Melissa's Journal Archives - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™

August 18, 2020

The strangest gift I’ve received from the pandemic

It’s a discussion topic you can’t miss these days: gifts from the pandemic.

Silver linings from this disaster that’s befallen us.

Like weekly Zoom calls with my nephew, who lives in London (and has my hair!). Those never happened before COVID.

Some people are learning to bake bread.

Others are getting more time in their gardens (goodness knows, that’s not me, alas…)

But perhaps the strangest gift I’ve received, and the one that sparks delight, awe, confusion, and frustration in equal measures, and all throughout the day?

[Read more…]

November 19, 2018

A Peek Inside My Birthday Celebration

Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday on Saturday!

My real birthday, November 5th, I was recovering from jet lag.

It wasn’t that fun.

But I made up for it on Saturday with my Creative Sandbox Community Virtual Playday!

Making art with 20+ kindred spirits? Now THAT’S what I call a birthday celebration!

[Read more…]

November 23, 2017

10 Things That Are Better Than Money (That I’m Thankful For)

Research shows that gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness.

I’ve certainly found this true in my own life: the more I focus my attention on what I’m grateful for and what’s going well, rather than on what sucks about my life, the happier I am.

This is true regardless of how much money I’m making or not making, my relationship status, my health, my weight, and all of the other trappings and markers of social status.

So for Thanksgiving, and inspired by this post by Jeff Goins, I thought I’d share a list of 10 things I’m particularly thankful for right now that have nothing to do with any of the above.

If it inspires you, share your own list in the comments below.

Here (in no particular order) are 10 things that are better than money: [Read more…]

September 1, 2017

Jackson Pollack Dog Poop and Right-Now Reality

We’re dog sitting.

We do that a lot, because although we don’t have a dog ourselves, my parents do — a German Shepherd named Chloe — and that’s the arrangement we have with them: anytime they travel (which they do a lot, especially to visit their grandson, who lives on the other coast), Chloe comes to live with us.

And this time, Chloe got sick.

Really, really sick.

As in digestive tract sick. Both ends.

And one thing about Chloe, is that she has this habit of walking while she poops. I have no idea why.

She’s perfectly still when she pees, but when she poops, she takes a hike.

It makes our back yard into a bit of a land mind situation.

And yesterday, well, you know the artist Jackson Pollack?

That was pretty much our living room. Except with dog poop.

On white Berber carpet.

Though to be fair, it hasn’t [Read more…]

April 26, 2017

Renovation Report: Yes, I Am a Sensitive Snowflake

Did I mention we’re remodeling our kitchen?

Well, mostly we’re hiring other people to do the actual work. MM and I are not really DIYers.

(MM thinks of himself as handy, but when it comes right down to it, he’s much more into watching videos of other people doing handy things than he is into doing handy things himself… And I don’t even pretend to be handy.

Though we did hack together an awesome standing / treadmill desk for me a few years ago!)

Anyway, last week we were clearing out kitchen cabinets to get ready for the kitchen to be demo’d on Friday, and discovered…

(cue the horror music) [Read more…]