December 13 What’s the best change you made to the place you live?

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I have a love/hate relationship with my room. I love being in my room, surrounded by books and cards and pictures. I hate that I have a diagonal wall, and it’s hit or miss whether a nail will go through or just force the unknown materials to crumble to the ground. It makes decorating and positioning things difficult. So for the first, oh, nine months that I lived in the place, I just didn’t try. My walls were empty. It was a little depressing.

After I saw a blog post with a new spin on the clothesline concept, I bought some thin wire and more clothespins than I knew what to do with and hung cards and photos on one wall. Better in theory, because my cards weighed the wire down, and the clothespins wouldn’t stand up straight and looked freakishly large compared to the cards. So I abandoned that idea and returned to the Jacky Carter decorating staple: cork board squares, which I use to tack up notes, post cards, autographs (Hello, Hillary Clinton), hand drawn comics, photos, prints, cards…

But before I left to travel this fall, I took down everything on my walls and packed up everything in my room to store in my closest (which is in the living room…that’s how crazy New York is! As if the diagonal wall wasn’t enough) while another girl sublet my room. It was a pain, but coming back from such a life-changing trip felt like the perfect time to rethink how I wanted to decorate my room.

The big change I made, which really isn’t that big at all, was to take all the clutter and crap and toiletries off my dresser and put them in the top drawer instead. I downsized my pj collection to make room and put my socks in a basket. Now the top of my dresser is clean. I can’t tell you what a refreshing feeling that is — to have space and openness after two and a half years of make up mess.

Then I rearranged the contents of my bookshelf, transporting three small piles of books to my dresser and propping a “Keep Calm and Carry On” print on top of the books. Dudes. It was like “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” came in and Ty Pennington screamed “Moooooooove…thaaaaaat…buuuuuuussssss!” That’s the happiness I felt by that tiny little change. Which I think was more indicative of a shift in thinking and perspective after my trip. Of looking at the same stuff in my life, but just in a different way. I’ve managed to let some papers and a tad of clutter come back to the top of the dresser, but my “Keep Calm” reminder stays on top, so that’s just what I do…carry on.

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New food
I forbid myself from buying a few things because most of the time I know as soon as they are in my kitchen, I will not be able to stop eating them until they are gone. Forget portions. Forget servings. I have no willpower in their presence. When it comes to dark chocolate with almonds, chips and salsa, and cheese with cranberries, oh watch out.

I’ve known the chocolate weakness for awhile, that’s why my cubemate Michael was responsible for storing our M&Ms, because I didn’t trust myself to not eat them all. Chips and salsa came as a surprise this year…it was always my BFF Natalie’s weakness, and every time I devoured a jar of Tostitos salsa in record time, I let her know, because she could understand. The cranberries and white cheddar cheese combo entered my life after evenings over at my friend Rebecca and Tamara’s homes, where they had nice little plates to hold the cheese and cute little bowls to hold the cranberries, and I hovered over the table combining them, debating whether it would be totally rude to eat the whole thing. I erred on the side of not being a complete ass and left some for everyone else.

Best place
Jet Blue airplanes. After flying on Jet Blue for five weeks with my All You Can Jet pass, I quickly became attached to the entire experience. All the free snacks I wanted (which was nice on a travel budget. My fav drink concoction was Diet Sprite mixed with Orange Fusion. Wild!). Satellite TV in each seat (I don’t even have cable at home. It was crazy!). And I love staring out the window at clouds, water and towns below. The Caribbean was gorgeous to see from overhead, which got me as close to Cuba as I will probably ever come.

There’s also something about the transition of going from place to place. The anticipation of a new experience or seeing old friends. The possibility and unpredictability of what’s ahead. When you’re up in a plane, the whole world is ahead of your (or below you, if you want to be all technical. WHATEVER).

Shop
My favorite shop was a lovely little place my friend Sammi took me to in Houston called ph design shop. It’s a stationery/paper goods store with a design studio in back. I loved all the products they carried (Sammi and I got really excited anytime we recognized someone’s work from Etsy) and I did not want to leave. Literally, I could have lived there. ph design shop was where I purchased my 2010 planner (yes people, I still use a paper one, in conjunction with my Google Calendar). My planner is the prettiest one in existence. The design shop also got me thinking of maybe one day having my own place like that — where I would sell adorableness and do custom designs too.

December 7 That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year.

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I would be lost without my Google Reader. Besides storing all the blogs I read every day, it also suggests new sites. Which is how I found A Life in Translation by Jamie Varon. She’s like Dooce for the younger generation, with some international flair. Jamie started her own business, moved to Italy and is basically living my dream life. At the age of 24. Boy do I feel old.

I found her site one day and I read every post. Then I e-mailed an annoying number of them to friends (let’s face it, they’re used to me flooding their e-mail with this kind of stuff). Her writing is hilarious and honest, and it makes me want us to be BFF.

She moved to Italy a day before I started my five-week travels, and I felt a sense of companionship as we both flung ourselves into new lands and experiences. I read her posts throughout my travels and became more jealous of her life as the end of my trip grew closer.

My jealousy eventually turned into inspiration — she had figured out how to do what I wanted: live and work abroad as a designer by starting her own business. Hello. Genius. (don’t worry, mom. My life plan currently allots a year abroad, not the rest of my life). And there’s an actual name to what she’s doing (and what I aspire to) — location independence. I was on a plane to Houston when I had the urge to figure out my two-year plan and how to get abroad. And this was when I realized that starting my own stationery business (which was a dream I was scared to admit earlier this year) was the key to my own location independence.

I could almost kiss my Google Reader for this introduction and the resulting revelation (but I don’t even touch my computer screen, so that kind of contact is out. Respect the electronics, peeps).

December 6 Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial?

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I like to learn. After I’d worked at my old job for a year, I was eligible for tuition reimbursement. This was a big perk to staying at the job — that’s how much I wanted to take design classes (for free!). In the year leading up to this, I requested course catalogs from design and publishing schools in the city and would carefully highlight every class I wanted to take. Sometimes I would highlight and then flag. Then plan in my head when I could take what. New catalogs came three times a year and I did the same thing every. single. time. Even though the all same classes were offered. That’s how exciting this was for me.

My first semester, I enrolled in a typography class. The next semester I took a letterpress class (which was fun because I made T-shirts!). But leading up to my lay off in August, work was so stressful this year that I was only able to fit in a two-weekend class, which just wasn’t enough learning for me.

So I enrolled in some e-courses, for fun. The first was Marisa of Creative Thursday’s class, In the Fishbowl: Life as an Artist. At this point, I was just dipping my toes into the online world…not posting on the blog very much (not even telling many people about it), not sure what direction I wanted to take in my creative world or how to get there. The online community was incredibly supportive and encouraging. Right as the course wrapped up, I was laid off. Which felt like some sort of connection I couldn’t forsee but found comfort in. Marisa was also the one who introduced me to video blogs, which became a large part of my five week travels after I lost my job.

A few weeks before I was laid off (and still had a regular paycheck!), I enrolled in another e-course, Mondo Beyondo: An online class about dreaming big, with Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher. Unintentionally the most amazing thing I could do. Two weeks after I lost my job, this class started and along with it lots of thinking about what I really wanted to do in life. The lessons, love notes and podcasts were exactly what I needed as I entered this new phase of life — this very big unknown, filled with as much possibility as I’d allow. I didn’t take as much advantage of the course and community as I would’ve liked since I was traveling, so I signed up again for the January session (thank you alumni rate).

As for an official workshop though…I have that to look forward to in February. I’m taking Jen Lee’s Companions for the Journey: A Voice and Story Retreat in Brooklyn. I think it’s going to be magical and I’m really looking forward to having the benefit of in-person instruction and community. There is solid chance I will cry at some point during the retreat (good tears though) because I know it’s going to be that amazing and transformative. And we have tickets to see “Wicked” on Broadway. I get giddy just thinking about it.

December 5 Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

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My birthday was two weeks after I lost my job, so I was still dealing with a lot of emotions (i.e. spending my days in bed watching the entire “Mad Men” series, wondering if I’d have to live in a van by the river, being referred for my first freelance position, deciding to travel for five weeks…)

Birthdays are a pretty good excuse to get friends together to begin with, but my recent lay off was icing on the (birthday) cake. Friends from college and work all came out to my neighborhood (this rarely happens. another birthday perk) for an evening at the new beer garden.

Even though I sweat a lot and ran into my landlord (”Do your parents know you’re out tonight?” “Umm, yeah…”), it was one of those perfect moments — a wonderful summer evening with people you adore, when you are completely happy and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else (even if that place had air conditioning). The night was made even more delightful when my former coworkers brought treats, including pans of homemade brownies. And even though it was a beer garden, I was able to enjoy sangria (I did, however, try some beer, though one was mixed with lemonade and the other was raspberry flavored).

December 4 What book — fiction or non — touched you? Where were you when you read it?

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It’s hard to remember the books I’ve read this year because nearly all were checked out from the library and aren’t sitting on my bookshelf to remind me. Before I moved to New York, I never used the library. Books were like my friends and I wanted my favorites surrounding me at all times. But I started running out of room and didn’t want to spend the money and the NYPL turned out to be awesome. Problem solved.

One of the few books I did actually buy this year was Kelly Corrigan’s “The Middle Place,” which is about her battle with breast cancer. My mom mentioned she’d read it and sent a video link to part of a book lecture by the author. I loved her voice and writing style immediately.

I bought the book on a Saturday morning in May. I was sick and had to miss a 10K race in Central Park, so I went to Borders to cheer myself up. Then I spent the day in bed reading — surrounded by Kleenax, cough drops and Vitamin Water. As I read the book, I wanted to be her best friend (my mom did too). She’s funny, honest, imperfect. This is the kind of book you don’t want to put down, but force yourself to because you don’t want to finish it yet. When I finally did finish the book, I cried and then just sat on my bed for awhile letting her story soak in.

You can read the background and view the schedule on Gwen Bell’s website.