Reconnecting with friends & creativity
There are a lot of updates from the past year. Most noteworthy of which are getting married and starting a sabbatical.
I'm using my sabbatical to reconnect with myself. This means finding time to work on creative projects, taking in content that I want to take in, journaling more, and working on relaxing (something at which I'm not excellent). It's been a few weeks now, and so far I've started the Artist's Way, taken an in-person watercolors class, and started to read my way through my cookbooks. This week I made two recipes from Indian-Ish and they were delicious. I've also made a very small dent in my 6 months of outstanding podcasts to listen to, we'll see how that goes (only 403 left to go). It's also allowing me to dive back into content creation.
I've started drafting some blog posts and even started a new Instagram account last month called The Friend Plan where I'll be sharing tips for staying in touch with the people in your life. You can check out my most recent posts here:
And here's a peek at the Instagram account. Please consider following along! My @ChrystinaNoel account will continue to be about more personal happenings, whereas @TheFriendPlan will talk more about friendship.
Other posts I'm working on right now include: thoughts on planning a wedding, bridesmaid proposal boxes, and wedding communications. If wedding mode isn't for you, I promise we'll get out of that mode soon. Especially now that I have time to be reading more books again.
I'm also using my sabbatical to reconnect with others. I've gotten lots of friend dates on the calendar, sent a few emails, and tried to stay better connected to my text messages than usual. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and new in the next few months.
To paint the full picture, as part of my sabbatical I am also volunteering 20 hours a week with the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia helping them do conference planning & community building. I'm excited to put my community building skills to the test.
I can't wait to see how the rest of the sabbatical goes, and I'm super excited to finally have the bandwidth to be back in this space with y'all. I hope you're doing fantastically.
Upcoming Event:
Just yesterday I submitted the final workshop details for a workshop called Reconnect with Your Friends through Personal Newsletters to Creative Mornings. I will be hosting a virtual workshop later this month! Tentatively, July 14 around 2:30pm. More details to come!
Things to Check Out:
Don't worry, I've still been capturing articles & posts about friendship over the last few months. Here are some below that really tickled my fancy:
This 2020 article about men finding new ways to bond during the pandemic from the Washington Post warmed by heart.
An article on overlooked skills that focuses a lot on interaction with people by Morgan Housel.
This heart-warming post where Ashlee Gadd from Coffee & Crumbs writes about her friendship with her friend Katie.
This New York Times article from 2021 talking about how to plan your life again, but to keep it simple. (I have to tell you, I don't think I've been executing this well.)
This series of illustrations from Priya Parker & NPR's collaboration discussing how to host a meaningful gathering.
I hope that your second half of 2022 is off to a good start. I'm not exactly sure where the time has gone, but let's make the second half a great one.
xo Chrystina
