Planning Ahead: Goals for the Week, Month and Summer

Today is our regularly scheduled beginning-of-the-month goal-making sesh, with a little twist in that I'm also going to share a little bit about my goals for the summer as a whole! I know summer feels like it started a month ago but technically I'm only a little over a week late. Please forgive me. And I'm making the executive decision not to recap on my last set of weekly goals because they're boring and I pretty much failed at all of them. Whatever.

This week is suuuper exciting for me because my boyfriend H is coming to visit on Wednesday! To recap (in case you don't keep up with my life), I work in Michigan during the summers and H stays back home in NC. The last few years, we've just done long distance loving for two months but this year, he's finally coming to visit me! I want to make sure I am really intentional about spending time with him and showing him around my town. 

Secondly, I failed last week at writing thank you cards for all my graduation gifts--I didn't do any at all. And that's super embarrassing. I absolutely have to finish those this week.

This month is going to be pretty low-key. I don't have a lot of huge events or plans. I do have secret(ish) to share with you though. I've been working on a series of hand-lettered cards + prints that I can't wait to share with you all. Without giving away too much, I'll tell you that there is a fair in my town in late July that I am reserving a table at so that I can sell them and test out the waters for this new venture. I'm not sure if it's something that will stick or not but we'll see! So in short, my goal is to continue doing lettering for the fair and hopefully be all ready to sell them!

This summer, I would really, really, really like to get in good habits of exercise and reading. Both are things that I love to do, but I'm not always motivated to carve out time for them. My goal is to read six books before classes start, including my required reading book. Slightly more vague, I also aim to have developed an exercise regime that I can take with me to college in the fall.

I think that about does it! Oh! And I'm again linking up with The Nectar Collective on this post. What are your goals for the summer? What do you have planned that you're excited about?

How I Formed My Morning Routine

Haiii there friends! Notice anything different around here? I've been practicing digitizing my hand-lettering and I'm working to incorporate it more into my designs. Not to be all egotistical and all, but I think it looks rather smashing. I especially like my new signature (scroll down and see it!).

Anyways, today I want to talk a little bit about morning routines. We all have one, even if it's just rolling out of bed five minutes before you need to be at work. But the interesting thing to me is how I've found that my morning routine--what I do for the first hour or so that I'm awake--shapes my entire day.

On mornings where I sleep late, exhausted after a busy night of work, stumble out of bed at 11 and don't shower for an hour, I find that the rest of my day is similarly unfocused and honestly, wasted. On those days, I never really do anything until I have to get ready for my night at work. But not only am I unproductive, I just feel badly. I know it's been said before that sleeping in late can keep you from being productive, but have you ever noticed the impact of sleeping late on your mood? The way you interact with others? Even the choice of what you wear (and therefore, how you carry and present yourself)? 

In the summers, morning routines are especially hard for me to form. I work nights, until about 11:30 or 12 every night. And I often find that I'm so wound up from talking to customers and being cheerful all night that sometimes it can take me hours to feel "ready" to get to bed. So I've struggled to balance the two sides of my day so that they don't ruin the middle. 

I've found that first, I have to focus on calming my mind so I can sleep as soon as possible at night. In the past, I would start a blog post when I get home, maybe do some cleaning, and before I knew it, it would be three or four in the morning. Now, I choose to quiet my mind, stay away from active technology (meaning no blogging--I just can't say no to my Netflix habit), do some yoga if I need and settle in bed as soon as possible. I like to take my ride home from work as a chance to clear my mind of all things work and transition into planning for sleep.

The other key part is setting an alarm. I know it sounds so terrible not fun, but I'm really a big believer in setting an alarm everyday, even if you set it for noon. I set my alarm to allow me seven and a half hours of sleep, which I have found is my sweet spot of waking up rested but not groggy and lazy. I set a second alarm clock for 30 minutes later. If I wake up with the first alarm and don't feel rested, I'll go back to sleep until the second. But I've found that I don't even use the second alarm most of the time. 

Lastly, I like to make my plan for the day (or at least until lunch) first thing in the morning or right before I go to bed. I like to choose 2-4 big things to get done (weed, write a blog post, exercise, go to the grocery store, etc) and then list a few reminders for smaller things (i.e. reply to a certain email or catch up on my blog feed). I make sure to add at least one item for something I'm looking forward to about my day.

Here's a peek at my morning/night routine:

12:00 am // Get home from work, get ready for bed, watch some Netflix.

1:00 am // Turn off all technology, lights, etc, and go to sleep.

8:30 am // First alarm goes off. Relax in bed or go back to sleep.

9:00 am // Second alarm. Get up. Brush teeth, wash face, etc.

9:15 am // Breakfast. I'm not a huge breakfast person, but even a yogurt reminds me that my day has begun.

9:30 am // Blog or exercise/shower. I mostly alternate days, but some days I get ambitious and do both.

10:30 am // Begin my to-do list.

So even though I don't get up all that early because of working nights, scheduling out my mornings has helped me stay productive all day long.

Now, I want to hear from you! What do your mornings look like? If you want to write your own Morning Diaries post, please leave a link!

10 Resources for Free Fonts

Fonts make me so happy. Honestly, finding a good quality font just makes my heart wiggle with joy. And getting fonts for free is even better! I'm a super stingy person sometimes, I'll admit, and I hate paying for things if I don't have to. So I rarely buy any fonts (with the exception of anything Emily Lime. Homegirl's got it going on.). 

So I decided to do y'all a huge, magnificent favor (you're welcome) and share my secrets for finding the best, high-quality free fonts. 

#1: DaFont.

Okay, not a secret. And I'll admit, there are a lot of really crappy fonts that you won't ever EVER need, unless you're having a Western themed quincenera in Las Vegas. But Dafont still is probably the largest site for exclusively free fonts that I know of and the category options on top make it (sort of) easy to sort through. They also have a really great collection of dingbats, which are fun to practice your PS clipping masks on. My favorites: Alpaca (sans serif), Geo Sans Light (my 2nd fave sans serif in the world), Trees TFB (a dingbat font of, you guessed it, trees).

#2: Behance.

Behance is largely paid design, but has a decent collection of free font families or a free weight or two to try out a font. These fonts are generally clean but unique so they'd make a great header. As a matter of fact, the main font in my header is from Behance. Isn't it fun? My faves: Simplifica (tall sans serif), Odin Rounded, and just for fun, Infinity Space Icons.

#3: Dribbble.

Again, largely paid, but a simple google search offers a list of fonts tagged as free. Lots of talented designers develop fonts here and then offer a couple weights for free. My favorites: Uni Sans, Anke Sans and Composition.

#4: FontSquirrel.

They call themselves the "Free Font Utopia" and I just might agree. My favorite part about Font Squirrel is that all of their (free!) fonts are also free for commercial use! This is especially helpful for all y'all designers so you don't have to worry about buying extra licensing. Plus, they have a thorough tagging system that makes it easy to find what you need. Yay! My favorites: Sophia Pro, Grand Hotel, and League Script.

#5-10: Random Places!

Individual designers' portfolios or collections often offer extra free font options. Here are a couple I like:

FontCab

Type Depot

1001 Free Fonts

Jeffrey Shreiber

Neogrey

Filiz Sahin

Where do you find free fonts?

Snippets 03.

1 // The weather here in southwest Michigan has been so spooky this last week. Normally around this time of year, it's sunny and perfect beach weather with the high in low 80s. I was sitting in the Tabernacle for service on Sunday morning and I looked out the windows to see this crazy thick fog that you could see rolling in. If it had been moving up, instead of towards the ground, I would have thought the church was on fire! 

From what I've heard, the middle of the lake (my town is on Lake Michigan) is still super cold, like almost with ice on it, and it keeps blowing off towards the warmer coasts and creating that weird fog. Way weird. But I'm still enjoying the cool and the mist before everything gets hot!

2 // I've been taking advantage of this cool weather to get some yard weather done before it becomes completely sweltering out. My backyard is two levels (because my house is on a dune) with terraced gardens in between. Even in the month it's been since we were here and did yard work, the gardens are filled with those little weeds. But as far as yard work goes, I don't mind weeding. I actually enjoy the cathartic experience of pulling out all the things that stifle our plants so that they can grow and thrive. I don't really enjoy accidentally picking up worms though. #ew.

3 // I'm still reeling from all the gorgeous views that I got to witness on my CA trip earlier this month. Honestly, it just blows my mind how such high mountains such as these cliffs in Yosemite could be formed by rivers and glaciers over thousands of years. 

What's going on in your life lately, friends?

California in Color Palettes: Pt. 1

I've been home for more than a week and I still haven't gone through all of my photos from California. I'm bad, I know. But I still wanted to share them, so I decided to make them into color palettes! In my own design, I'm a big believer in finding inspiration from natural things. This can be the shape of something I see or the feelings that come out or just the colors. The funny thing about colors in nature is that they never clash. Never. And these color palettes can really work for anything, from your blog to your home!

(taken on Alcatraz Island)

(somewhere in San Francisco)

(Lombard Street, San Francisco)

(somewhere, San Francisco)

(Alcatraz Prison Garden)

I hope you all enjoy them! If you do, feel free/please pin them on Pinterest. Which color palette is your favorite?

Cool Science: DNA Fingerprinting

It's kind of weird, but one of my dream jobs (I have many, ranging from stationery designer to CEO. #casual.) would be to work as a medical examiner. Okay, just hold up a sec and actually think about it. Just ignore the dead bodies for a minute and it's actually a super cool job. You get to work with crime and the police department, you get to work with the justice system, you get to work with science. A perfect fit for me! Plus I probably would have a bad bedside manner because I'm grumpy in the mornings. No need for a good bedside manner with dead people! Too far? Sorry.

But I do think the crossroads of science and justice can be really, really interesting, especially for a casual scientist. One common scientific procedure in crime (at least according to Law & Order SVU, which may or may not be my main source for this post) is DNA fingerprinting. 

The science of fingerprinting and classifying finger prints is called dactyloscopy, and I'm really only telling you that because it's a cool word and you can feel intellectual if you casually mention it in conversation. But the actual process of connecting a fingerprint with DNA (your genetic ID) is called electrophoresis. 

Electrophoresis takes place in a bunch of steps. First, DNA is isolated and basically cut in half. Then, little chemicals called restriction enzymes cut up the DNA at certain spots, making a bunch of segments of different sizes. The restriction enzymes cut every person's DNA at different places, making the lengths of segments different in every person.

These segments of DNA are called RFLPs (restriction fragment length polymorphisms)...but they are pronounced like "riff-flips", which is sort of fun. So these RFLPs are put in a gel and a charge is sent through the gel, which makes the RFLPs sort themselves by size. Once dyed, these give a display that can be compared against someone's DNA in a data base. It looks like this.

This chart can also be used to tell someone's maternity or paternity. Each of a person's lines (which represent a RFLP, a segment of DNA) is identical to either their mother's or father's. 

If you're interested in learning more about DNA fingerprinting, here are a few resources:

• DNA Fingerprinting
• A game where you can simulate gel electrophoresis
• More basic info on how it works + applications.

How interesting is forensic science?! And how will you use dactyloscopy and RFLPs in a conversation today?

P.S. My favorite recent science articles and why science means we might replace streetlamps with glowing trees #nbd.

Playlist #26: Rockabilly Party

So if you've been reading this blog awhile/follow along with my playlists, you know I go through music phases, like periods of time where I'm obsessed with a certain kind of music. Sometimes...they're a little bit weird. Remember the Spanish rap phase? What about the Elvis phase? Anyone remember the electro-swing phase (that was fun)?

So yes, in case you're totally dense and haven't figured it out, I've got a new one: rockabilly. When I first stumbled upon a rockabilly playlist on 8tracks, I immediately thought of this SNL spoof commercial. So yeah, it's a little bit of a weird genre to be into. But in case you don't really know what rockabilly is, it's basically rock and roll meets country (or 'hillbilly'). Or just think of it as Elvis and Johnny Cash's love child.

Think I'm weird yet? (Rhetorical question.) Go give it a listen.

Rockabilly Party from allielynn24 on 8tracks Radio.

What music have you been listening to?