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And about my driving . . . Day 23

September 6, 2011

“Drive slowly. Most people rush through traffic,  honking and getting angry and frustrated and stressed out. And endangering
themselves and others in the meantime. Driving slower is not only safer, but it  is better on your fuel bill, and can be incredibly peaceful. Give it a
try.”

Fact: I live in sprawlburbia. Problem? Traffic jams.  In the morning, I avoid traffic by going to work early.  I take the back roads in nice weather (read not snowing).  I find the drive to work relaxing.  Although it is town hopping, there are stretches of typical New England scenery: mills, trees, a few lakes, a bog and um, turkeys/ducks/geese.  Coming home? It’s double the drive time.  I am frustrated by the night-time drive.  Yes, usually I want to just get home.  Yes, being IN traffic means I’ve left before 6 pm.  Yes, I’m adjusting to the “everybody is back from summer” commute.  Still, my back road commute is far more pleasurable to the Pike (except during a Nor’Easter) which in the best circumstances is just a mass of cars and at the worst is everybody LOOKING at the random shoe on the side of the road (major pet peeve: accident on one side, the other side slows down).  Every time I hit the Pike and see people with out EZ passes, I think “seriously? you live here . . . you are paying more … and you have to stand in line!”

I have to say . . . road rage is one thing I don’t get.  Although, I do enjoy flying down the highway in those wide open spaces . . . .

 

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And remember to chew your food: Day 22

September 5, 2011

“Eat slowly. If you cram your food down your throat, you are not only  missing out on the great taste of the food, you are not eating healthy. Slow
down to lose weight, improve digestion, and enjoy life more.”

Eh, not so sure on the back half: there are some leaps of logic as in “if i slowly eat a big mac, you are saying that is better than scarfing watermelon?” floating around in my mind.  This is one that I *try* to follow.  I’m good at it about none of the time.  Breakfast: a Luna bar and caffeine in the car as I listen to NPR if I’m good. Coffee if I’m bad.  Breakfast is always *in* the car.  I’ve improved in the fact that it’s no longer a drive thru breakfast.  Lunch … um. Yeah. It’s either a repeat of breakfast, something I’ve thrown together the night before or something that looks vaguely like food from the cafeteria at work.  Dinner … um.  Ok, I’m in serious need here.  While I like to COOK (more like I like the smell of cooking food), when it comes to sitting down and eating a meal? Like at a table? Well, I’m horrific.

My parents gave me a kitchen table a few years ago.  It was my first one.  I wish I could say I was 20. . . no where close.  My cat found it to be a launching pad.  True story, the first time he *saw* a table it was while visiting my parents ten years ago.  He jumped on it in the middle of dinner.  My parents flipped: I sorta explained he’d never seen one.  Jackson still thinks the kitchen table is a perfect winter sun spot (I see evidence of Jackson ON the table, never have been able to catch him).

The bad thing in all of this? I’m picky about my food: I am a huge fan of the slow food movement.  I am a member of a local food co-op, a meat CSA (LOVE 8 O’clock Ranch!) and a fruit/veggie CSA (Nourse Farm).  Where do I fail: In taking the time to enjoy my meal.  To savor the textures and tastes, to remember that even if I *made* the pickles, eating them for dinner is probably not the best dinner on the planet.

I’m not even going to try to make excuses on this one.  I simply fail at doing this.  It is something I need to work on, to learn how to enjoy and savor a meal.  But really? I have made huge improvements on not eating in the car.

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Posted in 72 Ideas in 72 Days Project, CSA | 1 Comment »

Needing That Alone Time? Day 21. . .

September 5, 2011

Salsa“Spend time alone. See this
list of ways to free up time for yourself — to spend in solitude. Alone time  is good for you, although some people aren’t comfortable with it. It could take
practice getting used to the quiet, and making room for your inner voice. It sounds new-agey, I know, but it’s extremely calming. And this quiet is necessary
for finding out what’s important to you.”

Ok, truth time: this is one I thought I had mastered.  I’m a singleton (unless you count pawed creatures), my family is flung out from here to there (seriously, my closest relative is 8 hours away, my closest nuclear family member is 16 hours away) and truth be told, I’m pretty introverted.  I can blame my introversion on lots of things plus a dash of genetics.  I can be social but when I’ve had enough, I leave.  I don’t do well when I’m forced to be “on” for more than about 8 hours a day.  I don’t draw energy from other people …. a weekend with the nieces and nephews leads me craving quiet and sleep.

I realized while I am often “alone” it’s not recharging time.  It’s a factor of my life.  Meditation . . . not really my thing (I blame that on the unused seminary degree).  Art, eh. It’s a winter activity when I’m trying to refocus but not something renewing.  I found myself pondering this as I randomly decided to make pickled beets (ok, I had 3 pounds of beets from my CSA share and couldn’t figure out to do with them!).  Somewhere in the untangling of my thoughts I realized that my “alone time” was in the kitchen.  My culinary adventures and misadventures, canning, picking berries all have a point of rejuvenation for me.

I have a great little sous chef (the smell of boiling vinegar is a sirens sound to him).  I realized that during my cooking time, I decompressed.  I let go.  I played.  The benefit is, of course, a load of canned organic items for the winter (now what exactly I’m going to do with 5 pints of green heirloom tomato chutney is really beyond me).  Yes, I’ve found a bit of satisfaction in looking in my faux-pantry and seeing jars of items that I made but it’s more than that.  I found a place to rest my mind.  What I’m doing now will create interesting meals over the winter.  Since it’s just me, I don’t mind experimenting and can always ditch back to cereal for dinner if it’s really gross (hey, it’s easier to toss 1 meal without hearing the people are starving all over the world lecture from my grandmother in the back of my head!).

I realized while spending alone time, I’ve struggled with renewal time.  I’ve found something that I enjoy.  But seriously? What am I going to do with 8 pints of pickled beets?

Berry Picking

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Posted in 72 Ideas in 72 Days Project, Cooking, CSA | 2 Comments »

Day 16: It does start with a topic statement

August 30, 2011

“Create a simplicity statement. What do you want your simple life to look
like? Write it out. “

You can’t know where you are going until you create the plan . . . right? What does simple living look like for me?  I realize that everybody will have a different version of simple living.  For me … it has to involve down time.  What do I want my life to look like? In that magic wand sort of way? I need to have a place for everything in my life: most things are ok in moderation.  I’ve learned (painfully) over the past few months that some people just aren’t welcome in my life.  I’ll adjust. I’ll mourn what was and what won’t be.  Maybe there is something I can take from the fur creatures: they really don’t care if people like them or not.  There are things I have in my condo, I don’t need (VietnamVet pick up scheduled!).  Items like that are the foundation for my ‘living simply’.

What do I need to live simply? A place to live. A de-stressing hobby (right now … canning).  Happy monsters er fur children. Coke Zero. My smart phone.  Enough money to just unplug every 3 years or so for a few weeks in a flung out part of the planet. I need to walk away when it’s not in my best interest.  Drama free friends.  Let’s face it, family=drama.

My topic sentence? “What I need to live simply is to remember, most things in life aren’t needed, aren’t the big stuff and don’t really warrant the energy I put into the stress to make sure everything is running smoothly.  We make life more complex: and at the end of the day, very few things matter.”

Snah. Now to get there . . . . .

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Re-organizing: A Hurricane of a Project

August 28, 2011

“Edit your rooms. One room at a time, go around the room and eliminate
the unnecessary. Act as a newspaper editor, trying to leave only the minimum,
and deleting everything else. Article
here.

Edit closets and drawers. Once you’ve gone through the main parts of
your rooms, tackle the closets and drawers, one drawer or shelf at a time. More
here.

Simplify your wardrobe. Is your closet bursting full? Are your
drawers so stuffed they can’t close (I’m talking about dresser drawers here, not
underwear). Simplify your wardrobe by getting rid of anything you don’t actually
wear. Try creating a minimal wardrobe by focusing on simple styles and a few
solid colors that all match each other. Read
more.”

Fact: I really dislike high winds.  I needed to find something to do during Irene – yes, it’s not a huge storm (now) but really? I don’t like the rattling gusts of winds that will hit my area sometime today.  My plan? I’m tackling the wardrobe issue and my bed room: if it hasn’t been used/worn in 2 years, it’s gone.  Period.  No questions asked.  If it’s ripped/stained it’s gone no more of this “oh, i can use it as pj’s, layer with it, no more mismatched socks for “snow clearing”.

One place I really need an edit is in my how does this fit into my wardrobe?  The problem when I worked the job from hell was we were expected to wear current-esque merchandise so I wound up with a ton of things that either I didn’t need OR were a bit too trendy.  I did a bit of research regarding some of the less than stellar conditions of my clothing, it turns out that yes, you can donate stained clothing.  It is recycled into items in developing countries (with a study from Oxfam to show that it doesn’t impact local industry).

Given the insanity of my work-wardrobe: my plans: Edit to no more than 15 items for business, 15 for business casual, 15 for casual.  And yes they can be interchangeable.  At least I’ll have something to think about besides the howling winds!

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Posted in 72 Ideas in 72 Days Project, Condo, Weather | 1 Comment »

Edit? Ok, that’s another 4 letter word!

August 25, 2011

Day 11: “Edit your rooms. One room at a time, go around the room and eliminate the unnecessary. Act as a newspaper editor, trying to leave only the minimum, and deleting everything else.”

Ok, part of the problem I have with my condo is that it’s a collection, reunification and the fact I’ve never sorted through my stuff.  When I moved into my condo, I had some of my stuff from grad school life, my parents brought a bunch of my stuff from storage and over the past few visits have decided it’s time to rid their house of my stuff (seriously? what are parents FOR?)  Since I’m probably going to be stuck in the condo this weekend (stupid hurricane), I’m thinking it’s the perfect weekend to re-do.

My problem? A guest room/junk room/lots of boxes room.I’m thinking tomorrow night, there might be a serious toss fest.  I shut the room off in the winter so how I re-do the room needs to limited to items I won’t need in the winter.  I am thinking I can create a storage area for my canning items for the winter (space hogs in the kitchen), culling my closets: I have two, I need one.  I can use the second closet for a storage area for bulky items (tent, sleeping bag).

Yup, it’s time to do some serious reorganization.  Good thing I didn’t have any plans for the weekend . . . .

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72 Ideas … Getting rid of the ‘big’ things

August 24, 2011

It’s funny how sometimes a random internet project of 72 ways to live simply transcends a long time passion.  Yesterday, Pat Summitt, the long time coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols announced she had early onset dementia  – Alzheimer’s type.  I found out the news from most people I know who follow the support in pretty rapid succession (including a Facebook message from my advisor at Hollins).  I was at work and I thought, really? Pat Summitt?  I mean, she is one of the reasons Title IX worked.  Title IX became law in 1972.  Pat Summitt became the head coach of the Lady Vols in 1974: as a full-time graduate student at UT.  Yup.  You read that right: she was the head coach at a time when the NCAA didn’t recognize the sport, when players split scholarships among sports (odd tid bit, long time UT assistant Holly Warlick one of the best point guards to play the game, was on a track scholarship at UT), when the coaches did the laundry, drove the van and took classes.  Summit wrote about how she knew she could demand equality for what the men’s program had but she asked for what she needed and built her program.

The list of accolades and accomplishments fills books: every player who has stayed for 4 years has graduated.  100% graduation rate in a 37 year career.  She won an Olympic medal in Montreal (she rehabed an ACL tear while coaching AND preparing for the Olympics) and she coached the US team to its first gold in Los Angeles.  She has more wins in the NCAA tourney (109) – no other school has appeared IN 100 games.  Yes, UConn, Baylor, and a few other programs might have been a bit better over the past few years.  But as John Wooden was to men’s hoops, Pat Summitt is to women’s athletics.

The SEC schools embraced women’s athletics: Alabama, Georgia compete routinely for national gymnastics titles, Florida, Georgia compete for swimming/diving titles, Arkansas dominates the cross-country circuit.  And when you think that 8 NCAA titles in 28 NCAA tourneys?  Only UNC women’s soccer is better in domination of a sport year in year out.

Pat could have coached a few more years and called it a career.  She didn’t.  She spoke up.  She spoke out.  She will raise awareness.  Women, young women and girls who have reaped the benefits of Title IX (and that would be all of us under 50) owe her a debt of gratitude.  She was one of the pioneers of women’s sports. She taught us that we can fight on the court like guys and not lose our “feminine” identity.

More than all accomplishments on the court, yesterday she did one of the most courageous acts a public figure could do: she made it known that she will lose what has made her great.  She let go a lot of the big things that hold many of us back: fear and shame.  The road ahead for Pat and her family will be hard, but in many ways much simpler.  She openly addressed her diagnosis.  Maybe UT won’t land as many blue chip recruits, maybe they will.  But hopefully the road for Pat and her family will be a bit easier knowing that the Knoxville community, the women’s basketball community and a host of fans will support her in any way possible.

Millions of families who have a loved one with Alzheimer’s or who have lost a person to the disease can find a sliver of hope in the increase in awareness this will bring.  And true to her years of teaching, Pat Summitt is facing head on and not letting the fear, the anger, the embarrassment quiet her.  May we all be so courageous.

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Day Eight: Purge Your Stuff

August 23, 2011

“Purge your stuff. If you can devote a weekend to purging the stuff you don’t want, it feels seriously terrific. Get boxes and trash bags for the stuff you want to donate or toss.”

ARGH!  Ok, fact: I suck at this.  You’d think that since I move an average of every 3 years, I’d be an extreme minimalist. FALSE.  But what happens if I NEED a high altitude cookbook in the suburbs of Boston in case oh, a hill of 7000 feet pops up?  This is only compounded by the fact that my mother collects things . . . all sorts of things (Hi Zebrastravels, I thought you might just want to have a bamboo shower curtain from Peru.  I put it in the mail.) which compounds my inability to say no to weird things my mother has sent me.

I am single and live in a 2 bedroom condo (there is a story behind it but I’m not going to go there . . . ).  I realized that basically the second room is devoted to things I can’t part with. Ok, this has to end.  Since I’m busy this weekend, I am hereby declaring Labor Day Weekend the get your act together and get it out (of the house) event.  Simple ground rules:

1) If I haven’t worn it in a year, it goes to either a clothing closet or goodwill.

2) If it’s stained, ripped or damaged, it goes in the trash.  Except my Ohio State hoody which is good luck.

3) If the book hasn’t been read and it’s over 2 years old, it gets donated to More Than Words in Waltham (a used book store that works with youth in the Boston area).

4) If it doesn’t fit, it goes. Period.

How am I going to do this? Hmmm, good question.  First, I am going to sketch out the end results.  I want to move my big bookcase into the kitchen to store the canned goods.  To do so, I have to go through the books.  I am half tempted to toss some unopened boxes from my move here 3 years ago (yes, you read that right) but given the age of identity theft, I think I need to go through them before tossing.  I am going to make a list of friends who do various hobbies I started and stopped to see if they are interested in ‘care’ packages of items related to hobbies that I’m not doing anymore.

The end result? A simple living room.  A kitchen with actual shelf space.  A guest room that isn’t a barrel racing path and a bedroom with items that I wear.  I’d post before and after pics but I’d die of embarrassment.

Seriously. I’ve got to get a grip on the junk.  The clutter is driving me nuts and I’m 99% sure I can’t blame all of it on my mom.  But, please, if you don’t hear from me the Tuesday after Labor Day? Assume I’m buried in the clutter.

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Posted in 72 Ideas in 72 Days Project, Condo | 4 Comments »

A week into one project, 3 weeks into another. . . .

August 21, 2011

So on the 72 ideas in 72 days front:

“Limit your communications. Our lives these days are  filled with a vast flow of communications: email, IM, cell phones, paper mail,  Skype, Twitter, forums, and more. It can take up your whole day if you let it.  Instead, put a limit on your communications: only do email at certain times of  the day, for a certain number of minutes (I recommend twice a day, but do what  works for you). Only do IM once a day, for a limited amount of time. Limit phone  calls to certain times too. Same with any other communications. Set a schedule  and stick to it.”

I was enjoying my Sunday morning Law and Order re-runs (with Mike and Lenny!) and once again what caught my eye is the late 90′s Law and Order technology gap: pagers, payphones and typewriters (do any of those even exist anymore?).  Yes, there is something to be said *for* instant communication: it’s nice to know of a new job, a new baby, to hear a loved one is out of surgery but the era of instant on-going communication is frustrating.  I for one am all for cell phone free zones (like planes. . . ).  I don’t like people knowing how to find me all the time (and no, that doesn’t apply to just my mother).  I read a job ad today: “must be willing to be available 24×7 52 weeks a year via blackberry”.  The job? An administrative assistant to a CEO of an ART foundation.  Look, if somebody is an organ transplant coordinator in rural oh, Alberta, I could see this being a requirement.  I’m pretty sure nobody ever died of an art crisis at 3 am on a Monday night.  The pay? 30-32,000 a year. Um.  That sole job requirement is a bit excessive.

I see the over communication aspect where I work.  People are married to their blackberries.  I told somebody to put one down while we were at lunch at a restaurant.  Another person made a comment about how her husband nearly threw out her blackberry on Sunday night because she kept responding.  Yes.  Me?  I use twitter, Facebook, e-mail and have a blog. The reality? I use Facebook so much probably because I’ve lived in 7 states since I graduated from college.  It’s a way for me to keep in touch with my friends who I don’t see.  I use twitter to follow some sports teams and snark comments with a college friend.  I don’t feel overwhelmed by technology.  I think, in part, because I’ve used it and burned out on it so much that now it’s like diet coke.  I use it for what I need: some days a bit more than others.

And on the grocery store challenge? What’s a grocery store :blinks: don’t miss it a bit.

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Day 6: Just say NO! (and not in the Nancy Reagan sense, although. . . )

August 20, 2011

“Learn to say no. This is actually one of the key habits for those trying
to simplify their lives. If you can’t say no, you will take on too much. Article
here. “

My first thought on Day Six was a horrific flashback to the pit band in high school when the actress playing Ado Annie couldn’t remember “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No” and we had to keep playing it over and over.  I think that cemented my disdain for all things Roger and Hammerstein.  One of the best lessons I picked up somewhere along the line was the lack of justification needed in saying “No.”  For years I struggled with “I’d really like to (probably a lie) but . . . ” instead of “No.”

No isn’t one of those words most of us like to hear (there are cases it is the most beautiful word in the world, however, most times, it’s not. . . ).  While I’m ok-ish with the boundary of saying no in doing things (hey, at heart I’m a slug), I do struggle with saying no when it comes to standing up for myself.  Case and point, last weekend, I spent some time with old friends.  One of them said something about doing a joint birthday party again.  I said no.  Against conventional wisdom, against “proper protocol”.  I wasn’t interested.  The last birthday party I had, my mom had just started chemo again for the second time, was wearing her wig for the first time and I was miserable.  My friend said I was fine and wasn’t stressed.  At this point, I realized I could ‘shrug it off’ or simply stand my ground.  I corrected her: No, I was miserable.  I didn’t have a good time and I wasn’t going to re-create it.  Yes, I probably did hide it well, I’m good at that.  For me, the struggle of saying no isn’t around a task but in the letting others express their perceptions of my feelings, not accepting that for me, no means no and letting myself be ok with not being involved.

While my friend didn’t take it well (presence of a 3rd party ended the discussion . . . ).  It really didn’t bother me: it actually felt kind of liberating.  For me, anyway, part of saying no will be letting go of people in my life who while they are there, I’ve lost that point of connection, the sense of conversation/community.  Yes, I’ll still be polite and be at social gatherings but sometimes saying no is simply a way to take stock of who respects another individual’s decisions/reflections.

Now, if I can get myself to say no to some of my mother’s great ideas . . . well, I’d be the first in the family.  Some times a smile and nod is much simpler, healthier than “no”.  That is why God invented freecycle.

 

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