesterday, I reworked that plus a little more, and I hope to get most of the rest of the outline done over the next day or two.

And then, all I have to do is write it. (She said, tongue stuck firmly in cheek.)

This new vision for the story is mostly thanks to a new book I recently read, Reclaim Your Author Career by H. Claire Taylor*.

*I am an affiliate of Amazon.com, .ca, and .co.uk, as well as Kobo, which means if you go to one of those stores through this link and make a purchase, I get a few cents at no extra cost to you.

“Great Resource for Authors” Alert

Claire is a respected voice in the indie author space, and she is also the one who got me so interested in learning about the enneagram as a tool for creating better characters. This summer, she launched Reclaim Your Author Career with a Kickstarter, which I backed so I could have as early access to this book as possible.

Even with all I’ve learned about the enneagram so far, it was extremely enlightening. Probably the two most impactful takeaways for me personally were understanding how to create conflicts by understanding a character’s enneagram type, and mostly, understanding theme.

I can finally say that I understand what theme is, how to find it, and how to use it to create and enhance my stories. As I thought about my previous books, I can see that they all had themes, but those were mostly unintentional. The themes that are there were natural outgrowths of the ideas I wanted to explore. Had I intentionally sussed out those themes during the writing or revision processes, I’m sure I could have made the stories tighter and even more impactful.

Now I’m seeing theme in every story I consume. For instance, Jason and I just finished watching Lost in Space on Netflix (fantastic show! Do recommend), and the theme (which they’re not subtle about) is family. One word. Everything comes back to what being a family means and how important family is.

I’m also still working my way through Star Trek: Voyager, and the theme of that is discovery or maybe exploration.

So, I’ve definitely got a lot more to think about in the theme department these days.

Of course, I’m writing a romance series right now, so the series theme is love. Another underlying theme is community, since it’s based in a small town setting. And the theme specific to this story? Forgiveness.

It’s going to be a good one, folks. :-)

Anyway, Reclaim Your Author Career is now available for pre-order in stores. If you’re an author, I highly recommend you get it. The main purpose of the book is to align not only your stories but also your brand and business with your own core values and motivations. I think every author should read this.

Alrighty, friend. I need to get on with the fiction writing and other tasks in my day. I hope your week is off to a wonderful start. Looking forward to making some story magic for you to enjoy. (Eventually.)

Some weeks, we crawl instead of walk

On the CliftonStrengths test, a test that splits personality traits into thirty-four patterns of success, my Discipline ranks at number seven. Consistency ranks at thirty-one.

Maybe that explains why it’s very easy for me to get my butt in the chair every morning and work all day, but very difficult to work at the exact same thing for any great length of time.

(For interest’s sake, my number one Strength is Achiever, which means I start every day from zero and only feel a day is worthwhile if I have accomplished something that day. Shocking, I know.)

On a (totally not) unrelated note, this has been a difficult week for me, physical health-wise. I’ve been fighting through brain fog, exhaustion, cramps, and depression. There was not enough sleep and caffeine in the world to make me feel alert this week.

In spite of that, or maybe because of it, I’ve made significant progress on three projects this week (two of which weren’t even on my plan as of Sunday night, but here we are).

Re-enactment of my week. Photo by Joyuma (@joyuma), courtesy of Unsplash.

Updates to the Just Plain Socks pattern

This was the one item I’ve worked on this week that I’d planned to, lol. My popular free Just Plain Socks pattern was next on my docket of patterns to update. Like the others, I didn’t just overhaul the pattern layout, but tweaked the way it was written too.

In this case, the pattern is formulaic (also known as a recipe pattern,) meaning the customer does the math to create the design based on the formulas I included.

I tweaked a few of the formulas based on what I’ve learned about sock knitting since my last update of this pattern in 2016, then started knitting a sample to test the new math. I’m happy to say, the sample turned out perfect, and the updated pattern should be live by the end of today.

My nearly-completed sample sock. I needed a new pair, anyway, so bonus!

In addition, I decided to also do a calculated-for-you version of the pattern that will be a paid product. I hope to have that live by the end of today, too, but if it’s not, it will be up early next week.

Reader Merch for Rise of the Grigori fans

For quite some time, I’ve wanted to think of some cool merch for my readers that I could carry in my merchandise store. In the last three weeks, I’ve finally started, albeit modestly, with a bookplate sticker and a limited edition bookmark for Every Star that Shines.

This week, I finally came up with a cool idea for my Rise of the Grigori readers—school pride shirts and bookbags for the school in my series my characters all attend (the Royal Academy). I hired a designer on Fiverr to bring my idea to life, and as of today, I have two designs listed in my store. I’m waiting for a sample order for another product I’m less sure about before I list that one as well.

But even if you don’t know the story, this is kind of a cool piece of merch on its own—which is exactly what I was going for.

(If you’re reading on an RSS feed, the following block showcasing the new products will probably be missing, and you’ll have to click through to the post to see it.)

I’d love to hear what you think of this idea, or if you have more ideas for the types of merch you would love see.

Diving into auto-narrated audiobooks

Earlier this year, Google Play Books introduced the option to have any eBook listed with them digitally narrated (which they call auto-narration). While the product is in beta, it’s free.

Last December, I had one of my novellas, All I Want for Christmas, digitally narrated using the licensed voice of Edward Herrmann by a company called DeepZen. Though they weren’t perfect, I was pretty happy with the results.

While digital narration is not the same as having a book performed by a human narrator, DeepZen still produced a pleasant listening experience that sounded human-like. My biggest complaint is that the technology was not yet able to handle vocal tics or weird sounds like uh-huh, so I compensated for that by making some minor revisions to the text to replace those with yep in the digital audio version.* (I expect it’s only a matter of time before that problem goes away.)

*I recently re-listened to this book and discovered I’d missed one of these. Doh! It sounds like a weird, digitized growl. Oh, well.

Oh, and since I got the finished files back from the company after Christmas, I decided to hold onto it for the year before releasing it. Then I quietly published it earlier this month. (A little early for Christmas, but I was updating the book page and didn’t want to have to do more work on it later, lol.) You heard it here first, folks.

At the moment, you can only get the audiobook directly from me, delivered through the BookFunnel app, which is actually one of the best audio listening apps I’ve used. Check out the digital audio sample of chapter one of All I Want for Christmas on the book page.

Anyhoo, back to auto-narration through Google…

Even though digital narration is cheaper than human narration, it’s still not inexpensive in either time or money invested to produce the final product. In fact, the cost to produce my full-length novels was still prohibitive through DeepZen for my current budget. When Google introduced this free auto-narration option, I was excited to try it, but I had way too much on my plate to set aside any time for it for most of this year.

Yesterday, I had to log into my Google Play account for another reason, and they had an invitation to try auto-narration front-and-centre. And I decided, “You know what? Today’s the day.”

I’m excited to finally hear this story told in audio format, even if it’s digital. Coming soon! Woot!

I’m now half-way through proof-listening to The Friday Night Date Dress. I chose an American female voice they call Madison, which sounds like a Black woman in her thirties. And I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised by the results.

No, it still doesn’t touch a human-narrated performance of the book. But I find I’m actually enjoying listening to the story being told this way.

After some playing around, I’ve even been able to figure out how to correct most of the mispronunciations I’ve come across—and there haven’t actually been that many.

I’ve become an audio-first consumer for many types of reading for the past few years, so I find it intensely gratifying to listen to my story in audio form. But, more than that, I hope that offering digital audiobook sales of all my titles (not just the two short ones I’ve done so far as experiments) will open my brand up to the audiobook market, and that the extra revenue stream will allow me to save up for the human narration I desperately want to hire, especially for my more action-oriented books with trickier words (like the Rise of the Grigori series).

If all goes well, I’ll be posting a new digital audiobook every week for the next little while. (You know, if that low Consistency doesn’t flare up.) I’ll keep you posted.

 In other news…

This has been one of my most social weeks in a while. Our family went to church last Sunday morning for the first time since the pandemic hit us. Of course, since I was a hormonal mess, I cried the whole time. But they were good tears. I really missed the experience of being in church, even if our Sunday afternoon play practice meant we couldn’t stick around to socialize afterwards.

On Tuesday, we got to see our dear friends Mark and Colleen and Mark’s parents (who happen to also be related to me) for supper when they came through on their way north.

Last night, I went out for a visit with my dear friend Jenn S. And I expect to get to go on a date with my hubby tomorrow morning at the local coffee shop, which has become a tradition since Noah started working every Saturday morning. (Java Domain has fresh cinnamon buns on Saturday that are fan-freakin-tabulous. But also, date!)

I’m starting to remember what it looks like to have a life. And I like it. :-)

So, even if the progress was slow (which is kind of the point nowadays), or rather, slower than normal, there still was some.

How was your week, friend? And please, tell me what you think of the digital narration sample for All I Want for Christmas. I’m curious what audiobook listeners, especially, think about the quality and the experience.

Happy Friday!

This Train Track Goes Both Ways

Often, I’m so focused on what I have yet to do that I forget to take a breath and celebrate what I’ve done.

It’s an easy trap to fall into when the to-do list is still ten miles long no matter how many things you check off and you have deadlines rushing at you with the speed of a freight train.

But, for just a moment, I’m going to step off the track and look back.

Photo by Ales Krivec (@aleskrivec), courtesy of Unsplash.

It occurred to me yesterday that I have now published eight fiction titles. They’re of varying lengths, but when you average them out, it still works out to about eight full-length novels. (That’s what happens when you publish a 300,000-word doorstopper that counts as four to six on its own.)

Wow.

And thirty knitting patterns. That’s not nothing either, especially for something I do as a hobby.

And, for over half of those patterns and stories, I’ve revised and re-released them at least once.

And even though it feels like I’ve been working on this website update forever, it’s only been about three weeks.

In those three weeks, I’ve improved a lot. In addition, BookFunnel, the extraordinary eBook and audiobook delivery service I use, has been rolling out a bunch of new features, and I’ve managed to implement most of them.

Plus I’ve published a new pattern, revised an existing one, and I’m very close to publishing another new pattern. (Hopefully next week.)

And yesterday, I finally got bookplate stickers and even a special character art bookmark of Caleb from Every Star that Shines listed in my merch store, plus I got the ball rolling on a few more merch items I’ve been wanting to create for a while.

Oh, and Squarespace keeps reminding me that I now have over four hundred pages on my site, the vast majority of which are my blog posts, so that’s some kind of accomplishment too, I think.

So, yeah, I guess I’ve managed to do a few things, even while I’ve been taking a less structured approach to work and reducing my hours.

… Because, yes, I’ve managed to stick to my new schedule this week. I’ve even taken the occasional walk and nap. Yay!

See? When I say Slow progress is still progress, it’s actually true. (She says to herself.)

But I’m still learning how to recognize progress when I’m checking things off in what feels like a very willy-nilly way. Sometimes, I have to actually add something to my list after I’ve finished it, then check it off, just so I have a record of what I did. (You can roll your eyes at me here. I am.)

And thank you to those of you who responded to my last post and encouraged me to take my time writing Book 2 in the Peace Country Romance series, even if it means it’s out after Christmas. I mean, that’s pretty much a guarantee now. But it’s good to know that you all have my back.

Because one of the purposes of this Slow Productivity switch is to take the pressure off myself. And I sure appreciate the support you amazing people are giving me in that regard.

In other news…

Alright, time to get back on the track and look forward again. Because while I’ve been working on all this behind-the-scenes stuff, a deadline has been approaching: wide platform release day for the Every Star that Shines eBook, which goes out into the world next Tuesday.

I saved most of my promotional push for next week, since—as much as I’d love for more readers to buy the books directly from me—I know most people will want to buy the book in the places they’re already comfortable with, which means buying through their favourite platforms. So, I guess in about a week, I’ll actually know if I’ve hit my market with the packaging of this product.

(But, hey, if you want to get it for the launch price and you want to read on that world-class BookFunnel app I referred to above, you can buy it in my store. Or pre-order it elsewhere, if you don’t want to forget…)

And in other other news…

I’m thrilled that the kids’ musical in my community is running again this year for the first time since 2019. It was missing this experience so much that prompted me to feature it so heavily in Every Star that Shines. My son Jabin has been cast as one of the leads, and he’s super excited. I’m super proud, of course.

They’re performing Madagascar Jr., and Jabin got cast as Marty the zebra. I mean, if you know Madagascar, and you know Jabin, it’s like the perfect match, amiright?

Anyway.

That’s about all my news for now. I hope you had a fulfilling week, friend, and that you have a relaxing weekend.

All my love. Tell me something you’re proud of accomplishing recently in the comments.

Weighing Options

I feel like I’ve been in a transition period for the last month, but the transition is nearly complete.

Or is it? I don’t know.

Since I got back to work after my two weeks of holidays, I’ve been focusing on lots of small but neglected tasks that are making my business run smoother and make me better able to serve my people—those who would benefit most from what I offer.

Now that the most important of those tasks are done (though I still have an ongoing list a mile long, as always), I need to turn my attention back to my manuscript. I mean, there’s still a small part of me that wonders if I could actually have this Christmas book ready in time for Christmas.

That might take a Christmas miracle, but hey… I believe in miracles. :-)

But even as I look at diving into that project, part of me is resisting.

Not Resisting à la Steven Pressfield’s concept of Resistance, the combined force of all that keeps you from risking yourself creatively.

No, this different. It’s about whether or not I feel ready to commit myself to another project of this length already. Because I know once I’m in it, I’m in it until it’s done.

When I’m in, I’m all in. Image by Austin Neill (@arstyy), courtesy of Unsplash.

You see, it’s not just small projects I attack with ferocity and the unending drive to finish it as quickly as possible. It’s all projects. And after forty-five years on this earth, I haven’t yet figured out a way to start any project without it becoming kind of all-consuming until it’s complete. And the longer it takes to finish it, the more it takes out of me emotionally.

Which is why this “break” has felt so wonderful. I’ve been doing lots of little things. When they’re small and quick, it doesn’t matter if I focus on it like it’s the only thing I have to live for—in an hour or two, or a day tops, it’ll be done, and I’ll be released. Plus, I get a lot of energy from finishing things, so each completed task is helping me build rungs on my ladder out of the burnout pit.

But a book… a book is a different story (no pun intended… or maybe it is, haha).

Honestly, if I hadn’t already committed to this next book being a Christmas story, I would consider taking at least another two weeks before I started writing again. I feel like I need that.

So maybe what I need to do is let go of the semi-unrealistic expectation that I’ll still publish this manuscript by Christmas and just take the bloomin’ two weeks to keep getting my poop in a pile and rebuilding my strength.

Because it’s a lot easier to commit myself to a project that will take weeks and months to complete when I know I’ve set everything else to rights before I start.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to do. I went to bed last night planning to dive into my manuscript this morning. But after writing all this out, I see how prioritizing my mental health probably means letting this unrealistic expectation of myself go. And if I feel tired at the idea of starting writing again… well, maybe I’d be better off to wait.

Because if getting the book out by Christmas isn’t going to be possible anyway, there’s no sense killing myself to do it and perpetuating my burnout injury when the difference will be between publishing it in January or February or publishing it in March. I mean, they all miss the deadline… or they’re nine to eleven months early for next year’s, depending on how you look at it, lol.

Okay. I’m going to close out this blog post and go do some serious reflecting and thinking about what to do next. Because one thing I have learned in forty-five years is to listen to that resistance in my gut when I try to force myself to do something I’m not ready to do. I’d much rather create a lovely book I’m proud of and release it late than rush to put words on a page and turn out something shoddy by the deadline. After all, Christmas does come around every year. :-)

If it was you, what would you do?

P.S. As of right now, my grandmother is doing okay. In fact, she seems to have improved a great deal since Friday. She’s not out of the woods, but it’s nice to see her smiling and interacting with people again.

Peaks and Valleys

It’s easy to post when I’m feeling good. But on days like today, when I feel as though there’s a weight on my chest that may never leave, it’s harder.

It feels a lot like depression. In fact, that’s what I’ve been thinking it was for the last several months, because I was also burned out and depressed.

But the depression is lifting. And this feeling came back, right on schedule.

Image by Johannes Plenio (@jplenio), courtesy of Unsplash.

I know that’s a weird thing to say. But about a month ago, I figured out what this general feeling of the blahs is—premenstrual syndrome. I used to get it for three days. It has now extended to two weeks.

In fact, not just premenstrual syndrome—though I haven’t confirmed this with a doctor yet, I’m pretty sure what I’ve been experiencing qualifies as Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, or PMDD.

I was in the depths of one of these weeks when I saw someone talk about this on TikTok. So I went and looked it up, and holy cow. Of the long list of symptoms on the Hopkins Medical site, I’ve experienced most of them. Regularly. For most months of the last several years.

Yes, I need to see a doctor to confirm this is the issue. In fact, I just put on my list to make an appointment with my naturopath on Monday—since the resolution to this won’t be drugs, but rather supporting my body and getting back in balance. (Even the John Hopkins site says that’s basically the “treatment”.)

In fact, this realization has been a big part of the motivation to start making the lifestyle changes I’ve been blogging about.

Speaking of which…

How this week’s Slow Productivity went

I’m going to be honest: I fell off the wagon a bit this week. (By fall off the wagon, I mean, of course, that I worked more than I planned to or probably should have.)

I did have a couple successes: I got up an hour earlier every day but one, and I even managed to take a couple of naps (which wasn’t hard, because I felt jet-lagged from that hour time difference for several days).

I had planned to exercise every day, as well. Which didn’t happen a single time after Monday, which was a holiday.

And, on Tuesday, I started a project with the website update that consumed me for several days with the same ferocity that jigsaw puzzles do. That is to say, I couldn’t stop working on it until it was done.

Tuesday was the worst day for Slow Productivity. I was up until one a.m. working on my website, despite that early rising I was planning to have the next morning. (Wednesday was the only day I didn’t get up by six. I slept in for forty-five minutes.)

However, the rest of the week went better. And also? My book pages are so beautiful and simple to use now. The plugins I installed and put on those pages this week solved a pain point I’ve had with selling books directly on my website for years—how to have a simple, beautiful, easy-to-navigate book landing page with easy access to purchase all the formats available. Keywords: simple and easy to navigate. And now I have them. (Thank you, developers of the Squarespace plugins I found.)

Besides making a great deal of headway on the website update this week, I also managed to update one of my patterns: Mermaids & Dragons. That means I’m nearly halfway done my main project for the year for my knitting business, which is to update my website and all my knitting patterns to make sure they are better formatted for ease of use, are branded the same, and, most importantly, are screen reader accessible so low-vision knitters can use them.

I say “nearly halfway,” but I think it may be more. I finished with all but one section of my website knitting pages early in 2022. I’ve updated nine patterns now. Of the patterns I have left, some of them haven’t sold in years, so I’m thinking of retiring them. Some of them are good designs, but I need to work on the marketing package (photos and samples and yarn choice, specifically) so they look more appealing. But some of them just don’t have much appeal as a purchased pattern because they’re just too simple and people can figure it out themselves. So I think I’ll either retire them or make them newsletter bonuses or something.

Also, I have several designs waiting to be published, and I really want to finish at least some of those up this winter.

This is the tough part about being a multi-passionate entrepreneur: I have several aspects of my business, all of which I love doing, but there’s only one of me. Whatever I’m focusing on moves forward. The other languishes and I feel guilty for letting it.

At some point, I’ll be able to hire help. But I’m not at that point right now.

Anyway, I hear a book calling my name, so I’m going to leave this post with one final note: I found out yesterday that my grandmother is probably on her last few days of life. She will be turning ninety-four in October, or she would if she makes it that long, which doesn’t seem likely. While her passing will be a blessing for her in a way, as dementia has meant she hasn’t had much of a life the last few years, I and my mom’s family are still sad, and that certainly doesn’t help the heaviness I’m feeling. So, if you think to pray for us and for her, please do.

I’ve been at way more deathbeds (and sickbeds) than I’d like in the last few years, and I have to say, I’m not sure if anyone ever dies completely peacefully. But I pray Grandma has as much peace as possible as she goes home to Jesus.

Getting Serious about Rest

There’s a certain amount of appropriate irony to the fact that during my Labour Day weekend, I consumed an entire audiobook about rest.

Square blue book cover showing a beach chair. Text: Rest: Why you get more done when you work less* by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.

On Friday, I got an email newsletter from the Calgary chapter of Editors Canada, in which Rest: Why you get more done when you work less* by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang was listed as their next book club pick.

*I am an affiliate of some of the platforms available through this universal link. That means if you purchase the book from those platforms, I get a few cents at no extra cost to you.

I’d heard of the book before—I don’t remember where. I’d even looked it up. But this time, I was primed for it. When I saw the title in that email, I went straight to Amazon and bought the audiobook.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears, and all that.

I’m glad I got the audiobook. My friend Brenna, who happens to be one of the co-leaders of the Calgary Editors Canada twig, said she found reading the book a bit dry, and I can see why. Mr. Pang uses a lot of studies, facts, and figures to back up his thesis about how the different forms of rest he covers in the book have been regular parts of the lives of some of the most accomplished people in history. Listening to those figures delivered by the narrator breathed some life into them and made it much less dry. Also, it’s easier to stay engaged when you’re listening while doing some other task that doesn’t require much engagement, such as cooking, knitting, or driving.

That’s not to say that I think he overdid it on examples. Not at all. In fact, as I just saw in another reviewer’s headline, “You need all those examples to prove to yourself ‘rest’ is valuable.”

At least, us hardened workaholics do.

I Rested—Honest, I did!

I was raised by a mother who firmly believes in the value of rest. As a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, she always taught me the value of putting aside one day a week not to work. After all, if God rested on the seventh day, who was I to do otherwise?

For the most part, I’ve honoured this establishment throughout my life—though, for me and my driven self, rest often looked a lot different than the strictures the SDA church put on me as a child. In fact, my sabbaths more often embraced the maxim A change is as good as a rest, filled with creative projects I saved only for that day that allowed me to rejuvenate in ways that simply sitting around not swimming, creating, or doing other forms of forbidden “work” would not. (More on that in a minute.)

Yes, believe it or not, rest has actually been a high priority to me for most of my life. Thank the Lord he gave me both a mother who taught me as much and the conviction to revive the tradition in my early twenties, or I probably would have burned out many more times and a lot sooner than I did.

Lest you get the wrong idea, Seventh-Day Adventists don’t sit around doing nothing on Saturdays. They usually fill their sabbaths with church, potlucks, nature walks, naps, and visiting friends and family, at least in my memory. The older I get, the more appeal these activities hold for me—but, since I’m not a Seventh-Day Adventist and have attended church on Sunday for my whole adult life, I wasn’t embedded in a system or social circle which also embraced these Saturday activities. So, in order to honour the Sabbath and ensure I had a weekly rest, I had to find my own way.

When I was younger and had more energy and my daily work was raising little boys, my sabbath rest often looked like sewing, scrapbooking, and other forms of creative expression that allowed me to make something tangible that would last, as opposed to the continual cycle of cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing, where the benefits were harder to see on a daily basis.** And on Sundays after church, rather than spend the day relaxing, I usually do house and yard work for the rest of the day.

Seven years ago, when I was suddenly torn from the life stage of parenting a young child, I turned to work as a way to both heal and avoid my grief.

That’s when I started into my current cycle of overwork, and working on my career from Sunday night to Friday night with pauses only to eat and sleep became the norm. Soon, I didn’t know who I was without work—what I did had become my entire identity. And despite my strong internal fire for what I do, after seven years, the lustre had begun to dull.

Which is probably why this quote from the introduction of Pang’s book resonated with me so much:

“When your work is yourself, when you cease to work, you cease to exist.”

— Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

That sounds extreme, but that’s how I have felt for some time.

A Day Off Isn’t Enough

Thanks to my belief in sabbath rest (which my own body and experiments reinforced time and again), even in my worst workaholic phases, I have always usually taken one day on a weekend to relax—but, with my shift in schedule seven years ago, the way that rest looked shifted from the active rest I had so long embraced to more of an all-out coma a do-nothing day, since I had expended literally all my energy during the week. I had nothing left to give my friends, my family, or myself.

Eventually, I realized this wasn’t good for me or my relationships, and set aside Saturdays as the day I would get together for friends with coffee. No more saying, “No, I can’t, I’m working.” Instead, it became “How about we get together Saturday?” (Fortunately, by then I had trained my circle to understand that working from home doesn’t mean always available. Now I just had to train myself that connecting with those I care about on a Saturday would still energize me, even when I was dog-tired.)

Ever since I hit the pit of burnout in January 2021, I’ve been on a journey to full recovery. And, as writing coach Becca Syme teaches, it’s often not a straight trajectory. Especially once you get to a point where you’re feeling mostly better, you tend to push yourself too hard and it can take super-long to heal the last twenty-five percent because of it. I can attest to that—I think it’s why I was veering so dangerously close to burnout again this year after the major upset to my life system this spring.

But even during my recovery phases of burnout, working days from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. with a few hours in the middle for meals were my norm. It was a rare week when I didn’t log less than forty-nine hours of butt-in-chair work time, and sometimes as much as sixty when nearing a deadline. (My massage therapist and I get along great. We should. I see him more often than most of my friends.)

But after returning home from my two months away this spring, with a looming book release deadline and several weeks of reduced capacity due to catching COVID too, I pushed myself harder than I should have, back to working those sixty-plus-hour weeks I knew I shouldn’t, the ones that had sent me into burnout in the first place.

And, at the same time, I was sinking into depression. For the first time in my life, I woke up unexcited for the work I had to do that day. I’ve always loved Monday mornings—until this summer.

Now for a brief aside about why I do this to myself:

I’ve done a lot of work on myself over the years, and especially since I lost my son and began my career as a writer. But this spring, I was introduced to the enneagram, and that tool has revealed some things about myself to me that have woken me up like never before to how my patterns are hurting not only those I love, but myself—and the motivation behind it.

As a type Three on the enneagram, which also sometimes goes by the name of my top Strength on the CliftonStrengths test, Achiever, it’s no surprise that I’m a workaholic. But it was the enneagram that helped me to see why:

I’m driven by expectations.

And no one’s expectations of me are higher than my own.

But more than that, I’m in a constant battle to live up to the expectations of others. Over the years, thanks mostly to my husband’s influence, I’ve started to develop boundaries to keep out some of those expectations that don’t belong to me. Still, thanks to the enneagram work I’m doing, I’m starting to see more and more how often things I do or have done in the past were motivated by an expectation I didn’t even consciously register before I tried to meet it.

And the weight of the expectations I carried has been driving me into the ground.

If you’re not a Three, you may not understand how gut-wrenching it is to admit something like this. My heart is literally constricting in my chest right now. This is tough stuff to face. (If you get into the enneagram, you’ll discover your own shadows to face, and then you’ll get it.)

This summer, as my internal flame sputtered low, I realized these expectations are killing me. But that led me to ask, “What’s the reasonable amount to expect of a human?”

I didn’t have an answer. I literally did not know what a reasonable amount of effort, love, work, time, etc. to expect of myself was.

All I knew was that the line was somewhere below the level I’d expected of myself up until now. But I didn’t know how to find it.

This was the quagmire I was sinking in when I took my stay-cation in mid-August.

Slow Productivity and Rest

Slow productivity is more than a fad I’m trying—it’s the new expectation I’m setting for myself. I literally have to tell myself that I need to achieve a slower rate of productivity—that this is the new expectation—or this thing is never going to work for me. And in doing so, I’m making space in my life to remind myself what a life well-lived looks like. To take time, daily, to refresh and rejuvenate, so that I’m not just a blob in a recliner by Friday night.

The book Rest found me right when I needed affirmation that this was not only healthy for me and my relationships, but was actually the right move for the longevity and success of my career. More than that, it has motivated me to incorporate a few new practices into my day to honour and boost my health and creativity—namely, getting up a little earlier to allow time for exercise and a regular nap before the afternoon’s work. (If it was good enough for J.R.R. Tolkien and Winston Churchill, it’s good enough for me.)

Still, this night owl can hardly believe I willingly got up at six a.m. today with a plan to nap this afternoon. Naps have been something I’ve only ever done when my reserves are so depleted that even coffee won’t keep my eyes open.

But, to be honest, my reserves are pretty depleted, though I’m feeling much better than I was a few weeks ago. That nap this afternoon is already looking pretty good. :-)

Even though it’s only been a week, I’m already seeing the benefits of the new routine I established last Monday, and I’m looking forward to a week from now when six a.m. will seem a little easier to manage. (By the way, this new wake-up time is also partly inspired by the fact that my husband has been getting up by six since starting his new job—I prefer our schedules to match so I can see him in the morning and go to bed around the same time as him at night. Yep, my night owl days are on hiatus, maybe for good.)

Here’s to new expectations—which will now incorporate deliberate rest like never before.

**I now know that achieving things gives me energy. I knew that then, too, but at the time, I used to feel guilty about this use of sabbath time. In Pang’s book, he calls this type of rest Active Rest, a time-honoured way to refresh for active, busy people like me. That change is as good as a rest philosophy has something to it.

View of the Peace River bridge on Saturday morning. I was walking along the dike with Jason. It was pretty hazy with smoke from some forest fires in BC and Jasper.

This is my favourite person to rest and relax with. :-)

How do you refresh and rejuvenate, friend? Did any of this resonate with you? Do you need to be more deliberate about rest? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Tuesday, and happy fall!

Stop to Smell the Cosmos

I’m one week in to my new Slow Productivity paradigm shift, and… I love it. I’m more relaxed, happy, and positive about work than I’ve been in months. I’ve spent time this week knitting in the evenings while watching shows with my family, and have even watched a few episodes all by myself. (My current binge watch is Star Trek: Voyager, because I never got to watch that one in the nineties.)

I did have a couple of long days at my desk that I’m feeling across my shoulders, but those “long” days were what I once would have considered a day where I slacked off and didn’t work much. Monday is the Labour Day holiday, and I’m even planning to take it off.

(For context: there were two days where I logged almost ten work hours, but the other two were around 8.5, which is a pretty comfortable length for me. Not so long ago, twelve to thirteen hours of logged work per day was not uncommon, and nine to ten hours was a “light day.”)

So, yeah, I’m feeling good about how this is going. Mostly because I’m actually feeling good, period.

This week, I was primarily focused on two projects:

Continuing to update my website, which I began last week while on holidays.

Publishing the Twisted Rope Fingerless Mittens knitting pattern, which I completed yesterday.

Website Overhaul

When you change templates, there are always some features you were using which no longer work, and some features you never had available to you before which you now do.

At the beginning of this week, my primary concerns were to find a way to get a blog sidebar back—which my new template doesn’t include, for some reason—and to make sure it was easy to navigate between pages in some sections of my website where the in-template navigation had gone away.

I found an excellent plug-in to solve the blog sidebar issue. It’s not as ideal as having it native to the template, but it works. I’m thankful for my lingering knowledge of basic CSS from back in the bad ol’ days of running a blog and a business on Web 1.0, because I was able to tweak the plug-in even more than the basics offered by the designer. I’m pretty happy with it now.

And fixing navigation was a matter of going and manually inserting links on pages myself. I still have one rather hefty list of pages to finish doing this on, but that project is coming along nicely.

In addition, while I’m focusing on my website, I’ve been streamlining some things and doing a lot of niggly back-end stuff to repair broken links and make the user experience smoother. Most of it isn’t going to be obvious to anyone but me, but that’s the way it should be—if a website is working well, you don’t notice it. If it’s annoying and difficult to find what you need, you do. I’d rather this work be unnoticeable.

New pattern: Twisted Rope Fingerless Mittens

This is one of those designs that’s been in the works for many years. (As most of mine are by the time they’re published.) A little over a decade ago, I made some sketches of design ideas in a notebook, and there was an early version of this pattern in there. At the time, I didn’t know how I would make those cable bands at the top and bottom work, but I knew there had to be a way.

Then, in February 2020, I finally started work on an even more complicated version of this design called Lothlorien Fingerless Mittens (which I’ll be releasing next). It was a major challenge to my skills, which is what I wanted, but when I finished the prototype, I knew I had to refine some of the more basic aspects of the design first. So I set that aside and began work on the Twisted Rope design.

The good news is, now that Twisted Rope is out, Lothlorien won’t be far behind. And there will be two lovely designs available for knitters wanting to tackle different complexities of projects.

It feels wonderful to finally complete these projects. They were supposed to be “fast and easy” designs to complete… but with my limited energy levels the last few years, I only worked on them sporadically. And that definitely made everything take longer.

Unblocked prototype of Lothlorien Fingerless Mittens.

Check out the pattern

In other news, this has been one of the most gorgeous summers we’ve had in the Peace Country in years. I was telling my husband this morning that it’s one I wish we could bottle, rinse, and repeat. And I’m so very thankful for it.

In fact, I’ve been practicing gratitude a lot this week, which has probably contributed to my healthier mindset. But, to be honest, it’s difficult to be grateful when you’re stuck in the quagmire. However, now that I’m slowly working my way out of the muck, I find that focusing on gratitude is accelerating the process.

And, as I so often do, I record the things I’m grateful for with my camera (such things as can be captured for posterity this way).

Napping cats beneath my desk.

A surprise petunia beneath my steps that reseeded itself from my planters last summer.

Bees in my cosmos flowers.

So many blooming cosmos flowers!

That my daisies haven’t died yet, despite my almost-total neglect. (I’m babying them a bit more now, hoping to save them. Daisies are my favourite flower.)

Neither have my hostas.

I have so much to be thankful for! (Including the chance to play with my camera this week.)

Happy Friday, friend! What are you thankful for this week?