Wisdom (December 10)

Wisdom – What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? From December 10th on #reverb10.

So simple and so true! The wisdom I followed was leaving days in my personal schedule ‘unplanned’ aka only having things planned two or three nights a week instead of all five. I tried, successfully, to be less busy. I opted out of things. I said 'No'... it was liberating.
Yes, this may sound obvious I know, but it was not, as they say, “how I rolled” in the past. So I hope after 12 months of a lighter schedule I will have made it into a solid habit!

Try it!

Okay #reverb10 - you must have known I was off doing some snowshoeing and was up for a short prompt today!
Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did/didn’t go for it?

This one is easy! This year I wanted to try moving to an apartment solo, sans roommates. It was such a valuable and satisfying experience – but also allowed me to appreciate all the great roommates I've had in my life! However, there were times when I felt I had too much space and was living in one-bedroom opulence... and did miss splitting the bills two or three or four ways...

Next year? I want to try living in another country. And since I've already got the plane ticket I think I'll be ready to try that one really soon!

Diet Drill Sargent

In completely atypical form of this blog and all it stands for (except for the fact of me making this oddly negative situation into something more hilarious) but I have a set of observations to make.

You know you've just been on a ridiculous diet when:
- you look through your cupboards and all that's left for dessert is powdered skim milk, chewing gum and the cheap decoy candy that tastes like soap.
- you smell vanilla extract and have a sugar coma.
- thinking about a three course meal gives you indigestion.
- you eat a half a tuna sandwich and think you are full.
- you look forward to taking vitamin/mineral supplements for their delicious flavour but watch the calorie content.

Houseplant Dance

I think everyone should have a houseplant. If you say you can't take care of them or they always die...that's no excuse. Start with something easy... a hearty fern or a cactus.

Not only are these little plants a bit of spring in December and a low-budget way to commune with nature but they also provide numerous other benefits:

A) they give you practice should you be considering your first pet. Weekly waterings get overwhelming? Fail. No puppy for you!

B) they purify the air...kinda... unless you've got a veritable forest of violets, mini palms and lilies one person will probably produce more C02 than that one leafy purifier can filter... BUT you are going to feel great when you breath deeply near its recently-watered soil!

C) a friendly reminder of just how habitable your home is. Consider... if you don't have good enough tap water quality, regular amounts of sunlight and a tidy counter top somewhere... should ANYTHING really have to live like that?

D) built in audience of unwavering, unconditional solidarity. You'll never eat alone again, never dance in the living room without a crowd and can practices speeches or positive affirmations any time of the night or day.

And in a note of my own personal victory - something for all new plant-owners to look forward to: one day the droopy one will perk up, the stagnant one will double in size and the bland one you never liked will bloom in the most beautiful way...and it'll be all because of your careful attention & very limited effort.
So excuse me while I go do the Houseplant Dance.

Finding Things

There is a certain positive connotation with successfully 'finding' something that can't be replicated in successfully 'ignoring', 'fixing' or 'finishing' something. In the last two days I've found my favourite jacket, three dollars, a bit of underlined newspaper I could make into a poem, the perfect box to store some books under my bed and a bill that needed paying. Each of these things had drastically different outcomes but had the same sense of tangible, practical, sanity-restoring relief.

Only rarely does someone find something and think, 'curses! I finally found x!' Granted, It's probalby fair to say no one really ever says 'curses!' at all anymore in any real-life, unscripted context but nonetheless. Not being happy to find something is merely unsuccessful avoidance, a totally different undertaking. Even when it's that payment-due-tomorrow statement, boring report to submit or the email your boss needed you to forward - it is tangible success that allows your potentially panicking mind to take a deep breath and move on to something else.

So today, I hope you find something - especially if he/she/it in his/her/itself IS wonderful. Then, if you're on a roll, also take a second to be grateful that you found him/her/it - like a whole moment-of-silence style. Finding that feeling of gratitude will just be icing on the cake of un-lost stuff!

Now, I've got a bill to pay, some books to store and a jacket to wear and I'm grateful to be able to do all of it!

Cookies & Cycling

Pure pleasure: baking and bicycles. Back to basics: sweet and tantalizing on one end and refreshing liberation on the other. The ONLY thing not wonderful about these two things is that you can’t do them simultaneously. At least not easily.

I learned about the wonderfulness of baking from a long line of people who were darn good at it! Perfected family recipes, culinary courage to create and the secret ingredient in all baked goods: (no matter how cliché or gag-inducing) love. You never just bake something. You create it. Well, perhaps cookie dough that comes pre-formed in petroleum-based packaging isn’t exactly your loving creating… but you gotta start somewhere.

Then with some luck my inner baking-goddess found herself college roommates who helped hone the craft and libraries of websites devoted to making my cook-book cupboard a veritable antique shop! To my own surprise everything from pies to yeast breads have been conquered in my kitchen, but no matter what the baking epitome is still cookies.
And for good reason: there are usually fewer tedious or expensive ingredients in cookie recipe than other things like cinnamon buns or cheese cakes; cookies are baked in 8-10 minutes; you can eat the dough while you wait; and usually you only need one mixing bowl and spoon (less dishes afterwards – especially if you line your baking tray with some parchment paper, that’s an insider tip right there). If you are now torn between finishing reading and pre-heating the oven I understand.

Then came the bikes. I have to say this has been a much different love affair and I may very well be in the (second) honeymoon phase with bicycles. Obviously all approximately-seven-year-olds have their first-love bicycles, but all too often within about eight years (North Americanly speaking) this monumental relationship has been banished to the confines of “babyish” or the even more dreaded “uncool.” But the somewhat collective renewal of the bicycle vows have made my pedal-powered generator whirr with delight. My own love was temporarily crushed when a stranger ignored my padlock and ended my 5 year off and on romance with Gigi the 12 speed. I took a 14 month hiatus from all things cycling for reasons of grief and winter. Then all things were righted when I found Lola.






Oh semi-cruiser Lola with your periwinkle frame! I lock you up in my closet because I love you and that’s the truth.


Sitting here on my couch I can almost feel the gears shifting and the dinging of mandatory bell when passing pedestrians (which is, something of a regulation in my fair municipality) it is just so pleasant to feel wind in your hair (well, under the complementary blue helmet) and see the things you would have missed in a bus or car ,but (and this is the best part) getting there in a third of the time it would have taken to walk! Oh what fun it is to ride… my bicycle all day long. (Sing it with me now…)

Chocolate chips and spokes?? So here’s my attempt to bring these seemingly unrelated loves together and I hope it will soon be more than just a crazy plan. Since I splurged for the saddle bags not for reasons of practicality or grocery shopping, no, I can fill each 70 litre sack with home-baked cookies and ride off into the sunset. If you don’t hear from me in three weeks… assume I am fine and happy and eating a lot of cookies while pedaling to my heart’s content.

But before that... do the world a favour, three favours actually - first, bake some cookies. There will always be someone who you can share with or might smell their warm wafting scent out your window or door. Quite simply you are making the world a better place. Second, ride a bike somewhere. You are free to go from road to sidewalk and back again (with due caution of course) and how much more liberating can it get? You are free to wave and smile at anyone you pass too. Then heck! Then let’s make life a party and try doing these things at the same time: ta da! There you go: cookies and cycling! Sounds like heaven to me. And if nothing else… do the things you love. I guess I can’t expect everyone to dream of cookie picnics beside two-wheeled human-powered transportation.

However, don’t forget that the most important thing in all this is to realize how great it is while it’s happening. In the significantly paraphrased words of Kurt Vonnegut: too often people don’t see when something truly wonderful is happening. So next time you are in the middle of doing something lovely think to yourself, ‘my! If this isn’t nice then I don’t know what is!’