Other People's Printables!

When I'm on my game, I'm pretty organized.  I'm good with calendars and lists - basically the less I have to keep in my head, the better I function!  This keeps me plugging along in a happy, generally on-top-of-things state until something goes insane, and then I let go of...many things, and first on the list is usually my lists.  But here's the thing:  I find that when I start from a place of being organized and on top of things, then when disaster strikes (pregnancy-induced insomnia, revolution in the streets, the specter and reality of Russian invasion, cancer in the family OR SOME DELIGHTFUL COMBINATION THEREOF) I don't fall as far, I don't crash as hard, I don't actually run out of clean underwear and it's a lot easier to claw my way back to a functional existence!

Home organization binders and whatnot seem to be all the rage on teh homey intarwebz these days, and I find a lot of the printables out there to be extremely helpful.  So over the next few posts, I'm going to share with you some of the printables that are currently helping me wrap my mind back around my life.  Today we're starting with three of my favorite printables-I-didn't-come-up-with (that are, of course, free - disposable income or no, we're still cheap bastards around here when we can get away with it)!

Russia still looms large to the east, but life in Kyiv is, if anything, back to better-than-normal.   And we're trying to get back to normal too.  Hopefully these will help you out as well, whether you're trying to scale Mt. Holy Crap along with me, or just trying to plug along at a sustainable pace.

The Daily Docket

Download here!

First on my list of lists-that-keep-my-life-together is definitely the Daily Docket, from the The Art of Simple.  This is your basic daily planner sheet, and it happens to work an absolute charm for me with no tweaks or alterations (and I can be pretty picky when it comes to these things)!  In particular, I appreciate that the daily schedule and to-do-list are melded into one list.  This keeps me from cramming in more to-dos than I'll have time to accomplish in a day packed with meetings or whatever, and helps me to visualize when I'll be able to get certain things done.  You can download a couple of iterations of the docket at the link just below the photo above, including a pocket-sized version, and also browse the other great printables by The Art of Simple.

Goal-Setting Planner

Download here!

Next up is a neat set of goal-planning worksheets by Dani Schnakenberg Studios. There's a lot I'd like to accomplish in the foreseeable future, and I have a knack for launching forward on something guns blazing either to then run out of steam or...direction, I guess.  Or realize that this OTHER thing I'd been neglecting needs urgent attention and then drop the first ball entirely.  This is a good tool to help you collect your thoughts, plan a roadmap and keep yourself focused.  Find the printable at the link below the photo.

2014 Blog Planner

Download here!

Aaaaaand of course one of my goals is to build up this here blog into something cool and, um...reliable.  So I've started using what I believe is the awesomest blog planner ev4r.  Seriously, I looked at a LOT of blog planners, and while there are a BUNCH of very functional and attractive ones out there, this one won my heart and has been working great.  This one comes in three styles from the eminently talented A Well Crafted Party. You can find all three at the link below the photo.  You do have to sign up for her newsletter to get access to the free downloads, but it's not spammy at all.  You won't regret it!

So there you have it.  I hope you find these as helpful as I hope I find them myself.  :-D  Ok, I'm already finding them to be extremely helpful.  May we all find some peace and quiet by getting things down on paper where we can safely forget about them for a bit, without dropping any balls.

I miss blogging!

I'm back!

I’ve been thinking lately about reviving the ‘ole blog.  I dunno, I miss it, it was fun.  And it gave me a neat impetus to keep doing creative things, whereas left to my own devices (and now that I like…have a job and stuff…), procrastination can really take over (remember that quilt I started 5 years ago?  Yeah, it’s still going).

So here’s what’s changed since last we met:

1)   I am no longer a poor, broke grad student.  I am now a comfortably middle-class diplomat.  Before I had a flexible schedule and my program, frankly, was not a good fit, so this blog was a much-needed distraction that I was able to make time for.  Now I have a 9-5 job and will need to be more disciplined if anything is to come of this.  Before I was crushingly poor – which frankly was part of the fun of the blog, trying to find ways to live the good life on a shoestring.  Now I have, like…disposable income and stuff.  It’s still somewhat disconcerting.

2)   I no longer live in Madison, WI – or the U.S. for that matter.  Soon after we last spoke, I spent a wonderful couple of years in Ottawa, Canada and I’m now living in the utterly fascinating, if somewhat more grim and gritty, Kyiv, Ukraine.  And let me tell you – as wonderful an experience as it is being here, there will be times when this blog will be a welcome distraction from all of that.

3)   I am pregnant.  Ayup!  Expect baby projects.  But I promise they won’t ALL be baby projects.

4)   I actually haven’t been knitting a lot lately.  Lots of people knit in Ukraine, but there’s not the sort of yarn culture like there was in Madison – no yarn stores cum coffee shops…in fact no yarn stores at all, that I’ve found.  Most folks buy their stuff online, which is just not as fun.  I’ve been dabbling in cross stitch, cooking up a storm and have some simple sewing projects that I’ll be blogging about soon, but I promise there will also be plenty of knitting (stay tuned for a new free pattern and giveaway coming really soon!).

5)  We went Paleo.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  And I’ve actually been super bad about it since getting knocked up (I’ve been having a hard time gaining weight, so my only real option here is cake, know’m’sayin’?).  I promise to keep this blog 100% Paleo-evangelism free.  But you will, from time to time, find some nifty gluten-free recipes and stuff.  I like to say my approach is “Laidback Paleo;” for instance coming soon will be a post about The (now not-so little) Blonde Lightening Bolt’s amazing grain-free birthday layer cake topped with SUGARY SUGARY BUTTERCREAM!!!  (And yes, that is an ice cream bowl made of dark chocolate in the background.  Don't worry, that tutorial will totally happen).

6)  I have given up my feminist ways and accepted my husband, who shall remain nameless, as my lord and master.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!  Kidding.

So what hasn’t changed, I hope, is the general ethos.  Better living through makin’ stuff.  Punchy, irreverent feminism.  Occasional references to swords.  I may not have a hilariously negligible budget to contend with, but living the ex-pat life offers its own hurdles to creatively overcome, so you’ll all be privy to that.  And I may not have blue carpet anymore, but I sorta like to think that I’ve traded that in for the more metaphorical blue carpet of embassy-issued furniture (about which more later).  Fundamentally, here at Sasha’s Blue Carpet, we’re still all about living the good life.  And as any good crafter/grad student/ex-pat will tell you, the only way to live the good life is to make it from scratch!

Time For a Giveaway!!!

Win this! The headband pattern, not the girl. Sicko. :-P

One of the strange things about blogging is that you really can't tell who's subscribed to your RSS feed. So, although there are various ways of telling who comes and visits your site, anyone who reads your blog via your feed is essentially invisible to you. This makes it sort of hard to gauge how many regular readers you have. Some services like Google Reader make it possible to see who's following you through that particular service, but I know I usually just subscribe directly to the feed, and I think most people like to do that too.

So here's my idea: If you are subscribed to my blog (or if you're just now subscribing) in any way, through any service, comment to this post and let me know! Everyone who comments will be entered into a drawing for a free copy of Bluebonnets, which is, you know...not usually free. And, just because I think it's fun to actually see my "followers," anyone who follows my blog via Google Reader will be entered twice!

A winner will be chosen on Saturday, July 11 via random number generator, so subscribe and submit your comments or subscribe through Google before then (see the "subscribe" and "follow" links to the left). I'll post the name of the winner that day, then it will be up to that person to email me and let me know at what email address they'd like to receive the PDF pattern.

A Very Silly Post

The following post is very silly and reflects my occasional fascination with Google Analytics. By way of preemptive apology, please accept this picture of blueberries and this weekend's chocolate torte. It was good. Wish you'd'a been there. :-)

Dear North Dakota,

What gives??? You are officially the only state in the union to have sent me no visitors whatsoever in the entire 6 months I've been maintaining this blog. I thought we were buds. Seriously, where's the midwest solidarity? South Dakota likes me just fine.

Nyah,
Sasha


Dear Russia,

Seriously??? I'm getting my effing PhD in you!!! Georgia sent me visitors, are you gonna let Georgia show you up??? I freaking have friends in you RIGHT NOW! If you don't send me some visitors, I will have them gang up on you and all visit my blog right now while they're inside you, just to spite you!

No love,
Sasha

It's the Little Things

My boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, went back home this morning after spending the weekend here with me. This always kinda gets me down, for obvious reasons. My room suddenly seems so empty and quiet, and of course, we have a tendency to...rather...mess things up while he's here. ;-) Instead of cheering me up, all of those little pieces of weekend-evidence just remind me that I'm alone in here again. It'll be a happier space once I've got it straightened back up (and once that French press is empty). Also, I find it fascinating that all of my cookbooks are some form of red or pink (even the Japanese cookbook, not shown). I wonder what market research led to that decision!

Lemme tell ya what else cheers me up, though, and it's something I didn't really anticipate when I started this blog. You guys! (Whoever the hell you are out there reading this blog). I love waking up in the morning, checking my Google Analytics page and seeing what cool, international readers dropped in during the night. Y'know, I don't expect to be racking up hits and getting all internet-famous or anything, and I'm not. But do you have any idea how cool it is to see that your blog is being read by people in Poland? And Greece? And Germany? And Great Britain? And Slovenia? That's just freaking spiff!

Also, since putting my hot water bottle cozy pattern up on Ravelry, it's started showing up in queues and favorite lists, and that makes me smile a little bit too, in a silly, small-time kinda way. It makes me excited to share more designs, as they pop out of my head, and they are popping in, at least, at a faster than normal rate. I've relied very heavily on other people's patterns, of course, for most of my time knitting, and it's so cool to make something that's really yours, from conception to creation to writing up. It just makes me all smiley and stuff.