today I love...

...this love story.   No matter how you feel about the war and the people fighting it, this is beautiful.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

today I love...

...this beautiful video* about being alone.

I've never lived alone, and generally have had issues with being alone in general.  I dislike coming home to a dark, empty house, and prefer to have people around. 

I think that finding peace in just being with myself would be a good thing to work on. 

Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

* via The Simple Dollar

today I love...

...this dad.   He showed his son such beautiful acceptance with a little act of fearlessness.  He stepped up and became the role model his kiddo needed.  Beautiful.

Rock on, dude.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

today I love...

...hobbit houses.

Self explanatory.  I want one retroactively to play in as a kid, and I want one now to play in as a grown-up.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

today I love...

...this narrative of the difficulty in navigating the waters of healthy eating culture.   I like to think of myself as a healthy and ethical person, and I deeply enjoy cooking with local produce.  I adore Michael Pollan's sensible way of approaching food.  I do my best to ignore silly food trends.

But sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes the research is a trap.  Sometimes I just need to step back and regain perspective.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

out of sight

I've recently observed an interesting phenomenon when it comes to my own perspective on stuff:

• Is it out where I can see it, on a shelf/hanger/pile on the floor/hook where it usually lives?  Then I'll probably pass over it when decluttering, and will come up with all sorts of rationalizations as to why it should stay. 

• Has it been moved into a go-away box or pile?  Then I cease thinking about it entirely and can easily let it go.  

Let's call it Mindless Clutter Effect.  MCE means that simply walking into a room and declaring a decluttering mission by looking around (at least for me) is probably doomed.  But if I physically touch an object, and maybe move it to a different place?  Whole new ballgame.  Let's look at an example. 

For the past few months, I've been continually pulling things out of my closet and depositing them in an ongoing 'donate' box.  Every once in a while the box got dropped off at a thrift store.  The selection process was fairly random, and just happened whenever I'd think of something that could go.  I had to work up the motivation to actually remove the thing from the closet, while leaving everything else behind.  I even tried the backwards-hanger trick, but I tended to wear everything eventually if it's there for the wearing, so that was somewhat self-defeating.  Every thing gotten rid of this way required effort to move it. 

I managed to purge maybe 20 items in several months.  

A couple of weeks ago, some friends came over to help me in my closet-cleaning mission.  We physically removed every single thing from the closet (in batches by category) and laid it all in big piles on the bed.  Then every item was held up, maybe tried on, and voted upon.  Anything with any doubts about it (poor fit, unflattering, not something I've actually worn in a while, a generic 'blah' feeling) went into the go-away pile.  The rest was looked through again briefly to see how many were left, the less-awesome pieces were revisited, and then the stuff to keep was put back into the closet.  Each thing to be kept required the effort of putting it back in the closet.

The clothing was removed from its natural habitat and backdrop (the closet), and put into a new context (on the bed).  Such a simple change, but it (along with the support of having people there to help, of course), allowed me to remove at least a third of my entire wardrobe.  The pile above is what'll go into my yard sale when I get around to having one.

What's interesting is that even though the pile has been sitting in my bedroom, totally accessible and visible, I've felt no urge to pull anything out of it.  Things in the pile that I'd previously been unable to imagine getting rid of have become irrelevant.  MCE defeated.  

The moral of the story?  Try pulling clutter out of its original context.  You might be surprised at how much easier it is to part with unnecessary stuff.  Also, have fabulous friends who think going through someone else's closet is fun!

today I love...

...this periodic table.  Yeah, I went there.



Every Wednesday, I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

finding passion, part 4: skills

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #4: What are you ridiculously good at?  What are your precious gifts?

Hoo boy.  These certainly are getting to be trickier.  I don't know that there's anything I'd describe myself as being ridiculously good at.  So let's drop the modifier for now.

What am I just good at?  No matter how silly or seemingly irrelevant it is?

• dancing, in various forms
• working with some animals (mostly horses)
• cooking
• writing
• proofreading/editing/typesetting
• presenting
• throwing parties
• planning events
• grasping abstract mathematical concepts
• seeing patterns
• listening to people
• DDR (yes, really.  Silly but true)
• touch-typing
• giving massages
• being a student
• making lists
• memorizing things

It seems that I'm good at physical expression, learning, planning, and working with words.  Hmm.  This... will have to do for now.  Next!

What are you good at?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude.

small space fetish

I have an odd fixation on the notion of living in a small space in a city.  I romanticize the notion of being close to everything, having real public transit options, and being forced to seriously edit my mountains of crap.  To have everything I own be something I absolutely love.  To be absolutely ruthless about what is in my home.  To spend less time cleaning and organizing, and more time living.  To abolish clutter.

Granted, in reality city living is cramped, dirty, loud, and has all sorts of downsides.  My fantasy doesn't necessarily take those into account, hence the romanticization.  But fundamentally, I find myself desperate for change of some sort.  I want... different.  

Part of why I'm so obsessed with decluttering is that it feels like a step toward that goal.  The less stuff that has to be lugged around, the more freedom we'll have to jump when the next life change opportunity comes to call, whatever form it might take.  

All my life, whatever household I've been a part of has required a fairly sizeable house.  Not necessarily for the people, but for the stuff.  For some reason, saying 'this one won't work; it isn't big enough to hold all our stuff' seems perfectly reasonable in this country.  When did we start adjusting the houses to fit the accumulated junk, instead of simply living in a reasonable amount of space?

Though the average American family size has decreased about 30% since 1950 (from 3.8 to 2.6), average house size has increased more than 2.5-fold!  This is ridiculous!  That average 1950's family was living in under 1,000 square feet of space, but we still seem to be always upsizing and expanding.

Always needing more, more more... how about opting out and downsizing instead?  Living with less doesn't signify failure, and renting isn't a sign of having given up.  These things only indicates breaking free of the outdated American Dream.  What worked in the fifties due to some rather unique circumstances (the GI bill, a time of major economic prosperity, plenty of jobs, etc.) is a silly standard to still hold ourselves to.  In the current economic climate, maybe owning a house with a white picket fence no longer makes sense!  Make your own future.  Figure out what works for you.  The real you, not your fantasy self that throws perfect dinner parties and has 2.5 children.  Or maybe the fantasy self tours around the country playing the washboard in a zydeco band, but you're happier staying in one place, hopefully in a smaller (and cheaper) house than you can afford.  The point is to move beyond mindless plodding toward an outdated goal that may or may not be applicable to your unique circumstances.  

For me, I want out of the upsizing cycle.  I want the freedom that comes from focusing more on people and experiences rather than stuff.  To have more time, energy, and money not spent on maintaining/acquiring/storing stuff.  To prioritize the aspects of life that are actually important.  

Maybe this is a silly romantic notion, and maybe I'll never make it to my fantasy city.  Maybe I'll always live in three-bedroom houses.  But in the meantime, I'll keep 

But hey, a girl's got to dream, right?

finding passion, part 3: gratitude

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #3: What do people thank you for?

This one was exceedingly difficult.  I am generally rather unobservant when it comes to myself, and so at first blush I couldn't think of a darn thing in answer to this question.  I'm sure it's happened, but I don't seem to have remembered any instances of it.

After chatting with a few people and doing some deep introspection, I came up with this marginally satisfactory assortment of items:

• listening/discussing life issues
• emotional support
• cooking
• hospitality (throwing parties, having people over, etc.)
• helping work through problems
• being a sounding board/devil's advocate

Most of these items seem to pertain to conversations.  There is likely to be some serious sample bias base simply on what I was thinking about today and the interactions I've had in the past short while.  However, it's still an interesting result, and hopefully will yield further insights down the line. 

What are you thanked for?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility.