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The Product of Creative Frustration

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Year in review: 2012 Goals

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On December 29, 2012

In uncategorized

At the beginning of 2012, I made some resolutions for the year. I had big plans to cross things off off of my 100 list! Here’s a copy of the original list:

  1. Play an instrument.
  2. Learn to sew.
  3. Learn to ride the city bus.
  4. Make pasta from scratch.
  5. Watch all of the movies in the AFI 100 Movies list.
  6. Meditation.
Um. So I did one of those. Honestly, I think the key is not to have such specific goals! I did end up accomplishing quite a few things from my list:
  1. See Stevie Wonder in concert
  2. See The Shins in concert
  3. Go to a topless beach, topless
  4. Go sailing
  5. Learn to sew
  6. Progress towards “visit 50 countries” — Turkey, Greece, Puerto Rico
  7. Learn to do screenprinting
  8. Create something using Letterpress
  9. Make pasta from scratch
For 2013 I’m going to try out not having any goals. Let the year take me where it may! I am inspired by an article by Jim Collins, “Best New Year’s Resolution? A’Stop Doing’ List.” So maybe I will have one resolution. I’ll say no more. Otherwise, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that 2013 brings with it some more fun times, accomplishments and stories.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Year in review: Blog

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On December 28, 2012

In uncategorized

As usual, I’ve updated the blog in fits and starts over the course of the year. Here’s a list of my most popular posts from the year*:

  1. Spending the Evening with Feist and Martin de Thurah
  2. Incurable
  3. Creating
  4. Signed, Sealed, Delivered: President Barack Obama and Stevie Wonder in Cincinnati
  5. Warthogs
  6. Before and After: Bathroom Remodel
  7. DSLR Camera Print
  8. I wanna Dance With Somebody
  9. Happy
  10. I Need a Lover Who Won’t Drive Me Crazy
* These are the most popular posts published this year. The list looks different if I pull data from the lifetime of the blog.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Year In Review: My Books of 2012

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On December 26, 2012

In books, reviews

What follows is a list of what I read in 2012, in reverse chronological order. Not all of the books were great, but there were definitely some gems among the bunch. Overall, I consider it a great year for reading. I’ve marked a few I think would be worth reading, in case you’re planning your reading list for 2013.
  1. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
  2. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
  3. The Visible Man Chuck Klosterman
  4. Empire of the Sun J.G. Ballard
  5. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
  6. Incendiary by Chris Cleave
  7. The Litigators by John Grisham
  8. The Water Is Wide: A Memoir by Pat Conroy
  9. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
  10. Untouchable by Scott O’Connor
  11. Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3) by Tana French
  12. Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman
  13. Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness by Pete Earley
  14. Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson
  15. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
  16. Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2) by Ken Follett
  17. World Without End (The Pillars of the Earth, #2) by Ken Follett
  18. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  19. Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
  20. Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
  21. Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3) by E.L. James
  22. The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon’s Court by Michelle Moran
  23. Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades, #2) by E.L. James 24.
  24. Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1) by E.L. James
  25. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  26. Nemesis by Philip Roth
  27. Stealing Home (The Sweet Magnolias #1) by Sherryl Woods
  28. The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran
  29. Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
  30. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  31. The Position by Meg Wolitzer
  32. The Healing by Jonathan Odell
  33. Insurgent (Divergent, #2) by Veronica Roth
  34. The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant
  35. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
  36. The Wedding by Dorothy West
  37. The Queen’s Fool (The Tudor Court, #4) by Phillippa Gregory
  38. Divergent (Divergent, #1) by Veronica Roth
  39. Breaking the Food Seduction: The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings—And 7 Steps to End Them Naturally by Neal D. Barnard
  40. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
  41. All Fall Down by Megan Hart
  42. Best Friends by Martha Moody
  43. Every Time I Talk To Liston: A Novel by Brian DeVido
  44. A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay
  45. Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
  46. Sarmada by Fadi Azzam
  47. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
  48. Saving Max by Antoinette van Heugten
  49. Look Again by Lisa Scottoline
  50. My Lady of Cleves: A Novel of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves by Margaret Campbell Barnes
  51. Awake by Elizabeth Graver
  52. StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath
  53. The Boleyn Inheritance (The Tudor Court, #3) by Phillippa Gregory
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Stella!

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On December 21, 2012

In travel

Almost 10 years ago I went with Delicious to Europe where I fulfilled my kleptomaniac needs by swiping three glasses: a small Cruzcampo glass, a small Cerveja Campres glass and a beautiful Stella Artois pint glass. Actually, Delicious and I both stole a Stella Artois glass, so I wasn’t the only klepto on the trip.

Do I feel bad about this stealing? I know I should but I love that glass so much. So no, I don’t feel bad at all.

A few months back Delicious was in town with a friend for a music festival and we went to a bar downtown. While the boys were at the bar getting drinks, I was stalking tables waiting for a group to leave and free up seats. Folks at the table next to me all stood up and made to leave thorough an open window. (It’s less weird than it sounds – the bar’s windows are about a foot off the ground and in nice weather they’re always open.) They looked at me funny but kept moving. In three sets of hands? About 8 Stella Artois chalices.

I could have alerted someone at the bar but acknowledge the hypocrisy of that.

Through a program I’m involved in called BzzAgent, I recently received a free Stella Artois chalice. It doesn’t have any cool stories attached to it like my original glass. But, I got it legitimately and it works pretty darn well!

I feel pretty certain that Bzzagent wasn’t expecting to me to blog about stolen glasses when I shared feedback about my Stella Artois chalice… I’m not trying to endorse stealing glasses. It’s just that the new chalice is so much more special to me because of the story I associate it with.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Interrupting Ourselves

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On December 17, 2012

In books, reviews

It’s a section where Kabat-Zinn points out that we all know it’s wrong to interrupt each other. And yet we constantly interrupt ourselves. We do it when we check our emails incessantly – or won’t simply let a phone go to voicemil when we’re doing something we enjoy – or when we don’t think a thought through, but allow our minds to fix on temporary concerns or desires.

From The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe, quoting Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness by Kabat-Zinn.

I want to be able to say that the above passage does not apply to me. Of course, it completely does. But my goal is to make it apply less.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

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