Prioritize like Picasso

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."

- Pablo Picasso

Is it Interesting?

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

- William Wordsworth

Why So Serious?

If I don't try, this is how my face usually looks.  Kinda deeply dissatisfied.

How many times have you laughed today?  Don't know?  Try to keep count tomorrow.  Don't change what you do, just keep track of how often you laughed.  Sadly, Kids Health Organization reports that adults laugh only 15-18 times a day.  Now, how often do you think children  laugh throughout the day?

Cut It Out

"I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil."

 - Truman Capote

 
The topic of discussion for today is editing.  For me, editing takes the most time.  If it's a short post, there isn't much I need to do, but the longer my post becomes, the longer it sits in the draft pile before it's finally published.  Because I keep going back.  Rereading the whole thing and culling unnecessary words.  Sometimes, I even have to cut out entire sentences or paragraphs.

I'm sure you all edit your posts for grammatical errors, but do you also use the hypothetical scissors to trim your posts down?  I don't know about believing more in one instrument over the other.  Does anyone really like editing?

I'll Write You a Love Letter

click to listen to Leona Lewis' song Love Letter

These days I've been reading a handful of books simultaneously.  Reading a little before bed each night rather than powering through them in my usual style.  There are so many books on my Kindle that I have yet to get to as well.  And yet, I still love to browse bookstores when I get the chance.  While perusing the aisles, I saw an interesting one that was called If You Find This Letter  by Hannah Brencher.

My First Time at MAC

Is it just me or does the eyeshadow remind you of Mulan?

Being a novice makeup user, I've always been intimidated with makeup stores.  Sephora is okay because generally they are so busy that a salesperson never really bothers you.  But MAC, for me, is the scariest of the scariest.  Their look is deliberately bold and the associates generally have tattoos or piercings or both.  I feel like I utterly do not belong there.

My mom and I went to the mall because she had run out of primer.  I followed her into the dreaded MAC and just stood there gazing at all the colors but never daring to touch or express interest in any products, lest an associate pounce on me and start suggesting this or that.  Some guy tried to sell my mom other stuff when she only wanted primer.  She let herself be made over by his expert hand.  Boom.  Cheekbones.

Don't Give Up

It's April now, which means that three months have passed already and we are a quarter of the way done with 2015.  In the past, I didn't pay attention to the months passing, so my birthday or the new year always caught me by surprise.  This year, I made smart goals so I'm keeping myself accountable and looking back as well as forward.  How are you guys doing with your resolutions if you made any?  There are still nine months left so don't give up!

Your Public Thoughts

"Whatever is written and published is public.  More concerning is the idea that every word written on a computer is public.  Just assume that any words you write and send via e-mail, post on a blog, or place on a website are public words."

- Amy Peters

I don't know how I feel about that.  Some interesting movies about the internet and privacy that I recommend are United States of Secrets, Terms and Conditions May Apply, and Generation Like.  I saw all of them via Netflix and found them to be riveting.  And of course, there is the original The Matrix.  The world is a scary place people.  Stay informed about it.

Food52 Genius Recipes

Apparently, my sister tells people that I am an amazing baker, which I don't consider myself to be.  I don't even like baking.  I just like sweets.  The only reason why I started was because I was unhappy with the baked goods bought from the market.  So, I decided to bake them myself.  For me, cooking is the same thing.  It's a joyless means to a necessary end.

So the easier it is the better.  Something that can be made using ingredients I actually have on hand in my kitchen.  No saffron threads or fresh ginger please.  Usually, I make something and it lasts me for a week or more.  By then, I get bored and at it eventually evolves into a stew at some point or another.  Even if it turns out well, I'm not wowed enough to make it again next time.

I've bought cookbooks in the past hoping for quick and easy recipes that might become staples that I wouldn't have to think about.  Unfortunately, they required a whole lot of ingredients or time or both.  Food52 Genius Recipes actually contain recipes that I am not intimidated by.  Crepes made from tortillas?  A salad utilizing hard unripe peaches or cauliflower soup made with and mostly water?  Yes, please!

Bare Faced or Not

Well, I don't have anymore makeup products to recommend.  I am using up lots of samples of things that are simply whatever like face setting powder, bronzer, and mascara.  I occasionally use e.l.f. eyeshadow primer which I'm not sure is effective.  I do switch up my makeup, but because I never wear much, the pictures I take look very much the same.  Is this the end of Makeup Monday?  I don't know.  You mind if we just talk about makeup instead?

I am wearing makeup in this post.  Can you tell?

Now Say, "Thank You"

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

- William Arthur Ward

Limerick is the Name of the Game

If you don't remember or are new, it's wordy Wednesday!  And I challenge you to write a limerick.

Limericks are funny poems.  It should have 5 lines total. Lines 1, 2, and 5 ending with the same rhyme and containing between 7-10 syllables.  Lines 3 and 4 are shorter with 5-7 syllables and rhyme with each other.  Here's a diagram that I wrote before I started writing my poems.  L = Line, R = Rhyme, and S = Syllable

L   R      S

1   A   7-10

2   A   7-10

3   B    5-7

4   B    5-7

5   A   7-10

Are you still with me?  Ugh, that looks like a nasty SAT math problem doesn't it?  But, I assure you it's not as complicated as it looks.  The prompt was to write a limerick about your favorite animal.  Here's what I came up with.

Mr. Swish, my beta fish, is very grumpy indeed
that is until it is time to feed.
He swims all around
without making a sound.
Begging for food until I concede.

Line Dem Eyes

click to hear  Eyes by Kaskade feat. Mindy Gledhill

I usually wear glasses, so I'm not whether putting time into eye makeup is worth the effort.  I do know that using eyeliner makes my face seem more symmetrical.  For every day, pencil will do.  But for special occasions, I'll bust out my liquid eyeliner.

Just Add Watercolor

Lately, I am flexing more of my creative muscles.  I've been dabbling in my old sketchbooks and drawing.  Naturally, drawing got me thinking about painting again.  And being the super cautious and thorough me, I got a book to refresh my memory before diving right into it.

Just add Watercolor  by Helen Birch is a little book (about the size of a Kindle), but it packs a whole lot of information as well as inspiration.  It's got 87 pages of different paintings in various styles by artists from all around the globe.  In not just watercolor, but gouache, mixed media, and colored pencils too.  It's perfect because I haven't cultivated my own style yet and I wanted to see how others treated the medium to their advantage.

Spring Purging

"Go confidently in the directions of your dreams; live the life you've imagined.  As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."

- Henry David Thoreau

Spring is the time for fresh starts and new beginnings.  I quite admire minimalist bloggers who share photos of their pristine rooms or homes.  There's nothing there that doesn't belong.  It's all so vanilla.  And yet, why does it look so inviting?  I think it's the lack of clutter.  A minimalist place seems so refreshing because I imagine that that person's life is totally in order.  They've sifted through and gotten rid of all the extraneous in their lives.  Thus, they are free to live in the present.  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just projecting.

I titled this post "Spring Purging" because cleaning is not a strong enough word.  I really want this spring to be the start of something fabulous.  I will actively pursue the life I have imagined and to do that, I've got to get rid of the mess that congested the old one.  To start, I put aside my things in individual bags so that my room looks  clean.  Then, I rearranged the furniture in the entire apartment.  Now, I've got to pull them out of their hiding places, sit down, sort through them, and devise a better system to organize my belongings, so that I am more inclined to put things away next time.

Goals Accomplished!

Woohoo!  Some of my goals for the new year were to consistently post at least 4 times a week and to gain about 1,000 readers by the end of March.  Lo and behold, I've done both.  Well, I don't know how many readers I have exactly but I've gotten more than 1,000 pageviews, which is good enough for me.  It's so interesting to see the demographics of people tuning in because somehow I've got an international audience from Kiwis to Koreans, French, Italians, and people from around the U.K.  Most of my friends are Asians but I'm trying to get outside my comfort zone.  I'm really excited about the possibility of making international friends. Thanks for stopping by!

I have met none of my fitness goals on the other hand. Grrr.

How to Write Concisely

"Simple means getting rid of extra words.  Don't write, 'He was very happy' when you can write 'He was happy.'  You think the word 'very' adds something.  It doesn't."

- Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert comic strips)

Obviously, if you're writing comic strips, you'd have to be careful about your words because you only have so much space.  But being concise is appreciated by everyone, whether you're writing business e-mails, blogs, or tweets.  When I had to write papers in school, my rough drafts would always be under the word limit.  I despised the process of having to go back and add sentences to each paragraph simply to meet the requirement when I had already made my point by page __.

Blogging is different.  You can write as little or as much as you want to.  I also know that you can't force people to read it or even be sure they read the entirety of the post.  Help make the process easier for readers by editing.  Since most bloggers write about stuff we are excited about, it can be easy to go on a rant if we don't check ourselves.  Below is my checklist for simple writing.

1. Check for filler words like "very" or "really"
2. Make sure adjectives serve a purpose
3. Check for redundancy.  For example, "absolute favorite"
4. As a personal choice, I avoid exaggerations.  For example, the word obsessed, is defined by Webster's dictionary as "to haunt or trouble in mind, esp. to an abnormal degree; preoccupy greatly" or adore, which means "to worship as divine; to love greatly or honor highly; idolize."
5. Catch yourself when you go on a tangent and delete those sentences accordingly.  You can always save them for another post.