Category Archives: living

Working, Like for Real

Posted on by
Julie Tiu June Monday Mugshot 6-15-15

And now starts summer

It’s the first official day of summer vacation for my family (I didn’t count the weekend, because that’s just normal scheduling.) and I’m skipping out the door to work. Work. Official part-time job. EXCITING! With a touch of good butterflies. And, ironically, the picture above shows that I’m having a cup of coffee and I’m going to work at our local tea shop, tea room, TeaLula. Let the record show: I never said I was solely a tea or coffee drinker. I’m equal opportunity.

So, what might this mean – this official part-time job? I get to work with friends. Awesome. I’ll learn, research, create content and write… I even get to play with some products and merchandise displays if I’m good. I wasn’t necessarily looking for work, but it seemed like such a natural fit that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, I’ve kept myself in some sort of (work) loop for eight and a half years with dabbling in papercrafts, sewing, food blogging, art workshops, and copious amounts of volunteer work at church and school that mostly revolve around graphic layouts, writing, editing and social media. (Stay-at-home-mom clearly meant staying at home and working my butt off?)

It’ll be a great, new adventure.

Who knows, it might just inspire new projects and posts here, too!

—–

Come and follow me at facebook.com.

Two month review: April and May

Posted on by

In the midst of all this, my son celebrated his First Communion. What a wonderful time with family and friends coming together on a gorgeous day. 🙂

(Back in April) Our Spring Break road trip led us here on the way home…

Lambert's Missouri

Home of Throwed Rolls

… and then a terrible case of sinusitis and migraines. Worst I ever felt in a long time.

Tea Mug TeaLula Julie Tiu

Springtime allergies and sickness

The clouds started to part and I joined the #taggedbykindness project with Kristi at soul-positive.com and Amy at fearlesslines.com.

art tags to leave for unsuspecting people

#taggedbykindness project with soul-positive.com and Amy from fearlesslines.com

And wouldn’t you know it, I dove into our local Art Show and taught a drawing class…

Park Ridge Art and Music Walk

Hanging out at the Art and Music Walk

Swag bags ready! #zentangle class is gonna be fun, in a zen sort of way.

A photo posted by Julie Tiu (@sothisisjulie) on

#YourTurnChallenge Blog – Day 1

Posted on by

No pics today. Although you can see my Monday Mugshot at the Facebook page. 🙂

I joined a community today at the Your Turn Challenge blog, and am eagerly waiting for my post to be posted. Every day for seven days there will be a prompt, and people can submit their writing at the Tumblr blog. Pretty cool to think that people from all over are trying this out for very similar, and yet very different, reasons. If you have a Twitter account you can check out the hashtag #YourTurnChallenge.

I just needed a push.

Hope to update with a link to my post soon…

UPDATE (1/20/2015)

Got a tweet from Winnie Kao. She took the time to answer my tweet despite all the posts she has to manually update… she gets a round of applause from me.

The long link to my #YourTurnChallenge post is http://yourturnchallenge.tumblr.com/post/108610578470/why-not

But if you don’t feel like going there, this is what I wrote:

Why do the Your Turn Challenge?

  • Because Winnie asked (so nicely)…
  • Because I saw it on my Seth Godin e-mail feed… (and I dig Seth’s stuff).
  • Because last year was the least I had written on my own blog and I feel like a failure…
  • Because I crave community…
  • Because I promised myself I would do more, complain less…
  • Because I want to get better at launching without being a perfectionist…
  • Because I need the push…
  • Because I gotta get over whatever block I’m feeling…
  • Because others are here and we’re doing this together…

So, why not?

Thanks.

2015: A New Year recap

Posted on by
Mugshot Monday: tea in the morning and settling in

Monday Mugshot: settling in | January 5, 2015

My family and I traveled to Seattle for Christmas and New Year’s! Such a great time with family: losing track of the days, playing late, sleeping in, eating our way through some favorite spots and checking out new places. Coming back was rough only because of the jetlag. I love coming home from a trip, and sleeping in my own bed. And now… the re-entry into our regularly scheduled life. Tough.

I wrote last November about my non-writing. I think that has a lot to do with changes in my focus, and especially with my kids involvement in school and activities. Actually, I just told someone yesterday that I think I took on two volunteer activities too many over the last year. They actually entail big projects, too, so I’m poising myself to step away from them. It’ll be good to release the ideas and work to someone else who can breathe new ideas into the work.

My focus this year will be to continue to share here when I can… showing the progress of projects, workshops and ideas. Still thinking about blog details, but that can come later.

Working on: leading an annual poster contest for our local city hall, social media and PR for my church parish women’s organization, getting my kids to write thank you notes…

Developing: a Valentine’s workshop with a friend, storefront window ideas for said friend’s store

Contributing at: geekmom.com and Monday Mugshots

Planning: a cool drawing theme for March (maybe), my daughter’s birthday

I’m happy for the new, clean slate, and hopeful for what 2015 holds. More dreaming and doing, less complaining and procrastination! Onward…

Julie Tiu | monday musghot

Monday Mugshot: time for a Moscow Mule | January 12, 2015

 

Find me!
www.facebook.com/SoThisisJulie
www.pinterest.com/julietiu
www.instagram.com/sothisisjulie
Twitter: @SoThisisJulie

November Update: Where am I?

Posted on by

It’s no surprise that I’ve been absent from blogging. I may be stepping out of the blogging world for a bit. Life has been pulling and pushing me to different degrees, and I have to admit that much of my hesitation to blog came after returning from the Philippines. I started to ask the questions (again): why I wanted to blog, what does it mean to me, how much time do I want to devote, is it fulfilling, and is it bringing me closer to any dreams? Do I even HAVE dreams and goals for this?

From www. facebook.com/SoThisisJulie

October Pic-a-day Challenge: Dreams

This year I set out to DO more, and stop drooling over other people’s activities. I just wanted to engage more.

My loved ones

My loved ones

Summer with my brother and cousins

Summer with my brother and cousins


Taking pictures, then writing and documenting – it just took more time than I wanted to devote. And, it’s definitely been a great year – much of it I need to thank to One Little Word and new friends (best penpal ever!).

I still love this outlet, but I’ve found that Facebook and Instagram has been more conducive for my on-the-go life right now. And, unlike a lot of bloggers out there – I never had a real plan for this website. (I’m a planning sort of person, too!! Oh the irony.) I have WAY too many ideas floating around in my head, and I think it’s time to regroup so I can make these ideas actually come to life! Perhaps a rebranding… now doesn’t that sound official?

My wish is to continue creating and making something every day – even if it sucks – and that I can inspire a few folks down the road. I’ll still post here and there. In fact, I will be teaching a holiday crafterhours workshop at our local tea shop in a few weeks – so I’ll have some things to share from that, too.

I just felt like I had to get this off my mind… thanks. See you on FB and IG!

On Facebook: Pic-a-day challenge last month

One Little Word: A Project Update

Posted on by

This year I joined an online workshop, Ali Edwards’s One Little Word. I’ve wanted to try something like this for a long time, to be part of a creative community even if we’re all miles and miles away.

Ali Edwards_OneLittleWord2014Promo2
I haven’t updated on a regular basis at all (in January and April), but I’ve been working along with monthly prompts and reflections. My One Little Word is “dare”, as I explained in my January post. Below you’ll find a gallery of my journaling so far. Just click on the pictures to see them larger.

Earlier in the year I worked on intentions, taking a look at different facets of my life: spiritual, physical, emotional, creative, relationships. It took a while, but I also came up with a symbol for this year. The fleur-de-lis. I love this symbol for so many reasons: it reminds me of Montreal, (where my husband and I went on our honeymoon), New Orleans (vacation spot and amazing culture and food), and it reminds me of St. Joan of Arc (incidentally also the name of my elementary school). And if you don’t think she was daring, I don’t know who is.

I made actions cards that have goals and ideas for the year. Some have been successful, while others… not yet. I’ve reflected on letting go. One month, I put together pictures that connect with my word. It’s been so much fun making time to be creative and introspective.

The best part of all of this has been meeting a pen pal and connecting with the community in a private Facebook group. My pen pal was chosen randomly, but holy cow, it’s crazy eerie how we have a lot of similar craft tastes. She and I send happy packages of mail to each other (last picture in the gallery).

Most recently I created artist trading cards with the phrase “I am” on each of them. I’m looking forward to sharing how I put these cards together.

One Little Word 2014: Art cards

Related Posts with Thumbnails