15:3:1 - Week 2 (Part A)

Today's post is about the 15:3:1 project

15 minutes per day - the journaling is still going really well.  It's the last thing I do at night and it really helps me reflect on the day... look for the positives (of which there are usually many) and do a bit of 'positive forecasting' for the day ahead.

3 hours on a Saturday morning doing something creative for myself - Thanks to the school holidays I actually did my creative project on Thursday this week... and I did spend more than 3 hours on it but boy was it worth it!  I WILL share this project next time but for now I want to focus on my '1'.

1 day per month 'Getting Lost'

Sooo... I bought the Getting Lost Photography edition HERE 

My intention was to spend a day... once a month... using the cards to direct me to take photos I wouldn't usually take. I decided that it would be a good idea to aim for mid-month because that way if it's pouring with rain I can always 'rain check' it for a week and hope for better weather. 

On Friday night I started really thinking about how this part of 15:3:1 might look and I woke up on Saturday morning with a fairly clear idea in my head.  Of course I had the usual things to do... walk my babies at the dog park and pick up my groceries... I have just started using Click and Collect and have to say that I'm a massive fan!  Not only is it stopping me from buying random stuff I don't need but it's also helping me stick to my budget. 

I got all that done by 9.30 and decided to head over to Tauranga for my first Getting Lost experience. I phoned Mum and asked her to join me and we had a great day taking photos... chatting... and just hanging out together. 

I took quite a few photos... and I used both my iPad and my Canon camera.  My verdict... the camera did a FANTASTIC job of all the macro, lighting, blurring backgrounds etc and the iPad did a great job of allowing me to get instant photos and not look suspicious in certain situations (like #9 today).

All up we completed 10 prompt cards today.  I've selected what I think are my best shots to share:

#1 Take a photo of a living thing (camera) - We met this little girl at Yatton Park with her Mum.  She was delightful and very happy to pose for the camera - especially when she was offered treats :)

#2 Stop, look behind you and take a shot (camera) - The park was officially dual named Tutarawānanga – Yatton Park in November 2021 following a request by tamariki from Merivale School. Following extensive research and consultation, the tamariki successfully presented to Council Commissioners requesting the change to recognise the history and cultural significance of the site.

 

#3 Take a photo from the perspective of a flower (iPad) - We had to back track a little to find some flowers but we were rewarded with some great shots. Alstroemerias are stunning flowers - maybe I should try and grow some where the puppies can't get them!

 #4 Follow a bee and take a photo of it on a flower that it lands on (camera) - this is where the camera really came into it's own. I took several photos with my iPad and thought they were what I wanted.  Luckily I'd also taken some with my camera because the iPad photos were all a bit grainy from being zoomed in too much. The bee hadn't actually landed in this photo but he definitely did like those sunflowers.

 #5 Get macro and portray the season you are in with just a leaf or flower (camera) - since we were already down by the sunflowers it made sense to take some super close ups... after all sunflowers definitely make me think of summer.

 #6 Take the number of photos you've taken today, head north that many kms (iPad) - we definitely took creative licence with this one!  By this point we had taken 'quite a lot' of photos and we weren't interested in traveling that far so we decided it was better to take the number of photo prompts we had completed (5) and go that far which we guessed would be around Memorial Park.  Actually we 'guestimated' pretty well because according to Google it's 4.7km via Fraser St which is the way we went! p.s. not my car... it just looked good in the photo :)

 #7 Take a photo upside down (you or the camera) (camera) - lots of these prompts are open to interpretation and my original photos (taken at Memorial Park) didn't make the final cut.  Instead... this photo... taken later in the day (down on the Strand after we had stopped for lunch) completely fits the prompt.

#8 Use camera blur to make something appear different to what your eye can see (camera) - this prompt reminded me that I need to get au fait with my camera settings again.  I attempted to take a few photos of a dandelion but they didn't work out the way I planned... but I really like this one.

 #9 Drive until you see water and then stop and take a photo of the reflections (iPad) - by this time the sun was high overhead so reflections were a little tricky to come by. We headed down to the waterfront area and spotted some people fishing.  I caught a glimpse of some reflections but knew that taking photos with my camera was going to look super dodgy so out came the iPad and the photo was captured.

 #10 Take 3 photos of the same thing with shadows or light changing how it looks (camera) - this prompt had us thinking we had to take our photos at different times to get the shadows happening so we walked up to the park and took a photo thinking we'd have lunch and come back.  After lunch we spotted another water feature and decided to take some photos of our own. Then we headed back to the original subject for this but there were so many people there we decided to abandon this prompt and just head home.  It wasn't until I got back to Rotorua that I realised taking photos from different angles gives different shadows and light which completely changes how something looks... so my water feature photos fitted the prompt perfectly.

So there is it... my first month of 'Getting Lost' completed.  None of the photos have been edited in Photoshop etc... I just want this to be a fun 'take it as it is' project.

I'm definitely thinking I will turn the photos into a coffee table book at the end of the year so I've gone ahead and made a January title page with the city on it... then I can choose different locations for each month and really turn this project into a bit of an adventure.

I'm really pleased with my January efforts :)

I had a Moment...

This morning I took Alfie and Zara for our morning walk in the Redwoods dog park... we've been going every morning for a couple of weeks now and it's quickly become one of my favourite parts of the day.  Especially more precious knowing that when I go back to school I will have to swap this walk to an afternoon slot.

So... we'd started our walk and the 'kids' were walking beautifully on their lead (we have a tandem lead with a harness on each end)... we'd had a bit of rain last night... not much, but enough to leave the grass a bit wet and make walking on the track just a bit more enticing.

We were a good 15 minutes into our walk and heading along one of the internal tracks when suddenly I had a Moment... yes, a capital 'M' moment.  In an instant everything became sharper... clearer... brighter... fresher.  The nearest I can come to explaining it is that it was like looking through grimy glass windows and then suddenly they are super clean... sparkly even.

In that moment:

• I noticed cicadas buzzing all around
  
• I heard birds chirping and flitting in the trees
  
• The leaves and plants seemed greener
• I saw mist/steam coming off some of the trees and floating away in the sunlight
• I spotted dew drops on spider webs hanging off ferns
• The sun was beautiful coming through the trees
• I could smell the damp ground (and no dog poo thank goodness!)
• I could feel the cool breeze on my arms and legs and the pine needles crunching under my shoes

It really was the most beautiful Moment I've had in a very long time... and definitely worth the capital 'M'. 

I found myself wishing that I could somehow blink my eyes and take a snapshot of everything I could see, hear, and feel... I don't take my phone with me in the morning... and a camera would never have been able to capture the moment the way I was experiencing it.

Alfie and Zara seemed to sense that something was different too... they were super calm and just stood looking all around them... I found myself breathing slowly... but deeply. 

I've been trying to practice Mindfulness this year (I will share some of that another time).  I'm slowly getting better at 'being in the moment' but I find it challenging.  In that moment this morning I knew exactly what Mindfulness felt like... and I loved it!

The rest of the walk was uneventful... Alfie and Zara did lots of sniffing at grass and picking up sticks and pine cones and then taking them off each other... and I continued to notice things that I hadn't seen or heard before.  There were lots of big white daisy type flowers in the field near the car park... I hadn't noticed them when we arrived!

On the drive home I remembered reading Present over Perfect... actually I've read it several times and I also have it as a talking book on Audible (Shauna narrates the book herself).  In her book, Shauna Niequist describes moments like this... moments of clarity when you know that a particular moment is important.  She writes about vulnerability, living simply and soulfully... and keeping it real. 

From the back of the book: In these pages, you'll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

I think I might read it again!

15:3:1 - Week 1

The first week of January has already ended and I am determined to hold myself accountable for achieving my personal goals this year. I'm taking part in a couple of projects at the moment and the really great thing is that there is definite overlap between all three of them which means more focus... more accountability... and more attainability. 

Today's post is about the 15:3:1 project

15 minutes per day - I have a journal that I'm writing in every night... it's part of another project that I'm taking part in. The goal: writing down three 'wins' each day.  

• Writing down your three wins each day is a crucial part of forming the habits that you want moving forward.
• The positive reinforcement created by writing things down that you associate with 'Project A' activates your brain’s reward centre and helps you to repeat the behaviour and seek out the positivity in your everyday life. 

I'm calling it Project A because I'm still not sure if I want to publicly share this project just yet.

So far the journaling (which I actually started in late November) is going really well.  Yes, I've missed a couple of nights along the way, but in general I've stuck to the plan.  It's interesting to see what I've considered 'wins'.  I really do just let myself relax into it and write whatever pops into my head. 

Sometimes I write about something really connected to 'Project A' and sometimes I include things that have made me feel good during the day or things I've been particularly grateful for.  For example, last night one of my 'wins' was:

• Had to lift a couple of decking boards today.  So pleased that I have the ability (and tools) for simple home D.I.Y projects.

To explain that one, Alfie and Zara were due to have their worming tablets (gosh they've gone up in price!)  I gave Alfie his one (which to be fair was quite large) and he almost immediately went on the deck and dropped it... and of course it went straight between two of the decking planks!  At this point he didn't really know what he'd lost so he was distraught thinking he'd lost a treat and started whimpering and looking through the gaps in the boards and then back at me. 

Just last week Zara had done much the same... but with an actual treat!  I had to remove one of the decking planks, recover the treat, give the treat to Miss Zara and then replace the board.  Mission complete!

This time I had to uplift TWO boards and then Alfie was determined he would get his treat back all by himself.

 Did he find his 'treat'? No he did not!  Mumma had to get down on her belly and reach under the boards to get it.  

Did he like his 'treat'? No he did not!  In fact he spat it out on the carpet three times!  In the end I covered it in peanut butter and then it magically disappeared in one second!

3 hours on a Saturday morning doing something creative for myself

This week I chose to do something creative with cookies.  I was recently gifted a 3D printer (thank you Alfie and Zara) and I've been printing cookie cutter and stamp sets.  On Saturday morning I grabbed some cookie dough out of the fridge (it was left over from New Years Eve) and cut out some shapes.

Hard to tell what the cookies are from the shapes but once you add the fondant it all starts to make sense.  I did most of them with plain white fondant and then I two-toned some dusk and sage to do the bunny ears.

 Then it was time to get creative.  I have been watching tutorials and wanting to try a couple of different techniques to see what I liked.  

The first three cookies were done using Colour Mill colours mixed with Vodka to 'paint' the cookies.  I quite like the little guy on the left with the balloon... the other two not so much:

 

 

For the next set I mixed in some more vodka to water the colours down for a more watercolour effect.  Have to admit that I do quite like these ones:

 

 

 For my final cookie (or so I thought) I copied an idea I'd seen on someones Tik Tok page... and Oh My Goodness I LOVE how this one turned out!!!

So that's where I was going to leave it for the day... and I had definitely spent more than 3 hours... but soooo much creative fun!

So... I started to tidy up... but an idea kept nagging at me... so why not give it a go?  I took one of the cookies from the same cutter set as the watercolour cookies.  Then I gave it a wash of colour to soften the white a bit... added some rose gold paint... and then started layering up the fondant embellishments... and here's the end result:

I've definitely found my favourite style.  It pretty much reminds me of when I was card making and did Tim Holtz styled cards.  I think I'm going to do more of this style in the coming weeks and see what else I can come up with.

P.S. if you thought creativity was clean and tidy... hmmm... not in my world LOL

So that's it from me.. 15:3:1 is alive and well :)

 

The all important work/life balance

Last year I was lucky enough to take part in some professional development in the form of 'life coaching' with Wiremu Matthews.  Wiremu runs Kānuka Wellbeing & Leadership in Tauranga and we met every couple of weeks via zoom. 

"Wiremu is a Life Coach who focuses on coaching his clients to achieve optimal wellness on a holistic level, working with them to develop the mental, emotional and behavioural patterns required to create positive and sustainable change. Whatever the challenges they are facing, Wiremu has an innate ability to help his clients find their way though uncertainty, find clarity and move forward in life. One of his favourite quotes by David Bendar is “Ordinary people who consistently do small and simple things, can achieve extraordinary results”. His life coaching style aims to tackle challenges in this way, one small step at a time."

One of the most important things I learnt from Wiremu was the 15:3:1 system. 

In a nutshell this method aims to balance wairua/hinengaro - emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing by you doing the following:

• 15: something you do for 15 minutes EVERY day to promote your own wellbeing
• 3: something you do for 3 hours once a week (it needs to be a 3 hour block of time)
• 1: something you do for 1 day per month

We wrote 'Impact Statements' including the Purpose, Importance and Ideal Outcomes as well as  Success Criteria... there were a couple of sessions all about this but at the heart of it 15:3:1 kind of resonated with me.

While we were doing the 15:3:1 I changed mine around a bit to better meet my needs so I ended up doing:

• 15 minutes per day playing a game on my phone
• 3 hours on a Saturday morning sewing/quilting in my sewing room
• 1 day per month going geocaching

Then I stopped doing it... I got burnt out at the end of 2023... it was a pretty crappy time and I pretty much went into hibernation.  Then things changed in 2024... in fact there were a LOT of changes in 2024 and most of them were for the better.  

One thing I've really noticed though is that I can become very 'focused' on work if I'm not careful... it's really easy for me to forget to do things that bring me joy and happiness.  It's not hard for me to go from week to week without taking proper care of myself and I've been thinking about that a bit lately.

I've been thinking about getting more balance back into my life... so I've decided to give 15:3:1 another go... and this time I'm making it more real for me and how I want to live my life so this time I'm going with:

• 15 minutes a day journaling 
• Journaling is the practice of recording your thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a journal. It can be a low-cost way to improve your mental health and can help you gain control of your emotions. Journaling can also be a tool for goal setting and tracking progress.  
•  3 hours on a Saturday morning doing something creative for myself
• Tapping into our innate creativity (yes, we all have it!) and unleashing our imagination can help with processing emotions, reducing anxiety, improving self-esteem, and boosting our overall mental health. More info HERE
• I didn't want to 'lock' myself into sewing and quilting so I'm leaving it open as 'something creative' that way I CAN do sewing or quilting but I could also do cardmaking... or photography.... or trying out icing nozzles making cupcakes... or my lastest thing... 3D printing!
  
• 1 day per month 'Getting Lost'
• I did consider geocaching because I really enjoy it... but I don't enjoy it as much on my own plus I wanted something that I would WANT to do and not put off so I bought myself a 'Getting Lost' pack - the Photography Edition HERE.
• I ordered the pack a couple of days ago and this morning it arrived and it's everything I was hoping it would be... high quality cards with great graphics and lots of ideas and options. It's exactly the sort of thing that appeals to me. 
  

• I'm also thinking it might be fun to save the photos from each month and make myself a little coffee table book (with each prompt on the photos) at the end of the year.
  

At this stage it just feels good to be taking care of me and giving myself the space and time I need to recharge... fill my bucket... and focus on the whole work/life balance aspect.