Lifeguard of Love

2011-11-29T11:11:00.000-08:00

I tend towards maximalism when it comes to my Christmas Tree.

2011-11-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

I'm totally not into any of this right now. I'm writing a silly novel about teenage stoners, learning about all the horrible shit that's going on in the world, & enjoying life. All at the same time!

2011-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

I've been away from the Minimalist/Declutter Blog World for awhile. Cutting and pasting HERE (where you'll see pretty pictures representing my filthy rock & roll side), and I spent 10+ days away from the internet when I visited my relatives in Illinois in the middle of September.

Now I'm doing something that I think I might like to blog about, so I'll give it a shot and see if it sticks.

For 6 weeks, which started October 1, I'm doing a food allergy test diet, as recommended by my naturopathic doctor, which eliminates corn, wheat, dairy, and (most sadly) beer/alcohol.

But it is SO EXCITING! Immediately I became enamored with cooking new things, which I haven't done in a long time, tending to make the same meals when it was my turn to cook. Conveniently, it's squash season, and we loooooooooooooooooooove squash at my house! I am choosing foods and eating more mindfully. I feel really great, but it's only been about a week, so I don't know if I'm really feeling a *difference* or not. Probably, I just feel a difference because I'm so inspired about cooking and eating!

Almost everything I've made so far is vegan, except when I've used chicken stock, haha.

Cajun Spice Potatoes & Apples, (home made) Tempeh Sausage, black beans, diced tomato
Sweet Potato, Pear, Kidney Bean, and Kale soup (chicken stock)
Buckwheat cakes with blueberry syrup (just frozen blueberries and 2 tbsp Grade A maple syrup)
Bitchin’ Hummus
Acorn Squash with Millet, white beans, onions, shallots, garlic, dinosaur kale, miso tahini dressing
Hot and cold cereals with adzuki beans and brown rice or millet, applesauce, soy milk, fresh fruit, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and ginger powder

Of course I've eaten other stuff, but that's what I've cooked. This past weekend my husband and I were representing the company we work for at Wordstock in Portland, so I didn't have my own kitchen comforts. We ate twice at Laughing Planet, where I had the Steamed Veggies, Rice and Beans bowl, which is freaking amazing, and once at The Paradox Cafe, where I had a tofu scramble on seasoned potatoes with steamed veggies. (That is one thing I love about Portland - YOU CAN HAVE STEAMED VEGGIES AT A RESTAURANT. I don't think that is ever an option in Olympia - veggies are fried in grease only!). On our way home, we ate at the Whole Foods deli in Vancouver. When we weren't eating out, the food front was kind of a bummer for me. During the day at the event, I subsisted on instant lentil soup (it shouldn't be so hard to get hot water at a convention center!) and rice cakes and rice crackers with peanut butter. I can't really complain, but it just wasn't satisfying. I had kind of a calorie deficit and/or low blood sugar, and I got cranky. (Kaden found me a food co-op near our hotel and I got almond milk and a funny chocolate wheat-free cookie).

I've made a commitment, and I'm dedicated to it. I don't know if I'd have been able to do it a couple years ago - I probably wouldn't have tried, because I didn't know how to cook much or create my own meals. Now I am surprised by how easy it is to keep my commitment. I don't feel tempted to eat outside my restrictions, only maybe a little bummed when Kaden is eating an expensive artisan loaf with poppy seeds. I intend to try my hand at some vegan, gluten free baking this week!

If anyone wants any of these recipes, I'd be happy to post them. I'm kind of thinking of trying out a food/recipe blog, since I tend to think the meals I invent are pretty fucking exciting. I almost never use a recipe without at least modifying it!

I've Decluttered, Now What?

2011-08-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love decluttering. Sometimes I feel like it is my life's work, what I am meant to do. Sometimes it is my favorite thing to do.

But it's the next step that is a pain in my ass, getting rid of stuff. I declutter and everything goes into a pile (preferably in a box or bag) behind my couch, which puts it basically in the walkway between the dining room and living room. Several weeks ago we took the memory foam topper off of our bed. I have a friend I am going to give it to. Weeks after that, I laundered the cover, and put it in a huge garbage bag to deliver. It has been weeks more since then. We also cleared off a bookshelf; have a friend to give it to. It has sat empty for, again, weeks. I also have bags of clothes that have been in the "get rid of stuff" area for months. And some books and DVDs that were borrowed and need to be returned. I have a box of stuff that I was going to send to my friend James probably 8 months ago. It sat by my desk at work, waiting to be shipped. Then James actually moved back to town...and the box is still sitting by my desk. At work.

It's been a weird time the past couple of weeks. I've had a typing job to do that is taking up all my spare at-home time, and besides that I've just been busy, I don't know with what. We spent 4 weekends in a row away from home, which meant at least one of the 5 weeknights spent packing and prepping. This weekend we finally stayed home, but the weather was beautiful and I had to type (luckily on the laptop outside!), so what I'm trying to say is, I haven't spent much time inside the house.

On Saturday night we watched Amelie and I'd never seen it before. After that our house looked perfect, all glowy yellow, before we went to bed. But Sunday it was all hot and bright outside and dark and dirty inside. When I finish my typing job I'll do some real work around there. But I want to take the clothes to Buffalo Exchange in Bellingham. We're going to Bellingham at the end of September.

2011-08-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am feeling really down today about the state of food safety. I may or may not have mentioned this before, but the past couple years of my life have been marked by a sometimes-near-paralyzing phobia of foodborne illness (something I have been blessed to never have experienced). I am doing MUCH BETTER these days, truthfully, more comfortable eating lots of things without worry, but yesterday both raw hazelnuts and green onions entered my household, and they happen to be two of my longest-lingering fears. Then I spent some time reading FDA Warning Letters this morning and it really freaked me.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO I am going to do a Things I Love Thursday to lift my spirits! Because seriously it's just fear, and most food is perfectly safe to eat when prepared properly, something Kaden and I are very careful about.

Some Things I Love:

Hoppy beers - particularly Lagunitas Hop Stoopid.
Where we stayed last weekend, Crystal Hotel, Portland, Oregon
Havin' a time with my man
The sunny weather we've had for the last few days! (even if it's lousy and gray today)
This new (old) CD we got, Fourteen Songs for Greg Sage and The Wipers. It's more nineties than nineties.
Speaking of nineties, I saw So I Married an Axe Murderer for the first time last week, OMG I LOVED IT. duh.
I made an appointment with a naturopathic doctor for my allergies & asthma, and I'm really grateful for all the subtle changes over the years that have led me to this place.
Reading this book, Natural Acts: Gender, Race, and Rusticity in Country Music. It's pretty academic so a slow read for me, but fucking fascinating.

OK, slowly I'll be forgetting to think about contaminated tofu!

Micro Waves

2011-08-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

We had a lightbulb moment this weekend when we realized we may be able to stop using our microwave. SWEET! I am thinking of starting with just putting it in a closet or something for a month. We have kept it unplugged for quite some time now, only plugging it in maybe once a week when we use it. When a friend mentioned several months ago that she refused to keep a microwave, for health reasons, we were really surprised! How did her family live without one? Now suddenly we've found that we might be able to, as well, and it's quite a thrill.

This summer has been full of amazing mini-vacations (weekends), but I have no particular desire to write about them extensively. They've been fun, rejuvenating, perfect in every way. We've seen some awesome things - a close win by the Seattle Storm, mega-beets in Eugene, an art exhibit on Beauty and Bounty, the Pacific Ocean. I hiked some terrain that I never dreamed of being able to (so now I know I can do anything). And we stayed in a Merle Haggard themed room. We've seen 3 of our favorite bands, and I had the perfect outfit for every show. We've eaten some fabulous meals, especially the ones Kaden cooks. We've drank some delicious beers. I decided to only order IPAs from now on, because every time I try something new it disappoints. Only Hop Stoopid for me! It has 102 ibus.

In favor of simplicity, this past weekend we stayed at the Crystal Hotel in Portland, since we were seeing a show at The Crystal Ballroom a block away. We have friends in Portland, but decided it would be so much easier to stay right next door to the show - not worrying about where to eat and drink before the show, and how to drive across an unfamiliar city to get back to sleep on someone's floor afterward. It was pretty much the best decision we ever made. McMenamin's is a company in the Northwest that takes old buildings and renovates them into quirky, clean, relatively inexpensive hotels. Many have the option of staying in a less expensive room without a private bathroom, and sharing a bathroom down the hall with other guests. Since the buildings are old and have had many uses, they are like mazes. They're very self-contained places, with restaurants and bars and soaking pools connected, and I love that. They even have jars in the rooms so you can take it to the bar and get beer to take back to your room. We have stayed at 3 different McMenamin's in Oregon, but this was my favorite time. It's right in downtown Portland, and it was just so damn cozy. A little room with just a bed, a sink, and a table (no tv). The walls were painted dark red, with Merle Haggard lyrics and portrait (we didn't pick it, we just got lucky!). We ate at the restaurant, came back and opened the windows and sat at our little table and drank our jar of beer and talked the talk. That was when we discussed eliminating the microwave, and about tiny houses in our future (I say no less than 5 years from now; K says "what about 2?"). We weren't interested in the opening band so we actually got to spend quite a bit of time in our room, which was good, since it was $105. And I don't feel bad spending that because of the quality of the establishment, AND we stayed in an ENORMOUS $60 room in Eugene last month, so it balances!

Sometimes I feel silly for enjoying McMenamin's so much, because everyone thinks Kaden and I should love them, because they are "quirky" and we are "quirky". But it works for us; I guess we are their target clientele, so it's good for everybody!

3 Bottles

2011-07-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

I love these bottles. They are a Big Red and a Green River soda bottle that I got at a fruit market in Eastern Washington, on a trip with my family when I was between ages 10 and 12. I've always liked weird things. Both of these sodas are still manufactured, but the bottles are printed differently. In the Big Red bottle is some red sand from some random chunk that Cree & I found when we were walking along the train tracks by my parents' house in middle school. The third bottle is a Blue Lemonade Jones Soda bottle circa 2003. It has Peaches on the label. It still has some blue soda residue in it. The tray they are on is a 50s laminate tray with wooden handles.

I have decorated with the first two bottles since I was 10 or 12, and the 3rd since 2003. When we moved from Bellingham, my mom laughed and was like "Isn't it time to let these go?" and I was like "NO WAY." Through all my decluttering, these have stayed. I did get rid of a Sioux City Sasparilla, a Coca-Cola 2005 "1 year til the Olympics", and a really really old Sprite that was fished out of my parents' lake, a few months ago. But these 3 I am seriously attached to.

The green vase in the photo above broke in our last move. The lamp is in our dining room now. I am getting rid of the fake flowers because they, well, collect dust, and eliminating dust is my motivation right now. I put the white vase in a kitchen cabinet; I couldn't quite bear to part with it, but I did change out a glass vase to get rid of.

If I eliminated every other "knick-knack" in the bedroom, it wouldn't be too much to dust these 3 bottles daily (which is my plan, once the bedroom is decluttered). I know they may be "sentimental clutter", but I truly do love them. Do they make my heart sing? Well, yeah, they kinda do! Would anyone else get more enjoyment out of them than I do? HIGHLY UNLIKELY. I'll give them some more time. My goal is not to eliminate everything, my goal is to have less dust.

Exciting & Intimidating Declutter Project: Bedroom

2011-07-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

This week, I'm about to embark on something intimidating: decluttering the bedroom.

I have to, for my allergies. On our weekend vacation in Eugene, we stayed in a VERY clean room (Timbers Motel), and I jogged for an HOUR on Sunday morning - honestly, the best run I've ever had. This morning, back at home, I was barely able to run for 20 minutes. I had allergy testing a few weeks ago, and I am most allergic to DUST. I think I vaguely mentioned my trip to the allergist in a previous post. Basically they wanted me to go on a bunch of creepy meds, and I don't want to. But I've been dragging my heels on making an appointment with a naturopathic doctor. I even found the doctor I'd like to go to. But I hate making appointments. It's silly. It takes almost no time. I've procrastinated for THREE MONTHS on scheduling a teeth cleaning before. I will do it today. How about that?

I'm already frustrated and excited about decluttering the bedroom, and I haven't started yet - though I suppose visualizing and planning is a start! There is a totally unnecessary end table in the bedroom. All it is holding is my husband's binders from graduate school. There is an under-the-bed bin FULL of 100s of CDs. There are wedding gifts I have no intention of using under the bed. There are two bookshelves. There are 3 lamps. There is a filing cabinet. There is a dresser. There is a vintage laminate tray holding 3 old soda bottles. There is a vase with fake flowers. There is a coin jar. There is a memory foam mattress topper that I am giving to a friend but haven't gotten around to dropping it off yet. There is backpacking equipment and suitcases in the closet. Extra sheets and pillowcases. My box of stationery and zines. And all the clothes.

I'd love to get it down to the bed, the dresser, the sheets and the clothes. I think the 100s of CDs in the bin will have to stay, too, for lack of an alternative.

Kaden asked what we were going to do with it all. I couldn't answer.

But I am going to declutter the bedroom. I am going to start this week. I am going to make an appointment with the naturopathic doctor. Today. My goal is to have my asthma and allergies managed by OCTOBER 1. And if I accomplish that (which I suppose only I can evaluate, ha ha), I will sign myself up for Gala Darling's Radical Self Love Bootcamp. I'm really excited for this unusual challenge. I feel like my asthma and allergies are pretty much the only thing holding me back from realizing my full life potential. And I don't want them to control/disrupt my life any more.

On Clothing.

2011-07-22T08:59:00.001-07:00

I kept saying I feel a big clutter clearing coming on! But after a few weeks of nothing coming to pass on that front, I was wondering if my feelings were premature.

I think instead it is going to be a slow and steady clutter bust. This week I've gotten brave and been able to let go of a lot of clothes that I don't want to wear. I feel so much relief when I look in my closet. I have done a MASSIVE amount of clothing clearing over the past year and a half, but there are still some things that I force myself to wear with a certain degree of dread. They are things that my husband, or my mom and sister, have complimented me for wearing. Thinking they must know better than my instincts, I've continued to wear them, even though looking at them in my drawer makes me feel depressed. Haha, how absurd!! One funny thing I've noticed, however, is that I'm getting rid of almost everything in color. My wardrobe is going to be down to blue jeans with black and white and a lot of heather gray! The heather gray section is quickly becoming the biggest color block in my drawer. I have also gotten rid of a lot of socks. There is a big empty space in my sock drawer, which I used to have to pack down in order to shut. We're taking a weekend vacation (to Eugene, Oregon!), but after that I think I'm really going to be able to let go of my wardrobe.

This week, I had to shop for a dress for a wedding. My goal was to find a dress I could wear to this wedding and to see Beirut in Portland next month. Kaden was surprised that I wanted to go to the mall, but for some reason I had it in my head that the perfect dress was just waiting for me there. My sister took me, she is a big-time shopper and we had a nice time hanging out. I brought home 4 dresses to "try" (remnants of my family's bad shopping habits, buying and returning). All of them I LOVED in the store, but when I got them home I realized how poorly they were made. Worse yet, they just weren't ME. Being a 28-year-old, "low maintenance" woman, I find the fashion world difficult to navigate. I'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to dress like a "woman" or a "girl." While a part of me is ready to grow up, I don't want to give up & give in on youth and dress like a "woman". (I guess it comes down to a fear of being boring). And the powers that be (blogs) don't seem to indicate that I have to! I want to look good. I want to learn how to look good. It does not seem to come naturally to me, like it does for many women & girls.

I have settled on mediocre dresses so many times in my life. I have little patience for shopping and a bad habit of listening to what others say about what I'm wearing. Furthermore, I'm frugal, and there aren't a lot of "good" stores to shop at in my town.

So I went to Goodwill. And I found the perfect fitting, just-right-for-ME dress, for $5.99. And I had a 30% off coupon from donating. So I got the best dress that I could wear to a wedding and to see Beirut, FOR $4.55. Go Frugality!

Mini-vacation is lined up with a stop at the Woodburn Outlet Malls (Kaden needs man-shoes; we are indeed growing up). Then on to Eugene where I found a $59 motel with reviews claiming the place was clean. We're checking out University of Oregon campus, eating at a vegan BBQ restaurant and visiting the Ninkasi Brewery!

And I'll be letting go of all my negative clothing experiences when I return.

Bonus Read: When In Doubt, Toss It Out by Brooks Palmer. Brooks and his girlfriend help each other clean out their closets! Their little story was my inspiration to really let go of clothing that made me feel negative.

Giving Thanks!

2011-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

First of all, BIG TIME thanks to Tanja at Minimalist Packrat for linking me in her 6 Minimalist and Simple Living Blogs You Might Not Know About post! I was really surprised & thrilled! I did not expect to see my name there, since this isn't exactly a minimalist blog. But I do write about decluttering and minimalist themes. & if you are reading this without being familiar with Tanja's work, go enjoy Minimalist Packrat right now!

Now for a little on decluttering.

Once again I was inspired by a Brooks Palmer post.

...your mind might say, "No. If I get rid of this stuff, I'll have nothing. What if I get rid of something I really need?"
That's the hypnosis talking.

I have been making a mental list of the things that I got rid of during my last clutter clearing that I've needed or wanted. There are a couple I can think of off the top of my head...a DVD of Dazed and Confused, and a feng shui book I wanted to refer to. I was thinking of writing a post about all the things I decluttered that I wish I'd kept, just to prove the flipside.

But reading Brooks' post, I realized, I don't actually need those things. Has not being able to watch Dazed and Confused (which I never would have time for, I just happened to see a bit of it on TV at my folks and remembered that I loved it), or refer to my feng shui book, diminished my quality of life in the least?

Absolutely not! The mild wish that I still had those things is nothing close to the feeling of power and pride I had letting them go.

It's getting close to another round of decluttering. We just haven't been in the house much the past few weeks, because the weather has been nice. But Kaden has mentioned lately that he is ready to get rid of more stuff than he was the last clutter clearing round (February-April or so). So we'll probably get into it shortly. We have a get-rid-of bag of clothes and a box of books we've been slowly adding to. We'll get there, and now I know with confidence that we are unlikely to miss anything!

My Folks & Clutter

2011-07-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

I started writing this post about 10 days ago.

Here is how it started

My parents' clutter is breaking my heart. We have gone over there every Tuesday for a couple of months, to do laundry and grill food. But we stopped by briefly on Sunday, to say "Happy Father's Day," and it was too gnarly in there. It smelled awful. Kaden always says it smells like cat poop, but I don't smell that. I could only smell the dishcloth, filling up the whole kitchen.
But cut out the whining; I want to help. That is a HUGE reason I wanted to move back to Olympia from Bellingham, truth be told. I figured I'd be over there every weekend clutter clearing, and we'd have them dug out and ready to retire to Texas in no time!
Over the years, the things I've read about clutter have become second nature to me. It is OBVIOUS to me that clutter holds you back, prevents you from moving forward in your life, and stands in the way of relationships, especially with yourself. I also understand the flip side: what would you have to face, if you didn't have a house plus 4 sheds full of clutter? If you didn't have the overwhelming 3/4 acre, all hill piece of property to tame? If your 22 year old daughter (my sister) ever left home.

Last weekend, I was over there, helping paint the house. The house has not been painted in about 25 years. The house has not been all the same color for about 5 years. My first task, after the hour-long bike ride over there (SO LUCKY to have bike trails almost the whole way!!), was to clean off the front porch. It is a bit misleading, since the "front porch" is on the opposite side from the street. My parents live on a lake, and therefore the side facing the lake is the "front."

I took everything off the porch. I wish I had a picture of it. There were garden tools hid in boxes behind and under other boxes. There were pans of pretty rocks covered in spiderwebs. There were crates of old wooden shingles. There were buckets of house paint and cans of spray paint. And other stuff. You couldn't get to the grill to cook, or to the seating to relax and enjoy the lake.

We did a full day of painting, and then I dug into the decluttering. I was getting tired and cranky and couldn't decide whether to stay and get the job done, or go home. And I was frustrated, especially with all the stuff my mom wanted to keep, as obviously she hadn't used any of it in at least a year - it was buried!

The next day, I was recounting the story to my husband, and I realized that I have to let it go. I am much more upset about my parents' clutter than they are! Maybe what I want for them isn't what I need! I am leaving that typo, because I meant "isn't what they need", but it's not what I need, either. I don't need them to be decluttered; I need to be decluttered. They don't mind living that way and they don't complain about it and to the best of my knowledge they don't lose things. Everything I have learned about clutter clearing has taught me that it is in their best interest to declutter. But everything I learned about clutter clearing has also taught me that you have to be ready for change, for BIG change. And if they aren't, that's not my business.

From now on, I will only help when my help is requested. I am more than happy to be there and support my mom when she wants to work on it. But I can't go over and force them, I can't whine to them about why they don't need whatever item (I definitely notice my voice going into a whine in those situations). I will focus on my decluttering, when I need to, and let their clutter be until I am asked to help.

"I Don't Know What I Want."

2011-07-06T10:04:00.001-07:00

I just read this neat little story about a Wishing Well by Brooks Palmer, the author of my favorite decluttering book, Clutter Busting. I love his Clutter Busting blog, every post inspires and comforts me.

But this little note about the wishing well really touched me today.

I went to the wishing well.
The wishing well said, "Yes, what is it this time?"
I said, "I don't know what I want."
The wishing well said, "Maybe you'll be alright without a day of needing something to feel okay."

It's a joke and I didn't include the punchline here, because the part quoted is the part that resonated with me. When I read it, I was seriously about to make a post about how "I don't know what I want."

I feel like wanting is very important to well-being. Kaden and I were just theorizing the other day that people become depressed when they win the lottery because they no longer have any material desires that can't be fulfilled. Kaden has seen a molasses cookie in a bakery that he wants, for months now. But he said he probably won't ever get it, he wants to keep dreaming of it being the perfect cookie. Seriously!

My BFF has been talking about the plans she and her wife are making to travel next summer. And Kaden and I used to talk about traveling a lot! We used to travel, even - in the car, staying in rest stops, but traveling nonetheless. I used to dream of traveling in an Airstream or a Gypsy Wagon; of Kaden and I being a trucker team; of owning my own home and land; of perfect midcentury furniture and vintage dresses.

But now I don't. And I have had a sense of panic in my mind the past few days, about what do I want? If I'm not dreaming of travel - what am I dreaming of? What are my "hopes and dreams"? What do I want out of life? I am approaching 30 I better decide.

It is not a place that I want, or a possession (although there are places and possessions I think I might enjoy!). I really, really want a spiritual life. I'm not sure if I can elaborate on that right now, but I realized last night, out on a walk in the warm evening, that that is what I envision for myself in the future. I don't know how I'll get there but I know that I have to try harder, in every way. I have to continue to declutter so that I can make room for my spiritual life. I have to work on celebrating my failure as learning experience, on non-violent communication, on not judging others. I have to work on yoga and Chi Running and managing my allergies holistically. I have to work on being comfortable asking for what I need and exploring pleasure*. I have to work on meditation, on The Intensive Journal, on reading spiritual texts. I have to find my spiritual home, with a spiritual leader that speaks to my spiritual needs. I have to find and know God within me. I have to let go of the fears that it still won't be enough. I have to know I'll be alright without a day of needing something to feel okay.

*"When you die," says the Koran, "God will call upon you to account for all the permitted pleasures you did not enjoy while on earth." The Talmud offers a similar idea: "A person will be called upon to account, on Judgment Day, for all the permitted pleasures he might have enjoyed but did not." Are there any such pleasures in your life? From Free Will Astrology

The Perils of Impulse Buying

2011-07-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, I discovered that amazon.com now allows customers with the amazon.com credit card to immediately use their points straight onto their amazon.com purchases. I had like $200 of FREE MONEY! So I immediately began making purchases. I bought 4 CDs and 1 book.

Of these 5 items:

I purchased a CD we had already burned from the library, without checking the tracklist, just because the cover looked different.
I purchased a CD without having heard the band, because I read a review of it that seemed to be exactly what I would want to listen to. AND THEN IT TOTALLY BLEW ASS. It was supposedly psychedelic shoegaze but it's just shitty synthesizer goth. I'm really weirded out by this, I don't know how the reviewer could have been so incorrect. But the bottom line is, I really don't want to listen to it. Ever. EDIT: OK not only do I not like this recording, I actually purchased the wrong recording, not the one that was recommended on the review, but a different album by the same band. Hm.
I purchased a book that was described as "acceptable" condition. It seems to have been run over, water damaged, and covered in mold. AND IT'S A BOOK ABOUT ASTHMA CARE. It's readable, but I don't want to touch it.

The other two CDs haven't arrived yet, but I do expect to love them.

I allowed myself to be taken in by the promise of free money and bought stuff without carefully considering what I was bringing into my home. FAIL! But my yoga teacher on Monday said we should always celebrate our failures, because how else can we learn? I'm learning.

Floor & Fridge & Health & Hygiene

2011-06-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law installed new flooring in my husband's childhood bedroom. It used to have a fire-engine-red carpet that my husband picked out himself - when he was 3 years old! The new floor (woodgrain laminate) looks great. But Dad didn't want to put anything back in the room! At all! Mom said that he had kept it completely empty for two weeks, and she finally convinced him to let her put the Christmas decorations inside the closet. He even wanted to keep the closet empty, he was enjoying his hard work & beautiful empty space so much! I don't blame him.

I cleaned our fridge last night. I only had to throw out one thing, a HUGE jar of "apple butter" (why do they call it butter?) that had expired with probably only 1/2 cup taken out of it. Goes to show...economy size is not always the best choice, even if it's cheapest per unit! (I know that now, but I didn't two years ago when I bought it) But I wiped down all the surfaces, lined up every item with the label facing out. And I kept wanting to look at it, haha, admire my work. But keeping the fridge open is much more foolish than keeping a bedroom empty!

In other news, you know that coconut oil deodorant recipe that's been practically viral on the internet recently? Well it SERIOUSLY works. I made Kaden smell the pits of the shirt I wore all day yesterday, and they smelled like NOTHING. It's nothing short of a miracle!

I've had success with homemade deodorant. I also have had success with the "no 'poo" haircare method. I washed my hair with nothing but water or dry arrowroot powder from Feb 9 (the very beginning of my interest in minimalism) until June 20. I decided to wash it, finally, because I became concerned that it was contributing to my allergies, and I was afraid it might smell bad to people who are unfamiliar with natural body odors. On Monday morning I washed with a paste of baking soda and Dr. Bronner's. It made my hair so fluffy!! I'll probably do that a couple times a month now, for those reasons.

Due to my successes with natural hygiene (and man, is it less expensive than "beauty products"!!), and due to my growing distrust of the medical institution/industry, I'm going to be switching to a naturopathic doctor, and trying to learn to manage my asthma and allergies through homeopathic methods. I read about something called the Buteyko breathing method, and I'm really excited to learn more and practice it. If I can manage my asthma by a breathing exercise, I will be so fucking thrilled!!

So that's what's going on with me. Kaden just asked me, across our desks at work, "So, next summer, are we going to get rid of all our possessions and take an RV to Zion National Park?" I was like, "No, we're just going to take a vacation to Zion National Park. But we can definitely get rid of more possessions! I'm into that!"

For about the last month or so, maybe a little longer, I'd loosened my grip on clutter clearing, feeling a little disillusioned with the idea of minimalism. I'm still not absolutely sure that I know what minimalism is, and I needed a break to examine my everyday relationship with the stuff I still had. Now I am easing back into it. I bought some new curtains for our bedroom. Since we moved in in October, we've had red sheers over the standard dirty-white blinds. I switched them to a barely-off-white, and they open up the room SO MUCH. I know buying NEW stuff is somewhat against the principles of clutter clearing and minimalism, but it was necessary to enjoy the space fully. I also moved some furniture in the livingroom, switched the loveseat and the record shelf, which made it really cozy, and also opened it up!

This isn't the greatest picture, but basically the loveseat is facing the window now,
where it was perpendicular to it before, and now the record shelf is fully accessible.

So I'm really happy, and had a HUGE breakthrough using Nonviolent Communication, and I'm so excited about it! This gets a little personal, but I found out among other things that Kaden really needs me to make decisions for myself, without asking his opinion or worrying about whether my choice is the same as his choice. I truly hadn't realized the extent to which I did that, or realized how that shifts responsibility for my choices onto him. I feel very happy and liberated and I am exercising my ability to make decisions already.

And I'm reading in the sun and riding my bicycle as much as I can.

Throughts on Meek's Cutoff

2011-06-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

Last night we saw Meek's Cutoff. We are big fans of the other work of the team involved, Kelly Reichardt and Jon Raymond. They also did Old Joy, and Wendy & Lucy, and J. Raymond is one of my favorite book writers. We had been anticipating seeing this movie for a couple months. It finally played at The Grand Cinema in Tacoma this week, and will be playing at The Olympia Film Society July 15-21.

I surprised myself, a lot, by what I expected from a movie. I expected the pioneers to have sex, even if it was just as a fact-of-life kind of point. And I expected the female lead's helpfullness towards an Indian to be revealed as an attraction. I consider myself a smart, skeptical viewer! Yet I expected these things, simply because that is what we are conditioned to expect from a movie, any movie. Spoiler: Meek's Cutoff is not a sexy movie.

I also found myself having to reel my thoughts in with regards to the Indian character. There is a scene where he is carrying a discarded sewing basket. I noticed myself thinking he was childlike and feminized because he was a grown man carrying a woman's sewing basket. OF COURSE he wanted to carry the sewing basket; the woman had earlier fixed his moccasin with tools from the sewing basket. It was valuable to him. I was so shocked by how I immediately made these gendered, racist judgments. And I'm glad I was able to reel it in and realize how absurd I was being.

But it brought me to the question of responsibility: If I, as a smart and skeptical viewer, had these stupid thoughts, imagine what less smart and less skeptical viewers could experience. What was the significance of the sewing basket to the filmmakers? Without being an expert on the subject, I think the Indian's role was portrayed pretty OK. I wonder if they thought of that reaction, that some of the audience would find the Indian childlike and feminized when he is carrying a sewing basket, and if they could have done anything to prevent that reaction.

Beyond these questions and concepts, the movie also brought up the futility of the Oregon Trail! WHY did anyone undertake that? I mean, as a Pacific Northwesterner, I am glad that they did - but still. Kaden said that they probably did it for the same reason people buy new, cruddy cookie-cutter homes in subdivisions today. I was floored. That makes so much sense! It's all for an idealistic dream that isn't thought through.

This obviously is not a movie review, but I will say that Meek's Cutoff is a movie unlike any other. It is likely the most "realistic" portrayal of the Oregon Trail on film. It is plodding; the characters are literally walking the entire movie. When it ended, the group of senior citizens sitting in front of us were joking, "OK, now when does the movie begin?" and they walked out telling other patrons coming in, "Don't waste your time on this one."

To Do List:

2011-06-03T08:57:00.001-07:00

To Do List, Summer 2011:

1. Read lots of entertaining books, in the sun, wearing the $1.99 bikini I got from Goodwill.

2. Clean the chrome legs of my dining table.

3. Remove everything from bedroom and thoroughly clean. Get lighter-colored window coverings.

4. Clean & paint FREE outdoor table I carried home from the side of the road last week.

5. Practice nonviolent communication and reduce household stress in every way.

6. Cook tons of good things, especially on the grill.

I love you! (Thursday)

2011-06-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

inspired by galadarling.com.

I love you Bradford Cox, for putting free downloads on your blog. You make wonderful music. I love your Christmas songs; I love listening to them in June.

I love you Nonviolent Communication class. You are so hard to put into practice, but so fascinating to explore.

I love you music writing, academic and popular. You engage me. I hope I can find some examples discussing music and class relations!

I love you dumb articles about "millennial" college graduates; the meaning of "Middle Class" is going to have to grow and change.

I love you vegan cooking. I'm thinking about actually going pescatarian; the last several times I have eaten meat it has been soooooo worthless and disappointing. But the veggie things I've cooked and eaten have been AMAZING.

I love you hypo-allergenic mattress cover.

I love you mid-century Technicolor Westerns. Thanks for always having Happy Endings!

I love you stranger-girls-I-follow-on-Tumblr. Your posts are so awesome; where do you find that shit!?

I love you Kaden Jelsing, we are going to keep having so much fun!!

Things I Love Thursday

2011-05-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

inspired by galadarling.com.

Gala writes, This week I want to really encourage you to think about what it is you love, & what you love to do. Sooooooooooo...

I love cereal.
I love organizing - I've been transferring some files (2005 and older) from downstairs filing cabinet to upstairs filing cabinet at work, and it's pretty much my favorite thing to do.
I love learning nonviolent communication.
I love interacting with people and solving problems. I've been fortunate to get to help customers lately, and brainstorm changes to our website with my co-worker. I like it sooooooo much better than being glued to my desk & computer!
I love reading fun books. I haven't done it in awhile. I need a fun book (A NOVEL).
I love wearing underwear that matches my outfit, and I'm the only one who knows!
I love creating meals that Kaden raves about. Veggies in foil packets on the grill at my parents' house = ALWAYS A HIT. I also made a bitchin tofu scramble this week.
I love this blog post Minimalist Packrat: Creating an Empty Vessel

I think that kind of helps clarify where I should take my life...

Doing Nothing!

2011-05-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am in a state of doing LOTS OF THINGS! Like in February and March! When I was taking yoga, painting, and Lent classes, going to Unity every week, and clutter clearing every freaking day! And I Loved It!

Now I am doing nothing! That's not totally true - But I LOVE IT! I am taking a Nonviolent Communication class, and I randomly got some typing jobs that are bringing in an extra like SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS this month, which just like completely blows my mind, I'm sorry to "brag" but it's just so shocking. I don't think this will be a regular thing, so it's going straaaaaaaaight to savings. But it does help buffer our vacation days. But anyway.

I'm also not flossing! I'm not keeping the house clean! I am typing in the sun and getting a sunburn! (not right now, but when I'm working on the typing jobs). We rode bikes to Sizizis, the 24-hr coffee shop, at 5:50 this morning, before work! I felt all aggressive on my bike and shit! I'm not going to yoga! I feel a little "bad" about that because I feel like it means I won't live to be 100 like my plan if I don't do yoga every week. Buuuuuuuut, if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right! I never found a yoga class I liked in Olympia, anyway. But there are more places to try; I'm not giving up I'm just taking a break.

I'm loving Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers, the band I waited my whole fucking life to hear! They're the fucking BEST. I wouldn't listen to it this morning because we listened to it for 3 days straight and I don't want to wear in my neural pathways, so I can keep being excited about it. We listened to free Atlas Sound downloads instead! Holy fuck! I love that man!

I slept on the couch for the last hour or so this morning because my snoring was keeping Kaden awake. Our couch is not a couch. It is a 52" loveseat. It was not a good place to sleep, but it was great because I never got back into deep sleep and then I was ready to hop up when the time came! And then we aggressively rode bikes on empty streets and it was so awesome! And I didn't have coffee but I drank a couple sips of Kaden's and it was Stumptown and it was all nutty and bitchin! Plus one of the dudes working was really hot (he had the biggest beard and braids) and Kaden was like "I knew you'd like him" haha.

I'll write a post about our awesome vacation someday maybe. It was like the best vacation ever and we drank the best IPAs EVER, but you can't get them anywhere but at this brewpub in Whistler. We ran and walked and ate healthfully our whole vacation. Because we're like that. Only thing we bought besides groceries was I got a $12 geode pendant and I luuuuuuuuv it.

It's been sunny this week. It feels like fucking spring/summer finally. Holy shit I hope it stays this way. I'll take a goddamn drought and the hottest summer on the books, ok? SUNBURN!

James moved back to town (temporarily?) and is coming over to drink beers tonight. I swept our back porch (concrete slab) and it looks beautiful.

ps. I'm 28 now.

April 2011 Expenses.

2011-05-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

April 2011 Spending

Here is the breakdown of my spending for April. What this chart doesn't show is that I used $368.85 more than my income (including the 33% to savings). That doesn't mean I'm in debt, but I'm still spending from what is leftover in my checking account from before I was regularly adding to my savings.

I still have a lot of gray areas that I'm not sure what to do with. For example, I spent $67 on concert tickets for a show we are going to see in August (damn u ticket master). Does that money belong in this month's expenses, or August's? I am also thinking of integrating several of the 1 and 2% categories. Maybe use "Entertainment" to cover Music, Movies, Concerts, Books. And then perhaps "Personal Care" to cover medical, clothing, classes, home, and recreation (by "recreation" I always mean "the outdoors" which equals "health" to me). Oh and I also just noticed a charge I had in there twice! Wipe $4.66 off that overspent amount! A change I made in the breakdown this month is putting "cash" in for when I get cash from an ATM (except for when I know exactly what I spent it on). I may not always have the receipt for items in this case, and it feels more effective to at least account for that money. Oh man! I also noticed I put double charges in the books area! Knock off another $24.48! This is where I will note that I didn't keep up on my spreadsheet this month and just tried to enter a dozen receipts while checking against my credit card account, and therefore entered some doubles.

Sooooo, how to spend $339 less next month? No expensive concert tickets! No clothes! I bought a pair of everyday use sneakers so that I could preserve my running shoes for running ($25 over existing Zappos credit). I bought a pair of fancy waterproof boots for next winter because they were on a fabulous sale ($49 for Clarks brand). I am very happy with the sneakers, and I know I will be happy with the boots when I want to walk in the rain next winter, to events where motorcycle boots may not be appropriate. And it's worth mentioning that I am also getting rid of 16 other pairs of shoes at this time. I probably still have more shoes than I "need," but I do wear them all with regularity (AND THEY'RE ALL "SENSIBLE"). No books; I can get books at the library. If I take that $171 off, I'm left with $168 over. I spent $135 on a bike this month, that won't be an every month expense! Only $33 over. Now I noticed that I put a $20 donation in April when it really occurred in May. $13! Well that can be remedied by less dining out, easily.

PROBLEMS SOLVED! Can't wait to see how we do in May - with 2 days less income due to a vacation. How cheap can Liina and Kaden take a 4 day vacation for????????? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT!

ps. I just said "we", but this reflects my expenses only, not Kaden's. We're married but keep our money separate.

Avi Buffalo.

2011-05-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

This morning Avi Buffalo blew my mind all over again.

Kaden first heard their Sub Pop single "What's in it for?" on the radio in Seattle last summer. He downloaded it and knew I would love it; he was right. I listened to it over and over, it basically "got me through" last shitty summer.

They are still mysterious to me. They're probably the first band I've listened to that is younger than me. (no, Screaming Females are). They were in high school when the record was made, and it has this sweetness to it. Not to be patronizing, but, it's nice. It reminds me of when I was 13 and I first heard Hanson; they're the Hanson of indie rock (NOT AN INSULT, I was the world's truest Hanson fan). It's a perfect pop album, with some psychedelic sounds. Sounds that would be better for whip-its than for getting stoned.

I was saying this morning, the best thing about it is, you hear it and you know they're never going to do anything again. But then I glanced at their website and apparently they are making a new album, so maybe I'm wrong. The girl singer quit the band to pursue a "solo career" and I bet we'll never hear from her again. Like Kelli Dayton. No one ever heard of her again after she quit Sneaker Pimps. No one ever heard of Sneaker Pimps again, either. (I'm so wrong. Who am I to pretend I know what the kids are doing these days? I'm almost 28!)

Anyway Avi Buffalo's first album is magical, especially "Can't I Know," (aka track 8), which is so dark & warm & mysterious and reminds me of basically everything. You know how it goes.

Thanks, Universe!

2011-05-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's definitely time for a Things I Love Thursday!!

Waking up happy to get up instead of wanting to stay in bed!
Being motivated to jog in the rain.
Taking a new route jogging, all around the wonderful neighborhood.
Living in a town where it's socially acceptable to turn your front lawn entirely into raised beds and start your own CSA!!!
The boss taking a vacation!
Planning nothing but free relaxation for our upcoming vacation. We're staying at Kaden's brother's condo in Whistler for free, and instead of trying to "do" everything, we're only going to go to the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver and then STAY IN ONE PLACE AND CHILL. For like 3 days. For my birthday! A week from now!
Bike riding.
Deciding to make muffins at home instead of going out for coffee on Saturday, like we have for the past several weekends.
Deciding to take a break from desperate frantic reading of decluttering books!
Deciding to take a break from like everything, including my boring old jogging route!
Plans for a date with Kaden at The Oyster House tomorrow nite, after I sell hundreds of dollars (exaggeration!) of Miller High Life Memorabilia to someone from Craigslist!
Goo & Surfer Rosa
The Small Cool 2011 contest's "Teeny Tiny" entries. SO INSPIRATIONAL! I want to move somewhere tinier right away!
Sacred discontent that guides you to new things.

ps. Fifteen days shy of Twenty-Eight Years of Age.

A note on clothing.

2011-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

I am down to 34 items hanging in my closet! When I had "fully decluttered" my closet, and purchased my wooden hangers as a "reward" (at the end of January), I had 48 items hanging in my closet. Due to the number of hangers per package, I got only 45, assuming that I'd be better off getting rid of 3 more items than having 3 empty hangers. Without even knowing it, I've eliminated 14 pieces of clothing from my closet since then! Several pieces (3 cardigans and one blouse) went out last week, when I decided to quit trying to force myself to wear them equally to the pieces I prefer.

I was really excited about it and bragging to my husband. He said he doesn't have to count, he just gets rid of whatever feels right. For me it feels right to count, it's how I'm measuring my progress.

Last night, while preparing to fold laundry, I spilled a glass of water between our bedroom dresser and a file cabinet. I didn't want the water to stay stuck under there, so I had to take all the drawers out of the dresser and move it. It was a great opportunity to clean out the dust bunnies from under there! But it was also a great thrill to see extra space in each one of the drawers. We are no longer just jamming as many clothes as we can squeeze in there. It's a depression-era waterfall dresser, in rather poor shape, and my dad has re-enforced the structure of every drawer because they kept falling apart. If we had decluttered sooner, we could have saved Dad some work! They probably wouldn't have broken if we hadn't tried to stuff so much in there!

I can't wait to continue reducing my wardrobe. I have 6 dresses and 7 skirts remaining, and whatever I haven't worn by the end of the summer is OUTTA THERE. I eliminated my one black dress (which I have worn once), since I realized I was literally only keeping it around "in case I have to go to a funeral"!!!! I have only been to 2 funerals in my life! I'll find something else nice to wear if the situation arises. I would like to have the perfect "Little Black Dress", and I'm thinking of going towards one of those fabulous, moisture wicking, wrinkle-free styles from an outdoor-wear company. My main problem is I am short (5'3"), so dresses rarely fall at the "right" place on my legs. But heck, who says there is a "right" place for a dress hem, anyway!

Clutter Emergency!

2011-05-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Clutter Emergency!

So I have this dresser/vanity/nightstand set that is pretty nice, deco-era, waterfall style. At the time of our most recent move, we decided not to bring the vanity from the set with us. A month or two ago, I decided not to use the nightstand any more.

I put them on Craigslist, and said that I might be persuaded to let go of the dresser, too, for the right price - although it is in use right now.

So someone IS interested, BUT they're mostly interested in the dresser, and wouldn't want the other pieces without it. I told Kaden, and he was like "Um, but, we're using the dresser."

IS THIS MY SIGN TO LET GO OF THE DRESSER? IF I GET RID OF THE DRESSER, WOULD I HAVE TO GET ANOTHER ONE, NEGATING "the best minimalist solution is the one you already have?"

I know only I know the answer to these questions...but any other opinions would be faaaabulous.

Dreams & Goals or Just Being.

2011-05-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

A comment by Jenny of Ex Consumer on Deb's recent blog post led me to a funny realization about myself. Jenny wrote "I can’t fathom not having dreams or goals. Perhaps someday I’ll get to the place of quiet contentment with just being." And I was like - oh - maybe that's kind of how I've always been! My dreams and goals have always been VERY vague, and especially in recent years I've felt pretty comfortable with trusting the universe. I take what I get and I like it! I have never been very goal-oriented, and I always blamed it on laziness or indecisiveness. But maybe it's not always a bad thing! Maybe it's cool to be happy where you are!

Recently, my mom told me that my sister wanted to quit her job and "take the summer off". She is 22, just finishing her 2-year degree after 4 years, and still lives with my folks, never having moved out. I was so annoyed for about a week. Who does she think she is? that's not how the real world works! I prayed to be able to accept my sister as she is. And I finally came to the realization that the choices she has made allow her to be in that position. I made different choices; I moved into my own apartment a month before my high school graduation and worked full time in fast food, because smoking weed was my priority! I don't regret my choices at all, and I'm very, very happy to have adult responsibilities! If my sister does not want to take on adult responsibilities, that's her choice to make.

Somewhat related, I began reading Your Money or Your Life in earnest (I've had it for several months). I hope it changes my life, and maybe someday I can "take the summer off", too!

I was a teenage packrat.

2011-04-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

I was a teenage packrat. And a child packrat. And an adult packrat, through the first half of my 20s.

"This is my teenage queer-feminist bedroom circa 2000 or 2001. I was a packrat among a family of packrats."
On Friday, I submitted these photos to the Teenage Bedroom tumblr site. Forty-seven people liked it or reblogged it! Of course, I feel a little validated, everyone wants their 15 nanoseconds of fame on the web, duuuuuh. And to some degree (I'm just being honest about my feelings), it feels more validating to be validated for a mess I made in high school by people obsessed with teenagers in the 90s (THERE IS A WHOLE WORLD OF THEM OUT THERE! It kinda blows my mind/amazes/fascinates me) than it does to be validated by real adults for my clutter clearing. Or not so much validating as cool. I am situated culturally/subculturally between those two groups. & I really really don't intend this to be an insult to anyone, I'm just really interested in the weird feelings I have about this particular situation!

On being an adult.
It may be cool to make a mess, but I would rather be an adult. I identify as an adult, I'm proud to be an adult and take care of myself and my home in an adult manner. I know a lot of people in my approximate age group do not, whether they are incapable of doing so, or choose not to. Of course, I am sometimes a little envious of that, people who are still out running around and going to late shows on weeknights and stuff like that. But I wouldn't trade it for getting up early and having the feeling that the world is mine. I wouldn't trade eating grease at restaurants for eating fucking amazing home cooked meals, and I wouldn't trade, oh, basically anything for the commitment I've made to DOING THE DISHES AND CLEANING THE KITCHEN every night before bed. Pretty much nothing feels better than waking up to a clean kitchen, and I'm speaking from my heart, man. Seriously.

On being a packrat.
There was no such thing as a clean kitchen when I was a kid. The kitchen sponge always smelled like ass from being left floating in a pot of food overnight, or over more than one night. I despised doing dishes, because it was so disgusting, because the dishes sat for way too long! I remember poking food bits down the drain with a knife because I was too grossed out to pick them out and throw them away.

I grew up in a family of packrats, and as a young person I never learned how to clean and I definitely never learned how to declutter. I remember making Barbie houses and leaving them up for weeks in the livingroom. I remember my mom trying to make me clean my room, when I was in kindergarten, and getting distracted playing with something I found, and her getting soooooooo mad and yelling at me. I remember screaming when I found a spider in a pile of clothes left on the floor. I remember being a little older and going on whirlwind cleaning sprees in the house and getting so mad at everyone in my family for leaving their junk everywhere, and my mom saying that I should just never clean the house if it was going to make me so mean. I remember my mom carting home a large, clear plastic display case from a garbage pile for me to display all my knick-knacks in. I remember my folks bringing musty beanbag chairs back from the dump. I remember my dad constantly yelling at my mom about CLUTTER, especially when they owned a business together, and the front office, which was totally visible from the customer entrance, was a disaster.

I'm more than a little horrified by these photos of my teenage bedroom, even if they have been validated by 47 tumblr users, but they show what a long way I've come! And it's getting better all the time. I don't have any good photos of my current bedroom; I've made a ton of changes towards minimalism since the last time I took photos. Every day I am able to let go a little more. Every day I find myself willing to part with something I always assumed I'd need to keep, for any number of reasons - the same reasons everyone who has packrat tendencies does it: I might need it, it reminds me of something special, I paid good money for it.

On consumerism.
In the summer, I'm going with my mom and my sister to visit my grandparents and my mom's family in Illinois. I wasn't able to go for about 5 years, between the time I was 19 and 24, due to work. The last two times I've been back, I've had incredible guilt, to the point of near hysteria, that we spend SO MUCH TIME SHOPPING, and barely any time with my grandparents, who are in their late 80s and early 90s - which is to say, they may not be around forever.

I was talking to Kaden, again, about how thrilled I was that I had ended my recreational consumerism, and I was going to just spend time with my family on my vacation; even if my mom and my sister spend all their time shopping, I will not. Kaden said he was so proud of me for making such a clean & quick break from blind & blatant consumerism; only a few months ago I'd go browse sale racks at Target just because I had nothing better to do. And I was like, you know why I was able to do that?

On minimalism.
It's because of the word, and the idea, MINIMALISM. Just the word and the idea, seriously, have set me free. I am also doing a ton of decluttering work, and it's not complete, but being able to put that name on what I feel has been, frankly, liberating. For years now, I've felt an underlying ickyness and guilt going to the mall, or "big box stores," or even just wasting my time looking at pretty stuff at locally owned stores. But I couldn't put my finger on why, and our society obviously promotes that behavior, so I would note that I felt icky but it wouldn't stop me from doing it again.

Now that I have minimalism in my life, I can say no to shopping as recreation or entertainment. And I can say no to collecting and displaying as identity. And I'm so fucking happy about it!

Women & Men.

2011-04-15T11:51:00.001-07:00

Most of the blogs I read are by women. I am a woman. Throughout my life, I have had mostly female friends. My husband is the only man I have had a relationship with, though I had relationships with girls when I was younger. When I tell my story to myself, I like to say, "The MC5 made me straight," and it's kind of true.

I love minimalist/simple living blogs by women. If you look at my blogroll, they're the majority. Sooooo, what I am getting at is, I just took a peek at two blogs by dudes, and they kinda lit me up, man.

http://tynan.com/living-in-a-small-rv-introduction

http://handmadebrain.com/

I have a semi-secret semi plan, and I'm going to need this kind of boost if I'm going to make it a reality! Not that the other blogs I read aren't inspiring me to change my life - and not that a woman's blog couldn't do the same thing - but these particular dude blogs are more extreme.

ps. sometimes I really just want to write something brief & journally. Here it is!

Wordpress?

2011-04-13T14:40:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking of moving this blog to Wordpress, because I feel limited in design by Blogger. Any opinions? Any success stories about moving blogs?

Records & Feelings.

2011-04-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we took a load of books to Half Price Books, where they offer you a cash amount for all the books, music, and movies you bring in. One thing I love about them is they take them all off your hands, instead of sending you back with half a box full.

Didn't Buy
I had a Waylon Jennings record in my hand. It was in excellent shape and had a couple of songs I knew on it. It was a good era of Waylon's music. Plus I believe we only have Waylon on CD, and I love his voice. It was only $1.98, and I had cash back from our trade. But I put it back. Because my life is no longer about collecting and consumerism.

Did Buy
I did buy a Betty Davis CD because Kaden and I have intended to get that CD for several years, and it was $5.98; you couldn't even buy the MP3s cheaper than that. It's good, but not quite the "deep funk" we have been interested in recently. I have not completely released my music collecting tendencies, but I thought long and hard and decided it will bring a positive contribution to our quality of life.

I did buy We Owe You Nothing, Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews, because it is great to have short articles to read. That was $2.00. And it also makes a positive contribution to our quality of life. There are interviews from Kathleen Hanna, Jody Bleyle, and Sleater-Kinney. I've only read the Jody Bleyle interview so far; it made me heavily nostalgic for a time I wasn't present during. I went back to the moaning & groaning, whyyyyyyyyy weren't we born 10 or 15 years earlier. That is always a danger, for me, in buying a book about the 90s. But it makes me feel good, that twinge of knowing it happened and it was big and it was powerful, and at least I can know about it even if I wasn't there.

Feelings
So I don't know, how do you write about that feeling? Anyone with feelings knows about it (I firmly believe that some people don't have/can't idenitfy feelings; that's OK). That feeling is kind of the crux of how I identify myself. Some of the things I love, I was there for, but more of them, I wasn't. And by things, 90% of the time I mean music. I mean music scenes and when my favorite bands were playing live, from 1926 to the present. It's the knowing it existed, and the recording still exists, and I collect the recordings to experience them as closely as I can. It makes my heart feel big. It makes my nerve receptors tingle. Even just thinking about it.

Records
Kaden's dad gave us a magnificent record player, on loan. It's a Kenwood and it sounds so much better than the Marantz we used to have. Dad is fixing the Marantz, but we secretly hope he lets us keep the Kenwood! We listened to most of Have One On Me, and the depth of sound available on the record (vs the digital files) is AMAZING, to say the least. Even J. Newsom's voice has a vastly greater range audible on the vinyl. We decided never to buy another CD; we have plenty of CDs. We are only going to buy records from now on; almost everything you could want is available on 180 gram vinyl nowadays.

When I was a kid, my parents thought it was hilarious that I preferred the sound of records to CDs. They couldn't hear a difference. They were telling this to their friend who was (still is!) a techie, and he launched into a long explanation of why this could be so. I didn't get the details at the time (I was 12 or 13), but since then, I've learned that digital reproductions of recordings reduce the range of sound available to the listener. What a fucking shame!

If you care about music, do yourself a favor and listen to records! Now that we finally have an operational record player (it has been over 6 months), I am soooooooo excited to listen to The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Zelia Barbosa, and this one song from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack!!!!!!

Good Choices!
Back to consumerism and the simple life, we decided not to see Black Angels on the day before my birthday. We are planning a big-for-us vacation next month, for my birthday. We had planned to see Black Angels at the Showbox in Seattle on a Tuesday night, then take the rest of the week off work and go to Canada. Through something I said in anger (I don't even care about seeing Black Angels!), we found out that neither of us really wanted to go! With this change in plans, we'll only take Thursday and Friday off work, and I'll get to go to my favorite yoga class in Bellingham on our way up to Canada! Furthermore, we decided to NEVER go to the Showbox again, because parking and location is soooooooo bad. We're really happy with this decision!

Simple Wedding.

2011-04-08T11:59:00.001-07:00

I realized I have never written much about our wedding. My husband, Kaden, and I have lived together for 8 years now, but we just got hitched in September. The only transition, really, was from saying "boyfriend" to saying "husband."

Engagement
It took us a long time to get around to getting married. Kaden asked me to marry him when we had been in a relationship for only 3 months - but we'd been living together as "roomies" for a few months longer, and known each other through mutual friends for a few years. In fact, we saw each other at a show when we were 17 & I always say it was Love At First Sight right then.

I had said over and over that I was "never" getting married. Furthermore, I had only had relationships with girls (I can't really say women; we were 15-20), before Kaden. When he asked, I took a very brief moment to consider, and instantly realized I could commit to spending my life with him, no problem. We were both 20 years old then, so we didn't really tell anyone because they might think we were silly or rushing into things.

Planning
We only decided to go through with it and get married the first week of August, 2010. We wanted to do it on a Saturday, and before summer was over. The 14th, my mom was out of town. The 21st was my weird-number day, and I didn't want it to be our wedding anniversary. The 28th we were going to the ocean with Kaden's family; the 4th of September was Kaden's birthday weekend. September 11th would be tacky...so we went with the very last Saturday of Summer, September 18th.

We had about 5 weeks to plan. No proooooooblem, man. We wanted simple & low-stress, and that's what we got! Having limited time to plan really helped us with that goal. Plus, we didn't have a "vision", and we were never concerned about perfection; we knew however the day unfolded would be perfect.

Keeping it Small

This photo pictures every single guest at our wedding. There are three other people we would have LOVED to have, but they all were living out of the state. Both of our parents asked us to invite other family members, but we stayed firm in our resolve to maintain a SMALL wedding. We felt like getting married was extremely personal, and we didn't want to share it with people we weren't close to. (example: my uncle who came to my college graduation party, proceeded to re-arrange all my parents' furniture, and said only three things to me: Get Your Uncle a Glass of Wine, Did You Know I am Living with a Hot 22 year old [I was also 22 at the time], When I Retired I Wanted to Become a Gynecologist).

We noted on the invitations that it was a casual event, and that no gifts were requested. Of course we got some stuff, mostly gift cards, but nothing excessive. We opened a joint savings account for any money we received. After the ceremony, we sent out Announcements to all the family and friends who hadn't come to the wedding.

Location
We had tentatively planned, for a long time, to get married at Kaden's folks' house, especially since their next door neighbor is a minister - she just has a certificate to do weddings, non-denominational. We thought it would be much better to be married by "Reverend Aunt Claire" than by a stranger. She just walked right over! We said our vows where the wedding party is standing in the photo above, which was exactly where I envisioned it. Our friend James, who we lived with for 5 years, was our main photographer, though everyone with a digital camera contributed some shots.

Ceremony
We wrote our own vows; they were really short & simple, based on Quaker vows - which we chose for their simplicity! My sister was my attendant. I wanted my parents to give me away. The ceremony was in the back yard. We went out the front door and came around the house, and I started laughing my butt off! I couldn't believe it was finally, actually, my wedding day.

The actual ceremony was extremely brief - we hadn't really rehearsed, and everything we'd planned to say ended up taking very little time. We had made funny things to say when we put the rings on each other - I put his on as a symbol to keep other women from paying him inappropriate attention; he put mine on so I would think of our love when I snag it on something. My mom said that if she had known that our ceremony would be "so funny", she would have videotaped it! A lot of people said it was the most fun wedding they'd ever been to.

Food and Other Stuff
Our folks' paid for everything, split equally between the two families. I don't know how much the grand total was, but I'm absolutely certain it was lower than an "average" American wedding!

The most expensive part of the wedding was the cake! It was even more than the room we stayed in for our (one-night-only) Honeymoon! But our friends own a bakery & we were more than happy to support their business - AND it was like the best cake ever! Almond Poppyseed! Many of our guests said it was the best wedding cake they ever had.

the top layer slid a little during transportation!
My BFF Cree & her wife Kristina (who we were living with at the time) did all the rest of the food. We just wrote up a list of all the things we wanted - cold cuts, cheese, rolls, salad, vegetables, olives & pickles - not a dinner, just easy luncheon type stuff. They did all of the prep and clean up as a gift to us. We served only Miller High Life, Miller Lite, pop and water for beverages!

My dress was only about $80 (my sister works at David's Bridal, and I got it on the discount rack), Kaden's suit is a hand-me-down from my dad, and we both wore Chucks. I found a local jeweler on Etsy, and we worked together outside of Etsy to create very simple silver rings - both for a total of $80. Mine has an aquamarine setting; Kaden's is plain. The lady who did our rings also let us cut a ton of hydrangeas from her yard! She really wanted to get rid of them! We had no cost for flowers, venue rental, minister services, photography, catering, or bar. Or invitations, announcements, and Thank You's - we work at a printing company! I did the design.

Our overnight Honeymoon was about 2.5 hours away, at a funny "resort" at a renovated Masonic Lodge/orphanage/retirement home, McMenamins Grand Lodge, and it was $125 for a King Size bed with a private bathroom.

And we did our "dance" to "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins!

Budget Breakdown.

2011-04-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

March 2011

This is the breakdown of my spending for the month of March 2011, the first month in my life that I tracked my spending. Intriguing! I'm pretty thrilled that 38% of my income went to Savings. This may not happen in April, as I have already bought a bike this month, amping up the "Recreation" percentage. I should still be able to get quite a bit into Savings. I'm also pretty thrilled that the categories of "Music" and "Clothes" were empty, and therefore do not appear on the chart.

I need to find ways to reduce my grocery bill. Kaden contributed nearly as much as I did; that puts us around $660 for groceries for one month for two people. That seems quite obscene. We do most of our shopping at our local food co-op because it's just a 5 minute walk from our house. It seems like prices aren't too much higher than at a regular grocery store, but I have not checked item-to-item. I don't think we'd change that anyway; it's worth it for the location, to support the organization which we are members of, and not have to go under the disgusting lighting of the corporate grocery store. I did spend $112 of my grocery money at Costco, purchasing large packages of items that will last several months (canned tomatoes, canned beans, soy milk, etc). I may start volunteering at the co-op to see if that can go against our bill - but it wouldn't be the same as reducing our spending. Maybe we just need to analyze and re-think our spending! I'm kind of at a loss on this one.

Making Connections.

2011-03-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

I really love the blogs that invite comments with questions. They give me an opportunity to "dig deep" and make connections that I wouldn't necessarily make on my own. This was my answer to Miss Minimalist's question: "What’s your one-sentence definition of minimalism?"

...I love what you say about “It’s uncovering who you are when all of the logos, brand names, and clutter are stripped away.” Although I have been anti-brand-name-as-status-symbol for as long as I can remember, it was a sudden realization when I read that that there are many other ways that we “brand” ourselves, through subculture, lifestyle & such. I spent a few years hiding behind my passion for mid-century vintage, thinking that made me into a certain kind of desirable person. I unthinkingly collected dresses that didn’t fit, furniture that was in poor condition, and knick-knacks that meant nothing to me aside from being funny & old.
Now that I have cleared a ton of that “vintage” clutter, I feel like my true self is able to manifest, and I no longer depend on the fragile & never-enough identity of a vintage collector. I am sooooooo much happier!

Until I was writing this, I never made the connection between my former vintage-collecting tendencies and the discomfort I felt then. There was always an imaginary competition between myself and other collectors. And there was never enough. Recreation was shopping for "something cool." There is a lot of cool old stuff out there! I could never bring it all home.

The idea of minimalism has allowed me to accept myself exactly as I am, and as I am most comfortable. I've let myself off the hook for perfection in pretty much every situation. I accept what I have; I know that my needs are met. It's wonderful.

ps. The new banner is from a monotype print I did in 2004. I like to switch up the look of this place now & again.

Different Kinds of Clutter.

2011-03-31T08:58:00.000-07:00

I am so inspired by the mini-missions on 365 Less Things! I participated in my first one last week: Different Kinds of Clutter. At first I was all pumped up to take photos of every item I decluttered, but almost immediately began to lose steam, repelled by the thought of giving these items any more of my time and energy. So, I made lists instead.

Many days I decluttered from more than one category.

Monday: Outgrown

Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life. This is essentially the first clutter clearing book I purchased, shortly before or shortly after I moved out for the first time when I was barely 18. It's a funny, accessible, westernized feng-shui book. It really enabled me to be aware of my surroundings and analyze symbols around me (ex: Roommate is a junkie? Take down the front & center Kurt Cobain poster in the livingroom!). It has been almost 10 years since I first moved out, and my understanding of home and possessions has changed greatly. I don't believe this book has any more to offer me.

Also: string of fake red peppers, owl potholder, 70s mushroom potholder. All of these were "decorating" the alcove by my kitchen stove. Over it.

Tuesday: Guilt

Cowboy Boots and Western Shirt. So I had like the coolest, beat up, vintage Justin cowboy boots. But I never wear them because they are too big and uncomfortable to walk in. I walk all over town. There is really no point in keeping shoes I can't walk in; I'm working on it. I used to wear them to walk to the bars on weekend nights, but I don't know how. I guess drinking had something to do with it, ha ha. I also had a really great vintage LADIES CUT western shirt with pearl snaps. I held onto it because they are so hard to find. But it wasn't really my style; a little too formal. That was one of those items that I thought about and thought about getting rid of until I had complete distaste for it.

I also got rid of:

Unwanted gift: fuzzy socks
Purchase Regret: black skinny jeans (look great, feel great, not my style), New Balance running shoes (same model that I loved, feel different), IKEA hanging lamp that didn't fit in the space I envisioned it.
Lifestyle Change: Extra blankets and pillows (one is my childhood blanket. I remember exactly how it feels but I will never use it again), orange chucks, my favorite in high school, and a very special gift from my BFF before they made chucks in every color of the rainbow. But, too loud for me now.
Obligation: Paper shredder (everybody needs one!), toy record player without a needle (it's so cool!)
Outgrown: A panel of psychedelic orange fabric. This may be in the wrong category; I have another panel of it that I'm actually using in decorating right now!

Wednesday: Sentimental

2 macrame necklaces made by my aunt, for my mom, in the 60s & 70s, which I used to wear when I was in middle school. My mom was getting rid of these and I "rescued" them...only a month or so ago. But I got realistic: 14 years later, it's not my style. They were very cool though, and I sold them to a used clothing store.

Thursday: Unwanted Gift

Fancy soap that Kaden hates the smell of.

Purchase regret: cheap fleece coat which I got just because it was $3.49 at Target, shortly before I changed my consumer habits. I figured it would be good for camping. But I already have everything I need for camping.
Life Change: windchimes, Organizing from the Inside Out book. I never could get through that book, and I have since found clutter clearing & organizing resources that are more suited to my needs.
Outgrown: 8 DVDs
Obligation: Wedding cards with no special messages; Robert Frost poetry book that belonged to my late aunt.

Friday: Purchase Regret

Fancy Houndstooth coat. It was blue and gray houndstooth, which never matched anything, and I never wore it because it was too fancy. I gave it to my friend Brandy who loved it!

Saturday: Lifestyle Change

String Lights along the perimeter of the bedroom ceiling. I loved using these in my last bedroom, the tiny one in my BFF's house. But I've rarely even plugged them in at our current house, and having all those wires hanging from the ceiling is oppressive.

Sunday: Obligation

Admittedly, I did not *actually* get rid of these items (or, truthfully, MOST OF THE OTHERS MENTIONED - they're in my "get rid of" pile). We were going to truck them to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, but it was raining too much.

Vanity and nightstand. These are from a fairly beat up but fairly cool depression-era deco/waterfall set. We still use the dresser, but the vanity and nightstand are over in my folks' shed. I felt obligated to keep the set together, in case I ever wanted to sell it. Well, I'm still using the dresser, so I don't want to sell the whole set. But I'm definitely NOT using the other two pieces, and since I only intend to continue living in smaller & smaller homes, I don't think I will use them again. Habitat for Humanity is a charity I really support, so I am happy to donate them there (so much easier than selling!), and someone will SCORE!

Thanks Colleen for the motivation! See how much I got done? At least 38 items removed in a week - and I'm fairly certain there were more that I didn't record!

Being Quiet.

2011-03-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

I have given a lot of thought to a blog post on Be More with Less, If Less is Good, More is Better.*

Lately, there has been a lot of stress in my husband's life. He is working full time with a 45 minute commute, working on his Master's Thesis, training for a half-marathon, committed to weightlifting workouts, and he wants to cook amazing healthful meals every night. Thus, he feels like he never has time. As one might imagine, this stress is hard on our relationship. I am working really hard on being responsible for my mood, on letting things go, on not having to be right - and it's tough stuff! I do not always succeed.

I've evaluated what I can do to help him. The commute isn't going to change at this time. He is committed to his training and exercise routines. He won't let me cook, because he has visions of perfect meals (and he can execute them!), and cooking is relaxing and satisfying to him.

But I can help by cleaning the kitchen after he cooks, and that has become something I really love and look forward to. I feel like that sounds absolutely insane, who loves to clean the kitchen!? It's a part of my night time routine, it is methodical and it is a task that can be followed through to completion in one session. Plus I get to take out the food waste and see what the evening weather is like. Being in the kitchen at night, listening to the radio, cleaning up, is my sacred time.

And I can help with his thesis by giving him quiet time and space. For several weeks at the beginning of the year, I spent one night a weekend at my folks' or my BFF's house, so he could really get into the work. The other day he mentioned that he can't work with my "annoying chatter" (he didn't mean it to be as rude as it sounds!). I brought that back to the concepts in the post mentioned above. Maybe I don't need to tell him every fleeting thought that interests me. Later, I was telling him a story about my mom comparing drastically different prices for the same item at different stores. It was really interesting to me! But he let me know that it didn't interest him in the least. I began to explore whether repeating that story is worthwhile. Am I just wasting my time making a negative judgment about a Big Box store?

Now, we are trying something new at our house. Quiet Time! For an hour every evening, on the nights I don't have a class, we are having quiet reading time, where we don't speak. When I was reading Foucault: A Short Introduction on the weekend, I realized just how hard it is to focus on serious reading when someone is targeting you with "annoying chatter." We tried out Quiet Time for the first time last night, and it was actually sort of intimate, being together without the weight of contemplating outside stories or information. We went all the way from work, through the evening and to bed, without an argument. SCORE! This might be a huge part of the solution to our stress problems. I'm really thrilled.

* Although it is a little off-topic from the rest of my post, I wanted to share my response to the If Less is Good... post:

The Gossip Less and Judge Less points are extremely valuable to me right now. I finally made the connection last night between the all the gossiping and judging that my husband and I do together towards others, and how we frequently inaccurately perceive judgments from one another. Does that make sense? I always feel like he is negatively judging me, though he tells me he isn’t – and I’m sure it’s a result of how often we are judging and gossiping about others together. It’s a bad habit that for a long time I assumed was just “a part of who I am.” Usually there isn’t any real anger or disgust there, and I often justify it by claiming I am only making observations. I want to cut it out of my thoughts and actions and replace it with love & compassion. I have used gossip and judgment to get positive feedback from others who I desire approval from – usually a laugh, or admiration/shock that *I’m* the one who’ll say what others won’t. Not the best way to get attention.

Making Space.

2011-03-28T08:49:00.001-07:00

In a previous post, I described how through my work decluttering, I was making space for a surprise from the Universe.

Surprise!

Guess what I found!

I found myself able to read a serious book! I have never been able to read a serious book before!

I know that sounds kind of silly, but it's true. I read fiction, memoirs, true crime, and decluttering books, but nothing, like, academic. I have a BA, but I swear I never read any one assigned book in its entirety. I went to The Evergreen State College and took Women's Studies classes - all you have to do is say & know "The Personal is the Political" - which I do believe to be absolutely true - and write about how it feels to be a woman. And I think this is a worthy pursuit! But it didn't require reading a whole book. And I took drawing classes, which were awesome and changed my life but also did not require reading.

I have put in the decluttering work for REAL this time. I've done it before, several times before, but this time I feel like it is more real and more lasting. Thanks to all the fabulous minimalist/simple living blogs I've enjoyed, I now understand that decluttering has an essential second step - changing consumer habits. You can send out as much stuff as you like, but until you also stop bringing it in, the clutter situation can't fully transform.

I have found time and space like I never dreamed possible. It's not like I used to spend all my time dusting my gew-gaws or anything; I didn't find time that way. It just showed up!

How can it be that getting rid of stuff creates time? I don't know! It's like magic!

And so, I found myself able to begin reading Foucault: A Very Short Introduction. I had to go out and buy a dictionary - we didn't have one. But when I brought it in I tossed out the same-sized Reader's Digest Book of Home Remedies ha ha. I went to a used bookstore and the clerk helped me find a Merriam-Webster's. He told me that Webster's isn't a brand, it's a style, and that Merriam's is the best.

I sat down for portions of every day this weekend and I read that serious book, and I actually USED the dictionary when I came across an unfamiliar word, instead of glossing over it and trying to guess what was being said. Several times I was really surprised by the true meaning of the word, different than I assumed. So it was really valuable to use the dictionary!

Honestly, I have never had this kind of discipline. I'm blowing my own mind. And I know in my heart it is because I have done the decluttering work. I have so much less guilt and weight on my mind, there is space for learning for the first time.

Wow.

Wardrobe: Before & After.

2011-03-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

First I'd like to mention: whomever "Anonymous" is commenting, I want to say thanks for all the comments & compliments!

Now onto the content - the contents of the closets! I did a MAJOR overhaul of my wardrobe in the past couple months. I've written about it HERE & earlier HERE.

BEFORE: Hers & His

AFTER: Hers & His

And just for fun, here's all the stuff we've decluttered in about a 2 week time frame!
Now we've gotta get it out of the house...

Hahaha, Movie Monsters, Fly by Night, Romy & Michelle...

Oh and for even more fun, here are the home made English Muffins that Kaden hand-crafted!

ps. got tired of that green/yellow background. Trying something lighter!

This is Love!

2011-03-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am participating in Gala Darling's Things I Love Thursday this week! I have a lot to love...

I love Unity's Daily Word. I read it every day, and it is wonderful inspiration. I also have a little Lent booklet that I've been reading every day, along with the daily studies in "Keeping a True Lent" by Charles Fillmore.

I love synchronicity, where things I read in "Keeping a True Lent", or in minimalist/simple living blogs, reflect the work I am doing in my life right now.

I love the 365 Less Things blog. It's run by a woman named Colleen who is getting rid of (at least) one material item every day. I love this concept! Every Monday she posts "mini missions" (what a great phrase!). This week she posted a list of daily motivators for clutter clearing - Monday get rid of something outgrown, Tuesday something you feel guilty about, etc. I am so excited by this idea. I've done it every day this week. It's a fantastic push to re-examine something you've over-looked, assuming it was going to stay put! I am going to do a post about my findings next Monday.

I love opening up. I love that just a loving focus can allow the opening up, in places and with ideas that I never even imagined possible for me. Through clutter clearing and Unity teaching, I am discovering that which always has been, and it is awesome. I am having realizations and making plans that only days ago I pushed aside as impractical, or not fitting me. I am learning that there are no limitations to Good.

Shifting gears, I also LOVE THE FROGS. Apparently All Tomorrow's Parties, curated by Animal Collective (I'm not a fan; Kaden is) features The Frogs playing the whole album "It's Only Right and Natural" - the weekend of my birthday! Now if I had known that several months ago, maybe maybe we really could have gone to Europe. But we don't have passports so it's an impossibility - but I STILL LOVE THAT IT'S HAPPENING.

I also love Sonic Youth's "most recent" album (though almost 2 years old), "The Eternal". It's devoid of the creepy melancholy of their previous several albums, which I love but are usually too dark for me to enjoy. "The Eternal" is joyful, and it's good, and it's almost like a younger band emulating Sonic Youth. I like it.

ps. oh and also, when Kaden came in from his jog this morning - it was still dark - he SMELLED like Spring! I also noticed this when I came out of my class at Unity last night - it SMELLS GOOD outside!

Something AWESOME!

2011-03-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to get straight to the exciting part: Last month, my credit card bill (which I pay off every month) was $1,400.00. This month, my credit card bill is $48. SERIOUSLY! To be completely fair, I didn't pay my bill until March 2, and the original bill was $1,095.00, and my current amount is $70. Furthermore, I had $99 in returns to zappos.com paying part of my current bill. BUT STILL. Even going from $1000 to $170 is pretty fucking fantastic.

I want to thank everyone in the awesome, supportive, creative, talented, and honest minimalist/simple living community for this change! I have read a ton of blogs in the past month, uncovering fabulous stories of curbing consumerism and clearing clutter. And it has made a HUGE change in my spending! I wasn't even expecting this, at all. It's really kind of blowing my mind that my credit card bill was $48. This doesn't include rent or bills, or cash or check purchases, but STILL.

Since the beginning of March, I have been tracking my spending, for the first time. I had planned to do this since the beginning of January, but I wasn't sure how to do it, and saving 2 months of receipts then trying to sort and record them was too complicated.

On my first visit to ExConsumer, I found Jenny's awesome Free Budgeting Template for Excel (see her sidebar). It was exactly what I had been trying so sort out in a notebook, but for Excel! Which is so much easier to use than a spiral notebook. I then created a customized breakdown for the very specific areas I spend in. I also found an Excel template for personal finance on the Microsoft Office site. I have all 3 pages in an Excel document, and I input my receipts every morning at work.

It's the 22nd of the month, and, according to my Excel Budget, I've spent 75% of my first paycheck. I have a second one in I haven't entered yet; I also haven't put rent into the system. I still have a lot of stuff I'm tripping up on: rent, for instance - does it go in at the beginning of the month, since I'm paying ahead for the month of March, or does it go in when I actually write the check for next month's rent, at the end of the month? I'm also stuck on stuff like classes, and prescriptions: I pay ahead for 8 yoga classes; I buy 6 months of my (asthma) prescription at a time. Do I separate these into the weekly/monthly amounts, or record the whole amount at time of payment? I'd love advice or resources on these questions!

Compact Discs: Not so Compact.

2011-03-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm really intrigued by something I went through last night.

We are giving away our 50 disc CD player. I received it, used, as a high school graduation gift from my parents. It has been well-loved in the past 10 years, and it's still in great condition. However, there was no reason in the world that we needed a 50 disc CD player! If we want to listen to a CD, we can plug Kaden's laptop into the stereo.

I was replacing the 50 CDs from the player into their rightful cases. It is likely that some have not been played since we lived in Bellingham, as we didn't empty it out when we moved. We have two IKEA shelving units that supposedly hold a total of 360 CDs. We also have a single-layer and double-layer box of CDs in the bedroom closet. I would estimate this to total around 500 CDs. (and of course, that doesn't include burned CDs).

cd collection, spring 2008, Legion Way. Note that the record on the floor is not playable.
Even when we were beer drinkers/hell raisers, we never treated good records that way!

We only ever listen to Free Radio Olympia, KAOS, or Kaden's iTunes.

When I began putting CDs in their cases, then into the boxes, I loved them all. I loved them ALL. I even loved all of Kaden's CDs that he had before we moved in together (8 years ago), that I had never heard. Their spines, their names, their colors are familiar to me. I should listen to every one of these, all the way through, I thought.

cd collection, spring 2010, Bellingham
I purchased another IKEA shelf, same size and style, last month. But then we decided we didn't need it; it made more sense to go through the CDs we have, get rid of some, and store some, leaving out no more than the 360 on the existing shelves. Luckily our friend Brianna was interested in buying it off me, so I didn't have to drive an hour and a half to return it, or put it on Craigslist. Yet when I unearthed the boxes of CDs from the bedroom closet - I didn't want to get rid of any. It didn't feel to me like a paralysis of action because the amount was overwhelming (though it kind of is), but it did feel like identifying with my possessions.

cd collection (partial) on IKEA shelving, current

So I am interested in this feeling; I am curious. I am non-judgmental, and intrigued. I love those CDs.

I care about music more than just about anything, but that is different from loving CDs. I can enjoy music whether it is on the radio, a live concert, on a static-filled mix tape, or playing in the grocery store. There is so much music in the world that I haven't heard and it's so exciting and awful at the same time. What if I miss something? What if I forget the name of a band I meant to check out?

I told Kaden a bit about my affectionate feelings; he said I shouldn't force myself to get rid of anything I don't want to, and I certainly won't! We have only very recently begun using an (old, used) iPod, and it really does change one's relationship to music. If all these CDs were just digital, I don't think I'd give a shit about them. Digital music isn't tangible to me. I wouldn't, couldn't, look at the titles on a computer screen and feel love. I haven't voluntarily listened to music in weeks - it is there, and I enjoy it - but I don't choose it.

I don't know where all the CDs will end up, but I am pretty excited to explore this big area of "stuff" and my feelings about it.

My favorite table.

2011-03-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

I love having a dining room table. Mine is chrome & formica, likely from the early 60s. It's pretty unique; I've only seen one photo of a similar formica.

I got it for $25 after my parents' long-time next door neighbor died. The man who bought the property was tearing down the house and getting rid of everything inside. I was die-hard into mid-century kitsch at the time, and $25 was a steal. It came with two white vinyl & chrome chairs, too, but they were in very poor shape. I didn't keep them (I had about 8 mid-century chrome and vinyl chairs at one point), but I sorta wish I had, now that I know I can clean up and recover chairs! C'est la vie.

The table is my favorite, most versatile area of our home. I am so surprised by how many people in the minimalist world choose not to have a table. I would choose a table over a couch, an easy chair, or a desk. We use our table for everything. It's where we eat. Where we read. Where Kaden works on his thesis. Where we pay bills. Where we congregate when we have folks over. Where we drink beers and talk some talk. And it has been in the last few homes we've lived in. Even when we were living with Cree and Kristina, we were hanging out at their kitchen table every night while they ate and did homework in the livingroom in front of the tv.

There is always room for the table.

When we were in high school, Cree's mom moved to a new house, and there was already a kitchen table in the kitchen. The first night, after helping move, we sat at the table, shooting the breeze. I remember feeling so firmly, and expressing, that a kitchen table is the best place to be. Later in high school, when we had parties and would be drinking and smoking at the same table, I still felt the same.

Cree and I moved to an apartment together shortly before high school graduation. I wanted a table so badly; I hated eating on my lap on the couch. Some other friends expressed that that was how they preferred to eat. Eating at a table felt formal and uncomfortable to them. My attachment to table eating may possibly have something to do with my being a messy eater, but I prefer to think it's because my family sat down to dinner together every night while I was growing up (they don't any more; the table is usually covered in crap, but that's a different story!). When we visit Kaden's folks, we always sit at the table for hours after dinner, chatting, Kaden's dad playing records.

A table is essential to my home life. No matter how tiny of a house we end up with or how minimalist we may become, the table will be the heart of the home.

(1. at my current house. 2. close up of formica. 3. at my Legion Way house, 2008. 4. Bellingham, 2010. 5. Legion Way, 2008.)

Slow living.

2011-03-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

The other night I was freaking for the 100x about how I don't understand how anyone has time to watch tv. I really don't! We haven't had cable tv in over 8 years, and haven't even had a tv off and on over that time, and we don't have one now. We use the netflix plan where you get 2 DVDs per month. We barely make it through that. We don't have internet at home, either.

Where do people find that kind of time? I asked Kaden.

I can't remember exactly what his words were. I could make something up for the sake of a good story, but I prefer not to put words in his mouth. He pointed out that our lifestyle is different from people who spend several hours a day watching tv. We walk most places (except to work, which is a 30-45 min drive away). We cook nearly all of our meals, only going out to eat once or twice a month. He is working on his Master's Thesis and I take a handful of classes - all are within a half-hour's walking distance (painting, yoga, and I'm starting a class on the book "Keeping a True Lent" at Unity next week). We spend the rest of our spare time reading.

For some time, I have admired the idea of slow living but always assumed it was something I couldn't do. Suddenly it has become something that I am doing, without even realizing it!

What a pleasant surprise!

This all being said, I am looking forward to the weekend. We have plans to go to my folks' house and watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with my sister and her boyfriend. I did that with them a month or so ago, and it was one of the most fun & relaxing things I've done recently! It's comforting that those shows are a constant in our society.

Do what you say you're going to do.

2011-03-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

Sometime over the past several months, I read something, somewhere, about how the quality the writer most admired in people was when they said they would do something AND DID IT.

I have tended towards the "wishy washy" for as long as I can remember, and it has seemed to worsen with age: the fear of not making the best decision, the most perfect plan for everyone involved, has caused me to agonize over choices, causing stress on myself and everyone I invite/implore to help me decide.

Last night, my BFF had invited me to a micro-brewery event, and I thought it was at the restaurant where she works. Last night was also the Ash Wednesday Service at Unity of Olympia, and I had planned to go to that for a few weeks. I didn't want to break my commitment to myself, but I wanted to see my homies - a lot of them work weekends and can't hang out, while I work weekdays. I came up with a brilliant solution: I would do both! It would keep me up past my bedtime, but I value being flexible, within reason. After a wonderful service (which I may write more about, if I feel like getting personal in the near future) I arrived at my BFF's restaurant and there were like no cars in the parking lot. So I discovered the event was actually at the restaurant where her wife works, which is another 15 minutes away, putting me at a half-hour drive home after hanging out.

For a few moments I thought I might give it up and go home, apologizing for wimping out on my plans to hang out once again. I had to make a decision.

But maybe it didn't have to be the best decision; maybe I didn't have to sit in the dark parking lot hemming & hawing over the pros and cons. Maybe I could just DO what I said I was going to DO in the first place.

I followed through on my commitment and went out to the brewery event. I hung out with my peeps, drank 1/3 of 1 beer, and had some good laughs. I got to bed more than an hour and a half "late", but I feel so good about doing what I said I was going to do!

It hadn't occurred to me before that part of simplifying life can (and likely SHOULD!) mean making fewer decisions. I am so excited about it! It makes life easier for everyone, especially myself. With this new plan, I will find the agony of making the "right" choice greatly diminishing in the near future!

I like to rent.

2011-03-08T10:45:00.001-08:00

For years, I used to dream dream dream of owning my own home! The American dream! A place where I can paint and remodel and make nail holes in wherever and whenever I want! I looked through every home decorating book I could get my hands on, pored over home decorating websites, and even purchased a few of my favorite books.

I began to question this dream a couple of years ago, when my parents' property tax increased 200% in one year. I continued to question it when my BFF and her wife bought their first home and had to follow the rules of the Homeowner's Association. I questioned further when we were planning to build onto my parents' home, and there were so many absurd rules about what and where you can and can't build on your own property (note: generally I support such rules for safety and environmental reasons, but some of them seemed pretty unreasonable).

Kaden and I are happy renting. It's cheaper than paying a mortgage. If repairs need to be done, our landlord takes care of it. While I love the idea of being a self-sufficient in home repair, I feel blessed that there will be no surprises for my bank account if something breaks. And while I don't know for certain, I feel pretty confident that my $12/month renter's insurance is cheaper than homeowner's would be.

When we got married, Kaden and I opened a joint savings account (we don't combine our incomes). We're not saving to buy a home, as I once thought we would be, but to buy some LAND! Some land somewhere awesome (middle of nowhere, Pacific Northwest) so we can vacation there! Kaden's long-time dream has been to build a log cabin with his own hands - and I know he can do it because he is a dedicated, driven person. I still have a little fantasy of customizing an Airstream Trailer, or better yet, a school bus.

We've decided to take the maximum winter power bill and continue setting aside that much money per month, and when it gets warmer, anything not going to electricity will go into our joint savings.

We're really happy with this new plan. It also makes renting feel less temporary.

A Link.

2011-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

OK, this blog post I just read is fucking amazing. It brought a tear to my eye in self-recognition. It is EXACTLY what I need to read RIGHT NOW.

I hope whomever clicks on this will also be blown away.

Access Your Power by Danielle LaPorte.

I'm not clutter clearing because something was wrong before. I am clutter clearing to access my power. My dissatisfying wardrobe did not reflect a failure as a woman - but through its improvement, I have accessed power - the power to put my clothes away with ease, because there is room for all of them; the power to choose an outfit quickly and use more time on important stuff.

I am seeing this so clearly in so many areas of my life. What a thrill! To cite a very personal example...I am not accessing power when I ask Kaden if he has washed his hands and it drives a wedge between us. I can access power by letting it go.

Any way in particular.

2011-03-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

Deb at Life Beyond Stuff replied to a comment I left on her blog with a pretty amazing question:

Is there any way in particular that you would like your life to change?

I don't think anyone has ever asked me that. I don't think I have asked myself.

The short answer is: No.

There is not any way in particular that I would like my life to change. But I am totally excited to do the work that makes space for something new, something I hadn't imagined or dreamed of. I'm clutter clearing, streamlining my home life, to make space for a surprise.

I'm happy, but I know that I'm not living up to my full potential.

I'm happy with my husband, my house, my town, my family, my friends, my spiritual community, even my job.

Yet I know I could do more, be more. I am making space for that. I am making space and doing work. I am currently enrolled in a Parks & Rec acrylic painting class (I've never painted before). I am becoming more and more involved with the Unity of Olympia community; I will be studying Keep a True Lent with a group during the Lent season, starting next week. I have some little dreams and some big ones (respectively: building a silkscreen kit & going back to school for Gender Studies).

Kaden and I are making exciting changes in our lifestyle. Many have evolved quite naturally - we are more physically active and have healthier diets than anyone ever would have predicted when we were beer drinkers/hell raisers/stoners. We just this morning decided that we will no longer give each other material gifts for birthdays and holidays; we'll DO STUFF, go places, have experiences. I've also, very recently, begun tracking my expenses and creating a budget, and balancing my checkbook. It allows me to feel in control of my funds, not just floating around vaguely knowing "I have enough money" and throwing a handful into my savings account when I think of it.

This summer, when we first moved home to Olympia from Bellingham, I felt absolutely out of control. We were staying with friends while "planning" to build a small addition onto my parents' house, like an apartment. I was back at the job I left to move to Bellingham, and Kaden wasn't working at all (he later came back to work there, too). We had to start new bank accounts. We weren't even married yet, and didn't have plans to be. Most of our stuff was stored in a shed, or in piles in our friends' garage. I was really unsettled and upset for a long time. Things evolved into the situation we are in now, and it is good. The change I didn't know I wanted to make then, but am working at now, is taking control of my life. I have started by decluttering. I feel like the past month of heavily overhauling my wardrobe and generally decluttering other areas of our home have completely shifted my attitude. I don't feel like I'm floating along, grabbing at things, hoping they're the right ones. I am choosing a path through rejection of extraneous stuff.

That said: I have never known what I want. I have always accepted what the Universe/God gives me. I like it this way; I believe this works well for me. I don't know what I want to change, in particular. I want to be ready for anything.

ps. We got our Enhanced Driver's Licenses this weekend! We got there right when the DOL opened, and with waiting, it took an hour and a half. Now we can go to Canada! One New Year's Goal CHECKED OFF.

"Unstuff Your Life"

2011-03-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Unstuff Your Life. It has pretty great customer reviews on amazon.com; I sort of bought it on a whim when I re-ignited my interest in clutter clearing and began considering minimalism for the first time, about a month ago.

At first I felt like it was too rudimentary for me: I already have an effective "home" for my keys and purse, and I get too little mail to apply the author's sorting system.

The next section is about the kitchen. I pretty much had a "lightbulb" moment reading that chapter: We organized our kitchen backwards when we moved in! The food is on the same side as the stove, and the cookware opposite! DUH! All we do is go back & forth moving things from one side to the other! Plus our microwave took up the largest section of usable counter space, while no-mans-land areas underneath corner cabinets were empty. Last night I began the reversal. I switched the microwave and the espresso machine. It looks amazing! It looks so good! I can't even believe what a difference it makes!

Soooooo, if this book can allow me to look at all of my rooms in this manner...it's totally worth dragging through instructions on how to create a habit of putting your keys in a dish. I really like the dish we keep our keys in (by the front door), it's a pink vintage saucer with gold trim. Which totally doesn't sound like me; maybe that's why I like it so much.

I have also gotten rid of a TON more stuff, and I'm just all-around thrilled. More to get-rid-of this weekend! Hopefully the animal shelter will be open so we can donate old towels! We had like 12. For 2 people. Absurd! I'm also getting rid of a film-camera (got some old film out of it! Can't wait to see what it is!), some kitchen utensils, some more clothes (everything that requires ironing), a working vacuum cleaner that no one seems to want even for free...

Maybe I'll take pictures some day. I got a new haircut almost a month ago and haven't taken *any* pictures of it yet!

Thursday = Luv

2011-03-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

The things I love this week are almost all a part of, like, um, setting myself free through self-discipline? I mean, it totally makes sense! It's like removing a barrier of worry that prevents you from being your best! I feel so in control of my life just from balancing my checkbook.

I feel awesome about...

Having a balanced checkbook for the first time since July!

Making a budget and tracking expenses for the first time!!

Getting up at 5 a.m. to declutter my stationery!

Making the commitment to get up at 5 a.m. every morning til it's habit!

Looking forward to...

Baking for Unity on Saturday night.

Going to a lecture about the rights of psychiatric patients.

Getting rid of a ton of stuff through donation this weekend.

Pretty pumped about life in general.

NOTE: My Free Will Horoscope says I should be partying this week! The exact opposite of what is satisfying to me right now, ha ha.

Things I Luv

2011-02-24T09:34:00.001-08:00

My husband, Kaden. He says shit like "I need some more rare old-time string band music", and hand-crafts English Muffins from his own sourdough starter, which he coddled and fed all week. DAMN. Am I lucky or what?

I love love love decluttering and organizing. It is absolutely my favorite thing to do. What if I complete it? Hahaha, no, there is always something more to get rid of! And then there is my parents' whole home & property with multiple sheds. Yesssssss.

Minimalist Blogs. Enjoying the stories & concepts so much.

"Nightmare" by Artie Shaw b/w George Strait's "Amarillo by Morning". I LOVE my musical life. We just started using an iPod for the first time, and it is both funny, cool, and annoying what it chooses to play of the 1116 songs that are on it.

Free Radio Olympia. Oooooh I love it. Probably about 75% of what they play I haven't heard before, and 90% of it is good. I LOVE how they mix up old-timey, psychedelic, hardcore, old-school rap, lo-fi electronic, riot grrrl...ALL OF IT. It's the same way we play music, only different songs. I listen to it every night while I'm in the kitchen cooking and/or cleaning.

Always decluttering.

2011-02-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

Last night I did the kitchen - food shelves, "junk drawer", utensil drawer, and freezer. There is no more JUNK DRAWER, yessssssss. It is now actually a kitchen drawer, with food wrap & baggies, and a few additional utensils. I relocated stuff that would be more effective elsewhere - Kaden's grandpa's old pipe, pens and pencils, duct tape, a big nasty folding knife my dad gave us. I also got rid of some stuff, like the excess of match books, and all of the yucky beige rubber bands, keeping only the neon colored ones haha. The work I did was mostly organizing, though I did get rid of a lot of utensils, and a couple of stale/mystery items in the cupboard and freezer. I also got rid of a couple of towels and a silly vintage apron that I definitely will never utilize.

Then I did my shoes - only getting rid of 3 pairs, but my shoe collection is not extreme to begin with, and I do wear all of them. Upon sweeping out the front closet (where shoes are kept), I realized we don't need a vacuum cleaner! We have hardwood floors, and if we ever have carpet again, we can purchase a vacuum we like. Kaden hated the one we have. So I'm trying to give it away for free on Facebook. If none of my friends want it for free, I'll try to sell it on Craigslist for a couple bucks.

Decluttering

2011-02-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

I almost never remember to take "before and after" photos of projects I work on. But I have been working in almost all my spare time last week and weekend on decluttering - either in my home or my folks' (minus the part on Sunday where I got stoned with Cree for the first time in several years!!).

On Saturday Kaden and I got rid of SO MUCH STUFF. We had huge piles of "get rid of"s". I managed to stuff a TON of clothes into my backpacking backpack (I wish I'd taken a picture of the volume of clothes that I rolled up and fit in there!), and Kaden did the same, and we hiked (ha ha) down to Dumpster Values. Kaden got $26 in credit and I got $16. They didn't take all my stuff (but they did take a tye-dyed maxi dress, my mom's from the 60s, that I used to wear in 4th grade...) so I left a bunch of it in the Books for Prisoners charity donation pile. Earlier in the day I donated a big bag of clothes to St. Vincent de Paul. I also took a load to Goodwill in the evening.

My plan was to "reward" my wardrobe reduction with wooden hangers. I happened to go to Ikea (an hour away) a few days before I could complete the "getting rid of" phase of my closet clearing, so I purchased 48 wooden hangers based on a 45-item count. By the time I got to hanging them, I was down to 38 items in my closet, so the remaining 10 went into my coat closet (I live in Washington State. I need all manner of coats). Changing out all of my hangers allowed us to have enough remaining white plastic hangers that I got to change out all of Kaden's clothes AND coats onto white hangers! I got rid of - damn, I should have counted! - MANY UGLY UGLY PLASTIC HANGERS in nice 90s shades like hot pink, peach, mauve, turquoise...and the most revolting PURPLE ever. I organized them all by color before trucking them over to Goodwill, ha ha. Kaden walked by and said they were so gross. Which I agreed. They were kind of grossing me out. I fucking love our new closets and maybe I will remember to take & post photos this week!

We now have two huuuuuge stacks of books to take to Half Price Books this weekend. There are, like, empty spaces on our bookshelves (!!!). Unbelievable.

Another pretty amazing thing I did, unaided by any written guides, is declutter my keepsake box. I eliminated my night stand, which had a tiny drawer with keepsakes. In addition, I used to have two keepsake boxes, but reduced to one in the fall. I managed to get rid of a bunch more stuff...buttons I made at the fair when I was a kid, a teeny tiny plastic Cabbage Patch figurine, a "Barbie cat food" hahahaha, and, strangely - strangely as in I am probably the only person in the world to have something like this - two mini-jars of water, rain runoff from the roof of my house, that Cree & I caught in drinking cups, out of my bedroom window, on my 13th birthday. I had saved mini-jars of water FOR ALMOST 15 YEARS. I had taken them with me from my parents' house to my first apartment, my dorm, my second apartment, two houses I lived in with Kaden and James, Bellingham, Cree's house, and the house we are living in now. I dumped them down the bathroom sink, without ceremony. I threw out one jar because the lid was moldy. The other one was perfectly clean so I saved it to put bulk spices in.

So...I'm thrilled!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I did a bunch of organizing at my parents' house. I organized a huge mixed-up stack of paperwork, receipts, coupons, and requests for donations that was smothering a loaf of french bread on the kitchen counter. I organized the pantry ("If you can't find something, just look for something else similar to it"...) and then the DESK DRAWERS. Whoa. It was intense. But I have come to joyful terms with the fact that organizing is actually my faaaaaaavorite thing to do.

So I'm going to become a professional organizer. Although it would be a lot harder to help a stranger through their clutter than myself, my husband, or my family. Where I feel comfortable jokingly yelling at or nagging my mom and sister about stuff they couldn't possibly need, I would NOT be able to deal with a customer situation that way! Lots of exciting learning to be done.

The most amazing thing is the experience of realizing that you don't have an emotional attachment to items you previously assumed you did - or you used to. It's like, fuck it, man - it's funny that I've carried around a vial of rainwater for 15 years, but I feel nothing remotely similar to regret when I realize I don't have it any more! I feel great that I don't have it any more! But I do still consider it part of "my story" that I did keep it for almost 15 years.

Minimalist?

2011-02-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

I'm attracted to lots of different kinds of home design. See my Tumblr for proof of that. I do generally tend towards "maximalist" decorating. I am working towards minimalism, "one item at a time" (as I wrote on facebook). It's kind of a joke - I don't envision myself becoming a minimalist by anyone's definition - but stranger things have happened! I have been *very* inspired by some minimalist websites lately: Miss Minimalist and Minimalist Packrat. Picking an article here & an article there from their blogs over the past week has lit a fire under my ass. Interestingly, my first step was to deconstruct pretty much all of the decorating in the two photos a few posts down. It was too much going on in the bedroom. I'll be posting more home photos next week.

The next step is going to be getting rid of the clock in our bedroom. It makes an awful low buzzing sound 100% of the time. Kaden always sets the alarm on his phone. I am a notorious snooze-buttoner, but no more! The last two days I didn't use my alarm at all, just went by Kaden's phone. I also trained myself last night to not look at the time when I wake up - just know that if the alarm hasn't gone up yet, it's not time to get up. I don't need to KNOW exactly how many hours I have left when I wake up! It's a pretty silly thing most people think they need, and I just realized I don't need it.

I'm working on thoroughly going through all of my belongings, as I did last March-June. The hanging part of my wardrobe is down to 48 items, which is a pretty massive change - I think I had 90 or so hanging pieces when we lived in Bellingham. I have two drawers in our dresser. One has unmentionables, exercise clothes, and pajamas; the other t-shirts, tank tops & pants.

Another important step is going to be selling a bunch of semi-valuable (beer mirrors??) stuff on Craigslist. We don't decorate with Beer any more, but we have some pretty sweet mirrors. I hope we can get a little chunk of cash for them!

Loving Things on a Thursday

2011-02-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

I love Roses! I didn't know it until this morning, when I started working on a book about Roses (I work at a small book printing company, preparing customer-designed PDFs). My favorite was Disco Dancer!

I love my new haircut. It's a little bit Louise Brooks &/or 60s a-line bob.

I love Unity of Olympia Church. I went there for the first time last Sunday, and it felt *so right*. I'm really excited to learn more & maybe become a member.

I love spending time with my sister! I'm taking tomorrow off work & we are going to Seattle.

I love sexy mornings.

I love organizing things (not events - things). I'm pretty sure it's my life's calling. I'm going to start looking into being certified as a professional organizer.

To that end, I love books about clutter clearing & organizing. I have one coming in the mail, and a new one added to my Amazon.com Wishlist that sounds really exciting.

I'm just kinda pretty stoked on life this week. Pretty majorly.

Red sky at morning.

2011-02-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Boy our room is cool!

Things I Love: On a Thursday.

2011-02-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

I am a long-time fan of galadarling.com. Clearly, my lifestyle is nothing like hers, but there are several things she has written that truly have changed my life. I will elaborate on that some time. Today I am going to participate in her Things I Love Thursday, because I'd let myself get down in the dumps this week, and that's a silly waste of time! I went to bed last night & got up this morning refreshed. I am, again, going to try harder with affirmations & positive thinking & successful ways of loving & living. And part of that is broadcasting gratitude. I Love: One of Gala's sayings that has stuck with me, which I was using as a daily affirmation when I lived in Bellingham, living your life like a love letter to the universe. What a great fucking sentiment! What a great idea! I used to have a system of sayings & movements that I did every morning, but had let them slip away. I tried them again this morning (and I love them on a Thursday):

Before getting out of bed, I do a yoga "child's pose." Then I stretch up in a "cat tilt" to being on my knees in bed. I stretch my arms straight up and say, "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice & be glad." Then I stretch my left arm overhead to my right side and say, "This day, I have always been filled with joy." Then I stretch my right arm overhead to my left side and say, "This day I have always been radiantly healthy." Then I bring my hands to prayer-position, and say, "This day I have always lived my life as a love letter to the universe." Then I look up & say Namaste & start my day!

OK it kind of weirds me out that I wrote all that. But it's true!

Soooooooooo this morning I started really thinking about what "Living my life as a love letter to the universe" meant. Because saying it is helpful, but doesn't make it a reality. I decided to prepare for my day like I was going on a date, with the day. And shit dude, it made me feel good!

I Love:
After admiring Seychelles shoes on girls on wardrobe_remix, I fucking FOUND A PAIR of Spellbound Oxfords for $28, barely worn, at Buffalo Exchange in Portland, AND I had a credit so I got them for free. I'm pretty obsessed with them. I have literally never worn heels before, so it's kind of exciting & I hope I don't look like a fool walking in them.

I also love this red & white striped t-shirt I got for "free" at Buffalo Exchange. I'm wearing it right now too - it's so my date outfit with Today!

& I love that I started reading the classic "How to Stop Worrying & Start Living." I have a 1948 printing that I got at an estate sale. I don't care how corny it is; it's inspirational!

& I love planning for my weekend home alone. Kaden's going to his folks' for the weekend & I'm gonna get so much shit done! & we have plans to spend more time apart, which is great, since we live and commute and work together. It's a lot of togetherness.

& I love that I got Kaden some really good Valentine's presents.

& I love that we're going to go see Quasi & Sebadoh next weekend.

& I love the amazing hearty oatmeal with apples & raisins that Kaden made for breakfast, eaten with yogurt & soymilk.

& I love all my exciting plans for Project Re-Style. & I love looking at everyone else's projects too!

& I love that my sister & I are going to spend more time together.

& I love visiting Portland.

& most of all I love that I am back in a position to work on affirmations & successful ways of living!

To Do.

2011-01-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

To Do:
1. Get colorful tights
2. Wear minidresses.

CHAIR: Before & After

2011-01-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

This was like, the biggest accomplishment of my life, basically. There are two of these babies:

before

after

You can't really tell too much from the photos, but I did a WHOLE lot of scrubbing with Barkeeper's Friend (miracle cleaner!!!) to shine up the rusty chrome. We also added padding to the seat & back, which previously had very little to none. This was definitely a 2 person job, so my mom gets credit for at least half of this project. I picked the fabric, shined the chrome, cut a new board for the seat (using a scroll saw? I can't remember the name of the machine), picked and pounded the tacks, and worked the staple gun. Mom had the know-how to get the job done, and she held the fabric taut for me while I stapled. We both tore apart the previous upholstery and weird fluffy padding. They look so darn good, and match my table! I can't wait to take some Barkeeper's Friend to the table legs! Worked wonders on my stained-when-we-moved-in kitchen sink, too.

On the Home Front.

2011-01-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

Last night Kaden's folks came over for the afternoon & for dinner. It was so nice to be able to share our home & food with others! I would love to have more people over. Sometimes it seems like we eat too "weird" for most of the people we know.

Kaden made an amazing beef stew with brown mustard & dark beer & crimini mushrooms. We had it with a really fabulous wheat & seed loaf from Trader Joe's and a neat salad (my contribution was balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and washing the lettuce). I finally went ahead & purchased 4 matching dinner plates, 4 matching salad plates, & 4 matching napkins from Target, deciding I will not be able to afford Fiesta Ware in the next decade. They match our table so I'm pretty thrilled.

In other food news, we tried Little Roni's Sandwich Shop finally on Friday, and BOY OH BOY, it did NOT disappoint! I got the apple, butternut squash, and havarti sandwich, it was like dessert. Amazing!

I have been working on a big project of re-vamping some excellently-framed poorly-upholstered mid-century chairs, with a lot of help from my mom. THEY TURNED OUT SO FABULOUS. I will post before & after pictures tomorrow. I would like to do a big home post. Maybe I'll get some pictures taken this week; the place is spic & span since we prepared for Kaden's folks' visit!

ps. also got this shower curtain from Target last week, immediately after seeing it on Apartment Therapy. It really spruces up the bathroom!

I want to blog.

2011-01-05T10:27:00.001-08:00

I think about things all the time and I'm like, oh, I can't blog that, I don't know enough about it or whatever. How silly; it's not like I'm trying to make money on this endeavor. I can write about anything I want!

I'll be a little behind on writing about my "New Years Resolutions." I did a lot of work on this type of thing in the past week or so. I did a Year End Review per The Personal Excellence Blog. I studied How To Set Amazing Goals per Gala Darling. I made a list of ANTI-Resolutions per Free Will Astrology. Then I worked on creating a morning ritual along with The 10 o'clock Rule (it's 8 o'clock, for me). And I ALSO registered & paid for a Financial Planning class, which is one of the steps I am taking towards my goals this year.

Taking that first step was seriously, truthfully, a BIG THRILL. It made me feel like I could do anything.

The notebook I wrote all this shit down in is not present, but here are the most important parts:

This year I intend to maintain a loving, peaceful, & sexy relationship with my man.
I intend to increase my confidence by taking First Aid & Financial Planning classes.
I intend to create a creative outlet by taking art classes.
I intend to help my parents clean their house & property.
I intend to spend more one-on-one time with my sister.
I intend to improve my wardrobe and MAYBE EVEN learn how to wear makeup (I am 27 and have never worn makeup for more than one isolated night at a time, usually years apart).
I intend to improve my motivation for learning new things at work.

And here is the big scary good one: I intend to learn how to play electric guitar & play in a band (even if the "band" turns out to be just me & my husband), because that is pretty much the ONLY thing I have EVER wanted to do, and even though I am 27, I will NOT use the excuse that I am "too old" because that is absurd. I'm in my god damn prime.

Am I not? I am.

Wardrobe Taming

2010-12-17T10:50:00.001-08:00

For literally years, I have been planning on doing Gala Darling's Wardrobe Taming Series. I helped my sister do Day One on her (MASSIVE) wardrobe last week. I haven't gotten to the doing part for myself yet (I forced myself to finish my Christmas Cards first), but I DID make sure to wear almost everything I took from my sister's get rid of pile, this week. I have started taking daily photos so that I can analyze what I do & don't look good in. I don't have a full length mirror. I also don't have internet at home and keep forgetting to transfer the photos - but I did get three from this week up on my Flickr Wardrobe Set. I would also love to be able to post to wardrobe_remix, but I'm definitely only going to post the really good ones; I get tired of looking at people's boring everyday outfits up there.

It's one of my 4 Simple Goals to do the Wardrobe Taming. My reward to myself for completion is going to be ALL NEW WOODEN HANGERS. I still have hot pink, peach, & turquoise plastic hangers from 1st grade. I deserve better! But only once my wardrobe is tamed.

No longer in Suburbia!

2010-11-18T09:47:00.000-08:00

We moved to the West Side of Olympia about a month ago!!!! We are no longer in suburbia & life is sooooooo good. We live in a very small post-war era duplex. We can walk downtown! Jogging in our new neighborhood is so interesting! Plus the sidewalks are uneven and there are actually hills, which is great for exercise. We still need to bring home our records from Kaden's parents' house, and get a new needle, and hang our pictures (we have found we have too many). Also have been getting rid of a lot of stuff on Craigslist! Total thrill.

There have been some very exciting events lately: The Night of the Living Tribute Bands show on Halloween; the very first Wild Flag show; The Need & The Gossip after The Decline of Western Civilization at the Olympia Film Festival ALL IN WALKING DISTANCE. And we walk to the food co-op all the time (we're becoming hippies). LOVE living on the West Side!

These are the only two photos of the new place I have:

Hiking in style.

2010-10-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Since spring of 2008, Kaden and I have spent as many weekends as possible hiking in Washington's wilderness areas. We have seen some AMAZING THINGS. In Washington we are having this phenomenal Indian Summer right now and have been so lucky to go to two of the most beautiful places which ended up being my two favorite hikes ever in the past two weeks: Summerland Meadow at Mt. Rainier and Gothic Basin in the North Cascades.

I started out my hiking career in jeans & t-shirts & running shoes, but my hiking style & gear have improved greatly since then. I have become a stickler for moisture-wicking fabrics. Under Armour is my preferred brand (I'm a sucker!!!), though Champion has great cheap stuff at Target. I recently invested in a pair of $50 spandex pants. There is something I NEVER imagined I would do in my life! Since I wear them jogging, to yoga class, and hiking, they are totally worth it. I'm in love.

Wearing:

Shoes: Bear Paw (Big 5). I had a pair of cheap boots that had more ankle support, but they literally felt like shackles, I couldn't wear them. I got these for only $20 and they have lasted me through 3 years of hiking. They are so comfortable, they feel like slippers. But, they aren't waterproof, and my fear of getting my feet wet caused me to sprain my foot trying to jump over a stream last January! I just purchased Merrell Siren Sport GORE-TEX boots from zappos, and I am really excited to try them out.

Shirt: Under Armour (REI). Love the color; love the collar. Wicks moisture! I consider $30 expensive, but totally worth it!

Backpack: North Face (North Face Outlet, Wisconsin). It's kind of a stupid size, a little too big for a day pack and a little too small for overnight backpacking. Plus it doesn't have padded hip straps. I need a new backpack.

Jacket: New Balance (Fred Meyer). I love this white track jacket. Wicks moisture! Really sturdy; I've worn it for over 2 years. Zips up to "turtleneck" for cooler weather. I always take many extra layers hiking because I tend to get cold easily & can't have a good time if I'm cold!

Leggings: Under Armour (Sports Authority). These are the best pants I've ever owned. They have a "yoga pants" type waistband that is soooooooo comfortable. They are tight around my knees which I love, since baggy knees are a problem I always have with leggings. They're a little long, but I like it that way.

Socks: Columbia (Fred Meyer). I wear these with a thin pair of "dress socks" underneath (Kaden read a recommendation to do this in one of his hiking guides & I love it!). I think it would look cooler if I left them inside my pant legs, but wearing them outside I get mud from my boots on the socks instead of the pants, and if I don't have to wash the pants after every hike they'll last longer.

I also always wear a bandana to keep my bangs out of my eyes - I cannot stand that when I'm outdoors. Not pictured, obviously, is my sports bra, but I stand by Champion brand from Target - totally comfortable, reasonably priced ($16.99 instead of $40 like Under Armour).

This great ensemble, with a rain coat & water proof pants stuffed in my bag, allows me to be ready for anything in the wilderness. I also feel really athletic & sexy in it, and that's an improvement on the cargo pants & muscle-t style moisture-wicking shirts I used to wear hiking. I highly recommend & endorse all of these items for ladies who enjoy outdoor excursions!

PARTY BONUS! A most excellent post on women's hiking attire by Mary Van Note, i heart vintage hiking!!

Clutter Clearing.

2010-10-01T11:45:00.001-07:00

Clutter clearing is something I have worked on, on & off, since 2005, when I read Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. I have seen some incredible results in my life. I owe my job at Gorham Printing to my first clutter clearing session. We used to live with James on Milroy Street. There was a sunroom and my table was in there. I have this vague memory of it being completely covered in about a foot of stuff. I didn't know what was in that pile then, and I don't now. But I know I got rid of it, went on a roadtrip, came home and interviewed and got the hell out of food service. The following summer we had a garage sale, where we sold very little, and then carted 7 car loads of, again, I don't know what, to Goodwill.

When we moved to Bellingham, we put out piles of stuff on the curb for months. It all got taken away by people who walked or drove by! Putting out a free box is one of the big thrills in life, I think.

This past March, I got the book Clutter Busting. I always say the same thing about this book: the stories are mega-corny, but, for whatever reason, it lit a fire under my ass. Over a few weeks I went through just about everything in our apartment in Bellingham. I truly feel that it was one of the best periods of my life; I felt so invigorated. Kaden worried that I was freakin out, and also felt like I was neglecting our personal relationship, which surprised the hell out of me, because I felt so good I assumed he could see and feel it.

The concept of clutter clearing, for me & for many, is that letting go makes room for something better in your life.

I went through my file cabinet. My files are kinda precious to me. They are funny. I read so much of my old writing and I loved it. I got rid of every thing in my "High School" folder except my SAT scores. I had one unlabeled file - it would have been labeled with (and was in alphabetical order according to) the name of my ex-girlfriend from when I was 17. It was unlabeled because I didn't want it to seem creepy if Kaden ever happened to look in my file cabinet. Our relationship had ended very poorly and we had not really had contact in 9 years. Yet I had every card & letter she'd written me, drawings she had done, a copy of her resume, photos of us together, and dirty photos of us together. It took me a lot of thought and consideration, journal writing and even coaching from my BFF Cree to decide what to do with the contents of the folder. I finally recycled everything, tearing the nude photos into shreds for legal (not emotional) reasons. I held onto this cool drawing she did of The Need for a couple extra days, but finally let that go too.

Then we found out The Need were playing a reunion show. Just a couple days before the show, my ex-girlfriend added me to her facebook friends. We messaged back & forth & everything was cool! We hung out at the show! I was very pleased, also, to find myself completely NOT attracted to her, but enjoying her company. I let go of some pieces of paper and it healed that spot of confusion & regret that I had harbored so long.

Remarkable.

All you have to do is ask.

2010-09-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes all you have to do is ask. Today I feel so much more whole & receptive to ideas that have sort of stumped me lately. Autumn is OK on its own terms.

I have also had this big issue (in my head only) about "being cool." Of course this new book about Riot Grrrl came out; I bought it right away. I care about riot grrrl. Then of course, I am in/from Olympia & the author is having an event at the Olympia library and of course I want to go. But there is something, right in the center of my chest, indicating that I am not cool enough to be there, that I have no right to be there, that everyone there will know that I shouldn't be there. Now of course that is absolutely irrational etc etc. I told Kaden about the event and he was all excited about going and was like "You don't seem very excited." And I got all defensive/aggressive like "You don't think I'm cool enough to go." There was a time when I felt like my mere presence in Olympia & at shows made me cool enough. And later a time when I felt like my knowledge of music made me cool enough. I'm not a networker - I don't seek out getting to know people. Back in Bellingham I met a girl who was organizing the Bellingham Ladyfest. She invited me to a feminist group "No Bra Time" & an "all girl noise collective." But I definitely did not go or really even consider going because I don't dress like that group of people.

It really all comes down to appearance, I realize now that I am writing this. I don't have that DIY atmosphere to my style; if I did it would be a put-on and that would be even less cool.

But today, like I say, I feel more receptive - I feel like I can go to the Riot Grrrl book event. I feel like I can dress right to be there. I felt like I looked so out of place at the first Need show in Olympia in July (but I know I looked fine!); the second night (in Portland) I dressed right & felt like I had the right to be there. On a personal level, for me inside, it IS about appearance. I wrote in a comment on a blog responding to a question about what outfit made me feel the best, that I felt best when I went to concerts dressed in a way that expressed my connection to the music & my connection to the other fans. And that is true for me. I care about riot grrrl, I care about The Need, I care about rock & roll & feminism. And if dressing a certain way can allow me to be in these places on an emotional level, it's worth it to make that effort.

I am embarrassed to write all of this. Especially now that spell check just informed me that I have spelled embarrassed wrong MY WHOLE LIFE. Hahahaha, anyway - the personal is the political ETC ETC.

When I was 10 and 11, and my parents owned a copy business in downtown Olympia, I would watch all the street kids with dyed hair, who my parents probably mistakenly identified to me as Evergreen students. I wanted to be like them sooooooooo bad, but I was just a little kid, and the oldest in my family besides, with literally no role model for "cool". Everything I liked I had to find by myself. When I was 15 and 16 and 17 and first into riot grrrl, and when the original Ladyfest happened, I just assumed that I would grow older and automatically be a part of this group of people. And I grew older, but my being a kinda shy kinda outsider didn't change. I found Kaden and we are like, kindred spirits & equally cool, but, he doesn't have the sort of inferiority complex I have. [another example is that every year he wants to go to the Rockabilly Ball at the Tractor. I always tell him we cannot go. We do not have nice enough clothes and we do not know how to dance]. When I look at it in this way, I am lugging around "emotional baggage" (hahaha) from WHEN I WAS 10! And it's not even, like, something traumatic.

I am just going to give it up and BE COOL DAMN IT.

Speaking of such things, here is a little article titled you're already perfect. I can definitely use this right now. I still struggle every day with the reality that I am living in a brand new suburban neighborhood in Lacey. I still have not accepted it; I still view my life in Bellingham as "perfect" and the life I have been living since June as insufficient. I could give a million explanations & reasons, but they would all be inaccurate. My life is perfect, as it is, at the beginning of autumn, in a new suburban neighborhood in Lacey, planning to attend the riot grrrl book event, right now.

The universe is providing endless support for what I am exploring here! I just found this quote on Urban Weeds.

"The goal is to dress for yourself, but not ever be embarassed to leave the house and never try too hard." - Emily, designer & owner of Filly Designs

P.S. LOOK THEY MISSPELLED EMBARRASSED TOO!!! (one "r")

Indian Summer/Ovulation.

2010-09-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

I'm in that feeling of nameless wanting. Wanting to see new things & feel new feelings. Wanting to go places & make things & nest in my own home.

Oh wait, I think that's called ovulation. How do you get excited about autumn instead of dreading it? I read a blog where a girl said "this autumn is going to be magical." We are having a crazy Indian Summer in the Pacific Northwest right now, but I want it to be summer forever.

Aquamarine/Right Now.

2010-09-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

Aligns the etheric and mental bodies. It assists one in honoring their spiritual experiences as their own and using those experiences to further their own growth.
Physical: Cleanses the physical body by directly strengthening the organs that perform that function. It strengthens and flushes the lymphatic system.
Emotional: Reduces fear and stimulates self expression. Helps one to communicate compassionately and to feel safe while moving through the changes of life.

I think that is just perfect for me right now.

Olympia is Better.

2010-09-27T09:21:00.001-07:00

Compared to Bellingham, Olympia has better dressed people; plays better music in restaurants, bookstores, coffee shops, and record shops (but Bellingham has better food). In the record store they were playing Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators followed by Is This Real by the Wipers, and it was funny/weird/awesome because several years ago Kaden bought both those records at the same time and we used to get drunk & stoned & look at the covers side b’ side & trip out about their congruency.

(they look more similar in color on our record sleeves at home)
Plus I fucking forgot how amazing Psychedelic Sounds is. Kaden borrowed some really nice early 90s speakers from my parents that were in a storage shed. They sound SO GOOD compared to my gotten-for-free speakers we've been using for years. We need a new record needle though; we also need our own home to listen to records in.

In other news, I am going to start completely & fully supporting EVERYONE in EVERYTHING they say they want to/are going to do. I see a pattern in my life of trying to talk people down from their dreams. I would like to think it is because I am trying to protect them from disappointment, but it is more likely that I am, on some inner level, jealous because I do not have a plan or a dream, and I never really have. I don't see anything wrong with not having a plan or a dream - I let the universe decide for me, and I've always had most excellent luck. But now that I recognize that I have had that pattern, I am going to make a change and be the best supportive, loving, enthusiastic encourager I can be!

Blowing my Mind.

2010-09-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today is like the best day ever. My mind is being blown by many things.

First, Riot Grrrl is the theme for the week. I started reading The Style Rookie after seeing an article about her in The New Yorker. This led me to the realization that RIOT GRRRL IS REALLY HOT RIGHT NOW. I read on Kathleen Hanna's blog that she feels more supported now than she ever did while Bikini Kill was performing.

Second, there is all this NEW CURRENT music that is BITCHIN. Kaden fell in love last night (on amazon.com) with Black Angels ("neo-psychedelic drone rock"). They are playing a tour in November with Black Mountain and (!!!!!!!!!!!????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!) it is called "The Dropout Boogie" tour! Of course Dropout Boogie (or as I like to call it Drop Out Boogie) is a phrase very near & dear to me, as I have called myself that online for several years! The Black Angels singer (male?) sounds just like Grace Slick! In other music news, this other band we listened to, which I read about in last week's Stranger, is Grass Widow. They're like "Quix*o*tic but not quite as dark", or, Twee, as Kaden called them.

I am so excited, like, physically excited about this new music. Still diving deeper into Avi Buffalo AND I just ordered "EVOL" on 180g vinyl.

Third: PJ Harvey just gets younger & more gorgeous as the years go by!

Hitched.

2010-09-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Rev. Claire, Liina, Kaden.
We got hitched without a hitch!!! More photos in our Koivula-Jelsing Wedding Set on flickr.

Love & Marriage.

2010-09-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

September 18, 2010 by Hotel Hell

Kaden & I are getting married on September 18. I have been referring to it as "my semi-secret micro wedding." It took us a very long time (nearly 7 years) to decide to have a ceremony with family & friends. Marriage vows seem to me an exceptionally intimate exchange, and still, with 9 days left, I don't necessarily want to do this in front of even the 16 people invited. But I will, because it is important to them. And I'm sure it will be fun. Cree & Kristina are preparing the food - build your own sandwiches & salad bar. Bearded Lady Food Company is providing the cake! It will be almond poppyseed. We are holding it at Kaden's parents house in Woodinville. Their long-time next door neighbor, Claire, will be the Officiant; we've created our own brief ceremony & simple vows. My sister, Laila, has been so incredible & sweet to me during this planning process. She works at David's Bridal, but knows me well & knows I am not looking for traditional &/or excessively materialistic themes. In fact we are trying to keep this event as LOW BUDGET AS POSSIBLE. I am really interested to see what the grand total comes out to be. Anyway I wanted to be casual ("this is an informal event, please dress however you feel most comfortable") but on a whim I tried on this INCREDIBLE POOFY DRESS (at David's Bridal)...and it was THE ONE. So what can you do. I'm wearing it with white Chucks. Laila is decorating a veil for me - and it is SO AMAZING. She is very humble about it, but it is so beautiful; she has been so creative! I can't stop showering her with thanks.

Today we are getting our marriage license. Meeting with Melanie & Jordan about the cake. Picking up our rings, which were hand crafted by a local jewelry artist.

We FINALLY last night figured out what we're going to do for our "honeymoon." Since we planned this on very short notice - deciding on the date only a month ago - and since we work at the same company right now, we can't take an extended vacation. So we're thrilled to be spending a night at McMenamin's Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon. It is exactly, EXACTLY what we want to do, and so reasonably priced. After that we'll spend a day driving & hiking on the Oregon coast. Also EXACTLY what we want to do.

I'm getting really excited! It is going to be a wonderful time, from start to finish!

My Man.

2010-09-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Kaden. I love you!

Horizon Pointe.

2010-09-01T12:50:00.001-07:00

I finally took & uploaded some pictures of our new room. I'm really very fond of it.
For More Photos: See Horizon Pointe

Ye Olde Pacific Ocean

2010-08-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

Kaden is picking me up from work & we are going to the ocean, with his family, James' family, & another family I don't know as well. I am so excited!! I can't remember last time I was this excited. I don't think I've been to the ocean since September of 2008, I think, which is silly. Also I'm really excited to see James, since he moved to California in June. Kaden kept saying "Picking you up from work & driving to the ocean is like the best part of the whole trip." We used to drive around so much.

Last time we went to this place, The Beachwood, was seven years ago. Kaden and I had been together less than a month; he hadn't even broken up with his other girlfriend yet! That was the first time I met James, and we invited him to move into Kaden's room - it was my plot to move Kaden into my bedroom. We roamed around the beach all night with Kaden's brother Eric, smoking pot and drinking from a bottle of whiskey. Some of the best sex of my life was on the hide-a-bed at The Beachwood.

So I'm thrilled to go back, harboring such fond memories. I am full of joy. I am so grateful to be experiencing the thrill of looking forward to something so purely!

Romantic Getaways.

2010-08-26T14:29:00.001-07:00

You know how you romanticize places you have been in your mind? For years I thought of the Imana Colonies in Iowa as the most perfect place in the world, after Cree, Kell & I drove through there on our roadtrip in 2001. Just as I wrote that I realized that I can’t even conjure up the idyllic memory I have of that place. Now I only see when Kaden & I went there in 2007. And it wasn’t as beautiful as I remembered; it was very nice, but not so magical. We were listening to Galaxie 500 & Tonight’s the Night.

Right now the place I want most to go is Death Valley. Kaden & I went there on our roadtrip in 2005. It was September & it felt cooler to put on a flannel shirt than to have bare arms.

Another place I have romanticized to death is West Yellowstone, the town outside of the park, where we stayed in cabins once when I was 10. I only recently found out that Yellowstone is not Kaden’s dream vacation, as it is mine.

We are pseudo-planning our “honeymoon.” In fact I have not even asked for time off work yet - I have not even told anyone except one co-worker that we are even tying the knot. At first we thought we’d just go to Leavenworth because it is easy. But we go there about twice a year, so I’d like to do something more special.

I’d like to drive through Death Valley.

2010-08-26T12:46:00.001-07:00

I think I need to go thrift shopping more. Like, a lot more. I hate shopping but I am also not completely satisfied with my wardrobe & style. Although today I am pretty thrilled with my outfit!

fashion concepts.

2010-08-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

I am dreaming of creating a "new fall look" or "fashion concept" for myself. This means I spend too much time online. & It probably won't happen. But then again I do have a new affirmation:

Every day physically do something to manifest your dreams.

Should that include shopping? Ha ha ha. Well, I dream of stripes & ruffles & eyelet lace & stirrup leggings & dark wash jeans & prairie dresses & nerdy loafers.

Wheat Fields by Hotel Hell

Field of Daisies by Hotel Hell

Music News U Toucan Use

2010-08-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

So, I never consider myself to be "into" roots/americana/alt-country - better to leave the old styles to the old timey music. Plus I'm not hot/new weird america enough, though I would like to be. But, if you happen to listen to KAOS at 6 in the morning, you get your roots/americana/alt-country on.

And, I had forgotten, or failed to recognize, or missed by not being "into" it, that sweet darkness of longing present in that music & nowhere else, not even the true old timey stuff. It reminds me of the late summer turning to autumn when Kaden & I were first "into" each other. This morning was a foggy morning, and I decided to get "into" roots/americana/alt-country. It's nice. I think Kaden would like it too; apparently what is being done in that genre now pretty much surpasses what was being done 7-10 years ago. It seems much deeper & sweeter, but then again, never having been "into" it, I know very little of the past 7-10 years. I enjoyed songs from musicians that I believe to be called Lay Low, The Last of the High Rollers [edit: LOST High Rollers, got it!], and Star Anna?

In other music news, I got "Mortal Mirror" by Quix*o*tic this weekend. I have meant to listen to Quix*o*tic for approximately 10 years, since I saw them at the first Ladyfest. So that's cool. In Olympia they are selling a cassette of a 1995 show at the Midnight Sun featuring Ce Be Barnes Band which had Rachel & Radio & Miranda July. Whoa. I got it & can't wait to hear it! We were trying to keep our stereo system minimal since it is in our housemates' pristine suburban neutral-colored home, and the stereo is big & black, but I think we will have to get the tape deck up there. There are too many good mix tapes we are missing.

Links:
Lay Low
Star Anna
Lost High Rollers
Quix*o*tic

Fondness for Things

2010-08-20T10:31:00.001-07:00

I have a fondness for things. The other day I was going through our stuff in Cree’s garage, trying to get rid of more stuff, and I came across a bunch of our kitchen stuff. I MISS using our kitchen stuff. Kaden said that our housemates “Have the kind of kitchen stuff people have who don’t actually cook, stuff your parents buy when you move out.” I have such affection for our specific kitchen utensils, and I sorely miss using them. I have a fondness for Kaden’s things. His things that I have seen float around our lives for so many years. His old binders with words written on and glued to them. From time to time I consider clutter clearing and minimalism, but I love the comfort of unessential things that are always there.

Own Space

2010-08-19T11:29:00.001-07:00

Right this second, it's breaking my heart, but in a sweet and desire-filled way, not having my own home space to decorate, style, and exist within. But, it will probably pass.

Also started half-dreaming of having an etsy vintage shoppe. Which I am not allowing to lead immediately to kicking myself for all the stuff I gave away before moving.

It is funny when places are still so much alive in your mind; I always think about it when I go visit my relatives in Illinois, and it's like I haven't been away from their homes for the years that I have been. I feel that way about our old apartment in Bellingham, but the thing is, it is not there waiting for me.

2010-08-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

I may be a sucker, but, "What's In It For" by Avi Buffalo gives me a big thrill of infinite possibility. It's rather absurd, but, what can you do. It's also very exciting to suddenly like a band that is both new/current and with members younger than yourself.

Dear Universe

2010-07-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Universe,
I want a small apartment that is just right for Kaden & me, so that we can downsize even more and live a tiny lifestyle, in style.
Thanks!
Liina

Happy & Positive

2010-07-30T09:43:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling really happy & positive today - like my life could subtly change for the better real soon. Like I have a clear vision of the world I want to create, and everything I do supports this vision.

The "apartment" built onto my parents house seems to be a fantasy that is slipping away...here we are at the end of July and the plans haven't even been approved. The foundation was supposed to be set by the time we moved, in the first week of June...so that Kaden (my man) and Kevin (my sister Laila's boyfriend) could work on it all summer. The ground has not even been dug out for the foundation yet. So...I think we will be looking at renting pretty soon. I would like my own place. I love Cree & Kristina and have no problems living with them, but, I would like my own place. Shared with Kaden. I think I need more responsibility. When I am without responsibility, my mind is too free to be negative.

Improvements

2010-07-29T08:36:00.001-07:00

Things that might improve my quality of life: gauzy curtains, deeply colored walls, furniture in fields.
Things I Love Thursday (as found on galadarling.com)

Two mindblowing shows in a row by The Need, in Olympia & Portland. My horoscope said “The time has come for you to receive a blessing from the highest expression of feminine power”, and I think that was IT.
Hanging baskets overflowing with petunias in Tenino, Washington.
A new bar of my favorite handmade honeysuckle soap.
Amaaaaaaaaazing tempeh gyros with garlic-cucumber-yogurt sauce made by my boyfriend; amaaaaaaaaaazing roasted potato mini pizzas with balsamic glaze!!!! also by same boyfriend.
Ace of Spades by Motorhead.
Looking at wedding rings made by local artists on Etsy/planning our tiny secret wedding (after 7 years of engagement).
Helping my mom clutter clear.
Health week! Massage, yoga, counseling & asthma meds!
My Alicia Silverstone toiletries case, ha ha ha. www.amazon.com/Ecotools I love being a low maintenence girl – the simple contents make me feel secure.
The hot pink hairbrush I have used for the past 16 years!!!
Additionally: the yoga class at Living Spirit Yoga that made me feel far better than the massage I got on Monday! I am still looking for the right class for me, though - I might like something a little more spiritual.

Inspirational

2010-07-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

I keep an InDesign document breaking down the work I have to do at my job (I run digital printing machines at a book printing company). On the second page of this document I keep my goals for each day of the week. Below the goals I keep all the inspirational bits I read online and want to remember, including my weekly Free Will Astrology horoscopes, and my affirmations. It kinda keeps me going. I also print a copy to keep at home or in my bag. It looks like this:

(you can click to see a larger version on flickr)
Some of this stuff came from Gala Darling and Laura Jane Faulds, and some from other sources that I do not remember, so thanks to all of them!

I can't help but wonder.

2010-07-20T10:22:00.001-07:00

I can't help but wonder if moving to Olympia was a mistake; if we should have stayed in Bellingham or gone somewhere new altogether. I wanted to be closer to my family & my BFF sooooooooooo badly when I was in Bellingham for (almost) 2 years. Now we are living with my BFF & seeing my family daily, and, I miss how we were hermits. I miss long mornings & evenings cooking & reading & enjoying records.

I read blogs where people's lives seem so romantic. Maybe it's their photography styles & corners that are romantic. I feel that I lack a certain element of femininity. And I know there is nothing wrong with that. It wouldn't feel right on me; doesn't feel right. So why would I want it so much? Why do I make things like this?

On a Good Day by Hotel Hell

At Home with Liina

2010-07-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

For many years I have pored over home design books & blogs. Sometimes I wish so much that my style was bold & angular & quirky, but it isn't; it's round & romantic & quirky. It's mine. Soon I am going to take some pictures of the rooms where Kaden & I are living now. I love them both; they're both filled with "our stuff". But it's especially great how Kaden took all the sort of lodge-style stuff & I took all the kinda frilly stuff (frilly is an overstatement). It's like we separated out the "masculine" & "feminine" sides of our decor theme. Here are some of my favorite parts of our combined decor in our old apartment in Bellingham. It was pretty much the best apartment ever & really exemplified our style.

this was kinda my special area, an altar to some degree
but I've never been good with maintaining altars.

the best table in the woooooooooorld!

Return to Olympia

2010-07-01T08:22:00.001-07:00

I want to use this blog again. I originally created it to write about my move first move away from my hometown, from Olympia to Bellingham in 2008. But when I actually moved, I didn't have internet access at home and had a busy stand-up job at Copy Source. But it was good that way, it was great to spend almost 2 years essentially away from The Internet.

Now I am back in Olympia, back at my old job at Gorham Printing, and living in the most suburban neighborhood I can imagine. And I wanna write about it.

2008-05-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

This is what my life will be like in Bellingham, when I am the quirky, friendly, helpful young gal working for the Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services at Western Washington University.

I Found the Perfect Job

2008-05-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

At Western Washington University: Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services

Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services, a division of External Affairs, provides all of the campus printing and copying needs in a variety of locations on campus. Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services offers a full range of design, printing, copying and copyright services, from self-service copying and high-speed photocopying to graphic design and full color printing. Support is provided to all campus departments as well as individuals working on university related projects.

Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services is the WWU official state agent for the production and purchase of the university's design, printing, copying and binding requirements.

I am so thrilled to know that they have a place like this at Western! I can work there! I have exactly the kind of experience for such a place.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty down about the "recession", fearing that I won't be able to find a decent job in Bellingham because no one will be hiring in a recession I checked out the employment opportunities at Western, because I figured there would be good benefits at a University, and there are! Including use of gym facilities and other "Employee Recreation and Wellness Programs". So exciting! I am focusing on manifesting this job becoming a reality for me in September.

Shortly after I discovered my dream job possibility, we went out jogging. Everything was so green & lush on the trail we jog. While I was walking between the two parts of my jog (approximately 14 minutes & 11 minutes), guess what I found?? A FOUR LEAF CLOVER! To me, that means that I will definitely get a job in the Printing, Graphics, Web and Copyright Services at Western Washington University. I am making it my reality. I am THINKING BIG. I am thrilled to KNOW WHAT I WANT because now I can work towards getting it, rather than moseying along hoping something comes up.

I would like to mention the awesome positivity and inspiration I've gotten from iCiNG by Gala Darling and Indulgences by Miss Cedar. These blogs have guided me along into positive thinking like I have never experienced. Miss Cedar suggested creating a blog when planning and carrying out a move (which I have created here) in How to Adjust to Moving to a New Place. Gala Darling's How To Set Amazing Goals is guiding me to The Perfect Job. Other articles and ideas by Gala Darling have inspired me to dig deeper to find the root of a problem when I encounter emotional and physical bothers, and to get in shape with healthy eating and exercise. My life has changed a lot this year, and I owe no small debt to the bloggers who have inspired me!

To Do: Find an Important Photograph

2008-05-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Now and then, I remember this very important thing to freak out about.

Sometime when I was 19, I took this picture out of a photo album at my parents' house. It's a photo of me and my dad when I was a baby. He is crouched down, holding me to stand up barefoot in a creek at my mom's cousin's house in Belfair, Washington. I'm obviously squealing in the cold water. My dad is wearing work boots and has shaggy hair. We both look delighted. I had it on the wall in my bedroom, when I was 19. Once my dad came over and was mad that I took the picture away. He was afraid I'd lose it.

And I haven't seen it in years. I figure, it MUST be around, somewhere, but the last time I remember seeing it was, you know, when I was 19, living in an apartment in The New Villa Capri. Mostly I'm afraid it could've gotten stuck in a book that got sold or given away.

BUT I am bound and determined to find it, and I want to go through every single item in our home "with a fine toothed comb" to find it. I am manifesting myself discovering it. I will find it by the end of this week. I WILL FIND IT BY FRIDAY. I WILL.

To Do: Sewing & Mending

2008-05-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have many sewing & mending projects that have been "on the back burner"...and I mean the WAY back burner. I have a couple neat thrift dresses I want to alter, Dickie's pants to be hemmed, shirts with holes here and there, and then the big project I want to do: Sew my vintage bedsheets onto new fitted bedsheets so they'll fit over my big ol' memory foam topper. I have a few sheet sets that were my parents from the 70s that I absolutely LOVE, they have the most gorgeous floral prints, and they are the smoothest, coolest summer sheets you can imagine (fuck thread count!).

A few months ago Kaden & I inherited my younger sister's pillow-top mattress and memory foam mattress topper when my parents bought her a queen sized bed. I guess it pays to never move out! Now none of these older sheets with failing elastic could possibly stay on the bed. But I LOVE them and will not give up on them! I had the brilliant idea that I could get my sister, who works at Linens n Things, to buy some discount BIG-ASS sheets that I could sew my old sheets onto! Then they would fit on our bed! Absolutely brilliant. However, after we move to Bellingham, I won't have access to a sewing machine, or my mom's "help" (by "help" I mean she shows me how to do it and I mess it up until she decides it's too difficult for me and does it herself!).

I have a very large "To Do" list for things I need to accomplish before the end of August...the sewing projects should move on up because the dresses & sheets are great for the summer!

Lifeguard of Love Introduction.

2008-04-30T08:31:00.001-07:00

Hi, I'm Liina. I'll be 25 in 12 days. I was born and raised in Olympia, Washington, continue to live here, and have never lived anywhere else.

On April 16, Kaden, my boyfriend of almost 5 years, was accepted into Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington for their Graduate Program in History. It's his dream come true; he'll be researching history in their Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, where he plans to study religion in the Pacific Northwest, among other things I'm sure. We will be moving to Bellingham in September. Our lease in Olympia ends with August's end.

I've never moved farther than across town, and a small town, at that. It's both exciting and terrifying.

Exciting: I have never known my context or the context of the world outside of Olympia. This is an awesome chance to see what I'm made of, and who I'll become in a new place.

Terrifying: I've never lived more than 20 minutes from my family, and I love them very much & enjoy their company. I am going to miss being able to stop in for a visit whenever I want.

Exciting: Living with just Kaden & no roommates. Cleaning & decorating for ourselves & no one else.We've had the same roommate for almost 5 years; though we love him, he doesn't live the same lifestyle we do. We're ready to be adults on our own.

Terrifying: What if I can't get a job with health insurance or other awesome benefits I have at my current job? What if we can't find a house that's as cool as the one we live in now? We're not going to be picky about housing, we decided, even a cookie cutter apartment is OK to start out with - but check out how cool the house we live in now is:

I trust the universe to send us a house this bitchin
in the future...but it's still hard to leave.

I have about 4 months left in Olympia, and this blog is devoted to my whole process of leaving Olympia and making a new life in Bellingham.