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Day 9 – Trips

Posted in 31 Days, Books, Coffee Shop Road Trip, Fun, Lists, Lush on October 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Favorite trip to date – Cape Cod

It seems that a lush life would involve travel to some extent. I’m pretty much a homebody, but I do like to get away occasionally. I’m not a packed itinerary, see-all-the-sights person (on account-a I believe vacation should be a change from my usual pace, not just the same busyness in a new location), but if I’m at a place for a week or more, a couple of main attractions are nice.

My favorite trip to date was the week I spent with a few friends in Cape Cod. We rented a cottage and cooked most of our meals. In the morning, we woke leisurely. Those of us who got up earlier had coffee and some sort of pastry, usually from dessert the night before, while we read or journaled or stared at the trees. Later in the morning, once all of us were up, we had brunch together and discussed what we would do that afternoon. We spent an afternoon at the beach where I read Like Water for Chocolate in one sitting. We had tea in Sandwich, and drove up to Provincetown one afternoon. In the evenings, we made or went out for supper and had many wines (observe a selection of the week’s corks above). Sometimes other friends joined us; sometimes it was just the three of us. It was perfect.

A proper vacation for me is something super laidback. If there is a schedule involved or activities for which one could be considered on time or late, I’m probably not interested. I want to eat delicious food, drink copious amounts of adult beverages, and have coffee at irresponsible times of the day. I am hardly ever spontaneous at any other time, but on vacation, it’s a requirement.

Of course, vacations also require money, so I don’t take them that often. When I do, it’s usually somewhere in the U.S., and I typically drive. Sometimes the vacation portion is only a part of the trip because the main reason I’m going is for a retreat or conference. I do have a running list of places outside the U.S. I’d most like to see:

  • Italy
  • Lisbon
  • Denmark
  • New Zealand
  • Argentina
  • Nepal

Perhaps someday.

But that doesn’t mean life can’t be lush with smaller trips. I like day trips to bookstores that aren’t necessarily local but are within reasonable driving distance. Discovering new bookstores and coffee shops is one of the reasons I’m fond of road trips. I also enjoy visiting friends and family, and I want to find time (and funding) to make these trips more often.

I’m writing about ways to make my life more lush (lusher? I think it’s lusher) this month.

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Reading Challenges

Posted in Books, Lists on February 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »

As mentioned in my TBR posts, I’m participating in several (four, to date, but….well, we’ll see how these four go) reading challenges. I love challenges for one of the same reasons I love book clubs – they alert me to books that I may never have picked up myself. If you are wanting to broaden the scope of your reading life but don’t have time/energy/desire to join a book club, a reading challenge may be just what you’re looking for.

The challenges I’m participating in this year:

It’s not unusual for me to choose multiple challenges, and I don’t use the same book for two different categories on the same challenge. I do, however, cross-post books between challenges when possible. For example, in January, reading Okorafor’s Noor met Read Harder’s “adventure story written by a BIPOC author,” 52 Book Club’s “recommended by a favorite author” (it was the January selection of Roxane Gay’s Literati Club), and POPSUGAR’s “featuring a man-made disaster.”

Sometimes, it’s fun to specifically look for a book that counts toward all the challenges I’m participating in. This month, I’m reading Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, which satisfies all the following categories:

  • A book set in a bookstore (Read Harder)
  • Featuring a library or bookstore (52 Book Club) – ok, a little cheaty as it mirrors Read Harder almost exactly, but let’s be real – you know I’m going to read more than one book that fits this category anyway.
  • Keyword “midnight” (Girlxoxo)
  • About a secret (POPSUGAR)

I also find myself reading multiple books throughout the year that fit a certain category, especially if it’s a category that I had to do a little searching to find a book that fits because that search always yields more than one book that sounds interesting to me. So you may see the same category with different books pop up throughout the year. I have just started tracking them this month, so other than the ones I’ve already listed, I don’t have a lot to add right now, but once I’ve got at least three finished for each challenge, I’ll post the updates here.

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February TBR – A Portrait of Ambition

Posted in 24in48, Books, Fun, Joy, Lists, Shelfies on February 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This is nowhere near the whole stack – just the ones that were on the unshelved/library cart. Also, this month has a lot of ebook and audiobook selections.

So listen. I got really excited about being three books ahead of schedule on my Goodreads challenge and super happy about the 24in48 marathon this coming weekend and…I kinda overplanned. I fully admit that it is HIGHLY unlikely that I will finish all the books listed below but I do not care because I want to read them all RIGHT NOW and will probably start them all this month anyway because what even is an attention span.

I’m just going to list them this month because to list AND talk about them would be a little tl;dr even for me. So here we go. At least I’ve divided them up into categories for you.

Books I’ve started and will continue to read/finish this month:

Whew. I told you I have no attention span. Definitely about 20-150 pages into each one of these so far. And we press on.

After my joy selections from last month were of the “ok, Type A, calm down and maybe sit still occasionally” variety, and I am not good at following that advice but I am super great at overcompensating by going the exact opposite direction, my restless soul has gone into super cleaning mode. I’m not complaining, but it seems like a good month for these three:

I also find joy in revisiting things that I’ve read before or series that connect me to people. So I’m dabbling in a little:

Book club selections for the month:

Recommendations from friends or continuing reading from an author or timely re-read or just because I grabbed it from the library because it sounded interesting and now I only have it for 21(ish) days:

And why not finish it off with some poetry?

It’s only…35 books. In a month.

This goal is so ridiculous, I’m making a guessing game out of it. For every $5 you give to Denton Bail Fund, you get one guess about how many I’ll *actually* finish from February 1-February 28. I’ll send the person whose guess is the closest (or the person whose name I draw out of a hat, if there’s a tie) the book of their choice from this list. Because of who I am as a person, some game rules:

1. To qualify as an entry, you must email coffeesnob@gmail.com:

  • Screenshot of your donation confirmation to Denton Bail Fund with date and amount showing
  • Which of the 35 titles you would like to receive if you win
  • Your mailing address (I will not sell your information – just use it this one time to mail you your book if you win)
  • Your guess(es) – one per $5 donated, whole numbers from 2-35 (I’ve already finished 2 – don’t guess lower than that) – about how many books I will finish between February 1 and February 28.

2. Donations made to DBF must be dated between 12:01 a.m., January 1, 2021 (because yes, I reward being already on this) and 11:59 p.m., February 10, 2021, to count toward an entry.

3. Deadline for receiving email entries is February 11, 2021, at 5:30 p.m., CST.

4. I will send a confirmation email when I get your entry. If you do not get a confirmation from me, you have not successfully entered.

All other things being equal, I will have a final total posted by March 5 and will place the order for the winner’s book by March 10, 2021.

Okay, so I’m going to go read now. I have so many choices! This is the best month!

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Goodbye to 2020

Posted in Alive, Beauty, Church, Denton, Fiction, Fishbowl, Getting It Together, Joy, Lists, Mental Health, Resolutions, Spiderweb, Work, Writing on January 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Some of my favorite images from the year

Well, here it is. The end-of-the-year review. I feel like a lot has been said about the world in general, and I’m tired and a little sad tonight, so I’m not interested in recapping it (didn’t I do this last year, too? I remember being very melancholy last year at this time. Maybe that’s just who I am now.). So I’m going to go through the year I thought I was going to have, how it changed for me personally, and maybe some more things as I ramble on.

First, some goal-setting changes:
1. I love resolutions, but I maintain the flexibility to adapt them. I did this really well this year – mostly out of necessity but also because it just makes sense to set goals that way. To work toward what you want until you get it or don’t really want it anymore or figure out something you want more.
2. Instead of plotting all the short-term tasks needed to reach goals in a chart for each month at the beginning of the year, I plotted one month at a time and based the new standards for each month on the previous month’s actual accomplishment (it’s like I KNEW) (I did not know) (No one knew). I like this much better, and it gives me a much clearer picture of the real progress I’m making.
3. I took the month of December off from the reward system of checking things off. Mostly I did this to just take a break from it, which was needed. But also it gave me a chance to see what habits actually stuck when I removed the reward of a check mark or a crossed-off item. Very illuminating.

Official resolutions I made at the beginning of the year and how they went:
1. Read 120 books. I did not quite make it. But, considering that I went for about four months where I had the attention span of a gnat and couldn’t read for more than five minutes at a time (I read a total of six books during those four months), I think my final total of 96 is still pretty respectable.
2. Finish Fishbowl again – nope. Although I’ve made considerable progress.
3. Keep up with microfictions on Ello – yes…ish. I haven’t even checked lately to see if Ello is still a thing. But I have written a LOT of microfiction and short stories. I didn’t set a specific number to write every month, so I didn’t keep count, but that was the main creative writing I did.
4. Perform with Spiderweb – yes x2! I was in the last in-person show, collaborating with Sarah Ruth for Spiderweb Loves You on Valentines Day. And I had a spot in our online Spiderdead in November playing an original not-really-a-composition-but-more-like-a-prompt called Maybe Hope is a Terrible Idea.
5. Find a doctor – yes. Done.
6. Find a new dentist and eye doctor – not yet. Have people picked out to try, though, in the first few months of the new year.
7. Continue to build Pilates practice – yes, but not back with the in-person classes yet (although my studio has been great with upping the cleanliness standards and thinking outside the box and serving customers – really proud of the way they’ve done things). When we started working from home in March, I accepted a 30-day strength challenge with Jessica and Mary in my office, though, and I incorporated a lot of Pilates stuff in that and have expanded it and kept up with it pretty well. I may be able to test into Level 2 classes when I return.
8. Work – vague resolution about continuing to figure out what I want to do with my life that got put on the back burner when I was just happy to still have work.
9. Word of the year was “alive” and we know how I feel about that. So that’s that.

Goals I didn’t have at the beginning of the year but added and met anyway:
1. Reduce plastic use and trash production. I started putting trash day as Monday on my calendar (I needed help remembering some things – see note above re: attention span). I soon found myself finding ways to prolong it to another day to see how long I could go without filling up the trash cans. I’m up to three weeks (except in the kitchen because food-adjacent waste really shouldn’t sit in my house for three weeks but I just use smaller bags).
2. Reduce food waste – my fridge had a hard year and I think it’s on its way to dying. My freezer still works great, though, so I began freezing leftovers. I’m down to almost zero food waste, so I think that’s a habit I’ll keep even when I have a fixed/new fridge.
3. Automate shipments – toilet paper, toothpaste tabs (the Bits ones – plastic free packaging!), laundry sheets (also plastic free!), etc. I needed to take things out of my headspace this year, so I automated a lot of shipments of things I normally would just run an extra errand to get when I ran out. Now I don’t run out. Great decision – 10/10 – highly recommend.

Things I learned about myself:
1. I’m way more adaptable than I thought I was. Like…my response to chaos has mostly been to fight and thrive (relatively speaking).
2. I am very particular about who I trust. And I like that about me. I mean, I’ll extend a basic trust to most people – I don’t want into new relationships assuming they’re shady – but past that basic trust? It has to be earned.
3. I can like and get along with someone without trusting them or letting them affect me. This makes me good at standing up for other people, and I want to practice that more in the future.
4. I need to be touched. Like…regularly. I knew this already but I really really know it now.

I lost a few people I love this year (some COVID-related, some not), and that’s been hard. I also had a few heartbreaks, one in particular that was really heavy and terrible. I feel like I’m in perpetual heartbreak these days, and I don’t know how to not be. I’m really trying to seek joy in the midst of it anyway.

Finally, to end on a sort of positive note, some highlights:
1. Staying connected to Spiderweb even though it’s online and particularly to the You Are Here support group
2. Monday night text study
3. Book clubs!
4. So many artists adapting to online performance and sharing really beautiful things
5. So many local businesses adjusting to changes and finding new ways to serve customers
6. The Science of Well-Being – free course from Yale
7. Wake and Bake fundraising boxes of baked goods
8. Backyard hangouts with people who love me

Goodbye, 2020.

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5 Things About Me

Posted in Alive, Books, Fiction, Lists, Mental Health, Roots, Shelfies, Writing on April 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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I’m participating in Susannah Conway’s April Love challenge on Instagram, and today’s prompt is “five things about me.” So here goes:

  1. I have a sister who is one of my favorite people. She lives in a state of delight, getting excited about every joy. It’s captivating. I did not always want a sister, though. The whole time my mom was pregnant, I kept saying I was having a brother. I talked about it, prayed for it, dreamed about it. When a sister was born, I was flummoxed. It didn’t make sense to me. Our family already had a girl (me) so we needed a boy to make everything balance out. Gender roles were a big deal and part of my raising, so I figured a brother would have the necessary skills and traits to complement my own. So obviously I thought a mistake had been made and I wanted to speak to the manager. Offended at the audacity of God to deny my request and armed with a supreme practicality (even at the age of three), I set out to find ways to remedy this situation. I called her Tommy for the first three weeks of her life, perhaps hoping it would catch on. MeMaw told me that, if she kissed her elbow, she would turn into a boy. Excellent. Finally, an actual solution! I often snuck into her room to talk her into doing it herself. When she did not comply, I tried to help (don’t worry – no little sisters were actually harmed in the making of this story. I didn’t want to hurt her. Also, her crying would have alerted Mom to my subterfuge, so…not prudent.). But at some point, I discovered how rich life can be with a sister, and I’ve been pleased to call her mine (and also by her actual name) ever since.
  2. I grew up in a small town in the panhandle of Texas, and my parents still live on the farm there. When you grow up in an environment with a lot of narrow, rigid rules and expectations where compliance is valued over authenticity, you learn a few key skills, particularly if you do not naturally fit within those rules/expectations. I learned to pretend that I did by only revealing the aspects of my person that were deemed acceptable. As a result, to this day, it’s pretty difficult to get to know me because I walk into every social situation trying to figure out which parts of me are acceptable there. I’m getting better, but I’m still trying to work out how to turn that off. On the upside, I can get along with just about anybody. I can cheat the system.
  3. A better upside to growing up where you don’t belong is that, to make room for all that I couldn’t reveal, I developed a pretty large, pretty spectacular inner world. I have this world to thank for all the characters I’ve created and every story I’ve ever written. When I have a big decision to make, it’s a great place to walk through various potential outcomes. All my best decisions have been made there. It taught me the pleasure of my own company. It’s not a suitable substitute for actual intimacy, but it’s coming in really handy right now in the isolation
  4. Talk to me for even five minutes, and you’ll probably hear about something I’m reading.  I’ll suddenly get really animated and bouncy about it. I love books. I have a large collection, and I read 4-5 books at a time. I like choices, and this allows me to choose the one that most fits my mood or is in an audio format that allows me to knit or doodle at the same time. In addition to the books we’re discussing at my various (four…maybe five if I finish in time to join the discussion for the daytime book club at church) book clubs this month, I’m currently reading my Isabel Allende collection in the order she wrote them. I’ve read some of them before, but I’m excited about re-reading each of them when it’s their turn.
  5. I have so much yarn. On the one hand, I’m glad. I’ve been able to share some of it and also I am in zero danger of running out of things to knit (Keep Denton Warm is gonna be chock full of blankets, scarves, and hats this year. If that’s a thing we get to do. Someone, somewhere will need them. Surely.). But I thought I had it all organized last year and I just found another bag this week. *sigh* I come from a long line of yarn hoarders.

 

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What Self Care Looks Like for Me Right Now

Posted in Alive, Beauty, Books, Dance, Denton, Getting It Together, Lists, Mental Health, Music, Poetry, Resolutions, Work, Writing on March 25, 2020| 2 Comments »

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Sweet note on the dry erase board in the office this week

We are finally working from home. The students no longer are answering the telephone. We are having our first Zoom meeting tomorrow morning to check in. Denton’s stay-at-home order kicks in tomorrow night. I have plenty to do here to keep me busy, as my apartment looks like a tornado hit it (yes, ’tis the season, but in this case, just a simile) and thus is in desperate need of some attention.

Also I have books. Hundreds of books.

But I also need a little structure to maintain even a little bit of a sense of well-being. I can’t be alone in my house for weeks (months?) on end with no structure.

My goal checklist that I’ve been using this year to track the progress of my resolutions has thus far been extremely helpful for helping remain calm(ish). Every day I’m home all day, I make sure I’m:

  • drinking enough water
  • practicing Spanish, either through the Duolingo app or by reading a book in Spanish while keeping the dictionary close
  • dancing, whether for just a 10-minute break or a Zumba video or an online dance class (the tap classes Chloe Arnold is hosting through Instagram? Very cathartic. Highly recommend.)
  • exercising with Pilates on demand or with something that helps me stretch/strengthen
  • playing the keyboard (currently brushing up on some theory)
  • doing at least one thing to rest or pamper myself (e.g., relaxing foot soak, face mask, nap, etc.)
  • working on a crafty/creative project (e.g., knitting, poetry, coloring, etc.)
  • picking a different small area of the apartment to clean each day
  • taking a walk (weather permitting)
  • finishing the daily to-do list (e.g., keeping up with bills, checking in with friends, etc.)

I’m also taking the free Yale course, “The Science of Well-Being”. I’m just in the introduction, but I can already tell I’m going to like it.

I knew this weekend that I needed to go ahead and put these things in place now. I had a whole weekend at home. Normally, this would delight me. A whole free weekend? Paradise. But I spent a lot of the time overwhelmed and anxious and terribly lonely, despite the fact that I had a lot of interaction online. I thought when this started that this experience would be a good test of whether or not I could really work from home, but I may need reminders that this is a whole other animal. It’s not going to give me an accurate picture of what working from home would really be like.

What adjustments are you making to make this phase of life work?

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Hello, New Year

Posted in Alive, Beauty, Books, Fishbowl, Fun, Getting It Together, Lists, Resolutions, Spiderweb, What I'm Into, Work, Writing on January 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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First page of new planner. A reminder for when I forget.

I love resolutions. Even the ones I abandon halfway through the year (although I would not mind getting to a place where I don’t get all riled up about something just to fizzle out). I like looking forward and fostering hope for making new magic and dreams (and yes, a little madness). I have a lot of small goals for the year, but they all center on a few themes:

  1. Reading – I exceeded my original goal of 100 books last year (by two!), and so I’ve upped the challenge to 120 this year. I have three book clubs, because I love talking about books with people. I think it would be nice if I did that more here, too. Possible posts to look forward to are periodic recaps of what I’ve read and what I’m about to read. I really love what Brenda at Don’t Stop Believing did here, and I really adored some of the things I read in 2019, so you may see something similar around these parts soon. For this year, my focus is going to be on actually finishing the book club choices before we meet (I did this about 60% of the time last year) and reading some of the hundreds of books on my own shelves that I have squirreled away for “someday.” Someday is 2020.
  2. Writing – I finished Fishbowl in 2018…and then I edited it. Now I need to finish it again, because as it turns out, I have no problem killing my darlings. I may enjoy that too much, actually. So this year’s main writing goal is to get it ready to go to beta readers (yes, Maggie – you first)/an editor. I also have a short story project that I am working on, and I want to continue my microfictions on Ello (anyone else on Ello?). I haven’t posted there in a while, but I have a few that I should be ready to upload by the end of the month. I anticipate writing (maybe performing) something in collaboration with Spiderweb Salon this year, too.
  3. Health – I need to be better at keeping up with doctor’s appointments. Just…all of them. I’m terrible at this. That’s a big goal for the year. With my Pilates practice last year, I re-discovered how good I feel when I’m paying attention to strength and flexibility and alignment (hello again, dance!), so I want to continue to build there.
  4. Work – I want to continue to explore the next direction my work life should go. I don’t have a lot of answers here, but I have lots of advice and guidance. Sifting through all of that. We’ll see.
  5. Word of the year – I wasn’t going to have a word of the year, but then I kept seeing quotes about coming alive or being alive and every one of them made me tear up a little bit so now my word of the year is “alive” and I’m pretty enthused about it. My gut reaction for how to pursue this is through music, dance, learning new things, making beautiful things and feeding people, but I’m leaving the possibilities open. I have a short-term bucket list for the year that includes things like “read a book in Spanish with minimal need for a dictionary” and “start learning sign language” and “walk/run more miles each month”  and “brush up on music theory” and it will be fun to see how many of those I stick to. In related news, I may be in the market for a French horn or trumpet soon. You’re welcome, neighbors (but let’s be honest, you kinda have it coming).

Do you make resolutions? If so, I’d love to hear them!

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Lucky in Love

Posted in Fun, Hope, Lists, Lucky, Resolutions on January 11, 2019| 5 Comments »

The only thing better than having a French press to myself is having someone to share it with.

What I am about to say, I say with some trepidation. *deep breath*

I want a plus one (casual applicants acceptable, especially at first). I have things on the calendar that would be more fun with someone else. Ultimately, I want to find someone to love. And I suck at finding someone to love who has the good sense to love me back. Apparently.

So I’m asking for help.

Those of you familiar with me, of course, know that this ask comes with a few asterisks.

Asterisk #1: I’m not fishing for compliments. I don’t need you to tell me how much I deserve to have someone who loves me. I have several faults, but low self-esteem is not one of them. I believe that I am a catch. I would even go so far as to say I’m a delight. But knowing I deserve love and being good at finding that love? Clearly not the same thing. I need help with the second one, not the first.

Asterisk #2: Please make sure the advice you’re giving actually worked for you before you offer it as something useful. A history of people corralling me into seemingly endless conversations like this is the exact cause of the aforementioned trepidation. I am not interested in monologues of useless platitudes that you can’t back up with your own experience. Looking for well-earned wisdom, not generic guesses.

For example, don’t give me this “You just need to get out more” nonsense.

First, I am out plenty. For as much of an introvert as I am, I am especially out plenty. Second, I can almost guarantee that I get out more than you did when you met your significant other. If you met your spouse while doing something you were going to do anyway, like school, work, church, or hanging out with friends, you don’t know how to tell me to meet my SO by going out more often. You just lucked out. All you had to do is open your eyes and say, “Hi,” to get that started.

Don’t tell me to do something I know you didn’t have to do. I can (and do…when I go out…which is plenty) find random experiments on my own, thanks.

Asterisk #3: Everyone has something to bring to the table. If you are in a happy relationship, you know something that can help me. Share, please.

If you did meet your SO by just going about your life, a way you can help is to throw some of that luck my way. Introduce me to your delightful single friends. I’m certain they’d love to meet me, too. For the record, we like being invited over (or out) for dinner. I also like dancing. And if I do start dating a fella I might want to consider making a long-term partner, I’ll be talking to you happy couples and taking notes.

Now, if you met your spouse on the internet or in a bar and you’re still happy together years later, you might be able to offer sound advice on how to meet people in casual social settings (i.e., by getting out more) and make it stick. To be clear, I’m not asking how to hook up. That’s not at all difficult, and it’s not what I’m ultimately looking for. If you managed to turn a casual meeting into a real relationship, tell me those stories. Or better yet – invite me out and be my wingman/woman.

[Asterisk #3.1: If you want to know where to start, I mostly prefer men between the ages of 35-45. Dating me may be easier if one believes in God (or maybe not – I often veer too mystical for church folk) and leans toward liberalism. Top candidates’ interests/professions may include coffee, food, wine, books, music, and dancing, but not particularly in that order.]

[Asterisk #3.2: Most of these terms are negotiable. If your adorable friend doesn’t quite fit them, inquire within. Or just invite us over and see what happens. That should be entertaining.]

Asterisk #4: Despite the impression that the existence of these multiple asterisks probably gives, I don’t want you to overthink it. Let’s all relax and have a little bit of fun with this.

[Asterisk #4.1: I recognize that you may have to remind me that this is supposed to be fun and relaxing. These are not my standard modes of operation (see behavior re: multiple asterisks).]

I’m not expecting you to fully vet the people to whom you introduce me. Correction: I fully expect that some of you will do this because you are protective and loyal and lovely friends and thus just can’t help yourselves. But do try to keep that to a minimum (the choosy part, not the friend part). The people you think I should click with and the people I actually click with may be very different people. Let me be the picky one in the scenario.

Yes, I may ultimately want to marry someone. But I’m not going into a coffee date thinking, “I wonder if they’re the one,” and I really hope they’re not thinking that, either. All I’m thinking is “Hey, someone is sitting next to me while I drink coffee! Cool.” and “I wonder if I’ll get the pour-over, the cortado, or the macchiato?” We can all just calm down and not try to rush into forever.

[Asterisk #4.2: While I can promise not to rush into relationship-y things, we all know I will not be able to stop myself from judging them based on their coffee choices. In the interest of being a good friend to them, too, maybe warn them in advance.]

Asterisk #5: The best counsel I’ve ever gotten on this subject was real advice people didn’t try to sugarcoat. I give a lot of disclaimers, but I don’t need them. Relationships get messy. Hell, even coffee can get messy. Talk about that.

[Asterisk #5.1: I recognize I have a lot of angst regarding this subject. OBVIOUSLY. Please don’t let that spook you. Even if I don’t find your advice helpful, I find your desire to help utterly terrific. And hearing me out while I vent is also terrific. So thanks for reading this far. See? You’re helping already.]

So to sum up:

  • Introduce your single friends to each other (specifically, to me). Yes, it will be awkward. But so is going to a music festival/wine walk/party/wedding where I have to impose, attaching myself like a social barnacle to others who brought their social lives with them in the form of a plus one. Unless I enjoy hanging out in the midst of a flock of people with no one to talk to (spoiler: I almost never enjoy that. At all. It’s the worst. If I wanted to be alone, I would save myself the trouble and just stay home. I already know I love the food and music there, and I can enjoy them in my pajamas.).
  • Don’t worry on my behalf about whether it’s going to work out. I already know how to overanalyze. Don’t need any assistance there.
  • Talk is great. Action is better. Do with that what you will.
  • I hear advice better over a margarita or glass of wine. Or a steak. Maybe there are appetizers involving goat cheese…but I digress…

Thanks for reading to the end. You’re good people. I like you.

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Happy

Posted in Beauty, Books, Core, Dance, Feast, Lists, Writing on February 10, 2018| 3 Comments »

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Coffee with friends = ❤

It seems like cheating to list happiness as a core value, so I’m not going to do that. While I’m sure that there are some people who don’t value happiness, I think most people probably list “happy” as something they’d like to be or as something they enjoy being. It also seems to be what a large corner of the self-help market tries to help us achieve. I don’t know how good most of us are at getting there without work.

I just finished Gabrielle Union’s audio version of We’re Going to Need More Wine, and a line stood out to me. “When you’re in a place where you don’t know what makes you happy, it’s really easy to be an asshole.” That makes a lot of sense to me. The times it’s easiest to be mean are the times when I’m in a fog or a funk and can’t find a way to get myself out of it. So for those times, I’m just going to leave this list of things that make me happy.

  1. Having dinner with people I love. Whether I’m having friends over or being invited over as a guest or eating with family, I love sharing meals with people. I like cooking for people and seeing them enjoy it. I also like not having to cook. Feeding people and being fed may be one of my love languages.
  2. Reading. That is, most reading. Occasionally, I will trudge my way through a book that tries to eat my soul, but most of the reading I do is relaxing. Even if it’s challenging or outside my typical comfort zone, those challenges energize me.
  3. Fresh, ripe peaches. They save the day during my least favorite season. All the oppressive heat of summer is worth it when I see peaches at the farmers’ market.
  4. Doing laundry. I know it’s weird. But I find it so soothing. I think it’s the sound of the dryer. Sometimes I wait to pop the last load in the dryer until I go to bed, just so I can go to sleep to the sound. I also enjoy that the ratio of effect to effort is larger with laundry than with other chores.
  5. Seeing something beautiful when I walk into my apartment. Whether it is a vase of flowers on the table, the Christmas tree lit up, or just an uncharacteristically neat living room, it immediately puts me at peace.
  6. A wide, open sky. Wine and sunset, coffee and sunrise, country drive or road trip, rain or shine. The sky is my favorite part of nature.
  7. My dad telling stories about his dogs. It’s Dad at his most animated. I think it makes him happy, too.

What would be on your list?

 

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2018 Resolutions

Posted in Books, Core, Epic Meal Planning, Fishbowl, Food, Lists, Resolutions, Top Ten, Writing on January 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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THE BEST DAY!!!

New Year’s Day is easily one of my top ten favorite days of the year. Maybe even top five. I love setting new goals or revising old ones. I love – if even for just a day – looking forward and being intentionally cheerful about what the year might bring. I looooove breaking in my new planner – saying my official goodbye and thank you to last year’s calendar with its scuffs and battle scars and breaking out the shiny new one.

My word for the year is “core.” I have a pretty strong sense of what is important to me and what traits I want to cultivate the most, but this year is devoted to saying those things out loud (or at least on the internet). I am going to talk more about this later this week, but by the end of the year, I want to see a marked improvement in how my core values shape my goals, commitments, and strength.

I have listed a lot of goals and dreams for the year in my 52 Lists journal, and I won’t bog you down with all of them. But here are the key ones:

  1. Read 100 books. That’s just two a week with a couple of weeks off. That’s how much I read when I am reading consistently. Reading grounds and calms me. I fall out of the habit when I over-commit to other things that leave me drained and stressed, so ideally this goal will help me do more reading and less stressing this year.
  2. Make some of these books really long ones. Specifically, I want to read Don Quixote, Infinite Jest, and Anna Karenina.
  3. Finish the first draft of Fishbowl. My hard deadline for this is June 15, so the year’s end may even find me in revision mode. But the first step is just to finish.
  4. Finish Epic Meal Planning edits. Possibly even publish?
  5. Continue learning Spanish and read at least one book in Spanish (with minimal dictionary usage) by the end of the year.
  6. Take a solitary writing retreat. Criteria: 1) outside Denton, 2) two days minimum, and 3) no Internet.
  7. Go to a coffee shop or wine bar at least once a month. Write more about coffee shops.
  8. Build up my emergency fund and get back in the habit of paying off credit cards fully every month. I’ve lapsed a little, and I don’t like it.
  9. Financial/health combo goal – actually use my gym membership regularly or cancel it. Paying for something I don’t use is ridiculous. So is being sedentary.
  10. Try at least one new recipe a month. My meal planning is in a rut. I need new ideas. Feel free to post your favorites in the comments section.

What do you want your 2018 to look like?

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