Vision Boards (Positivity Exercise)

During the Fall, I made some vision boards after getting out of the hospital. I did this because I felt a bit lost when it came to what I wanted to do with my life. I'm a visual person and I had made a vision board before so I decided to make one to help me visualize and figure out my plans for the future. My first vision board ever was made at a vision board workshop at a local library and it was made on a large bristol board but I felt that it was too big. The whole point of a vision board is to glue words and pictures of things that you want in your life into a sort of collage and then place it somewhere where you will see it all the time so that the words and images will make their way into your mind. Hopefully they create a constant unnoticeable reminder in your head of what you want to manifest and eventually it will happen because you make it happen. My large vision board seemed too overwhelming. There were way too many pictures and words for my mind to take in.

This Fall, after playing around a bit with some words and pictures from magazines on a normal size piece of paper (around 8"x11"), I realized that a smaller vision board was much better. There were fewer words and pictures so it was easier for my mind to focus on them and remember them and it was also easier to narrow down exactly what I wanted from each vision board while being more artistic with the arrangements of the cut-outs at the same time. Also, I could play around with the words more and arrange them in a way so that they all flowed with each other when read in order. I made a total of three vision boards and I put them in plain frames without borders that you would normally use to display certificates. I'll talk about each vision board in more detail in this post.

My "What do I want to do with my life?" vision board:

This was the first vision board that I made out of the total of three vision boards. I wanted to create a vision board that would get me thinking in a more positive way about figuring out what I want to do in my life rather than stressing out about it all the time. I chose empowering images like that of a girl with a smile on her face and her arms in the air in a sign of success as well as that of Wonder Woman. Another image, which happens to be the biggest picture on the board, is that of a woman with her hands on a traditional image of a heart that is on her chest. I chose this image because the things that I really want to do in my life are things that I'm passionate about and I felt that this image was a good symbol for our passions. The words have to do with there being possibilities out there and how I can do what I really want and love to do. Just for fun, I covered the entire vision board in glitter glue (which is a bit difficult to see in the photo) to remind myself to have fun while exploring my interests.

My "Stress Less" vision board:

I created this vision board to focus more on keeping my mind relaxed and less stressed. The images are of activities that I love that are also relaxing and help with relaxation like meditation, yoga, and hiking outdoors. The words are reassuring and encouraging.

My "Creativity" vision board:

This vision board is all about art and creativity. I am a very creative person but I feel like I'm not focusing on the arts and creativity that I love as much as I'd like so I pasted a bunch of images of arts that I love like crafts, drawing and painting, writing, music, and photography. I also added words that are connected to creativity and at the bottom I put a little inspirational sentence about being original when it comes to art.


Those are the vision boards that I made and I'm really happy with them! I feel like I really improved since the first time I made one and really focused on exactly what I wanted to get out of these vision boards.

Cheers,
Kaylie

Our 2016 Garden

My family and I ended up planting our garden a bit late again this year but not as late as last year. This year we planted around the beginning of June. Most of our plants were bought already growing from a greenhouse but some were bought as seed. As you can see, our garden is quite large. We have 10 rows as well as a section beside the last row on the far end of the garden where we are growing vine plants and perennials. The photos in this post were taken when the plants and seeds in the garden still hadn't grown very much and there weren't many weeds (that's why it looks so "clean"). This gardening plot had been used for years by my grandparents on my mom's side (who owned the property for years after my great and great-great grandparents) and it was used a bit during the years after they passed away so I am happy that we are using the full garden again! It was a favourite hobby of my Poppa (my grandfather) and it is a hobby that I enjoy as well!

While we were preparing and planting the garden, the mosquitoes were pretty bad because of the time of the year. I told my mom that Spring is, of course, the best time of year to plant a lot of plants but it is also the worst time of year because the mosquitoes just make it so difficult. One day, however, there were tons of dragonflies flying all over our backyard and we hardly noticed any mosquitoes. It was so nice and it was absolutely magical to look up and see all of those dragonflies darting around in the air!

I think it's very important that people learn gardening. In the past, basically everyone used to grow gardens during the nice weather because they had to for food. Nowadays, we don't necessarily need to because we can just buy everything at a grocery store but growing your own garden is still very beneficial because it can save you a lot of money while also giving you organic vegetables that you grew yourself, therefore giving you the knowledge of exactly what has happened to the vegetables. You know that they haven't had any weird pesticides sprayed on them or that they've been sitting in a truck for a long time while traveling to a store. Also, maybe someday we'll all need to use this skill again so why not learn it now, just in case. If prices go up or if pesticides cause too many health problems, you'll be glad that you know how to grow your own food. Also, there's just something satisfactory about growing your own food and it always tastes so much better!

Here are all of the plants that we have growing in our garden this year: onions, green beans, yellow beans, carrots, radishes, beets, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, romaine lettuce, swiss chard, celery, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, early cabbages, watermelon, honeydew melon, potatoes, peas, cucumbers, zucchinis, butternut squash, jack o' lantern pumpkin, strawberries (bought from the Sudbury Gardening Festival 2016) rosemary, thyme, oregano, peppermint, spearmint, parsley, basil, dill, curry, chamomile, lemon balm, and eucalyptus. We also have chives growing in a short wooden barrel planter near our driveway and we have lavender and bergamot (or bee balm) growing elsewhere as well (none of these are pictured in this post). 

The chamomile and chives actually grew back from last year which was pretty exciting. We might try covering up our perennials in the Fall to ensure that a lot of the others grow back again next year. We have to cover the strawberries with straw anyway, or else they will freeze during the Winter. I'm excited to try using peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, chamomile, and bergamot for tea since we are all tea drinkers in my family. We also want to try making pickles so we made sure to buy some pickling cucumber plants and dill.The plants that I'm most interested to see growing are the honeydew melon, watermelon, and eucalyptus because I'm not sure how well they'll do but I'm hoping that they'll make it.

Cheers,

Kay