Day of Rest

 A few weeks ago, Les and I decided that we were going to try to observe a real Day of Rest. A Sabbath, if you prefer old-school. We're still working out what that means for us, but the basic gist is that we re-arrange our week so that we work on 6 days and save one day (Sunday, for us) for worship, relaxing, being together, serving, spending time with friends (when we find some!), and giving thanks. So the other side of that coin means that we don't go shopping, run errands, pack our day with busy-ness, work on a dissertation (Les), or run frantically through a to-do list (me).

It has only been a couple of weeks, but I'm already kicking myself for not starting this a LONG time ago. Like all grace-full boundaries, a Sabbath is actually really freeing in its restriction. What am I going accomplish this weekend? Whatever I can do in one day. Monday for me, since I am on a Tuesday - Saturday work week. I should really start doing our taxes tonight, shouldn't I? Nope. It'll have to wait until tomorrow. (KCL - I hope tax season has been terrific so far! :) ) We're still on the fence about basic household work like doing dishes and laundry. We've been tackling those questions with a "restfulness" test - Will doing a load of laundry allow me to feel more restful for the rest of the day? If yes, then cool. If it's just a to-do, then leave it until tomorrow. Like I said, we're still working it out.

Today was a beautiful sunny day in Raleigh, so after church, Les and I took AugDog for a long walk around Lake Lynn. It was great. No where to go, nothing pressing to finish when we got home. Just sunshine, flowers, lots of smiling people, and a muddy little lake.



The turtles were enjoying a day of rest too.

I could definitely use a lot more rest in my every day, but one day a week is a good start. I recently heard a speaker at a conference who challenged us to budget our time the same way would would budget our money. Start out tracking your time as you would your spending. And, like a budget, your time budget will reveal where your priorities really lie. So if I say I want to spend more time serving in the community, I have to prioritize it. Or sleep, or exercise, or reconnecting with Chicago friends. I'll find time (or money) for the things that matter most to me. If my time sheet doesn't reflect my real desires and highest priorities, it's time to take a careful look and make some changes. I haven't really done this yet, but I think it's a good idea. For another day. Today, I'm just going to enjoy The Southland in the Springtime.
  

Even the ground cover here blooms.

I try some "simple gardening", screw up, and make a mess

I started out the day with such high hopes.

Having Sunday and Monday off instead of the traditional Saturday/Sunday weekend has actually turned out to be great. I get a ton done in the office on Saturdays when I am one of the only people in the building, and on Mondays, I can Accomplish 10,000 Things! At least, that's what I think every Sunday when I start planning for my day off.

I decided that today I would start my garden. I was so excited I could barely sleep. I got up, finalized my shopping list, and headed out to the local Ace Hardware. Sometimes those huge home improvement stores just wig me out and I feel lost, and a bit like a fraud since I am not buying any j-channel or PVC pipe or windows. The Ace stores in Chicago always felt a bit more like a local home-and-garden store, so decided to give the nearby Raleigh outpost a go. And I immediately knew I was in trouble. Not only were the clerk ladies knowledgeable, friendly, and encouraging, but they both are on Pinterest, and we started swapping pin-spired ideas all over the place.

And so I ended up spending a lot more than I had planned. As usual.

I bought a couple of packets of organic seeds, a couple of mid-sized containers, some various gardening implements, and 2 bags of soil. One organic bag for edibles, and one regular bag for the peony and dahlia bulbs. (Ok, I know I really don't have any business spending resources like water and cash on peonies and dahlias. But I just.couldn't.help.myself. So we'll see how that goes. I have a plan.)

Anyway. I also bought this thing called "The Simple Garden". I thought that this would be a good way for me to gain some confidence, learn a bunch from the included guidebook, and start some seeds indoors. The external packaging made it look foolproof. I should have known better.

Cute, compact, fairly eco.

I should have realized that planting seeds from a guidebook is more like baking a cake than like microwaving a TV dinner, but in my enthusiasm to get started I failed to read through the entire instruction manual before beginning. I just started with Step 1 and careened carelessly to Step 2 and 3 without so much as a glance forward. Which is how I ended up flooding the kitchen table with about a gallon of warm water and ruining my first try at loosening the potting medium.

Potting medium in the bottom of the growing pot.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but I had stupidly placed the whole container on the table so I could work it from a comfy height. You also cannot tell from this pic that the little plastic tray that is supposed to catch any overflow of water is actually a separate piece of plastic that just snaps on to the bottom. So when I started pouring the warm water over the medium to "watch it expand to 10X its original size!" it didn't dawn on me that I was essentially pouring a gallon of water onto my kitchen table. Because it didn't absorb right away. It filled up around it, and into the overflow pan, and gloriously and shockingly all over the table in a flash. I'm really happy I had rested my DSLR on a box rather than directly on the table top.

I decided it would be wise to move the operation to the sink. And there with the help of the sink sprayer, I was able to really watch the soil become a potfull.

Neat.

 The next step was to plant the seeds. The kit came with cherry tomatoes and basil seeds, and this nifty spacing guide and seed-sticker-inner. Since I didn't read any farther than the next step, I gleefully put the seeds in their color coded spaces and tamped them down with the seed pusher.

Fun!

The next step revealed that you are really only supposed to plant one kind of plant in the container at a time, not all of them all together. Blast. I had thought that that was part of the point of a fun space saving container kit - plant complementary plants next to each other to maximize space and resources. WRONG! Nope. Straight up wrong. But the tiny seeds were already nestled into the dirt, and I didn't know how I could possibly retrieve them, so I just went on to the next step. I figured I could gently transplant some of them when they started to come up.

IF they come up. Because the last step of the instructions is to "cover your Simple Garden with the clear plastic Simple Garden Dome (not included) to start the germination of your newly planted seeds"*. Yeah. Hum. Didn't get a dome. Didn't do any kind of seed starting. I kinda thought that was the point of the kit.

Ugh.

Well, I put the pot in the sunniest indoor window we have, wished them luck, and decided to call it a day.

At least it is kind of cute.

I learned several valuable lessons today.

1. If you do not know anything about gardening, it is best to read all the instructions before plunking your seeds in the dirt.
2. There is a reason why a bajillion pinners have pinned a bajillion DIY seed-starter instructions. Apparently, seeds work better when you start them off with some training dirt/some kind of cover before tucking them in to their home dirt. 
3. Gardening is not that simple, not matter what the elegantly packaged starter kit tries to tell you.

And so I end my day off with a little bit of far fetched hope and a cute little plastic bowl full of seeds. I think I would have been better off starting out with seedlings, but what's the fun in that?

* The quotes from the guidebook are not actually quotes. They are more like paraphrases because I am too lazy to get up and get the guidebook. But you get the idea.

Green, Gray, and Grace: One Year Later

Happy Birthday to Me!

Co-Conspirator Les, Blog Editor-in-Chief AugDog, and me in the closest we could get to a family self-portrait.

One year ago today, I started this new blog with a grand scheme and big goals. The gray hair got the most attention, but that turned out to be the easiest goal to keep (Um, just didn't dye my hair. Pretty easy). A year later, I can honestly say that I'm surprised by the changes that came easily, and the changes that are still grinding away in fits and starts. I thought it would be really traumatic to Embrace the Gray, but it was fun, and I kind of love my hair most days. I thought I would get really into cooking and expand my culinary repertoire and make a bunch of things from scratch. And, naively, I thought the spiritual stuff would sort of magically align as I set goals and mini-goals and plugged away at "being a better person". Laugh with me now: Hahahahahahahahhhahhhaaahha!

Let's check in with what I set out to do last February:

My Goal: By Feb. of 2012, I want:

- To produce fewer bags of trash AND fewer bags of recycling

Reality: I've definitely cut back on a lot of single-use and disposal stuff, but the dent hasn't been huge. Wastefulness was one vice that I really thought would be easier to overhaul once I declared my intent.

- Cook more, buy fewer packaged foods (put more FOOD in my food)

Reality: Yeah, this one was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Even now that I know that I need to be even more careful about what I put into my body, making the time and space to cook has been a huge challenge.

- To be slimmer and fitter - back under 10 min miles for a 10K

Reality: Turns out, I am no slimmer or fitter than I was in Feb. 2011, and I have probably not run more than about one mile since I wrote that goal. But weirdly, despite my deleterious sluggishness all year, I feel better about my body than I ever have. Hmm.

- Give my gray hair a chance to really rock (let myself be myself)

Reality: I'm rockin the gray, and I love it a lot more than I ever thought I could.

- Re-energize my spiritual life by focusing on gratitude, abundance, and loving my neighbor

Reality: So, um, yeah. I think I have seen some spiritual changes over this year, but not how or where I expected. I thought about Gratitude and Abundance a lot more, but if they only come to mind when you're holding yet another pair of shoes in your hands at Target while you try to talk yourself out of them, I wonder how much spiritual maturity is shining through and how much is just a reality check from your wallet. I certainly put this goal into some sort of passive hope rather than an active pursuit.

- Scrutinize my purchases for their impact on my health, the planet, and my spirit

Reality: I'm pretty satisfied with my progress on this one. I've definitely made some bone-head impulse buys this year, but I've learned a lot about what things are actually made of, and where those ingredients/components/materials come from. It is far easier to put something back on the shelf when you can conjure up a fairly accurate picture of everything that went into it, from the thing itself to the packaging to the shipping to my cart. Still room for improvement (and impulse control), but a marked difference from this time last year.

So... What?

I'm glad - really glad - I took this year to intentionally regroup. I haven't blogged 3 times per week, and I couldn't keep up with the time required to research and write about all the things I really wanted to post. I didn't make it through even half of the projects I hoped to attempt this year, and I can honestly say that I haven't had any seismic shifts in lifestyle or habits. But little things. Ah, those million little things. They add up. They change you. Slowly, maybe, like a steady drip. Some of the biggest changes I have noticed are things that it would be really difficult to blog about. Not difficult to share, but difficult to articulate. Making peace with my body is a Big. Fracking. Deal., and it arrived quietly and uneventfully by way of a thousand drips of acceptance. I guess the hard edges of my body image have softened right along with my thighs. I don't mean to say that I don't care about being in good shape. I do care, and Les and I are setting some goals to get back into running. But whether or not I end up in smaller sized pants by my next birthday is about the farthest thing from my mind. Maybe all of those little gratitudes and gray hairs have taken up the space where my skinny-envy used to live.

And there's a strange kind of freedom and even joy that comes along with scrapping some convention and running face-first into Doing It Your Own Way. Things like the Sock Bottle and the oil method come to mind. When you don't have spendy face wash, body wash, or Pro-V and Silk Protein shampoo to replenish every couple of weeks, you can avoid Target all together. We get most of our personal care products from Whole Foods now, so no special trip for toiletries. And far fewer products in general, just by making a handful of tweaks.

Remember my shower at the beginning of the experiment?

Check it now:

Shampoo, Dr. Bronner's hair softener, soap, and razor.

And my makeup cabinet, Feb. 2011

Make up cabinet now:

Yay for fewer products and less clutter.

Of course, the other Big Reveal is the hair. I got it cut a couple of days ago as the last leg of this yearlong journey. Now my gray goes all the way to the ends of my hair - I had the dry split end part cut off (a good 2 inches), and now I finally do not have any bizarre brown ends at the bottom of my silver slabs. Ta Da! Full-out Gray from root to tip:

The State employee at the North Carolina DMV categorized my hair color as "Sandy", which was very diplomatic of her. I told her that I had just finished up a year of growing out my gray, and she said that it had turned out "a lovely salt-and-pepper. But mostly salt!".

I admit that from straight-on, it doesn't look that impressive. But the top of my head and the sides from my part are pretty remarkably gray...

And even more remarkable, I sort of love it.

I've grown out my gray, I've tried to pare down my products, I've learned a lot about the stuff I consume, but I feel like I'm just getting started! We're in a new place, I have some new Food Rules, and a much MUCH bigger kitchen. And a yard! And a deck just screaming for some vertical gardening. And a heart that is growing sort of weary of trying so hard to "be better".

Maybe 33 was just a ramping up year. Just the ground work for much bigger changes to come. Les and I have been reading a lot of challenging, terrific stuff about faith lately, and I'm excited to make prayer and service and the Bible a priority for 34. You know, the whole Grace part of the experiment that got a bit sidetracked. And I've got a whole new set of dietary considerations to embrace and some space for a garden for the first time EVER in my adult life. So I don't think 34 will be boring. If y'all want to come along for the ride, I'd be happy to have you.

Cheers, and thanks for reading and enjoying the ride with me.

Stress'll Do That To Ya

So we finally moved into our new apartment on Monday. Hooray! Les has been working diligently during the day on the sea of boxes, and I stay up late every night after work to keep unpacking and unpacking and unpacking and....

Whoa. I thought we had a lot of stuff when we PACKED. Unpacking has made this overabundance of stuff even more painfully painful.

And you know how I've been handling this 2 moves in 3 months + new job + new city + health issues + missing my friends?

I've been eating like crap, biting my nails, going to Target twice a week and coming home with MORE STUFF (seriously, What?), and reverting seamlessly back into soda drinking, paper-towel-using, disposable junk buying freakishness.

It's like all of my filters are cluttered with crud, and I can't quite think straight. I contemplate whether or not to run to Starbucks for a latte, even though I've already been twice this week and I don't really need any coffee. And I don't have a lot of extra cash to be throwing around. And I say to myself "yes. I need a latte" and I go. IN MY CAR! Because you have to drive everywhere here.

The only thing keeping me from teetering on the verge of a self-loathing melt down is to remember that I'm legitimately stressed out. And that self-soothing strategies kick in when we're wigging.

I remind myself that I have grand Green plans for this new place. That Les and I have already discussed action steps to use as little water as possible (you have to pay for water here! and it's expensive!), plant an organic garden, and purge purge purge anything that does not pass the "Useful/Lovely" test (see below).

There was one big box looming on the floor last night, and neither of us could remember what was inside. It was marked "HEAVY/FRAGILE". I finally grabbed the scissors and tore into it, scooping out the packing shreds and wrapping and taped protections. Several pieces didn't need to be unwrapped, because they were in bits at the bottom of the box. Completely destroyed. Two of those smashed things were actually quite dear to me. One was a very delicate antique china tea cup with tiny roses sprinkled around it's thin body. It had been in my mom's cabinet, all alone and without a set or saucer. I loved it. It had been wrapped fastidiously, but set too close to bigger, heavier things. It was smashed to smithereens, mom would say. The other obliterated item that nearly brought me to tears has also been very carefully wrapped and set inside a box and wrapped and set inside another box. I don't understand how this one smashed, but there it was, in splinters in its container. My brother in law had made me this ridiculously awesome octopus sculpture that he somehow fashioned with its tentacles wrapped realistically around a spherical glass candle holder. Honestly, it was one of the coolest things anyone has ever given me. And I loved it. It was going to be the centerpiece of our new bathroom's decor. And all that is left of it now is a pile of broken octopus arms and shards of glass.

Several candle glasses, jars, and flower pots were also reduced to rubble in the move. I had to keep reminding myself that it is just stuff. Just stuff. It is not my treasure, or my comfort.

But that mantra combined with my already anxious state made me inclined to roll our garbage dumpster up to the back door and just start throwing EVERYTHING out. To hold each and every item as it came out of the box and give it this test:

1. Is it beautiful?
2. Is it useful?
3. Would I miss it within 1 year?

I might actually do this. Room by room. I'll let you know. We have a boat-load of stuff that I do not think could possibly pass. My heart twisted up in sadness when I saw those things had been ruined. But honestly, I didn't lose any sleep. I bet dozens of other things (hundreds?) could meet the same fate without any lasting impact on my life. There are only a few things that I would truly grieve. Maybe that will be my next post. I'll make my "What would you grab if your house was on fire" list. Could help force this purge plan into focus, yes?

Why didn't we do this purge before we spent almost $3K to move a big truck full of stuff across the country?

Lessons learned.

January Gray Hair Update, very late

Hooray hooray, we're just a week away from internet at home! That means much more timely updates and regular blog postings. January is almost over, and I'm just now finally getting a good pic of me and the gray update. Les took this picture of me outside the NC Museum of Art (a surprisingly AWESOME free museum with a whole room full of Rodins. Swoon.) last week.

As you can see, I've got a lovely stripe and cascade of hombre-hued gray goin' on. I like it. BTW, did you see that Kelly Osbourne has dyed her hair gray? On purpose? I had read a few months ago that some big-time fashion blogger in her 20s has started dying her hair platinum silver, and that celebrities and wanna-bes across the US have followed her lead. Whatever. I can't even get on board with a trend like that, because mine is 100% natural. Maybe by next year you'll be able to buy "Chrome" or "Aluminum" colored hair dye at Target! Be on the lookout!

And just in case you don't read the AugBlog (written by G3 Editor-in-Chief Auggie), here's a repeat of the snap I took of the Editor and myself in the car last week. So you can get an idea of how the gray is weaving its way into my bangs and stuff.

The grain-free diet is going pretty well so far. If by "well" I mean that I am hungry all the stinkin' time but feel so so soooooo much better. I tried to "untest" both wheat and rice last week, and the results were not pretty. Literally. My face broke out and the GI issues returned immediately. Looks like I'm going to be a paleo-vegetarian. Hm. Maybe I could write a cookbook?

The new apartment will be much more amenable to cooking, and I am super psyched to try some new recipes. Follow along as I try to get all the nutrients I need on a crazy-restricted diet! Whoo-hoo!

When New Plans Start Early

My year-long experiment will wrap up in February, and I feel like I've made some strides, but when I look back on the last 11 months, I see what looks like groundwork for a much bigger trajectory. I used to think that I was going to have to look a certain way or weigh a certain number in order to love and appreciate my body, but one strange thing that has happened over the course of this first year of G3 is that I noticed that the more I cared for my body, the more I loved it. I was doing the practical (eat healthy, eschew toxins, keep it simple), but I was feeling the ephemeral. An unexpected sense of well-being and acceptance that I expected to have to earn "the hard way". If you've known me a long time, you know that body-love seemed about as likely as a lottery jackpot.

But little by little, something started to change. I stopped grimacing in the mirror and loathing my gray hair and started actually loving it. I started looking at food as something to choose thoughtfully rather than a system of rewards or punishments ("I ate 3 cookies yesterday, so today it's spinach and veg broth for me..."). And I started feeling that my stuff was, miraculously, just stuff. And now that most of it has been packed in boxes for 2 months, I realized that I don't miss 85% of it. So when we move into our new place next month, I want to be super-hardcore and honest with the question "DID I MISS THIS?" and if I didn't, maybe I'll put it back in a box for a while, and ponder whether it's time for some stuff and I to part ways. We have 3 dozen boxes of unopened belongings, but we have somehow managed to scrape through almost 2 months without any of it. Hm.

Anyway, all of this has felt really really REALLY good. And exciting. So I didn't plan to give up on the blog or the goals when Feb. 22, 2012 rolls around. But my hair will be totally grayed out by then, so I won't need to worry about that part, so I was going to focus on the food. We'll have space for container gardens in our new place, and a much more cooking-friendly kitchen, so I was all jonesing to announce that 2012 G3 would be a Real Food Year. We'll just replace the gray of hair with the gray areas of knowing the best way to go about that.

But, as they say, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

And so, after suffering in silence for a few months, I finally went to the doctor about some persistent GI unpleasantness that I was SURE I could "healthy-eat" my way out of. But 4 months later, I had not succeeded, so I went to the doctor. And guess what? That was a really good idea. She recommended a very strict elimination diet to try to determine whether a late-flaring food sensitivity may be the culprit. So, for the last 4 days I have eaten veggies, nuts, eggs, fruit and some particular grains like quinoa and spelt. And do you know what? (I would NOT have believed it if it were not so dramatic) I feel SOOOOOOOOOOO much better, I can't even describe it.

Sure, it is a lot more work. But I was going to spend the whole next year un-processing food and learning to really embrace large armloads of produce, so it really feels like the boot in the pants I needed to jump start a clean start.

Grain-free is even more restricted than gluten-free, but after I've been on the strict diet for 2 weeks, I can try to add corn or oats or something back into my diet and see if I have any adverse affects. Honestly, I feel so much better after being so uncomfortable for so long, I'm not sure I even want to do the "untest".

What is different?

• GI symptoms have largely gone away
• After 4 days of anti-inflammatory food, I am wearing my "skinny jeans" for the first time in months without them feeling tight, and my muffin top has vanished. At least in these jeans.
• My skin is clearer
• My joints don't ache like an old lady
• Even my back and neck and legs feel, weirdly, less tight and more limber

I really REALLY hope that this is not all in my head. I still have some more medical tests to do to make sure that food sensitivities are really the only issue to deal with, but I am hopeful that eating "clean" will turn my digestive ship around.

Les and I bought this book to help me get started:

All the recipes in here are vegan and gluten free, so it's a good resource. I am not vegan, and she uses some grains that are technically gluten free but still on my "eliminate" list, but this book goes a long way towards getting me started with a new food plan.

Please remember that I'm not a doctor, and I'm not recommending a grain-free diet to anyone, and we haven't made many of the cookbook's recipes. I'm just sharing what's up with ME these days, and how it has helped me to follow my doctor's advice. Go to your doctor, and get her advice before doing anything that anybody mentions on this blog :)

So there you have it. I'm a grain-free vegetarian for the time being, and I'm about to start planning out a grander-than-practical container garden scheme, chucking out unneeded possessions, setting up a Cooking Kitchen, and re-teaching myself how to eat. And keeping the Grace always in focus. Oh, and trying to keep greening along the way.

The Best (and Worst) of 2011 Part 1

My Favorite Purchases of 2011This was the first year I really tried to get a lasso around my spending impulses. It was tough, but I can say confidently that I learned from experience in 2011 that More Stuff Does Not Equal More Happy. It's not like I went on a permanent spending fast. Trust me, I spent plenty of money in 2011. But No-Buy July went pretty well, and I have talked myself out of dozens (maybe hundreds) of purchases this year. By putting the kibosh on some of my most long-standing chemical dependencies (commercial face-wash, hair dye, fancy makeup, perfume, chi-chi body wash), my feet darkened the door of my arch-nemesis (Target) far less often in 2011. Staying out of Target greatly reduces my tendency towards impulse-purchasing.
But I did buy some great stuff in 2011. Here were my faves:

Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm.
Love. It. I love everything about it. It's a lovely sheer shade that makes your lips look like a better, rosier version of their natural pink. It is actually quite moisturizing, too, as opposed to some of the BB line that is a bit drier and less smooth that this version. Plus, it's 100% Natural AND it's made right down the road in Durham. Yay!

My Nikon D5100
I'm still learning how to use it, and it was by far the spendiest thing I bought in 2011, but I have grown to love it. Really, if you are only going to make a few big purchases, it's best to make sure it is something you love.

I went back to using bareMinerals makeup after several years of liquid foundation. It's not the #1 most greenest-like-ever makeup brand, but one shaker lasts me a good 4 months, so factor in the longevity and I think it does pretty well. It rates pretty well on the Skin Deep site as well. Not awesome, but a solid good choice. And it works for me, so I don't have to keep trying and then discarding other failed attempts.

To-Go-Ware reusable bamboo utensil set
Yes, I am one of those intolerable people who brings her own utensils to restaurants. And after many solo lunches to get my courage up, I will now even use them when I go out with friends if disposable stuff is the only option. I keep them in my purse, so the other bonus is that I am never without a spoon in case I find myself in a "I wish I could eat that Ben and Jerry's right here in the grocery store parking lot" emergency. That alone should inspire you to go get some of these.

I'm sure there are other cool things that I bought this year, but those are my favorite.

And here's a quick list of my LEAST favorite ill-fated purchases to serve as a cautionary tale:

• Physicians Formula "eco" mascara - smears, greenwashing, ugly packaging
• Natural Toothpaste - I've tried several, and they all either have SLS in them and/or taste like semi-liquid chalk. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way!
• Natural deodorant - I didn't find one this year that would work for me, an office drone, for whom pit stains and constant, distracting dampness and vague odor are a workplace liability.

So there you have Part 1 of the Best and Worst! I'll work on the other installments during upcoming lunch breaks. Did you have a great new purchase in 2011? Tell me about it!