At the end of August I inadvertently kicked off a series of seasonal lifestyle picks with my Fall Edit post! I received such positive feedback from that post that I decided that I wanted to try it again, this time for winter! As we are now in December and the months are growing colder (at least for me in the Northeast of the U.S.) I have a collection of 10 must haves from Style to Home Goods that will keep you looking chic and warm!
Style
1. Kate Spade Bow Leather Gloves: Leather gloves are such as classic style staple that I think every women should have a pair that they like. I happen to love these Kate Spade gloves because they are adorned with a simple little bow at the base of the wrist and they are tech friendly which means I can text and post to Instagram while keeping my hands warm and toasty!
2. Fuzzy slippers: I’m not usually someone who prefers to wear casual footwear around the house, however, in the winter months it is a must because my feet just get too cold and standard socks just don’t do the trick! This lovely pair is from Gilligan & O’Malley for Target.
3.Ringly: I absolutely love an oversized statement ring during the winter, but this one has a little secret! It’s actually a smart ring and can be paired with your smartphone to light up and vibrate when you receive a notification on your phone. How cool is that?!?
4. Fur Vest:Whether you prefer real or faux fur, a vest is an awesome accessory for winter, especially if you live in a colder climate. They come in all different shapes and sizes and you are certain to find something within your price range!
5. Rebecca Minkoff Love Crossbody Bag: I am obsessed with this bag for the winter and even asked Santa for one for Christmas. It reminds me a lot of the Chanel Boy Bag and is just the right amount of edgy and sophistication for it to be a regular carry for me in the winter when I prefer a smaller bag so I can keep my hands warm and toasty in my pockets!
Home Goods
6. Starbucks Black Heart Travel Mug:Again, this is another item that graced my seasonal wish list, but I am such a warm beverage person that I go through a lot of mugs throughout my week! These Starbucks travel mugs are not only adorable, but also really functional and high quality!
7. Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride Tea:This is one of my favorite seasonal tea flavors from Celestial Seasonings (aside from Gingerbread Spice!) and is part of their holiday collection. It is a perfect dessert drink on a cold winter’s night!
Beauty
8. Wet N Wild’s Sugar Plum Fairy: The name alone should tell you why it’s perfect for winter, and I know I featured a Wet N Wild lipstick in my Fall Edit as well, but these lipsticks are great for a reason! Beautiful matte colors for under $2 a tube? Seriously, this is a no-brainer and it has been the dominant color on my lips since a chill hit the air!
9. Givenchy Ange ou Demon Le Secret Elixir Perfume: This is one of my cold weather staple perfumes and has been for years! I love the spicy sweet aroma of this classic scent, plus, it doesn’t hurt that the bottle looks really awesome. Definitely check this out the next time you are at the perfume counter.
10. Essie’s Wicked Nail Polish: Essie’s Wicked is a classic nail color and one I love to wear in the winter months. The deep dark red is perfect for the holidays because it’s a nice dark berry which is festive without being a bright holiday red, which I don’t like to wear! It also works very well with the berry lip from sugar plum fairy.
I hope you enjoyed my Winter picks! Now let me know what your must have’s are for the season!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on December 11th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
Ever since I showed you guys those cute little bow paper clips I made for my Filofaxes, you have been asking me to do a DIY tutorial on how to make them! Well, ask and you shall receive, right? I Actually put together a video with not one, not two, but three DIYs for making paper clip accessories for your planner so that everyone is able to create exactly what they want for their planner.
This is a low res image, download the full file via the link below!
To go along with this DIY video, I created a special Bow Maker Pattern Printable to act as a template for creating your own bows. I show you how to use this template in the video, but the file itself also has directions as well. Feel free to download this file and make yourself bows to your heart’s content! But remember, this printable is free for personal use only. Commercial use of this file is prohibited, and please, if you want to share the file with friends and family, link them to this post or my YouTube video instead of directly sharing the file!
Three DIYs, you read that right! So, other than the bows, I also show you how to make page clips with chipboard elements as well as how to make clips from printables and any other images or icons you may find! If you can print it or if it’s made from paper, you can turn it into a decorative page clip for your planner!
In the video I use my new 2014 Favorite Things Sticker Set as a template for some clips I made by printing the PDF on heavy printer paper instead of on sticker paper! I love this new Sticker Set of course because it’s filled with some one my favorite images and icons from the year! Think pink peonies, coffee cups, perfume bottles and of course, stripes! You can purchase this set from my shop and use it as stickers or to make your own page clips as well!
So here is the video linked above! This is definitely one of those tutorials that is better explained visually, so if you would like to see the three methods I used to make some lovely embellished paper clips for my planner, check it out! Of course, if this video helped you in any way or gave you some new planner inspiration, please make sure to share it in your social media and tag me @MissTrenchcoat! It would mean the world to me!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on December 18th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
One of the hardest parts of being a blogger is coming up with great new content every week. As a blogger, I need a constant stream of inspiration in order to come up with ideas for my posts, images and my blog’s design. Although as they say, inspiration is everywhere, being a constant learner is an important part of locating inspiration in your life. If you are having trouble finding inspiration, here are a few things I like to do to find inspiration when I need it most!
1. Listen to music: I suggest listening to all types of music, even genre’s your not that familiar with or don’t even like. Variety is so important when opening up your mind to inspiration and you need to listen to everything that’s out there if you want to discover something new that will inspire you to think differently.
2. Read about something new: Scientific articles tend to be the most powerful for me, but learning about any new subject can open a door of possibilities and inspiration. It doesn’t really matter what your blog topic is or what you normally write about, just learning a bit about a new discipline or subject can really help open the channels of creativity in your mind!
3. Write stream of consciousness style: Sometimes you never know where your own mind will lead you until you follow it. One great exercise I suggest for writers is to do a bit of stream of consciousness writing. This means you just start typing and listen to that voice inside your head about what to write. Start with things on your mind and your own thoughts and just follow them through and see where they lead you.
4. Go to a new place you have never been: New experiences generate inspiration like none other! I find that just driving or wandering to a new part of town I have never been to really helps open my brain up to possibilities. Seeing new sights, smelling new smells and living through new experiences can be very inspiring and something of an adventure!
5. Get to know someone new: Meeting new people and getting to know them is a very powerful one on one experience. There are so many wonderful people out there in the world with so many interesting points of view that hopefully by getting to know one of them, their views may rub off on you a bit and cause you to look at the world differently!
6. Watch a movie that you don’t think you’re interested in: Often times its important to challenge our perceptions of our own likes and desires. Breaking established patterns like watching movies in genre’s your not used to watching is a really simple way to sample and test out new things without making a major commitment. Hopefully, that movie you weren’t interested actually entertains you and brings you to see that you shouldn’t discount things based on what you think you already like!
7. Do something physically challenging to you: This doesn’t have to mean you should go out and run a marathon if you don’t normally run, it just means to push yourself physically. While I’m at the gym I find so much inspiration just hiding out in my own mind while I’m on a machine. I think that when you’re focusing your physical energy on working out, your mind starts to open up and relax allowing new inspiration and ideas to just hit you. Give it a try and you’ll be killing two birds with one stone!
What sorts of things do you do to find inspiration? Have you ever tried or plan to try any of the items on this list? How did it work for you? Let me know in the comments below!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on March 20th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
With 2016 right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to start giving some deep thought to your business planning for the new year. Yesterday I held a live business planning session over on my YouTube channel where I shared my strategy for wrapping up 2015 and starting 2016 strong. In order to help organize the information, I also put together a helpful study guide for the attendees to help them keep track of their thoughts and plans throughout the event. If you are a business owner or an aspiring business owner who is seriously contemplating starting a business in the new year, I highly encourage you to check out the video. It is about an hour and a half long, but packed with some excellent insight. Definitely time well spent in my opinion for anyone who wants to make sure they have covered all their bases for business planning.
Make sure to grab my free study guide to follow along with the video. You can download it from my Digital Resource Library. If you are already subscribed to the library, head on over to the library home page and download the file, or else sign yourself up here! And be sure to follow the video to the end to get a special limited time offer that expires on December 12th, 2015!
I hope you have had a successful 2015 in your life and business and together I want to ensure we have an even more productive year in 2016! Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have after you finish the video and I hope that you can I can work together in the future to make your business the best it can be!
I enjoy a beautiful planner just as much as the next girl, but decorating my planner day in and day out just isn’t something that normally excites me. Now that it’s December, however, it’s a completely different story! This season really is the most wonderful time of the year to me, so I was actually excited to go all out decorating my planner. In case you are wondering, I am still using a disc bound planner system. I’m using 1″ black arc discs, and the half letter sized inserts from my shop (A5 equivalent in the U.S.), with a custom front and back cover made from laminated card stock. This has been my setup since August and I’ve never been happier… although in 2016 I plan to get even happier with my system as I’m converting my existing set up into a DIY Spiral Planner (video tutorial here).
Since December is my final hurrah with this planner before I go full spiral, I thought it would be fun to deck out my planner with 10 inexpensive personalizations. Most of the DIYs and items cost no more than $1 from places like the Target Dollar Spot and Dollar Tree, which is fabulous, because this sort of decor is definitely disposable to me and I don’t like spending too much money on temporary planner decor. Don’t get me wrong, I will drop a pretty penny on planner supplies, but only those that are relevant all year long!
So, I made a video showing you the 10 personalizations, here they are listed for you if you’re curious, but I highly suggest checking out the video for more details and some great visuals.
Make sure to check out the full video to see the decorations in action!
I hope you enjoyed the video and the inspiration! Feel free to let me know which personalizations you enjoyed the most and of course, the video description has even more links for DIYs and tutorials to help you recreate these decorations for your own planner! HAPPY HOLIDAYS PLANNER FRIENDS!
Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, most folks get at least some time off during the Holiday Season, so make the most of your vacation time and sneak in a few of these productive activities that are sure to keep your work and life manageable in the new year!
Clean Out your Smartphone
Like most people’s homes and desks, smartphones usually accumulate a lot of extra stuff in the form of apps, photos, information and contacts that need to be sorted through and in some cases deleted. Its the end of the year after all and there is no better way to start off the new year than with an organized smartphone. While you’re at it, make sure you have all your emergency contact information and necessary phone numbers stored in your contacts just in case you need them one day!
Listen to a book on tape
Now, this doesn’t have to be a work related book, nor does it need to be a non-fiction or self help book! Reading is a great way to de-stress and I think listening to a book on tape is just as good for your mind and your productivity! So, if you have a bunch of chores or other to-dos, throw on a book on tape while you’re busy and it will help keep you cheerful and motivated! Audible.com has a great smartphone app that makes it easy for you to find any book your looking for, but you can also stop by your local library and borrow a book on tape the old fashioned way!
Spend some time on yourself
If your busy and trying to use your Christmas Vacation time to get some important to-dos checked off, you may not think it a productive use of time focusing on yourself, but trust me, it will have long term benefits. So, carve some time out of your day, take a bubble bath, listen to some music, have a nice workout or just lay in bed and relax because your peace of mind is so important for increasing your productivity and most of us don’t spend enough time working on that!
Learn a new simple and quick recipe
When it comes to meals, I would venture to guess that most of us have a repertoire of a few dishes that we continuously cycle until we get sick of eating them and then order out! So, I think its incredibly valuable for each of us to learn a new recipe that we can add into to our normal routine that may end up saving us time and money in the long run. Spend some time thinking about meals that you enjoy and see if you can find a quick recipe online that you can perfect during your downtime!
Connect with family & friends
Look, with so many of us out of work for a day or two, it really makes sense that you should spend time with loved ones during the holidays. You don’t have to do anything too stressful, just a day together walking outside in the snow or a meal cooked and shared together can be the difference that makes you feel more satisfied and in control of your life.
So, what are your plans for this Christmas Vacation? Let us know in the comments!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on December 19th, 2013 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
Hello Friends & Happy December Eve! I’m here to share with you all my latest free Filofax printable insert! As I have been doing in previous months, I created a monthly to do list filled with seasonal and holiday driven items called 31 Days of Merriment & Cheer! Of course, I also have my monthly December Dashboard as well to help you get organized and make the most of this holiday filled month. These inserts are available in both A5 and Personal Filofax equivalents over on my Shop as an instant download! Make sure to pick up yours while you are taking advantage of the BONUS DAY of my CYBER WEEKEND SALE! That’s right! The biggest sale I’ve ever held is still going on for one more day. Use coupon code CYBERWEEKEND15 for 20% off anything and everything in my shop thru the end of November eastern time!!
New in the Shop!
If you haven’t been keeping up to date with my latest releases in the shop, let me give you a quick run down of some new items you won’t want to miss!
Don’t forget, the code CYBERWEEKEND15 will get you 20% off your entire purchase in my shop thru midnight December 1st, so be sure to take advantage of this holiday sale before it is too late!
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what goes into making a great blog. I honestly believe that it’s not just great writing alone that makes a blog great. Perhaps a few years ago this would have been the case, but blogs now are so much more of an experience beyond words and because of this, it takes a combination of a lot of different factors like great writing, inspiring pictures and a well-organized layout. In an effort to help improve my own blog, I have been making a study of this topic recently and you may notice new things popping up here and there on my site over the next few days and weeks! So, back to the title of this post, the essential parts of a great blog. I read a lot of blogs and I’m always surprised when I come across one that is lacking some of the most essential elements that make up a great reader experience. What are these essential elements? Let’s discuss them one at a time!
An About Page
No matter what the topic of your blog, I think its very important to have an About Page so that interested readers can learn more about the history of the site, who writes it and why they should bother reading it. In an About Page, it’s always good to have some important pieces of information to share with your readers.
A picture of the blogger(s), so that readers can make that human connection from one computer screen to another.
A description of the types of posts they can expect.
A brief history as to why the blog was created and its point of view that makes it unique.
A FAQ Page
After a blog has been established for some time, it becomes common for the blogger behind the site to receive the occasional question. It’s inevitable, however, that after some time, readers will have the same questions. So, to save yourself time and some effort, its always nice to put together a FAQ page. I think it gives readers a sense that the blogger cares about making sure their questions are answered. So, if you get a lot of questions and specifically a lot of similar questions, you may want to add a FAQ page.
Contacts
Although while you are writing, blogging may sometimes feel like a one way street, the truth is that when your posts will often inspire conversations and connections with your readers in ways you may not ever have expected. While comments are a nice way to connect, they are not always the be all and end all. Make sure to leave some form of contact for your readers to get in touch with you, either by means of a contact form or better yet, an email link.
Social Media Links
If you are a blogger, you will no doubt also use a few forms of social media, and readers that enjoy your posts and read your blog regularly will no doubt want to follow you elsewhere on the internet. Make sure to display your social media links in a prominent spot on your blog so they are easy to spot. You would be surprised how often readers feel compelled to send you a Tweet or check out your Instagram feed when they are enjoying your blog!
A Guided Tour or Best Of for New Readers
Now, I will admit, this one is a little more rare in my opinion, but I still think it’s an awesome feature to have on your blog and one that I am in the process of putting together. What is it exactly? Basically, it’s a post or page on you blog that is filled with some of your best work! It’s like an introduction to your blog through your posts themselves. Arrange posts by topic and pick out some of your favorites to showcase for your readers. It’s a really great way to help new readers get a good footing on your best and most popular work, as well as give them a general overview of what you tend to write about. If you’re stuck on how to put together this type of post, I suggest asking yourself which of your posts best describe you and your blog. Think about which posts have the most comments and don’t forget to link to any series’ you may write on a regular basis so new readers can catch up on the fun!
Are there any other parts of a blog that you think as essentials for a great blog? Let me know what you think makes a great blog by sending me a tweet or leaving me a comment below!
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on August 14th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
With Thanksgiving a few days away, I thought it would be nice if I shared with you all my favorite holiday recipes for dishes I will be serving at my Thanksgiving dinner this year! If you are looking for a new recipe or some inspiration for meal planning, hopefully this will help you discover a new dish!
Appetizers
Since I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year for my family, I like to have snacks and appetizers out before dinner for people to munch on while they watch tv and chat! My husband has requested shrimp cocktail this year as well as a plate of his favorite cured meats to go along with the baked brie I will be making as a hot appetizer. Baked brie is one of our favorites and I love it because its super easy to make, but it presents very, very well. This is the sort of appetizer that’s great to bring along to parties because you can prepare it ahead of time and once you arrive at the party you can heat it up in the oven for a few minutes!
1/4 cup of preserves (apricot or raspberry work very nicely, but use whatever preserves you prefer, you can also omit this if you don’t like preserves!)
Directions
Preheat your oven to 425. Lightly grease a baking sheet and place your thawed puff pastry upon it. In the center, place your brie (removed from packaging) and top with preserves (optional). Wrap the pastry up around your brie working in a single direction until the brie is covered completely by the pastry, ensuring there are no holes or cracks for cheese to spill out of. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is fluffy and browned. Make sure to keep an eye on the cheese to make sure it’s not melting out of the pastry excessively (a little spillage is okay, but if rivers are flowing out, remove it immediately!) Let cheese stand 5 minutes once removed from the oven and then serve with your choice of crackers!
Side Dishes
For me, a great Thanksgiving meal is made by the side dishes! Although I am hosting a small gathering of family, I still like to have lots of options! We will have the traditional mashed potatoes, a salad, rolls of course, but two of our favorite sides are always Corn Bread Pudding and Sausage Stuffing!
Combine all ingredients adding the bread mix last, into a large mixing bowl. Bake in greased bowl or pan at 350 for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Should be a light golden brown on top. Let the pudding rest for 5-10 minutes after removing from the oven!
1 16oz package of Jimmy Dean sausage (in the log style or use equivalent in Italian sausage style of your choice. I prefer the Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage, but that is just personal preference!)
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Box of Stovetop Stuffing (or whichever stuffing recipe you prefer)
Additional Ingredients on stuffing mix box or your preferred style of stuffing!
Directions
In a large pan on the stove, heat oil and distribute on the pan on medium. Place sausage in the pan of heated oil and begin to break it up with a wooden spoon or similar utensil until the sausage is in crumbled, bite size pieces. Cook sausage until browned, drain excess oil and move sausage to the side while preparing your stuffing mix. Prepare stuffing as directed. Once stuffing is cooled, incorporate the cooked sausage and transfer to the serving dish of your choice.
My Turkey via Thanksgiving 2012
The Turkey
If I had to venture a guess, I would say that Turkey is probably the most popular type of meat served on Thanksgiving, however, I have been to several Thanksgiving dinners where it was served alongside a ham or even lamb. I will only be serving one meat option on Thanksgiving, because, let’s be honest, its hard enough to get one meat right on Thanksgiving and turkey is a difficult bird to master! I, however, believe I make one of the best turkeys… ever! I’m just gonna say it, my turkeys are good! They are super moist, filled with flavor and golden browned by the time they exit the oven! I think this has to do with the awesome recipe I developed based off this Alton Brown recipe!
Ingredients
1 frozen Turkey (size doesn’t matter folks, but a rule of thumb is 2 lbs per person you’re feeding. I have made this recipe with a 16 lb turkey to a 23 lb turkey and they have all turned out great!)
1-2 Apples
1-2 Onions
Cinnamon (I prefer ground)
A few cups of water
1-2 Cups of Apple Cider or Apple Juice
Sage (packaged seasoning is fine!)
Rosemary (again, stick to the stuff you have in your cupboard unless you really want fresh!)
A bulb of garlic
1 stick of butter
Directions
Now, I just want to warn you, that for me, this is one of those recipes that is all about judgement calls. I don’t believe you can go wrong with anything except the cooking time, but just do what feels right!
2-4 Days before cooking, take your turkey out of the freezer and let it defrost in your fridge (the larger the turkey, the more time it needs, 4 days would play it safe, 3 is probably average, 2 days and I would worry about having some frozen innards still!
Day of cooking: Preheat your oven to 500 and make sure the racks of your oven are properly positioned to fit your turkey (there is nothing worse than having to mess with those once they are hot!) Remove the thawed turkey and place it in a completely clean sink (very important that your sink be as clean as possible and I would work with the turkey inside a large container of some sort as well)! Remove the turkey from the packaging and remove the neck and other misc innards from the cavity (if you have plans for those innards, put them aside, if not, toss them)! Rinse out the cavity with cool water to make sure there is no bits of ice or slush in there!
Place the turkey on a roasting rack that’s sitting inside a roasting pan. In a microwavable bowl, place an apple or two (chopped up), an onion (also chopped) mixed with a good amount of cinnamon and some apple juice/cider. This part is all eyeballing it! I like to make more than I think I need, because, trust me, this mixture will not go to waste, so maybe a good estimate is to make about 3-5 cups of this mixture! Cook it in the microwave for 5 minutes and you will start to smell all those lovely aromatics brewing together (that smell is what your turkey is going to taste like once this is all done)! Once that mixture is out of the microwave, spoon out the chunks of apple and onion into the cavity of the bird. Add additional apple and onion slices to fill the cavity if necessary!
Coat the skin of the turkey well with the canola oil. Take apart your bulb of garlic and skin each clove of garlic. Take your butter and cut it into multiple pieces. Then take a small knife and begin to cut deep slits strategically all over the bird. This part requires some thinking on your behalf as to where best to place these slits, because inside each slit you are going to place a pad of butter and a piece of garlic, which will then melt and soak into the meat of the bird. I probably make 1-2 slits on the legs, 1-2 on the wings, and 4-6 around the breast.
The last thing I do before I put the turkey into the oven is I like to put some water and a little bit of the aromatics liquid in the bottom of the pan (about an inch of liquid) along with any excess apples and onions I have chopped up already, and then I cover the turkey and the pan completely with aluminum foil!
Put this into the oven at 500 for 30 minutes.
When the 30 minutes is up, remove the turkey and the aluminum foil (gently, because you are going to put it back on loosely after this) and using the liquid from the aromatics mixture, baste the turkey! I also like to use a flavor injector to actually inject this juice mixture into the meat of the turkey as well, all over!
Lower the temperature on the oven to 350, recover the bird with foil, loosely, and put it back into the oven for the remainder of the cooking time! According to Alton Brown a 14-16 lb turkey needs 2- 2.5 hours of cooking time additional, but double-check that with the size of your turkey against this turkey cooking time-table (you can never be too careful)!
For the remainder of the time the turkey cooks, I like to remove it from the oven every 45 minutes to baste it and flavor inject it with the aromatics liquid! I do not count the time out of the oven as cooking time, I set my timer after the turkey is back in the oven! Also, as a note, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, I remove the foil from the bird completely, so that it can get that nice brown color and a crispy skin. You may notice that the skin of your bird may have lighter patches around areas that were sliced for the butter and garlic, and this is normal. You may also get streaking from the aromatics mixture because the skin of the turkey really only browns in areas that lack moisture, and you have been basting yours to keep the meat juicy.
Once the turkey is completely cooked and either the thermometer in the turkey has popped or your own food thermometer (always preferable) indicates an internal temperature of 161 for the turkey, you can remove it from the oven and let is rest for 15 minutes before carving.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about my favorite Thanksgiving recipes! Like I said, I will be making all these items and more this year! I would love to know what your favorite family recipes are and what you will be cooking up this Thanksgiving, so feel free to leave me a comment below! Also, if you use any of these recipes, I would love it if you took a picture and sent it to me on Instagram or Twitter! Happy cooking!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on November 10th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
Does this ever happen to you? You sit down to start an important project, you know exactly what’s expected because you have either done it before or are familiar with what the end result should be, however, even before you have begun, those expectations begin to nag at you. You begin to worry that you may not do a good job, you obsess and knit pick over elements of your project and after all your mental anguish and second guessing you finish your project and it all turns out fine. Maybe you have also experienced this second scenario. You sit down to start an important project, but this time it’s something you have never done before. You’re not exactly sure how to begin or how things will look by the end, but you think about your project logically, put in a solid effort and in the end, it turns out spectacular! Why does that second scenario usually turn out better than the first? You would think that someone would do better in a situation where they had more experience and understood the expectations, but that isn’t always true. It’s beginners luck! You may have heard of it before, it’s a common phenomenon where someone attempts something new and ends up successful in their effort. Now, while “beginner’s luck” has never been statistically proven, most of us have experienced it in one way or another and we can certainly learn a thing or two about how to do great work from it!
Beginner’s luck is tied to the idea of expectations. When you attempt something new and admittedly know very little about it, you often find that when you give it a try, you are much better than you would have assumed. That’s because you didn’t expect much, but you gave an honest effort none-the-less! As humans, we are often tied up in notions of what is possible and what is impossible, and in that mindset we project upon ourselves what we think we can do, what we think we can’t do, and we end up surprising ourselves when we actually succeed where we had no expectations of success.
Okay, so how do we use this concept of beginner’s luck to our advantage? There are a number of ways where a shift in your perception to this beginner’s luck mentality can help you do your best work and live your best life!
1. Don’t be afraid to try new things, you will do better than you think!
This goes for work and personal situations. Although many of us are plagued with fear of the unknown, beginner’s luck tells us that when we try something with an honest effort we get a better result than anyone would have guessed. Even if you have tried something before with a negative result, giving it an honest shot the second time around may prove fruitful!
2. Reach for the “impossible” because that standard is imagined.
Voices outside and even inside of ourselves are often telling us what is possible and what is impossible. Think of these voices as bookies at a horse race giving you the odds in a situation. If you bet on the long-shot and lose, you just lost the few dollars you initially bet, but if you win you will rake it in! The odds may be against you in a certain scenario, but taking beginner’s luck into account, anything is possible. When it comes to your future and your dreams, if you have more to gain than to lose, trying for impossible is actually a better bet!
3. Let go of your expectations and just get to work!
Don’t think, just do! Thinking can often over complicate things and cause irrational fears to pop up. If you let go of your expectations for the end result, you will be open to whatever direction you are led to while you work. Some of the most creative and brilliant solutions have been found by accident while trying to find a solution to a different problem. Do not think, become.
Are there any areas of your work where you feel like expectations are getting the better of you? In what ways do you plan on letting go of your expectations and embracing the concept of beginner’s luck to help you do better work? Let me know in the comments how you think you can execute these ideas in your own work life and feel free to share any success stories that may have resulted from your own beginner’s luck experiences!
xoxo,
This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on July 10th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!
