You don’t need a special occasion as an excuse to make something beautiful. Crafting is an easy way to slow down and add a little creativity to your daily life.
Send a “just because” card to a friend instead of waiting for their birthday.
Add a personal touch to your space. Frame a fabric swatch from your favorite project or use handmade paper flowers to brighten up a corner in your home.
Set aside time for a “crafting moment” each week. Just 30 minutes of creativity can do wonders for the soul.
You can take what works and leave the rest. Without an apology.
You’re allowed to make your own choices.
Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…
From E.M., online: My smartest investment move was simply living below my means, as that allowed me to build a sizable investment portfolio. – Below
 That’s one of the smartest financial moves anyone can make. These days, it can be easier said than done, though, as credit cards and buy-now-pay-later arrangements can make it easy for us to overspend.
If you spend exactly what you earn, you can avoid going into debt. But living below your means involves spending less money than you earn. That leaves extra cash to deploy toward priorities such as saving for retirement, saving for college expenses or paying down existing debts. Paying down any high-interest-rate debt (such as that from credit cards) should be high on your to-do list, because it can snowball, get out of hand and sabotage your financial security.
Per LendingTree.com, the average credit card interest rate was recently 24.2%! To live below your means, it can help to set up a household budget, spelling out how you want your income to be spent. Take some time to study exactly where your money is going, and rein in any non-necessary spending, perhaps for memberships and services you’re not even using.
I completely disagree with your answer to “Shared History”, who found 60-year-old letters from her deceased husband’s divorce lawyer regarding the husband’s first marriage and didn’t know whether to share those letters with the husband’s adult children. As a professional historian and archivist for more than 35 years and my own family’s archivist, Shared History should most definitely make copies of all the pertinent documents and send them to each child to do as they will. These documents are a record of their lives and family’s history. You have no idea what piece of information floating in these kids’ heads might suddenly click into place after reading these documents. Family records should always be passed down to the subsequent generations no matter the potential for discomfort. Censoring family history serves no one and as you have often mentioned in your column secrets serve no one.– Historian
Dear Historian: I appreciate you writing because you changed my mind on this. It’s up to the children whether they want to learn more or not.
In my original response, I posited that the father would have shared the letters in his lifetime if he wanted the children to know this information. But it’s also true that he would have destroyed them if he didn’t want them to know. We can’t tell our sides of the stories after we’re gone; that’s why family historians – working with the living and the dead left behind – are so important.
patience isn’t just about waiting. It’s about how we wait.
Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…
Real Life of an MSW 