Today’s Friday Five is reflective of how I, and I think many, may be feeling right now.
Click on photo for how to make this DIY scrap wood heart. I think I need to make more.
Sometimes, life kicks your butt. I’ve said many times on this blog what my friend Jane used to say: “Sometimes, life intervenes.” And, when it does, it’s hard to be creative or think about anything other than the next thing you have to do. Which is hard when your business is rooted in being creative – or when you just want to be creative, but your mojo is gone.
That’s how I’ve felt lately, for a whole host of reasons.
My daughter, who has Crohn’s Disease, has been battling some skin-related issues over the past year and they have been misdiagnosed until recently. Which means she’s been itching (and, thus, scratching) for the better part of a year. After several very long doctor appointments last week, I think we now have the correct meds. She is doing awesomely now and I’m so grateful that we got her to the right doctors and medicine. But my heart ached for her while she was trying medicine after medicine with no relief, as she scratched her skin to infection several times, all while smiling and soccer-ing and being amazing.
Please click on the photo for how I redid my daughter’s room in her style!
Our beautiful house continues to kick my butt. We had a skylight leak in our bathroom and, in the course of figuring that out, found that the exhaust vents in our bathroom and water closet were “vents to nowhere”! They were installed, but didn’t vent to the outside. So the steam from our showers was just circulating in the attic and creating – wait for it – mold.
I can’t get away from mold, it seems.
Anyway, it’s fixed now, but it was a chunk of change to fix it that we weren’t anticipating.
And – and I don’t want this to turn into a political debate* – I am in a state of anxiety and concern about what’s going on in our country. I do not agree with the policies of the current administration, for a whole host of reasons (reason #1: see note above about awesome daughter with Crohn’s Disease), and I am discouraged by the lack of civility generally about how to discuss the problems our country is facing and how we can move forward together.
On that note, you may know that there has been a debate going on among bloggers about whether to stay “on message” with DIY and crafts, or whether to acknowledge that there are serious things going on in this country and that it seems almost silly to be talking about DIY or crafts at such a time.
What I have resolved, after much thought, is that creating is exactly what we need right now. Regardless of how one is feeling, creativity is good for the soul. It produces something beautiful and from the heart, and that’s something we could all use, regardless of opinion or view, right now. I just know that, when life is hard, it’s hard to find the inspiration or energy to have that creativity.
So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share five tips for how to be creative when life is kicking your butt (whatever the source of the kicking):
(1) Turn off the computer.
Funny, coming from a blogger, right? But I find that, when I’m preoccupied with the news or Facebook or anything online, the best thing to do is shut down the computer and do something else. It’s ok to turn it off for a while. That frees up your mind and your time to find something creative to do.
(2) Go outside.
My favorite thing to do when my brain isn’t focusing on being creative is to take a walk. Not only is it good for me physically, but it allows me to clear my head. I’ll take the dogs for a walk, so they get a benefit, too! Plus, they make me laugh! I can appreciate nature, take deep breaths, and only focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
(3) Find inspiration from another source.
When I’m not feeling creative, I often will go to a thrift store, salvage store, or HomeGoods to find inspiration. At thrift stores and salvage yards, I might find something I can transform into something else, and that sparks my creativity. At a store like HomeGoods, I often find things that I like but think I could make myself. Then I think about how to get that done.
I also tend to devour home and design magazines and books. My favorite magazines are This Old House, HGTV Magazine, Country Living, and House Beautiful. As for books, I love Design Sponge by Grace Bonney (a blog, but she published a book) and other books on decorating and repurposing.
Even if a magazine or book has rooms that are too expensive for my budget or not my style, I often find that I still get ideas that I can make work for my budget and style.
(4) Create “outer order.”
My friend Gail (you should go read her amazing blog, My Repurposed Life) has a sign that says, “Outer Order, Inner Calm.” I love that. Because I know that, when my house is a mess, it stresses me out. I always feel better when everything is put away, organized and neat.
So, I find my creative mojo by first cleaning up my work space. Or some room in my home that needs some love and dusting. Organizing the space where I create creates a calm that allows creative juices to start flowing.
(5) Just start.
Sometimes what stymies me is the enormity of whatever project I think I want to create. For example, I need to repaint our laundry room because we had the built-in ironing board (hello, 1950s!) removed. When I think about the time and effort to do that project (clearing the room, moving the machines, etc.), and I think about the time I have, I figure I don’t have enough time to get it done and I don’t do it.
Or, I’ll think about how many projects I want to do, and that stops me in my tracks. It’s too much, so I just shut down and do none of them!
Instead, I need to just start something. Even if I don’t finish it in one sitting, the key is to just start. Once I get started, I know I’ll keep going. And creativity begets creativity.
I hope this post helps if you are having trouble finding creativity in your life. It helped me to write it. I hope that, if life is kicking your butt, you find some peace in creating something beautiful. And anything you create is beautiful, because it comes from you.
*I welcome the opportunity to discuss policies with anyone who wants to discuss them peacefully and respectfully. I just didn’t want this post to be the opener of that can of worms. This isn’t a political post; it’s a post about how to be creative. If you do want to talk, you may email me at karen@thediybungalow.com.
A "recovering lawyer," I turned in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home.
I’ve definitely been in a creative rut! I even have a project I made, photographed and edited the photos but just haven’t felt the desire to write about it or post. But this is really great advice. So I’ll be stepping away from the computer right now and perhaps take the dog for a walk … and then I’ll just “start.” 🙂
Awesome, Linda. I’m going to do the same. It’s hard enough to do the projects, but even harder to then compose clear, cohesive thoughts about it and then edit and photograph and all that. Hang in there. Creativity is so needed – we just need to refocus and start!
Funny you mention the venting of the bathroom. When we moved into this house, we were told by an inspector (AFTER we bought the house–why wasn’t it caught before we bought the house??) that we needed a bathroom vent, otherwise, mold in the attic could be a problem. As a result, I believe there is a mold problem up there. I actually need to find someone to come and do a thorough inspection and need to get a bathroom vent in our master bathroom. Ugh…Thanks for the reminder to stop sticking my head in the sand about this!
Also, I know what it’s like when you’re got so much going on! But, as it’s been said, “she persists.” 🙂
I had the same thoughts about the venting – how did the inspector not catch this before?!? I noticed it because the attic space is over the bathroom and the attic and our clothes started smelling musty and gross! Isn’t that lovely? Definitely have it checked – as long as there’s a moisture source, it’ll keep growing (blargh).
Thank you – we will persist. And create.
The bad thing is that our house DID have mold on the attic sheathing when we moved in. It was replaced by the previous homeowner, but there was nothing given to us to save that mold remediation was done or anything. We were clueless. Since moving into this house in 2010, we’ve had odors in the clothes that smell musty and have never been able to exactly pinpoint. Who would you recommend we bring in at this point?
A similar thing happened to us: the previous owners had mold remediated but didn’t give us any disclosure or anything that said it had been done. They are legally supposed to do that, but there’s not much we could do that long after the fact. I would recommend bringing in either an air quality tester – someone who comes in and takes a sample of the air in the area where you are smelling the mustiness (or all over, if that’s the case) – or a mold remediation expert who can do an inspection and find the source of the smell and mold. I used the remediation person my contractor generally uses, who ended up being the same person who did the mold remediation on the home before we bought it (that’s how we found out about it!). He recommended the air quality testing after the remediation, to make sure that the air was safe (given M’s medical issues), but the air quality guy tests for mold to find it, too. The guy who did the mold remediation (who did it when we had the Comcast leak and in the pantry) also has a “service contract” kind of deal where, for a small fee, he’ll come back and inspect each year and remediate if he finds anything. Seriously, ask me anything about mold remediation. We’ve done it three times here, so I feel like somewhat of an expert! (I even have a category on the blog called “mold.”)
Man, the things we don’t know until after the fact! LOL. The one thing I do want to know, and you can IM me off line if you’d like, is the cost of this kind of remediation. I know that it’s not cheap, and it depends on your problem, but I’d love to get a ballpark figure. And, where in the attic was there mold? I’m worried that if it’s on the attic sheathing again, they’d had to rip that out and replace it. UGH…
So, in terms of remediation cost, it varies based on the amount of space you have to remediate and how serious the problem is. For the pantry, which was a small area that was easy to contain (to create the reverse air pressure to suck out any bad air), it was less than $200. For the living room leak, which was major – ripping out the floor and half of a wall and a whole other section of wall – and the whole open room had to be sealed, it was several thousand dollars. We ended up not calling in remediation for the attic, because it was in a tiny confined space which is hard to get to, and we figured that, if we cut off the source of the moisture that caused the mold, the mold would die. We are going to keep tabs on this to make sure it dies, but the smell is already gone or minimized. Let me know if you have any other questions. It sucks to be an expert in this, but I’m happy to share my experiences so that others don’t have to go through the same thing.
Well done my friend! We all get in those creative ruts, and expect too much of ourselves and get overwhelmed by to-do lists a mile long. One step at a time Karen-it will get done.
M’s room is beautiful! wishing her all the best with the new meds.
take care!
gail
Thank you, Gail! I appreciate it!!
Thank you for this post, because I am often beating myself up for not always having the energy nor time to finish things I wanted completed by a certain time. I got to learn how NOT TO sweat the small stuff.
Ivory, I know, right? I beat myself up about that all the time! We do have to realize that our to-do list will always be there and that’s ok, so long as we keep moving forward and accomplishing and creating. Don’t sweat the small stuff! And I’ll be better about not doing that, too!
Karen, your post today will probably affect many of us. I know that it has made me think AND made me feel better, too. I so regret your continuing mold problems! Wondering if prior to purchase, you had a home inspection done. It doesn’t catch everything, but can be very helpful. At this point, hope you can get these things solved. Will your homeowner’s insurance help with any of these costs? Anyway, thanks for the good post! Have a better weekend 😀
Later – Cheryl B.
Thank you, Cheryl! We did have a home inspection done – although they missed this! I think that they went up in the attic and saw some duct work, but the duct wasn’t connected to the outside, so it was venting directly into the attic. It was kind of on the side of the attic and it’s a narrow attic space. I’m not AT ALL excusing that they missed it, because my contractor found it pretty easily, but this inspector missed a couple of other things, so I’m not shocked. We didn’t run it through our homeowner policy because we balanced the cost of the repair with the deductible and any chance our rate would go up. It wasn’t awful in the great scheme of “things you have to do to fix a house,” but it was still a significant cost. But now our bathroom and closet doesn’t smell musty and the vents work great! Always looking for the bright side!
Hi Karen, I tried to e-mail you, but the address did not work. I don’t think e-mails can end in “.com”
I’m sorry! The correct email is karen@thediybungalow.com. Or you can use thediybungalow@gmail.com. Those have worked. Thanks!
I feel like I haven’t seen you in a million years. I don’t know it tt was the name change, but whenever I saw “dogs don’t eat pizza’ I would stop immediately & read the post.
anyway, I have definitely missed your voice of reason. This post made so many good points. Thanks, Karen.
ps I apologize for any tupos. I can’t see the light blue very well for some reason. i’m pretty much typing blind here. : )
Thank you, Mickey! I know I’ve been quiet lately. I’m really glad I rebranded the blog (Dogs Don’t Eat Pizza will always be part of me and remind me of Bear!), but I need to get back on track. Everything has just been so overwhelming lately – trying to keep my head up and plow on! Thank you for your kind words and I promise to be back out there soon!