DIY Lego Artwork: Silhouette Templates for Lego Mosaics

Lego has been marketing to adults for some time now, but some of their recent additions have been vying for space on our walls as artwork. If you love Lego but aren't artistic enough to make complex pieces of artwork, with shading and fancy techniques like that, you've come to the right place! This simple technique will allow you to design big, bold graphics while still being a custom art piece you can claim is all yours! The key to this technique is that you create a template to follow before you even pick up a brick. 

 
As you may know if you've read my other How To blog posts, I use PowerPoint to do much of my designing. It's super silly in some ways, but it is because I am comfortable with the tools and it is a nearly universal software that most people have. What I'll describe here is a pretty easy process that doesn't require much artistic ability, just a lot of patience and diligence. We'll first create a basic transparent grid of one color, use a silhouette graphic for reference, and then "trace" the reference graphic by filling some of the squares a different color. 

 
 

1. To start, open up a new, blank presentation. Draw a square by using the rectangle tool and holding down Shift to ensure the height and width are equal. Make it relatively small, since you'll be making a lot of these. Mine ended up being 0.26" by 0.26". 

2. Use the Format Shape options to choose the color you want as the background color for your design.

3. Increase the Transparency of the Fill to about 32%. This is really important, so you'll be able to see the reference image later.

4. Add a Solid line that will be visible as well, this well help you see the borders of each shape, both when you're duplicating them and creating the grid, and later when you're drawing your silhouette. I used 1.75 pt Width and a fairly dark color.

5. Now, we get to the tedious copy and paste steps. A word of warning, it is worth spending the time to make sure the lines are very straight and lined up here. Copy the square and paste it. PowerPoint will put the new square slightly offset. 

6. Grab that new square and drag it next to the first one. Automatic guidelines will temporarily appear and help you ensure that it matches the alignment of the first square. When you're satisfied, release the mouse. If you're not happy with the alignment, you can click on it and move it again, or use the arrow keys on your keyboard to adjust slightly.

7. When you're happy with that alignment, copy both squares and paste, to make a 2x2 square. You'll notice the guidelines will disappear if they're not well aligned and will re-appear when they are aligned.

8. Keep copying and pasting bigger and bigger rectangles or squares until you have the desired size (you can keep track of this by making a 2x2, then 4x4, then 8x8, etc). I chose a 32 x 32 grid because that's one of the sizes for the base plates, so that would be easy to mount because it doesn't require additional plates. For reference, the Lego art pieces are 48 x 48. If you plan to purchase one of those sets in order to re-purpose the frames and pieces, then you'll want to make your grid 48 x 48 to match. Another note: when you have the top half, if it looks like you're going to exceed the size of the slide, you may want to slide the whole grid up slightly above the slide so that the bottom portion doesn't try to snap to the edge of the slide. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. Now, if you don't have a reference graphic you want to emulate already, use Google Images and search for the topic you're interested in and use the word "silhouette" in search if needed. Ideally, look for a simple graphic with a white or transparent background and a black or very dark graphic.

10. Copy and paste the image into a new slide and enlarge it if needed. Use the 

11. Remove Background feature if needed to remove distracting things in the background. If the silhouette is the wrong color and you can find a good graphic to use that has the right color, you can also utilize the Color and Corrections tools in PowerPoint to make white outlines black, etc.

 

 

 

12. Copy the updated graphic to the slide with your grid. Adjust the size of the reference graphic to fit in the grid but also to take up as much space as possible in the grid.
 

13. If the "shape" containing the graphic isn't extending beyond the grid, it's a good idea to use the Crop tool to actually extend the shape. This will allow you to select the graphic to delete it later.
 

14. It's also a good idea to make a copy of this finished reference graphic to a blank slide just in case.
 

15. Now, go back to the slide with the grid and the reference silhouette graphic. Right-click on the reference graphic and select "Send to Back". Since you made the fill of the squares transparent, you should see the silhouette still coming through but less clear.
 

 

 

 

16. Select just one box in the grid which is showing inside the silhouette, and change the color to whatever you want to use as your foreground. In the example, I just used white as my foreground color, but because it still has the transparency setting, it looks grey because the reference graphic is black. This is fine for now, you'll see  it more clearly later.
 

 

 

 

17. As much fun as selecting each box and changing the fill each time would be, there is a REALLY helpful tool here that's going to make this a bit faster: the Format Painter. If you've never used the Format Painter before, now's the time to learn. First, click the newly colored square (the white square in my example), then Double-Click on Format Painter. Now, every square you click will turn that color (and take on all formatting) until you either click outside of the shapes or hit Esc on your keyboard. Be sure not to hit your reference graphic (use Undo if you do).
 

18. Using this tool, you can start "coloring" the area that your silhouette shows. Don't worry if you go too far, you can always use the Format Painter to go back over squares you want to change back. Keep "coloring" until your silhouette is mostly traced / covered. If you want to see how it looks or check your technique, you hit Esc on your keyboard and delete the reference silhouette graphic - your art is taking shape! Use Undo to put it back in place.
 

19. If you do other steps before putting it back, use the copy of the graphic you made on the other slide, copy and paste it back on your main working slide and then use the "Send to Back" function again.

20. When you're happy with your "colored" pattern, delete the reference silhouette graphic and then select all of the squares and change the line to "No Line". This will give you a better view of what it will look like. Use Undo or add the solid lines back to use for a template. 

 

Voila! You now have a template for making your own custom Lego art. Time to go to the Lego Store for Pick-a-Brick or order online to get the pieces you need.
 

What are you going to create? Post pictures in the comments!

 

 

 

 

 

My finished product shown here, I added a sun behind my palm tree and used regular white bricks instead of the circles for the palm tree and frame. I needed the purple and yellow dots from two Marilyn Monroe sets and two 32x32 white baseplates to make this.

 

 

Pro-tip: Employ kids or significant others to help you out by defining so-many rows or columns that are one solid color, to lighten your load. Using my palm tree example, I had 9 columns on one side and 4 columns on the other side that were going to be all the same color, as highlighted in darker blue here. You can use painter's tape to tape over the area you don't want them to place bricks on, if needed.

 

 

 Update: I made a second one in different colors!

Here's another example of a simple custom Lego Mosaic piece I created for a giraffe with sunglasses:

I used this AI-generated graphic as the inspiration:

 

 

Here's my design from PowerPoint:

 

Here's the final art:

For more complex graphics, this website is a great, free way to generate instructions: https://lego-art-remix.com/

Note that in Step 1 under Resolution, you can input the size of your canvas. 

Let's talk about multi-functional furniture

I was musing with my boyfriend on our recent road trip about how I think I may have been an anthropologist in my past life, because I am always fascinated by seeing how other people live. Cultural norms, especially those that are major departures from my own cultural norms, I find captivating, but even subtler nuances about living arrangements intrigue me. I actually took an anthropology elective course in college, and marveled at curiosities like the tribe who sees it as perfectly normal and acceptable for a woman to have sex with all the men in the village - that's just smart procreation - but that she would be stoned to death if she dared to enjoy a meal with any man other than her husband. Furthermore, I love traveling, and partly because I like experiencing other cultures and cities and ways of living. Arcosanti, an experimental community in Arizona, was one such place we road-tripped to and stayed overnight in hopes of experiencing a little bit of this very different way of living. We've stayed in capsule hotels in Tokyo and traditional Japanese rooms in Miyajima, a fascinating experience that is also great for the shock value among friends. Uluru, and Australia in general, gave us a different world view, touring Taliesen West taught us how a visionary architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, envisioned future homes, and even spending 16 days straight on a cruise ship provided some insight into different ways of living - when you have vast amounts of free time and all your basic needs are provided for you, what is it that you actually want to spend your time doing?

We've had the fortune or misfortune, depending on our moods when we discuss it, of having moved literally across the country three times in the last four years, each time adapting quickly to a somewhat different way of living. We started in the 1400 sq ft house I owned in suburban Mesa, Arizona, moving to a relatively spacious 1400 sq ft apartment in downtown Stamford, CT, a short train ride away from Manhattan. Living in a downtown area meant we could walk to food and stores, and even the theater and work. I barely drove my car more than once a month, mostly to get groceries which weren't walkable unless we went to Target or Walgreens for food. But the apartment life had its drawbacks - slow maintenance departments, a "heated" pool that was frigid because the guy forgot to turn the heater on and later refused to acknowledge the heater was broken, parking in a shared garage and having to take an elevator every time the dog had to pee. One year later, we moved to Panama City Beach, Florida, where we bought a stunning new-construction 1800 sq ft house in a private beach community, which meant we had private beach access within walking distance. It was much more like suburban life, except the people were either quite southern (read: hick) or tourists or both. But, the beach didn't disappoint! I loved running to and along the beach and taking swims in the warm, clear, Gulf water. We were really happy to stay there, but when my plant closed, we shipped off to San Diego, California. Here, we doubled-down on the downtown feel, kind of, buying a (very expensive) condo that is the tiniest place we've lived yet, just barely over 1000 sq ft. It has only one parking spot in the shared garage, although street parking is usually available somewhere nearby.

Due to COVID-19, which really closed things down basically right when we moved here, we haven't been able to fully enjoy the benefits of our proximity to downtown shops, restaurants and entertainment, although I have taken full advantage of the beautiful landscape of Balboa Park which is right across the street. The condo is also much more of a fixer-upper than I would have liked, especially having been spoiled a bit by a nice apartment and then a new-construction house, and having already fixed up my Mesa house years ago.

All that to say, I think a lot about what I want in my future home and how I can make my current living situation optimal or as close to utopia-like as possible. I like shared spaces because that means I don't have to maintain them, places like gyms and pools, but I don't like them because other people are in there and we are reliant on the maintenance happening. Being on the bottom floor in my condo also means I hear my neighbors above me - why are they stomping around like that? The HOA is a completely separate discussion. So I think I'm a house person, I like the attached garage being right there, having my own space, my own yard, and not being disturbed by neighbors.

But, in the meantime, I have a very expensive, tiny, outdated condo that I'm probably going to stay in for at least a few years. When we left Florida, we knew we had too much stuff, so we basically left all of our furniture behind and sold the house furnished, in order to buy new stuff in California to suit our tinier space. And so brings me to the topic I want to discuss today: furniture for tiny spaces, or multifunctional furniture, which make the most of small living spaces. Now, I fully realize that my version of small is still big to some, we have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms, a smallish kitchen, a decent-sized dining room area and a decent-sized family room area, and a nice little porch overlooking the park. The master bedroom is actually probably the most generously sized space. Anyways, the space is still much smaller than what we've become accustomed to, and adapting to the smaller space (and trying to fit the things we did keep in this space) has provided both a challenge and an opportunity to try new things.

My Recliner Sofa

Having left my beloved albeit awkward Ikea couch from my college days in Florida (I can't believe I kept it so long, but then again, I loved that thing), one of the first major purchases we pursued was a new couch or sofa to relax on. One of the reasons I loved my Ikea couch was because it was so "loungey" - I love having my feet up, or rather, I absolutely despise having my feet on the ground, and the Ikea couch was truthfully not much different than a mattress with a cushion to prop people up on in the very back. Getting on and off the couch took some effort, but once there, my feet were up and I was good. So I decided to look for something with similar functionality, but less awkwardness - I needed recliner seats! Due to COVID (damn you COVID!!), furniture stores were closed, so I couldn't go into stores to try out all the sofas, so I ended up just going on gut instinct after narrowing my search down to a few reasonably priced recliner sofas. When it delivered, we realized we may have outdown ourselves a bit - that is to say, the sofa takes up nearly the ENTIRE room, much bigger somehow than I had imagined it. And because there's only two of us living here, it is probably overkill for us - we could probably do away with at least one or two sections and still have sitting room, not the to mention the valuable real estate it would free up in the condo. But, knowing we'll have guests at some point (hopefully, someday, if we could all be safe from COVID), we left all the sections in place, at least for now.

There are a few really nice features of the sofa, though, that have surprised me in their usefulness, even though I knew about them when I purchased it. For one, the reclining functionality is REALLY great: it is way easier to get up out of the sofa and get back into position, because the damn thing does all the work for you with the hold of a button.

The second feature which I didn't realize was important when I bought was the large, flat arms of the end units. I use the arms to prop up my laptop or tablet, especially when I'm getting settled in or getting up, and I use it to put dinner plates on. It's not stable enough that I would trust it with an open drink container, but otherwise almost serves as a table or sidetray sometimes, and I use it relentlessly! Another nice feature I was happy to get was the USB chargers embedded in the recliner seats, and the three-prong plugs available in the center console. In an old condo like this, there aren't many convenient plugs anyways, and our lives are quite absorbed by our handheld devices that are always begging for more charge. Just today, and part of my inspiration for writing this post, I was settling down to read the book on my tablet when I realized it was completely out of juice. I still wanted to read, but didn't have a plug nearby. No problem, I quickly realized, I just needed to relocate one of the many USB cords I had laying around and plug it into the arm of my chair, and away I went into my book. This level of convenience, not having to find an actual plug, is really satisfying.

Finally, the way I have it positioned, and I should mention it's an L-shaped couch, is such that two of the three recliner seats are squarely in front of the TV for optimal viewing - these are our "primary" seats when we're at home - and the last recliner seat is on the opposite end, and faces out to that beautiful view of the park. I really like sitting in this seat when I'm doing anything other than watching TV. It's like this is my weekend seat. I sit here as I'm eating breakfast in the mornings, and when I'm reading, writing and working on my small business or my personal finances. The view, with San Diego's frequently clear, sunny days, makes me feel very at peace and inspired, and I often look up as I take mental breaks from whatever task I'm doing and feel rejuvenated. Even though, in my "primary" seat facing the TV, I could turn my head and look out to see the same view, it's just not the same as having it squarely in front of me.

Finally, the center console has two cupholders, which is super convenient if you happen to be sitting next to the console. We've swapped it around a couple times, flipping between having it in between our two primary seats, and having it next to my boyfriend only, the latter has turned out to be my preference so I can snuggle with my love, and I use a small side table to hold my drinks instead of the console. What's more, my family apparently hated my Ikea couch and although they haven't yet visited due to COVID, (damn you again, COVID), they are very happy to hear I have a "grown up" and "normal" couch for them to sit in more comfortably when they do.

All in all, I wasn't sure I'd ever like a couch more than my Ikea couch, but I think I did well here and even surprised myself with some of the conveniences - I think I would miss them now if I went back. Perhaps the one and only downfall (other than how much space the thing takes up), is that there are times I want to actually nap in the sofa, and it doesn't recline so much that I can get super comfortable for a nap.

My Adjustable (Sleep Number) Bed

That brings me to my next favorite furniture purchase. I don't usually name drop brands unless they provide meaning and context, and I am always a little nervous what people will think when I tell them I bought a Sleep Number bed. On the one hand, it seems like its made for old people, and I am, as you should know, still 27, regardless of what year it is these days, and certainly not an old person. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if I'm a sucker, or if people will think I'm a sucker, for paying so much for "just a bed". But I'm here to tell you, it is not just a bed, and I really like it. I would definitely buy it again if I had the choice to make the decision with what I know now. The following is why.

They say mattresses are supposed to be replaced every 8 years ago. Well, I bought my last mattress only about 4 or 5 years ago, and it was very much ready to be replaced (so I just left it in Florida - sorry new owners). It had grown lumpy and soft in places. I'm not sure if this is due to my being overweight, or the fact that we couldn't flip it over because it had the cushion top, or what the reason was, but it was not giving me the value I expected. A Sleep Number bed is in some ways a very fancy air mattress, that is to say that it is not a traditional mattress at all. The adjustability of it comes from the fact that it can inflate and deflate to make it more or less firm depending on the settings. This makes me think that in 5 or 8 years, assuming the electronics continue to function properly, the mattress won't get lumpy or weird, because it's not a the kind of mattress that can do that.

I went almost all-in with the Sleep Number bed and got the adjustable base. This means that with the use of the app on our phones or with the quirky little remote control, we can put one or both of our heads up, pretty much as far as we'd want to sit up, and/or raise our feet pretty significantly, and every option in between. I love this feature, as I sometimes want to tempt myself into a nap, so I can prop myself up to read and not have to get up in order to go to bed. In addition, there is a sleep timer option, so you can actually set it to flatten after a certain period of time of your choosing. So I will often read in bed with a sleep timer on, and then if I fall asleep reading, it will lower me down to maintain my comfort throughout the night.

There are some other really nice features of the bed. When the commercials talk about adjusting to keep you asleep, I am definitely a believer! When I roll over, the bed often adjusts and makes it super comfy for me. I also like the fact that my boyfriend and I can maintain different firmness levels, because we do have different preferences and he has, until now, catered to my needs because of my scoliosis, but now he can be more comfortable without my having to sacrifice. Although it does make for a funny situation when we try to meet in the middle, where it feels like there's a giant divot going from my side to his, it's not been a problem. There is also an option to have an under-bed light turn on to help you see at night when you get up. I had this feature turned on for a while and decided I didn't really need it, but I could see how it could be useful, especially if you're one who puts on slippers when you get up, or something like that. Finally, I have to share a littler buyer's remorse - I didn't spend the extra money for the upgraded feature that warms the feet to help you go to sleep, and I do now wish I did. I had reasoned, at the time, that I have heating pads I could use if I ever wanted to try this, and I didn't think it was worth the money (actually, I wasn't sure if any of it was worth the money). Having now had the bed for about a year, I think it was worth the cost, and wish I had spent the little extra for this foot-warming feature, as my feet do get strangely cold at night and the heating pad is a little inconvenient to set up around my feet. #FirstWorldProblems, am I right?

Expandable Dining Table

Ok, so as you may have understood by now, we don't really eat at a dining table, we eat primarily on the couch. Wanting to take advantage of our beautiful view and weather, I did purchase a small outdoor dining set for the porch, but we rarely eat there and it's usually more of a pain than anything else. That being said, having a table is useful from time to time, but I didn't want to buy something that would go unused most of the time and hog up so much space while being unused (or covered in clutter). After seeing probably a million and a half advertisements for one of those expandable dining tables, I took the plunge and bought one off Amazon. I really like it. I like that it can be shortened to be mostly out of the way, and I've used it in the second bedroom as my work from home office, having bought a nice office chair to go with it. But when I had a big Lego kit to build, I knew I couldn't manage on the couch, so we pulled the table out to the dining area and extended it almost to its full length (I can't believe it can go  even further!!). I continued to keep a portion of the table available for me to work on my work from home days, but then also had two large work spaces for my boyfriend and I to build our Lego kits. I'm undecided yet as to whether I'll buy actual dining chairs to go with it, but if we need to make due, we have the chairs from the outdoor dining set and our two office chairs we could put around it. Honestly, though, if we have guests who want to eat at our place (which is already a slim chance given our crappy little kitchen and the amazing restaurants all around us), I feel like it would be more likely we'd eat outside anyways.

Modular Dressers

In our Florida house, I successfully did away with dressers for myself, although my boyfriend opted to keep his. I did this with four aspects: a really nice-sized walk-in closet that was all my own (my boyfriend generously agreed to take the second smaller but still quite substantial walk in closet), a large shelving unit I put in my closet, and those funky fabric cube bins that are like, all the rage, or whatever, and finally, plastic wall hooks. It may not work for everyone, but this was right up my alley. I loved having many of my pants just laid out flat on the shelves, while my underwear and socks were in the cube bins. My bras, being as big as they are, got to hang on wall hooks where I could easily discern and sort them. I also used smaller wall hooks for necklaces, and put the side of my shelving unit to work as a place to hang my growing collection of Zenni eye glasses. I had an office tray to keep my FitBit accessories in on a shelf, and a small (more traditional) jewelry box for other jewelry. It was the most organized I have ever been and sustained! The sheer size of the walk-in closet meant I could easily designate an area for work clothes, and even sub-sections like pants, sport coats, tanks, short-sleeves and long sleeves, an area for casual clothes (again with similar sub-sections), an area for formal attire, and an area for the less-frequently-used warm weather clothes. But I digress… that was then, this is now.

Now, our master bedroom is generously sized, but the only walk-in closet (at least I think it's a walk-in) is beyond tiny, and we share it. There is a regular closet in the second bedroom, but having no garage and no other large storage space, that closet primarily houses winter coats, formalwear and costumes, and then lots of storage of other things. So, the most logical option is to return to using dressers in our large master bedroom. But, because we have so many clothes, and I like the organization of separate drawers, I was very picky with which dressers we'd get, knowing we needed a lot of storage space. I finally settled on a modular set from Ikea that had both black and white faces. This was a nice feature, because we used the different color faces to break up the monotony of so many drawers. So we now each have three large drawers on the bottom, six half-width drawers on the top, and then smaller units to the side with three half-width drawers. It is a lot of storage space, but not overwhelming because of the modular aspect of it, I think. They also have a soft close, which is a really nice feature that I wish all drawers came with forever and always, please and thank you.

Very Flat TV

I thought I'd throw this in there, because although it doesn't add much to my life and the convenience of it in a very tangible way, I think it probably bears mentioning because of what it doesn't do that would make my life harder. We bought a TV that is so thin and flat, the people at the store said it might break on the way home if we laid it down flat in the car. It didn't, thankfully and likely thanks to great packaging by the manufacturer, and now it takes up so little space on the TV stand even though it's HUGE. This means, we can put other devices on the same TV stand as well as decorations, and while I try not to make it too cluttered, the lack of space the TV takes up means there is more space to do so. Furthermore, if we ever get around to hanging it on the wall, which we have been planning to (ahem, hint, hint…) it will be nice and light and won't protrude or threaten to fall.

Air Mattress with Headboard

Ok, so this is one surprising purchase we actually made after our first move to Connecticut. Everything went wrong with our move to Connecticut, which certainly didn't help make the case for us to stay there longer than we had to. I had thought myself a very clever planner, often taking pride in my planning profession as it applies to real life, that we would pack up our things in Arizona with the movers the day before we moved, so we only needed the one night in a hotel before heading east, and then planning to have my new mattress from Purple delivered the day we arrived so we could set that up, and sleep on that until the movers arrived with our furniture a couple weeks later. Then I would use that Purple bed as the guest bed in our new apartment, having gotten rid of my previous guest beds which were quite old. Well, the bed got delayed, along with our flights and our luggage which had the bedding and other necessities, including my clothes for work. Because of the flight debacle, we ended up having to drive through the night (there were no hotels where we landed) to complete the trip to Stamford, and were so exhausted that we basically just checked in with the apartment and collapsed on the floor for a nap. When it was apparent that the bed wasn't arriving, we decided to check in to a hotel and see if it came the next day. When it then said it would arrive several days later, we went out to the store and bought the fanciest darn-tootin' air mattress there was. It has an air-inflated headboard, and sits very high off the ground. If you cover it with enough linens, you might not realize it’s not a real bed, at least until you side down on it. Even sleeping in it though was quite comfy, and not just because we were completely exhausted. We brought the air mattress with us when we moved to Florida and slept on that for several weeks until our things arrived there, and had no complaints. We actually set it up in the main living area for a while, joking that we were "camping" because we had this giant space and no furniture in it. We repeated the act when we moved to the condo, but this time it was because the furniture wasn't coming from the movers, we were going to buy all new stuff. All that to say, it is comfortable enough that we can sleep on it for weeks if needed, and yet is still collapsible so it can be out of the way when not in use. Since we only have the two rooms here, the second bedroom serves a lot of functions, as mentioned earlier as serving as my office, as well as storage, but I know we can move things around sufficiently to make it a makeshift guest bedroom when we have guests. This flexibility is really empowering and useful when somewhat forced into a small living space.  

Collapsible Wagon

In the apartment, one of the funny little aspects of apartment was living was that the concierge kept large carts we could borrow to bring up groceries so we didn’t have to make a million trips up and down from the garage. The condo, similarly, has an elevator coming from the garage and I have spotted two carts on the opposite end of the garage which a presume people put there for general use, but I've never confirmed. We decided to buy a collapsible wagon which is the most convenient way we've found to bring up groceries. Basically, we leave the wagon, folded up, in the corner of our little spot in the garage (we could put it into our small storage space with a lock for safer keeping, but I figure we have bigger problems if our neighbors are going to steal a crappy little wagon), and then when we need it, we just grab it, pop it open and load up. The really nice thing about having our own cart rather than a shared cart is that we don't have to return it right away, so sometimes it sits in the guest room for a couple days while we unload it (we obviously unload the cold stuff right away). This is also helpful since the counter space is, well, practically non-existent in our tiny kitchen, so it serves as a mobile platform to house things until we can properly find a home for them. Then, by the time we're ready to go shopping again, the wagon has been emptied and made its way back down to the garage, either on the day of our next shopping trip or before, carrying our recyclables and trash bags for us to dispose of. In supply chain, this is a called a backhaul, and I think it's dandy. We also could use our collapsible wagon, should we be so inspired, to carry a picnic over to the park, but that's not really our thing, so who knows if we'll ever do that.

Storage Ottoman

While storage ottomans are the epitome and probably cliché example of space-saving solutions, I have to mention ours here because I really like it. Rather than a coffee table, we have a larger storage ottoman in the middle of our family room, and it serves as a foot rest for the seats without recliners, as well as a surface much like a table, and has the obvious added bonus of keeping many things we don't want to see out of the way but easily within reach. I bought this originally for our apartment in Connecticut, because we had a lot of boots to put on there during the winter and I wanted a place by the door to sit to put on and take off said boots, but it has served as a coffee table / foot rest since then. 

Massage Headrest

This is one of the stranger things that I own, but it is AWESOME! If you've ever gone for a full massage, you'll recall that the massage tables have a horseshoe-shaped headrest for you to put your face down on, and still be able to breathe without having to turn your head to the side. This is really important to get all the right angles and allow full relaxation, etc. My boyfriend is great at giving massages, but who has room for a full massage table? Even the foldable ones that mobile massage therapists have are quite bulky. I found an attachment that goes under your mattress that functions the same as the headrest, so it basically transforms my normal bed into a massage table, and takes up almost no room at all. It's been a game-changer for me - probably to my boyfriend's chagrin. 

Learning to live in a smaller, urban area has been a challenge and has taught me what I do and don't like about it versus the comfort and familiarity of suburban sprawl. Nevertheless, it has forced me to think about furnishings in multi-functional ways, and so I think, even when we move back to a bigger space (hopefully a house is next) again, I will put some of these elements into place to allow better use of the space.

The Flake

It occurred to me this morning, somewhat out of the blue, that one of the biggest things that turns me off from people, ideas, desires, and even whole institutions, is the flakiness of people. I've written before about why I think excuses are lies, and people who make excuses are a big part of this flakiness problem. But I actually think flakiness is much more than deceitful excuses. Flakiness is a hypocrisy. It's a lack of will power, a lack of having clear priorities, and a lack of character. Flakes are liars, but they're also weak, and they're failures in my eyes.

I don't talk a lot about my religious views and experiences. The reasons are many. Religion is one of the more divisive and controversial topics when you get into it, for one. It's painful, for another, and it's painful for reasons I perhaps don't fully understand myself. And, it just kind of sucks.

But I want to talk about it now. I was a self-proclaimed Jesus Freak back when that term was (mostly) still fresh. I wore the WWJD bracelets and church T-shirts, I went to Christian rock concerts with many friends, mostly girls, from my church. I listened to the music, knew all the lyrics, and I was even one of the Worship Leaders for quite some time, using my talent for harmonizing vocals for God. I went to church, well, religiously, often two, three or four times per week either to volunteer during services or for youth group, etc. I ran a classroom for VBS one year, and went full out on the decorating and preparations. I went to church camps in the summer, and as I got older, volunteered for the younger church camps for weeks at a time. And it wasn't just these outward things, of course. I really lived and believed that Jesus is our Savior, and that to live Christlike and witness to others was my personal mission. I had church friends around me in youth group. One of them was the girl I met on my first day of school who brought me to the church. Others were the friends her and I made at school and brought to our church. Still others were friends we met at church and either did or didn't go to school with. In some ways, we were a tight-knit group, but in other ways, our circle was often expanding, and sometimes, but rarely, contracting by losing people to geographic moves or other personal things in their lives. I see these women now on facebook, they reunite periodically and its like nothing has changed for them, their all still as close-knit as we were before, this OG group of ours. But I'm not there anymore, and nobody really seems to miss me.

I remember a time in high school that I felt completely ostracized by this group. I think we were at the church camp in Michigan, called CIY, and it was hosted on a college campus and we stayed in the dorms. I had revealed my feelings to Tarne, the wife of our Youth Pastor, and such a powerful, beautiful force in all of our lives. Her and the Youth Pastor, Sean, had started at our church within two weeks of me, so it felt very much like we were intertwined from the start. Tarne's first baby, Katrina, was ever present with us, and her subsequent girls were also often around. I don't think Katrina has any memories of me, but I love seeing pictures of her on facebook now, a full grown adult. It's weird to see someone grow up like that when they don't know you. Anyways, I had confided in Tarne in the dorm room one night that I was feeling left out. Ostracized was her word, and although it made me think of an ostrich, I thought it wasn't too far off, given that sometimes I felt like it would be better if I just stuck my head in the sand and pretended I didn't see what I saw. To be honest, I don’t even remember the circumstances that led up to me feeling like the odd ball left out, but I think it was less of a direct and obvious attack and more of a subtle thing - like flakiness. Nobody was actively excluding me; I was just not being actively sought out and brought in, I was forgotten, lonely when not alone. Tarne, bless her heart, tried to dig in and figure out what was going on, and I think I left her room convinced it was all in my head, that I was the one ostracizing myself. I made a concerted effort to participate more and not wait for an invitation, and I think it worked for a little while.

There was a similar time when we were all together and I admitted that my biggest sin that I struggled with was my pride. I admitted that I felt especially prideful while on stage leading worship, that my heart wasn't in the music as much as the beauty of my own voice, and concluded that I should probably stop leading worship to focus on the worship itself and not on my pride in my talent. But I was proud about other things, too. My ability to convert people to Christianity, for one, made me feel better than others. Pride in just how well I was living my life for God - ironic since pride is a sin, but I was proud that I did everything else right and my pride was the only thing wrong with me. I sought out Tarne's guidance and advice, as well as that of the OG girlpack, and we prayed on it and read the Bible and did all sorts of things to try to help me. In the end, I never really got over my pride and it's still something I have to watch in myself.

My Senior Prom was one of the happiest moments in my high school years. My date, Jon, was a younger boy from church, and not my first pick. Jon had a huge crush on me, but the feelings weren't reciprocated with the same intensity. I liked Jon, he was cute, but I had my heart set on Nathan, who was a good friend of Jon's. Nathan was also from our church, and he knew my feelings for him but didn't want to crush Jon, so asked me to go to the dance with him, and he'd come along as someone else's date. My ex-boyfriend and prior Prom date, Ryan, was oddly in the group, too, even though he neither went to our church or our school. He was dating one of my friends, though, and I was happy for them, as I left Ryan because he wasn't religious. There was Jackie, my first best friend who was super bubbly and weird, and made me feel at home on my first day as the new kid at school, and who went to the dance with Nathan. And Lindsay whom I had struck a relationship with on the bus because she laughed at all my jokes - she was the one who brought me to church. There was Erin, or Erhead as I called her, the lovable, cheeky young woman who was destined to work in the church and change people's lives since I knew her in 6th grade. Jessica, my junior high best friend outside of church, she and I had had a third friend, Jenny, from whom we were inseparable until we weren't - we sang ensembles together and called ourselves "Be the Fish" and we each had a fish name like the Spice Girls and wrote encoded fish messages to each other. One day, Jenny just didn't join us at the lunch table like normal, and she just avoided us, didn't go near us and didn't talk to us, even when we tried talking to her. It was super weird, we never got an explanation, and went through five more years of school together never hearing another peep from her. Jessica and I stayed friends but not as close, and she replaced Jenny with another Jen, who had taken my ex- Ryan to the dance. Rachna was there, too, she was a newer best friend, the younger sister of an older boy I had liked once, but dated his best friend instead. Rachna was also not a church friend, she was a band friend, and she was one of the bubbliest, silliest people everyone adored her I think. And Carrie, rebellious, tough, independent, lovesick Carrie. We met her at church when her family moved the summer before one of our last years of high school, but she quickly became integrated into our circle and had a support system on day one of the new school for her, which is pretty neat.

The moment came when we were all packed into our limousine on our way home, and even though none of us drank because that was against our religion, I felt drunk with happiness. I was sitting on the floor in the middle of the limo, and my eyes were watering with tears of happiness as I looked around and saw all my closest friends from the past 8 years in the car together. I had already registered to attend Arizona State in the fall, and knew that I couldn't possibly stay close to all of these friends as I went on my journey to college half way across the country from our church and lives in the south suburbs of Chicago. Jon was devastated and yet still hopeful we could try a long-distance relationship, although I knew I wasn't going to put in the effort for that. I had decided I would throw myself whole-heartedly into divorcing myself from my life in Illinois and starting anew in Arizona, in college(!) and embrace the college experience - drinking, partying and all. But as I looked around the limo, I felt such a happiness for the shared memories, the way our group expanded to embrace all these different people, the way each of them had touched my lives and had been there for me when I need them most, and were still here for the most part. Literally surrounding me were the people I had loved the most over the last 8 years, and I was both thrilled and devastated to be leaving them.

Well, I spent my summer birthday with Jon, Nathan, Rachna and Jess, a quick respite from the grueling Japanese classes I was taking in summer school at University of Chicago to start making up my foreign language requirement deficiency. I ended things with Jon that summer, spent my last few days with Rachna and Jessica, helped break ground on our new church with the OG girlpack, volunteered to help build a house with Nathan, and then headed out to Tempe, AZ to start my new life. I studied really hard and worked a lot to try to catch up to the brilliant people in my calculus class. I excelled at the industrial engineering topics, which was fortunate since that was my chosen degree, and I helped tutor some of my classmates in those subjects, while seeking help from my classmates on the subjects I struggled with, especially calc. My first roommate and I did not work out, she was too much of a princess and her school workload was light so she didn't like me studying all the time. I partied a lot with my suitemates, Layne especially, and Layne moved in with me after my roommate removed herself in protest to my hard-working lifestyle. I partied a lot with my engineering classmates. I met an apparently good Christian boy in my English class, Kyle, and he convinced me to start going to church with him, which I did. I went home briefly for the state marching band competition, met Jon's new girlfriend, caught up with some friends, but overall felt like a complete outside already. For Thanksgiving, I chose to stay in Arizona, so Kyle and I ventured down to Sierra Vista to spend the holiday with my grandparents. I think we were both somewhat interested in each other, he was good looking (although short), but we never really made it very far romantically, even despite my grandmother's best efforts to get us to sleep together. I retained my virginity, but messed around with guys up to the brink, including having them spend the night in my bed and then kicking them out so I could go to church. This was in the days of AIM (or AOL Instant Messenger), and I did from time to time see some of my church friends from back home online. Kelly, with whom I hadn't been terribly close with previously, IM'd me quite a bit, specifically checking that I was still a virgin.

I went home for Christmas break and reunited with my now so-distant church friends. The church had relocated to the newly built one that was further away but with room to grow, and it was simultaneously familiar and foreign. But we broke the ice a bit, and towards the end of the holiday break, I started to feel at home again with my OG girlpack from church. And then I admitted to them that my life had not been Christlike while in college, and that I felt like maybe I should return to my Jesus Freak lifestyle. I told them about Kyle and about the church I was going to, although he wasn't always there and I didn't really have any other friends at the church. We talked about it and they all counseled me, and in the end, I resolved that my freewheeling party and mess around with boys should be over and done with, and that I would put forth a concerted effort to connect with other Christians on campus instead. They all, and I mean, about 12 or 14 of them, ALL agreed to check up on me weekly and hold me accountable so that I wouldn't slip back into the partygirl girl lifestyle. With Tarne, they all prayed over me, hands on my head, shoulders, back, and  I wiped my tears dry with renewed energy and hope.

I went back to school, joined up with an on-campus Christian group, continued going to church and actually switched from the rock 'n roll youth church service to the calmer, more serious normal adult church service. Some of my new friends from the on-campus group invited me out drinking, and I questioned them in light of the seeming hypocrisy. They brushed it off, "Jesus doesn't expect us to be perfect," and saw no conflict with having a little fun and being Christian. I may have drank with them, ended up making out with one of them and seriously crushing hard for both. They were in my programming class, so I sought their help on the homework I was falling behind on as it got harder. Layne moved in with me and she brought me out to parties again, and when I wouldn't go out, she'd bring the party to our dorm. Serge, a massive basketball player from Africa, barged in one day, asked me to dance, and so started one of the weirder relationships I've ever had. He and Kyle got along really well because they both spoke different dialects of French. Annoying-ass Tim became a quirky friend and even made peace with Layne when she took care of his injury from a crow attack. Things got weirder and funnier, until we were having study parties in our underwear. Not once did any of those church friends back home reach out to me. Not. Once. Not any of them. Kelly, the one who had previously been checking if I was still a virgin, even stopped IM'ing me, and I found out through the grapevine that she got knocked up and was moving in with her baby daddy's parents on a farm somewhere. I finally got tired of the seeming hypocrisy I was portraying when I was kicking the guy out of my bed to go to church. So I thought long and hard about it, about the priest's selfish pride and how I hated his sermons that seemed to just be giant brags about himself, and I just saw hypocrisy every where I looked in the Christian community. My accountability partners especially, my friends of 8 years, these fellow Jesus Freaks who swore to do God's work and promised to check in on me, had all flaked. No letters, no phone calls, no emails, no texts, and no IMs. Nobody was there for me to help me make my decision. So I made the decision that made the most sense; I stopped going to church.

Now, not going to church doesn’t make you immediately a non-Christian anymore than going to church means you're a devout Christian. It's just one indicator, one symptom of where your heart really lies. I still held my beliefs, albeit abridged in some ways to accommodate my party lifestyle without making me feel too guilty. So one the literal last day of freshman year, when I met Dallas, another "good Christian boy," hope spurred in my heart of hearts that maybe, MAYBE, Dallas would be the one to steer me back on course and help me see the good in Christians and church again. Dallas and I started dating early summer before I went back home for summer school at University of Chicago. I was a little astonished when he brought me to this big family get together, and found out at the party that it was a going-away party for him, sending him off to the Navy. I then learned, interestingly enough, that he'd be going to boot camp near Chicago, so he'd actually be closer than expected for the summer. He wrote me love letters all summer long, as did one of those other good Christians I had met at the on-Campus group, as he traveled around the world that summer. When Dallas graduated boot camp, his parents came out for the celebration, and then we were to all meet up for a movie and dinner. But, Dallas and his parents were running late. I watched about half the movie completely alone after waiting and waiting and waiting for them. When he finally came in and put his arm around me, I just cried. Once again, I felt burned my someone so completely flakey after all that time talking about his love for me over the summer. Ah well, I thought. At least I had that other guy. I returned to college no longer with Dallas and hopeful to start a new relationship with my world-traveling suitor. But, he had found another girl, and in his desperation to stay true to his Christian values, was prepared to marry her within weeks so that they could have sex.

My journey with religion has been very strange. Even years after leaving the church and closing myself off to Christians, I still retained many values around homosexuality and abortion. I've since turned my thinking around on homosexuality, deciding, for one, that it's only a sin if you subscribe to a religion that says it's a sin (in other words, you can't judge people by your own beliefs, only be their beliefs), and two, even if it's a sin, it's no different than the kind of sin I have lived in with my boyfriends over the years. And finally just deciding that love is love. I still believe strongly that abortions, especially later-term abortions, are wrong, but I don't advocate shutting things down because if desperate women want an abortion, they'll find ways of doing it illegally and dangerously, if safe and legal means aren't available. I've just made it a personal thing - if I don't think abortions are right, I won't have one. Even with many of my other values in tact, I don't really consider myself a Christian anymore because hypocrisy is one of the worst crimes in my book and I certainly don't want that mark on myself as a Christian or have Christianity get a mark of hypocrisy because of me. I also am seeing more and more that there are some flaws in the Christian mindset and institution, besides simple hypocrisy, and I don't want to ever blindly follow something like that. But more than anything, it’s the flakiness of the Christians that were so near and dear to my heart that broke my relationship with the Christian lifestyle.

Alright, so that took more words than I meant to on the Christianity thing, but this was meant to be about flakiness. So, on a much more light-hearted note, early last year I was inspired to create and develop a network of strong, intelligent and wonderful people, and I thought the best way to do it would be a book club. I put the idea out to my friends on facebook and LinkedIn, and got some really positive responses. I put a lot of work into it, creating a group page on facebook, setting up voting for books, designing fun graphics to make it look cool and exciting. We collectively picked the book, set the time for first meeting, and then I got to work reading and then preparing for the first session. And nobody came. Not one. Some gave me reasons (excuses), conflicts, etc. Some were just no-shows. But a book club can't really go on if nobody comes. Or so I thought. I reflected on the life and times of today, and decided maybe we could do it virtually instead. So I pivoted to a discussion forum. And, nothing. I finished the book, waited for anyone to say anything about it to me, and again, nothing. All flakes. All people who were super excited about the idea, had helped picked the book and the time, many thought it would help them to read more, or were doing it for other reasons like the networking, and in the end, none of them could even muster a response other than their excuses.

Over the years, I've invited people for dinner parties and various other things. With very few exceptions, my invitations are received with positive responses and then blown off time and time again. I've also reached out to interview people about various ideas big and small, and at best, the responses have been disappointing, uninteresting, uninspired, and useless. At worst, as you might expect, I get nothing. I know there are smart people out there. And indeed, I have some really smart people on my socials and in my personal network. Yet, the flakes reinforce the notion that I can succeed where others continue to fail, even when they say they want to do something. And on the flip side, when people respond poorly, it reinforces the notion that I'm smarter than everyone else, and the masses don't actually know what's best. Reference Henry Ford's line of, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” So this flakiness, non-responsiveness or disappointing responding has ultimately only reinforced the pride I have in myself and the notion that the only person I can count on is me.

It's for these reasons I am really struggling right now on so many levels. The last few jobs I've had, I've felt like I am the smartest person in the room, and that I don't have an ally that can do much more than ineffective cheerleading. I love those people, by the way, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that I have people who will support me and make me feel like I'm not crazy. But I don't have smarter people around me to drive me to succeed, to act as a sounding board for my ideas, to challenge me to grow. I have become self-reliant for my development because nobody else is smart enough to keep up with me, let alone to challenge me. And that's just my professional life, in my personal life it's much of the same. My boyfriend may very well be my number one support, and he does a ton to put me at ease and let me deal with my issues, but he alone is not sufficient for the network of wonderful people I still wish to build around me. I've read several books recently that have touched on or outright touted the importance of building this support network, and I feel like all my efforts to do so have failed, so why try? Maybe I am enough for myself anyways.

Look, I love helping people, especially in certain ways in which I feel most impactful. I educate and train people, I tutor people from time to time, and I coach people a lot professionally, personally, psychologically (without crossing the line into therapy, I leave that to the professionals). I use some of my little wealth to donate to causes I believe in, and often to those my friends believe in to support their fundraising goals and personal journeys. I have been a sounding board for entrepreneurial ideas and a subject matter expert for people striving to learn more about various topics of interest. I think a lot about what other people need or could improve their lives, and how I can provide them and those things. I love doing all of this. I share my perspectives, when I have one, on challenging topics or controversial issues, and try to help people see the good and the right in things. And yes, helping people does fuel my pride a bit, but it also fills me with great joy that I can share my wealth and knowledge and it is equally humbling. But when people say they're on board, and then they flake on me… well that just ruins everything. It makes me think of the worst. It makes me decide the only person I can count on is me. It makes me think other people are useless, why do I need them in my life anyways?

And this is all just terribly sad to me. I want to have close friends, I want to have a professional network I can count on for advice and ideas, I want to feel supported and energized at work. But I feel like I have to do it all myself, I am my only source of fuel. That is why, I think, I have resorted to reading so much, the older I've become. I never liked reading and still don't usually enjoy it, but it gives me new things to think about in the ways that I wish I was getting from my network of friends and brilliant people. But then, I'm tired of these books' authors telling me to find other brilliant people to support me, because it doesn't work for me.

I don't know if its so-called "Cancel Culture" or if people really are just so overwhelmed with technology and working too hard and experiencing burnout like never before, or maybe it's just me and I'm not as inspiring and awesome as I think I am. Whatever is going on, I have no patience for it, and it's just sad and exhausting and disappointing to me.