I so love finding a new app to experiment with and today this free app: Kaleido Lens has me mighty happy. A big part of my love of photography is all about experimentation so this app totally sings to me.
I’m freshly home from a whole lot of travels with lots of news to share, but thought I’d start my return to blogging with something really fun….its a free app, so I totally recommend downloading it to add a little photo experimentation to your day!
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I’m oh so excited to be writing this post as a part of the Declaraion of You’s Blog Lovin’ Tour! The Declaration of You is a brand new book from the wonderful duo of Michelle Ward and Jessica Swift!
The Declaration of You will be published by North Light Craft Books this summer, with readers getting all the permission they’ve craved to step passionately into their lives, discover how they and their gifts are unique and uncover what they are meant to do! I’m thrilled to be participating this in alongside over 100 other creative bloggers. Learn more – and join us! – by clicking here.”
Each week of the tour bloggers are sharing their thoughts on one of the themes of the chapters in the book and this week the theme is ‘Self-Care’.
So I thought I’d share what my personal declaration of self-care is:
To me self-care isn’t just the acts we do, but also the ways that we treat ourselves (which really is probably no surprise since this site is called Be Your Own Beloved)! I think the biggest piece about self-care I like to remember is that last piece. That self-care isn’t just something that we do once and everything is awesome. It is the filling up of our own energetic well and by doing so it makes us more equipt to help or serve others in our lives.
I sometimes mention the depression I went through years back. I think that was the time I learned the most about self-care. I truly felt like I had nothing left to give outwardly and my well was totally dry. So I had to relearn self-care. For me that meant slowing down and really listening to what I needed. At that time it was quiet and solitude. Once that well was filled up I started to seek self-care outwardly which was going on adventures, soaking up simple moments and savouring them which led to me falling in love with capturing these moments through the camera.
The declaration of me in general came out of that stage in my life when I finally listened.
Kept quiet until the voice in me felt ready to speak.
Then slowly began listening to that intuition each day about what I needed to keep that well filled.
What is your declaration of self-care?
There is also a Facebook Party to celebrate the Declaration of You today at 12:30 EST and I hope to see you there!
You can also get your copy of The Declaration of You from the books website (even a signed copy) or from your local bookstore! I truly can’t wait to get this one in my hands and savour every page of it!
You can also check out other posts on the Blog Lovin’ Tour here! I especially loved this post from the awesome Rachel Cole and Seek Your Course as part of the tour!
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Lessons in self-love are so abundant, aren’t they. We might not realize it at first though, as they are often visits from our inner critic…but moments in which we hear our inner critic but decide to make a different choice!
I wanted to share another moment with you where my inner critic got nasty with me but I decided not to listen. I shared this story with the Be Your Own Beloved class soon after I came back from this moment but I thought here a bit later that I might share it with you too. There I was, on another bike ride…when my inner critic aka my gremlins rose up again.
Why do they keep attacking me on bike rides is my question! Here’s what happened the last time!
This time they put their claws into a different story though.
The one about why I’ve been single for a long while. These days I’m more clear than ever that this solo time has been with big healing and much purpose but at that moment my gremlins grabbed on when I forget that for even just a moment.
There I was, happily biking home from reading by the ocean and they jumped me.
Started telling me all the reasons I am presently single. Ranting blame on my personality, my physicality, telling me all the reasons I wasn’t presently loved by another.
That day happened to be ‘Being Our Own Friend’ day in Be Your Own Beloved and I remembered in the nick of time before the gremlins got to the point of no return and as I biked along I thought about what I would say to a friend if I heard her speaking about herself in such a disrespectful way and started speaking in a whisper aloud (to overpower the gremlins in my mind) positive things about myself. Things that even felt uncomfortable to say but that I know I wanted to say if I were truly going to be my own friend.
As the words came out I even got teary. Thinking about how far I’ve come in self-love and how at the same time it never ends and moments arise that we get to put it into practice.
About how even though I do these activities in Be Your Own Beloved a lot (each time I run the class and often in between) it never ceases to amaze me that there are more layers of healing, more chances to show up and be my own beloved.
Soon after my inner critic and I came to a cease fire (or rather I put it in its place and claimed a different story) I came to a stoplight and i knew this heart was there and hopped off my bike to take this photo. To remember this moment where I got the chance to be my own friend.
I wanted to do something special today and offer a giveaway for a spot in the upcoming session of Be Your Own Beloved! Usually with giveaways I like to just make it an ‘enter your name’ kind of opportunity as I really want these giveaways to be accessible to folks who might have never taken a self-portrait before (so don’t worry, you don’t have to take a self-portrait to enter).
But while Be Your Own Beloved is about self-portraiture, it is just as much about showing up for ourselves in the moments when our inner critic might try to stop us from taking that self-portrait (and I’ve got some playful tools in the class to deal with that critic)!
So to enter this draw for the spot in the class I would love for you to leave a comment and share a short story of a moment when you came up against your inner critic and made a different choice than your usual one.
I also wanted to keep this draw open for a longer time than I usually would so that perhaps this might be a chance to invite in a #beyourownbeloved moment in the coming week and do just that…listen to your inner critic and then say NOPE, I choose a different story today (and if facing your inner critic feels like a really really hard task, please enter anyways even if you don’t have a moment to share). This could be as simple as smiling at yourself in the mirror rather than looking away. Or it could be stopping a cycle of negative self-talk in your head and just saying ‘I need a break from this today’.
So all you need to do is leave a comment and I’ll be doing a random draw for the spot!
The Giveaway is now closed but you can still join in on the August session of Be Your Own Beloved!
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Photo of the photowalk by Tricia Ward McDonald (see her awesome photos over here).
Last week I got a message inviting me to fill a spot leading a photo walk at a local social media and blogging conference. My local photog friends know that I’m into doing more in person teaching so I was super appreciative they recommended me. I’ve had a number of these kinds of local opportunities lately and not only have they helped this introvert feel more comfortable in the role of leading/teaching, but have made me feel more at home in my own city.
So this one was for a conference called Northern Voice and my friends, it totally rocked. I had heard about it, but hadn’t jumped in and signed up in previous years.
It was outside of both my in-person social circles and my online community, so for an introvert like me, thats a whole lotta outside-the-comfort zone action going on. The great thing was, that once I got there I realized that it was the same case for so many of us and I felt totally at home there. I only wish it was a day longer!
One of the many things I so loved about the event was that I couldn’t tell who the speakers where and who the participants were, there just wasn’t a cliquishness or hierarchical energy to the event at all. I loved that.
Another big reason I loved it was the content of the workshops. To tell you the truth, I listen to a lot of online blogging/social-media/marketing tele-seminars and so often I’m disappointed by the kind of blogging advice people give in those seminars (a one-size-fits-all approach) but this event didn’t remotely disappoint in that way. Quite the opposite. I went to such a range of workshops and my notebook is filled up with the take-away inspirations from it…some definitely technical workshops and some super philosophical ones too…all of which I felt spoke to us in a really outside-the-box way, recognizing the wide diversity of reasons we might be involved in social media. I think no matter why you were there you would have ended up going away with so much.
So I wanted to share a bit about this in case you are want to keep watch on the conference for next year or in case you have been pondering going to an event in your part of the world that is outside of your usually bubble of online or in-person circles…go for it…it might be exactly what you are in need of!
So, I’ve been a glasses wearer since my teens and my eye sight is pretty bad, so a glasses girl I shall be!
I tried contacts for a bit when I was a teen, but I’ve always felt that glasses were fun to wear and that I felt more ‘me’ with them. I confess so much so that sometimes I need to take self-portraits without them on to see myself bare, unmasked as I want to feel ‘me’ with our without them!
The other day I got an email from a lovely friend asking for advice around buying glasses and she emailed back ‘You HAVE to write a blog post about this’ and I definitely think this one is overdue as people ask about my glasses online almost daily! So like the recent gear post, I want to have a place to send you with all the info!
The vintage pair I mention below.
Vintage Glasses
Oh my. Being a glasses wearer used to be mighty expensive. You’d easily have to pay $500-$700+ for glasses and lenses. Then of course, I’d make that pair of glasses last for as long as possible until they broke and there was no choice but to buy new ones. I’m glad those days are over.
When my old blue pair of glasses broke right in the nose bridge as I was cleaning them (I would have needed to tape them together geek-style to repair them) I started searching out new options for getting glasses. I think the online optical stores were appearing but I wasn’t yet ready to try them. Plus, after a couple decades of wearing pretty simple glasses, I was craving something bold.
I had been looking for a good vintage pair of glasses for a long time, granny style, and finally found a pair at the Vancouver Flea Market. The best part was that the prescription was almost the same as mine! Usually when I’d try on vintage glasses the prescription was so different that I couldn’t even see myself in the mirror through them to see if they worked. This pair was so close that I actually wore them for a few days to see if I wanted to make them into my own prescription.
To get them made into my prescription I went to an in person optical store. I learned that putting lenses into vintage glasses is kind of risky as they might break so glasses needed to be in good condition as they need to heat the plastic of the frame to insert the lens. They said these ones were pretty good but there was a chance they would be okay, so I went for it and luckily they came through. I won’t tell you what store it was as it was the worst customer service, but most places will put in lenses for you so try somewhere local to you!
Some of the best places I’ve found to seek out vintage glasses are:
Glasses: Derek Cardigan 7006
My Favourite Online Glasses Options
Buying glasses is revolutionizing things for us glasses wearers! Not having it be a brick and mortar store allows the companies to offer glasses a lot more affordably.
In order to place an online order you’ll still have to visit an optician in person of course to get your prescription. Once you’ve got that you are almost ready to order online. Usually you’ll get all the information you need except your PD (Pupilary Distance) but its super easy to figure that out. Here’s a tutorial on how!
Then you’re ready to order! So I though I’d share a few of my favourite places to get glasses online with you.
Clearly Contacts (called Coastal in the U.S.)
This is the main place I’ve gotten glasses is from Clearly Contacts. They are a Vancouver based company but are available throughout the world. Initially looking at their glasses it felt like they were way nicer and funkier than the average in person or online option. As it happens, they have lines specifically designed for them and they feel really on trend. While so many of their glasses are amazing, I’m a big fan of the brands Derek Cardigan and Love, both made specifically for them. Clearly Contacts actually just opened a brick and mortar store in Vancouver, so if you are local you can actually go try on a lot of their glasses there.
Clearly Contacts (or Coastal) have a first pair free offer. Amazing, right? If your prescription is intense (like mine) you will have to pay for lens upgrades, so it may not be totally free, but still a great price.
If you like their frames, I totally recommend following them on Facebook (here for Coastal) as they regularly have sales on frames. These sales happen so frequently that I recommend deciding on the frame you like and then waiting a week or two as there will be sale of some sort very soon (there always is)!
Zenni Optical
The price range for Zenni Optical is even cheaper than Clearly Contacts. They too make their own frames and prices range from $6-$40 (wow, right). I feel like they might not be as good quality as CC but are drastically cheaper, so why not!
So far I have only gotten a pair of sunglasses from there which I’m totally happy with. They are also the place that seem to have glasses most similar to my present favourite cat eye ones, so if you’re hoping to find cat-eye glasses be sure to check them out!
Other Online options:
I haven’t personally purchased from any of these companies, only because they don’t ship to Canada (they should change that, eh) but I hear good things about all of these. Plus, they all have really funky glasses. Now that glasses don’t cost an arm and a leg, it is fun to join in on trends for glasses whereas before I would have totally just chosen a more classic pair to try to make them last. There are other companies online, but these are the ones I hear the best reviews of. Plus, I confess I judge a company by whether or not they have ‘Cat-Eye’ as a shape you can search for in their line of glasses!
How to Figure out What Glasses Work for You!
Figuring out what shape of glasses really works for you is definitely the hard part of finding glasses. My biggest recommendation, especially if you are planning on ordering online, is to go into a glasses store and try on some frames and figure out what shape works for you.
If you already have glasses that you like the width of across your face or the height of, I definitely found it useful to make note of those lengths and use them when finding glasses online (every pair of glasses will have that info listed)!
On many of the online eyeglasses company have the option of uploading your own photo and you can see the glasses on your photo. It is actually kind of fun to do, but I wouldn’t judge the glasses only by that if you really like them as they will look different on you than in the photo. My favourite pair didn’t really work in the photo but I love them the most in person. So especially with companies like Clearly Contacts (where you can return them) it is worth it to try them on in person!
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Left: Derek Cardigan 7005 Middle: Love L747 Right: Kam Dhillon 3027
So I hope that was helpful for my dear fellow glasses wearers!