Let’s face it. Most DIY gift ideas are terrible. They are either too difficult, or too easy (and look like you spent about 5 minutes on it). They can be utterly useless to the person you are giving it to, or creating it can be so expensive that you should have bought a real version of it instead.
DIY Gifts Should Be:
I am fortunate enough to have a great group of friends that love activities as well. When I moved to NYC, I had one good NYC friend and I was able to expand my network of buddies by bringing in friends of friends. I attribute our ability to grow as a tight-knit group of friends in a hustling city where it can be difficult to forge new, meaningful connections to two things:
For the past two years, my friends and I have walked the entire perimeter of Manhattan in a single day. After some deliberation, we named this event “The Side Walk”. There is also a fully organized and open walk around Manhattan run by a great group called the Shorewalkers. They call their walk “The Great Saunter”. My friends and I simply wanted to head out on our own, but if I were alone, I would definitely join up with the Great Saunter. The whole trek is about 32 miles and both times have been grueling, awful, and so very rewarding.
Note: My 60-year-old mother, who thought she would join us for 10 miles or so, ended up completing the full trek this past year. You can do this!
Now, for those of you who don’t live in NYC or don’t plan on visiting just to spend an entire day tearing up your body, take a moment to figure out another route you can take that is local to you. In San Francisco, for instance, perhaps Oakland Airport to San Fran Airport? Or in Boston, the Prudential Center to the New Hampshire state line is a similar distance and sounds like a fun challenge. In any case, many of the tips below should apply to long walks no matter where you are.
Though not novel, cooking is a classic project/activity that is great for experimentation. A few years ago, my mom provided me with a binder with a few of my favorite childhood recipes so that I could recreate them. Recently, I came up with a new method to expand my cooking portfolio.
Have two binders.
My new binder would have printouts of recipes I found on the web. I would search for things like “Best recipes of all time” and print out the ones that looked the best to me. Then, I try cooking a dish. Then, I assign it to one of three categories:
In that way, I build up my cooking repertoire with only my favorite recipes!
This was tonights effort. It is a snack of queso dip and homemade tortillas. The tortillas are going in the main binder. I think I will scour the web for another queso recipe though.
Note: This project requires some web/technical know-how. I have tried to make it as straightforward as possible and I strongly recommend taking on this project as gaining a base-level of technical know-how is a great asset, but if this is too much for you, I still recommend finding someone who IS web-savvy to help you as creating a personal website is important.
It seems natural that the first project I post about is the creation of a personal website, since I just completed my own! Getting a “YourName.com” address is more than just an annoying way to show yourself off to friends. I stumbled across Shane Garrison’s post on why you should own yourname.com and agreed with most of the reasons. I especially like the idea of controlling the content that appears when people search for you. And as humans move more of our daily functions online, a personal website is only going to become more important.
My friends and I love to plan and execute events, trips, projects, and activities. This blog will be dedicated to the process of finding and creating those experiences and following along as we live them.
Welcome! And please check back soon for new posts.
