Why I craft

So many people ask me why I enjoy both cross stitching and knitting and I can very simply say that it helps me stitch my mind back together. That might sound very odd to a lot of people but let me explain what I am trying to say and maybe you will understand it a little better. 

For me finding that time each day to do something that makes me happy and helps me focus on everything that is going on in my life helps a lot. There are times when I can sit and work on a project either cross stitch or knitting and I can figure out the solution that I have trying to figure for quite a while before I sit down and craft. My crafting can help me regain the focus that is needed to resolve an issue that has been something that I have been dealing with for a while.

It has been interesting to see my crafting life through the years and I can say that crafting has helped me through high school, college and every other part of my life because it gives me an escape from the things that are happening in my life. My crafting has been able to bring me join when I wasn’t sure how to be happy especially when going through the exam times of both high school and college. The challenges of those times were difficult but being able to find that little bit of time to sit and craft helped me regain my focus. 

During Covid, so many people turned to crafting as a means of handling being at home all the time but for me crafting was just something that I did because it was a normal part of my life. I might have done more crafting during the time we were required to be at home, but it didn’t seem to be something that I only did when we were in lockdown.

Later in life I have found that crafting has helped me stay grounded when things has seemed to get overwhelming. Being able to focus on my crafting even for a little bit each day has helped me know that I can get through anything that life continues to throw at me. I know there are there are times I am going to need a simpler project, but I normally have one of those ready to go and then there are times that I need a challenging project.

I craft because that is part of my life and that is also what makes me happy and it something that I find helps me relax at the end of a crazy day. Maybe crafting isn’t something that everyone would want to do but we need to understand that crafting may help someone find the peace in their life when life just seems to get out of control.

Am I an Extrovert or Introvert?

So many people see me when I am out in public, they would describe me as an extrovert because of things that I do and show. I can be out there and will being to show a side of me that might not be who I am in real life. 

Now, what I am going to say for a lot of people is, I am an introvert but can show extrovert features when they are needed. Yes, that is something that a lot of people can do because they know what is needed in the world around us. Something that an introvert has a difficult time in is showing is that they can be outgoing when it is needed, they could see this as be a challenge moving forward in their career. This is something that an introvert is going to have to try and manage to just move forward in life.

For me, I can honestly say that I am an introvert in so many ways, but I will be an extrovert when it is needed of me. Sure, I can stand up in public and do talks and show the world who I am and what I can do, but then there is the part of me that takes great pleasure of being able to hide from the world and do things that make me extremely happy.

An extrovert is also going to find some of their characteristics as a challenge moving forward because if they are extremely outgoing that could also been seen as an issue especially with some careers that are more for the introvert type of individual. Compare the imagine of an accountant to a salesperson and you will probably see that one of them is most likely an introvert when the other is probably an extrovert.

I must admit that I have not seen someone that is either a total introvert or extrovert because we all need the time and space to recharge our personal battery before we got back out in public and show the world who we are when that is needed.

Why sharing too much information on social media isn't good

Imagine if you have a child or two and you are out and about and suddenly people can identify your child because of what you have posted on social media. This is a sign that you have shared too much personal information about your child. Never share their name or the activities that they are involved in because you could be putting them in risk. 

Something that you must think about is would your child want to be on social media later in life because the videos or any posts of them as a child are going to be around for years. I have seen parents that will not post anything about their child on social media and then there are parents that will show the child’s entire life which is going to be around for years to come.

If you are going to post imagines of your child on social media, make sure that they are generic and not something that shows a meltdown or even activities that they are involved in because you might just be giving away too much information about your child.

There are so many bad/sick people in the world that might pick you child as a target because of what you have posted. If you are showing a weakness about your child, you are showing the world something that could be used against both you and your child. Showing little things that upset your child can be something that you shouldn’t do because you are once again showing the world a means of influencing your child.

You must also respect your child as an individual not just part of your platform as they may not want to be part of it. Showing a child growing up on social media isn’t something that everyone wants to be part of because you could be risking your child’s career path because of something you posted when they were a lot younger. I have seen children on social media get very upset because of what they have been seen doing or even just being on any social media platform. Children do have the right to say to their parents that they no longer want to be part of the parents' social media platform and the parent's need to respect that.

One thing I would say to parents, is think about when you were younger and would you have been happy with your parents if they had shared your life on social media? Remember that things that are shared on any form of social media isn’t going to go away very quickly and especially if you have posted their name in any form. If social media can tie your child to you through social media, you might just be sharing too much information about your child.

When too many distractions get in the way

For some of us there are times that there are just too many distractions that get in the way of getting what you want completed. I know that I have challenges sometimes when everything around me seems to be a distraction and I cannot regain a focus on what I would like to try and get accomplished. It doesn’t matter if it is work related or not there are times that distractions just seem to make it difficult to focus on anything.

Trying to limit the number of things that are getting in the way of accomplishing what you want or need to accomplish can be difficult. If you have ways of turning off the distractions that would be good because that can help you regain that focus. Here are some distractions you might want to turn off:

• Music
• Email notifications
• Social media

Here are some distractions that you might have to handle differently:

• Phone calls
• People interrupting you
• Other sounds around you

When things just seem to get overwhelming and you lose your focus here are some ideas on how to manage those distractions and help you regain your focus:

• Looking out the window and not really focusing on anything.
• Putting in earplugs to limit the sounds around you.
• Finding something you can look at that isn’t too repetitive or too distractions (I watch the Port of Miami on YouTube as my way to help regain my focus).
• Get into a location that helps you focus (different room or entirely different location).
• Do something different for a few minutes to get away from the immediate task.
• Allow yourself time to just breath and get the focus back.
• Change how you make the notes, maybe change from computer to tablet or to paper as that might help you get away from the distraction.
• Change up your routine so you aren’t doing the same thing at the same time everyday.

Something that I find that helps me regain my focus sometimes is just to allow ideas to just happen and capture them in point form, or whatever way helps. When you are capturing the ideas don’t try and edit the thoughts, just allow them to happen, as you can edit them later. We also must know that there are times that no matter what we try and do it isn’t going to help at all. Another thing we have to realize is that something that works today may not work tomorrow to help you regain your focus so you will have to try different things.

We all deal with distractions and sometimes they don’t seem to be an issue and then there are going to be times when they are an issue, and we must learn how to deal with them in different ways. I know that some of the ideas that I have recorded aren’t going to help everyone, but these are some of the ideas that I have found work for me, so I wanted to get them down.

If you have any other ideas of how you regain your focus after dealing with distractions, please comment what works for you as I would be interested in hearing different ideas.

Your keys should be kept out of sight

Recently on Facebook was someone asking where they could get keys cut as they needed an extra set. That is a normal request because not everyone knows where you can get that done. People were giving lots of great suggestions and then I saw a comment that made me very concerned.

If you send me a photo of both sides of your key, I will let you know if I can cut it for you.

The reason I was so concerned about this is this is a major issue because someone with a 3D printer and a photo of a key could make a copy of the key very easily. Of course, as soon as I saw this comment, I sent a private message to the individual asking where to get keys cut to not send a photo of her keys to anyone especially someone you don’t know.

It has been shown that from a picture people (bad actors) can make copies of keys and the type of keys that can be copied very easily are the ones that use the standard blanks. It is always important to make sure that you don’t have your keys visible for someone to take a photo of them.

There are so many times that I have seen people either wearing their keys or a fob on their bag or their belt, and I think they are calling for someone to take a picture of their keys. We have also seen pictures of a security office with a window that showed all the keys that they needed to use and of course that meant the people (bad actors) could copy those keys without any problem. So, remember when you are out in public or asked to provide a picture of your keys it isn’t a good idea because that person that is right near you might not be acting in your interest but in theirs.

Seeming invisible

Lately there have been times that I have felt that I am invisible and people around me don’t seem to see that I am around. This has happened quite a few times and I am going to be highlighting a couple of these instances to show that I have been around but just not seen.

1. I opened the door at a fast food restaurant to enter.
1. The result of this was the person that was going to exit thought that the door automatically opened, so that they could leave, and they didn’t see that I was entering. I did let them know that I had opened the door for me and they just needed to wait.
2. Attending a monthly IT event and seeming invisible to someone saying hello to my business partner.
1. This has happened a number of times and this individual will walk over and reach past me, invading my person space, to shake hands with my business partner. This individual would say “Hello Sir” and doesn’t understand how he is disrespecting me.
2. I have finally called this individual out because this has happened a number of times and he needed to leave that saying “Hello Sir” doesn’t acknowledge me at all. His comment was, I said “Hello Sir” so I was saying hello to everyone.
3. Working a booth at an IT Security conference.
1. Here is another instance when I have found that I have been invisible to an individual even when there are four of us working at the booth at the same time. I must say that the individual that I am talking about is the same individual that attends a monthly and does see me. This time there were four of us at the booth and he made sure that he shook hands with the other three individuals of the booth but avoided even acknowledging me. I was standing between two of the gentlemen that were working the booth with me. One of the gentlemen noticed how I was avoided and asked why that was. My only reply was, I am not certain but maybe it’s because I’m female.

Something that I have noticed over the last little while is it depending on the individuals that you are dealing with. I have found that some individuals will acknowledge me without any issues at all and then there are the few that seem to think I don’t deserve to be respected. When you are at events or even out in public remember that everyone should be treated with the same respect.

Challenges in life

There are going to be times when things just don’t seem to go according to plan and you have to accept that things are going to be different. In our case what happened was a skin infection which changed how we handled a bunch of things.

 Of course, the skin infection came out of the blue and it resulted in three separate visits to emergency to get antibiotic injections to get the infection under control. It wasn’t just the injections it was also the various blood tests as well as a blood culture test and an ultrasound to make sure that everything was ok.

 One of the things that we weren’t prepared for was to be given a note after our first visit that we could show the triage nurse that would move things along a little faster. What the note basically said was when we got into one of the departments was we needed the doctor to look at his leg and then order the antibiotic injection so that we didn’t have to wait as long as we did the first day. Of course, the first day was a lot of test sot see if they could figure out what was happening and that didn’t bother either of us because it was normal to see what was happening. The second day was very quiet because we got into one of the emergency sections and the leg was checked out and then the antibiotic injection was given, and we were sent home.

The third injection day was when it took a bit longer and that is because the doctor decided it was time to do a few more tests to see if anything had changed. The first test was some more blood work to see if things improved and the results were the infection had improved, which was good. The other test was an ultrasound to ensure there wasn’t a blood clot and that also came back clear which was also a good sign.

Summary:

There was a skin infection which meant that there was going to be the three antibiotic injections followed by 7 days of antibiotics before going back to the family physician for another evaluation. The result was another 7 days of antibiotics and hopefully things clear up after this but only time will tell. What this basically means is that we have to try and monitor the infection the best we can and if it gets worst we need to go back to either emergency or the doctor.