The life raft I've needed

Somewhat abashedly, I bring you this post that has been sitting in my drafts for a couple months now: The Three Most Influential Books I Read in 2016. 2016 was a big year for me, and the biggest gift - besides the birth of my daughter, obvs - was learning about Overdrive and getting access to a library (#literally) of books at my fingertips. 

I'm thankful for all the discoveries I made through falling in love with reading again this last year; there was so much magic in it (#literallyagain), and I look forward to reading and sharing more in 2017!

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

I keep thinking I need to write a separate post about this because it is changing my life, as well as still kicking my butt because I am not done with it (i.e., the tidying, not the book).

I'm sure you have heard enough about Kondo's concepts from everyone else on the internet already, but it has been the one method that has really worked for getting me to confront the underlying reasons of why I can't always do the things I need to do to get to the place I want to be.

A few of you texted me after I wrote The Secret Sauce. I still really struggle with scarcity mentality, and I've been thinking a lot about how if I let go of fear, what will be left?

2. Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Oddly, I can't remember exactly why I loved this book so much (other than having it read to me by the author; I've since changed Siri to a UK man voice so I can pretend that Greg McKeown is with me always).

The most convicting point was when he challenged his readers with the question (paraphrased): are you going to look back on your life and regret not doing the one thing you were made to do, because you were so busy chasing the meaningless other things you thought you needed to do (or that you thought other people expected you to do)?

3. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

This was another good one to have read aloud (Christine rightly recommended the audio version, and I am SO not an audiobook person), because it's also read by the author, and Liz Gilbert has thee most soothing and encouraging voice ever.

I loved everything Gilbert had to say, but the most important takeaway for me was: don't take yourself so seriously / don't be a tormented artist / follow inspiration and curiosity / don't worry so much about the outcome / enjoy the process / have fun with your art.

This is the message that I've been carrying into my life for the past half-year now, and am incorporating here by showing up on my blog, starting to Instagram more, doing random art projects, and working on some diy projects around the house.

I think she really gets it right when she talks about how inspiration is from the Divine, and that if we want more opportunities for it, we have to take action on the ones we are given.

This seems like a bold statement to make, but I feel like Big Magic has been the life raft I've needed ever since graduating from college.

Please let me know what you've been reading and loving!

--

And this week's menu!

Miso mapo tofu is my own creation to make mapo tofu without gluten (so many black bean sauces have wheat in them, didn't know that before!). Miso works really well (not soy free, however) and makes a flavorful dish that incidentally serves as a non-spicy version great for kids! Another standby is to have rotisserie chicken from the grocery store on one night and make broth with the carcass the following day for pho (just add fish sauce!). For bún (i.e., Viet noodle bowls), we work off of Molly's recipe from Delancey.

P.S. I am so giddy because apparently on February 23 I got my first two Amazon Affiliate purchases from this blog. Besides feeling giddy, I am so curious who that was, so if that was you and this wouldn't embarrass you, would you please let me know either by comment or email what you got?? Thanks, on all counts!

P.P.S. Shout-out to Christine, whose What I'm Reading series inspired this post, and which will inspire you as well.

Be the boss of myself

The other day I received a thoughtful gift, but because of my new life philosophy of not keeping things unless I love them, even (or especially) if they were free or gifted.

It was a super thoughtful gift, something that's useful for a particular thing I actually really enjoy, but I didn't want to own this object; it only served a few purposes, and I didn't particularly care for the aesthetic.

The item was about $36 and Amazon was going to charge me $6 for the return shipping if I used the UPS label they provide. It sucked to see that deduction, so I dilly-dallied for a moment, considering the pay-my-own-shipping route, or figuring out another way to off-load this gift in an "economical" way. After letting myself analyze for about one to two minutes, I cut myself off and told myself that I needed to "be the boss of myself." 

As part of this new season of my life, I'm trying to act the way I want to feel. Sitting in front of the screen, I said to myself, "In this moment, I'm going to act like my time is worth $100/hr." I didn't want to spend any more of my precious time debating how to minimize the $6 loss of returning it. If I spent even two minutes on the thinking, and my time is worth $100/hr, that was $3.33 right there. If I spent even two more minutes debating, I would have exceeded the perceived $6 loss I was trying to avoid.

And this was for a gift that I didn't spend any money buying in the first place. I felt so grown up being able to:

1) Receive the gift with gratitude.

2) Decide quickly to return it because I didn't want/need it.

3) Let myself do my analyzing thing. I can't help myself.

4) Stop myself from doing my analyzing thing for too long. .

5) Move on with life.

Ultimately I chose to value my life more than money. 

One of the paradoxes of adulthood is the concept of being the boss of yourself, which necessarily means you are both the boss and the one being bossed around. 

Is this hard or is this easy?

When you're the boss of yourself you can do handstands at home. #leanagainst

Prompts for the Studious, or, A shameless call for comments:

1) What are your thoughts on the concept of waiting for permission?

2) What do you want right now in life that you are waiting for permission for?
3) What are some paradoxes you're pondering?
4) Anything else that stuck out to you?
5) Can you tell that I used to be a Bible study leader for a campus ministry?

More from me:

• Being your own best friend
• Being your own therapist

First-world hungry

first-world hungry = being hungry, but not for anything I have in my fridge

"Give me neither poverty nor riches. . .
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you,
and say, 'Who is the Lord?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God."
--Proverbs 30:8-9

David once mentioned to me that one of the signs of poverty in first-world countries is, perhaps unexpectedly, obesity.

While I don't want to get too much into social commentary here as I am not well studied on the topic, I do think it's a good launching point for the metaphor of the kind of stuff-obesity we fall prey to in our modern day first-world lives.

When we don't have enough quality in our lives, we may substitute quantity to make up for the feelings of poverty. It's easy to grab at every opportunity that comes our way when we're afraid of not getting opportunities in the future.

In an essay I wrote for my workshop group, I talked about how there was once a time not too long ago when, ironically, we couldn't afford to "declutter." 

I spent a lot of the first years of our marriage in a poverty mentality, even if it was just first-world poverty. (I'm careful here to say "I" because David is so much more above me.) I would ask David to cut the baby wipe packages in half and save pour-overs for the weekends because coffee filters cost $0.02 each.

Now that David's career is more stabilized I've felt free to let go of some things and in doing so I've had to confront a lot of my fears and the shame of having a scarcity mentality (c.f., once again, The Secret Sauce). 

***

I'm wrestling with the paradox that sometimes you need enough to get more. (This could probably be its own post one day.)

You need emotional resilience in order to grow. So when you're in a place of stuckness, how do you get momentum?

***

We once laughed at a pamphlet that came with some outdoor gear Kenny had purchased. In addition to instructions regarding the gear, the author of this little manual tried to provide the user with further instructions on survival, something I guess they thought might be relevant for the person who made the purchase. "Do not wait until you are without water to begin looking for water," it read. 

We guffawed*, but how often do we actually do this in life? And, to take this further, we could also say that the "opposite" of this is good advice, too: "Do not wait until you are drowning to begin asking for help." 

(*That was for you, Molly.)

I'm not drowning any more, though I have been there. Still, I'm realizing I need yet more margin. In particular, I'm seeing the value of having enough margin that I can make mistakes. If I want to live a brave and creative life, it will involve making mistakes.

(Molly {again}, fear not, I said "margin", not "margarine".)

***

On an unrelated train of thought...

Addenda, or Other Ramblings:

1. Wealth is the feeling of using or needing less than you are bringing in. I think we all know that living hand to mouth is no good, and that the "secret" to financial wealth is to spend less than you make (or, alternately, to make way more than you spend). But how often to we apply that to life? We want to fill our every moment with getting stuff done. What we if intentionally chose to spend less time than we have been granted? (Sabbath? We've been given seven days, and by choosing to not exhaust all seven days with work, we perhaps store up life-wealth.)

2. Another nugget I'm loving from Essentialism is the idea of shaping your life by design rather than be default. Marie Kondo also talks about this when she mentions how it's easy to hold on to things we've been given (either as gifts or hand-me-downs) but that there are ways to let go of even those things, too, if you so desire. Similarly, with life opportunities, just like we should prioritize our own lives instead of letting others prioritize them for us, we should - for our own sake, and for the sake of making our greatest contribution to the world - think hard about designing our lives with intention - proactively, rather than reactively.

Less, but better

"I'm going to donate these clothes I don't wear anymore to charity 

after I drive them around in the trunk of my car for eight months." 

--@amydillon

Sunk costs are one of the hardest things for me to let go of, and what made (and makes) KonMari so hard for me. 

Kenny, Whiz At Anything And Everything He Puts His Mind To, can often be found working on a computer that seems beyond repair, or trying to invent a solution to something that's never been done before. I love when, after many hours at something, he looks up from his project to tell us, "I've worked too hard for this not to work."

Kenny is perhaps the exception to the rule of sunk costs. But for the rest of us, while determination and contentment are good virtues, sometimes we just need to let it go.

Even now, if and when I find I'm not enjoying a book, I just stop. reading. it. (Gasp.) I'm not in school anymore (except for the School of Lisa), so who cares?

In Essentialism, Greg McKeown provides a way to assess sunk costs from a different angle by having us ask, "If I did not have [fill-in-the-blank] already, how much would I pay to have it?" If the answer is zero, then you should probably get rid of it.

I think we sorely underestimate the weight of the "trivial many" (McKeown's term) that we keep in our lives. We think that these little things aren't that big of a deal, but they can add up to a larger cumulative effect, one that could even drive you insane.

But you wouldn't know it until you removed them all, ruthlessly and entirely.

This is why and how KonMari actually worked for me. When I first read the book, I didn't buy it (literally or figuratively). But many months later I picked it up and for some reason it was different. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

I followed the prescription to start with clothes. I pulled out everything I had and asked myself if I loved the item (or if it "sparked joy"). Her method makes sense. When we get dressed in the morning, we don't dress "logically" - we don't wear the clothes we "think we ought to" wear, we wear the clothes that make us feel good. 

Because I'm a Questioner, I had to trick myself into the process. I didn't mentally commit to getting rid of the doesn't-spark-joy pile right away. But when I saw how happy I was with the remaining few, it was so much easier to clear away the "trivial many."

I applied this later to our silverware drawing by removing a few "blah" pieces. The simple joy of not having to dig past those anymore has increased my sanity by a seemingly disproportionate amount. 

Taking care of stuff is already hard. Taking care of stuff you dislike (or even feel neutral about) is tiresome.

Do you like your "darlings" enough to dilute that which you truly love? (I use the word "darlings" because the same thing applies to writing, which is why I've been loving how much writing is helping my brain flow. Combinatory play at work, once again.)

When I create margin in my life to have/do the things that are supremely important to me, I find that satisfaction and fulfillment so rich that I no longer care about the other things I once thought were important to me. In fact, I find how much I've actually medicated (!) with the "trivial many" because I've neglected the critical. 

I've been loving the journey I'm on because it's not decluttering for decluttering's sake, or because it's trendy to be a minimalist (that kind of thing does not appeal to a Questioner/Rebel) but because decluttering/curating my life has helped me celebrate my uniqueness, my quirks, and perhaps eventually, even my Purpose. 

18. The secret sauce

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again." 

--Ecclesiastes 11:1

As part of my Konmari spiritual awakening, I'd decided to not let myself have more than one back-up of everything we buy at Costco (e.g, napkins, Clorox wipes, Ziploc bags), even when they go on sale. I used to buy two or three of things when they were on coupon, in case I needed them before the next sale happened. (I'm sure it's all a part of their strategy to have sales at different rates/frequencies to increase your feeling of scarcity.)

My defense was that we'd need those things anyway, and since inflation possibly outpaces interest rates, toilet paper might - from a strictly financial point of view - be a better investment than cold, hard cash in our checking account...?!?!?

But when I started seriously considering the things that made me happy, having a calm and uncrowded house was more important to me than the $2-3 I might save each time I bought something on sale. Also, it was starting to get really packed in our garage (still is) and sometimes I honestly can't find stuff I know we have. Less frustration > saving money ==> sanity > money

I'm definitely grateful for the scrimp-and-save mentality I learned from my immigrant parents, but I'm now nonetheless enjoying experimenting with that in my life.

In a real emergency, being stocked up on things is not going to save me, right?

And if I can be more present and more alive by having less stuff and being less worried, I'll be free to create and generate more whether it be financial or otherwise.

A crazy (to me) example of how this played our recently was with this marinara sauce I discovered at Costco sometime last fall, called Victoria White Linen. We usually make our own sauce but this stuff was good: Old World style and with few ingredients. After trying and loving it, we stocked up and got eight 40 oz (!) jars. I freely cooked with my supply until I stopped seeing it at Costco. I thought it was so bizarre that it disappeared right after it had been promoted. I loved the sauce so much I almost wrote Costco.

For a while I stopped using my precious remaining jars. I was like a crazy Depression lady.

Then, after recently doing Konmari, I thought, This is stupid. (Not as stupid as Costco discontinuing the sauce, but still stupid.) I started using the sauce, even as an act of faith. Faith that there'd be enough. Faith that I could enjoy the sauce and faith that there was enough hope, peace, and resilience in me even if there would eventually be no more sauce.

We enjoyed and savored it, and slowly whittled down our stash to one last jar.

And then just yesterday we were wandering around Costco and to our astonishment we saw it! The people around me must have thought I was a little crazy when I reached out as though seeing an old friend, squealing "Victoria!"

My habits are changing and I'm so glad I didn't waste any of my own precious time mentally complaining about why Costco discontinued the sauce or fearing we'd run out of something good.

And now, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I am the secret sauce.

15. Everything and nothing

Today I have everything and nothing to say.

I'm starting to get to the point where I want to be done with this project so I can reboot with a new one. At the same time, I am wondering what principles I should carry into the next project, because I think there are some valuable aspects, such as the aspect of accountability through publicly declaring a project. May it never be said of me that I don't follow through on my commitments. (Oof, what does that say about me?)

One of the major concepts I'm experiencing within this project is Einstein's tactic of "combinatory play," which I first heard referenced in Liz Gilbert's Big Magic. It's the notion that when you're stuck, engaging yourself in some other way and might help you get unstuck. This could be something simple like going for a walk, or it could be taking up a different artistic hobby.

"I don't sweat the small stuff. Instead, I lump it together with the big and medium things so I can have a major breakdown instead." --Abbyhasissues.com

I don't think I realized how stuck I was in life and in general until I painted our bed white earlier this year, which led to us doing the The Purge, which gave me the mental capacity and energy to sign up for a writer's workshop, which led me to authors and to Inspiration, which led me to this project, which I already feel is leading me to a lot of other paths of unstuckness.

In fact, the subject of my first workshop essay was the painting of our originally black bed. One day after Kathy helped me tidy up our room I was inspired to get rid of the darkness once and for all. (Our room gets the most light in the house and yet it was so depressing because of our black furniture. No bueno in a very grey city.) I wrote about how I just dove in without much prep or planning but that just doing it was way better than not. And now, six months later, I see that that little step - done but not perfect - made a huge impact on how I'm feeling today. It's a lesson for me, to consider the things that are bothering me the most in my life - even if they may seem like insignificant things - and do something to change it, without being afraid to mess up.

This, too, is related to the idea mentioned before of creating your vocation/vacation. As well as the idea of not only being your own best friend, but also being your own therapist. I need to engage myself, ask myself what's bothering me, what do I want my life to look like, and how do I get there.

***

Random: One possible negative of my meditating on thoughts of creativity and non-conformity is that I'm starting to question a lot of the rules I impose on my kids. I try to give choices as many times as I can throughout the day, although obviously they are bounded choices. "I am their mom, not a cruise director." (I can't stop chuckling at that. I also can't figure out who said that first. Someone thought Tina Fey, which sounds right, but I can't prove it on the Internetz so it's not verified.) So I'm going to not let the possible paradigm shifts steer me too much; my sanity is more important than that, for the time being. My kids shall keep conforming to the conventions I set for them, says this mom, aka the benevolent dictator.

***

P.S. A few of you have asked how having kids affects my perspective on decluttering/simplicity. I definitely think it feels hard to get rid of things that I think *might* benefit my kid (one day), but in the bigger picture, but I'm learning that having less stuff to tidy or less stuff to make sure my kids aren't getting hurt on ends up freeing me up to have more time and energy for my kids, which is a good thing. See this article from a slightly different angle that I think makes the same argument.

P.P.S. FYI I brushed up on the recipe page a bit and it's more comprehensive now. Food is another way of engaging "combinatory play" - I need to make and post more recipes!

12. Finding your vacation

My favorite non-conformists.

"It is fun to have fun but you have to know how." --The Cat in the Hat

When I was at Berkeley I took a deCal (extracurricular course) called "Finding Your Vocation," taught by a Dave Evans, whom I now see is at Stanford (almost typed something different but then thought better of it, Alex). We were provided a lot of interesting readings but the thing I have not forgotten is from the first day when everyone went around and shared why they signed up for the class. No joke, after half the group had shared, one girl said, "Oh my gosh. I thought this class was called 'Finding your vacation.'" The collective embarrassment felt in the room for her was visceral.

Today, however, I am starting to see the convergence between vocation/vacation.

Super convoluted but here goes: The process of decluttering our home ala KonMari precipitated a ruthless examination of my life/mind/spirit/psyche. Every segment we did was really dreadful but then at the end we could stand back and feel so happy. Now that we've completed a significant amount, I look at different sections of our house that have been Konmari'd, feel giddy, and think, "This is our vacation home." (David, I was tempted to insert a parenthetical "becoming." Lolz.)

The paradigm shift for me was "Why can't our home be our vacation home?" When I think about vacation, the aspect I love most about it is not sightseeing or going out and doing things, but lounging around with nothing to do and without many of my possessions around me, save for the things needed to cook a yummy meal, and maybe a book or two.

In The Art of Non-Conformity (I'm on the last hour of the audiobook now), Guillebeau also suggests the exercise of writing out what your ideal day would look like. I need to do that soon and figure out how to bring alignment between my current reality and my ideal reality. It is probably going to involve figuring out how I can go swimming more often. (Christine, why aren't we neighbors?)

I think I've been waiting for my vocation to drop in my lap from the sky; now I'm beginning to realize that perhaps I can take the bull by the horns and create/curate my life/home into my vocation/vacation.

***

This recent joy of creativity has been a life saver for me. After a long season of feeling socially, mentally, and spiritually dry, I'm tucking "creativity" away as a tool I need to remember when I'm feeling stuck. I love the phrase "your childhood solutions become your adult problems" (HT: Carol Johnston of First Pres Berkeley Stephen Ministry fame). I think what it's saying to me now is that there's a good and valid reason why we may do things for a long spell or season. But when it stops working, you can move on and figure out something else. My old ways of seeing and knowing God and understanding the world, and the church, and so many other things? Just because they aren't working doesn't mean God isn't there. (Ohhhhhhhh I'm getting to that deep stuff. And I'm gonna stop here before I cry. #toolate What a friggin' long grieving process this is.)

If I remove the scaffolding of fears I have set up for myself, will faith be there to catch me?

***

So tell me, what is your ideal vocation/vacation?

07. (In)sanity

Is the intersection creativity?

Applying the Konmari method to our house has revealed many things to me about myself, but one of the things is the way in which I have settled for cheaper options to save money in the short term, using the principle of "the time value of money" as my justification. I had an "ah-ha" moment a couple of years ago when we had to buy a new dishwasher and I almost picked a $450 one vs. a $499 one, even though I hated the placement of the utensil rack in the cheaper machine. Kenny was there with us, and he asked me, "Lisa, do you want to compromise every. single. day?" Well, when you put it that way...

How do you quantify the worth of your sanity?

I came up with this thought a couple weeks ago and wrote it on the chalkboard above my desk.

But lately I've been thinking that I need to change that to "don't overvalue money or time; don't undervalue SANITY."

What do you think? Is anything I'm saying making sense to you guys? Or have I already lost my sanity??!?!

The week in pictures

Molly, this post is essentially a scavenger hunt for you. I think there are at least three things deserving of the #cornerpieceloversunite hashtag. :)

1. The Amateur Gourmet's apple cobbler made with half the apples and the same amount of topping.

2. There are quite a number of pears growing on our dwarf tree this year!

3. I've finally learned the art of ordering the English muffin on the side when getting Eggs Benedict.

4. Konmari'd all the miscellaneous bags of bulk things into Orangette's granola no. 5. Love this salty and crispy recipe. Tip: If you don't want the fuss of obtaining unsweetened coconut chips (no mail ordering for me) just use the regular sweetened flakes and then cut back on the maple syrup.

5. A crudite sunburst to go with some grilled chicken. Chives are from our garden.


6. A trip to the library!

7. Caption this:

 8. And, finally, summer is so close!

The life-changing magic of Vietnamese noodle bowls

It's Wednesday again and I can't think of anything we ate this week that was really noteworthy.



I blame KonMari, which has been slowly but surely taking over our house. Giggle all you want but I (and David!) have been delightfully surprised by how addicting it is to follow her method. (There's lots of stuff on the web about it but this was a favorite essay.)

Yes, I really need three mustard yellow scarves.

So far we've done clothes, books (gasp!), papers, and some komono.

In light of that, there hasn't been that much time for cooking, so I'll just share a regular standby that serves us well whenever we need a quick dinner. Sometime in our first year of marriage, we discovered our favorite Vietnamese noodle bowl at The Backdoor Kitchen on San Juan Island. We loved the bright, lime-y dressing (dressing is really too heavy of a word to describe what this is though) and we spent most of the meal (as we often do when we are out) dissecting the rest of the dish.



Normally I don't like places that do fusion, but I think that Northwest restaurants often do a good job of it. In fact despite the PNW being full of great Viet restaurants, the Backdoor's bún has been the best I've tasted, since most of the aforementioned Viet restaurants - though they serve a rockin' bowl of phó - often sweeten their nuoc cham to the point of cloying.

We love that this dish works well with any kind of leftover meat - rotisserie chicken from Costco or leftover steak - or even no meat at all.

Tofu works great, obvs, and in a pinch even hard-boiled eggs will do.

It can be simple or fancy but what we think makes it really special is when you make the effort to buy the herbs (especially mint) and roast peanuts fresh to serve on top. Here's an outline of a recipe.

Vietnamese Noodle Bowl

• For the dressing: Squeeze one lime into a bowl. Add 1-2 T of brown sugar and about 6-8 T of water. Stir and taste. You're looking for it to taste like a very dilute limeade. Then add one medium garlic clove, minced, and 1 fresh Thai chile, also minced, if you have it. Finally, add 2-3 T fish sauce. 
• Bring to boil a pot of water and cook 8 oz rice noodles (you want the cylindrical noodles often labeled "bun gao"). When they are tender (take one out and taste it, they can be deceptive), drain them and rinse them cold. If you want to be super fancy, you can lay them out on a dishtowel and get them really dry. David likes this method because it makes the dressing even more concentrated. I still go the lazy way and think it tastes just fine.
• Prep all your desired veggies. We usually do romaine, sliced thin. Cucumbers are a must. Carrots are great but I can feel lazy about making them pretty (the best would be to julienne them on a mandoline). Any other vegetables would be great; radish would be especially pretty. 
• For herbs, pick your favorite few from this list: green onions, cilantro, Thai basil, mint, dill
• Prep meat in bite-sized servings.
• Roast 1/2 cup peanuts and crush in a mortar and pestle.
• Let everyone make their own salad at the table and dress as they see fit.

---

And now for the reason you even read this blog at all.

Theo

• is still 2 years old.
• replied, upon being asked by David if he wanted to go out with him on some errands, "No. Stay home. Eat food. Watch show." Boy after my own heart.
• used the word "combine" as a noun. I seriously did not know that word until high school when we had to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm still not sure I even know what they are now. 

How did my baby become a boy?

 Emilyn

• turns 20 weeks today.
• still loves to roll.
• has started to giggle more.
• is most definitely teething. There is lots of drool and she was even cranky this week. 
• slept before 9pm six out of seven nights this past weekend. W00t.

David and Lisa

• are still super enamored by The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. Want your life transformed? Apply: (1) the gospel, (2) Dave Ramsey, (3) KonMari. No joke.