DIY: World Map Wrapped Canvas Triptych

File this in the category of DIY defeats.
Okay, so the final product is actually tolerable (and I bet most of you won't notice the most significant mistake at first glance) but boy was this project more agonizing than I planned.

E has been wanting some new kitchen decor for a while, but now that we have a new dining set, it was a good time to update from the fabric wrapped canvases we'd hung on the empty wall in the first few weeks of marriage, four and a half years ago.

I had read four different tutorials for similar projects just to be as prepared as possible. I should have taken a hint that in every tutorial the blogger wrote that it didn't work out exactly like they planned. So while I'm going to share what I did and what I learned, perfectionists beware: this isn't one of those projects that will look completely polished at the end. But I hope that my more detailed directions might help!

Supplies:

• 2 wall maps, 50" x 32" (mine here)
• 3 custom canvas, 16" x 28" x 3/4"* ordered from canvasplace.com
• Spray mount
• Mod Podge
• X-Acto knife
• Acrylic sealant spray
• heavy books and newspaper.
  *(My canvas were actually 16 x 30, but I would do 16 x 28 if I did this project over again)

I ordered custom-made canvases from so that I could include as much of the canvas as possible. With all of the standard options I found in craft stores, I would have lost at least eight inches vertically, so no Antarctica, Greenland, North Pole, etc. I bought two maps for the triptych: one for the two sides and another for the middle.

1. Weight the map down with books or other heavy objects to flatten it. Cut the first map directly down the middle (as shown.) Cut about 10 inches off of each side of the second map, as straight as possible.

2. Measure about 2 inches down from the top of the map on the back, and and make tiny marks with a pencil across the top. This is the part of the map you will wrap around the canvas on the first side.




3. Spray poster mount generously on the paper and then very carefully line up the tiny marks with the top edge of the canvas. Before pressing firmly, slowly eyeball a straight line down on the right. When you're confident of placement, press firmly on the top portion of the frame and the right side of the frame (leaving the bottom and left side loose).


4. On a clean, news-papered surface, turn the canvas over and spray the edge of the frame and the back side of the map generously with adhesive. Pressing down firmly and pulling the map gently, secure the map completely around the top edge of the frame to the back. (the first side is the hardest!) I also added some craft glue to this step for security.



5. Gently but firmly press, pull and secure the right side next. Snip the corner of the paper and fold as shown (like a gift box).



6. Then (I didn't discover this important step until the third canvas and it made a big difference) take one (clean) hand on the top of the map, and one hand on the back of the soft part of the canvas and press the layers firmly together from the already wrapped top corner to the unwrapped bottom corner. This will significantly reduce bubbling when you add the Mod Podge. 7. Continue spraying, pulling, pressing and gluing the last two sides. Once they are wrapped all the way around the back of the canvas, use an X-Acto knife to cut off any excess paper. 8. Very gently take a foam brush and lightly wipe Mod Podge over the finished product in one smooth layer. Any globs and your paper will bubble and start to disintegrate. This will happen either way...and it is the most frustrating product of this project.



9. Set your first canvas aside to dry and repeat two more times! (note: be very careful how you line up your country overlaps. Try to leave a half inch overlap as to make the map as continuous as possible. I used the guiding lines to make my guesstimates, but I made a mistake and now I'm missing a bit of Brazil and Greenland!)

10. Finally, spray the dried canvases with a matte acrylic sealant. I did two layers, just in case they ever needed to be wiped clean, the paper should stay intact.

11. Hang up your canvases on another day, when you have the energy to measure and level them.

A History of Valentines'

I wrote this post on Valentine's weekend 2012, saved it in my drafts folder and never pressed publish. Today I wanted to share a new Valentine's Day tradition we decided to start so I dug up this forgotten post with our new tradition (hint: it involves pizza!)

I'm not one of those women who says "Oh, I don't care about Valentine's Day" and then gets secretly sobby when my husband doesn't come home with flowers or a dinner reservation.

But I'm also not one of those women that hates on Valentine's day as a commercialized hallmark holiday. Because it is an opportunity to celebrate love. And I love love.

That said, I can't say I have ever had a terribly romantic day! A friend wished me a happy valentines yesterday and I started thinking about the awkwardness that has been a few of my past love days.

The first Valentine's day I really remember was with a guy I'd been seeing for only a couple of weeks in early college. I was still living at home and my dad wanted to meet him before we officially started dating, so I invited him over to my family's on Valentine's Day to....watch the Olympics. Yeah, it was that romantic. While we were sitting there watching luge races, I was praying that the awkwardness would pass quickly while my dad quizzed this guy that I barely knew about his work, family, friends, etc. I was sitting on my hands tensely, a foot away from him on the sofa and trying not to act weird in front of my parents. But it was the most awkward experience ever, and I didn't even get chocolate out of the deal.

The following Valentine's Day I was still dating the same guy, but things were rocky. We were in the middle of a big fight, but attempted to make up because it was V-day after all. He took me out to Red Lobster with no reservations and a one hour wait which we passed sitting in an empty Taco Bell. (spoiler alert: we ended up breaking up two weeks later.)

The next February was a few months into E and I's relationship, and I thought "This relationship is so great and wonderful - he probably has something drop-dead romantic planned." I'm still not sure I understand fully what it is about us women that expect our significant others to step out of character (mind you, the character we fell in love with) and perform great feats of chivalry and romance on the one day of the year that everyone else does it too.

Anyway, we agreed not to do anything big, just hang out. He was going to call after studying. I got dressed, made up, and sat down to wait for the phone call. I went from excited, to elated (if its taking this long, it must be good), to exasperated, to supremely annoyed. I marched up to his dorm room at 8pm and found him asleep on the couch. Ouch. I was mad all night, even though we both think it's hysterical now. (We ended up eating cold food from the campus snack shop, and going to bed early).

After that experience I decided to temper my expectations about the day. Fast forward to 2014 (our sixth Valentine's Day together). The barre studio that I've been a regular at since summer, has a Friday special where significant others can take a free class! So after a few months of begging him to give it a try (mostly to prove what a tough workout ballet can be!), E lovingly, sacrificially agreed. We met a barre buddy of mine and her husband, and had a great time watching them sweat and shake it out. The both left surprised and impressed at the intensity of a "ballet/pilates" workout.

We countered the calorie burn by heading to one of my favorite California pizza spots and breweries, Pizza Port. The crowd was light, and there was nothing like beer and a Pizza Roma in sweaty workout clothes with great friends. We ran into another couple from our church while we were there who told us that going to Pizza Port with friends was their Valentine's Day tradition - fun for the adults and the kids!

 And we thought - brilliant! A workout, low-key pizza dinner and walk near the coast sounds like the perfect tradition for us.

We finished the night staying up way to late starting House of Cards, Season Two!

What are your favorite Valentine's Day traditions? (They don't have to be too romantic - just you!)

I'm off to scoop up the clearanced pink m&ms and sweethearts. My second favorite part of love day!

Sugar Free [Lucky Me]

I love cookies and I LOVE candy. Every day at 2:30pm I dig into my desk supply of sweets or go scrounging for them in others' offices. I eat my fair share whenever it is available at gatherings, and I bake and bring goodies into the office to share regularly.

Towards the end of the year after three holiday-related work parties, a few of my coworkers talked about taking a break from sugar in the New Year. I made fun of them at the time ("I'm not going to be a slave to diets!" I said), but when I got home from a Christmas trip home—aka family food fest 2013—and was so over cookies I thought I might give them up for good, I decided I could make it through a sugar fast. Not permanently, mind you, just for 21 days—the supposed length of time that it takes to break a craving (though 6-8 weeks is recommended to make it a long-term habit).

I started doing some research, found some sugar detox plans but they were all paleo-ish (NOT for me. I love bread and cheese), so I decided to just make my own personal rules that involved significant changes, but were still doable.

My 21 Day Sugar Detox Rules

21 days eating no foods with sugar in the ingredients, no fake sugars, and no alcohol. (honey, maple syrup are allowed in small portions)

This commitment inadvertently cut about half of the carbs from my diet because it meant almost no bread, no bagels or sweet breads and no cereal. Needless to say, one day into the experiment I was kicking myself (and others, if you must know). Have you ever tried drastically cutting carbs? It makes you light-headed and nauseated and stabby and pretty unpleasant to be around.

It's Friday, and I'm currently halfway through Day Five. I think I've made it through the "I hate everyone" portion of the diet, but I'm still sleepier than normal and feel hunger pangs more frequently than I used to. I chew on dried coconut chips when I want chocolate and I eat a tablespoon of almond butter while my husband wine in the evenings. It kind of sucks, but I'm doing it. And that's more than I can say about any health-related effort from the past.

Follow me on Instagram to see what I've been eating this week!





The main less I've learned so far is the impact of making good snack choices. Other than breakfast, my main meals haven't changed much. But now that I know I can't go get a pastry from Starbucks at 10am, I have to plan to pack a hard-boiled egg and cashews and hummus. And then they're right at my desk and they taste yummy and I think—how has it taken me this long to eat good snacks? Intentionality people.

I hope that at the end of this "detox", whether it turns out to be 7 days or the whole 21, I will have learned that enjoying treats is wonderful, they just cannot be a part of my daily snacking habits. I've already learning that making intentional snack choices takes only maybe five minutes a day. (much less scary than I imagined it to be!)

In case you're interested, here are a few resources I looked to for inspiration:

Meg Fee's series on giving up sugar
The 21 Day Sugar Detox (too extreme for me! but some helpful tips)
Is Sugar Toxic? (NY Times)

I'm feeling a little silly doing this detox and talking about it, since I don't usually subscribe to the strict healthy eating, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free stuff, nor have I ever been particularly healthy in my life, but I guess we can all make healthier choices, right? Have you made any changes recently? Wish me luck!

Happy New Year! A Recap and a Look Forward [like everyone else].

I tried to write haikus for 2013 and 2014, which I've done the past couple of years.
[2011/12]
[2012/13]
This year I realized that there is too much to say than can be said in a 17 syllable poem. And that's ok.

2013 was filled with epic moments. Welcoming a new soul into our family. Saying farewell to an anchor of our family, and helping him along the painful journey Home. Starting a new job and launching into ministry life with all its demands and woes.

It was also filled with many small moments, both joyful and frustrating, exciting and boring. Tasting beer in the best of Bruges' pubs and biking along Amsterdam canals. Snuggling lots of friends' babies. Dinners made and not photographed. Laundry washed and not folded. Plants long dead still in the windowsill. Hurts and miscommunications. Friendships developed and revived. Fights and forgiveness.

Balboa Park with friends, Oct 2013

Another year of marriage held together by the grace of God and his love for us invested in each other. I am continually surprised (why?!) that 4.5 years of marriages hasn't cured E and I from irritating or wounding each other. But we keep getting better, little by little, at loving. At saying I'm sorry first. At saying (and meaning and choosing) I love you, sooner. It is a joy to be his wife.

When I look back on 2013 I see all of the things I wish I'd done, and all of the things I did. Moments I didn't write about and I wish I had. There is the good and there is plenty of bad. This year, like all years, has been bumpy, but it has been full of rich blessing.

Open
For 2014, I'm praying for an open heart. Open to changes to our schedule and lifestyle because of E's work as a pastor. Open to living with less and being content with what we have. Open to sharing our resources with others. Open to changing my expectations and allowing God's and others' priorities before my own.

Here's to a year of being open. It's gonna get messy.

Knowing when (to have kids, that is)

 

Me with my 2-day-old baby nephew Gideon in July

 

Now that I have a job and E has a job (Oh, I didn't mention! E has a job. he's a pastor. at our home church that we love. Praise God!)

As I was saying, now that life is a little more settled—we know we're staying in the San Diego area for the long-term and we're in our fifth year of marriage—the inevitable questions are coming up about kids.

I don't just mean from other people (though I have been hearing it from my family and friends more often) but also between E and I. It's funny how the thought of children hardly enters your mind for years, until it does. And then it's oh, hmm, maybe we should think about it. And then,what are we waiting for again?

I guess we're at a point where I don't have good excuses for putting it off any more. I mean, I have excuses. I know we'll never be ready—emotionally, financially or otherwise. And we know we can never completely prepare for it. But if it happened now, we wouldn't have to move back in with our parents.

Last year I wrote about feeling left of out of the mama club. Not that I wanted to be in it, but that I was starting to be really cognizant of the great divide between mom and non-moms. I'm still not sure how brave I am to enter this world.

When I think about parenthood I think of a lot of never-agains (quiet dinners out, and movies, and Europe trips, and sleeping in). It's hard to remember that we'll still have many good years after children, and that the freedom eventually returns. And it's hard to realize that the good things that kids bring into the picture could (maybe?) make up for all the things we'll lose. (Because—what if NOT?!)

I have a lot of fears. But one of the biggest and maybe the silliest is that I know that being a mother is a relatively thankless and marginalized job. And my ego reeeeally likes attention.

I am looking forward to some aspects of motherhood—seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of a mini-me seems kind of exciting. And E was born to be a dad—I can hardly wait to see him with our children.

But I still feel pretty meh about the whole having-a-baby thing. Most of my mama friends got bit hard by the baby bug at some point. I'm beginning to think maybe I just won't. (For what it's worth, I'm told this feeling will change when a baby is actually on the way.)

job hunting [tips to get through the agony]

(Saga started here)

So, six months I started writing about figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. Half a year later I'm finishing the thought!

When I decided to start looking for a new job, I was completely overwhelmed. Every job I've had since I was 15 was basically handed to me on a platter. I haven't faced rejection. Before last fall, I never thought about what the average human endures when job searching. I was stepping into the great, dark and scary unknown. And I was scared - scared to fail.

My fear of failure usually manifests itself in a half-hearted effort. In school, in work, in life - I protect myself by justifying "I could have gotten that A/job/promotion/acceptance letter, if I would have really given it my all." This always gives me an excuse from success.

It took a lot of tenacity to set those fears aside and really give my job search a worthwhile effort. What I learned was that job hunting was just as scary and a lot more work than I imagined.

Job Hunting. Where even the most qualified and competent people must stoop to a level that feels near groveling to become a salesman of their own skills and experience. It required humility, patience and a lot of hard work. This  post probably isn't relevant to all of my readers, but as someone who interacts with a lot of unprepared college students looking for jobs in a competitive marketplace, I wanted to share a few of my own tips in case it would encourage or help anyone else in a similar position.

1. Revise your resume. Or better yet, update it regularly - every time you accomplish something new or take on new responsibilities, quantify and communicate them. Ask for help from fresh pairs of eyes. I got feedback from no less than four people before I started sending my resume out.

2. Draft personalized cover letters. Use a set of four to six core competencies and interests to draft unique cover letters customized for each potential job. Spend some time researching and address you letter to the appropriate hiring manager. (side note: I always sent a cover letter, even when it wasn't requested.*)

3. Swallow your pride and your nerves, and network. About a month into my search I sent an email to someone whose career I admired but had only met one time. I asked her to meet with me to review my resume and offer advice about my prospective field. It was scary, but it was the most helpful step in my job search process because it took me out of your comfort zone and helped prepare me talk about my experience and goals for the future.

4. Look often. You don't necessarily need to spend hours a day, but you should look for at least 30 minutes every few days for new posting. I looked on Craigslist, LinkedIn, Indeed, industry job boards and on the website of companies in my region. The job I found was not on any of the big job boards I spent most of my time looking on. It was only posted on the company site (because of a limited budget).

5. Read as much as you can. Devour articles on networking, resume-writing, interviewing, and marketing your skills. My previous job title was totally unrelated to my new job, but I was able to market relevant skills after realizing how to translate them directly to the new job requirements. I also, in my previous position, sought out opportunities to gain experience in my prospective field, by taking initiative in those areas (I workedhis was photography, editing, html coding and writing).

(5b. If at all possible, look before you get desperate. I was in a place where I was very ready to find a new position yesterday. It made me discouraged when the right job -or any job- wasn't coming up right away. You have a huge advantage when you're happy where you are, but always available to consider other options.)

*this is probably the single most important thing I did, and also the most agonizing and time-consuming.

Even though I realize now some of these tips are obvious, I learned them only after a lot of time and tears. For a while, I was in a cycle that looked like this: once a week I would find the perfect job, realize that I didn't meet three of the seven requirements, deliberate over how to make my not-completely-relevant experience match the qualifications listed, and try to be a balance of warm, witty and professional in all of my cover letters. Then after agonizing for hours I would send the documents, triple-check the content and spend hours refreshing, refreshing, refreshing for a positive reply. It was exhausting and discouraging.

What I ultimately learned is that you have to be just as good at selling yourself as you are good at the job you're trying to get.

My little story has a happy ending. I interviewed for a position that didn't quite fit the parameters for my perfect job. It was part-time and temporary, but it was down the street and in my industry (education). And when I got to meet the team I'd be working with, I was sold. At the time it felt risky, but it turned out that the job turned in a full-time position and was made permanent within six months. (I realize this isn't always the case and I wouldn't usually encourage accepting a job that doesn't meet minimum requirements) but I'm so glad I took this leap of faith.

So what am I doing? I'm managing the social media on a web communications team (along with doing some writing) for a local university. It's challenging, fulfilling and creative - all the things I was looking for. Eight months into and I'm still excited to go to work every morning. :-) The creative drain is apparently taking its toll on my blog writing...maybe I'll be back here regularly someday!


p.s. thank you for your kinds words after the death of my grandfather. Grief, like it tends to do, comes in waves. I appreciate all your prayers and thoughts.