This post is part of the “What I Wish I Knew” series being hosted by Ashley at Your Super Awesome Life- a new site dedicated to helping teen girls live a life that they love. Ashley has rounded up an inspiring ground of women is asking us what we wish we knew about all different parts of life when we were teenagers, and I’m excited to be sharing a post about passion.

I remember people telling me to find my passion when I was a teenager, usually in a career searching sense, but when I was a teenager I had very little interest in what I’d be doing when I wasn’t in high school. I had important things to worry about, like how impossible it was to get a boyfriend while going to an all girls school.

Eventually, with the help of some amazing teachers I discovered that my passions were in organizing people & projects, creative problem solving and design. In high school those things intersected in theatre, and I started working as a stage manager on every project that came my way. Now those things come together in my work at Freckled Nest Design, but even three years ago I had trouble imagining what the things I love really added up to. What I see now is that my passion for the things I love has led me to live a life I adore, and I think that’s possible for almost anyone who wants that for themselves too.

Pay attention to what you love to do- and remember that it’s the doing that’s important. Invest time in the things that you love being immersed in, and the things that you can’t stop thinking about. Learn as much as you can about the things you love so you can test how deep your interests run, and look for clues around you. You passions might be bright and shiny, or a skill that you invest incredible time into, but they can also be small and unassuming constants that you keep coming back to like cooking or, for me, blogging. You have to spend your life doing something, so why not hone in and find some things that you can’t get enough of?

It all fits together eventually. Sometimes the things that you love don’t fit into what the people around you are doing, or the things that you can’t get enough of are scattered and don’t seem to add up. Don’t worry, they don’t have to. The interests and hobbies that you invest in give you skills and resources that are infinitely flexible and portable. You don’t know where life will take you, who you’ll meet along the way or who your next great teacher will be, so be indiscriminate about nurturing the things that make you happy. Trust that they’ll make sense eventually, and they’ll buoy you in the future.

Passion makes you irreplaceable. Being around someone who genuinely believes in and loves what they’re doing is addictive, and it also can’t be taught. People want to be around it, and employers want to hire people with it. Passion always stands out in a crowd, and it will give you the motivation and drive to get through the in-betweens in life that are difficult to navigate. Passion can only be accessed by you, and it will carry you forward to places you can’t imagine.

So what’s stopping you? Get out there & play :)

What do you wish you knew when you were a teenager?

Today I’m skipping my Friday Finds post to share a deal- Shabby Apple is offering a 20% discount to readers of KylaRoma.com. Their new dress line, Twin Palms, has some really adorable sixties inspired numbers and is now accepting pre-orders.

Coupon Code:
kylaroma20off

Click here to visit Shabby Apple, and I hope you find something you like! If dresses aren’t your thing, there are also shoes and art that you could save on, even in time for Mother’s Day if you’re lucky.

Have a great weekend, lovelies! I just started reading The Bloggess’ memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. I’ve never been a reader of her blog, but two chapters in and it’s hilarious. I can’t wait to tear get further into it and completely recommend that you pick it up if you haven’t already :)

As a vegetarian, it’s easy to get suckered into eating carbs. When I crave savoury food, images of pizza or macaroni and cheese usually flash in front of my eyes before I black out and come to in the parking lot of a Little Caesars. Because I’m incredibly poised & have excellent self control.

To avoid these kind of impulses I’ve been trying to add more healthy, savoury food into my meals and I’m surprised at the big impact that it’s having in stopping me from craving the foods that are usually hardest for me to avoid. One of the things I’ve been enjoying in sandwiches is something I’ve made since I was a teenager- shake and bake tofu.

I wouldn’t go so far to call this an actual recipe but I shared a photo of my in-process tofu breading last week on Instagram last week and Kristin & Ash asked for instructions on how to add this into their lunches and because it’s such a simple way to add flavour and have a base for lunch & dinner ready that wanted to share the idea with my veg (and tofu tolerant) readers.

. . .

“Recipe Adjacent” Shake & Bake Tofu

Grab:
1 block of extra firm tofu
1 package of Shake & Bake (Herb & Parmesan or Ranch crust if available)

Okay!

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Open the tofu and drain the water from the package. Wrap the block in paper towels, or in clean tea towels, and press down on it to pull out excess moisture.

Cut the tofu into slices about 1/4″ thick, along the short end of the block (pieces should be short, rather than long).

Open the shake & bake and pour into a shallow dish or plate.

Dip a tofu slice in water, then place in dish and coat thoroughly. Flip over and press the piece down into the seasoning, trying to coat in as much flavour as possible as some will fall off.

Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 – 30 mins, until edges are lightly browned.

Serve immediately on fresh bread with mayonaise (vegan if you prefer), lettuce, mustard and tomato- or any of your other favourite sandwich toppings.

. . .

+ For added texture, add a handful of whole wheat (or Panko) bread crumbs to the Shake and Bake mixture. I find that it sticks to the tofu more easily when they’re added.

+ If you like this idea, I strongly recommend trying Smokey Miso Tofu by Vegan Yum Yum. It uses the same basic prep steps but adds lots of deep smokey flavour that’s rare in vegetarian food. So tasty!

For me, waiting has always been the hardest part. The days before a trip or moving into a new apartment could never fly by fast enough for me. Patience isn’t my strength. I’m comfortable living in a place of enthusiasm, details, discussion, decisions and checking things off my list. Waiting is a land of tumbleweeds and stark beauty, and it takes effort to appreciate it and be comfortable there.

Freckled Nest Design is moving to a new studio at the end of May. It doesn’t seem possible that we’ve been in our current place long enough to be moving- it’s been a year and a half already! It’s strange to know that something so big is about to change, and that soon this place won’t be ours any more. I’m excited for the possibilities of the new space- it’s closer to home so I can walk to work, we’ll ride our cruiser bikes to get lunch and ice cream, we can have our dogs at the office (puppy party!), and there’s central heating & cooling included in our rent! Buy stock in dresses, friends. Winter won’t stop me anymore.

I’ve done in-betweens before, all kinds of them. The space between Jesse and I being engaged and married, being in-between jobs, and being in-between places of certainty. At each of these times before, everything felt incredibly uncertain- like only luck would bring me back to stable ground. What I’ve noticed in the past few years is that the in-betweens are getting easier, and are feeling more familiar. Right now, before we move, instead of planning and worrying like I would have a few years ago, I’m just excited for the changes that are coming soon, and in the mean time I want to take photos in the place we started, make more memories of good times here and appreciate the strong foundation it’s been for the first year of Leigh-Ann and I making Freckled Nest into something we build together.

With my birthday coming up at the end of May, I’m wondering if this new ability to worry less and trust more is something I picked up without noticing as I’m leaving my early & mid twenties behind. But even if it just turns out to be from a lack of caffeine, I’m grateful for the calm.

So in this in-between, I’m sticking to the simple things that ground me the most. Keeping fresh juicy fruit and soft sourdough bread in the kitchen, making fizzy drinks in mason jars, spending time with people who love me without tying strings to their love, and my favourite books. And trashy television, for when the moment’s right, which it almost always is.

My theory is that the more I appreciate the simple things, the more they’ll buoy me so I can stay wide eyed and thankful until I can dig into the packing, planning & list making that I know and love so well.

Lately I’ve been coming across all kinds of tweets and blog posts from bloggers who are really burned out. I talked about my frustrations with blogging recently, and Chantilly, Elizabeth, Heather and San have all recently posted about their thoughts, experiences and frustrations with everything from finding their place online to struggling with community and connection.

{The Typewriter Part 1 by The Photo Zoo}

I’ve been working through my questions about blogging slowly, and I wanted to share some of the strategies that have been helpful for me in the past month along with concrete steps that might be able to help if you’re feeling frustrated, confused or like you’ve lost some of the love & magic that blogging used to hold for you.

Release Your Expectations

Sometimes when I get into a rhythm or routine, eventually it can be hard to see outside of the pattern I’ve created. A few years ago I decided that being a “good” blogger meant I would post four or five times a week, comment back to everyone who comments on my posts, and spend a few hours on twitter a day between tasks. At the time it made sense to me, because I had been working in an unrewarding job where I had lots of free time, and I’m a Type A lady who loves to Do Things Thoroughly. Over time that expectation became a hurdle to enjoying blogging because it was impossible to succeed by standards that didn’t align with my life anymore. By letting go of that expectation and reassessing what being a “good” blogger means to me now, I can look forward to blogging instead of making myself feel guilty.

My version of being a good blogger now means posting 3-4 times a week, actively replying to comments on each post, and being active & encouraging on twitter. Once a week I pick a post and comment back to everyone who took the time to leave a comment, and I follow back everyone who talks with me on Twitter. It’s an unofficial system that works for my life, and it re-charges me instead of draining me.

Stand Firm In Your Worth

One of the reasons comparison is dangerous is that it’s inherently about value. When we line up and compare blogs against our own, we’re automatically looking at them in terms of better and worse instead of considering any of the other factors that make up our experience creating and sharing content, or in interacting with the greater community online.

As well, because so much of blogging takes place behind closed doors we often forget about the goals or circumstances of the people at the “Top of the Charts” in the blog world. Professional bloggers are inspiring and often present an aspirational picture of their life or craft. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of blogging, but if you have a mindset of unworthiness or inferiority as a reader those posts can make you feel like you don’t measure up… when the professionals have a team of people, funds to draw on, and a huge proportion of their time focused on creating each post. When we lose sight of the work that goes in behind the scenes, or buy into the trap of pretending it’s easy we can get discouraged before we even begin.

The thing is that statistics, comment count, post frequency, level of creativity and vulnerability online don’t determine your worth. You’re worthy just by waking up in the morning, but sometimes that can be very hard to remember. Thinking positively and being a cheerleader for yourself is a practice we have to work at every day, but remembering that you are enough as you are – not after the next post, once you become more stylish, or when you have a certain number of page views per day – is a powerful shift in how you approach your life & creative projects.

Forget Your Niche, Remember Your Story

Finding your niche is an idea you’ll find at every blogging conference and piece of marketing advice you pick up, but when you’re struggling with your online identity narrowing down to a defined niche can feel claustrophobic and impossible. Instead of worrying about which sub-genre of blogging that you fall into, remembering the overall story that you’re telling can be a positive way to connect all the pieces that make up your blog.

Your story can be as simple or elaborate as you like, but think of it like a mission statement. Consider the themes that your posts usually revolve around. Maybe you’re a girl trying to find her way into a job you can be really passionate about, or you could be sharing your craft skills and simple ways to make things beautiful. You might want to show a behind the scenes peek at what running a business looks like, or help people market themselves authentically. With your story in mind you can put that unique twist into any topic you share, and your readers will understand how each post connects to that overall story you’re telling.

Start a Journal

While it might be perfect for many things, it’s worth remembering that your blog isn’t the best forum for working through the issues in your day to day life. There are so many complications around sharing your heart publicly, and unless you’re really lucky there’s bad that comes alongside all the good. While I’ve been working out the changes I want to see in my blog I’ve been writing in a journal (which I haven’t done in years!) and having a private space to sift through my thoughts has been really fun and helpful.

Having a private space lets you work out what you’re thinking, go back and see what has or hasn’t been helpful for you, and it can be a direct line into the kinds of things you’re interested about posting or creating online. At the least it can give you a dedicated space where you know you’ll work through what’s troubling you so writer’s block doesn’t hit when you want to post.

Tune Out (Temporarily)

When I’ve felt overwhelmed by blogging it can be really helpful to pare down the amount of blogs I read so I’m focused on high quality blogs I really adore. Temporarily unsubscribing or purging your Google Reader account can be a helpful way to help stop comparing yourself to others (even if they have blogs you adore) by giving yourself a holiday from those feelings until your confidence in yourself is stronger. A quick Google Reader purge is one way to achieve this- but if you export your subscriptions first you can unsubscribe left and right without losing inspiration sources you might want to re-subscribe to in the future.

To export your Google Reader settings, click on the gear icon at the top right of your google reader and click “Reader Settings”. Click Import/Export and the word “Download” next to your subscriptions. Once you save the file somewhere safe your can make your daily reads more minimal without worry.

Everyone’s blogging journey is different, and there is no right way to do it. I hope that what’s helped me can help any burned out bloggers looking for ways to get back to the honeymoon phase :)

Weekly Weak Knees is a round up post of the “currently loving” section in my sidebar, where every day I share something I lovely. I always add in some irresistible extras too. It’s a little late today because I couldn’t keep myself from running out to get fresh baked baguette for

This is what I’ve been loving this week- click on the pictures to explore…

♡ For carrying your laptop and valuables with a handmade touch ♡

♡ Beautiful faux vintage IKEA hack ♡

♡ The Tailor’s Stories is full of simple dresses made by very skilled hands ♡

♡ To keep notes on your daring adventures for your ♡

♡ Beautiful markers made with a clever technique ♡

♡ Printable templates to make your own origami diamonds ♡

♡ I’m not loving the long in the back, asymmetrical dresses this spring- but this I adore! ♡

♡ A 1951 tour of the Eames home & studio ♡

♡ The perfect notecards for getting back in touch! ♡

Did you find anything especially lovely this week?

When I first heard about black bean brownies I thought that maybe the gluten free people had gone too far. While I understand the reasons it works, a brownie that swaps flour for beans sounded like it would end in tears. However, I’m happy to say that these are delicious, moist, rich and chocolatey brownies that are downright dangerous. Dangerous to the point that they prompted these tweets:

Fair warning: after making this I recommend you immediately take them into work or offer them to a crowd of friends as a means of self defence. Another thing to note is that they’re really fun to make, because all you need is a blender & a brownie pan!

Black Bean Brownies

Adapted from: All Recipes

Grab…

1 19oz (540ml) can black beans
3 large eggs
3 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup flour (Optional: remove to make gluten free)
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Okay!

1. Rinse and drain the can of beans.

2. Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips into the blender. If adding flour, mix in by hand after.

3. Blend until very smooth & pour into a 9 x 9 or 8 x 8 brownie pan that’s been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and bake at 350 for 30-32 minutes in an 8 x 8 pan or 25 – 30 minutes in a 9 x 9 pan.

and then try to exercise a little more self restraint than I did! :)

I hope you try these out- they’re addictive and much better for you than most brownie recipes are. Enjoy!

This weekend I started a simple experiment: to pay attention to being moment.

In the last week, I’ve kept coming across different blog posts, TED talks and reflections on how being constantly focused on our smart phones or our technology is damaging. A quick sum up of the argument is that being engaged with our devices all the time gives us an excuse to be around people without engaging with them, it lets us edit ourselves to a huge degree, and over time it builds the tendency to fill any moment that we’re alone.

I can definitely see the wisdom in that assessment, but I’m also a lady who loves carrying my iPad with from room to room, listening to podcasts. I love my gadgets and I’m more than a little attached to my twitter feed. I can understand scaling back, but as a policy I’m not going to axe anything that adds to my life.

{image: watering can by Sadie Olive }

The argument goes that by being engaged in our devices or just by letting our minds do their thing, without realizing it we put up a buffer between us & what’s happening around us. We’re present but not really listening to the people we talk to, we’re listening to our internal assessment of what they’re saying. We’re checking Twitter instead of actually listening to someone we’re talking to. We can remove ourselves from emotional situations by diving into a window of escape. We can let our minds wander into the past and beat ourselves up for mistakes, or vault ahead into the future and imagine the effect of our actions. We spin stories about other people’s intentions and compare ourselves to them instead of working with what we have.

I have a relentlessly active mind and, as my blog banner suggests, I’m a rampant daydreamer. For me that means that my head is often far removed from where I am at a given moment. I work around it by tying lines that will tug me back to earth when I start to drift into the clouds, usually in the form of lists or alarms on my phone. That works for me, by and large. But sometimes I don’t give the focused attention that I would want the people around me to give back, and I know that my G.A.D. makes me especially prone to daydreaming out negative consequences that will be the end of the world! Or the end of the world in my head, at least.

It seems to me that it would be better to focus that energy on cooking, quantum physics or almost anything else.

So without being to woo-woo about any of it, this is what I tried:

1. I turned off the most frequent notifications on my phone & made the choice to use my devices when I needed them, but not to check them whenever the thought crossed my mind.
2. I tried to notice when my mind is starting to imagine the future or re-playing scenes from the past & ground myself in the moment by shifting my focus to what’s happening around me.

The results were really amazing.

{ image: butterfly bouquet by Nikki Cross Applesauce }

In the first day I had an amazing & simple idea that’s going to be the next big thing for Freckled Nest and noticed that I was having so much more fun with my friends and with my husband. The day seemed to stretch on forever, I felt more able to adapt to what was going on around me and to make choices (like working out) that usually hard for me to commit to. I was less frustrated, more positive, and I actually accomplished more than usual. I loved it, and I’m going to work hard on continuing it to see how it effects my work life and how it works once my beginner’s luck wears off.

My weekend experiment also snapped a strange (and obvious) realization into focus for me: we put so much time into tending to the things about us that people can see, when we could be putting that energy into shaping how we feel every day.

It’s worth considering, especially since you don’t have to choose between them. :)

How do you tend to your inner life? Do you have any techniques or little rituals that help keep you grounded and in the moment? Does keeping connected charge you up or do you need time to unplug?

Man, I let the week get away from me- but thank you so much for the great feedback on my post about taxes & being a business owner or freelancer. I love that it was something you’re interested in, and it was really rewarding to write something with helpful content that I loved speaking to. I’m having fun imagining posts in a different way than I have for a while, and I’m looking forward to continuing it :)

In the mean time, it’s Friday & time for my link love! Weekly Weak Knees is a round up post of the “currently loving” section in my sidebar, where every day I share something I lovely.  I always add in some irresistible extras too…

This is what I’ve been loving this week- click on the pictures to explore…

→ So useful! I’m flagging this for future mishaps ←

→ A bright pop of colour for your weekend brunch ←

→ For letting the next generation get creative & comfortable with our soon to be robot overlords ←

→ Brilliantly simple screen printing technique that you can try this weekend! ←

→ Bright floral prints for more springtime in your day ←

→ DIY psychedelic legs ←

→ A bathing suit that makes you an instant pin up girl! ←

→ Put your heart on display, but kept safely secured ←

→ Vibrant paper sculptures (that remind me of Muppet Mahna Mahna monsters because I’m so cultured)  ←

via Design Milk

→ Beth Hoeckle’s 1950′s figures looking out to surreal skies and landscapes is just perfection ←

What did you love about this week?

Any first year in business is one of ups and downs, stress and laughter, late nights and early mornings. Mine wasn’t an exception, but it was a beautiful and crazy time that I’m going to be reflecting on more in the coming months. Especially now that with the help of our assistant I’ve been handed back a big juicy portion of my life!

In the past six months my learning curve has levelled off a lot- Freckled Nest has much more of a system for managing our designers and their work, I have a better method for my daily work flow, and we have policies set in place so when new or strange things happen we can use our experience as our guide. But even as I’ve been growing into my business owner shoes and feel more confident in that role, in the back of my mind there have been two words haunting me: tax time.

{image: VintageScraps}

I’m a planner & organizer by nature, and coming up to the end of my first year of having to track everything on my own was stressful, but…

I’m happy to report back that I survived!

A lot of the readers I’ve connected with in my post comments or on twitter are creative small business owners or dream about full time freelancer, so I wanted to share some of what I learned.

One disclaimer – I’m not a tax professional and am speaking to my personal (Canadian) experience. If you have a complicated situation and are consulting blogs instead of a tax professional I would imagine that bad things are probably going to happen. Call a pro!

What I Learned at Tax Time as a New Indie Business Owner

Keep a basic balance sheet- with descriptions

I have a simple spreadsheet in Google Docs that took five minutes to put together, and it’s been a lifesaver for me. Every time I pay myself (aka. make a Paypal transfer to my bank account) I hop into the spreadsheet and make note of the date, amount & a short description of what kind of work I’m being paid for (eg. types of earning: consulting, design, or handmade). At the end of the month I open up the file where I tuck my receipts and write in the date, amount I spent, store name, and a description of the type of expense (eg. types of expenses: computer, camera, advertising costs, office supplies, my internet bill).

Because I wasn’t sure what exactly I could write off, those quick descriptions were a great fast reference for me to hand off to someone who knew what they were doing :)

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To make it easy, keep it separate

When I started working for myself I wasn’t sure how I would keep my finances straight, because while I’m organized I kind of loathe bookkeeping. To make things easy for myself I opened a credit card that I call my “business card”, but is really just a credit card in my name that I’ve decided to only use for work related expenses. Another option is opening a secondary checking account that you dedicate to managing your business. As a visual person, being able to see all of my expenses run through one account statement every month was helpful for keeping myself from spending too much, and it was a great way to check my spreadsheets! If at any time my expenses didn’t match my Visa bill, I knew that I’d missed something and could still fix it.

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Note your currency- or make it common

As a Canadian who works almost entirely with American clients, currency was a big concern for me. Half of my online accounts were billed in US funds and half were Canadian. I was paid in US funds, but they were converted to Canadian funds when they were deposited into my bank account. To solve the problem I called a tax pro to ask what I should do, and they told me that as long as I noted the currency in my records they could all be converted for me at the end of the year using an average of that year’s exchange rate.

To make my records simpler & more consistent, I started paying all my US bills using my “company credit card” and writing down the actual amount I paid in Canadian on each receipt when I received my statement at the end of the month. I also only recorded my payment amount once it had hit my bank account in Canadian.

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Save a percentage of your income every month

I do not want to be hit with a big bill at the end of the year, but when you work for yourself you don’t have tax deductions pulled from your income. Basically I’m guaranteed to owe money every year, and if I don’t set aside every month I’m setting myself up to be in over my head. It hasn’t been fun & shiny, but every month this year I’ve set aside a hunk of my income (this year I chose 20%) in a savings account flagged just for paying my taxes so I don’t have to sweat!

This is a grown up, no negotiation deal that I’ve made with myself and it has given me huge peace of mind. A tax pro local to you can tell you what they recommend for you to set aside so you don’t have to worry.

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Hand it over to a pro for peace of mind (and the best write offs!)

It’s such a strength to know your limitations- and my goodness, has time been one of mine this past year. I knew that without proper energy and expertise I could seriously mess this up- plus I wanted to make sure that all the weird and wonderful tax write offs that come with owning a small business were things I could take advantage of! I knew that I could write off a portion of the square footage of my home, my internet bill, blog advertising I’d paid for that year and things like my skype and cell phone if I took notes, popped my receipts into a file and handed it over to someone who could make them work for me. It cost a couple hundred dollars to get everything done, but it’s a relief to know that it was done right and to have a big, neat package of everything I gave them for my records.

What has been your experience at tax time as a freelancer, blogger or creative small business owner?